Is consciousness physical or nonphysical?

[Gambit]

How is it evasive?

I have already explained how it is evasive.

 

[Gambit]

neti neti. i dont think either description would be correct, so i voted both

The Sanskrit expression "neti neti" means "not this, not this" or "neither this, nor that." So, why didn't you vote "neither?"

 

[Gambit]

And whatever other categories we care to reduce it to.

What other categories do you care to reduce it to?

 

[MD]

Both, the brain is intimately involved but the mechanism of action is unknown and in my opinion will always be unknown from a scientific perspective.

There will never be a purely physical description of consciousness, at least scientifically speaking.

 

[Gambit]

pansychism would certainly imply that neither could be totally correct

It depends on the version of panpsychism. Based on Whitehead's panpsychism, the subjective and objective are always oscillating back and forth. (This is very unique solution to the mind-body problem.)

 

[Gambit]

This question cannot really be answered without a working definition for the word "physical". Anyone got one that they can fit into their view?

Agreed. I discussed this in my thread entitled: "How do you define "physical?""

 

[Gambit]

It's reality--to reduce it to any other thing is to remove that thing form reality and have it supercede reality.

Are you defining "consciousness" as "reality?"

 

[nazz]

Agreed. I discussed this in my thread entitled: "How do you define "physical?""

didn't realize there was already a thread on this. I just started another one

 

[Gambit]

Processes undergo other things. What underlies processes?

If a process is neither physical nor nonphysical, then what exactly is it that is undergoing a process? (I can understand a physical process, I can understand a mental process; and I can understand a process how the mental and physical interact. But I am having a difficult time attempting to understand a process that neither involves a physical process nor a nonphysical process.)

This depends. However, within the past 24+ hours I've been working and taking breaks to distract myself here, I've covered this twice, and I'm fairly certain that at least one of those times was in a thread you participated in.

Apparently, I must have missed it.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Interesting. What exactly is the measurable and detectable physical property of consciousness?

Hospitals and emergency personal for instance in determining the conscious state of patients by their physical disposition upon entering the treatment center.

Surgical anthestisia chemically used to put one under.

Our own physical bodies when requiring sleep gives us an indicator when it's time for the lights to go out. We gauge just when that point is by how the body reacts.

The type of consciousness as well that pertains to the physical can be disguinished. Say when fast asleep, our bodies still remain conscious on the cellular level apart from our primary conciousness to maintain vital functions and wakes us up when a problem arises, or there is enough regeneration to wake up to the level of consciousness we are familiar with. Even our immune system by which we don't focus, remains reactive and aware.

As I see it the properties of consciousness are multifaceted and simultaneous throughout depending upon what's going on within our bodies at a givin moment.

It's simple common things like the above as I see it by how consciousness is measured and detected in many ways by noting what physically is going on, and we can follow things like that by how our psyicality changes and responds that affects us.

 

[Willamena]

What other categories do you care to reduce it to?

Science is a system we've devised for describing our analyses of the world. Physical is a category of descriptors that refers to anything measureable (like distances, weights, or forces, being the measurable interactions between bits), but we could just as rightly make a mathematical anlaysis, or look to reduce the world in non-scientific terms, such as those used in metaphysics (ontological/epistemological, object/subject, knowledge/truth).

Are you defining "consciousness" as "reality?"

Yes and no. Reality is a narrative we compose using science and other tools of consciousness. Within the context of the narrative, reality supercedes consciousness, but apart from that consciousness supercedes reality. In other words, we cannot be conscious of a world unless there is a world to be conscious of (this is within the context of the narrative), but it's all for naught unless we are conscious (all the science in the world is no use if you're dead).

 

[Bunyip]

Abstractions are clearly nonphysical. So, are you arguing that consciousness is nonphysical?

Yes, it is an abstraction - it is conceptual as opposed to physical.

 

[Bunyip]

Both, the brain is intimately involved but the mechanism of action is unknown and in my opinion will always be unknown from a scientific perspective.

There will never be a purely physical description of consciousness, at least scientifically speaking.

Of course - why would science think to attempt to give a physical explanation for a non-physical concept?

 

[MD]

Of course - why would science think to attempt to give a physical explanation for a non-physical concept?

 

[Bunyip]

Nice fan pic mate.

Do you have an answer? Why on earth would science even try to give a complete physical description of a non-physical emergent property? It makes no sense.

 

[Looncall]

Well, if it is neither physical nor nonphysical, then what else is it? (Telling me that it is simply a process is not very informative. And telling me what substrate it runs on still does not tell me whether it is a physical or nonphysical process.)

Consider a calculation running on a computer. Does it make sense to speak of the calculation as a substance, or as physical or non-physical? This is a category error. "Not even wrong.".

What is "non-physical" supposed to mean, anyway?

 

[Bunyip]

Consider a calculation running on a computer. Does it make sense to speak of the calculation as a substance, or as physical or non-physical? This is a category error. "Not even wrong.".

What is "non-physical" supposed to mean, anyway?

Bingo!

It seems to me to keep coming back to claiming that abstracts have some kind of 'substance', of a non-physical nature - although 'substance' refers to the physical anyway, it is incoherrent.

 

[FearGod]

Is consciousness physical or nonphysical?

Of course non-physical, similar to the wave-particle duality.

 

[Laika]

So, can you please define for us the physical properties of consciousness?

Electromagnetic signals through neurons in the Brain? that's both measurable and observable, but the science behind this is still in it's infancy.

 

[FearGod]

Electromagnetic signals through neurons in the Brain? that's both measurable and observable, but the science behind this is still in it's infancy.

Who controls the brain ?