About this topic
Consciousness, the mind–brain relation, souls, personal identity, idealism, and whether mental reality extends beyond matter.
Debates are grouped by their main question. Scores assess the reasoning presented, not the truth of a position. Read the assessment method.
Explore the assessments
Daniel Dennett vs Robert Sapolsky — Do We Have Free Will? · 2023
Sapolsky narrowly prevailed by pressing unchosen causal origins, while Dennett built a strong compatibilist account of evolved, reasons-responsive self-control and humane responsibility.
Daniel Dennett: 82 · Robert Sapolsky: 84. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Deepak Chopra vs Richard Dawkins — Consciousness, Cosmic Purpose, and Spirituality · 2013
Dawkins wins through scale-sensitive emergence arguments and precise criticism of quantum equivocation; Chopra’s strongest reply challenges confidence in promised brain-only explanation.
Deepak Chopra: 66 · Richard Dawkins: 86. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Bernardo Kastrup vs Susan Blackmore — Consciousness and illusion · 2023
Blackmore’s disciplined challenges expose gaps in Kastrup’s elegant idealist account, especially around boundaries and evidence, while her limited method avoids claiming a rival metaphysics.
Bernardo Kastrup: 75 · Susan Blackmore: 85. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Philip Goff vs Joe Folley: Consciousness, Mystical Experience, and Fine-Tuning · 2026
Goff offers a unified consciousness-based worldview; Folley’s targeted challenges to extrapolation, mystical warrant, and cosmic probability produce the stronger overall evidential case.
Philip Goff: 81 · Joe Folley: 86. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Eric Hernandez vs Tom Jump: Free Will, Consciousness, and the Existence of the Soul · 2019
Hernandez defends a nonphysical soul through rational agency, mental properties, personhood, and private consciousness; Jump prevails by emphasizing coherence, physical explanation, and predictive evidence.
Eric Hernandez: 72 · Tom Jump: 78. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Iain McGilchrist vs Bernardo Kastrup: Consciousness, God, Truth, and Purpose · 2025
Both consciousness-first accounts converged substantially, but Kastrup’s sharper perspectival distinctions and replies narrowly surpassed McGilchrist’s richer yet less-warranted value-directed participatory case.
Iain McGilchrist: 77 · Bernardo Kastrup: 80. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Does the Soul Exist? Eric Hernandez vs. Aron Ra · 2020
Hernandez made a serious philosophical case from consciousness and personal unity, but Aron Ra’s cumulative brain-dependence evidence and burden challenge narrowly prevailed.
Eric Hernandez: 74 · Aron Ra: 77. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Does Analytic Idealism Better Explain Reality? Bernardo Kastrup vs. Graham Oppy · 2021
Kastrup makes consciousness and qualitative experience the central explanatory test; Oppy narrowly prevails by clarifying pluralistic naturalism, identity, underdetermination, and balanced theory choice.
Bernardo Kastrup: 81 · Graham Oppy: 82. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Does Analytic Idealism Explain Consciousness Better? Bernardo Kastrup vs. Tom Jump · 2023
Kastrup narrowly wins by pressing materialism’s qualitative explanatory gap, while Jump preserves materialism’s viability through epistemic caution, composition challenges, and realization possibilities.
Bernardo Kastrup: 83 · Tom Jump: 80. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Does the Soul Exist? Eric Hernandez vs. Matt Dillahunty · 2015
Dillahunty prevailed through verification demands, brain dependence, and physical alternatives, while Hernandez offered a broad metaphysical case whose central necessity inferences remained under-supported.
Eric Hernandez: 68 · Matt Dillahunty: 82. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Dustin Crummett vs Ben Watkins: Does the Soul Exist? · 2020
Crummett narrowly prevails, pairing fission cases with contingent psychophysical laws, while Watkins offers empirically grounded monism but overstates closure and conservation arguments.
Dustin Crummett: 82 · Ben Watkins: 81. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Iain McGilchrist vs Anil Seth: Does Consciousness Point to God? · 2026
McGilchrist argues that consciousness, value, and directionality indicate a divine relational ground; Seth answers with biological emergence, thermodynamics, and methodological restraint.
Iain McGilchrist: 74 · Anil Seth: 83. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Michael Huemer vs Graham Oppy: Do Souls Exist? · 2022
Huemer argues that irreducible mentality requires a surviving soul, while Oppy offers multiscale naturalism, brain dependence, and cosmological objections to that inference.
Michael Huemer: 76 · Graham Oppy: 84. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Bernardo Kastrup vs Susan Blackmore: What Is Consciousness? · 2023
Kastrup grounds reality in consciousness, while Blackmore argues that neutral representation better exposes idealism's unresolved structure, boundaries, and causal differentiation.
Bernardo Kastrup: 83 · Susan Blackmore: 86. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Keith Ward vs Daniel Dennett: Are We More Than Matter? · 2019
Ward defends irreducible consciousness, value, identity, and agency; Dennett answers through evolved computation, higher-level explanation, emergent purpose, and compatibilist control.
Keith Ward: 76 · Daniel Dennett: 83. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Eben Alexander and Raymond Moody vs Sean Carroll and Steven Novella: Is Death Final? · 2014
Alexander and Moody argue that near-death and shared-death experiences reveal consciousness beyond the brain; Carroll and Novella argue that vivid experience and testimony do not outweigh evidence that minds depend on brains.
Eben Alexander and Raymond Moody: 58 · Sean Carroll and Steven Novella: 86. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Sharon Dirckx vs Philip Goff: Does Consciousness Point to God? · 2019
Dirckx argues consciousness fits a divine personal ground, while Goff presents panpsychism as a parsimonious alternative and challenges the specifically theistic inference.
Sharon Dirckx: 79 · Philip Goff: 81. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Keith Ward vs Michael Ruse: Mind, Consciousness, and God · 2013
Ward presents a cumulative mind-first theism, while Ruse argues that shared mysteries and experiences remain naturally explicable and metaphysically underdetermined.
Keith Ward: 80 · Michael Ruse: 82. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Michael Jones vs Matt Dillahunty: Reason to Believe in God? · 2020
Jones assembled a cumulative idealist explanation, while Dillahunty’s sharper probability, underdetermination, and burden challenges exposed substantial gaps between suggestive evidence and theism.
Michael Jones: 73 · Matt Dillahunty: 91. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Brian Cutter vs Graham Oppy: Does Mind-Brain Harmony Point to God? · 2025
Cutter argues psychophysical harmony favors divine goodness; Oppy counters that identity theory and unresolved probability measures undermine the proposed evidential comparison.
Brian Cutter: 85 · Graham Oppy: 85. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Michael Jones vs Matt Dillahunty: Quantum Idealism and Demonstrability · 2026
Jones offered an informational idealist account of quantum observation, while Dillahunty pressed stronger public-demonstrability, causal-interaction, preconscious-development, and discriminating-testability objections.
Michael Jones: 69 · Matt Dillahunty: 86. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.
Philip Goff vs Sean Carroll: Is Consciousness Fundamental? · 2023
Goff defended consciousness-first metaphysics from private experience and explanatory gaps; Carroll answered through multilevel emergence, empirical constraints, and comparative challenges.
Philip Goff: 84 · Sean Carroll: 84. Scores assess the reasoning in this debate.