Geologist/Engineer interested in cosmology and consciousness

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Lenny Briscoe
How did you find PF?
By accident. I thought I was in Quora.
I am a retired engineering geologist and civil/geotechnical engineer. I've been thinking a lot about the significance of human consciousness as the universe looking at itself - not in any magical, metaphysical way, rather how it relates to what we know and don't know about the physics underlying the universe.

Anyway, I took 15 units of physics (classical, E&M, modern) in college and 13 units of calculus, but no diffEQs or linear algebra, so ... don't pick on me. I'm interested mostly in astrophysics, cosmology and consciousness. I'm here to learn to the extent possible, given the esoterica.
 
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Welcome to PF. :smile:

We're of less help on philosophical questions about consciousness, but of great help on science questions. Enjoy! :smile:
 
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berkeman said:
Welcome to PF. :smile:

We're of less help on philosophical questions about consciousness, but of great help on science questions. Enjoy! :smile:
I understand that, but there is a number of very reputable physicists pondering the currently philosophical question of consciousness. Inasmuch as consciousness presumably evolved subsequent to the big bang, I suspect there will be physics underlying the phenomenon, whether it's known or emergent physics.
 
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Lenny Briscoe said:
I understand that, but there is a number of very reputable physicists pondering the currently philosophical question of consciousness. Inasmuch as consciousness presumably evolved subsequent to the big bang, I suspect there will be physics underlying the phenomenon, whether it's known or emergent physics.
True. But keep in mind that thread starts at PF in the technical forums must include a link to the peer-reviewed literature on the subject. That keeps the quality of the discussions high here. Links to the popular press trying to interpret (and sensationalize) recent research are not sufficient or allowed for thread starts.

Besides, you want to maximize your efforts in studying real science, right? There are some very interesting real science studies going on that may help us start to figure out consciousness and how the brain works. Have you looked into fMRI yet? :smile:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3073717/

https://cfmriweb.ucsd.edu/Research/whatisfmri.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_magnetic_resonance_imaging
 
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berkeman said:
Have you looked into fMRI yet? :smile:
Seems to me to be a lot of "tea leaves reading" involved in functional MRI. I have not really looked at it so this is not a well founded opinion...rather a first impression. What do you (all) think?
 
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Careful studies have found changes in activity in certain brain areas to be correlated with some very specific functions.
It also involves a lot of brain anatomy and physiology.
Big picture is not yet clear.
 
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berkeman said:
Welcome to PF. :smile:

We're of less help on philosophical questions about consciousness, but of great help on science questions. Enjoy! :smile:
Before 1916, relativity may have been considered "philosophical" and ditto quantum mechanics before 1920.
 
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Maybe, but it's 2021 now and both relativity and quantum physics is considered hardcore physics.
 
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Lenny Briscoe said:
Before 1916, relativity may have been considered "philosophical" and ditto quantum mechanics before 1920.
The 20th Century provided major developments not only in physics itself but in the way we think about physics.
 
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My personal belief is consciousness is either intractable (not something conducive to clear experimental verification) or we are simply are not smart enough to figure it out. Physics works so well because it studies very simple objects. The brain is the most complex object in the universe are we really know #%*t about it - for example, not a single psychiatric disorder has an established biological explanation
 
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We've exceeded the maximum word limit for a New Member Introduction thread, so I'll go ahead and tie it off now. :smile:
 
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