Understanding Physical Processes in Describing a State of Consciousness: A Review

Consciousness shapes how reality, including ourselves, is perceived and defines personal identity through experience. It is central to unresolved problems in physics, such as observation and the measurement problem, yet its nature, brain mechanisms, and universal location remain unknown, making it a key scientific challenge. This review examines physical processes linked to consciousness, including signal transmission in the brain, chains of events, quantum phenomena, and integrated information. It also discusses the roles of matter structure, fields, and universality. The authors propose further studies to improve understanding of consciousness.

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Abstract

The way we view the reality of nature, including ourselves, depend on consciousness.It also defines the identity of the person, since we know people in terms of their experiences. In general, consciousness defines human existence in this universe. Furthermore, consciousness is associated with the most debated problems in physics such as the notion of observation, observer,in the measurement problem. However,its nature, occurrence mechanism in the brain and the definite universal locality of the consciousness are not clearly known. Due to this consciousness is considered asan essential unresolved scientific problem of the current era.Here, we review the physical processes which are associated in tackling these challenges. Firstly, we discuss the association of consciousness with transmission of signals in the brain, chain of events, quantum phenomena process and integrated information. We also highlight the roles of structure of matter,field, and the concept of universality towards understanding consciousness. Finally, we propose further studies for achieving better understanding of consciousness.