Where does consciousness fit in physics?

[Leigha]

Or does it? 

Or do you feel that it fits outside of physics, and can best be categorized under psychology? Can consciousness be explained by physics, in other words, or is it outside of nature and the ability of physics to define it? Just thought it would make for an interesting discussion, considering that consciousness is one of those topics that seem hard to concretely define.

[C C]

In my opinion... Cognition (the identification and understanding characteristic of consciousness, the intellectual discernment of objects, etc) does not arise till the stratum that biology deals with and which psychology supplements. It's only the "showing forth" or phenomenal characteristic of consciousness which might [potentially] have more primitive roots in physics (if that can be entertained as a possibility in the future). That would be called a lengthy term like "pan-proto-experientialism" in respect to random, primitive qualitative events outrunning the cognition and manipulative organizing of brains.

Awareness treated as macroscopic outward appearances and behavior -- like a human body dodging a speeding vehicle it hears / sees, and the brain scanner display of neural patterns in a skull corresponding to conscious activity -- are mechanistic motions and structural processes that can likewise be reduced down to or explained by yet more relationships and interactions at a lower scale belonging to the same general category. Arguably there is no need to invoke physics for those "above the atomic level" connections. (Excluding the biological and technological domains themselves requiring physics properties and entities to originally emerge from or to enable their existence / operation.)

Consciousness treated as experience, however, is simply an add-on to science. That is, it wouldn't be expected to fall out of the affairs of even biology and chemistry, much less physics. (Erwin Schrödinger: "The world [or matter] does not manifest by its mere existence."] Experience must be brutely added to science (without deeper satisfactory explanations) because it is undeniable. Our sensory modalities exhibit shown content (manifestations of the visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile, kind). Even our thoughts seem to have those appearances of images, sounds, and so forth (though they might be less vivid).

There are actually two puzzling aspects to the hard problem. Aside from how the qualitative "showings" arise from dynamic structural relationships which lack having that capacity attributed to them beforehand by the sciences, there is a dual-sided nature to experience. From a public or external POV, a brain appears as organic tissue at the macroscopic level and as cellular organizations and their electrochemical activities at a microscopic level. But from a private or internal POV, brain "stuff" and its processes appear as not only our own thoughts but also the outer representation of the environment or world itself.

"The brain is wider than the sky,
For, put them side by side,
The one the other will contain,
With ease, and you, beside."
--Emily Dickinson

In order to avoid brute or magical emergence, it's often deemed that any sufficient explanation of experience would have to feature primitive precursors (elemental, qualitative properties of pan-protopsychism or pan-protophenomenalism) for it develop from. Similar to how the complexity of a human body develops / emerges from simpler atoms. Thus to be as universal as the latter, such pan-protoexperientialism must be crouched in physics.

For instance, in magic rituals a spell or dance is used to "conjure" something that wasn't there before (with no further explanation than that). Today we may explain experience as the result of neural processes that generate something (those manifestations of senses and thoughts) that were not there before in the absence or nothingness which matter normally is to itself. But as in the magic rituals, there is no appeal to any other known or accepted properties of cells and chemistry to accomplish the feat. It simply happens, thus the brute emergence classification.

It's that appearance of brute emergence which those in the "explain it down to the physics level" camp are trying to remedy. What provokes them to pursue that avenue.

[Leigha]

I think it does have primitive roots in physics but is the deviation away from viewing it purely on a physics level, due to a cultural narrative that tends to bring psychology into everything? Consciousness originates from our brain, the function of consciousness.

The reason I dislike it veering off into the psychological realm to explain it (consciousness), is because it's a slippery slope over to spirituality. For some reason, nearly every blog I've read about consciousness leaves a small paragraph open for proving the existence of a supernatural realm, as a possibility. I'm spiritual but not religious, and I don't like when religious types try to prove their faith beliefs through the (mis)use of science. --_--

[Syne]

Like the n-body problem in physics illustrates, the more complex a physical system the more analysis must be approximated. At complexities nowhere near that of consciousness, the approximation must be so imprecise that physics has no tools to even approach the issue. Hence psychology and other less rigorous fields. And if consciousness wholly originates from the brain, we have a conundrum explaining neural plasticity, where our conscious choices can alter how the brain develops and migrate where tasks are handled. The brain supposedly giving rise to the consciousness making such choices.

[Secular Sanity]

And if consciousness wholly originates from the brain, we have a conundrum explaining neural plasticity, where our conscious choices can alter how the brain develops and migrate where tasks are handled. The brain supposedly giving rise to the consciousness making such choices.

Do you think you have a soul, Syne?

Where does neuroplasticity take place?

[Syne]

How does the brain make decisions that alter its own function if it is that function that determines decisions? It's like saying a chicken comes from an egg...it laid. And if the brain, itself, is self-causing to this degree, it is investigatively indistinguishable from a soul. Nothing anywhere near as rigorous as physics will ever be able to address a truly self-causing system, because whatever consistencies we might employ to study it are ever only self-consistencies...without significant external parameters we can control for.

We know we can elicit memories from the brain with electrodes, but we have never found a way to elicit choices other than the usual stick and carrot incentives that become part of the conscious decision-making process and, as such, consciously open to rejection (further self-caused choice).

[C C]

The reason I dislike it veering off into the psychological realm to explain it (consciousness), is because it's a slippery slope over to spirituality. For some reason, nearly every blog I've read about consciousness leaves a small paragraph open for proving the existence of a supernatural realm, as a possibility. I'm spiritual but not religious, and I don't like when religious types try to prove their faith beliefs through the (mis)use of science. --_--

Yep, that could stem from their using the etymology of "psychological" to step back into a generic meaning of the adjective where one can refer to "studies" and views which don't belong to "psychology" in a contemporary science context (i.e., conflating the two different meanings). Or reifying a figurative label for something that might otherwise be a legitimate system of concepts, as if it is a substantive world ("___ realm").

In the late 19th and early 20th century even "psychology" in the science vein occasionally tended to refer to the manifestations of consciousness (the internal, private states) as "spiritual". But the ensuing trends of logical positivism ("hostility toward metaphysics") and behaviorism ("ignore the internal states") purged that descriptive resonance from that disciplinary territory. Those influences in turn later fell from dominance and cognitive science was born. Which affected slash liberated psychological fields (in general) from the limiting constraints of behaviorism (in general). Which is to say, it was no longer taboo to regard reports of "having experiences" as something more than just a "language custom" of communications between people.

A problem with some (if not all) of the disciplines of the psychological, sociological category is that they've got one foot planted in the "publish or perish" and the "need to stimulate funding" attitude of bad science. Most of their research results aren't being replicated by other investigators.

But there have to be mediators between the biological sciences and people issues (like mental health) so as to provide diagnosis, treatment, and conversion of technical concepts in one domain to the purposes of another. Psychology, medicine, etc (however imperfect) are part of the chain of that arbitrating network between what institutions at one scale discover about the human body and what must be refined and re-packaged at another level to be useful, applicable and deliverable to the individual.

---

[...] Consciousness originates from our brain, the function of consciousness. [...]

It isn't confined solely to brains, though. As far as the ability to recognize and distinguish items via information processing, respond to situations in an environment and navigate successfully around obstacles. Embodied computers (robots, vehicles) are marching up that progressive incline. Extraterrestrial, conscious life-forms might have evolved systems which don't correspond to a brain-like organ and nervous system. That's why "mind" still has currency as a general classification to subsume diverse, specific instances of itself under like brains, AI, alien versions, etc.

So "mind" does ironically outrun biology (at least as its external, public view of being a system of dynamic mechanistic relationships between parts). But the primitive precursors of consciousness / intellect outrun biology even further in scope. "Action / interaction" and "structural organization" are universal traits of the cosmos, and "mind" is just a complex arrangement of those tendencies devoted to specialized functions. Pan-proto-psychism is thus arguably the case (again, in that experience-less context which science can handle explanation-wise). Bend a wire clothes hanger into an alternative shape which it retains and you have a primitive precursor example of "memory".

But there's no need to call such "pan-proto-psychism" anymore than one would call atoms "pan-proto-biological bodies". Atoms can compose many more things than just cells and organisms, and likewise the global capacity of the universe for "motion" and "structure" can constitute slash enable vastly more macroscopic items than just objects which behave consciously.

Pan-proto-experientialism doesn't necessarily apply since it is a sub-variety of panpsychism. It focuses upon the qualitative events of experience (not cognition) -- endorsing a universal capacity for matter to yield such rather than matter magically acquiring that potential when residing in a skull.

Whereas it is easy to confirm that "actions" and "structure" abound in the cosmos, it's not so easy (perhaps impossible) to validate that, say, a frequency of electromagnetic waves in the visible light spectrum is internally manifesting itself as the color "green". Or that such just has the dormant / potential capacity for that (IOW, how the addition of "proto-" to "pan-experientialism" conservatively diminishes its meaning / implication).

I think it does have primitive roots in physics but is the deviation away from viewing it purely on a physics level, due to a cultural narrative that tends to bring psychology into everything?

Addressing that here so as to avoid making the former post excessively long. Ah, heck. I forgot that SciVillage will combine these separate posts together anyway if they submitted within a certain time period. Going to be a monstrous aggregation, regardless of what I do.

It's probably more of a biology versus physics situation.

In earlier centuries it was deemed that the biological stratum was something different from the stratum which chemistry and physics would deal with: There was regular matter and its actions and then there was "living matter" and its special behaviors. Whereby the latter could supposedly not be derived from the former, or the former was inadequate for the job. Today it would be ludicrous to view the biological stratum as "floating completely on its own", neither composed of the elemental entities of physics nor depending upon the recruited properties and forces of physics to generate the behavior of single-cells and multi-celled bodies.

There is a distinction here, however, between "describing / explaining something in an efficient manner" and, say, referring to "the fundamental origin of something". It's far more compact and simpler to synoptically describe / explain the biological stratum in terms of its higher-scale organizations and the circularity / closed system of its own nomenclature than be describing / explaining what's transpiring at the scale of atomic and particle physics. (It would require an AI supercomputer to even simulate a fraction of that without unbearable slowness).

So what must be remembered here is that a camp (school of thought or practice) that wants to deal with consciousness in terms of physics... is struggling to account for the basic origin of "experience" or its qualitative properties. They're not trying to account for the origin of cognition and intelligence, which obviously arise from the complex assembly of dynamic relations at the level of neural tissue or electronic circuitry.

Whereas cognition and intelligence do have primitive precusors to develop from (simpler action and structural tendencies found throughout the universe), experience does not (apart from speculative hypotheses which try to remedy that, like asserting that "qualitative showings" are internally native to all motion and patterns, both simple and intricate). Again, the physics camp would desire to eliminate the appearance of magical conjuring or brute emergence taking place as the sole origin of those manifestations of vision, hearing, smell, odor, etc.

It's wonderful that some functionalists believe that "qualia" can fall out of complex relationships of any kind (neural, electrical, hydraulic, cogs and gears, etc) if the right "oscillating dance" is performed and the appropriate "wiring design" or scheme of connectivity is there. But it's not so wonderful that chemistry and physics do not attribute (as part of mainstream canon) such qualia producing abilities to matter and its relationships, interactions, etc. IOW, they're submitting pseudoscience or fringe beliefs as explanations. It's also not clear how such could avoid pan-proto-experientialism since it is granting matter relationships everywhere having that lurking power (not just those in the skull).

The aforementioned physics camp would be doing similar, but their ultimate goal would be to overhaul their field so that it can accommodate those capacities. That, of course, would require further experimental interrogation of nature / matter, not just untested hypotheses. Another way to view it is that those in the lab would actually be to trying to "confirm" those fringe beliefs of functionalism or whatever applicable philosophy of mind school (as an explanation for qualia). Rather than just hand-waving about it or oppositely issuing a priori dogmas that it is a futile pursuit. Many believed it was once impossible to legitmize synesthesia (i.e., discount that those claiming it were lying or deluded), but V.S. Ramachandran and his associates devised ways to do it.

[Leigha]

You bring up great points, one being overhauling physics. Could that include the psychological realm? The truth is though, that social science/psychology is very much needed in our culture, especially when we consider the justice system. Most criminal cases involve criminal psychologists, and many of the outcomes of these cases hinge on social science. When dealing with humans in general, we can only apply objectivity so far, then subjectivity has to come into play. I think that psychology for the most part, is fascinating. It was one of my favorite subjects in college, and I had thought at one time of being a psychologist, but it has opened up the flood gates for spiritual thought. I'm spiritual, but my views are separate and away from the category of mere psychology.

Because consciousness is a viable thing, it has to originate from something tangible. (this is where physics needs to supply answers) Faith and spirituality aren't really tangible, although, I feel my beliefs strongly working in my life. I just don't like seeing the two intersect, because it keeps us away from really gaining a deeper understanding of consciousness, in general. And I believe that consciousness stems from the brain, and isn't some abstract psychological ''happening.''

[Syne]

And I believe that consciousness stems from the brain, and isn't some abstract psychological ''happening.''

The problem is that your "belief" is just that, a process that cannot be tracked to an objective sequence of causes. It is contradictory to claim a belief only in objective causes when that belief, itself, cannot be shown to have one.

Because consciousness is a viable thing, it has to originate from something tangible. (this is where physics needs to supply answers) Faith and spirituality aren't really tangible, although, I feel my beliefs strongly working in my life.

How is consciousness (awareness) more tangible than the things it is aware of? You can be aware of tangible things just as easily as intangibles, since the brain is responsible for producing the vast majority of your perceptions (and there are illusions that demonstrate the brain adding things that are not there).

[Leigha]

You gave me a negative rating for my post? I said nothing insulting, no ad homs, etc.

I'm not staying here. Way too negative of an environment for me.