Hi Paul,

I guess that what I’m doing is reversing the relationship. It comes down to the ages old argument between materialism (also called physicalism in modern times), and idealism. Which is primary, matter or consciousness? I’m an idealist, which is why I say that asking how consciousness creates matter is the right question, and that no one will solve the hard problem of how matter creates consciousness. This does seem extraordinary and unlikely to the Western rational mind, which is why much modern science favours materialism. The most cutting edge scientists and philosophers are beginning to doubt this, however, and favouring idealism. So, as for evidence, I’ve written several articles about this in the past, but here are a couple of key points:

The early quantum physicists, when they began to discover the nature of matter, started saying things like “The universe looks less and less like a great machine, and more like a great thought” [Sir James Jeans]. See also statements by Sir Arthur Eddington, and Max Planck etc. This is in agreement with all the great spiritual traditions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Kabbalah, Hermeticism, Gnosticism.

As for books, see The Self-Aware Universe: How Consciousness Creates the Material World, by physicist Amit Goswami, and Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False, by the philosopher Thomas Nagel, which argues that consciousness can never be explained by materialism, nor therefore Neo-Darwinism.

Best wishes

Graham