I don't consider them to be "assumptions" at all. I derived at this hypothesis by logical deduction.

How you arrived at you conclusion is irrelevant. It's still an assumption without evidence.

No, it is an hypothesis which cannot be dis-proven.

In science, assumptions are made all the time. If they can make assumptions, then so can I.

I arrived at my hypothesis by way of logical reasoning.

A hypothesis is also an assumption. And you're right, a negative cannot be proven. Therefore, it would be up to you to prove that carrots are in fact conscious.

By the way, A hypothesis (plural hypotheses) is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon.

It is NOT an assumption.

Are we really going to argue semantics? Very well, since the hypothesis is unproven it is an assumption.

Go right ahead and present your logical argument. I'll stand back and give you some room.

Everything we know is an assumption based on the evidence we have. A long time ago, people saw the sun move across the sky. Based on this they assumed the sun revolved around the earth. It seemed self evident. Now, we have better evidence that proves that hypothesis wrong. Based on what we now assume to be true, we assume the earth revolves around the sun. But, some new, unforeseen evidence may come to light and blow that theory out of the water too. Although I don't think it's likely.

You're right that a hypothesis is different from an assumption. A hypothesis leads one to making assumptions.

I am curious about what makes you believe all life is conscious. But, I may not be able to find out for a while because in a few hours I'm getting back on the truck and headed to I don't know where.

Okay, I can agree that consciousness does exist. I can agree that there are different levels of consciousness and some life forms are more conscious than others and also my be conscious of different things.

However, I have to draw the line at lifeforms that don't have a brain or at least a nervous system. A single celled creature may be self aware (this is me and that is not), but conscious? I'm having a hard time with that.

Furthermore, Things that are not alive (rocks, water, fire, clay, etc.) cannot even be self aware.

But, this raises a question in my mind. Do you think dead things that were once alive conscious? You know, after the "soul" has left.

In my modest opinion:

While it is true that consciousness is a phenomenon in it self it can not be deny that our mind (in the abstract sense) it is attached to a physical support (the brain). All that we are, our opinions, our knowledge, our feelings banish when the brain dies because our conscience can not exist out of the physical plane.

There for, even while consciousness can be understood as "stand alone" sort of phenomenon to a certain degree, it still is affected by the brain chemistry... it stills needs the neurons synapses to transmits its ideas...which synapses on its own way are just electrical transmissions there for can be affected by millions of different things, including environmental phenomenon. So it would seem that "will" it is shackled to natural things, which we can not control. So our will would not be truly free, at least not a 100%...where can we draw the line? its hard to say.

It certainly feels like one of those subjects in which you can form an opinion but not knowledge (from a Kantian point of view of knowledge).

Regardless, from a more practical approach the discussion seems to become pointless...since we like it or not "free will" plays an irreplaceable roll in our social constructions... with out it, all our legal systems would collapse.

So at the end, even if it turns out that there is not such thing as "free will", it becomes a necessary social construction due to the way we have build our interactions.

All that we are, our opinions, our knowledge, our feelings banish when the brain dies because our conscience can not exist out of the physical plane.

“British mathematician Roger Penrose has proposed a model that accounts for subjective, conscious experience in terms of quantum-gravitational events. And the mechanism he proposes might characterize the inner workings of stars as well as the inner workings of brains.

In contrast to those who advocate emergent models, Penrose proposes that consciousness is fundamental to the physical world. Like the philosopher Whitehead, Penrose rejects the idea that consciousness per se is reducible to deterministic processes of biochemistry.

Noncomputability and Objective Reduction

In Penrose's physics of subjectivity, consciousness emerges from the complexity of brain activity only in the sense in which water emerges from the complexity of a well-digger's activity. Well digging doesn't reach a threshold of complexity beyond which water spontaneously appears. Diggers tap existing water and figure out how to bring it to the surface. Biological evolution has figured out how to tap consciousness and bring it to the surface.

The so-called Penrose-Hameroff model of consciousness, developed by Penrose in collaboration with University of Arizona anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff, grew out of Penrose's foray into the artificial intelligence (AI) debate. Proponents of "strong AI" propose that an arrangement of computer circuits sufficiently complex would acquire consciousness for the same reason that the complex circuitry of a human brain acquires consciousness. The strong AI argument regards consciousness as an emergent property of complex, high-speed computation.

Penrose dismisses in principle the argument that consciousness is reducible to computation, no matter how fast or complex. His argument hinges in part on the ability of human minds to discern the truth or falsity of certain mathematical propositions that cannot be proven true or false within the formal rules of mathematics. Presumably, a programmed computer, its program moving in lockstep with formalized rules of logic and mathematics, could not calculate, or apperceive, the truth or falsity of these types of mathematical statements. Their verification is noncomputable. They are not algorithmically verifiable. Therefore, if brains are complex computers, which is the model that currently dominates cognitive science, then mind must be more than brain. Or at least, mind must be more than the purely chemical activity of the brain, which constitutes the signal-processing circuitry that underlies the brain-as-computer model. Penrose concludes that quantum events, with their indeterminate character, rather than theoretically computable chemical events, are the more likely source of consciousness per se.”


Penrose dismisses in principle the argument that consciousness is reducible to computation, no matter how fast or complex. His argument hinges in part on the ability of human minds to discern the truth or falsity of certain mathematical propositions that cannot be proven true or false within the formal rules of mathematics. Presumably, a programmed computer, its program moving in lockstep with formalized rules of logic and mathematics, could not calculate, or apperceive, the truth or falsity of these types of mathematical statements. Their verification is noncomputable.

They are not algorithmically verifiable. Therefore, if brains are complex computers, which is the model that currently dominates cognitive science, then mind must be more than brain. Or at least, mind must be more than the purely chemical activity of the brain, which constitutes the signal-processing circuitry that underlies the brain-as-computer model. Penrose concludes that quantum events, with their indeterminate character, rather than theoretically computable chemical events, are the more likely source of consciousness per se.”