The article elaborates an extended dual-aspect monism (eDAM) framework for consciousness, which posits that physical and non-physical aspects are inseparable, as no empirical fMRI/EEG data show separability. It argues that materialism, idealism, and dualism each have serious problems, whereas eDAM has the fewest. The framework introduces the novel idea that the potentiality of primary irreducible subjective experiences coexists with its physical aspect in nature, providing missing information that successfully addresses the hard problem of consciousness.
The authors propose a framework called the proto-experience (PE) and subjective experience (SE) framework to address problems in reductive monism and non-reductive substance dualism. They hypothesize that elementary particles have both material aspects (mass, charge, spin) and phenomenal aspects (elemental PEs). These PEs are superimposed in particles, making them appear non-experiential. Matter and PEs co-evolved into neural networks and associated neural-net PEs through neural Darwinism, where neural-net PEs emerge via non-computational self-organization. The framework aims to integrate reductive and non-reductive views, complement existing models, bridge explanatory gaps, and minimize the problem of causation.