Is that the music of the spheres Or just the ringing in my ears?
Author Archives: Kip Welch
Is consciousness the exception to materialism?
Leave a reply
Consciousness is the essence of the “ghost in the machine.” It is that part of us with the greatest claim to being the soul itself, thought by many to leave our bodies and enter the afterlife when we die.
It also is hard for physical scientists to study and explain. Historically, it has been a mystery, assigned by many scientists to the arena of the supernatural. Often it has been dismissed as a non-material force that may animate material bodies but may not be explained by the laws of physics or nature. Only recently have scientists ventured to explain human consciousness as grounded in the evolution of brain capacity and language.[1]
If despite these efforts we are not persuaded that scientists can fully explain consciousness, must we accept that only a supernatural force can explain it? Are we back to needing the ghost in the machine to show how consciousness can both exist and not be susceptible to complete explanation by the physical sciences? Alternatively, if consciousness cannot be explained by the material world, does it exist at all in the way we perceive it? Can we assume that our experience of consciousness is not real because it is only a temporary illusion?
The simpler explanation Is still “no”
As with other intangible things, consciousness is an intangible experience that occurs in the tangible world. Consciousness can be experienced, so it is real in the same way that other intangible things are real. From a simple human perspective, there is nothing more natural than consciousness. It is what we perceive as ourselves and is no less real if physical scientists do not explain it to our complete satisfaction.
The difficulties that physical scientists encounter when trying to measure and assess consciousness do not justify an assumption that consciousness is supernatural or does not exist. That leap of logic simply is not necessary. Why not take the simpler path of assuming that consciousness is a completely natural attribute of the natural universe itself?
We know that consciousness exists in the universe. We know that it exists in different forms across different conscious entities in the known universe. We know that we do not yet understand the characteristics and behavior of all the particles, forces, and quantum relationships that make up the fabric of the material world. It is only logical to assume that consciousness must exist somewhere in the elements that make up the world, since it could not be part of the whole if it were not part of the elements of the whole.[2]
Consciousness is a core component of the physical world
Just as we have learned that energy and matter are fundamentally linked states of physical existence, we may one day learn that consciousness is intrinsic to elements that comprise the material world. Contemporary scientists and philosophers are already exploring natural explanations for consciousness. Theories of natural selection may explain how consciousness evolved to become a fundamental characteristic of the human species. More broadly, Integrated Information Theory suggests that consciousness is not limited to humans, but is a natural characteristic of physical systems of integrated information. Even more broadly, panpsychist philosophers assert that consciousness is an intrinsic building block of all existence in the universe. Others theorize that consciousness or its equivalent plays a fundamental role in the laws of quantum mechanics through the “observer” effect, or that the causal element of consciousness, i.e., free will, can influence probability distributions and their measured outcomes in some physical systems in the universe. Wherever or however we come to understand consciousness and other intangible experience—somewhere in the fabric of the universe are the elements of all that exists in the universe.
So fundamentally, as with other intangible things, the simplest and best explanation is that consciousness is part of the physical world. The material world is what is—precisely because it includes the elements of consciousness and other intangible things.
[1] See especially Dennett (1991).
[2] Is consciousness an element of the universe like matter and energy? Is it a natural process?
What is it really?
A combination of things-- a sense of the improbability of combining them, of connecting the pieces together, the certain knowledge of failure in the end, and on occasion wishing for the day when you can breathe it out and let it go.
Foundations of what is real
Materialism as a practical fact of life
What does it mean that humans no longer need supernatural explanations for things we do not understand?
It means that for most of us materialism is not a dogma, but simply a daily experience. We live in a world that has been transformed by our increasingly profound understanding of the material universe. Our scientists have identified many of the forces, particles, and relationships that comprise atomic and subatomic elements and events, and also form the underlying fabric of energy from which space and time seemingly emerge. The macro relationships between matter and energy have been mapped out and calculated in ways that enable us to build massive destructive devices that change the course of our history. We use our scientific understanding of the physical world to create tools and toys that amaze and befuddle the entire race of humans. And we are barely beginning.
None of these things rely on supernatural forces, but on our knowledge of the particles, forces, relationships, and quantum mechanics that make up the universe.
Are intangible things comprised of tangible elements? Can material things explain who we are?
Material things are part of what some scientists describe as objective reality, i.e., things that exist independently of our perception of them. Much of what we have learned about the universe focuses on our understanding of that objective reality.[1]
But we humans also live in a world of subjective reality created by our perceptions. Constantly aware of our own consciousness and thoughts and feelings, we live in a universe comprised of more than the objective reality of physics.
Cognitive scientists, psychologists, and philosophers are working to increase our understanding of subjective reality just as physicists are increasing our understanding of objective reality. Yet there is still much to learn about the intangible aspects of the universe, about how brains and perceptions work, about the biology and evolution of consciousness, about what our existence means in the universe.
Do we need the ghost in the machine or some kind of mind/body dualism to explain our existence?
How long must we wait for a scientific theory of the subjective world that adequately comprehends the deep intellectuality and even spirituality of human existence, much less the existence of the universe itself? Can materialist theories of reality ever truly explain the intangible world that exists in our perceptions and intellectual life?
If not, do we need after all some kind of supernatural explanation of these intangible things? Do we need to posit the existence of a non-material mind that inhabits our bodies and brings us to life? Or even inhabits the entire physical world? Do we need God?
Alternatively, should we conclude that intangible things are not real, but merely incorrect perceptions of the world? Can we assume that they do not require explanation because they are temporary illusions and not objective reality?[2]
There is a simpler explanation
In science and most other pursuits of life, the simplest explanation is often the best and most correct.
Fear, hunger, passion, and pain are all intangible things that can be experienced in the physical world, as can even more intangible things such as thoughts, concepts, ideas, even imagined things. All of these can be experienced and are real in that sense.
It is unnecessarily complex to assume that these things are entirely different from material things and excluded from the material foundations of the universe. It is simpler and just as logical to conclude that buried inside the components and fabric of the physical world are the components and fabric of whatever is real. If intangible things exist and can be experienced, they are composed of the same components and fabric of energy that make up all that exists. The all can be composed only of the elements of the all. So even if we do not yet understand how intangible things are constructed from tangible elements, clearly they are constructed or they would not exist in the tangible universe at all.
The tangible universe includes the components of all that is real
What is required is a comprehensive view of what is real in the physical world around us—an acceptance that the components of what we perceive as intangible things exist in the components and fabric of the tangible universe. If the elements of the universe are particles, forces, and quantum relationships, then inherent in those particles, forces, and relationships are all the elements necessary to form the natural world that surrounds us and the intellectual world in which we live. An intellectual world could not exist or be experienced if the particles, forces, and quantum relationships that make up the universe did not include elements that comprise and enable the intellectual world.
[1] Quantum theory has explicated “objective reality” to such an extent that it undermines its very existence. The standard interpretation of quantum mechanics maintains that some aspects of “reality” do not exist prior to being observed in some way, i.e., that the act of observation determines the material reality.
[2] Or as some philosophers and neuroscientists have argued, should we turn the paradigm on its head and assume that subjective reality is the only reality and that “objective reality” is an illusion?
How can it be?
How can it be that I alone feel the warmth of the sun on my cheek?
A return to big, foolish questions
Sometimes at a certain stage of life, questions set aside in earlier years return and demand attention. Perhaps the questions were inexpedient for a younger person to address in the busy decades of householding and career building. Perhaps it seemed foolish for someone with little life experience to pretend to answer big questions about existence. Perhaps there simply wasn’t time.
Beginning the last third of my life, with householding and career behind me, the big questions somehow remain, waiting for an older version of myself to address them. And since I have both more and less time, I am asking those big questions again:
- What is consciousness?
- What is death?
- What is time?
- What is real?
We know more than we think we do
These are fundamental human questions about existence. I ask them not because I am particularly qualified to do so, but because like so many others I am a human observer. And in that role I have concluded — surprisingly — that our species has learned a thing or two about life, including things most of us do not know we have learned.
As a starting point, we have learned one big thing about what is real—that humans no longer need supernatural explanations for things we do not understand about the world, the universe, or our existence. The components of understanding are readily available in the physical world around us. And from those components, and the work of physicists, cosmologists, ontologists, and other scientists to reveal and explain the physical world and what is real, we as a species are coming to learn that some of life’s biggest mysteries may be not so mysterious at all.
A draft framework for a consensus universal cosmology
Based on what I think our species now understands, I will try to lay out a human cosmology. It is a philosophical cosmology, not a scientific cosmology. But it is informed by my small knowledge of scientific cosmology. Science has made great strides in explaining the universe. My goal here is to describe how scientific discovery and mundane human observation can converge to form the basis of a cosmology of the universe.[1]
It is universal because it is grandiose. It goes beyond what scientific cosmology can explain today. For that reason some will say it is a religious cosmology. If so, it is a religious cosmology with components grounded in science or deductions from what is known in science.
It is consensus because it is not primarily of my own making. I am not the only foolish human to ask big questions and try to answer them. In fact, I believe there is an emerging consensus among many foolish humans on these topics, both the questions and the possible answers. We may have learned enough already that simply teasing answers from our shared base of knowledge could help define a consensus around some big human questions.
It is a draft framework because it describes a structure and an approach to a work in progress. It consists of notes and short essays on a philosophical cosmology more than completed work.
What might be true
Humans have necessarily incomplete knowledge, but we are learning and may be further along than we realize. With that possibility in mind, I hope to play the scribe and write down what might be true about some of life’s biggest questions.
That is my goal. It may seem every bit as foolish now as it seemed decades ago. It may seem presumptuous and arrogant, or even ridiculous. But one benefit of age is the willingness to take ridiculous as a challenge. So in the words of Wallace Stevens, “Let be be finale of seem.”
[1] Perhaps more correctly it could be called a theory of reality or a universal ontology of what is real. But “cosmology” with all its historical, philosophical, and religious connotations seems a more fitting title for a grandiose attempt to describe the context of human existence.
What Might Be True 