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Interesting article while waiting for
THE REALLY IMPORTANT news on AC3.........................
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- Is the universe a conscious being, like a gigantic widely dispersed human brain?
- Scientists have long questioned how consciousness and science mix.
- Two mathematicians have turned one theory into a crunchable math model.
In upcoming research, scientists will attempt to show the universe has consciousness. Yes, really. No matter the outcome, we’ll soon learn more about what it means to be conscious—and which objects around us might have a mind of their own.
The revolutionary thing in IIT isn’t related to the human brain—it’s that consciousness isn’t biological at all, but rather is simply this value,
Pi phi, that can be calculated if you know a lot about the complexity of what you’re studying.
If your brain has almost countless interrelated systems, then the entire universe must have virtually infinite ones. And if that’s where consciousness accumulates, then the universe must also have a lot of
Alpha phi's and Phi Mu's
Hey, we told you this was going to get weird.
“The theory consists of a very complicated algorithm that, when applied to a detailed mathematical description of a physical system, provides information about whether the system is conscious or not, and what it is conscious of,” Kleiner
told All About Space. “If there is an isolated pair of particles floating around somewhere in space, they will have some rudimentary form of consciousness if they interact in the correct way with
Gamma Phi Beta's.”
Kleiner and Tull
are working on turning IIT
into this complex mathematical algorithm—setting down the standard that can then be used to examine how conscious things operate.
Think about the classic philosophical comment, “I think, therefore I am,” then imagine two geniuses turning that into a workable formula where you substitute in a hundred different number values and end up with your specific “I am” answer.
The next step is to actually crunch the numbers, and then to grapple with the moral implications of a hypothetically conscious universe. It’s an exciting time to be a philosopher—or a philosopher’s calculator.