Hacker News Reader

Comment by soganess | Hacker News Reader

As a question???

Do the physical quanta we call electrons experience the phenomenon we poorly define but generally call consciousness?

If you believe consciousness is a result of material processes: Is the thermodynamic behavior of an electron, as a process, sufficient to bestow consciousness in part or in whole?

If you believe it is immaterial: What is the minimum “thing” that consciousness binds to, and is that threshold above or below the electron? This admittedly asks for some account of the “above/below” ordering, but assume the person answering is responsible for providing that explanation.

View on HN

It can bind to anything. Human consciousness can temporarily bind to a shovel, and to a gopher who can only perceive things at its level, under the ground, the shovel will appear conscious. Similarly, our body is the outer layer that's temporarily bound to our brain, which in turn is bound to activity within neurons, which in turn is driven by something else. As for the fundamental origin of consciousness, it's at different levels in different people. In some rare examples, the highest level is the electrochemical activity within neurons, so that's their origin of consciousness. Those with the higher level will perceive those below as somewhat mechanical, I guess, as the workings of their consciousness will look observable. On the other hand, consciousness from a higher origin will seem mysteriously unpredictable to those below. Then I think there is a possibility of an infinitely high origin: no matter at which level you inspect it, it will always appear to be just a shell for a consciousness residing one level higher. Some humans may be like that. Things are complicated by the fact that different levels have different laws and time flows: at the level of mechanical gears things can be modeled with simple mechanics, at the level of chemical reactions things become more complicated, then at the level of electrons the laws are completely different, and if electrons are driven by something else then we are lost completely. For example, a watch may be purely mechanical, or it can be driven by a quartz oscillator that also takes input from an accelerometer. I understand that this idea may seem uncomfortable, but the workings of the universe doesn't have to fit the narrow confines of the Turing machines that we know of.

That's a very meta view. There's levels to consciousness for sure, due to intelligence and perception.

But, my mind never leaves my skull so it's definitely bound to my brain and nothing else (ignoring electrical fields).

We can imagine what it's like to be other things, but we can never be sure (and almost certainly would not accurately match reality). Our imagination is bound to our senses, so it's limited. I can't even be sure that the color red that comes to my mind is the same color you see in your mind. As long as our imaginations paint the same color every time red is perceived: we'd be none the wiser and would go on thinkong we see the same thing. And also consider animals that can perceive colors and sounds beyond human range. Does this say anything more about consciousness?

An electron almost certainly is not thinking or aware, but does it perceive? Does a thermostat on a wall perceive temperature? Do AIs perceive anything?

Is perception even useful to think about when trying to define consciousness?

I'm rambling off topic... going back to your points: if something is sufficiently intelligent to understand the workings of a thing: does this automatically place the understood thing in a lower consciousness?

Could a diety, or a force of nature have a higher consciousness than us? Or are we above the force, in terms of consciousness? It doesn't even seem useful to make these comparisons....

I would say yes, that things below us is what we clearly understand and see, and things above us is what we are confused about. For example, the motions of electrons as well as the motions of galaxies is a mystery to us, so any lifeforms at those levels will be above us. Studying them won't be an option, as any meaningful understanding of their ways of life would require consciousness at their level.

When we blow air, the motion of air particles may be studied in a mechanical way, and some intelligent microbes, if such exist, would come to a naive theory of air motion, as they are oblivious to what brings that air into motion. It's understandable, because many generations of those microbes change while we exhale just once. Similarly, what we perceive as magnetism or even the time itself might be some incomprehensible formless lifeform, and it would see us as simple and predictable microbes.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com