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Do Particles Have Consciousness? (qz.com)
An anonymous reader quotes Quartz:
Consciousness permeates reality. Rather than being just a unique feature of human subjective experience, it's the foundation of the universe, present in every particle and all physical matter. This sounds like easily-dismissible bunkum, but as traditional attempts to explain consciousness continue to fail, the "panpsychist" view is increasingly being taken seriously by credible philosophers, neuroscientists, and physicists, including figures such as neuroscientist Christof Koch and physicist Roger Penrose...
"Physical science tells us a lot less about the nature of matter than we tend to assume," says Philip Goff, a philosophy professor at Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. "Arthur Eddington" -- the English scientist who experimentally confirmed Einstein's theory of general relativity in the early 20th century -- "argued there's a gap in our picture of the universe. We know what matter does but not what it is. We can put consciousness into this gap"...
An alternative panpsychist perspective holds that, rather than individual particles holding consciousness and coming together, the universe as a whole is conscious. This, says Goff, isn't the same as believing the universe is a unified divine being; it's more like seeing it as a "cosmic mess." Nevertheless, it does reflect a perspective that the world is a top-down creation, where every individual thing is derived from the universe, rather than a bottom-up version where objects are built from the smallest particles. Goff believes quantum entanglement -- the finding that certain particles behave as a single unified system even when they're separated by such immense distances there can't be a causal signal between them -- suggests the universe functions as a fundamental whole rather than a collection of discrete parts. Such theories sound incredible, and perhaps they are. But then again, so is every other possible theory that explains consciousness.
"Physical science tells us a lot less about the nature of matter than we tend to assume," says Philip Goff, a philosophy professor at Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. "Arthur Eddington" -- the English scientist who experimentally confirmed Einstein's theory of general relativity in the early 20th century -- "argued there's a gap in our picture of the universe. We know what matter does but not what it is. We can put consciousness into this gap"...
An alternative panpsychist perspective holds that, rather than individual particles holding consciousness and coming together, the universe as a whole is conscious. This, says Goff, isn't the same as believing the universe is a unified divine being; it's more like seeing it as a "cosmic mess." Nevertheless, it does reflect a perspective that the world is a top-down creation, where every individual thing is derived from the universe, rather than a bottom-up version where objects are built from the smallest particles. Goff believes quantum entanglement -- the finding that certain particles behave as a single unified system even when they're separated by such immense distances there can't be a causal signal between them -- suggests the universe functions as a fundamental whole rather than a collection of discrete parts. Such theories sound incredible, and perhaps they are. But then again, so is every other possible theory that explains consciousness.
Seriously, are we out of real scientific problems to study?
Seriously - uh we don't understand consciousness so it must be in particles. No probably not. Someday we will understand it and we won't think it's the universe or particles but an emergent property of complex systems not some semi-religious drivel relegating us to handwaving about "things beyond our understanding".
So many weasel phrases. "increasingly being taken seriously by credible" . Nope. It's a fringe view, and for good reason. Pure speculation, a kind of god of the gaps, no mechanism proposed, no explanatory or predictive power.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
"Consciousness permeates reality. Rather than being just a unique feature of human subjective experience, it's the foundation of the universe, present in every particle and all physical matter. This sounds like easily-dismissible bunkum, but as traditional attempts to explain consciousness continue to fail"
Total bokum, consciousness is an emergent property of physical processes in the brain. As in a sufficiently powerful computer can create simulated entities moving about within it. No need to invoke some non corporal essence to explain the behavior of such entities.
I've never understand why people even believe in "consciousness". All there is is ever greater amounts of input that can be analyzed by a neurological network to form an output. We just have a more sophisticated version than the other great apes. And because neanderthals and probably other similar species died out, it's hard to understand different degradations close to our capacities.
Think about an artificial neural network. Each time you add a layer you improve the quality of the output, all other things held constant. We have the equivalent of lots of layers as compared to other species in areas such as recognizing our image in a reflection.
We don't even have free will. You only need to to consider both the generic and environmental basis of behavior to know this is true. It's a well established axiom in neuroscience. We just have various evolved behavioral traits such as the desire to set up a religion is spirituality. Similarly we imagine we are conscious and have free will. I suppose it's very hard to use evidence and reason to overcome such strong emotional traits - and the irony is that many cannot do so precisely because they lack free will and are unable to recognize the truth. But I do wish humanity could just "grow up" and stop believing in such foolish notions.
"...the "panpsychist" view is increasingly being taken seriously by soon to be considered less-credible philosophers, neuroscientists, and physicists, including figures such as neuroscientist Christof Koch and physicist Roger Penrose.."
From the article:
"Consciousness is a fundamental feature of physical matter; every single particle in existence has an âoeunimaginably simpleâ form of consciousness, says Goff. These particles then come together to form more complex forms of consciousness, such as humansâ(TM) subjective experiences."
Logically the larger the object, the "more" consciousness it has. A 200t pile of sand would be "more conscious" than a person or a dog?
Essentially, they can't explain how consciousness arises from physics, so they claim all the constituent parts 'have consciousness'. Just admit you don't know something and then try to figure it out; handwavy intellectual caulking slobbed into whatever gaps exist in your understanding don't make it smooth: it simply shows you're lazy.
It seems a pretty long, awkward, and torturous way to just desperately try to avoid actually calling it animism and religion.
-Styopa
I've never understand why people even believe in "consciousness"
Because we each know that we individually have consciousness.
It's a thing, a not very well deifned thing, but a thing nonetheless. No reason to believe it' unique to hu-mons though.
We don't even have free will.
Don't we? Before saying we don't have it, would you mind defining what on earth free will is meant to be?
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Depends on the definition of consciousness, doesn't it? AFAIK we still don't really understand that yet in ourselves, so answering the same question for the universe seems a bit premature at this point. That said, here is the one snippet from the fine summary that actually rings true to me, or at least potentially true:
Goff believes quantum entanglement -- the finding that certain particles behave as a single unified system even when they're separated by such immense distances there can't be a causal signal between them -- suggests the universe functions as a fundamental whole rather than a collection of discrete parts.
Whether that counts as consciousness or not is anybody's guess. What is perhaps more accessible to study is our human propensity for seeking consciousness... or rather, attributing consciousness to natural phenomena. Talk about "first world problems"... this is like a cargo cult for our technologically advanced society.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
Just because we haven't yet figured out things like consciousness, doesn't mean you should allow yourself to say "fuck it" and fall back on the ages-old flaw in the human brain that looks for simple one-line 'explanations' for complex concepts, and in essence say "god did it" -- and that, in essence, is what this is. It's a cop-out, and I find it to be intellectually reprehensible. Anyone who calls themselves a 'scientist' but espouses opinions like this, under the auspices of them being a 'scientist', is reprehensible, and should be censured.
In the past several years I have often said "people are getting dumber, not smarter", and things like this are part of that: rejecting science, logic, and reason, and reverting to what I'll call in this case 'caveman logic'. I'm not totally clear to me whether it's just here in the U.S. or whether it's a global phenomenon, but it seems as though people are rejecting science, logic, reason, and real truth, en masse, and I find the trend to be very disturbing.
As we delve deeper into complex issues like how the human brain produces the phenomenon we call 'consciousness', and deeper into how the underlying fabric of our physical Universe works, we will without a doubt uncover the processes and mechanisms by which all the above, and many more things work; we humans are clever, inquisitive, and posess the potential to be capable of so much more than we are at this moment in time, but we cannot allow ourselves, as a species, to backslide. I feel we are at a crossroads in our development as a species; we must choose carefully and wisely, or we might find ourselves living in another Dark Age.
For awhile I tried voting on the firehose, but I found myself getting both far dumber and far more angry.
Dumber because of all of the fucking stupid shit submitted, and angry because the "editors" of the site posted that shit even if it got well downvoted to make sure there was shit to post angrily about to drive ad revenue.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
Nobody with actual understanding claims humans do not have free will. What is claimed (and rightfully so) is that many decisions are not made using free will. But claiming the absence of free will just shows that the person making that claim lacks in intelligence.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
That's because it is easily-dismissible bunkum.
We don't know what consciousness is with any certainty at all, other than many animals seem to exhibit what most of us would agree upon as calling "consciousness."
It's at least wildly premature (and very likely completely absurd) to decide that it is now a component of the inanimate.
The thinking here — and I'm being very generous with the term — is so muddy as to be utterly opaque and pointless.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.