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To turn this on it's head, maybe the problem is assuming that everything else in the universe is without consciousness aside from certain classes of matter orga

To turn this on it's head, maybe the problem is assuming that everything else in the universe is without consciousness aside from certain classes of matter organized in a particular configuration of a brain. If we instead assume that consciousness is an intrinsic property of all matter and space, then the problem goes away. Or to state it another way, either everything is conscious or nothing is.

jerf 5y ago
It doesn't do a darned thing to the problem. It just moves it around; the question becomes "If the entire universe is 'conscious', for whatever your definition is, why are some configurations of matter more able to express it and others less?" How can we build an identifier that says what will be more expressive and less by inputting the configuration? How can we engineer configurations of matter that are more expressive rather than less? It is clearly obviously that configurations of matter are not just additive, that is, every 3 pounds of matter is the exact same type of conscious as any other 3 pounds of matter, so what's the difference, exactly? Which happens to be the exact same problem. This problem doesn't go away with any amount of changing definitions. Shifting the mystery under the rug where you can't see it doesn't mean the mystery has gone away, nor that everyone else is going to be fooled. Some of still see the lump under the rug you just created.
- dougmwne 5y ago
  To me, all those questions are much closer to creating a testable hypothesis than trying to ask how to go from 0 to 1, from the inert to the conscious. "Consciousness expression" sounds like something you could develop a measurement of based on an observable behavior. I'm not sweeping the problem under the rug, rather presenting a scenario in which trying to discover the origin of consciousness is like trying to discover the origin of energy.

jerf 5y ago

It doesn't do a darned thing to the problem. It just moves it around; the question becomes "If the entire universe is 'conscious', for whatever your definition is, why are some configurations of matter more able to express it and others less?" How can we build an identifier that says what will be more expressive and less by inputting the configuration? How can we engineer configurations of matter that are more expressive rather than less? It is clearly obviously that configurations of matter are not just additive, that is, every 3 pounds of matter is the exact same type of conscious as any other 3 pounds of matter, so what's the difference, exactly? Which happens to be the exact same problem. This problem doesn't go away with any amount of changing definitions. Shifting the mystery under the rug where you can't see it doesn't mean the mystery has gone away, nor that everyone else is going to be fooled. Some of still see the lump under the rug you just created.

dougmwne 5y ago
To me, all those questions are much closer to creating a testable hypothesis than trying to ask how to go from 0 to 1, from the inert to the conscious. "Consciousness expression" sounds like something you could develop a measurement of based on an observable behavior. I'm not sweeping the problem under the rug, rather presenting a scenario in which trying to discover the origin of consciousness is like trying to discover the origin of energy.