We discuss a possibility that the entire universe on its most fundamental level is a neural network. We identify two different types of dynamical degrees of freedom: «trainable» variables (e.g. bias vector or weight matrix) and «hidden» variables (e.g. state vector of neurons).
Categoría: Sentience in Physics
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Philosopher Philip Goff answers questions about panpsychism
«—we need both the science and the philosophy to get a theory of consciousness. The science gives us correlations between brain activity and experience. We then have to work out the best philosophical theory that explains those correlations. In my view, the only theory that holds up to scrutiny is panpsychism.
When I studied philosophy, we were taught that there were only two approaches to consciousness: either you think consciousness can be explained in conventional scientific terms, or you think consciousness is something magical and mysterious that science will never understand. I came to think that both of these views were pretty hopeless. I think we can have hope that we will one day have a science of consciousness, but we need to rethink what science is. Panpsychism offers us a way of doing this.»
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Is There Suffering in Fundamental Physics?
Any sufficiently advanced consequentialism is indistinguishable from its own parody. The present article is sincere, though it might come across as absurd depending on one’s perspective. In order to reduce suffering, we have to decide which things can suffer and how much. Suffering by humans and animals tugs our heartstrings and is morally urgent, but we also have an obligation to make sure that we’re not overlooking negative subjective experiences in other places. I’ve written elsewhere about suffering in insects and digital minds. This piece explores what is arguably the most extreme possibility: seeing at least traces of suffering in fundamental physics.
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A biomaterial that arrange itself
«Using DASH, the Cornell engineers created a biomaterial that can autonomously emerge from its nanoscale building blocks and arrange itself – first into polymers and eventually mesoscale shapes. Starting from a 55-nucleotide base seed sequence, the DNA molecules were multiplied hundreds of thousands times, creating chains of repeating DNA a few millimeters in size. The reaction solution was then injected in a microfluidic device that provided a liquid flow of energy and the necessary building blocks for biosynthesis.»
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God or consciousness?
A quote from Max Planck:
“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.”
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1328821-all-matter-originates-and-exists-only-by-virtue-of-a
What is Max Planck talking about? Consciousness? Sentience? Panpsychism? God?
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Opportunities for an astronomical reduction of suffering
This is a list of situations, projects or initiatives in which there could be an “astronomical” (huge) reduction in the amount of suffering compared to what currently exists or is expected. Many of these situations (but not necessarily all of them) involve a high risk in the sense that they are difficult projects whose probability of success is very low. In some cases, this may happen because they are projects that assume as certain some hypotheses for which there is little evidence, so we can consider them unlikely, although not impossible.
I insist that the only criterion to appear on this list is that the project or idea supposes an astronomical reduction of the suffering that we believe exists or will exist. The list can include both remote possibilities and speculative approaches as well as conventional and highly probable scenarios.
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Consciousness and the binding-problem
While panpsychism sounds crazy, it is actually a highly viable theory of consciousness, as long as it is distinguished from animism: the view that everything is alive and therefore possesses agency, intentionality, thoughts, emotions, etc. Elementary particles almost certainly are not endowed any of these attributes, but according to (my take on) panpsychism, they have a very fundamental kind of consciousness, perhaps something akin to the feeling of presence or “being there.” —Kenneth Shinozuka