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"They might even unravel the greatest mystery of them all: consciousness." Don't get me wrong. Brains are interesting. Consciousness is a real puzzler. But...
by krisoft 6y ago
"They might even unravel the greatest mystery of them all: consciousness."
Don't get me wrong. Brains are interesting. Consciousness is a real puzzler. But... the mass of the known universe is estimated to be about 10^53 kg. In all that mass, there might be a few other mysteries here and there. Believing that the "greatest mystery" is between our two ears feels a tad bit egoistical.
- HPsquared 6y ago"If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" Similar thing here. A mystery is a concept which can only occur within human consciousness.
- jcims 6y agoAny time i see an -est superlative in a sciency article i just inject my own ‘known’ or ‘discovered’ as appropriate. Makes everything more palatable.
- chrisweekly 6y agoArguably, the Universe can also only exist within consciousness.
- namero999 6y agoIndeed, this is the next Copernican revolution which can't come soon enough. So many things make much more sense the moment we swap primacy of matter with primacy of consciousness.
- vidarh 6y agoThe distinction is largely moot unless we discover a way to pierce the veil. The strongest argument for modern materialism (in the philosophical sense of the term) is that it doesn't matter if it is true unless we discover a way to observe or interact with something beyond - as long as all we observe is a materialist representation of the world, we have no other meaningful choice than to act as if it is true, because we can but guess at what else might exist and the options are infinite.
- namero999 6y agoI would tend to agree with what you say here, with some clarifications. The first one is that I think it's a matter of _models_. What I mean is that digging under the surface of materialism, what we'll find is pure physics, and currently physics is based on incomplete models or models based on unreachable or non-interactive constructs. Many-universes, 26 dimensions, dark energy, collapse of wave function... Placeholder ideas to make the math work. So, idealism is preaching that there could be the possibility that our current holes in knowledge and understanding might be filled with mind stuff rather than matter stuff. Sure, it might require us to flip the causality relationship between the two, but I don't see that as a fundamentally different way of guessing at what else might exist, and just as materialism has descriptive and predictive power based on abstract, unreachable constructs, so can an idealist worldview. With regards of having to act as if materialism must be true, I would agree but it depends on at which scale we operate. Meaning, I doubt there could be any other functioning paradigm to go about our daily life and to progress practical science. But for things such as "why is there stuff instead of not" or even more tricky questions such as "what's the meaning", I'd look elsewhere.
- jordwest 6y ago> The distinction is largely moot unless we discover a way to pierce the veil. Buddhists might tell you we've already discovered a way to pierce the veil ("enlightenment"). Recently I saw a video of Shinzen Young [0] describing his experience of this, and it sounds a lot like this observation of something beyond. Regardless of whether it's really seeing the nature of reality or just a trick of the brain, I find it fascinating that so many people (throughout history) have very similar [1] experiences and it's given me a lot of motivation to meditate more... [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPnLDtHLymo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPnLDtHLymo [1] https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/what-does-it-feel-like-to-be-enlightened/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/what-does-i...
- DennisP 6y agoWithin some consciousness, anyway. There might be others out there.
- throwaway_pdp09 6y agoumm, yes. Yes it does.
- namero999 6y agoNo, it doesn't. It says 'sound' as opposed to 'a certain amount of air being displaced'. It makes no sound.
- throwaway_pdp09 6y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound "In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave, through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid" "In human physiology and psychology, sound is the reception of such waves and their perception by the brain" I guess it depends on your definition.
- namero999 6y agoI am quite sure the formal definition of sound is something we are all familiar with in here. I would argue that the point of the question is whether there could be sound without the conscious experience of sound. When a tree falls there is definitely displacement of air. Displacement of air though has no intrinsic quality of 'sound-ness'. Such quality can only be experienced by consciousness.
- baddox 6y agoIf you’re redefining the question as “if a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does anyone hear it?” that is much easier to answer but also much less interesting.
- namero999 6y agoQuite the opposite, actually. What compelled me to tune into this thread was the fact that I've felt the question was being redefined as "if a tree falls, does it displace air or creates any sort of physical effect which we might call sound?" which I find, as I'm sure you do too, easy and uninteresting. I think the question is meant to trigger reasoning on a much more deeper level than that, namely what it is to have a conscious experience and how we should go about defining what is real from that perspective.
- krisoft 6y agoYou couldn't have illustrated my point nicer. Yes it makes a sound. There will be vibrations in the air pressure propagating from the impact. If there are birds around they might take a flight. The ground vibrations will create ripples in the nearby pond which might distract a dragonfly enough that a frog swallows it whole. I understand that I'm taking a Zen koan in the most literal sense, but this the best way I can illuminate the ludicrousness of it. We are not the centre of the everything. Things happen without us. Believing otherwise is as I wrote egoistical, self-centered. There is an unremarkable planet orbiting a regular star a thousand and two light year away from us. On that planet there is a somewhat deer-like species descendant from a prey animal. They are masters of mathematics, philosophy and technology. Their cognition is so advanced that they would only politely smile at the notion that "human consciousness" is the greatest mystery of all. One of them between two ritual playfights took a dust bath on the meadow. It was thinking about the atmosphere of gas giants, when he come up with a question. There is not even a point in trying to explain to humans what the question was. We don't have the capacity to comprehend it. That question was the greatest mystery of all. Pity that they all went extinct before coming to terms with their own inability to find their answer.
- mrmonkeyman 6y agoThing is. Without (any kind of) consciousness, what does it mean for air to propagate and birds to fly? Without it, there is literally nothing.
- marcusestes 6y agoWe can only measure greatness, or the known universe, through the lens of our consciousness, so it seems acceptable to refer back to the nature of the lens as the primary mystery of our experience.
- mistermann 6y agoSome people believe that it is possible to transcend consciousness and improve the lens through which we observe and interpret the world, but I'd say this theory only strengthens your argument.
- so_tired 6y agoThe title and quote are obviously hyperbolic. But A large portion of that mass is in a too high or too low temperature state to support any complexity (I am not a physicist!) On the other hand, a single pound of neurons is more powerful than a warehouse of nano-scale-minituarized silicon. Consciousness itself may or may not be a purely emergent property of this complexity. We already have fairly robust (and simple!) rules for most physical, chemical and biological behaviour. Other than the creation and ending of he universe, Consciousness is certainly a top candidate no ?
- prox 6y agoYes but many things are a mystery beyond consciousness (thanks due to being conscious and able to reason) Like for instance whats beyond the universe? What dimensions are there? Is there a why to its [the universe] coming into being? Is there a what to it? And so on.
- throwaway_pdp09 6y ago> The title and quote are obviously hyperbolic Are you agreeing, disagreeing or making another point? > On the other hand, a single pound of neurons is more powerful than a warehouse of nano-scale-minituarized silicon Define 'powerful' > Consciousness is certainly a top candidate no ? We literally have no access to 99.9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% of the rest of the universe[1], so we can't say. Also we are only aware of what we're aware of, they might be greater mysteries under our noses which we've nor realised, or perhaps are literally unable to comprehend. [1] quite possibly hyperbolic
- dang 6y agoI put some spaces in your nines to prevent the comment from borking the page layout. Sorry, it's a bug we're working on.
- AkshatM 6y agoIs there even a measure of greatness that is not anthropocentric? "Greatness" is a compound measure of impact if solved, intractability of the problem, and average tangibility of problem (how much experience a random cross-section of humans would have with the subject of the problem). Consciousness definitely scores high on all three of the criteria.
- MaxBarraclough 6y agoI don't think so. Why do we have conscious experience, rather than nothing? Why are the 'lights on'? This is a profound question. I don't think it's unreasonable to say it's up there with Why is there something rather than nothing? In a very real sense, nothing matters except consciousness, after all.
- guerrilla 6y agoWe are conscious because it is critical for moving in our environment. You'll noticed that sleeping and anethstetized patients don't do that very well. The brain is for moving. Abstraction and self-consciousness presumably have similar explanations in terms of survival advantages.
- mrmonkeyman 6y agoNotice you did not explain why there needs to be subjective experience. Why do I see the color red? Why am I not some elaborate clockwork that I supposedly am, without inner sensation. I could have none and just describe one to you, but I assure you I actually have one. (Or you are a sollipsist, which is fine) I find that people either understand this immediately or they don't.
- MaxBarraclough 6y ago> We are conscious because it is critical for moving in our environment. Why? It's clear that intelligence is advantageous, but why consciousness? You've noted that consciousness arises from normal brain activity, similar to how our intelligence does. How? Why? Much of what happens in the brain is unconscious, so why should there be consciousness at all? (As an aside, someone who is asleep is not unconscious in the sense that matters here. If they are dreaming, they are experiencing, i.e. having conscious experiences divorced from the physical world.) Does consciousness arise because of our general intelligence, and our sense of self (both of which make obvious evolutionary sense)? If so, could computers be conscious? Could they suffer? Where's the threshold? Is there any way we could know? Does Rice's theorem apply here? These aren't easy questions. It's an interesting time for philosophy of mind. They aren't solved problems. Anyone who thinks they are, needs to do some reading. For a starting point, the work of David Chalmers is one of the usual recommendations.
- andybak 6y agoI couldn't disagree more. A universe without consciousness to observe it isn't terribly interesting. Furthermore - consciousness is strange enough that is an entirely defensible philosophical position to believe it's the building block of everything else.
- throwaway_pdp09 6y ago> an entirely defensible philosophical position to believe it's the building block of everything else Could we have a link please?
- namero999 6y agoI would suggest to look into the work of Bernardo Kastrup for a rational argumentation of such topic. A comp-sci PhD, worked at CERN, turned idealist, a second PhD in philosophy, a very lucid and proficient writer.
- morelisp 6y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idealism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idealism It's literally half of post-Enlightenment western philosophy. Kant, Berkeley, Schopenhauer; artistically Borges; in the sciences Brouwer and Schrödinger; etc.
- throwaway_pdp09 6y agoNow that is a link. Thank you.
- andybak 6y agoThank you for coming to my defence so perfectly. I might have been tempted to veer off into a discussion about panpsychism (because it's so fascinating) but this is a much stronger example.
- mrfusion 6y agoYet that 10^53 kg only exists between your two ears.
- krisoft 6y agoIf you say so. :)
- nkrisc 6y agoI think it's fair to call it one of the greatest mysteries we're aware of and probably the one that directly affects us the most.
- o_p 6y agoIs the biggest known unknown
- seesawtron 6y agoQuoting Ernest Becker from his The Denial of Death: "In man a working level of narcissism is inseparable from self-esteem, from a basic sense of self-worth. His sense of self-worth is constituted symbolically, his cherished narcissism feeds on symbols, on an abstract idea of his own worth, an idea composed of words, sounds and images, in the air, in the mind, on paper." "It is natural for a man to strive to be a hero, it goes deeply in his evolutionary and organismic constitution, and yet the society gets chills when someone admits the honesty of it." In academia if you have not convinced yourself that the problem you are working on is "the most" important problem to be worked on, how else would you go on working on it each single day and night with low salary while your counterparts live luxuriously in industry? I think its just a (un)conscious strategy but I can only speak for myself.
- PaulDavisThe1st 6y agobecause it's not a low salary compared to median? and because you find the work enjoyable and meaningful enough?
- unexaminedlife 6y agoWe are, as far as we know, the first "documented" instance of the universe becoming aware of itself.
- JackFr 6y agoThat 10^53 kg mass, is just an an irregular foam of particles and energy floating in space time. Galaxies, stars, atoms, chemicals exist only insofar as your consciousness names them. Literally everything you can think of owes its existence to your consciousness. I’d say that makes it pretty special.