What is consciousness? The POV of the physicists
What is consciousness and how do we explain it?
According to the Oxford Dictionaries “consciousness” has two explanations :
- “The state of being aware of and responsive to one's surroundings.”
- “A person's awareness or perception of something. Or A person's awareness or perception of something.”
It is considered to have the potential to be one of the fundamental facts of the human existence. Around 25 years ago scientist started to make researches about what that term actually means and how can it be explained.
Now that we know the meaning of it we can say that consciousness is subjective but on the other side science by its nature is objective. So at the point of human evolution science about consciousness does not exist and we have to use the three groups of sciences that we know : the biological sciences, the psychological sciences and the physical sciences.
Recently the well-know physical scientist Edward Witten made the assumption that consciousness might remain a mystery for all of us. But his utter conclusion only encouraged other physicists to continue trying to get to the origin.
And it wasn’t long ago when only philosophers were exploring the depths of consciousness. After that biologists joined, followed by neuroscientists and just recently certain physicist started paying attention and doing some researches in the field.
The mathematical physicist at Oxford University - Roger Penrose, has publicly shared his doubts if the interactions on a micro level happening in the subatomic world of quantum mechanics might lead to consciousness.
David Gross - UC-Santa Barbara theoretical physicist, has some other assumptions and they are based on an article from 2005 by Ker Than for www.livescience.com which says : “speculated that consciousness might be similar to what physicists call a phase transition, an abrupt and sudden large-scale transformation resulting from several microscopic changes. The emergence of superconductivity in certain metals when cooled below a critical temperature is an example of a phase transition."
Maybe the Nobel laureate is actually on to some really good theory, because the italian neuroscientist Giulio Tononi has a similar concept that with time while the brain adopts more and more information a certain boundaries are inevitably crossed and the level behind those boundaries is called “consciousness”.
According to that research and theory the information is not integrated by the entire brain, but only by certain parts of it and they form the seat of consciousness.
An israeli physicist called Nir Lahav started his research in finding the core of conscious activity. He gathered a team that was including mathematicians and neuroscientists which were examining and using detailed scans of six brains. The information from that scans was embodied in an informational map of the human cortex. According to that map the cortex has regions with high and low connectivity. They consider that the parts with higher connectivity which are observed where the superior frontal gyrus, the cingulate cortex, Wernicke's area, and Broca's area are, might be the seat of consciousness or “nucleus” as Lahav is calls it.
He has ambitions to continue his research and after that to start analyzing the entire brain and even bigger ambitions afterwards.
He says that he believes in the power of physics and mathematical equations and that he and his team just have to work on developing the mathematical equations of our brains and our conscious mind in order to get to the “holy grail”.
Sources :
https://www.livescience.com/57187-physicists-unravel-what-is-consciousness.html
https://www.livescience.com/366-great-minds-grasp-consciousness.html
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/consciousness
https://www.ted.com/talks/david_chalmers_how_do_you_explain_consciousness?referrer=playlist-what_is_consciousness#t-1098270
All of the photos in the article are made entirely by me and here you can see the sources i used to write the text.
ah consciousness... the thorn in the side of the sciences, lolz. because we cannot actually locate where consciousness resides to be able to weigh and measure it, it becomes one of the anomalies in the field.
Basically it comes down to "We know we have it (consciousness) , but we cant prove (test) it"
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Thank you for your comment, @mfxae86! I hope that we as humans won’t be in that “can’ t prove it, doesn’t exist” era for long..
Congrats for winning that contest! Wish you more achievements to come in your way!
Ah we would be waiting for a long time i think, the scientific model is quite dated and has many pitfalls, it is also quite commonly misused to serve the rich and powerful instead of seeking the truth, as Carl Sagan has stated:
Science is an evidence based practice, if there is no means to weigh and measure a particular factor it is seen as unscientific or pseudoscience , hence why the investigation of the paranormal falls into this category. but again to quote Carl Sagan:
And this is where consciousness really puts a strangle hold on the sciences. As advanced as we have become in our means of scientific investigation, a factor which clearly exists can still evade us and be untraceable leaving no evidence for science to draw any meaningful conclusions from.
As our technology increases, we may one day be able to locate the area which holds our consciousness and then run a gamut of tests to better understand it, for now we must wait and see what happens, but the fun part is that we have the pleasure of speculation until this time arises :)
Yes, maybe not in this lifetime. But I often tend to use my spiritual philosophy to explain myself a lot of things around and inside me. Right now, like in that moment I am preparing my next article about past life and deeper I go in my mind I find more and more answers about everything.
PS : I also tend to overthink things, but this is another discussion!
I am planning on uploading it later today so if you have any interest in the topic feel welcome to check it! ✌🏻
We can hope :) i mean when i was a kid, traveling into space was a sci fi dream and now we are looking at colonizing mars and base station on the moon from what i hear... so stranger things have happened :)
While i do have a scientific approach i am also quite spiritual (not religious though), so i do take interest in the philosophies based in exploring pre and post life concepts. However , as much as we may entertain the concepts and notions it can not be confirmed or quantified in any sense at the moment. Therefore , if the discussion gets heated i tend to bow out as i find it just as futile as discussing which "god" is the right one, lolz. will definitely check out your new post :) much love
Well, here it is -- > https://steemit.com/psychology/@misskate/past-life-memories-exaggeration-distortion-or-reality . I would like some feedback on what you think and do you like it! :))
Ahhh one of my fave topics eva !!😍 ✩
Very interesting ! ✨
What I do know, is that there are different ways we can choose to use in order to expand our consciousness.
And talking from experience, expanding one's consciousness is a goal worth striving for.
Meditation is for sure my tool...
but even though I have never used hallucinogenic drugs, I do know that some of the greatest thinkers that have been on earth have... and many of them said in was a life changing experience like no other... one famous example is steve jobs who took lsd.:P
One love for consciousness and your awesome post! 💖
Thank you, @steemityourway! <3 I have heard about the drug theory too and i am willing to try it, but i believe you should either be alone or with someone that is close enough to you...
Digging deeper in our minds can never be wrong if done smart and with boundaries!
So cool that you are open to the idea 😉
You said it all! 🙌 😍
Thank you! ✌🏻🌻