I rather think that there is a common consciousness which our brains focus into individual local manifestations of consciousness in a way similar to how a lens focuses light.
What evidence supports your thinking?
Could the cosmos, in fact, be conscious?
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Re: Could the cosmos, in fact, be conscious?
#92No, 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
- other agents, forming a complex environment based on cooperation and competition
Why is it necessary to have many agents? Because evolution is a blind, open-ended search. The more attempts the faster it goes.
Consciousness makes sense for agents who have to navigate complex environments to survive. It needs to be localized, subjective, the universe would not have that property.
Re: Could the cosmos, in fact, be conscious?
#93My only concern with such articles is the use of "god" and "religion" which only gives the majority of humanity a reason to pray more and kill anyone who disagrees.
Conscious or not, why can't we just continue calling it the universe and continue studying it as usual?
Re: Could the cosmos, in fact, be conscious?
#94The author should brush up on his history. This is panpsychism and it is a very old idea, going back to Spinoza. Einstein was a adherent of that idea as well, in his own way. As to it's truth of it, that's somewhat above my pay-grade.
In fact, Einstein declared having this religious-like reverence for the “mysterium tremendum” – what scientifically minded person doesn’t after all? The Numinous[0] – which Spinoza and Kant also addressed in their respective works.
Re: Could the cosmos, in fact, be conscious?
#95We 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?
Why is it so hard for people to understand that you can’t have productive discussions about things that you haven’t solidly defined?
Re: Could the cosmos, in fact, be conscious?
#96I rather think that there is a common consciousness which our brains focus into individual local manifestations of consciousness in a way similar to how a lens focuses light.
What evidence supports your thinking?
It’s just a feeling that consciousness has to derive from something, and there may be a conservation of consciousness similar to the conservation of energy.
It also might explain how there seem to be different levels of consciousness. In a lower level of consciousness, the brain is acting like a poor lens.
I think we don’t know what consciousness is, but I posit that it is something more substantial than a bunch of electrochemical reactions, although it seems like electrochemical reactions are necessary for its existence as far as we can tell.
Re: Could the cosmos, in fact, be conscious?
#97The 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…
The anthropic principle has equal explanatory power to “because it did.” Making up a story about a cosmic crow shitting out the universe has equal explanatory power and it at least offers a reason. And obviously we know the crow shit it out because if it didn’t we wouldn’t be here! Also you failed to explain why the universe is organized such that random processes exhaustively explore the state space of potential con…
>Also you failed to explain why
Simply: Reality doesn't have "why"s. Reality has forces and fields or equivalent systems.
Re: Could the cosmos, in fact, be conscious?
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Panpsychism requires that the universe updates its state by conscious choice, which we already know happens... Do we know this?
You chose to type a reply to me right? I guess you could assume that you are compelled and your free will is an illusion, but honestly that view is shit.
I'm a lot more confident in my own consciousness than I am of the universe's, but to be honest I'm not entirely convinced of either.
I think the bit that's throwing me is the jump from "we know that consciousness exists" to "therefore the universe as a whole must be is conscious" but I bet I'm misinterpreting this somewhat.
Re: Could the cosmos, in fact, be conscious?
#99No, 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…
This is good reasoning, but from where did you get the requirements? After having read Annaka Harris’ “Conscious” and Philip Goff’s “Galileo’s Error”, it seems plausible to me (and the most logically simple resolution) that panpsychism explains the universe.
I.e., in the vain search for the place to draw “the line” between what animals or systems are conscious and which aren’t, (viruses? Amoebas? The smallest insect?) what if consciousness can be seen as a property of existence? Then, clearly, different systems (such as humans) have wildly different experiences (a.k.a. contents of consciousness) than rocks or shrimp or trees etc., but if you take Thomas Nagel’s phrasing for this—that if there is something it is like to be a rock or a shrimp or a tree, then that is conscious—then it seems to me that there IS something that it is like to be the cosmos.
Re: Could the cosmos, in fact, be conscious?
#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.