The Physics of Consciousness

[ysabetwordsmith]

This article suggests that consciousness is a state of matter.  Well, yes.  It's kind of like how little whizzing bits of energy get together and pretend to be solid.  But consciousness is also a lot more fractal and holographic than most people realize.  It's not indivisible.  Parts of it can be lost and other parts still function, or conversely, parts can be lost but then regained from unexpected angles.

Comments

[dialecticdreamer]

The article is weak, not providing nearly enough background or detail even for a layperson like myself. Have you gotten into the actual paper? The maths are outside my knowledge, but it's making boatloads more sense than the original "thumbnail sketch" of the article.

[mdlbear]

This is the sort of thing that makes me very skeptical. Especially thinking as a computer scientist -- only the software matters. It shouldn't matter what hardware it's running on.

[smallship1.livejournal.com]

It seems to me that if you model something mathematically and play around with the words enough, you can say just about anything and have the equations back you up. On the basis of what I've just read, I wouldn't say Doctor Tegmark knows any more about consciousness than I do.

I definitely think we will come to understand consciousness, but not yet. And not like this.

[lb-lee.livejournal.com]

I'm dubious, but I've been reading a LOT of quack ideas about consciousness lately. (Fucking The Secret, why do you exist?) So far, the brain has been pretty stumpworthy for a lot of scientists, and I don't buy consciousness as a state of matter.

--Rogan, who'd probably donate our brain to science if we could

[zeeth_kyrah]

Actually, I too believe consciousness is not a state of matter -- I believe it's something that naturally arises from the interrelations between structures. So that's not to say that all matter is conscious; rather, consciousness itself is a state of interrelation that is on some level aware. It's sort of the difference between a cell phone network and a parrot. You can program a machine to consider its state, but it cannot do so in any way except as built in. Meanwhile, the parrot has an imagination and can consider not just their own state, but that of others.