this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2026
381 points (98.2% liked)

memes

21469 readers
2583 users here now

Community rules

1. Be civilNo trolling, bigotry or other insulting / annoying behaviour

2. No politicsThis is non-politics community. For political memes please go to !politicalmemes@lemmy.world

3. No recent repostsCheck for reposts when posting a meme, you can only repost after 1 month

4. No botsNo bots without the express approval of the mods or the admins

5. No Spam/Ads/AI SlopNo advertisements or spam. This is an instance rule and the only way to live. We also consider AI slop to be spam in this community and is subject to removal.

A collection of some classic Lemmy memes for your enjoyment

Sister communities

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Emptiness@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

Well that would be the physicalism/materialism hypothesis. Truth is we don't know. That's why it's called the "Hard Problem of Consciousness"

The scientific and philosophical communities are split into a few major camps:

Physicalism / Materialism: They believe consciousness is an emergent property of complex biological computation. Just like "wetness" emerges when you put hydrogen and oxygen together, consciousness emerges when you network enough neurons. (Though critics argue wetness is still just physical behavior, while consciousness is a whole new dimension).

Idealism / Non-Dual Perspectives: This flips the script entirely. Instead of consciousness being a product of the brain, the brain (and the whole physical world) is an appearance within consciousness. In this view, you don't have a conscious brain; the brain is a conceptual map appearing in the wide-open space of prior awareness.

Panpsychism: The view that consciousness is a fundamental building block of the universe, like mass or electrical charge, and complex brains simply channel or organize it rather than creating it from scratch.