Henry Stapp - Is Consciousness Entirely Physical?

Here’s the big question about consciousness, our inner experience of what things feel like. Is consciousness a product of the physical world alone? Because if consciousness is the output of the physical brain by itself, however complex, then consciousness as physicalism would defeat those who believe, or hope for, the existence of nonphysical realities.

Henry Stapp is an American physicist known for his work in quantum mechanics, particularly the development of axiomatic S-matrix theory, the proofs of strong nonlocality properties, and the place of free will in the "orthodox" quantum mechanics of John von Neumann.

Closer To Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn and directed by Peter Getzels, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.

[Promatheos]

Consciousness doesn’t do the thinking or ask the psychological questions. That’s called the mind. Consciousness is that which watches the mind. It’s a subtle but extremely important distinction that is so rarely made in these discussions. Over and over I see these interviews treat the mind as the same thing as consciousness but it’s not.

[henrikoelschlaegel]

Outside of human conceptual frameworks, complexity, simplicity, and emergence do not have intrinsic power or explanatory value. They are descriptive tools rather than fundamental attributes of the universe. In a naturalistic universe where everything interacts with everything else continuously, the concepts of complexity, simplicity, emergence are completly meaningless and therefore connot be used to try to explain conciousness.

One could postulate of course that there is an undiscovered law of nature that one or some specific spacetime material configuration creates somethink outside of the naturalistic universe in a plane of subjectivity, but that would be no better then saying it is magic.

[habibrahman]

Mind is the content of consciousness, it originate from and dissolves in Consciousness. You can have an empty mind but still have alert consciousness as pure awareness.

[yahdahjames]

Neither classical mechanics nor quantum physics have or will ever create or experience an original thought. A conscious mind is the only thing that has that power or ability. Both would necessarily be required to already possess the 'information' prerequisite to assembly of the original thought. But, if the required information is pre-existent then the thought cannot be 'original'.

[vitus.verdegast]

When people ask if consciousness is purely physical what they really mean is "is your mind a ghost that occupies your body, and can it leave your body?" The answer is no, your spirit or soul or mind is the action of your body in the same way the speed of a car is the action of the engine, wheels, drive shaft etc. -- it can't be separated from the physical machinery any more than your mind can exist separate from your brain. But this is only a description of the process, your mind isn't in your brain, your brain is in your mind, along with everything else you think is happening. "Physical" is just a way of describing what is happening in terms of the interactions of forces, but what is happening isn't physical in and of itself-- it is consciousness, the most fundamental way of describing reality, so fundamental that it cannot define itself because consciousness only has itself with which to define things, it has no edges and no outside, only an inside

[carlodebattaglia]

The core issue is always the same: it's epistemological. Consciousness resists reduction because the idea of "reducing everything to simple components" is itself a concept created, understood, and debated by a complex conscious mind.

If we claim, "my assertion that everything is reducible to matter is a physical event, and this statement corresponds with the reality, of facrs" then, in theory, we should also be able to fully describe everything in that quote—down to its essence—using only reduced matter, math, and quantum behavior.

But can we? Not really

[edwardlawrence]

The physical world consists of particles, atoms, the classical bits of “ materialism, ” and energy, the 4 fundamental forces. Feelings are the result of energy acting on the material bits. We will always need words to describe feelings and words which describe things. It is the yin/yang of life and you need it all.

[JudgeRightly]

The existence of things that are not physical (such as logic) disproves the notion (which also isn't physical) that only the physical exists.

If the claim is that all cars are red, then it only takes the existence of one blue car to disprove the claim.

[dougsmith]

There is no example of consciousness without an associated physical / material structure ... not just a structure, but a very specific type of structure ... a nervous system.

[tedgrant]

Are the rules of football entirely physical ?

[xmars]

Wait, he’s saying there is no “reality” without consciousness?

[infinitygame]

Conciousness in not in body but what so ever you know about conciousness is through mind only and your interaction point about conciousness is your own mind, and mind has to follow some rules to exist in the world of consciousness, and the fundamental rule is that mind can not know more about conciousness beyond its own knowledge, but when some one learn meditation, how to dive beyond mind than all knowledge is connected, and conciousness is not physical, consciousness can do anything but it need some source device called body with mind in it to perform and activity, even all paranormality stuff without body and mind there is no other way to understand conciousness

[Frank-sijd]

Very interesting theoretical view on the function between the brain and consciousness! This view to my idea has a very high probability (keeping it quantum mechanical) reaching on how we receive reality. If - and this I would love to hear from someone - the brain is quantum mechanical, it makes a lot of sense this process (which is needed in quantum mechanics) experienced by an experimenter as this is practically the only logical “thing” that’s left, but fundamental!

[alfredorezende-popg]

Feeling movement is independent of celebral moves. They just are part of the same process searching for the way to lead to the final of searching.

[kerryburns-ki]

So consciousness rises from the brain like a genie from a bottle PHOOEY !
Consciousness is fundamental, and facilitates the transformation of energy into matter.

[chester-chickfunt]

The human brain has enough biochemical power to create human-level consciousness, which projects human-level mind. The real question is what is the greater, supra-human Mind? Are there levels of Mind? Is the Mind fundamental, like the predecessors of the Higgs Boson? Is there a Universal Mind that humans can tap into, with enough practice? There is clearly information in the components that precede the Higgs Boson. Can the same be said for Mind?

[erickhaynie]

Dr. Stapp is in his 90’s. What youth and intelligence he emits!

[alfredorezende-popg]

Feeling is of different order and it comes before the celebral process. It has to do with the consciounousness.

[jago]

If you imagine a cat and then a dog, is there a measurable physical difference in the materialistic brain function? If not, it seems that we may have both a materialistic and non-physical aspect to our being.

[jamesruscheinski]

what are ion channels with uncertainty? do ion channels have anything to do with microtubules having quantum uncertainty?