Physicists Say Consciousness Might Be a State of Matter

[sabaijai]

Reading this article, I was reminded of the interaction of mind and matter -- nama and rupa -- as described in the Abhidhamma. Not exactly the same, but there's some interesting overlap. YMMV.

Physicists Say Consciousness Might Be a State of Matter

It’s not enough to have a brain. Consciousness—a hallmark of humans, mammals, birds, and even octopuses—is that mysterious force that makes all those neurons and synapses “tick” and merge into “you.” It’s what makes you alert and sensitive to your surroundings, and it’s what helps you see yourself as separate from everything else. But neuroscientists still don’t know what consciousness is, or how it’s even possible.

continued:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/physics/physicists-say-consciousness-might-be-a-state-of-matter/

[VincentRJ]

The blunt truth of the matter is that science (psychology, neuroscience, physics, whatever) simply doesn't have a full explanation for the nature of consciousness. There is no fundamental particle of 'consciousness' or 'thought', that has been discovered, as there are electrons, protons, photons and various sub-atomic particles constituting the matter and energy we can observe.

The problem of consciousness seems similar to the concept of gravity, in a sense. We know that the effects of 'what we call' gravity exist, but no-one has yet discovered any fundamental particle of gravity, which we might call a 'graviton'.

Another similar problem exists with matter and energy in general. A few years ago it was assumed that the expansion of the outer reaches of the universe would be discovered to be slowing down. However, after the Hubble telescope was launched into space and allowed us to see further into those outer reaches of the universe, we were shocked to discover (or at least observe) that the expansion is still accelerating, 14 billion years after the Big Bang took place.

What the heck's going on? Are our theories of Astrophysics plain wrong or inaccurate? We simply don't know. We've got some hypotheses that there exists a huge quantity of invisible matter and energy, the presence of which has prevented the predicted slowing-down of the expansion. We call it Dark Matter and Dark Energy. So far, it's proved to be completely invisible and undetectable stuff, yet it is claimed to constitute 95% of all the matter and energy in the universe.

Thus is our current state of knowledge. It's enough to drive anyone to Buddhism.

[luk AJ]

Quarks, Higgs Boson etc..Humans never stop their research and what they don't know today will be discovered somewhere in the future including androids with consciousness..

Are you Belgian if I may ask?

[VincentRJ]

Quarks, Higgs Boson etc..Humans never stop their research and what they don't know today will be discovered somewhere in the future including androids with consciousness..

Are you Belgian if I may ask?

I agree that we might discover new particles as research continues, and even particles of Dark Matter. However, we might instead one day realise that we were barking up the wrong tree and were victims of an illusion.

There are some scientists who think that the force of gravity is an illusion, that is, our conventional understanding of the processes of gravity is an illusion, and the way we think about it (not the fact that we will likely be seriously injured if we fall off a roof).

One such scientist is the Dutch theoretical physicist Erik Verlinde who published a manuscript in 2010 purporting to explain why science cannot reconcile all the four fundamental forces of nature. According to him, it is simple: "gravity doesn’t exist."

Here's the New York Times report on his hypothesis, if you're interested.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/13/science/13gravity.html?_r=0http://arxiv.org/abs/1001.0785

Why do you think I might be Belgian? I'm actually a Scottish/Welsh/British/Australian.

[arjunadawn]

IMO the answer to this question was provided long ago. There is a reason so many quantum physicists finally found a hearing in ancient Vedanta or other Indian texts; they provided a direct exposition on the very things science began noting about 100 years ago. The current theories offered by, for example, Ervin Lazslo, in his Akasha Paradigm, return to these very roots (Lazslo is hardly alone). The universe remembers. The universe remembers because the relationship of matter to that... something elseness is provided by what the ancients called the Akashic Field. Exploring this ancient analysis and overlying it with lessons learned from modern science it becomes clear that consciousness may well be the wellspring of matter. It is, IMO.

[luk AJ]

Quarks, Higgs Boson etc..Humans never stop their research and what they don't know today will be discovered somewhere in the future including androids with consciousness..

Are you Belgian if I may ask?

I agree that we might discover new particles as research continues, and even particles of Dark Matter. However, we might instead one day realise that we were barking up the wrong tree and were victims of an illusion.

There are some scientists who think that the force of gravity is an illusion, that is, our conventional understanding of the processes of gravity is an illusion, and the way we think about it (not the fact that we will likely be seriously injured if we fall off a roof).

One such scientist is the Dutch theoretical physicist Erik Verlinde who published a manuscript in 2010 purporting to explain why science cannot reconcile all the four fundamental forces of nature. According to him, it is simple: "gravity doesn’t exist."

Here's the New York Times report on his hypothesis, if you're interested.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/13/science/13gravity.html?_r=0http://arxiv.org/abs/1001.0785

Why do you think I might be Belgian? I'm actually a Scottish/Welsh/British/Australian.

Gravity is for sure a difficult thing to explain. I have my own theory. Gravity is everywhere compare it with radiation of some kind and could be the fabric of space. Put an object in space and one side will be directly exposed to this gravity radiation and some will mive through the object from the other side in a weaker form. The difference between these two forces is the gravity on the surface of that particular object. So in fact we are pushed down on our planet and not attracted.

[only1]

How come this is allowed to be posted under Buddhism ?

Since this is started, let me add something to help those physicists. Consciousness requires energy and energy contains mass, which is a matter.

That's why the saying "mind over matter", and if you don't mind, it doesn't matter.

Now bring science closer to Buddhism,

Karma can be explained by Newton's law of relativity, and Rebirth can be explained by Enstein's energy theory.

Scientists are over 2500 years slower than the Buddha.