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> Panpsychism requires that the universe updates its state by conscious choice, which we already know happens... Do we know this?
You chose to type a reply to me right? I guess you could assume that you are compelled and your free will is an illusion, but honestly that view is shit.
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How would you evaluate whether other entities with sophisticated information processing behaviors are conscious or not? Just outright rejecting anything that does information processing on a substrate very dissimilar to ours?
What substrate is the universe using and what is it modeling
Parts of the cosmos for sure are and there's no need to look very far for it - for example the part that forms me writing this right now is, in fact, conscious.
If the cosmos is conscious in the way that we are and the speed of light proves to be a limit, then its thoughts would take thousands or millions of years to process. It may be compelled to leverage entities with cogitation components within light seconds of each other for fast thinking. The Thinking, Fast and Slow paradigm could be built into the shape of the universe. If the slow thinkers seek to constrain the fast…
This reminds me of "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy", where pan-dimensional beings waited 7.5 million years for their first super computer to tell them "42". Then they constructed another super computer, Earth, to find the question.
No, consciousness requires - a purpose - why would the universe need it? - a mechanism - how would learning occur? - a source of learning - that is the environment, what is the environment of the universe? doesn't make sense What I think are good signs for possibility of consciousness: - a self replicating agent, with the ability to perfectly copy and multiply its code - limited resources, leading to competition - ot…
In a non-panpsychic universe, p-zombies might well have a model of self without being conscious.
No, consciousness requires - a purpose - why would the universe need it? - a mechanism - how would learning occur? - a source of learning - that is the environment, what is the environment of the universe? doesn't make sense What I think are good signs for possibility of consciousness: - a self replicating agent, with the ability to perfectly copy and multiply its code - limited resources, leading to competition - ot…
Does the process of evolution "learn"? I'd say empirically yes it does, but there's no organ or part of it that does the learning, learning is just innate as well. The system learns and the evidence of what it has learned are apparent in it's form.
Go down the list, evolution, the biosphere, meets all these criteria except for replication. It hasn't replicated, but it does appear it is learning how to do so. So is the biosphere conscious in it's own way? I don't know, but either answer is problematic for your set of axioms, so I don't think they're correct.
So let's get a little more curious. If I'm conscious, and I'm part of the universe, does that mean that the universe is conscious? And if so, was it conscious in some way before I opened memy eyes for the first time? On the first question I'd argue yes, it is conscious at least to the degree I am and with awareness at least as far as mine goes, seeing as I'm not merely inside the universe, but am an inseparable part of it. Further, though I don't know for certain if there are other conscious beings in the universe, I observe several around me that appear to have the same form and behavior that I have, I'd wager that my parents and such are also conscious, so the universe probably has a consciousness beyond just mine. On the second question, it's not so straightforward, but considering that this consciousness that I have comes from something in the universe I think a "yes" to this one would be more likely to be the right answer than a "no". It would appear that some constants, rules, traits of the universe not only allow for consciousness, but select for it via convergent evolution. There is, at the very least, something fundamental about the universe that emerges as consciousness somewhere inside it.
I see the world (Earth, specifically, then my perception of it, and ultimately the cosmos behind that) as inherently connected at the most basic of levels. Science has shown us that much of the physical world that we can interact with is uncannily common in structure - we and stars are essentially made up of the same basic materials - as is everything else in the cosmos.
So why then, do we concede a connected cosmos at its core (basic building blocks) and instead seek to dissect this basic cosmic connection - via theism, or reality, creationism or intelligence on cosmic scale?
To me, if everything you can see and touch and interact with was at one point basic building blocks of all things, why would consciousness be different?
No, consciousness requires - a purpose - why would the universe need it? - a mechanism - how would learning occur? - a source of learning - that is the environment, what is the environment of the universe? doesn't make sense What I think are good signs for possibility of consciousness: - a self replicating agent, with the ability to perfectly copy and multiply its code - limited resources, leading to competition - ot…
The most fundamental argument for panpsychism is that it obeys Occam's razor FAR better than the "emergent animate matter" hypothesis. Panpsychism requires that the universe updates its state by conscious choice, which we already know happens, so from the perspective of Occam's razor we would actually need to explain why it DIDN'T happen for non-animal matter. Additionally, if we go with the emergence hypothesis, we…
> Panpsychism requires that the universe updates its state by conscious choice, which we already know happens Can you clarify what we "already know happens"? Even for humans, it's not clear that "conscious choice" exists and causes changes in state, because we don't know what the mechanism is that can cause a state change other than state at time T-1.
Parts of the cosmos for sure are and there's no need to look very far for it - for example the part that forms me writing this right now is, in fact, conscious.
The most fundamental argument for panpsychism is that it obeys Occam's razor FAR better than the "emergent animate matter" hypothesis. Panpsychism requires that the universe updates its state by conscious choice, which we already know happens, so from the perspective of Occam's razor we would actually need to explain why it DIDN'T happen for non-animal matter. Additionally, if we go with the emergence hypothesis, we…
Meh. Seems to me like this is just dressing up the anthropic principle in clerical robes. The scare quotes around the "emergent animate matter" strawman sort of give the game away. There is no such "hypothesis". "Animate matter" is an observation, how it emerged is a question, and a difficult one. But declaring "Because Panpsychism" doesn't constitute an answer any more than "In the Beginning..." did.