Science has shown the universe is Conscious in the form of Knowledge

a reply to: Arbitrageur

with some other part of the system in another way, so I for one am happy to count video cameras, rocks, atoms and molecules in the air as quantum mechanical observers for all intents and purposes."

Of course he and you would. Jump hoops and go kicking and screaming if someone implies otherwise. And yet the above is the length that "scientists" would stretch the English language to in order to sanitize.

"Quantum mechanical observers"!

originally posted by: TheConstruKctionofLight
a reply to: Arbitrageur

with some other part of the system in another way, so I for one am happy to count video cameras, rocks, atoms and molecules in the air as quantum mechanical observers for all intents and purposes."

Of course he and you would. Jump hoops and go kicking and screaming if someone implies otherwise. And yet the above is the length that "scientists" would stretch the English language to in order to sanitize.

"Quantum mechanical observers"!

LOL, exactly right!

So what he counts these things as observers, that doesn't exclude humans as observers. He's worried about the way observer sounds. It offends his atheism and has nothing to do with science.

This is the problem. Carroll wants to make it seem that a human is no different than a rock LOL. This is while he gives an interview or a lecture about all of this information he extracted as an observer, can a rock do that?

I remember him in a video in his car that was built by human observers who gave meaning to and created a car from information they extracted. Can a rock do that? He's more of a blind atheist than a Scientist when he makes statements like that.

When you start off by trying to say human consciousness is no different than a rock, you just sound ASININE.

a reply to: Quadlink



Just remember to only link what comes after the " = "

eg.
www.youtube.com...

becomes
8dwv3vFmDV0

a reply to: neoholographic

Well if only it was so benign. The brotherhood in order to get pats on their backs and not offend have done society a disservice. They cant fathom that it allows actions like non consensual experimentation and other investigations and practises devoid of a moral compass.

"We only built x part of the process we cant be accountable if the Military weaponises our invention"

a reply to: neoholographic

So an observer can be an electron, measuring apparatus, dog or conscious human. Here's Max Tegmark talking about the Physics of the observer.

That's odd, I could have sworn we've had at least one debate where you tried to tell me that only consciousness could act as an observer because there's something special about consciousness which cannot be defined in material terms...

So you have what I call weak observers and strong observers. A weak observer would be a measuring apparatus. It extracts information about a system ...

Human consciousness doesn't just extract information, it can give meaning and do work with that information to build things or write books.

Ok well that's a convenient interpretation but what about a computer, it can take in information from devices such as a webcam or microphone, and it can do work on that information without any human input what so ever. Our brain does work on information flowing to it from our senses but that does not automatically mean our brain has some non-physical component.

The universe has to have knowledge of itself and knowledge is consciousness.

Google stores more knowledge than any other system on Earth and it allows us to quickly find that knowledge based on simple search queries, even when I input vague search terms its often smart enough to know what I want, yet the Google search engine is not a conscious being, at least not yet. As you said consciousness requires work to be done on knowledge, it requires some type of computation, merely storing knowledge isn't enough.

If knowledge wasn't fundamental, then how would anything exist? The universe would just be a superposition of states if an observer couldn't gain knowledge about a system.

It would exist the same way the moon exists when no one is looking at it, via decoherence which is caused by the weak observer effect of inanimate objects which you've now admitted can occur... when particles interact with each other and form larger clumps of matter a natural decoherence effect occurs, the same way a qubit will stop exhibiting quantum behavior such as superposition unless it is kept isolated from its environment and not allowed the interact with the high energy environment around it. The environment will act as a measuring device on the qubit as the waveform of the qubit merges with the high energy environment and decoherence occurs, at which point the qubit becomes part of the solid environment, just like the particles in the moon are still quantum objects, but together they form a very solid object which exists regardless of who's looking at it.

a reply to: ChaoticOrder

Most of what you said doesn't have anything to do with the thread. You said:

Google stores more knowledge than any other system on Earth and it allows us to quickly find that knowledge based on simple search queries, even when I input vague search terms its often smart enough to know what I want, yet the Google search engine is not a conscious being, at least not yet.

What does this have to do with the price of tea in China?

Who said the Google search engine is a conscious being? You have supercomputers that can do fast calculations.

As of June 2016, the fastest supercomputer on the TOP500 supercomputer list is the Sunway TaihuLight, in China, with a LINPACK benchmark score of 93 PFLOPS, exceeding the previous record holder, Tianhe-2, by around 59 PFLOPS.

en.wikipedia.org...

So what as it pertains to this debate. Nobody is claiming Google or a supercomputer is conscious. You then said it can do work WITHOUT ANY HUMAN INPUT WHATSOEVER. Besides the fact that it was a human who built it LOL. Again, an argument that doesn't make any sense.

Of course a machine will be able to do some of these things if we design it to do these things but even still the fastest supercomputer is no match for the brain.

At the time of this writing, the fastest supercomputer in the world is the Tianhe-2 in Guangzhou, China, and has a maximum processing speed of 54.902 petaFLOPS. A petaFLOP is a quadrillion (one thousand trillion) floating point calculations per second. That’s a huge amount of calculations, and yet, that doesn’t even come close to the processing speed of the human brain.

In contrast, our miraculous brains operate on the next order higher. Although it is impossible to precisely calculate, it is postulated that the human brain operates at 1 exaFLOP, which is equivalent to a billion billion calculations per second.

In 2014, some clever researchers in Japan tried to match the processing power in one second from one percent of the brain. That doesn’t sound like very much, and yet it took the 4th fastest supercomputer in the world (the K Computer) 40 minutes to crunch the calculations for a single second of brain activity!

And here's the kicker.

Biology is a beautiful thing, and life itself is much smarter than computers. For example, the brain is both hardware and software, whereas there is an inherent different in computers. The same interconnected areas, linked by billions of neurons and perhaps trillions of glial cells, can perceive, interpret, store, analyze, and redistribute at the same time. Computers, by their very definition and fundamental design, have some parts for processing and others for memory; the brain doesn’t make that separation, which makes it hugely efficient.

The same calculations and processes that might take a computer a few millions steps can be achieved by a few hundred neuron transmissions, requiring far less energy and performing at a far greater efficiency. The amount of energy required to power computations by the world’s fastest supercomputer would be enough to power a building; the human brain achieves the same processing speeds from the same energy as is required to charge a dim lightbulb. Biological processes have had billions of years to evolve perfect, efficient organs that far supersede technology, and we are beginning to reach those artificial “limitations”.

www.scienceabc.com...

This is why your post doesn't make much sense.

Then you said this:

when particles interact with each other and form larger clumps of matter a natural decoherence effect occurs

This is just nonsense. When particles interact with each other they exchange information and are observers. secondly, you can't have this clumping together if an observer didn't extract information during the Planck Epoch.

Tell me, how did any information every reach the environment without an observer? The first stars started to form 200 million years after the Big Bang. How did information to create an environment escape the Planck Epoch without an observer?

It's like the double slit experiment. Without an observer that takes in information about the system it would have just remained in superposition and the universe would have never clumped together. You can't even have an environment without an observer collapsing the wave function of the Planck Epoch. There was no environment.

a reply to: neoholographic

When you observe yourself thinking, is the observer who observes you, a separate entity? What of the observation of you observing your thoughts?

Which one is actually the you that is you?

a reply to: neoholographic

So humans are observers but we can do so much more. We can take in information about a system and give that information meaning and use that information to do work.

With perfection, the thought can do anything.

Matthew 17:20 New International Version (NIV)

20 He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

a reply to: neoholographic

What does this have to do with the price of tea in China?

You said "knowledge is consciousness"...

You then said it can do work WITHOUT ANY HUMAN INPUT WHATSOEVER. Besides the fact that it was a human who built it LOL.

And what does that have to do with the price of tea in China? Lets say we're talking about a computer which was formed via a random gathering of particles, a rudimentary chemical reaction which does some work, for example like the first single celled organisms on Earth. Such simple structures can do computations but they are clearly not conscious in any way because they don't have any higher level brain functions which allow them to form a high level conceptual and contextual understanding of the world they exist in, they have no self-awareness.

a reply to: ChaoticOrder

Again, nothing you said refutes or has anything to do with the thread. I said:

knowledge is consciousness

What you failed to read or you just ignored is when I said they're strong and weak observers. I said that a human observer is different than a measuring device and gave a few examples of how this is the case.

This is why your post didn't make any sense. I didn't say knowledge = a human observer. I said this:

So humans are observers but we can do so much more. We can take in information about a system and give that information meaning and use that information to do work.

For instance, a dog is an observer and a dog may extract information that the moon moves like it's chew toy or when a ball is thrown.

Human observers can extract information like the distance of the moon from the earth or from the sun, build rockets to visit the moon, write books about the moon, explain why we see a blue moon or half moon and much more.

Here's the definition of knowledge:

1 a (1) : the fact or condition of knowing something with familiarity gained through experience or association

For example, the environment as you say can act as an observer. The environment is knowing something about the state of a system gained through experience or association.

KNOWLEDGE IS FUNDAMENTAL!

What's the definition of knowing?

1 : having or reflecting knowledge, information, or intelligence

Again, the universe has knowledge of itself. It must have! When an observer interacts with a system and takes in information about that system the universe has gained knowledge about that system. I never said all observers are the same. I said there's weak and strong observers and I spelled out the difference. Apparently, you failed to read that part.

The more I listen to scientists of today, the more they sound like philosophers.

"things as observers"?

1. We use our brains to think and process. Nothing you said at all implies that we need a non-physical component to process information. We use neurons, synapses, and chemical signals. It's well known. We process the information based on our previous and current information and processed information contained in our neural network. While I do think there is a non-physical component to our brain, this is not an effective argument to prove that.

2. You told us what weak observers are and say that how would the universe work without observers yet there are weak observers all over the universe? If an environment itself can be an observer (as per the other poster) then everything is an observer and therefore the universe can exist.

3. Furthermore, the distinction of consciousness is convoluted because we have no idea what consciousness is. We only think we do. A STAR could be conscious in ways we could never know. So could a rock. And we probably won't ever know.

4. At face value, we are no different from computers except that are much more complicated and efficient. There is no metaphysical explanation necessary. We can already simulate entire universes. How far do you think we really are from simulating the human brain? I really want to believe there is more to humans than physical, but, proving that escapes us at this point. We cannot logic our way through this problem.

I understand where you are going with this. It is an interesting thing to ponder and I agree that the universe is conscious. However, I don't think this post proves anything and you would do well to read others thoughts more thoroughly before jumping on the attack button.

a reply to: ChaoticOrder

a reply to: Boomy327

I have to quibble with this post even though it was directed elsewhere. You said:

We use our brains to think and process. Nothing you said at all implies that we need a non-physical component to process information. We use neurons, synapses, and chemical signals.

There's not a shred of evidence that the material brain can do something simple like recall memories. Tell me, how do neurons, synapses or chemical signals know I wish to recall a memory from the Army?

How do neurons, synapses and chemical signals differentiate between a memory from boot camp, a memory from air assault training or a memory from digging a foxhole with a small shovel?

How can this information be extracted from the human brain if their wasn't a non material observer to extract this information?

The brain is a receiver and memories are encoded across the brain. How does the material brain, tell the material brain which memory it wants the material brain to recall?

This can't be done unless you have a Von Neumann chain of material brains just to recall a memory.

Brain works like a radio receiver

Initial evidence is found that the brain has a ‘tuning knob’ that is actually influencing behavior. Brain circuits can tune into the frequency of other brain parts relevant at the time.

www.sciencedaily.com...

You then said at face value we're just like a computer. That's not the case:

At the time of this writing, the fastest supercomputer in the world is the Tianhe-2 in Guangzhou, China, and has a maximum processing speed of 54.902 petaFLOPS. A petaFLOP is a quadrillion (one thousand trillion) floating point calculations per second. That’s a huge amount of calculations, and yet, that doesn’t even come close to the processing speed of the human brain.

Here's some key points.

Biology is a beautiful thing, and life itself is much smarter than computers. For example, the brain is both hardware and software, whereas there is an inherent different in computers. The same interconnected areas, linked by billions of neurons and perhaps trillions of glial cells, can perceive, interpret, store, analyze, and redistribute at the same time. Computers, by their very definition and fundamental design, have some parts for processing and others for memory; the brain doesn’t make that separation, which makes it hugely efficient.

The same calculations and processes that might take a computer a few millions steps can be achieved by a few hundred neuron transmissions, requiring far less energy and performing at a far greater efficiency. The amount of energy required to power computations by the world’s fastest supercomputer would be enough to power a building; the human brain achieves the same processing speeds from the same energy as is required to charge a dim lightbulb. Biological processes have had billions of years to evolve perfect, efficient organs that far supersede technology, and we are beginning to reach those artificial “limitations”.

www.scienceabc.com...

This is nothing like a computer

Like I said, the immaterial observer has to exist in order to extract information from the brain. This extraction of information can be quantified because of the increase in entropy as we see with Maxwell's demon.

Without it, we would all need machines attached to our brains in order to extract information from our brains.

Another reason why the immaterial observer must exist is because the immaterial observer recognizes mistakes the brain makes. If we're just the material brain how can we know the material brain is making a mistake? Why does the material brain keep making these mistakes?

A wheel appears to be spinning backwards. If all we are is the material brain why don't we just think the wheel is spinning backwards?

But in 2004, researchers led by neuroscientist David Eagleman demonstrated that test subjects shown two identical wheels spinning adjacent to one another often perceived their rotation as switching direction independently of one another. This observation is inconsistent with Purves' team's discrete-frame-processing model of human perception, which, reason suggests, would result in both wheels' rotations switching direction simultaneously.

A "better" explanation for motion-reversal, Eagleman and his team conclude, is a form of "perceptual rivalry," the phenomenon by which the brain generates multiple (or flat-out wrong) interpretations of a visually ambiguous scene. Classic examples of perceptual rivalry include the spatially ambiguous Necker cube, the hollow-face illusion, and – one of my personal favorites – the brain-bending silhouette illusion, famously illustrated by a spinning dancer that seems to switch directions at the drop of a hat.

io9.gizmodo.com...



Look at this video:



This is levitating water that flows downward but the way light shines on it makes it appear to be moving upward.

Again, how do we know this? How can the material brain be fooled but we know it's an illusion if all we are is the material brain?

a reply to: TheConstruKctionofLight

Ahh thankyou so much.. i dont post often...