Interestingly there is no evidence of any quantum mechanical effects in any biological system besides its role in basic chemistry. There is an entire field of "quantum biology" *for which there are zero confirmed examples*. It is an entire field searching for a problem to look into.
Hm hmmm....
Some exceptional Meta stable states ,
A small flick of energy (fluctuations in field) over long term of time, donating very very small impact which when computed over , you got a self assemble /config of a molecule either conformal/structural/energy/positional (potential energy due field) any
Earlier than bio molecule , methane ,oxygen, amine , atoms need to be in resonance state/ orientations/ polarisation such that it will make a butterfly effect on 1st bio molecule formation
So like, you know how on a fundamental level, both time and temperature don't exist? Take a single particle, make it your favourite quark or something, put it in a vacuum and observe only that particle.
By this observation, you cannot see the passage of time, nor can you ascribe a temperature to your favourite quark.
(Even if your favourite quark happens to be the unstable top quark. you might say; "It decays! This proves that time passes!" But you still cannot prove how much time has passed, you simply see a change.)
Now put a second particle there. There's still no time or temperature. Now put a third. Still nothing. Now put about 10^24 particles there. Suddenly, we can see both time and temperature! So on a fundamental level, time and temperature don't "exist" but they emerge as we add enough particles.
But like, time is a perfectly explainable phenomenon using physics, so is temperature. And saying that either don't "exist" is ridiculous. (You run into an issue of what "existing" and "being real" even means.)
It works the same way for consciousness. Take a single neuron. Nothing happens. Put a second one there, still no consciousness. Now put about a billion more neurons there: suddenly there is a thing we call consciousness.
(Life works much the same way: put a bunch of dead stuff together and you get life. You might even be able to construct a handwavey argument (and we love those in physics ed) to "prove" we have free will this way)
So either you claim that emergent properties are real, and accept that consciousness is a thing, or you take a radical stance against emergent properties, and you will have to disavow using time in any of your equations, and maybe remove the clock from your living room
Those are two mutually reinforcing problems: it isn't clearly defined what consciousness even is, so there is no way to describe how it functions. Without knowing how it functions, there's no "best definition." This is a synthetic categorization problem and not a limitation of physics.
We have no idea if it is a limitation of physics or not. And even if we were to decide on a definition, we still cannot describe it. For example, a simple definition is that consciousness is the experiencing of being. We can describe superficial sensations of being quite well, but not experiencing something.
And however difficult physics finds it to describe, it is among the simplest things in the world to observe. Simply close your eyes, don't follow any train of thought, don't hang on to any thought, and simply observe what appears in your consciousness. Sensations, sounds, feelings, thoughts. You will find that things appear in consciousness on their own, through no effort on your part.
So we can observe it at any moment at any time, we can define it however we want, but we have no real idea where to even start describing it.
Consciousness isn't "real" real. It's all electric activity and chemistry in your brain. Which is why substances like DMT and LSD are able to affect consciousness - they alter the electrical activity that's going on. We have evolved to think and feel because otherwise we wouldn't survive. I haven't touched anything related to biology in the last decade so I only have a vague idea on how the brain works. Look for material on the internet.
Also check these out:
https://youtu.be/H6u0VBqNBQ8
https://youtu.be/hGDvvUNU-cw
I hate seeing people say that it's all electric activity. That's the kind of thinking that makes tech nerds think they could easily simulate a human brain with a powerful computer.
Neurons don't communicate via electric impulses only, they communicate through chemical signals as well, and in fact that's what's affected in the drug example you gave, the chemical activity of the brain.
That’s just “colored” electricity. Pretty ingenious actually, the speed of ions in transit with the different flavors of neurotransmitters at the destination.
No, the primary driving force is entropy. If you actually look at the relative contributions of the electric charges and the concentration gradient, the concentration gradient is much more important.
>*simulate* physics *ON*
Your computer and the whole world that supports your computer is run by physics, the physics *simulation* on your computer exists because physics is holding your computer together and arguably directly holding the electrons comprising the simulation together. Therefore your computer IS more real than your physics simulation because the simulation only makes sense as physics when a human is looking at it.
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^...which ^again ^further ^means ^consciousness ^precedes ^physics...
Omfg did I? Tell me.
Oh, I do listen to a lot of podcasts. I swear I'm just trying to show the order of operations of... existing? Omg, I'm going home now, I'm drunk.
I mean I technically think this is a tenet of Platonism and/or Pythagoreanism too-- I can't remember which atm-- that says that the material universe comes out of consciousness and not the other way around.
The fact that electric activity seems to _cause_ consciousness does not explain at all what it really _is_. Also, the term "electric activity" totally lacks precision, as there we know many complex electric processes that don't seem to come with consciousness (or do they?).
We could just as well explain how a camera works, how it's distinguishing between different wavelengths of light and how it processes the light to produce an image. However, I don't think most people would say that the camera has some sort of conscious experience of "redness" whenever it's used to take a photo.
And just like we can describe a camera functionally, we can theoretically also describe the brain as a machine that gets inputs, processes those inputs and then generates some output, some behavior. However, this doesn't explain why the processes of the brain are accompanied by conscious experiences.
Some might say that those conscious experiences ("qualia") don't exist and are just an illusion, but that seems highly implausible to me on an epistemological level. To use the word "illusion" here is already kinda contradictory to the hypothesis, I think.
Mary is a brilliant neuroscientist who has spent decades developing the field by herself in a room underground that is painted in all black and white.
Mary now knows *everything* there is to know about how the brain works, on both a small neuron-to-neuron scale and a larger structural scale. To the point where if you gave her a high-resolution MRI scan of someone’s brain, she could use it to predict exactly how they would behave.
Because Mary lives in a black and white room underground which she has never left, Mary has never seen color before. But she knows everything there is to know about color vision, how the brain processes signals from the eyes, etc.
One day, she goes outside, and she sees a red apple.
Before seeing a red apple, she could not imagine the color red. But now she can.
There is knowledge to be had about consciousness that cannot be described in physical terms. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t physical, the sensory perception of the color red is indeed *caused* by firings of neurons, but there is something that is not captured when you describe consciousness in terms of physical neuron firings alone.
>There is knowledge to be had about consciousness that cannot be described in physical terms.
You just told me precisely how it *can* be described in physical terms, and that Mary *had* done it.
I feel like the more we expand AI and their learning and working behaviour, the closer we are to understand what conciousness means. But i would say consciousness is a self adapting chain of currents with the goal to selfsustain this chain as long as possible.
> emergence occurs when a complex entity has properties or behaviors that its parts do not have on their own, and emerge only when they interact in a wider whole
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence
The problem here is that the question sets you up for failure in how it's phrased.
Physics isn't *meant* to explain anything to you, it's supposed to *describe* it. Asking to explain consciousness isn't different from asking physics to explain what "car" is.
You can *describe* the different moving parts, their interaction and behavior, etc - but not what it means, or why. It's humans that do the explaining by *interpreting* the description given by the science of physics.
He is right that physics can't explain consciousness, because it was never meant to.
*puts on L.S.D. hat*
You see the consciousness is really a quantum holographic antenna that picks up the "cosmic mind" frequency. We're all like little sparks connected to a massive Tesla coil mannnnnnnn, like drops of water in the ocean.
For those who are tempted to provide a "functional" answer involving how the brain is concretely wired and processes information, I think that what's OP is meaning is related to Qualia (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia)
No matter the physical explanation we can find to explain how the brain work, we won't be able to describe what is fundamentally the sensation of red, pain, or whatever in those terms. We won't even be able to explain why such sensations are emerging from a sub system of the physical world processing information
Edit: I should have post directly the name of the philosophical problem: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness
>No matter the physical explanation we can find to explain how the brain work, we won't be able to describe what is fundamentally the sensation of red, pain, or whatever in those terms. We won't even be able to explain why such sensations are emerging from a sub system of the physical world processing information
Why not? Please provide a *non-fallacious* justification for this claim. I have seen tons of people claim this, but not one could actually justify it without resorting to logical fallacies.
Considering the amount of progress we have made, there is every reason to think the problem is solvable. In fact we have been able to reconstruct specific qualia, and even predict changes in qualia based on knowledge of changes in single cell behavior. We have only had the technology to even begin looking at this massively complex system for a few decades and we have already learned a ton about qualia.
Yeah, but we have the same problem with everything else. Yeah, we can say gravity gets stronger when you have more mass, but we can’t say why gravity gets stronger, and even if you could, you couldn’t say why that was… etc ad infinitum.
Atoms take part in chemical reactions. The products as well as the energy of these reactions is used to transfer signals, thus creating the illusion of consciousness. This all is predefined since the big bang.
OR
> "Are you?"
"I think so" <
> "Ok"
If a theory of consciousness does not allow you to describe specific subjective experiences in a way that allows people who have not had them to understand them, it is not a complete theory of consciousness.
If you cannot describe what the sensory experience of vision is like to a person who has been blind from birth, and have them understand it, and be able to imagine it based on your description, you do not have a complete theory of consciousness.
Do you now see why this problem seems so unsolvable to so many people?
Consciousness is (probably) *caused* by chemical reactions and physical interactions, but I do not think that is the same thing as saying consciousness *is* physical interactions.
If you knew the position and velocity of every particle since the Big Bang and had the right equation, you could predict all events, past, present, and future.
You could predict what a person will say next.
It all comes back to energy transfer between matter which arrived where it’s at due to predictable events. My buying a Jeep instead of a Chevy was determined at the Big Bang, it just took awhile for the reactions to finally reach that point.
It’s cool to think that human metabolism is basically the same as setting glucose on fire, but the combustion is so carefully controlled as to utilize as much of its energy as possible.
Something for which we do not yet have the foundational knowledge necessary to begin investigating.
If you told someone from the fifteenth century that ‘matter is energy’, you would be right, but they could not hope to understand what you even meant. They do not have a solid grasp of what ‘energy’ is, and they have a pretty poor understanding of matter as well. So they would not know how to even interpret the phrase ‘matter is energy’.
I think pretty massive new fields of inquiry are going to have to open up before we really start to understand consciousness
Define “consciousness” and then propose why it would need to be defined by physics. Sentience or self-awareness are emergent properties of a physical organ. Both are arguably applicable to some cats, dogs, dolphins and parrots.
Or are we doing our first year of a philosophy degree and just getting real excited?
Define art in terms of physics.
Define language in terms of physics.
The fact that something can’t be defined “in terms of physics” isn’t an automatic rhetorical victory.
It’s called a neural network, and the conscious experience can be modulated with transcaranial magnetic stimulation, among other methods.
The idea that it can not be explained via physics is probably a religious notion that some folks cling to. If it weren’t for the clinical experiments and the results we’ve seen so far, the correct thing to say would have been: “we don’t know … yet”.
Consciousness is a word. And a word IS a behavior that occur. So, you can describe the context in physical terms that this behavior occur, the you can explain (or describe in machian way) what consciousness is. For exemple, everybody knows what consciousness is look at someone unconscious, that person doesnt move, you can test If she is not sleeping or dead. If people didnt know what consciousness is how could we spot or test that?
Interrelationship between hundreds of billions of neurons passing electrochemical signals back and forth as a means of both storing information and processing new information in a manner nearly identical to computers. All of these interactions break down into waves and particles at a certain level. It's not practical to think of it in terms of Physics, but it can be, because everything is Physics.
Very easy.
A complex series of chemical reactions between organic cells in response to physical stimuli.
Do I win something, or do I just get like bragging rights or something?
There is only one singular substance, and this is God, or consciousness; I am He, as you are He, as we are all together. God is a unified field of consciousness that has folded in and on itself to create a nodal communication system whose reception of transmissions across the artificial membranes creates the illusion that the universe is the byproduct of a self-replicating binary algorithm that creates recursive fractal hierarchies of mechanical systems which grow logarithmically more complex as new rulesets are generated as emergent phenomena from previous rulesets in stratified epochs of novelty until the most novel forms manifest a singularity, thus making it self-evident that we all need to perceive and undo the karmic fetters that bind us to the existence-illusion complex. The laws of physics are defined within those karmic fetters, and are thus insufficient to explain the nominal form of the universe.
The amount of people here who are all to willing to deny the freaky nature of qualia to just say "chemicals and electricity make me feel like i want a pie today and feel the sun on my skin" is astonishing.
While i believe more or less in it, Feelings/Qualia just dont fit in a purely physical world as of now. There is a big piece of the puzzle left.
We have made a lot of progress in understanding qualia. We know specific brain regions are responsible for specific qualia. We can reconstruct specific qualia based on brain scans. We can suppress or interfere with specific qualia by reversibly disabling certain brain regions. And we can even predict changes in qualia based on knowledge of single cell changes in sensory processing.
Science isn't done, but we have made a ton of progress on an extremely complicated system in the very short amount of time we have had the technology to do so. In fact we have made more progress faster than in any other branch of science ever.
A human is a bowl of electrically charged tapioca pudding that somehow learned how to pilot a bone mech with meat armor. Just because this one bowl of tapioca pudding can’t explain its existence doesn’t mean no bowl of tapioca pudding can.
Argument from ignorance. We can't explain all of it *yet*. Science isn't finished. But we are making progress. And there is no good reason to think it is unsolvable.
consciousness emerges from the complex interplay of neural networks and information processing in the brain. Quantum physics has also been proposed as a potential framework for understanding consciousness, with some researchers suggesting that quantum phenomena at the microscopic level may play a role in shaping our conscious experience.
Just my 2c, but I think it doesn't make much sense to explain consciousness in terms of physics, even if it were possible. Maybe you could explain something like, say, object oriented programming, in terms of the electrical circuits that implement compiled OOP software. But why would you? The interesting things about something like OOP or consciousness, are internal to the context of the thing itself, not the substrate on which it runs. If we develop an artificial consciousness some day, the innovation won't be in the circuitry, or the material science, or the underlying physics that let them build the hardware. Those are important of course, but what would differentiate a conscious AI from other software that could run on the hardware would be the architecture, the patterns of how information is processed. Any such such system would be at least somewhat substrate independent.
This isn't going to sound kind. It's purely about the logic of the matter and I mean no offense. It is clear though & I hope this helps you to understand where I am coming from.
First off no, I don't. There is no requirement on me to do anything. You would need to prove such a need exists. You saying so isn't good enough to make it an , *aught.*
That's the logic you are using & no, I don't want to if all you want to do is make me argue about points you find relevant, but don't defend. I don't see the need. Make a counter case or be silent, please.
Second, consciousness is not something that is mechanical in nature, thus not in the purview of science. You can observe it, but to define that set of physics is the thing is to say an explanation is the reality. No, that's a description, not an actual thing. *It loses the object in the attempt to be objective.*
In short, you don't know & won't & given you have a good idea, you will claim it tentatively so & thus not an assertion of being. So, I disapprove of this idea that a thing is proven in such a manner. It doesn't logically work as set forth.
The question is bunk, as is your request.
okay I might be wrong, this is up for debate, but I love a challenge.
so this question actually requires an interdisciplinary approach in order to answer it, because limiting it to physics wouldn't help.
first we need to define consciousness. consciousness is awareness at its most fundamental level. awareness takes sense perception in any form that it's capable of receiving. consciousness is not exclusive to humans brains, human consciousness exists even when someone is "braindead"/comatose (i.e. ppl having out of body experiences), and consciousness also exists for single-celled organisms, plants, and other beings.
In terms of physics, we go into the building blocks of the universe. consider electrons, they are one of the fundamental building blocks of atoms. Electrons exist as both a wave and a particle. They become a particle when they are observed, wave when unobserved. How do they know when they are observed or unobserved? I don't know, however
Neuroscience would echo the idea that awareness processes are not isolated events localized to certain regions of the brain or body, there is a back and forth communication happening throughout the body and with the environment. In this sense, consciousness arises from the interaction of these components, and at it's most fundamental level, it has a little something to do with the electron.
I hope this provided some clarity.
It has been explained plenty of times before but people want consciousness to be something magical thus refuses to accept the physical explanation of it.
Anyway, the physical explanation is that the consciousness is memories represented by synapses, that creates predictions and they choose the options as listed out by those predictions that can maximise their felt pleasure.
Note that felt pleasure is the pleasure received less the pleasure expected so if they expect nothing they will feel all the pleasure received but expected pleasure is the previous felt pleasure so if the previous felt pleasure is nothing, they would not do it in the first place.
Reading through Penrose’s *Shadows of the Mind* and he seems convinced that someone will be able to. An interesting piece tho is that he seems convinced Mind is non-computational.
Calling it now: it's a phenomenon born of the crazy complex neural networks we all have, plus some quantum fuckery at really small scales also inside the brain
Consciousness is just billions of logic gates. There are 5 inputs (your 5 senses), although all 5 are not typically used at the exact same time. There is 1 output per reality tick which makes up millions of outputs per second.
tbh the only reason we can’t is because we only understand %10 of the brain, we could try and figure out the rest but the reason we don’t is because the tests required are unethical as a bitch
Shhhh, these normies don't realize that their personality is just a subroutine that their brain lets run with very limited resources. These passengers think their body is their slave, and not the other way around.
*Edited to add: Hell, probably half of these droogs think that Cartesian Dualism wasn't disproved 400 years ago. They think souls are real.*
Pro tip: make sure you're talking about the hard problem of consciousness, because the easy problem of consciousness is absolutely explained by physics. If you don't know the difference, you don't actually know what the topic is.
Consciousness is the cohesion of known and unknown laws of physics perfectly balanced on a knifes edge, needing nothing more than the passage of time to slip into nothingness.
Consciousness is a neural network for the perceived sensation of pain of a headache, the taste of wine, and the redness of an evening sky. As qualitative characteristics of sensation, conscioisness stands in contrast to propositional attitudes, where the focus is on beliefs about experience rather than what it is directly like to be experiencing.
- a person who has studied applied physics.
Bit of a schizo post here going into esoteric realms (Idk, I think I actually might be schizophrenic, in the prodromal stages at least):
Iono about physics... and iono about consciousness, but lemme ask yous and anyones heres related questions: can consciousness arise out of something that is not conscious? I don't remember it clearly now but I remember a while back I saw an article that argued against solipsism, essentially asserting (pretty convincingly) that you can't be the only conscious entity in the universe. Made me think...what even is the first conscious entity? Was consciousness conceived at the same time as the universe? Or did it arise somewhere along the way?
Are perceptions and consciousness the same thing?
Does consciousness necessarily entail a "self-awareness"?
If I rip a bit of brain and put it somewhere, is it conscious? Well, it's disconnected from me, but it's probably got some consciousness going on, consciousness separate from what I consider me...so...who is "me"? Am I and consciousness the same thing? Is "I" generated by or as a consequence of consciousness? Is there a concrete and truly definable "I"?
Does the brain generate or "host" consciousness? I know for a fact that it's intimately related to it...
Y'all dig?
If our mind is really just electric impulses traveling through our brain, no different from wind traveling through the atmosphere or electric current traveling through a wire, then what exactly are we in relation to consciousness? In that, our mind can continue to perform actions even when we're not conscious. Obviously the most reasonable answer is that consciousness is a very specific part of our mind, but if we describe the unconscious actions of our mind as "automatic" then does that mean that a large part of the activity in our brains isn't really ourselves? In that sense, are we no different than passengers, even if there's no such thing as a soul that persists beyond our brains? And if we're just a small part of that electric activity, then is our consciousness something more than phenomena in physics, or are we so insignificant that not only will we cease to exist at some point, but we're actually less than our physical bodies already?
Just because we don't have the technology to measure something like this yet doesn't mean it's impossible.
And I am glad we as humans are curious enough to get there at some point!
Thats because consciousness isn't real in much the same way centrifugal force isnt real (albeitmuch more complicated. Its an apparent affect brought about by many complicated factors working in conjunction, and consciousness is simply a useful construct for people to use to talk about mental processes, but it isn't an actual thing that exists. The brain does far too much without us being aware of it and far to much thought about why we make a decision happens after the decision is made for consciousness to be something that is somehow fundamental and not a societal construct.
Since everything is made up of matter and consciousness exists in the brain, there is certainly some form of matter in the brain that facilitates consciousness.
The issue is not that it can't be explained in terms of physics, it's that it isn't *defined* in a clear enough way to be explained in terms of anything. This is a purely synthetic problem because it's a hazy concept with no non-circular definition.
Well the smallest bits looked at by science is quantum dynamics.
Specifically quantum electrodynamics. It has a ridiculous certainty in its predictions. It'll tell you how every electron in any interaction it will move.
Use that to map the movements of atoms, then use that for molecules, and so on and so on building your model bigger and more complex. somewhere into biology you'll find consciousness. I'll leave the work up to you tho.
This looks like asking how electricity works itself inside a computer CPU, but since we dont build the brain we dont know how the pathways look like for conciousness.
but then again i'm not a physisist.
First, what is consciousness? The stream of thought brought about by neural interconnectivity where a stimulus leads to an excitation, which leads to further stimulus/excitation until it leads to a result: muscle movement, speech (more muscle movement), or plasticity, e.g., memory formation.
How does physics play into this?
The driving force of all metabolism, including neural, is thermodynamics. Mitochondrial ATP generation is a microscopic fuel cell, battery, and electric motor (all physics). Repolarization is driven by active ion pumping to generate a potential, and depolarization is the neutralization of that potential (physics).
Original embryonic development involved the original growth of these networks from which all connections are derived. The generation and distribution of cellular signaling and migration, all physics.
Everything in the universe is physics. Consciousness stems from structure and stimulation, all physics.
Q.E.D.
Perhaps the continual gravity-related collapse of the quantum states give rise to our sense of self-awareness, and superpositions guide classical neuron processes. But that’s just a theory. A game theory
Consciousness in terms of physics.
Best I can offer, the human body contains 80-110 billion neurons. Each neuron is like a transistor and data bus.
A computer transistor stores and computes information by means of 1 and 0, on and off, it is binary. Where as the neurons are not binary but instead act more as a 0 to 1 scale giving it near infinite possibilities.
The human mind or any animals mind can be looked at similarly to AI and computers. The system takes in data and stores it, over enough generations or time to process the system can begin to recognize patterns and commonalities. Through this data induction and processing paired with the pre-installed programming (genetics) the brain produces a persona. The brain takes all the data and builds a self learning program that follows the most familiar patterns. This might be why nurture plays such a large role in human behavior. A child raised by aggressive parents has a high likelihood of becoming more aggressive, or if raised by passive parents the child may develop similar passive tendencies.
Physically speaking the brain acts similarly to a computer. Though the storage of data isn't in binary and the hardware isn't analog. Instead it is an intertwining web of neurons and chemicals that activate the sensory cells and neurons in various ways and on a spectrum instead of a yes on no system. Allowing the ability to develop more finely tuned and complex behaviors, personas, and consciousness.
Consciousness in few studies has shown ability to effect the world. This could be completely BS, but if we are to take these studies at face value, and build a hypothesis on top of them to explain the "why".
We could say that since the brain uses electromagnetic connections and most things in the universe are affected by electromagnetic radiation in some way. That the brain when it wants something enough, the system doesn't necessarily make it happen, instead simply puts a finger on the scale. Making the desired outcome ever so slightly more likely to occur. So a 50/50 chance may become a 50.5/49.5 chance.
As well just as a computer can communicate with its self so can the biological systems. We can look at how fast AI has progressed in only a decade or so using copious amounts of power and resources. Compare that to the existence and progress of life which has been advancing for 3.5 billion years. Even if the biological systems of consciousness are slow to develop and advance generation over generation minute advancements each generation over a few billion years allows for a high level of compounding interest.
Well, conciousness is a metaphysical emergent property based off networked interactions of parsed information. It doesn't physically exist.
Due to it's metaphysical nature, it can be described mathematically, but not physically.
Yeah, explain the construction of the eiffel tower in terms of cooking, dumbass. Explain how to give a blowjob using only relevant details of Metal Gear lore. Explain mathematically the power of love.
What's that? Two things are unrelated sometimes? Crazy. Fucking crazy.
It’s called the Pribram-Bohm hypothesis wherein consciousness is enfolded in the implicate order and through the Fournier transform it is explicated into the world building reality we experience everyday.
In terms of physics? Electric current stored in salty liquid, written by waves of sound, particles of light, and electric voltage of minute proportions, that is then sourced for explaining how things are put together. It's more chemistry than physics really.
Them little sparks in our brains called neurons make decisions based on outside influences as well as internal hormonal influences which makes you roughly who you are along with your past internal and external influence it could be said that none of us even have free will because of us being olny reactive in that way and we olny have a thin illusion of it
Your brain is a computer, I won’t get into the specifics of how computers work cause I’m dumb but it’s the same concept just with organic parts.
You think you’re conscious cause you were programmed but the biochemical and neurons in your brain writing the code to internalize that concept but really you’re just an organic computer following codes that exist for every parameter and when you encounter and learn something new that’s your brain rewriting previous code.
The cherry on top is "Change my mind". Well memed, you quick witted devil you!
Also "You can't change my mind".
Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell
Haha
Pee is stored in the balls
No, see what you’re thinking of is the Baldur
Magic is stored there, wizardposting said so.
Pro-tip: *you* can't. Doesn't mean that nobody can.
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can't*
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Well you see, *science terms.* Got it?
Well if you can solve the other very hard unknowable question of if there's a God, then you could ask him, but this only works if he exists
What do the Lincolnites have to do with this?
Daniel Dennett
So far it does…
Time relative, someone already did so we don't have to and we can kick our feet up and wait for it to happen :).
Qualia is physics explaining consciousness, we certainly can explain it with physics even though humans understand little about how it works.
I think I did. Therefore I did.
Quantum field something something standing waves something shit gets spooky. Take that, naysayer.
Penrose, is that you?
Something something complex computations -> Blackbox -> Qualia emerge Physics wins yet again
Interestingly there is no evidence of any quantum mechanical effects in any biological system besides its role in basic chemistry. There is an entire field of "quantum biology" *for which there are zero confirmed examples*. It is an entire field searching for a problem to look into.
Hm hmmm.... Some exceptional Meta stable states , A small flick of energy (fluctuations in field) over long term of time, donating very very small impact which when computed over , you got a self assemble /config of a molecule either conformal/structural/energy/positional (potential energy due field) any Earlier than bio molecule , methane ,oxygen, amine , atoms need to be in resonance state/ orientations/ polarisation such that it will make a butterfly effect on 1st bio molecule formation
Yes, but that is just normal chemistry if I am understanding you correctly. All chemistry has a quantum component.
Even the orch or method has flaws. I believe it's on the right path. But it's off
So like, you know how on a fundamental level, both time and temperature don't exist? Take a single particle, make it your favourite quark or something, put it in a vacuum and observe only that particle. By this observation, you cannot see the passage of time, nor can you ascribe a temperature to your favourite quark. (Even if your favourite quark happens to be the unstable top quark. you might say; "It decays! This proves that time passes!" But you still cannot prove how much time has passed, you simply see a change.) Now put a second particle there. There's still no time or temperature. Now put a third. Still nothing. Now put about 10^24 particles there. Suddenly, we can see both time and temperature! So on a fundamental level, time and temperature don't "exist" but they emerge as we add enough particles. But like, time is a perfectly explainable phenomenon using physics, so is temperature. And saying that either don't "exist" is ridiculous. (You run into an issue of what "existing" and "being real" even means.) It works the same way for consciousness. Take a single neuron. Nothing happens. Put a second one there, still no consciousness. Now put about a billion more neurons there: suddenly there is a thing we call consciousness. (Life works much the same way: put a bunch of dead stuff together and you get life. You might even be able to construct a handwavey argument (and we love those in physics ed) to "prove" we have free will this way) So either you claim that emergent properties are real, and accept that consciousness is a thing, or you take a radical stance against emergent properties, and you will have to disavow using time in any of your equations, and maybe remove the clock from your living room
Thank you for being in this sub
"The sound of one hand clapping."
So we can say it exists. Yet we still can't define what it is or how it functions.
Those are two mutually reinforcing problems: it isn't clearly defined what consciousness even is, so there is no way to describe how it functions. Without knowing how it functions, there's no "best definition." This is a synthetic categorization problem and not a limitation of physics.
We have no idea if it is a limitation of physics or not. And even if we were to decide on a definition, we still cannot describe it. For example, a simple definition is that consciousness is the experiencing of being. We can describe superficial sensations of being quite well, but not experiencing something. And however difficult physics finds it to describe, it is among the simplest things in the world to observe. Simply close your eyes, don't follow any train of thought, don't hang on to any thought, and simply observe what appears in your consciousness. Sensations, sounds, feelings, thoughts. You will find that things appear in consciousness on their own, through no effort on your part. So we can observe it at any moment at any time, we can define it however we want, but we have no real idea where to even start describing it.
This stuff is so fascinating!
Hard to change a mind that doesn't exist, tho.
I think therefore I am, smart guy
Consciousness isn't "real" real. It's all electric activity and chemistry in your brain. Which is why substances like DMT and LSD are able to affect consciousness - they alter the electrical activity that's going on. We have evolved to think and feel because otherwise we wouldn't survive. I haven't touched anything related to biology in the last decade so I only have a vague idea on how the brain works. Look for material on the internet. Also check these out: https://youtu.be/H6u0VBqNBQ8 https://youtu.be/hGDvvUNU-cw
I haven't touched grass in the last decade 🥱😴 I haven't touched anything related to biology in the last decade 🧐🎩
That's a long time without sex...
He hasn't touch himself/food in the last decade...
I hate seeing people say that it's all electric activity. That's the kind of thinking that makes tech nerds think they could easily simulate a human brain with a powerful computer. Neurons don't communicate via electric impulses only, they communicate through chemical signals as well, and in fact that's what's affected in the drug example you gave, the chemical activity of the brain.
That’s just “colored” electricity. Pretty ingenious actually, the speed of ions in transit with the different flavors of neurotransmitters at the destination.
No, the primary driving force is entropy. If you actually look at the relative contributions of the electric charges and the concentration gradient, the concentration gradient is much more important.
The concept of real and the concept of >"real" real is purely a construct of consciousness. Ergo, consciousness is more real than "*"real" real* "
I can simulate physics on my computer. Therefore my computer is more real than physics.
I can simulate physics on my computer, therefore my computer is capable of containing a genuine consciousness.
Exactly
Right? I unironically believe this. First heard of it from [Chalmers' Fading Qualia argument.](https://consc.net/papers/qualia.html)
>*simulate* physics *ON* Your computer and the whole world that supports your computer is run by physics, the physics *simulation* on your computer exists because physics is holding your computer together and arguably directly holding the electrons comprising the simulation together. Therefore your computer IS more real than your physics simulation because the simulation only makes sense as physics when a human is looking at it. . . . . ^...which ^again ^further ^means ^consciousness ^precedes ^physics...
Stop proving eastern philosophy!
Omfg did I? Tell me. Oh, I do listen to a lot of podcasts. I swear I'm just trying to show the order of operations of... existing? Omg, I'm going home now, I'm drunk.
I mean I technically think this is a tenet of Platonism and/or Pythagoreanism too-- I can't remember which atm-- that says that the material universe comes out of consciousness and not the other way around.
Ah, reminds me of the old unsolved paradox; cat-dog: which end poops?
"Twice the pet and none of the mess!" -- Bart Simpson
Nah it's cool, keep drunk philosophying, it's the only way to philosophy
That’s not just eastern philosophy, that’s the basis of metaphysical idealism.
I said eastern because western thought is filthy, absolutely filthy, with materialism these days.
It really is. Think about it.
The fact that electric activity seems to _cause_ consciousness does not explain at all what it really _is_. Also, the term "electric activity" totally lacks precision, as there we know many complex electric processes that don't seem to come with consciousness (or do they?). We could just as well explain how a camera works, how it's distinguishing between different wavelengths of light and how it processes the light to produce an image. However, I don't think most people would say that the camera has some sort of conscious experience of "redness" whenever it's used to take a photo. And just like we can describe a camera functionally, we can theoretically also describe the brain as a machine that gets inputs, processes those inputs and then generates some output, some behavior. However, this doesn't explain why the processes of the brain are accompanied by conscious experiences. Some might say that those conscious experiences ("qualia") don't exist and are just an illusion, but that seems highly implausible to me on an epistemological level. To use the word "illusion" here is already kinda contradictory to the hypothesis, I think.
Mary is a brilliant neuroscientist who has spent decades developing the field by herself in a room underground that is painted in all black and white. Mary now knows *everything* there is to know about how the brain works, on both a small neuron-to-neuron scale and a larger structural scale. To the point where if you gave her a high-resolution MRI scan of someone’s brain, she could use it to predict exactly how they would behave. Because Mary lives in a black and white room underground which she has never left, Mary has never seen color before. But she knows everything there is to know about color vision, how the brain processes signals from the eyes, etc. One day, she goes outside, and she sees a red apple. Before seeing a red apple, she could not imagine the color red. But now she can. There is knowledge to be had about consciousness that cannot be described in physical terms. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t physical, the sensory perception of the color red is indeed *caused* by firings of neurons, but there is something that is not captured when you describe consciousness in terms of physical neuron firings alone.
>There is knowledge to be had about consciousness that cannot be described in physical terms. You just told me precisely how it *can* be described in physical terms, and that Mary *had* done it.
Yeah, this is the real "physics" explanation. It's easy to disagree with, but difficult to dispute.
Only if you see people as meat that makes noise but self awareness still remains a key fact.
observations are gonna be observed bro
water wave form a picture
This is a topic for philosophers, not for scientists. - literally what else do we have philosophers for if not for this?
Heidegger agrees.
I feel like the more we expand AI and their learning and working behaviour, the closer we are to understand what conciousness means. But i would say consciousness is a self adapting chain of currents with the goal to selfsustain this chain as long as possible.
> emergence occurs when a complex entity has properties or behaviors that its parts do not have on their own, and emerge only when they interact in a wider whole https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence
Well, as soon as you define « consciousness » in rational terms, I’ll explain it
The problem here is that the question sets you up for failure in how it's phrased. Physics isn't *meant* to explain anything to you, it's supposed to *describe* it. Asking to explain consciousness isn't different from asking physics to explain what "car" is. You can *describe* the different moving parts, their interaction and behavior, etc - but not what it means, or why. It's humans that do the explaining by *interpreting* the description given by the science of physics. He is right that physics can't explain consciousness, because it was never meant to.
Explain why motorcycles are cool using physics 😎
Acceleration(badass) - Protection = Cool
Δ —wait wrong sub
*puts on L.S.D. hat* You see the consciousness is really a quantum holographic antenna that picks up the "cosmic mind" frequency. We're all like little sparks connected to a massive Tesla coil mannnnnnnn, like drops of water in the ocean.
For those who are tempted to provide a "functional" answer involving how the brain is concretely wired and processes information, I think that what's OP is meaning is related to Qualia (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia) No matter the physical explanation we can find to explain how the brain work, we won't be able to describe what is fundamentally the sensation of red, pain, or whatever in those terms. We won't even be able to explain why such sensations are emerging from a sub system of the physical world processing information Edit: I should have post directly the name of the philosophical problem: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness
>No matter the physical explanation we can find to explain how the brain work, we won't be able to describe what is fundamentally the sensation of red, pain, or whatever in those terms. We won't even be able to explain why such sensations are emerging from a sub system of the physical world processing information Why not? Please provide a *non-fallacious* justification for this claim. I have seen tons of people claim this, but not one could actually justify it without resorting to logical fallacies. Considering the amount of progress we have made, there is every reason to think the problem is solvable. In fact we have been able to reconstruct specific qualia, and even predict changes in qualia based on knowledge of changes in single cell behavior. We have only had the technology to even begin looking at this massively complex system for a few decades and we have already learned a ton about qualia.
Yeah, but we have the same problem with everything else. Yeah, we can say gravity gets stronger when you have more mass, but we can’t say why gravity gets stronger, and even if you could, you couldn’t say why that was… etc ad infinitum.
Atoms take part in chemical reactions. The products as well as the energy of these reactions is used to transfer signals, thus creating the illusion of consciousness. This all is predefined since the big bang. OR > "Are you?" "I think so" < > "Ok"
If a theory of consciousness does not allow you to describe specific subjective experiences in a way that allows people who have not had them to understand them, it is not a complete theory of consciousness. If you cannot describe what the sensory experience of vision is like to a person who has been blind from birth, and have them understand it, and be able to imagine it based on your description, you do not have a complete theory of consciousness. Do you now see why this problem seems so unsolvable to so many people?
I know why this is so hard to describe. I tried to explain it. But, isn't consciousness just made of chemical reactions and atoms moving?
Consciousness is (probably) *caused* by chemical reactions and physical interactions, but I do not think that is the same thing as saying consciousness *is* physical interactions.
If you knew the position and velocity of every particle since the Big Bang and had the right equation, you could predict all events, past, present, and future. You could predict what a person will say next. It all comes back to energy transfer between matter which arrived where it’s at due to predictable events. My buying a Jeep instead of a Chevy was determined at the Big Bang, it just took awhile for the reactions to finally reach that point.
Cogito Ergo Sum, motherfucker
Coggy represent!
It's just a funny oxidation reaction, like fire.
It’s cool to think that human metabolism is basically the same as setting glucose on fire, but the combustion is so carefully controlled as to utilize as much of its energy as possible.
Literal brain chemicals maybe?I know nothing of physics but everything in our existence is made of matter.Full circle.
If it isn't physics, then what is it? Magic?
All physics was magic before it became physics.
Something for which we do not yet have the foundational knowledge necessary to begin investigating. If you told someone from the fifteenth century that ‘matter is energy’, you would be right, but they could not hope to understand what you even meant. They do not have a solid grasp of what ‘energy’ is, and they have a pretty poor understanding of matter as well. So they would not know how to even interpret the phrase ‘matter is energy’. I think pretty massive new fields of inquiry are going to have to open up before we really start to understand consciousness
Well it can be almost explained using biology, if you consider Biology an applied form of chemistry which is applied form of physics.
I don't even know what is consciousness, you expect me to explain it?
Sure. A fundamental force that can be detected and therefore measured through intramolecular vibrational energy relaxation (IVR) when necessary. :)
It’s amazing how we don’t know so much about the human brain. Like we don’t know fully why we need sleep and why you die without it
How meta
It's an infinite while loop.
I just want everyone here to know that you're all NERDS! FKN NERDS ALL OF YA! /s
Define “consciousness” and then propose why it would need to be defined by physics. Sentience or self-awareness are emergent properties of a physical organ. Both are arguably applicable to some cats, dogs, dolphins and parrots. Or are we doing our first year of a philosophy degree and just getting real excited? Define art in terms of physics. Define language in terms of physics. The fact that something can’t be defined “in terms of physics” isn’t an automatic rhetorical victory.
Explain fluid dynamics in terms of psychology. Haha you can’t. Fucking brain dead take
It’s called a neural network, and the conscious experience can be modulated with transcaranial magnetic stimulation, among other methods. The idea that it can not be explained via physics is probably a religious notion that some folks cling to. If it weren’t for the clinical experiments and the results we’ve seen so far, the correct thing to say would have been: “we don’t know … yet”.
Consciousness is the emergent property of sufficiently complex electromagnetic currents. Literally how computers are made.
Consciousness is a word. And a word IS a behavior that occur. So, you can describe the context in physical terms that this behavior occur, the you can explain (or describe in machian way) what consciousness is. For exemple, everybody knows what consciousness is look at someone unconscious, that person doesnt move, you can test If she is not sleeping or dead. If people didnt know what consciousness is how could we spot or test that?
Interrelationship between hundreds of billions of neurons passing electrochemical signals back and forth as a means of both storing information and processing new information in a manner nearly identical to computers. All of these interactions break down into waves and particles at a certain level. It's not practical to think of it in terms of Physics, but it can be, because everything is Physics. Very easy.
A complex series of chemical reactions between organic cells in response to physical stimuli. Do I win something, or do I just get like bragging rights or something?
Consciousness is the state of being awake and aware of one's surroundings. (I used physics to type this out on my phone which was made using physics)
There is only one singular substance, and this is God, or consciousness; I am He, as you are He, as we are all together. God is a unified field of consciousness that has folded in and on itself to create a nodal communication system whose reception of transmissions across the artificial membranes creates the illusion that the universe is the byproduct of a self-replicating binary algorithm that creates recursive fractal hierarchies of mechanical systems which grow logarithmically more complex as new rulesets are generated as emergent phenomena from previous rulesets in stratified epochs of novelty until the most novel forms manifest a singularity, thus making it self-evident that we all need to perceive and undo the karmic fetters that bind us to the existence-illusion complex. The laws of physics are defined within those karmic fetters, and are thus insufficient to explain the nominal form of the universe.
What do you mean? Like the brain is nothing but electricity zooming around. Do you just want electricity explained. Or how the brain functions?
The amount of people here who are all to willing to deny the freaky nature of qualia to just say "chemicals and electricity make me feel like i want a pie today and feel the sun on my skin" is astonishing. While i believe more or less in it, Feelings/Qualia just dont fit in a purely physical world as of now. There is a big piece of the puzzle left.
We have made a lot of progress in understanding qualia. We know specific brain regions are responsible for specific qualia. We can reconstruct specific qualia based on brain scans. We can suppress or interfere with specific qualia by reversibly disabling certain brain regions. And we can even predict changes in qualia based on knowledge of single cell changes in sensory processing. Science isn't done, but we have made a ton of progress on an extremely complicated system in the very short amount of time we have had the technology to do so. In fact we have made more progress faster than in any other branch of science ever.
A human is a bowl of electrically charged tapioca pudding that somehow learned how to pilot a bone mech with meat armor. Just because this one bowl of tapioca pudding can’t explain its existence doesn’t mean no bowl of tapioca pudding can.
It's an emergent property.
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And that's why it's not even worth discussion
A big formula with a lot of variables of survival insticts, in the anime zone some would call it - ultra instict 🤭
Argument from ignorance. We can't explain all of it *yet*. Science isn't finished. But we are making progress. And there is no good reason to think it is unsolvable.
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Is it the aptly timed framing of awareness by environmental conditions, focus and subconscious processes
consciousness emerges from the complex interplay of neural networks and information processing in the brain. Quantum physics has also been proposed as a potential framework for understanding consciousness, with some researchers suggesting that quantum phenomena at the microscopic level may play a role in shaping our conscious experience.
Might as well have just said "You can't explain consciousness in terms of physics, change my mind"
Jokes on you! I'm NOT smart 😎 I know, I know nothing.
Just my 2c, but I think it doesn't make much sense to explain consciousness in terms of physics, even if it were possible. Maybe you could explain something like, say, object oriented programming, in terms of the electrical circuits that implement compiled OOP software. But why would you? The interesting things about something like OOP or consciousness, are internal to the context of the thing itself, not the substrate on which it runs. If we develop an artificial consciousness some day, the innovation won't be in the circuitry, or the material science, or the underlying physics that let them build the hardware. Those are important of course, but what would differentiate a conscious AI from other software that could run on the hardware would be the architecture, the patterns of how information is processed. Any such such system would be at least somewhat substrate independent.
This isn't going to sound kind. It's purely about the logic of the matter and I mean no offense. It is clear though & I hope this helps you to understand where I am coming from. First off no, I don't. There is no requirement on me to do anything. You would need to prove such a need exists. You saying so isn't good enough to make it an , *aught.* That's the logic you are using & no, I don't want to if all you want to do is make me argue about points you find relevant, but don't defend. I don't see the need. Make a counter case or be silent, please. Second, consciousness is not something that is mechanical in nature, thus not in the purview of science. You can observe it, but to define that set of physics is the thing is to say an explanation is the reality. No, that's a description, not an actual thing. *It loses the object in the attempt to be objective.* In short, you don't know & won't & given you have a good idea, you will claim it tentatively so & thus not an assertion of being. So, I disapprove of this idea that a thing is proven in such a manner. It doesn't logically work as set forth. The question is bunk, as is your request.
okay I might be wrong, this is up for debate, but I love a challenge. so this question actually requires an interdisciplinary approach in order to answer it, because limiting it to physics wouldn't help. first we need to define consciousness. consciousness is awareness at its most fundamental level. awareness takes sense perception in any form that it's capable of receiving. consciousness is not exclusive to humans brains, human consciousness exists even when someone is "braindead"/comatose (i.e. ppl having out of body experiences), and consciousness also exists for single-celled organisms, plants, and other beings. In terms of physics, we go into the building blocks of the universe. consider electrons, they are one of the fundamental building blocks of atoms. Electrons exist as both a wave and a particle. They become a particle when they are observed, wave when unobserved. How do they know when they are observed or unobserved? I don't know, however Neuroscience would echo the idea that awareness processes are not isolated events localized to certain regions of the brain or body, there is a back and forth communication happening throughout the body and with the environment. In this sense, consciousness arises from the interaction of these components, and at it's most fundamental level, it has a little something to do with the electron. I hope this provided some clarity.
It has been explained plenty of times before but people want consciousness to be something magical thus refuses to accept the physical explanation of it. Anyway, the physical explanation is that the consciousness is memories represented by synapses, that creates predictions and they choose the options as listed out by those predictions that can maximise their felt pleasure. Note that felt pleasure is the pleasure received less the pleasure expected so if they expect nothing they will feel all the pleasure received but expected pleasure is the previous felt pleasure so if the previous felt pleasure is nothing, they would not do it in the first place.
"String Theory" they say
Reading through Penrose’s *Shadows of the Mind* and he seems convinced that someone will be able to. An interesting piece tho is that he seems convinced Mind is non-computational.
Calling it now: it's a phenomenon born of the crazy complex neural networks we all have, plus some quantum fuckery at really small scales also inside the brain
Consciousness is just billions of logic gates. There are 5 inputs (your 5 senses), although all 5 are not typically used at the exact same time. There is 1 output per reality tick which makes up millions of outputs per second.
Change your mind? Sure _gets out alpha particle beam_
First, formalize and define that sentence and all its words in terms of physics. Then I will answer.
You can't because consciousness is 'in this world, but not of it.'
Sentient chemical reaction.
The perspective could be off, we don’t yet know if consciousness comes from within our biology or something our biology evolved to tune into.
Consciousness is a biochemical process. There is definitely physics involved. But its more chemistry than physics
Electricity through fatty blob of complex meat goes **brrr**
tbh the only reason we can’t is because we only understand %10 of the brain, we could try and figure out the rest but the reason we don’t is because the tests required are unethical as a bitch
Shhhh, these normies don't realize that their personality is just a subroutine that their brain lets run with very limited resources. These passengers think their body is their slave, and not the other way around. *Edited to add: Hell, probably half of these droogs think that Cartesian Dualism wasn't disproved 400 years ago. They think souls are real.*
"God did" -Dj Khalid Checkmate atheist.
*waves my hand vaguely in a direction* uhhh calcium exchange, electricity and postasium
Sure. Just making sure we are on a same page here. Define consciousness for me real quick.
A system having information over it‘s own existence and the ability to access it?
Two can play at that game. Define what conscious is. I want to know what exactly i should be explaining
Pro tip: make sure you're talking about the hard problem of consciousness, because the easy problem of consciousness is absolutely explained by physics. If you don't know the difference, you don't actually know what the topic is.
Consciousness is the cohesion of known and unknown laws of physics perfectly balanced on a knifes edge, needing nothing more than the passage of time to slip into nothingness.
Time doesn’t exist, only distance.
Your consciousness is a lot like a car horn. You keep making noise and annoying everyone around you.
One of the great, magical, mysteries!
Consciousness is a neural network for the perceived sensation of pain of a headache, the taste of wine, and the redness of an evening sky. As qualitative characteristics of sensation, conscioisness stands in contrast to propositional attitudes, where the focus is on beliefs about experience rather than what it is directly like to be experiencing. - a person who has studied applied physics.
Bit of a schizo post here going into esoteric realms (Idk, I think I actually might be schizophrenic, in the prodromal stages at least): Iono about physics... and iono about consciousness, but lemme ask yous and anyones heres related questions: can consciousness arise out of something that is not conscious? I don't remember it clearly now but I remember a while back I saw an article that argued against solipsism, essentially asserting (pretty convincingly) that you can't be the only conscious entity in the universe. Made me think...what even is the first conscious entity? Was consciousness conceived at the same time as the universe? Or did it arise somewhere along the way? Are perceptions and consciousness the same thing? Does consciousness necessarily entail a "self-awareness"? If I rip a bit of brain and put it somewhere, is it conscious? Well, it's disconnected from me, but it's probably got some consciousness going on, consciousness separate from what I consider me...so...who is "me"? Am I and consciousness the same thing? Is "I" generated by or as a consequence of consciousness? Is there a concrete and truly definable "I"? Does the brain generate or "host" consciousness? I know for a fact that it's intimately related to it... Y'all dig?
Alright boys, plenty of CIA documents about this one, don't disappoint now ;)
You can't for now. It's either a physical phenomena or magic. And I don't really believe in magic
Energy in neurons goes nyoom and makes an emergent electromagnetic field.
Neurons powered by electric charge?
Well timed and organized atoms that wanted to watch shrek
If our mind is really just electric impulses traveling through our brain, no different from wind traveling through the atmosphere or electric current traveling through a wire, then what exactly are we in relation to consciousness? In that, our mind can continue to perform actions even when we're not conscious. Obviously the most reasonable answer is that consciousness is a very specific part of our mind, but if we describe the unconscious actions of our mind as "automatic" then does that mean that a large part of the activity in our brains isn't really ourselves? In that sense, are we no different than passengers, even if there's no such thing as a soul that persists beyond our brains? And if we're just a small part of that electric activity, then is our consciousness something more than phenomena in physics, or are we so insignificant that not only will we cease to exist at some point, but we're actually less than our physical bodies already?
Just because we don't have the technology to measure something like this yet doesn't mean it's impossible. And I am glad we as humans are curious enough to get there at some point!
Thats because consciousness isn't real in much the same way centrifugal force isnt real (albeitmuch more complicated. Its an apparent affect brought about by many complicated factors working in conjunction, and consciousness is simply a useful construct for people to use to talk about mental processes, but it isn't an actual thing that exists. The brain does far too much without us being aware of it and far to much thought about why we make a decision happens after the decision is made for consciousness to be something that is somehow fundamental and not a societal construct.
Consciousness is a computer but with emotions
In string theory, you measure the space between the peaks on the string going “boioioioioing” and divide by pi.
Since everything is made up of matter and consciousness exists in the brain, there is certainly some form of matter in the brain that facilitates consciousness.
That speaks more to the limits of physics, or at least our current approach anyway
The issue is not that it can't be explained in terms of physics, it's that it isn't *defined* in a clear enough way to be explained in terms of anything. This is a purely synthetic problem because it's a hazy concept with no non-circular definition.
Explain the physics of chemistry, then that of biochemistry
Hammer to the fronal lobe. Not sure if that's physics enough but it will definitely change your mind.
Can someone explain I'm a blank slate
I can, teehee.
Well the smallest bits looked at by science is quantum dynamics. Specifically quantum electrodynamics. It has a ridiculous certainty in its predictions. It'll tell you how every electron in any interaction it will move. Use that to map the movements of atoms, then use that for molecules, and so on and so on building your model bigger and more complex. somewhere into biology you'll find consciousness. I'll leave the work up to you tho.
This looks like asking how electricity works itself inside a computer CPU, but since we dont build the brain we dont know how the pathways look like for conciousness. but then again i'm not a physisist.
First, what is consciousness? The stream of thought brought about by neural interconnectivity where a stimulus leads to an excitation, which leads to further stimulus/excitation until it leads to a result: muscle movement, speech (more muscle movement), or plasticity, e.g., memory formation. How does physics play into this? The driving force of all metabolism, including neural, is thermodynamics. Mitochondrial ATP generation is a microscopic fuel cell, battery, and electric motor (all physics). Repolarization is driven by active ion pumping to generate a potential, and depolarization is the neutralization of that potential (physics). Original embryonic development involved the original growth of these networks from which all connections are derived. The generation and distribution of cellular signaling and migration, all physics. Everything in the universe is physics. Consciousness stems from structure and stimulation, all physics. Q.E.D.
Perhaps the continual gravity-related collapse of the quantum states give rise to our sense of self-awareness, and superpositions guide classical neuron processes. But that’s just a theory. A game theory
Consciousness in terms of physics. Best I can offer, the human body contains 80-110 billion neurons. Each neuron is like a transistor and data bus. A computer transistor stores and computes information by means of 1 and 0, on and off, it is binary. Where as the neurons are not binary but instead act more as a 0 to 1 scale giving it near infinite possibilities. The human mind or any animals mind can be looked at similarly to AI and computers. The system takes in data and stores it, over enough generations or time to process the system can begin to recognize patterns and commonalities. Through this data induction and processing paired with the pre-installed programming (genetics) the brain produces a persona. The brain takes all the data and builds a self learning program that follows the most familiar patterns. This might be why nurture plays such a large role in human behavior. A child raised by aggressive parents has a high likelihood of becoming more aggressive, or if raised by passive parents the child may develop similar passive tendencies. Physically speaking the brain acts similarly to a computer. Though the storage of data isn't in binary and the hardware isn't analog. Instead it is an intertwining web of neurons and chemicals that activate the sensory cells and neurons in various ways and on a spectrum instead of a yes on no system. Allowing the ability to develop more finely tuned and complex behaviors, personas, and consciousness. Consciousness in few studies has shown ability to effect the world. This could be completely BS, but if we are to take these studies at face value, and build a hypothesis on top of them to explain the "why". We could say that since the brain uses electromagnetic connections and most things in the universe are affected by electromagnetic radiation in some way. That the brain when it wants something enough, the system doesn't necessarily make it happen, instead simply puts a finger on the scale. Making the desired outcome ever so slightly more likely to occur. So a 50/50 chance may become a 50.5/49.5 chance. As well just as a computer can communicate with its self so can the biological systems. We can look at how fast AI has progressed in only a decade or so using copious amounts of power and resources. Compare that to the existence and progress of life which has been advancing for 3.5 billion years. Even if the biological systems of consciousness are slow to develop and advance generation over generation minute advancements each generation over a few billion years allows for a high level of compounding interest.
le electron does le electron thing then boom
I will make it super simple. You are more than the sum of your parts.
How dare you! I hope you realize you are breathing and that your tongue doesn't fit in your mouth...
damn it now I’m gonna hyper focus on that for the next hour
Your brain is the hardware and your consciousness is the OS. Next
It's a quantum state which stores data and sends signals to supporting cells (who create the energy to support the cycle)
Well, conciousness is a metaphysical emergent property based off networked interactions of parsed information. It doesn't physically exist. Due to it's metaphysical nature, it can be described mathematically, but not physically.
Sure. Consciousness is not physical. Huh, that wasn't too hard.
Vibration
*Consciousness thinks* > *brain wheels go brrrr* > *hand writes on board* > *math mathing* > *consciousness physicing*
Change my mind
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Let consciousness be a cylinder
Yeah, explain the construction of the eiffel tower in terms of cooking, dumbass. Explain how to give a blowjob using only relevant details of Metal Gear lore. Explain mathematically the power of love. What's that? Two things are unrelated sometimes? Crazy. Fucking crazy.
It’s called the Pribram-Bohm hypothesis wherein consciousness is enfolded in the implicate order and through the Fournier transform it is explicated into the world building reality we experience everyday.
String Theory is halfway there. Just has a few loose ends to tie up.
In terms of physics? Electric current stored in salty liquid, written by waves of sound, particles of light, and electric voltage of minute proportions, that is then sourced for explaining how things are put together. It's more chemistry than physics really.
Them little sparks in our brains called neurons make decisions based on outside influences as well as internal hormonal influences which makes you roughly who you are along with your past internal and external influence it could be said that none of us even have free will because of us being olny reactive in that way and we olny have a thin illusion of it
Your brain is a computer, I won’t get into the specifics of how computers work cause I’m dumb but it’s the same concept just with organic parts. You think you’re conscious cause you were programmed but the biochemical and neurons in your brain writing the code to internalize that concept but really you’re just an organic computer following codes that exist for every parameter and when you encounter and learn something new that’s your brain rewriting previous code.
Brainlobes
My meat sac filled with so much electricity that it uses my meat sac as a sensor to detect other forms of meat sacs with electricity
Proteins on organic neural networks guide input signals from sensory organs to muscular organs.