>>10876984i didn't read that beyond the abstract, and i think basically the idea is that "consciousness" is an "emergent phenomenon". many people say this same thing. Murray Gell-Mann was a big guy to say that not only human consciousness is an emergent phenomenon, but so is culture and so is society and so is economics
keep in mind that a superconductor or a ferromagnet or a bose-einstein condensate are all "states of matter" that doesn't imply any new magical woo going on. they are just emergent phenomenon from our 4 accepted forces. unexpected as they may be, they follow naturally from how we know shit works already, just in very detailed and intricate ways.
if tegmark wants to say consciousness is like superconductivity, then fine. that takes the woo out of it in some way. but if he's using using that as a "woooaaaaah keeeewwwwllll muh scientist tells me magic is real" shill (which it seems he is) it's obviously another case of him trying to "flex" (i.e. dishonestly misrepresent) real physics as supporting nonscientific stuff, which it doesnt, and he secretly doesnt, he just wants to sell books to people he can trick with elaborate suggestive wording that can be easily misconstrued
thank you for pointing out that article. i used to think tegmark was at least respectable in his scientific publications, but this one shows that his con-artist woo even penetrates to his arxiv publications
