Consciousness

[pshun2404]

“I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.” – Max Planck, theoretical physicist who originated quantum theory

The Universe: Past and Present Reflections, Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 1982, Astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle

Superforce: The Search for a Grand Unified Theory of Nature, Simon and Schuster, 1984 N.Y. Astrophysicist Paul Davies

“Life and Mind in the Universe”, International Journal of Quantum Chemistry: Quantum Biology Symposium 11, 1984, Physiologist George Wald

The Symbiotic Universe, William Morrow & Co, 1989, astrophysicist George Greenstein

Information, physics, quantum: The search for links, 1990, Physicist John Archibald Wheeler

“The Mental Universe”, Nature, 436:29,2005, R.C. Henry, Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Johns Hopkins University

Biocentrism: Rethinking Time, Space, Consciousness, and the Illusion of Death, Dr. Robert Lanza, 2010

After years of working as a Physicist with NASA, Gregory Matloff has been quoted as saying it is as if there is a “proto-consciousness field” permeating all of space. They call this testable theory panpsychism. Penrose sees evidence for it in the quantum spaces between sub-atomic particles. Plank believed matter is a derivative of it.

Can Panpsychism Become an Observational Science? | Matloff | Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research

More and more scientists are questioning the role and reality of consciousness (mind) as being something more than just the effect of a brain. Some are saying it may be the essential “stuff” of our universe. Any thoughts?

What would it mean to materialists? What would it mean to theists? Could the truth be in the middle somewhere?

 

[com7fy8]

I think we have seen how, physically, light can hit different sorts of materials and have different effects and reaction of each sort of material. At night UV and infrared lights can have different effects in contact with different sorts of beings. Sunlight can bring out different colors and can burn a worm on the sidewalk, while helping a human's skin to produce vitamin D for health, if I remember correctly.

My personal take is that God is light which effects each sort of being, according to each being's nature. A love being becomes more and more sweet and sensitive and kind and satisfied, in God's light, and all-loving like God. But a Satanic being burns in the same light, its nature being exposed by its fear and frustration and being mainly conscious about its own self and ones it is trying to possess and control and use. And material things possibly do not really react but are only controlled.

While we have dreams . . . it seems . . . to me > a dream can be something which happens while God is lighting us up while we are asleep, and how we are and respond to things during the dream is according to how our nature is during that dream.

Consciousness, then, is a combination of God and how He effects each being.

 

[nonaeroterraqueous]

More and more scientists are questioning the role and reality of consciousness (mind) as being something more than just the effect of a brain. Some are saying it may be the essential “stuff” of our universe. Any thoughts?

It's a philosophical shift not isolated to science. When science was treated with a modernist mindset, it may have been reductionistic, denying anything beyond the scope of science; it was naive, but at least it treated science scientifically. Science is capable of studying objective reality, but it's blind to the absolute reality beyond that. The problem is that there are obvious things not within the realm of science, such as the human soul, which is not subject to repeated experiments, each individual being unique, plus a variety of other factors. The soul can be observed, because you have one. Consciousness is a form of experience of the soul, but science has long denied the existence of a soul, because science was dominated by modernists, and because science is incapable of studying the supernatural.

Lately, though, the world has shifted away from modernism, toward postmodernism, which is further retreat from the absolute reality beyond (God), inward toward the subjective reality within. Objective reality in this perspective takes a backseat to subjective experience, wherein the soul begins to take a position not easily ignored. So now science becomes unscientific, because it now attempts to study that which science cannot study, and it further disregards God and any real source of insight. In other words, we can expect to see "scientists" come to all kinds of false conclusions about a thing that they do not understand, which they cannot study, which they formerly claimed did not exist at all (though we always said was there).

 

[Noxot]

science does not exist as reality as it is because reality is more than the objective. more people should realize that being a scientist implies a reality that scientist often try to ignore or they count it as something unimportant. there is no way to get rid of "mind" in science. but they try. they can't escape from their own minds, no matter how hard they try. imo no one can.

that sounds pretty fundamental to me, because it colors their entire perception about what reality is. to deny mind is nothing more than an choice and opinion and a deduction and all whatever else a mind does to come to that conclusion. there might very well be plenty of reality that no one has discovered yet and which greatly changes the game, but they would have to decide that something is valid enough to change the game.

when people speak of science changing when the older members in it die it shows how unwilling they are to be scientist and how wiling they are to be ideologues. I get why. they don't wanna chase after every willy nilly "maybe this and that" and they have a career and fundings... but the best scientist are free to be scientist.

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

As I was out walking near the woods today I thought about how God is a different order of being and consciousness. God is infinite and we exist by sharing in his being, possibly sharing in God's consciousness (image and likeness?) but that does not make us God or divine. We are in no way independent nor in the same order as God.

Just a few thoughts on an autumn walk.

 

[Tone]

they would have to decide that something is valid enough to change the game.

Exactly...it's all convention.

 

[Tone]

Whoa! I just noticed that this thread is quite old...and no atheists have touched it...

 

[Shemjaza]

I'm curious as to why the potential demonstration of a measurable and definable energy field responsible for minds and or souls would be a problem for materialism?

I see a lot of interesting conjecture, but not a lot of actual demonstration.

 

[Bungle_Bear]

Whoa! I just noticed that this thread is quite old...and no atheists have touched it...

Thread necromancy is a very Christian feature. Non-christians tend to leave the dead in peace.

 

[Tone]

Thread necromancy is a very Christian feature. Non-christians tend to leave the dead in peace.

Ohhhhh, the Lazarus effect....huh...

 

[Ophiolite]

when people speak of science changing when the older members in it die it shows how unwilling they are to be scientist and how wiling they are to be ideologues.

This point is often argued, but is contradicted by the evidence. Plate tectonics was accepted by practically the entire Earth Science community within the space of a decade and a half. No one needed to die to accept the new paradigm. It was too effective, answering a host of questions in diverse fields.

Science is capable of studying objective reality, but it's blind to the absolute reality beyond that.

science is incapable of studying the supernatural.

No. Science adheres to methodological naturalism. It neither afirms or denies the existence of the supernatural, or existence beyond objective reality. Rather it declares that its tools and methods are appropriate for investigating the natural world.
You don't consult a dictionary for guidance on depressurisation schedules for a scuba dive. You don't consult the New Testament for a recipe for chocolate chip cookies. You don't use science to investigate the supernatural.

More and more scientists are questioning the role and reality of consciousness (mind) as being something more than just the effect of a brain. Some are saying it may be the essential “stuff” of our universe. Any thoughts?

More and more? Perhaps. I should like to see some data. Most scientists don't ask those questions since they are irrelevant to their field of study. Such questions are more suited to the established scientist, at the end of his career, who wants to return to the youthful joys of speculation. More power to them. But don't expect anything substantive to emerge, nor rule out the possibility that it might.

I'm curious as to why the potential demonstration of a measurable and definable energy field responsible for minds and or souls would be a problem for materialism?

Indeed. Science has progressively seen more and more of the universe. From X-Rays to Dark Matter, for example. Anything measureable and definable would fit comfortably within the ambit of materialism.

 

[nonaeroterraqueous]

Most scientists don't ask those questions since they are irrelevant to their field of study.

Every scientist I know has asked it. It isn't answerable by science, but scientists are people, too, with all of their superstitions, mythology, lore and dogma. We're not robots (sounds like a debate on Calvinism).

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Science adheres to methodological naturalism. It neither afirms or denies the existence of the supernatural, or existence beyond objective reality. Rather it declares that its tools and methods are appropriate for investigating the natural world.

Strictly speaking, it's methodological empiricism; the naturalistic assumption isn't necessary. If we can observe it, it's fair game (something claimed to be supernatural would become 'naturalised' once empirically observed & explained).

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

More and more scientists are questioning the role and reality of consciousness (mind) as being something more than just the effect of a brain. Some are saying it may be the essential “stuff” of our universe. Any thoughts?

The evidence strongly suggests that consciousness is an activity of the brain, a process. It's too easy to avoid defining or at least delineating what is meant by consciousness, and so equivocate it (e.g. awareness as simple response to stimuli vs awareness as perceptual processing). The overuse of agency-based description (Dennett's 'Intentional Stance') of the behaviour of all and sundry doesn't help ("the lawnmower refuses to start", "the sponge is thirsty", etc).

Panpsychism avoids the issue by simply making it fundamental, but it doesn't explain the data, and has a raft of problems, e.g. what does it mean for an electron to be 'conscious'? why do we detect the behavioural correlations of consciousness only in sophisticated creatures (with brains)? why do we see a progression of consciousness from apparently zero to human-level in brains of increasing complexity & sophistication? How do all the little consciousnesses of, say, particles, combine to make human consciousness? is a table conscious - if so, conscious of what? etc. I think it only raises questions and explains nothing.

The problem is partly the misleading reification of 'mind', it's no more a 'thing' than locomotion is a 'thing'; I suggest that consciousness without the brain is like running without the legs

 

[Ophiolite]

Every scientist I know has asked it. It isn't answerable by science, but scientists are people, too, with all of their superstitions, mythology, lore and dogma. We're not robots (sounds like a debate on Calvinism).

Then you are having them ask those questions as laypersons, not as scientists. What relevance is consciouness and its origin to the scientific work of someone studying deltaic sedimentation, or the formation of CAIs in accretion discs, or nitrogen fixation in legume root nodules, or Hadley cells in atmospheres, etc.?
Most scientists simply do not ask those questions in their research or in their publications and it is the implication of @pshun2404 that it is what he is referring to.

 

[Noxot]

This point is often argued, but is contradicted by the evidence. Plate tectonics was accepted by practically the entire Earth Science community within the space of a decade and a half. No one needed to die to accept the new paradigm. It was too effective, answering a host of questions in diverse fields

science is a vocation that utilizes a great deal of discipline. I more had in mind Fringe thinking. If it seems too far out there, away from the traditions, then it will take longer to be corrected or improved. Old people have a lot of crystallized intelligence. Young Folks are still largely collecting a bunch of their crystallized intelligence. Though admittedly many scientist are very open people. and of course it's a bit foolish to go way out in the fringe since they typically need money in order to do science.

but I certainly agree. when something becomes well-established and known it's going to be accepted. If it makes a lot of sense and can help explain other things and if it fits in with the current Paradigm then of course it will be accepted.

But how many scientists believe that UFOs are some kind of actual phenomenon? UFOs have been shown to ignore known laws of physics. But every bit of data will keep feeding our understanding. Something like religion is harder to change than is science because science is a lot less dependent on human subjectivity. Hence why some call psychology a pseudoscience. Things like trying to test if an animal thinks is apparently a bit difficult to do according to rigorous scientific methods.

 

[Noxot]

There was a recent Scishow YouTube video that was showing that they discovered how some forms of General Anesthesia work. It's a short video, only 3 minutes. They have a bunch of links to things that you can read about it concerning it. it is interesting of course because anesthesia and Consciousness are related.

 

[Ophiolite]

But how many scientists believe that UFOs are some kind of actual phenomenon?

I'm just picking on this question, since it may represent the major difference between out views. Most scientists are not equipped by their field of study, or their experience, to have an independently formed opinion on the matter. In this they are no different from a layperson.

Just like a relevantly educated layperson, a scientist may acquire an informed opinion by familiarising themselves with relevant studies made of UFO phenomena.

That said, your question is rather odd. I would be amazed if most (practically all) scientists did not fully recognise that there are UFO phenomena. It is self evident. The consensus, informed view is that UFOs are a mixture of misidentified aircraft, balloons, birds, lighting conditions, astronomical objects, satellites, etc., as well as hoaxes, practical jokes and frauds, with a very small residual quantity of unexplained items that may represent a hitherto unrecognised atmospheric phenomenon, or might just be(but almost certainly are not) alien spacecraft.

UFOs have been shown to ignore known laws of physics.

No they haven't. Assumptions by observers, coupled with poor observations have led to weak conclusions that "alien craft" have "broken the laws of physics". Over a decade or two I consumed articles and books and research (on an occassional basis) desperately hoping I would find some convincing evidence for what I would have liked to be true. Nothing. Let me redefine the UFO phenomeon. It is a classic example of wishful thinking.

IF you are, as seems may be the case, still at that stage of being partially convinced by the evidence let's not disrupt this thread further, but by all means open a new one to debate the subject.

 

[Hans Blaster]

Whoa! I just noticed that this thread is quite old...and no atheists have touched it...

Maybe because it starts with a stupid quote from Planck goes downhill from there to claims that science will only find more "untruths" in the future. It didn't really have any point to it.

 

[Hans Blaster]

But how many scientists believe that UFOs are some kind of actual phenomenon? UFOs have been shown to ignore known laws of physics.

UFOs don't violate the laws of physics in this country, it's just that the means used are classified. (A lot of the really hard UFO cases in the US from 20+ years ago have been tied to classified research programs. Area 51 is real. It's where they tested stealth.)