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The philosophical name for this concept is panpsychism. Personally, I’m a panentropist (my own creation) - I hold that the spectrum of life/consciousness varie

The philosophical name for this concept is panpsychism. Personally, I’m a panentropist (my own creation) - I hold that the spectrum of life/consciousness varies depending on the level of entropy. So a flame has a higher level of consciousness than a piece of paper and oxygen molecules. But when you combine them they increase their level. It’s weird but it might be correct - doesn’t address issues of the hard problem of consciousness however

FredPret 5y ago
That’s pretty interesting. The more possible states a system has, the more room for consciousness. The ultimate organism is then either civilization itself, or the whole universe, depending on how you want to draw the line.
- FabHK 5y ago
  > The more possible states a system has, the more room for consciousness That is one of the postulates of Integrated Information Theory, which aims to give an account of how consciousness can arise from physical substrates. (The idea seems closely related to the concept of entropy.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_information_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_information_theory
The_rationalist 5y ago
A living being is a machine designed to reduce entropy, the opposite of your hypothesis
- angst_ridden 5y ago
  A living being is a machine designed to reduce localized entropy. In decreases internal entropy while creating greater external entropy.
  - bufbupa 5y ago
    That still doesn't rectify the conflict. The living being is reducing local entropy -- meaning it's less conscious than if it maximized local entropy per gp comment. Or put in real terms, lighting yourself on fire likely does not make you more alive/conscious even though it definitely increases your entropy. If anything, it seems like the reversal of entropy would be a better description of life. To make paper and oxygen from fire would have higher consciousness than a fire itself
- dekken_ 5y ago
  We are the universes own entropy minimization function. And are the product of a local equilibrium.

FredPret 5y ago

That’s pretty interesting. The more possible states a system has, the more room for consciousness. The ultimate organism is then either civilization itself, or the whole universe, depending on how you want to draw the line.

FabHK 5y ago
> The more possible states a system has, the more room for consciousness That is one of the postulates of Integrated Information Theory, which aims to give an account of how consciousness can arise from physical substrates. (The idea seems closely related to the concept of entropy.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_information_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_information_theory

The_rationalist 5y ago

A living being is a machine designed to reduce entropy, the opposite of your hypothesis

angst_ridden 5y ago
A living being is a machine designed to reduce localized entropy. In decreases internal entropy while creating greater external entropy.
- bufbupa 5y ago
  That still doesn't rectify the conflict. The living being is reducing local entropy -- meaning it's less conscious than if it maximized local entropy per gp comment. Or put in real terms, lighting yourself on fire likely does not make you more alive/conscious even though it definitely increases your entropy. If anything, it seems like the reversal of entropy would be a better description of life. To make paper and oxygen from fire would have higher consciousness than a fire itself
dekken_ 5y ago
We are the universes own entropy minimization function. And are the product of a local equilibrium.