The laws of the universe are unable to explain these origin mysteries | Paul Davies: Full Interview

Davies saying the deepest mystery isn't just that chemistry happened, but that it somehow learned to write its own code, really stayed with me. And ending with Wheeler's delayed-choice experiment felt right, because it hints that observation and origins might be more tangled than we like to admit.

What about the Receptor Theory of Consciousness? Many examples from medicine and pharmacology demonstrate that drugs and toxins can alter our consciousness. What about a new understanding of how our biological receptors work? Perhaps the physics of receptors is the missing ingredient for understanding ourselves? At the most fundamental level, we are the summation and interplay of trillions of our cellular receptors. These receptors are poised biochemical balances that interact with our environment and with one another in a grand symphony that has evolved since the universe began. We are currently unique beings who can reflect on the universe and discover our origins within it. We reside upon the cusp of an unfolding creation, like a surfer trying to catch a wave. See the book, Origins of Life's Sensoria, for more.

What a wonderful teacher. He’s so calm and engaging and explains things so elegantly. What lucky kids!

With the white background already. I’m blind 😎

Listening to this, I regret I learned so little in high school and college.

This video looks like AI generated crape!

I started reading Paul's books as a physics undergraduate in 1983. He is a great writer. He is able to elucidate questions in such a clear way.

I am a physicist, and I would like to explain why science leaves no room for the possibility that brain processes could be a sufficient condition for the existence of consciousness, which means that consciousness cannot be just a product of brain activity and naturalism fails completely in any attempt to justify the existence of human consciousness. It is a scientifically established fact that a conscious experience is associated with an enormous number of distinct microscopic physical processes occurring at different locations. As I will explain, there is no physical entity that connects all these distinct microscopic processes. Therefore, the existence of conscious experience requires a connecting element that is absent from the physical laws. This missing connecting element can be identified with what has traditionally been called the soul (on my YouTube channel you can find some videos providing a more detailed explanation).

The central idea underlying naturalism is that complex systems (such as the brain) can generate new properties, commonly referred to as emergent properties. In reality, such emergent properties are merely subjective cognitive constructs that depend on the level of abstraction and simplification we choose when analyzing and approximately describing the underlying microscopic processes. Emergent properties are, in fact, properties of conceptual models based on approximations, simplifications, and subjective criteria that lie outside the physical laws. They do

not exist in physical reality, that is, the reality described by the fundamental physical laws, but arise from the approximations and subjective elements introduced into our descriptions. Identifying conscious experience as an emergent property therefore amounts to introducing elements that are

foreign to the physical laws, thereby contradicting the fundamental premise of physicalism itself.

To clarify this point, let us examine the definition of an emergent property.

An emergent property is commonly defined as a property possessed by a collection of elements that is not possessed by any of its individual components.

The crucial point is that a collection does not exist as an objective reality, since grouping elements into a collection requires the subjective choice of which elements are to be included. Defining a collection amounts to drawing an imaginary boundary that separates certain elements from others. Such a boundary has no physical existence; it is a mental construct based on subjective criteria that are independent of the fundamental physical laws, which describe only the interactions among elementary particles. Furthermore, grouping elements into a collection does not eliminate the fundamentally discrete nature of the collection itself. Physically and objectively, only the individual elements themselves can be said to exist. The same reasoning applies to temporal sequences of processes: determining where a sequence begins and where it ends is likewise a subjective decision and viewing the sequence as a single, global process does not erase the fundamentally discrete nature of the sequence itself.

Consequently, any property attributed to the collection as a whole depends intrinsically on the mind, since it is tied to the subjective choice involved in defining the collection itself and regarding its elements as a unified structure. Subjectivity is therefore a necessary precondition for the existence of any emergent property, and consciousness is, in turn, a necessary precondition for the existence of subjectivity. This argument is sufficient to show that every emergent property presupposes a conscious mind that conceives it. Consequently, the mind itself cannot be identified with an emergent property.

The brain, considered as a single entity, is merely a conventional cognitive construct based on separating a group of particles from everything else and then treating those particles as a single entity. The conceptualization of the brain is based on subjective criteria that are external to the laws of physics. In reality, there is a continuous exchange of molecules with the bloodstream, and when and how such molecules begin or cease to be part of what we call the brain is determined arbitrarily.

An example helps clarify this point: the concept of a nation. A nation is not a physical entity and does not refer to a mind-independent entity, since it is merely a collection of people grouped together according to conventionally established criteria. Conceiving of these people as a single nation does not erase their fundamentally discrete nature: they remain distinct individuals.

The same applies to the brain: its actual physical structure is fundamentally discrete, and treating it as a single entity is purely a subjective abstraction.

Brain processes are likewise fragmented. They consist of an enormous number of parallel sequences of microscopic physical processes involving distinct particles located at separate points. There is no direct connection between the individual locations within the brain, and such connections are merely subjective abstractions used to approximately describe sequences of many distinct microscopic processes. Objectively speaking, there is no single global process but only an enormous number of local microscopic processes, and treating all these processes as a single event is merely a subjective abstraction. The lack of a physical connecting element between these billions of microscopic processes implies that conscious experience cannot exist as the result of brain processes alone.

In science, we develop approximate models to overcome the limitations of our cognitive abilities. Such approximate models are merely products of the human mind. Indeed, an approximation is nothing more than a cognitive construct rather than a mind-independent reality, because a mind-independent reality is exactly what it is and cannot be an approximation of itself.

Using a simplified model instead of a more accurate one may introduce fictitious properties that are absent from the solutions provided by the more accurate model. It is analogous to having two photographs of the same object, one sharp and the other blurred. If we wish to determine the object's real properties, we must rely on the sharp photograph; the features visible only in the blurred photograph (such as indistinct patches of color) and absent from the sharp one do not correspond to actual physical properties of the object. Clearly, the object's real properties do not change simply because we have chosen to reduce the resolution of the photograph. In this analogy, the sharp photograph corresponds to the fundamental physical model, whereas the blurred photograph corresponds to the approximate model. The blurred patches represent emergent properties, which are not genuine properties of reality because they are merely artifacts introduced by approximation and simplification. An approximate description does not reveal any new real properties beyond those already captured by the more accurate description; it merely introduces "blur." For this reason, if we wish to understand physical reality and its genuine properties, we must refer to the fundamental physical laws rather than to the distinctive features of their approximate and simplified models.

Assuming that emergent properties are mind-independent amounts to committing the map-territory fallacy, that is, confusing a simplified representation (the "map") with the reality it represents (the "territory"). In this analogy, the underlying microscopic processes constitute the territory, whereas emergent properties constitute the map, that is, the simplified conceptual models we use to describe those underlying microscopic processes in an approximate manner. The error is particularly serious because, despite having access to far more accurate "maps" (the fundamental physical laws), naturalism chooses to disregard them in favor of much more simplified and approximate ones.

Conclusions

My arguments show that physicalism is incompatible with one of the most fundamental aspects of scientific knowledge (the discrete nature of molecular and biological processes) and that brain processes alone cannot constitute a sufficient condition for the existence of consciousness.

Since conscious experiences are associated with many distinct microscopic processes occurring at separate points, it is necesssary that a connecting mind-independent element exists and that such element collectively interprets all these distinct processes as a unified conscious experience. Such an element must exist independently of the mind and therefore can only be intrinsically indivisible, that is, elementary. This indivisible element cannot be of biological origin because the physical laws describe no physical entity possessing the required properties.

Marco Biagini

Thank you so much for this. You refer what I’ve been trying to explain to people that climate change is not a result of burning fossil fuels. It’s a result of us destroying the very components of life which arrived at a certain level of complexity to be able to work in conjunction with climate patterns and do establish and maintain the stable atmosphere that we take for granted. In order to mitigate climate change the only way forward I believe and reinforced by this is to work to reestablishing as much varied life as possible on as many places in the planet as possible to repair the hydrological systems and to reestablish a balanced climate by de animating our planet we’re actually causing our own demise by destroying the balance between life and the climate which it is in relationship with

❤

How were the first humans made? And is our consciousness saved after we die? That is the question. Seems possible to create biological drones able to record in all different senses and that can reproduce on their own. Makes me wonder if Humans have been here all along and we have gone through many apocalypses and realized we needed to pump the oil out of the Earth to stop it from burning to a crisp this time. We might be a species that travels the entire universe planting other humans to breed and strip the planets of all their resources. Maybe we were sent to Earth to discover everything and strip it down to its core before our creators come and take us to the next one.

Maybe if he was a better physicist he wouldn't be so confused about biology?

I like the idea that there might be millions of primitive or almost life forms zooming around inside rocks waiting to hit a planet suitable for it to live on and maybe become a much higher life form.😊

What does Zeus have to say about this?

Wauw. Thank you😊

Gotta say, was sad when he said "quantum computer AI – Q AI could 'explore all quantum possibilities" since we know this is not how quantum computers work. Luckily was at end and clearly not his field, but its the whole "heard a great 2 hr symphony and a kid screamed at min 115 and ruined it all" lol

bit not byte
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e41IyOlfj7I

It's clarified in the Open Tensoriality and the Cognition-Cosmology Equivalence Principle. Info is stored in the software (Symboliad as structural concept). Physics of physics is explained by the equivalence in which we partition the universe (same as the worm is cut, that's what it partitions through its Symboliad.) This then gives cues of now the search for aliens is not a physics problem.

Anyone know the final equation?