Freewill exists

I accept that animals and plants and maybe even bacteria have consciousness because they are all biological organisms
I would even accept that it could also exist elsewhere but not until any empirical evidence actually demonstrates this

Sometimes language can be confusing in relation to this :

Physicists talk about stars dying when they can no longer convert hydrogen into helium
The implication here is that while they are capable of doing this they are actually alive

They may very well be so but is this actually the exact same type of alive that animals are ?
Stars are very dynamic and energetic but they are not actually conscious as we are are they ?

The same language is used about the Universe in relation to heat death
Again the implication is that before that happens it is very much alive

I am alive because I am conscious but is there a cut off point where I am not alive ?
Are the hydrogen and carbon atoms that I am made of also alive or are they dead ?

Where exactly does something become alive - the sub atomic level - atomic level - molecular level - cell level - protein level ?
Is this even a valid question to be asking or is it as equally unanswerable as how many angels can dance on the head of a pin ?

And what about machines of the future that will be able to pass a Turing Test - will they be conscious ?
I do think it is inevitable that artificial intelligence will be regarded as such at some point in the future

But do we think there is consciousness and non consciousness simply because we like to put all of our definitions into nice neat little boxes ?
For do we not understand by now that our mapping of reality is not the same as actual reality but instead is merely an approximation of it ?

I made a mistake in this post because I was too lazy to deal with the fallout. For a shaman, there is no problem talking about the “billiard ball spirit”; that they communicate with this.

Let me ask you a question to this regard, how do you know that the billiard balls are not controlling US! To be moved to where they want to be moved to?

And again! We know for a scientific fact, that we are using neurons to decide how we want neurons fire.

What’s interesting about this exchange is that I dropped a good 5 arguments or so in this thread to move to this one, but silhouette considers this defeat, no! I can still defend those arguments with more content, I just decided to move on.

Hold this thread in it’s entirety in your head and ask yourself if silhouette demolished it.

Because like any classical object they move according to Newtons Three Laws Of Motion
And they have to obey these laws as they cannot just move anywhere that they want to

We are not really conscious of neurons when we are doing any deep thinking though
We focus on what it is we are thinking about not the mechanics behind that process

buzzer sounds

Wrong answer surreptitious75!

Next contestant please!

You have ZERO way of knowing that!

They may not be able to move in a way the WE think of as independent, BUT! As a different species, the only way they can move is to control us!

And our thinking outside the mechanics of it solves as the same, we are using our will to determine our will.

Now we have the tools to say that even at the mechanical level, we are using neurons to determine how we want neurons to function.

Billiard balls are inanimate objects not a different species [ whatever that means ]
So stop attributing mental capabilities to things that have no capacity for free will

You have lived a quite sheltered life. Aren’t you the same one who thinks that if we cease to exist, that we can exist right now? (Contradiction) (that We die in totality at brain death?)

So because I do not think that billiard balls are conscious I must have lived a sheltered life ?
What a ridiculous non sequitur - you seem to be rather good at them - they your speciality ?
You have an interesting relationship with reality Ecmandu if you really believe what you say

I think death is simply a transition from consciousness to non consciousness and nothing more
But everything dies including the Universe - you might have heard of this thing called entropy

Every shaman who has ever lived in planet earth not only believes but operates their entire life under the knowledge that every object has its own spirit.

Like them, I have seen it.

Yes, you exist in a very narrow bandwidth of life knowledge.

Children know this too, but they have it beaten out of them by “education”

If the universe dies, you right now, being a subset of the universe, couldn’t possibly be here.

Did you ever think of that?

As we engage in this, I am expanding your consciousness, school took it from you.

I do not use the imaginations of shamen to inform me of my understanding of reality
So do you have any actual evidence for panpsychism or are you just babbling as usual

How about the imagination of every child born on earth, including you?

The Universe will eventually die though it will still exist in a physical state
It just wont be able to produce any atoms at a fraction above absolute zero
So it will therefore be nothing more than a vacuum of near virtual emptiness

You’re a subset of you dying.

If YOU die at any point in the future, the subset of you now, your complete death, couldn’t possibly be here right now.

Did you ever think of that?

You appear to have convinced yourself that immortality is actually possible but you may be disappointed
I have no need for this belief because I have no fear of death and so will accept it when the time comes

I wanted to die eternally. Turns out that it’s not possible. Go figure. It sounded great to me, dying eternally, it was the force and only meaning of my life!!

With a billion times more power than you ever put into it!!!

Turns out, it’s impossible.

Man was I pissed!

Silhouette, I didn’t want this buried:

viewtopic.php?p=2729635#p2729635

There are many reasons to believe that things will not end with the heat death of the universe. Check out the popular, in physics, cosmologies. The fact that the universe sprang into existence or seemed to, in a radically anti-entropic event, indicates that the second law either does not hold always or is local or some other options.