
Is the Universe a conscious mind? (2018) - Hooke
https://aeon.co/essays/cosmopsychism-explains-why-the-universe-is-fine-tuned-for-life
======
ppod
Doesn't mention the anthropic principle, uses the term "consciousness" to
denote some mysterious essential soul-like property, and presumes that an
omnipotent god must be good. 17th century philosophy alive and well.

"When you say that if I deny, that the operations of seeing, hearing,
attending, wishing, &c., can be ascribed to God, or that they exist in him in
any eminent fashion, you do not know what sort of God mine is ; I suspect that
you believe there is no greater perfection than such as can be explained by
the aforesaid attributes. I am not astonished ; for I believe that, if a
triangle could speak, it would say, in like manner, that God is eminently
triangular, while a circle would say that the divine nature is eminently
circular. Thus each would ascribe to God its own attributes, would assume
itself to be like God, and look on everything else as ill-shaped." \- Spinoza

We take our most distinctively human attributes, bundle them under the term
"consciousness", and assert that consciousness is that which is divine in the
universe.

"to call the world God is not to explain it; it is only to enrich our language
with a superfluous synonym for the word world" \- Schopenhauer

~~~
dustingetz
Might the idea of "god must be good" emerge from the principle of balance? A
balanced system certainly isn't cannibalizing itself. And the definition of
"good" is a bit circular.

~~~
ggggtez
Not following what a "principal of balance" is. There is no physical law of
nature that is defined like that. Maybe you mean "conservation of
mass/energy". Unfortunately, if you think of things like "good" and "evil" as
if it was heat, then you've already made a leap of faith. There is no
scientific evidence of Karma, or any such effect for the abstract concept of
"morality".

For example, you could just as easily imagine a world where, for every "evil"
thing that happened, _two_ good things happened in response. There is no
evidence to support that either, but there is also no evidence to deny it. We
can't observe the entire universe, so it's vacuously unprovable.

~~~
dustingetz
I think the arrow of good is like the arrow of time. It points in one
direction because it has to. The fundamental constants encode a precise and
balanced harmony of physics. The article is saying the choosing of the
constants is a balanced process. "Good" is anything that contributes to the
harmony. If the arrow of good pointed in the other direction, there is no
harmony of forces, the constants would be different, and there would be
nothing.

~~~
jamiek88
That is essentially saying that _human_ actions can effect the _fundamental
constants of the universe_.

That is a bold claim.

For what is not evil if not perpratated by a conscious mind?

An avalanche that kills 20is not evil.

Someone triggering that avalanche is. That person changes the ‘balance’ of
good v evil.

Does that affect the universal constants?

------
herodotus
The trouble with articles like this is that I cannot work out how to
distinguish them from pure nonsense. For example, what am I to make of this
section: "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." The sub-atomic
particles that were, presumably, in the trees that eventually were used to
make the table did not exist before the table was made? Nonsense, surely. Yes,
there are fundamental problems (like fine tuning) that are deeply troubling,
but how does philosophical game playing really contribute to de-troubling
these problems?

~~~
neuronic
To me, and I guess I am not thinking this through, holism is a pretty decent
example of what you describe as nonsense.

Wikipedia:

"Holism (from Greek ὅλος holos "all, whole, entire") is the idea that systems
(physical, biological, chemical, social, economic, mental, linguistic) and
their properties should be viewed as wholes, not just as a collection of
parts." [1]

What kind of definition is that? Essentially you can draw the cutoff line
_anywhere_ at what constitutes a 'whole'. This then makes the entire concept
meaningless because you can never credibly define what the parts are and what
the whole is and what should therefore be viewed as whole. Example:

Is one of my skin cells 'whole' because it is made of 'parts' such as a cell
wall, the nucleus and the intracellular matrix? Or is it my skin that is the
'whole'? Or my entire body? Or is it the human race? Or is it Terran life in
general because my cell is essentially a cooperating, codependent yet singular
agent? Where is the line?

The entire concept just reeks of some guy in his hammock after a round of LSD
(which I do not judge about).

Edit: I do think that it useful to artificially draw some lines and study
systems in such a way - as seen in Complex Systems theory. I just don't think
that you can classify the world like that.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holism)

~~~
woodruffw
As with so many other topics in philosophy, the question of "where do we draw
the line?" exists separately from "does the line exist?".

Holism amounts to the claim that certain things should be viewed primarily as
wholes, rather than as their constituents. It is up to _individual thinkers_
to propose and argue for which things should be viewed this way.

------
cdoxsey
The problem of evil was ably taken up by the Christian Philosopher Alvin
Plantinga. Here's a short video summary of his thoughts:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VOMrozCISA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VOMrozCISA)
. He has a folksy way of speaking, and is actually quite a good teacher, but
keep in mind that Plantinga is a first-rate analytical philosopher, so there's
a lot more depth in his books.

So much so that some of his work in modal logic (necessity, possibility,
counterfactuals, etc) is quite a good introduction to the subject. (see, for
example, The Nature of Necessity: [https://www.amazon.com/Nature-Necessity-
Clarendon-Library-Ph...](https://www.amazon.com/Nature-Necessity-Clarendon-
Library-Philosophy/dp/0198244142))

The problem of evil is an interesting one, in that you can take it two ways.
On the one hand you might call it an internal problem to theism. Something
like: "the Christian understanding of evil is incompatible with the Christian
conception of God", and that's the argument Plantinga is primary addressing
(that theism is not incoherent or internally inconsistent on this matter)

But you can also take it as an external problem - that theism doesn't do a
good job of explaining the existence of evil. In my mind this is a stronger
argument, but what sometimes gets lost in the discussion is that the problem
doesn't go away if you discard theism. If evil really does exist what
alternative worldview does a better job of explaining it?

That evil is just a social convention created by minds produced by random
processes geared towards evolutionary fitness?

Maybe. But doesn't that just explain away the problem by stating evil doesn't
really exist? (at least not the kind of evil suggested by Christians?) And if
it doesn't really exist, how can you use it as an external argument against
theism?

~~~
woodruffw
> And if it doesn't really exist, how can you use it as an external argument
> against theism?

This conflates _evil_ (a sentiment that we rational beings possess) with _bad_
, one of the elements of metaethics. "Evil" is a nice label we use; "bad" is
an ethical descriptor with any number of (non-religious) metaethical origins:
consequentialism, deontology, virtue, &c.

The typical argument against against theism (or at least any sort of theism
that claims that god is both omnibenevolent and omnipotent) is that there are
_bad_ things in the world: murder, theft, starvation, &c. When asked whether a
_good_ god would allow these things, we find ourselves dealing with (1)
Euthyphro, and (2) incompatible properties (omnipotence and free will,
omnibenevolence and divine command, &c).

~~~
cdoxsey
Do most non-theists believe in a meta-ethical realism?

The incompatibility of properties is precisely the issue Plantinga takes up.
He offers a defense based on free-will. That there are possible worlds in
which free people choose only to do good, but those worlds aren't
actualizable, a sort-of transworld depravity, so any world God could create
would have evil.

He doesn't present the defense as a theodicy, merely as a possible solution to
the problem. And if there is any solution to the problem, then the properties
aren't incompatible.

That is, it is logically possible for God to be omnipotent, omniscient and
omnibenevolent and for evil to exist in the world.

~~~
woodruffw
> Do most non-theists believe in a meta-ethical realism?

Not sure. My personal experience with moral philosophers has been that most
are (1) non-religious, and (2) committed to some form of moral realism.
Personally, I'm not religious and think the morality exists as a necessary
consequence of some vaguely Kantian sense of autonomy[1].

> That there are possible worlds in which free people choose only to do good,
> but those worlds aren't actualizable

I don't understand the distinction between "possible" and "actualizable" here
-- in what sense is a state of affairs "possible" but not such that it could
ever be actualized? Perhaps even more perniciously: how does the existence of
a "transworld depravity" (which, presumably, is not itself god) not itself
threaten omnipotence?

[1]: [https://yossarian.net/about/labels](https://yossarian.net/about/labels)

~~~
cdoxsey
If human beings have a libertarian sort of free-will (the ability to do
otherwise), then their actions can't be caused by God.

So if we imagine a free-will choice, say whether or not to mow the lawn today,
it's possible for me to either mow the lawn or not, thus creating two possible
worlds (the one where I do or the one where I don't).

God can't make me choose one way or the other, or rather, he can make me
choose, but doing so makes the choice a non-libertarian-free one.

According to Molinism, God knows both the future (what I will actually do),
but also all counterfactuals (what I would do in any situation).

He chose to create world we actually inhabit (the actual world), and there are
many other worlds he could've created instead (actualizable worlds), but there
are possible worlds that he could not have created, because many of the things
that happen in those worlds are determined by the choices of free creatures.

So a subset of possible worlds are actualizable.

Plantinga is arguing that perhaps there are possible worlds with no evil, but
none of them are actualizable.

Speculatively: God decides the trade-off is worth it and creates the universe
anyway. Perhaps a universe in which God himself redeems free creatures from
sin is better than one without free creatures at all.

Plantinga readily admits the speculation is just that. The important point is
that the example illustrates a possible solution to the apparent paradox, so
existence of evil and God's attributes aren't inconsistent. The actual
solution may be something entirely different or even beyond our ability to
comprehend.

As to the point about omnipotence: It's a good one, but I think in the end it
boils down to the classic "can God create a rock so heavy he can't lift it"
objection, and theologians will readily constrain omnipotence so as not to
include the logically impossible, or that which is incongruent with his own
nature. So by extension, that some worlds aren't actualizable doesn't impinge
on omnipotence because it flows (logically) out of the concept of libertarian
freedom.

Furthermore Molinism suggests a framework for thinking about how God can
"ordain whatever comes to pass" if creatures have libertarian freedom.

It's also worth mentioning that the concept of libertarian freedom is itself
widely debated. I would suspect that the majority of theologians are
compatibilists when it comes to this topic, and don't believe that creatures
have this sort of free will at all. (see the westminster confession of faith
3.2 for example) Some even argue that the concept itself may be
philosophically incoherent.

Under a compatibilist view actualizable worlds and possible worlds are the
same.

------
thrav
This article aligns extremely well with Robert Pirsig’s Metaphysics of
Quality. The only real difference is their substitution of value for quality,
which is something my reinforcement learning professor did during lecture
yesterday.

What it’s missing, is that in Pirsig’s eyes there are 2 essential different
kinds of quality, Dynamic quality and Static quality. Dynamic being the change
agent, while static clings to what’s good about the past. In his eyes, both
are necessary for real progress. Too much dynamic = throwing the baby out with
the bath water. Too much static = living in the past.

Thinking about it like a machine learning problem, dynamic quality steps out
into the unknown, searching for quality paths not yet travelled. Static
quality is the machine’s memory of what’s worked well thus far.

Occasionally, a step into the unknown is so good, that huge amounts of machine
memory seem irrelevant / obsolete. In these moments, humans are prone to
wanting to wipe the whole past, without preserving the half or more that’s
still an essential piece of their progress thus far.

On the other side, humans are prone to tell their peers to stop stepping out
into the unknown and argue that we should just go back a step / stay where we
were indefinitely.

If that’s at all intriguing, feel free to go read my favorite book, Lila.
You’ll want to read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (where he
recognizes quality) first, if you haven’t already.

------
eternalny1
We are conscious (at least I am, let's leave out solipsism for a minute).

Our minds are the universe, they are not separate from it.

Hence the universe is conscious via our minds. Individual little pieces of the
universe are becoming conscious.

~~~
simonh
“Whoever saves one life has saved the world entire.”

The same basic phrase is found in both the Mishnah and the Quran.

Edit: Not that I’m making a religious point, more a philosophical one.

------
crimsonalucard
This kind of random speculation is almost pointless.

If someone says : "There is no such thing as death; life is only a dream, and
we are the imagination of ourselves," then he's doing philosophy

If someone says: "A man can no more diminish God’s glory by refusing to
worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word,
‘darkness’ on the walls of his cell." then he's doing religion.

Logically, both statements are speculative and equivalently ludicrous as
neither has a shred of evidence that makes one more real than the other. Due
to this, it is more than likely neither statement I made in this comment nor
any statement made in the article is true.

Might as well read an article arguing about how Scientology is more consistent
and coherent than Christian Science.

------
tempodox
That question cannot possibly be answered in any sensible, let alone
definitive, way. And even if it could (hypothetically), what would be the
consequence? File under “useless speculation”.

~~~
Zarath
Well, a large portion of the history of humanity has been shaped by arguments
over the nature of death and the purpose of the universe. Or at least, shaped
by forces which have used the cover of these arguments to assert their will.

------
JumpCrisscross
> _supernovae are the main source of many of the heavy elements that form the
> ingredients of life_

Neutron star collisions are now suspected to be "the main source of the
r-process elements, which are elements heavier than iron, like gold and
platinum" [1].

(I also have a quibble with the claim that "any kind of chemical complexity
would have been physically impossible" if the strong nuclear force "had been
0.008 or higher," and caused the universe's hydrogen to all fuse into heavier
elements. Carbon has no problems bonding with elements other than hydrogen.
Moreover, given we have no idea where the constants come from, altering one
may not leave the others unchanged--saying no complexity would be possible in
this entirely novel universe is a bit rich.)

[1] [https://www.space.com/38493-gravitational-waves-neutron-
star...](https://www.space.com/38493-gravitational-waves-neutron-star-
gold.html)

------
dalbasal
This know reads like a college philosophy essay, piecing together famous bits
from various sources and glueing them together into a (dubious) logical
sequence.

 _" The two standard explanations of the fine-tuning are theism and the
multiverse hypothesis."_

..theism is rejected because of "the problem of evil" (which I always thought
should be the "problem of suffering")

Multiverse is falsified by... _Some sort of reverse anthropic argument.. it 's
complicated_," ergo...more stuff ..and.. _" If we combine holism with
panpsychism, we get cosmopsychism:"_

It's fun to read, in that a lot of the stuff it references are (individually)
interesting bits of science, theology and such.

As a coherent argument.. this is exactly what Monty Python were making fun of
in the duck-witch sketch.

------
visarga
Doesn't make sense. Consciousness is a survival trait for self replicating
agents. The universe doesn't need to survive, and has no external reality to
be conscious of.

Consciousness doesn't exist in a vacuum, or for no reason at all. The reason
for its existence is that it protects the agent and helps in self replication.
We shouldn't expect to find consciousness outside these settings. Maybe AI
could be conscious, but it is just copying the architecture and receiving a
purpose from outside.

In the case of biological consciousness, the purpose creates the tool. The
only self-reliant purpose I know of is self replication, which doesn't apply
to the universe.

~~~
Zarath
Why can't the universe be self-replicating?

~~~
crimsonalucard
For something to self replicate you need some sort reproductive system. A
penis and a vagina are the main ingredients.

For a universe to self replicate their must be at least two parallel
universes. A male universe and a female universe. The male universe has a
penis and the female universe must have a vagina. Then the two must have sex
to produce child sibling universes.

There is a flaw in this theory. Ask yourself "How does the child universe
self-replicate?" The answer is the child universe must commit incest. This is
a problem with the theory of self-replicating universes.

So I'm now going to introduce a new speculative and pointless made up theory
about how a universe can self replicate asexually. By introducing this theory
I've solved the other pointlessly speculative problem that was basically made
up out of thin air in the first place. However by adding enough metaphysical
mumbo jumbo to my arguments I make everything seem more legit.

Think about it.

~~~
Zarath
There's really no reason to assume one way or the other that the universe has
a reproductive mechanism, whether sexual or asexual, or some other way. The
parent comment was just so sure that:

\- Consciousness belongs to self-replicating agents only

\- The universe does not/cannot replicate

These are both silly assumptions. In fact, I'd be more surprised if the
universe _didn 't_ replicate in some form.

~~~
visarga
I don't understand why you say that the self-replication requirement is silly.
Without self replication there can be no evolution. It would be much less
probable that a sentient entity appeared without an evolutionary mechanism.

About universe replication, it's just a supposition, I am not opposed to it
but I just don't find the reason to take it seriously yet.

There would also be other requirements, such as the ability to process
information which I don't see how it would work at universe scale considering
the light-speed limit. It the universe were sentient, then it would think at a
very low speed.

Maybe the universe self replication mechanism could be us (or more probably a
more advanced civilisation)? Supposing such a civilisation could learn to
control the conditions for the creation of black holes, that would also fit
with the anthropic principle. Or maybe they learn to create universe
simulations, either way, it's sci-fi for us at this moment.

------
bemmu
As a thought experiment, if Boltzmann’s brains are the most common, maybe we
are one?

Each of us only has the current moment. Our memories of the past and even
"current" observations of our environment (actually many milliseconds old) are
just structures in our brain. You don't really know for sure if you've existed
for 30 years, or for 1 second.

All of that could be just part of the "functioning brain that has by sheer
fluke emerged from a disordered universe for a brief period of time".

~~~
simonh
But surely the vast majority of such Boltzmann brains, by a staggering ratio,
would be incomplete, partially aware, barely and only transitorily viable
brings with incomplete and inconsistent memories and experiences. The chances
of such a being having a completely consistent memory, sensorium and
experience of life must be extremely small.

~~~
bemmu
If I only live for this single moment, I don't think I'd spot such an
inconsistency. I'm now so focused on your comment, that I doubt I'd notice if
I didn't actually have half of my body, any memories from my childhood, or if
behind me was just empty space.

It'd be a short existence with a pretty violent end.

~~~
simonh
But surely if a subset of brains experience reading Hacker News, what
proportion of those will be reading a page with text that is intelligible, or
about subjects that make sense, or with posts that are coherent? Or with
brains capable of parsing a text? Surely only one in many trillions or more?

Maybe that explains Reddit.

------
axOve
Just because things ARE does not mean there is any reason for them to be that
way. Evolution for example has no purpose, it just happens - because only the
survivors reproduce. Intention is not necessary for this mechanism to work.

Regarding the "fine tuning" of our universe: We never can observe a universe
that is not tuned for life. Because we cannot exist in such a universe. The
universe's "tuning" for life proves nothing.

------
viach
Isn't that a perfect example of survivorship bias? That if our form of life
managed to appear in a particular universe, it's built for us then?

~~~
simonh
Like the body of water in a puddle that is amazed that the universe produced a
depression in the ground that exactly fits its form and size. How unlikely.
Surely it is proof the universe was made for its benefit?

~~~
viach
Exactly! I can imagine an article in this Puddle Universe:

>"Is the Puddle a conscious mind?"

>"Cosmopsychism might seem crazy, but it provides a robust explanatory model
for how the Puddle became fine-tuned for water"

------
deytempo
Maybe we are the universe dreaming it’s not the universe

~~~
greenmana
I like how Bill Hicks put it: "There is no such thing as death; life is only a
dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves."

~~~
crimsonalucard
How is either statement more true than the claims made by Scientology? Why is
it more worth our time to speculate about these statements then it is to
speculate about Scientology?

------
jsonne
The crux of the argument that they're making here is actually oft repeated by
many mainstream Christians.

~~~
thrav
Genuinely curious...Does that strengthen or weaken it, in your mind? The fact
that science may be moving closer to something millions of people across
history have intuitively believed.

~~~
indigochill
Even as a Christian, I don't think it goes one way or the other particularly,
for me at least. To me, the strengths and weaknesses of his argument are in
the article itself.

The main strengths I see in it are the observations regarding physics and the
limitations of observation.

The weakness I see in it is the author's straw-man assumptions about theism
(that a creator must be loving, and that a loving creator cannot allow
suffering or evil, for instance) and his failure to dig deeper into potential
criticisms against his own model such as:

1\. Where did the universe come from? "Always been" or "created itself" or
even "emerged from primordial chaos" are all functionally equivalent to the
theism answer.

2\. By what means does the universe exert agency on the constants of physics?
One might ask whether the constants of physics are not actually more
fundamental than the universe itself, such that other hypothetical universes
would necessarily share the same constants, although the article seems to
assume that these constants are only true for this universe (or perhaps some
subset of all universes like ours as opposed to all universes).

3\. If it does exert control over these constants, would we not expect these
constants to have changed over time rather than be, well, constant? If we do
expect them to have changed, does this not make things like astronomy fairly
dicey since we don't necessarily have guarantees that, e.g. the constant speed
of light is/was the same at some distant point we're observing, in the time at
which we're observing it?

4\. Where did the principles come from that led the universe to achieve
whatever degree of consciousness it's ascribed? Again, leaving this question
as a "well, it just did" feels very much like theism by another name to me.

So I guess I find it interesting that the author is leaning towards something
that seems very deity-like as a result of physics, but am bothered by my sense
that he's unwilling to call a spade a spade.

------
blancheneige
this has to be edgy atheists' worst nightmare.

------
devereaux
Better than the Betteridge law of headlines, I present you the nonsense law of
headlines: if once inverted, the headline still sound something that may be
written about in the article, it's not science.

Here: "Is the conscious mind a universe?"

Also, both are unfalsifiable, therefore not science in a Popperian way.

~~~
crimsonalucard
Exactly. Why not talk about if the universe is the left over feces of a cosmic
being? Pointless exercise.

Though to be a bit pedantic under the Popperian way a statement that is
actually true is by definition unfalsifiable.

You probably meant that both statements are untestable.

------
quattrofan
Or it's a giant simulation, to me seems far more likely.

~~~
Zarath
Ok, then what about the universe which is simulating ours then?

~~~
jamiek88
Simple.

It is itself a simulation.

Ad infinitum.

Simulation / turtle. Tomato / tomato.

Who made god? Same question really.

And around we circle.

Pot profundity, drum circle debate.

