Quantum Physics, Chemistry, and Consciousness

Abstract

Aglassblower who wishes to create an exotic vase that one day will be filled with a beautiful arrangement of flowers does not begin by venturing into his garden to cut roses. Similarly, physical scientists considering consciousness should not start out by discussing the brain of William Shakespeare. First, like a glassblower heating a supply of pure white sand, they must consider more elemental ingredients. These ingredients, protons, neutrons, and electrons, are the materials on the workbench of a physicist. Physicists have proudly fashioned a vase from such sand and passed their glowing creation along to chemists, who, like florists, are supposed to gaze upon it with the utmost reverence. But the chemists, again like florists, have developed their own uses for the glass, filling it with all manner of things, and their rules may not ultimately derive from the respectable traditions of glassblowing.

The ability to reduce everything to simple fundamental laws does not imply the ability to start from those laws and reconstruct the universe. Philip W. Anderson