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Hello everyone,I'd like to present a thought experiment for discussion that has long occupied my thoughts and attempts to examine the nature of consciousness more fundamentally, beyond purely biological explanations.My approach is as follows: What if we assume that the “normal state” of the universe is an absolute singularity, more specifically a connected “everything” in which information is not separated?My thesis is that individuals, whether humans, animals, or other hypothetical life forms, do not arise in isolation, but rather are temporary localizations or filters of this one, vast consciousness.One could imagine it like the ocean and its waves. Every living being is, for a brief period, an individual “wave,” but physically always remains water, thus part of the ocean. This would mean that consciousness is not a local production of the brain, but a fundamental property of space or matter itself, which is merely channeled by biological organisms.I would be interested to know how you see this. Are there concepts in modern physics (perhaps in field theory or quantum mechanics) that support such a fundamental interconnectedness of all things, or does physics strictly assume separate entities?

#1

This is an anology my son and I use regularly.
We find it makes it easier to explain to the unaware. Surprisingly, it still seems like an idea too many cannot grasp even with this simple example.

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    #2

    You know, if we're all an interconnected consciousness, then that implies that we are in some way connected with the Tangerine Tantrum and all the other arsehats throughout history. Not sure I'm okay with that. 😉

    Perhaps delving a little deeper: What IS consciousness anyway? We are made of inert lifeless molecules that formed protein chains that, though billions of years, managed to organise themselves into a "person". We are clearly alive, thinking, and you're reading and understanding this text through machines that people thought up and built. But, yet, there isn't a part of us that you can point to and say "that's where the life comes from". And we can only sort of wishy-washy point at parts of the brain and say "that's where thoughts come from" but we're not sure exactly how. There is, in terms of chemicals, very little difference between a living person and a newly not-living one. It's more a cessation of electrical activity. But what? And how? And how does that make consciousness?
    I think there are far too many groundwork questions that need answers first.

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    #3

    We are a cognitive dance of waving starsturf looking back on itself so the cosmos can learn about itself. We are individuals built from multitudes with an illusory sense of self, giving us the impression of an I that can experience. We are experiencing it, but there is no I.

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