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Could the cosmos, in fact, be conscious?

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Re: Could the cosmos, in fact, be conscious?

#141

Post by netsharc »

jimnotgym wrote: post #100

>"Imagine tossing a coin 70 times and getting heads every time, or rolling dice and getting six every time. Nobody would say that’s a fluke,” No I would say it was a trick. A Derren Brown type trick [0]. I started reading thinking this cosmos bloke was an amazing benefactor, and ended thinking he was scamming me. [0]: https://youtu.be/XzYLHOX50Bc?si=uCQUBl65fsEyehJb

If "the universe" not getting 70 heads (e.g. if that one constant is not 0.007) mean we don't exist, then, the fact that we exist means the universe got 70 heads, yes, by chance...

Re: Could the cosmos, in fact, be conscious?

#142

Post by notahacker »

ajross wrote: post #110
CuriouslyC wrote: post #65

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…

> The most fundamental argument for panpsychism is that it obeys Occam's razor FAR better than the "emergent animate matter" hypothesis. 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…

yeah. It's "some parts of the universe that could replicate much more if they have consciousness developed consciousness" vs "the universe was conscious all along, and so it ensured that other small fractions of it had selection pressures to develop consciousness", and I'm not sure the second explanation is more parsimonious...

Re: Could the cosmos, in fact, be conscious?

#143

Post by stvltvs »

kouru225 wrote: post #69

In the first volume of Masks of God, Joseph Campbell points out that you can break all creation myths down to 3 categories: Creationism (where there is a god that created the universe), Animism (where the universe itself is alive), and Participationism (where the universe is the result of some interaction). He then points out that if you ask random children to make up the story of how the universe was created, the st…

Joseph Campbell was not an expert on every creation myth ever. His ideas had large cultural blind spots, and he was prone to over-generalization. A sibling comment pointed out an exception that doesn't fit into the assumptions behind Campbell's leading question to the children.

Re: Could the cosmos, in fact, be conscious?

#145

Post by atlantic »

postmodest wrote: post #128
a13o wrote: post #54

We never bothered to define consciousness with any scientific rigor, so why not? It's common for things that are everywhere, to also be nowhere at all. Could the cosmos, in fact, be smurpity-badoingo?

Could Pet Rocks Be Conscious? I mean, really. I feel like having a method of sensation and an ability to react to those sensations is a fundamental basis for "consciousness" and if you can point to the sun or the Local Cluster's sensory apparatus, I may listen to the rest of your (the Editorial You, not the commenter this reply is attached to) argument. Otherwise, we're just pointing at complex things and saying "doe…

Avicenna argued otherwise. Have a look at his "floating man" thought experiment for how consciousness can exist detached from any sense experience.

Re: Could the cosmos, in fact, be conscious?

#146

Post by coldblues »

I believe consciousness is on a spectrum of self-awareness. It just exists, perhaps even without evolutionary need. Even if you act mainly on instinct or even purely you could still very well be conscious.

You will continue to exist as long as conscious life is able to propagate. For me, it makes sense that a state of nonexistence can't exist. Your consciousness is not unique, it's only a physical phenomena, thus it can be replicated, and it doesn't even have to be exact, after all, you are the ship of Theseus. When you make a clone and kill the original, the clone is the original, exactly. Like waking up from a dream, to suddenly being teleported somewhere. When you go to sleep, why don't you wake up as a rabbit? Who says you don't? Consciousness so far can only be examined from the outside but this does not deny our subjective conscious experience. I believe that when you die you will just move on, not as the same person, but as another conscious being. Eternal life. Essentially immortal, but you lose everything, and you're unaware of it. Even if 5 million years have to pass, you will just wake suddenly wake up.

I also believe consciousness is not quantifiable, but shared, and you just have a narrow perspective at a time. When you die I'd say you don't even have to wake up as a newborn, you could just spontaneously be another person, as long as there's no other path of continuity.

Re: Could the cosmos, in fact, be conscious?

#147

Post by paulddraper »

netsharc wrote: post #136

Douglas Adams; > This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in — an interesting hole I find myself in — fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!'

See the Anthropic Principle [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle

Re: Could the cosmos, in fact, be conscious?

#148

Post by harel »

thelittleone wrote: post #67
harel wrote: post #35

I suppose on a purely philosophical aspect it's as plausible as any other explanation of Gods that we came up with. If I continue this thread on a (pseudo semi baked) science and more philosophy, I could "argue" that us being made from particles of the universe, combined with the idea of particles being entangled and sharing "existence", are in fact "The" consciousness of the Universe and our feeling of Oneness is in…

Perhaps consciousness is an attributeless void where being aware of it is possible but describing it is not.

Or maybe it's a n-deep attribution model where consciousness is being aware of being aware of one self...

Re: Could the cosmos, in fact, be conscious?

#149

Post by beryilma »

Oh, please. The ramblings of a philosopher does not make it so. These people who have no understanding of physics hear the phrases like "dark energy", "fine tuning", and "non-locality", then make up mystic, anthropomorphic theories about the universe. He is just an educated version of the "water has memory" people...

> “Once you pass a certain point of improbability, it’s no longer rational to say it’s a fluke. If people break into a bank and there’s a 10-digit combination for the safe and they get it the first time, nobody would say ‘oh, they just guessed it’. That’s too improbable.

> “So the alternative is that this isn’t a fluke, that the numbers in physics are there because they’re the right numbers for life. In other words, there’s some kind of ‘directedness’ towards life at the basic level of physics.”

Doesn't Bayesian posterior probability already explain such situations? Asking if something is a fluke after the fluke has occurred does not make it a result of some divine intervention. Similarly, saying the universe is too finely tuned (as a result of consciousness or God or something similar) is asking the question post the improbable event: if the universe was not finely tuned, we would not be here to ask the question in the first place.

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