Some scientists believe the universe is conscious

[ajay0]

Informative article on scientists theorizing and attempting to show that the universe has consciousness.

Some Scientists Believe the Universe Is Conscious

Sounds like a bad trip ... but what if it's true?

www.popularmechanics.com

Scientists simply don’t have one unified theory of what consciousness is. We also don’t know where it comes from, or what it’s made of.

However, one loophole of this knowledge gap is that we can’t exhaustively say other organisms, and even inanimate objects, don’t have consciousness. Humans relate to animals and can imagine, say, dogs and cats have some amount of consciousness because we see their facial expressions and how they appear to make decisions. But just because we don’t “relate to” rocks, the ocean, or the night sky, that isn’t the same as proving those things don’t have consciousness.

This is where a philosophical stance called panpsychism comes into play, writes All About Space’s David Crookes:

“This claims consciousness is inherent in even the tiniest pieces of matter — an idea that suggests the fundamental building blocks of reality have conscious experience. Crucially, it implies consciousness could be found throughout the universe.”

It’s also where physics enters the picture. Some scientists have posited that the thing we think of as consciousness is made of micro-scale quantum physics events and other “spooky actions at a distance,” somehow fluttering inside our brains and generating conscious thoughts.

 

[PureX]

Many life forms are conscious. All of them are part of the universe and there may be many, many more bits of individual consciousness out there. So we know that the universe is a conscious phenomenon, already. How all these bits of consciousness are related, or interact, we do not know.

 

[Eddi]

Of course the universe is conscious

We are parts of the universe and we are conscious

 

[RestlessSoul]

 

[RestlessSoul]

Science has tried and, so far, failed to identify how and why physical phenomena, such as electro-chemical activity in the human brain, give rise to the qualitative experience of consciousness. A different approach being developed by scientists such as neurologist Guilio Tononi Giulio Tononi - Wikipedia is to begin with consciousness as a given, and examine the relationship between mind and it's physical correlates from the inside out, as it were.

 

[Audie]

Science has tried and, so far, failed to identify how and why physical phenomena, such as electro-chemical activity in the human brain, give rise to the qualitative experience of consciousness. A different approach being developed by scientists such as neurologist Guilio Tononi Giulio Tononi - Wikipedia is to begin with consciousness as a given, and examine the relationship between mind and it's physical correlates from the inside out, as it were.

Well! That’s quite a failure!

Nobody can say the how and why of something that cannot be identified or defined.

 

[Audie]

Informative article on scientists theorizing and attempting to show that the universe has consciousness.

Some Scientists Believe the Universe Is Conscious

Sounds like a bad trip ... but what if it's true?

www.popularmechanics.com

kinda blurry.
who are these scientists?

 

[RestlessSoul]

Well! That’s quite a failure!

Nobody can say the how and why of something that cannot be identified or defined.

It ought not be that difficult to agree a definition of consciousness; something to do with awareness, I’d have thought. The difficulty for the natural sciences is that awareness isn’t a physical entity which can be examined objectively. Indeed, all of conscious experience is necessarily subjective, and we each have direct, empirical access only to our own. I cannot see what’s in your mind nor view the world through your eyes, however effectively you may communicate your experiences in words or other media. So we’re left with trying to evaluate a phenomenon without material substance.

 

[Audie]

It ought not be that difficult to agree a definition of consciousness; something to do with awareness, I’d have thought. The difficulty for the natural sciences is that awareness isn’t a physical entity which can be examined objectively. Indeed, all of conscious experience is necessarily subjective, and we each have direct, empirical access only to our own. I cannot see what’s in your mind nor view the world through your eyes, however effectively you may communicate your experiences in words or other media. So we’re left with trying to evaluate a phenomenon without material substance.

The problem with defining life is equally elusive and imo for the same reason,
one quite different from what you assume it to be.

 

[Wandering Monk]

So where on the continuum of evolution did consciousness arise?

 

[Audie]

So where on the continuum of evolution did consciousness arise?

It would help,if you could say what it is that srose.

protozoans react to stimuli

More complex organisms have more complex reactions

 

[Balthazzar]

So where on the continuum of evolution did consciousness arise?

Good question. It might be a no less worthy inquiry to ask if it never existed at all. I think we've presumed that it rose up or developed, having a specific point of origin. This is presumed. What if never didn't exist and the expression of mind is a manifestation as what we perceive to be matter through our own ability to experience the substance of all life as conscious beings?

 

[Quintessence]

It's not a new idea - it's prevalent in many of the world's religions, notably any that has retained its animistic orientation. Personally, I don't use the word "consciousness" to describe it because I just strongly dislike that term but all matter and energy has to have some sort of awareness to be able to interact and do what it does in the first place. The oxygen has to somehow be able to sense or be aware of the hydrogen to bond into dihydrogen monoxide (water). Things with no awareness of each other cannot interact. Anything with an interaction has a relationship and a bond, not necessarily in the chemical or technical sense.

 

[shunyadragon]

Informative article on scientists theorizing and attempting to show that the universe has consciousness.

Some Scientists Believe the Universe Is Conscious

Sounds like a bad trip ... but what if it's true?

www.popularmechanics.com

I am always skeptical of such "Yellow Journalism" making an appeal of validity as support from "Some scientists" without any objectively verifiable evidence. The evidence we presently have describes a universe and physical existence formed naturally based on Natural Laws and processes.

The conjecture of 'Consciousness' is similar to the conjecture that our physical existence is a computer program. It describes an unknown beyond what is known possibly relying on 'unanswered questions' to offer improbably answers of the unknown. The man behind the curtain in the Wizard of OZ.

Popular Mechanics is an unreliable source unless you are trying to build a space ship in your backyard.

 

[Jimmy]

I believe there’s only one universe. Infinite in size. It is my god and it is living.

 

[Wandering Monk]

This isn't even a valid hypothesis as it is not based on observation of any sort.

 

[RestlessSoul]

This isn't even a valid hypothesis as it is not based on observation of any sort.

It's based on observation of consciousness itself. And in the case of Integrated Information Theory Integrated information theory - Wikipedia , supported by mathematical modelling and experimentation on wakeful, sleeping, anaesthetised and comatose individuals.

 

[Brickjectivity]

Informative article on scientists theorizing and attempting to show that the universe has consciousness.

Some Scientists Believe the Universe Is Conscious

Sounds like a bad trip ... but what if it's true?

www.popularmechanics.com

Science should ask the question "Is the universe conscious?" if and only if it has observed some cosmic activity which might suggest cognition. The universe doesn't appear to know things. Its a philosophical idea only not a scientific one.

 

[shunyadragon]

It's based on observation of consciousness itself.

I disagree. There was no observed consciousness as we define consciousness in terms of life on earth. The article presented did not offer any specific evidence of consciousness. You need to be specific as far as what is the evidence. It is based on a vague comparison of the structure of the brain and the universe based panpsychism. Neglecting the fact that all of nature can be compared as having similar patterns based on Natural Laws and processes and there are no observed behaviors in the universe such as decision making processes beyond what is explained by natural processes. It is a philosophical proposal not a scientific theory or hypothesis that may be falsified.

And in the case of Integrated Information Theory Integrated information theory - Wikipedia , supported by mathematical modelling and experimentation on wakeful, sleeping, anaesthetised and comatose individuals.

Incomprehensible circular reasoning..

 

[shunyadragon]

Science has tried and, so far, failed to identify how and why physical phenomena, such as electro-chemical activity in the human brain, give rise to the qualitative experience of consciousness. A different approach being developed by scientists such as neurologist Guilio Tononi Giulio Tononi - Wikipedia is to begin with consciousness as a given, and examine the relationship between mind and it's physical correlates from the inside out, as it were.

This represents a vague unexplainable 'arguing from ignorance' as to what you think science can and cannot explain. It is a philosophical belief that begins with the assumption that "consciousness as a given" which is not a sufficiently scientific skeptical approach to a theory and hypothesis which is questioned until potentially falsified,

The bold above does not represent the current scientific understanding of consciousness of the complex nervous system of higher animals.