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Is the Sun Conscious? (2021) [pdf]

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Re: Is the Sun Conscious? (2021) [pdf]

#111

Post by lukan »

visarga wrote: post #103
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…

This doesn't make sense. In the case of humans and animals, consciousness is a way to adapt to the environment to protect their lives, fulfill their needs and eventually reproduce. Consciousness is useful for life. But in the case of the sun, what is it adapting to, and what does it have to protect? Nothing. The fact that consciousness appears always in populations might be essential. Consciousness was the result of…

"Consciousness is useful for life. But in the case of the sun, what is it adapting to, and what does it have to protect? Nothing"

You don't know that. Maybe it is us, or other life in general it wants to sustain and protect. We know very little about consciousness or how life in general came to being.

Maybe it is connected to other suns and the black hole in the center of the milky way, to exchange ideas, philosophy, or just exitement about being alive. Or preparing something we know nothing about. A meeting of galaxies.

Now I surely don't claim I know what consciousness is and I certainly do not claim the sun is. I am just hesistant to make absolute judgements about systems, where I can only catch a glimpse from the outside.

Re: Is the Sun Conscious? (2021) [pdf]

#112

Post by inatreecrown2 »

datascienced wrote: post #100
mo_42 wrote: post #94

Tl;dr We shouldn't care. Is my partner conscious? My dog? Actually, I don't know. I can say that I experience myself as conscious. In our daily interactions we never ask such questions. Last week, I hired a new programmer. We checked the CV and the code challenge. We invited the candidate to see how they get around with the team etc. At no point, we asked if they're conscious. I think our brains are machines for pred…

The only career where you are concerned about if someone is conscious is boxing.

maybe doctors and nurses are too, if they are concerned for the live of you?

Re: Is the Sun Conscious? (2021) [pdf]

#113

Post by card_zero »

Jensson wrote: post #107
strogonoff wrote: post #55

The tragedy (depending on how you look at it) with discussions about consciousness is that any possible consciousness we envision is inevitably human-like. We wouldn’t see it as “consciousness” even if it was only somewhat different from ours (animals); a consciousness that is really different may look to us like any natural process. A question of “is X conscious?” has no meaning if you remove that constraint of “hum…

> We wouldn’t see it as “consciousness” even if it was only somewhat different from ours (animals); Most humans see animals as having a consciousness with feelings and dreams like us. Why would you think otherwise? Why else would it be illegal to torture animals? That we even call it "torture" means we think the animals suffers from it, we don't say we torture a rock when we crack it, that means we see them as having…

The human anxiety about animal suffering needs arguments to support it. You can't argue from it to support something else. It's already a weak position that we just go along with because of feels.

Re: Is the Sun Conscious? (2021) [pdf]

#114

Post by taneq »

cess11 wrote: post #110

Someone ought to trick analytic philosophers into taking some of the more popular psychoactive substances, so they finally discover how tightly coupled consciousness is to the matter in the nervous system and stop their embarrassing search for Holy Spirit. Also, the sun is clearly an anus: "The simplest image of organic life united with rotation is the tide. From the movement of the sea, uniform coitus of the earth w…

That's what put the final nail in my ability to accept Cartesian dualism. (Edit: The way psychoactives deeply affect the working of a mind, not the prospect of the sun being a butthole, of course.)

Psychoactives don't just filter your senses, they change reality (your own subjective reality, of course.)

Re: Is the Sun Conscious? (2021) [pdf]

#116

Post by card_zero »

GMoromisato wrote: post #58
benreesman wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there some particular reason why this debate isn’t squarely in the spiritual/religious/personal/subjective building on campus and zero in the science building? I mean, these are all fascinating questions in a “let’s smoke a joint and talk about the meaning of life” sense, I’ve had many such conversations (both with and without the joint) and enjoyed all of them that were of that tenor. And I can see there being a…

I'm not sure if you're dunking on "spiritual/religious/personal/subjective" stuff, but the hard question of consciousness is, in some ways, the most important question of all. Far more important than "science" questions like "what is dark matter?" Literally our entire civilization is built on the idea that humans have qualia and therefore causing harm to humans is often unethical. If we were to somehow come to believ…

> Literally our entire civilization is built on the idea that humans have qualia and therefore causing harm to humans is often unethical.

Here's an alternative angle that doesn't lead to dystopia:

Humans generate knowledge. Causing harm to knowledge is unethical. Broad human rights protect humans as knowledge generators (now or in the future or in potential) without going through the fraught process of arguing about each one.

Consciousness and qualia don't have to come into it.

Re: Is the Sun Conscious? (2021) [pdf]

#117

Post by mtlmtlmtlmtl »

Jensson wrote: post #107
strogonoff wrote: post #55

The tragedy (depending on how you look at it) with discussions about consciousness is that any possible consciousness we envision is inevitably human-like. We wouldn’t see it as “consciousness” even if it was only somewhat different from ours (animals); a consciousness that is really different may look to us like any natural process. A question of “is X conscious?” has no meaning if you remove that constraint of “hum…

> We wouldn’t see it as “consciousness” even if it was only somewhat different from ours (animals); Most humans see animals as having a consciousness with feelings and dreams like us. Why would you think otherwise? Why else would it be illegal to torture animals? That we even call it "torture" means we think the animals suffers from it, we don't say we torture a rock when we crack it, that means we see them as having…

(Many, but not all) Animals do in fact have consciousness, emotions, and dreams(the kind that happens during sleep that is). It's not just human projection.

Most animals don't have self-awareness, though some even have that, like great apes, certain cetaceans, elephants, and possibly even some birds.

The only things that seem to be uniquely human are complex language, cultural evolution and prolonged neuroplasticity during childhood and early adulthood.

Re: Is the Sun Conscious? (2021) [pdf]

#118

Post by kseistrup »

visarga wrote: post #103
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…

This doesn't make sense. In the case of humans and animals, consciousness is a way to adapt to the environment to protect their lives, fulfill their needs and eventually reproduce. Consciousness is useful for life. But in the case of the sun, what is it adapting to, and what does it have to protect? Nothing. The fact that consciousness appears always in populations might be essential. Consciousness was the result of…

The lifetime of the Sun is so much larger than that of a human being, that the latter would be unable to fathom the life of the Sun. At least this human doesn't.

If a human cell, say, had intelligence comparable to that of a human, would such a cell be able to fathom the life of its “host”? Hardly.

According to Earth science, the Andromeda Galaxy is scheduled to collide with the Milky Way in around 4.5 billion years. What if all they're really doing is dancing, or about to kiss?

Re: Is the Sun Conscious? (2021) [pdf]

#119

Post by Jensson »

card_zero wrote: post #113
Jensson wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We wouldn’t see it as “consciousness” even if it was only somewhat different from ours (animals); Most humans see animals as having a consciousness with feelings and dreams like us. Why would you think otherwise? Why else would it be illegal to torture animals? That we even call it "torture" means we think the animals suffers from it, we don't say we torture a rock when we crack it, that means we see them as having…

The human anxiety about animal suffering needs arguments to support it. You can't argue from it to support something else. It's already a weak position that we just go along with because of feels.

> The human anxiety about animal suffering needs arguments to support it

You want arguments supporting that humans dislike seeing animals suffer? To most people that would be obvious, I'm not sure what to say.

Re: Is the Sun Conscious? (2021) [pdf]

#120

Post by titzer »

afarviral wrote: post #59
ted_bunny wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's a trained scientist. His arguments are conjectural but sound. He's far from a kook.

Being a kook and holding degrees in science are not mutually exclusive. His theories are intriguing nonsense in the sense that they have little to no evidence to support them. Their deeply conjectural nature is what defines them as kooky.

I've seen him give a talk. He continues to persist with pseudo-scientific theories that posit forces for which there are no evidence that purport to explain phenomenon that we have completely adequate scientific explanations for. His theories routinely fail Occam's razor, his experimental design is garbage, and he is never skeptical of his own conclusions. He's a kook.
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