Yeah, I can’t rule that out. I guess the better question is if we’ll ever be able to communicate with such a mind. I can’t help but wonder if such a mind is possible, considering how far its various parts are from each other. If c is as fast as signals can get around, it might be unworkable.
There have been many volunteers for that role.
The ancient ones are lucky. They sometimes get to be protagonists in holy books. The newer ones risk being murdered in their jail cells or burned out by the ATF or dying of kool-aid poisoning.
That’s a good point. When I was reading Anil Seth’s book called Being You, he spoke of some kind of Consciousness Task Force or somesuch that he had in southern California (I think) and he mentioned that it included philosophers, which surprised me a little.
But I guess much of what they learn has to be tuned with language. They have to play and struggle with the words.
OK, I looked it up: The Neurosciences Institute (NSI) in San Diego.
Or maybe: Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness
There is a passage early in the book which almost made me understand what he was claiming. But only almost. I read it twice and doubt I could paraphrase it properly.
I don’t feel like I understand a thing unless I can paraphrase it two or three different ways… so I don’t understand it.
But I’ll read it again. If I make a breakthrough, I will report.
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With a bit of reverse engineering, yes.
If we align that process with the unfolding universe (or at least those theories which tell us how things went) and tag that consciousness into that phenomena, we have what appears as a fragmentation as consciousness explores its creation.
We can look at it as said consciousness experiencing being a galaxies and moving into those parts the make up galaxies, for the experience, eventually getting right into the nitty gritty - such as what has and is being experienced on planetary scales…
Thus, if we want to communicate with “it” we be wise not to overreach - think and act locally.
Is the planet really conscious and if so, how do we go about setting up ways in which to commune with said consciousness?
We can look at the whole "Universal Mind-Field and instinctively know that our position in the scheme of things won’t allow for an understandable connection with that as a whole, but in the parts it may be more achievable.
It only requires being “workable” at a local level.
To me, the text below seems to be the heart of Metzinger’s claim.
As I understand it, the mind creates its interpretation or reconstruction of reality, shows it to us so convincingly that we don’t recognize it as a video being played for us, and constructs a central character (us) to inhabit that video and act as viewpoint character.
That’s the best I’ve got by way of paraphrase.
Whenever our brains successfully pursue the ingenious strategy of creating a unified and dynamic inner portrait of reality, we become conscious. First, our brains generate a world-simulation, so perfect that we do not recognize it as an image in our minds. Then, they generate an inner image of ourselves as a whole. This image includes not only our body and our psychological states but also our relationship to the past and the future, as well as to other conscious beings. The internal image of the person-as-a-whole is the phenomenal Ego, the “I” or “self ” as it appears in conscious experience; therefore, I use the terms “phenomenal Ego” and “phenomenal self ” interchangeably. The phenomenal Ego is not some mysterious thing or little man inside the head but the content of an inner image—namely, the conscious self-model, or PSM. By placing the self-model within the world-model, a center is created. That center is what we experience as ourselves, the Ego. It is the origin of what philosophers often call the first-person perspective. We are not in direct contact with outside reality or with ourselves, but we do have an inner perspective. We can use the word “I.” We live our conscious lives in the Ego Tunnel.