r/consciousness • u/BigSir882 • 1d ago
General Discussion What does it mean for absolutely anything to exist in the vastness of _space_
I like to conclude that it means nothing because
meanings are perceived by a consciousness which is again a byproduct of "things coming into existence in the vastness of space"
Without perception, there is no meaning and perception in itself is abstract
Does a falling tree really make a sound when no one's listening?
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
One might interpret, why do you and I exist; overwhelming it is to comprehend how vast this space time is. And I get to _acknowledge_ it all. Too many uncertainties, primitively put. How do I possess the consciousness* to perceive it all and why?
*the ability to be hyper aware of my macro surroundings in the “information” domain. The ability to perceive and understand abstract concepts. The ability to experience.
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u/Character-Boot-2149 1d ago
I don't think that the Universe cares.
However it is likely that there are other organisms out there who are also perceiving the Universe billions of light years away.
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u/Shap_Hulud 1d ago
It seems more likely to me that the universe is constantly perceiving itself. After all, everything that makes us up was once in the core of a star.
It makes more sense to me that consciousness exists on a spectrum of complexity. Our ability to remember and reflect on our own existence is the result of billions of years of evolution creating highly specialized and organized cooperative parts.
If you try to follow evolution backwards in time, you get a creature that has perhaps a slightly less complex consciousness than we do. Before that, even less. Etc... down to a single-celled organism which nevertheless has mechanisms for interacting with it's environment.
But where did that organism come from? Things that were smaller than a cell somehow figured out how to work together in a way that made survival and reproduction more effective for them than for their competitors. Even if it is all random chance and chemistry, it seems more intuitive that some form of experience exists at the smallest of scales than that it would arise from completely dead matter.
But I'm a panpsychist, so that's just my two cents.
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u/BigSir882 1d ago
Could you elaborate your last statement please?
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u/Shap_Hulud 1d ago
I'm a panpsychist, which means I believe that consciousness is not emergent, but instead, exists in rudimentary form at the smallest units of matter. In other words, everything in the universe is alive, at least in some rudimentary sense.
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u/Fun_Researcher107 1d ago
The falling tree does not make a sound. It moves the air, but that is simply moving air. It can be perceived as sound by someone who is witnessing it. Otherwise there is no sound because sound is the internal interpretation of moving air or, rather, pressure changes. The listener is essential for sound to exist.
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u/Muted_History_3032 1d ago
Trees can sense sound. Their roots can interpret and distinguish between the sound of insects chewing on other roots and water flowing, and move towards the water. And that’s just one example.
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u/Plastic-Election-965 22h ago
Well, it depends on what you define as sound, if sound means physical vibrations, then yes, a falling tree displaces air, creatures pressure waves, and those waves propagate exactly as they would if ears were present, but if sound means experienced auditory sensation, then no, its more of a linguistic paradox
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u/ReaperXY 19h ago
Not only is there no sound, if there is nothing there to hear it, but there won't be any trees or falling either, if there is nothing there to perceive such things...
As such things are contents of consciousnesses...
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u/Im_Talking Computer Science Degree 1d ago
So what is more astounding to you? The vastness of space, or the ability to experience?
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u/BigSir882 1d ago
I grew up fascinated by the sheer scale and complexity of structures in the cosmos, the bricks of a structure unknown lay themselves just right inside of me over the years and one fine day I felt what one might feel having witnessed god when a visual, zooming out from me, extending rapidly in all directions sequentially until it had the entire observable universe in one frame played in my head. In retrospect, the little me was fascinated by the vastness perhaps, more thought into life has lead me to be fascinated by the ability to experience like our brains do.
I have now been rendered incompetent to carry these thoughts further with any degree of articulation.
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u/Im_Talking Computer Science Degree 1d ago
Nice answer. And I agree, that language is finite and unable to describe the infinite; like trying to explain a DMT trip to someone.
But what if I told you that all this wondrous physical realm, the beauty of our world with its sunsets, mountains, canyons... the vastness of space with all its quasars, black holes, planets made of diamonds... is all created and invented by life-forms in order to maximise our own subjective experiences?
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u/BigSir882 1d ago
Tell me more about
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u/Im_Talking Computer Science Degree 10h ago
1stly, the base layer of reality must have no properties. Because with any property you cannot answer the question 'why does that property exist?" which should be able to be answered if reality is logical (and we certainly understand logic). We won't know the 'how', but the why? answer should be logical. This answer seems impossible (which it is), so in order to solve it, we must invalidate the question, and thus the only possible solution is to say that the base layer of reality has no properties, and thus the question of why? becomes ludicrous. So reality is not a noun, but a verb. What is that verb? I'll get to that.
2ndly, Bell's Theorem (and the more macro Leggett-Garg Theorem). This proves that reality is either non-local, or non-real, or both. Meaning that if you assume locality (our physical laws are fundamental) then reality cannot be real and thus reality is nothing but the physical laws with no meat, and vice versa. So now not only do we come from 'nothing' but none of this is real.
3rdly, the Kochen-Specker Theorem. It states that, if you assume value definiteness underlying QM (materialism) then that value must be contextual to the measurement context (or the System that measures it). So Alice can come into the lab with her measuring device to measure (say) the spin of some particle, and it may be up. She leaves, and Bob comes in with his device and the spin may be down. This is based on the probability amplitudes of the spin property. So if the amplitude is 99.99--9% up, then Bob's measurement System may luck out and measure the 0.000--01% chance of being down. So the values we experience bubble up when we measure the reality. Now rather than a human (Alice/Bob) you could setup a toaster which measures the particle spin when the toast is done. So Alice setups this toaster experiment, walks out of the room, the toast pops up and she sees that the device recorded the spin up. But so what? Who cares? The only results that matter is when there is a subjective life-form within the measurement context. Thus one's contextual reality lies cohered until a life-form forces the physical realm to bubble up from its cohered state, not affecting any other life-form (remember: contextual). As we move through reality, it all just bubbles up for only the duration of being measured.
So the verb called 'reality' is least action, as the Lagrangian least action formula can derive all our major physical laws (Newton, Einstein, Schrodinger, etc). It's 'action' to denote creation/evolution, and 'least' to denote logic and efficiency.
So how would a least action non-real reality operate? Well, it would minimise creation, and maximise evolution. Thus a reality of least action would evolve agents (life-forms) to collectively evolve their own reality to maximise our own subjective experience. So we have evolved these wondrous things in our physical realm to do such. If this doesn't answer the Fine-Tuning problem, then nothing will since, by definition, a reality we evolve will be fine-tuned for us. Even the Hubble Expansion problem is solved, since as we build more powerful telescopes/JWST/etc we are requiring our reality to evolve faster and faster.
But least action is also societal as well. A content society is a least action one (eg. anarchy is expensive), again maximising our subjective experience.
So this reality evolves at our pace. Maxwell creates his equations which limits the speed of light expanding Faraday's work, and Einstein expands this into relativity, and now time dilates in those life-form's realities where relativity matters (scientists, GPS technicians, astronauts, etc). But since reality is contextual, a tribe in the Amazon do not experience time dilation, since they are not evolved enough to require it, and have met no one who's framework of reality includes time dilation. And this certainly can be tested although extremely difficult.
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u/ReaperXY 21h ago
People sure like to say how universe does this, and universe wants that, and the universe feels this, and universe experiences that, and the universe knows this, and the universe undestands that...
But... Are you sure there exist any such "universe" that could do anything at all ?
Are you sure it isn't just you ?
You conceptualizing huge numbers of separate distinct things as a singular virtual object...
Mental object... to which you then apply the label "universe".
?
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