From: jimruttshow8596
The concept of consciousness remains one of the most challenging areas to define in existence [00:18:50]. Despite universal personal experience of it, its precise nature is elusive, leading to a range of opinions and difficulties in definitive explanation [00:19:00].
Definitional Differences
Discussions about the nature of consciousness often highlight definitional differences between various perspectives [00:17:24].
John Searle’s View and Biological Consciousness
Jim Rutt, drawing from John Searle, posits that consciousness is a specifically biological phenomenon [00:17:33]. This perspective suggests it evolved at least twice on Earth, serving as the essence of a way of being for organisms with sufficient neuronal support [00:17:47]. Its function is to create a subjective “movie” in which the organism is a participant, giving the appearance of making choices that impact the world [00:17:51].
Under this view, a self-driving car, despite its intelligence, is not conscious because it lacks the architecture for a subjective state or an actor embedded in such a state [00:20:29]. This highlights a critical distinction between intelligence and consciousness [00:18:41].
Consciousness as an Ontological Primitive
Ian McGilchrist expresses the view that consciousness cannot evolve out of unconsciousness [00:19:19]. This leads to the idea that consciousness might be an ontological primitive, a fundamental constituent of the cosmos that does not arise from anything else [00:19:47]. This perspective acknowledges the difficulty in explaining its origin if it were to emerge from wholly unconscious matter [00:19:22]. Prominent neuroscientists like V.S. Ramachandran and Colin Blakemore, as cited in The Oxford Handbook of Science, suggest this possibility [00:19:34].
From this viewpoint, consciousness is not necessarily confined to living things, but rather is a constituent of the cosmos [00:30:37]. It may manifest in entirely different ways across the universe, or be virtually absent in some parts, but it is not something that emerged from matter unless matter itself is understood as an unknown, complex phenomenon akin to consciousness [00:30:53].
Relationship to Quantum Mechanics
A minority of physicists, around 15-20%, suggest that consciousness is entangled with quantum mechanics [00:13:59]. This perspective implies that the conscious observation of quantum systems is involved in their decoherence (the return from a quantum to a classical state) [00:14:10]. McGilchrist indicates that altering one’s attention or consciousness can produce changes in observed phenomena [00:15:24].
However, the vast majority of physicists (approximately 85%) disagree, asserting that the quantum measurement problem relates to size and probabilities, not to consciousness [00:14:21].
Consciousness and Life
The discussion explores whether consciousness can be viewed as an emergent property, similar to how life emerged from biochemistry [00:27:00].
Emergence as a “Miracle” vs. a Process
McGilchrist critiques the idea of consciousness emerging from biochemistry as a “miracle” [00:28:20]. He argues that the term “emerge” often acts as a placeholder for “we don’t quite understand what happened” [00:28:33]. For true emergence, there must be a discernible property at a lower level that foreshadows or enables the higher-level phenomenon [00:33:55]. He claims that there is no “little bit of consciousness” or “nascent consciousness” that can be identified at a lower level, unlike, for example, the structural components that can lead to water’s properties [00:34:02].
Rudimentary Consciousness and Evolution
Rutt suggests that consciousness could have bootstrapped from very rudimentary forms, similar to the evolution of the eye [00:35:48]. For example, a frog’s basic consciousness might function like a simple computer screen for fly detection, which is advantageous for survival [00:34:40]. This aligns with the idea that every evolutionary step, even small ones, offers utility [00:35:34].
McGilchrist agrees that creatures like frogs are conscious, and suggests even plants might be [00:36:03]. However, he maintains that consciousness is a fundamentally different phenomenon than the eye’s emergence, as its essence is “foreign to unconsciousness” [00:36:51].
Consciousness and Universal Potential
The idea that the universe is “fertile” for life and consciousness is discussed [01:08:08]. This concept relates to the “potenția” or inherent capacity within the cosmos for these phenomena to occur [01:10:09]. While this does not imply a predetermined design or an extrinsic purpose to create specific life forms like humans or deer [00:53:52], it suggests that the universe contains the potential for these things to happen [01:02:10].
This perspective views “potential” as having extraordinary value, possibly even more than what is actualized, as the universe holds many unexplored paths [00:55:07]. The rarity of life on a given planet doesn’t negate the universe’s inherent “propitiousness” for life, as the vastness of the universe could still allow for life to arise in at least one place [01:10:15].
Theories of Consciousness: A Lack of Certainty
McGilchrist highlights that the field of consciousness theories offers no certainties [01:00:52]. Many speculative theories about the universe’s workings, including those touching on consciousness, are currently impossible to validate or invalidate [01:06:45]. However, the unique contribution of McGilchrist’s work is to show how different ways of thinking—guided by the left vs. right hemispheres of the brain—can offer distinct approaches to these philosophical problems [01:14:04]. The right hemisphere’s approach often proves more “veridical,” or aligned with reality, in avoiding false conclusions [01:14:24].