• ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    14
    ·
    7 months ago

    I’ve always thought of consciousness as a bottom-up phenomenon. Less conscious things come together to create a larger consciousness.

    No evidence of that, obviously. But if we’re all assuming things, that’s what I’d assume.

    • emptiestplace@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      7 months ago

      I agree with the first part, but you lost me with “no evidence of that”: everything conscious is “evidence of that”. And, unless you’re getting epistemological af, there really isn’t a lot of assumption here: quarks -> atoms -> molecules -> organelles -> cells -> tissues -> organs -> systems -> organisms -> consciousness -> sentience.

    • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      7 months ago

      That’s a pretty cool theory, and you’re not alone. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin theorized that all life is evolving into a universal collective consciousness. Renown physicist and mathematician David Darling theorized that God is possibly a collective human consciousness that reached back through time and created itself. What’s wacky is that he has some mathematical formulas to substantiate parts of his theory.

    • GrabtharsHammer@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      7 months ago

      I like the idea. If we ever figure out what consciousness actually is, maybe we’ll figure out how it adds up across its components.