[ExI] The Chess Room

[JOSHUA JOB]

On Feb 28, 2010, at 10:11 PM, Will Steinberg wrote:
> This left me wondering whether any group of minds, say, humanity itself, also had an emergent mind associated with it.  If the brains are very complicated series of calculations, a bunch of brains is pretty much the same thing.  I might even go so far as to say that this system is aware.  Next, I leapt to the idea that the components of entire universe could well exhibit awareness by this means, albethey in a much slower and more complicated manner.  I guess I'm sort of proposing a god of sorts, but one that is constrained by the same rules that constrain us and has awareness so spread out as to not even constitute a true being in our sense of the word.
> 
> This leads to another question: at what boundary to communication does awareness stop working?  When do the parts become too separate to lead to consciousness?  Our brain is conscious.  If we take it that the human system is not, to any degree, then there must be a boundary to physical intimacy (in the brain, of course.)  I might even say that if you believe in a totally emergent consciousness, then you MUST believe in emergent consciousness on Earth and in the Universe in at least some small amount, and that if you believe that consciousness exists (as I do) at some certain neurological locus, there is still room for discussion.
I am wary of the idea of an actual mind composed of minds. The thing is that people always have choices, they can behave in unexpected and unpredictable ways, and so as a result, I don't see a group as having a mind (unless all the people in it chose to behave in a very particular way that was designed to do such a thing, but that is, honestly, cheating). I really don't recognize how there can be anything called a "mind" without concepts and language. This Overmind or whatever composed of the actions of lots of humans can't have concepts or language, so it isn't, by my definition, a mind. My dog, in view, is literally mindless, as she has no concepts nor words. Babies too, are essentially mindless, up until 'round the time they say their first word. With language comes thought (conceptual thought), and with thought comes Mind.

Perhaps such a thing may exist, and it is just too big to understand it. But it strikes me as more Voodoo witchery that anything else. I believe in emergent consciousness, I just find it difficult to imagine minds forming an Overmind. Something about the idea of a "mind" makes it a stand-alone entity.

Joshua Job
nanite1018 at gmail.com