(Deleted from Physics SE, so trying to post it here instead...)
Straight question - is explaining consciousness in the realm of physics?
Detailed question:
We know that consciousness exists. Or rather, I know that I have it. The rest of you may not be conscious, but I know that I am, so it exists...
A physicist who disagrees is Max Tegmark who says consciousness is for psychologists and biologists. A computer scientist who disagrees is Jaron Lanier who says consciousness is not necessarily physical.
Ultimately this is a matter of opinion. Those with a physicalist view of mind may hold such a view while other materialists and dualists will hold a different view. Some argue that it is rather arrogant to assume that nature has endowed us with an intellect capable of understanding mind and that it will forever remain a mystery. Whatever the case, our folk psychology is evidently wanting and a radically different view of mind may be what neuroscience needs in order to make progress.
If there's a reductionist explanation for consciousness, then the only option is to have some set of laws that supplement standard elementary physics that allows for consciousness. I have no idea what kind of form these laws would take. But if this is impossible, then reductionism is false. And that really opens the floodgates to a completely different worldview. I would think scientists would prefer to find a reductionist explanation. I think the most bizarre position to take is, "there is nothing here that needs explaining". Sean Carroll ultimately seems to take this position imo.
@JKusin I checked out Max Tegmark. However, he appears to have written a paper positing that consciousness is a 5th state of matter. He doesn't appear to think that consciousness is for psychologists and biologists! arxiv.org/abs/1401.1219
@BhagwadJalPark What I mean is that biology, psychology, neuroscience will have to provide insight beyond physics. Tegmark claims so in his Our Mathematical Universe book, and I don't see that paper changing anything "This is the goal of the present paper — a goal whose pursuit may ultimately provide additional tools for the neuroscience community" Even if everything reduces to physics, it wont be physicists alone or even primarily solving consciousness.
@BhagwadJalPark "we physicists can limit ourselves to starting with the external reality and predicting the consensus reality that all reasonable observers agree on, leaving the quest for the internal reality to neuroscientists and psychologists." Our Mathematical Universe, Tegmark
"What do you think" questions are off-topic here. Philosophers' takes on the hard problem of consciousness, which is what this is, can already be found in encyclopedias with much more detail than any answer here can provide due to size limitations.
@Conifold Ideally, I want a physicist's take on this, but the problem was removed from the physics SE board, and this is the only forum I could find into which I could fit my question.
Physics doesn't have a "job", it's just a tool to increase our understanding of the physical world. It's not a hammer's job to drive a nail into something, it's just a tool for doing so. I would argue the more appropriate question would be one of these: can physics explain consciousness (which may just come down to "have we already explained it"), has anyone tried to use used physics explain consciousness or has there been any attempts (in any field) to explain consciousness from a physical or biological perspective. I'm not convinced any of those questions would fit on this site though.
With the generous amount of handwaving you apply to establish the links in your economics example you could indeed do the same for "consciousness". But that doesn't make consciousness a field of study of physics, in the same way how economy isn't a subfield of physics even though you can somehow claim that, very deep down, it's all particles bumping into each other.
Linking economics back to physics in the way you've done is questionable. It is kind of the common joke that physics encompasses all other fields, but in truth physics does not concern itself with anything other than ... well, physics. You can say, at the end of the day, everything is comprised of elementary particles, and this may be true. But that's not saying "everything is comprised of physics". Physics simply includes the study of elementary particles and stops applying when you're no longer studying matter. It would be like saying a mechanic's trade explains traffic. It really doesn't.
@xLeitix Could we really "do the same" for consciousness? Granted, my hand-waving is spectacular indeed. But even with this impressive amount of hand-waving, do we know that consciousness is "just" particles bumping into each other? Because with economics and biology, it really is particles bumping into each other!
Ironically, I'd suggest that explaining physics is in the realm of consciousness. I have yet to see a physics professor who is actually an inanimate object (though my undergraduate self might have disagreed...).
If your only definition of consciousness is "it is something that I know I have, therefore it exists," it is beyond any rational discussion until you can formulate some notion where everyone can be sure they are talking about the same concept. Otherwise, consciousness is no more in the domain of physics than invisible unicorns.
@alephzero But what if everyone (including yourself) claimed they saw invisible unicorns? (well, technically not invisible, otherwise you couldn't see them).
@AmeetSharma Why must there be additional laws? Do you have a proof that this is required? This is analogous to saying that there must be additional "wetness" laws to explain how water is wet, or else reductionism is false.
@gardenhead, To put it simply, current physical laws are non-experiential and deal with entities like charge, mass etc. which are devoid of any experiential characteristics. They are purely mathematical. Any combination of these laws will be non-experiential which will leave out consciousness. If you play chess according to rules, you will obtain a chess position with 2 kings at the end. Even if you never play them all, you will never get a third king appearing on the board if you follow the rules. If you want a 3rd king to appear, then the rules have to be changed.
@AmeetSharma That's a nice way of putting it. Thanks! However, we might already have reached this new stage with things like "Information is physical". I have no idea how this can evolve, but it's the start of something, maybe?
@AmeetSharma This doesn't answer my question. You would have to demonstrate that it is impossible, in principle, for non-experiential entities (ie the standard model) to give rise to experience. This doesn't seem easy to do. It would be the equivalent of demonstrating that non-living entities can't give rise to living entities (which we already know is false). There are countless examples of emergent phenomenon in nature: temperature, texture, wetness, ant colonies, cells, etc. It seems to be the rule, not the exception.
@gardenhead I like the example you gave of life. And a lot depends on how we define "life".Is there any fundamental difference between "living" and "non-living" beings? I'm not so sure. I think however, there is a clear distinction between conscious and non-conscious entities. As for other things like temperature etc, those emergent phenomenon can be fundamentally explained by particles bumping into each other (colonies, cells etc).
@BhagwadJalPark No, there isn't, which is my point. People used to think there was some "life essence" that distinguished life from non-life. This was known as vitalism, and is now known to be false. There's no reason to think consciousness is any different. You think there's a clear distinction, but that isn't a given: it seems consciousness is more of a gradient, with lower forms of animal life having lower level consciousnesses. As for being able to explain those phenomenon in terms of particles, that's only obvious in hindsight. At the time they were just as mysterious as consciousness.
@gardenhead, "temperature, texture, wetness" These things have been partially explained. How do we know about temp. in the first place? We gather data from senses. Then we form some kind of math of temp. Then eventually we learn that the mathematics of temperature is a function of the mathematics of underlying particles/fields. So we get that kind of reduction. But we have no explanation of why there were any sensations in the first place. So in that sense temperature is unexplained.
I am talking about the physical phenomenon of temperature, not the "feeling" of temperature, as that would obviously fall under consciousness and experience. I am merely stating that thermodynamic temperature, which was once thought to have been some sort of "substance", has absolutely been explained via reductionism. A similar thing may eventually happen with consciousness.
"thermodynamic temperature, has absolutely been explained via reductionism"... Ok, so let's stick with the temperature example. I'll try to illustrate the difference from consciousness. Firstly, what is thermodynamic temperature? The thing that was explained via reductionism, what was it? What was this thing that required explaining?
@AmeetSharma It doesn't matter that temperature is different from consciousness. Of course it is! It's also different from every other phenomenon. Yet they have all so far been explained via physical reductionism. But to answer your question, thermodynamic temperature is a certain property of matter such that 1) heat transfers from the hotter to the colder objects and 2) two bodies brought in contact with each other will reach the same temperature (thermal equilibrium)
@gardenhead, In the cases of temperature, texture etc... first we get a certain mathematics for these phenomena, then we are able to demonstrate that this mathematics is actually derivable from the mathematics of underlying particles/fields. That's the nature of reductive explanation. It's purely mathematical. But in the case of the hard problem, we're not asking for a derivation of a mathematics from the mathematics of underlying stuff. We're asking why the mathematics of underlying stuff gives rise to sensation at all. It's a completely different kind of question.
@AmeetSharma It's not purely mathematical, but also ontological. Science tells us what exists. Do you deny the existence of atoms? And even if you are, who's to say that consciousness isn't mathematical as well?
"But what if everyone (including yourself) claimed they saw invisible unicorns? (well, technically not invisible, otherwise you couldn't see them)" I take it you don't know about the en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_Pink_Unicorn Theologists have exactly been claiming equivalent things especially in more religious times, & now we call that metaphysics. For scientists, & many philosophers, that is a label which means we can ignore the so labelled topic.
@gardenhead, But we have our ontology right? Particles/fields, the stuff of physics? When we say that temperature has been "explained" we mean that we can derive certain mathematical measures from the mathematical measures of the underlying stuff. We're probably able to do the same with aspects of consciousness like pain, pleasure eg: model the intensity of these in terms of the math of underlying particles. But that's not what the hard problem asks. It asks why the dynamics of particles cause sensation in the first place. It's a different kind of question.
@gardenhead, here's a video of Chalmers talking about this: youtube.com/watch?v=FN9lT8Vc8kk He pretty much gives my view. He probably explains it a lot better. He also discusses the comparison with vitalism.
@CriglCragl I know exactly what the "invisible pink unicorn" is. And if every human on earth (without exception) saw them all around, it would be a valid subject for science. The problem with the unicorns is that not everyone sees them.
@AmeetSharma I'm familiar with Chalmers and his arguments. I don't agree with him either, which is why we're having this discussion! I think "strong emergence" is a nonsense concept. I don't see how this is a different "kind" of question, or what that even precisely means, other than the fuzzy notion that it "feels different". In what formal way can you say consciousness is categorically different than explaining temperature, life, photosynthesis, weather, friction, etc? Since you said it's impossible in principle to explain via reductionism
@gardenhead, not sure what else I can say. When we say "explain" in a reductive sense we mean the mathematics of a higher level is derivable from the mathematics of a lower level. That's what we mean when we say photosynthesis, weather friction etc are "explained" by reductionism. They all follow that same pattern. With the hard problem, we're not asking for a mathematical derivation... we're asking why sensations happen at all when particles/fields behave in certain ways. Mathematics leads to more mathematics. How will you get sensation out of mathematics?
@AmeetSharma I think we went over this, but scientists in general aren't just talking about math. These things really exist. At least that's the position of scientific realism, which you can certainly disagree with, but you can't just assume it's false for your argument. And even if it was "all math", then there's nothing weird(er) about consciousness being "just math" than chairs, or planets, or life being "jut math". Note that I'm not saying I have the answer (nobody does!), but you are making an impossibility claim, which I don't think has sufficient evidence. Why not leave the door open?
Rehashing whether the Hard Problem is real is beyond the scope of this question. I'd recommend finding a dedicated discussion, or asking a new question.
Eg. 'Why do people make theories without predictive power?' philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/78997/… TLDR: People in computing tend to to think there is nothing very interesting or special about human minds. People in philosophy tend to think there is something so special about them, scientists aren't on track to figuring them out. I strongly recommend not joining either camp.
@CriglCragl I pretty much agree with you. I'm not taking a hard stance either way here (I don't know!), just pushing back against the idea that there "obviously" is a hard problem.
@gardenhead, what if I told you that there was a legal "chess position" that IS possibly the "feeling of pain" and we should leave the door open to that possibility because all chess games haven't been played yet? Wouldn't that be nonsensical? We know the pieces of chess, we know the moves. It's perfectly transparent. Any combination of these moves is just another chess position. It's analogous with physics... we know the elements of physics and their interactions.
@AmeetSharma Quite obviously this is a flawed analogy. Chess is not equivalent to the brain, and the pieces aren't neurons. There's also not a chess position that corresponds to the action of photosynthesis. It doesn't mean photosynthesis is unexplainable or unphysical
Discussion on question by Bhagwad Jal…
Discussion on question by Bhagwad Jal…