Some scientists believe the universe is conscious

[RestlessSoul]

I wonder: often people whose brains have been severely damaged will exhibit a change in personality. I saw this even after my dad had a minor stroke. This would seem to indicate that how we interact with the world and how we perceive it are entirely physical phenomena that can be explained without invoking spiritual or supernatural elements.

No, it wouldn’t indicate any such thing. It would indicate that consciousness in humans is dependent on a neural network, as galaxies are dependent on gravity, and living things are dependent on sunlight.

This does not indicate that they are one and the same. Nobody, as far as I am aware, is denying the correlation between consciousness and the central nervous system of conscious beings.

 

[ajay0]

There is absolutely no evidence of a phenomenon without material substance except in your imagination.

Nobel prize winning scientists like Max Planck and Erwin Schrodinger associated with quantum physics had however stated the opposite.

“I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.” ~ Max Planck

“Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else.” ~ Erwin Schrödinger

What is apparently so at the surface level need not be necessarily true always.

The sun, moon, planets, and stars appear to rise in the east and set in the west because the Earth rotates on its axis from west to east, completing one full turn every 24 hours. These celestial objects appear to move fast , but it is the earth that is actually moving that fast.

So I would say it is not correct to set definite conclusions on anything till we get data related to the holistic or bigger picture as well.

 

[Audie]

S

My imagination is a phenomenon without material substance. So is yours. Your definition of consciousness, on the other hand, is absolutely without substance. The brain is not the mind, correlates notwithstanding; the former is an organ of the body which can be weighed, measured, and examined objectively, the latter is an altogether subjective phenomenon.

Physicalism has it’s limits, and reducing consciousness to electro chemical activity in the brain, is akin to reducing a work by Caravaggio to pigments on canvas; you can do it, but not without losing the qualitative experience of standing before a masterpiece and wondering.

So you say, but all is assertion lacking
in substance. ”Absolutely” ‘ as some might say.

Aside from the Lillie’s of the field, one might regard the
majority of the universe, the black matter and energy.

And regular old energy, “ lacking in substance”
but neither it nor the dark matter alluded to is insubstantial,
non physical in your woo woo sense.

Radio waves are lacking in substance? But the radio
turns it to sound, ears to vibrating bones, the electrical,
impulses that your brain perceives as music.

Nothing physical going on, tho.

 

[RestlessSoul]

S

So you say, but all is assertion lacking
in substance. ”Absolutely” ‘ as some might say.

Aside from the Lillie’s of the field, one might regard the
majority of the universe, the black matter and energy.

And regular old energy, “ lacking in substance”
but neither it nor the dark matter alluded to is insubstantial,
non physical in your woo woo sense.

Radio waves are lacking in substance? But the radio
turns it to sound, ears to vibrating bones, the electrical,
impulses that your brain perceives as music.

Nothing physical going on, tho.

The examples you offer are all, at least in principle (no dark matter particle has yet been observed) observable physical phenomena. We cannot say the same of consciousness, which can only be observed subjectively, by itself, from within.

 

[Yerda]

I'm not aware of any theory that posits a conscious universe. I can't see anything in the article either that supports the idea. Cosmopsychism is the position that the universe as a whole has some kind of metal properties, like consciousness.

IIT is an interesting idea but it isn't really off the ground yet and as far as I can tell doesn't have to assume panpsychism. Just that there is a lot more experiental phenomena in the world than we would normally assume.

Donald Hoffmann and Chetan Prakash have a theory that could maybe be "interpreted" in a universal consciousness framing (see Donald D. Hoffman | University of California, Irvine for info if interested). But then you would have to accept that absolutely everything is an illusion and all that exists are abstract mathematical objects they call "conscious agents". By everything I mean the entire physical universe including our bodies.

They do produce some evidence in support the illusory nature of our experience - monte carlo simulations that they claim show that any phenotype optimised to see objective truth would be driven to extinction by a phenotype that is optimised only towards fitness payoffs. They use the maths of evolutionary games theory to create the simulations so I expect that they aren't completely groundless. But that runs us into another problem; if the world is an illusion then evolutionary games theory can't be reliable and then can't be used to support the idea that the world is an illusion.

It is not difficult to define consciousness at at all; It is far more than simply awareness.

You can define it in many ways but the fundamental feature of consciousness is subjective experience. So not really far more than simple awareness.

 

[wellwisher]

It is not difficult to define consciousness at at all; It is far more than simply awareness. It is the interaction of the brain and the body, between others and the surrounding environment. This has been adequately explained by science despite unanswered question.

There is absolutely no evidence of a phenomenon without material substance except in your imagination

Computers have hardware and software. Computer developers, with the goal of conscious computers, do not see that goal as ever being done with just hardware, alone, like the current science model of consciousness. It will be more about advancements in software. AI is about advancements in software. The hardware advancement is needed more to run the more complex software. The question becomes, what is the software of the brain, that makes use of the brain's hardware, and also underlies the brain's operating system, that then gives expression to consciousness? We become like mini conscious computers, able to alter our coding; will and choice.

The value of hardware and software is that instead of having different gearing for each activity; automaton, we can recycle the hardware and by replacing the software, we do many different tasks, with software updates also able to make the hardware go further. I remember one software update on my Hyundai Sonata. It repurposed sensors to better monitor a different action of the engine. Software adds flexibility.

Software is not exactly material, anymore than human language is material in nature. Human language is subjective, in the sense that there is no natural cause and effect between the sounds of words and the actions and things in nature. I never heard a cat, say cat, so why choose that sound? Words are detached from material reality, other than by social conventions; game of make believe. There are 5000-7000 modern languages to show just how subjective languages noises are. What is the substance of the word "consciousness" ? We can say it, yet nobody can exhaustively define it, yet everyone is an expert. It is not material, or even about tangible reality, at this junction in time. It is sort of in the imagination. That is how coding is; subjective in the sense of more than one coding language.

Memory becomes active and conscious, after neurons fire, but not while neurons rest. A computer hard drive's, material and data, is quiet and passive, until acted upon by the CPU. Then it becomes active and useful. Consciousness is more of a dynamic phenomena, than a static material effect. I do not extrapolate this source and action dynamics to mean ghosts and spirits, in the machine. However, these descriptive words are closer to the idea of software than to hardware. Or the relationship of a CPU, to a hard drive. This can be inferred through self observation.

If we black box the brain, as is common to the life sciences, all you see is input and output from the matter. But you cannot see the software coding that is driving the processes. One may be able to reverse engineer, a rendition of computer software logic, but this is where science breaks down, since man made code is not natural brain code that evolve via natural laws. If you use the typical life science black box you will forever remain clueless assuming consciousness is based on analog hardware gear model, in an old fashion clock or automaton.

Consciousness, by being more like software, can also view this software from the inside, to see some extra data, that does not make it to the surface of the black box.

Consider the common human subroutine called falling in love. It creates a strong physical infatuation that borders on detachment from reality, since the beloved can become more than he/she appears; the most beautiful person one ever met. People on the outside may not get it based on the output, alone, and the actors involved. They cannot see the best part. It has a duration; time projection, that can go on for years and based on the level of divorce, it shuts off, abruptly, allowing reality to be seen, again. This is like a primal simulation program that can immerse consciousness, in a collective form of alternative reality, we all share at one time or another. This is part of the collective human brain's operating system connected to our human DNA; inner self. The inner self runs this subroutine. Only the ego gets to drink, and while the inner self is the designated driver to keep the party from crashing and burning, too early; before procreation. The inner self can be observed from the inside.

My approach was to explain the software and the CPU that animates the matter; organics. My best variables were water and entropy, since water uses secondary bonding force, and is more fluid than the more static organic matter, while hydrogen bonding is based on binary switches but connected to magnetic-electrostatic potentials; lower and higher entropy. The automaton models do not require this extra software step.

 

[Audie]

The examples you offer are all, at least in principle (no dark matter particle has yet been observed) observable physical phenomena. We cannot say the same of consciousness, which can only be observed subjectively, by itself, from within.

Again, so you choose to say.


First, that there is a “principle” that consciousness ( absolutely) cannot etc.

You do not know this to be the case.

Then you declare what cannot be done.

We doubt that physicists said that in principle
such as dark matter “cannot” ever be perceived except
subjectively.

It was extraordinarily difficult to detect its existence let
alone study its nature, but, in actual principle, difficult is
not a synonym for “ cannot be done”

What principle do you speak of?

You can choose to say that as perception of the color red can
“only be perceived subjectively” * but a certain range of wavelengths of light
physically affects the eyes, producing electrical impulses calcium ions
shift and a brain wave pattern is generated and is readily detected.
The individual is conscious of red. The one with the eeg can tell he is seeing red.
What more do you want?

Maybe an outer space minster perceives red as
vibration in its gizzard.

What EXACTLY cannot be observed?

And what deep significance do you seek in your speculations?

* a paramecium “knows” when you turn the
light on and heads for cover. Subjective?

Is that exclusively electrochemical in content
or do you find there’s this “ consciousness” involved?

 

[Audie]

No, it wouldn’t indicate any such thing. It would indicate that consciousness in humans is dependent on a neural network, as galaxies are dependent on gravity, and living things are dependent on sunlight.

This does not indicate that they are one and the same. Nobody, as far as I am aware, is denying the correlation between consciousness and the central nervous system of conscious beings.

A radio is not the same thing as the processes that go on inside it
when energy flows through it.

And therefore?

 

[RestlessSoul]

Again, so you choose to say.


First, that there is a “principle” that consciousness ( absolutely) cannot etc.

You do not know this to be the case.

Then you declare what cannot be done.

We doubt that physicists said that in principle
such as dark matter “cannot” ever be perceived except
subjectively.

It was extraordinarily difficult to detect its existence let
alone study its nature, but, in actual principle, difficult is
not a synonym for “ cannot be done”

What principle do you speak of?

You can choose to say that as perception of the color red can
“only be perceived subjectively” * but a certain range of wavelengths of light
physically affects the eyes, producing electrical impulses calcium ions
shift and a brain wave pattern is generated and is readily detected.
The individual is conscious of red. The one with the eeg can tell he is seeing red.
What more do you want?

Maybe an outer space minster perceives red as
vibration in its gizzard.

What EXACTLY cannot be observed?

And what deep significance do you seek in your speculations?

* a paramecium “knows” when you turn the
light on and heads for cover. Subjective?

Is that exclusively electrochemical in content
or do you find there’s this “ consciousness” involved?

I think you’ve misunderstood. I said that dark matter is observable in principle but no particle has yet been observed. The term ‘in principle’ implies either that it will be observed at some time in the future, or that cosmological models dependent on dark matter for their validity will have to be rethought. The point is that dark matter, like energy, radio waves, and the other examples you give are distinct from consciousness in that they can be empirically shown to exist in objective reality. Unlike conscious experience, which is by definition subjective, and not observable to third parties.

 

[RestlessSoul]

A radio is not the same thing as the processes that go on inside it
when energy flows through it.

And therefore?

And therefore you’ve strained the metaphor beyond breaking point. A common hazard with reductionism, is that having taken a subject apart, all meaning and insight is lost until it can be put back together again.

 

[Audie]

I think you’ve misunderstood. I said that dark matter is observable in principle but no particle has yet been observed. The term ‘in principle’ implies either that it will be observed at some time in the future, or that cosmological models dependent on dark matter for their validity will have to be rethought. The point is that dark matter, like energy, radio waves, and the other examples you give are distinct from consciousness in that they can be empirically shown to exist in objective reality. Unlike conscious experience, which is by definition subjective, and not observable to third parties.

Of course internal processes are not directly observed
by second party.
Volcanoes are like that too.

You dodged most of my post.



.

 

[Audie]

And therefore you’ve strained the metaphor beyond breaking point. A common hazard with reductionism, is that having taken a subject apart, all meaning and insight is lost until it can be put back together again.

Dont try to snow me with “reductionism“ and logical
fallacy when you cant tell an analogy from a metaphor
and cannot show where the analogy as applied breaks down.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

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

I presume you mean not that the universe contains pockets of consciousness, earth and its trillions of conscious agents being the only confirmed example of that, since that would be a trivial observation, but rather, that the universe considered collectively is a single conscious agent or maybe even a community of conscious agents infusing the same universal extension.

I don't find much value thinking about that further other than to say that it's an interesting possibility, but one which even if it could be answered would not be a useful answer. Life goes on exactly the same whatever the answer is and whether we know that answer or not.

That's the way I feel about the question of gods, which is a related issue. Did the deist god actually exist and create this universe as a seed that began expanding and then disengaged from our reality, or was the process blind and unintended? It's the same kind of unanswerable question the answer to which wouldn't actually change a thing, and so, in my opinion, not something to continue dwelling on.

The subject has an appeal to theists for obvious reasons, and I suspect that most people bringing the issue up are motivated by a god belief rather than pure physics, since there is no practical reason at this time to postulate a universal consciousness. Maybe when we have some observation that is best explained in terms of the universe striving toward some goal. We could speculate that the universe has from the start been directed to evolve into filaments of clusters of galaxies of solar systems, some eventually evolving to generate living things and then conscious organisms, but once we get to that point, I'd say that we're done. We're left with an unanswerable question which answer wouldn't be useful even if we had it, but one worth thinking about at some time but not indefinitely.

For me, that time was in my early to mid-thirties, but very little since.

So where on the continuum of evolution did consciousness arise?

Good question, one which opens the door to the other minds problem, which, in a nutshell, laments the inability to directly experience any other consciousness but one's own, and that all we have to go by with other organisms (or nonliving entities for that matter) is their behavior, Thus, if a rock or a tree is conscious, we can't know.

But we also can't know if worms and insects, for example, are conscious. What about fish? Again, the questions are unanswerable, but we have compelling intuitions regarding higher animals being conscious, and we really can't say where consciousness arises in this progression even if we are correct that dogs and horses are conscious but worms are not.

Consider awakening from a dreamless state. We go through a transition from sleep to wakefulness that might resemble the levels of consciousness seen in the animal kingdom, but even if correct, it would be difficult to assign those stages to various animals to decide which are the lowest forms with the most rudimentary consciousnesses.

What if we use the presence of a sleep-wake cycle? Not too helpful. Sponges, the simplest multicellular animals, don't appear to sleep, nor to exhibit behavior that would benefit from consciousness:

"Sponges (phylum Porifera) traditionally are represented as inactive, sessile filter-feeding animals devoid of any behavior except filtering activity. However, different time-lapse techniques demonstrate that sponges are able to show a wide range of coordinated but slow whole-organism behavior."

The next step up are the cnidarians: jellies, corals, hydra, etc.. They also have very simple nervous systems, but whereas the corals are sessile like the sponges, the jellies swim, and appear to sleep:

"It may not seem surprising that jellyfish sleep—after all, mammals sleep, and other invertebrates such as worms and fruit flies sleep," says Ravi Nath, the paper's co-first author and a graduate student in the Sternberg laboratory. "But jellyfish are the most evolutionarily ancient animals known to sleep. This finding opens up many more questions: Is sleep the property of neurons? And perhaps a more far-fetched question: Do plants sleep? In order to be considered "sleeping," an organism must meet three critical criteria. First, it must demonstrate a period of reduced activity, or quiescence. Second, the organism must exhibit a decreased response to otherwise-arousing stimuli while in the quiescent state. Finally, the organism must show an increased sleep drive when it is deprived of sleep."

I awakened in the middle of the night this week, and there was a gecko on the kitchen wall. Normally, they scurry off immediately, but this one sat motionless for about thirty seconds before running away. I imagined that it had been asleep and then awakened, became conscious of my presence, and reacted, but how can I know? I can't. Maybe it was awake the whole time. Maybe it never awakened and was sleepwalking. Its behavior didn't answer the question.

It's yet another intractable problem, at least for now.

 

[Bear Wild]

Consciousness consists of a stream of unified mental constructs that arise spontaneously from a material structure, the Dynamic Core in the brain. Consciousness is a concomitant of dynamic patterns of reentrant signaling within complex, widely dispersed, interconnected neural networks constituting a Global Workspace.

The contents of consciousness, or qualia, are correlates of discriminations made within this neural system. These discriminations are made possible by perceptions, motor activity, and memories – all of which shape, and are shaped by, the activity-dependent modulations of neural connectivity and synaptic efficacies that occur as an animal interacts with its world.

I like the term mental constructs it is a wonderful phenomenal term when the mean neuro connection patterns activated at once. The problem is that this is the structural pattern to generate consciousness experienced in humans but it is not a definition of consciousness and I was wondering what yours was. This as an indirect definition does at least remove the human only ignorance since any organism with integrated patterns would then be conscious. It does not explain consciousness in trees for instance who have memory, directly interact dynamically with their environment and are aware of things around them as the new studies on plant behavior show. What is your definition of consciousness?

 

[Bear Wild]

I presume you mean not that the universe contains pockets of consciousness, earth and its trillions of conscious agents being the only confirmed example of that, since that would be a trivial observation, but rather, that the universe considered collectively is a single conscious agent or maybe even a community of conscious agents infusing the same universal extension.

There is another view that consciousness is a property of our universe inherent in the world that is phenomena that all things could express but in relation to their existence and time scale. In humans it is best expressed in the neurologic pathways while in a tree which still has an electrical network it is expressed differently on a different time scale but till creates an awareness relationship its world around. The trees memory is in the roots whereas the humans in in the head. Two different approaches to consciousness but with the same basic recourses for consciousness to exist.

Do plants sleep?

Deciduous trees sleep. plants can become inactive at night and show behavior changes in response to anticipation of the morning.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

There is another view that consciousness is a property of our universe inherent in the world that is phenomena that all things could express but in relation to their existence and time scale. In humans it is best expressed in the neurologic pathways while in a tree which still has an electrical network it is expressed differently on a different time scale but till creates an awareness relationship its world around. The trees memory is in the roots whereas the humans in in the head. Two different approaches to consciousness but with the same basic recourses for consciousness to exist.

Deciduous trees sleep. plants can become inactive at night and show behavior changes in response to anticipation of the morning.

OK, but these seem like metaphorical uses of the words memory, sleep, and anticipation likely unrelated to consciousness. I was referring to literal memory and to literal sleep as we experience as human beings, and which is related to consciousness. I don't have a reason to think that trees do any of those things literally.

Metaphorically, we say that computers have memory, and can go into a sleep mode, where they go dark and inactive, but those are both metaphorical.

Metaphorically, my coffee maker remembers what time I programmed it to start in the morning and awakens at the programmed time in anticipation of my awakening.

 

[Bear Wild]

OK, but these seem like metaphorical uses of the words memory, sleep, and anticipation likely unrelated to consciousness. I was referring to literal memory and to literal sleep as we experience as human beings, and which is related to consciousness. I don't have a reason to think that trees do any of those things literally.

Metaphorically, we say that computers have memory, and can go into a sleep mode, where they go dark and inactive, but those are both metaphorical.

Metaphorically, my coffee maker remembers what time I programmed it to start in the morning and awakens at the programmed time in anticipation of my awakening.

This depends on if you only are approaching the question from a anthropocentric view. Trees do not have neurons to remember yet they have memory in relationship to the world. The world view of a bat and a human are different because of the way the sense and relate to the world. If only identical human experiences are important in the world then nothing else is important, I just don't agree with this.

 

[Audie]

This depends on if you only are approaching the question from a anthropocentric view. Trees do not have neurons to remember yet they have memory in relationship to the world. The world view of a bat and a human are different because of the way the sense and relate to the world. If only identical human experiences are important in the world then nothing else is important, I just don't agree with this.

It’s not “ anthro* to see that birds bears catfish and toad frogs sleep.

pine trees tho- that’s where the anthro comes in, imagining there’s the faintest analog there

 

[Bear Wild]

It’s not “ anthro* to see that birds bears catfish and toad frogs sleep.

pine trees tho- that’s where the anthro comes in, imagining there’s the faintest analog there

It is not anthro at all it is anthropocentric to not accept dormant periods of time for plants for regenerative processes which we call sleep.

 

[wellwisher]

I think you’ve misunderstood. I said that dark matter is observable in principle but no particle has yet been observed. The term ‘in principle’ implies either that it will be observed at some time in the future, or that cosmological models dependent on dark matter for their validity will have to be rethought. The point is that dark matter, like energy, radio waves, and the other examples you give are distinct from consciousness in that they can be empirically shown to exist in objective reality. Unlike conscious experience, which is by definition subjective, and not observable to third parties.

We cannot observe radio waves, but rather we know them through indirect effects; analytical equipment. The human sensory organs cannot measure radio waves. The same is true of consciousness. We cannot touch consciousness, but we can empathize with consciousness. I can tell someone is conscious, if they are reacting in some manner, via 2nd hand observation.

I cannot agree with these hypothesis of a conscious universe. The space between galaxies alone makes this a non starter.

Despite the similarities between the cosmic web and brain structure
View attachment 97579

Each point of light making up the cosmic web is a galaxy. The distance between galaxies averages about a million light years. Much to far for the information required to form a consciousness to travel in a way that is meaningful.

If we assume the BB, then all the galaxies were very close at one time, especially with new data that shows that galaxies formed relatively early in the universe. What that implies is they all were hooked up when things were closer. Gravity is able to reach to infinity, at the speed of light, as they move apart. The die was already cast, via early connections. It not connections formed now. There is even time delay.

A loose analogy are the tides from moon. The impact on the earth has time delay built into the interaction.

The brain also starts simple with replicating neurons without branches. Nature builds the brain from scratch, with the future connections already having a foundation to build upon. People think in terms of space, but there is also a time element for connections. The brain has pacers cells which vibrate at a fixed frequency. These can be used as the brain's standard of time and extrapolated; time projection.

The old fashion view of God or Divine Consciousness, starts simple like a seed, adds time potential, and things unfold in their time. The baseball pitcher grips the ball for a curve, and although it leaves his hand going straight, after the time delay, it breaks over the plate.

Another analogy for the apparent dependence and independence of the galaxies, is like making a friend in college, who works on the same projects, and you both collaborate. After graduation you both go your separate ways, and take jobs on opposite sides of the country. Even though not connected, both continue the same research, independently, since both got the same bug and accolades early in their careers. If you ignore time, it appears like a psychic connection or coincidence.

With consciousness, the brain can also time project, such as four years of college or a nine month pregnancy. The die is cast and the goal stays in sight, but what happens along the way has some flexibility.

I still like the concept of separated space and time, in contrast to connected space-time, to explain consciousness. I can plan a week vacation on an island getaway, 1000 miles away. I do not need hard sensory data to do this, to make sure everything is proven in space-time. I can do this planning in less than a week, and still have my vacation last one week; time projection. My imagination, can detach from hard reality, relative to the space-time reality of the vacation spot. I do not need to be there. Not everything will be go as planned, since space-time has limits, while my imagination is far more flexible via separated space and time. My hope to meet an exotic island babe, may not be in the space-time cards. But I did get a room overlooking the beach.

These type of topics; frontiers of knowledge, is where separated space and time confront space-time. Or the imagination confronts practical reality, such as dark matter and dark energy never proven in the lab. That is still at separated space and time. The question is how can a brain formed in space-time, also process separated space and time? Separated space and time can explain the quantum world. An electron orbital is often modeled as probability function, where it can see understood as being within a zone; here and island.