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I believe Hameroff is on the right track, but the track can be extended much further. Every cell (and every bacteria) is a conscious, intelligent being. Nothin

I believe Hameroff is on the right track, but the track can be extended much further. Every cell (and every bacteria) is a conscious, intelligent being. Nothing else is conscious. Our sense of "I" comes from a single cell in our body, getting inputs from other cells. We are products of the self-modification of cells. We need to find a way to talk with our cells - they will tell us a lot about physics and life. Whether the cell consciousness is due to quantum effects or not is of secondary importance at this stage IMO.

goldenkey 8y ago
I think you're on the right track, but the track can be extended much further. All energy is conscious because by the laws of physics, it does computation/work when flowing along energy gradients. The whole entire thing is an electric light disco of conscious entities on every scale. Every single body of matter absorbs and emits a characteristic spectrum of electromagnetic energy solely dependent on its construction. Yet my neighbors say we don't interact... :-)
naasking 8y ago
> Every cell (and every bacteria) is a conscious, intelligent being. Then why isn't inanimate matter conscious?
- resource0x 8y ago
  Your question contains the answer. If it were conscious, it would be animate matter :) Seriously, I don't know , maybe everything is conscious, but for bacteria/cells - we can be sure. This realization is already a big step forward :)
  - naasking 8y ago
    I'm not certain we can be sure that's where we draw the line for consciousness, actually, but to each his own.
vertexFarm 8y ago
Seriously, on what basis are you making these claims?
- resource0x 8y ago
  Several reasons: 1. Explanatory power 2. Reduction 3. Simplicity 4. Occam's razor 5. Crazy enough (necessary condition for any new theory) There's much more to be said, but not here, sorry. EDIT: whoever wants to discuss the idea further, please send me a personal message to resource0x at gmail. I was thinking on this idea for quite a while, pretty sure it makes much more sense than "emergence" and other mystic voodoo.
  - vertexFarm 8y ago
    Those are not great reasons. For instance, 2-4 are essentially the same, and are not explained at all. 5 is a joke of some kind, and 1 is not reason enough to believe anything. Might be reason enough to form a hypothesis, but how would you even go about testing such a hypothesis? After all you can cook up multiple self-consistent ideas of how a machine works in your imagination, but until you actually examine the machine you can't say that your idea actually explains how it works. It's a way it might work. Usually you want to have at least some cursory observation to form a hypothesis, but admittedly it's inherently very difficult to observe something like the nature of how you are able to observe things. That's why I'm so hesitant to believe anyone who says they have objective knowledge about it.
    - resource0x 8y ago
      Normally, 1) is enough. Explanatory power. E.g., evolution driven not by random mutations, but by self-modification of bacteria/cells, based on same engineering principles as we use in programming. There's a rational goal behind all this endeavor, we will get it sooner or later. The alternative is the admission of meaninglessness of everything and total depression (recurrent topic on HN)
      - pdonis 8y ago

goldenkey 8y ago

I think you're on the right track, but the track can be extended much further. All energy is conscious because by the laws of physics, it does computation/work when flowing along energy gradients. The whole entire thing is an electric light disco of conscious entities on every scale. Every single body of matter absorbs and emits a characteristic spectrum of electromagnetic energy solely dependent on its construction. Yet my neighbors say we don't interact... :-)

naasking 8y ago

> Every cell (and every bacteria) is a conscious, intelligent being. Then why isn't inanimate matter conscious?

resource0x 8y ago
Your question contains the answer. If it were conscious, it would be animate matter :) Seriously, I don't know , maybe everything is conscious, but for bacteria/cells - we can be sure. This realization is already a big step forward :)
- naasking 8y ago
  I'm not certain we can be sure that's where we draw the line for consciousness, actually, but to each his own.

vertexFarm 8y ago

Seriously, on what basis are you making these claims?

resource0x 8y ago
Several reasons: 1. Explanatory power 2. Reduction 3. Simplicity 4. Occam's razor 5. Crazy enough (necessary condition for any new theory) There's much more to be said, but not here, sorry. EDIT: whoever wants to discuss the idea further, please send me a personal message to resource0x at gmail. I was thinking on this idea for quite a while, pretty sure it makes much more sense than "emergence" and other mystic voodoo.
- vertexFarm 8y ago
  Those are not great reasons. For instance, 2-4 are essentially the same, and are not explained at all. 5 is a joke of some kind, and 1 is not reason enough to believe anything. Might be reason enough to form a hypothesis, but how would you even go about testing such a hypothesis? After all you can cook up multiple self-consistent ideas of how a machine works in your imagination, but until you actually examine the machine you can't say that your idea actually explains how it works. It's a way it might work. Usually you want to have at least some cursory observation to form a hypothesis, but admittedly it's inherently very difficult to observe something like the nature of how you are able to observe things. That's why I'm so hesitant to believe anyone who says they have objective knowledge about it.
  - resource0x 8y ago
    Normally, 1) is enough. Explanatory power. E.g., evolution driven not by random mutations, but by self-modification of bacteria/cells, based on same engineering principles as we use in programming. There's a rational goal behind all this endeavor, we will get it sooner or later. The alternative is the admission of meaninglessness of everything and total depression (recurrent topic on HN)
    - pdonis 8y ago