At Aeon: Fine-tuning is easy to explain: The universe itself is conscious, and somewhat like a human
| February 21, 2018 | Posted by News under Cosmology, Fine tuning, Intelligent Design, Naturalism |
That’s “cosmopanpsychism.” An earlier version is rocks have minds. From Philip Goff at Aeon:
In the past 40 or so years, a strange fact about our Universe gradually made itself known to scientists: the laws of physics, and the initial conditions of our Universe, are fine-tuned for the possibility of life. It turns out that, for life to be possible, the numbers in basic physics – for example, the strength of gravity, or the mass of the electron – must have values falling in a certain range. And that range is an incredibly narrow slice of all the possible values those numbers can have. It is therefore incredibly unlikely that a universe like ours would have the kind of numbers compatible with the existence of life. But, against all the odds, our Universe does.
Why is fine-tuning for life “incredibly unlikely”? How does one deduce it from a sample of one? It only seems unlikely if one has an evidence-free alternative in mind. Thus,
There are two ways of developing the basic panpsychist position. One is micropsychism, the view that the smallest parts of the physical world have consciousness.
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Maarten van Heemskerck (1498–1574)
However, a number of scientists and philosophers of science have recently argued that this kind of ‘bottom-up’ picture of the Universe is outdated, and that contemporary physics suggests that in fact we live in a ‘top-down’ – or ‘holist’ – Universe, in which complex wholes are more fundamental than their parts. According to holism, the table in front of you does not derive its existence from the sub-atomic particles that compose it; rather, those sub-atomic particles derive their existence from the table. Ultimately, everything that exists derives its existence from the ultimate complex system: the Universe as a whole.
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The cosmopsychist need not think of the conscious Universe as having human-like mental features, such as thought and rationality. Indeed, in my book I suggested that we think of the cosmic consciousness as a kind of ‘mess’ devoid of intellect or reason. However, it now seems to me that reflection on the fine-tuning might give us grounds for thinking that the mental life of the Universe is just a little closer than I had previously thought to the mental life of a human being. More.
“However, it now seems to me that reflection on the fine-tuning might give us grounds for thinking that the mental life of the Universe is just a little closer than I had previously thought to the mental life of a human being.” Indeed. If we keep going in this direction, we will run into Zeus. The only remaining mystery is why our Stone Age ancestors gave up on him after a while.
See also: At Quartz: Materialists are converting to panpsychism
Latest consciousness theory: Rocks have minds
The universe may be conscious?
Evading hard problem of human consciousness: Consciousness is in everything!
The illusion of consciousness sees through itself.
And the naturalist’s biggest problem, to hear him tell it, is the persistence of stubborn doubt about naturalism.
and
What becomes of science when the evidence does not matter?
4 Responses to At Aeon: Fine-tuning is easy to explain: The universe itself is conscious, and somewhat like a human
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as to:
Though man is indeed ‘made in the image of God’, “the potential of the human mind … is separated from the Divine knowledge by an infinite interval”,,,
Moreover, Mathematics and Physics both give us strong evidence that the consciousness that PRECEDES the universe is Omniscient, i.e. must possess infinite knowledge.
Verse:
A few more notes:
Video, verse and quote:
The thing I find most amusing and dismaying is that, as long as one affirms some kind of pan-darwinian orthodoxy vis-a-vis common descent by modification, literally ANY kind of madness is back on the menu.
It is this, more than anything else, that identifies evolution as a religious mania. It’s a perverse mirror image of the worst political aspects of historical religion wherein the only possible heresy is not dissent but disobedience.
In modern science you can be respectable while disobeying every fundamental precept of the discipline, as long as you do not dissent from its primal dogma: common descent by modification.
My eyes – they’re rolling.
Note that the view that the universe is conscious is consistent with Intelligent Design. See my blog post on the topic;
https://panexperientialism.blogspot.com.au/2008/08/case-for-intelligent-design.html?m=1
justinj at 3: Cupid and the Easter Bunny would be consistent with intelligent design IF there were any evidence for them. Bring us thinking thunderbolts and, we promise, we will listen. Erp.
Or see: Imagine a world of religions that naturalism might indeed be able to explain