CONSCIOUSNESS, BIOLOGY AND FUNDAMENTAL PHYSICS

Consciousness is defined here as our subjective experience of the external world, our physical bodies, our thinking and our emotions. Consciousness is also defined in terms of ‘being like something’ to have experiences. It is like something to be alive, like something to have a body and like something to experience the colour red. In contrast, it is assumed to be not like something to be a table or a chair. Further to being like something conscious also gives us the experience of choice. In philosophy, this opens up the controversial topic of freewill, but at a more mundane level we have the something it is like to choose types of beer, or between a small amount of benefit now or a more substantial benefit in the future. [Read more] ...