51–60 of 244 posts
As I remember it, this was Lem's way of critiquing this type of theory and scientist because of its absurd and unfalsifiable nature.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/His_Master%27s_Voice_(novel)
There are a lot of compelling theories out there for the purpose/true nature of the universe. We are probably orders and orders of magnitude too small ourselves to fully grasp the complexity, like how one of our skin cells don't understand how the body works but coupled into an entire multicellular organism, we can now read an anatomy textbook. Despite how little we are capable of understanding at such a scale, I sti…
> too small ourselves to fully grasp the complexity Size has nothing do with ability to understand things, so this doesn't make sense.
In some sense, the search for consciousness where it doesn't exist feels like a misfiring of the human need to personify. People were afraid of robots long before there was any chance for them to possess AI. When people dreamed about space, they primarily dreamed about encountering other conscious beings. In other words, if a dog could think about other planets he would wonder how they smell. Not because that's an inherently meaningful question, but because that's the question that aligns primarily with their interests. It's the same with people: we look for consciousness everything, and assume that other things have more value if they can be thought of as conscious.
Could the cosmos, in fact, be smurpity-badoingo?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It matters very much when it comes to perspective. The posters point is spot on so unless you have some counter you should just delete yours.
Perhaps I don't understand the point. "Perspective", you say? I'm thinking that, for instance, a very very large rock does not have an advanced ability to understand things, whereas David Rappaport had a psychology degree. (Extra bits edited in follow:) I detect another implied point, which is that there are levels of ability to reason. That is, by analogy with cells, which are dumb, inside a human, which is smart, t…
We have managed to hack our own limited intelligence by using collective memory so we aren't starting from zero every generation, but we still aren't naturally inclined to come up to things we readily understand at our scale and grasp what they might represent on much smaller or larger scales than our own. Even for people trained in these fields it is extremely challenging due to the problems with scale and our frame of reference. We had to develop things like microscopes and telescopes to take objects small and large and either magnify them or reduce them to something we can actually begin to make guesses about at our scale.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Not at all qualified to mention this, as a googler wouldn’t quantum entanglement be a counter example to faster-than-light travel? So we’re still within the speed of light limit, but information can be “passed”
You can instantly know the state of another particle by measuring it's twin, but you can't do anything useful with that info until you share the results of your measurements (at the speed of light).
https://quantumcomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/8638/fa...
https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/15282/quantum-en...
I think it's unlikely for consciousness to exist in stars or in any population of thing which isn't subject to natural selection / evolution. It seems to me that it arises due to giving a competitive advantage for the population in question.
The arguments to fine-tuning are utterly remedial. I can't believe that no one in their orbit ever brought up the anthropic principle [1]. We are not randomly distributed over possible universes; we are embedded in a universe that is by definition capable of supporting our existence (and indeed giving rise to it). It doesn't matter how stupidly improbable it is. Observer effect is off the charts! Second, in evolution…
If panpsychism is right, consciousness is part of the fabric of the cosmos, you just can't separate consciousness from it. Does that mean that the cosmos is conscious itself, and what does that mean? I'm not sure, but it's pretty fascinating to think about
Sure, and if certain Ancient Greek beliefs are right, thunder is smithed by the god Hephaestos in his forge under mount Etna for Zeus to throw at his enemies. Is there any reason whatsoever to believe either of these?
Not a reason, but there are many people that have had experiences that align with panpsychism
It's not necessarily something that you have to believe, like a made-up story. Instead, it's something that you can experience for yourself (either through yoga, meditation, breathing, psychedelics or other forms of attaining different states of consciousness)
Edit: (can't reply to the reply) @tsimionescu it seems you just want to contradict whatever I say, that's your personal opinion. If you want a reason, you can come up with a thousand different ones. I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything, just offering a point of view for a, hopefully interesting, conversation