LIFE AND CONSCIOUSNESS AS QUALITIES

Abstract

It may be presumed in this work that at the moment of death, everything in the body ( viz. molecules and their motions ) remains identical to what it was at the last moment of life, the difference being that life has something more than the basic underlying physical and chemical elements. It is a totality, which is more like a flow, (i.e. a time derivative, or differential, as in Zeno's paradox of “an arrow in flight”). This is what may be called, in a dialectical sense, a new quality that is ‘life’. A similar picture was presented about consciousness, which is a function of the central nervous system ( not the autonomic ). In both, we assumed the movement of an arrow as being at point at an instant and not there the next instant.The application of science in the hierarchy of life and consciousness is currently one of the most active areas of research in viewing the topic from the bottom‐up; i.e. chemistry >biology>neurology > consciousness. This is as opposed to a top‐down, philosophical and/or phenomenological approach to consciousness.Here we show that both ‘life’ and ‘consciousness’ belong to a category called ‘phenomenon’, both lost instantly and may also represent a new ‘quality’ in the ‘dialectical’ sense. Based on this approach, transformations in nature can be classified into the types: A union of opposites that can generate a new quality, as in the case of an arrow in flight. Quantity to quality; random to organized, viz. molecules to life without consciousness; is reducible. Mechanical to dialectic with transcendental properties; life with consciousness; consciousness from neural inputs; qualitative; is irreducible. Support or Funding Informationnone