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Is consciousness part of the fabric of the universe?

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Is consciousness part of the fabric of the universe?

#81

Post by nico »

gchamonlive wrote: post #30

I have been imersing myself in this subject and the gist of what I got is that consciousness collapses under the reductionist process currently employed in the scientific method. Moreover, the very framework in which the current scientific work is done might well be just an emergent data structure used by what we understand as consciousness to navigate whatever the objective reality is in a way that is simpler and mo…

Great take. Alan Watts described the issue pretty eloquently:

> It's beyond all categorization whatsoever, and so the Upanishads say, “all we can say of it positively is the negative.” Neti neti; 'it is not this, not that.

The above was specifically referring to “god”, however it’s pretty much the same concept. Anything we can symbolize is effectively not the ineffable thing that we want to represent with the symbols

Re: Is consciousness part of the fabric of the universe?

#82

Post by nico »

tetrisgm wrote: post #79

I went to a talk by John Cleese, of Monty Python. He made a point about a recent thought that he landed through meditation. He said he believes less and less that consciousness is in the brain. Maybe it's something external, shared, and our brains work more like a camera, and make whatever is out there our own. It made an impression on me.

This is an excellent observation

The idea has been somewhat famously illustrated in the concept of the muse, an external entity or influence that is the actual source of the ideas that we then channel into our reality

Similar also to what Michelangelo once said:

> The sculpture is already complete within the marble block, before I start my work. It is already there, I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.

On a similar vein of the “not in the brain” concept, there are many proponents of the “embodied” consciousness, meaning that consciousness is in the whole body, not just our brain/nervous system (this is also very briefly touched upon in one episode of the AppleTV series Extrapolations)

Re: Is consciousness part of the fabric of the universe?

#83

Post by randallsquared »

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #55
randallsquared wrote: post #38

This has the feel of Michelson's assertion in the 1890s that all the principles had been discovered. LLMs and AGI seem poised to give us a huge and expanding space in which to discover how consciousness works, and predeclaring that nothing will be found seems like a voluntary mistake.

> LLMs and AGI seem poised to give us a huge and expanding space in which to discover how consciousness works How? My own intuition is that LLMs will contribute precisely nothing to the philosophy of consciousness. Philosophers have been considering the consequences of intelligent machines for some time.

Philosophers have largely only been able to run thought experiments. While those can help clarify what we know, any apparently new knowledge generated thereby has to be confirmed by physical experiment. Physical experiments on human consciousness can only be done in very limited ways without ethical issues -- we don't have the technology to press the pause or undo buttons for human brains, and we don't have direct access to the full state of the brain. Assuming we develop (apparently) conscious minds on our current trajectory, there will be opportunities to run experiments in parallel, have real controls, and AGI researchers will, hypothetically, be able to self-introspect all the way down to the most basic level.

You may object that there's no way to really know that another mind is conscious, and that no volume of physical evidence will prove it, and that will continue to be true even as we learn how it all works, in the same way that solipsism is both fully irrefutable and essentially ignored by anyone who wants to know more about how the world works.

Re: Is consciousness part of the fabric of the universe?

#85

Post by uoaei »

tgv wrote: post #71
uoaei wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's no reason to assume a nematode or an LLM is conscious. It has inputs. It need not necessarily understand them -- that is a separate question to that of consciousness. See the note for laypeople. > It's not the hypothesis we know to be true. I don't think this is a best-faith response to my comment. If I was unclear I can clarify: in absence of further evidence it's a good starting place. I don't think I imp…

The best starting point is the one that seems most likely. We've never observed consciousness, not even in people. I (i.e., the first person perspective) can talk to them and get convinced others feel the same, so it's fair to assume most people are conscious (in particular because small children seem to lack this capacity). In higher mammals it's uncertain, and we can't communicate at all with anything else, but obs…

Simply ignoring the entire field of philosophy of mind and imposing your own definitions is not going to get you anywhere.

Thought is not required for consciousness, only experience. I strongly suggest you read the literature and traditions of thought so you may be more informed about the things of which you speak.

> there isn't a definition

There is, and I quoted it directly above. If you have an issue with the definition I suggest you bring it up with the community that came up with it, namely, professional philosophers. I suspect they already have a precise term for the thing you're referring to as 'consciousness'.

However the most ridiculous part of your reply is this:

> We've never observed consciousness

You have never experienced color? Taste? I consider it pretty important for someone with such strong opinions on the matter to have personal... ahem, experience... in it.

Re: Is consciousness part of the fabric of the universe?

#86

Post by czbond »

swader999 wrote: post #42
gchamonlive wrote: post #30

I have been imersing myself in this subject and the gist of what I got is that consciousness collapses under the reductionist process currently employed in the scientific method. Moreover, the very framework in which the current scientific work is done might well be just an emergent data structure used by what we understand as consciousness to navigate whatever the objective reality is in a way that is simpler and mo…

You have a good grasp on this. Have you looked at Tom Campbell? He has a separate angle than Hoffman but very similar conclusions. The batshit crazy thing about Tom is that he shows you ways that you can individually experiment and prove through your own experiences the things he's positing. His My Big Toe trilogy goes into all this, but I shudder to recommend it. Tedious slog. If you really want to prove it to yours…

I've been interested for some time in Astral, thanks for mentioning it. I've had very intelligent, credible people suggest it is possible. Similar for remote viewing

In the crux of Tom's argument - what can one prove via Astral?

Re: Is consciousness part of the fabric of the universe?

#87

Post by nico »

egypturnash wrote: post #8

I was really hoping to see descriptions of some experiments being done to test this theory. What is a situation where a photon would act differently if it has consciousness than if it is merely an unthinking artifact of physical laws? Or a berry, or a fish, or a small plastic statue of a dragon, or a bong? Of course there may also be the problem that experiments that confirm this theory can very quickly lead you down…

> Bengston's "The Energy Cure" is a pretty good example of what happens when you start doing that

Curious about this. Could you explain a bit more what happened? Thank you

Re: Is consciousness part of the fabric of the universe?

#89

Post by baz00 »

BasedAnon wrote: post #88

What's the deal with these things being lumped in with physics? This isn't physics this is just regular philosophy with some scientific sounding language. I feel like this is people reaching for religion but not wanting to admit it to themselves.

It's down at the bottom of the stack.

Re: Is consciousness part of the fabric of the universe?

#90

Post by cscurmudgeon »

BasedAnon wrote: post #88

What's the deal with these things being lumped in with physics? This isn't physics this is just regular philosophy with some scientific sounding language. I feel like this is people reaching for religion but not wanting to admit it to themselves.

I hate that most education systems don’t teach that physics has its roots in philosophy and some of the most rigorous recent math stems from philosophy (Gödel) leading to vacuous gatekeeping comments like this.
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