Is there, and if so, a physical explation for conciousness?

Question

This question is geared more toward those who have an understanding or strong interest in theoretical physics, ie. atomic, subatomic, particle.

Please note that this is not a metaphysical or spirtiual question! In no way am I trying to reference, hint, or give lead to a discussion about god. My reasoning behind this is simple: God is a very easy, and sometimes, very logical way out of answering a question directly and creatively. If possible try to avoid such a subject as the world of philosophy, theory, and science are constantly being saturated with the god argument. Thankyou!

Answer 1

It won't be very long before robots with electronic brains will possess consciousness, which is really an attribute of intelligent systems that have 1) memory 2) self awareness. In that case, it will have been shown that no special physical process, such as quantum entanglement, is necessary for consciousness. For a time, it was believed that consciousness played a special role in quantum processes, but that's fallen out of favor with the development of competing decoherence interpretations of state function reduction.

Answer 2

Tough question. Personally, I believe the conscious is rooted in our universe and is not metaphysical in nature. However, our understanding of the universe is still probably missing key details to understand the origin of consciousness.

Penrose may be right in that a quiet quantum environment may be needed for the software to run. But how it runs is still the big mystery. Regarding scythian1's comments, most were never comfortable with requiring a conscious observer to collapse a wave function, so no loss there. However, the ability of decoherence to catalyze collapse does not mean quantum phenomena are not at the heart of consciousness. Building a robot with self awareness is the whole trick, since sa and consciousness seem to go hand in hand.

Answer 3

Basically you are asking us to try and prove verbally the existence or in this case the non-existense of God. In my case I believe there is a God and in His infinite knowledge and power He is the reason for conciousness. If you do no believe in God you will most likely believe the scientific explaination where an explosion occurred in deep space and from this all life was created out of chance, chance that Earth was exactly as far away as it is from the sun , chance that all the elements were present in the exact quantities in the ocean and that electrical currents in the form of lightening sparked life as we know it.

What you are asking here is whether or not God exists, which no one can prove or disprove so your question my friend will never truely be answered.

Answer 4

Try Penrose.

He thinks that consciousness is a result of quantum action in the microtubuli.

Personally, I think he is dead wrong. But he is as close to a physical explanation as we currently get.

Answer 5

No. If you think the human mind purely as physico-chemical process, there should be no more conscience in a human being than in a mountain or a car or any other natural phenomena.