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Yes. The way I think about it, to be conscious, one has to be conscious of something. The only way to do that is to have a representation of that thing in memor
by grabbalacious 7y ago
Yes. The way I think about it, to be conscious, one has to be conscious of something. The only way to do that is to have a representation of that thing in memory. When the representation matches incoming sense data we then perceive the relevant thing.
Thus, a single atom cannot be conscious. It could at a stretch be regarded as a miniature body, perhaps, but could it contain a memory system? Presumably not.
- thecupisblue 7y agoIsn't it actually what panexperientalism is? The universe is one giant state machine with the memory of it's current state and it's current state deciding what to invoke next.
- grabbalacious 7y agoI don't know about panexperientialism. My understanding of panpsychism is that it means that everything in the universe is at least a little bit conscious. Which I doubt for the reasons I gave. I don't see how the universe as a whole could be conscious, either, any more than a child in the womb could be. There's not enough interaction between its body and the environment. Of course the universe as a whole lacks any environment.