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**avdddcxnelkaxz** · 09-30-2008, 09:30 AM

dear friends,

http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/...connection.htm

be well, be love.

david

chapter 5

the conscious connection: a psycho-physical bridge between brain and pan-experiential quantum geometry
stuart hameroff* and jonathan powell**
*departments of anesthesiology and psychology
center for consciousness studies
the university of arizona
** department of philosophy
university of reading, reading, uk
visiting scholar, department of philosophy and center for consciousness studies,
the university of arizona, spring 2008

can conscious experience—feelings, phenomenal qualia, our ‘inner life’—be accommodated within present-day science?

those who believe it can (e.g. proponents of physicalism, reductionism, materialism, functionalism, computationalism) see conscious experience as an emergent property of complex computation in networks of brain neurons. in these approaches consciousness is viewed as a higher order effect emerging from lower level, non-conscious entities.

others believe consciousness cannot be accommodated within present day or future science. cartesian dualists see consciousness and physical matter as separate and irreconcilable. a modern version of dualism is ‘mysterianism,’ or cognitive closure, which suggests that consciousness exists within science but cannot be understood by conscious beings, and we should stop worrying about it.

a third set of philosophical positions ascribes to consciousness (or its precursors) ontological status as a foundational component of reality. these positions (e.g. panpsychism, pan-experientialism, idealism) relate consciousness to irreducible (‘funda-mental’) components of reality, something akin to mass, spin or charge. these views take consciousness to be present in low level entities, in which—on some readings—they inherently contain a phenomenal nature or subjective experience (qualia). consciousness or its ‘proto-conscious’ precursors are thus somehow built into the structure of the universe—a view that we might label pan-protopsychism.

most of these views are monist in nature, in that they take reality to be, ultimately, a single entity or substance. at issue, then, are two key points: (1) the essential characteristic(s) of this monist substance, and (2) how it gives rise to apparently diverse entities like ‘mind’ and ‘matter.’ if the one reality is essentially mind-like, then we have a form of idealism—which may or may not entail panpsychism. if it is essentially physical or material, physicalism obtains.

09-30-2008, 09:30 AM	#1
avdddcxnelkaxz Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 414 Senior Member	The Conscious Connection: A Psycho-physical Bridge between Brain and Pan-experiential dear friends, http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/...connection.htm be well, be love. david chapter 5 the conscious connection: a psycho-physical bridge between brain and pan-experiential quantum geometry stuart hameroff* and jonathan powell** departments of anesthesiology and psychology center for consciousness studies the university of arizona * department of philosophy university of reading, reading, uk visiting scholar, department of philosophy and center for consciousness studies, the university of arizona, spring 2008 can conscious experience—feelings, phenomenal qualia, our ‘inner life’—be accommodated within present-day science? those who believe it can (e.g. proponents of physicalism, reductionism, materialism, functionalism, computationalism) see conscious experience as an emergent property of complex computation in networks of brain neurons. in these approaches consciousness is viewed as a higher order effect emerging from lower level, non-conscious entities. others believe consciousness cannot be accommodated within present day or future science. cartesian dualists see consciousness and physical matter as separate and irreconcilable. a modern version of dualism is ‘mysterianism,’ or cognitive closure, which suggests that consciousness exists within science but cannot be understood by conscious beings, and we should stop worrying about it. a third set of philosophical positions ascribes to consciousness (or its precursors) ontological status as a foundational component of reality. these positions (e.g. panpsychism, pan-experientialism, idealism) relate consciousness to irreducible (‘funda-mental’) components of reality, something akin to mass, spin or charge. these views take consciousness to be present in low level entities, in which—on some readings—they inherently contain a phenomenal nature or subjective experience (qualia). consciousness or its ‘proto-conscious’ precursors are thus somehow built into the structure of the universe—a view that we might label pan-protopsychism. most of these views are monist in nature, in that they take reality to be, ultimately, a single entity or substance. at issue, then, are two key points: (1) the essential characteristic(s) of this monist substance, and (2) how it gives rise to apparently diverse entities like ‘mind’ and ‘matter.’ if the one reality is essentially mind-like, then we have a form of idealism—which may or may not entail panpsychism. if it is essentially physical or material, physicalism obtains.
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