@HogboblinZwei As a retired electrical engineer, I can assure you that electrical engineering is not "just the applied physics of electrons and elctromagnetic[sic] phenomenon." Neither is the practice of medicine just applied molecular biology.
While electrical engineers certainly do learn about electrons, that knowledge is actually of little to no use in the practice of engineering. At the same time, what would be basic circuit analysis to the engineer will be totally baffling to the physicist.
I once worked for a man who was an absolutely brilliant, PhD. nuclear physicist. He was also the most abominably bad engineer that I have ever encountered. Believe me. The two fields, while related, are quite different.
, while
I think @Babichev, @GreatHornedOwl, and @HogboblinZwei have covered any response I might make here... with the possible exception of the fact that the Latin term "sic" is meant to indicate errors present in the original, not those added by the quoter.
An aside prompted by another accusation below: telling a person about to commit suicide "you can do it any time, so why be in a hurry? do it later... and later... and still later" is not the same as encouraging them to jump off the bridge they're standing on. In case you hadn't noticed, "later" never comes (which is why I'm still alive).
Zwei's approach to suicide in that thread was a bit more Stoic than mine: but telling someone that their life is their own and only they have the right to decide what to do with it is also not the same as telling them to go die.
@GreatHornedOwl I really enjoy your posts and the value you bring with your perspective. However, we must respectively disagree here. It may be the different approach we have taken to engineering. I like to approach engineering from a first principles perspectives.
Electrons, ohm's law, relation between current, voltage and resistance. The relation between a moving charge and magnetic fields. The building blocks of electrical engineering. Don't get me wrong, this is in no way an attempt to simplify the amazing work electrical engineers do. But it's just a first principals approach, which is admittedly a new idea (last two decades or so).
And @Babichev, apologies and noted. I admittedly don't like when certain members consistently go around the forum try to harrass and bully other members (these certain members have been temporarily banned by Sideon before for encouraging another member to commit suicide), but i'm done with that particular conversation.
Edison, resisting alternating current. Is that an electric pun? Sound's like he would have something in common with George Ohm. I'm shocked Gustov Kirchhoff isn't currently in this thread. Although, if Marie Curie was alive, she would have noted this thread has decayed. Noah Webster would have observed, as I have, that there are problems with various definitions.
There are numerous definitions posited by various memes and metaphors for faith, facts, beliefs, love, etc. in this thread alone. But we have to define what the universe is, and what consciousness is, in order to answer the question from the OP.
There are several definitions of the universe that can be found with a short search online, and these are just a few: 1) All existing matter and space considered as a whole; the cosmos. 2) A particular sphere of activity, interest, or experience 3) The totality of existence, or everything that exists, everything that has existed, and everything that will exist 4) The whole body of things and phenomena observed or postulated
Here are a few definitions of conscious: 1) Aware of and responding to one's surroundings; awake 2) Having knowledge of something; aware 3) Having mental faculties not dulled by sleep, faintness, or stupor 4) The quality or state of being aware especially of something within oneself 5) Capable of thought or will
One would have to inquire of the OP to find the parameters of the question, because these definitions both contain and exclude certain parameters that are important for answering the question. If we assume that the universe is the sum of the parts, and we're talking about a singular body, does that include thoughts? That could be met by definitions 2, 3, and 4 above, and then if we are using definition 5 for consciousness, the question could become "can thoughts have thoughts?" or more precisely, "can matter, energy, and thoughts have thoughts?" The universe certainly contains beings, human beings, that have thoughts and are self-aware, but they are only parts of the sum. If you narrow down the parameters of the question such that it asks, "Is the human race conscious?" you still have problems, because while the human race contains self-aware human beings, it is not itself a mind. We are aware of the human race, but the human race is not aware of me. It cannot introspect "me." Only the parts of the sum of the human race can introspect "me." Additionally, the human race is simultaneously full of both conscious and unconscious people, by some definitions of consciousness. Some of us are sleeping at all times, just as many are also awake at all times. But the human race, the sum of all self-aware homo sapiens, is itself not a conscious being. So, then, extrapolate the analogy back to the universe as a whole, containing matter, energy, and the thoughts of all beings, has not been observed to have consciousness, to be aware of itself. By definition 1 of consciousness, and 1, 3, and 4 of universe, a logical paradigm exists. For if the universe contains everything, then it cannot have surroundings to be aware of and respond to. It could only satisfy definitions 2 through 5. For this to be true, there has to be information contained in the universe. For this to be observed, there has to be a means of communication from the universe to those observing it. In order to have communication of information, you have to have both specified complexity (not just simple order) and language. Math can certainly be a language used to communicate information from and of the universe, but what has been observed so far has only been simple order. It's where we get our universal constants, such as gravity and the strong and weak nuclear forces. But however complex an equation is, it is still describing only a pattern. It's not communicating anything complex like thoughts of introspection or awareness. So, for the OP, the simplest answer I can give, is no, the universe is not conscious, but a better answer would be: it has not been observed to be so.
@Babichev
Would it be possible for me to address a specific claim made by @MCcuddles2? One pertaining to his baseless and inaccurate accusation that I, and @DaringSprinter, encouraged another member to commit suicide?
This accusation has been thrown around a couple of times, and it's tiresome.
GOOD NEWS EVERYONE. I have written a statement on my profile detailing the baseless accusations that have been levied against me. If you're interested in the naked, glistening truth, do feel free to give it a read.
@MCcuddles2 - I enjoy your posts too. These lively discussions are always fun.
I am going to have to stand by my initial comments on electrical engineering. Ohm's law, relation between current, voltage and resistance, the relation between a moving charge and magnetic fields. can all be employed with no awareness that electrons even exist.
Furthermore, when it comes to more complicated systems, they could be designed without even knowing Ohm's law. For example, knowing how to design a critically damped, feedback control system doesn't require knowledge of any of the basic relationships that you cited.
Digital circuits are even further removed from those basic concepts. I doubt that there is one physicist out of a hundred who can understand, much less try to design a circuit using microprocessors. Come to think of it, designing a microprocessor itself would also not rely on knowledge of any of those concepts.
I agree with @MCcuddles2 @HogboblinZwei and @DaringSprinter both are bullies, they attacked a member without any reason in the thread ‘moderators thoughts on mental health’
@GreatHornedOwl i will defer to you for expertise in electrical engineering. My electrical education is limited to calculus based physics 2 class (which covers electromagnetism and optics), a calculus based circuits class, controls and vibrations class, a programming class, a numerical methods class (focused around solving engineering problems through mathematical iteration and finite elements analysis) and an experimental methods class. I do however have a mathematical background that goes up to partial differential equations.
Maybe it is that I graduated a little more recently than you? Or maybe my university engineering leaned more on the theoretical side?
Another thing is that engineering has split into two colleges. There is a college of engineering and a college of engineering technology. Engineering Technologists focus more on the hands on building aspect. Pure engineers receive a rigorous theoretical educational.
I can tell you from personal experience, that if someone today applied to say, SpaceX, as a pure engineer, the interview would be extremely theoretical. For an EE, the interview may ask for things like what a coulomb is, maxwell's equations, deriving equations for magnetic force around a moving charge. If the EE wasn't steeped in fundamentals, they wouldn't get the job.
@MCcuddles2 - Yes, I too learned all of those things in school. My math courses included partial differential equations, linear & matrix algebra, and vector analysis. I just picked up a few of my old text books, I found such titles as "Methods of Signal and System Analysis," "electron processes in Materials," "Photoconductivity of Solids," "Introduction to Electromagnetic Fields and Waves," and Electromagnetic Fields, Energy. and Forces."
As a working engineer, I was involved with the design of gamma cameras and position emission Tomography scanners, radiation measuring equipment for nuclear medicine and radiation therapy, blood analyzers, and a product we called a Portable Intensive Care device that included an automatic defibrillator, a 12 lead ecg monitor, a transcutaneous pacemaker, both invasive and non-invasive blood pressure monitors, and a pulse oximeter.
I can not recall ever needing to use any of those math courses, and darn little in any of what I learned in my advanced engineering courses. Quite frankly, a new graduate with an EE degree, is virtually incapable of designing anything useful. It's only when an engineer gets his (or her) first job, that he begins to learn what he really needs to know.
Several years after I graduated,I had a conversation with one of my old professors. At one point, the conversation turned to what wrong with the engineering curriculum. As an example, I pointed out that a new graduate would be perfectly happy to supervise the design of a high speed, multi-layer, printed circuit board that had no ground plane. His response was to ask "what's a ground plane?" After I explained it to him, he very proudly told me that his students would be able to calculate the effectiveness of any given ground plane. My response was "Yes, if he new that he knew that he needed one, he would be very happy to spend three days designing it, and then computing it's effectiveness. Meanwhile, I would design one by the seat of my pants, in about an hour, and (by measurement) would be just as effective." His reply was to wave his hand, and dismiss my argument with "Oh, we don't need to teach that. That's the kind of practical stuff they can learn once they get a job."
Update on the Emoto experiment. Three identical pots have been filled with 150 grams each of moistened potting soil (ProMix HP). The soil was moistened yesterday, thoroughly mixed, allowed to sit overnight, and thoroughly mixed again to insure an even distribution of moisture. Each batch of soaked oats was emptied into a small strainer, allowed to drain for 30 seconds, then transferred to the top of the pots where it was evenly distributed and then tamped down, using the bottom of a small, round, flat bottomed container. Every effort was made to use the same level of pressure.
The pots have been placed in the center of a array of lights. Their position will be rotated once each day to compensate for any possible advantage/disadvantage of their placement. They are surrounded by mostly small rosemary plants to the left and mature oat grass and orchard grass plants to the right.
The pots have been placed into their own individual square containers so that their position inside the tray, which has raised and lowered areas for drainage, does not create differing conditions below.
When being spoken to, the pots are picked up, held at about shoulder height about 18” in front of my body, and I turn away from the other pots so the talking is directed only at the pot in hand and not at the other pots. The pots will be receiving about 18 hours of light each day. Since I have been consistently successfully growing oat grass under these conditions for several months, this setup should be adequate.
[I can’t believe I’m actually doing this.
I can’t believe anyone would actually think that talking to rice would have an effect on how much or what type of mold grows in it.]
@cookiecrumb
Thank you for your well thought out response.
I would posit the definition of the universe to be “all that is”. I would not limit it to matter and space - energy, for instance, should be included. A combination of definitions 1, 3, and 4. I would exclude the past and future when in the form of abstract ideas, and also exclude that which is postulated but not observed.
The definition of consciousness that most closely aligns with my intent in the original question is “The quality or state of being aware especially of something within oneself”. My definition is more to the idea of being aware of awareness itself. That which is aware of thoughts, but is not a thought.
To make a rough analogy, consciousness, as I envision it, is like a television screen, and thoughts, feelings, experiences, and perceptions are that which is displayed on the screen. Or, perhaps consciousness is the dreamer and “all that is” manifests as the dream. The point being that consciousness is the intangible point of observation within which all that we can know plays out.
The other four definitions of consciousness you found are not at all what I had in mind. Each has it’s place, just not my intent for the question.
Thank you for bringing up the necessity for a working definition. Concepts presented without such clarification add an unnecessary layer of ambiguity.
@Babichev A similar experiment was done on Mythbusters. Skip ahead to 3:45 for the conclusion in the video below.
@Babichev I love the log and the experiment! Excited to see the results. I was curious if you were going to seperate the plants during the talking, to prevent cross contamination and I'm glad to see that you did.
@maria_ox
I agree with @MCcuddles2 ------- (redacted) and >------- (redacted) both are bullies, they attacked a member without any reason in the thread ‘moderators thoughts on mental health’
Thanks for acknowledging it. I think it is important for us as a community to speak against these things, especially because so many people here are vulnerable and aren't in the best place, mentally and emotionally; which makes them easy prey for predatory personalities.
@Babichev: I'm enjoying this experiment—particularly the steps you're taking to eliminate variables which were simply ignored in the original.
@maria_ox This is the only thing I've ever said in the "Moderator Thoughts on Mental Health" thread:
I do understand the urge to help. Especially if you see somebody going through something you've gone through or are going through yourself. But if the person you're trying to help is a danger to others on the site... well.
Where does CC draw the line? Where do we cut off our wish to help—where does it do more harm than good?
I don't see how this counts as attacking another member, with or without any reason.
But hey, you know what a truly blatant attack looks like? Tagging a person directly and accusing them of something they didn't do.
@MCcuddles2 @maria_ox
Ah, this is in reference to @Ahmedali999. I wasn't sure at first. The lack of specificity and everything.
Apparently it's harassment and bullying to call out someone for repeatedly breaking site rules, showing a lack of introspection, and then trying to manipulate others by threatening suicide.
Well shucks. Aren't I a meanie.
@HogboblinZwei @DaringSprinter there was no need to “call him out” in that thread when he hadn’t even done anything. Clearly ur just doing it for attention. You didn’t like me calling u out out of nowhere but it’s ok for you to keep “calling ppl out” when they aren’t doing anything wrong. I have met @Ahmedali999 in person, he is the sweetest soul and helped me a lot when I was going through family problems. We go to the same pros and they love having him as a client and buy him gifts as he is their regular customer. I can vouch that he is not a danger to anyone, he just struggles to communicate due to the language barrier. He talks to me about how he can improve his English and remove miscommunication in the future. And if he makes a mistake he learns from it, You haven’t met him in person to call him an offender, so if he hasn’t even mentioned u or said anything wrong in a particular thread there is no need to constantly talk about him. He is going through certain struggles like we all are so when there is no need to bring something up u can move along ☺️
@maria_ox: I didn't call him out. I said nothing about him specifically.
Here, too, I'm not interested in talking about any specific individual—if anyone, anyone, touches a part of their buddy they shouldn't be touching, that's not good.
If the groper feels any emotion other than embarrassment and regret when their buddy has to take their hand and personally remove it, that's double not good. If the groper then feels negatively towards the person they just groped, that's triple not good.
If anyone, anyone at all, does anything whatsoever to try and stop their buddy from leaving after their buddy is prepared to leave, that's bad.
If they tell people that they may kill themselves unless those people do certain things, that's amazingly bad.
And so on.
I don't care who does things like this. I don't care what phrasing they use or how broken their English may be as they describe what they're doing (or actually do it). I don't care about anything but the actual action, because that's what matters.
And if a person isn't actually doing any of these things? Then I am not talking about them.
"You didn’t like me calling u out out of nowhere but it’s ok for you to keep “calling ppl out” when they aren’t doing anything wrong."
Then why has he recently been timed out? Why has he gotten in trouble here in the past?
Furthermore: why is it a bad thing to call attention to continuously troublesome behavior?
"I have met ali in person and can vouch that he is not a danger to anyone"
Don't care.
"He is the sweetest soul in person"
"He is going through certain struggles like we all"
And yet somehow, some way, the majority of people on this forum refrain from using suicide as leverage in communicating with others.
I wonder how well that excuse would work if I groped a cuddler, was corrected, and then got pissy about it. Or if I tried to prevent a pro from ending our session. Or if I had a childish tantrum where I whined about how people were bullying me because of my troublesome behavior and mentioned the potentiality of commiting suicide in response to said criticism.
There's only one way for me to find out. But I'm not the type of person who tries to emotionally manipulate people because I gots so many depressions.
That's predatory.
@HogboblinZwei if someone does something wrong and u call them out, fine. But to continuously go on about it in other threads when they haven’t said anything wrong is attention seeking
The only time I brought up this topic of my own volition was in the "Moderator Thoughts On Mental Health" thread.
I didn't know that "once" constitutes "continuously". Color me surprised.
@HogboblinZwei yes that is continuously bcoz he didn’t say anything in that particular thread. you exaggerate his faults and use his language barrier to your advantage. If he was a genuine offender and as big as a threat as u make him out to be he would have been reported by his pros and banned off the site a long time ago.
An aside for those who may need a reminder:
continuously, adverb 1. without interruption or gaps 2. repeatedly without exceptions or reversals
I now return you to your regularly scheduled debate.
@DaringSprinter i don’t care about specifics or definitions, u still spoke about him when he hadn’t done anything in this new thread. His account has been temporarily suspended so why are u still referring to him
@maria_ox: I think you may be confusing me with my partner. I am not Zwei—even when accused of bullying in this new thread (apropos of nothing), I never said a word against the person you're defending. I only stepped in here to note the meaning of a word.
Anyway, how can you expect a person to not defend themselves against an uncalled for accusation of bullying? Of course Zwei spoke about the person you accused him of bullying in this thread. That's normal.
"yes that is continuously"
No. No it's not. You don't get to use a word incorrectly, flip out, and then claim that it doesn't matter. The point you struggled to make was both weak and incorrect. You were wrong. Make better points.
Also: I brought him up in "Moderator Thoughts On Mental Health" because depression and suicidal thoughts are aspects of mental health—which that same thread goes into detail on. What that thread doesn't explain is how to deal with the toxic side of those traits, how mods will contend with them, and how much of that toxic behavior the forum is meant to endure. Like, for example, using threats of suicide to coerce people into behaving in certain ways. Which is what @Ahmedali999 did. Blatantly. Which is why I mentioned him. Because he'd just done that. Publicly.
Are you seeing the connection here? Am I laying it on thick enough?
Other people in this forum have also noticed what you are saying. Ahmed has a language barrier, gets easily emotional, and isn't in a emotionally well place. Certain people here who have predatory personalities like to use the language barrier to harrass him. These people probably get joy from human misery, one of them has even openly said he does(schadenfreude). Another one has publicly stated that he doesn't value human life.
I've noticed that these people have made a game out of continuously mocking Ahmed and making false statements about him. Even when people luke yourself, who have met Ahmed in person can vouch for him.
The predators see Ahmed as an easy target because he can't defend himself with language, and they're probably frothing at the mouth because he has had suicidal tendencies.
The predatory people also like to use language as a game, to twist words around. Hence the lengthy replies, trying to manipulate meaning. I think the predatory people are drawn to this forum precisely because many people here are suffering.
The good news is that many of us see through this disgusting, predatory behaviour and word games, so it's only a matter of time where the rest of the forum catches on.
The important thing is for the rest of the forum members to keep calling this behaviour out when they see it.
@MCcuddles2 says:
Ahmed has a language barrier, gets easily emotional, and isn't in a emotionally well place.
The same could be said of other members... yet I've never noticed @Lovelight, for example, suggesting that she might just kill herself if people don't stop taking offense to her totally accidental groping of another member.
Another one has publicly stated that he doesn't value human life.
"Another one has publicly stated," you should say, "that after decades of abuse he has only just learned to value himself and one other."
And everyone experiences schadenfreude.
This is all just exhausting to read. 🙌
I think it's time to stop beating the horse so hard and move forward with our days, y'all draining a subject dry, and clearly just going back and forth on perceptions of a stranger on the internet who isn't even in the current conversation is not making any points that are sticking to the others opinion.
That you do not agree with someone else is fine, if they aren't getting on board, that's their choice. If you don't get it, you aren't going to get it. Whatever "that" is.
Block. Ignore. Rinse. Repeat.
Anywho. 💌
I'm going back to quote of the day thread and enjoy my day. FFS. 🤣
@MissAdventurous: If only blocking a person kept them from calling you a hateful predatory bully—out of nowhere!—in the forums. I'm not as good at ignoring personal attacks as perhaps I should be.
@MissAdventurous eh, I just have soft spot for struggling people who are being bullied.
I grew up poor and around violence, and dealt with a lot of physical bullies. Gave many of them a little street justice.
I can't stand it when I see the same behaviour, although in an online form.
@ the poster above me, I have not mentioned any names. If you think the post fits your behaviour, that's not my issue.