Consiousness has evolved to allow life forms to have some control over the future scenarios they find themselves in. Plants are alive, but not consious, and so will die in any and every wildfire that crosses their path. Even if they had the ability to move, they lack the ability to make informed decisions about where to move. Over the centuries conscious beings have become very good at selecting scenarios (and outcomes of scenarios) that result in the continuation of that beings DNA. I believe it's possible that humans, among a few other sentient beings on Earth, have become so good at selecting futures where they continue to exist that they can influence these outcomes through non-physical means. Its shown that thinking about random number generators, even ones that rely on physical processes, can cause them to deviate from randomness. Thought can effect the physical universe in ways we dont yet understand. Quantum suicide is a somewhat outlandish (and unfalsifiable/unproveable) theory that suggests your consiousness will actively leap between timelines (similar to QM's multiple realities of the many worlds hypothesis) where your actions resulted in you surviving until the probability of you continuing to survive approaches 0%. Which takes a while due to theoretically infinite parallel universes. You would never experience death, just many scenarios where you narrowly avoided it. I know many of you have stopped reading, or are about to, but hear me out. If we apply a hypothesis like Quantum Suicide to a system like an entire planet, extinction events could have already wiped out all life on Earth in alternate timelines, but certain conscious beings (humans) consciousnesses made the leap to timelines where the order of events resulted in that extinction event never happening. (Cont.)
The Fermi Paradox
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(Cont.) What we would experience is, at the dawn of consiousness on Earth, there would be many different intelligent life forms in the universe and possibly in our own galaxy. Over time they would get wiped out by one of many great filters out there (gamma ray bursts, giant asteroids, death of the host star, rogue black holes, etc.,) but only from OUR perspective reality. If they had achieved a similar level of consiousness themselves they would continue to exist in a timeline where they never went extinct. So over time we would see the other forms of intelligent life in the universe slowly get wiped out one by one, and they would see the same thing. Until eventually, every consious race in the universe would find themselves being the last surviving race, and wondering when they would follow the others into the black void of non-existence. We are either close to, or have already reached this point, explaining the seeming lack of intelligent life anywhere but on Earth. Many have described god (note the lower case "g" indicating my lack of faith) as part of the mind, a being who created us, and watches over us to keep us safe. What many people call god is just a function of high level consiousness, resulting in us eventually becoming the only beings left in the entire universe. A universe seemingly made for us, and only us, by our own evolutionary need to pass on our genetic code.
I realize this is entirely unfalsifiable, and closer to philosophy than science but this is the only place i could think to share it. Thoughts?
For the love of god, paragraphs!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sorry. Typed it out on my phone at work and had some issues with character limits which only further complicated trying to post it. Thanks for reading anyway.
>Plants are alive, but not consious, and so will die in any and every wildfire that crosses their path
patently false, Australian flora evolved to survive wildfires, some species literally require fire to reproduce
>For the love of god, paragraphs!
My eyes hurt. Please format paragraphs then post again.
Ok its not true in every single case. Sequoia trees being one of them. The point being, if they had the option to run, they wouldnt be able to decide which direction to run in unless they had evolved consiousness.
Nah. Sorry about your eyes friend, but im far too lazy for that. Not to mention im quite a few drinks deep at this point and would probably fuck it up miserably. Deal with it as is or dont read it, its probably not worth the time to read anyway.
Yes they would. If they can detect fire then they can detect the direction the fire is coming from and so move away from it. Consciousness would be them able to reason that a direction other than immediately away would be better due to shelter or future rescue.
Besides, you are assuming that a single plant requires consciousness where in actual fact plants are more of a collective consciousness being
Ok can you get over that one comment? Its really a very minor part of my hypothesis. Edit it to read however you want, its not the point of the OP. Also...
>plants are more of a collective consciousness being
[citation needed]
You should look into Noetic Science
I'll probably get flamed for "pop-sci", but I believe everything should be explored.
Quantum suicide: enjoy watching everyone you ever loved die!
>Its shown that thinking about random number generators, even ones that rely on physical processes, can cause them to deviate from randomness.
Wow.
I'm gonna need some serious citation(s) here,
>explaining the seeming lack of intelligent life anywhere but on Earth.
> resulting in us eventually becoming the only beings left in the entire universe
Be honest, OP.
Are you the same idiot that started the last Fermi thread?
>we are the only ones in our galactic cluster and possibly even observable universe
>Australian flora evolved to survive wildfires
I've seen wildfires in Hawaii wipe out all the scrub trees, and the grass comes back as strong as ever the next year.
When it's dry enough, the grass makes a huge fire hazard it can cope with, but the trees can't.
It's almost like the grass is using fire as a weapon against the trees.
No i am not the same OP as that thread. Curiously enough though, i had to change my picture because Veeky Forums found the OP of that thread as a duplicate file.
Also here you go for a sorce
noosphere.princeton.edu
>No i am not the same OP as that thread.
OK, sorry if I came off a bit hostile.
That guy really rustles my jimmies,
But you do seem to share his expectation that we should have seen the aliens by now if there were any in the galaxy, and that's just silly.
>Also here you go for a sorce
Thanks!
I do not think we are the only life in the universe, maybe the galaxy, but it is statistically unlikely that we are. Even so, as time passes and we are not eliminated, reguardless if my hypothesis is true, it becomes more and more likely that other intelligent species in the galaxy HAVE been eliminated.
>noosphere.princeton.edu
See also:
en.wikipedia.org
tl;dr: skeptics are skeptical.
The GCP's star event is the 9/11 attack.
This is old news, and yet, nothing has arisen as a result over the last 16 years.
>as time passes and we are not eliminated,
>...
>it becomes more and more likely that other intelligent species in the galaxy HAVE been eliminated.
Wait, wut?
I'm not quite connecting the dots here, please help.
>im quite a few drinks deep at this point
Me too, Tequila. You?
Quantum suicide isn't falsifiable, and so cannot be considered actual science. It also falls apart when you consider the timeline branching into two points where death occurs sooner in one, but at a point where the difference in reality is significant. For that to be observed, people would need to display something similar to the Mandela effect (which is not real, as only minor errors in memory are the so called 'changes'), but much more significantly.
The alternative to this is that you only travel along the timeline that has you live the longest, in which case your decisions are already made for you, and thus free will does not exist.
It should also be noted that quantum suicide was only conceptualised in response to the Schrodinger's cat thought experiment, saying that the cat would only observe scenarios in which it survived; not that it would have its consciousness transfer to other realities. It simply comes down to the effect that only a survivor can observe that they are the only one remaining, and instead of acknowledging that improbable things happen, they believe that there has to be some larger effect at play.
>The alternative to this is that you only travel along the timeline that has you live the longest,
Well...
If I'm still alive in this timeline, and there are other timelines (universes) in which I've died, doesn't that mean anyone alive in this universe is beating the odds?
And of course, the dead people in this universe aren't beating the odds.
Kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy, since only living people can read your post.
> only a survivor can observe that they are the only one remaining
Survivor bias.
A combination of wine, beer, and rum. Read the OP if you seek further understanding as to why as time increases we become more alone in the universe. The cliff notes version is, as time goes on, extinction events are more likely to happen. Consiousness, as a tool used to avoid death, prevents us from experiencing death from our own perspective. We see others die and vice versa, but we don't experience death until the probability of survival is zero.
See
You pretty much said "i agree with you on all points, but you described quantum suicide like shit"
Also in infinite realities the mandela effect explanation becomes unnecessary. There will almost always be a universe/timeline/reality where every single outcome was identical except for the one that results in your death. Free will may very well be an illusion, after all, at a basic level we are made of atoms that follow very specific laws of physics.
OP is taking the valid effect of survivor bias and applying it with quantum immortality, except on a planetary scale. The assumption that we may be the last ones that survived may very well be valid, but saying that any civilisation will always be in that position because of quantum immortality (the claim that OP actually made) is fundamentally flawed.
Sure, but new species must also arise over time.
>Free will may very well be an illusion, after all, at a basic level we are made of atoms that follow very specific laws of physics.
Wait, are you playing Veeky Forums bingo?
QM, Fermi Paradox AND free will all in the same thread?
>very specific laws of physics.
...which are NOT classical mechanics, and thus not predestined.
Not predestined as far as we can tell. I for one ascribe to pilot wave theory. I will remind you that Einstein was never convinced by the probabilistic nature of QM. Yes it is useful for "predicting" (note the quotations) some experiments, but thats the glory of probability based theories. Theyre never technically wrong depending on the scope of their span of probability.
>I will remind you that Einstein was never convinced by the probabilistic nature of QM.
His objections were emotional/cultural.
"I refuse to believe that God plays dice with the universe."
This has always been a huge issue for QM.
If you're the kind of person that wants absolute, reproducible results with a simple mathematical basis, are you going to go into biology? Chemistry?
No.
Physics attracts the exact kind of person that's going to have a problem with QM.
Pilot wave theory follows all the same experimental results as currently accepted QM theories. The difference is that pilot wave theory says there is a hidden variable that accounts for the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Values of momentum and position are not inherently unknowable, there is just some variable we are unaware of that accounts for the seemingly probabilistic nature of QM.
How does pilot wave theory deal with the issue of quantum tunnelling? Probability waves explain it quite simply, but I cannot see how a particle with knowable position and momentum would be capable of surpassing a barrier if it did not meet the (normal) energy requirement.
No, explain the heat capacity of ortho hydrogen with pilot wave.
The pilot wave breaks down as soon as it describes compounded and abstract variables.
>Consiousness has evolved to allow life forms to have some control over the future scenarios they find themselves in
Wrong.
Shan't read the rest of your thread due to this OP, absolutely pathetic.
Neat, i dont care