Is the Universe alive and intelligent?

[warpus]

No, they just change properties, but still within the same theme. Try to name a property that water has that hydrogen doesn't have an analogy of.

I'll not deny they behave differently, but there's nothing emergent.

I think you are using the word "theme" to attempt to hide the new characteristics that arise when water is formed out of its constituent parts.

Just because the water isn't speaking to you or levitating doesn't mean that there aren't new properties that didn't exist before. They are there! They don't have to be super special or fantastical for the phrase "A whole is more than the sum of its part" to hold true. All you need for that to be applicable is for one property that didn't exist before to pop into existence, no matter whether it is "of the same theme" or whatever.

We also don't know what sort of a "theme" or "thing" consciousness is either, so you can't really use that to discount the comparison made there either.

 

[El_Machinae]

What does water got that hydrogen molecules don't?

 

[warpus]

I'm no chemist, but it is considered to be the universal solvent, for example. Hydrogen or oxygen on their own do not have this property.

 

[El_Machinae]

The ability to dissolve stuff is not unique to water. You can dissolve oxygen in hydrogen, if you're careful.

 

[warpus]

The ability to dissolve stuff is not unique to water. You can dissolve oxygen in hydrogen, if you're careful.

Yeah, but as far as I know the designator of "Universal solvent" is a special thing that these other 2 compounds don't have. But when you mix them together, boom! All of a sudden, universal solvent.

And I mean, say that this is a bad example of "a whole is more than just the sum of its parts" (or whatever).. There's better examples out there, I just pulled this one out of my butt without thinking. I think it still works. And if it doesn't, can't we just use another example to illustrate the point?

My whole point was that these things happen - you put A and B together, and you get C, something that has properties that neither A or B had. That's what's happening with consciousness. Are you arguing that that's not what happens with conscioussness? Or that the whole "a whole is worth more than just the sum of its parts" paradigm is false and never happens? (I don't think that's what you're arguing, but I can't be sure)

 

[Borachio]

What? Like a motor car is more than the sum of its parts? Because, in a way, it really isn't.

 

[Kozmos]

If the universe is alive and intelligent I wouldn't feel at ease taking my clothes off in front (behind, under, above, in between) it.

Think of yourself as one of its small insignificant cells much like the ones on our bodies. They are having sex all the time and you never notice.

 

[Tahuti]

Think of yourself as one of its small insignificant cells much like the ones on our bodies. They are having sex all the time and you never notice.

I sorta do notice!

 

[warpus]

What? Like a motor car is more than the sum of its parts? Because, in a way, it really isn't.

A wheel couldn't take you to Scotland, nor could a gear stick.

But a car could.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

What? Like a motor car is more than the sum of its parts? Because, in a way, it really isn't.

That is the point, thank you. Similar to a car water may be able to "do" stuff its parts can not. But - like the lego castle - that doesn't really make it more than the sum of its parts. It rather make it the logical result of combining those parts in a given way.

Your 'refutation' was fallacious.

You know it would have been immensely helpful if you had bothered to say how.

 

[Borachio]

A wheel couldn't take you to Scotland, nor could a gear stick.

But a car could.

Indeed. Take those parts of a car (and one or two others besides a wheel and a gear stick) and you have a car which is the sum of its parts.

Provided, naturally, that you sum them in the correct manner.

 

[Tarquelne]

I have two piles of car parts.
One is configured alphabetically.
One is configured as a car.

One is useful for drilling people on the alphabet.
One is useful for driving places.

"Good transportation" is a propery of the second pile that "emerged" out of the arraingement of the parts.

One configuration has a value - cash and/or otherwise - pretty close to the sum of the parts.

One configuration has a value - cash and/or otherwise - considerably greater than the sum of the parts. (There's actually *less* labor involved, because this is the way the car came!)

*****

I have a three shirts.

I put one shirt in a container full of hydrogen.
I put one shirt in a container full of oxygen.
I put one shirt in a container full of water.

I observe, in passing, that though the containers have the same total weights, the volume of the container of water is far lower.

I open the container of hydrogen. My shirt isn't wet. I toss in a match. There's an explosion.

I open the container of oxygen. My shirt isn't wet. I toss in a match. There's an explosion.

I open the container of water. My shirt is wet. I toss in a match. The match goes out.

I at first think I've demonstrated that when you combine hydrogen and oxygen in a particular way new properties of this (seemingly) new substance emerge. But then when I post online I about it I'm told I'm wrong, because ......

????

 

[bhsup]

Thing is, depending on the vehicle in question, you can sometimes make a LOT more money parting out the car and selling it piecemeal than you can selling it as an assembled unit.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

The issue is not that new properties exist. The issue is to label this phenomena a case of the sum being more than its parts. At least when we say the same thing about consciousness.

 

[El_Machinae]

Yeah, but as far as I know the designator of "Universal solvent" is a special thing that these other 2 compounds don't have. But when you mix them together, boom! All of a sudden, universal solvent.

And I mean, say that this is a bad example of "a whole is more than just the sum of its parts" (or whatever).. There's better examples out there, I just pulled this one out of my butt without thinking. I think it still works. And if it doesn't, can't we just use another example to illustrate the point?

My whole point was that these things happen - you put A and B together, and you get C, something that has properties that neither A or B had. That's what's happening with consciousness. Are you arguing that that's not what happens with conscioussness? Or that the whole "a whole is worth more than just the sum of its parts" paradigm is false and never happens? (I don't think that's what you're arguing, but I can't be sure)

I'm saying that recombining oxygen and hydrogen certainly modifies the resulting compounding, giving it properties that are akin to those of hydrogen and oxygen, maybe shifted. Just like a fire and the sun have the property 'heat'. So does an icecube. Same property, just different along a gradient.

Consciousness is something else. Something new. Badda bing, a new phenomenon when neurons are arranged appropriately. We're currently unable to detect consciousness, except our own. We have no idea what it is. We just know it goes away when that neuronal activity is disrupted.

 

[warpus]

Consciousness is something else. Something new. Badda bing, a new phenomenon when neurons are arranged appropriately.

But either way, the analogy was meant to illustrate that in the case of consciousness we are seeing properties of consciousness that might not necessarily exist as properties of any of the constituent parts of consciousness.

Actually, it was not even an analogy, just an example (and maybe a bad one? I'm a programmer, not a waterologist) of "a whole is more than the sum of its parts"

Personally I think that rather than thinking about it in terms of neurons being arranged in certain ways, some ways leading to chaos and special ways leading to consciousness.. it makes more sense to think of the meta structures arising out of the chaos of neurons firing in the brain.. There ARE structures there, we just can't see them... or at least can't see a lot of them. There are many levels of structures, and self-awareness sits at the top of all that.

So to me the mystery are those structures, how they arise, and how each level is more complex and has more ability to look at the previous layer.. until you generate that feedback look that causes consciousness.

I think that's where the "hidden meat" of the mystery of consciousness lies. It sounds all made up and like I've had a bit too much to smoke, but books like Gödel, Escher, Bach, the quantum brain, and others I've read all seem to hint at such a thing being a distinct possibility at least.

I view it as a very viable pre-hypothesis level type claim.

 

[Tarquelne]

The issue is not that new properties exist.

Well ... for you, I guess. El_M seems to be disputing it. (I think?)

The issue is to label this phenomena a case of the sum being more than its parts. At least when we say the same thing about consciousness.

Which phenomena? "A case of the sum being more than its parts"? You mean "emergent"?

If your point is simply that we don't know for certain that consciousness is emergent in the strongest sense, then ... sure.

I'm saying that recombining oxygen and hydrogen certainly modifies the resulting compounding, giving it properties that are akin to those of hydrogen and oxygen, maybe shifted. Just like a fire and the sun have the property 'heat'. So does an icecube. Same property, just different along a gradient

Water is an example of the principle of one sort of emergence, in that you do get some qualities that neither hydrogen or oxygen have. Water expands when it freezes, as yet another example, despite not having an "ingredient" that does so.

The wiki article lists several types of emergence. Water having different qualities would belong to the most trivial sort. More of an example of the basic principle than anything else. Consciousness would be the most err, the most "substantive" type (picking the most ironic word), where the existence off the emergent "thing" might be immediately dependent on something non-material.

Not that matter isn't involved, but consciousness may be more like swarming behavior than friction. The latter has a host of physical processes that, working on a micro or quantum scale, give rise to macro-scale friction. Swarming behavior (itself a non-material thing, OTOH, is rooted in biology but is "made of" math.

If consciousness is like friction, then it's a matter of learning about what exactly all those little particles, waves, and wavicles in our heads are doing.

If consciousness is like swarming behavior, then we'll have to understand more than the physics of our brains. (Or, really, perhaps less ... The math may be easier - less complicated and easier to perceive - and than the physics.)

Note that in either case, we could potentially make some rather good rules/predictions about consciousness despite not understanding everything down to the sub-atomic level. Just as we can with swarming, or to a lesser extent, friction.

 

[brennan]

You know it would have been immensely helpful if you had bothered to say how.

Argument from personal incredulity. Again. How is 'consciousness' so special?

2 for one really. 'Consiousness is special' could of course be considered special pleading.

 

[El_Machinae]

But either way, the analogy was meant to illustrate that in the case of consciousness we are seeing properties of consciousness that might not necessarily exist as properties of any of the constituent parts of consciousness.

Oh, I'm not disagreeing. Consciousness is certainly an emergent property. In a wildly hard to figure out kinda way.

 

[Kyriakos]

In my view to think you can develop consciousness in something which (for unknown and likely very complicated and interconnected) reasons does not already have that trait, is like thinking of teaching a rock to swim, so as to not have it sink to the bottom once more.
We aren't going to do this or anything similar. We likely will mess-up some already existent consciousness systems in humans or other beings, but i doubt it will lead to good either..