Is Matter Conscious? (2017) • Hacker News Board

Re: Is Matter Conscious? (2017)

#141

Post by Ste_Evans » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 7:40 AM UTC

goto11 wrote: post #134

Ste_Evans wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but the problem is it is contradicted by scientific observation: http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2019/01/electrons-dont-thin... What do we call academics who ignore current knowledge that contradicts their ideas? Cranks. A subset of cranks being most "philosophers".

It is not contradicted. That comment is not science, it is just speculation (or philosophy if you wish). It is a grave fallacy to think that just because speculation is performed by a scientist, that speculation is science or "observation". At our current understanding of consciousness we have no way of observing its presence or absence except subjectively. So at this point there is no scientific way of either provin…

Mmmmm, no, the Standard Model is hard science. Even if you assumed that matter was "made of consciousness" you cannot make use of that assumption in explaining consciousness arising from matter in a brain. As only the properties of matter observed in the Standard Model can be appealed to at the energy levels in a brain. According to a professional physicist. Not my argument.

Are you saying the Standard Model is not empirically true???

Re: Is Matter Conscious? (2017)

#142

Post by goldenkey » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 7:41 AM UTC

blechinger wrote: post #122

TeMPOraL wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Center of awareness isn't about where you have your CPU (that's always in the head) - it's about where your perceived "self" is. I remember reading from his biography that Feynman successfully learned to move it around, within and outside of his body, through those meditation techniques. This neatly accounts for OOBEs, making them nothing special too. EDIT: to be clear, I'm arguing that the perceived location of your…

Just because we perceive something doesn't make it real. I think that's the issue here. By what mechanisms do we prove the perception is congruent with reality?

As grim as it is, and depending on your degree of skepticism: craniotomy, psychoactive drugs, concussions, etc..

Reminds me of the scene in Ex Machina where he cuts himself to make sure he still bleeds - a physical realization of a turing test.

Re: Is Matter Conscious? (2017)

#143

Post by Ste_Evans » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 7:46 AM UTC

goldenkey wrote: post #131

Ste_Evans wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but the problem is it is contradicted by scientific observation: http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2019/01/electrons-dont-thin... What do we call academics who ignore current knowledge that contradicts their ideas? Cranks. A subset of cranks being most "philosophers".

Oh please suppress your ad hominem "crank" attack. The post you linked gets so many things wrong, its as if they are battling an entirely different entity. Electrons don't need to think to be conscious because thinking != consciousness. Experiencing their state is all that needs to occur to satisfy consciousness. The idea is that consciousness experienced is 1:1 with the state of the matter producing the consciousnes…

The point is that the author of the Nautilus article is not just wrong (reason provided), she is ignoring well-known current knowledge which makes her idea facilely wrong i.e. she's a crank. It's a fact, not ad hominem.

The physicist simply states that the only properties of matter that can be appealed to in explaining consciousness are those described in the Standard Model. Or the Standard Model is wrong.

Are you saying the observations of the Standard Model are wrong?

Re: Is Matter Conscious? (2017)

#144

Post by cam_l » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 7:49 AM UTC

Ste_Evans wrote: post #143

goldenkey wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh please suppress your ad hominem "crank" attack. The post you linked gets so many things wrong, its as if they are battling an entirely different entity. Electrons don't need to think to be conscious because thinking != consciousness. Experiencing their state is all that needs to occur to satisfy consciousness. The idea is that consciousness experienced is 1:1 with the state of the matter producing the consciousnes…

The point is that the author of the Nautilus article is not just wrong (reason provided), she is ignoring well-known current knowledge which makes her idea facilely wrong i.e. she's a crank. It's a fact, not ad hominem. The physicist simply states that the only properties of matter that can be appealed to in explaining consciousness are those described in the Standard Model. Or the Standard Model is wrong. Are you sa…

Except you were not replying to the nautilus article, you were replying to the one i posted by Grosz. You might like to have a read of it, it does not makes the claims you are suggesting.

Re: Is Matter Conscious? (2017)

#145

Post by enangel » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 7:51 AM UTC

goldenkey wrote: post #138

kirre245 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I misunderstand the concept, but when we are newly born we are somewhat not conscious in the usual sense of self. In that theory does it mean we, or our atoms are already conscious but we dont have the awareness yet? Because our brain is first producing a trick of the perception of self once it is fully developed? In the spiritual world many advanced people have had these experiences of oneness with the world o…

You are hitting the right target. Looking at recurrent neural nets. Finite impulse responses. A consciousness experience is merely a transformation of external reality over time and space. It can tangle the left leg with the thumb, the past with the present. For simple entities, like electrons, their lack of memory means that entanglement will be extremely basic. For more complex things that involve more tangled tran…

You just rediscovered Freud.

Re: Is Matter Conscious? (2017)

#146

Post by goldenkey » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 7:51 AM UTC

drdeca wrote: post #128

blechinger wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because we perceive something doesn't make it real. I think that's the issue here. By what mechanisms do we prove the perception is congruent with reality?

I believe this was all in response to the idea that “it _feels_ like consciousness is in the head/brain” being an argument against panpsychism. That one can do things such that it _feels like_ one’s consciousness is elsewhere, seems to go against that point? Though, a similar point of “if a person loses their head, their consciousness seems to go away. Their hands do not move independently.” And “ If, as panpsychism…

It feels like such only because the eyes, nose, and number of nerves in the head and face. If the sensors were centered elsewhere, it might feel like it were elsewhere...

Re: Is Matter Conscious? (2017)

#147

Post by Ste_Evans » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 7:52 AM UTC

pcpcpc wrote: post #137

paraschopra wrote: post #84

Panpsychism is exciting. But there are two problems in it. One is the combination problem: what sort of collection of atoms are conscious and what are not. If you propose then that only agents or complex systems are conscious, you are faced with the second problem: the boundary condition. What do you call an agent, and why? I’m ultimately hopeful that subjective experience will come to be seen as something fundamenta…

For anyone else reading this comment and curious about Buddhism and Panpsychism, here are some links. Buddhism suggests that the perception of the boundary of the self (I am a distinct, separate being) is a delusion/wrong view. Perhaps we experience a shared universal consciousness (with discreet elements?) passing through ourselves like a river with drops of water flowing through it, evaporating, and then falling so…

Excellent! Thanks! Do you have any links for those curious about witchcraft and voodoo?

Re: Is Matter Conscious? (2017)

#148

Post by acqq » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 8:05 AM UTC

cam_l wrote: post #144

Ste_Evans wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that the author of the Nautilus article is not just wrong (reason provided), she is ignoring well-known current knowledge which makes her idea facilely wrong i.e. she's a crank. It's a fact, not ad hominem. The physicist simply states that the only properties of matter that can be appealed to in explaining consciousness are those described in the Standard Model. Or the Standard Model is wrong. Are you sa…

Except you were not replying to the nautilus article, you were replying to the one i posted by Grosz. You might like to have a read of it, it does not makes the claims you are suggesting.

> by Grosz. You might like to have a read of it, it does not makes the claims you are suggesting.

I have read it. That article cites others, so you can wiggle out that it doesn't make claims alone, but what is inside is the same worthless "idea":

"sub-atomic particles have a primary consciousness, an immediate self-perception or self-survey, an overflight without distance, immediately in touch with itself and its Umwelt, which in the case of the particle, includes not only the other particles comprising the atom but perhaps the entirety of all particles, the universe itself. Like the embryo, the brain or any living thing, sub-atomic particles act their being, perceive themselves, form and maintain themselves"

Of course that idea is supported by... nothing but the trick that if we redefine consciousness as the interaction of anything with its environment (and call the environment Umwelt to sound more clever), then everything is conscious. Duh.

However, scientifically, most of the animals have to be self aware, at least enough to survive: they have to differently handle their own body and their own situation in the environment compared to the surroundings. And that is the real limit: consciousness as we know it is a product of the evolution.

Re: Is Matter Conscious? (2017)

#149

Post by pcpcpc » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 8:07 AM UTC

Ste_Evans wrote: post #147

pcpcpc wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For anyone else reading this comment and curious about Buddhism and Panpsychism, here are some links. Buddhism suggests that the perception of the boundary of the self (I am a distinct, separate being) is a delusion/wrong view. Perhaps we experience a shared universal consciousness (with discreet elements?) passing through ourselves like a river with drops of water flowing through it, evaporating, and then falling so…

Excellent! Thanks! Do you have any links for those curious about witchcraft and voodoo?

Ask and you shall receive:

"Followers of voudon also believe in a universal energy" https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-ancient-traditions/o...

"Many Neopagans worship Gaia... Gaia was the great mother of all... However, the goal-directed behavior of the biosphere, as explained by the Gaia theory, is an emergent function of organised, living matter, not a quality of any matter. Thus Gaia theory is more properly associated with emergentism than panpsychism... Panpsychism also plays a part in Hindu, Buddhist, Dzogchen and Shinto mysticism, and for that matter in most if not all Animistic Native Religions, and Mother Goddess Cults, like Pachamama, in the Andes, Rhea, for the Greeks, Durga, or Kali for the Hindus, Nerthus, for the Germanics, Dea Matrona, for the Gauls, Ninhursag for the Sumerians, Tuuwaqatsi for the Hopi, Nut, or Isis for the ancient Egyptians, etc. It will be hard to find a place on Earth were the ancient goddess has not being worship." https://konekrusoskronos.wordpress.com/2013/01/26/gaia-panps...

Re: Is Matter Conscious? (2017)

#150

Post by Ste_Evans » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 8:08 AM UTC

cam_l wrote: post #127

My favourite explanation of the emergence of consciousness inherent in matter is an article by Elizabeth Grosz. It makes an argument for what i guess is a version of panpsychism that sounds, philosophically, very practical. http://www.parrhesiajournal.org/parrhesia15/parrhesia15_gros...

"Except you were not replying to the nautilus article, you were replying to the one i posted by Grosz"

Good point - there are so many cranks around I lose track.

I had a look at the Grosz article. I have never seen such pure excrement in word form. Can I get a job at Duke if I publish used toilet paper?

I think the following waffle in the article is beyond the Standard Model and therefore contradicted by the physicist's argument:

"It will be my claim here that materiality, bare matter, matter not in its simplified form but before being animated by life, is nevertheless always involved in and invested by incorporeal forces, forces of potential sense, forces of virtual significance that living bodies, in elaborating their own ends or finality, affirm and develop"