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Is Consciousness Everywhere?

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Re: Is Consciousness Everywhere?

#131

Post by dr_dshiv »

visarga wrote: post #119
dr_dshiv wrote: post #50

We all start as single cells. When does the consciousness fairy come and turn the global workspace on? When neurons fire? Because no emergent property seems powerful enough to produce feeling — and because both sheep and snails seem to have different levels of feeling—i subscribe to the panpsychic view. For now.

What is feeling? It's an expectation of reward following some action and situation you are faced with. Feeling is dependent on the content, the "game" the agent is playing. It represents a way to evaluate good and bad actions in order to maximise reward. Thus, even though feeling is generated in the brain, it is not about neurons firing. Having a life, something to win or to lose will automatically be the source of f…

I think there is a lot more. I think a triangle feels different from circles. All forms have feelings in the embodied mind.

Re: Is Consciousness Everywhere?

#132

Post by RichardCA »

forgotmypw17 wrote: post #105
andi999 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Amazon description says: "Radin shows how we know that psychic phenomena such as telepathy, clairvoyance, and psychokinesis are real, based on scientific evidence from thousands of controlled lab test". Actually as far as I understand we know that telepathy does not work, and even more so with psychokinesis. Did you read the book, can you point me to the scientific evidence of psychokinesis?

yes, i have read the book, and it is full of detailed descriptions of experiments with references. as a hacker, you should have little difficulty finding these and reviewing them. unfortunately, i have not the time or motivation to be your personal research assistant.

Well, then, it's a real shame that he never tried to claim the Randi Prize.

Re: Is Consciousness Everywhere?

#133

Post by [deleted] »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #122
morpheos137 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Are people actually independent self-replicating organisms. We are all parts of a superorganism, no? Each of our experiences are composed of the experiences of (billions?) of other people. We aren't islands.

[deleted]

Re: Is Consciousness Everywhere?

#134

Post by tayo42 »

morpheos137 wrote: post #61

Before we can ask intelligent, falsifiable questions about consciousness we need a rigorous definition of what consciousness is. Personally I think the word is a vague term and that a rigorous definition is impossible. Therefore, if my hypothesis is true, we can not not scientifically investigate "consciousness" any more than we can scientifically investigate "divinity" or "spookiness." If you disagree with my hypoth…

> Personally I think the word is a vague term and the a rigorous definition is impossible.

I don't think its just you, there isn't a good scientific definition of consciousness. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness#Definitions

Re: Is Consciousness Everywhere?

#135

Post by tim333 »

>defining it is actually straightforward. Here goes: Consciousness is experience.

Doesn't seem very useful to me. A bit like brexit means brexit. I mean machine learning gains from experience of new inputs - does that mean the thing is conscious?

Re: Is Consciousness Everywhere?

#136

Post by n4r9 »

slibhb wrote: post #104
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…

> Of course, you can also choose to remain in the safe comfort of materialism. To me it seems that materialism (or physicalism or any monism) inevitably leads to panpsychism. If there's only one kind of substance, it's either conscious or it's not, so everything has consciousness or nothing does. Panpsychists go with the former, probably because they think they are conscious, material beings.

I don't follow... where does this argument fail when you replace "conscious" with "blue"?

Re: Is Consciousness Everywhere?

#137

Post by dr_dshiv »

mehphp wrote: post #118
tomComb wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not sure how free will would work, even in theory. If the universe is completely deterministic then of course there isn't freedom of will in that. If it is random, then that still wouldn't be freedom because it would still be out of our control. I can't think of a way that it could work without invoking the metaphysical.

Well, if you take away the "I", so that it isn't the will of a singular being, but rather the free will of the elements of reality, manifesting itself— it makes sense— it isn't random, because it has coherence and it isn't deterministic—it is emergent. It isn't "me" that wills some reality into existence. It is the substance of the universe willing reality into existence. But even if you take the "I" away, it doesn't take away the utility or reality of the will. "Free will" emerges, like "wetness" emerges as a quality of water.

Re: Is Consciousness Everywhere?

#138

Post by visarga »

TriNetra wrote: post #24
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.

How about you start with a premise that you're a drop in the ocean of consciousness which is eternal, imperishable – the ocean was always there and so it'll always be in future – what about if it's even beyond time because time is a construct of the mind and consciousness is subtler than the mind. Now you have infinite time to take different manifestations as per your desires.

Mind and consciousness are feeble while the universe is complex beyond our capacity to grasp. I don't think "time" is just a construct of the mind. If you do, then your mind must be God-like in powers.

Re: Is Consciousness Everywhere?

#139

Post by lobo_tuerto »

selestify wrote: post #128
tosser0001 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being able to model consciousness mathematically opens up some grotesque possibilities. Human suffering presumably has some sort of limit based purely on our physical makeup. Suppose though the very concept of subjective suffering could be modeled in some way. Is there any law in the universe that says there is a limit to suffering, pain (or pleasure)? Could an investigator of the future test out an algorithm on a co…

It's interesting that our minds automatically turn to the worst possibility, even though this also implies that we could find out what the mathematical limit of joy is. Chances are, there would be a lot more processes simulating joy than pain.

Why would there be more of those if it's "just" a simulation after all?

Re: Is Consciousness Everywhere?

#140

Post by potatoman22 »

morpheos137 wrote: post #61

Before we can ask intelligent, falsifiable questions about consciousness we need a rigorous definition of what consciousness is. Personally I think the word is a vague term and that a rigorous definition is impossible. Therefore, if my hypothesis is true, we can not not scientifically investigate "consciousness" any more than we can scientifically investigate "divinity" or "spookiness." If you disagree with my hypoth…

How are we supposed to define consciousness without first investigating it?
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