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lifegazer
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Post: #1  Posted: Mon Nov 09, 2009 7:22 pm Post subject: The Essence of everything must itself be conscious. |
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I wasn't sure what title to use for this thread. I might have used "The cause of the world must itself be conscious.", or suchlike. Anyway, I'm sure that you get my drift.
I'm an idealist. My primary motive for this thread is to confront those idealists who equate the essence of everything with "a void", or some other non-conscious ~substance~, which they assert is "the cause" of all ~things~ [other than itself]. Of course, I warmly embrace the contribution of anyone else, even materialists [and their objections]. 
Let us note that this isn't intended to be a thread about those who adhere to the notion that 'nothing' was the cause of everything, though I will deal with that, if so requested. So...
I think that the essence of 'everything' had to be conscious; intelligent; purposeful; creative. (Amongst other attributes). Of course, the use of such attributes equate said entity to 'God', rather than an inert lump of lard. Why? Because they contend that 'orchestration' brought the world into awareness.
THE significant aspect of this thread, is that if ~something singular~ (the absolute essence of anything, must, by logical default, be singular) is posited as the source of the [experience of the] world, then that ~thing~ must have the attributes that I've just mentioned. But why?
1) The world is ordered (order is synonymous with reason/intelligence).
2) The world is persistent - if 'chance' was the essence of everything, how could 'perpetual order' occur?
Any adherents of AI here, will also be confronted with the all-important question:
If a program is the cause of 'whatever' emanates from the hardware that harbours it, then from whence cometh the software?
Can robots produce consciousness? Eventually, according to some. But why? Because the software will be sufficient to activate that phenomenon in whatever hardware is used, they say.
But if the hardware is traced back to an inert lump of lard, from whence cometh the software that will manipulate it? EVENTUALLY, you have to face upto the fact that an inert lump cannot produce software. Or else, if the 'lump' is just doing what the software told it do, then you must at least acknowledge that the software PRECEDED the bloody hardware!!
Thanks for your time.
I will entertain any serious discussion here. Thankyou.
Last edited by lifegazer on Tue Nov 10, 2009 4:29 am; edited 1 time in total |
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ape
Joined: 06 Apr 2009
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| Post: #2 Posted: Mon Nov 09, 2009 9:02 pm Post subject: Re: The Essence of everything must itself be conscious. |
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Xlnt!
It's also why I am a murderer when I hate any word: by hating anyone or anything, my Hate just killed my Love with Malice-afore-thought and so just murdered Love: the Life of life, the Life of everything, the Life of non-life! Love is the life of itself: Love is self-supplying and self-sufficient which is why Love is forever and everliving!
Love is the life-essence or the essential life of life! Love is what makes life worth living when we start loving which is when we really start living!
Love is the essence of everything because Love loves everything and so supplies what everyone and everything was made to need: Love.
This is why everything and everyone has a Love-shaped hole! It makes sense that Blaise Pascal called it a God-shaped hole-- since God is Love and Love is God!
By the way, Lifegazer, because Love loves everything and its opposite, nothing, we can make everything(et) out of nothing(nt) and make nothing(nt) out of everything(et)!
That's how God did it: he made et out of nt, and makes nt out of nt. Is why nothing IS something! Hope that gives you the best tool to handle those who say we came from nothing: we did: they just hate The Nothing: that's one of God's names!
Ever seen The Neverending Story? Check it out. |
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Belinda
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| Post: #3 Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2009 5:55 am Post subject: |
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What could show that anything at all has an essential attribute, i.e. an attribute that pertains to that thing and nothing else?
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lifegazer
Joined: 08 Jul 2009
Posts: 491
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| Post: #4 Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2009 7:37 am Post subject: |
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| Belinda wrote: |
| What could show that anything at all has an essential attribute, i.e. an attribute that pertains to that thing and nothing else? |
Belinda, I'm not sure if you're asking me this question? And to be honest, I don't understand it nor the reason for it - please clarify. |
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wanabe
Joined: 24 Nov 2008
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| Post: #5 Posted: Sat Nov 21, 2009 9:16 pm Post subject: |
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How is the world(I'm assuming you are using this interchangeable with universe) ordered?: Man came up with theories? there are "constants" like gravity?
| lifegazer wrote: |
| if 'chance' was the essence of everything, how could 'perpetual order' occur? |
There is a chance of everything/anything- happening/existing; including order, and that can change in an instant.
Having "perpetual order" in that question is very presumptive(loaded question).
We have methods for estimation that can give us indication of what might happen and how (the illusion of order), but they are not definitive.
Most importantly there was never nothing, there was always chance/probability.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Belinda is basically asking what shows that the world has order. It would be among the type of questioning that I started this post with.
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Anything is possible; nothing is as it seems.Transcend feeble language by communicating through Direct Perception.I am attempting to transcend 'right and wrong', please help me."What you don't understand you can make mean anything."-Chuck Palahniuk |
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PrivateVoid
Joined: 18 Nov 2009
Posts: 17
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| Post: #6 Posted: Sat Nov 21, 2009 10:51 pm Post subject: |
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Consciousness is itself questionable.
It (self-awareness, self-identity) may be just an automatic, natural phenomenon caused by billions of neurons being hooked up together. If consciousness were something so "special", some kind of special "essence", why would people be alive and talking one minute, and dead the next?
Also consider that there is a whole spectrum of levels of consciousness (read I Am A Strange Loop by Hofstadter for elaboration (but note some of the content is a bit sappy and scientifically weak)). Consciousness is not necessarily either/or.
The order you/we place/impose on the world is a convenience to get through each second, minute, hour, day, and so on.
One person's order is another's chaos.
A truly inert lump would not do anything but an "active lump" does not necessarily require consciousness. |
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wanabe
Joined: 24 Nov 2008
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| Post: #7 Posted: Sun Nov 22, 2009 2:03 am Post subject: |
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privatevoid,
Your opening paragraph is a good argument, how ever the reasoning behind it seems weak. If the area the phenomenon is drastically changed than consciousness would drastically change.
I agree that there are spectrum of conciseness.
It seems agreed that it exists.
"A truly inert lump would not do anything but an "active lump" does not necessarily require consciousness."
Agreed.
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Anything is possible; nothing is as it seems.Transcend feeble language by communicating through Direct Perception.I am attempting to transcend 'right and wrong', please help me."What you don't understand you can make mean anything."-Chuck Palahniuk |
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Nick
Joined: 10 Sep 2009
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Location: Yiwu City, China
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| Post: #8 Posted: Sun Nov 22, 2009 3:16 am Post subject: |
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lifegazer, you said,
"The Essence of everything must itself be conscious."
--> It is. It has been said that everything in the universe is consciousness. I like to say that a brick wall is nothing more than solidified consciousness. We cannot even define consciousness, because there is nothing that is non-consciousness, that we can compare to consciousness, in order to come up with a definition.
You ask if robots have consciousness. I think the key issue is that they do not have self-consciousness -- they are not aware that they exist. I believe the difference between humans and animals is that we are aware of our existence while animals are not. |
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wanabe
Joined: 24 Nov 2008
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Location: EVERYWHERE
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| Post: #9 Posted: Sun Nov 22, 2009 3:51 am Post subject: |
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| Nick wrote: |
| I believe the difference between humans and animals is that we are aware of our existence while animals are not. |
Animals are aware of their consciousness we are animals. Further more they must be aware, there are many social animals besides humans(what you say is a contradiction).
Everything that is not alive is unconscious. Life then needs to be defined: Anything that can make multiple similar forms of it self under its own independent power with out the immediate destruction of it self.
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Anything is possible; nothing is as it seems.Transcend feeble language by communicating through Direct Perception.I am attempting to transcend 'right and wrong', please help me."What you don't understand you can make mean anything."-Chuck Palahniuk |
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Belinda
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| Post: #10 Posted: Sun Nov 22, 2009 7:13 am Post subject: |
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| Nick wrote: |
lifegazer, you said,
"The Essence of everything must itself be conscious."
--> It is. It has been said that everything in the universe is consciousness. I like to say that a brick wall is nothing more than solidified consciousness. We cannot even define consciousness, because there is nothing that is non-consciousness, that we can compare to consciousness, in order to come up with a definition.
You ask if robots have consciousness. I think the key issue is that they do not have self-consciousness -- they are not aware that they exist. I believe the difference between humans and animals is that we are aware of our existence while animals are not. |
(I note that this is not the same person as Nick_A.)
I wonder however if Lifegazer and Nick may be conflating essence and cause.Perhaps Lifegazer would comment on how he/she understands 'essence'.
I agree that if there were no consciousness, nothing except something like Nick's fascinating avatar would beI say 'be' not 'exist' because in order for something to exist it first has to be an item of consciousness.
However what Nick's avatar portrays is itself only a conscious portrayal. The actual being that physics describes is not counter-intuitive.'A brick wall is solidified consciousness' is good as it illustrates how our organs of perception make the thing appear as if it is really as it appears.
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Nick
Joined: 10 Sep 2009
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| Post: #11 Posted: Sun Nov 22, 2009 8:23 am Post subject: |
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Belinda,
By the way, my avatar is a computer simulation of the beginning of a galaxy. If you look closely, you will see that it is spinning. Also, galaxies often have a crossbar of solid stars, and you can see one rotating in my avatar if you look closely.
You said,
"...our organs of perception make the thing appear as if it is really as it appears."
--> This is important, because oftentimes what we perceive as real is not real at all. Physical atoms may seem real, but the day may come when they all disappear into a Big Collapse at the end of our universe, when all matter compresses into an area the size of a basketball (or so the astrophysicists say). |
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wanabe
Joined: 24 Nov 2008
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| Post: #12 Posted: Sun Nov 22, 2009 5:46 pm Post subject: |
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Why does existence depend on conciseness Belinda? (A rock is still a rock even if there is nothing to experience it. An unknown thing is still what ever it is, something just hasn't experienced it yet.) please explain.
~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Nick,
things are not always how we perceive them, but that does not make them unreal because we perceived them wrong. Some thing may not exist due to events to come( in the "future") but that does not mean it never existed.
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Anything is possible; nothing is as it seems.Transcend feeble language by communicating through Direct Perception.I am attempting to transcend 'right and wrong', please help me."What you don't understand you can make mean anything."-Chuck Palahniuk |
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Thuse
Joined: 04 Oct 2009
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| Post: #13 Posted: Sun Nov 22, 2009 7:43 pm Post subject: |
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| lifegazer wrote: |
I'm an idealist. My primary motive for this thread is to confront those idealists who equate the essence of everything with "a void", or some other non-conscious ~substance~, which they assert is "the cause" of all ~things~ [other than itself]. Of course, I warmly embrace the contribution of anyone else, even materialists [and their objections].
Let us note that this isn't intended to be a thread about those who adhere to the notion that 'nothing' was the cause of everything |
Hello lifegazer,
If I interpret you correctly, the void you refer to is the “mystical” one rather than the “scientific” one.
Somebody who takes the view that “voidness” is the essence of all things might argue that consciousness is itself void – it is empty of an intrinsic essence or substance.
If it were not originally void, or empty, it could not contain perceptions, experience etc.
Therefore, in order for experience to arise in consciousness, consciousness itself must be empty or “void”.
You also posit that the essence/originator of all things is:
| Quote: |
| conscious; intelligent; purposeful; creative. (Amongst other attributes). |
If the source of existence is conscious, intelligent and creative, then consciousness, intelligence and creativity must arise in a context. In other words, these attributes must have a relative context, which is itself void of attributes.
A metaphor that could be used might be the way space must first be empty if something is to occupy it.
In this sense then, one could argue that the essence of all things, even a conscious source, must necessarily be “a void”. |
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Belinda
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| Post: #14 Posted: Mon Nov 23, 2009 5:13 pm Post subject: |
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Wanabe, #12
(
| Quote: |
| A rock is still a rock even if there is nothing to experience it. An unknown thing is still what ever it is, something just hasn't experienced it yet.) |
The best way I can explain this is to ask you how you can know this
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wanabe
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| Post: #15 Posted: Mon Nov 23, 2009 11:04 pm Post subject: |
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Before We knew that atoms existed there were still atoms were there not Belinda. They still behaved in the same way, alchemy provides records of this to some degree.
We have never experienced a black hole, but we know they exist.
There is some thing we don't know. It is still what ever it is. Us knowing about it or experiencing it does not change it's properties.
I think the confusion(if I may call it that) comes from us assigning properties to things and being wrong about it. Making us think our perception has something to do with how things actually are.
Now does this mean I or anyone knows this, or any thing? No; but it seems more likely.
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Anything is possible; nothing is as it seems.Transcend feeble language by communicating through Direct Perception.I am attempting to transcend 'right and wrong', please help me."What you don't understand you can make mean anything."-Chuck Palahniuk |
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