9 ms·

I am extremely scientific and I believe in god. Not quite Spinoza's, more of a pantheistic view. If you think about it, the universe is conscious, because our

I am extremely scientific and I believe in god. Not quite Spinoza's, more of a pantheistic view. If you think about it, the universe is conscious, because our conscious minds are part of it. And it's learning about itself.

seiferteric 5y ago
I don't believe in any particular god but I do think that the universe and our experience is ultimately unexplainable. So science can never have these answers therefore I am open to theistic arguments but ultimately even these arguments are unsatisfying because it just moves the level of unexplainability up one more level... who created god?
- EMM_386 5y ago
  > who created god That is why whatever that "thing" is, that's full-stop. That's why we refer to it as god. It requires no explanation, it must be. It's sort of like asking "why do we have something instead of nothing?". Because apparently that's the way it must be. That sounds crazy to scientifically-minded people, myself included, because we want answers to everything. But the turtles will go all the way down until you just decide that there is a "god", whatever that is, and it is necessary. And here we are.
  - seiferteric 5y ago
    That's why I say it is unsatisfying and the universe is ultimately unexplainable because either there is this final "god" and we are incapable of understanding it or there is not and there is infinite levels and we are incapable of understanding it also.
    - torstenvl 5y ago
      Cf. apex (e.g., YHWH) versus non-apex (e.g., the Tao) conceptions of the numinous.
      - potatoman22 5y ago
        Could you elaborate?
  - anthk 5y ago
    >Because apparently that's the way it must be. Bullshit, please. Prove it or GFTO with that nonsense. Science is found on evidence, not on "what if...s" . If you told me that an ARM Cortex A9 is faster than a current i7, and then you put the excuse of "God made it" argument over the table you would look like a lunatic. With the Universe origins is the same. Replace "God" with "Santa" and the argument gets equally ridiculous.
    - EMM_386 5y ago
      Had a little too much of human religion? Me too. I went through this same phase, at one point I declared myself an atheist, mostly because it was an easy way to give the middle finger to my Catholic childhood indoctrination. But then I decided to dig a little deeper, and there is more to it than thinking "god" is the same as "the Easter bunny". Good luck trying to figure out why something exists and not nothing (and we're not talking about quantum particles popping into existence in a vacuum, those are "things" ... that's not nothing).
      - anthk 5y ago
        Yeah, the universe is weird, still no god needed, because gods' existence is almost as weird as particles popping in and out. Also, not particles, but fields, actually.
        EMM_386 5y ago
        > Also, not particles, but fields, actually. Why are there fields? It's turtles all the way down, and it fundamentally comes down to "why something rather than nothing"? Nothing has no potential to create anything because it's literally nothing. It can not have potential. So where do these crazy forces, fields, the quantum observer effect come from, out of nothing? We will never find an answer to that question because it is literally unanswerable.
        anthk 5y ago
        >We will never find an answer to that question because it is literally unanswerable. Then putting the "god" argument over the table seems either lazy or antropocentric. The correct answer (as from today), it's "we don't know". You don't need to put any god, "energy" or whatever myth you know over ignorance.
  - aetherspawn 5y ago
    Who created God? Good question. I did some digging and found this article, that reasons using references from a Christian point of view: https://www.jw.org/en/library/magazines/wp20140801/who-made-god/ https://www.jw.org/en/library/magazines/wp20140801/who-made-... Is is clear in the Bible that God does not exist in physical form. In the heavens, according to the Bible, he does not even exist in the same form as angels. At one time, Jesus was described in his human form, as "a little lesser than angels". Just a little? I guess it doesn't make sense for Angels to be in God's same plane of existence, then. I think that 'time' is a part of this universe and that God is an observer that exists outside of it all. This makes sense, because of his ability to accurately tell the future in specific detail. But in the Bible, we see that Angels are restricted and bound by time. God is not. Probably God created time. Therefore to ask 'Who made God?' in his plane of existence, would require us to understand what existence is like without time. How do you feel about this?
    - seiferteric 5y ago
      I can imagine a block universe with time as just an axis. Then our universe can be just an object sitting on god’s table. But ultimately this still does not provide any answers.
      - aetherspawn 5y ago
        To get more answers (not necessarily 'any' though - I think you may have overgeneralized there), we would need to understand this mode of existence. I am thinking like this: what does existence look like without time? For example, a table is of no use to someone who has no timescale to do anything at that table. The word "created", is even more curious, as it has no meaning. Like a painting, in a plane like this, everything "just is". Immutable. Confusing to me. I'll admit, I'll never understand the full meaning of something that exists outside time. Perhaps this is why God would make a universe with time.
        EMM_386 5y ago
        > Like a painting, in a plane like this, everything "just is". Immutable. Confusing to me. I'll admit, I'll never understand the full meaning of something that exists outside time. Correct, that's my initial comment said things are this way because it "has to be". Our minds can not grasp the concept of what being "outside time" even means. Again it fundamentally boils down to "why something rather than nothing". Clearly, it is because it "has to be". Because we have something, and that by definition can't come from nothing. Pondering about these thoughts of the whole concept of "has to be" admittedly has kept me up some nights.
  - badinfo 5y ago
    > It requires no explanation, it must be. It's sort of like asking "why do we have something instead of nothing?". You can substitute "universe" for "god" and still get the same level of meaning (or lack thereof). Why do we have a universe instead of no universe? Sometimes the more accurate, if less precise, answer is simply "I don't know" rather than "therefore it must've always been and always will be".
- missedthecue 5y ago
  Assuming God is created would be to assume that God is bound by some kind of time. If God exists outside of time, his 'creation' is an irrelevant question. Beginnings can only exist if time is happening.
mynameisash 5y ago
> If you think about it, the universe is conscious, because our conscious minds are part of it This seems like quite a leap. Parts of the earth are conscious, so is the earth conscious? Parts of the universe are alive, so is the universe alive? Every member of my family is conscious*, but I wouldn't say that "my family" is conscious. *Solipsism notwithstanding
- luckyandroid 5y ago
  The universe is a system. We a part of that system. So any traits we have are inherently traits that the universe has, even if parts of it don't share it. A human has a hand, the hand is part of the human, but the rest of the human is not necessarily a hand.
  - mynameisash 5y ago
    > The universe is a system. We a part of that system. So any traits we have are inherently traits that the universe has I don't know how you can substantiate this. I am left-handed. My wife is right-handed. These are attributes of us as individuals. What is the handedness of the city we live in? I would reject the question outright since I don't think that traits attributed to parts of a system necessarily can be attributed to the system itself.
  - tgv 5y ago
    Syllogistic errors 101. Your ruthless logic tells us a (normal) human has one nail and five fingers, is made of keratin and is not conscious. Ergo, the universe has one nail and five fingers, is made of keratin and is not conscious. Only logical conclusion: God is a manicurist.
- burkaman 5y ago
  I've never heard this before but I think it's reasonable. Imagine if you were simulating the universe in a computer and a creature within your simulation achieved consciousness. I think it would be fair to say your simulation had achieved consciousness, even if 99.999...% of the processing power was spent simulating the rest of the universe "unrelated" to the conscious part.
eximius 5y ago
that would also make it violently and severely dissociative with the number of competing consciousnesses.
NikolaeVarius 5y ago
> If you think about it, the universe is conscious, because our conscious minds are part of it Hell of a leap. I subscribe to the notion the consciousness is a illusion via chemical whatever and the universe doesn't give a damn anyway.
- garbagetime 5y ago
  What does it mean for consciousness to be an illusion?
  - NikolaeVarius 5y ago
    It means that consciousness nothing special/supernatural. There is no soul, there is nothing but chemical reactions that manage to create something that is able to claim "I think therefore I am" The illusion is the fact that we claim that we are able to "experience", but I think that its all just layers of GOTO reactions that create something that think its special. Much like how a program isn't considered conscious, but its very likely its because we haven't dug deeply enough into the layers of shit that is required to make a self-aware computer
    - huetius 5y ago
      You seem to have a lot of confidence in the truth of your own meaningless sequence of GOTO reactions.
  - badinfo 5y ago
    We as a species may lack the mental faculties to truly understand the mechanisms by which life evolved the ability to analyze and reason about its surroundings and itself. We lack the scientific tools to properly differentiate or falsify "consciousness" from any other sufficiently complex phenomenon. We can't tell whether it's an emergent phenomenon arising out of a particular arrangement of energy and matter, or whether it requires some input that we cannot currently observe/measure, or something else entirely. We don't know whether we can create consciousness from its constituent parts, or if it even has constituent parts. We don't know if there's a finite supply of it in the universe, we don't know if it's a dimensional thing, we don't know how it interacts with other forces. We do know that it appears as though we have much more agency than a rock, yes, but it's a matter of degree how much more when we compare ourselves to other lifeforms, primates, dolphins, elephants, ravens... or other people. We don't know if certain members of our species are "more" or "less" conscious. We don't fully know what happens to consciousness during comas or brain death or dream states or sleep. It's just an ambiguous term that we apply to the "state of human information processing that we can't really explain". Substitute "ambiguous" for "illusion" if you prefer, but it could also very well be an illusion the same way centrifugal force is a pseudo-force, i.e. the measurement of consciousness depends on some reference frame that we don't know how to use yet. It's entirely possible that consciousness is NOT an illusion, that it is indeed a special "thing" in the universe, but we can't prove that with the science, language, philosophy, and possibly mental capacity that we currently have. Maybe one day we will. Maybe not. But it's premature to assume we understand anything about consciousness in the philosophical sense.
anthk 5y ago
>I am extremely scientific and I believe in god I am vegan and I eat steak on weekends.
- oogabooga123 5y ago
  Do you think that is a valid metaphor? > With the first sip of science one becomes an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you - some mediocre scientist probably nobody has heard of
  - anthk 5y ago
    Fallace of authority.
    - throw3434053 5y ago
      It just means it's time to outgrow your reddit atheist phase, no great scientist has adhered to your surface level beliefs on god
      - anthk 5y ago
        "reddit atheism phase". I am European. You are like 250 years late.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- EMM_386 5y ago
  You really need to shake this strong tie you have with the word "god" and human religion. Einstein believed in god. That's the lower-case "g" god. You wouldn't see him at church on Sunday, because he wasn't religious! You need to understand that core concept before you can have a discussion on this.
keithnz 5y ago
the universe could be considered to have achieved consciousness through humans (and possibly other life forms), but the only known consciousness is those lifeforms outside of those lifeforms there is no known trait of consciousness, its going to be a very transient trait of the universe as well, the universe will only have it for a blink of an eye.
lhorie 5y ago
> the universe is conscious, because our conscious minds are part of it Getting some GEB vibes here (Is the anthill conscious?) but I do think that characterization is a bit off. I tend to think of it from a different angle, considering philosophies about identity; namely, the laws of physics that make the universe tick outside of us are the same laws of physics that govern how we behave individually. There's undoubtedly some fuzzy boundary between what we consider "me" vs "not me", so it's not necessarily wrong to say that consciousness is a product of the universal laws and governed by them, while also simultaneously being something that isn't an inherent property of the entire universe. In other words, it seems weird to say the universe is conscious (similar to how it might seem like a stretch of imagination to be talking to an anthill), but it seems perfectly reasonable to say that the mechanisms that make universe what it is give rise to consciousness, individuality and relative perspectives, despite all of these things being governed by fundamentally absolute laws.
titzer 5y ago
> the universe is conscious, because our conscious minds are part of it. And it's learning about itself. Yes, thank you for stating what some might consider a tautology or frivolous fact, but is actually, utterly profound. Generally, people have no trouble believing that they, themselves are conscious. But what part of them is conscious? All of it? Their toes and fingers? Clearly not...they are mechanical, I/O devices with just nerves, no brains. Same for most of you: your organs, muscles, tissues, blood. Not conscious. But what about your brain? Is it all conscious? Is the tiny part of your brain devoted to audio processing conscious, with a little person who speaks English inside? Clearly not. There are lots of mechanical parts. Is there then some "special" part of your brain that is the consciousness, and the rest is not conscious? Or is just the sum of the brain's parts conscious? Either way, it doesn't matter, it's the same principle; we ascribe a property of a part of a person, consciousness, part of the brain, to the whole person--we regard a person's hand or face with the reverance we regard for their brain, their face thinks and their hands feel with the full power of their consciousness. So, too, the universe thinks with parts of itself, human and animal brains... Every time I ponder this I arrive at Gaia. How can we deny that nature is conscious when it is so full of conscious things! Look at all the wondrous brains around! In animals, in insects, and now we see plants sense and respond to stimuli. All these pieces are conscious, and we must conclude that the sum of the biosphere is a conscious thing. It is truly a superorganism, a pan-organism.
- tick_tock_tick 5y ago
  Every time someone brings up consciousness I like to bring up https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfYbgdo8e-8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfYbgdo8e-8. Split brains imply some very interesting ideas around of consciousness.
- wruza 5y ago
  Two thoughts. First, consciousness may exist by itself, e.g. is a book that describes itself in a complex enough way conscious? It wouldn’t even require the flow of time or a reader, but once you read it, it’s clearly self-aware. That’s a hard notion of consciousness. Second, the easy, down to earth answer to “what is conscious” (iow, where do “beings” end) is where a structured perception ends. Your hand is a part of you because of a broadband link to it. It ends at the skin and hair. Lack of signal and control separates you from everything else. Organized groups have much less bandwidth and while still “pan-“, that’s much lower level of consciousness. Sometimes they synchronize well enough, but that’s just a correlation.
glial 5y ago
> If you think about it, the universe is conscious, because our conscious minds are part of it. This is perhaps more similar to Spinoza's conception of god than you suspect.

seiferteric 5y ago

I don't believe in any particular god but I do think that the universe and our experience is ultimately unexplainable. So science can never have these answers therefore I am open to theistic arguments but ultimately even these arguments are unsatisfying because it just moves the level of unexplainability up one more level... who created god?

EMM_386 5y ago
> who created god That is why whatever that "thing" is, that's full-stop. That's why we refer to it as god. It requires no explanation, it must be. It's sort of like asking "why do we have something instead of nothing?". Because apparently that's the way it must be. That sounds crazy to scientifically-minded people, myself included, because we want answers to everything. But the turtles will go all the way down until you just decide that there is a "god", whatever that is, and it is necessary. And here we are.
- seiferteric 5y ago
  That's why I say it is unsatisfying and the universe is ultimately unexplainable because either there is this final "god" and we are incapable of understanding it or there is not and there is infinite levels and we are incapable of understanding it also.
  - torstenvl 5y ago
    Cf. apex (e.g., YHWH) versus non-apex (e.g., the Tao) conceptions of the numinous.
    - potatoman22 5y ago
      Could you elaborate?
- anthk 5y ago
  >Because apparently that's the way it must be. Bullshit, please. Prove it or GFTO with that nonsense. Science is found on evidence, not on "what if...s" . If you told me that an ARM Cortex A9 is faster than a current i7, and then you put the excuse of "God made it" argument over the table you would look like a lunatic. With the Universe origins is the same. Replace "God" with "Santa" and the argument gets equally ridiculous.
  - EMM_386 5y ago
    Had a little too much of human religion? Me too. I went through this same phase, at one point I declared myself an atheist, mostly because it was an easy way to give the middle finger to my Catholic childhood indoctrination. But then I decided to dig a little deeper, and there is more to it than thinking "god" is the same as "the Easter bunny". Good luck trying to figure out why something exists and not nothing (and we're not talking about quantum particles popping into existence in a vacuum, those are "things" ... that's not nothing).
    - anthk 5y ago
      Yeah, the universe is weird, still no god needed, because gods' existence is almost as weird as particles popping in and out. Also, not particles, but fields, actually.
      - EMM_386 5y ago
        > Also, not particles, but fields, actually. Why are there fields? It's turtles all the way down, and it fundamentally comes down to "why something rather than nothing"? Nothing has no potential to create anything because it's literally nothing. It can not have potential. So where do these crazy forces, fields, the quantum observer effect come from, out of nothing? We will never find an answer to that question because it is literally unanswerable.
        anthk 5y ago
        >We will never find an answer to that question because it is literally unanswerable. Then putting the "god" argument over the table seems either lazy or antropocentric. The correct answer (as from today), it's "we don't know". You don't need to put any god, "energy" or whatever myth you know over ignorance.
- aetherspawn 5y ago
  Who created God? Good question. I did some digging and found this article, that reasons using references from a Christian point of view: https://www.jw.org/en/library/magazines/wp20140801/who-made-god/ https://www.jw.org/en/library/magazines/wp20140801/who-made-... Is is clear in the Bible that God does not exist in physical form. In the heavens, according to the Bible, he does not even exist in the same form as angels. At one time, Jesus was described in his human form, as "a little lesser than angels". Just a little? I guess it doesn't make sense for Angels to be in God's same plane of existence, then. I think that 'time' is a part of this universe and that God is an observer that exists outside of it all. This makes sense, because of his ability to accurately tell the future in specific detail. But in the Bible, we see that Angels are restricted and bound by time. God is not. Probably God created time. Therefore to ask 'Who made God?' in his plane of existence, would require us to understand what existence is like without time. How do you feel about this?
  - seiferteric 5y ago
    I can imagine a block universe with time as just an axis. Then our universe can be just an object sitting on god’s table. But ultimately this still does not provide any answers.
    - aetherspawn 5y ago
      To get more answers (not necessarily 'any' though - I think you may have overgeneralized there), we would need to understand this mode of existence. I am thinking like this: what does existence look like without time? For example, a table is of no use to someone who has no timescale to do anything at that table. The word "created", is even more curious, as it has no meaning. Like a painting, in a plane like this, everything "just is". Immutable. Confusing to me. I'll admit, I'll never understand the full meaning of something that exists outside time. Perhaps this is why God would make a universe with time.
      - EMM_386 5y ago
        > Like a painting, in a plane like this, everything "just is". Immutable. Confusing to me. I'll admit, I'll never understand the full meaning of something that exists outside time. Correct, that's my initial comment said things are this way because it "has to be". Our minds can not grasp the concept of what being "outside time" even means. Again it fundamentally boils down to "why something rather than nothing". Clearly, it is because it "has to be". Because we have something, and that by definition can't come from nothing. Pondering about these thoughts of the whole concept of "has to be" admittedly has kept me up some nights.
- badinfo 5y ago
  > It requires no explanation, it must be. It's sort of like asking "why do we have something instead of nothing?". You can substitute "universe" for "god" and still get the same level of meaning (or lack thereof). Why do we have a universe instead of no universe? Sometimes the more accurate, if less precise, answer is simply "I don't know" rather than "therefore it must've always been and always will be".
missedthecue 5y ago
Assuming God is created would be to assume that God is bound by some kind of time. If God exists outside of time, his 'creation' is an irrelevant question. Beginnings can only exist if time is happening.

mynameisash 5y ago

> If you think about it, the universe is conscious, because our conscious minds are part of it This seems like quite a leap. Parts of the earth are conscious, so is the earth conscious? Parts of the universe are alive, so is the universe alive? Every member of my family is conscious*, but I wouldn't say that "my family" is conscious. *Solipsism notwithstanding

luckyandroid 5y ago
The universe is a system. We a part of that system. So any traits we have are inherently traits that the universe has, even if parts of it don't share it. A human has a hand, the hand is part of the human, but the rest of the human is not necessarily a hand.
- mynameisash 5y ago
  > The universe is a system. We a part of that system. So any traits we have are inherently traits that the universe has I don't know how you can substantiate this. I am left-handed. My wife is right-handed. These are attributes of us as individuals. What is the handedness of the city we live in? I would reject the question outright since I don't think that traits attributed to parts of a system necessarily can be attributed to the system itself.
- tgv 5y ago
  Syllogistic errors 101. Your ruthless logic tells us a (normal) human has one nail and five fingers, is made of keratin and is not conscious. Ergo, the universe has one nail and five fingers, is made of keratin and is not conscious. Only logical conclusion: God is a manicurist.
burkaman 5y ago
I've never heard this before but I think it's reasonable. Imagine if you were simulating the universe in a computer and a creature within your simulation achieved consciousness. I think it would be fair to say your simulation had achieved consciousness, even if 99.999...% of the processing power was spent simulating the rest of the universe "unrelated" to the conscious part.

eximius 5y ago

that would also make it violently and severely dissociative with the number of competing consciousnesses.

NikolaeVarius 5y ago

> If you think about it, the universe is conscious, because our conscious minds are part of it Hell of a leap. I subscribe to the notion the consciousness is a illusion via chemical whatever and the universe doesn't give a damn anyway.

garbagetime 5y ago
What does it mean for consciousness to be an illusion?
- NikolaeVarius 5y ago
  It means that consciousness nothing special/supernatural. There is no soul, there is nothing but chemical reactions that manage to create something that is able to claim "I think therefore I am" The illusion is the fact that we claim that we are able to "experience", but I think that its all just layers of GOTO reactions that create something that think its special. Much like how a program isn't considered conscious, but its very likely its because we haven't dug deeply enough into the layers of shit that is required to make a self-aware computer
  - huetius 5y ago
    You seem to have a lot of confidence in the truth of your own meaningless sequence of GOTO reactions.
- badinfo 5y ago
  We as a species may lack the mental faculties to truly understand the mechanisms by which life evolved the ability to analyze and reason about its surroundings and itself. We lack the scientific tools to properly differentiate or falsify "consciousness" from any other sufficiently complex phenomenon. We can't tell whether it's an emergent phenomenon arising out of a particular arrangement of energy and matter, or whether it requires some input that we cannot currently observe/measure, or something else entirely. We don't know whether we can create consciousness from its constituent parts, or if it even has constituent parts. We don't know if there's a finite supply of it in the universe, we don't know if it's a dimensional thing, we don't know how it interacts with other forces. We do know that it appears as though we have much more agency than a rock, yes, but it's a matter of degree how much more when we compare ourselves to other lifeforms, primates, dolphins, elephants, ravens... or other people. We don't know if certain members of our species are "more" or "less" conscious. We don't fully know what happens to consciousness during comas or brain death or dream states or sleep. It's just an ambiguous term that we apply to the "state of human information processing that we can't really explain". Substitute "ambiguous" for "illusion" if you prefer, but it could also very well be an illusion the same way centrifugal force is a pseudo-force, i.e. the measurement of consciousness depends on some reference frame that we don't know how to use yet. It's entirely possible that consciousness is NOT an illusion, that it is indeed a special "thing" in the universe, but we can't prove that with the science, language, philosophy, and possibly mental capacity that we currently have. Maybe one day we will. Maybe not. But it's premature to assume we understand anything about consciousness in the philosophical sense.

anthk 5y ago

>I am extremely scientific and I believe in god I am vegan and I eat steak on weekends.

oogabooga123 5y ago
Do you think that is a valid metaphor? > With the first sip of science one becomes an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you - some mediocre scientist probably nobody has heard of
- anthk 5y ago
  Fallace of authority.
  - throw3434053 5y ago
    It just means it's time to outgrow your reddit atheist phase, no great scientist has adhered to your surface level beliefs on god
    - anthk 5y ago
      "reddit atheism phase". I am European. You are like 250 years late.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
EMM_386 5y ago
You really need to shake this strong tie you have with the word "god" and human religion. Einstein believed in god. That's the lower-case "g" god. You wouldn't see him at church on Sunday, because he wasn't religious! You need to understand that core concept before you can have a discussion on this.

keithnz 5y ago

the universe could be considered to have achieved consciousness through humans (and possibly other life forms), but the only known consciousness is those lifeforms outside of those lifeforms there is no known trait of consciousness, its going to be a very transient trait of the universe as well, the universe will only have it for a blink of an eye.

lhorie 5y ago

> the universe is conscious, because our conscious minds are part of it Getting some GEB vibes here (Is the anthill conscious?) but I do think that characterization is a bit off. I tend to think of it from a different angle, considering philosophies about identity; namely, the laws of physics that make the universe tick outside of us are the same laws of physics that govern how we behave individually. There's undoubtedly some fuzzy boundary between what we consider "me" vs "not me", so it's not necessarily wrong to say that consciousness is a product of the universal laws and governed by them, while also simultaneously being something that isn't an inherent property of the entire universe. In other words, it seems weird to say the universe is conscious (similar to how it might seem like a stretch of imagination to be talking to an anthill), but it seems perfectly reasonable to say that the mechanisms that make universe what it is give rise to consciousness, individuality and relative perspectives, despite all of these things being governed by fundamentally absolute laws.

titzer 5y ago

> the universe is conscious, because our conscious minds are part of it. And it's learning about itself. Yes, thank you for stating what some might consider a tautology or frivolous fact, but is actually, utterly profound. Generally, people have no trouble believing that they, themselves are conscious. But what part of them is conscious? All of it? Their toes and fingers? Clearly not...they are mechanical, I/O devices with just nerves, no brains. Same for most of you: your organs, muscles, tissues, blood. Not conscious. But what about your brain? Is it all conscious? Is the tiny part of your brain devoted to audio processing conscious, with a little person who speaks English inside? Clearly not. There are lots of mechanical parts. Is there then some "special" part of your brain that is the consciousness, and the rest is not conscious? Or is just the sum of the brain's parts conscious? Either way, it doesn't matter, it's the same principle; we ascribe a property of a part of a person, consciousness, part of the brain, to the whole person--we regard a person's hand or face with the reverance we regard for their brain, their face thinks and their hands feel with the full power of their consciousness. So, too, the universe thinks with parts of itself, human and animal brains... Every time I ponder this I arrive at Gaia. How can we deny that nature is conscious when it is so full of conscious things! Look at all the wondrous brains around! In animals, in insects, and now we see plants sense and respond to stimuli. All these pieces are conscious, and we must conclude that the sum of the biosphere is a conscious thing. It is truly a superorganism, a pan-organism.

tick_tock_tick 5y ago
Every time someone brings up consciousness I like to bring up https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfYbgdo8e-8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfYbgdo8e-8. Split brains imply some very interesting ideas around of consciousness.
wruza 5y ago
Two thoughts. First, consciousness may exist by itself, e.g. is a book that describes itself in a complex enough way conscious? It wouldn’t even require the flow of time or a reader, but once you read it, it’s clearly self-aware. That’s a hard notion of consciousness. Second, the easy, down to earth answer to “what is conscious” (iow, where do “beings” end) is where a structured perception ends. Your hand is a part of you because of a broadband link to it. It ends at the skin and hair. Lack of signal and control separates you from everything else. Organized groups have much less bandwidth and while still “pan-“, that’s much lower level of consciousness. Sometimes they synchronize well enough, but that’s just a correlation.

glial 5y ago

> If you think about it, the universe is conscious, because our conscious minds are part of it. This is perhaps more similar to Spinoza's conception of god than you suspect.