A very popular theory floating around seems to be that the mysteriousness of our consciousness lies in quantum processes within the brain, and eventually science will discover that this is the true source of consciousness, and it will explain why consciousness happens.
The overarching motivation which seems to drive most proponents of this idea, is the observation "consciousness is unsolved/mysterious, and quantum physics is unsolved/mysterious; therefore the two must be related".
In order to understand why this specific line of reasoning is a fallacy, let’s review what the Hard Problem of Consciousness really is (please read the linked post). Now that we’ve established why the hard problem of consciousnes is considered unsolvable, can you come up with a hypothetical way for quantum mechanics in the brain to explain consciousness? Spoiler alert: No you cannot, because no matter what objective process you observe in the world, it still has to bridge the gap to the subjective side. No matter what science discovers is the “true” source of consciousness, be it a quantum field or spirit metamaterial or literal magic dust, we’re back at square one, saying, “that’s nice, but why did that thing cause your subjective inner mind to appear out of nothing?”
No comments:
Post a Comment