Is the Sun Conscious? (2021) [pdf]

Post by exe34 » Fri, Mar 29, 2024, 7:29 AM UTC

eql5 wrote: post #86

barfbagginus wrote: post #79

If the sun is conscious, that could explain why humanity believes in a powerful god that can, eg, send floods. Perhaps the flood was caused by a coronal mass ejection that boiled a section of the ocean, causing extreme rains in a valley region. Let's imagine that the consciousness field of the sun encompasses all of our minds.. so thinking about it might let us talk to it. So prayer could be real too. They can probab…

If you are interested in what the flood was really about, there is an interesting scientific theory about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5Et2jvrY7Y

Post by tasuki » Fri, Mar 29, 2024, 7:35 AM UTC

ninetyninenine wrote: post #46

benreesman wrote: post #30

Apologies if this is a dumb question or a taboo question or both, but what the does “conscious” mean? We know about lots of complex systems, and systems that exhibit “emergent” behaviors seeming much more complex and goal-directed than the components of the system (the glider gun, that thing with the computer-modeled birds with like 3 simple rules but then the whole flock does complicated, creative stuff, long list).…

Yeah. The biggest thing most people miss is that the question your asking is in No way at all profound. You are asking an extremely mundane question that only appears profound as an illusion. What you are dealing with here is in actuality a language problem. You are contemplating and asking about the intricacies of a specific vocabulary word. It is an arbitrary sounding word with a simply arbitrarily vague definition…

Post by woopsn » Fri, Mar 29, 2024, 7:37 AM UTC

namaria wrote: post #92

What we get from the sun is low entropy, since all the energy that gets to Earth has to be irradiated away, else we'd cook quickly. If this low entropy carried by energy flows makes life possible, and life is how I get my consciousness. I'd say in a way my consciousness comes from the sun. The warmth of my skin and the qualia of my thoughts are movement perpetrated on Earth by the sun.

Post by mionhe » Fri, Mar 29, 2024, 7:42 AM UTC

ninetyninenine wrote: post #67

paulrudy wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This point of view could be applied to any word, and the extreme result is that you'd negate meaningful or useful communication, or that someone would have to be the arbiter of what is a legitimate concept or not. Between vocabulary, commonly understood meaning, possible meaning, and actual personal experience, there are many detours and jumps. "Dog" as a word, concept/meaning, and experience, has these issues. What'…

>This point of view could be applied to any word, and the extreme result is that you'd negate meaningful or useful communication, or that someone would have to be the arbiter of what is a legitimate concept or not. False. >Between vocabulary, commonly understood meaning, possible meaning, and actual personal experience, there are many detours and jumps. "Dog" as a word, concept/meaning, and experience, has these issu…

Post by colordrops » Fri, Mar 29, 2024, 8:11 AM UTC

strogonoff wrote: post #84

lukan wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not so sure about it. The question is, whether consciousness also leads to changing behavior. Say we try to communicate with method X and the sun answers with a flare, would probably be proof. But it could also be, it has consciousness, but simply would not care much about and ignore us.

“Answers” is a word that hints that you are still thinking of it as human-like consciousness. A valid point could be that our consciousness is social (“answering” is a thing), and by extension any alien consciousness we expect would also have to be social as one of the constraints that make it sufficiently human-like.