Is consciousness the single fundamental thing in the universe ?

a reply to: gosseyn
I think you might enjoy this talk by Dr David R Hawkins (a widely known authority within the fields of consciousness research and spirituality).

a reply to: gosseyn

I too think that science is at a loss to explain consciousness. As a result our fundamental tool of observation on which we base all knowledge and understanding is a mystery. I therefor very much doubt our perception shows the true picture of reality and likely we have now idea of the true nature of reality or the properties underlying the cosmos.

Have you read the work of Sir Roger Penrose? He attempts to describe consciousness using scientific method. His argument that the known laws of physics are inadequate to explain consciousness. He then goes onto theorise about how we could bridge the gap between quantum and classical mechanics to better understand the phenomenon.

The book i have on the subject is called The Emperors New Mind. You will need a decent understanding of physics and mathematics to gain any real insights from this book.

Just seen it's already been recommended.

What Hoffman is saying about consciousness is that we can't understand consciousness by looking at neurons, that neurons don't cause consciousness to happen, because they are just pixels on our interface. Just like when you drag an icon on your desktop and you drop it on the trash bin, you may cause the file to really be deleted on the disk, but the pixels that represent the file and the trash bin didn't cause anything to happen. They are just pixels on an interface. We just see moving pixels, the same way we just see neurons being activated, and we believe that the real mechanism is just about dropping an icon on the trash bin. Pixels, like neurons, are not the real mechanism.

It appears to be "just happening" because we can't find a cause to it, the real cause.

And we are blind to the real cause because our interface has only evolved to enable us to see what Hoffman calls "fitness payoffs". Just like in a video game, you don't see the intricacies behind all of the objects of the game world, you just see what you need to see, namely, fitness payoffs. To be able to see all the intricacies would mean to become like Neo in the Matrix I guess, just seeing raw numbers. It would be overwhelming and we wouldn't be able to tell what means what. Just like if I gave you a computer without any interface, and I told you "send me an email", you wouldn't know where to start : make the HDD spin with your finger?, or send an electric charge here and there on the mainboard at random?, or draw stuff with a pencil on a blank and empty screen?, etc..

Hoffman also talks about what he calls "conscious agents". In the reality behind the interface, everything is made of conscious agents, and in his theory the reality is in fact made of an infinite network of conscious agents. Our own consciousness is made of nested conscious agents. There are tiny and simple conscious agents and there are immensely complex conscious agents, just like there are pieces of information that are made of just 2 bits, and others made of 128 or 256 bits, etc. to infinity. Inside the interface, we are only able to recognize conscious agents that share a similar interface with us. We all are humans, the same species, so we share the same interface, even though some among us have evolved interfaces that are a bit different, like people who have synesthesia(around 4% of the world population), who can see sounds, hear light, feel the touch of something when they taste something, etc.. So for example when we look at a dog, our interface starts to show its limits, there are things we don't recognize, things we don't see, because the dog's interface is different. We recognize the dog's consciousness, but we don't quite understand it because the dog's consciousness can only express itself through its interface, which is different from our interface. Then if we look at an ant, our interface really shows its limits, because there are very little things that show up on our interface, that we could almost believe the ant is just a robot, although in reality it is a conscious agent. Then, we just look at an inanimate object in front of us, a table for example, and there is nothing we recognize, our interface is silent, although even the table is made of a conscious agent. The table's interface is so alien to ours, that we don't see it as a conscious agent. Heck, some people still think dogs and ants don't really have consciousness.

What makes the difference between us, the dog, the ant and the table, is that we have different instantiations. You can see instantiation as the process of a conscious agent suddenly incarnating into a specific entity with a specific interface. The conscious agent might be limitless in its potentiality, but is always limited by its interface. So a virus or a microbe for example, might look like nothing to us through our interface, but could in reality be an immensely complex conscious agent, that just happens to be instantiated as an entity with a virus or microbe interface. But since we see them through our own interface, we don't see it. Remember, everything that happens inside space and time is just pixels inside an interface. Just like you could have on your desktop a simple icon that looks totally random and unoriginal, anything could happen if you double click on it. What if it initiates the self-destruct protocol of your house, your ship, your base? What if it initiates the launch of nuclear missiles ? Just a simple icon on a computer interface..

The end game ? The opportunity for conscious agents to exchange between themselves, to know each other, which could ultimately be called love.

Is Hoffman's whole theory very bold ? It certainly is. The thing is that it is a scientific theory, with mathematical models and equations. Is it as bold as the many worlds theory which says that every time I fart, I create an infinite number of universes ? Or is it as bold as to say that 85% of the matter in the universe is made of invisible dark matter ?

originally posted by: The GUT
Consciousness: Weightless, massless, yet responsible for everything achieved by humans. Yeah, I think it's its own greatest argument for non-materialism.

Human's only know what they perceive as reality, doesn't make it true, just what we perceive. Plants have their own perception of reality and it is real to them as much as ours is to us, as example. When we use terms like "consciousness" "love" or even the term "life" these are not universal truisms, only human constructs.

We created all this out of our ability to think in the abstract. We do that majority of our waking life in we create something within our abstract thoughts and say it is reality. The sneaky part is we can make reality from abstract as everything around you right now started as an abstract thought. The problem is because we can to this we also tend to take total abstract ideals and suggest they are real too with as you say nothing to them but what is within our own brains.

In an instant we can say that black holes are real and then say Bigfoot is also real with the same level of conviction for both. The reality is humans have extreme limits of human intuition as our brains fills in the gaps for most of what we perceive on the fly with extremely limited sensory inputs that would shock most people if they knew how just how limited our perception really is.

As what been suggested, evolution only does what is good enough, not perfect, not godly perfection... The funny part is a plant might think in its own way it is perfect too with extreme intuition of what is going on around it.

a reply to: gosseyn

Consciousness is merely a viewpoint into an existence.

Second.

Hoffman's theories are very interesting.

Perception is key.

To a fish in a pond, that pond is its entire universe. Unless its unlucky enough to be scooped up by a fisherman, it may spend its whole life oblivious to the lands beyond that pond, the sky above it, the air that it will never breathe.

Similarly, we have a very narrow and fixed perception of our world and the universe beyond. And much of our view of that universe comes from a single source - our eyes. And we know already that there are visual spectrums which our eyes can't perceive, so even in day to day life there are objects which may possess totally different attributes than what our eyes attach to them. Who's to say what the true nature of reality really looks like? We only know what our reality looks like.

originally posted by: dfnj2015

originally posted by: Itisnowagain
a reply to: dude1
If there is a dreamer it is God.
God is dreaming.

The laws of physics are God's blood and everything else in the Universe is God's appendages. God is the source of why electrons have charge and move at all. Mathematical equations may represent nature's behaviors but God is the music that transcends the physics of the vinyl record player.

Is god just a placeholder word for something we don't understand ? Something that we feel is all encompassing ? Why not use another word ? The word god is so over-used that it's more confusing than anything else. It means something different for everyone.

If consciousness is a fundamental property of the fabric of the universe then why hasn't it reached out to us with intelligent communication? Why have we not been initiated into the galactic society? If the cosmos at large can't be bothered to engineer an interface that is compatible with our own, how intelligent can the stars really be?

originally posted by: TzarChasm
If consciousness is a fundamental property of the fabric of the universe then why hasn't it reached out to us with intelligent communication? Why have we not been initiated into the galactic society? If the cosmos at large can't be bothered to engineer an interface that is compatible with our own, how intelligent can the stars really be?

I guess if you ask the question to Hoffman, since it is his theory, he would answer that every conscious agent is limited by its interface and the type of experiences that this interface allows. According to him, our own consciousness is made of many smaller conscious agents. He says that in the true reality behind the interface, there is an infinite network of conscious agents, and that experience is the currency with which they are linked together, they exchange experiences.

This universe is going towards experience complexity, or information complexity. When we die, we go back to the infinite network of conscious agents. Since our consciousness is made of many conscious agents, our consciousness kind of decompose into the network, adding our experiences into the network as new information, then we are instantiated again into a being with a specific interface. And when I say "we", I mean a new consciousness made of at least a single conscious agent, or many.

The sole purpose of evolution would be to create new interfaces that would lead to new experiences. Who knows what kind of experiences lifeforms at the other side of our galaxy are able to have, or in another galaxy. Our interface might be so alien to theirs that we wouldn't even recognize them as conscious agents, just like we could consider an ant as just a robot, or a table as just an inanimate object without a shred of consciousness. In Hoffman's theory, space and time are part of our interface, so who knows what can exist behind the barriers of our interface. In fact, many scientists today say that spacetime is doomed as a scientific theory to explain reality.

a reply to: gosseyn

My point is that any agency which is relying on humans to engineer a translation for a cosmic interface can't be all that intelligent. Imagine if we waited for dogs to invent a device that facilitates our communication with them. It's counter intuitive at best.

originally posted by: TzarChasm
a reply to: gosseyn

My point is that any agency which is relying on humans to engineer a translation for a cosmic interface can't be all that intelligent. Imagine if we waited for dogs to invent a device that facilitates our communication with them. It's counter intuitive at best.

I get your point but Hoffman is not saying that the goal is to exchange experiences right here right now while we are instantiated, but that experiences are shared between conscious agents once our instance is destroyed, a process we call death.

The center point of gravity is where all of creation begins. Consciousness projects outward from the center point. It receives, interprets and collects data which is utilized as tools for further expansion in order to encompass more space. It's a never ending process.

Your center point is your point of creation

nvrmnd

originally posted by: odzeandennz
Well on the 'fundamental' argument, the universe is 13.7 billion years old... Homosapiens are a little over 100000 years old... We agree not only the universe existed before any intelligence observed it, we don't need to observe it in order for it to exist.

Consciousness is a byproduct of a variable in a system, that is divided by itself equaling to itself.
Animals deemed conscious by scientists can all use their reflections as a tool.

Consciousness is not fundamental in my opinion.

I don't agree with you. How can existence exist without an observer? Really, seriously think about that question.

a reply to: openminded2011
I agree. Consciousness existed long before it expanded into human awareness

originally posted by: gosseyn

originally posted by: TzarChasm
a reply to: gosseyn

My point is that any agency which is relying on humans to engineer a translation for a cosmic interface can't be all that intelligent. Imagine if we waited for dogs to invent a device that facilitates our communication with them. It's counter intuitive at best.

I get your point but Hoffman is not saying that the goal is to exchange experiences right here right now while we are instantiated, but that experiences are shared between conscious agents once our instance is destroyed, a process we call death.

And this information is not reverse compatible. We can sense what our cells are doing, but our cells dont know what we are doing.

originally posted by: TzarChasm

And this information is not reverse compatible. We can sense what our cells are doing, but our cells dont know what we are doing.

Hmm not necessarily. Cells know when we're in distress, so much so that they assimilate at a wound and re-organize living tissue at the point of injury. Our cells somehow have a general blueprint of our body to the degree that they can heal damage to make it look as though no damage ever occurred. Cells also detect and destroy a part of the body that is taking more resources than necessary (cancer) with a very effect percentage. Our cells also adjust their DNA expression depending on various behaviors and environmental cues of the organism as a whole. Epigenetics is the change of genetic expression on the cellular level that is what allows organisms as a whole to adjust to various environmental variability.

Our cells are very much aware of the whole.

originally posted by: cherokeetroy
a reply to: openminded2011
I agree. Consciousness existed long before it expanded into human awareness

In Hoffman's theory, consciousness existed before the big bang. Since space and time are part of the interface, and because the big bang is what started space and time, consciousness must have existed prior to the big bang. What is the big bang exactly inside Hoffman's theory ? I don't know. Maybe some kind of boot sequence.

a reply to: gosseyn
I don't know about Hoffman's theory but I compare the big bang to the energy that's released (created) during cell division

Maybe that's exactly what it is..if you can imagine that we are the 'cells ' encompassed by a larger being just as we encompass all life forms that existed before us. We have cells, we are cells, we are in cells

a reply to: cooperton
cells have consciousness