Possibility of a Conscious Universe: Proving Life and Awareness

[quantumcarl]

Someone, please define "consciousness"!

Then define "intellegence".

Then define "memory".

In what way are these three terms/concepts interrelated?

We can say that any entity in existence is a form of information storage. A broken piece of obsidian holds inumerable bits of information. It only takes an observant life-form to interpret the information into data that may help said life-form to understand and survive its environment better.

A fire stores the information that has to do with heat, combustion, light, fuel, cooling, disintegration and a number of other chemical and electromagnetic interactions. Fire is representative of these and other stored bits of information.

The fuel for fire is another, large collection of information that lends itself to the fire and its exhibition of flame, heat, light and disintegration... etc...

One could see all these combinant and re-combinant bits of information and the dynamics of their interactions as a form of consciousness and as a form of communications between elements.

But... it can only be "concsiousness" when it is labeled as such by humans or some other highly evolved form of life which sports its own language and information storage/disemination system... as well as a concept of it own that it defines as "concsiousness".

One is not going to elicit a response from a flame that suggests it is conscious of your presence. Until it happens to latch onto your pant leg, perhaps.

 

[wuliheron]

Someone, please define "consciousness"!

I'd rather try to describe color to a blind man (LOL). Either you know you are conscious or you don't as far as I am concerned. :0)

 

[FZ+]

But how then do you classify someone else as conscious?

 

[wuliheron]

LOL, often I don't! I either assume they are conscious or wait to see if their behavior indicates they are or not. :0)

 

[nevagil]

conscious and free will

Some people are almost like plants and vegetables, that grow toward the sun but don't show much free will or decisions about future directions. Is a person conscious if they react in the same predictable way? Example, a person whose hormones push them to rage all the time, a plant grows toward the sun all the time. Hormones make some people more prone to certain reactions. A lot of us are stubborn, obsessive almost programmed to certain reactions.
We can't see things a rattlesnake can see, so maybe we seem unconscious at times to a snake. We don't react to something we don't notice but the snake sees the heat image in the dark and does react to it. We may seem unconscious in that regard to the snake.
Just watch a debate on TV and ask yourself if anyone changed their mind on that show after hearing the sides. It seems to me that everyone on those shows have the same opinion at the end of the show as they had at the beginning, it is like the democrats and the republicans at a debate, it is like the different religions at a debate, it is like I don't know, I think my brain cells ran out, bye for now.

 

[RuroumiKenshin]

you are contradicting yourself...

Mentat, I have repeatedly brought up the possibility that this could be a sub universe (as it corresponds with p-branes and the shadow universe), and this all evidently implies that there could be an "outside" of this universe. so...

It doesn't adapt to it's surroundings

what surroundings? We can't prove there are surroundings and vice versa. Even if there where surroundings, how are we going to come to the conlusion that the universe is adapting to its suroundings?

 

[RuroumiKenshin]

Originally posted by FZ+
But how then do you classify someone else as conscious?

If that being is aware of their surroundings and has a concept of time passing.

 

[RuroumiKenshin]

Someone, please define "consciousness"!

Awareness.

Then define "intellegence".

I guess you could say intellegence is the creation of new brain tissue/ branch-thingies (i can't quite remember what they were called...i know it...) on neurons.

Then define "memory".

Memory is yet to be defined acuratly. Anyhow, I guess it could be defined as a collection of past references.

 

[nevagil]

a memory

I forgot the definition of memory(someone had to say it)
Hmmm, dendrites & axions connecting stuff helps intelligence but hopefully the quality of a choice being made determines intelligence because that seems to be a better level of consciousness, so memory helps that too especially for those of us that learn the hard way (after sumthin bad happens instead of forseeing the possiblity).
If there is stuff outside this universe then maybe this universe is just a little cell-like part of a bigger system. Afterall there does seem to be a pattern of anything and everything is part of something bigger.

 

[RuroumiKenshin]

what do you mean by choice and intelligence?

 

[nevagil]

dendrites & axions

Maybe our rocketships and space shuttles and satellites are like the dendrites and axions that connect neurons. Rocketships and satellites may connect and conduct intelligence or actions to other parts of the universe, making the universe a bit like a big brain.

 

[RuroumiKenshin]

Yes, like a big brain with no central unit (purpose). I wouldn't say that the sattelites and stuff make the universelike a big brain, but rather the Earth like a big, disoriented brain.
What characteristics make something a brain? Does disorientation, or rather, division (like how the Earth is filled with divided perspectives) account to its definition?

 

[quantumcarl]

Originally posted by FZ+
But how then do you classify someone else as conscious?

That is the question... especially in philosophical sense.

In what capacity do I find myself that gives me the authority to determine whether or not someone or something is conscious or not?

As an self-directing opinion or calculation I can see the usefulness of such a determination. But to impose the opinion elsewhere would be precarious and no doubt the wrong thing to do.

I can summon the sentiment that rocks are concsious... they react to conditions (contracting in cold, expanding in heat, disintegrating or "evolving" into sand... offering support for life as soil... becoming life itself... etc...)

These interactions can appear as a form of communication between elements. The heat says "speed up rock electrons" and they do.

Not any different than how the sight of a beautiful woman will set into motion the endocrine system of a hetrosexual male.

The hetrosexual male gives the observer the impression that he is "aware" of the beautiful woman's presence. However... the observer has no understanding of what might be going on in the hetrosexual male's head. The male may not be aware of the woman. He may only be interested in her shoes. That may be all that set his hormones raging.

So, a reaction does not hold the key to determining awareness or consciousness. We see reactions everyday. In the wind, the sun, throughout the universe. Does this imply a universal consciousness?

I don't think so.

Consciousness is a form of communication.

It may only be an observation of a non-conscious state by a conscious state... but that is still a form of communication. In other words there has to be an INTERPRETATION made by the conscious entity and the entity makes a "concsious decision" with regard to its observation.

This "conscious decision" to observe a phenomenon results in an awareness of the phenomenon. This awareness may be correct in its understanding and may not be correct... but it is an awareness of the phenomenon.

This is when there is another conscious decision to investigate further into the details of the phenomenon and expand on the original awareness the observer gained in their first attempt.

This sort of inquiry and exploration creates a fuller understanding and a "higher form of consciousness" about any given phenomenon.

This sort of inquiry and exploration is what supports the growth of the universal brain... with each conscious individual involved in it acting as repositories of information or... neurons... all being a part of the universal neuronal network.

So far, the inhabitants of Earth seem to be sequestered to the cerebellum or brain stem... we may only be preforming autonomic functions with regard to the consciousness of the universe.

The really heady stuff might be going on further beyond us... in the outer "cortex" of this universe. Rarely do the neurons of that area need to communicate with the drone neurons of the brain stem or corpus colosum.

 

[Mentat]

Originally posted by Iacchus32
In other words you have been so "pre-programmed" by the educational system that you don't believe in "free will." What a despicable thing to do!

I never said that I didn't believe in free will. You should know by now, that I don't have to believe something, in order to argue for or against it. Besides, that's not the point. The point is that you really are stuck on the belief that there is free will, and that you are not open to any argument against that belief.

 

[FZ+]

LOL, often I don't! I either assume they are conscious or wait to see if their behavior indicates they are or not. :0)

This is part of my point. While we may say that consciousness, awareness etc are spiritual and immaterial ideas, in reality our internal definition of it, the one that we really use, is based solely on material resemblence and behaviour pattern matching.

Majinvegeta...

If that being is aware of their surroundings and has a concept of time passing.

How can you tell that? How do you know someone is aware of their surroundings, and has a concept of time passing?

carl:

Consciousness is a form of communication.

I don't think that is the right word for what you are talking about. But I'll let it pass...
Let's see, you classify consciousness as a sense of enquiry... kinda. Acknowledgement of external data. But then how can you apply this to the universe? (the subject of this thread) How can the universe enquire, when there is (supposedly) only itself?

 

[wuliheron]

This is part of my point. While we may say that consciousness, awareness etc are spiritual and immaterial ideas, in reality our internal definition of it, the one that we really use, is based solely on material resemblence and behaviour pattern matching.

Not just behavior matching, but intuition and just plain knowledge as well.

. Knowing

Without taking a step outdoors
You know the whole world;
Without taking a peep out the window
You know the color of the sky.
The more you abstract your experiences,
The less you know.
The sage wanders without unhappiness,
Sees without having to look,
Accomplishes without acting.

 

[Iacchus32]

Originally posted by Iacchus32
In other words you have been so "pre-programmed" by the educational system that you don't believe in "free will." What a despicable thing to do!

Originally posted by Mentat
I never said that I didn't believe in free will. You should know by now, that I don't have to believe something, in order to argue for or against it. Besides, that's not the point. The point is that you really are stuck on the belief that there is free will, and that you are not open to any argument against that belief.

What I believe and what I do with what believe, which is of "my will" (i.e., that which is done voluntarily and hence "freely") are integral, you can't have one without the other. This is what makes us human, as opposed to just machines, which don't have the "conscious ability" to choose.

And sometimes you see, we just have to vote "our conscience" (voting, which is again of "the will"), rather than follow the crowd.

This I think may be the problem with so many of you scientific types, you keep trying to take free will out of the equation, in order to keep your theories nice and neet and tidy. Too bad, it's not going to happen!

My God! ... I hope Big Brother didn't hear that!

 

[quantumcarl]

Originally posted by FZ+


carl:

I don't think that is the right word for what you are talking about. But I'll let it pass...
Let's see, you classify consciousness as a sense of enquiry... kinda. Acknowledgement of external data. But then how can you apply this to the universe? (the subject of this thread) How can the universe enquire, when there is (supposedly) only itself?

The universe has evolved life forms to do the enquiring.

It is analogous to this Earth developing life forms that have evolved to the point where they possesses an enquiring concsiousness. That life form is, for the moment, the human species. The Earth is developing a thin layer of collective consciousness via the life forms it supports.

We could say that the interactions and reactions seen throughout the universe are the sub-concsious of the universe. When this universal sub-concsious produces results like life forms with brains... the universe has developed the universe's concsiousness.

Yet, you suggest there is a spiritual or metaphyscial aspect to all of this and I maintain that it is ALL PHYSICS... ALL THE TIME!

 

[FZ+]

Damn you stole my philosophy. I am just pre-empting any lifegazer style arguments that consciousness cannot be described in spiritual forms...

But anyway... do you then imply that consciousness may simply be introspective? Like we can only enquire within the universe? How do you then know that rocks are not lost in self-contemplation? Seriously?

 

[M. Gaspar]

There are those who speculate...

...that everything -- EVERYTHING -- has at least a "kernal" of consciousness "in" it...including elementary particles, rocks, bugs, turkeys, humans, planets, stars and galaxies.

The more complex the "entity"...the more complex the "consciousness". Hence, the Universe which, by SOME definitions, is Everything That Is -- has the collective consciousness (not a new term, I grant you) of Everything That Is.

I speculate that, at the time of the "Big Bang" -- consciousness of the "former" Universe (actually, It's previous incarnation!) -- anyway, the collective conciousness of the singularity that burst forth, also spewed its consciousness apart.

And, just as matter accretes in the PHYSICAL Universe, consciousness accretes in the non-physical Universe, through forces similar to "gravity" but, of course, unnamed.

All this, by the way, would be a NATURAL PROCESS of the Universe in every of It's incarnations -- that physicality would accrete to provide a "stage" for consciousness to exert its will...and experience its results!

Emotions are a form of "currency" that I'm too tired to describe.

 

[Iacchus32]

Originally posted by M. Gaspar
Emotions are a form of "currency" that I'm too tired to describe.

Don't emotions belie "the experience" itself?

 

[nevagil]

Conscious pet rocks, nah

___________________________
Yet, you suggest there is a spiritual or metaphyscial aspect to all of this and I maintain that it is ALL PHYSICS... ALL THE TIME!
_______________________________________________

I really don't see the spiritual, metaphysical, or "physics all the time" beliefs with any confidence at all. The spiritual and metaphysical aspect can't be proved(please don't give me religion quotes).

And the "PHYSICS ALL THE TIME" aspect doesn't hold up for me, although I've only had one logic class and 1yr of physics. How can someone claim it is only physics when we have questions like "what is at the end of the universe?" It can't be answered logically. What is logical about an answer like "oh, it is expanding and contracting, or growing, etc". Because it still begs the question "whats pass the end, or what's at the end of whatever is outside it? Same illogical physics answers to when was the beginning?(It begs the question "what was befor that?")
If the universe is conscious does it know the answers to those question?
By the way, we have observed enough rocks to say they are not conscious. This ain't spiritual geology 101. If we can't agree on that, we will have trouble getting anywhere.
When a class called spiritual botany 101 evolves I think they'll say plants are not conscious also. Boy, would I be embarassed if a tree just falls on me now.

 

[Iacchus32]

Originally posted by nevagil
By the way, we have observed enough rocks to say they are not conscious. This ain't spiritual geology 101. If we can't agree on that, we will have trouble getting anywhere.

And yet there is an energy field (or pattern) which defines it as a rock. And let's say you had a dream about a rock? How do you know that what you're dreaming about is not somehow subconsciously connected (through its energy field) to an actual rock? In which case it might be reasonable to "assume" that rocks exist within the realm of the "collective unconscious." And, while they may not be cognizant as rocks, they still remain a part of "consciousness" as a whole.

Which brings up another question. How does one engery field react towards another, when say, two people get together and begin to socialize? If you could observe their energy fields without the physical mass, what would that entail? This is also the "very essence" by the way, which leaves the body almost immediately after death.

 

[M. Gaspar]

What seems to be missing here...

...is the "matter" is actually "bound-up ENERGY".

Thus, the Universe is ALL ENERY ALL THE TIME!

Chances are, CONSCIOUSNESS is ENERGY, TOO. Thus, the Universe may be "simply" ONE BIG VIBRATION! (And the Grand Unified Field might be the electromagnetic spectrum -- to include wavelengths undiscovered, or unmeasurable -- as yet.)

This would account for the "interconnectedness" that some of us like to believe in.

As to "eternity" and "infinity" ... let us just just thank Newton for his "conservation of energy" idea.

Perhaps, as I have speculated, the Universe is an "Eternal Entity of Energy" that's responsive to all of Its parts...enjoying INFINITE INCARNATIONS via the expansion/implosion model.

 

[pelastration]

Correct Gaspar,

the universe and matter is 'bound-up ENERGY'.

That way I said (on that other forum):
"God is often referred as behind the VOID.
Now the void itself can be seen as an unbreakable membrane.
That membrane can be folded by a special universal manifold in such as way that the membrane is still in EVERY subdivision.

It seems a paradox but I show this very simple manifold on my website: http://www.hollywood.org/cosmology. (16 pages)

Once you understand it you will know that we are all tuned ... and that we are linked to the original force (the VOID is in you!).)

So the big game: incarnations, incarnations, ... (restructered nothingness) with level shifts (mass -> energy -> mass, ...) and still interconnected

 

[quantumcarl]

Originally posted by FZ+
Damn you stole my philosophy. I am just pre-empting any lifegazer style arguments that consciousness cannot be described in spiritual forms...

But anyway... do you then imply that consciousness may simply be introspective? Like we can only enquire within the universe? How do you then know that rocks are not lost in self-contemplation? Seriously?

FZ+ dude... as far as I know... we don't know anything.

We are simply able to observe the universe... and observe our collection of observations. We have a long way to go before we know whether rocks, minerals, energy etc... are the culmination or the headwaters of evolution.

I reckon we must first learn the fine art of detachment... to understand better the function and state of all things.

When we can remove our "selves" from the picture... the picture is much more accessable and clearer.

In order to achieve this... detachment... it is required that we understand ourselves to the fullest degree... then let go. Then start on the next project. Like lichen... or algae... or binary systems... or analog intellect... these will be easy to understand after examining the physics of our own condition(s).

A good step in the direction of all of these proposals is in the direction of the nearest pub!

 

[Mentat]

Originally posted by MajinVegeta
Mentat, I have repeatedly brought up the possibility that this could be a sub universe (as it corresponds with p-branes and the shadow universe), and this all evidently implies that there could be an "outside" of this universe. so...

The word "sub-universe" really has no meaning. If you mean that there is space between the first coherent chunk of matter (the known universe) and the next, and that there are many of these, then I agree that it is possible. However, there cannot be more than one set of "everything".

what surroundings? We can't prove there are surroundings and vice versa. Even if there where surroundings, how are we going to come to the conlusion that the universe is adapting to its suroundings?

I said it wasn't adapting to it's surroundings. It doesn't have surroundings.

 

[RuroumiKenshin]

EXCELLENT question!

fz...

How can you tell that? How do you know someone is aware of their surroundings, and has a concept of time passing?

Well, you could of course use special eqipment to test the brain waves. on a lighter note: ask the person what time it is!(that's supposed to be funny..haha)
OR...
the first question we need to answer before answering your most commendable question is: at what point do we experience unconsciousness? the object of this question is to sort out the points of what the premises which our consciousness is based upon.
IOW, defining consciousness. what do you think? (i could really use some ideas here)

 

[nevagil]

unconscious time

Consciousness= awareness

When we sleep we ain't consciousness. That can be argued with word games but unless there is more to it than word games, why argue it?

IOW ? I new here, what's IOW?

 

[Mentat]

Originally posted by MajinVegeta
fz...



Well, you could of course use special eqipment to test the brain waves. on a lighter note: ask the person what time it is!(that's supposed to be funny..haha)
OR...
the first question we need to answer before answering your most commendable question is: at what point do we experience unconsciousness? the object of this question is to sort out the points of what the premises which our consciousness is based upon.
IOW, defining consciousness. what do you think? (i could really use some ideas here)

Well, actually you don't ever "experience unconsciousness". If you experience something, you do so consciously.