The universe thinks; like this…

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The universe thinks; like this?…

In our minds when informations communicate there is thought, this happens within the context of universe. Unless there is ‘something else’ [?] about our minds that the universe doesn’t have, when our minds are surely the product of universe and nothing more, then perhaps the universe can think.

The universe is informational; it gives info into its body/mind [background information] and receives info from that too ~ again just as we do in our minds.

However, the same things may occur without consciousness. So what makes conscious and non-conscious communications different?

Information communicates in patterns, when something moves through a pattern it repeats and becomes cyclic. Consciousness doesn’t repeat, it moves on from one pattern [of info] to the next, repetitive patterns are used as memories and features of the personality ~ all the facets of the brain.

So the question now becomes; what in the universe are non-repetitive patterns? Whatever that is, is where the consciousness of the universal thinker resides! Or thinkers!?

There equally appears to be in a sense, two approximate levels of physics. The deterministic, atomic and much of the holistic/macroscopic world are one level [set1], then the relativistic and probabilistic side of things are the other [set2].

For patterns to occur in the universe, there needs to be something which creates informations which form relationships by which they communicate. So the thinker lays down sets of repetitive patterns witch communicate cyclically [creates instruction sets]. In order to break free it needs something that moves beyond said sets and makes utility of them I.e. consciousness.

The ability to move beyond the cyclic nature of existence appears to be where consciousness resides both in us and the universe. ‘something’ has to be moving through the patterns and informations, and reading [knowing] them. Without that element, there would be no way to create new cycles and indeed new universes.

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The universe thinks, not. Only brains think.

That’s the $64 question.

No te entiendo. If consciousness (as suggested by some) rides on a 40 hz oscillation, how can it not repeat?

Human thought imposes the distinction. It does not exist in “reality”.

You think too much. This is the main problem with philosophy. No matter how iron-clad an argument or philosophical “system” seems to be, some big-brained joker will come along and produce an iron-clad counter-argument. Almost makes you want to believe Hegel. Except his dialectic was itself defeated. And so on. Only science offers hope (but you must promise not to look under it’s axiomatic skirts).

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I have no idea how that frequency equates as consciousness, I expect it merely corresponds to the level of activity in the brain.

Perhaps. For me there are various levels of fluidity, after a point our perception of that becomes apparently solid.

Well I am waiting for an iron-clad counter-argument. I am not opposed to science except where it comes across as a belief system, one way or another we have to face the fact as concerns what we are ~ in terms of what that ‘experience’ is!

The trouble with science is it wont accept that. I am happy to go through a logical debate on the subject of mind, but with logic we have to primarily accept sets of assumptions, if we exclude everything that we know we experience then the logic is limited or indeed false.

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Which means, at the very least, that part of the universe thinks. And given that there are no complete boundaries, brains and bodies always in complicated interaction with their surroundings, the brain monad is mythological. Let alone that we do not know that only brains think.

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I will attempt to clarify. Whether the universe or other entities within it can be said to “think” in some way is a different question. Certainly our definition of “think” must be opened up considerably to grant the power of thought to non-organic entities. The discursive thinking that goes on in our brains is a representation of the external world and our internal reactions to it - as a subset of the universe it cannot “grasp” the universe - it is incomplete. I find any suggestion that the universe functions in some literal way like a gigantic biological organism to be fanciful (at best).

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I’m trying to understand what you mean by “repeat”. Is this literal? Figurative? Is it backed by neuroscience or just flowery language?

I’m not sure what you are referring to here. I am saying that any apparent dichotomy in physics exists because we invented physics to describe the universe. There is no deterministic/relativistic distinction in the universe; our understanding is flawed.

Not from me. First I would have to understand what your argument is. What I am suggesting is that philosophical speculation is just that, speculation. Only science is truly useful.

Is “belief system” your euphemism for religion? I agree. And facing the facts of experience (for me anyway) is recognizing that all religion (and/or new-age touchy-feely b.s.) is fantasy.

Won’t accept what? The cold hard facts of reality? Despite it’s flaws, science is the best indicator of reality that we have.

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Reality is a buzz word. If fields of study and analyzation are only indicators of it that means reality in and of itself has not been written off, placed in a particular definition and used to judge the world/universe we perceive.

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Not sure I follow. But I do see room for ambiguity in what I wrote. What I mean is, science is as real as it gets; there is nothing “more real” than science.

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Nice! I like that explanation. What I am doing here is deconstructing what I think thought is in the brain, and marrying that to universal equivalents. Kinda metaphorically removing our skulls from the equation.

Which is exactly what I am attempting to do. There is a fundamental question here; can aspects_of _universe contain non_aspects_universe? Sure you can do different things with the stuff of universe, say, make iron into a sword, but can you make mind or consciousness from something which in no way contains them ~ a sword without iron?

I am not purposefully being ambiguous! it’s a tough topic and being disingenuous would be futile.

Like e.g. running around a track, or having many runners and different start/end lines on the track; info communicates in a series or pattern of relationships. Once a pattern is completed [like the runner has run the track length] the race becomes cyclic.

I agree, I think that reality is far more fluid than what we perceive is all ~ electrons can be waves or particles or in a probabilistic kind of statelessness.

That would be true, yet I think in some areas science and philosophy aren’t being honest about consciousness and qualia, and all theories begin with speculation. Science is philosophy anyway.
We are in a time when it is paramount that we question these things, we could find ourselves being replaced by soul-less AI’s otherwise. …that’s about 10 yrs away I reckon.

Agreed.

It wont accept ‘the experiencer’ [part of consciousness]. That is our most fundamental reality!

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Experience (subjective phenomena) are certainly the “hard problem” (conceptually, at this point: I am not convinced that that the hard problem won’t melt away as we gather more hard neuroscientific evidence) but even though all experience is in some respect “real” for the subject it is quite easy to find experience that does not conform to reality (dreams, hallucinations). Science remains the best tool we have to negotiate reality. And “negotiate” may be a very effective word to use in this realm.

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I am not so sure, the science seems to come down to chemicals and electrical signals irrespective of complexity. Just as science says colour is not photons moving at different rates, surely we can say that experience is not electrical signals.

Is it science to say colour is not photons without then saying what colour is? Atm science just says colour is perceptual, but as far as I know, no-one has said colour is electrical signals nor chemicals.

This is why I feel I have to consider qualia [like colour] and experience as its own real [even when its used in dreams and hallucinations, the quality of colour is still there].

Remember that when we are speaking of ‘real’, ones mind can translate colour into signals, dreams into information. So in that sense the dream has a level of reality. Lies can become real in that way and if believed.

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Yes, and science will be the only way to begin to truly understand that complexity. If we are ever going to understand how the physical corresponds to the “phenomenal” (qualia) it will be through science.

Not “just” electrical signals, but I see where you are going and disagree - we really don’t know yet if science will resolve consciousness. I think it may. Whether it can or can’t I don’t think we get free reign to view the universe as sentient (metaphorically, perhaps, literally, no).

Color is not photons? Color is an “experience” and it corresponds very nicely to the frequency of electromagnetic radiation. I agree that dreams and hallicinations are real - i.e. they are real experiences to the experiencer. But we know that dreams and hallucinations do not necessarily represent “reality”, i.e. I can dream of a unicorn, but they don’t exist.

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No colour is not photons, take a look around the net, check out [on bbc I-player or you-tube] horizon; ‘Do you see what I see‘. experiments on there show that colour is perceptual and don’t always relate to light frequencies. Most scientists in the field agree that photons have no colour, and them moving up and down at a given rate doesn’t add colour to them. we simply ‘see’ them as colour.
did you know you can see with your ears and even your tongue?! [with the right instruments attached and blindfolded [or blind].

What happens is that there are physical phenomenon, and somehow consciousness makes the correlation either roughly or almost exactly to said phenomena.
The only thing I can think of that would enable that is information communicating! That part is my assumption, the rest is fact.

don’t believe me, find out! I am not making stuff up here.

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We’re arguing semantics here - “red” is certain range of frequencies in the spectrum of visible electromagnetic radiation. If I may quote Paul Churchland from the book I am currently reading ("Conversations on Consciousness" by Susan Blackmore):

“The deceptive idea was of this special epistemological window, vision, that alone gave you access to light, to an ontologically different kind of stuff. You may talk about electromagnetic fields oscillating, some will say, but that’s changing the subject, you’re not talking about light, that which we see.”
“But I’m sorry, it turned out to be just the other way around. It turned out that presumptively “visjective” [as in subjective] light was indeed electromagnetic waves. And, to return to inner qualia, it looks like the ‘subjective’ visual sensation of redness is going to be a particular pattern of activations accross your opponent process cells in the LGN or V4. Think of it, if you like, as a musical chord struck accross a population of neurons. There are keys in V4 and a particular pattern codes for red, a particular pattern codes for green, and so on. And that’s what a subjective quale is.”

I am not accusing you of making stuff up, and I am still, admittedly in the process of “finding out”. But this subject is far from resolved and there is quite a bit of diversity of opinion out there amongst the experts.

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The musical chord is struck by electrical signals AFTER light waves have been converted. So what is colour photons or electrons oscillating? Secondly its when the chord is struck that we visualise what is being described by the signals, this is subjectively after the collection of signals have interacted with the neurons. So is colour now photons or electrons oscillating, or neuronal chemical exchanges!
Then tell me exactly how any of these things can be colour and information that the mind perceives? We can describe such objects perfectly, so cite me a perfect scientific description of colour as it is fundamentally within the context of any [and all!] of those physical things, then I’ll gladly understand and move on.

I agree the subject is far from resolved, that’s why I am pushing it so hard.

I posted this elsewhere and I think its relevant here too;

An information is represented both in the physical as signals and neurons, and in the mental as qualia [if we include experience and being as that].

If you destroy the physical representation of the info say in memory, then the mind cannot know it. Equally, if you could extract the physical leaving the consciousness behind [e.g. take some neurons out of the brain], then the physical also cannot know the information…

We could attach instruments to those neurons, and their chemical patterns would denote the shape of the electrical signal the instrument would read in order to show us what the info is. Yet it is not until those signals reach our minds once more, that they become information! No machine knows what info is irrespective of how complex it is, it can only mimic it in said manner.

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OK. I see nothing here for me to disagree with. We’re basically on the same page as to what needs to be done to “explain” consciousness. But that brings me back to this:

So, I take it you are basically in agreement with David Chalmers when he speculates that science will not be able to solve the “hard problem”?

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Hmm, I think it will resolve the problem, but it will fundamentally change before it arrives at the solution. The holographic theory is one of the more advanced out there, and I think that once science accepts that information is an important aspect and that its not purely physical [patterns], then its on its way to the answer.

Basically when science and philosophy comes together [not that its exactly apart], we’ll have a more rounded reality map.

For me that’s where it just begins.

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I am unfamiliar with this “holographic theory”. Any chance you could give us the executive summary or point to a succinct reference that could be digested by a layman?

Are you perhaps referring to what is called the “holonomic brain theory” by Pribam and Bohn?

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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_principle

Not sure what it says about this there, but the hologram as described in the first section relates to ‘background information’ which defines it.

Nothing to do with minds really, except that we think in informational terms.

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OH, well in that case check this out - pretty interesting and I think it relates:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_paradigm