Interesting question. Numbers 1 and 3 come from creations and observations of many experiences.

The role of the act of observation in creating reality is also an observation, but as the question begs to ask.... Who IS the observer?

You ask what I think, but who is the you that is asking and who is the I that is responding?

Now, this becomes a very interesting experiment, and something I think in science is that first you have a thought experiment and then you experiment in physics to see empirical evidence to prove or disprove whatever....

This is something that reminds me of the words of the Buddha in the Dhammapada (the path of truth) "With our thoughts we create the world"

So. Einstein once said something to the effect that the results of an experiment are dependent on what the experimenters are searching for.

My current conclusion (whoever "I" AM) is that in the quote from the original post in this topic, hypothesis number 2 is probably very difficult to prove, but that does not mean to say I think it is impossible.

I also think Buddha was right in this and that hypothesis 2 is also correct - and we do create the world(s) with our thoughts.

Interesting thought experiment!:D

Hi all,

I couldn't help myself, but see some discussion about the evolution of consciousness.

The problem that I'm having with the discussion in regard to the aforementioned point is.... What is the definition of consciousness?

Do you mean self consciousness? Do you mean the ability to make decisions?

These are very very subjective matters I think. For e.g. does a pebble toppling down a hill make a decision about whether it bounces left or right?

In quantum mechanics, there definitely is some decision at play here as determined by who the observer is!

1. Does the pebble have adequate consciousness to be the observer?
2. Does the one who measures and observes the route of the pebble determine it's course?
3. Does any of it really matter is all things are ONE unified consciousness anyway?

The way I look at the universe is this... all things have consciousness. From lowest to highest, particle(s) and radiation would have extremely low consciousness, followed by atoms, then molecules, then complex molecules, then simple life forms, then complex lifeforms and so on.

What I am mostly interested in is this... Are our conscious thoughts generated from the space they exist in?

This draws some parallels with the Global consciousness project, in that, a random generator is influence by the space is occupies, and so it wouldn't be too far fetched to say that the billions of synapses in our brain could effectively be influence by the space they exist in.

But, what I'm really trying to say.... is are our collective thoughts the result of some kind of universal consciousness, but are experienced through our own individualized selves.

Everything is energy, from the hypothetical ends of the vibrational spectrum (being low and high vibrational rates that each resemble zero motion) and everything in between. Energy is transmitted by waves and waves interact. Those interaction are known as interference patterns. Thus everything we experience is simply a multidimensional interference pattern created by the sum total of all energy. Out thoughts do indeed figure into this pattern. If you were the only being in the universe and could hold a single thought long enough, the universe would order itself around that thought.

This is a good point. Most definitions of consciousness are a bit vague.

How do you get from here:


To here:

?

Show your work! :smile:

I think the transition was clear enough. It was simply that all the energy and waves intermingle and so there are interference patterns galore. If there were less energy sources, the ones creating the energy patterns would be more sort of in charge of how all the energy would flow. That is not necessarily a desirable thing, because OK this really may seem like a leap, even in a Human Government, it is usually more overall productive and beneficial to have a balance of power rather than a dictatorship.

Sure, I get that. But how does holding a thought result in a universe ordered around that thought? I guess this brings us back to the original discussion of point 2 from the first post. :smile:

Anyway, in my previous post I was playing along with the assumptions up to that point. It's worth discussing those as well.

Vibrational spectrum of what? For there to be a vibration, some thing needs to be vibrating. Also, how do both the high and low ends of this spectrum correspond to zero motion?

Remember, even if everything is made of energy, there are different kinds of energy. For example, it's nonsensical to think of an electromagnetic wave interfering with a water wave.

Can you go into some more detail here. Our thoughts do produce some EM waves, that's for sure. Is that what you're talking about?

1. Zero motion is not vibrational. It is not kinetic energy (which is vibrational), it is latent energy. Metaphysically, latent energy is creator of everything, but it is not itself born or created and it cannot be destroyed.

2. The creation of kinetic energy comes from a latent potential. In electronics, this is called voltage (which also means potential) EM waves happen when voltage potential is oscillated in waves and particle movements called in QM sometimes packets. Clumsy, but it is a young science. This only happens when there is resistance to the EM waves. I'm working on understanding why that is. Everything physical has resistance. When it comes to EM waves, this is more complex because of capacitive and inductive influences.

A bit more technically The impedance of free space, Z0, is a physical constant relating the magnitudes of the electric and magnetic fields of electromagnetic radiation travelling through free space. That is, Z0 = |E|/|H|, where |E| is the electric field strength and |H| magnetic field strength. It has an exact value, given approximately as 376.73031... ohms per meter.

3. The impedance of free space equals the product of the vacuum permeability or magnetic constant μ0 and the speed of light in vacuum c0. Since the numerical values of the magnetic constant and of the speed of light are fixed by the definitions of the ampere and the metre respectively, the exact value of the impedance of free space is likewise fixed by definition and is not subject to experimental error.

4. I intend to discuss this more fully with some people from where I work, come next week. Very interesting discussion, and thanks to all involved.

Ps... I am probably going to have to write a poem or something to counterbalance all this logical stuff after a while. :smile:

There isn't one which is not entirely circular (e.g. "consciousness is subjective experience.") The word "consciousness" could only mean what we use to mean by being given a private ostensive definition i.e. we "internally point" to our own conscious experiences and associate them with the word "consciousness." We then assume other people experience something similar and call it the same thing.

Ludwig Wittgenstein famously claimed the above was impossible, although it's not quite as simple as that.


Whether or not animals (and which animals) are conscious does matter. Or at least it does if we care about the potential for animals to suffer.