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Is the Universe 'alive'?
lobster
Crusty Veteran
But don't we know, for example, objects like a chair aren't alive, or conscious? Or are they?This is from another thread, where the question is slightly different. So . . .
In some paths the world (including chairs) are a 'manifestation of the veiled'. A personification or revelation of the ineffable. A chair is a thought of gods or God.
This is why as Buddhists, when it comes to God, we sit on it. For some a chair, for others an expression of care for asses.
This relationship between form and emptiness is experiential. If your universe is devoid of non caused Great Mindfulness, then sit. If you think you are The Chair - Sit. If the chair is empty . . . then . . . well you'll think of something . . .
What side of the great chair debate is your order based on?
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I don't think its about the chair. I think its about our relationship/perspective to the chair/universe.
But if you are asking if inanimate objects are alive, no, no they are not.
Life, I think has a more empirical and quantitative definition and I don't think the universe qualifies.
Does the universe have some level of sentience though? Scientifically its an unanswerable question at present (we don't even have a means to really tell if you or I are sentient). When science digs down to the smallest level every space is filled with information and some mainstream interpretations of quantum mechanics seem to suggest that consciousness is a fundamental component of the universe.
The philosopher of consciousness David Chalmers thinks that some type of 'proto-consciousness' may need to be included as one of the fundamental building blocks of the universe.
But I've been enjoying the Korean Zen outlook lately.
Which is that everything arising is the full exertion of everything.
So sound is fully the universe as sound in action, thus no self, no center, completely traceless as it arises.
And everything is like that.
So the universe is most definitely alive. It is total motion with no-thing moving. The experience and insight into dependent origination, anatta, full exertion, and emptiness.
No dead pools, but a fully empty reality that is completely unique in expression each instant of its non-arising.
So the chair as it is, its all its glory and appearance is emptiness, thus functions as the whole universe in that instant, then gone.
How wonderful and magical.
It is ... if we are.
Perhaps inert material wonders if organic material could ever become sentient considering how transitory it is?
@person - Are you sure you mean Chalmers? Or were you thinking of Roger Penrose? If it is Chalmers can you point me at where he says this? I'll be interested if he has moved from his earlier position. (Not putting you on the spot, just interested in where Chalmers has got to on all this. I no longer follow his writings).
I wonder if @Zayl's 'purely hydrogen gas' can be sentient. I find it interesting that Erwin Schrodinger likens the mystics to the particles in a ideal gas.
I found this excerpt from the transcript. http://ttbook.org/book/mind-and-brain
Strangely enough, a chair has no sense of self.
It is not enlightened.
Can something exist without a capacity for Self?
Does a chair have awakening potential?
The enlightened chair? Wake up and smell the furniture polish?
[no disrespect to any wooden tops]
It seems he has rather changed his position over time, which is an admirable thing, and now agrees with Penrose and McGinn.
What bothers me is that while he promotes consciousness to a theoretical primitive, in doing so he puts it on a list of other phenomena that we cannot explain. So maybe he hasn't changed his position by much.
(Digging around for Chalmers book...) Ah yes, here it is, in Chapter 8, This after an extensive discussion of "what is it like to be a thermostat?"