What Creates Consciousness?

[Apple Sky]

You can create a machine with an openness to the animation of a spirit or soul. But who creates the soul that must then be injected? How can corporeal beings create a noncorporeal entity? Some aspects of playing God are simply preposterous.

I agree, the soul is an important part of play when it comes to consciousness.

 

[stevevw]

Yes, the materialistic paradigm is not sufficient by itself and may handicap understanding here. A good book I read, by an atheist, was Nagel's 'Mind and Cosmos.' He recognized that sometimes you have to start with thought rather than material processes that underly them.

But regarding human consciousness, some Christians do see it as a contingent product of our biological processes. So they advocate soul sleep between death and resurrection. God would have to resurrect our bodies for our consciousness to resume.

Others point to out-of-body experiences in the bible like that of St Paul or the complaint of disembodied martyrs under the throne in Revelation as examples of transcendence in the human case also.

I am not sure what consciousness represents in the greater scheme of things and beyond this world. Perhaps its a glimpse at some realm we cannot comprehend. Just as we cannot comprehend consciousness even in its basic forms in any quantitive way. But its as though we can sense something else beyond the viel of this world that seems real and can go on beyond the material world.

If its our imagination and we have been tricked by evolution to believe so then its a pretty good con job. As its so deeply entangled into our psyche even to the point of actually behaving in ways that would threaten our survival. We believe in it just as much if not more so than we do our everyday objective reality. I don't think humans became that deluded and for what purpose. I don't think any reductionist explaination suffices.

 

[mindlight]

I am not sure what consciousness represents in the greater scheme of things and beyond this world. Perhaps its a glimpse at some realm we cannot comprehend. Just as we cannot comprehend consciousness even in its basic forms in any quantitive way. But its as though we can sense something else beyond the viel of this world that seems real and can go on beyond the material world.

If its our imagination and we have been tricked by evolution to believe so then its a pretty good con job. As its so deeply entangled into our psyche even to the point of actually behaving in ways that would threaten our survival. We believe in it just as much if not more so than we do our everyday objective reality. I don't think humans became that deluded and for what purpose. I don't think any reductionist explaination suffices.

My consciousness is what it is like to be me and yours is what it is like to be you. God has a higher level than both of us. For me to talk about your subjective consciousness of the universe I would have to enter into your situation, physical existence, culture, and timeframe but even then I would not have your history and given my own experience your subjectivity might still be alien to me. Only God could enter into a human life fully and integrate it with a full holistic perception of the universe, its history, and its meaning. The incarnation of Christ demonstrates God can have a full understanding of our consciousness and the subjectivity of human life while simultaneously having a comprehensive consciousness of Himself and His creation. This incarnation is convincing enough to have swayed a third of the planet to accept it and is secured by the presence of God's Spirit in our lives.

Consciousness is not the same as understanding the universe, so maybe scientists are not qualified to commentate on it except for certain aspects of how we observe, how we integrate, basic brain functions, etc. Scientists look at atomized details, facts and functions and attempt to build theories and models based on the limited subset of the whole dataset that they have mastered. But the integration of these into a coherent consciousness of everything requires a holistic soul and intelligence. Given our finitude, imperfection, and mortality consciousness can only claim objectivity when in relationship with a truly objective authority. The only truly objective authority is God Almighty Himself. Therefore no secular scientist can speak with any authority about consciousness.

Science has overextended itself with this discussion. The development of AI is as much an art as a science. In the end, our technologies will serve us or we will become slaves to what our hands have created and our spirits idolized. Evolutionary-style machine learning may simply tend toward untestable nonsense and chaos unless we keep a firm control of how we use AI.

 

[FireDragon76]

I think basically Panpsychism is different to Pantheism. Pantheism equates the universe with God. So it denies a single entity of God. Where perhaps consciousness comes from and can be experienced by humans and nature itself in some basic form.

Except nobody accused of being a pantheist actually believes that the material universe is identical to the essence of God, which is David Bentley Hart's point.

But Panpsychism as far as I understand is just that reality at the fundemental level is conscious. Its not really making any claim about God Himself.

It could be. Panpsychism is more readily compatible with other religious sentiments, such as nondualism or even animmism, over than an unsophisticated monotheism that believes in an anthropomorphic deity. The implication being God is identical to consciousness, as is the case of Neoplatonism or Vedanta. The Christian mystic, Meister Eckhart, even seems to have believed this.

As humans we have intuited this fundemental force in many ways throughout history with ideas like Plato's 'the form of the Good' the 'Life Force', Mind/Body dualism and the soul and other transcedent beliefs that have fixed themselves deeply in the human psyche.

There is deffinitely some spiritual aspect to life. Its just a matter of what exactly that is. But it cannot be reduced to the objective physical world. That I think is one of the reasons why these ideas have persisted and why in recent times even science is toying with ideas like Panpsychism because it seems to fit so well with what is happening.

I believe it has implications for Christianity, too. Liberal Protestants, going back to Schleiermacher, have tended to interpret Christianity through a Platonic or idealist metaphysics. And of course, Neoplatonism contributed a great deal to Christian theology in the past, especially in eastern Christian churches.

 

[BCP1928]

Yes, the materialistic paradigm is not sufficient by itself and may handicap understanding here. A good book I read, by an atheist, was Nagel's 'Mind and Cosmos.' He recognized that sometimes you have to start with thought rather than material processes that underly them.

But regarding human consciousness, some Christians do see it as a contingent product of our biological processes. So they advocate soul sleep between death and resurrection. God would have to resurrect our bodies for our consciousness to resume.

So why do you think Christians swear to a belief in the resurrection of the body, rather than the internal existence of an immaterial soul?

Others point to out-of-body experiences in the bible like that of St Paul or the complaint of disembodied martyrs under the throne in Revelation as examples of transcendence in the human case also.

 

[dlamberth]

Hindu pantheism and a faith choice.

It's more in line of Panentheism. It's a life experience.

 

[Hans Blaster]

Yes and fundementally their properties are wave like. Thats not exactly supporting a physical ontology.

This isn't an issue of particle/wave. (And the waves are perfectly physical, if the contrary was your implication.)

Apart from the mathmatical description about how light and matter interact what exactly does this mean in the context of the fundemental nature of reality. This only describes the behaviour.

Of electrons and photons. That's what your claim was about.

How do you know that the description of the interaction between light and electrons does not involve some basic form of consciousness. You can't ask an electron. No more than we could say that the desription of neuron collerates of consciousness explains the nature of consciousness or whether a human is conscious. We can only ask.

So what tests can be done to rule out that electrons may be influenced by some form of consciousness prevading the universe. The answer is we don't know and cannot tell. We cannot rule it out. The only reason some will say its nonsense is because they believe so.

We can (and have) measured the properties of electrons, photons, etc. QED is a *very* precise theory.

Even if there was a hidden "consciousness" property of electrons it would have to be such a weak and long range interaction that it *can't* possibly affect something so small as a human. It does not explain human consciousness even if it exists. It could only be some sort of untestable pan-galactic consiousness or something and that is an untestable and therefore unscientific concept.

 

[mindlight]

So why do you think Christians swear to a belief in the resurrection of the body, rather than the internal existence of an immaterial soul?

The belief in resurrection is the prerequisite belief. There is also some confusion about the nature of the soul and how to define it. Christians vary from those who see it as contingent on the bodies God creates and then recreates us with. There are Platonists/ Hindu/ Buddhist types who believe in an indestructible atman that preexists the physical and/ or migrates from life to life. There also those whose perceptions of the soul have been butchered by the anti-supernaturalism of various German liberal Protestant "theologians".

Personally I believe we are created both material and spiritual. We have a beginning,one life and both biological and transcendent features. That does not rule out soul sleep before the resurrection nor the capacity, during death, for conversation in an immaterial form e.g. Samuel to the witch of Endor and the martyrs to God in Revelation. Whether most but not all sleep or some are woken before the resurrection is not clear

 

[mindlight]

It's more in line of Panentheism. It's a life experience.

Some Divine attributes and much of the Divine experience is utterly distinct from the universe. Panentheism recognises transcendence without properly defining it. The otherness of God is inaccessible to AI however powerful it becomes

 

[mindlight]

This is the crux of the matter. If we go back to the beginning or percieved beginning whatever that may be under the scientific materialist paradigm we get to a point where something had to come from nothing physical. The idea of a quantum void of potential phyical stuff is still something. The laws that require such states are still something.

In fact they are the very basis for reality and would require not only that they produced such states but that those states requires laws to continue to evolve into what we have today. Those laws don't come tumbling out of nothing. They are highly Mindlike and geared towards an end. The idea that there was unlimited potentiality and we are one of many universes is just as unfounded. We are in the exact and only universe we are meant to be in which is finely tuned for conscious life.

It makes perfect sense that if we were to go right back that there would be no eternal physical state. That is unscientific itself and to say that its always been there is just the same as saying God has always been there. If there was anything that has always been there it has to be a non material reality and Mind seems to be the best fit considering that everything we propose as real is based on the Mind.

That is Wheelers Anthropic Participatory Principle that we as conscious beings are not seperate from reality but a part of it and what creates reality. Without this there is no reality. It makes sense that behind all this there is Mind and Consciousness and the ultimate mind is God who set all this in motion.

Sounds a little Deistic. A Personal relationship with God in the here and now is something an AI cannot have a conscious subjective experience of. AI lacks the transcendent characteristics that a Transcendent Being created us with, so lacks the connection points that enable prayer and worship. God is Spirit but our bodies were also created with an inbuilt connector to eternity. They are physical yet able to speak spiritually. An AI 'mind' is abstracted from a body, context, and spirituality ( soul?)

Maybe this discussion should be moved to philosophy or theology, it is clear secular scientists cannot really discuss the true nature of consciousness in anything like an authoritative way.

 

[FireDragon76]

The belief in resurrection is the prerequisite belief. There is also some confusion about the nature of the soul and how to define it. Christians vary from those who see it as contingent on the bodies God creates and then recreates us with. There are Platonists/ Hindu/ Buddhist types who believe in an indestructible atman that preexists the physical and/ or migrates from life to life. There also those whose perceptions of the soul have been butchered by the anti-supernaturalism of various German liberal Protestant "theologians".

Actually, German liberal Protestants generally did believe in the immortality of the soul, and would have found the concept of "soul sleep" to be metaphysically absurd.

 

[Niels]

The seeds of consciousness were present at the big bang, or the moment of creation if you prefer. Like an opening flower, our consciousness may be inherent in nature. It was not yet a flower when it was still a seed, but that seed has blossomed.

Electrons, quarks, gluons… these are not consciousness, but without them it is unlikely that we would be aware of our environment. For our bodies are made of the same stuff. The dust of the earth.

Consciousness is perhaps mathematical and encoded in natural law, that particles arrange in certain ways over time when the conditions are right. Much like when the seed is planted, watered, and given sufficient sunlight, it becomes a flower.

For specifics about how these components are composed and interact, I’ll defer to the expertise of particle physicists.

 

[mindlight]

Actually, German liberal Protestants generally did believe in the immortality of the soul, and would have found the concept of "soul sleep" to be metaphysically absurd.

I did not question that once created the soul persists. Soul sleep in the form I described does not include the ending of the existence of a soul even for a period. I described scriptural out-of-body experiences and the possibility of incorporeal communication and experience after death. A man asleep is still a man and a soul asleep is still a soul. The key point about German liberal protestants was their anti-supernaturalism.

 

[mindlight]

The seeds of consciousness were present at the big bang, or the moment of creation if you prefer. Like an opening flower, our consciousness may be inherent in nature. It was not yet a flower when it was still a seed, but that seed has blossomed.

Electrons, quarks, gluons… these are not consciousness, but without them it is unlikely that we would be aware of our environment. For our bodies are made of the same stuff. The dust of the earth.

Consciousness is perhaps mathematical and encoded in natural law, that particles arrange in certain ways over time when the conditions are right. Much like when the seed is planted, watered, and given sufficient sunlight, it becomes a flower.

For specifics about how these components are composed and interact, I’ll defer to the expertise of particle physicists.

There may be a material resonance between biological organisms and the physical universe. But to demonstrate this as emergent from the universe is impossible as abiogenesis has no facts to support it and cannot be demonstrated with the scientific method. Consciousness can only be a product of design and its ability to make sense of nature due to the fact the same Creator made both. Even if you disagree and cling to the implausible theory of abiogenesis the biological component of our human consciousness is only a part of the whole equation. Unless the biological is animated by the spiritual it is just an empty shell.

 

[Ophiolite]

But to demonstrate this as emergent from the universe is impossible as abiogenesis has no facts to support it and cannot be demonstrated with the scientific method.

While no fully formed hypothesis of abiogenesis has yet been formulated, necessary elements of any likely process have been scientifically demonstrated. I cite a single example: the abundance of organic compounds in interstellar and interplanetary space. Thus is your assertion demolished at a stroke.

 

[stevevw]

My consciousness is what it is like to be me and yours is what it is like to be you. God has a higher level than both of us. For me to talk about your subjective consciousness of the universe I would have to enter into your situation, physical existence, culture, and timeframe but even then I would not have your history and given my own experience your subjectivity might still be alien to me. Only God could enter into a human life fully and integrate it with a full holistic perception of the universe, its history, and its meaning. The incarnation of Christ demonstrates God can have a full understanding of our consciousness and the subjectivity of human life while simultaneously having a comprehensive consciousness of Himself and His creation. This incarnation is convincing enough to have swayed a third of the planet to accept it and is secured by the presence of God's Spirit in our lives.

Maybe this relates to where Paul is talking about that we only know in part but then we shall see face to face and will know fully even as I am fully known. That suggests that we may have a glimpse into Gods heavenly realm and our consciousness or spirit if you like is representative of this. But only a mere glimpse or inkling into a greater consciousness.

I think we can know that others have conscious experiences like our own through empathy. Even babies react to the pain cries of other babies. We can relate to others pain. We can know that others are experiencing something similar we standing before a great work of art or listening to music. We don't even have to communicate that but sense it and theres an unspoken agreement.

Consciousness is not the same as understanding the universe, so maybe scientists are not qualified to commentate on it except for certain aspects of how we observe, how we integrate, basic brain functions, etc. Scientists look at atomized details, facts and functions and attempt to build theories and models based on the limited subset of the whole dataset that they have mastered. But the integration of these into a coherent consciousness of everything requires a holistic soul and intelligence. Given our finitude, imperfection, and mortality consciousness can only claim objectivity when in relationship with a truly objective authority. The only truly objective authority is God Almighty Himself. Therefore no secular scientist can speak with any authority about consciousness.

Science once acknowledged the soul or life force as a seperate phenomena to the objective world. Galilao seperated science through math from experiences like smells and colors as he knew they were made up of different stuff. One a quantitive and the other a qualitative measure.

It was only over time as science become dominant and influenced peoples thinking that it gradually took over as the measure of reality. The subjective experiences once seperated were destined to be reduced in importance and realness as physicalims became more dominant.

But it has never gone away and it seems to be making a return due to a long history of the sciences being inadequate for accounting for reality. Some say we will never truely understand fundemental reality until we bring back in the subjective observer and how this influences things. Any theory of everything would need to account for subjective consciousness.

Maybe just as there is ongoing difficulty in finding a solution toi uniting classical and quantum physics the key may be consciousness itself that can bridge the gap. Certainly consciousness has some effect and its nature needs to be accounted for fundementally into the theory.

Science has overextended itself with this discussion. The development of AI is as much an art as a science. In the end, our technologies will serve us or we will become slaves to what our hands have created and our spirits idolized. Evolutionary-style machine learning may simply tend toward untestable nonsense and chaos unless we keep a firm control of how we use AI.

It will be interesting and scary at the same time. As you say how could someone even test for consciousness in a machine. Do we just believe them. The ideas is that providing enough integrated complexity it should cross some sort of threshold and sort of switch consciousness on.

If as they say consciousness is an epiphenomena then it would be created due to a certain complex combination of activity. The problem is there is no test which can show consciousness. It can show the electrical activity but not the experience. But I don't think it can be done because there is more to consciousness than just brain activity. Theres a degree of organics and synchronicity that is more than the sum of parts.

We could end up creating a monster in that we would have to give machines a lot of freedom to explore and be able to determine ideas themselves. But would it be like a fake experience that sounded the same but was derived by arbitrary means which could end up creating a sort of false consciousness that can be manipulated. Or allow machines more control than we should allow them.

It will certainly put a lot of power into the hands of some.

 

[dlamberth]

Some Divine attributes and much of the Divine experience is utterly distinct from the universe.

God/Not God.
For the very fact that we are an aspect of the universe, our Consciousness awareness of the Divine attributes as well as awareness of the Divine experience is very much embodied within universe. A simple example is Love.

In the same breath, other than a small openings of the door, the fast reaches of the infinite are outside of our reach.

Panentheism recognises transcendence without properly defining it.

How would you define a persons consciousness awareness of the transcendence expanse of the Divine? Personally I see that as outside of any logical "proper" explanation. Panentheism is more of an inner consciousness experience.

The otherness of God is inaccessible to AI however powerful it becomes

I totally agree. Maybe that was someone else your thinking of, but I don't remember saying anything about AI.

 

[stevevw]

This isn't an issue of particle/wave. (And the waves are perfectly physical, if the contrary was your implication.)

Actualy the wave function isn't really anything physical. Its an equation of the potential positions a particle can take in a 2 dimensions space. But I'm interested as to what exactly is physical in a quantum vacume where virtual particles pop in and out of existence. Or what was even before this.

If waves and vacumes have physical stuff then what was before the quantum vacume. What physical cause caused the physical aspects of waves if they are physical.

And even if we say that waves are physical this is just a description of physical behaviour. It doesn't tell us where this vibrating energy comes from. What its nature is. We don't know what is fueling the energy in the first place.

Of electrons and photons. That's what your claim was about.

No my claim was that a description of physical behaviour doesn't tell us the nature of what is causing that behaviour. Say for example miracles are true. If a person experienced a miracle and was healed from cancer for example. We could describe a physical activity happening but that doesn't explain the miracle that happened.

Scientists don't say ok there must be some influence happening that we cannot measure or that what we have been measuring is not just a naturalistic cause. No materialist scientists would look for a physical explanation or propose one that may account for it. They may invent a new force that has yet to be discovered to explain things. But none of this explains what the nature of what is happening in the greater scheme of things.

We can (and have) measured the properties of electrons, photons, etc. QED is a *very* precise theory.

But that is just a description. Its not telling us what the nature of whatever it is that is producing such behaviour. As mentioned we can know precisely all the workings of the brain and conscious experience for say seeing red. But none of that tells us anything about the nature of consciousness itself. It tells us what happens to the brain when someone experiences red. But nothing about the nature of consciousness.

You can have the most precise theory of QED but that cannot tell you whether an electron may experience a basic form of consciousness. Your equating neural activity or electron behaviour with subjective experience. They are two completely different categories of explanations. Ones a quantative measure and the other a qualitative one.

If consciousness for example is what causes wave collapse. Then the wave collapse is the physical behaviour caused by consciousness. Its just methodological naturalism will not recognise this and attribute it to part of the physical equation for QM wave and particle behaviour.

Even if there was a hidden "consciousness" property of electrons it would have to be such a weak and long range interaction that it *can't* possibly affect something so small as a human. It does not explain human consciousness even if it exists. It could only be some sort of untestable pan-galactic consiousness or something and that is an untestable and therefore unscientific concept.

We don't know. It may scale up. It may only come into reality at certain thresholds or combinations of physical integration. But certainly we have to include it in the equation or possibilities of influence. It maybe we have not even understood what kind of measure we need to make like we did not know with QM in the classical period.

We know that the mind can alter physical reality. So what sort of particle is that. Its invisible, it has no particle, or field and yet a thought can change your physical body.

It maybe that the materialist paradigm needs changing before we can broaden our understanding. But it seems consciousness has a real influence on reality in many different ways. We just have to be open to thinking outside the current materialist view.

 

[Ophiolite]

Actualy the wave function isn't really anything physical. Its an equation of the potential positions a particle can take in a 2 dimensions space. But I'm interested as to what exactly is physical in a quantum vacume where virtual particles pop in and out of existence. Or what was even before this.

If waves and vacumes have physical stuff then what was before the quantum vacume. What physical cause caused the physical aspects of waves if they are physical.

And even if we say that waves are physical this is just a description of physical behaviour. It doesn't tell us where this vibrating energy comes from. What its nature is. We don't know what is fueling the energy in the first place.

No my claim was that a description of physical behaviour doesn't tell us the nature of what is causing that behaviour. Say for example miracles are true. If a person experienced a miracle and was healed from cancer for example. We could describe a physical activity happening but that doesn't explain the miracle that happened.

Scientists don't say ok there must be some influence happening that we cannot measure or that what we have been measuring is not just a naturalistic cause. No materialist scientists would look for a physical explanation or propose one that may account for it. They may invent a new force that has yet to be discovered to explain things. But none of this explains what the nature of what is happening in the greater scheme of things.

But that is just a description. Its not telling us what the nature of whatever it is that is producing such behaviour. As mentioned we can know precisely all the workings of the brain and conscious experience for say seeing red. But none of that tells us anything about the nature of consciousness itself. It tells us what happens to the brain when someone experiences red. But nothing about the nature of consciousness.

You can have the most precise theory of QED but that cannot tell you whether an electron may experience a basic form of consciousness. Your equating neural activity or electron behaviour with subjective experience. They are two completely different categories of explanations. Ones a quantative measure and the other a qualitative one.

If consciousness for example is what causes wave collapse. Then the wave collapse is the physical behaviour caused by consciousness. Its just methodological naturalism will not recognise this and attribute it to part of the physical equation for QM wave and particle behaviour.

We don't know. It may scale up. It may only come into reality at certain thresholds or combinations of physical integration. But certainly we have to include it in the equation or possibilities of influence. It maybe we have not even understood what kind of measure we need to make like we did not know with QM in the classical period.

We know that the mind can alter physical reality. So what sort of particle is that. Its invisible, it has no particle, or field and yet a thought can change your physical body.

It maybe that the materialist paradigm needs changing before we can broaden our understanding. But it seems consciousness has a real influence on reality in many different ways. We just have to be open to thinking outside the current materialist view.

You are asking fundamental "Why?" questions. That is the domain of philosophy, not science. You are like someone who walks into a grocer's shop and demands a set of piston rings.

 

[Hans Blaster]

Actualy the wave function isn't really anything physical.

I wasn't talking about the wave function, I was speaking of the question of wave/particle duality. W/P duality doesn't alter the physical nature of a thing.

Its an equation of the potential positions a particle can take in a 2 dimensions space.

I think you are missing a space dimension (and time, and momemtum).

But I'm interested as to what exactly is physical in a quantum vacume where virtual particles pop in and out of existence.

The electron field is the physical thing. An electron is a excitation of that field.

Or what was even before this.

I have no idea.

If waves and vacumes have physical stuff then what was before the quantum vacume. What physical cause caused the physical aspects of waves if they are physical.

Perhaps it always existed.

And even if we say that waves are physical this is just a description of physical behaviour. It doesn't tell us where this vibrating energy comes from. What its nature is. We don't know what is fueling the energy in the first place.

Why does it need to have a "fuel" or a "first"?

No my claim was that a description of physical behaviour doesn't tell us the nature of what is causing that behaviour.

You claimed electrons had consciousness. I have challenged that. That challenge is what I have been writing about. I don't know what other 99 things you are simultaneously writing about. I lose track of them.

Say for example miracles are true.

Quite a reach, but let's see how that applies to consciousness of electrons...

If a person experienced a miracle and was healed from cancer for example. We could describe a physical activity happening but that doesn't explain the miracle that happened.

This doesn't have anything to do with consciousness. Setting that aside, the scenario is so vague

Scientists don't say ok there must be some influence happening that we cannot measure or that what we have been measuring is not just a naturalistic cause. No materialist scientists would look for a physical explanation or propose one that may account for it. They may invent a new force that has yet to be discovered to explain things. But none of this explains what the nature of what is happening in the greater scheme of things.

I have no idea what you are trying to say here.

But that is just a description.

That's how scientific theories work.

Its not telling us what the nature of whatever it is that is producing such behaviour. As mentioned we can know precisely all the workings of the brain and conscious experience for say seeing red.

We can? I don' think that has happened yet.

But none of that tells us anything about the nature of consciousness itself. It tells us what happens to the brain when someone experiences red. But nothing about the nature of consciousness.

You should really see what neurobiologists say about the nature of consciousness. They are the ones studying it.

You can have the most precise theory of QED but that cannot tell you whether an electron may experience a basic form of consciousness.

If there is some sort of consciousness field (which I sincerely doubt as there is no evidence for it), then it is so weak that it does not need to be included in QED and QED works to high precision without it.

Your equating neural activity or electron behaviour with subjective experience. They are two completely different categories of explanations. Ones a quantative measure and the other a qualitative one.

For some reason you are still responding to my "electrons and photons are described to great precision by QED" sentence. Measurements of electrons and photons are not subjective, nor related to neurons.

If consciousness for example is what causes wave collapse. Then the wave collapse is the physical behaviour caused by consciousness. Its just methodological naturalism will not recognise this and attribute it to part of the physical equation for QM wave and particle behaviour.

Still in the QED reply, I said nothing of wave function collapse or consciousness to which you made this reply.

We don't know. It may scale up. It may only come into reality at certain thresholds or combinations of physical integration. But certainly we have to include it in the equation or possibilities of influence.

My point was that if there is some sort of "consciousness field" the interaction with electrons is so weak we can't detect it.

It maybe we have not even understood what kind of measure we need to make like we did not know with QM in the classical period.

I'm not sure what the "classical period" of QM is.

We know that the mind can alter physical reality. So what sort of particle is that. Its invisible, it has no particle, or field and yet a thought can change your physical body.

How so?

It maybe that the materialist paradigm needs changing before we can broaden our understanding. But it seems consciousness has a real influence on reality in many different ways. We just have to be open to thinking outside the current materialist view.

I'll let you know if it fails.