Sunday, April 15, 2012

Is Consciousness physical?

7. Is Consciousness physical? Explain how neurology can help us better understand why consciousness may have arisen as an evolutionary adaptation.

In my personal opinion, I believe consciousness is not physical. It is discussed throughout the course that somehow our mind is related to our physical brain. Everything we sense and feel, whether it is physical or emotional, all connect to our brain and somehow to our sensory organs. This nature of our body being connected with our thoughts and the very fact that our brain allows us to think and be aware of our surroundings prove the how physical our consciousness is. “Why is it that when someone clubs you in the head with a bat, your awareness (consciousness) seizes?” (A Glorious Piece of Meat)

But how is it that our consciousness is actually NOT physical? Although I just wrote a whole paragraph devoted to proving how physical awareness is, there are other beliefs that have convinced me to think consciousness nothing close to being physical. One great example would be how non-physical experiences, such as visions and illusions lead us into thinking and analyzing. How is it that without having any physical interactions we are able to see and sense extraordinary visions within our minds? A question popped into my head while reading an article written by Professor Lane called “Is Consciousness Physical?” The article states this very interesting fact: “Even the most profound spiritual experiences may themselves be the result of brain processes of which we remain unaware.” How is it that we are able to have such experiences that cannot be physically proven through science? Only time will tell.

            Another reasoning used to argue why consciousness is not physical is the Knowledge argument. It was formulated by Thomas Nagel, Frank Jackson, and Saul Kripke and goes like this:

“A standard presentation of the thought experiment is this: Mary, a brilliant scientist blind from birth, knows all the physical facts relevant to acts of perception. When she suddenly gains the ability to see, she gains knowledge of new facts. Since she knew all the physical facts before gaining sight, and since she now gains knowledge of new facts, these facts must not be physical facts and, moreover, given Mary’s situation, they must be mental facts.”

            The last reasoning I would like to use to prove my point is that consciousness has intentionality. What I mean by intentionality is consciousness is always intentional while physicality is not. Here are some of the things you may take into consideration regarding intentionality. (reasons.org)

1.      When one represents a mental act to oneself, there are no sense-data associated with it; this is not so with physical states and their relations.

2.      Intentionality is completely unrestricted with regard to the kind of object it can hold as a term—anything whatsoever can have a mental act directed upon it, but physical relations only obtain for a narrow range of objects (e.g., magnetic fields only attract certain things).

3.      To grasp a mental act one must engage in a reflexive act of self-awareness, but no such reflexivity is required to grasp a physical relation.

4.      For ordinary physical relations (e.g., x is to the left of y), x and y are identifiable objects irrespective of whether they have entered into that relation (ordinary physical relations are external). This is not so for intentional contents (e.g., one and the same belief cannot be about a frog and later about a house—the belief is what it is, at least partly, in virtue of what the belief is of).

5.      For ordinary relations, each of the relata must exist in order for the relation to obtain (x and must exist before one can be on top of the other), but intentionality can be of nonexistent things (e.g., one can think of Zeus).

6.      Intentional states are intentional (having to do with attributes), but physical states are extensional (having to do with class members).


In the end, the question that we have to ask ourselves is not whether consciousness is physical or not. The real question that we need to focus on is, “Who is in control of our consciousness?” Is it our ego? Is it ourselves? Is it our brain? “I know that my consciousness is more than the sum of my neurons firing; or, at least I think so while my neurons are firing.” (A Glorious Piece of Meat)

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