“As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter.” - Max Planck
I realize there is very little hard evidence to prove what consciousness is or how it works, but I must admit I am a fan of this view of the universe. It is quite poetic & beautiful, and for selfish reasons (I am a writer), it works for me. Consciousness lies in an odd middle ground between science & the supernatural. Is consciousness tangible? Does it only exist inside our heads, or is everything “made” of it like Amit Goswani would have us believe?
Yeah well, dead people don’t pass through their coffins when they’re left alone at night.
Planck begs the question by attributing the stability of the atom to an unknown force which he then calls intelligence. My guess is that he’s making a statement around an universal intelligence and not an individual intelligence.
I’m not sure what inspired the first part of your comment, that wasn’t implied by anything I wrote. I wanted to gear this more towards a “universal consciousness” and whether or not it exists. I like to think of it as a giant field from which we branch off and are then confined to our allocated amount of consciousness or intelligence. In this scenario our bodies would simply be vessels tuned into it.
Better arguments have been made for this along the lines of intelligent design, but none of them are very convincing. The statement “For any universe that belongs to the class of complex universes, that universe also belongs to the class of universes designed by an intelligent creator.” Has no basis unless a host of assumptions are made that themselves have no basis. They may be true nonetheless, but there is no reason to opt for those assumptions over another more basic story: that the observer happens to be in a complex universe.
I read you piece " realize there is very little hard evidence to prove what consciousness is or how it works" to be linked to an individual conciousness. I mean there’s at least the ghost of an argument there - I at least am concious. Attributing consciousness to the universe seems a step too far.
That is one way to look at it. Though I don’t believe in man made religion, I do like the thought of a God that frankly I find impossible to explain. A “universal consciousness” though a very vague term, is the most logical explanation of “God” in my mind. I know that God & religion are touchy subjects around here, and for the record I don’t believe that “God” sets rules or morality standards nor does it need to be worshiped. These are purely human concepts.
I’m pretty sure modern physics has discovered the forces that hold the atom together since Planck’s day. I never took physics in college, but I’ll bet it’s more like an electrical force, and less like the Baby Jesus’s tears.
As opposed to a vague term that seems to exist only because you seem to like the idea? Why not simply go with fields interacting with each other according to consistent rules? Why then go and posit a further complexity of a consciousness exerting some sort of authenticity to those fields interacting? What evidence, other than personal comfort, could you present to justify adding that complexity?
I’m not qualified to present anything as fact. I’m merely bringing up a subject that I find interesting. Do you not consider the origin & nature of consciousness to be a valid scientific question? If not, then fair enough. I don’t think it is out of the question that there are laws which it follows. To the best of my knowledge consciousness on a grand scale has not been disproven, the experiments I’ve learned about add fuel to the fire that it could exist but in no way give conclusive evidence one way or another. The research being done in Princeton under the name of the “Global Consciousness Project” is quite intriguing.
No worries brother. Do we conclusively & without a doubt know what this force is? There are still huge chunks of the nature of reality that science has yet to understand, not that it won’t, I am fully confident that with a long enough timeline it will, but it isn’t all there yet.
You seem to keep conflating individual consciousness with universal consciousness.
If you’re a materialist, then sure the individual ability to be aware of external objects and internal mental states is a testable subject.
As to a universal consciousness, I’d appreciate some of those experiments you mention but understand the burden of proof that the universe is conscious is on the presenter of the idea.
Well, whatever it is, it was working before humans came along and I see no reason that it won’t continue to work after humans go extinct, so it’s definitely not human consciousness that’s holding everything together. If you want to speculate without evidence or definition about some form of non-human consciousness, knock yourself out. Give it whatever attributes you like. I heard it likes bowling.
I can’t prove it, nor can anyone else up to this point. But if a universal consciousness were to exist, would it differ from individual consciousness in anything other than scale?
If I had to speculate I would say it’s the same thing (universal/human consciousness). We only branch out from a much larger field of it just like any other intelligent life form on any other planet would. I prefer football, hopefully the universe decides to draft a couple decent offensive linemen for my dolphins this year.