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 Disco Cat
iS A PoiNdexteR
Registered: 09/15/00
Posts: 2,444
Loc: British Columbia
Last seen: 25 days, 10 hours
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 Consciousness in the Universe
#7593252 - 11/04/07 12:46 AM (9 months, 27 days ago) |
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And alternative to the belief in a God polls.
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You've been my little garden gnome,
Ever since I shot you with a dart that melted your bones.
Then I shaped you in plaster to give you a pose,
Now you'll forever look beautiful next to my tomatoes.
All that you might ever need to know to use the English language
www.what-the-hell-is-hell.com
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DieCommie
Ally
Registered: 12/11/03
Posts: 5,949
Loc: The Union
Last seen: 3 hours, 16 minutes
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 Re: Consciousness in the Universe [Re: Disco Cat]
#7594234 - 11/04/07 11:34 AM (9 months, 26 days ago) |
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For number one I am completely on the fence, 50/50 so I cannot answer either way.
#2, Definitely no. Unless you have a different definition of consciousness. (Which is usually how philosophical debates originate, one person using a different definition.)
#3, Yes.
I believe consciousness to be an emergent property that requires a complex system to emerge out of. Thus, basic constituents certainly dont exhibit the characteristics of consciousness, but once combined in a complex way they may.
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Behold yon miserable creature. That Point is a Being like ourselves, but confined to the non-dimensional Gulf. He is himself his own World, his own Universe; of any other than himself he can form no conception; he knows not Length, nor Breadth, nor Height, for he has had no experience of them; he has no cognizance even of the number Two; nor has he a thought of Plurality; for he is himself his One and All, being really Nothing. Yet mark his perfect self-contentment, and hence learn his lesson, that to be self-contented is to be vile and ignorant, and that to aspire is better than to be blindly and impotently happy.
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geokills
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Registered: 05/08/01
Posts: 13,152
Loc: city of angels
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 Re: Consciousness in the Universe [Re: Disco Cat]
#7594317 - 11/04/07 11:59 AM (9 months, 26 days ago) |
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Those are very difficult questions, Disco Cat!
I am fairly uncertain of how to answer any of them.
As there are, quite a few different ways to interpret consciousness itself.
Quote:
Consciousness is a characteristic of the mind generally regarded to comprise qualities such as subjectivity, self-awareness, sentience, sapience, and the ability to perceive the relationship between oneself and one's environment.
Some philosophers divide consciousness into phenomenal consciousness, which is subjective experience itself, and access consciousness, which refers to the universal availability of information to processing systems in the brain. Phenomenal consciousness is a state with qualia. Phenomenal consciousness is being something and access consciousness is being conscious of something.
An understanding of necessary preconditions for consciousness in the human brain may allow us to address important ethical questions. For instance, how is the presence of consciousness to be assessed in severely ill or disabled individuals? To what extent are non-human animals conscious? At what point in fetal development does consciousness begin? Can machines achieve conscious states? Are today's autonomous and intelligent machines already conscious?
In common parlance, consciousness denotes being awake and responsive to one's environment; this contrasts with being asleep or being in a coma.
We generally agree that our fellow human beings are conscious, and that much simpler life forms, such as bacteria, are not. Many of us attribute consciousness to higher-order animals such as dolphins and primates; academic research is investigating the extent to which animals are conscious. This suggests the hypothesis that consciousness has co-evolved with life, which would require it to have some sort of added value, especially survival value. People have therefore looked for specific functions and benefits of consciousness.
As there is no clear definition of consciousness and no empirical measure exists to test for its presence, it has been argued that due to the nature of the problem of consciousness, empirical tests are intrinsically impossible.
Given such a wide array of interpretation, if I were to consider consciousness as the ability to react to one's environment, regardless of whether or not this reaction is chosen or spontaneously induced, then everything must have evolved from consciousness and therefore even inanimate objects exhibit a level of consciousness as they can change down to their molecular structure when in the presence of alternating pressures, temperatures, chemical interactions, etc.
But if I were to define consciousness strictly as the ability to make a choice while rejecting alternate available choices, then it seems that inanimate objects would not fall into the category of holding their own consciousness. As human, this later definition would probably make the most sense to the general population... but as an inquisitive mind open to possibility, I would like to believe that there are lower levels of consciousness that reach into the atomic and sub-atomic structure of all matter in our universe.
Therefore, as I can feel comfortable with either rationalization, I must refrain from voting in your poll; as I can not say for certain that I believe one definition over the other.
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┼ ··∙ long live the shroomery ∙·· ┼
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geokills
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Registered: 05/08/01
Posts: 13,152
Loc: city of angels
Last seen: 1 hour, 35 minutes
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 Re: Consciousness in the Universe [Re: geokills]
#7605068 - 11/06/07 10:23 PM (9 months, 24 days ago) |
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Well I sure did an effective job of killing this thread.
Back up in yo' ass with a RES-ERECTION!!! 
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┼ ··∙ long live the shroomery ∙·· ┼
...╬π╥ ╥π╬...
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 sleepy
Registered: 01/17/05
Posts: 2,160
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Re: Consciousness in the Universe [Re: geokills]
#7605092 - 11/06/07 10:28 PM (9 months, 24 days ago) |
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hindus say that there is nothing BUT consciousness in the universe. so the plastic that makes up this computer would be conscious, but not neccessarily self conscious i suppose. haven't you eaten shrooms and seen that each tree has its own personality?
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Disco Cat
iS A PoiNdexteR
Registered: 09/15/00
Posts: 2,444
Loc: British Columbia
Last seen: 25 days, 10 hours
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Re: Consciousness in the Universe [Re: geokills]
#7605902 - 11/07/07 08:20 AM (9 months, 23 days ago) |
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Heh, I was going to bump it myself.
I haven't answered my own poll yet, but I would say yes to the first question, no to the last, and unknown for the middle one.
>>I would like to believe that there are lower levels of consciousness that reach into the atomic and sub-atomic structure of all matter in our universe.
I was wondering about atoms being conscious too. If not everything bears its own consciousness, it still seems that everything is the recipient of a greater consciousness in a universal plan, where everything comes to something, and even if it comes to nothing then it still comes to something when it is destroyed and its energy redispersed.
I wonder if each individual cell in my body has an awareness of its own, or if they're all merely programmed. But again, if they're programmed, then it would seem that they're the recipient of a greater consciousness elsewhere, which has given them their intrisic objectives and drive.
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You've been my little garden gnome,
Ever since I shot you with a dart that melted your bones.
Then I shaped you in plaster to give you a pose,
Now you'll forever look beautiful next to my tomatoes.
All that you might ever need to know to use the English language
www.what-the-hell-is-hell.com
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rynobot8
robotic messiah
Registered: 09/20/07
Posts: 60
Loc: south florida
Last seen: 28 days, 11 hours
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Re: Consciousness in the Universe [Re: Disco Cat]
#7605931 - 11/07/07 08:34 AM (9 months, 23 days ago) |
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wow, I just went into a trance pondering those questions.
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the preceding was a figment of your/my imagination, a community hallucination
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rynobot8
robotic messiah
Registered: 09/20/07
Posts: 60
Loc: south florida
Last seen: 28 days, 11 hours
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Re: Consciousness in the Universe [Re: rynobot8]
#7605949 - 11/07/07 08:41 AM (9 months, 23 days ago) |
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if don't think chemical signals must have been programmed by some other conscious being, because something would have had to program that being, and so on and so on. there can be no end or beginning to time or space, or size. A piece of matter can always be split in half, and matter can always get bigger. maybe it's a circle that always ends up in the same place but never stops
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the preceding was a figment of your/my imagination, a community hallucination
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Disco Cat
iS A PoiNdexteR
Registered: 09/15/00
Posts: 2,444
Loc: British Columbia
Last seen: 25 days, 10 hours
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Re: Consciousness in the Universe [Re: rynobot8]
#7606025 - 11/07/07 09:14 AM (9 months, 23 days ago) |
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Programmed\imbued... that the design of life was instilled into my cells rather than them coming up with the idea on their own, which I can't understand how they possibly could before their own existence. Nobody would have programmed the source, otherwise it wouldn't be the source - I consider that life & everything is the default state which we come out of, rather than nothingness. I think that nothingness, or the impossible concept of nothingness, is a phatasm in eternal everythingness.
I think the circle analogy is more appropriate.
--------------------
You've been my little garden gnome,
Ever since I shot you with a dart that melted your bones.
Then I shaped you in plaster to give you a pose,
Now you'll forever look beautiful next to my tomatoes.
All that you might ever need to know to use the English language
www.what-the-hell-is-hell.com
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Silversoul
PleromaticExplorer
Registered: 01/01/05
Posts: 15,297
Loc: Mostly harmless
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Re: Consciousness in the Universe [Re: sleepy]
#7606240 - 11/07/07 10:20 AM (9 months, 23 days ago) |
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Quote:
sleepy said:
hindus say that there is nothing BUT consciousness in the universe. so the plastic that makes up this computer would be conscious, but not neccessarily self conscious i suppose. haven't you eaten shrooms and seen that each tree has its own personality?
I lean more towards this view, though have some reservations about it. For example, how does one explain states of unconsciousness, such as when one is in a coma?
My current model of consciousness is that it is a force in the universe like electro-magnetism or gravity, but one needs a nervous system in order to tap into it. Thus, a nervous system would be somewhat like a radio receiver. Or you might say that a nervous system is the hardware, while consciousness is the software. But even here, it doesn't quite fit what I've experienced, as I've sensed a certain consciousness in plants, and even rocks. I guess I feel that all things possess some level of consciousness, but a nervous system is required to translate that consciousness into thoughts and actions.
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"I happen to be the CEO of the Committee for Surrealist Investigation of Claims of the Normal, and we actually are offering $10,000 to anybody who can produce anything that is totally normal in all respects, or even average." -- Robert Anton Wilson
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Equally_Diverse
StrangelyFamiliar
Registered: 05/09/07
Posts: 178
Loc: South Florida
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Re: Consciousness in the Universe [Re: Silversoul]
#7606705 - 11/07/07 12:14 PM (9 months, 23 days ago) |
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Nope, nope, and yep.
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