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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?

#221

Post by AllegedAlec »

DFHippie wrote: post #20

"Asserting that consciousness is fundamental and ubiquitous does nothing to shed light on the way an experience of blueness is the way it is, and not some other way. Nor does it explain anything about the possible functions of consciousness, nor why consciousness is lost in states such as dreamless sleep, general anaesthesia, and coma." -- Anil Seth, from the article This bit -- "nor why consciousness is lost in stat…

> It seems to me the Occam's razor solution is not that consciousness is an emergent behavior. The modeling of the world in neurons is a physical thing that we can measure, and replicate in software. But with this we haven't gotten any closer to explaining why sensation is associated with some such models and not others, that there are two states: consciousness and unconsciousness. The added bit that Occam's razor trims away is the assertion that there are two states, not just the one observed state: consciousness. Panpsychism -- or cosmopsychism or whatever -- is the Occam's razor solution.

We have a brain we can cut in and alter someone's consciousness. Obviously consciousness lies outside his body, Occam's Razor!

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

#222

Post by eureka-belief »

jemmyw wrote: post #102
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 a shame to see so many comments engaged in this kind of pseudoscience. There's no evidence that consciousness is anything other than a state arising from the physical processes in our bodies. I'm open minded to hypothesis that are potentially testable, but people keep just repeating the implausible. I also hate that I keep reading that consciousness, or anything else, is a universe "hack" which is several levels…

You say you’re open to any testable hypothesis. But I’d argue that there is just as little evidence that consciousness arises from biological processes as there is that it arises from the universe. And the article talks about that. (Ie the so called “zombie” problem)

You can’t prove that I’m conscious and I can prove that you’re conscious. We only make that assumption.

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

#223

Post by jemmyw »

tsimionescu wrote: post #214
jemmyw wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We can invert this and ask, if physicality is not ideal, then how do we come to know it? Why would we ask that? Not ideal for what? It just is. > The third option is that physics is unable to interrogate itself. This is likely true. We are the product of physics and we can only delve so deep. It might be that we cannot see to the most fundamental level(s). That's not a third option though, that's just the state of…

> Why would we ask that? Not ideal for what? It just is. I'm pretty sure GP was using "ideal" in the sense of "made up of ideas", as in the philosophical concept of idealism, which is essentially the opposite of materialism: idealism is the position that the real world is that of the mind, and physics and the physical world is an emergent property of our minds, not the other way around. Not that I think this is a rea…

Thanks that was insightful

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

#224

Post by heavenlyblue »

krapp wrote: post #136
heavenlyblue wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citations needed

Citations needed for what? The last 5000 years of human history? The individual developmental history of every branch of philosophy and science, their relationships and the iterative models of reality each developed over the centuries? You need citations to prove that witchcraft, astrology and alchemy do not provide valid models of reality? No, do that yourself, if you're so inclined.

No I just think you have shared a bunch of anecdotes and that you are not a history geek in the first place.

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

#225

Post by jemmyw »

eureka-belief wrote: post #222
jemmyw wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a shame to see so many comments engaged in this kind of pseudoscience. There's no evidence that consciousness is anything other than a state arising from the physical processes in our bodies. I'm open minded to hypothesis that are potentially testable, but people keep just repeating the implausible. I also hate that I keep reading that consciousness, or anything else, is a universe "hack" which is several levels…

You say you’re open to any testable hypothesis. But I’d argue that there is just as little evidence that consciousness arises from biological processes as there is that it arises from the universe. And the article talks about that. (Ie the so called “zombie” problem) You can’t prove that I’m conscious and I can prove that you’re conscious. We only make that assumption.

I'm not making that assumption. I'm thinking that either I'm a zombie or you're insane.

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

#226

Post by prometheus76 »

heavenlyblue wrote: post #138
gchamonlive wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's plausible, even probable, given the arguments layed out in Nick Bolstrom essay "Are you living in a computer simulation?". I used to think the question that should preclude this one is if the universe is even able to host a simulation of itself, but given that we know it is probable we live in a perceived reality that not only is separated from what we think as objective reality, that this perceived reality is,…

> what is really keeping you from experiencing the dharma body of the Buddha What makes you think dharma body is more real than Santa Claus?

https://youtu.be/zPdHPEqmB9g?si=W9guF4EU2J1qoJD4

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

#227

Post by MrYellowP »

amatecha wrote: post #190
jemmyw wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a shame to see so many comments engaged in this kind of pseudoscience. There's no evidence that consciousness is anything other than a state arising from the physical processes in our bodies. I'm open minded to hypothesis that are potentially testable, but people keep just repeating the implausible. I also hate that I keep reading that consciousness, or anything else, is a universe "hack" which is several levels…

Yeah, I’ve believed for most of my life that consciousness is some emergent thing that arises from the interaction of all the complex biological processes of our brain and its sensory input. Most people don’t like to hear this though, and I don’t express the idea often - it’s disappointing to consider this possibility (I consider it certain, as I’ve observed nothing to suggest otherwise).

Imagine there's no internet and you don't have a dictionary.

When you've never observed the Eiffel tower and someone tells you the Eiffel Tower exists, will you tell them that they're wrong?

"There's no evidence that the Eiffel Tower exists."

Do you have any evidence the Eiffel Tower does not exist?

No?

Then it makes no sense to assume you know what's reality. The reason, why you insist that it doesn't exist, is because you're narrow minded and boring. It's not because you know better, because you can't know better.

In regards to the topic of consciousness it is not just insanely ignorant to believe that the lack of evidence is evidence that it is NOT something, it is also incredibly full of yourself to assume you're right simply because of that.

Fact of the matter is that a lack of evidence does not necessarily automatically prove anything. Us not being able to find evidence means exactly nothing, which is proven by human history itself.

For example, if Ignaz Semmelweiß would have had your flawed reasoning, he would have never tried washing his arms and hands.

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

#228

Post by fatfingerd »

crazygringo wrote: post #170
fatfingerd wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've just demonstrated the anthropic principle. Intelligent contemplation requires a lot of things so we will see them and can see them as fundamental, but they might be obscure in the universe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle

No, you are misunderstanding the anthropic principle. That merely explains statistical things such as why it might be hard to find intelligent life elsewhere. The anthropic principle is a concept we've created out of our conscious observation of the universe. But take away our consciousness and you take away any and all of our knowledge of any universe whatsoever. Consciousness cannot be "obscure" when it is the basi…

> Consciousness cannot be "obscure" when it is the basis for one's own experienced reality, the substrata underlying everything else.

That you can do any of this has consciousness as a precondition, it is of significance to us but we are most likely a statistical anomaly in the Universe. It is statistically probable that we have this rather fragile viewpoint on the Universe, that's only available in small places for short times, because consciousness has preconditions.

For people who work in or consume TV and film maybe the video camera seems fundamental to the nature of the world, but it wasn't very important before it was created.

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

#229

Post by FrustratedMonky »

orwin wrote: post #114
FrustratedMonky wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that there is such a groundswell of articles about 'consciousness', right now, is because of the surge in AI and GPT. If this is true. >"state arising from the physical processes" Then nothing prevents silicon from eventually also being 'conscious'. Carbon or Silicon, they are both a physical processes. Electrical potentials. So the section of population that just can't abide that AI could be 'conscious' are…

Agree. I'll also say it's a lot further away than your comment implies. Once ChatGPT4 can add metonymy by itself in a random discussion, talking about consciousness in silicon can be interesting.

GPT4 is just the latest thing.

It was only a few years ago that AlphaGo beat the best human at GO. Supposedly a game so deep that only some unknown quality of being a human could ever grasp it.

And AlphaStar also wins against humans in SC2, where there is hidden information and 'deception'.

I'd say that is more worry than GPT. GPT is a language model.

AlphaGo is winning in a competitive game.

and

Life is just a game.

Just start adding more variables, and more goals. Start combining GPT/AlphaGo/Visions Systems/etc.... It might not be that far.

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

#230

Post by MaxBarraclough »

crazygringo wrote: post #91
MaxBarraclough wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Exactly. Consciousness is about qualia -- the color of red, the texture of sand, and so forth. It's awareness . There's nothing we know now that suggests consciousness has anything whatsoever to do with intelligence. We are aware (or conscious) of our intelligent trains of thought (at least up to a certain point), in the same way we're aware of a pain in our knee. We are conscious of watching ourselves weigh the pros…

> there's nothing whatsoever to suggest that consciousness plays a role in intelligent thought itself

Well, there is in that both appear to arise from brain activity.

The brain evolved in animals for just one reason: to drive or suppress muscular contraction activity in the individual. [0] Trees don't need this kind of information processing system (which is to say, intelligence), and so would have no use for a brain.

It seems unlikely that consciousness is possible in the absence of any form of intelligence or information processing. The only kind of consciousness we know, appears to be 'along for the ride' as a byproduct of the brain activity.

> there's nothing whatsoever to suggest that consciousness plays a role in intelligent thought itself

I agree that it would be a reach to claim that all kinds of advanced information processing must necessarily give rise to consciousness.

[0] Daniel Wolpert: The Real Reason for Brains https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7s0CpRfyYp8&t=14

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