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+--- Thread: Article Is God a strange loop? (John Horgan) (/thread-16497.html)
Is God a strange loop? (John Horgan) - C C - Sep 15, 2024
https://johnhorgan.org/cross-check/is-god-a-strange-loop
INTRO: I recently hobnobbed with a writer, I’ll call him Bob, as obsessed with the mind-body problem as I am. The problem concerns, in a narrow sense, how matter makes mind, but it also encompasses the puzzles of consciousness, intelligence, free will, the self, meaning, morality…
The mind-body problem, in short, is the mystery of what we are. And should be. The key puzzle is consciousness, without which nothing else matters. I don’t feel like defending this proposition, I’m just asserting it as an axiom.
Bob’s been pondering recent advances in artificial intelligence, and whether they favor this or that model of cognition. I told Bob I’m not a fan of any leading mind-models. I had in mind integrated information theory, the global workspace widget and the Penrose-Hameroff contraption.
The only model that strikes me as true, I told Bob, or at least on the right track, is Douglas Hofstadter’s strange loop, which rarely gets mentioned in mind-body debates. Below I’ll describe Hofstadter’s loopy idea. Or try... (MORE - details, no ads)
RE: Is God a strange loop? (John Horgan) - Magical Realist - Sep 16, 2024
The problem of consciousness and how it arises ends up over time feeling very suspiciously like the ultimate zen koan, a kind of unsolvable riddle which by defying all answers opens us up to a whole new level of understanding.
RE: Is God a strange loop? (John Horgan) - confused2 - Sep 17, 2024
I'm going to be boring (again). I really don't see the mystery. If you are a squirrel and you jump fro one tree to another you must be able to do a dry run in your mind .. is this jump sensible .. is it possible .. will I get hurt if I miss .. and so on. The squirrel absolutely must have a concept of itself .. the ability to deal with the concept of 'self-falling-and-getting-hurt-or-killed' . Which leaves 'consciousness' as necessary for any life-form operating in a complex and unpredictable environment - which covers virtually all life-forms.Your (or my) consciousness is only better than that of a baked bean because the bean got baked.*
Edit..
*Possible exaggeration for crappy point-scoring effect .. I'll try to stop doing it ..
RE: Is God a strange loop? (John Horgan) - C C - Sep 17, 2024
Given Chopra and the other speakers, one assumes he accepted and attended as a kind of foil.
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The Consciousness Panel (John Horgan)
https://johnhorgan.org/cross-check/the-consciousness-panel
INTRO: Last Friday I took a train to Cambridge, MA, to attend Sages & Scientists, a three-day “Conscious Collaboration for Global Transformation” hosted by health/spirituality mogul Deepak Chopra. Saturday 8-8:45 am, I moderated a panel called “Awakening to Truth: Consciousness as the Fundamental Reality,” in which Chopra and four other speakers talked about how the universe consists primarily not of matter but of consciousness. Below is my subjective, impressionistic, one-sided account of the session. If your memory or a recording of the event contradicts me, let me know.... (MORE - details, no ads)
RE: Is God a strange loop? (John Horgan) - Magical Realist - Sep 18, 2024
Don't wanna piss off Deepak. We are all just helpless scintilla floating around inside of his mind after all.