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Could the cosmos, in fact, be conscious?

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

#201

Post by fooker »

nathan_compton wrote: post #193
fooker wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rephrasing this: What would it take for something not categorized under animal to be considered conscious in your book?

I'd sort of say its two fold: 1. the object in question would need to behave in a conscious way 2. I'd have to look in the guts of the object and see evidence of some kind that the processes I was observing were inherent in the design of the thing. To clarify a bit about the second point: I can talk to a phone with a person on the other end of it and it can demonstrate some properties of consciousness. If I didn't kn…

1 is circular.

2 invites our prejudice for how we think conscious could work.

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

#202

Post by mensetmanusman »

coldblues wrote: post #146

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…

The universe is conscious if humans are conscious.

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

#203

Post by mensetmanusman »

digging wrote: post #131
peddamat wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it assumed that everything is deterministic apart from what is done by the somewhat magical, "free will"?

No - quantum uncertainty gives us the assumption that everything is fundamentally random and nothing is deterministic, unless we assume a meta-determinism (or superdeterminism) whereby fundamentally random outcomes are actually predetermined. How does that relate with the experience of decision making? That's a complete unknown. But the simplest explanation is that free will is simple, once we define it as "the exper…

The world would look a lot different if everything was random. Ever seen noise on a TV?

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

#204

Post by titzer »

heavenlyblue wrote: post #167
titzer wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pattern of wrinkles on the back of your hand is absolutely unique. The space of possibilities is larger than the number of atoms in the universe. And yet there is no why for the wrinkles on the back of your hand. Nothing chose it. Nothing is perfect about it. Not every improbable thing was chosen. The anthropic principle doesn't explain a goddamn thing! It rejects the notion that we need an explanation for some t…

> The pattern of wrinkles on the back of your hand is absolutely unique. It also solve zero real-life problems, but the presence of structures like DNA and self-replicating cells does solve a problem, i.e. they fit inside something much larger than itself, requiring compounded infinitely improbable samples of luck to have been created.

> requiring compounded infinitely improbable samples of luck to have been created

Not sure what you mean here. Evolution doesn't work by rolling all the dice at once and only selecting a winner if all the dice match some magic string. Evolution is a selective tuning process; it works (figuratively) by rolling all the dice at once and keeping the dice that do match the magic string and then re-rolling the rest[1].

[1] Of course that's not how evolution actually works. It works by selecting very tiny slightly different versions of things in a biased way. Those biased versions of things just happen to be things that can make more of themselves, and so the system automatically selects for things that good at self-replicating and surviving. Evolution doesn't jump all over the place with infinite improbabilities, it is actually a very systematic and even somewhat predictable exploration of the fitness landscape.

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

#206

Post by JohnAaronNelson »

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?

It seems that an anesthesiologists job is to make sure you’re unconscious. If there’s anyone that knows how to define consciousness, it should probably be them.

Seems that consciousness is an awareness of certain stimuli that give rise to novel patterns in our brain, in turn triggering our frontal lobes to notice…

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

#207

Post by JohnAaronNelson »

ethanbond wrote: post #177
metabagel wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Then take off the “self” part.

How about conscious is awareness? The more aware you are, the more conscious you are?

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

#208

Post by JohnAaronNelson »

digging wrote: post #131
peddamat wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it assumed that everything is deterministic apart from what is done by the somewhat magical, "free will"?

No - quantum uncertainty gives us the assumption that everything is fundamentally random and nothing is deterministic, unless we assume a meta-determinism (or superdeterminism) whereby fundamentally random outcomes are actually predetermined. How does that relate with the experience of decision making? That's a complete unknown. But the simplest explanation is that free will is simple, once we define it as "the exper…

I’m reading the book “determined” right now. It’s pretty good and sums up all the arguments very nicely.

And of course we don’t have free will. We have experience, which fools us into thinking we are in control.

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

#209

Post by mensetmanusman »

JohnAaronNelson wrote: post #208
digging wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No - quantum uncertainty gives us the assumption that everything is fundamentally random and nothing is deterministic, unless we assume a meta-determinism (or superdeterminism) whereby fundamentally random outcomes are actually predetermined. How does that relate with the experience of decision making? That's a complete unknown. But the simplest explanation is that free will is simple, once we define it as "the exper…

I’m reading the book “determined” right now. It’s pretty good and sums up all the arguments very nicely. And of course we don’t have free will. We have experience, which fools us into thinking we are in control.

Would need an explanation of why the universe is destined to result in an illusion.

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

#210

Post by CuriouslyC »

stvltvs wrote: post #196
CuriouslyC wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a choice that entertains both notions. The problem with that is that entertaining the notion that you are a powerless observer of the universe who must abide surfing the waves of fate with no agency is soul crushing for most people. If that choice isn't bringing you some power in some other way, why make it?

So you're very much in the Pragmatist camp, something is only true if it's useful? Personally, I find it impossible to choose to believe something, all things equal, just because I like the implications. The doubt will always be in the back of my mind, "But what if it's not really true?" I hold to compatabilism. As far as I can tell, the universe unfolds according to natural laws, and we're no exceptions. But we have…

It isn't so much that, as given we don't know and we have equal evidence in a number of different directions, our utility function should be biased towards believing in things that empower us and help us lead a better life. If the weight of evidence were in favor of a hypothesis that was disempowering, the situation might be different, but it isn't.
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