sjefTue, Jan 22, 2008 Is there a case to argue that consciousness is a necessary consequence of exponentially increasing levels of organisation?
Good point, there sure is. See Stuart Kauffmanns' ideas on complexity theory and the role self-organization has played in the origin of life.
My point was kind of related to that, as I see it though, the fact that there are currently no connections between all those nodes of consciousness means the entropy isn't really decreasing, as all their perceptions are lost. Once they start to get linked together in some form of network with near instantaneous connections between them (a growth that, in tandem with the technology, will be exponential), then we may hit the sharp rise into an exponential phase transition curve, and the network of consciousness could self-organize into a new mode of existence currently unimaginable to us.
After the sharp rise phase transitions tend to level out, so I think there would be a limit to this particular next step, but there are bound to be others after it...
*edit - In light of Robokku's comment I just realized I should have dropped emergence in there somewhere.
Good point, there sure is. See Stuart Kauffmanns' ideas on complexity theory and the role self-organization has played in the origin of life.
My point was kind of related to that, as I see it though, the fact that there are currently no connections between all those nodes of consciousness means the entropy isn't really decreasing, as all their perceptions are lost. Once they start to get linked together in some form of network with near instantaneous connections between them (a growth that, in tandem with the technology, will be exponential), then we may hit the sharp rise into an exponential phase transition curve, and the network of consciousness could self-organize into a new mode of existence currently unimaginable to us.
After the sharp rise phase transitions tend to level out, so I think there would be a limit to this particular next step, but there are bound to be others after it...
*edit - In light of Robokku's comment I just realized I should have dropped emergence in there somewhere.