We can explain circulation in terms of physics. We can't explain consciousness in terms of physics. Even a cursory search will turn up scores of interesting articles about physics and the new science of consciousness as the next frontier. Another cursory search will turn up several very interesting quotes from famous and highly regarded physicists on the subject such as these:
“My brain is only a receiver, in the Universe there is a core from which we obtain knowledge, strength and inspiration. I have not penetrated into the secrets of this core, but I know that it exists.”
― Nikola Tesla
I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as a derivative of consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing postulates consciousness.
I heard an interesting discussion once when it was said that the Catholic church allowed science to proceed as long as it stay out of the "spirit" realm and explored the material realm and we have been stuck in that mode ever since.
We can't explain consciousness in terms of physics YET. The entirety of human history is a march in which light has slowly pushed back darkness. If you haven't proved something unknownable and assert that it is your reader should rightly be incredulous.
There is no spirit realm for science to explore merely concepts that the ignorant suppose exist within such shadowed places.
It's your choice to be dismissive and treat it like astrology. I don't care.
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance—that principle is contempt prior to investigation."
- Herbert Spencer but most likely a derivative quote from William Paley.
Suggesting a local phenomenon is the result of a field we have no reason to believe exists carried by particles we have no reason to believe exist with no known characteristics or methods to detect it isn't an invitation to investigation. When such theorists have obtained at least a hypothesis they are welcome to advance it.
If Hacker News lasts for hundreds of years, people may look back on this thread as an example of how some were on the right rack and some were heading to a dead end.
"Leucippus and his pupil Democritus proposed that all matter was composed of small indivisible particles called atoms... They are constantly moving and colliding into each other."
That doesn't even slightly follow. For any given discipline we require frameworks for understanding and specific understandings. Not having obtained a specific understanding doesn't indicate it doesn't fit in within the same framework else one would be forced to conclude that because we didn't understand how to treat certain conditions (that we know can) they are somehow outside of medicine!
Chalmers and several other philosophers have made the argument for why consciousness doesn't fit in a physical, functional or objective framework. That's because sensations aren't abstract/descriptive facts or functions. You don't get red, taste, pain from number, extension or chemical makeup. Consciousness is something additional correlated with the biological substrate.
This argument is philosophical nonsense from people fully disconnected from real science. This isn't to say his mind didn't work. It's entirely possible to produce extremely sophisticated mental constructs fully divorced from any connection to reality.
Imagine if nobody had figured out any parallel between programming and math and claimed you couldn't get in any way from the latter to the former!
Dualism is complete and total nonsense. Red is just a label used within a certain pattern of neurons the same way main is a label in a program. If you don't introduce nonsense you don't then find yourself with the hard problem of explaining the result of your own mental gymnastics.
“My brain is only a receiver, in the Universe there is a core from which we obtain knowledge, strength and inspiration. I have not penetrated into the secrets of this core, but I know that it exists.”
― Nikola Tesla
I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as a derivative of consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing postulates consciousness.
-- Max Planck
https://uncommondescent.com/physics/what-great-physicists-ha...
I heard an interesting discussion once when it was said that the Catholic church allowed science to proceed as long as it stay out of the "spirit" realm and explored the material realm and we have been stuck in that mode ever since.