The nature of life and energy

joshcork

We're all made of molecules made up of atoms made up of elements created form the stars of the past that have come together in a particular order to create life.
I was wondering if you go even deeper beyond the matter of the universe there is basically only energy and space, so does that imply that the universe is alive or conscious of itself since were made of the same stuff that everything else is made up of ?

davej

Or are we just complicated machines with an illusion of consciousness ?

davej

SkepticOne

Originally posted by davej
Or are we just complicated machines with an illusion of consciousness ?

In order to experience an illusion would we not need to be conscious?

Fysh

Originally posted by joshcork
We're all made of molecules made up of atoms made up of elements created form the stars of the past that have come together in a particular order to create life.

I was wondering if you go even deeper beyond the matter of the universe there is basically only energy and space, so does that imply that the universe is alive or conscious of itself since were made of the same stuff that everything else is made up of ?

Well, it doesn't imply it to me, any more than the existence of two steaks made of the same meat share a mutual consciousness (well, excepting the possibility of them both coming from the same cow and being part of the cow's consciousness. But that's because my analogy hasn't been thought through completely). The universe as a whole certainly doesn't show any of the commonly accepted signs of life (then again, biologists can't decide whether viruses are alive). What sort of universal consciousness would we be talking about here? Are we talking about something like Bill Hick's idea that we are all part of the same consciousness, or would the universal consciousness be something separate and distinct? And how could this idea be tested? Could we communicate with it?

Slightly offtopic, but related to your methodology...It's a common idea in a lot of physics that the way to understand something is to break it down into tiny bits and then look at them, but this is fundamentally flawed in that it ignores the massive complexity that arises when these tiny simple bits interact. Intelligence, among other things, is an emergence property. It only occurs at high levels, and therefore reducing things down to quarks and leptons and then searching for life doesn't really make a great deal of sense, at least not under current models.

SkepticOne

Originally posted by joshcork
We're all made of molecules made up of atoms made up of elements created form the stars of the past that have come together in a particular order to create life.
I was wondering if you go even deeper beyond the matter of the universe there is basically only energy and space, so does that imply that the universe is alive or conscious of itself since were made of the same stuff that everything else is made up of ?

But two differnent things can be made up of much the same molecules and elements and one can be conscious and the other not, e.g., 1. a human and 2. a human having been put through a blender.

You might argue that, well, maybe there is still life in the second case but not in the way we understand it. However this would be to stretch the meaning of the word too far.

Just because they can both be converted to energy does not seem to change the situation. Does converting the dead human to energy bring him back to life in some way? If I chop off my hand and convert it to energy does my hand start living?

keu

great thought.

Just because they can both be converted to energy does not seem to change the situation. Does converting the dead human to energy bring him back to life in some way? If I chop off my hand and convert it to energy does my hand start living?

I kind of touched on this in a previous post. To suggest that once we are converted to energy (by means of falling into a blender or however takes your fancy) does not suggest that this new energy form has consciousness (mind) or sentience. But there is no evidence to suggest that it doesn't either.
I was reading somewhere (can't find article at the minute) about a medical report which claimed that at the moment of death there is a weight loss of 5grams, which has yet to be accounted for.
I know it is a relatively miniscule amount, but still, it kind of brings me back to the topic this month reagrding the mind-body problem.

just to quote simu

How can you know for sure that this thinking thing isn't extended (i.e. does not take up space)?

Fysh

Originally posted by remote viewer
I kind of touched on this in a previous post. To suggest that once we are converted to energy (by means of falling into a blender or however takes your fancy) does not suggest that this new energy form has consciousness (mind) or sentience. But there is no evidence to suggest that it doesn't either.

Well, Occam's Razor advises to always go with the simplest solution which explains the available evidence. I would suggest that since we have yet to have verifiable cases of energy-forms with consciousness (or at least, no energy-forms with consciousness who have found any way of communicating in any meaningful way whatsoever), it makes more sense to assume that there is no consciousness there than to assume it is there and try to prove that it's not. I mean, that's analogous to assuming that jumping off a cliff isn't dangerous until you jump off to find out for sure.

Regarding the soul-weight business....do you have any links to the article in question? I've heard the theory mentioned before (although with different weights, particularly in the recent film "21 grams") but I've never seen it given any kind of credence by any scientific or medical journals.

Manchegan

Originally posted by remote viewer
I was reading somewhere (can't find article at the minute) about a medical report which claimed that at the moment of death there is a weight loss of 5grams, which has yet to be accounted for.
I know it is a relatively miniscule amount, but still, it kind of brings me back to the topic this month reagrding the mind-body problem.


http://www.snopes.com/religion/soulweight.asp
out of six tests, two had to be discarded, one showed an immediate drop in weight (and nothing more), two showed an immediate drop in weight which increased with the passage of time, and one showed an immediate drop in weight which reversed itself but later recurred.

...four years later the New York Times reported in a front-page story that he had moved on to experiments which he hoped would allow him to take pictures of the soul.


Shouldn't this kind of speculation be on the Paranormal forum, or on the Christianity forum?

To put it another way, if it wouldn't wash with the Skeptics there should at least be some justification before it being used as part of a discussion here. It's philosophy you're talking about, not New Age self-help.

keu

So, how does one "do" philosophy? Again, this is not an easy question but here's a quote from the wikipedia to give an idea what's involved:

Philosophers generally frame problems in a logical manner, and then work towards a solution based on logical processes and reasoning, based on a critical reading and response to previous work in this area.
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy[/qoute]

So, yes - you can post really strange ideas (and by all means do!) but you should also try to evaluate the different ideas put forward by posters and yourself on a given topic and reject them or develop them as you see fit.

sure these ideas could fit in paranormal, (the title of the post is the nature of life and energy) but I really can't see how they would fit into christianity.
The link you provided is not exactly what I had in mind, but it seems like others have used it to try and explain the "soul" too.
I think the difference is in the direction you can take with such information. The soul has yet to be defined clearly, but I'm trying to connect these issues with what is currently abstract and theorized about through philosophy in making an attempt to understand the mind, or the mind and body connection.
Tbh..try not to get the issue mixed up with religion as that is purely your own personal perspective.

It's philosophy you're talking about, not New Age self-help

? thats very judgmental ****, I can gaurantee you plato would have been considered a new ager in his time.If these areas are so clearly defined I would love to hear your answer.

Well, Occam's Razor advises to always go with the simplest solution which explains the available evidence. I would suggest that since we have yet to have verifiable cases of energy-forms with consciousness (or at least, no energy-forms with consciousness who have found any way of communicating in any meaningful way whatsoever),

Fysh, my friend...I don't know who or what occam's razor is, (you might explain) therefore whatever he advises is irrelevant, unless he is of course the onmipotent creator of humanity, his opinions are only as valid as anybody elses.
I'm considering how to approach the communication bit though.

(or at least, no energy-forms with consciousness who have found any way of communicating in any meaningful way whatsoever)

don't you mean in anyway that you are aware of?
I'm curious as to what you might consider as hard evidence, I mean if I gave you a message that you could confirm from your deceased grandmother, would that be considered evidence? (take it in a lighthearted fashion fysh)
I know this is reaching out a bit, but y'know paranormal does a lot of investigating into similar areas and they have evidence, if you think it's hard enough. I'm really curious about this bit, what is definitive evidence?

Simu, can I do paranormal here, if I have enough evidence to back it up?..just in this thread, because it is so open????

ecksor

Originally posted by remote viewer
I don't know who or what occam's razor is, (you might explain) therefore whatever he advises is irrelevant, unless he is of course the onmipotent creator of humanity, his opinions are only as valid as anybody elses.

Two seconds with google would have given you: http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/OCCAMRAZ.html

His advice has had currency and been considered valid and/or relevant for almost a millenia and will no doubt continue for a long time into the future. To dismiss it as irrelevant when you don't even know what it is is yet another example of the sort of attitude that is bound to get up people's noses if you proclaim such attitudes about things you're not familiar with (i.e, your discussions of the nature of time on another thread). I get the impression that you consider the Philosophy forum to be the waffle forum.

keu

I wanted fysh to tell me.

I get the impression that you consider the Philosophy forum to be the waffle forum.

actually I do..a lot of waffling to be honest mine is just not to your taste.

i.e, your discussions of the nature of time on another thread

that was random thoughts on time..philosophy covers a lot of ground ecksor, I'm just filling in the spaces.(while making an ecksor vodoo doll)

simu

just to quote simu
quote:

---

How can you know for sure that this thinking thing isn't extended (i.e. does not take up space)?

Funny you should quote me there! I was asking why Descartes thought it more reasonable that the "thinking thing" was unextended and completely different from matter than made of matter like anything else! I take a materialistic view on this - if you propose that people are made up of both an immaterial, possibly immortal soul and a body made of matter, explaining how the two interact gets way too messy.

[Moderator mode] Neway, I take it that you want to discuss "the soul" here. I'm not very keen on "paranormality" at all as it tends to lead to waffley and silly threads in my experience - there's a paranormal board for that sort of thing. I think it would be better if you gave some sort of definition of what you mean by a soul - is it something that can live after/before the body? What is it made of? How does it connecet to the body or does it do so at all? And so on.
[/moderator mode]

keu

if you propose that people are made up of both an immaterial, possibly immortal soul and a body made of matter, explaining how the two interact gets way too messy.

you mean beyond your comprehension.

philosophy deals with the messy stuff..everyone backs down when it gets to this area..oh..it's too messy, we have no definitve anything. This is exactly what philosophy is about.
If you guys want to sit around and chat about things that are already defined by the nature of physics so be it...

I'm not very keen on "paranormality" at all as it tends to lead to waffley and silly threads in my experience - there's a paranormal board for that sort of thing. I think it would be better if you gave some sort of definition of what you mean by a soul - is it something that can live after/before the body? What is it made of? How does it connecet to the body or does it do so at all? And so on.

if you would like me to define soul, than I would have to consider the abstract area which unfortunately branches into what you refer to the paranormal. If I could define it as an energy form (which has already been dismissed by the physicist) than perhaps I could continue in a vein which maintains the integrity of philosophy as a branch of understanding through logical reasoning.


I'll leave you guys waffle amongst yourselves.

ecksor

Originally posted by remote viewer
If I could define it as an energy form (which has already been dismissed by the physicist) than perhaps I could continue in a vein which maintains the integrity of philosophy as a branch of understanding through logical reasoning.

If you're going to continue to invoke physics in your philosophy then it's only natural that the physicists are going to point out any flaws. If you were, in fact, maintaining the integrity of philosophy then you would be able to defend your arguments by demonstrating logical reasoning. So far you've just admitted ignorance of physics and yet still criticised the physicists for correcting your errors.

I'll leave you guys waffle amongst yourselves.

Fysh

Originally posted by remote viewer
you mean beyond your comprehension.

philosophy deals with the messy stuff..everyone backs down when it gets to this area..oh..it's too messy, we have no definitve anything. This is exactly what philosophy is about.
If you guys want to sit around and chat about things that are already defined by the nature of physics so be it...

Philosophy can technically deal with any subject - whether it leads to useful insight or not is another matter altogether. However, trying to discuss matters that are not yet fully understood in a philosophical light without utilising logical and where necessary scientific rigour cannot lead to any useful conclusion. There's no point in discussing a subject "philosophically" and being so vague in the reasoning style that no concrete conclusion can be reached.

if you would like me to define soul, than I would have to consider the abstract area which unfortunately branches into what you refer to the paranormal. If I could define it as an energy form (which has already been dismissed by the physicist) than perhaps I could continue in a vein which maintains the integrity of philosophy as a branch of understanding through logical reasoning.

My point is that a physical definition of the soul is going to be very difficult. Having an intangible or abstract soul may be one way around this problem, but an explanation of the mind-soul link still needs to be provided. Which brings us back to the need for scientific rigour. I try to maintain an open mind on these topics because neuroscience is still very much an exploratory science, but any answer we find has to reconcile physical laws with whatever understanding of the mind or soul is reached.

simu

I've put together a list of various approaches to the mind body problem to give an idea of what has/is been going on in that field. These are just quick definitions though and for anybody who wants to know more about any of these, I'd recommend googling/getting books on the subject.

Some of the views are similar and some could be classified as sub-categories of others. The list isn't exhaustive and also, I decided not to classify these into dualist and monist approaches as I think that would lead to over-simplification and confusion.

(Most of the info is from The Oxford Companion to Philosophy edited by Honderich, some from various websites and I've changed a few bits around myself to make things easier to summarise).

Here goes:

Substance dualism – the mind or the soul is a non-physical entity that is separate from the body.

Epiphenomenalism – mental things are caused by physical things but mental things cannot cause physical things.

No-ownership theory - mental events don’t require a subject (an “I”) to whom they must belong.

Property dualism or Double aspect theory – No soul distinct from the body. There is just one thing, a person, that has two irreducibly different properties – physical and mental.

Interactionism – Some mental events cause physical events and some physical events cause mental events. (Descartes’ view was a form of this – he thought that mind and body were distinct but interacted in some way).

Parallelism – Mins and body never influence each other. They progress along parallel paths and it only looks as though they’re interacting.

Pre-established harmony – No interaction between different substances (e.g. mind and body). Substances are created by God and after that, the states of the substances are caused by their preceding states. God created these substances in such a way that it seems to us that they interact whereas in reality, they do not. (This is an idea of Leibniz’s).

Occasionalism – Relations between different substances like mind and body are not causal but rather, are a consequence of God’s will – God wills an effect to happen after a cause has happened and so on ad infinitum.

Biological naturalism – All mental phenomena, including consciousness, are caused by lower-level neurobiological processes in the brain. These mental phenomena are emergent, that’s to say, they are causally explained by lower-level elements in the brain even though these lower-level elements do not have features of consciousness etc by themselves.

Materialism – mind and body are made of matter.

Idealism –mind exists, matter cannot exist independently of the mind. (Bishop Berkeley’s view – he was an 18th century Irish philosopher in case ye didn’t know!)

Hylozoism or panpsychism – all material has a mental or inner aspect but this mental aspect is stronger in different things.

Type physicalism – mental event types are types of nervous system events.

Token physicalism - Every event that falls under a mental-event kind also falls under a physical-event kind (or, every event that has a mental property also has a physical property).

Note: Token Physicalism does not entail Type Physicalism. Suppose that every object that has a color has a shape. It does not follow from this that color types are identical to shape types. Thus, Type Physicalism does not follow from Token Physicalism (since that entailment has precisely the same form as the invalid entailment involving colors and shapes).

Anomalous monism – Mental and physical are two irreducibly different ways of describing the same objects and events so there’s no way of mapping physical events onto mental events and vice versa.

Double aspect theory – Certain states of living creatures have both mental and physical aspects. The theory tries to identify the mental and physical without analysing either in terms of the other.

Neutral monism - the view that mental events and physical events are both to be reduced to aspects of some neutral stuff, which stuff considered by itself is neither physical nor mental.

simu

I take a materialistic view on this - if you propose that people are made up of both an immaterial, possibly immortal soul and a body made of matter, explaining how the two interact gets way too messy.

So, to give my own point of view - or more precisely, the one I find most reasonable at the moment - I go with biological naturalism. I think that the best way to understand consciousness is to try and figure out exactly what is going on in a person's brain when they are thinking. Quoting from the essay by John Searle I linked to in the first post of the Descartes thread :

Consider hammering a nail with a hammer. Both hammer and nail must have a certain kind of solidity. Hammers made of cotton or butter will be quite useless, and hammers made of water or steam are not hammers at all. Solidity is a real causal property of the hammer and not something epiphenomenal. But the solidity itself is caused by the behaviour of particles at the micro-level and is realized in the system of micro-elements. The existence of two causally real levels of description in the brain, one a macro-level of mental neurophysiological processes and the other a micro-level of neuronal physiological processes, is exactly analogous to the existence of two causally real levels of description of the hammer. Consciousness, for example, is a real causal property of the brain and not something epiphenomenal. My conscious attempt to perform an action such as raising my arm causes the movement of the arm. At the higher level of description, the intention to raise my arm has the movement of my arm as its condition of satisfaction and it causes the movement of the arm. At the lower level of description, a series of neuron firings which originate in the cortex causes the release of the transmitter substance acetylcholine at the 'end plates' where the axon terminals of motor neurons connect to the muscle fibres; this in turn causes a series of chemical changes that result in the contraction of the muscle. As with the case of hammering a nail, the same sequence of events has two levels of description, both of which are causally real and where the higher-Ievel causal features are both caused by and realized in the structure of the lower-Ievel elements.

It's a pretty cool article even if the main focus of it is why computers can't have minds (an interesting topic as well although not relevant to this thread).
I don't think there's any point coming up with "ghosts in the machine" i.e. spooky, ethereal ideas, supposedly beyong the reach of our understanding to explain consciousness unless we come to understand the brain perfectly and realise that we still haven't explained consciousness. Occam's razor applies (or cuts?!).

Some people deny that it will ever be possible for us to understand the functioning of the brain and consciousness and while I don't deny the possibility that this may be so, I think it would be premature to take this view at this time given the enormous progresses made in nueroscience in recent decades and presuming this continues.

if you would like me to define soul, than I would have to consider the abstract area which unfortunately branches into what you refer to the paranormal. If I could define it as an energy form (which has already been dismissed by the physicist) than perhaps I could continue in a vein which maintains the integrity of philosophy as a branch of understanding through logical reasoning.

Philosophers have discussed the soul even if the idea has not been that popular in recent times - it's a valid topic of discussion.
Dictionary.com's definition of paranormal: "Beyond the range of normal experience or scientific explanation: such paranormal phenomena as telepathy; a medium's paranormal powers." You'll note that it says nothing in that definition about abstract ideas. All that stuff about the soul having a weight would fall under the heading of paranormal unless you can provide a link to a scientific analysis of the topic however.

simu

I was wondering if you go even deeper beyond the matter of the universe there is basically only energy and space, so does that imply that the universe is alive or conscious of itself since were made of the same stuff that everything else is made up of ?

and

Hylozoism or panpsychism – all material has a mental or inner aspect but this mental aspect is stronger in different things.

SNAP!

I found a more comprehensive account of panpsychism, its history and the arguments for and against here, joshcork.

I'd be interested to know what you think!

Saruman

I like the idea that the universe is in fact a living conscious being and that we are nothing more than functions of the entity. or maybe our lives are nothing more than the universe trying to understand itself. Our lives are pretty big to us but to it we might not even exist except as a bodily function. Who knows mabe the universe is posting on an uber trans-dimensional boards.ie asking other universes the question what are these annoying little flies buzzing in my head, they keep getting louder!

simu

I like the idea that the universe is in fact a living conscious being and that we are nothing more than functions of the entity.

Yes but just because you like an idea doedn't mean that it's true.

My biggest problem with panpsychism is that things like electrons, rocks and so on don't appear to posess properties such as those we associate with consciousness unless you come up with a radically differrent conception of consciousness.

Saruman

Interesting.. so tell me does your pancreas "posess properties such as those we associate with consciousness"? Or how about the hair up your nose? These are parts of OUR body and we are conscious, at least we like to think so So would not not stand to reason if the universe is a living being itself that it has lots of useless bits that are not conscious or seem to "posess properties such as those we associate with consciousness?"

Or maybe i just dont understand what you mean and so you can explain it further

simu

Originally posted by Saruman
Interesting.. so tell me does your pancreas "posess properties such as those we associate with consciousness"? Or how about the hair up your nose? These are parts of OUR body and we are conscious, at least we like to think so So would not not stand to reason if the universe is a living being itself that it has lots of useless bits that are not conscious or seem to "posess properties such as those we associate with consciousness?"

Or maybe i just dont understand what you mean and so you can explain it further

Well, looking at your post again, you're going for the idea of a sentient universe rather than for panpsychism and my criticism was directed at panpsychism - two different ideas (that's what I get for going on boards without putting on my contanct lenses ).

So, how would a sentient universe work? Like this maybe: The universe would have characteristics and develop in such a way that consciousness would come into being and devlop and allow it to come to understand itself. Is this the sort of thing you had in mind?

Saruman

Yup thats the one! We are simply going about our lives, evolving ourselves and as we evolve so does the universe evolve and gain greater understanding of itself and whatever is beyond the universe!
Hmm the big bang theory always confused me.. how does everything come from nothing.. and where did the energy to form the big bang come from if there was simply nothing? Easier to see the universe as a living sentient being thats growing and evolving as time goes on.

Or hey i could be talking through my arse

simu

Hmm, I don't think your idea solves the question of how the universe began either, though. Or are you saying that the universe has aways been here?

we evolve so does the universe evolve and gain greater understanding of itself and whatever is beyond the universe!

But how does the universe retain the understanding we build up of it during our lives? It would seem that our our understanding apart from the small amounts we might preserve by communicating with other people disappears when we die. Or are you saying that life tends to evolve in such a way that intelligence develops and that eventually creatures appear that are clever enough to come up with a grand theory of everything in the universe (such as some present-day physicists are trying to do)?

Actually, that would be going against the theory of evolution itself a we now understand it. It's seen as a sort of blind force with no purpose behind it and there's no reason to believe that higher intelligence such as the intelligence that allows us to do physics is better than any other form of adaptation to a given environment. Look at us humans, we're the most intelligent species on the planet yet we're messing the world up so much that we may eventually drive ourselves to extinction!

Saruman

Ah we Believe we are the most intelligent creatures on this planet Maybe Dolphins are and see us as pests and refuse to talk to us Of course thats very unlikely. The Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy was a good book

I dont know where the universe came from.. I dont actually believe that what im saying "IS" i just think its an interesting possibility that has about as much chance of being true than the big bang. There is only speculation, its all we have. the big bang is only given weight by the fact the universe is expanding, possibly from a central point which has yet to be pin pointed. Humans are not intelligent enough yet to comprehend all the questions we have, but the fact we are able to understand enough to ask in the first place means we are on the right path. Now if we can just not feck up the planet long enough to find the answers

Fysh

There are theories other than the Big Bang (although I can't remember their names offhand - I think one of them was the Plasma Model?), but the Big Bang is the one that's currently in vogue (despite its drawbacks) and hence gets talked about a lot, and relevant research gets funded rather a lot.

I should point out, however, that expansion as predicted by the Big Bang model doesn't have a defined central point. Any point within the expanding universe might *appear* to be the central point, because everything is moving away from everything else. But that's just an issue of perspective.

I still don't reckon the universe is self-aware, though.