GONNAFISTYA wrote:Κracus wrote:This is where the beyond comprehension factor sets in. I suspect we'll discover the true nature of consciousness in 2045. I suspect our entire universe is a result of this consciousness thus the implications of that encompass what you're talking about but are so trivial they won't be much of a concern at this point.
Are you one of those people who take the hippie thing way too far and profess that the universe exists only because of consciousness? That there'd be no universe if it wasn't observed?
If so, seriously...put the crack pipe down.
You should go read a book called The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot. While it's quite far-fetched (touches on a lot of stuff Kracus is talking about), he does make a pretty compelling case for a lot of strange ideas. Whether or not the Universe is a construct of the human consciousness is a pretty hard thing to justify or explain but there are clues that point to something reminiscent of this. The idea of aliens throws a pretty big wrench into this line of reasoning though. Are aliens our own construct or do they help shape what we see? Or is their influence unknown to us because we've never formally "met" them? I think it ties somewhat into string theory, although I can't say that for a certainty because I haven't done much reading on string theory (and what I have read has mostly made my brain leak out my fuckin' ears
) But he talks about that underlying idea that everything (IE: elementary particles) is manifested from wave-like patterns/interferences set in different frequencies.
The book talks a bit about how the human body is basically just a giant frequency-sensor. Vision and hearing are the most obvious ones, but it talks about the other senses as well. Also talks about how even simple human motion has a sinusoidal quality to it, like a person ambling along, or dancing.
The weirdest part of that book for me was when it talked about people who could perceive auras, do instantaneous healing/diagnosis based on these, or people who could materialize things out of thin air. The book also talks about one girl with a condition called inedia, whereby she could sustain herself perfectly without eating, ever. In fact, she was put to the test, and a group of scientists lived with her for a week and they observed she ate absolutely nothing and only had one bowel movement (only bile.) Apparently she lived for another 35 years like this. Again, most of these stories would be hard to prove, but they do point to some pretty strange things.
Somewhat similar to the study Kracus mentioned, there was another study where two people who were accomplished hypnotists hypnotized each other and created their own world where their consciousnesses were sort of "floating" about and they had to "construct" bodies for themselves. I think they said they were floating along a beach of some sort. After they were un-hypnotized they were so shaken by the experience that they dropped out of further studies. Now, maybe this is just some hippy LSD bullshit, but what if it isn't? This kind of thing is awfully fucking hard to grasp or explain without some sort of inclination toward a human consciousness-based/controlled universe.
At any rate, I still think a copying of human minds into computers will be a pretty interesting avenue. There is, of course, the other idea that eventually computers will supersede our abilities and simply wipe us out as soon as they perceive us a threat. A new, global, computer-based consciousness. Interesting times ahead. I still think we need to get off this planet and start terra-forming or cultivating another space. We're nearing the end of our rope here. It's sad to see so much of the human race locked in barbaric, cave-man style bullshit. Let's make like the ants, work like a colony, take over this fucking solar system. How many thousands of years do we need? The time is now...
