AUTHOR=Pepperell Robert TITLE=Consciousness as a Physical Process Caused by the Organization of Energy in the Brain JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology VOLUME=9 YEAR=2018 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02091 DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02091 ISSN=1664-1078 ABSTRACT=

To explain consciousness as a physical process we must acknowledge the role of energy in the brain. Energetic activity is fundamental to all physical processes and causally drives biological behavior. Recent neuroscientific evidence can be interpreted in a way that suggests consciousness is a product of the organization of energetic activity in the brain. The nature of energy itself, though, remains largely mysterious, and we do not fully understand how it contributes to brain function or consciousness. According to the principle outlined here, energy, along with forces and work, can be described as actualized differences of motion and tension. By observing physical systems, we can infer there is something it is like to undergo actualized difference from the intrinsic perspective of the system. Consciousness occurs because there is something it is like, intrinsically, to undergo a certain organization of actualized differences in the brain.