The mind-body problem is approached as two interconnected issues: how subjective conscious experience arises from physical brain processes and how conscious mental states can causally influence the physical world. A non-physicalist framework is developed that combines a materialist view of the mind as a brain product with a metaphysical view of consciousness rooted in an underlying hidden reality. This framework resolves the problem of mental causation while remaining consistent with fundamental physical principles. Meaning acts as a bridge between neurological processes and the conscious mind. Awareness of the self and representation of the external world are connected to this perspective.
Understanding how brain processes produce subjective experience requires probing the nature of physical reality, which leads to quantum physics and a second gap between quantum and classical reality. A philosophical framework is proposed that addresses both gaps simultaneously. Analysis of quantum mechanics leads to the notion of a hidden reality and the postulate that consciousness is an integral component of this reality. The framework provides philosophical underpinnings for a theory of consciousness while resolving the interpretation problem in quantum mechanics without altering its mathematical structure. Implications for a scientific theory of consciousness are discussed.