[amelius]

One thing is certain: we are talking about consciousness. This means that the world does not work like this: there is physics, and above it there is consciousness which is merely monitoring the physics. This cannot be true (or is unlikely), since we are discussing consciousness and therefore the physical act of talking is driven by something that knows that consciousness exists. There must be a link back from consciousness to physics. A simpler way is to assume that physics IS consciousness. Physics as a science is a kind of introspective activity.

[mjburgess]

The link is called causation, and it is not simpler to assume its absence. It seems simpler only because no one ever works through the full consequences, because the project of doing so always fails very quickly or terminates in an inexplicable bag called "god" (or the trasncendental ego) or similar which serves to do all the work of things which cannot be explained.

This kind of simplicity is a very deceitful on, because it offers to seem to explain everything with nothing, and having phrased nothing in pleasant-sounding ways, concludes that this simplicity is a virtue.

[noutella]

It does offer beauty and relief to the fact that the observable universe is something like 10^80 the volume of a humain being. At that incomprehensible scale, I think poetry and spirituality is a rather nice placeholder while loads of brilliant minds work on our understanding of physics

[visarga]

> There must be a link back from consciousness to physics.

Yes, and it is trivial to prove. One second lapse of attention and you could get bitten by a snake, or run over by a car. If the top level (consciousness) fails, the neurons die too. Cells depend on this centralized decision point to exist. There is no way to have humans without consciousness because ... they would not be able even to put the thing into the other thing to make more of us without it ... excuse the language, but the argument is solid.