A soul must be made of matter

[Talishi]

Life is a set of chemical processes which is capable of creating child processes faster than entropy can tear it apart. And those child processes in turn can make grand-child processes, and so on. Individual cells do not endure, but the community of cells which is the organism does endure…somewhat longer.

On a higher level, individual organisms do not endure, but the community of organisms which is the species does endure…somewhat longer.

On the highest level, individual species do not endure, but the planetary biosphere which is the set of all species does endure…somewhat longer.

The physical “intelligence� to construct every protein in the human body is encoded in our DNA, which is copied as single-strand transfer RNA, which goes into a ribosome like an audio tape, and the ribosome constructs the protein using this information and materials from the ambient store of amino acids floating around in the cell which are supplied by eating other organisms.

Intelligence in a mental sense is the process of modeling the objective universe in a subjective way. When intelligence is great, as it is in mankind, the model is so precise that it can be used to predict how the real universe will react when changes are made to it. This allows humans to construct, for example, a car. A car is a piece of frozen intelligence.

Patterns of matter are information. A CD contains a layer of dye (matter) which a laser has dented with a series of holes to record information. Every bit of processed information requires energy to create or retrieve. But information can only exist as patterns in matter. The reason for this is simple: since energy is fundamentally light, and light always travels precisely at the speed of light for all observers, there is no way to confine pure energy in frozen patterns like we have produced a car. If disembodied spirits exist, they must be made of different stuff than energy.

To date no believer has put forth a testable hypothesis for the eternal soul, and where it would fit in the Standard Model of particle taxonomy.

People who believe in an eternal soul have latched onto the truism that “energy cannot be destroyed� and also assert the soul is made of energy. This fails for the reason I describe above, and also because energy can indeed be destroyed qua energy when it is converted to matter, and vice-versa.

[Divine Insight]

Patterns of matter are information.

And then there's the question of what it is that is experiencing these patterns of information?

Thus far all you have proposed is that patterns of information are having the experience of being patterns of information. I don't see where this is a sufficient explanation.

In physics we assume the following:

1. Energy exists. We have absolutely no clue what energy is or from whence it arises.

2. Matter exists. Currently we see matter as nothing more than standing wave states of energy. So again we have no clue what this even is.

3. There are four forces that exist, and they are:

a) Gravity
b) electromagnetism
c) strong nuclear force
d) weak nuclear force

So now, how do we use the above picture to explain how patterns of information can have an experience?

Where in physics is there anything that suggests that any energy, matter, or forces (or any combination therefore) should be able to have an experience?

In other words, how do we explain, using only modern physics, how any pattern of information can have an experience?

What in physics suggests in can't?

Physics needs to explain this, explaining things is the very purpose of physics.

In answer to your question, there simply isn't anything within physics that could explain how anything can have an experience. I've just outlined this in the post you've quoted from me. All physics allows for is energy/matter as the constituent stuff of the physical world. And that constituent stuff behaves in a manner described by the four known physical forces.

The bottom line is that unless physics postulates that energy/matter itself can have an experience, then physics can't explain what it is that is having an experience.

The best secular guess that we have right now is that the ability to have an experience is some sort of an "emergent property" of complex interactions of energy/matter and the four forces. The problem is that we don't have any reason to make this proposal. We have no examples of "emergent properties" that can't already be explained using the known basis of physics. Conscious awareness would be the very FIRST example of something emerging that cannot be explained using the basic assumptions of physics. So there's really no justification for this hypothesis.

So there's nothing in physics that suggests why anything could ever have an experience. Some scientists have proposed that it may be possible that the ability to have an experience is simply an innate property of "energy/matter". In other words, they suggest that the answer to this question does not lie in the concept of emergent properties, but rather the solution lies on simply postulating that the very substance that constitutes our existence innately has this characteristic.

So far, physics can't rule this out. After all scientists have only assumed that the substance of the physical world is not innately capable of having an experience. This is entire an assumption which could be wrong.

[Delphi]

I am not a believer in gods for many reasons, but I do think that there is a small possibility that there is indeed teleology in the Universe. I was introduced to this through writings by the physicist John Wheeler.

He described what is known as the 'strong anthropic principle' which is a loose set of ideas that seek to establish that the emergence of life and mind in the universe is somehow predestined and inevitable. Built into the nature of the universe at the deepest level. This is not a new philosophical idea.

Perhaps we as conscious and intelligent are more than mere spectators in this universe, but we may indeed be participators in shaping physical reality.

Wheeler suggested that the DELAYED CHOICE EXPERIMENT allows the possibility of observers today and in the future to shape the nature of physical reality into the past. Including the far past when no observers yet existed!

Life and mind are products of the universe, so a logical and temporal loop emerges. Conventional science assumes a linear logical sequence:

Cosmos > Life > Mind

Wheeler suggested closing this chain into a loop:

Cosmos > Life > Mind > Cosmos

Wheeler expressed it like this: "Physics gives rise to observer-participancy; observer-participancy gives rise to information; information gives rise to physics. Thus the universe explains observers, and observers explain the universe." This rejects the notion that the universe is a cosmic machine subject to fixed a priori laws. It circumvents the infamous 'tower-of-turtles' problem.

Because of the backward-in-time aspect of quantum mechanics and the delayed choice experiments, in principle it is possible that the past can be shaped by observations at any stage in the cosmological future.

In this view, the universe is infused with observer participancy where the universe could both create itself, and steer our past, present, and future. This is why the universe is fit for life and vice versa.

One could alternatively postulate that the universe and consciousness was created by a god, or you could say that it is all a fluke happenstance, or perhaps we are part of a cosmic 'natural selection' in a vast multiverse. The problem with these 'explanations' is that they require an unexplained starting point. A levitating super -turtle at the bottom of it all.

Can the idea of a self-synthesizing universe be at the bottom and illuminate the question of why the universe and conscious experience exists at all?

I don't know. I'm just thinking out loud here and I may be getting off topic.