Max Tegmark, "Consciousness as a State of Matter," FQXi conference 2014 in Vieques

[@BigMTBrain]

Close, but closer still might be the more general notion "Emergence as a State of Matter", where a special case is "Consciousness as a State of Matter". I think investigating the general notion will be more fruitful as simple cases of emergent systems can be investigated first, then their solutions can lead to solutions for more complex cases of emergence like consciousness. UNLESS... if it happens to be that all emergent systems--regardless of complexity--manifest some degree of consciousness. If so, the approach of "Consciousness as a State of Matter" is equally appropriate.

[@PoliticalJohn]

At least you said "might be". Isn't that what Boltzmann proposed in general? Or was it independent arising of random consciousness, rather than emergence? Been a few years, but as I recall, it was given even the slightest amount of perturbation in a closed system, a Boltzmann brain would inevitably arise over and over again, and therefore there were infinitely more of these than 'normal' brains. Then of course, what if we are all Boltzmann brains and down ze rabbit hole you go....

[@BigMTBrain]

John Redman - As I recall, Boltzmann's proposal was regarding "self-aware entities", aka consciousness, from random fluctuations in closed systems. The argument against "us" here on this planet being Boltzmann Brains is that we have evolved over the long-term in an open system. (Our biosphere receives external energy from the sun and releases energy into space, thus LOCALLY an open system despite being embedded in a possibly closed system globally, our universe.) On emergence: Boltzmann's concept will extend to emergence in general ONLY IF it can be proven that some degree of consciousness (self-awareness) is always emergent from complex systems. IF that is indeed the case, and complexity is only a matter of degree, then all physical things would be conscious to some degree relative to their complexity, in which case Boltzmann Brains (assuming enough matter and arrangement complexity to at least spontaneously approximate a human brain) would be a natural occurring consequence of our potentially infinite universe and/or multiverse.

[@mikeharper3784]

@@BigMTBrain I think you ate too many of those cheap but delicious pizzas at Blondies amongst all the sidewalk hippies selling beads and trinkets. I think you will find more clues about consciousness by seeing what doctors do and use to temporarily disconnect the human bodies consciousness for the purpose of operations. If you can understand this “light switch” effect of turning on and off consciousness, which I believe is not material but residing in our material bodies and universe, then you may start to get a better understanding of how we use consciousness to connect and experience this 4th dimensional, well for lack of a better word or term, our holographic curved universe. Sleeping is quite similar to anesthetization, which should offer additional clues but I’m sure sleeping is just the method our consciousness uses to upload and download data to the control station where I suspect we are sitting the 5th dimension or higher planes of existence and playing this fancy video game we call, “Life on Earth through History”. Now I’m thinking I ate too many of those Blondies pizzas myself. I still stay awake nights trying to see the error in judgement of the great Egyptian Pharaohs in thinking they could take their material treasures with them after they reached the end of their biological computer’s functionality and they ran out of quarters to extend its lifetime. But then we can’t figure out the double slit experiment either so what the heck. Hazah! If you do want the solution to the results of that experiment though, I would be very happy to explain it to you. To see that I’m serious, ask about my name at the MIT Chemical Engineering department. Peace. 🖖

[@BigMTBrain]

@@mikeharper3784 Hey, Mike! Haha... never encountered a Blondie's Pizzeria in my life, but now you've got me curious. :) I must admit I'm really completely clueless as to what existence and consciousness are beyond my own direct experience. I usually qualify much of what I say on these topics with BIG "ifs". Sure. If you have time, I'd like hear your explanation of the double-slit experiment.

[@mikeharper3784]

@@BigMTBrain Blondies was a pizza joint outside of the Berkeley campus and frequented by the students for its generous pizza portions and inexpensive prices. Can’t believe you never ate there. The fresh fish restaurant just outside MIT is much better but a lot pricier. I happened to be aware of this info as my son got his BS in Chemical Engineering at Berkeley and then his Phd from MIT in Chemical Engineering also. I saw that you went to both these schools as well so I used that in an attempt to run ideas by you about the nature of reality and the universe. My son gave me your MIT email but I didn’t want to seem so forward or misuse his privileges to that information. But I admire your work and your drive to unravel the secrets of the Creator who gave us this experiential gift inside this material universe. But the connection of our non-material consciousness which is as awesome as it is unexplainable is a big key to getting a closer understanding and appreciate of what we are experiencing. Anyway, onto the double slit experiment and the conundrum of the results. I think an important property of light, moving through space, or space time, has been overlooked. I believe that space time is the Dark Energy and Matter we have been looking for but failed to see one of its foundational properties which is a step above string theory, but strings woven together in a three dimensional fabric of sorts that can appear as a particle when dissected away from time and its fabric in experimental processes. But it is first a fabric, made of strings that can be cut into individual particles under scrutiny and experimental processes and observations. In the double slit experiment, imagine a drop of water as the photon shot at and through the slits. Water is first and ocean, moving in waves and droplets of water can be splashed away momentarily like ocean spray but then fall back into the ocean where they once again, naturally, become one again from their true fabric which in this example is the ocean and then, once again, become indistinguishable from any other droplets of water that make up its whole and natural existence. If you did the double slit experiment with single droplets first and then saw them splash randomly about on the observation tray behind the slits, it would appear random but then after numerous other droplets hit the pan, they wouldn’t fall on top of one another but rather spread out in a thin layer of water and subsequent droplets would create waves in this pool of water and the waves would then create an interference pattern. Light is also a fabric which stays together similar to a body of water like the ocean. I call it the “birds of a feather stick together” property. Or a fabric, for simplification. This light fabric interacts with its counterpart, and opposite, dark light and the two in a brilliant and natural existence form to create space time, the 3-D fabric of space time which interacts with material spherical objects like the stars or planets in a tug of war of dynamic equilibrium, once again that creates gravity, which is proportional in strength to the spherical area of a planet or star. And when a photon is broken away from its fabric or string and shot through slits of equal width to its normal wave frequency, then it interacts with that fabric of which it is a part of and reacts like a drop of water shot into a pool of water. But if a “measuring” device of these photons is introduced into the experiment, it’s interaction with this similar force causes the wave or string function of the material to collapse due to of sync waves coming together and canceling out rendering only “dots” directly adjacent to the slits they were forced through. For brevity, if this is of any interest to you and perhaps we can correspond through e-mail as opposed to this format. Thank you for your time and consideration. Mike Harper.

[@davidwilkie9551]

The Quantum Fields Mechanism is connecting all information in quantized steps of exclusion/externality from reciprocal inclusion/memory in a camera-like processing of fast and slow oscillation of probability pictures with possible combinations of states, by comparison. Like any conjectured shifting of attention to differences between states such as the Banach-Tarski Conjecture, the possibilities are endless and the probabilities are combined occurrence and evolved information. Consciousness is an aspect of the states about which the conjecture is a self-awareness cycle within the human evolved state as a component of the whole "echo chamber" of QM-TIME.

[@ryanfranks9441]

You know those probabilities are conceptual tools in mathematics right? The same probabilities arise in fluid dynamics, they are not real in the sense you think they are, probabilities = ignorance within a volume of space... not good enough to develop new knowledge with, instead, you use what you KNOW to extend your calculations.

[@terrybuchanan1204]

we live the first 5 to 6 years unconscious, then very gradually we become aware as a separate being. by 11 or 12 this develops ever more gradually and by 20 to 25 we are fully conscious.

[@marlonsheldon1275]

Speak for yourself

[@SpamMouse]

@@marlonsheldon1275 Terry has a point although I would word it in term of the development of Ego rather than one's innate nature, the Id.

[@zaidsserubogo261]

Wauu. Very constructive idea in the field,thank you. there is much to expect from it I think if it is polished better and better since at the bottom line we have change in material state that correlates with change in consciousness which is not daft at all in classical limits. Though in quantum mechanics, its a bit challenging since we can't collect quantum objects and integrate them to produce consciousness however much we can play around changing their material states. All we remain with is material flavour not consciousness. but surprisingly all these quantum objects (famions and bosons) remain informed!!! Big question arises when deal with consciousness as only a function of state of "matter" especially when it is defended from information conservation, retrieval and storage point of view.

[@Erik-yw9kj]

I have a problem with the Integration principle, which suggests that systems like human civilization cannot be conscious because they consist of nearly independent parts - namely humans.

[@rytallica898]

It's not a problem. It only says that humans as a group do not have a some spatiotemporal pattern of qualia associated with them, only individual humans with brains do. This is not the logical contradiction you might think it is.

[@herrietako]

Could we start defining the term and setting the boundaries of consciousness? and then we can set a discussion line... maybe to express how I understand the consciousness, I would swap the headline for "Consciousness emerges from a life-matter that can storage information". I see consciousness something similar to an hologram that is switched on by simple neuronal connection, more than different state of matter as gas or liquid. An Hologram, a reflection of energy, that works as an operative system to control the functional applications which are coded. This function has been crucial in the life kingdom for survival and its developments has given to the different spices better condition to adapt to the environment. I don't think we can separate this condition. I saw a videos of 2 spiders fighting in a glass box... one of spiders started fighting and a few seconds later, he or she, realized that was going to lose, then start panicking, trying to out from the box, he could not and was murdered by the other spider... which is the difference with our conscious awareness of the danger... what would be the difference between a genious and a normal intelligent human in terms of consciousness?... the capacity to storage and process information does not make one entity more conscious than other, just is about of efficiency processing information against real information. I think there is not difference between an Spider, Ant... and us in terms of consciousness... And this make me think how aliens we are for the rest of the spices and make me feel bad with our eating habits, and the killer industry of animals, fish... once I consider that consciousness could be similarly working in all the life kingdom... and about religion creationist theories and life after life ideas... we expecting that some kind of God who has created this "Earth" and "sky" will give us a continuity of our consciousness after dye??? what about all the virus, bacteria we are killing, because is bad for us, and all the animals and spices we are annihilating, eating, killing... we are the privileged spice... because we are more than what???... In one of my comments to Max I was writing, I don't feel nothing more than a complex bacteria. Just life is a continuous transmission till the matter can afford the pass of time...to have a consciousness does not give to any form of living any advantage in this process of creation, and to have a more higher level of neuronal connection does not give us more privilege than others in this process and does not give us also more consciousness than others... So I think I would define consciousness as: Neuronal connections + feelings = consciousness

[@kokomanation]

What about the subjective aspect of the experience the biggest mistake is to somehow treat consciousness like a form of intelligence that also stores memories the individuality of the concept that cannot be recreated is a mystery .I would be more suspicious if this is some kind of particle physics issue not an arrangement of atoms that might change through time entropic forces affect brain structure during the process of life

[@havenbastion]

If you're going to reinterpret something that has a long-standing usage to make it utterly different, choose your own word. Consciousness is a property of a biological cognitive system.

[@ThinkHuman]

Very interesting talk,and i agree with Max...but does not seem like this is something fundamental there is still a way long to go to explain consciousness.

[@danielking6303]

10:48 Alan Guth sleeping, lol

[@_______.____._______]

Daniel King 😂😂

[@ryanfranks9441]

Nah, Alan is in the back, fck'n Max's wife.

[@SearchBucket2]

You stole my comment. Lol

[@SearchBucket2]

Blow-up Alan Guth develops a leak ...

[@SearchBucket2]

@@ryanfranks9441 .... but she's sitting at the front

[@caricue]

I got to the part where he said that a hard drive was an "information storage device" and related that to consciousness and information storage. The hard drive is an inanimate object that has been constructed by intelligent humans to do a particular set of functions that the humans find useful. It does not contain information intrinsically, like a brain does. It has a series of on and off switches that form a pattern that can be turned into an output that a human can turn into information inside of their brain, but information does not exist outside of a brain. Letters are just scratches on a surface without a mind to make them mean something. I don't think this is just a quibble about semantics when a scientist starts talking about information storage, he really thinks there is information there, not just a device. What's weird is that in a colloquial sense there is information on the hard drive, and in some even stranger metaphysical sense, there probably is also, but somehow only in the context of intelligence.

[@robertmiller1299]

To be credible he must discuss intentionality and the (philosophical) indeterminacy of physical objects and systems.

[@Essentia-Channel]

His paper: arxiv.org/abs/1401.1219

[@petermansson5523]

This occurred to me a year ago ... double slits experiment is a clear indicator that when energy aka matter is collected and assembled, it will change its characteristic behavior and behave as "solid" matter, not as a waveform (unconscious matter ). When we make a conscious effort to observe the behavior of energy, we are projecting consciousness to a level where consciousness does not exist, and the photons suddenly behave like solid "conscious" matter.

[@petermansson5523]

So the native Americans where right when they say that everything has a spirit/spirits= Matter is conscious in different levels. And this is not new concept in the "modern world" Greek filosofers speaks of different level awareness in matter...earth as the giving soul, plants as nurturing soul, animal as sensitive soul, humans as the reasoning soul.....does it stop here, ore is there higher levels of conscious "souls" ?

[@SueiWaa]

@@petermansson5523 , I have heard the reason why Japanese prefer building humanlike robots is because they have a concept that robots, with certain "intelligence", have some whift of a "soul", stemming from their ancient animistic worldview. Any Japanese here that can confirm this? If there is some substance to Integrated Information, then the Japanese intuition is pretty correct imo, especially if real AI is eventually achieved!

[@bobaldo2339]

There is no compelling reason to think of "consciousness", as separate and distinct from "the objects of consciousness" (sensation, thoughts, feelings, intuitions, and dreams). When these "objects" are not present where is the "consciousness"? No dharma can exist independent of its causes and conditions.

[@GullyFoyleTerra]

If consciousness is a state of matter, then surely there is some sort of proto consciousness in every atom?

[@kevinfairweather3661]

Look up panpsychism

[@mattendahl2236]

Also read some of Alfred North Whitehead's later writings.

[@TheRaNetwork]

in fact, max tegmark is a contributor to the information integration theory. it is a panpsychic interpretation of reality.

[@jmerlo4119]

Why do I understand so little of all that is said? Me no like it!

[@seadhajdarbegovic]

Everzbody speak of "Consciousness,but nobody have no idea what is it.I think this is diferent name for God or Soul.That word was created to fill up the gap in quantum theory,because they have no idea what is in core of existence

[@TurtleLover_]

anyone else here from nc state

[@sherlockholmeslives.1605]

Is Max Tegmark the smartest person on the planet??? Cheers - Mike

[@Neueregel]

No. I am.

[@sherlockholmeslives.1605]

Neueregel WOW!!! What is your field of endeavour 'Neueregel'??? I don't think you are wrong!!! But be a devil!!! Show off some of your brilliance!!! I adore cognitive brilliance!!! If you wish show some of your mental greatness!!! I am absolutely honestly wishing to believe you!!! Do you work on the unified field theory?!?!?! With Best Wishes!!! Thanks for the reply!!! Keep Truckin' Cheers - Mike

[@sherlockholmeslives.1605]

Mike Fuller I'm being stupid, you may be a truly amazing and well loved genius like Stephen Hawking!!! Relax!!! If your brilliant you would have achieved great gratification from your work to look back on and relish!!! Cheers - Mike

[@sherlockholmeslives.1605]

Neueregel You write 3 very short words, and I go off on a massive surge about you being brilliant!!! Completely jumping to conclusions, and being egocentric? When you could be anyone just joking!!! I'm foolish!!!!!

[@mikeharper3784]

@@sherlockholmeslives.1605 are you Max T using a ghost writer? I would love to talk to him for five minutes. Ask about my name at the Chemical Engineering department at MIT and you will reply. Also, did you ever get to Eat at Blondies in Berkeley for a slice of pizza? 🖖😎😁

[@stillnessjackson354]

we are gods

[@hadlevick]

Fluid theory (Reproduction/Feed/Reasoning) decanted selfmultidimentionalover... The polydynamics of the movement generates pseudo-autonomy as material property, of the autogenous phenomenon; existing.(...) Simultaneous as my unidimensional variability... unidimensional variability = live-beings

[@Neueregel]

The word 'consciousness' should be banned from science. Like Marvin Minsky said consciousness, is 25+ different things. Tegmark is good in information theory and math, but *doesn't have a single clue of what consciousness is*, and only makes a *false dichotomy between 'conscious' and unconscious'* matter, based on some *'5' arbitrary principles full of anthropic bias.* Then, at, 15:50 the Hopfield network is a bit irrelevant example, since 37+ bits are more than enough to represent higher intelligence.

[@science1941]

We are pure consciousness having a material experience. Every thought you ever have is 'New' Right? Just because it's not accomplished immediately doesn't mean it won't be accomplished one Hundred years from now, get it.

[@noahway13]

3:20 best part.

[@prikarsartam]

Self-organised criticality again invoked in solid-state-physics terms

[@godzillasantos5190]

What a brilliant mind 😀😀😀😀

[@greatestone4eva]

random but, 'Julio' is pronounced "hoo lee ooh" not "jew lee ooh". its aggravating to hear someone botch a name repeatedly.

[@MariaOdeteMadeira]

"Perceptronium"?! Max does not feel the diseases of the sun as if they are his eclipses..., unfortunately..., like other physicists....,

[@robertw2930]

+maria odete madeira Might have a Vitamin D definency then

[@raymulder1]

Consciousness is NOT a state of matter. There are 3 absolutes in life, they are matter, consciousness and energy... Not one of these aspects can exist without the other 2, and everything that exists consists of these 3 absolutes in various degrees. Not one of these can be explained by the other 2...yet they each need the other 2 to exist. This knowledge is the secret of the trinity which is found in many ancient writings, as well as in religious writings(although it is completely misunderstood).

[@vectorshift401]

A conscious system must have goals.Survival and reproduction.

[@mandygershon8603]

Vector Shift Why?

[@vectorshift401]

You ask hard questions.:-) Could a consciousness have no motivation at all? What would lead it from one thought to the next? If it had no motivation to think then it wouldn't- but if not thinking at all then it wouldn't be conscious. (I don't mean just verbal thinking here but any kind of thinking. (Dogs and cats think without words, they can solve problems. I would consider going to get food from their food bowl when they're hungry a kind of problem solving, a kind of thinking.) Given that consciousness and motivation are inseparable then what motivation could it have? We can consider a motivation to "Walk down some street" as a random example. Where could that possibly come from. Why would any conscious entity be motivated to do that? In other words what is the motivation for there being any motivation to begin with? No matter what motivation one tries to inset here the same question can be asked again, what is the motivation for that motivation. There is however one motivation that escapes from the otherwise endless regression. The motivation to survive. Survival here has two aspects, the individual instance and the type. Type survival is, of course, reproduction. Type survival requires individual survival in order for it to exist.Wanting to survive is a goal. Even if we build a conscious entity from scratch the very process of changing thoughts requires motivation. The logical basis for all motivation is survival and survival requires reproduction.

[@mandygershon8603]

Vector Shift Right now, I'm motivated to drink more coffee so I can fathom this discussion of consciousness. ;) My question came from another question I've had about consciousness: Do we need to have a physical body in order to have consciousness? Perhaps consciousness was the motivation for the creation of matter. (No, I'm not pulling religion into this; but perhaps other dimensions, yes.) What if there was some greater consciousness that wanted to see what it was like to be a cat or dog? One other thought/question: Would you consider willpower to be a part of consciousness? I think your answer was very thought-provoking, btw. :)

[@vectorshift401]

The nature of what we call material has changed enormously with Relativity and QM. Our best descriptions of reality are quantum mechanical fields and they aren't material entities. But whatever it is , all the evidence is that consciousness if composed of what we still call matter,and that how are brains work is intimately tied to our conscious states. That being said I don't think that "matter" should be considered separate from consciousness in a fundamental sense. The matter of our brains is consciousness , there are properties of what we call matter that are the same as consciousness. The arrangement of what we call matter strongly affects the nature of the conscious system that it is. What form of consciousness occurs with matter spread out like it is in the world would be wonderful to know. As neurology progresses and we learn how brain structure and activities are related to our consciousness we should better be able to understand how the conscious properties of "matter" are manifest in other structures. That effort has only begun 20-30 years ago with the development of FMRI (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging.) Computer power will have to increase to develop models of brain activity. In some (100?) years brains will be engineered for all sorts of special abilities. New senses will be possible with entirely new sensations that we can't imagine any more than someone born blind can imagine what sight is like. I'm not sure what you mean by willpower. All motivation requires will but we usually use "willpower" to refer to a situation where our motivation is in conflict suggesting alternate paths. One path that we have intellectually decided was preferable but that we lack the visceral motivation to pursue. I doubt that it even occurs to nonhumans because it is the result of complicated linguistic considerations and fairly long term considerations.

[@mandygershon8603]

Given what we already know, I know we don't know much. ;) But I sure am looking forward to the discoveries!

[@stiqula]

what a waste of 22 minutes