How did matter become aware of itself?

a reply to: cooperton
Why don't you show the opposite and put this to rest?

originally posted by: neoholographic

Like I said, give me the mechanism in the brain that evolved awareness and when did this occur? Can we find it in the fossil record?

What do you mean by awareness? Nearly all animals are aware of their surroundings.

But actually many microbes can be considered aware in a sense, of their microbial/chemical surroundings. They just approach the question differently because they are too small to have useful eyes or ears. All they have is touch, smell, and taste.

For millions of years, hominids remained isolated from each other then out of the blue a modern species that wanted to explore came out of Africa.

They weren't isolated from each other. They roamed in packs just like wolves do.

And it didn't happen all at once, like in a single day, year, or even century.

So when did this species evolve the ability to initiate memory recall?

Nearly all animals have memory.

Microbes don't typically live long enough to make use of it, so their "memory" exists via heredity of instinctive traits appropriate to what the parent organisms encountered.

How did the ability for the material brain to tell the material brain what memory it wants the meterial brain to recall evolve? When exactly did this happen? How does the material brain know what neurons to active to recall a memory and where does the signal ome from to initiate the memory you're looking for?

Again, the hubris of man thinks they're the only intellect in the universe that they tell us is most likely infinite and eternal. So we're not even a type 1 civilization and we've been around 10,000 years and we're the beginning and end of intelligence and awareness if you listen to materialist stuck in Plato's cave.

It's not as confusing as you are making it.

Think of the history of cryptology. Country A makes a new "unbreakable" cypher. Country B comes up with a way to break it. So Country A makes another, better cypher. Country B comes up with a better way to break it.

Microbial evolution is about encoding hydrocarbons into chemicals that are too complex for the other microbes to break down and steal. Then those microbes evolve better ways of breaking them down.

Traits like sight, smell, and locomotion are just extensions of that. Ways to dodge the attacks intended to steal an organism's hydrocarbons, or catch up to another organism that is dodging you.

All the complexity you see in the human and animal kingdom is really just a cryptology war.

Organism A grows in complexity because Organism B grew in complexity. Then Organism B grows in complexity because Organism A grew.



Like Proverbs 27:17

www.jstor.org...

a reply to: bloodymarvelous

You said:

What do you mean by awareness? Nearly all animals are aware of their surroundings.

Really?? Show me the microbes that have a qualia experience with their memory. Like I said earlier, how did matter become aware of itself. When did matter first have that "me" experience?

I agree that awareness is fundamental and it exists and yes everything from microbes to insects interact with awareness.

Tell me, how does the material brain initiate memory recall? How does the material brain, tell the material brain, which memories it wants the material brain to recall and the qualia of those memories?

Look at how we taste food.

Over 80% of what we taste comes from quantum vibrations from odor molecules. Our awareness converts information encoded in these vibrations into the experience of eating pizza or steak. How do quantum vibrations know how these things are supposed to taste?

I talked about fundamental awareness and the recent confirmation of Wigner's Friend on a microscopic level.

The problem people have is the hubris of thinking complexity originated on earth and earth is the alpha and omega in a universe that many scientist are now saying is infinite and eternal. It's a Plato's cave mentality.

originally posted by: neoholographic
a reply to: bloodymarvelous

You said:

What do you mean by awareness? Nearly all animals are aware of their surroundings.

Really?? Show me the microbes that have a qualia experience with their memory. Like I said earlier, how did matter become aware of itself. When did matter first have that "me" experience?

I agree that awareness is fundamental and it exists and yes everything from microbes to insects interact with awareness.

Tell me, how does the material brain initiate memory recall? How does the material brain, tell the material brain, which memories it wants the material brain to recall and the qualia of those memories?

When did it start remembering what did and didn't work?

There is memory and then there is instinct. Instinct is preprogrammed behavior you inherit, rather than learn.

Some amoeba have little flagella they can swing around to move themselves from one place to another. That's probably instinct that tells them how to do that, and since they have no eyes, only smell, touch, and taste can guide them.


Memory differs from that because the information is acquired after birth.

If you're really interested in the question, and not just intending it as rhetoric, you might like this article about slime molds:

www.pnas.org...


Even though the slime mold is really a colony of single celled organisms, and can hardly be thought of as an animal or plant, it can still keep a record in itself of where it has been.

Look at how we taste food.

Over 80% of what we taste comes from quantum vibrations from odor molecules. Our awareness converts information encoded in these vibrations into the experience of eating pizza or steak. How do quantum vibrations know how these things are supposed to taste?

Taste is pretty much all instinct.

You feel pleasure because your instincts say you should. You don't know why. It simply is so.

Yeah: that's because the "why" happened over hundreds of generations of your ancestors, before you were born. You never participated in making that decision. But it was made.

I talked about fundamental awareness and the recent confirmation of Wigner's Friend on a microscopic level.

The problem people have is the hubris of thinking complexity originated on earth and earth is the alpha and omega in a universe that many scientist are now saying is infinite and eternal. It's a Plato's cave mentality.

Wigner's friend looks like fundamental quantum behavior to me.

Something present in all quantum systems. That trait didn't need to evolve anywhere. It's a fundamental law of the universe that has always been that way.

The mistake too many people make with Quantum Mechanics is trying to understand it as a consequence of the physics that we experience in the macro scale world. QM is not the result of anything that happens at the macro scale.

It's the other way around, all macro scale physics phenomena are the result of QM happening on statistically large scales.

Quantum Mechanics is the true foundation. The bottom layer of laws. The starting point for everything else.

Trying to understand QM as being the result of macro scale laws of physics is like trying to understand God as being the result of the universe he/she/it created.

a reply to: neoholographic


That's interesting about smell. Hears a video that talks about that.

youtu.be...

a reply to: daskakik

Actually I wasn't I said: "let's go with the idea of a creator but what if..."

That is odd since our back and forth started after I said cooperton had no "proof" the creator was a "godlike" being, which seems to be something you would be fine with, according to what you are saying here, yet you called me out for doing that.

hah that confused me too, so i re-read the whole thread basically. i did in fact miss something! found it eventually though. it was my fault. i apologise.

i don't consider it "provable" in any scientific sense for sure -- i think some people come to a relatively accurate understanding through whatever personal experience, but that stance is also personal and not something i would attempt to "prove;" in fact it would be worse, requiring an extra what and how, so to speak.

But then you have the problem of how the being doing the seeding became aware. You can't get away from it arising "of itself" at some point.

right, which is what brought me to this thread. i do think humans were created/seeded, but that begs the question.
"...why/how does this reality/creator exist (i.e. the OP question), and in a state of solitude?

frankly, not betting on wrapping my head around that before i die."

maybe it is simply outside the human scope to answer the question, maybe ever. but i'm still curious, and still would like to hear some truly engaging theories. maybe someday...

originally posted by: Romeopsi
a reply to: neoholographic


That's interesting about smell. Hears a video that talks about that.

youtu.be...

There is a lot wrong with this theory. What is believed by biologists is there are preset receptors about 300. Your rain uses the possible combinations to associate a smell. Now evidence to disprove quantum tunneling is we have people that cannot smell certain things. Each of the hundreds of receptors is encoded by a specific gene. If your DNA is missing a gene or if the gene is damaged, it can cause you to be unable to detect a certain smell. For example, some people have no sense for the smell of camphor. Now if quantum tunneling was used you couldn't have missing smells.

Then you also have dogs which have 300 million olfactory receptors They are able to detect smells humans cant if it was just a matter of quantum tunneling we should be to detect it as well just in larger quantities. However, we know dogs can detect smells we cant regardless of quantities.

originally posted by: FrothMethod
hah that confused me too, so i re-read the whole thread basically. i did in fact miss something! found it eventually though. it was my fault. i apologise.

It happens, no biggie.

i don't consider it "provable" in any scientific sense for sure -- i think some people come to a relatively accurate understanding through whatever personal experience, but that stance is also personal and not something i would attempt to "prove;" in fact it would be worse, requiring an extra what and how, so to speak.

That is exactly what I mean by the "placeholder" analogy about science vs personal philosophy.

maybe it is simply outside the human scope to answer the question, maybe ever. but i'm still curious, and still would like to hear some truly engaging theories. maybe someday...

I honestly think this is not the type of thread for that. I'm thinking the Paranormal Studies and Philosophy and Metaphysics forums would have better threads to hear those types of theories.

originally posted by: FrothMethod
... from what i've gathered, it's almost easy to create what we would call "ai," ...

But is it even appropiate to use the term "artificial intelligence"? Sure it's artificial, but...

Artificial Intelligence—Is It Intelligent? (Awake!—1988)

originally posted by: whereislogic

“The performance of even the most advanced of the neural-network computers . . . has about one ten-thousandth the mental capacity of a housefly.” (Dr. Richard M. Restak, American neurologist, neuropsychiatrist, author and professor. He has contributed brain and neuroscience-related entries for the Encyclopædia Britannica and the Encyclopedia of Neuroscience.)

...

Read the rest of that comment in the thread called "the AI reign" (other subforum), which highlights some of the key points in the article I just linked with some additional commentary from the article I used in my previous comment in this thread about human uniqueness*, our specific type of intelligence being one of the things that sets us apart from animals. *: in this thread, I quoted some things from the paragraph "Memory and More!" (because that was more relevant to the topic of self-awareness), in that thread I quoted from the paragraphs "Use It or Lose It" and "Your Frontal Lobe" (concerning our brains).

You may also want to have a look at what that article about AI has to say about "expert systems", cause those details I didn't highlight in that comment. The term is first introduced in the paragraph "AI at Work" but one may want to read the preceding paragraphs as well because it's related and introductory (called "What Is Artificial Intelligence?" and an introductory paragraph about specially programmed supercomputers for playing chess, which are expert systems).

You know what, I'll highlight the key rhetorical questions about expert systems in that article again (that's where I started in that comment with that article):

...

Is There Any Limit?

What scientists have been able to do with expert computer systems is truly impressive. There remains, however, the crucial question: Are these systems really intelligent? What would we say, for example, of a person who can play powerful chess but can do or learn hardly anything else? Would we really consider him intelligent? Obviously not. “An intelligent person learns something in one area and applies it to problems in other areas,” explains William J. Cromie, executive director of the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing. Here then is the crux of the matter: Can computers be made to approach the level of intelligence found in humans? In other words, can intelligence really be artificially made? [whereislogic: compare with my question at the start of this comment]

So far, no scientists or computer engineers have been able to reach that goal. In spite of the prediction about chess-playing computers, made over 30 years ago now, the world champion is still a human. And in spite of the claim that computers will be able to understand conversations in English or other natural languages, this still remains at a rudimentary level. Yes, no one has learned how to build the quality of generality into a computer.

Take language, for instance. Even in simple speech, thousands of words are strung together in millions of combinations. For a computer to understand a sentence, it must be capable of checking all the possible combinations of every word in the sentence simultaneously, and it must have an enormous number of rules and definitions stored in its memory. This is far beyond what present-day computers can do. Yet, even a child can manage all of this, plus perceive the nuances beyond the spoken words. He can discern whether the speaker can be trusted or is being devious, whether a statement is to be taken literally or as a joke. The computer is not up to these challenges.

The same can be said about expert systems with the ability to “see,” like the robots used in automotive manufacturing. One advanced system with three-dimensional vision takes 15 seconds to recognize an object. It takes the human eye and brain only one ten-thousandth of a second to do the same. The human eye has the innate ability to see what is important and filter out nonessentials. The computer is simply inundated by the mass of details it “sees.”

Thus, in spite of the advances and promises of the state of the art in AI, “most scientists believe that computer systems will never have the broad range of intelligence, motivation, skills, and creativity possessed by human beings,” says Cromie. Likewise, renowned science writer Isaac Asimov states: “I doubt the computer will ever match the intuition and creative powers of the remarkable human mind.”

A fundamental obstacle in achieving true intelligence artificially is the fact that no scientist or computer engineer fully understands how the human mind really works. No one knows the precise relationship between the brain and the mind or how the mind uses the information stored in the brain to make a decision or to solve a problem. “Because I don’t know how I do [certain things with my mind], I cannot possibly program a computer to reproduce what I do,” confesses Asimov. Putting it another way, if no one knows what intelligence really is, how can it be built into a computer?

Grand Masters and the Grand Master

...

That last point bringing us back to what the article about the uniqueness of man mentions (quoted in this thread at the start of page 5 but not that thread):

...

Modern researchers have made great strides in understanding the physical makeup of the brain and some of the electrochemical processes that occur in it. They can also explain the circuitry and functioning of an advanced computer. However, there is a vast difference between brain and computer. With your brain you are conscious and are aware of your being, but a computer certainly is not. Why the difference?

Frankly, how and why consciousness arises from physical processes in our brain is a mystery. “I don’t see how any science can explain that,” one neurobiologist commented. Also, Professor James Trefil observed: “What, exactly, it means for a human being to be conscious . . . is the only major question in the sciences that we don’t even know how to ask.” One reason why is that scientists are using the brain to try to understand the brain. And just studying the physiology of the brain may not be enough. Consciousness is “one of the most profound mysteries of existence,” observed Dr. David Chalmers, “but knowledge of the brain alone may not get [scientists] to the bottom of it.”

Nonetheless, each of us experiences consciousness. ...

... Dr. Richard Restak states: “The human brain, and the human brain alone, has the capacity to step back, survey its own operation, and thus achieve some degree of transcendence. Indeed, our capacity for rewriting our own script and redefining ourselves in the world is what distinguishes us from all other creatures in the world.” [whereislogic: and what is called AI for that matter)

Man’s consciousness baffles some. The book Life Ascending, while favoring a mere biological explanation, admits: “When we ask how a process [evolution] that resembles a game of chance, with dreadful penalties for the losers, could have generated such qualities as love of beauty and truth, compassion, freedom, and, above all, the expansiveness of the human spirit, we are perplexed. The more we ponder our spiritual resources, the more our wonder deepens.” Very true. Thus, we might round out our view of human uniqueness by a few evidences of our consciousness that illustrate why many are convinced that there must be an intelligent Designer, a Creator, who cares for us.

Art and Beauty

...

By the way, the question in the thread title could be called a "leading question" (edit: the way I use that term which is a little different than its legal use, see end of comment, more like the bottem half now), in order to answer it, one must first follow along with the assumption or notion that (mindless) matter is aware of itself (and in a way, that mindless matter became aware of itself, implying a transition from not being aware of itself to being aware of itself), which, in truth/reality, is not the case (neither one of those notions, specifically addressing mindless matter). So it's a bit like asking someone: 'When did you stop beating your wife?' When they never did.

But I think the point that matter isn't aware of itself nor was there ever the transition I described, has already been made plenty of times in this thread. So pardon if me pointing it out is a little redundant (hence the reason why I brought up the term "leading question", so I at least have another related point to make).

The 'When did you stop beating your wife?' question is also called a loaded question (classified as a fallacy) and classified as a "fallacy of many questions". The question in the thread title is not that loaded, but it is leading and classifies under the description I'm reading now for a fallacy of many questions (although I don't find that term to be particularly useful, I prefer the term "leading", see end of this comment for the reason why).

fallacy of many questions

(Logic) logic the rhetorical trick of asking a question that cannot be answered without admitting a presupposition that may be false, as have you stopped beating your wife?

Source: Do you still beat your wife - definition of Do you still beat your wife by The Free Dictionary

In this case, it's definitely false, not maybe. A leading question is defined as:

a question that prompts or encourages the answer wanted.

Source: Definitions from Oxford Languages (as used by google)

Perhaps slightly less applicable or specific than what is described as a fallacy of many questions (when applying it to the thread title). I guess it's more used as a legal term. I could interpret "the answer wanted" to the OP wanting you to follow along with the notion that (mindless) matter is aware of itself and that there was a transition, that to me is the "leading" part of the question.

In making this comment, I've learned that the more correct or applicable term for the question in the thread title is a "fallacy of many questions", but I still prefer a term that has the word "leading" in there because the presence of "many questions" is less obvious than the "leading" part I described above (presuppositions aren't actually questions, so I find the chosen term for this fallacy confusing*, the description from The Free Dictionary is spot on though when applied to the question in the thread title). *: I do understand the reason for the chosen terminology ("many questions") though, but let's not get into that, cause it's not up to me to defend or explain the chosen terminology for this fallacy anyway. I.e. it's not confusing to me, I'm worried it might be confusing to others if I use it without a detailed definition, where that is not the case when I use the term "leading", which is more obviously spotted, the 'leading' part of the singular (single?) question in the thread title.

When looking for alternative terms for this fallacy that might use the word "leading" or some synonym in there, I found this (which is a nice alternative way of describing the fallacy but still hasn't got my preferred word in there):

Fallacy of many questions (complex question, fallacy of presuppositions, loaded question, plurium interrogationum) – someone asks a question that presupposes something that has not been proven or accepted by all the people involved. This fallacy is often used rhetorically so that the question limits direct replies to those that serve the questioner's agenda.

Source: List of fallacies - Wikipedia

The mention of "the questioner's agenda" there is related to my mention of the 'leading' part and "one must first follow along with the assumption or notion that (mindless) matter is aware of itself", etc. (assumption, notion, presupposition, whichever term you prefer, I prefer the first 2 simpler terms, some people may not know what a presupposition is, it's a fancy term, and I don't like using fancy terms to sound more clever or for impressing purposes)

Most things in between () in this comment are later edits, I hope it's not too much or too distracting from the original sentences. Also, whenever I said "end of comment" above I actually mean bottem half by now because of my additions (starting with the definition for a leading question), not gonna change them all. My comment was actually really short at first.

originally posted by: daskakik
a reply to: cooperton
Why don't you show the opposite and put this to rest?

The entirety of constitutional law is made through intelligence to uphold the country. So too the entirety of physical law is made by through intelligence to uphold the material world.

On the contrary, we never have had an example of a law coming to be without intelligence

a reply to: neoholographic

Watch this:



I think this line of thinking begs the question of whether or not God could choose to be aware as you need awareness to make a choice in the first place. I think that even asking the question forms a paradox and so God just has to be - God has to be fundamental: there must be a spirit of will, a spirit of awareness of will which determines will by measuring it, and a spirit of qualia / form which is the begotten form of measured will - without those three being fundamental you can't have anything as everything would become paradoxical.

originally posted by: daskakik
That is exactly what I mean by the "placeholder" analogy about science vs personal philosophy.

I honestly think this is not the type of thread for that. I'm thinking the Paranormal Studies and Philosophy and Metaphysics forums would have better threads to hear those types of theories.

yep.

i'm kinda seeing that, wanted to clarify with you, but tbh kinda lost interest in the thread as a whole. :/

a reply to: cooperton
The entirety of constitutional law is made through intelligence to uphold the country. So too the entirety of physical law is made by through intelligence to uphold the material world.

The entirety of physical law as written by people like Newton? Not really proof of the creator is it?

On the contrary, we never have had an example of a law coming to be without intelligence

You mean gravity didn't exist before the consensus to make it a law by the scientific community?

a reply to: daskakik

Nope, before Newton established the laws of gravity people would just float away. I fact sometimes it would happen in the middle of

originally posted by: whereislogic

originally posted by: FrothMethod
... from what i've gathered, it's almost easy to create what we would call "ai," ...

But is it even appropiate to use the term "artificial intelligence"? Sure it's artificial, but...

Artificial Intelligence—Is It Intelligent? (Awake!—1988)

originally posted by: whereislogic

“The performance of even the most advanced of the neural-network computers . . . has about one ten-thousandth the mental capacity of a housefly.” (Dr. Richard M. Restak, American neurologist, neuropsychiatrist, author and professor. He has contributed brain and neuroscience-related entries for the Encyclopædia Britannica and the Encyclopedia of Neuroscience.)

...

In 1988, “The performance of even the most advanced of the neural-network computers" would be maybe half the computing power of my cell phone.

The human brain is estimated to do about 300 trillion operations second, all told. So 3000 gigahertz. My cell phone has two processors and runs about 3 gigaherz. So it would take about 500 similar cell phones chained together to match that. (However much of the processing power would be lost due to them needing to communicate with each other in order to perform operations.)


In 2008, IBM constructed a super computer known as "road runner" that could reach 1.4 quadrillion operations per second, making it over 4 times as smart as a human.

But I mean we're talking a rather large building, and consuming electricity enough to run a small city.

en.wikipedia.org...(supercomputer)

A magical non-existent force, invented by people with intelligence, and believed by those with less intelligence, and others who fail to use their intelligence, in order to understand that it's all BS.

Intelligence has been used against us for centuries, in fact. And only through our own intelligence, can it ever be defeated.

Not likely, but I'd like to believe this will happen someday.

originally posted by: turbonium1
A magical non-existent force, invented by people with intelligence, and believed by those with less intelligence, and others who fail to use their intelligence, in order to understand that it's all BS.

It sounds like you are talking about the creator.

a reply to: cooperton

Simple case of mind over matter if you ask me.

originally posted by: daskakik

originally posted by: turbonium1
A magical non-existent force, invented by people with intelligence, and believed by those with less intelligence, and others who fail to use their intelligence, in order to understand that it's all BS.

It sounds like you are talking about the creator.

No, I'm talking about those who've tried to fool us into seeing them AS IF THEY WERE our Creator. Their intelligence allows them to fool many people into seeing them as Gods, and OUR intelligence, is what allows us to figure out that they're a pack of devious liars.