Search results

At the point after the Big Bang when matter "condensed out of" energy, might that in any way be thought of as a "phase transition"?

Because the "essence" of the ACT may "live on" in the memory of the Universe ...It's "network of memories" being that which comprise the "spiritual domain". Thus, the essence of the act -- the EXPERIENCE of the act by the Universe -- transcends the transient suffering of the "physical system"...

Goodness is its own reward. Cause & Effect. Thanks.

Right. But a Being with "wisdom" would only "recommend" that we "apply" It's Wisdom. I might go back later to see if it's worth it to respond ...but lost antecedents generally get passed over ...which might be a shame if there is something "important" ...if ANY of this "important". You see...

Wrong again. It is NOT whether "It" (God or the Universe) "believed that this was appropriate." It is something I decide based on what I CREATED as a way of DEMONSTRATING my profound appreciation of my Source. It is I who have decided to HONOUR "IT". "It" hasn't ORDAINED that I...

That is correct: something is missing. And I am proposing what it is: that the basic sensing and responding to information within and among all PHYSICAL SYSTEMS give rise to consciousness based on complexity of detection systems, storage and response. This is how physicality gives rise to...

I don't know what this means? Is it that the energy available and the work being done cancel each other out? Whatever the case -- and by whatever manner of computation yeilds a "net energy of zero" -- I know you can't be implying that there is "no energy" in the Universe. Too much going on...

And "how" the Universe may actually "be" is "an Eternal Entity of Energy that's Experiencing Itself Evolving. The "mechanics" that may be "generating consciousness" is the "Information Exchange System(s)". When "storage" reaches a critical level, a "higher level" of understanding one's...

But this is only because "we" say so. If we allowed for consciousness to be fundamental to the Universe as a product of the intrinsic sense and response mechanism of the System ...then it WOULD be "sufficient". And then we would understand that "consciousness" is a matter of "degrees" based...

Please help me tease out the distinctions between what is meant by "being conscious." In fact, let us turn to AHD (American Heritage Dictionary): Conscious: Adj. 1. a. having an awarenes of one's own existence, sensation and thoughts and of one's environment ...as in "injured by conscious"...

Thanks. Why? I think it's a GREAT idea. Remember: there are "degrees of consciousness" ...even within a single system. A system as a whole might be "aware" of certain incoming -- or stored -- information ...but not of others at any given time. There is a distinction between the word...

You have asked excellent questions and I thank you for them. Let me see if I can run them through my paradigm: What would be the "contents of consciousness"? Possibly all that an entity "remembers". Our brains, for instance, are "set up" to "store" a LOT of information (units -- or...

Is consciousness "indicative" of a certain property that is intrinsic to all "matter" ...that is, the Exchange of Information? Info Exchange -- DETECTION / RESPONSE -- may be the "cause" ...and consciousness the "effect". And are the "equivalent"? Well, sort of ...in that they each...

Sorry, Hypnagogue, but I must reply to Dark Wing here: Of COURSE energy and matter "change their behavior patterns" based on information they receive/perceive from each other. Does not the electron shift it's orbit based on something it's detecting? Do not elementary particles "stick...

Today is Feb. 5. Page 14 was Feb. 2. I don't think we're talking ancient history here. And even if it WERE, let us not pretend that the discussion on these threads is linear in any way. What I was doing was addressing the POVs of participants vis a vis a reductive explanation of...

Is this not what I have been doing by explaining the phenomenon of consciousness as being due to the combination of some other set of phenomena ...namely, the DETECTION and RESPONSE TO "information". Consciousness is indeed a phenomenon -- a PROCESS -- that I propose goes on at every level...

LOL, Royce, tho I'm sure you know that a "red object" can appear gray or black under the sea. Is this the "fault" of the observer? Or is the data that's getting through -- i.e., a DIFFERENT wavelength -- being INTERPRETTED as something other than red? Also, other creatures do not "see" the...

Again: all systems are conscious in MY paradigm. The "problem" with "describing attributes" are that we (human beings) tend to equate everything with US! If it mothers it's young and steals a banana, it's conscious. If it scampers away from us (like a coackroach when it SEES us!) it's...

Now THIS I do not understand. How is what I've been saying the "antithese of a reductive explanation"? Do I not understand the word "reductive" has meaning to "reduce down" to is barest essentials. Please advise. You're reminding me of the story of the guy who lost his keys at night, and...

Yes and no: it "makes sense" but doesn't "help". I agree that the "myriad of phenomena" we have come to identify as "consciousness" may be something else. However, it is just as likely that there is a myriad of phenomena (like the detection of the physical forces ...or possibily "thought"...

You my SAY that "we can never argue (the) necessity of biology for consciousness" ...but there are many -- maybe most -- who do just that. I say "consciousness" is NOT dependent on biology, but that biological organisms HAVE developed the capacity to "sense" more "stimuli" than, say, a rock...

In the final analysis, the brain could "merely" be an organic device designed through evolution to detect a wide variety of signals, and to interpret them, store them and respond to them. The fact that we have developed instumentation to further gather data (signals) gives us a "consciousness"...

What are you talking about? It happens all the time here on the threads. :wink: Oh, you said "meaningful" didn't you ...in which case, I agree. What terms would you like to define? Am printing it out at this very moment (12 pages; you owe me a cartrige). Will return with my take on his...

Done! ...both page 13 and a proposal of how "materialism can explain consciousness in principle." No time to read -- let alone respond to -- the next 4 pages ...which is why I am not CONSCIOUS of their content ...yet.

I say yes. And of course you know that there are creatures that can sense wavelengths that we cannot, in addition to magnetic and ionic field, chemicals and other "mediators of information". Nor can we "sense" -- from our vantage point -- the "weak and strong forces" that elementary particles...

Would not ANY entity subject to CAUSE & EFFECT be having an "experience"? It's simply a matter of complexity of both the detection apparatus and the responsive possibilities of whatever. And if I make it off page 13, I'll consider this hour well spent.

I've decided to go back... if NOT to the "beginning of time" ...then at least to page 13 of this thread ...and to devote the next hour to catching up with as many posts as have caught my eye. Let me first see if I get the term "contemporary materialistic ontology" as meaning how "we" (i.e...

With all due respect, I'm pretty sure that Royce knows that "red" is just the "name" we have given our PERCEPTION of a wavelength, and that it is the wavelength -- and not its designation -- that is INTRINSIC to the Universe. Perhaps he has just chosen to call it a "dog" rather than spell out...

Yes, the wavelength is perceived in the mind by virtue of certain sensory apparatus (the eyes which are extensions of the brain)which are sensitive to certain wavelengths (and "blind" to others). The wavelength, however, is NOT dependent on it being PERCEIVED. Are you and I in agreement on...

Of course, perhaps the System Itself was NOT "designed" by a Great Outsider, but is Itself an eternal conscious Entity within Whom the Natural Processes includes Uncertainty. Or not a choice: integral. OTOH, if the Universe -- having blown It's own consciousness apart -- then spent quite...

In my belief system, the Universe Itself is a living, conscious Entity that -- with each Big Bang -- starts a new incarnation. At the time of the Big Bang, Everything "blows apart" ...then spends the next 30-or-so billion years coming together again. In the interim, It is having an...

And, for the record, we agree on this. Well said ...except for your "conclusion" about seeing how much "they had learned" after you grew up. Intentions aside, they were DEAD WRONG about "God" ...and REMAIN SO! Nonetheless, you have given me hope that one young mind will make it through.

IMO, there is NO part of the Universe that does not partake of the information exchange. Try to name something that exists that doesn't detect and respond to something. Not exactly. It MAY "send information" or it may "simply" just RESPOND. Of course, "sending information" would BE a...

Yes, it IS "consistent" because existence and perception are neither mutually exclusive nor mutually dependent. That are "simply" part of a "process" that comprises the "dynamics" of the Universe. In my opinion, things exist whether they are detected by one thing or another ...or not...

I have proposed elsewhere -- and am now proposing here -- that ANY "exchange of information" constitutes "awareness" ...from simple to complex. IOW, an electron is at least "aware" of the positive charge of the proton, and RESPONDS to with regard to its spatial relationship to same. Likewise...

Is there anything in the physical Universe that doesn't receive and respond to something? Elementary particles receive and respond to the weak and strong forces. Larger systems "sense" and respond via gravity to each other's masses. Perhaps we are being too narrow when we define consciousness...

And THAT's the "problem" with the paradigm that has "God" as "omnicient". Instead, might not the Universe Itself be an evolving Entity that DOESN'T KNOW what's going to happen next. What, in fact, would be the POINT -- or even ENJOYMENT -- of a highly intelligent Being knowing everything in...

...to PM please.

I cannot agree that "rules" are the same as "wisdom". The former leaves no room for personal judgement while the latter INFORMS one's judgement. Again, the "rules" that one accumulates through observation is actually "wisdom" which one reserves the right -- and the judgement -- to apply...

And yet some spiritual philosophies (religions) pretend to have The Answer(s) and attempt -- and often succeed -- in imposing these "answers" on certain "followers". My point exactly. I think that if there is a "God" and that God "writes a Book" ...it would be a book of "wisdom" ...not...

Per AHD (American Heritage Dictionary)... Emptiness: Holding or containing nothing; vacant; meaningless, devoid, lacking force or power. Nothing: no thing; not anything; insignificance; obscurity; absence of anything perceptable; someone or something of no consequence. So let's dissect...

Antonio Lao: I very much appreciate your response. Please note that the central thrust of my query was whether the eventual cooling of the Universe -- and not the even dispersal of energy which would be entropy -- caused by the accellerating expansion would, at some point, cause/allow more...

Ranyart: Was the primal singularity that gave rise to the Universe at the moment of the Big Bang mass or energy? Or both? Would there (of course) be the same quantity of mass and/or energy in what is actually the ONLY "closed system" in existence? If it was mass, what provided the...

I dispute it. So say. Yes, another philosophy that has gotten a few things wrong ...IM"H"O. Although -- in the "physical domain" at both the QM and GR "levels" -- things APPEARS TO BE "empty space" ...we now "know" (always belongs in quote) that "vacuums" are actually SEETHING with...

Please say what "force" predestines an event.

My apologies ..although, technically, I was being "pi**y" (rhymes with "missy") ...my preferred conversational style. It's a bit like Touret's Syndrome, except harder to control. Mostly, I'm playing. I'm sure you know that there have been MANY cases in science where definitions that were...

"What it is like to be..." ...a frog, a man, an electron? Here's how I would define information within the context of what I have proposed: Input -- of whatever quality -- from a source other than self that causes a change -- however minute -- in the self. What might "epiphenomenal"...

What do YOU find "implausible" about defining consciouness -- at its very minimum (thereby irreducible) -- as an "exchange of information" ...esp. an "exchange" that CAUSES an EFFECT in a Cause & Effect Universe? Are string theorists microphenomalists? And is "microphenomalist" a...

Mentat: Sometimes it sheds light on the "general" to examine a "specific". Please give an example of a "rule" that one might consider not obeying ...or that one may be being TOLD that one is not obeying. ___________________________________________________________________ Also, let me...

What "necessities"? We can't "hurt the Universe" no matter WHAT we do! Size doesn't matter. The Universe has "taken the trouble" -- or, "the path of least resistance"?? -- to give rise to highly conscious beings capable of thinking about It. We might not be "Everything" but we ARE...