9 ms·

Thomas Nagel: Thoughts Are Real (2013)

36 points by malloryerik 5y ago

tim333 5y ago
The core argument sounds kind of duff >Since neither physics nor Darwinian biology—the concept of evolution—can account for the emergence of a mental world from a physical one, Nagel contends that the mental side of existence must somehow have been present in creation from the very start. I mean Tesla cars can form a neural network model of the world around them. I don't think you have to go beyond physics to explain this stuff.
- the-dude 5y ago
  You assume that our artificial neural networks du jour are enough of a start to get to AGI. I doubt it.
  - skohan 5y ago
    ANN's aren't, but the human brain in vivo certainly is
  - tim333 5y ago
    Not really. I'm assuming the artificial neural networks in Teslas have some awareness of their surroundings - where the road goes and so on, and that biological neural networks work in a somewhat similar way but are much more complicated.
- goatlover 5y ago
  Not for a model, but consciousness is a different 'matter'.
  - rixed 5y ago
    First you postulate that it's a different matter, then you wonder where is the science that explains it's existence. Ever considered there might be nothing more to it than what we already know? This is basically the notion of emergence.
    - goatlover 5y ago
      Is the emergence weak or strong? If it's weak, then subjectivity can be reduced to neurons firing or whatever. What does that look like? If it's strong, then you spooky emergence, which means something entirely new — something not entailed by prior physics coming into existence. That would be non-reductive physicalism, but I'm not sure how it's different than property dualism that David Chalmers would endorse.
tsimionescu 5y ago
Again this god-of-the-gaps drivel (or dualism-of-the-gaps, since the proponent is atheistic) that claims that since we don't know how a mind arises from the physical brain it must mean that it doesn't. The extreme complexity of this theory of the world is of course irrelevant to the kind of people whose end goal is to put art on the same footing as science not only in abstract value (which it surely does) but as an actual method for knowing the world (which is preposterous). To be clear, if we accept the existence of a non-physical mental realm, we have the monstrous problem of explaining how these two interact, as there are numerous correlations between the two.
- nathias 5y ago
  Good thing you have solved metaphysics then, care to share your work?
  - tsimionescu 5y ago
    While there are massive amounts of work left to actually describe the mechanisms and understand the specifics, I think computation presents an extremely convincing account of how the mind can arise from the body. Metaphysics of course has many other aspects beyond mind/body dualism, and many of those are well outside the realm of what can be scientifically probed. But the origins of the mind in the body and brain are not beyond scientific exploration, and we have been making progress towards them - only baby steps so far, but already too much to keep believing in anything like dualism. In fact, mind/body dualism has not been taken seriously in any scientific circles for at least a hundred years, but it persists in certain philosophical circles, with silly thought experiments such as 'p-zombies'.
    - nathias 5y ago
      You do understand that the problem isn't in the origin, but type? It doesn't matter if the mind is generated by the body, the issue is if it is reducible to it. This pertains more to ontology as in what is reality and what is is than any particularities of the empirical mechanisms of cognition and neuroscience, substance dualism has nothing to do with science and people who understand the problem know that.
randcraw 5y ago
So everything real real or imagined exists. Equally? But to equate objects that physically exist with those that do not is fantasy, and fabricates extensions to the physical universe that exist only in Nagel's mind. Imagination does not equate to belief much less physical existence. The reductio absurdum of Nagel's theorem is this: existence of everything in the universe is given existence by human imagination. So if all humans were to die off, everything that remains would, what, disappear? That isn't metaphysics. It's anthropocentric solipsism.
- Loveaway 5y ago
  No we can't just all die off and the universe would disappear, we'd just keep merging and unifying together into one - we together are really just all one entity, separated into seemingly infinite smaller consciousnesses, including humans, animals, plants, rocks, but also higher otherworldly things we have no idea about. As far as it goes, Humans are really just a tiny part in all of this. It's this one, god-mind if you will, that fabricates our universe, but for us individual humans it is as real as it gets. There's really nothing too special about us, and we are better off taking things as real. In a way you can say evolution is both true and it's not, but for all we know following the things that are tried and proven is the more practical thing to do, right? Like, when it comes to Pokemon for example, I just looked up that Pikachu evolve to Raichu. But wait does he really? Or isn't that just bunch of fabrication too? Well for all intends and purposes that's how it works right?
  - throwamon 5y ago
    Ok, so the first half of your comment is something we could have a discussion about, but then... > In a way you can say evolution is both true and it's not Why? > for all we know following the things that are tried and proven is the more practical thing to do, right? What? > Like, when it comes to Pokemon for example, I just looked up that Pikachu evolve to Raichu. But wait does he really? Or isn't that just bunch of fabrication too? Well for all intends and purposes that's how it works right? ?????
    - 5y ago
acenes 5y ago
Reviews of Nagel's book by actual philosophers: https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/mind-and-cosmos-why-the-materialist-neo-darwinian-conception-of-nature-is-almost-certainly-false/ https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/mind-and-cosmos-why-the-material... https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/do-you-only-have-brain-thomas-nagel/ https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/do-you-only-have-b... https://bostonreview.net/books-ideas/remarkable-facts https://bostonreview.net/books-ideas/remarkable-facts
- civilized 5y ago
  From The Nation's review: > In support of his skepticism [about the soundness of scientific explanations of nature], Nagel writes: “The world is an astonishing place, and the idea that we have in our possession the basic tools needed to understand it is no more credible now than it was in Aristotle’s day.” This seems to us perhaps the most startling sentence in all of Mind and Cosmos. Nagel doesn't seem to give science credit where credit is due. I find Daniel Dennett a much more interesting read because he actually wrestles with the philosophical implications of the scientific revolution, rather than rejecting scientific naturalism basically because it doesn't "feel right". From Dennett's work I recommend Darwin's Dangerous Idea, especially the discussion of "cranes" and "skyhooks". Dennett says that, according to evolutionary theory, the complex structure of the world is built from the bottom up by a sequence of cranes (upon cranes upon cranes...) rather than being dropped from the mysterious, omnipotent heavens by "skyhooks".
trts 5y ago
Having recently been swept into a youtube loop on this subject, not much seems to have been learned since this article was published. It's fascinating just how vast the gap is. There is seemingly no theory of consciousness that has any testable hypotheses. It's quite engaging to hear some of our most public intellectuals talk about what to make of that. Imagination is pretty much the only thing that fills that void today. Some of my favorite speakers on the topic have been Dennett, Hoffman, Tononi and Penrose. Just look at some of the contributors on the playlist below! And they know almost as little as I do. It's a fun and mindbending topic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fh7rCV0zi1Q&list=RDCMUCl9StMQ79LtEvlrskzjoYbQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fh7rCV0zi1Q&list=RDCMUCl9StM...
- Comevius 5y ago
  Science keeps advancing steadily on understanding consciousness, but you won't find any of it on Youtube or from these popular science or philosophy writers and speakers. You find it on Researchgate and such, start from a paper and chase down the citations.
  - pessimizer 5y ago
    > Science keeps advancing steadily on understanding consciousness The perfect place to prove that is by putting a few citations in your comment. Better to show than tell.
    - martinmakesgame 5y ago
      If you are looking for information about current research into consciousness, there is a book, The Hidden Spring by Mark Solms. He gave a talk organised by The Royal Institution that talked about case studies that explore where consciousness comes from. I hope this is helpful. https://youtu.be/CmuYrnOVmfk https://youtu.be/CmuYrnOVmfk
    - Comevius 5y ago
      I don't have a paper that has it all, I recommend reading as many as you can and find interesting just to get a picture. You may start here, follow the citations and their references. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/221703137_Thermodynamics_of_Prediction https://www.researchgate.net/publication/221703137_Thermodyn...
Comevius 5y ago
> In other words, even if it were possible to map out the exact pattern of brain waves that give rise to a person’s momentary complex of awareness, that mapping would only explain the physical correlate of these experiences, but it wouldn’t be them. This is where Nagel is wrong. Mental activities don't map directly to brain functions, but this doesn't at all mean that they are not part of the physical world. https://www.quantamagazine.org/mental-phenomena-dont-map-into-the-brain-as-expected-20210824/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/mental-phenomena-dont-map-int... Computers have mental activities too, simple ones, but we are not tapping into a different realm to make that happen. Would be cool though, because both computers and brains are constrained by that pesky thermodynamics. Scratch that. They are defined by it. In fact you don't even need computers or brains for lifelike behavior. Any system responding to a stochastic driving signal can be interpreted as computing. Making a predictive model of the environment equals to using available energy efficiently. https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-life-and-death-spring-from-disorder-20170126/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-life-and-death-spring-fro... https://arxiv.org/abs/1203.3271 https://arxiv.org/abs/1203.3271
- throwdecro 5y ago
  > Computers have mental activities too, simple ones That's begging the question as to whether awareness arises out of the physical world. You're assuming mental activities arise out of computations occurring in the physical world, when whether or not this is the case is in fact the question.
  - Comevius 5y ago
    The mental activities are the computations, it doesn't matter what you call it. It's the same predictive model of the environment thing, which is thermodynamics. Of course we think that humans are special, but a gerbil, a cauliflower plant, even a metal spring does this. Granted a cauliflower can do much more than a spring, but then a gerbil can do more than a cauliflower. https://nautil.us/issue/104/harmony/plants-feel-pain-and-might-even-see https://nautil.us/issue/104/harmony/plants-feel-pain-and-mig...
  - nextaccountic 5y ago
swayvil 5y ago
Speaking as a meditation guy, reality comes down to sensation. I mean, this stream of sensations : Sights, sounds, tastes, feelings - and yes, thoughts. No, thought does not get a special role here. Except in that we consider it to be special. And we use it to map, narrate and explain everything. We really like "meaning". We use thoughts like this. We associate this thought with that sight (ex "that looks like a horse"), or this thought with that smell (ex "smells like cookies"), or this thought with this other thought (ex "it logically follows..."). I mean we assign meaning. We map stuff. But no, thought is not inherently special. It's just one more grape on the perceptual vine. And all those perceptual/sensational/experience-things are all equally real, as far as I can tell.
- zozbot234 5y ago
  Well, the "mapping" you're referring to is itself fairly special; it's a reflection of intentionality, the fact that thoughts can be "about" something else in our minds. This is one of many key insights about phenomenology - the very 'stuff' that meditators experiment with as part of their practices! Some fascinating insights to be gained by blending all of those traditions.
skohan 5y ago
I honestly don't understand the need some people seem to have to reach for an extra-physical domain for the mind to exist in. It seems to me quite obvious that the human nervous system is necessary and sufficient to create subjective experience in humans. We don't have such doubts about any other organ. For instance if someone's pancreas is damaged or needs to be removed, we accept readily that this person will no longer be able to produce insulin by themselves anymore. We don't search for some alternate metaphysical explanation for blood sugar regulation. It's similarly easy to observe A/B tests vis a vis the brain's role in consciousness.
- dasil003 5y ago
  I concur that it is unjustified to believe an extra-physical domain is necessary for the mind to exist. However where I differ is your believe that it is "obviously" not necessary. There is a reason this is a philosophical question, and not purely a matter of science. The reason consciousness is special is because we viscerally experience it in a way that is undeniably more significant than any discrete physical observation (such as your example of insulin production). Of course that doesn't prove anything one way or the other, but to unilaterally declare that consciousness is purely a result of mechanical and chemical biological processes is quite a leap and not something that is easily falsifiable. For empiricists and other logically-minded folks the idea that reality begins and ends with the physical world can be comforting—after all, that would mean that everything could likely eventually be explained through physical observation and continued rigorous application of the scientific method. However this line of thinking also relies on faith just as religion does: the faith that our perception of reality is representative of the whole of reality and that there is no facet beyond the reach of a cleverly designed experiment. I am of the opinion that it is hubris to declare one way or another. It's easily conceivable to me that the reality we see and experience is but a reflection of a deeper reality which our meat-sack senses and ideas can not penetrate, but that nevertheless exists and interacts with us.
  - zozbot234 5y ago
    The definition of "physical world" is simply a network of cause-effect relations. Since conciousness enters into cause-effect relations with stuff we all acknowledge as "physical" (such as machinery, and indeed our own biology) this shows that whatever we subjectively experience as "conciousness" is itself physical. The fact that we don't know how that physics works under the hood (it's probably nothing close to ordinary mechanics and chemistry!) doesn't mean it's not part of the physical world. It's not "deeper" than physics, it's just more physics.
a3n 5y ago
You may have run across Thomas Nagel via his What is it like to be a bat? https://duckduckgo.com/?q=nagle+%22to+be+a+bat%22&t=fpas&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?q=nagle+%22to+be+a+bat%22&t=fpas&ia=... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_It_Like_to_Be_a_Bat%3F https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_It_Like_to_Be_a_Bat%... > Nagel famously asserts that "an organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is like to be that organism—something it is like for the organism."[2] This assertion has achieved special status in consciousness studies as "the standard 'what it's like' locution."[3] Daniel Dennett, while sharply disagreeing on some points, acknowledged Nagel's paper as "the most widely cited and influential thought experiment about consciousness."

36 points by malloryerik 5y ago

The core argument sounds kind of duff >Since neither physics nor Darwinian biology—the concept of evolution—can account for the emergence of a mental world from a physical one, Nagel contends that the mental side of existence must somehow have been present in creation from the very start. I mean Tesla cars can form a neural network model of the world around them. I don't think you have to go beyond physics to explain this stuff.

the-dude 5y ago
You assume that our artificial neural networks du jour are enough of a start to get to AGI. I doubt it.
- skohan 5y ago
  ANN's aren't, but the human brain in vivo certainly is
- tim333 5y ago
  Not really. I'm assuming the artificial neural networks in Teslas have some awareness of their surroundings - where the road goes and so on, and that biological neural networks work in a somewhat similar way but are much more complicated.
goatlover 5y ago
Not for a model, but consciousness is a different 'matter'.
- rixed 5y ago
  First you postulate that it's a different matter, then you wonder where is the science that explains it's existence. Ever considered there might be nothing more to it than what we already know? This is basically the notion of emergence.
  - goatlover 5y ago
    Is the emergence weak or strong? If it's weak, then subjectivity can be reduced to neurons firing or whatever. What does that look like? If it's strong, then you spooky emergence, which means something entirely new — something not entailed by prior physics coming into existence. That would be non-reductive physicalism, but I'm not sure how it's different than property dualism that David Chalmers would endorse.

tsimionescu 5y ago

Again this god-of-the-gaps drivel (or dualism-of-the-gaps, since the proponent is atheistic) that claims that since we don't know how a mind arises from the physical brain it must mean that it doesn't. The extreme complexity of this theory of the world is of course irrelevant to the kind of people whose end goal is to put art on the same footing as science not only in abstract value (which it surely does) but as an actual method for knowing the world (which is preposterous). To be clear, if we accept the existence of a non-physical mental realm, we have the monstrous problem of explaining how these two interact, as there are numerous correlations between the two.

nathias 5y ago
Good thing you have solved metaphysics then, care to share your work?
- tsimionescu 5y ago
  While there are massive amounts of work left to actually describe the mechanisms and understand the specifics, I think computation presents an extremely convincing account of how the mind can arise from the body. Metaphysics of course has many other aspects beyond mind/body dualism, and many of those are well outside the realm of what can be scientifically probed. But the origins of the mind in the body and brain are not beyond scientific exploration, and we have been making progress towards them - only baby steps so far, but already too much to keep believing in anything like dualism. In fact, mind/body dualism has not been taken seriously in any scientific circles for at least a hundred years, but it persists in certain philosophical circles, with silly thought experiments such as 'p-zombies'.
  - nathias 5y ago
    You do understand that the problem isn't in the origin, but type? It doesn't matter if the mind is generated by the body, the issue is if it is reducible to it. This pertains more to ontology as in what is reality and what is is than any particularities of the empirical mechanisms of cognition and neuroscience, substance dualism has nothing to do with science and people who understand the problem know that.

randcraw 5y ago

So everything real real or imagined exists. Equally? But to equate objects that physically exist with those that do not is fantasy, and fabricates extensions to the physical universe that exist only in Nagel's mind. Imagination does not equate to belief much less physical existence. The reductio absurdum of Nagel's theorem is this: existence of everything in the universe is given existence by human imagination. So if all humans were to die off, everything that remains would, what, disappear? That isn't metaphysics. It's anthropocentric solipsism.

Loveaway 5y ago
No we can't just all die off and the universe would disappear, we'd just keep merging and unifying together into one - we together are really just all one entity, separated into seemingly infinite smaller consciousnesses, including humans, animals, plants, rocks, but also higher otherworldly things we have no idea about. As far as it goes, Humans are really just a tiny part in all of this. It's this one, god-mind if you will, that fabricates our universe, but for us individual humans it is as real as it gets. There's really nothing too special about us, and we are better off taking things as real. In a way you can say evolution is both true and it's not, but for all we know following the things that are tried and proven is the more practical thing to do, right? Like, when it comes to Pokemon for example, I just looked up that Pikachu evolve to Raichu. But wait does he really? Or isn't that just bunch of fabrication too? Well for all intends and purposes that's how it works right?
- throwamon 5y ago
  Ok, so the first half of your comment is something we could have a discussion about, but then... > In a way you can say evolution is both true and it's not Why? > for all we know following the things that are tried and proven is the more practical thing to do, right? What? > Like, when it comes to Pokemon for example, I just looked up that Pikachu evolve to Raichu. But wait does he really? Or isn't that just bunch of fabrication too? Well for all intends and purposes that's how it works right? ?????
  - 5y ago

acenes 5y ago

Reviews of Nagel's book by actual philosophers: https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/mind-and-cosmos-why-the-materialist-neo-darwinian-conception-of-nature-is-almost-certainly-false/ https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/mind-and-cosmos-why-the-material... https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/do-you-only-have-brain-thomas-nagel/ https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/do-you-only-have-b... https://bostonreview.net/books-ideas/remarkable-facts https://bostonreview.net/books-ideas/remarkable-facts

civilized 5y ago
From The Nation's review: > In support of his skepticism [about the soundness of scientific explanations of nature], Nagel writes: “The world is an astonishing place, and the idea that we have in our possession the basic tools needed to understand it is no more credible now than it was in Aristotle’s day.” This seems to us perhaps the most startling sentence in all of Mind and Cosmos. Nagel doesn't seem to give science credit where credit is due. I find Daniel Dennett a much more interesting read because he actually wrestles with the philosophical implications of the scientific revolution, rather than rejecting scientific naturalism basically because it doesn't "feel right". From Dennett's work I recommend Darwin's Dangerous Idea, especially the discussion of "cranes" and "skyhooks". Dennett says that, according to evolutionary theory, the complex structure of the world is built from the bottom up by a sequence of cranes (upon cranes upon cranes...) rather than being dropped from the mysterious, omnipotent heavens by "skyhooks".

trts 5y ago

Having recently been swept into a youtube loop on this subject, not much seems to have been learned since this article was published. It's fascinating just how vast the gap is. There is seemingly no theory of consciousness that has any testable hypotheses. It's quite engaging to hear some of our most public intellectuals talk about what to make of that. Imagination is pretty much the only thing that fills that void today. Some of my favorite speakers on the topic have been Dennett, Hoffman, Tononi and Penrose. Just look at some of the contributors on the playlist below! And they know almost as little as I do. It's a fun and mindbending topic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fh7rCV0zi1Q&list=RDCMUCl9StMQ79LtEvlrskzjoYbQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fh7rCV0zi1Q&list=RDCMUCl9StM...

Comevius 5y ago
Science keeps advancing steadily on understanding consciousness, but you won't find any of it on Youtube or from these popular science or philosophy writers and speakers. You find it on Researchgate and such, start from a paper and chase down the citations.
- pessimizer 5y ago
  > Science keeps advancing steadily on understanding consciousness The perfect place to prove that is by putting a few citations in your comment. Better to show than tell.
  - martinmakesgame 5y ago
    If you are looking for information about current research into consciousness, there is a book, The Hidden Spring by Mark Solms. He gave a talk organised by The Royal Institution that talked about case studies that explore where consciousness comes from. I hope this is helpful. https://youtu.be/CmuYrnOVmfk https://youtu.be/CmuYrnOVmfk
  - Comevius 5y ago
    I don't have a paper that has it all, I recommend reading as many as you can and find interesting just to get a picture. You may start here, follow the citations and their references. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/221703137_Thermodynamics_of_Prediction https://www.researchgate.net/publication/221703137_Thermodyn...

Comevius 5y ago

> In other words, even if it were possible to map out the exact pattern of brain waves that give rise to a person’s momentary complex of awareness, that mapping would only explain the physical correlate of these experiences, but it wouldn’t be them. This is where Nagel is wrong. Mental activities don't map directly to brain functions, but this doesn't at all mean that they are not part of the physical world. https://www.quantamagazine.org/mental-phenomena-dont-map-into-the-brain-as-expected-20210824/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/mental-phenomena-dont-map-int... Computers have mental activities too, simple ones, but we are not tapping into a different realm to make that happen. Would be cool though, because both computers and brains are constrained by that pesky thermodynamics. Scratch that. They are defined by it. In fact you don't even need computers or brains for lifelike behavior. Any system responding to a stochastic driving signal can be interpreted as computing. Making a predictive model of the environment equals to using available energy efficiently. https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-life-and-death-spring-from-disorder-20170126/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-life-and-death-spring-fro... https://arxiv.org/abs/1203.3271 https://arxiv.org/abs/1203.3271

throwdecro 5y ago
> Computers have mental activities too, simple ones That's begging the question as to whether awareness arises out of the physical world. You're assuming mental activities arise out of computations occurring in the physical world, when whether or not this is the case is in fact the question.
- Comevius 5y ago
  The mental activities are the computations, it doesn't matter what you call it. It's the same predictive model of the environment thing, which is thermodynamics. Of course we think that humans are special, but a gerbil, a cauliflower plant, even a metal spring does this. Granted a cauliflower can do much more than a spring, but then a gerbil can do more than a cauliflower. https://nautil.us/issue/104/harmony/plants-feel-pain-and-might-even-see https://nautil.us/issue/104/harmony/plants-feel-pain-and-mig...
- nextaccountic 5y ago

swayvil 5y ago

Speaking as a meditation guy, reality comes down to sensation. I mean, this stream of sensations : Sights, sounds, tastes, feelings - and yes, thoughts. No, thought does not get a special role here. Except in that we consider it to be special. And we use it to map, narrate and explain everything. We really like "meaning". We use thoughts like this. We associate this thought with that sight (ex "that looks like a horse"), or this thought with that smell (ex "smells like cookies"), or this thought with this other thought (ex "it logically follows..."). I mean we assign meaning. We map stuff. But no, thought is not inherently special. It's just one more grape on the perceptual vine. And all those perceptual/sensational/experience-things are all equally real, as far as I can tell.

zozbot234 5y ago
Well, the "mapping" you're referring to is itself fairly special; it's a reflection of intentionality, the fact that thoughts can be "about" something else in our minds. This is one of many key insights about phenomenology - the very 'stuff' that meditators experiment with as part of their practices! Some fascinating insights to be gained by blending all of those traditions.

skohan 5y ago

I honestly don't understand the need some people seem to have to reach for an extra-physical domain for the mind to exist in. It seems to me quite obvious that the human nervous system is necessary and sufficient to create subjective experience in humans. We don't have such doubts about any other organ. For instance if someone's pancreas is damaged or needs to be removed, we accept readily that this person will no longer be able to produce insulin by themselves anymore. We don't search for some alternate metaphysical explanation for blood sugar regulation. It's similarly easy to observe A/B tests vis a vis the brain's role in consciousness.

dasil003 5y ago
I concur that it is unjustified to believe an extra-physical domain is necessary for the mind to exist. However where I differ is your believe that it is "obviously" not necessary. There is a reason this is a philosophical question, and not purely a matter of science. The reason consciousness is special is because we viscerally experience it in a way that is undeniably more significant than any discrete physical observation (such as your example of insulin production). Of course that doesn't prove anything one way or the other, but to unilaterally declare that consciousness is purely a result of mechanical and chemical biological processes is quite a leap and not something that is easily falsifiable. For empiricists and other logically-minded folks the idea that reality begins and ends with the physical world can be comforting—after all, that would mean that everything could likely eventually be explained through physical observation and continued rigorous application of the scientific method. However this line of thinking also relies on faith just as religion does: the faith that our perception of reality is representative of the whole of reality and that there is no facet beyond the reach of a cleverly designed experiment. I am of the opinion that it is hubris to declare one way or another. It's easily conceivable to me that the reality we see and experience is but a reflection of a deeper reality which our meat-sack senses and ideas can not penetrate, but that nevertheless exists and interacts with us.
- zozbot234 5y ago
  The definition of "physical world" is simply a network of cause-effect relations. Since conciousness enters into cause-effect relations with stuff we all acknowledge as "physical" (such as machinery, and indeed our own biology) this shows that whatever we subjectively experience as "conciousness" is itself physical. The fact that we don't know how that physics works under the hood (it's probably nothing close to ordinary mechanics and chemistry!) doesn't mean it's not part of the physical world. It's not "deeper" than physics, it's just more physics.

a3n 5y ago

You may have run across Thomas Nagel via his What is it like to be a bat? https://duckduckgo.com/?q=nagle+%22to+be+a+bat%22&t=fpas&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?q=nagle+%22to+be+a+bat%22&t=fpas&ia=... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_It_Like_to_Be_a_Bat%3F https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_It_Like_to_Be_a_Bat%... > Nagel famously asserts that "an organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is like to be that organism—something it is like for the organism."[2] This assertion has achieved special status in consciousness studies as "the standard 'what it's like' locution."[3] Daniel Dennett, while sharply disagreeing on some points, acknowledged Nagel's paper as "the most widely cited and influential thought experiment about consciousness."