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Awareness/Consciousness
- Thread starter Salty Booger
- Start date
yes but you wouldn't be aware/conscious of it
RestlessSoul
Well-Known Member
Is the universe itself conscious?
Absolutely
If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
Of course it does, you personally just don't know it.
I am not aware of the weather in Africa, but I ama sure there is weather there.
Assuming a cause/result situation, yes; however that raises the question of what causes existence. On the other hand assuming consciousness and matter are part of the same continuum then its either both or neither.
Could we know it if it was?
Does the Virus that enters a host body, know that the host has Consciousness? Probably not.
That we are aware of/can perceive.
Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Pretty straightforward. :0]
Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Of course. We are the universe ourselves. Probably others as well.
Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Except when it detects a host.
exchemist
Veteran Member
Yes, the universe would get along fine without conscious organisms to be aware of it. It did so for quite a long time in fact.
The universe is about 13.7 billion years old. The Earth is about 4.5 billion years old. The only conscious beings we know about have been on Earth and are much more recent (depending on definition, at most 700 million years old and likely much less).
So, yes, the universe existed and functioned perfectly well before there was any conscious being.
So, yes, the universe existed and functioned perfectly well before there was any conscious being.
RestlessSoul
Well-Known Member
Do you think consciousness is simply a tool for survival, a function of evolution? Or does it serve a higher purpose, and if so, what is that purpose?
Further, was consciousness inevitable, from the moment of the big bang?
exchemist
Veteran Member
I think what we call consciousness is a special, highly developed, case of the awareness of their environment that all organisms have, to some degree, and that it therefore started out at least as part of the toolkit for evolutionary success.
I certainly do not think consciousness can be seen as inevitable from the start, though it may always have been likely, given that the values of the fundamental constants make large molecules possible, in certain regimes.
Do you go *poof* out of existence when you are unconscious?
In my Advaita Vedanta philosophy the answer is 'NO'.
Consciousness is primary and matter is a derivative of consciousness.
I think of consciousness as an evolutionary spandrel: It is a side effect of the processing that is used for survival, but not directly necessary for survival, at least at first.
There doesn't appear to be any 'higher purpose' for consciousness, especially since consciousness appears to be required for there to be a purpose.
I'm not sure how to interpret the term 'inevitable' when it comes to an apparently unique event like the Big Bang.
Father Heathen
Veteran Member
When you delete the software off of a computer, does the physical hardware also disappear?
RestlessSoul
Well-Known Member
Seems to me, either everything happens for a reason, or nothing does. But even if the universe is evolving as a completely random and undirected sequence of phenomena, still there is an infinitely complex, precise pattern. A sacred geometry, as it were; and doesn't a pattern suggest a plan, and a plan a purpose?