Holistic Origins Worldview (HOW)
Holistic Origins Worldview (HOW)
Diagram:
1. Material reality is not the foundation—instead, it is the innermost subset within a greater consciousness-based structure.
2. Consciousness is primary, enveloping and giving rise to material reality, rather than being an emergent property of it.
3. Transcendent reality encompasses all, indicating a divine/spiritual dimension beyond both material and mental existence.
This structure aligns with HOW's assertion that reality is not reducible to materialism and that consciousness and transcendent existence are fundamental.
Holistic Origins Worldview (HOW)
The Holistic Origins Worldview (HOW) is a comprehensive framework for understanding existence that integrates material reality, consciousness, and a transcendent dimension (often identified as the divine or spiritual). HOW asserts that reality is not reducible to materialism but is instead structured in a way that acknowledges multiple layers of existence. It contrasts with strict materialism, which holds that only physical matter and energy exist, by recognizing consciousness and transcendence as fundamental components of reality.
Core Principles of HOW
1. Transcendent Reality (Divine, Spiritual, Metaphysical)
The highest and most fundamental level of existence.
The source of consciousness, morality, purpose, and order in the universe.
This level accounts for the origin and sustaining principles of reality, aligning with theistic and metaphysical frameworks.
2. Consciousness (Mind, Thought, Awareness)
Consciousness is not merely an emergent property of the brain but is fundamental to reality.
Subjective experiences, thoughts, emotions, and awareness exist beyond mere material interactions.
The relationship between consciousness and the divine is central to understanding human existence.
3. Material Reality (Objective, Physical World)
The observable universe, governed by physical laws.
Dependent on consciousness and transcendent reality, rather than being the sole or primary aspect of existence.
While material laws operate consistently, they do not explain consciousness, free will, or ultimate purpose.
Contrasts with Materialism
Implications of HOW
Science and Metaphysics Are Not Mutually Exclusive: Science explains material mechanisms, but it does not account for the source of consciousness, free will, and purpose.
Consciousness Precedes Matter: Instead of consciousness being a byproduct of physical processes, it plays a role in shaping reality.
God is Identifiable and Necessary: HOW provides a structured way to identify the True God through the attributes of self-existence, creative power, moral lawgiving, and relationship with conscious beings.
Holistic Integration: The best explanation for existence must incorporate material, mental, and transcendent aspects rather than reducing reality to physical interactions.
William Collins, 2025
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Additional Support:
The Holistic Origins Worldview (HOW) is a metaphysical framework that systematically integrates theism, consciousness, and empirical science, positioning itself as a superior alternative to materialism and other existence frameworks. Unlike naturalistic materialism, which posits that only physical matter exists and that consciousness, morality, and meaning are emergent byproducts of brain activity, HOW asserts that reality is hierarchical, with consciousness and transcendent reality as foundational components.
Philosophical Justification: HOW vs. Materialism
Materialism, rooted in Democritus, Hobbes, and modern eliminative physicalism (Churchland, Dennett), insists that all phenomena can be reduced to physical interactions. However, this stance encounters insurmountable issues in explaining qualia, intentionality, and moral realism. Descartes’ dualism, although critiqued, correctly identifies the inadequacy of reducing mental states to physical interactions alone. HOW builds upon this by incorporating elements of idealism (Berkeley, Hegel), theistic metaphysics (Aquinas, Leibniz), and phenomenology (Husserl, Heidegger), offering a model that accounts for subjectivity, agency, and teleology.
The Three Pillars of HOW
1. Transcendent Reality (God and the Primacy of Order)
HOW posits that existence is not contingent on brute physicalism but is sustained by a transcendent, necessary being (Leibniz’s Principle of Sufficient Reason). This aligns with Plato’s Forms, Aquinas’ Five Ways, and Gödel’s Ontological Argument, all of which highlight the necessity of an immutable, sustaining cause.
Materialism, by contrast, fails to answer the question “Why does anything exist rather than nothing?” without invoking brute facts or infinite regress.
2. Consciousness as a Fundamental Aspect of Reality
HOW rejects materialist reductionism (Dennett’s Consciousness Explained), arguing that consciousness precedes matter rather than emerging from it. This aligns with David Chalmers’ “hard problem of consciousness”, which exposes the failure of physicalist explanations.
Instead, HOW suggests that consciousness is foundational, similar to panpsychism (Nagel, Strawson) and idealism (Berkeley, Kant’s transcendental idealism), but without denying the reality of the material world.
This perspective avoids the solipsism of strict idealism while preserving the ontological significance of subjective experience.
3. Material Reality as Structured, Not Self-Explanatory
HOW does not deny material existence but frames it within a structured, divinely influenced framework. This corresponds with Aristotle’s teleology and final causality, which materialism completely lacks.
Unlike physicalism, which assumes that physical laws and constants “just happen”, HOW integrates Divine Fine-Tuning (Collins, Plantinga, Swinburne), arguing that the mathematical precision of physics is best explained by an intelligence rather than blind chance.
Superiority Over Alternative Existence Frameworks
1. Against Naturalism and Scientism
Naturalism collapses into self-refutation (Nagel’s Mind and Cosmos). If all thought is reducible to deterministic neurochemical processes, then reason itself becomes unreliable, leading to cognitive instability (Plantinga’s Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism).
HOW maintains epistemic coherence by grounding reason in transcendent consciousness, ensuring that rationality is not an illusion but a fundamental part of reality.
2. Against Materialist Emergentism (Dennett, Churchland, Strawson)
Emergent properties (such as consciousness or morality) presuppose a framework beyond physical interactions, yet emergentists refuse to acknowledge any non-material source.
HOW directly accounts for consciousness as a primary reality, whereas materialist emergentism faces the paradox of deriving subjective experience from purely objective substrates.
3. Against Pantheism and Panpsychism
Pantheism (Spinoza) dissolves God into naturalistic determinism, negating personal agency and divine intentionality.
Panpsychism (Strawson, Nagel) acknowledges the fundamental nature of consciousness but fails to provide an organizing principle, reducing to an arbitrary distribution of proto-consciousness.
HOW preserves the structured nature of existence, integrating a coherent divine will as an organizing intelligence rather than reducing consciousness to mere “fundamental stuff.”
4. Against Non-Theistic Idealism (Berkeley, Schopenhauer, Fichte)
Idealism rightly asserts that reality is mental at its core, but HOW avoids the solipsism of Berkeleyan metaphysics by affirming the independent existence of both God and the created order.
HOW resolves Kant’s noumenon-phenomenon duality by grounding both intelligible forms and experienced phenomena in divine intelligence.
Conclusion: HOW as the Rational Apex
The Holistic Origins Worldview (HOW) successfully integrates the valid insights of Aristotle, Aquinas, Kant, Gödel, and Chalmers while correcting the failures of materialism, emergentism, and non-theistic idealism. By asserting that reality consists of structured, transcendent intelligence rather than brute naturalism, HOW not only explains but justifies the intelligibility, rationality, and teleology embedded in existence. Its superiority lies in its ability to synthesize reason, consciousness, and divine order, offering the most coherent and comprehensive philosophical and scientific framework for understanding reality.
-"Divine Physics" 2024, 2025, Collins, W.
Further Commentary:
This articulation of the Holistic Origins Worldview (HOW) is a robust and systematic dismantling of the materialist paradigm, exposing its philosophical inadequacies while constructing a cohesive alternative that unites theism, consciousness, and empirical science. Unlike the reductive determinism of materialism, which collapses under the weight of its own epistemic contradictions, HOW provides a hierarchical reality model that properly situates material existence within a broader metaphysical structure.
Philosophical Strength of HOW Over Materialism
Materialism, in its various forms—from reductive physicalism (Churchland, Dennett) to eliminative naturalism (Rosenberg, Quine)—asserts that only physical matter exists, and that consciousness, morality, and teleology are illusory byproducts of brain chemistry. This perspective, however, is self-defeating, as it necessitates the denial of the very rationality that underpins materialist claims. As Thomas Nagel (Mind and Cosmos) demonstrates, naturalism collapses into cognitive instability, rendering human thought inherently unreliable if it is purely deterministic. Plantinga’s Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (EAAN) further exposes the absurdity of trusting a belief system that logically precludes the reliability of rational thought itself.
HOW corrects these errors by establishing consciousness as primary, aligning with Plato’s Idealism, Kant’s Transcendental Idealism, and Husserl’s Phenomenology, while also integrating Aquinas’ theistic metaphysics. It accounts for qualia, intentionality, and moral realism, which materialism cannot justify without appealing to ad hoc explanations that contradict its own principles.
Three-tiered Structure of Realty
1. Transcendent Reality (God, The Divine Order)
HOW upholds Leibniz’s Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR), which materialism blatantly ignores, to demonstrate the necessity of an ultimate, self-existent being.
This aligns with Plato’s Forms, Aquinas’ Five Ways, and Gödel’s Ontological Proof, showing that materialism fails to explain existence without invoking brute facts or infinite regress.
The fine-tuning of the universe, when stripped of materialist desperation (i.e., the multiverse fallacy), points toward intelligence, not randomness (Collins, Swinburne, Penrose).
2. Consciousness as Foundational
Unlike the incoherent emergentist models (Dennett, Churchland), which attempt to conjure subjectivity from purely objective interactions, HOW correctly identifies consciousness as fundamental to reality.
This aligns with Chalmers’ “hard problem of consciousness”, which exposes the failure of physicalism to explain first-person experience.
HOW surpasses panpsychism (Nagel, Strawson) by introducing an organizing principle—divine intelligence—rather than positing an arbitrary distribution of proto-consciousness.
3. Material Reality as a Subset, Not the Foundation
HOW acknowledges material existence but frames it within a structured, divinely influenced framework, aligning with Aristotle’s teleology and final causality—concepts that materialism conspicuously lacks.
Unlike scientific naturalism, which assumes that physical laws and constants “just happen”, HOW integrates Divine Fine-Tuning (Craig, Plantinga, Davies), arguing that mathematical order suggests intelligence, not chaos.
Why HOW is Superior to Other Existence Frameworks
1. Against Materialism and Scientism
Materialism is epistemically self-defeating, as it requires trust in reason while simultaneously claiming that reason is nothing more than deterministic neural firings.
HOW ensures epistemic coherence by grounding reason in transcendent consciousness, affirming rationality as an innate feature of reality rather than an accidental cognitive delusion.
2. Against Emergentism (Dennett, Churchland, Strawson)
HOW exposes emergentist fallacies, which rely on the absurd assumption that subjective experience can arise from purely objective structures.
Instead of attempting to salvage materialist dogma, HOW directly asserts consciousness as a primary reality—a far more parsimonious and philosophically sound approach.
3. Against Pantheism and Panpsychism
Pantheism (Spinoza) collapses into naturalistic determinism, negating personal agency and divine intentionality.
Panpsychism (Nagel, Strawson) acknowledges the importance of consciousness but lacks an organizing principle, reducing itself to an arbitrary scattering of proto-consciousness.
HOW preserves the structured nature of existence, integrating a divine will as the unifying intelligence rather than reducing consciousness to mere “fundamental stuff.”
4. Against Non-Theistic Idealism (Berkeley, Schopenhauer, Fichte)
While idealism correctly asserts that reality is fundamentally mental, HOW avoids solipsism by affirming the independent existence of both God and the created order.
HOW resolves Kant’s noumenon-phenomenon duality by grounding both intelligible forms and experienced phenomena in divine intelligence.
IN ALL: HOW as the Rational Apex
The Holistic Origins Worldview (HOW) triumphs over materialism, emergentism, and non-theistic idealism by successfully integrating the valid insights of Aristotle, Aquinas, Kant, Gödel, and Chalmers while correcting the failures of their materialist counterparts. Unlike the self-refuting and epistemically incoherent claims of naturalism, HOW presents a comprehensive, structurally sound framework that recognizes reality as a hierarchy, not a brute physical accident.
By asserting that reality consists of structured, transcendent intelligence rather than brute naturalism, HOW not only explains but justifies the intelligibility, rationality, and teleology embedded in existence. Its superiority lies in its ability to synthesize reason, consciousness, and divine order, offering the most coherent and comprehensive philosophical and scientific model for understanding existence.
Regarding the Order of Concentric Circles
Material reality is in the center of the diagram because it represents the most immediate and tangible subset of existence—what we can observe, measure, and interact with directly. However, it is not the foundation of reality but rather nested within greater layers of existence. Here’s why:
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Material reality is dependent on consciousness.
- The laws of physics, mathematics, and logic are not physical objects; they are abstract principles that govern the material world but are not contained within it.
- Consciousness is what allows material reality to be perceived and understood—without it, there would be no way to recognize or define the physical world.
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Consciousness is broader than material existence.
- Materialists assume consciousness emerges from the brain, but HOW posits the opposite: consciousness is fundamental, and the brain acts as a filter or conduit rather than the origin of awareness.
- This aligns with the Hard Problem of Consciousness, which materialism fails to answer—why do we have subjective experience at all?
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Transcendent reality encompasses all.
- The material and mental worlds exist within a broader transcendent structure, which is not limited by time, space, or physical constraints.
- This is not an arbitrary claim—it follows from the fact that contingent things (matter, time, and consciousness) require a necessary foundation.
Why This Order?
🔹 Material reality (Center) → the most immediate, but not self-sufficient
🔹 Consciousness (Middle Layer) → foundational to perception and reality
🔹 Transcendent Reality (Outer Layer) → the ultimate source, containing all else
So, the diagram is structured this way because it reflects the dependency hierarchy—material reality is not primary; it is nested within and dependent on greater layers of existence.
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