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Could the cosmos, in fact, be conscious?

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

#171

Post by mistermann »

beryilma wrote: post #149

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 pe…

> 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...

Where did you learn these suspiciously specific neuroscientific facts from?

I think this philosopher dude isn't the only person in this thread who has rather ambitious ideas about how things work.

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

#172

Post by fooker »

nathan_compton wrote: post #170
fooker wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your answer has the prejudice than only people and animals can be conscious. I don't disagree, but that instantly makes the answer to the question "is the universe conscious" negative. Also AI, which currently is significantly more capable, at least in mimicking consciousness, than most animals.

I don't have that prejudice. I'm entirely open to the possibility that AI or other stuff could be conscious. In fact, I'm decidedly of the opinion that consciousness isn't magic and shouldn't be expected to be confined to specific arrangements of material per se. However, I am saying that we know quite a lot how brains work and how that relates to the observable phenomenon we bundle under the word consciousness and t…

>decades of neuroscience research

Could you point to some credible neuroscience research that mentions consciousness? My impression was the word consciousness is a taboo in those circles, much like AGI is in in machine learning research papers.

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

#173

Post by Scarblac »

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…

If absolutely everything is conscious, how come we can go unconscious after a knock on the head?

How come chemicals like alcohol can change our consciousness? Or adrenalin?

How is it that the only consciousnesses we are aware of happen to be located in exactly one human body, rather than say only the upper half of one, or fifteen humans, or any other subdivision of the universe's matter? Why is my consciousness not shared with other people's?

To me the hypothesis "human bodies produce consciousness, probably by some mechanism that's shared by lots of life but not necessarily all" is a lot simpler.

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

#175

Post by proc0 »

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?

Arguably science is not able to define consciousness because of the subjective nature of it, and how the aim of science is to remove subjectivity from its observations and conclusions.

On the other hand, religions have been studying consciousness for thousands of years, and indeed it is not something that can be verified by science.

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

#176

Post by ethanbond »

aleksiy123 wrote: post #165

Anyone else starting to get a feeling that whether something is conscious, or even studying consciousness matters at all in a practical sense. More of just a nerd snipe or red herring to waste time on. Like working to understand consciousness probably won't actually advance building an GAI in any meaningful way. Nor will it be the driver of how we interact with our surroundings be it rock, dirt, tree fish, dog, human…

You don’t think “is dog conscious” is relevant to how we treat dogs?

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

#177

Post by ethanbond »

metabagel wrote: post #112
dgoodell wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it so hard for people to understand that you can’t have productive discussions about things that you haven’t solidly defined?

We know what consciousness is. It's our self-awareness. We don't know where it comes from our how to test it, because each individual can only observe their own consciousness.

> We know what consciousness is. It's our self-awareness

Not really. There are plenty of disorders that destroy a person’s self-awareness but appear to leave a fully conscious person there anyway.

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

#178

Post by layer8 »

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…

Panpsychism requires that we have a solid grasp on what constitutes consciousness, and we don’t. How would you falsify panpsychism? What testable predictions does it make?

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

#179

Post by proc0 »

visarga wrote: post #92

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…

As you point out, that list is only necessary for the evolution of consciousness (perhaps) but it is not a requirement for consciousness itself.

From a functional computatoinalist POV, consciousness just requires information processing. People who meditate a lot can attest to the fact that conscious experience doesn't even need a self, it doesn't need thoughts, purpose or anything else. Consciousness is just raw awareness (meta-awareness)... however since we know the brain is processing information at some capacity (i.e. search Phineas Gage), then consciousness is something like the running simulation of reality being processed by the brain.

Joscha Bach, Max Tegmark, are two good sources for this perspective.

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

#180

Post by stvltvs »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #155
stvltvs wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that view is shit. Do tell. I also have strong views about free will, but opposing views are worth more than an offhand dismissal.

It's disempowering and does not resonate with our conscious experience, and given there is no more evidence for it than the opposite view, I find the idea that someone would choose a world view that tends to cause depression and fatalism to be absurd.

There's another option: the Skeptic's choice to withhold judgement when there's not enough evidence.
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