Why interactionist fields are (almost) invisible to physics: From conscious brains to dark matter

Interactionist theories that posit qualitative or experiential fields coupled to the physical world face a fundamental challenge: if such fields genuinely influence physical processes, why are their effects not ordinarily observed? This paper proposes a possible answer. Building on a recent proposal by Hendel (forthcoming), I argue that the apparent invisibility of interactionist fields may be explained by a phase transition between disordered and ordered regimes. In the disordered regime, local interactions with physical systems cancel statistically, preventing detectable macroscopic effects. I further suggest that the phase transition is more plausibly understood as a non-equilibrium one, driven by energy flow and feedback rather than by equilibrium thermodynamic variables. Conscious brains are proposed as candidate systems capable of sustaining such ordered states. The framework predicts localized departures from causal closure and conservation laws in conscious brains and suggests a possible role for interactionist fields in phenomena currently attributed to dark matter.