On naturalism and consciousness

[bennyboy]

I lean to the other extreme. At the quantum scale it appears that entanglements between sub-atomic particles spanning space, and perhaps time, give every part of the cosmos a kind of Plank limit minimum of awareness. Every particle reacts to the state of other particles - aware in some way - of what is going on around them. So I regard awareness much like I envision any of the fields in physics, permeating and enfolding all of the interactions of energy / matter. Which makes awareness is as much a part of the physical universe as gravity or electromagnetism.

I also think the question as to whether or not this phenomenal quality of mind is more intrinsic to matter than our current physical sciences account for, as panpsychism claims it is, would still be left unanswered. Maybe we need ourselves another Einstein to do for mind and matter what he did for time and space. Mattermind?

As an idea about dualism, I like this one. If mind is intrinsically a property of all matter, then you don't have to explain how some physical systems magically have it and some don't.

One possibility I suggested in the last thread about this stuff is that every energetic interchange results in a kind of quantum consciousness-- a tiny little spark of qualia. Then, you are looking at a quantative difference between systems, rather than a mysterious quantitative one. It's easy to imagine that the brain involves many orders of magnitude more interchanges of energy than a rock does, as would an active thinking brain involve more such interchanges than one in a coma.