How Black Holes Help Solve the Mystery of Consciousness
Life’s revolt against nature’s entropy, and the pivot points of cosmic transformation
Consciousness is one of the strangest things in the universe. Why is some matter conscious at all? How can any material object, like the brain, be conscious?
Given the scientific standpoint, how can anything which is fundamentally objective have a subjective point of view such that there are facts about what it feels like to be that object? Philosophers call these subjective, oddly private facts of what it’s like to see red, to hear rainfall, or to feel angry or happy “qualia.” So are qualia simply miracles? Is the plain existence of consciousness in a universe of objects and unconscious events already supernatural?
The Thermodynamic Essence of Life
Whatever consciousness is, its oddness must be tied to yet another oddity, which is the existence of life. Why is there life in the universe? How does life arise from nonlife, and what’s the fundamental…
