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I could have been born at any time, in any place in the universe - or not at all, for that matter. Why do I get to experience the universe in a unique way? What gives rise to this?
Of course. We are matter.
The article is talking about the idea that all matter is conscious.
I could have been born at any time, in any place in the universe - or not at all, for that matter. Why do I get to experience the universe in a unique way? What gives rise to this?
-If you weren’t, you wouldn’t be asking this question. The only version of reality in which you’re able to ponder it is one with you in it. This is a narrower version of the weak anthropic principle.
-There are a multitude of universes or regions of one universe with an infinitude of you asking this question without bound.
-God or the universe inevitably leads to it. This is a form of the strong anthropic principle.
-Only universes and times which allow such questions to be asked can allow for people like you to ponder it. For most of history in which humans were around you’d almost certainly lack the leisure and education to have these thoughts. (WAP again)
-Everything capable of making this observation does so wherever and whenever they exist in the universe, and there is nothing interesting about the question or answer because it’s arbitrary. Although it is difficult to appreciate from each of their perspectives, the question itself is as ubiquitous as those asking it.
Not quite all the matter, but self replicating agents under the right circumstances (evolution) can be. Consciousness is fundamentally a function that preserves the agent in its environment. It's a combination of two optimisation processes - massive random search for its architecture, and learning. It's only purpose is to exist, thus it has to protect the needs of its body and make more of itself. If it doesn't take…
>Is matter conscious Not gonna read that. No. No, matter is not conscious. Go home nautil.us, you’re drunk.
Regardless of whether matter is conscious, could you please not post unsubstantive comments to Hacker News?
It's all a matter of where you draw the boundaries.
I could have been born at any time, in any place in the universe - or not at all, for that matter. Why do I get to experience the universe in a unique way? What gives rise to this?
Time exists in order that everything doesn’t happen all at once and space exists so that it doesn’t all happen to you.
Jürgen Schmidthuber (an AI researcher for those not familiar with the name) gave an interesting explanation what conciousness is in an AMA that he conducted in 2015 on Reddit. I just submitted that in an extra thread [0] because it seems worth discussing. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19241278
I could have been born at any time, in any place in the universe - or not at all, for that matter. Why do I get to experience the universe in a unique way? What gives rise to this?
Unless you're getting into Cartesian dualism and souls, I'm genuinely confused.