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Is consciousness part of the fabric of the universe?

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

#281

Post by skissane »

hnfong wrote: post #277
skissane wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'll say that under standard laboratory conditions they should probably be the same most of the time. I hope you'll agree with me that assuming there are divergent predictions made by the "mind-first" approaches, they should be studied together with physics. Can you give me an example of how a "mind-first" approach might give a divergent prediction, as to the outcome of a practically feasible experiment or observat…

The reason I refrained from giving specifics is that I'm mostly trying to figure out how everything fits together in (my version of) "mind-first" concepts, so I'll try to illustrate with a grossly simplified example only for the purposes of explaining the general idea, but not as a statement of fact, nor it is intended as a serious scientific hypothesis. Let's assume a particular universe where only minds really exis…

A lot of people connect idealism with psychic powers, and some even view that as counterargument against idealism. The basic idea seems to be this: (1) I have full control over the contents of my own mind, but very limited control over external reality; (2) but, if idealism is true, then external reality is part of my own mind, so I have full control over it too; (3) therefore, psychic/miraculous powers exist; (4) but, (3) is clearly false, therefore idealism must be false. People who want to believe in the psychic/paranormal/miraculous/etc stop the argument at (3), people who don't and are looking to use this as an anti-idealist argument go on to (4).

But, I think (1) is false. We actually have far less control over the contents of our own minds than many of us think we do. Anyone who has ever struggled with mental illness or addiction knows this fact very well. But, even for people who are thankfully unaffected by either: how much of our choices are truly "free", and how much are they predetermined by our genetics and by social/cultural influences? We don't know for sure, but probably a lot more than many people assume. And if (1) is false, the whole argument falls apart.

A lot of what you are saying seems to be rather adjacent to this line of argument. I don't agree that idealism makes the psychic/miraculous "more likely". I agree they are possible under idealism – but they are possible under materialism too. It may so happen that the laws of this universe, insofar as we know them, don't permit psychic powers or miracles – but, that's a consequence of what those laws happen to be, not of materialism in itself, and materialism could be just as true even with very different laws of physics which did permit psychic powers and miracles and magic and so forth.

Furthermore, the known laws of physics actually do permit all those things, with unimaginably low (but non-zero) probability – quantum tunnelling, quantum fluctuations, thermal fluctuations, etc, permit just about anything imaginable to happen (or at least appear to happen, in a way which nobody could distinguish from them actually happening), with unimaginably small yet still non-zero (and non-infinitesimal) probability. But, in a spatiotemporally infinite universe, any event with non-zero probability (however remote) will almost surely eventually happen, somewhere and somewhen, even an infinite number of times; indeed, in a spatially infinite universe, every non-zero probability event is almost surely happening somewhere right now, even an infinite number of times simultaneously – including your scenario. And people call idealism crazy–is materialism really any better? At least idealists can say "we have no reason to believe the universe actually exists beyond its observable limits", thereby avoiding the threat of a spatially infinite universe in which every possible event almost surely is happening somewhere right now – that way of avoiding the threat comes naturally to (some versions of) idealism, it is much more arbitrary for a materialist.

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

#282

Post by alienicecream »

Isn't it weird that we are in the year 2023 and nobody knows what it is? Thousands of generations have gone by and every new one lives with these questions all their lives and it just gets passed to the next one. We don't know what life is, we don't know what death is, we don't know what the difference is, and it's been hundreds of thousands of years going on like this. People die every day but we don't really know what it means, we just imagine a TV screen going off in their head and shudder and say we still have lots of time ourselves. And we foist this on children too. Pretty strange. And geeks on a tech forum are like yeah, we got this, it's just around the corner, let me just whip up this artificial intelligence and we'll get the truth for you in just another couple of years. And what's going to happen when they "figure it out"? Is it going to be an answer like yeah dude, these particles move around like this in this one way and that makes a TV screen in your head and when you die they stop moving and the TV screen goes out, you're the TV screen? Is that going to be basically the answer?

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

#283

Post by eureka-belief »

AllegedAlec wrote: post #220
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…

Jesus christ this is such pure pseudoscientific wankery.

Thanks for the helpful post. I especially liked the part where you called it “pseudoscience” without engaging points they listed. Helped me to really be convinced.

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

#284

Post by tgv »

uoaei wrote: post #85
tgv wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 defi…

Those philosophers have been ignoring the entire field of cognitive and neuro-psychology. Well, not the entire field, they cherry-pick, and have a weird tendency to then chose people with views that are not widely shared, to put it politely.

> You have never experienced color?

We've got a model for that, thanks. It's called perception. But we haven't observed it, not as a group. Many of us can describe it from personal experience, but since no-one, not even your beloved philosophers, has come up with a good, operationalizable definition, there's no way of observing it.

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

#285

Post by tsimionescu »

skissane wrote: post #272
hnfong wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“the universe is the extension of the self” is precisely the idea we are talking about. IMHO it is the only thing worth discussing. And yes you can derive new “physics” with this idea alone.

> “the universe is the extension of the self” is precisely the idea we are talking about. Idealists can take several possible approaches to the issue of how many people/minds exist: 1) Solipsism: only I exist, and everyone else is a figment of my imagination 2) Many minds: only minds ultimately exist, but many distinct minds exist (George Berkeley, John McTaggart) 3) Open individualism: I exist and everyone else exis…

1, solipsism, has the advantage that there is a solid argument to be made for it - I only have direct access to my own mind. That is why I am calling it coherent.

The other flavors don't have this advantage at all. It is impossible to trust my senses to arrive at the conclusion that other minds exist without first trusting them that they are correlated with features of a non-mind physical world. So, you can't use sense-based observations to claim that the world is made up of many minds.

Even in something like Hinduism, which could be called a form of idealism at a large stretch, the physical world exists as a shared mirage that our minds are made to experience, maya, but the true world is still a single thing, Brahman. And their claim is that this can be directly experienced by you through self reflection - so if we call it idealism, it's still a form of solipsism ultimately, albeit more interesting than I would normally give this credit for.

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

#286

Post by hnfong »

skissane wrote: post #281
hnfong wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason I refrained from giving specifics is that I'm mostly trying to figure out how everything fits together in (my version of) "mind-first" concepts, so I'll try to illustrate with a grossly simplified example only for the purposes of explaining the general idea, but not as a statement of fact, nor it is intended as a serious scientific hypothesis. Let's assume a particular universe where only minds really exis…

A lot of people connect idealism with psychic powers, and some even view that as counterargument against idealism. The basic idea seems to be this: (1) I have full control over the contents of my own mind, but very limited control over external reality; (2) but, if idealism is true, then external reality is part of my own mind, so I have full control over it too; (3) therefore, psychic/miraculous powers exist; (4) bu…

Interesting you bring probability up. Nobody knows where these probabilities come from -- we know how to calculate it and make predictions for sure, but we don't know where they fundamentally come from.

That said, even though you say materialism permits pretty much anything, the probabilities are supposed to be radically different. Materialism predicts that "Jesus" is practically impossible, and some versions of idealism suggests it is a dime a dozen. It seems reality is probably somewhere in between.

My personal theory is that the universe pretends as if it is materialistic by fudging with probabilities. (and also with limits of computations in the sense that if you can't practically solve a computation problem the answer may not actually exist in the same sense as observable limits you mentioned)

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

#287

Post by tsimionescu »

nico wrote: post #178
tsimionescu wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So for example, you can read a book about riding a bike, maybe the book is very detailed and tells you everything there is to “know” about riding a bike, but unless you actually ride a bike, you can never “truly know” (experience) what riding a bike is This is often asserted, but I don't see any reason to believe it is true. Just like we can picture creatures that have never existed, and even draw elaborate images…

> we can picture an experience Picture it, but not experience it, it’s two different things Whether our own perception is an accident of our genetic makeup or a fundamental property doesn’t really matter, it’s still the only way we can ever experience the world

First, I would still challenge the idea that there is a fundemantal difference for us between picturing an experience and actually experiencing it. It will probably vary by experience, but at least things like "how would it feel to watch my loved ones die" can be experienced even if it doesn't happen, with enough introspection.

And this very much does matter for certain arguments about consciousness. If qualia are separate from thoughts but only through an accident of our own human minds' construction, then all arguments that rely on qualia to argue consciousness must be un physical (Chalmers likes these a lot) are obviously invalid.

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

#288

Post by Valgrim »

AllegedAlec wrote: post #220
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…

Jesus christ this is such pure pseudoscientific wankery.

I've got the same vibe, starting at "consciousness collapses under the reductionist process currently employed in the scientific method." Uuuhh yeah, like most abstract things, consciousness is an emergent property of simpler processes, so naturally if you look at it the other way and decompose the world to understand it, at some point it will collapse.

The next part about the scientific framework being a data structure used by our consciousness blabla quantum particles...seems like just a complicated way to say: we are conscious, even if we don't know everything.

Then, language being necessarily insufficient? Boy you like using lots of complicated words so much, you must be an expert at communicating things. Basically what I get here is: words represent concepts. (Wanking represents wanking insofar it doesn't represent anything else besides a wank. Except when I use the word 'wanking' as a metaphor for mental ejaculation).

Then we start again making dubious links between particle physics and humanities (and of course declaring that one is impossible because of the other, for some reason.) This is the signature move of pseudo-science: using scientific words to appear as an authority to an audience, but then dismissing the pursuit of truth for reasons unrelated to the actual challenges of scientific research.

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

#289

Post by smokel »

hnfong wrote: post #266
smokel wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A thing with Out-of-Body-Experiences is that if you were able to shift outside of your body, then why would you still be constrained to the body of the earth? If you were able to roam around free of physics, then certainly you would leave not only your human body, but you would have to take account of the earth moving around the sun as well (at breakneck speed, mind you). You'd probably be either a few kilometers ins…

Your argument doesn’t even make sense. You posit that if the OBE person is free of physics they must have a particular absolute frame of reference (which does not exist in accepted laws of physics) that is totally different from the in-body one? It’s trivially easy to make up flawed theories on how OBEs work without having that absolute frame of reference. Arguing that it requires one seems like a scummy straw man ar…

No need to be so harsh.

I am just positing one problem with OBEs. The burden of proof is completely on people who believe in the existence of OBEs, because it physically does not make any sense to have them.

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

#290

Post by mnky9800n »

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…

Recognizing emergent behaviour has led to a lot of deeper understanding of the universe. Why should this be any different?

I'm not saying there's some consciousness field that my mind is a perturbation of. But it is interesting that we all have more or less the same experience of existing even though we are simply a collection of atoms in a local low entropy state.

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