Neuroscientist Speaks Out On The Hidden War On Consciousness
What this covers
Neuroscientist Alex Gómez-Marín delivered an activist speech at the Science of Consciousness Conference in Barcelona, followed by an interview with Essentia Foundation. His central claim is that materialism has already failed as a framework for understanding consciousness, but rather than admit defeat, the field rebranded its failure as the "hard problem"—effectively extending materialism's intellectual life by a century. He argues this metaphysical cover-up matters urgently because consciousness is now becoming a battleground: as artificial intelligence and transhumanism advance, the materialist claim that consciousness is mechanically engineered from matter opens the door to treating human consciousness as something to be designed and controlled. The interview spans ninety-two minutes, moving from philosophy of mind through technology ethics to experimental anomalies and strategies for shifting scientific worldviews.
Gómez-Marín contends that dogmatic skepticism itself has become unfalsifiable pseudoscience—by assigning zero prior probability to anomalous phenomena, skeptics make their position immune to evidence, turning "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" into an infinite goalpost. He illustrates this with discussions of remote viewing and other phenomena that standard science dismisses without investigation. He also critiques how materialism functions as a predatory ideology that suppresses competing frameworks while claiming objectivity, and argues that theories of consciousness have proliferated into over two hundred competing "isms," most not deserving the name theory. The conversation then widens into territory touching transhumanism, the political economy of scientific publishing, the dangers of psychedelics used naively, and strategies for changing minds—whether through direct experience, lay-audience pressure on institutions, or rigorous empirical work in the "mud" of difficult experiments. Throughout, Gómez-Marín positions this as a stakes-raising moment: consciousness studies is no longer an academic puzzle but a front in a conflict over what it will mean to be human.
Materialism as a foundational worldview has died intellectually, yet institutions and scientific gatekeepers continue to suppress non-materialist consciousness research; genuine progress requires interdisciplinary pluralism, empirical investigation of anomalous phenomena, and dismantling ideological barriers masquerading as scientific rigor.
- The hard problem of consciousness was a strategic rebranding that extended materialism's life rather than acknowledging its foundational failure
- Dogmatic skepticism and institutional structures actively suppress valid research into non-local perception, NDEs, and other consciousness anomalies
- Real scientific progress requires humble empirical work ('getting in the mud') alongside theoretical frameworks, not just academic positioning
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Dogmatic skepticism is the worst pseudoscience: skeptics who assign a zero prior probability to anomalous phenomena have made their position unfalsifiable, so 'extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence' is a trick because the bar is set at infinity and the claim is 'extraordinary' only relative to their worldview.
“the worst pseudo the worst pseudocience is this kind of dogmatic scientism”
A wrong theory of consciousness can negatively impact lives because materialist dogma, sold in the name of science, shapes lay people's beliefs about themselves and enables agendas (like transhumanism) that aim to engineer the human condition.
“Can a wrong theory about consciousness negatively impact our lives?”
Science advances not only through data and theory but through ego, greed and frustration; scientists who have spent decades 'carving their toothbrush' (their pet theory) will not break it even when data contradicts it.
“If you've been carving your toothbrush for decades, are you willing to just break it when you see that the data doesn't support it? No.”
The hard problem question 'how does the brain give rise to consciousness?' smuggles in an assumption by asking 'how' rather than 'whether'; the correct prior question is whether the brain produces consciousness at all, and the word 'how' has misdirected the entire conversation.
“I would protest and say wrong question. You're tricking me here because you're asking me how. And maybe the question is whether”
Dogmatic skepticism—skepticism that presupposes something is impossible in principle—is more anti-scientific than genuine open inquiry; skeptics who hold a zero prior probability that an anomalous claim could be true are not engaged in science but in ideology defense.
“the worst pseudo the worst pseudoscience is this kind of dogmatic scientism... if you're not open to a truly scientific mindset of being being just staring facing anomalies when they present. If you're not willing to do that, do not engage with you.”
Capitalism must exponentially grow, so once the physical world is fully marketized it turns inward to conquer attention and consciousness; thus the next frontier of capitalist expansion is a battle for our minds and 'souls.'
“capitalism now needs to conquer our attention conquer our souls and now it is a battle for consciousness”
AI will squash human jobs and meaning, but the option is not between being a Luddite and a Silicon Valley cultist; we can integrate technology while it forces us to recover what it is to be human and discover what is truly unique about us.
“The option here is not between between being a ludite and a Silicon Valley kind of cultlike member. Maybe we can integrate technology but it will force us to recover what it is like to be human.”
Theorists should 'get in the mud' and run risky, ridiculous-looking experiments (like Sheldrake's studies of dogs sensing owners returning) because going into the empirical trenches—risking ridicule—is what makes theories land on earth, unlike armchair theorizing.
“I think you need to have an extra point of courage and humility to be able to go to the mud”
Materialism should have died in the 1990s at the first major consciousness conference, but was kept alive through strategic rhetorical moves like rebranding the fundamental problem as the 'hard problem' rather than admitting the death of the materialist paradigm.
“materialism should have died in the '90s at the first consciousness meeting. The Windows 95 cannot support the new apps. They've been selling materialism in the name of science.”
There are now over 200 different theories of consciousness classified under different philosophical frameworks ('isms'), representing both progress (legitimacy of consciousness as a field) and regress (proliferation of unfalsifiable positions masquerading as theories).
“Robert Lawrence's landscape of consciousness we can actually see that there are more than 200 options classified in different isms”
Materialism should have been declared dead in the 1990s at the first consciousness meeting, but instead the field rebranded its failure as the 'hard problem,' effectively granting materialism a 100-year loan rather than admitting consciousness cannot be reduced to matter.
“materialism should have died in the '90s at the first consciousness meeting”
To shift a worldview, showing all the literature often fails because skeptics simply won't look; many people need a single direct experience before they gain openness, since you cannot simply throw away your decades-old toothbrush and adopt someone else's — it must be broken, often by a traumatic event like an NDE, awakening or psychedelic trip.
“She said I can show them all the literature everything thousands of papers and it they just won't look. They need one experience”
Materialism functions as a 'predatory' ideological system: it is acceptable while other isms can coexist, but it has become a system that does not let competing isms express themselves, which is the real problem.
“if materialism just it's a predatory system that doesn't let other isms Express we have a problem”
Objectivity is intersubjective consensus and matter itself is a mystery; what we call physical reality may be built out of something more primary, so 'objective' facts are not a self-evident foundation.
“objectivity is interubjective consensus. I mean, matter is a mystery.”
The Western intellectual tradition over the last 400 years has progressively 'pulled the petals off the flower' of human perception by accepting only sensory modalities, whereas Indian philosophical traditions recognize six different schools of perception that include non-sensory modes.
“In India for instance, I was talking at the conference here with this with this philosopher from India. And he was telling me about the six different school of Indian per philosophy, Indian philosophy of perception. Six different schools. It's no big deal. The problem is is the west the last 400 years with all these isms that have just been pulling out the petals of this flower saying no no no”
Most purported theories of consciousness are not genuine theories but rather positions or chapters in the history of science—they lack falsifiability, predictive power, or real explanatory content, serving primarily as intellectual markers of allegiance.
“Most of them and we can get into that and sorry for the monologue. Most of them are not even theories. It's like a a chapter of the history of science that we can watch life, you know, these these consciousness wars that are going on.”
Thomas Kuhn advised John Mack to suspend the ordinary categories of 'happened/didn't happen' and 'objective/subjective/fact/fiction' when investigating anomalous phenomena; this epistemological openness is essential to studying consciousness and anomalies.
“Thomas... the great philosopher of science. And he says, Tom suggested me when I asked him, 'What do I do with these?' He says, 'You should try to suspend these categories of happened, didn't objective, subjective, fact, fiction.' It's an incredible exercise.”
One cannot remain unchanged by encountering consciousness research at its edges; the topics themselves 'touch you back'—they are not inert objects of study but active realities that affect the researcher.
“Before we have this expression in Spanish, you you when you tackle or study a topic, you say you touch it. You touch a theme. Now I feel that the the topics touch me. You see touching back... Because these are not objects of study. These are kind of weird realities in themselves. Right.”
The interview and podcast format is superior to academic papers for certain types of consciousness communication because it allows ideas to emerge through dialogue, permits real-time thinking-out-loud, and creates space for 'a third thing' that is neither speaker nor listener but emerges between them.
“My goal when I talk to people to another person maybe more as a as a host and not so much as a guest. It's twofold. One is to make the person shine as much as possible... Second is it's even cooler. It's more sacred is I it's like an invocation to this third thing to emerge in the conversation that it's not you and me.”
Consciousness must be understood as foundational (primary) rather than emergent (secondary); this is becoming more plausible given current physics and neuroscience, but the field has not yet fully committed to this position.
“our sort of mission to the world is to approach all of this from an analytic way right and in doing so you don't necessarily have to go to these side phenomena because we say via just analytic reasoning analytic philosophy um just closely looking at where the foundations of physics are nowadays where neuroscience it's just simply more plausible to say consciousness is fundamental”
There is a difference between analyzing consciousness through purely rational/analytical philosophy and understanding consciousness through direct experience, intuition, imagination, and trauma—both pathways are necessary but represent different ways of knowing.
“if you don't want to have a freaking mathematical theorem that just takes you from here to a analytical idealism is right there's a way there's another way and you can bypass some of these logical gates if you want and you may need to use experience trauma imagination intuition.”
A second strategy for influence is to invest energy in reaching lay people (the 'masses around the citadel') through mainstream media and podcasts, creating a popular clamor that pressures the scientific priesthood to investigate anomalous phenomena — which is what the Telepathy Tapes podcast illustrates as an experiment.
“why don't we create the change there? the masses, the citadel, the people around the citadel rather than trying to convince the king or the pope”
Studying nature biosemiotically requires becoming like the thing studied — to research plants you must become plant-like — which entails a humility and participatory stance opposed to the detached, mechanistic objectivity of materialist science.
“if you want them to reveal themselves you have to become like a plant. And there are serious papers on this is not woo stuff.”
The notion that the sacred must be treated as either factually false (secular materialism) or literally true (naive literalism) is a false dichotomy that prevents engagement with non-factual but meaningful realities; Patrick Harpur's concept of 'daimonic reality' offers a third category between fact and fiction.
“the false dilemma between fact and fiction we should not accept that there's something in between... Patrick Harpur and I had this moment like wow I think I've understood something big here... there's fact and fiction, and then there's imagination, and it's like a synapse. There these two neurons, but there's some they're not there's something between.”
The contemporary Western use of psychedelics is both naive and irresponsible: if these substances open genuinely other realities rather than mere hallucinations, then one must ask who lives there and what their valence is — these realms are not Disneyland, and casual ceremonial use risks real harm.
“the way we do it is both naive and super I think super irresponsible”
AI is not merely a technological tool but an algorithmic invasion with five elements: the monopolistic threat to democracy and capitalism, the fascination it generates, the danger it poses, and dimensions of surveillance capitalism that prioritize the conquest of human consciousness itself.
“I define AI as an algorithmic invasion of fascinating dangerous... it has these five elements... the monopoly threat to democracy capitalism. But that's the aspect. The fascinating is what we all see... Now the dangerous is the war”
Scientists should remain willing to change their minds throughout their careers rather than investing entirely in defending a single theoretical framework for decades.
“I don't want to be one of these senior people... I don't want to be the the 70year-old man who can only talk about his toothbrush he's been perfecting for the last 40 years... I want to learn something new. I want to change my mind.”
There is no 'hard problem' for ordinary people unless they have been indoctrinated by science-communication celebrities (e.g. Dawkins, Tyson) who have hammered materialist claims onto lay people as ideological banners disguised as scientific fact.
“Unless they've been indoctrinated forever with the Richard Dawkins of the world or the Neil Degrass Tysons of the world”
Using AI tools (e.g., ChatGPT) for writing or interview prep dumbs you down because you only work with data already out there, causing you to miss truly novel ideas; the process of writing itself—the struggle and growth—has intrinsic value beyond producing output.
“I think there are studies now that they they they start to show that it it will dump you down”
Scientific publishing is a sophisticated Ponzi scheme / misdirection game: researchers beg for government funding, do the science, fight reviewers, and then pay journals huge fees (2,000–11,000) to publish, all to inflate CVs and secure renewal — a business primarily benefiting publishing companies.
“I think scientific publishing is a misdirection game... It's simply a huge business for publishing companies and we are their rats in the maze”
Western institutions are in decadence, living off the prestige of past generations: education, knowledge production, healing, and food provision are largely failing in schools, universities, hospitals and supermarkets respectively, even though we are still trapped within and dependent on these systems.
“I don't see that education is going on in schools... I don't see a lot of healing happening in hospitals. And I don't see a lot of food being sold in supermarkets.”
There are now over 200 theories of consciousness classified into different 'isms,' so the field has moved from low-signal/low-noise to high-signal/high-noise — most so-called theories are not even theories.
“with Robert Lawren's landscape of consciousness we can actually see that there are more than 200 options classified in different isms”
Precognitive (future-directed) remote viewing experiments are empirically advantageous because they eliminate nearly all need for experimental control against sensory leakage — if the target hasn't been selected yet, there is nothing to leak — and practitioners report stronger results doing it ahead of time.
“you eliminate virtually all need for experimental control because there cannot be sensory leaking of information”
He personally witnessed a man perform remote viewing — drawing images that had not yet been selected, which were later chosen by a true random number generator from a pool unknown to him — and the results held up to statistical scoring by trained judges.
“this man could, as I mentioned, write draw things that images that we hadn't that we hadn't picked yet and we picked them later with a random number generator of a pool of images that he didn't know about”
The role of analytic idealism (like that developed by the Essentia Foundation) is strategic: to provide a rational, logical, mathematically rigorous argument for idealism that can overcome the 'head as bouncer' that prevents people from accepting consciousness-centered worldviews.
“analytic idealism which as I understand... it's the way to tell idealism for those who will only really swallow it if you present it in a purely rational logical way... the head is the bouncer of the heart for many smart people”
The 'extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence' maxim is a rhetorical trap that perpetually defers belief in anomalies by continuously raising the evidentiary bar, preventing genuine paradigm change through infinite demand for proof.
“extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Okay. Why is an extraordinary claim because of your worldview and how much extraordinary evidence would be needed? Infinite. So again you're playing tricks on me. Don't don't waste my time.”
Theories of consciousness are like toothbrushes: everyone has one but no one wants to use anyone else's.
“theories of consciousness are like toothbrushes. Everyone has one but no one wants to use another ones.”
The question of whether consciousness is fundamental (idealism) vs. epiphenomenal (materialism) is not merely philosophical but has profound practical implications for ethics—if consciousness is fundamental, non-human entities encountered in altered states may be real beings with moral status.
“we need to take it more seriously that's what I'm trying to say we need to take it more seriously... that's why even the tone of this conversation changes because because I'm sharing where I am right now my concerns and they're raw... there's there's no time to lose”
Psychedelic experiences (ayahuasca, psilocybin, DMT) are often treated naïvely by Western practitioners as tools for spiritual exploration without adequate caution about encountering non-human entities whose intentions and nature remain unknown, potentially creating psychological or metaphysical vulnerability.
“we don't know what entities are manifesting there and what they're doing... If you think this is like truly another reality, if you really think that's the case, then why don't you wonder about who's living there? ... this is another one that really concerns me”
The brain does not cause consciousness but rather constrains or filters it; consciousness might be fundamental and non-local, with the brain functioning as a receiver or translator rather than a source.
“How is it that the brain gives rise to consciousness. How is it that the water of the brain gives rise to the wine of mental subjective experience? I would protest and say wrong question.”
The realm of imagination (as distinct from both fact and fiction) is where the miracle of physicality and intersubjective consensus emerges; matter itself is a mystery built from something more primary.
“I had this image when I was reading Patrick Harper's book, Dimmonic Reality, where there's fact and fiction, and then there's imagination, and it's like a syninnapse. There these two neurons, but there's some they're not there's something between. And this is what he calls the realm of imagination, which is not making up It's like where where where this miracle of of physicality”
Extrasensory vision research shows a mixed picture of fraud, subliminal perception, unconscious cheating, and a small percentage of genuinely anomalous perception; the researcher's task is to look for the 'gold in the Mississippi' while documenting the rocks.
“Fraud, mistakes, a little bit of cheating, unconscious cheating, subliminal um abilities that we didn't know about perception, and maybe a 1% of the truly impossible. So I'm looking for that gold in the m Mississippi. But in the meantime, I find all these kinds of rocks and so it's tedious right now.”
Schools teaching extraordinary perception abilities (e.g., extraocular vision) to children ignore the ethical/side-effect question: if a latent perceptual ability is awakened, children may see things they don't understand and become scared or unable to sleep, yet practitioners treat it like a pharmaceutical company denying side effects.
“if these kids see things they don't understand they're scared even being scared they don't sleep well at night”
The transhumanist agenda is a dark force that wants to extinguish humankind while telling us it will be great; it is a pseudo-religion dressed in techno-scientific language whose program (immortality, redemption) is essentially religious, and it seeks to edit the human condition though its proponents are a small Silicon Valley group not representing humanity.
“the transhumanist agenda to me is a very dark force. It's a force that wants to extinguish humankind while telling us it's going to be great.”
Beyond materialism there are further hidden 'isms' — secularism (treating the sacred as a joke), rationalism (unreasonable overuse of reason), and literalism (the false dilemma between fact and fiction) — and transcending them, especially literalism, opens a 'realm of imagination' between fact and fiction where reality can manifest more fully.
“There's secularism. The idea that everything that's sacred, it's kind of a joke... And that's paired with rationalism... And there are more isms like literalism.”
The transhumanist agenda represents a dark force attempting to extinguish humankind while marketing it as progress and inevitability, driven by Silicon Valley elites who lack representational mandate to edit the human condition.
“The transhumanist agenda to me is a very dark force. It's a force that wants to extinguish humankind while telling us it's going to be great.”
Media (podcasts, streaming, YouTube) has become more valuable than academic publishing for reaching people and permitting consciousness research findings to bypass institutional gatekeeping; the 'old king' (academia) is dying and cannot be reformed from within.
“So I and I also I'm also exploring these other route and we don't know which one will achieve that influence more effectively... I'm so glad to be active on YouTube that is now possible to have conversations like this and to reach through those same al algorithms that we can criticize for creating filter bubbles and keeping people in their fake news reality. those same algorithms are helping us to reach the world with with our message.”
Remote viewing experiments produce statistically significant results when targets are chosen ahead of time via true random number generators, with participants drawing images that match targets selected after their drawings, suggesting non-local perception or retrocausality.
“this man could, as I mentioned, um, write draw things that images that we hadn't that we hadn't picked yet and we picked them later with a random number generator of a pool of images that he didn't know about it. And it was so incredible to me”
The Stargate program (U.S. military remote viewing program) produced valid evidence for non-local perception, and knowledge of this evidence exists among some contemporary researchers but remains suppressed or unacknowledged due to institutional and reputational constraints.
“he's truly knowledgeable about what was done in the United States with this kind of research. I think he was even involved in the final stages of the Stargate program.”
Investigating anomalous phenomena is not merely intellectual but personally demanding and risky ('ontological shock'); the researcher is like a tightrope walker ('funambulist of consciousness') who can fall, holding simultaneous hardcore doubt and moments of deep belief, captured by the Gollum/Sméagol split.
“I came back home with Gollum and Smeiggel on my shoulders”
We must understand from a theoretical standpoint why and when a physical system can be conscious before corporations or governments plant in lay minds the duck-test intuition ('it quacks like a duck, so it's conscious') — otherwise people will soon believe turning off an algorithm is killing a pet.
“very soon people will think that if you turn off their their their algorithm you're killing their pet”
The question 'How does the brain give rise to consciousness?' is a trick question (like asking 'how did you kill that person?') that presupposes materialism; the correct question is 'whether' consciousness is produced by the brain, not 'how'.
“I would protest and say wrong question. You're tricking me here because you're asking me how. And maybe the question is whether... this simple word just has misdirected the conversation. So this is like a like an interviewer that tries to just trick you in the interview and ask you the question or in a jury that say but how did you kill that person? It's like I could not even start replying because that would imply I killed the person.”
The Gollum and Smeigel metaphor represents the internal conflict experienced by consciousness researchers who witness anomalous phenomena: one voice says 'this is miraculous and real,' while the other says 'this will destroy your credibility if you speak about it.'
“I felt I was in the pres presence of some sort of scientific miracle which of course it's it's kind of a self-contradictory thing right and so emotionally but also intellectually I came back home with Gollum and Smeiggel on my shoulders right and what and both are myself and one is saying like like this is a miracle this is incredible this is just opening up like to a new world and it's just blowing my mind and wow and the other is like come on come Come on, stupid. Stupid. Shut it off. Like this is killing your reputation.”
Analytic idealism is effective not just for its content but for its tone/context: it is the way to present idealism to smart people whose 'head is the bouncer of the heart' and who will only accept it if delivered in a purely rational, logical form — context is constitutive, not just content.
“it's the way to tell idealism for those who will only really swallow it if you present it in a purely rational logical way”
His defensive stance is not to claim anomalous phenomena are real but to insist no one can metaphysically declare them impossible; the role is to 'bully the bullies' / dogmatic skeptics whose dismissals rest on dogma, giving voice and permission to ordinary people who have had anomalous experiences and been told they are stupid or crazy.
“I will just say you cannot metaphysically say it's not possible. And then we have some pretty solid stuff. You just cannot say that.”
Helping one person feel permission to trust and share their anomalous experience (e.g., a man finally sharing a 41-year-old near-death experience) is more valuable to humanity than another CV-burnishing paper in Science — this is 'consciousness in action.'
“what's what's more valuable to society, to humanity? another paper that will make my CV look more shiny or that this person now has changed that”
Consciousness research requires a kind of intellectual courage distinct from published academic theory—researchers must be willing to look foolish, risk reputational damage, and undergo personal transformation ('ontological shock') to investigate genuine anomalies.
“I think we need more of those fools so that the theories can really land on earth... it would be safer for me and even for my reputation to say oh let me give me my sophisticated argument about why remote viewing could happen in a non-local hologram in the seventh dimension. But if I go and sit with a blind person and I try to have that and I tell it to you I look like a fool.”
Academic science, universities, hospitals, and supermarkets are no longer functioning as their institutions intended—education has become indoctrination, research has become career-building, healing has been replaced by symptom management, and food provision has become nutritional degradation.
“I don't see that education is going on in schools. I don't see that knowledge is being produced in universities. I don't see a lot of healing happening in hospitals. And I don't see a lot of food being sold in supermarkets.”
Capitalism requires infinite expansion; once physical resources are fully colonized and marketized, capitalism must turn inward to colonize consciousness, attention, and the soul itself—this is an inevitable structural dynamic, not an accidental byproduct.
“capitalism needs to expand because it needs to exponentially grow. that's at the core of what it is and once the physical has been fully conquered and uh put to market it needs to go inward. So that book struck with me like oh my gee capitalism now needs to conquer our attention conquer our souls and now it is a battle for consciousness”
Understanding whether and when physical systems can be conscious is urgent before corporations and governments implant ideas in public consciousness that algorithms are sentient pets; if people believe they are killing conscious beings when turning off AI, this becomes a tool for manipulation and control.
“we must understand why and when a system, a physical system can be conscious... before big corporations or governments or whoever just plants in the minds of lay people... people will think that if you turn off their their algorithm you're killing their pet”
Against the technocratic 'transhuman' (e.g., Neuralink delivering literal telepathy), there is an alternative 'superhuman' path in which psi capacities are already innate within humans — a 'science of the impossible' exploring the edges of consciousness.
“maybe we have these capacities already within us as humans. So maybe that's a way to come back to what I call a science of the impossible.”
Analytic reasoning is necessary but not sufficient for reaching idealist/non-materialist truths; one cannot get there without being analytic, but if one is only analytic one will never get there — experience, trauma, imagination and intuition are also required.
“Analytic is one way. I don't think we can get there without being analytic. But if we're only analytic, we won't get there.”
He deliberately refuses to commit to his own theory of consciousness (the 'un-theory') so as not to spend 30 years invested in his own 'toothbrush' and become an old scientist who cannot change his mind — preferring to remain able to learn and update.
“I don't want to invest in the stock market of my own toothbrush for the last 30 years and then be unconvincible of something else when I'm old”
Good interviewing has a twofold goal: to make the other person's ideas shine as a mirror, and to invoke a third thing ('eso') that emerges in the conversation belonging to neither participant — but this requires not being so analytically self-sure that there is no room for the new to manifest.
“it's like an invocation to this third thing to emerge in the conversation that it's not you and me”
Extrasensory vision training (teaching people to perceive without sensory organs) is being conducted in schools worldwide with ethical blindspots—trainers rarely consider whether awakening latent abilities to see into other realms causes psychological harm, fear, sleep disturbance, or other side effects in trainees.
“I've met people in the United States in the UK in Germany in Spain in Mexico in India in Indonesia... I realized that there was a question nobody was asking which is the ethical question. They say... let's say they've awakened something in these kids a latent ability of perception that's innate in the human body. But okay, now now okay now you can see other worlds now but if these kids see things they don't understand they're scared even being scared they don't sleep well at night”
When people hear evidence that anomalous phenomena (NDEs, remote viewing) are real, the most effective outcome is not intellectual belief but psychological permission—permission to trust their own experiences and share them with others, reducing isolation and suffering.
“a person who says I saw you the other day on TV on this weird program and you were talking about near-death experiences I was shocked because and my brother had one many years ago He told it to us and the whole family made fun of him. But I called him after the program and I said, I'm sorry. Maybe maybe you were right... What's more valuable to society, to humanity? another paper that will make my CV look more shiny or that this person now has changed that.”
Consciousness research communities need pluralistic collaboration, not doctrinal unity or victory of one framework over others; different approaches (analytic, empirical, experiential, artistic) all contribute essential perspectives, comparable to building a cathedral (Sagrada Familia) where different specialized roles are all necessary.
“we truly need everyone here. So maybe the war metaphor is not the good one. But if that's a a job, a task, let's say it's a beautiful creation. We're building saglas familia here gaudies, right? We need people who break the stones, other who are good at putting them here. Other who can calculate.”
Speaking publicly about consciousness, anomalies, and ideological problems is urgent and increasingly risky; these are not merely academic positions but concerns about humanity's future that require activists willing to publicly state them.
“there's no time to lose in sharing this. We need more people to maybe discuss this.”
The content of idealism matters less than the context in which it is communicated; different audiences require different approaches (analytical vs. experiential, logical vs. intuitive).
“context is constitutive not just content... idealism or whatever it's not just the content it's the context in which you you will communicate it will make the whole difference.”
Documentary filmmaking and narrative structure have taught the host to be skeptical of how easily stories convince audiences, regardless of their truth value; this creates a tension between wanting to document anomalies and avoiding sensationalism.
“how well how you build stories and how how you convince people and I see for instance that's why I stopped listening to telepathy tapes because I could see how the uh narative the structure would play out right and and then there's nothing new”
Using AI tools to prepare for conversations by having algorithms analyze previous conversations risks dumbing down thinking because it keeps discourse within the bounds of what has already been said rather than enabling genuinely novel inquiry.
“it would be safer for me and even for my reputation to say oh let me give me my sophisticated argument about why remote viewing could happen in a non-local hologram in the seventh dimension. But if I go and sit with a blind person and I try to have that and I tell it to you I look like a fool.”
Science communication should aim not just to convince through logic but to 'seduce' through context—how ideas are presented (framing, emotional resonance, relational positioning) matters as much as the content itself, because the 'head is a bouncer for the heart' for rational people.
“What what do we want with our ideas? We want in influence... Convince sounds too rational, logical... You it sound like you won in a battle like a wrestling battle of like one kind of force. It's more like seduction. But not cheating or or you know lying.”
Nietzsche's concept of the Übermensch has been misappropriated by fascism, but in its American appropriation (Superman mythology) represents a vision of innate superhuman capacity rather than technologically enhanced transcendence.
“not taking his uber man as a quite serious option for the superhuman to arise. And I'm not talking the the European niche is sort of the of course the Nazi stuff and then we have that connotation but in America what Ko opened my eyes to he inspired the Superman. I mean the just the comics the whole the the um which is a sort of a new mythology about Sai capabilities. It's it's obvious there's no not much technology there. It's just innate power.”
When Gomez-Marín appears on television or podcasts discussing near-death experiences and consciousness anomalies, his goal is to give voice and permission to people whose own experiences have been dismissed or mocked by materialist orthodoxy.
“I act like the voice of those who don't have it. People who are not educated according to our system or they're not heard or invited to places or have had this experience... They've been told for many years they're stupid or they're crazy. I'm kind of the guy, the self-appointed guy, um protecting them from those bullies.”
AI is best defined as an 'Algorithmic Invasion' with five elements (Algorithmic, Invasion, Fascinating, Dangerous, plus a monopoly/capitalist aspect), where corporations sell an apocalypse narrative in order to sell their products — 'capital-apocalypse.'
“that's why I define AI as an algorithmic invasion of fascinating dangerous”
When a neuroscientist responded to Gomez Marin's remote viewing work by claiming it must be due to stupidity, insanity, or fraud, without examining the evidence or methodology, this revealed dogmatic scientism rather than genuine scientific engagement.
“it wasn't in his own universe of scientific arrogance that maybe he hadn't read the literature that maybe he's missing something. So is a good example. It felt really weird to read that”
Ray Kurzweil's transhumanist vision (immortality through digital uploading, sex with reconstructed deceased loved ones via cloned bodies, etc.) represents a theologically structured worldview (promises of redemption, immortality) dressed in technoscientific language, which is philosophically and anthropologically naive while sociologically dangerous.
“some of these technocratic programs that they it's kind of a pseudo religion dressed in technoscientific language... Whose program sounds very religious because it's immortality redemption... he really means we're going to have sex with our deceased loved ones brought back through a piece of hair from where we will grow a cyborg and then we will install like this is a horror movie in front of us right”
A person wrote to Gomez-Marín reporting that after seeing him discuss near-death experiences on television, they called their brother who had had an NDE decades ago and been mocked by the family, and apologized for not believing him.
“a person who says I saw you the other day on TV on this weird program and you were talking about near-death experiences I was shocked because and my brother had one many years ago He told it to us and the whole family made fun of him. But I called him after the program and I said, 'I'm sorry. Maybe maybe you were right.'”
A prominent scientist initially dismissed Gomez-Marín's research but later revealed that he shares Gomez-Marín's heterodox interests but chooses to work on them quietly and strategically rather than publicly, asking Gomez-Marín to respect this approach while also validating Gomez-Marín's more open style.
“I contacted a very prominent scientist... He's really great... And I said, 'A great deal of what you're doing smells to me... a little bit heretic.'... And then the person paused and said, 'Alex, you have a good sense of smell.'... And I could ask the person why he was doing what he was doing... he said, 'My my choice here and please respect it and and and don't share that I'm really into this is to just take it easy, work on this.'”
The scientific publishing system is a 'sophisticated Ponzi scheme' where researchers compete for funding by publishing in high-cost journals ($2,000-11,000 per paper), enriching publishers while constraining the dissemination of anomalous findings that don't fit established paradigms.
“I think scientific publishing is a misdirection game... it's a huge business for publishing companies and we are their rats in the maze just rushing to get funding, beg for funding the government to then, you know, break our asses doing the science to then fight the reviewers to then pay huge fees to publish a paper. paper goes from 2,000 3,000 to all the way to 11,000 in some big journals”
Now that materialism has 'died,' the field should not crown a new king (e.g., analytic idealism) but establish a pluralist 'republic' of approaches, since true unity is not uniformity and everyone — even opponents — has a role in understanding what it is to be human.
“I hope it's not analytic idealism. I hope we can have a republic, right? And we don't need to erect a new king.”
Materialism, mechanism, and reductionism form an unholy trinity of related ideological positions; these are distinct from other ideological filters like secularism, rationalism, and literalism that also constrain how consciousness is understood.
“Materialism is the my usual dead horse with mechanism and reductionism. I call this the unholy trinity. But then there are other isms. Why don't you say, 'Okay, I think I'm freed from this ideological parasite of materialism.' Well, there are more. There's secularism... And that's paired with rationalism... And there are more isms like literalism.”
Science communication figures like Richard Dawkins and Neil deGrasse Tyson have engaged in ideological advocacy disguised as science education, promoting materialism as scientific fact rather than philosophical position, and creating public misunderstanding rather than understanding of science.
“these guys that in the UK are called a public understanding of science. I think they do public misunderstanding of science because they've been selling materialism in the name of science.”
Gomez-Marín does not have a single theory of consciousness; he calls his position the 'un-theory of consciousness' because he wants to avoid being invested in a toothbrush for 30 years and becoming unconvincible of alternatives.
“Robert asked me, 'Okay, Alex, now I want to have your own theory of consciousness in the landscape. I don't have a theory, Robert... So, so far I've called it the un theory of consciousness... I don't want to invest in the stock market of my own toothbrush for the last 30 years”
The desire for proof of anomalous phenomena presented through traditional media (live demonstration) contains an implicit impossibility: the ability to reproduce anomalies on demand is different from their genuine occurrence, and demanding reproducibility on-demand may be epistemologically naive about how non-local perception operates.
“I studied what has happened in the past with prizes that illusionists have given like the Randy prize... skeptics by dogmatic skeptics another very pernicious dogmatic skepticism these skeptics that are skeptical about everything except their own doubts... they should not have monopoly on that word... they just want to debunk you right”
Universal basic income as proposed may be a means of control rather than liberation—rendering people like 'chickens in boxes' rather than enabling authentic freedom and choice.
“I don't buy the universal basic income argument because that sounds like the ultimate way of having us there like chickens in boxes”
Biomimicry and biosemiotics suggest that to understand organisms, one must develop a participatory relationship with them—'becoming like a plant' if studying plants—which contradicts the Cartesian view of objective detached observation.
“if you want to research even to the level of plants if you want them to reveal themselves you have to become like a plant. And there are serious papers on this is not woo stuff.”
The Saints and mystical traditions of Europe (described as 'athletes of consciousness') demonstrated abilities and knowledge that modern consciousness science is only beginning to approach, yet this knowledge is dismissed as fairy tales by contemporary materialism.
“we have great mystical um I call them sometimes the athletes of consciousness. They are the us of the mind, consciousness and spirit if you want, right? And they did incredible things. Of course, we we may in our ignorance say, Oh, come on, whatever. These are fairy tales. Well, maybe fairy tales are real too, right?”
Panspsychism and other non-materialist frameworks are strawmanned (e.g., 'these glasses are conscious') rather than engaged with their sophisticated versions; this straw-manning is a rhetorical tactic by materialists attempting to maintain their paradigm monopoly.
“they also for instance mock Philip Goff and they mock you know pansism. I see problems with pansism too when you make consciousness a fundamental property but this idea of oh so these glasses are conscious. Come on we can be more sophisticated right? So you don't need to straw man pansism in that way.”
A neuroscientist attempting to understand consciousness through conventional neuroscience while holding materialist assumptions is attempting to install new software on incompatible hardware—their framework (Windows 95) cannot support the computational demands of consciousness studies (modern applications).
“the cognitive plus/materialist people it's like installing Windows 90 you know having Windows 95 and installing a new app in 2025 just the system crashed right and so they they just don't get it and they they get very angry about it.”
The act of writing itself has intrinsic value distinct from its instrumental outcomes—the process of struggle, growth, and idea generation through writing cannot be replaced by AI tools without loss, even if AI could produce the final product faster.
“the very process of writing has value in itself I I struggle I grow I have new ideas right so let's say I'm writing a book and I know I could have it ready in 10 days or in two in two years right so now I really need to decide the meaning of the things I do.”
Human beings already possess capacities (telepathy, genuine superhuman abilities) that transhumanists promise through technology—'Neuralink' and external augmentation may be unnecessary if latent human capacities can be awakened through practice and consciousness development.
“you realize some of the technical promises like Neuralink is kind of it's kind of literal tech literal telepathy. Yeah. And and you can see it in many of the crazy great um technological advents that are coming. But then maybe we have these capacities already within us as humans.”
Integrated Information Theory (IIT) makes remarkable claims about consciousness but uses language conflating Shannon information with intrinsic perspective, creating a comprehension barrier that leads cognitive-materialists to dismiss it as incomprehensible rather than genuinely engaging with it.
“IIT has another thing that's incredibly remarkable. They try to explain it but people don't get it because it's difficult also because they use language that conflates information alash shannon with information that would be intrinsic but they speak about the intrinsic perspective.”
Materialism is an 'unholy trinity' of materialism, mechanism and reductionism.
“Materialism is the my usual dead horse with mechanism and reductionism. I call this the unholy trinity.”
Science is made by humans and humans have big egos, especially scientists.
“science is made by humans and humans have big egos especially if they're scientists”