crocodile deathroll

I am having many doubts about the meaning of existence, consciousness, God etc

I have often equated this great phenomena of the "human being" as a gene's way of creating other genes, you or me and they could of done without consciousness or self-consciousness altogether. The whole phenomenon of consciousness and self-consciousness, whatever scientific account you give of it, is, on the Darwinian account, is purely irrelevant to the human condition.

In other words, you could imagine on a standard evolutionary model of a world exactly like our's, with only one difference: that is there is no consciousness. In which case, however valid the theory may be, it has failed to explain the single most interesting, the single most distinctive thing about us, which is that we are self-conscious beings. And that is central to what it is to be a person. I feel that at least one entity of consciousness will make a difference: You

How do you know that the person that posted this message is not a zombie with no requirement for consciousness? In fact you may be the only sentient being in the Universe and the rest of all the people around you are just are a gene's way of creating other genes including person that posted this message. What's more, when you die the consciousness will cease to be anywhere in the Universe and consciousness did not exist anywhere in the Universe until at least your birth. It is only you the generated "consciousness" into existence. So you are the only incarnation of "consciousness", the only consciously incarnate lump a meat in a cosmic ocean of billions of zombies. The zombies do make your life a little more interesting than just simply being a solitary conscious and incarnate being on a cosmic desert island.

From the vantage point of your private Universe this is true, and may also apply to the entire Universe, we are all zombies but you, with the Ockham's Razor principle there need be no more things a presumed to exist that is necessary to explain a phenomena including consciousness, and if that means that you need to be the only sentient being in the entire universe, then so be it. You of course would suffice to be that central spark of consciousness, nothing more.

I cannot help thinking the this may seem ridiculously paradoxical!.
Well, I have an alternative theory, you are still the only conscious being in the Universe, but you are not really incarnated into a single contingent lump of meat amongst all us zombies. You are in fact the eyes of entire Universe with all the other realities masked until your death out and when your body dies your sense of self is not entirely obliterated. Instead a Gestalt Switch mechanism will result in your sense of self being paralleled or emulated by another material brain's world line and begin another life all over again as though it is a brand new adventure, and it may not be necessarily in the future relative to your current life but in the past so your may well reemerge back in a era when Stone Henge was built, or be caught up in a tribal fight with Neanderthals . You will eventually personally experience the life of everybody that has ever lived or will ever live You will always be locked into the stelliferous era of the universe from 10^6 years to 10^14 years, especially after the 10^10 year mark the era when consciousness in the Universe first emerged and each time you die time and its historical context will be always pulled out from under your feet as the memories of that life are totally obliterated with the death of that brain. After trillions of biological deaths you may become exactly the same person again. And all this can be achieve when Ockham's Razor trims consciousness down to only one entity of consciousness You, the eyes of the universe.

Some may think this eyes of the Universe equates to a God or some Divine force! Hardly. Because it did not instigate the creation of the Universe it is nothing more that an emergent property of it. A "phase transition" when biological complexity reaches a critical threshold, as this could not possibly exist in the early primordial era of the Universe from time zero to 300,000 years. Nor could it exist when life had not emerged at the early stelliferous period from 10^6 years to 10^9 years. 10^10 to 10^11 years after the big bang may be the only possible era for consciousness to manifest itself as your personal self consciousness, or the time the Universe becomes aware of its own existence . From then on it is all unravels because 10^14 years to 10^38 years the Universe enters a degenerative era and from 10^38 years to 10^100 years or a googol number of years is the black hole era. Then finally at >10^100 years then Universe enters what some cosmologists refer to as the cosmic dark era. You never have to worry about any of those eras because you will never be there to experience it as there is no possible expression of consciousness in those eras. But while the physical Universe goes from bad to worse, your place in it will always be at home in the middle stelliferous era within 10^10 - 10^11 year mark
Personal self consciousness may be necessary for a Universe that becomes aware of its own existence, but if the early Universe can be created by a mere quantum fluctuation then God is not necessary for the creation of it. So unlike consciousness a God may be nothing more that a superfluous addition which is eliminated by Ockham's Razor.

I can never be absolutely certain of this, it is only a theory. Even though I find it plausible for the time there may be another theory further down the track which is far more plausible. I feel it will be a very long time before anyone can explain the true mystery of consciusness. Absolute knowledge of this may be a long time off, and that is if it is possible at all.

I guess my doubts will always still live on.

crocodile deathroll

tronvillain

crocodile deathtroll:
Could you? I think it highly unlikely.

I am not even sure the concept of a "zombie" is a coherent one.

excreationist

crocodile deathroll:
[quote]...How do you know that the person that posted this message is not a zombie with no requirement for consciousness?...[quote]
Well the person or machine that posted it is analysing themselves even if they are a machine. If they can intelligently respond to other people's responses then it shows that they can properly analyse what other's say. There should be signs of them having independent thought that is self-directed rather than blindly repetitive. That happens in computer programs that try and appear conscious - usually people can find a flaw which shows that it doesn't properly understand what they're saying.
If the poster is intelligent, they will be capable of learning new things throughout the course of the thread and demonstrate "common sense" which means they can infer a lot of things based on a lifetime of experiences.
But it is difficult to tell whether the poster has momentary consciousness (while they are generating a written response) or they have a more continuous consciousness (our brains cycle at about 40 Hz).
So anyway, if the thing that generates the responses is totally indistinguishable from a consciousness person, internally they would also be conscious. This is because the response would be a result of intelligent processing and the thing that does the processing is what is "aware" of the inputs/analysis/outputs. The other possibility is that its responses are programmed in - then the programmer is the conscious one. Or the responses could just be random and no comprehension is going on but it would be a fluke that it would give competent outputs.

emphryio

I've heard this sort of idea before. Attempting to imagine it is true is interesting. It is almost like imagining the entire universe emanating from your own mind.

Actually there was a Phillip K. Dick short sci-fi story sort of following a version of this idea.

I have reservation about it because it horribly simplifies things to the point of being boring.

Also it could encourage a complete disregard for your fellow man.

But don't mind my criticism, I appreciate very much someone coming up with something on their own.

jenn

I loved it!!