Consciousness is a Biological Problem

What is the mysterious force that makes it all happen?

What is the mysterious force that makes all of this biological shiat work in the first place?

Now, the only question remains is how comes a neuron can do an Irish Jig and a speck of sand cannot?

a grain of sand doesn't carry electrical currents

a grain of sand usually just sits with other grains of sand that don't really do anything, and isn't woven into a complex network with massive parallelism and feedback

a grain of sand doesn't respond to neurotransmitters or neuromodulators

a grain of sand doesn't have a lot of useful computational properties, either in itself or in a pile

a grain of sand generally isn't anywhere in between an animal's sensors and effectors

responsive to neurotransmitters, develop computational properties, and become part of a massive, complex network?

I like your big fancy words for the mysterious force that makes it all happen. Something is making that elementary particle wiggle. Some call it the quantum wave collapse. What you are describing is the Irish Jig. I'll wait for physicists to figure out what is causing the dance. You guys just like watching the dance.

Rich

There's no one force that's making everything happen. There are millions of forces working in synergy to make what you think happened, happen. And most of these forces aren't a mystery.

Care to be specific regarding which things you find to be mysteriously happening?

I don't understand why people are in such a rush. Copernicus proposed the heliocentric universe in the about 200 BC and it wasn't until the 17th century that Galileo proposed his support for the theory (much to his regret).

It will be physicists who need to understand quantum physics more completely to move ahead and look for the underlying causes. I'll continue my exploration in this direction. This is why I suggest that philosophers have a much deeper understanding of quantum physics in their core curriculum.

Here is what John S. Bell, whose work is one of the most cited in all of physics has to say on the subject:

"We look forward to a new theory which can refer meaningfully to events in a given system without requiring "observation" by another system. The critical test cases requiring this conclusion are systems containing consciousness and the universe as a whole. Actually the writers share with most physicists a degree of embarrassment at consciousness being dragged into physics, and share the usual feeling that to consider the universe as a whole, at the least immodest, if not blasphemous. It seems likely to us that physics will have again adopted a more objective description of nature long before it begins to understand consciousness, and the universe as a whole may well not play any role in its development. It remains a logical possibility that it is the act of consciousness which is ultimately responsible for the reduction of the wave packet."

I like your use of the word force to name the mysterious (some call it the Dao or Logos). As I said, this is the providence of physics to discover the deeper mysterious of life. Biologists do not seem to be equipped to do anything other than observe life.

Yep, I am exploring the Input. You need input to get any feedback system going.

this is the providence of physics to discover the deeper mysterious of life. Biologists do not seem to be equipped to do anything other than observe life.

Not to be petty, Rich, but Copernicus lived from 1473-1543 AD. Galileo was born in 1564.

You may be thinking of Ptolemy who lived in the 2nd century BC, but Ptolemy proposed a geocentric universe -- Copernicus proposed the opposite 1800 years later.

Biology is applied chemistry, and chemistry is applied physics, so this is an artificial distinction.

Biology is applied chemistry, and chemistry is applied physics, so this is an artificial distinction.

Not to be petty, Rich, but Copernicus lived from 1473-1543 AD. Galileo was born in 1564.

You may be thinking of Ptolemy who lived in the 2nd century BC, but Ptolemy proposed a geocentric universe -- Copernicus proposed the opposite 1800 years later.

and the input comes from ... the environment

However, as a practical matter, it seems like physicists are far more interested in inquiring about the nature of the forces that move nature than biologists who seem to content on watching the forces perform their dance.

Electromagnetism, thermodynamics, and fluid mechanics are among the physical underpinnings of biological systems. To study, for instance, how the heart beats or how the brain works is literally to study these physical forces in action.

Physicists are looking at the the wave function collapse

You are just observing