it also has non-physical characteristics — Patterner

If they stemmed from physical properties, then they're also physical properties, regardless of characteristics.

Why can't neural activity, hormonal feedback and sensory processing happen without experience? — bert1

They may. But we won't know. Just like we can't see infrared or hear ultrasonic.

You again miss the point. Both are different.

In 100-500 years, we may find out that time, space, color, energy, etc, are physical properties that become intangible because of dimensional (or something new) complexities.

My point is, everything came from the Big Bang (assuming it's legit), but varies in characteristics. All are physical. The universe is physical. I don't know about any covert abstract Big Bang that gave birth to consciousness or anything of its kind.

consciousness can't be sensed with any of our senses. That is not similar in any way to an eye not being able to see itself. — Patterner

Exactly. Both have different classes.

Of course you can quantity heat and light. — Patterner

I meant to say "count" (like physical objects).

It can't be sensed with any of our senses — Patterner

Like eyes can't see themselves. Consciousness itself is a kind of sense.

Why would we not think this lone, non-physical thing is the product of something non-physical? — Patterner

I may accept soul to be a catalyst of some sort here, but the generation or origin of consciousness, in my view, stems from the body.

When I said physical, I meant a product of physical events. But even those byproducts are physical properties to me.

For example, a chemical reaction may produce heat and light, and I consider them both to be physical things because they were born from physical properties, even though I can't quantify or put them in my pocket.

clearly not my view, then.

I think I caught what you mean.

No, that's not my view. I don't see the universe as a collective body or discard the idea of a creator/programmer. When I said the universe, I meant the physical components that constitute what we call the cosmos.

And being a theist, if I must bring soul into the equation, I'd say it can work as the covert catalyst giving sentient organisms the upper level that we call sapience or consciousness.

Just like we can't see our eyes — Copernicus

What I meant is that the viewer can't see itself, sometimes. The mirror can't see its own reflection within itself.

Consciousness cannot explain consciousness. The brain can't dissect a brain. You need a hand.

Seeing and licking are physical processes. — Patterner

The mind is physical process (neural and hormonal). But not tangible. Energy, in a way, is also physical (because it can be converted into matter, or at least because it's not empty space).

Physical property doesn't have to have tangibility.

Vedantic philosophy — Prajna

Unfamiliar with that.

we can't, yet. Just like we can't see our eyes or lick our elbows.

I don't know about that.

@83nt0n??

your point is?

Just out of curiosity, what would you do in this situation:

At 14:59:53 o'clock, a man, charged with serious crime and sentenced to immediate death-by-sniper-bullet by 15:00:00 o'clock, is on the rooftop holding a child's hand who is about to fall if not pulled up (the whole thing could take at least 20 seconds).

Would you execute justice (legal, not your conscientious) or wait to save the falling child?

As an individualist, I'm stuck.

It seems to me that the right to life is more important — 83nt0n

Yes. Both party's.

I am saying that consequences are important — 83nt0n

Not to deontological individualists.

if by "soundness" you mean empirical proof, then I must remind you this is philosophy, not science.

my point was, it is not imperative to dissect the universal patterns to propose that everything is physical (unless you could proof something abstract gives birth to our intangible qualities).

Consciousness is different — Patterner

So is the mind or emotion. Or dark matter and dark energy. Or quantum mechanics. Each is on its own league and level of difficulty.

it's just a statement of belief. It's not an argument or evidence for that belief — Patterner

I don't think we need empirical lab test before statement in philosophy. Philosophy is argumentative proposition.

The laws of physics are what is stated by physicists according to their understanding. — Metaphysician Undercover

Absolutely not. Math (formula) is a language — a human creation.

Laws of physics means the nature of the universe. It can be uniform or disorganized.

If ultimately, the universe is chaotic, then that is its nature.

...and?

Why not? It seems plausible that some rights are more important than others. — 83nt0n

How so? If you bring it down to numbers then you're a utilitarianist.

Sometimes, the consequences are just more important than rights — 83nt0n

That's literally the core of utilitarianism.

Yes, why not? — 83nt0n

Then what is the solution?

I would probably feel more guilty killing three people than one. — 83nt0n

There you go. Numbers.

I am in favor of moving toward pluralistic ethics. — 83nt0n

I see. I also think situational (contextual) morality is the way to go, except it has the most basic philosophical/legal flaw (who concludes and judges the affairs as rightful of wrongful?), the same reason why we have codified laws above court's scope for contextual judgement.

So your argument, that we are all physical beings is based on what you are hoping physics will discover some day. — Metaphysician Undercover

Of course not. Laws are laws whether we understand them or not.

not the premise of the argument.

part of the natural process.

depends on perspective.

The origin of biological entities of all types (from bacteria to humans) is not the Big Bang, but something well after it, where for some reason chemicals yielded life, and, and for some reason, it did it once and never again. — Hanover

What is your suggestion on that?

If we leave theistic views aside, I'd say it's a complex process that we're too early to understand. The same way the universe came into being or formed planets and oceans and lives.

What is commonly known as quantum uncertainty, is an uncertainty which is caused by the objects in question not following the laws of physics. — Metaphysician Undercover

Everything follows the law of physics. We're just a few decades or centuries away from understanding them.

He is forced to kill. — hypericin

The key point here is not the action itself, but the preference (even "choice" isn't the right word).

What about simply being compelled to kill someone? — hypericin

That is a completely different scenario because we're trying to contrast again consequentialism here.

We haven't reached that level of sentience/sapience yet to crack that. Don't think we will.

I'm too trifling to understand how the universe works.

If this is true, then you are trying to say we are superior to ourself - superior to the universe. You thereby recreate the division you deny. — unenlightened

Because the universe is not uniform. The sun and the moon aren't the same, nor are the elephants and the fungus. Each is on its own level and game.

Your claim of superiority entails a separation. This separation contradicts the other claim of a unified vision. — unenlightened

What separation?

If each neuron disobeys physical law, which seems to be the case as quantum physics describes activities which disobey physical law, obeying laws of probability instead, then this is evidence against physicalism. — Metaphysician Undercover

Can you elaborate?

So physics did not organise this new situation and evolution did. Thus your simple complexity thesis has a sudden hole in it. — apokrisis

How is evolution separate from physique?

Evolution rather than emergence. — apokrisis

Evolution happens in the body, the source of them all.

At the most basic level, codes don’t break the rules of physics — they emerge from them. Every “code” is just a structured pattern of energy inside a physical system, one that starts to matter when it gains some functional or survival value.

For example, the genetic code (A–T–G–C) is just chemistry, but evolution selected the combinations that could store and replicate information. The neural code shows up when electrochemical signals start representing external conditions that affect survival. Language and math are cultural versions of the same thing — symbolic systems for storing and sharing useful information between minds.

So, codes appear when matter begins organizing itself around information that has consequences. It’s not new physics — just a new level of order emerging out of the old one.

Claude Shannon called information “a difference that makes a difference,” and Gregory Bateson took that even further. In living systems, physical differences — chemical, electrical, mechanical — begin to make a difference for survival. That’s when information becomes meaningful.

It’s a feedback loop: physical interactions → self-organization → representation → communication → meaning. That loop is how physics turns into biology — when raw matter starts to carry and respond to information about itself.

Emergence isn’t magic; it’s novelty with continuity. Each higher level follows the same physical laws but introduces new behaviors that the lower level alone can’t produce. An atom doesn’t have “purpose.” But a cell made of atoms does — it acts to keep itself alive. The key difference lies in the informational architecture, not the physics underneath it. So life and mind aren’t exceptions to physical law — they’re extensions of it. The universe, in a way, learning how to encode itself.

If biology starts at the point where “a molecule can be a message,” then that’s the threshold where matter becomes reflexive — where it starts encoding its own persistence. At some level of complexity, the universe learns to remember, anticipate, and eventually, to think.

So yes, codes absolutely emerge from physics — but not as trivial side effects. They’re what happens when physics folds back on itself: when the universe begins to process information… and in us, realizes that it does.

In short, codes aren’t supernatural — they’re emergent designs within physics. They’re configurations of matter that gain meaning and purpose through self-organization. Life and mind are simply physics that learned how to remember, and matter that learned how to mean.

If you do not see the contradiction — unenlightened

I actually can't. Help in pointing out?

'we' at the top do not seem to be unified with the animal kingdom as long as we are obsessed with 'our' dominance of 'them'. — unenlightened

Well, our sapience is a tangible proof of our excellence above the rest of the earthly creatures.