Is Consciousness Everywhere? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is Consciousness Everywhere?

#81

Post by frongpik » Thu, Mar 18, 2021, 7:26 PM UTC

This sounds like the bottom up approach, i.e. that "consciousness" is more like a medium that's everywhere, even an atom has a bit of this consciousness, and when such small bits assemble together, a bigger consciousness emerges. In this approach, I'm tempted to equate consciousness with the electromagnetic field - it's this field that allows us to experience the world.

However human mind is something entirely different: it's a self-conscious something built on top of "raw consciousness".

Re: Is Consciousness Everywhere?

#82

Post by geophile » Thu, Mar 18, 2021, 7:27 PM UTC

elektropionir wrote: post #55

geophile wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not qualified to do so. The existence of "real papers with math behind thest claims" is sort of irrelevant. IIT is being proposed as a scientific theory, and the author of TFA claims that IIT is testable, but he has not said anything about actual testing. I cannot judge the math, and I doubt that I could judge a scientific paper describing a test. I'm simply asking: Is there any actualy testing, completed or in…

Here is a talk in which he mentions specific experiments: https://youtu.be/LGd8p-GSLgY?t=3512 This is a fairly old talk and if you do a bit more digging I think he has other talks with more experiments.

Thanks, I'll take a look.

Re: Is Consciousness Everywhere?

#83

Post by rhn_mk1 » Thu, Mar 18, 2021, 7:28 PM UTC

morpheos137 wrote: post #76

dr_dshiv wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, remember, we can't even rigorously define something like "life". Doesn't mean we can't scientifically investigate it.

Sure we can. Biological life is something that replicates autonomously using DNA contained inside the apparatus of at least one cell. Viruses are not alive because they can not replicate on their own and do not produce their own cells. More abstractly life is something that follows the Darwinian program as demonstrated on Earth. If you had competing, replicating programs in a virtualised Earth-like environment I woul…

You seem to be able to, but it doesn't seem to generalize to scientists in general: https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-is-life-its-vast-diversi...

Re: Is Consciousness Everywhere?

#84

Post by geophile » Thu, Mar 18, 2021, 7:29 PM UTC

geophile wrote: post #57

justinpombrio wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you're missing anything. Tononi made a formula related to how complicated a system is, and claimed that its measures consciousness. And what are you supposed to say to that, when no one can agree on what the word "consciousness" means, but people are still so attached to the word? For Scott Aaronson's take on "Integrated Information Theory": https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1799

Excellent reference. I see that Aaronson is pointing to articles more than ten years old, so the lack of progress goes on longer than the five years I mentioned.

... and I agree completely with your point about consciousness lacking a definition.

Re: Is Consciousness Everywhere?

#85

Post by driggs » Thu, Mar 18, 2021, 7:30 PM UTC

acruns wrote: post #73

driggs wrote: post #48

I've long pondered the idea that consciousness is inherent to all "things" - animal, vegetable, mineral; atom, planet, solar system - in that things experience _being_, whatever that means for a given thing. A recent oral surgery gave this hypothesis pause. I was given Propofol as an anesthetic, and upon awakening had an extremely impactful existential experience. My very consciousness had been extinguished, instantl…

There can be no oblivion if you experienced it. I would suggest reversing the idea that conscience is part of a being and instead suggest that consciousness is inherit in everything because it is everything. Within or without a being.

Pardon my inability to express accurately with words, but I most certainly did not experience oblivion. I am using the word "oblivion" to describe the state of absolutely no experience whatsoever. It was practically religious/mystical/psychedelic in that it truly felt that I had not existed at all during that time.

(And, no offense, I get the George Harrison reference, but saying that consciousness "is everything" begs the very question of evaluating panpsychism critically. I'm posting this because it is counter to my own longheld beliefs that consciousness is inherent to being.)

Re: Is Consciousness Everywhere?

#86

Post by visarga » Thu, Mar 18, 2021, 7:31 PM UTC

I don't think so. Let's be logical - consciousness, what is it good for? It protects the body, keeps itself alive. Then you can't have consciousness everywhere. It needs self replication, evolution and learning in order to exist. You need to have agent and environment in order to have consciousness, an agent with goals and needs, just any rock will not make a decent agent.

Re: Is Consciousness Everywhere?

#87

Post by tomComb » Thu, Mar 18, 2021, 7:31 PM UTC

retrac wrote: post #77

mtalantikite wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When I meditate, sometimes I can notice that I'm thinking verbal thoughts—suggesting that verbal thoughts transpire subconsciously, as well. Something similar was coming up recently in my meditation practice, where I'd be aware of a vague impulse of a thought or idea arising before it became verbalized. Then I realized that I had had that experience before, when I was a kid and playing music a lot, where I'd notice…

I have always had the rather unsettling feeling that my internal monologue is a post-hoc justification or rationalization for what my subconscious just caused me to do, and was not the cause.

Unfortunately I think there is a degree of consensus that that is how it works, and this is used as evidence for the lack of free will.

Re: Is Consciousness Everywhere?

#88

Post by morpheos137 » Thu, Mar 18, 2021, 7:32 PM UTC

dr_dshiv wrote: post #68

forgotmypw17 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good place to start, if you are a firm skeptic and not willing to even attempt faith or your own empirical experiences, is a book called Entangled Minds. There is not a single claim made in this book which does not have a reference to a proper peer-reviewed paper attached to it, iirc several hundred papers in all. It firmly supports consciousness being in at minimum earthworms, and probably even ,,lower,, creatures…

How about a single neuron? After all, a single neuron is far more complex than a worm—just like a company is far less complex than the people who compose it.

A single neuron is not an independent self replicating organism so I would not say a single neuron is alive (on its own) per my definition, although it is part of a larger living creature.

Re: Is Consciousness Everywhere?

#89

Post by captainclam » Thu, Mar 18, 2021, 7:33 PM UTC

kkoncevicius wrote: post #59

jstanley wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you can forget consciousness and ask the same question. The chances that the matter you're made of ended up making you is astronomically small compared to it just being random space dust or something. And yet it happened. I think it's just selection bias.

No no, I disagree, these are very different things. The matter I am made of is nothing special - everything has same kind of matter so I am bound to have some of it. But the consciousness I have is very special - top shelf in all of biology. Say bacteria are conscious. Here is how special this is: the number of bacteria on earth is estimated to be "five million trillion trillion". And there are ~7 billion humans. So…

It sounds like you're suggesting that you are a "soul" that was "put" in a body.

Try to see it from this perspective; your experience as an individual (soul) is a feature of the structure we call Homo sapiens. It's a characteristic of this species' brain structure, in the same way that the colors of a flower are characteristic of its phenotype.

It would be silly to ask, "What are the chances that that shade of yellow ended up on that particular daffodil?"

The notion of "you" being in a "body" is extremely difficult to shake. Even if it's intellectually approachable, understanding it intuitively is something else entirely, though certainly attainable through sustained meditative practice or a hearty dose of psychedelics.

Re: Is Consciousness Everywhere?

#90

Post by mr-wendel » Thu, Mar 18, 2021, 7:33 PM UTC

kkoncevicius wrote: post #13

I have one problem with consciousness is everywhere argument. Namely, if everything down to ants is conscious - how lucky are we to end up experiencing the world as humans? The chances are just too small for me to accept it at face value.

Despite other comments dismissing this, I do think this is a compelling and humbling question.

I think its best answered with a few related questions to consider what makes us lucky:

1) Longevity clearly matters, but the relativity of it is hard to assess: some sea mammals with emotionally-rich lives live twice as long.

2) Quality of life clearly matters. It's easy to imagine (and hopefully you personally know some!) pampered pets who have it unbelievably good: tasty food and nutrition, regular fun exercise, a fulfilling social and family life, a sense of purpose, etc.

And on the other end of the spectrum:

3) There are untold numbers of us who pulled the short straw in life and have lives marred in tragedy and suffering -- if they even are "lucky" enough to live long enough to comprehend it.

I think some of us are incredibly lucky and very much in the minority. The "luck" spectrum in life is so both deep and wide that I'm perfectly happy accepting "consciousness is everywhere" in order to focus on the question of what to do with the consciousness (and unfortunate lack of it at times) I have.