Saying the universe only physically exists when experienced, is a hard sell. Plus, it sounds more like New Age spirituality than hard science. Philosophically, it’s more inline with ontological idealism than their materialism. The situation is, modern experimental evidence doesn’t support materialism anymore. Einstein’s relativity showed us how space and time only exist relative to observers, and quantum mechanics showed us that it’s the same with matter and energy. But, before scientists even consider coming out of the closet on this, they want to be absolutely certain they are right.

This whole reductive programme – this mindless materialism, this belief in something called ‘matter’ as the answer to all questions – is not really science at all. It is, and always has been, just an image, a myth, a vision, an enormous act of faith. As Karl Popper said, it is ‘promissory materialism’, an offer of future explanations based on boundless confidence in physical methods of enquiry. It is a quite general belief in ‘matter’, which is conceived in a new way as able to answer all possible questions. And that belief has flowed much more from the past glories of science than from any suitability for the job in hand. –Mary Midgley

Robert Lanza: The Theory of Biocentrism, Part 1 | YouTube 18:38

So, despite these amazing discoveries of quantum mechanics, science has mostly slipped back into the much more comfortable and intuitive Newtonian world view that the world is real and always there regardless of consciousness. But note that science doesn’t always get it right at first, and some mistakes get embedded for generations (like the Savanna Theory of human evolution).

There are, however, always scientists who are less constrained by old cultural biases. Daryl Bem, a renowned Cornell professor, has followed the evidence and risked his reputation publishing on Psi experiments, while other great researchers are working mostly outside orthodox science, such as Rupert Sheldrake and  Dean Radin. This century old paradigm shift has stalled some, but it is still the way forward for science.

Why can’t consciousness have quantum experiences? Haven’t you ever felt there was more to the world than meets the eye? That’s because there is. Like a sea otter floating on its back who has never rolled over, we are floating in a quantum mechanical sea of resources just out of range of our physical senses, but which support us. We only see the classical world, and ignore our quantum substrate.

Scientific Materialism says consciousness arises from matter (mass-energy), therefore it can only behave like matter. It can never experience, or move, or gain knowledge in any quantum way. But we now know matter itself arises from quantum fields. So why do they still insist that consciousness only follow the classical rules of matter? Because they don’t understand what consciousness is, and they’re being conservative.

Consciousness is not matter or energy, it’s an entirely different thing. Isn’t it possible that consciousness has a nonlocal side? For thousands of years meditators have described nonlocal experiences. Mainstream science seems convinced this is impossible, otherwise they would be doing it themselves.