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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal>>> > …What do you think causes consciousness? (Hint: the entire universe is conscious)<span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'> extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org] <b>On Behalf Of </b>ilsa<br><b>Sent:</b> Saturday, August 24, 2013 10:29 AM<br><b>To:</b> ExI chat list<br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [ExI] God's God<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p><span style='color:#1F497D'>>…</span>Good for you Will. And thank you. Some years ago I hinted at this and was dropped kicked through the goal posts. <br>Will, there is habitual resistance too.<br>Smile, Ilsa<o:p></o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Ilsa, you make it sound like a bad thing. Being kicked through the goal posts is a goal.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>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?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>It all goes back to the most fundamental question: are we conscious?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Goal?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>spike<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div></div></body></html>