"Our science fails to recognize those special properties of life that make it fundamental to material reality. This view of the world - biocentrism - revolves around the way a subjective experience, which we call consciousness, relates to a physical process. It is a vast mystery and one that I have pursued my entire life"

Science, as traditionally practiced, seeks to uncover the laws that govern the material world by studying objective phenomena, energy, matter, and their interactions, but often sets aside the role of life and consciousness, treating them as secondary or byproducts of physical processes. Robert Lanza critiques this perspective by advocating for biocentrism, an approach that places life and consciousness at the center of our understanding of reality. He points out that, despite all its achievements, conventional science has yet to recognize or adequately explain the unique and vital qualities possessed by living systems, qualities that may be as fundamental as space, time, or energy.

Biocentrism suggests that it is consciousness itself, the subjective experience of being, that is intrinsic to reality. Rather than consciousness emerging from physical matter through extremely specific and unrepeatable circumstances, it could be that consciousness is a primary feature, and that physical reality cannot be fully understood without taking conscious experience into account. This perspective asks us to consider whether material reality exists independently of observation, or if observation and awareness, in fact, shape the universe at its most basic level.

Lanza reflects on the relationship between mind and matter as a profound enigma, one that resists reduction to simple physical explanations. Despite countless attempts to identify the precise mechanisms by which consciousness arises from neuronal activity, the nature and origin of subjective experience remain elusive. This enduring mystery motivates an ongoing search for answers that may require a radical shift in perspective, one where the act of observing or experiencing the world is not an incidental side effect of biochemical processes, but a central organizing principle of existence. In embracing biocentrism, he suggests, we may find a way to unify our physical and experiential realities into a more complete understanding of the universe.