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Comment by 50656E6973 | Hacker News Reader

>"Does a rock have intentions?"

Didn't all organic life arise from inorganic molecular structures like rocks?

As a result of the theory of the big bang, molecular structures have progressively evolved in complexity, eventually becoming so complex that the boundaries of physics and chemistry are transcended into biology, life, and consciousness.

This suggests that "rocks" -- inorganic molecular structures -- indeed have "intentions" to the extent that they are primordial building blocks of consciousness

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Please don't say things like this, the theory of the big bang says no such thing at all. What it says is how the universe expanded from a very high-density and high-temperature state.

There are entirely separate theories to explain how that matter, after it arose, interacts with itself to give rise to chemistry. Then there is the origin of life, which is another problem. And then we get to evolution, which is how the initial life modified itself to become the species we have today. And then we have a bunch of other theories that explain how the brain operates.

Any one of these theories could be wrong, but that wouldn't invalidate any of the other ones. Some of them we have much more data and certainty on then others. But the only people that talk as if they were the same thing are creationists, not scientists.

>But the only people that talk as if they were the same thing are creationists, not scientists.

What do you mean, "the same thing"?

Are you implying the evolution of matter into chemistry into life into consciousness is not an interconnected process?

It is probably interconnected, but it would be a darn shame if all of our data on how suns are created gets "invalidated" by pop sci articles if we find data that changes our origins of the universe theory.

Good job proving the parent's point. This line of reasoning is such a waste of everyone's time.

Just because it's hard to define the lines between inorganic life, simple life, and sentient life, it doesn't mean there's no distinction.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuum_fallacy

Why did you interpet what I said as meaning there is no distinction between different forms of matter/life?

> inorganic life, simple life, and sentient life

... and prescient life. Don't forget the next stage on from sentience. The line between sentience and prescience also seems blurred, given how many humans nowadays report having flashes of the future.

We usually call it "imagination". Not always exact though

Um... what?

Not sure why you got down voted. You can use words like intention if you define your terms. Also, people are studying now rocks turned to life.

The real question is not consciousness, but why the laws of physics are perfectly tuned for its existence.

There's no reason to think that the laws of physics are "perfectly" tuned for consciousness. This could be the universe where there's a trillion-to-one shot of its evolving, and we beat the odds.

The Anthropic Principle rightly points out that the question of "why does the universe support life" is fundamentally circular.

Who is suggesting that consciousness is completely dependent on having "the laws of physics perfectly tuned"? Obviously there are other conditions outside the scope of just physics that must be met to foster life

The comment to which I was replying?

In other words, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panpsychism

A rock never hated me

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