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Is the Sun Conscious? (2021) [pdf]

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

#351

Post by stevenhuang »

cubefox wrote: post #220
IshKebab wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I would think anyone that has got drunk or experienced post-wank clarity should realise that consciousness isn't a separate thing to the brain's physical processes. Still, consciousness definitely exists and is definitely weird. And I don't think it's futile to try and learn about it. It's just not going to be philosophers that give us any answers (as usual).

> consciousness isn't a separate thing to the brain's physical processes. That's ironic, because this is the most popular theory of consciousness among analytic philosophers: physicalism. It says that consciousness is identical to some physical process. The problem with this theory is the knowledge argument. Mary grew up in a room without colors. Inside the room, she did learn everything about the brain. For example,…

https://selfawarepatterns.com/2020/09/04/the-problem-with-ma...

> In other words, if physicalism is true, then Mary’s complete knowledge of all the physical facts will include knowledge of what it is like to experience color. When she does have the actual experience for the first time, there should be no surprises. If there are, then she didn’t really have all the physical facts.

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

#352

Post by grantcas »

visarga wrote: post #236
winter-day wrote: post #231

I'm an extremely strong believer that the sun has consciousness. I think there exists quantum processes that causes consciousness and that suns, gravitons, etc. all have it. I likely won't be alive to ever find out, but if someone does discover it, I hope a historian finds this thread :)

I am a strong believer that consciousness has a purpose. It is related to self-replication because consciousness necessitates evolution to come about, and evolution necessitates consciousness to keep the organism alive. They need each other. Evolution is the outer process, consciousness the inner process. Celestial bodies lack the reason & means. Not to mention the slowness of light at cosmic distance. Any consciousn…

[dead]

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

#353

Post by ninetyninenine »

smokel wrote: post #334
ninetyninenine wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I don't assume this. Concepts and understanding can exist independent of language. But sometimes concepts and understanding arise ONLY because of language. I am saying "consciousness" is a specific case of the later.

Thanks for clarifying that. However, what makes some concepts mundane and others profound? Is that up to an individual to decide, based on, for example, taste? Or is there some objective notion?

Because we know the underlying model. We are well aware of it. We aren't aware of what it is in the sense that we cant describe the definition in English but we are well aware of it because we can look at something and classify it as either conscious or not conscious.

First off we know the concept lies on a gradient. At the left end we have a rock. Clearly not conscious. At the right end we have a human. Clearly the human is conscious.

You can imagine what are things that categorically exist on that gradient and in between the two extremes mentioned above. You have fish as more "conscious" then rocks and dogs or dolphins as more "conscious" then fish.

The word consciousness puts a hard line on that gradient. Somewhere on that gradient is the line and on the right side of the line you are conscious and on the left side of the line you are not conscious. Debating about consciousness is simply debating the location of that line.

Is it more leaning towards the rock? Is it in the center of the gradient? Is it closer to the human? Who cares? As you move up and down the gradient you get things with more traits associated with being conscious and things with less traits associated with being conscious. A debate about that vocabulary word is simply picking the group of traits that demarcates a transition. Such a demarcation is a completely arbitrary choice. Not profound at all.

In the end you are simply grouping traits together and assigning it as a definition to a word. So a fish is conscious because it moves, and it swims, it feels pain, and it can think, but a rock is not conscious because it lacks those traits. The grouping is arbitrary and thus the concept is arbitrary and arises from the word.

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

#354

Post by thealig »

mistermann wrote: post #324
mannykannot wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is extremely unlikely that these concerns will undo anything we think we know in the realm of biology, such as how metabolism and reproduction work. Consciousness is different, as we don't know how it works, but we have no evidence suggesting either that it will require a complete rewrite of fundamental physics to explain, or that a rewrite of fundamental physics to resolve the issues you raise would also provide…

> Consciousness is different, as we don't know how it works, but we have no evidence suggesting either that it will require a complete rewrite of fundamental physics to explain Consciousness regularly/usually claims to have omniscient knowledge of all that is, something which is not supported by physics. Either consciousness is incorrect, or physics is, and I don't think I've ever met a physicist who believes they're…

sorry, what do you mean by "Consciousness regularly/usually claims to have omniscient knowledge of all that is, something which is not supported by physics."? i do not follow what you mean by consciousness claiming to know something - consciousness is not an entity that sense? Your usage of consciousness as an entity doesn't seem to make sense to me.

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

#355

Post by logicprog »

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #347
logicprog wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is actually similar to the lore in Raised By Wolves — there's a war between the Mithraic (dominant religion on their planet) and the atheist faction, and the Mithraic are actually far more technologically advanced because their scriptures mysteriously contain precise instructions for wildly advanced technology. Of course that only makes the Mithraic more advanced in the few areas their scriptures happen to talk…

> The whole show is extremely interesting — I really should finish it sometime. Unfortunately, even the show won't be finishing the show. Every episode kept adding more "mysteries" and ending on increasingly ridiculous cliffhangers until it got cancelled without explaining anything. It definitely had promise, but I'm disappointed in Ridley Scott for not putting together a coherent, self-contained narrative, and I'm a…

> Every episode kept adding more "mysteries" and ending on increasingly ridiculous cliffhangers until it got cancelled without explaining anything.

While also getting more and more slow and labored. That's why I stopped, yeah. But I'm also a completionist.

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

#356

Post by temporarely »

mistermann wrote: post #324
mannykannot wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is extremely unlikely that these concerns will undo anything we think we know in the realm of biology, such as how metabolism and reproduction work. Consciousness is different, as we don't know how it works, but we have no evidence suggesting either that it will require a complete rewrite of fundamental physics to explain, or that a rewrite of fundamental physics to resolve the issues you raise would also provide…

> Consciousness is different, as we don't know how it works, but we have no evidence suggesting either that it will require a complete rewrite of fundamental physics to explain Consciousness regularly/usually claims to have omniscient knowledge of all that is, something which is not supported by physics. Either consciousness is incorrect, or physics is, and I don't think I've ever met a physicist who believes they're…

It is as apparently almost everything else a choice between 2 options.

The current Western approach to science is strictly that subjective measure is fully informative of objective reality, and (equally if not more importantly) that perception is a mechanism operating within objective reality, an object within reality, and that object is subject to natural laws.

The other possibility -- there is really no way to refute or prove either definitively as in all of these dual ontological choices -- is that consciousness is peering into a construct of a universal conscious intellect (something like logos or tao) and the nature of conscious intellect is entirely unlike the nature of the construct, which is an image. This flavor of paradigm offers the possibility for "consciousness" (aka God) to claim omniscient powers, including time dilation (alpha omega) and other matter.

What helps these models to persist are entirely distinct. The former maps well to shared experiences (modulo group psi phenomena) and is reassuringly direct and simple. The latter persists since it maps well to non-rational content of our minds which the former simply must dismiss as garbage collection or (LLM like) ramblings, void of meaning.

Physics can't be incorrect but it can be misinterpreted. Last century witnessed a wonderful case in point where Quantum physics provided analytical tools to "perfectly predict" outcomes of experiments but until eventually settled allowed physicists to have preferences (read: belief systems) regarding which interpretation of the quantum phenomena (Einstein or Bohr) was correct.

That Bohr's interpretation proved to be the correct interpretation has bearing on this discussion in more than one sense.

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

#357

Post by pavel_lishin »

logicprog wrote: post #321
kouru225 wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes me think of a concept for a story: It’s the end of a dark age and science is becoming popular again. They’re in a constant battle between the religious forces but at least they have unity and political power of some kind for the first in known human history. However, they keep coming up with solutions to problems that seem to line up perfectly with the strange little details of religious superstition in a…

This is actually similar to the lore in Raised By Wolves — there's a war between the Mithraic (dominant religion on their planet) and the atheist faction, and the Mithraic are actually far more technologically advanced because their scriptures mysteriously contain precise instructions for wildly advanced technology. Of course that only makes the Mithraic more advanced in the few areas their scriptures happen to talk…

Something similar happens in Larry Niven's "Footfall", though I won't say what to avoid spoilers.

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

#358

Post by mannykannot »

mistermann wrote: post #348
mannykannot wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Consciousness regularly/usually claims to have omniscient knowledge of all that is... My initial reaction to this was "not in my experience", but on reflection, I really have no idea what you are saying here. Conscious entities may have opinions, but consciousness itself, at least as it is usually conceived of, does not.

> but consciousness itself, at least as it is usually conceived of, does not. What are "you" saying here, and how do you know this to be true?

If you can show any examples of consciousness regularly/usually claiming to have omniscient knowledge of all that is, or even someone other than yourself saying that consciousness regularly/usually does so, I would be most interested - in my studies of what's written and said about it, I have never come across this view before.

A simple search should be sufficient to establish that the most common usage of 'consciousness' is as being an aspect of perception - and more specifically, the subjective aspect of it.

Furthermore, I am at a loss to figure out how this claim could have any relevance to the sentence of mine that you quoted in your first reply to me.

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

#359

Post by grumpopotamus »

layer8 wrote: post #202
dsego wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder why we’re not just automatons, behaving the same on the outside, but without the conscious experience.

How would you possibly behave the same without inner experience? There is a direct causal connection between inner experience and how one behaves. Your talking about inner experience just being one particularly obvious example.

You could in theory behave in exactly the same way without inner subjective experience. The argument goes like your brain gets exactly the same signals and processes them in exactly the same way, and initiates exactly the same actions, except you are not experiencing anything. Imagine a robot that gets sensory inputs from the world and processes them in some giant neural network brain and behaves very similarly to a human, and even claims that it is feeling things. Is it really feeling anything? So far we have absolutely no way of answering that question.

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

#360

Post by andsoitis »

pharrington wrote: post #101
andsoitis wrote: post #8

> self-organizing systems at all levels of complexity, including stars and galaxies, might have experience, awareness, or consciousness. It must be terrifying if you're a galactic entity and have experience, awareness, and consciousness, but no autonomy w.r.t. movement, trapped in a trillion-year path that you cannot escape.

Why would it be terrified? It doesn't have an amygdala.

> Why would it be terrified? It doesn't have an amygdala.

because your intellect would grasp the immense heaviness to realize you're mortal, that your ego will end.

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