Consciousness is mysterious, but it's almost certainly not supernatural

Consciousness seemingly should be easy to understand.

After all, every living human with a normally functioning brain experiences consciousness from the inside, so to speak. Meaning, everything we know, including what we know about ourselves, has to be consciously experienced or it doesn't exist for us. 

That includes the entire universe, with hundreds of billions of galaxies, each containing on average about a hundred billion stars. If there was no consciousness in the universe, all that would be a big bunch of nothing.

Assuming it could even be called "nothing," given that it's impossible for conscious beings like us to understand what, if anything, the universe would be like if no consciousness was aware of it.

There's plenty of ideas about consciousness, but no consensus about either what it consists of or how it comes to be. This description by philosopher Eric Schwitzgebel in his book The Weirdness Of The World does a pretty good job of describing consciousness. 

To be conscious is to have a stream of experience of some sort or other -- some sensory experiences, maybe, or some affective experiences of pleasure or displeasure, relief or pain. Possibly not much more than this.

To be conscious is to have some form of "phenomenology," as that term is commonly used in twenty-first century anglophone philosophy. Using Thomas Nagel's famous phrasing, there's "something it's like" (most people think) to be a dog or a monkey and nothing it's like (most people think) to be a photon or a feather.

If garden snails are conscious, there's something it's like to be them in this sense. They have, maybe, simple tactile experiences of the stuff that they are sliming across, maybe some olfactory experiences of what they are smelling and nibbling, maybe some negative affective experiences when injured.

Garden snails are mentioned because this passage is in a chapter called "Is a garden snail conscious?" Schwitzgebel doesn't draw a firm conclusion, being content to describe the reasons for thinking Yes, No, or Who Knows?

There's a lot we don't know about consciousness, so it isn't surprising that it's difficult to decide whether a garden snail is conscious. It's easier to decide that dogs, cats, other mammals, and our fellow primates (monkeys, chimpanzees, etc.) are conscious.

However, Schwitzgebel raises the interesting question of whether self-awareness is necessary for consciousness. Or at least, for the awareness that one is conscious. He writes:

Whenever you are conscious, it seems that you are aware that you are conscious; consciousness seems to come along with some sort of grasp upon itself. This isn't a matter of reaching an explicit judgment in words or attending vividly to the fact of your consciousness; it's more like a secondary acquaintance with one's own experience as it is happening. 

But one thing that Schwitzgebel doesn't question, nor does virtually every other scientifically-minded writer about consciousness that I've come across, is whether consciousness is supernatural. 

It just seems obvious that consciousness is physical. I've noted this obviousness many times in blog posts, noting that if someone doesn't believe this, they can conduct a painful experiment: have someone hit you on the head with a strong blow of a baseball bat and see how that affects your consciousness. 

(Gentler approaches: have a surgery with anesthesia; imbibe some alcohol, marijuana, or any other psychoactive drug; drink caffeinated coffee.)

Physical causes alter consciousness. So this decidedly points toward consciousness being a physical phenomenon.

Those who believe that consciousness is supernatural -- I used to entertain this notion, in large part because I don't like the prospect of being dead and gone forever -- are unable to reconcile this hypothesis with the clear and convincing evidence that consciousness arises from goings-on in a brain or brain-like structure (I'm open to the idea that artificial intelligences could be conscious one day).

As difficult as it is to fathom how consciousness arises in humans from brain neurons connected in sufficient complexity, it's much more difficult to imagine how supernatural soul or spirit could (1) manifest consciousness, and (2) do so in a manner accessible to people who exist as physical beings with a physical brain. 

I've never seen a cogent explanation about how these things could be possible.

If anyone is able to share such an explanation, do so in a comment on this post. Like I said, I'd love it if consciousness existed after the physical body is no more, but I've come to the conclusion that this is wishful thinking, not reality.

Comments

[sant64]

While significant progress has been made in understanding the brain mechanisms associated with consciousness, it remains uncertain whether science can fully explain the subjective nature of conscious experience. The hard problem of consciousness, the explanatory gap, and the subjective nature of qualia are profound challenges that may require new scientific insights or even paradigm shifts to resolve.

Current scientific theories and models provide robust frameworks for studying consciousness, but the complete explanation of consciousness, especially its subjective aspect, remains an open question. Whether future scientific advancements will bridge this gap or whether consciousness will always retain a dimension beyond scientific explanation is still a matter of active debate and research.

[Appreciative Reader]

God of the Gaps. Why am I not surprised?

Spelling it out a bit: That last sentence.
Camouflaging a GotG argument with weasel words, and replacing God per se with substitutes like (an immaterial) Consciousness, does not change the nature of the argument.

[Appreciative Reader]

Brian, you won't find a reasonable, rational, cogent, and honest argument for an immaterial consciousness. And you're unlikely to find anything beyond elementary, textbook fallacies. What might be interesting in what comes up is the nature and extent of camouflage and subterfuge with which these fallacies are presented.

[Ron E.]

There is still some debate as to whether animals are conscious or not (BBC News – in depth – Are animals conscious). I was a little surprised as I thought it was pretty well established that they were. But actually, it still all comes down to the fact that researchers still have many conflicting theories about consciousness – and are far from an explanation.

Looking at life and ourselves from a non-dualistic perspective, the question of consciousness being anything other than an emergent phenomenon of living organisms is totally unnecessary. And yes, perhaps because many of the attributes assigned to God have steadily been falling by the wayside, the hoped for an immaterial (and God like) interpretation of consciousness is tempting.

The term conscious‘ness’ denotes a thing, as does happiness, but there is actually no such ‘thing’ to be found as a happy, just as there is no such ‘thing’ as a conscious. It would be hard put, nay impossible for science to come up with some seat of consciousness, just as it would be impossible to find the seat of happiness. Both are better explained as emergent properties, states that are dependent on a whole gamut of biological activities.

Because such mental and emotional states cannot be pinned down as arising from a particular brain/body area or set of neurons, consciousness and other mental constructs will always be fodder for supernatural hopes and thinking.

[umami]

"As difficult as it is to fathom how consciousness arises in humans from brain neurons connected in sufficient complexity, it's much more difficult to imagine how supernatural soul or spirit could (1) manifest consciousness, and (2) do so in a manner accessible to people who exist as physical beings with a physical brain."

(1) The way holes manifest doughnuts.
(2) In the manner of bagels.

O Bagel! Prostrate not to the doughnut!

[sant64]

The strangest thing about this blog is its insistence that there's a big, big difference between theistic belief and atheism. And yet the more this blog tries to explain that big difference, the more it seems to say there's no difference.

Descartes said that whatever is independent of everything else is a substance, and that strictly speaking there is just one substance, and that is God.

And so the granddaddy of mind/body dualism says that It Is All One, a sentiment that this blog's author apparently agrees with.

"Put even more simply, but echoing what I said above, if the universe truly is one, a single spatial reality where there are connections between everything that exists within it (for example, physics says that quantum fields are present in every corner of the universe), then the sort of disconnectedness posited by the Matrix, or by religions that posit a supernatural realm separate from materiality, isn't an aspect of reality. I find this inspiring. Also, reassuring."

Not only him, but also Joan Tollifson: "For me, the most liberating realization has been that nothing can be other than how it is, that everything is one undivided and indivisible whole that can never be grasped, pinned down or pulled apart, and that each of us is a unique and unrepeatable movement of the whole."

No big difference at all, so what then is the big deal? Why are the words "God" and "supernatural" such a bugaboo?

The aforementioned might answer, "Because there's no scientific proof of anything that can't be explained by the laws of physics."

To that, I can offer at least one answer: Ever heard of the Big Bang theory? Before Hoyle, scientists believed that the universe was ageless. But the Big Bang proved that the universe actually had a beginning.

The universe is proven to have had a BEGINNING. What does that imply about this oneness? What does that imply about the origin of life? What does it imply about consciousness?

And what does it imply about atheists who are constantly trying to figure out the Source from which this universe of Oneness began? Their sadhana is essentially the same.

[Brian Hines]

sant64, what you're describing in pantheism, which in no way is compatible with major theistic religions: Christianity, Judaism, Islam. Pantheism doesn't have room for a personal God, since nature is considered to be "God." So you're very much wrong when you say that atheism, which considers nature to be the sole demonstrable reality, is akin to religiosity.

Ask religious believers if they consider nature to be identical to God. Very few will say it is, because most religions assume a personal God who has intentions, creates the universe, issues commandments, performs miracles, responds to prayers, and such. Wikipedia has an informative page about pantheism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheism

[AA]

Asking "What is the meaning of life without God?" is like a slave asking "When there is no master, who should I serve?" Since I am a slave, I must have a master.

This reflects a state of deep mental slavery. That is, the person has accepted that he was born to be a slave to an invisible power and he cannot imagine any other purpose for life than this.

Atheists are of the same type all over the world, those who oppose all types of faith and unscientific methods in one voice. But India is the only country where many varieties of atheists are also present.

Some types of atheists found in India –

1. Buddha ones

2. Osho ones

3. Krishnamurthy ones

4. Jai Bhim ones

5. Marx ones

6. Spiritual ones

7. Former ones

And brother, if any is left out, please add it.

[Super-manny]

I have a compromise. Let us all agree, at the very least, that consciousness is super-but-natural!