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Post by faustus5 on Jan 4, 2023 18:46:02 GMT
This article is pure garbage. Most of the people they cite have absolutely no training or credibility on the subject of consciousness, and those who do aren't actually saying what the article suggests they are. At least the article reminds the reader that the theory suggested isn't supported by very many scholars, even while it exaggerates how seriously panpsychism is taken (it is not taken very seriously at all). You basically only pay attention to science when you mistakenly think your delusions are being entertained, not when your beliefs are challenged. Just goes to show that you aren't interested in truth. |
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Post by rizdek on Jan 5, 2023 1:51:23 GMT
From an essay I got on Quora.com" "This is going to be a very detailed answer, so feel free to skip to the parts you find most relevant! Ready? Here we go! Atheism vs. some sort of supernatural power. For me, this is the trickiest step to argue, because it involves a lot of very abstract philosophical arguments which don’t have many real-world parallels. However I think that it’s possible to construct a strong rational case for the supernatural for a couple reasons. The existence of consciousness. Thanks to science, we know that the human brain works by taking in electrical signals, running them through circuits, and outputting more electrical signals. This means that the brain is nothing more than a machine, albeit a very complex one. However no machine can ever be conscious of its decisions, or experience what we call the “theater of the mind”. This means that humans must have an immaterial part of our existence, which we call the soul. The design of the universe. When we play a computer game, we observe how the world in the game operates according to consistent rules, according to the dictates of a programming language. In the same way, our universe has consistent rules, which are in the language of Mathematics. Humans never “invented” math, math is written in the very fabric of the universe. And just like a programming language could never exist without an intelligent programmer, how could the laws of the universe come about without an intelligent entity? The fine-tuning argument. Building on to my last point, not only are the laws of the universe beautifully written in math, but they are very specifically-tuned to allow for life. Stanford University physicist and cosmologist, Leonard Susskind, says, “ If the value of this ratio [electrons to protons] deviated more than 1 in 10^37, the universe, as we know it, would not exist today. If the ratio between the electromagnetic force and gravity was altered more than 1 in 10^40, the universe would have suffered a similar fate. Furthermore he states that “If the expansion rate of the universe deviated by more than 1 in 10^37, or the mass density of universe varied more than 1 in 10^59, there wouldn’t be a single habitable galaxy or planet in the universe.[1] For a great article about this, see Science Increasingly Makes the Case for God. Also, the chance of life on Earth developing by accident is also infinitesimally small. Even the most “simple” multicellular organisms are immensely complex, with over 100,000 DNA base pairs and very complex interlocking mechanisms. Even the random creation of a few working proteins is statistically impossible. To watch scientist Stephen Meyer do some mathematical calculations, look at this video: In my opinion, believing that all of these things happened by chance takes a lot more faith than believing in God." ~ Gabriel Dionisi. Gabriel, how is it that you know the immaterial can produce consciousness but you know the material cannot? How about if we just assume the natural world can produce consciousness? Gabriel, why wouldn't we expect something that exists naturally to be consistent in it's structure and function? It seems highly unlikely that ANYTHING would behave purely randomly and with no regular sequences. That is far far more unlikely than something that behaves regularly. As for fine tuning, Gabriel, I'd say that those fine tuned properties were necessary for the universe we see around us to have formed from the natural background. That background existence fluxuated/fluxuates infinitely fast producing germ "universes"....the equivalent of trillions per second until one it produced with fine tuned properties. THAT universe expands into what we see. So yes, the properties are produced randomly, but only those with the right properties continue to expand. All others immediately collapse back into the background natural existence and it tries again...with infinite rapidity. So Gabriel, once a universe with the right (fine-tuned) properties is produced, it'll become one like the one we see expanding around us with space/time and matter/energy, atoms, stars, planets and sometimes life. After all, that natural background existence is eternal so is timeless. And once a universe forms, it has the regular properties that sometimes produces life...ie, Gabriel, life does NOT form randomly, Life forms due to the regular chemical processes. It is no more random for life to form than it would be that all marbles released on a sloped floor all end up rolling in the same direction. With literally trillions and trillions of planets that exist throughout the universe it is highly likely that sooner or later life would form and eventually sentient life. And where ever that is in the universe...wherever sentient life formed....there we are! |
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Post by rizdek on Jan 5, 2023 2:02:53 GMT
That's stretching the limit of my understanding, but I THINK the answer is no because the observer is not in superposition at that time. If the universe is strictly determined, is consciousness an illusion? Consciousness is not an illusion, but it depends on an illusion...consciousness is an adaptation that allows conscious creatures to form a conceptualization of the physical world around to aid in navigating that world. But just because consciousness forms a conception that isn't exactly like the physical world actually is doesn't mean one can ignore their conceptualization of the physical world because underlying that concept is a very real physical world. It just doesn't 'look' like what we imagine. I've read an analogy. If you have a folder on your computer desk top and that folder contains some music files, some document files and a game, we all know that the music files aren't really music, the documents are not really words and thoughts and the game isn't really anything like it appears when you play it...they're all just bits and bytes stored in/on electronic hardware. However, that doesn't mean you can just do anything you want with that folder and the files in it. If you delete one of the files, even though you didn't really eliminate any real music, for example, the file is gone and whatever it could have produced...sound/melody with the proper app and hardware is just as gone as if you physically destroyed a set of instruments and did away with the musicians. And if you delete the document file, even though the bits and bytes are not actual words and thoughts, those thoughts are just as gone as if you did away with someone who was thinking those thoughts. And so forth. The computer desktop is not the actual things you see there but you can't disregard the connection between THOSE images and what they represent. |
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Post by clusium on Jan 5, 2023 6:37:24 GMT
From an essay I got on Quora.com" "This is going to be a very detailed answer, so feel free to skip to the parts you find most relevant! Ready? Here we go! Atheism vs. some sort of supernatural power. For me, this is the trickiest step to argue, because it involves a lot of very abstract philosophical arguments which don’t have many real-world parallels. However I think that it’s possible to construct a strong rational case for the supernatural for a couple reasons. The existence of consciousness. Thanks to science, we know that the human brain works by taking in electrical signals, running them through circuits, and outputting more electrical signals. This means that the brain is nothing more than a machine, albeit a very complex one. However no machine can ever be conscious of its decisions, or experience what we call the “theater of the mind”. This means that humans must have an immaterial part of our existence, which we call the soul. The design of the universe. When we play a computer game, we observe how the world in the game operates according to consistent rules, according to the dictates of a programming language. In the same way, our universe has consistent rules, which are in the language of Mathematics. Humans never “invented” math, math is written in the very fabric of the universe. And just like a programming language could never exist without an intelligent programmer, how could the laws of the universe come about without an intelligent entity? The fine-tuning argument. Building on to my last point, not only are the laws of the universe beautifully written in math, but they are very specifically-tuned to allow for life. Stanford University physicist and cosmologist, Leonard Susskind, says, “ If the value of this ratio [electrons to protons] deviated more than 1 in 10^37, the universe, as we know it, would not exist today. If the ratio between the electromagnetic force and gravity was altered more than 1 in 10^40, the universe would have suffered a similar fate. Furthermore he states that “If the expansion rate of the universe deviated by more than 1 in 10^37, or the mass density of universe varied more than 1 in 10^59, there wouldn’t be a single habitable galaxy or planet in the universe.[1] For a great article about this, see Science Increasingly Makes the Case for God. Also, the chance of life on Earth developing by accident is also infinitesimally small. Even the most “simple” multicellular organisms are immensely complex, with over 100,000 DNA base pairs and very complex interlocking mechanisms. Even the random creation of a few working proteins is statistically impossible. To watch scientist Stephen Meyer do some mathematical calculations, look at this video: In my opinion, believing that all of these things happened by chance takes a lot more faith than believing in God." ~ Gabriel Dionisi. Gabriel, how is it that you know the immaterial can produce consciousness but you know the material cannot? How about if we just assume the natural world can produce consciousness? Gabriel, why wouldn't we expect something that exists naturally to be consistent in it's structure and function? It seems highly unlikely that ANYTHING would behave purely randomly and with no regular sequences. That is far far more unlikely than something that behaves regularly. As for fine tuning, Gabriel, I'd say that those fine tuned properties were necessary for the universe we see around us to have formed from the natural background. That background existence fluxuated/fluxuates infinitely fast producing germ "universes"....the equivalent of trillions per second until one it produced with fine tuned properties. THAT universe expands into what we see. So yes, the properties are produced randomly, but only those with the right properties continue to expand. All others immediately collapse back into the background natural existence and it tries again...with infinite rapidity. So Gabriel, once a universe with the right (fine-tuned) properties is produced, it'll become one like the one we see expanding around us with space/time and matter/energy, atoms, stars, planets and sometimes life. After all, that natural background existence is eternal so is timeless. And once a universe forms, it has the regular properties that sometimes produces life...ie, Gabriel, life does NOT form randomly, Life forms due to the regular chemical processes. It is no more random for life to form than it would be that all marbles released on a sloped floor all end up rolling in the same direction. With literally trillions and trillions of planets that exist throughout the universe it is highly likely that sooner or later life would form and eventually sentient life. And where ever that is in the universe...wherever sentient life formed....there we are! Gabriel Dionisi is not on this website. He is just the author of this essay that I had copied & pasted (got it off of Quora.com). |
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Post by rizdek on Jan 6, 2023 23:55:54 GMT
Gabriel, how is it that you know the immaterial can produce consciousness but you know the material cannot? How about if we just assume the natural world can produce consciousness? Gabriel, why wouldn't we expect something that exists naturally to be consistent in it's structure and function? It seems highly unlikely that ANYTHING would behave purely randomly and with no regular sequences. That is far far more unlikely than something that behaves regularly. As for fine tuning, Gabriel, I'd say that those fine tuned properties were necessary for the universe we see around us to have formed from the natural background. That background existence fluxuated/fluxuates infinitely fast producing germ "universes"....the equivalent of trillions per second until one it produced with fine tuned properties. THAT universe expands into what we see. So yes, the properties are produced randomly, but only those with the right properties continue to expand. All others immediately collapse back into the background natural existence and it tries again...with infinite rapidity. So Gabriel, once a universe with the right (fine-tuned) properties is produced, it'll become one like the one we see expanding around us with space/time and matter/energy, atoms, stars, planets and sometimes life. After all, that natural background existence is eternal so is timeless. And once a universe forms, it has the regular properties that sometimes produces life...ie, Gabriel, life does NOT form randomly, Life forms due to the regular chemical processes. It is no more random for life to form than it would be that all marbles released on a sloped floor all end up rolling in the same direction. With literally trillions and trillions of planets that exist throughout the universe it is highly likely that sooner or later life would form and eventually sentient life. And where ever that is in the universe...wherever sentient life formed....there we are! Gabriel Dionisi is not on this website. He is just the author of this essay that I had copied & pasted (got it off of Quora.com). I realize that...nevertheless, those are the questions I would pose to him. |
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