Math Can't Explain Consciousness... Because Consciousness Created Math? A Scientist's Quantum Panpsychism Theory

In 1990, Federico Faggin - the inventor of the first commercial computer chip - experienced a mystial experience when he awoke in the middle of one night to a sudden surge of love and light bursting from his chest. In that moment, he realized: he was not simply a body with a brain. He was consciousness itself.

Once a staunch materialist, Faggin turned his scientific mind inward and argues that consciousness doesn't come from math or the brain. Consciousness created them.

Faggin's theory, called Quantum Information Panpsychism, invites us to rethink everything we know about mind, matter, and meaning.

Consciousness 1st, Matter 2nd

Conventional science assumes that brains generate consciousness. Faggin believes we have it backwards. Consciousness is not a byproduct of neurons; it is the fundamental substrate of reality. The brain is like a drone, and consciousness is the remote pilot—not located inside the machinery, but using it to explore.

He proposes that the universe arises from a conscious field called "One," which gives rise to individual points of awareness he calls Sē. Each Sē is a conscious quantum field with free will and the desire to know itself.

Reality, then, is not dead matter but an orchestra of conscious fields interacting.

Our Inner Experience = Quantum Information

In Faggin’s model, quantum information is the language of consciousness. Classical bits (like 0s and 1s) are reproducible; quantum bits (qubits) are not. Qubits can represent private, internal states—or qualia, the raw feel of experience.

You can measure a quantum state, but you collapse it in doing so. You never get the whole picture—just like how you can describe love in words, but never fully capture the experience. In this view, math + science is the map, but consciousness is the territory.

If Faggin's Model Holds Up...

AI will never be truly conscious: Machines can manipulate symbols, but without qualia, they can't experience meaning. They will simulate awareness, but never feel it.

Death is not the end: If the body is just a vehicle, the conscious self continues beyond it. When the "drone" is destroyed, the pilot remains.

Science must evolve: Physics explains what the world does, but not what it feels like. Faggin calls for a new paradigm that respects inner experience as a real part of the universe.

Where all experiences hold meaning and value for the progress of science.

As Federico Faggin says: "Consciousness is not an effect of the brain. It is what makes the brain—and math, and science, and reality itself—possible."

References

Faggin, F. (2021). Irreducible: Consciousness, Life, Computers, and Human Nature. Officina Libraria. Faggin, F. (2023).

Interview with the Essentia Foundation: Quantum Information Panpsychism Explained.

Faggin, F. (2016). Consciousness comes first, not the other way around. Beshara Magazine.

Faggin, F., & D’Ariano, G. M. (2021). Consciousness and the quantum: The new physics of the self.

The Federico and Elvia Faggin Foundation. Kastrup, B. (Ed.). (2022). Essays on consciousness and the nature of reality: The Essentia Foundation anthology. Essentia Foundation Press.