Modern civilization is deeply shaped by a scientific view of the universe as fundamentally physical and mechanistic. And for good reason. The fundamentals of physics are extraordinarily reliable. Quantum mechanics is batting 1,000, so far. Advances in science and technology have greatly improved the quality of life for many—arguably most—humans. Scientific explanations do indeed account for a great deal of how the world works.

But there is something missing. The dry, mathematical descriptions of science are all we need to fully understand planetary motion, plate tectonics, and other physical phenomena. But they are not up to the task of explaining consciousness and the extraordinary range of internal experience. It may be a category mistake to believe that scientific methods alone can account for what it is like to be a living being.

Most contemporary scientists and philosophers of course beg to differ. Consciousness, in their view, is often treated as the brain’s equivalent of gastric juices, and we will one day be able to describe mind in more or less the same terms as digestion. That may be true. But what if it’s not? What if mind, consciousness—the entire spectrum of felt experience—is somehow connected to something more fundamental than electro-chemical reactions in a brain?

That would unquestionably change a great many things—how we understand ourselves, how we relate to other living beings, and how we orient our lives—and likely for the better. This project, then, leans heavily toward a notion of fundamental mind. or some similar term, including Tao, Chi, Brahman, Great Spirit, and others. Although we cannot know whether such a notion is true, the world may be a better place if we act as though it were.