Rate my crackpot theory.

[Ringo]

Coming down from an 18hr poker session last night, I was unable to sleep and had all these random thoughts running through my head. I promised myself I'd post this here to get some feedback and comments. Here we go!

The question of consciousness is a tough one. What gives us that "I" feeling? We don't know, but since there's no evidence to the contrary, I'm going to assume that consciousness is an emergent result of complexity. We _are_ just the sum of our atoms and neuron connections in our brains. This leads to the interesting question of whether computers will become conscious - but that's a side issue.

So.. as far as we know, the human brain is the most complex (and I use the word complex in the pure form) thing we know of in the universe. If consciousness arises from complexity, could a galaxy or the universe ever become conscious? How does the number of atoms in our brain compare with the number of stars in a galaxy - or the number of galaxies in the universe compared to the number of neurons in our brain? Is it at least feasible?

I'm not talking about the whole "maybe every atom is a solar system on a smaller scale" type thought, like in that great Simpsons couch-gag intro. Is it at least possible, that if consciousness is a natural result of complexity, that a galaxy or even universe could become conscious?

I'm going to look at some numbers not to get an idea of neurons/stars/galaxies and see if they're in the same kind of order of magnitude, and then I'm going to submit my theory for peer review. Joking aside, I'm sure I'm not the first to think something like this, so any comments or discussions would be most welcome.

PS: Ban pls for the first person to try to explain why my theory is actually only a hypothesis. "Crackpot hypothesis" doesn't have the same ring to it.

[Silent A]

I don't think anyone believes that complexity alone can produce consciousness, rather the idea is that consciousness is something that some sufficiently complex things are capable of. There has to be some kind of structure from which the consciousness can emerge.

One problem I can think of for the "universe has consciousness" theory is inability for one part of the universe to communicate with distant parts fast enough to form a coherent whole. Without this, most feedback mechanisms in the structure of the universe would be too slow to prevent various distant parts going off on tangents.

[Taraz]

Look up "China Brain" on google or wikipedia. I think it deals with many of the same issues you raise.

[gull]

Interesting idea, but it's hard to evaluate without a definition of consciousness (which doesn't really exist anywhere). Here's my theory: consciousness is just a partial memory of what went on in our brains milliseconds earlier. All of our "thought" are just instant replays of what our brain is thinking. The whole idea of thinking is a farce - we're really just watching a movie of the past.

[Taraz]

[ QUOTE ]
Interesting idea, but it's hard to evaluate without a definition of consciousness (which doesn't really exist anywhere). Here's my theory: consciousness is just a partial memory of what went on in our brains milliseconds earlier. All of our "thought" are just instant replays of what our brain is thinking. The whole idea of thinking is a farce - we're really just watching a movie of the past.

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It's actually a semi-popular theory among cognitive scientists. Consciousness could just be a way of making ourselves ok with our actions. It's more an emergent property of what's going on rather than an integral part of our functioning.

[Taraz]

[ QUOTE ]

One problem I can think of for the "universe has consciousness" theory is inability for one part of the universe to communicate with distant parts fast enough to form a coherent whole. Without this, most feedback mechanisms in the structure of the universe would be too slow to prevent various distant parts going off on tangents.

[/ QUOTE ]

This isn't really a problem because it depends on what time scale the universe is going on. Maybe the universe doesn't even move fast enough for the feedback mechanism to be too slow. Also it could be the case that there are "reflex" reactions that don't need the consciousness to intervene. Just throwing some ideas out there.

[Metric]

On the galactic scale, the only relevant interaction is classical gravitation, and stars can be imagined to be pointlike objects. So essentially your idea is that any old random solution to the N-body problem (perhaps in a background potential due to dark matter) is conscious or moves toward consciousness with time. Not a terribly convincing proposition for quite a few reasons, which I'll leave you to ponder.

[Philo]

[ QUOTE ]


The question of consciousness is a tough one. What gives us that "I" feeling? We don't know, but since there's no evidence to the contrary, I'm going to assume that consciousness is an emergent result of complexity. We _are_ just the sum of our atoms and neuron connections in our brains.

[/ QUOTE ]

Here you seem to infer from emergentism about consciousness (which is different from self-consciousness, or the "I" of the first-person perspective, btw) the reductionist claim that, "We _are_ just the sum of our atoms and neuron connections in our brains."

But viewing consciousness as an emergent property of the neuro-physiological and neuro-chemical complexity of the brain is explicitly non-reductionist. It is the view that consciousness is fundamentally different in nature than the physical properties of the brain, and so not reducible to the mere sum of those physical properties.

[Ringo]

[ QUOTE ]
Here's my theory: consciousness is just a partial memory of what went on in our brains milliseconds earlier. All of our "thought" are just instant replays of what our brain is thinking. The whole idea of thinking is a farce - we're really just watching a movie of the past.

[/ QUOTE ]

Interesting. I don't see how that can produce consciousness though. Surely there has to be an "I" to observe the replay?

How do you think that would relate to say, a RAM chip, which is cycling through thousands of memory states a second? I wouldn't call that conscious, because there's nothing to observe or be aware of the previous memory states. I know what you're saying though.

As for the definition of consciousness, it is a tough one. I think most people would agree that a stone isn't conscious and a human is. They're at polar ends of the scale though. Once you start talking about plants, bacteria and simpler "life forms" (another thing that's hard to define), then it becomes more of a grey area. I don't think I'd be pushing the definitions to say that some form of cerebral cortex, or at least brain, is required for consciousness - so far as we know now, anyway.

Stuff like that makes my brain hurt, but it's the reason I want to live forever, in the hope I'll be around when/if we start to unravel it [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Silent A]

[ QUOTE ]
This isn't really a problem because it depends on what time scale the universe is going on. Maybe the universe doesn't even move fast enough for the feedback mechanism to be too slow. Also it could be the case that there are "reflex" reactions that don't need the consciousness to intervene. Just throwing some ideas out there.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think you should think about the times involved a bit more. We're talking tens billions of years (assuming information can't travel faster than light), long enough for entire galaxies to cease existing - or the entire universe for that matter. Imagine the implications for a human brain if it took 100 years or more for information to travel from one side to the other.