Could the cosmos, in fact, be conscious?

Re:Could the cosmos, in fact, be conscious? by CuriouslyC on Monday April 01, 2024 @05:21PM (#39899512)

The main point of disagreement I have with this is that I don't think the notion that your senses and reality are not always perfectly in sync implies that your perception of free will is false. There's a lot of approximating that goes into taking sensory input and generating an experience, that doesn't invalidate your experience of making decisions.

Also, your doubt in your own free will isn't free, it has a cost. Is that doubt serving you in some way to offset that?

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Re:Could the cosmos, in fact, be conscious? by lxgr on Monday April 01, 2024 @06:49PM (#39900313)

That may well be the case, but it feels deeply epistemologically wrong to me to say “I am certain about X” just because being certain about X might come with certain psychological advantages. Not much good follows from that line of reasoning applied to many other issues.

I also don’t think “it’s quite plausible that there is free will but I’m agnostic about it” is a particularly harmful position to have.

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