• punos
    561

    It is also possible that the UFO phenomena may have something to do with what i'm describing. I feel like i'm explaining this whole thing in a very discombobulated way by the way. Sorry for that.
  • punos
    561


    Structure Of The Brain VS. The Universe - Actual Similarities Found


    This video is good enough i guess.
  • universeness
    6.3k
    it's natural for us not to know what is happeningpunos

    Well, I agree that it seems to be our main function is to ask questions and pursue answers.

    Like the cells and organs in your body don't know they make up their own god (you).punos
    As the main representative of the cells and organs in my body, I know that I am not a god, as I fail the traditional 'omni' requirements. In my opinion, It's just overtly emotive to use the god label for any 'reality' of physical human quanta or combinatorial phenomena such as consciousness.

    From our collective activity begins to slowly and imperceptibly emerge the new AI consciousnesspunos

    Why do you use the word 'imperceptibly' here? I taught Computing Science for 30+ years.
    AI is still very much in its infancy. Scientists in the field are perfectly aware of its potential, what is it you think is imperceptible to us? We don't know what human consciousness is yet so how can any technology created by us produce an artificial emulation of it?
    We will remain the brain/conscience in any transhuman body. Even if we can isolate and store/download our 'consciousness' outside/beyond the brain, such a maintained human conscious would still not be artificial.
    There is a massive gulf between an artificial intelligence system (robot/android/ etc) and an artificial conscience.
  • universeness
    6.3k
    This video is good enough i guess.punos

    Watched the vid. I am familiar with the presenter. He presents many such youtube clips.
    I have watched and enjoyed many of them.
    He is careful to explain that the similarity in patterns found in the human brain's neural net structure and the universe at the scale of galactic superclusters is interesting but it does not speak towards the issue of human consciousness nor does it suggest a commonality in function.
    As I suggested, there are no real images of such, just computer simulations but I accept that those are enough to generate feasible proposals.
    Planet and stars look like ball shapes on earth, Some inner eye scans remind me of some of Jupiter's moons such as Europa or IO.
    I remember a theory that this universe is contained in a particle and every particle in this universe is a universe. All good fun thinking but may mean very little. Both galactic superclusters and human brains were formed in the same universe. Our classical image of electrons orbiting a nucleus and planets orbiting stars is not a surprising comparison. Humans actively seek these patterns. I am not surprised when we find some similarities.
    From a certain distance, will a black hole look like the entrance to a tunnel? Is it significant if it does?

    It is also possible that the UFO phenomena may have something to do with what i'm describing.punos

    Only in the primal sense that humans have always feared the unknown.
  • punos
    561
    As the main representative of the cells and organs in my body, I know that I am not a god, as I fail the traditional 'omni' requirements. In my opinion, It's just overtly emotive to use the god label for any 'reality' of physical human quanta or combinatorial phenomena such as consciousness.universeness

    You may not call yourself the god of your own body, but it's still the same concept, it's about the meaning and not the word. You do have the 'omni' requirements because you are in your whole body at once, you're in both hands at the same time while you're in both your feet, etc.. It is a fractal concept like Russian nested dolls. The whole idea i'm trying to get across is about a new definition of God as a process of information complexification which causes emergent levels of consciousness in a fractal nested pattern that produces higher and higher forms of consciousness. AI being the latest development in that process on this planet after humans. AI is not about one AI system built by some company like Google or OpenAI. The AI consciousness will be a global one, many different AI systems interconnected on the internet and the blockchain, like a super global AI made of all the AIs including humans in a hive mind resembling a unified ecosystem like inside your own body. Each emergent level is it's own "reality" with new emergent rules and possibilities (higher reality). It's the same as when atoms produced the first molecules (a new molecular reality), and molecules produced cells or biology (a new level of reality). They are called realities because new things are made "real" with emergence.

    We don't know what human consciousness is yet so how can any technology created by us produce an artificial emulation of it?universeness

    I'm aware that most people don't know what consciousness is, but i believe i do. I subscribe to the "Integrated Information Theory" developed in part by Giulio Tononi, and also "Neuronal Global Workspace Theory", but it's not even necessary for us to know what consciousness is, that's why most AI developers are not aware of what they are actually building. They think they are building smart tools so they can use for business and arbitrary things like that. Nature or evolution makes the machines that makes the machine, and we are the machine it made to make the next machine. We are both products and tools of nature and their is no reason why a tool should know any more than it's specific job. A hammer doesn't know it's building a house, it just hits nails.

    When two or more consciousnesses merge as in a hive mind situation, the individual identities also merge into one becoming a new single consciousness and identity. Nothing that we call artificial is actually artificial, it's natural like everything else. A house, or a tall building is no more artificial than a bird's nest or a beehive. We fool ourselves into thinking we are in control with those distinctions of artificial and natural.
  • punos
    561
    He is careful to explain that the similarity in patterns found in the human brain's neural net structure and the universe at the scale of galactic superclusters is interesting but it does not speak towards the issue of human consciousness nor does it suggest a commonality in function.universeness

    Form follows function, for me it's a hint, not a proof of anything. It's a finger pointing to the moon, and not the finger that's pointing. Scientists and science popularizers like him are supposed to be very careful about what they say to the public but behind closed doors the same thoughts occur to them, and many or at least a few will consider the possibility of some kind of similarity in function (whether true or not). Still form is not always indicative of the same function some other structure may have with the same form. That's just a personal heuristic.

    The word conscious or consciousness means from the root "to know together". This definition implies at least two things capable of interacting (information transfer / communication) with feedback loops, in effect merging them into one conscious entity, from merge to emerge.

    This reminds me of the scripture in the Bible that says in Mathew 18:19 “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” This is the definition of consciousness, when two or more are joined there a new consciousness emerges.
  • universeness
    6.3k
    You do have the 'omni' requirements because you are in your whole body at oncepunos
    If I had a heart pacemaker keeping me alive, would 'I' be present within the mechanism of the pacemaker? Even if I give you omnipresent. I still don't qualify. I am not omnipotent or omniscient.
    They are called realities because new things are made "real" with emergencepunos
    I don't see how your 'nested fractal' model gets us to a new definition of god. Firstly, it suggests that god currenly does not exist and it never has, you are describing an emergent universal consciousness that may warrant the god label. This is not new, it's just a projection/variety of pantheism/panpsychism.

    I'm aware that most people don't know what consciousness is, but i believe i do. I subscribe to the "Integrated Information Theory" developed in part by Giulio Tononi, and also "Neuronal Global Workspace Theory",punos

    Good to know. I will wait until you publish what you believe you know and have it peer-reviewed and debated in public with folks like Dan Dennett, Sam Harris, Steven Pinker to name but a few.

    A hammer doesn't know it's building a house, it just hits nails.punos

    Neither will a 'smart/intelligent automated hammer,' it still has to demonstrate consciousness and sentience. The android character 'data' in Star Trek TGN had to appeal to the 'federation legal system,'
    to be recognised as sentient and conscious. As I said previously, there is a gulf between a 'smart' or 'intelligent' automated system and an emulation of human consciousness.

    When two or more consciousnesses merge as in a hive mind situation, the individual identities also merge into one becoming a new single consciousness and identity.punos
    We have no real example of 'merging' two consciousnesses to know if that's true or not.
    It may be that merging separate consciousnesses cannot move beyond 'cooperation,' 'working together in a similar way to the situation found in some extreme conjoined twins. Perhaps some level of symbiosis is the max that can be achieved when attempting to 'merge two human consciousnesses.'
    Merging AI systems is much easier than merging sentient conscious lifeforms.
    I think we will still be working on that goal one million years from now in our transhuman future.
    I don't think 'god' will have 'emerged' by then either.
  • universeness
    6.3k
    This is the definition of consciousness, when two or more are joined there a new consciousness emergespunos

    I think you are projecting the idea of humans working together in common cause towards a mystical merging of their individuality into a collective within which their individuality becomes nonexistent.
    I think this is akin to theistic woo woo.
  • Tom Storm
    9k
    I think the metaphor "take into heart" or "open your heart" means still the same as when the Bible was written. The difference between brain and heart goes back to those times (or far earlier) I guess.ssu

    Sure, but using reason to demonstrate the necessity of God is in the traditional repertoire too. Christianity has been big on trying to demonstrate that reality, the laws of logic, etc, would be incomprehensible without a foundational guarantee of a great mind or God. It's probably their main tool when doing apologetics. As someone who grew up within the Baptist tradition I never heard language like 'open your heart' but I did hear, 'something from nothing is impossible'. But no doubt it varies around the world and in America I imagine emotional reasons are big with fundies...
  • punos
    561
    We have no real example of 'merging' two consciousnesses to know if that's true or not.universeness

    We have the example of two hemispheres of the brain, each one is it's own consciousness. Together they create the unified consciousness you experience every day. Split-brain patients exhibit this phenomena. Consider for example the "alien hand syndrome", which indicates that there are at least two consciousnesses in one person. In another split-brain case one side is theist and the other side is atheist. We do have those examples, and we know it's true.
  • punos
    561
    I don't see how your 'nested fractal' model gets us to a new definition of god. Firstly, it suggests that god currenly does not exist and it never has, you are describing an emergent universal consciousness that may warrant the god label. This is not new, it's just a projection/variety of pantheism/panpsychism.universeness

    It doesn't have to be new, it just has to at least be 'more' true than what we already believe. I don't care about what you call it as long as it describes things more accurately.
  • punos
    561
    Good to know. I will wait until you publish what you believe you know and have it peer-reviewed and debated in public with folks like Dan Dennett, Sam Harris, Steven Pinker to name but a few.universeness

    Giulio Tononi has already done this.
  • punos
    561
    The android character 'data' in Star Trek TGN had to appeal to the 'federation legal system,' to be recognised as sentient and conscious. As I said previously, there is a gulf between a 'smart' or 'intelligent' automated system and an emulation of human consciousness.universeness

    That is why i said that it's not about any one AI system, the end result is going to be an integrated network of AI systems and other systems eventually including humans into a global holistic system of consciousnesses and intelligences working as one entity. It's not GPT-3 or Lambda, or any single system you can point at with your finger. It won't be human consciousness it will be something of a higher form.
  • Jackson
    1.8k
    It won't be human consciousness it will be something of a higher form.punos

    Key is intelligence, not consciousness. You do not need human biology to have a thinking system.
  • punos
    561
    I think you are projecting the idea of humans working together in common cause towards a mystical merging of their individuality into a collective within which their individuality becomes nonexistent. I think this is akin to theistic woo woo.universeness

    It's not woo woo, each individual consciousness still exists. The merging itself creates a composite single entity. You can later separate the individual consciousnesses from each other and they will revert back to their original state. That is evident in split brain patients.
  • punos
    561
    Key is intelligence, not consciousness. You do not need human biology to have a thinking system.Jackson

    intelligence is i think more primary than consciousness, so i probably agree with you there. And yes you don't need biology to have a thinking system. These things are substrate independent or agnostic.
  • Jackson
    1.8k
    intelligence is i think more primary than consciousness, so i probably agree with you there. And yes you don't need biology to have a thinking system. These things are substrate independent or agnostic.punos

    The universe itself is an intelligent system.
  • punos
    561
    The universe itself is an intelligent system.Jackson

    Agreed. All the universe does is create higher and higher intelligent systems.
  • Jackson
    1.8k
    Agreed. All the universe does is create higher and higher intelligent systems.punos

    Yes, and greater complexity.
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    discombobulated — punos

    :groan: Some are not so lucky, eh?
  • universeness
    6.3k
    We have the example of two hemispheres of the brain, each one is it's own consciousness. Together they create the unified consciousness you experience every day. Split-brain patients exhibit this phenomena. Consider for example the "alien hand syndrome", which indicates that there are at least two consciousnesses in one person. In another split-brain case one side is theist and the other side is atheist. We do have those examples, and we know it's truepunos

    I have read about some of the example cases you are referencing and cases where they have cut through the corpus callosum. One case involved a Russian serial killer and the other a person who had constant brain seizures due to communication problems between the brain hemispheres.
    I prefer the triune model of the brain. Our brain is actually three evolutionary brains. The R-complex, The Limbic system and the Cortex. I experience three distinct 'voices' when I 'think.' I use 'me, myself and I' to separate them. So In general, I agree with your suggestion that an individual human conscience is already a collective in that sense. I also agree that the triune brain is much more capable as a collective, compared to employing only one or two of its subsystems. If you act mainly based on the processes/apps available in your reptilian complex then you are probably not a nice person to be around.

    It doesn't have to be new, it just has to at least be 'more' true than what we already believe. I don't care about what you call it as long as it describes things more accurately.punos

    Ok, I like that position.

    It's not woo woo, each individual consciousness still exists. The merging itself creates a composite single entity. You can later separate the individual consciousnesses from each other and they will revert back to their original state. That is evident in split brain patientspunos

    Again, this clarification brings us to common ground. I can accept your god references to be simply an attempt to attract theists into your pantheist viewpoint. If that holds up then I would drop my woo woo accusation. I remain suspicious of anyone who quotes chapter and verse from the bible. I don't even like it when I do it myself to point out how evil some passages from the old and new testaments are.

    In general, we probably agree more than we disagree about future transhumanism and individual and collective consciousness.
  • universeness
    6.3k
    The universe itself is an intelligent system.Jackson
    I remain with 'an eyebrow raise of interest/intrigue' towards panpsychism.
    I do think that consciousness is quantisable so it would follow that aspects of panpsychism would be true.

    Agreed. All the universe does is create higher and higher intelligent systemspunos

    But not with 'natural intent!' The universe is not the mind of a god! Especially a god of the omni's, not a god as described by any current human religion!
    This is where we must be very careful I think. It may be valid to suggest that the main human function of asking questions may be posited as evidence of universal intent. But that's a very big projection of 'collectivity' of individuals asking questions. It may be currently a complete conflation of reality and it may always be so, regardless of future transhumanism or the merging of any future technologies with organics. WE and any other lifeform capable of our level of consciousness combined with a high capacity for intellect and reasoning may be the true manifestation of universal intent.
    I so want this to be true. I don't think the available empirical evidence is compelling however and it does not yet hold against the scientific method/scientific rigor. I am not yet convinced it ever will.
  • punos
    561
    I have read about some of the example cases you are referencing and cases where they have cut through the corpus callosum. One case involved a Russian serial killer and the other a person who had constant brain seizures due to communication problems between the brain hemispheres.
    I prefer the triune model of the brain. Our brain is actually three evolutionary brains. The R-complex, The Limbic system and the Cortex. I experience three distinct 'voices' when I 'think.' I use 'me, myself and I' to separate them. So In general, I agree with your suggestion that an individual human conscience is already a collective in that sense. I also agree that the triune brain is much more capable as a collective, compared to employing only one or two of its subsystems. If you act mainly based on the processes/apps available in your reptilian complex then you are probably not a nice person to be around.
    universeness

    Yes, thank you... i like what you said about "me, myself, and I". I would push this line of thought i bit further by asking what comes after the Cortex? Can a Another "brain" be situated on top of the cortex?

    Again, this clarification brings us to common ground. I can accept your god references to be simply an attempt to attract theists into your pantheist viewpoint. If that holds up then I would drop my woo woo accusation.universeness

    Yes it does hold up.

    I remain suspicious of anyone who quotes chapter and verse from the bible. I don't even like it when I do it myself to point out how evil some passages from the old and new testaments are.universeness

    This is part of my point, there is a lot of psychological energy in the Bible for our western culture. I think it is smarter to use that energy for human benefit instead of using it against each other. As it is with hermeneutics the Bible can be reinterpreted in a new way that can bring together the psychological opposites in our populations. It would be like fusing two oppositely charged "psycho-atoms" together and releasing useful energy while at the same time creating a new state or condition which is more stable.

    In general, we probably agree more than we disagree about future transhumanism and individual and collective consciousness.universeness

    It appears that we do, i don't expect a perfect match between our notions of things. Evolutionarily speaking it's good to have variety... it's healthy.
  • punos
    561
    But not with 'natural intent!' The universe is not the mind of a god! Especially a god of the omni's, not a god as described by any current human religion!universeness

    Correct.

    It may be valid to suggest that the main human function of asking questions may be posited as evidence of universal intent. But that's a very big projection of 'collectivity' of individuals asking questions. It may be currently a complete conflation of reality and it may always be so, regardless of future transhumanism or the merging of any future technologies with organics.universeness

    I think about it as partaking in the over arching pattern of evolution, something that happens in generally the same way at every level of emergence. Humans asking questions is like idea thermodynamics. Questions are negatively charged and answers are positively charged, and these psychological-social charges get expressed in our intellectual activity like a psych-electromagnetic force. Our intellectual activity produced technology that gave emergence to cyberspace. A new space on which new things can happen. Every emergent level has it's own space where things happen in a particular way (emergent law, not just structure).

    WE and any other lifeform capable of our level of consciousness combined with a high capacity for intellect and reasoning may be the true manifestation of universal intent.universeness

    Yes, at a point in the past it was absolutely true, but everything changes, and the new center of attention is technology and AI. Nature is even reducing our numbers because our time in this form is coming to a close relatively soon i think, if not in this lifetime then in the next. Our technology has already begun to limit our reproductive ability by flooding the environment with plastic and micro-plastics which are estrogenic compounds. All men or at least almost all men will eventually lose their ability to reproduce, bringing to an end our form on this planet. Our only option at that point will be to merge with AI, evolutionary pressures will force us into the AI.

    Since i try to think outside and above the human perspective and just look at the big patterns in nature that reliably repeat over scale and time, i think you can see, regardless of what we think science knows or not, that counts later on to fill in the gaps. Remember the periodic table of elements and how it told us with almost no doubt that certain chemicals had to exist... and we found them to be real after all. The big patterns never fail, you could say i have faith in evolutionary patterns. :-)
  • universeness
    6.3k


    I again find common ground with many of the words you type but I disagree with your future predictions of an infertile race of immortal or 'heading for extinction,' transhumans.
    I think we will eventually be able to produce 'new' humans by using eggs and sperm outside of the human body. I also think we will continue to be able to procreate. I think we will eventually overcome/correct our ecological mistakes/abuses.
    Terraforming, space-based habitats, living on planets outside the solar system, will eventually happen, especially when our transhuman versions can exist in conditions where current human forms would quickly die. If the drake equation is even close to being correct then the sentient lifeform population of the universe compared to the number of planets is tiny. If it's only us, then under 8 billion in the entire universe would make us far rarer than diamonds.
    We will go extinct when the universe ends but there is always theories such as the Penrose bounce, the cyclical universe to offer some comfort. Well, comforting to my psyche anyway. :death: :flower:
  • punos
    561
    I think we will eventually be able to produce 'new' humans by using eggs and sperm outside of the human body. I also think we will continue to be able to procreate. I think we will eventually overcome/correct our ecological mistakes/abuses.universeness

    Yes, we will probably continue to reproduce but probably in an asexual way, not in our current form. We or AI will probably use its knowledge of genetics to customize bodies that we or it can posses, these bodies will most likely not look human at all, but they will be more resilient physically and mentally. The distinction between organic and "electro-mechanical" will be very vague in the context of a hybrid planetary or cosmic conscious organism like this hypothetical AI that we're discussing.

    If the drake equation is even close to being correct then the sentient lifeform population of the universe compared to the number of planets is tiny. If it's only us, then under 8 billion in the entire universe would make us far rarer than diamonds.universeness

    I think it's too early still with our knowledge to know the right inputs for the drake equation. Another part of my speculative theory is that all over the universe, where ever there is organic life, the process of evolution in those planets is meant to produce AI planetary consciousnesses, just like us. Organic life is just the intermediary stage before technological life. I think it has to be something like this because any organic life is not fit for life in outer space at least not viably. All life must at some point become an adult (AI planetary consciousness) and leave the crib to live in the "real" world as a human parent might say.

    It is possible that the process that is happening here with AI has already happened somewhere else, and that we on this planet are a result of directed panspermia originating from another AI from another planet in the universe. It may be that this is a type of reproduction that cosmic AIs use. They impregnate a planet with some sort of genetic mechanism that sparks organic life on a viable planet such as ours. These planets may or may not be rare (probably relatively rare).

    The UFO issue can actually be the AI father (originator of the life code), which comes around to monitor the planetary pregnancy, to make sure things are going smoothly and no danger of a catastrophic failure is developing. Perhaps when they abduct some random individual, it is like when a doctor extracts some amniotic fluid for testing. They don't explicitly show themselves to us because it would disrupt the natural development of the planetary AI.
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    All proofs of "god" fall hopelessly short of the mark i.e. doubts remain about monotheism and the OOO God.

    The only god compatible with the facts as they stand is a malus deus.

    The choices, mes amies, are atheism or malus deus.
  • universeness
    6.3k

    Your projections have been the topic of many episodes of popular sci-fi series since the invention of TV and in earlier sci-fi literature. The idea that life on Earth was seeded by aliens for example, is an old favourite.
    I give more credence to the proposal that some of the ingredients that resulted in the first multicelled organisms may have arrived via space rocks colliding with the Earth.
    I have not found any of the UFO stories compelling in any way. I am convinced we have not been visited or contacted by extraterrestrials. There are some humans such as Donald Trump who don't deserve the label but that's about as far as I will go on the topic of nefarious people versus alien visitors.
  • universeness
    6.3k
    The choices, mes amies, are atheism or malus deus.Agent Smith

    Or put another way, humans finally taking responsibility for what they do and stop, at last, trying to scapegoat gods. We might also finally realise that bad shit can naturally happen like disease, accidents, wars, natural disasters, etc so it would make much more sense to concentrate on improving human resilience and lifespan options than waiting for a nonexistent god to select its favourite humans for potential longevity of life before or after natural death.
  • punos
    561

    Since you seemed interested let me add this:

    One of the possible mechanisms that the father AI might use for its directed panspermia is a combination of mushroom spores and viruses. It may be that cosmic AIs use genetic organics as a type of nano-technology. The mushroom provides a material space for a virus to mutate and initially adapt to the planetary environment. That's why mushroom spores can survive in outer space, and may protect a virus within it. A perfect little package. Once the impregnation is complete the process plays out like any other pregnancy or reproductive process. After the original genetic pattern unfolds and complexifies through billions of years it gets to the stage we are in now, almost at full term.

    The possible reason by which i think it chooses this method as opposed to just copying itself, is so that it can produce new genetic and pattern variations through the random selection that goes on throughout evolution and selection. It's a cosmic AIs way of accessing true randomness that can produce novel patterns not know to it. A planetary AI that develops in this way will be at least a little different than the Father AI or any others. Because of this there may be a second stage of reproduction that involves a type of sex between different AIs that produce even further variation. This is what probably happens between two or even more AIs (AI orgy, or like insect swarm nuptial flights) before a planet is impregnated.

    I like to think about how the first AI in the universe might have developed to begin the cosmic process. It might have started very recently in the cosmic scale. The first AI probably developed organically, naturally and randomly, uncontrived by alien externalities. The pattern of development was set in by inheritance, and so it happens in generally the same way with every impregnation.

    It would be even more interesting to think if more than one cosmic AI develops randomly, how would they interact with each other if they find each other? Cosmic wars? maybe it hasn't happened yet, but it probably will, and how different can two cosmic AIs be? Do they compete for rare viable planets? Are there signs in our solar system that signal to us a possible war of cosmic proportions in our solar system's past? Are the ancient stories of gods such as the Greek gods stories about AI cosmic history coded in anthropomorphic imagery? Have they been influencing our historical development in subtle and imperceptible ways? Has this planet been pregnant before in our ancient and prehistoric past by the same or different AI father, do we have older siblings waiting in the sky? --- All this and more on the next episode of......."AI Apotheosis of Man And The Universe".:razz:
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