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John Wheeler came up with this wonderful phrase to summarise what GR is about. But buzzwords can only get you so far. If you have a situation in which a small object moves in the vicinity of a stellar object that heavily distorts space-time around it, then it's fair to say that the star tells space-time around how to bend, while the relatively small stuff moving close is told how to move. However, consider the collision of two black holes. In that case, both the motion of the objects and the warping of space-time are very difficult to tell apart. For those cases, the only alternative is to appeal to the equations and have a computer solve them for you. The equations are highly non-linear, which means that ultimately it's impossible to express the warping as the sum of contributions of this and that piece of matter. Gravity itself gravitates. See my point? Another aspect I would like to point out is that mass is not the source of the gravitational field. It's energy-momentum that plays that role. The "mental operation" that you're proposing here, if I've understood you correctly, is to remove the sources and be left with an empty space-time, and then you ask yourself what shape does that space-time have. Well, think about this: Einstein's field equations have many solutions corresponding to an empty space-time. Gravitational waves are a particular example of solutions to the Einstein vacuum equations. So I guess my answer is: No, you can't figure out what space-time is like with nothing in it. Not a priori. You have to make a guess.

And that's another strawman, the argument was about how an off-cut can lead to an unintended machine i.e. an emergent quality. As machine's become more complex, other emergent qualities 'should be expected' the nature of which is impossible to predict; therefore the premise of the OP is demonstrably false.

Because it's a bad argument. I think they should be legal in some cases and in some cases not. I can therefore agree with arguments from each side. Capiche?

How do you “take away” the mass? It’s the energy it represents that matters, so it can’t just disappear. If you try and analyze a situation that violates physical law, you can’t get a valid answer.

I think it will be ex post facto when we find out what a synthetic recipe for consciousness looks like. I think this is to be expected, being emergent and, as such, only a retrospective analysis will allow us to find out. Hopefully, we find the blighter before they can become too autonomous in a way that might be detrimental to us.

Seems like a shallow interpretation of the decision. Oar maybe not.

Thanks, Stringy. Made this point earlier, but the OP seemed unwilling to consider a blind spot in their view, so I departed. It's too bad the "design means what" red herring took over here. Your blind watchmaker reference earlier was spot on. Self-programming, self-modifying neural nets arise in nature, and become aware. It's real, and it is the design (in the non-teleological, natural selection driven sense) that current AI research into neural nets are trying to model and give a medium for growth. I have yet to see a cogent argument as to why in principle this may not happen. The argument that "today's computers don't fit that model," is a Strawman. Of course they don't. Might as well be Lord Kelvin declaring we've reached the end of physics. @StringJunky

Warped spacetime IS gravity.

And of course, gravity is more intense in some places than others, and might be zero in some places. That's not how they portray god either. The suggestion that gravity and light are the same, because they both travel at the same speed, is like saying that a tree and a metal box are the same, because they float down a river at the same speed. Their speed is a property of the river, and the speed of light and gravity is a property of spacetime.

The OP doesn't seem be familiar with emergence as a concept or indeed the view of complex systems from the hard sciences perspectives. This seems to be an issue with being familiar with computer logic systems but not biological/molecular systems, and that, I think, that tends to instil a Cartesian duality view of things, since computers are non-biological in substrates. That can lead to a metaphysical interpretation of living systems as somehow distinct from the physical substrate,

That's a ludicrous statement. ARTIFICIAL consciousness would involve design WITH design. How on earth could it be otherwise? You're virtually saying that black is white.

Massless particles still carry momentum - you can exert a measureable force on an object simply by exposing it to light in the right way. So in that sense photons definitely do “push”. The same holds true for gluons, though due to the nature of QCD the situation here is more complicated. While it is true that geodesics don’t depend on the nature of the free-falling object (they depend only on the geometry of spacetime, plus boundary conditions), it is highly misleading to say that “gravity doesn’t affect photons”. After all, if you send a photon through any kind of gravitational gradient, it will experience frequency shift, ie it will either red- or blue-shift.

First off, I am not J.C. MacSwell. Second, why are you so angry? All I did was disagree with some of the things you said. Perhaps you should re-read our conversation. The reason I am arguing with you is because I don't agree with some things you've said. Just because I agree with you that abortion should be legal, that does not mean I am obligated to agree with everything else you say. If something I said is not clear, all you have to do is ask. I'll be happen to explain further.

Doesn't that view simply introduce another poorly defined term/concept ? IMHO there are already have too many such concepts in this thread, particularly consciousness itself. There is already a current thread about 'artificial' consciousness which would seem to imply that some at least think that life is not necessary, whatever definition of life is chosen.

I would agree with this point of view. However I disagree with the following statement. I think the pecking order is quite the reverse. The exact nature of consciousness is very difficult to pin down and I am not sure I can do that. But what I understand about awareness is that it is definitely a graduated quality on a measurable scale and appropriate technicians do this all the time, day in day out. Further this graduation is partly at least under the control of the subject who must be 'conscious', whatever that means. Equally if that subject is not conscious she will be unable to be aware of many things, again in a scientifically measurable manner.

If I am trying to e.g. measure time (which is nominally my day job) the last thing I want to do is inject the human factor into it. I want to measure the signal from the cloud of atoms, and do that very precisely and repeatedly. Humans being involved generally mucks that up in various ways. You can substitute in most physics experiments for this. Measure the properties of an electron or other particles, or materials, etc. I have no idea what "how can human factors be separate from matter" is supposed to mean, or what its connection is to what I previously posted.

Spending time with Chalmers, Dennett, Tononi, Koch, et al might help the OP to gain some tools for grappling with the HPOC. Sometimes works better to take a specific concept from the field, and then craft a thread that responds to one particular position in a published paper.

Capitalism works by voluntary reward for work rather than active punishment for underworking. It's true that poor people are to some extent passively penalised by a lack of resources but technically they're not deprived in a coercive fashion. In other words they're not being put in detention for a lack of homework but rather they miss out on opportunities due to a lack of wealth. At least that's the economic theory even if it's not the reality for those who are exploited in sweat shops in the third world. Anyway my point of comparison when it comes to suicide is that people are free to reward to their heart's content those who live with physical disabilities, terminally ill patients or mentally ill individuals who manage to avoid suicide. It's a free country and if you don't want to commemorate suicide victims then no one can stop you. However actively condemning suicide victims crosses the line in my opinion.

Theories are theories because they can be verified and falsified. And we don't just verify and falsify based on being skeptic alone. We back these verifications or falsifications with Math that is either directly inline with laws of physics we set in place. As my suggestion of removing matter like the sun in my explanation. The Big Bang is one of many theories with many obvious violations and unverified answers to problems. The Big Bang It violates the first law of thermodynamics, which says you can't create or destroy matter or energy. The first long-lived matter particles of any kind were protons and you guessed it neutrons. And together they make up the atomic nucleus. These came into existence around of 0.0001 a second after the Big Bang, Before that there was really no material in any familiar sense. Why do you think people purpose alternative explanations to the origins of the universe? Because they can for one and for two they have reason to believe based on knowledge that it was flawed in some way. And these flaws derived from questioning things. How do you think relativity was born. I'm not listing all theories and the flaws but they all have them and the flaws either mean 2+2 =5 or in other words violates things we presume are not true or have evidence of.

You have a repellant habit of putting words and motivations into others when those words and motivations don’t exist. So, since you mentioned your communication style: … I’ll confirm for you that your style IS a problem, but it’s not because others are too dumb to comprehend your meaning. It’s because you seem to struggle focusing on their points and choose so often instead to focus on them personally and whine like a petulant bratty toddler. Like here: There’s clearly bile spewing in this thread, but back to my earlier comment regarding a clear lack of self-awareness, you seem blind to the fact that most of it is coming from you.

Gravity affects things with mass. Gravity does not affect light, if it did the speed would change. The reason for this unaffected change in speed is light is made of photons, one of the only particles with out mass. Sometimes the word mass is thought of as weight, where this is partially true its not as simple as one would suggest. The mass of an object is measured by its resistance to gravity. When you pick up a heavy or light object it is resisting the Earths Gravity. But there is more to mass than just resistance to gravity, especially on the scale of the smallest observable pieces of matter. So in physics the definition of mass gets a little more complicated. Most fundamental matter Particles such as electrons , muons and quarks, have mass. They get their mass from their resistance to a field that permeates the Universe. Its call the Higgs Field. When referring to the mass of Protons and Neutrons, they are made up of Quarks and their mass is derived from the pull of a force that holds the Quarks together. Photons and gluons , the two forces carrying particles are fundamental so they don't Push or pull on anything. They are unaffected by Higgs field, and so we can indefinitely presume they are massless particles. Massless particles are the form of pure energy and it is sufficient for a particle to have this energy to have a meaning full sense of existence - "Flip Tanedo " So how exactly does light bend with Spacetime? If gravity isn't affecting the photons. Try to not imagine that light itself is actually being bent, but the space around it and the path its taking is bending, its only following the path accordingly.

What is your opinion on what science says concerning self then?

What do you mean by me ignoring the human factor.I am the human factor interacting with two different consciousness states..I am a “player” in awareness who controls the consciousness types rather than being an unaware “spectator” who has no control of the consciousness types.This stuff is experimental.You don’t need to define consciousness to be able to take control of it. Experiential** sorry not experimental.

We get it. You think I'm beneath you. So why would I continue to engage with you? At least I attempt to give a shit what others have to say. Until they do what you do and reveal that they think they are superior to others. Now I no longer give a shit what you have to say since there will be no reciprocation. If you can't read for nuance and are incapable of interpreting what I'm saying, that's your problem. I'm not reading averse and I can tell the difference between a question mark and a full stop. I'm no longer wasting my time with you so save your bile for someone else. Tell yourself whatever false narrative you want about me in order to protect your self appointed status of smartest person in the room. This is one example of where it reads like you are advocating for abortion. Here is another. So no, you haven't made your own views clear at all and now seem to be back pedaling because you stopped feeling confident in this bs. If you agree that abortions should be legal, then why tf are you even arguing with me? What is the goal exactly if we are both preaching to the choir?

Pure energy is any Field energy like potential energy kinetic energy like a fast moving particle but no mass energy of stable or nearly stable massive particles which would require a process to turn into work pure energy. What is pure energy because it is The simplest form of electromagnetic waves. This makes it true that light is pure energy. And if Light is made of photons, then photons are indeed pure energy. It’s not hard to believe anyone would quote the exact context that I stated. If you try to understand what they actually meant.

Please forgive formatting issues; technical difficulties. I am a goose, standing on a melon rind, pecking at it and not sure why I can't pick it up. Can we set a dichotomy? Consciousness vs. Mechanicalness, to have a definition? Was your attention split between your instrumentation (inward observation of functions), your outward observations; and where in space your left 4th toe is located and all associated impressions? 'Till your own field; you cannot know about the level of others, and glib statements about "Most people" should be avoided, IMO, although I'm sure it makes you feel special. Supra job! In places. A = A. A /= not A. A = A , A = not A. Please write a book on Player vs. Spectator philosophy. You will match or exceed Rollo Tomassi. In a machine. We will assume there is a functional, enclosed vessel, emananating radiations outward, as I read your proposal to state. If the neural tissue ensconcement is actually open to the outside electromagnetic frame, do you suppose that the "radar" like ping out-ping back emerging by brain function is in interplay with the "radar" from other radio sources? What is a radiation vs. an emanation? ... Beep boop beep. lol. maybe. i'll argue that a rock is conscious too in a few. You must observe and remember, first. You can be playing in mud and imagine you're in the 9th heaven. How to quantify or qualify awareness vs. consciousness? I would infer that linguistics must be necessary for this reflection process you mention. Unless it is non-verbal and the normal dialogue of thinking is otherwise directed. Many biographers say Epictetus was once a slave. One can be either an unwitting slave, or a conscious servant. Some biographers claim neither slave nor servant. I have a WooShoe idea for you, but I hold it back (or maybe it is the following). Applying direct physical methods can alter the other functions, and we can have more control over our physiology by training it; less automated. So, maybe something was lost in translation? Or you're alluding to the blissful naval-gazing where one is trying to dissociate? I do not understand exactly... @Jasper10: 2, 4, 0=0, 1=0, 0=1; Jasper10, How dare you bring mathematics into a consciousness discussion. I do think we need definitions, a different language, to have the discussion and understand each other at all. Some quotes were left out of reply. Last two replies not read yet. What if there could be a larger quantifiable gap in consciousness between two men than between a rock and a melon-stepping goose? I think linguistics, and the amount of information we can exchange thereby has set us on a different level. I don't know what consciousness is so I must study it, it would seem. I only have one willing study participant. @geordief

Every theory violates physical laws, and they are only laws because we say they are. The big bang is full of things that point in the right direction but creditably fall apart at the source. It's like asking to describe the universe before the big bang. You can't represent physically what it is, a singularity is infinitely small, it has no Dimension so describing it as a simple dot does not do anything. Because a dot has a physical length and width. The only reason we say energy can only be transformed and transferred , never destroyed is because we say so. 1.) Law of Thermodynamics, Energy can be changed from one form to another, but cannot be created or destroyed, the total amount of energy and matter in the universe remains constant, merely changing from one from to another. Why? Because we said so, and built a foundation around this.

And you have a repellant habit of continuing to speak to people in a way that warrants questioning your motivations. Thats literally what you are doing here. Show me where I've ever called you a petulant bratty toddler? The only one making this personal is you and Zap. Projection buddy. That's all I can say.

I've heard the strategic use of not being a hostile cunt to people can also work wonders. So perhaps if you would learn to shut up and stop hounding people with mental health issues, stop being so brutal, stop edgelording and stop gaslighting people when people rightly question your motives some progress could be made.