# A memory is a physical thing. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 2, 2005, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-memory-is-a-physical-thing/292584 "2005-03-02T11:33:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 21
**Author:** ![Arwin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/51bf81/32.png) [@Arwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arwin)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2005, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-memory-is-a-physical-thing/292584/401 "2005-03-10T11:07:00Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > It is interesting to hear your interpretation. Now, I would like to hear your answer. 😃 Is something that is not physical physical? There is no such thing as not physical. It’s as simple as that. Putting words together can’t, won’t, and doesn’t create something not physical. > [@](#): > > Well, dandy then! Axiom: God exists. There’s your proof! 😉 We’ve established before that we experience the world subjectively. Proof is irrelevant on that level. That the term proof exists is because, at least in certain parts of our society, we have set up a value system in which proof is meaningful. These are among others science and justice. In politics, the two axioms come together and sometimes clash in interesting ways, leading us to increasingly seek separation between church and state. But sometimes they also agree in interesting ways. They don’t have to be opposing axioms either and each has its own use and validity. However, within the context of this level of discussion, I prefer to work from the first axiom rather than the last, because for me it is quite simply more useful and perhaps more importantly, it doesn’t need nor inherently clash with the other axiom. I can explain the existence of the second axiom within the realm of the first, where trying to do the reverse results raises many more questions I’m not comfortable with. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2005, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-memory-is-a-physical-thing/292584/402 "2005-03-10T13:08:26Z")
> [@Arwin](#): > > There is no such thing as not physical. It’s as simple as that. Putting words together can’t, won’t, and doesn’t create something not physical. Then I had it right. The premise is that physical is everything conceivable plus everything that isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2005, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-memory-is-a-physical-thing/292584/403 "2005-03-10T14:14:32Z")
Well, the time has come for me to fly to the other side of the planet: that I was born in a time when I can do such a thing never fails to give me an experience of wondrous awe every bit as intense as that which I used to derive from God or the metaphysical! I am simultaneously delighted and maddeningly frustrated at how this thread has progressed (the very _definition_ of a Great Debate, perhaps :).) Whole swathes of misuderstanding, muddle and straw regarding the contention that our thoughts and awareness might arise form physical processes have been swept away. At the very least, I think there has been a realisation that the pursuit of an explanation for cognition is a [protoscience](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protoscience) rather than a [pseudoscience](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoscience), which I would have gladly settled for when I posted my OP. On the downside, the sheer inability to make the baby step from _eg._ a tree as a physical **object** to a tree _falling_ as a physical **process** , or from a physical process to a computational process (biological or electronic), was one which I did not expect to spend so much time making and, with some, failing to make. (And the speed with which the toddler would then crawl off _way_ down the road, resulting in so much cajoling and coaxing to persuade it to come back and try again, was often astonishing!) Nevertheless, such difficulties at least identify those trip hazards for future, and I can ask myself how they might be smoothed over for the next attempt. I was also disappointed how often the twin SOME/ALL pugilstick came out to bludgeon ambiguities at the drop of a hat. A successfully completed baby step does not instantly make the baby able to yomp across the whole bridge, and I rather resented having to continually make it clear that I _understood_ this. Again, useful lessons for future anyhow. Having tried to clarify what I _am_ saying about cognition, awareness, consciousness and the rest of it, and what I am _not_, for some 8 pages now, I think a brief summary might be in order. I _do_ say that: [ul][li]Senses and memory access are the key to understanding basic cognition and awareness. If an entity has no continually incoming senses (like, say, a database), or no memory of past states (like, say, a pressure gauge, amoeba, rock or hurricane), or no way to _access_ those memories (like, say, a cliff face or _dead_ human, or if the memories are somehow degraded or encrypted such that they cannot be distinguished from _randomness_), then basic cognition and awareness are foiled. [/li][li]There is something which a bee does or has, which a _live_ human also does or has, but which a _dead_ human does or has _not_. Choose your word for that: I prefer “cognition”, but awareness, sentience, consciousness or subjective experience are all alternatives, perhaps with different qualifiers.[/li][li]Bee cognition can be _explained_. It is _understood_. On what basis, in what terms, is that explanation and understanding achieved? Senses and memory. On what basis, in what terms, is the explanation and understanding of the bees senses and memory achieved? Biological cells and their interaction with other cells, molecules or photons of energy. On what basis, in what terms, is the explanation and understanding of interacting cells, molecules and energy achieved? I struggle to find a more fitting word than _physics_: atoms and photons are _physical things_, and their interactions are _physical processes_.[/ul][/li] I do **not** say that: [ul][li]Senses and memory explain **everything** about cognition: why we cry at sad songs or understand maths, or why our awareness of memories feels like it’s so much more than simply _reactivating_ them. If **human** awareness is ever to be explained and understood, it must be as some vastly complex **combination** of _multiple_ senses, multiple _levels_ of memory, _associations_ of those memories with sounds or symbols, and the utterly baffling chemical moderation we call “emotion”. Those separate parts are not yet explained or understood, and so the **sum** of those parts most certainly isn’t. All I _do_ say is that I believe that there is no **more than** the sum of those parts, no _gestalt_, despite those deficiencies in the understanding _of_ those parts or the combination thereof. [/li][li]Metaphysical entities are _currently_ explainable or understandable as physical entities. Does this make me a _Meta_physicalist-of-the-Gaps? So be it. But other branches of science don’t explain _everything_ either, and yet I do not ascribe to a _God_-of-the-Gaps position. I call myself a physicalist because I believe that they ultimately _will_ be, and that the bridge between the physical and the metaphysical at least has solid foundations despite those gaps. Is this “faith”? A belief in something you cannot prove? I suppose so, but then again so, arguably, is [everything](http://www.simulation-argument.com/).[/ul][/li] I will leave you with a strawman. Bear with me: it is a strawman who once had a brain, and commanded intellectual respect from simple Dorothy to expert sorcerors alike. The strawman looked around the yellow brick road, and saw all of this wonderful, incredible **life**. He also saw this humdrum, everyday **matter**. What was it, he asked, that _living_ things had which inanimate _matter_ didn’t? Surely it must be some mysterious _spirit_, or _essence_, some _quale_, a _je ne sais quoi_, a _gestalt_ which matter is somehow imbued with. Nothing in matter, its behaviours, or properties implies “life” or a mechanism for its occurrence: the cells just _sit_ there. From where does all this _vigour_ and _diversity_ come from? An old man called Charles appeared, looking a little like a bald albino gorilla with an enormous beard. “The cells **are** the life, strawman”, he said. “What you consider a completely different thing entirely is still _explained and understood_ by the cells, and the physical processes undergone by many billions of them together: their _replication_, _mutation_ and _selection_.” Strawman protested: “What do you mean, _physical processes_? What is _physical_ about ‘replication’?” The old man took strawman’s hand. “Take this small step along the road with me. Consider a tiny spiral molecule, called Dan. Dan is a physical thing, is he not?” “Hmm, OK, yes, for the sake of argument” replied straw. “Now, if Dan splits in half and each half grabs onto similar passing atoms, Dan _copies himself_”, and he showed straw some convincing evidence that this happened. “This process of _replication_ is physical, and so is the replica, yes?” “Errm, well, ye…”, began the strawman, and fell over. The old man helped him up. “I’ll leave you to think about it, my straw friend. This doesn’t explain _everything_ you see around you, and my friends and I still have right old arguments about some of the details. But if you accept that the _replication process_ is physical, you might accept that **life** is ultimately _explained and understood_ by physical processes.” And he toddled off down the yellow brick road… …all the way to Oz. _Au revoir_, friends, see you in April! ---
**Author:** ![other-wise](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4bbf92/32.png) [@other-wise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/other-wise)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2005, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-memory-is-a-physical-thing/292584/404 "2005-03-10T14:30:51Z")
**Bon Voyage, Sentient!** Thanks for hosting a most interesting and aggravating debate (IOW, an almost perfect SDMB thread 🙂 ) Hoist a Foster’s for us. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2005, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-memory-is-a-physical-thing/292584/405 "2005-03-10T15:13:54Z")
For myself, I’ll be satisfied when science defines life. I think that from there, it might work toward understanding and explaining it. Sorry you’re gone, Sentient. But I’ll keep my promise to you. (If he’s gone, why are we speaking to him?) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-memory-is-a-physical-thing/292584.md?page=20)