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When we are observing a living and conscious creature, all of its behavior can be explained in terms of our laws of physics.
In other words, we don’t need consciousness as an extra ingredient to explain what is observed. Mind-body dualism is a ship that has sailed a long, long time ago.
Another way of saying that would be that we are not observing any anomalies in the laws of physics when we are observing the behavior of a living, conscious creature, versus the behavior of an inanimate object. Will is not separate from physical functions.
And even another way of saying the very same thing would be to say that consciousness is an epiphenomenon of some physical processes, a mere side-effect.
The “richness” that everything that is able to read and understand this, is experiencing first hand is not just the conscious “foam” of some random, chaotic fluctuations occurring inside this universe, somewhere. “We” are all experiencing the fluctuations that correspond to the complex operating system of the human brain. This particular program feels very much as having a center that’s in control. Mainly because of the fluctuations inside the Default Mode Network:
This sense of a “center that’s in control” is not a fundamental feature of consciousness itself.
If we’d mistake these particular fluctuations that are responsible for the added sense of “a center that’s in control” to be a fundamental aspect to consciousness itself, we are unknowingly anthropomorphizing consciousness.
Yeah, when we make a distinction between the natural (and I mean things that can or will at some time be explained by physics) and the supernatural (inexplainable divine or “spooky” things), we can see that many things that used to be considered “supernatural” have gradually become part of our conceptual understandings.
For many, this kind of takes away the “juice” of it all, as though it isn’t all ridiculously divine. As if reality is now suddenly contained within this boring explanation, or something. :D
Like the kid that is at awe of the ungraspable distance of the Moon, but then dad tells her, while picking his nose and watching his television: “Yeah, it’s about 400.000 km away” - poof -.
Or like Krishnamurti said: “The day you teach the child the name of the bird, the child will never see that bird again.”
But I’ve noticed we can see through these concepts and still recognize the divinity of it all, you know what I mean?
When you say the things that can’t be explained by our current knowledge of physics (although I have to say I don’t quite agree with many of the things you mentioned), it kind of makes divinity to only be hiding within those small gaps of our current knowledge (God of the gaps - Wikipedia). But really it’s all divine (well, to me anyways). Concepts can’t really make that go away, unless we pay way too much attention to them. As though our personal conceptual understanding equals actual reality. You see what I mean?
I mean, when we have this very complex robot in front of us, we don’t need a separate thing called “consciousness” to explain why it behaves the way it behaves. But I don’t think that takes away one iota of its divinity. And we can’t know what it’s like to be the robot. To directly experience its electrical interactions as the robot.
I personally don’t think of any life form any differently than that robot. It’s all divine to me. Yet not separate from physical reality. I don’t think divinity is hiding on this special place in the Universe called “Earth”, inside these very special places called “brains”. As though they’re these portals to some other dimension called “consciousness”.
But that’s just how I’ve come to make sense of it all. I love how Brain Cox said it at 2:09:
##################When we are observing a living and conscious creature, all of its behavior can be explained in terms of our laws of physics.” But the question was not about living and conscious creatures, it was about consciousness, itself.
What do you make of the fact that consciousness can be aware of physical matter, but physical matter cannot be aware of consciousness? Does this suggest that consciousness is of a higher order than physical matter?
Yes, it’s a fascinating subject, isn’t it?
The question was indeed about consciousness itself, but in order to rationalize whether or not consciousness could also be a possible feature outside living creatures, this has to be our starting point, wouldn’t you agree? I mean, it’s where we all generally agree that consciousness at least does exist.
>>What do you make of the fact that consciousness can be aware of physical matter
Consciousness is not actually a “separate something” that can be aware of physical matter at all, because consciousness is not dual like that (like the way Descartes imagined it many years ago: Mind–body dualism - Wikipedia). This is somewhat analogous to saying that when I start up my pc, that electricity is aware of the character in the computer game.
Simple, fundamental consciousness can arise from many, many simple interactions inside the brain. But taken together, these simple individual interactions might appear very complex. But, like the metaphorical simple electricity running through a complex computer, this is just because the machine happens to be complex.
You mentioned the concept of separating physical matter from consciousness, which can be tempting. But there’s more to physics than just massive particles (the “physical matter”). The “massless particles” (like for instance photons), that are responsible for all interactions, are also part of our physical reality as well. Without these very physical interactions there appears to be no arising consciousness.
The way that consciousness arises from our complex machine, it can appear as though consciousness itself is complex and it even appears to be this “separate entity” that has control over matter (like the way Descartes imagined). But this conflicts with for instance the phenomenon of Blindsight - Wikipedia, where these cortically blind people are not consciously aware of an object in front of them, yet somehow are able to find themselves avoiding them:
Or, for instance, the Libet experiment, where we can scan the brain of someone and thereby know what he decided well before he’s consciously aware of making this decision.
So, that subjective sense of deciding something freely is something that comes after the actual, physical decision making. Like a subjective after-image of our physical mental processing.
An absurd way to explain what consciousness is and that too using the mundane physics. Consciousness does not arise like said here, but in this manner in all 6 touch-sense agencies, eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind. Consciousness means to know separately, what, happy feelings, unhappy feelings and neutral feelings.
It arises say in eye meet object there arise eye consciousness. Consciousness is the illustration place for all name & form.
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