"Is the Universe Conscious?
Some of the world's most renowned scientists are questioning whether the universe is a living entity that can think and feel and move at will.

Physicist Gregory Matloff argues that a “proto-consciousness field” could extend through all of space. | NASA Via Reuters
For centuries, modern science has been shrinking the gap between humans and the rest of the universe, from Isaac Newton showing that one set of laws applies equally to falling apples and orbiting moons to Carl Sagan intoning that “we are made of star stuff” — that the atoms of our bodies were literally forged in the nuclear furnaces of other stars.

Even in that context, Gregory Matloff’s ideas are shocking. The veteran physicist at New York City College of Technology recently published a paper arguing that humans may be like the rest of the universe in substance and in spirit. A “proto-consciousness field” could extend through all of space, he argues. Stars may be thinking entities that deliberately control their paths. Put more bluntly, the entire cosmos may be self-aware.

The notion of a conscious universe sounds more like the stuff of late night TV than academic journals. Called by its formal academic name, though, “panpsychism” turns out to have prominent supporters in a variety of fields. New York University philosopher and cognitive scientist David Chalmers is a proponent. So too are neuroscientist Christof Koch of the Allen Institute for Brain Science, and British physicist Sir Roger Penrose, renowned for his work on gravity and black holes. The bottom line, Matloff argues, is that panpsychism is too important to ignore...."

https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/universe-conscious-ncna772956

Hmmm. I love this kind of thinking. My question isn't whether the universe is conscious or not, but "Why not?"

It will be exciting to see what's produced by the Gaia star-mapping space telescope in 2018.

This is fun! Thanks, Amyjo!

kathleen Wrote:
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> This is fun! Thanks, Amyjo!


I love these kinds of articles...

Thanks from me, too, Amyjo!!

:)

While I don't agree with the notion of a hominid-looking god-figure, I like the notion of "Cosmic Consciousness." Like the universe itself, it is infinite, not whimsical, doesn't play favorites, and can usually be depended upon to behave in predictable ways.

(Except when it can't, and we are still working on those parts!!)

We can NEVER master it all, and that's what makes our lives challenging from one day to the next.

. . . where some of the faculty advisors, some of the student staff and many of its on-campus readers were either unconscious or nearly so.

We are all part of the universe. We are all made of the the ashes of burnt out stars. We are all an integral part of the universe.

We are the universe trying to figure itself out.

I will be forever grateful to Carl Sagan for blowing my mind with this concept.

I think that we are the universe's consciousness, its eyes and ears. That's our place.

I guess that's why I don't feel small when I looked into the night sky.

That is pretty awesome place to be!

That we're more than the sum of our parts.

Collective consciousness v independence of thought. Sometimes we find ourselves breaking through those generational cycles to redefine our place in the sun.

If we are the eyes and ears for the Universe, I'd like to know why we've come so far, yet still so much remains a mystery to us.

Of course it is.

It was programmed that way by the mad hacker(s) who conjured our 'reality'.

Some scientists are hypothesizing we ourselves are part of a virtual matrix, that comprises the Universe. That concept in itself is mind boggling since we have physical properties a virtual self would lack.

Still it's something else to ponder. :)

I think they're describing the Tao. There's not much question as to do we exist. There is some question as to why. What keeps this whole world together? Is it all a drawn-out love story? All of these beings on this planet, living and being, the miracle in front of our eyes. But somehow not good enough because Jesus needs a mall.

If it is, it's probably thinking about something other than us humans.

It's time to face the truth, our Universe is conscious energy. Consciousness is the elementary essence of everything, it can be no other way.

Deepak, is that you?

Expert Steve, how conscious are you? What makes you an expert on reality? Are you a sentient being? What makes it so? Magic? How does this all work? How's it all held together. One big accident called the big bang. Give me one miracle and I will give you the rest? Let's attack an alternative explanation out of hand, because it enforces my psychological conditioning of the "endowment effect" of being a "new atheist". Wave that banner. Oh god for bid, there is something the resembles "God" of some sort rather than random chaos where you get to pick meaning from the chaos and become our own "God". Its very nice, being of very limited consciousness, closing the door what you don't know. "That's all there is folks". I get to pick and choose the limits of science to feeeeeel secure in my limited knowledge of what's really going on and call it SCIENCE.

I find it fascinating those that bang the drum of science the loudest try to muffle ideas scientific contrary to their worldview (GROUP THINK ANYONE?), rather than say that's interesting I will hold that idea in status. What weak, weak, and fearful minded people can't deal with 2 opposing ideas in their minds at once.

Its so damn Mormon, its all true or its all false. I'll react first before exploring all different angles. The true gift of leaving Mormonism is intellectual freedom, not accepting another from of dopy herd think...

Enjoy the magic. :)

And since when am I trying to "muffle your ideas"?

I'm simply challenging your ideas. Persecution cards don't play well here. If you can't take the heat, get out of the universe.

In the meantime, let me know when you've come up with a convincing case that the universe is "conscious." Until you can, you're absolutely right--it's a dopey herd idea. Kinda like Kolob.



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 06/21/2017 08:08AM by steve benson.

Well said, Thinking!

The universe hates you

And whether you can hear it or not
The Universe is laughing behind your back.

"Go placidly amid the noise and waste,
And remember what comfort there may be in owning a piece thereof.
Avoid quiet and passive persons, unless you are in need of sleep.
Rotate your tires.
Speak glowingly of those greater than yourself,
And heed well their advice, even though they be turkeys.
Know what to kiss, and when.
Consider that two wrongs never make a right, but that three do.
Wherever possible, put people on hold.
Be comforted that in the face of all aridity and disillusionment,
and despite the changing fortunes of time,
There is always a big future in computer maintenance.

You are a fluke of the universe.
You have no right to be here.
And whether you can hear it or not,
The universe is laughing behind your back.

Remember The Pueblo.
Strive at all times to bend, fold, spindle, and mutilate.
Know yourself.
If you need help, call the FBI.
Exercise caution in your daily affairs,
Especially with those persons closest to you -
That lemon on your left, for instance.
Be assured that a walk through the ocean of most souls
Would scarcely get your feet wet.
Fall not in love therefore. It will stick to your face.
Gracefully surrender the things of youth: birds, clean air, tuna, Taiwan.
And let not the sands of time get in your lunch.
Hire people with hooks.
For a good time, call 606-4311. Ask for Ken.
Take heart in the bedeepening gloom
That your dog is finally getting enough cheese.
And reflect that whatever fortune may be your lot,
It could only be worse in Milwaukee.

You are a fluke of the universe.
You have no right to be here.
And whether you can hear it or not,
The universe is laughing behind your back.

Therefore, make peace with your god,
Whatever you perceive him to be - hairy thunderer, or cosmic muffin.
With all its hopes, dreams, promises, and urban renewal,
The world continues to deteriorate.
Give up!

You are a fluke of the universe.
You have no right to be here.
And whether you can hear it or not,
The universe is laughing behind your back.

You are a fluke of the universe.
You have no right to be here.
And whether you can hear it or not,
The universe is laughing behind your back."

This is really a philosophical idea, not so much science, in it's history and application. It's resurgence seems to mostly be that it provides an end run around the "hard problem of consciousness'. It offers no testable hypotheses. And of course consciousness itself is hard to define as well. So you have a poorly framed idea based on a whim of what consciousness even is.

Bingo.

I'll consider the "universe" to be "conscious" when there's evidence it is.
Until then, there's no reason to...other than whim or wishful thinking.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/19/2017 03:33PM by Stray Mutt.

Philosophy and science are LINKED, they always have been and they always will be! What an imbecilic notion that the two are separate when the "scientific method" was invited by a philosopher, Francis Bacon. Science always starts with ideas, they may be right or wrong proven by testing. Eliminating human dogma is the point of the method. Nothing manifests itself into a "hard" science before thinking as been done...

Einstein approves this Thinking. ;)

Einstein doesn't approve of anything.
He no longer exists.

And while the scientific method originally arose from the "philosophy" at the time, they're not the same thing.
At all.
Nor are they "linked."

Philosophy this is. Philosophy is thinking about stuff. Whether it's real or not, doesn't matter.

Science is about finding out if things are real/factual or not.
Not the same thing.

No matter how much we may (or may not) like the idea that the "universe is conscious," there's no evidence to support the idea. None. Zero, zip, nada. So, like Smith's claims of angels visiting him, the claim has no merit other than speculation/wishful thinking.

Maybe (though it's doubtful) someday there will be some evidence of the universe being conscious. When there is, then the idea will have some merit. Until then, it doesn't.

ificouldhietokolob Wrote:
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> Einstein doesn't approve of anything.
> He no longer exists.

He does on a space time continuum. Did you learn nothing from relativity theory?

>
> No matter how much we may (or may not) like the
> idea that the "universe is conscious," there's no
> evidence to support the idea. None. Zero, zip,
> nada. So, like Smith's claims of angels visiting
> him, the claim has no merit other than
> speculation/wishful thinking.
>
> Maybe (though it's doubtful) someday there will be
> some evidence of the universe being conscious.
> When there is, then the idea will have some merit.
> Until then, it doesn't.

Tell that to the top physicists who say there is. Your argument is with them, and it loses. Carl Sagan would also agree with them, as would Einstein.

Amyjo Wrote:
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> > Einstein doesn't approve of anything.
> > He no longer exists.
>
> He does on a space time continuum. Did you learn
> nothing from relativity theory?

Maybe he DID, but he doesn't NOW.
He doesn't anything now. He doesn't exist to do anything now.


> Tell that to the top physicists who say there is.
> Your argument is with them, and it loses. Carl
> Sagan would also agree with them, as would
> Einstein.

There are no "top physicists" who say there is evidence of a conscious universe.
And no, my "argument" is with those who claim there are "top physicists" who claim there is evidence of a conscious universe, because there aren't any such "top physicists."

And again, while Carl might have in the past liked the idea, he doesn't agree with anything NOW. Nor did he ever claim there was evidence for a conscious universe. He *did* speculate that it might be possible -- but that's not the same thing.

Amyjo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> He does on a space time continuum. Did you learn
> nothing from relativity theory?

Space time does not allow for travel back and forth along one dimensional time. There is no scenario that allows me to remain constant and move freely between the past, present, and future. A fixed point in time is always fixed.

Space time is a way of conceptualizing how one dimensional time interacts with three dimensional space. Essentially, as time interacts with space it could warp or distort, but always remaining linear. I know that it has been theorized that something could move forward and backward along the line of time but these theories currently require that causality be violated. Once that issue is resolved than "scientists" can resolve the issue of having to expend more energy than exists to move something along the line.

Long story short relativity is not time travel it is time warping. And time travel is just as fanciful as faster than light travel. You have to violate currently accepted laws of physics to make it happen.

So Einstein is dead and no one can travel back in time to meet with him.

Oh, and metaphysics is just as much a science as writing is painting.

> Tell that to the top physicists who say there is.
> Your argument is with them, and it loses. Carl
> Sagan would also agree with them, as would
> Einstein.


This is an appeal to authority fallacy. Physicists are not authorities on consciousness. Their opinions on consciousness may be interesting and even appealing. But their expertise is not in the field. It is fallacious to construe their expertise beyond it's range.

This is why appeals to Einstein or Sagan about opinions or beliefs beyond their expertise is similarly fallacious. Interesting, but not good reasoning.

Penrose, mentioned in the source article, is a brilliant mathematician with fairly odd views on multidimensional quantum consciousness that have been poorly supported in further research.

True believers here seem not to get the difference.

Thinking Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Philosophy and science are LINKED, they always
> have been and they always will be! What an
> imbecilic notion that the two are separate when
> the "scientific method" was invited by a
> philosopher, Francis Bacon.

"The historical relationship between science and philosophy has not been a friendly one. Philosophers like to start with their conclusions, and work to prove them. When it came to trying to figure out what the world was like, philosophers tended to argue about what the world should be like. Science was born as a rejection of this method. Its goal was to figure out what the world was really all about, and its primary tool was actual experimentation.

We've all seen philosophy at its worst. Philosophers are often completely disconnected from reality and, more recently, don't care. Philosophers often expound their ideas from armchairs and ivory towers, where the facts of reality don't concern them."

(Joseph Rowlands)
And I couldn't have said it better myself.

It's like the guy who goes up to a wall, shoots an arrow into the wall, proceeds to draw concentric circles around the arrow, then stands back and triumphantly declares, "Bull's-eye!"

In other words, a pre-determined conclusion at work.

It's like religious believers who accept "God's Word" that the Earth is only 6,000 years old, then stubbornly deny all the empirical evidence to the contrary in order to make their wacky version of Earth science fit their fairytale Bible babblings.

Talk about unconscious.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 06/21/2017 02:38PM by steve benson.

Goddess Nuith, AKA "The Universe"...

I have no problem with this game of what if when it comes to the fringes of discovery. Out of the box thinking will often lead to legitimate discoveries. So physicists of the world, have at it. Just don't count it as science until it is science.

That's what science is, Jacob. Questioning everything until proving. The results don't happen in a vacuum!

Maybe by accident or sometimes by chance. But always preceded (nearly always,) by hypotheses before discoveries.

Well, yeah -- but the science is doing the work to confirm/falsify the hypothesis. And the vast majority of hypotheses get falsified...or abandoned when no confirming evidence can be found.

Strictly speaking for something to be a scientific hypothesis it must be possible to test it.

Science must be systematic, simply questioning everything isn't science it is curiosity.

Time travel isn't possible to test, yet Albert Einstein believed in its propensity.

Physicists today know it is possible, like Einstein, but as yet have not been able to acquire the knowledge to put the thought into action.

Just one example of many when dealing with physics.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/20/2017 09:07PM by steve benson.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ODtExxkW0ws#



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/20/2017 09:32PM by steve benson.

Einstein's greatest asset was his curiosity.

He questioned everything!

that are proposed to explain a given physical phenomenon.

Hypotheses are mere guesses.

In science, jargon counts. One should therefore use its terms correctly.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/21/2017 02:36PM by steve benson.

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1988247

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1988247,1988297#msg-1988297



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 06/20/2017 01:12PM by steve benson.

If motion to and fro is possible in 3 dimensions why not in the 4th as well?

I believe Shummy, when we laugh the Universe laughs with us.

When we cry, it cries too.

When it's our time to go, a piece of heaven dies with us but our rebirth is elsewhere as our souls rise from the stardust of matter we are made from.

Likewise, when people are at odds with the world or themselves, they are at odds with the Universe.

And how much had you had to drink?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/20/2017 09:11PM by steve benson.

Right, Shummy.

"In 1908, Hermann Minkowski presented a paper consolidating the role of time as the fourth dimension of spacetime, the basis for Einstein's theories of special and general relativity." (Wiki)

Theoretical Physics is Science, which Einstein worked from. Einstein was mocked by other (mostly Jew hating) scientists in his German circle for his ideas. He believed in them before they became established science!

He was turned down for the Nobel on Relativity theory for that reason (his critics.) Instead he was awarded it for something else entirely, his discovery of the "law of the photoelectric effect," and his services to Theoretical Physics.

We act like our consciousness, our intelligence, is somehow separate from the universe from which it arose -- instead of being an integral part of it, even the essence of it. "We are the eyes of the world."

'Currently accepted laws of physics' once held that going more than 20 miles an hour would suck the breath from your lungs.

Yea? What law was that?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/21/2017 02:06PM by steve benson.