Is consciousness physical or nonphysical?

[Bunyip]

True...And also...how the door to the spiritual realm gets opened and science gets weaved into things. I've read a lot on how religious people (even religious scientists) will try to suggest that consciousness, and perhaps altered 'states' of consciousness have to do with a person and his/her God, rather than merely a person and his/her world. If someone has an intuition or a 'sense' that a god exists, would that fall under consciousness? (an awareness)

Asking it another way....what is the relationship between consciousness and a pseudo-reality/spiritual reality? Hmmm...

Brilliant. Yes, as you say - the leap from 'emergent property' to some kind of metaphysical claim is sadly all to common. Rather like the Kalam cosmological argument as Christian apologists apply it - they leap from 'cause' to god without logical explanation or rationale. I think that the discussions on the nature of consciousness, tend to get derailed and hijacked by metaphysical assumptions that are not in any way whatsoever implicit.
The so called 'hard problem' is a great example, it is rather too often applied as an argument from ignorance establishing the existence of some form of ill-defined immaterial metaphysical realm.

 

[Bunyip]

Exactly how is consciouness not physical?

In that it is conceptual, as opposed to material.

What does your consciousness do? It allows us to interact with our environment in a complex manner. All of those many senses -sight, hearing, feeling, tasting, etc...- which we bundle up and term our "consciouness" are nothing more than complex physical interactions. Sure we can't measure consciouness when we bundle all those things together into one "mysterious" entity, but we can measure sight, hearing, feeling, tasting, etc...which all make up that which we call our consciousness.

Sure, and consciousness is an emergent property or product of those senses.

 

[Deidre]

Brilliant. Yes, as you say - the leap from 'emergent property' to some kind of metaphysical claim is sadly all to common. Rather like the Kalam cosmological argument as Christian apologists apply it - they leap from 'cause' to god without logical explanation or rationale. I think that the discussions on the nature of consciousness, tend to get derailed and hijacked by metaphysical assumptions that are not in any way whatsoever implicit.
The so called 'hard problem' is a great example, it is rather too often applied as an argument from ignorance establishing the existence of some form of ill-defined immaterial metaphysical realm.

lol Yes, exactly.

Interesting to note, thought to be the one of the very first ''religions'' (using the term loosely) was Shamanism...which was all about altering states of consciousness. haha ^_^

 

[Runewolf1973]

In that it is conceptual, as opposed to material. Sure, and consciousness is an emergent property or product of those senses.

The way I have always looked at it is that in a way consciouness doesn't really exist at all. All it is is physical interactions in varying degrees of complexity. It's not the consciouness that is important, it is the complexity which gives rise to that highly interactive state we call consciousness that is important. The complexity is key the way I see it.

 

[Bunyip]

lol Yes, exactly.

Interesting to note, thought to be the one of the very first ''religions'' (using the term loosely) was Shamanism...which was all about altering states of consciousness. haha ^_^

Yeah, I have friends in several Indigenous tribes - their religions go back 60,000 years. Makes Abraham look like a newbie.

 

[Bunyip]

The way I have always looked at it is that in a way consciouness doesn't really exist at all. All it is is physical interactions in varying degrees of complexity. It's not the consciouness that is important, it is the complexity which gives rise to that highly interactive state we call consciousness that is important. The complexity is key the way I see it.

That makes perfect sehse to me.

 

[Runewolf1973]

Just a thought...
If our brain gets damaged, that complexity is altered and and our ability to interact (consciousness) changes. That is why we can lose consciousness...because it is a physical interaction which can be altered. If consciousness was non-physical, then a severe blow to the head probably wouldn't do anything to the way we felt or interacted.

 

[Deidre]

Consciousness isn't dependent upon the levels of our interactions, though. It only relates to our levels of awareness or perception.

 

[Bunyip]

Just a thought...
If our brain gets damaged, that complexity is altered and and our ability to interact (consciousness) changes. That is why we can lose consciousness...because it is a physical interaction which can be altered. If consciousness was non-physical, then a severe blow to the head probably wouldn't do anything to the way we felt or interacted.

Exactly! If the brain is just a conduit for consciousness, brain damage would affect the reception of the signal, but not change it. Like interference on the TV does not effect the signal being broadcast - only our perception of it. However if we damage the brain the consciousness changes irreparably. This alone proves that consciousness is a product of the mind rather than visa versa.

 

[Runewolf1973]

Consciousness isn't about interaction, though. It's only about levels of awareness.

It has everything to do with interaction. The only reason we have such a thing we can call awareness or consciousness is because of those many complex ways we interact...sight, hearing, touch, taste, feeling. Without that ability to interact, we are nothing. You know even rocks interact with their environment in some way. Everything is interactive, we just happen to be a little more interactive than other things. We are like highly interactive rocks...complex chemical arrangements. Nothing more.

 

[Deidre]

It has everything to do with interaction. The only reason we have such a thing we can call awareness or consciousness is because of those many complex ways we interact...sight, hearing, touch, taste, feeling. Without that ability to interact, we are nothing. You know even rocks interact with their environment in some way. Everything is interactive, we just happen to be a little more interactive than other things.

While that's true, taking it one step further... it is my consciousness that allows me to know what/that I'm smelling, touching, hearing, etc...
The ability to interact only becomes relevant because we are aware of it.

My question is...is someone aware of anything, if he/she is in a coma? Or in a dreamless sleep state?

 

[Gambit]

To me, all this means is there is limitations to what we know or can know about the physical, not that what we don't know is non-physical. That would be like the old belief that diseases are caused by non-physical spirits because at the time we could not see their physical causes.

Then you have no epistemic justification for asserting that consciousness is physical. IOW, you should just say I don't know and leave it at that.

 

[Runewolf1973]

While that's true, taking it one step further... it is my consciousness that allows me to know what I'm smelling, touching, hearing, etc...
The ability to interact only becomes relevant because we are aware of it.

My question is...is someone aware of anything, if he/she is in a coma? Or in a dreamless sleep state?

I would say it is those complex , fine-tuned receptors in our brain that pick up on all that external information...light, vibration, etc...and we label the bulk of all those physical signals our brain puts together or processes "consciousness". It's not really mysterious or non-physical though, it is just complexity at work.

 

[Runewolf1973]

Then you have no epistemic justification for asserting that consciousness is physical. IOW, you should just say I don't know and leave it at that.

I justified my position in a recent post.

 

[Runewolf1973]

Then you have no epistemic justification for asserting that consciousness is physical. IOW, you should just say I don't know and leave it at that.

Btw... Perhaps the reason why you don't know is because you make consciousness out to be something it is not. When you realize that consciousness is nothing more than complex physical interactions in the brain, then everything just makes sense.

 

[Gambit]

According to what I believe, they emerged from the Sunyata.

SUNYATA.

That sounds mystical.

 

[Gambit]

There should be a verb "to consciate" to go along with the adjective "conscious" and the abstract noun "consciousness". A human (or animal) is functioning a certain way when it is conscious, so the language should have evolved so that we could say "That human (or animal) is consciating".

There is. It's called "experience."

 

[Gambit]

Abstraction are just linguistic devices to speak of lots of physical things at once. Forest is to tree as abstraction is to the physical. It's just a matter of semantics. Everything that exists is physical. What we call "an abstraction" is just a semantic device so we can talk about lots of things without being specific. "Nonphysical" is also just a semantic device which we attach to such semantic devices. If it's nonphysical, it's only part of the language, not part of anything outside of language.

Abstractions are not physical. So, how exactly are you employing these "linguistic devices" if they do not exist?

 

[Gambit]

You are getting into semantics of language, leaving the real world behind. We see and think about real things in the real world. End of story. Don't let language trick you.

Semantics deal with the meaning of words and the meaning of word are important. Because, if we can't agree on the meaning of words, then it will not be possible to verbally communicate with each other.

 

[shawn001]

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