Where does consciousness fit in physics?

[Syne]

As if there wasn't enough to talk about...  

https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blo....urkxfwutn

Looks like some physicist's wet dream.

Since consciousness originates in the brain stem, maybe a better way to view this is that physics can't solve for the experience of consciousness. But it seems that it could play a role in explaining consciousness. If we examine people who are in persistent vegetative states, what caused them to become in such a state, was a lack or complete cessation of oxygen rich blood flow to their brains. (for whatever the reason)  In a vegetative state, awareness is greatly impaired, and in most cases, completely gone - the person is not conscious of what is going on around them, because of his/her brain damage. So, in such a scenario, it would seem that physics could at least explain levels of consciousness.

Can you support that (bolded) statement?

Understanding brain death vs. states of consciousness

In these terms, consciousness is an objective observation that is not synonymous with experience or awareness. Lack of external awareness is to be expected if the physiology that connects the senses is damaged.

[Leigha]

As if there wasn't enough to talk about...  

https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blo....urkxfwutn

Looks like some physicist's wet dream.

Since consciousness originates in the brain stem, maybe a better way to view this is that physics can't solve for the experience of consciousness. But it seems that it could play a role in explaining consciousness. If we examine people who are in persistent vegetative states, what caused them to become in such a state, was a lack or complete cessation of oxygen rich blood flow to their brains. (for whatever the reason)  In a vegetative state, awareness is greatly impaired, and in most cases, completely gone - the person is not conscious of what is going on around them, because of his/her brain damage. So, in such a scenario, it would seem that physics could at least explain levels of consciousness.

Can you support that (bolded) statement?

Understanding brain death vs. states of consciousness

In these terms, consciousness is an objective observation that is not synonymous with experience or awareness. Lack of external awareness is to be expected if the physiology that connects the senses is damaged.

Consciousness is  the experience of awareness, though. Sorry, I'm not following your point here.

I found this to be helpful:

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~dons/part_2/chapter_17.html

[Syne]

Consciousness is  the experience of awareness, though. Sorry, I'm not following your point here.

I found this to be helpful:

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~dons/part_2/chapter_17.html

Your link even says: "Careful observation of the subject's behavior (or absence of behavior) is most informative." In medicine, consciousness is defined by "observation of the subject's behavior".

Nervous system activity is not sufficient to account for awareness. Comparing electrical stimulation of muscles, direct stimulation of the voluntary motor control regions of the brain, and temporal lobe stimulation to induce sensory hallucinations and memories, they are all experienced as non-voluntary or externally caused...where the patient is still aware of their immediate environment and does not feel like these are voluntary, even though we are simulating the same impulses in the same regions of the brain that voluntary experience occurs.

This is why I asked you to support the claim that "consciousness originates in the brain stem". If you are only talking about the medical definition, as observation of behavior, that may work, but when you're talking about experience it does not seem to be supported by the available science.

[Secular Sanity]

There are several, arguably distinct enterprises transpiring under the umbrella of "embodied cognition". I'm only focusing on what Lakoff is affiliated with below.

Interesting. Thanks, C C.

[Leigha]

Consciousness is  the experience of awareness, though. Sorry, I'm not following your point here.

I found this to be helpful:

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~dons/part_2/chapter_17.html

Your link even says: "Careful observation of the subject's behavior (or absence of behavior) is most informative." In medicine, consciousness is defined by "observation of the subject's behavior".

Nervous system activity is not sufficient to account for awareness. Comparing electrical stimulation of muscles, direct stimulation of the voluntary motor control regions of the brain, and temporal lobe stimulation to induce sensory hallucinations and memories, they are all experienced as non-voluntary or externally caused...where the patient is still aware of their immediate environment and does not feel like these are voluntary, even though we are simulating the same impulses in the same regions of the brain that voluntary experience occurs.

This is why I asked you to support the claim that "consciousness originates in the brain stem". If you are only talking about the medical definition, as observation of behavior, that may work, but when you're talking about experience it does not seem to be supported by the available science.

An observation of behavior, yes - ''consciousness'' being a term that an ''observer'' can use when detecting or deciphering behaviors of patients, for example. Science may never be able to explain the experience of consciousness. The point though being that physics can play a role in explaining consciousness, and defining it to a degree.

[Secular Sanity]

As if there wasn't enough to talk about...  

https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blo....urkxfwutn

Max Tegmark is a little out there.  He’s into the multiverse thingy.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse...our_levels

The third level is Hugh Everett’s many-world interpretation.  Do you want to hear something that’s sad?  His son is Mark Everett, the lead singer for Eels.  His father, Hugh Everett died when Mark was nineteen.  Soon after, his sister, Elizabeth committed suicide.  In the note, she wrote that she was going to a parallel universe to be with her father.  Two years after his sister died, he lost his mother, too.  He wrote this song about his sister.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/eS2ipWNm9Fw

[Leigha]

As if there wasn't enough to talk about...  

https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blo....urkxfwutn

Max Tegmark is a little out there.  He’s into the multiverse thingy.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse...our_levels

The third level is Hugh Everett’s many-world interpretation.  Do you want to hear something that’s sad?  His son is Mark Everett, the lead singer for Eels.  His father, Hugh Everett died when Mark was nineteen.  Soon after, his sister, Elizabeth committed suicide.  In the note, she wrote that she was going to a parallel universe to be with her father.  Two years after his sister died, he lost his mother, too.  He wrote this song about his sister.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/eS2ipWNm9Fw

Consciousness too tends to bring out the ''out there'' perspectives. 

That is a sad story, though...and song.  

[Syne]

Yeah, I wouldn't take Tegmark too seriously.

I have yet to see any evidence that physics can play a role in explaining or defining consciousness. Even where physics does come into contact with consciousness, at wave function collapse upon observation, if fails to explain the phenomena nor even find some semblance of agreement over whether such a contact is even necessary (if the wave function actually collapses).

[Leigha]

Why is it difficult to accept that consciousness can fit in physics? That's all my OP is really driving at, btw. This thread isn't setting out to prove that physics can answer all of the questions we have about consciousness...I simply asked if there is a place for consciousness to fit in physics? And there is sufficient proof to say ''yes.''

[Syne]

Why is it difficult to accept that consciousness can fit in physics? That's all my OP is really driving at, btw. This thread isn't setting out to prove that physics can answer all of the questions we have about consciousness...I simply asked if there is a place for consciousness to fit in physics? And there is sufficient proof to say ''yes.''

You asked, "Can consciousness be explained by physics, in other words, or is it outside of nature and the ability of physics to define it?" Physics is a reductionist science, where you can only describe things as effects of smaller or more fundamental things, in a bottom-up fashion. So the question inherently implies that if "consciousness can fit in physics" then consciousness is reducible to fundamental particle interactions. That may not have been what you meant, but I cannot fathom any other meaning.

Daniel Dennett called this "greedy reductionism":

"Whereas "good" reductionism means explaining a thing in terms of what it reduces to (for example, its parts and their interactions), greedy reductionism occurs when "in their eagerness for a bargain, in their zeal to explain too much too fast, scientists and philosophers ... underestimate the complexities, trying to skip whole layers or levels of theory in their rush to fasten everything securely and neatly to the foundation.""

If everything were even remotely reducible to physics, we would not have a thing called "science". All fields of study would just be called physics.