[ExI] God's God

[spike]

>> > .What do you think causes consciousness?  (Hint: the entire universe is
conscious)

 

From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of ilsa
Sent: Saturday, August 24, 2013 10:29 AM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [ExI] God's God

 

>.Good for you Will. And thank you. Some years ago I hinted at this and was
dropped kicked through the goal posts. 
Will, there is habitual resistance too.
Smile, Ilsa

 

Ilsa, you make it sound like a bad thing.  Being kicked through the goal
posts is a goal.

The way I would go with it is to ask the question, are you conscious?  If
you answer yes, is it you that is conscious, or just your brain?  If you
answer only your brain is conscious, and the rest of it is supporting
machinery, is it your whole brain, or just your frontal lobes that are
conscious?  Then you see where I am going, for I will next ask: which
synapses and which dendrites are the conscious ones?  All of those always?
How many of the conscious ones does it take to be conscious?   And so on.

So you can say, my smarter synapses are collectively conscious, my frontal
lobes are conscious, my brain, my self, my family, my species are all
conscious, and the progression goes right on out to some undefined boundary,
because other species besides humans are clearly conscious, and they have
supporting machinery too, such as a life-friendly planet.  In that sense,
the planet is conscious, and if there exists consciousness elsewhere in the
galaxy, is that galaxy conscious?  What about the space in between?  Is that
as conscious as the space between my smarter synapses in my frontal lobes?
What about the space between two conscious galaxies?  The space within
superclusters and the space between two superclusters?

It all goes back to the most fundamental question: are we conscious?

Goal?

spike

 

 

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