In the philosophical literature, the main objection to physicalism about consciousness is the epistemic gap: the alleged fact that full knowledge of the physical does not yield full knowledge of the mental. And one of the main objections to nonphysicalism about consciousness is causal closure: the alleged fact that physical events, like our actions, have causes that are entirely physical.
There is a simple way to craft a theory that avoids both objections. Simply suppose that mental states have two parts: a physical and a non-physical part. The physical part of the mental state is responsible for the mental state’s causal influence on physical reality. The non-physical part explains the epistemic gap: full knowledge of the physical world yields full knowledge of the physical part of the mental state, but not full knowledge of the mental state.
