Consciousness is a magical property

No.

Consciousness is a function of a specific configuration of matter and energy. The matter and energy may not end, but its configuration and function does end. There is nothing "magical/supernatural" about it.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

My first thought was the same as Gmilam's: depends on how 'magical' is being used.

Ok, sure. I think that lots of people think that consciousness is something mysterious and many of them go even further and argue that it can't be explained by physicalistic principles.

I disagree pretty strongly with that, but it's a widespread belief.

In my opinion, it's not unlike how many/most people viewed life before the 19'th century. Vitalism was a widespread belief, an idea that biology simply wasn't explainable by physical principles and required something more spiritualistic, a vitalistic animating "life force".

Now, going on some 200 years later, biochemistry, physology, cell biology and genomics seem to have a pretty good grasp on how life functions. So the bastion, the redoubt of explanatory biological supernaturalism, has moved to the philosophy of mind. Now the argument is that consciousness, especially qualia, are supposed to be unexplainable by physicalistic means. There are some very big name philosophers that have made their careers by arguing different versions of that.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

I think that historically, at least some (probably not all) magicians imagined that there were rules, laws and principles that magic followed. It's just that these were occult (hidden) principles, different than the principles that typically govern everyday affairs.

It does seem to me that a subset of philosophers of mind want to make a similar claim about mind, consciousness and qualia. I don't think that they think that these things just pop into being at random, but rather that they represent a whole different category of being and presumably require an entirely different and perhaps disjoint set of explanatory principles.

Then if we go the philosophical idealism route and interpret physical reality as experiences and possible experiences, we seem to have an opportunity to reduce physical principles to the mentalistic ones and perhaps end the hegemony of physical science entirely.

Sometimes there's loose talk about brain "complexity" and about how consciousness just kind of... magically... appears when complexity is complex enough. My gut says that's just another way of saying 'hell if I know what the explanation is', without having to admit to ignorance.

Historically, the animating vitalistic life force has been called 'spirit' (the word originally meant air or gas) and imagined as God's breath. Mind and consciousness have in turn been imagined as being fundamentally spiritual things, as properties of that animating divine breath and not of the corruptible physical body, I guess.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

It would seem advisable to avoid explanations that involve magic, since to date that strategy hasn't paid off. There will always be mystery of some kind, and consciousness will be at the top of that list along with origin of the universe and the nature of time, space, matter and existence.

The tendency to explain unsolved mysteries by magic certainly explains religious ideation, but doesn't help us arrive at an understanding of the nature of consciousness.

It may be possible to speculate that consciousness has some electromagnetic source, insofar as it is associated with brain waves, but who knows what that means.

:shrug:

 

Antonio Damasio: The quest to understand consciousness

This will only take 20 minutes of your time, and is thoroughly worth it if the topic interests you. It's basically a brief summary of what we know, and what we don't know, according to a well known Professor of Neuroscience.

 

I'm thinking a better title for this thread would be "Consciousness is a magical process."

 

I may noot mean "magical" in a mysterious sense but one that is more scientific.

 

Consciousness is a magical process

This is a continuation of the last thread. I've read over everyone's responses and took them into consideration and now I've branched off to the opposite side in starting this thread.

What are your thoughts?

 

I think of consciousness as a process of memory, by which is formed by input from our senses, past and present, along with our ability to use past memories and experiences to form an idea about who we are and what the future may be.

Think about what it means to have no memory, with no sense of sight, sound, taste, feel, or smell. Without those 5 senses and an ability to remember our past experiences with those senses we don't have a consciousness.

I think the main part of consciousness is our memory. We remember "who we are," what our past was, what we've seen happen, what we've heard, and what we hold to be true.

As a side note, I've always thought of Déjà vu as some bypass of the process of "now" of the brain, by inputting the data from our senses directly into memory prior to processing that data, so you get the feeling of a past memory in the "now." The now is somehow stored into memory before it is processed as the "now," which gives you a sense that you've had the present experience in the past.

 

:bugeye:

 

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

What I mean to say is "magical" in a metaphorical as opposed to literal sense. However that is not the topic under discussion. So it's irrelevant.

 

Consciousness is NOT a MAGICAL PROCESS.
Do we have to go over the defintion of what "magical" means again?

 

How consciousness works is very magical on the contrary.

 

mag·i·cal
   [maj-i-kuhl]

adjective
1.
produced by or as if by magic: The change in the appearance of the room was magical.

2.
mysteriously enchanting: a magical night.

3.
of or pertaining to magic.



mag·ic
   [maj-ik]

noun
1.
the art of producing illusions as entertainment by the use of sleight of hand, deceptive devices, etc.; legerdemain; conjuring: to pull a rabbit out of a hat by magic.

2.
the art of producing a desired effect or result through the use of incantation or various other techniques that presumably assure human control of supernatural agencies or the forces of nature. Compare contagious magic, imitative magic, sympathetic magic.

3.
the use of this art: Magic, it was believed, could drive illness from the body.

4.
the effects produced: the magic of recovery.

5.
power or influence exerted through this art: a wizard of great magic.



con·scious·ness
   [kon-shuhs-nis]

noun
1.
the state of being conscious; awareness of one's own existence, sensations, thoughts, surroundings, etc.

2.
the thoughts and feelings, collectively, of an individual or of an aggregate of people: the moral consciousness of a nation.

3.
full activity of the mind and senses, as in waking life: to regain consciousness after fainting.

4.
awareness of something for what it is; internal knowledge: consciousness of wrongdoing.

5.
concern, interest, or acute awareness: class conscious


con·scious
   [kon-shuhs]

adjective
1.
aware of one's own existence, sensations, thoughts, surroundings, etc.

2.
fully aware of or sensitive to something (often followed by of ): conscious of one's own faults; He wasn't conscious of the gossip about his past.

3.
having the mental faculties fully active: He was conscious during the operation.

4.
known to oneself; felt: conscious guilt.

5.
aware of what one is doing: a conscious liar.

Get it yet?

 

1

: perceiving, apprehending, or noticing with a degree of controlled thought or observation <conscious of having succeeded> <was conscious that someone was watching>


2

archaic: sharing another's knowledge or awareness of an inward state or outward fact


3

: personally felt <conscious guilt>


4

: capable of or marked by thought, will, design, or perception


5

: self-conscious


6

: having mental faculties not dulled by sleep, faintness, or stupor : awake <became conscious after the anesthesia wore off>


7

: done or acting with critical awareness <a conscious effort to do better>


8

a: likely to notice, consider, or appraise <a bargain-conscious shopper> b: being concerned or interested <a budget-conscious businessman> c: marked by strong feelings or notions <a race-conscious society>

 

When C_C uses the term 'magic', I think he means 'I can't understand it'.

 

For him that would make much more sense. Wow, how ignorant and or stupid is he?

 

I'm i the only one that feels that this thread will go down into the cesspool along with his other thread?

 

No, please refer to above for why I use the term "magical".