[csomar]

The hypothesis is worthy of pursuit, in my opinion. The article is not well written, however. If you say matter can't have consciousness then how does your brain have one? Your brain in made of matter.

There are definitively varying degrees of consciousness and self-awareness. I don't think that someone who is an 1. atheist 2. knows that consciousness is made by the brain neurons or some processes; has the same self-awareness as someone who is 1. religious and 2. thinks he has a soul.

Look at living creature. Look at a cell. It is a living thing but it is made by much fewer atoms and molecules than the human body. It is interesting to watch what we consider "dead matter" being alive. They are both matter and atoms at the end of day.

Is a cell trying to survive its environment inside the human body conscious? Is a human trying to survive its environment inside the country/system conscious? Is a country trying to survive its environment inside planet earth conscious?

[_Schizotypy]

Your brain has consciousness because of the networking of the neurons that make it up

[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

How many neurons does it take to make a consciousness?

The thing about consciousness is that you can't really define it. You know you have it because you experience it. You assume that other humans have it because they are like you. You might further assume that certain other beings have it because they are also like you in many ways (though you'd likely disagree with the idea that theirs is as meaningful as yours).

But you can't prove any of it. You can only say that certain things react to certain stimuli in certain ways, which describes everything in the universe. Is it really that much of a stretch, then, to suggest that perhaps everything in the universe has some form of awareness, some experience of things, albeit probably too different from our own to comprehend?

[jnurmine]

Perhaps consciousness is not a crisp yes/no choice but a gradient... Dolphins are conscious but to a degree less than humans, likewise mice less than dolphins and so on.

[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

Perhaps, and perhaps a person with Down's Syndrome has a lesser consciousness as well, but we have no way of knowing that. Personally I think it is pretty arrogant and shot-sighted of us to think that our experience of the universe is somehow better and more real than anything else's.

[_Schizotypy]

We don't know that yet, but there isn't functionality without the network

[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

How much functionality is required? Where is the line? Human beings can live and interact with the world with fully half of their brain removed. Are they conscious? What about Asplanchna brightwellii and its 200 or so neurons?

Here's my point: there is literally no measurement you can perform that will help you draw this line, because the experience of consciousness is entirely subjective.

[king_magic]

Why is it so incredible to think that consciousness couldn’t emerge from the brain? All sorts of complex phenomena emerge from plain old non-magical matter.

Why would matter be magically “conscious”? What possible physical mechanism could that magic be? (beside the absurdity of vibration, I suppose?)

[mvanvoorden]

What's absurd about vibration? Without vibration, there would be nothing. Nothing at all. Vibration is the foundation of all that there is and ever will be.

[king_magic]

Ugh. It’s not magic. Things vibrating together is not magic. This is a level of absurd reverence for a concept that’s as ridiculous as a magic sky god whose blood is also maybe wine.