There is the argument that consciousness cannot be fundamental to reality [or at least the universe/existence], because it doesn’t arise at least here until many billions of years after the universe ‘began’.
Thought experiment
Lets imagine that an alien species or something as intelligent as humans [could be humans for all we know] existed in a previous universe. Lets say they found a way to survive its demise.
In what way could they create an environment for conscious life, except by the same means as the universe has? Given they have not attained godly powers [here I’ll assume that].
In other words; don’t we end up with the exact same scenario! Weather there is consciousness before or at the beginning of the universe or not, we still have to go through the exact same processes to arrive at it.
Well I believe there was, It seems ridiculous too me for people to say consciousness can arise out of nothingness, i’d contest that consciousness is a thing in itself and preceded the universe.
Agreed. ‘consciousnessis’ is probably non-interventionist [not that I wish to infer a god like being here], or anyway there is probably only one way to make a universe like ours, and life would arise under the right conditions.
Point being that this says nothing about weather or not there was consciousness at the beginning or if it is a fundamental. However it is often used, so I just wanted to dispel that one forever.
Well im mean to there’s only two ways to explain the “beginning” of existance.
Either this Arose out of nothing or Arose out of Something, in that case something must always have existed, Id call that God I suppose others don’t have too.
Based on what we “know” neither seem to make any sense, this is probably a good indication that we “know” very little about this particular subject at least.
I mean it’s really mind boggling, head hitting a wall stop I mean…Existance Why?.. this is why i often talk about politics and the future of the Earth you know? Small problems…
For me you have to have something at the beginning from which all things derive!
Whilst this doesn’t negate the premise of the thread…
What do we mean by ‘emerge’? I can see how organic machines could emerge, here we are simply taking what is there and arranging it differently.
However, I don’t see how any rearrangement can produce something which was formerly not in existence.
I can see how an arrangement can be the vehicle to something metaphysical.
If there was/is ‘consciousnessis’ and like energy it is a fundamental of reality, then I can also imagine how and why things would arrange themselves accordingly.
If it were another kind of energy, we’d have no problem in accepting that under the correct conditions, the ‘attractors’ at play would arrive at life and vehicles for consciousness.
Look. It’s all about platforms, and their unexpected qualities once they are all assembled.
I’m betting there is a TV on somewhere nearby. The picture exists on the screen. It moves, it talks, it laughs, it cries. But it didn’t exist before someone knocked together the first TV. Same with consciousness.
Well I’d prefer a more elaborate answer to my points, tut, but anyways…
The image on the screen only exists perceptually I.e. in your consciousness, as do all those other qualia. it’s a perfect analogy actually, everything on the screen is a lie, it isn’t what it is, it just portrays itself as such. We would be exactly the same lie if we were machines.
This depends on whether you see consciousness in terms of sentience or sapience. In case of sentience, Aletheia gave me the final push to this: If consciousness as sentience is indeed an elaborate form of self-valuing, an ever more subtly adjusting self-sustaining assimilation process relying on a reflection of input to output, then the essence, as in functional root, of what we refer to as consciousness is logically prior to the manifested universe, even though of course it requires manifestation in matter to exist, to be a principle of what exists.
This means that only that which specifically assimilates that which feeds its sustainment, which is a very strange thing to do, both smart and dangerous, is able to become a “species”, be it an atom, molecule or organism. Categories and hierarchies of sentience. Our human consciousness is cognitive, logical, abstract - sapience. If this is not present in a human, he is no more conscious than an ape, as far as I know apes. But humans already abstract when they learn how to use a tool. Sapience is consciousness transcending the organism. It starts with wielding a club, from which the first possible notion derives: power-object. All knowledge is power-tools, and of course ignorant superapes burn themselves with it. So tool-attracted but unfocused superapes get selected out, they “shoot themselves in the face”, whether they came into the unfortunate possession of a weapon or a piece of knowledge.
Zillion years of developing brains. Cue Broca’s area. Cue language. Cue personal pronouns.
We can percieve our bodies and our actions. We can also percieve the meta-chatter we call thought. They both become language objects.
We talk about them: I am thinking. I am writing about thinking. You are reading this. I am not you.
This ticker-tape loop of do-notice-comment-do-notice-comment, is consciousness. Consciousness is born in language, because before you can articulate your actions there is no easy, quick/realtime way to separate yourself (ie the noticer/commentator) from them. Everything’s a blurry great mess. Then language pops into the picture, and poof! Suddenly the contrast and sharpness of the duality of being vs. commenting about being clicks into focus.
From what is said there I’d say it is logically something other than input/output, so it is at least separate to the mechanistic nature. For me that extra feature could equally be an emergent property ~ you make a brain and consciousness somehow then exists. Yet we still have to say from what it emerges, and there we have the ‘something’, the base nature of consciousness. Perhaps it’s the same thing as to energy types and what energy ‘is’ ~ though I have no idea what that would be in both cases.
I assume you mean sustenance, …the comment that it is both smart and dangerous is most profound!
that’s a whole thread in and of itself, perhaps there is a level of benign ignorance to it? Certainly basic life-forms wouldn’t have the cognitive ability to make an intelligent decision, its probably more a case of do or don’t do, then in every case of life, consciousness takes the do offer.
doesn’t it always do that? Animals like sealions and seals have show an ability in logic comparable to humans, their form just doesn’t give them the ability to expound that, they cant talk to us in our language. I don’t know how far we have to go down the line of life-forms to find something which doesn’t have some manner of consciousness.
Tab
A germ notices its environment and reacts to it, here we simply have a greater complexity of that.
I don’t believe it is, I am conscious of other things than language, as an artist I see things far more visually ~ as I expect do many other creatures. A dog has a sense of smell millions of times greater than ours ~ do you think that is not a language, if not then how does it cognate the differences?
I think there is. The realtime consciousness is prior to language, the whole thing we experience of nature happens in nature aside from the human ability for language as we know it. The sharness and contrast is in the image and not in the understanding of it!
I already did.