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Excellent question — many scientists, philosophers, and influential thinkers across history (and even today) have believed in or seriously entertained the primacy of consciousness — the idea that mind, awareness, or experience is fundamental, and that the material world arises from or depends on consciousness, not the other way around.
Here’s a structured list across time and disciplines 👇
🏛️ Classical & Philosophical Idealists
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Plato – Believed ultimate reality consists of eternal “Forms” or “Ideas,” not matter.
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Plotinus – Proposed that all reality emanates from a single source, the One, akin to pure consciousness.
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Bishop George Berkeley (1685–1753) – Famous for subjective idealism: “To be is to be perceived.”
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Immanuel Kant – Though not a full idealist, argued that our experience of reality is shaped entirely by the structures of mind.
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Arthur Schopenhauer – Claimed that the world is my representation, with will (a kind of universal consciousness) as the ultimate reality.
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Hegel – Saw the universe as the unfolding of Absolute Spirit (a rational, self-aware consciousness).
🔬 Modern Scientists & Thinkers Influenced by Idealism / Panpsychism
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Erwin Schrödinger (quantum physicist) – Said consciousness is a singular, unified field; matter is derivative.
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Max Planck (founder of quantum theory) – “I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness.”
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Werner Heisenberg – Viewed the observer and observed as inseparable in quantum mechanics.
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Eugene Wigner (Nobel physicist) – Argued that consciousness plays a key role in reality’s structure.
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David Bohm – Proposed an implicate order in which mind and matter are two aspects of one underlying reality.
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John Archibald Wheeler – Coined “participatory universe” — observers help bring reality into being.
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Roger Penrose (with Stuart Hameroff) – Suggests consciousness may be fundamental, linked to quantum processes.
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Rupert Sheldrake – Biologist proposing morphic resonance and consciousness as integral to nature.
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Donald Hoffman – Cognitive scientist arguing that space, time, and matter are user interfaces of consciousness.
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Bernardo Kastrup – Philosopher of mind advocating analytic idealism: reality is the unfolding of a universal consciousness.
🧘 Mystics & Spiritual Thinkers
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The Buddha – Consciousness (vijñāna) is central in constructing the world of experience.
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Advaita Vedānta philosophers (e.g., Shankara) – Consciousness (Brahman) is the only reality; the world is appearance (Maya).
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Carl Jung – Treated psyche and matter as two aspects of the same underlying reality (psychoid).
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Teilhard de Chardin – Jesuit paleontologist who saw evolution as the universe becoming conscious of itself.
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Aldous Huxley – Wrote on “Mind at Large” — consciousness as the ground of being filtered by the brain.
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Alan Watts – Popularized the view that the universe is consciousness playing as matter and form.
💡 Summary Insight
Across fields and centuries, these thinkers share one intuition:
Consciousness is not a late product of the brain—it’s the foundation of existence itself.
Would you like me to make a timeline chart (ancient → modern → contemporary) showing how belief in the primacy of consciousness evolved through philosophy and science? It makes the progression very clear visually.
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I cant seem to get this universe started! " have you tried turning it off and on again?"
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Truth. Oversouls exist. We are all connected. Ego is what separates us. Each soul is dyed its own color. Yet we are all water. Part of one ocean
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