Are Atoms aware? or Intelligent even?

[dlinkwit27]

1) To be alive the system must be able to reproduce. I personally have never seen or heard of any atom, quark, etc, spawning another of the same.

2) if it is not alive, it can not possibly be intelligent. For the sake of argument, let's assume that yes, the Atom is alive. Does that in turn denote intelligence? When we look at a plant, we know it is alive, but is a plant intelligent? That depends on how one defines 'intelligence.' Dictionary.com (which I believe is Websters, but I could be wrong, it makes no difference) defines it as:

• The capacity to acquire and apply knowledge.
• The faculty of thought and reason.

To combine those definitions one can arrive at a definition which says intelligence is:
the ability to receive and process information and react accordingly
Now let us look again at the plant. The plant sense's the sun, and the plant grows towards the sun. The plant also sends its roots into the ground. One could argue that the plant received the sun, and grew accordingly, and this, has intelligence, but this is where the definition becomes grey.

True as it may be that the plant grew accordingly, but what made it do so? It certainly did not process any information, did it? Does it have any reasoning ability? Most would say 'no, the plant grew that way because that is what plants do. Again, it is difficult to prove either way, but I do think most would say that the plant is not intelligent.

Either way, however, it matters not, as the atom is not alive, so to debate its intelligence is mute.

[MidnightViper88]

How am I so sure that my bedsheets or toilet paper is not aware themselves then?

Oh...I shudder at what they'd think of me...

[Sir_Ed]

Originally posted by squakMix
And how do we know that there arent tiny donkeys living in our water?
...because there's no reason to believe that.

Ah, but there being no reason to believe something does not automatically render it impossible.
Who says the things living in our water won't someday evolve into a bigger and better donkey and call itself Horse's Ass?

[MidnightViper88]

It hasn't happened for countless of billions of years since the creation of the universe...It ain't gonna happen how...

[xzxzzx]

Originally posted by dlinkwit27
True as it may be that the plant grew accordingly, but what made it do so? It certainly did not process any information, did it? Does it have any reasoning ability? Most would say 'no, the plant grew that way because that is what plants do. Again, it is difficult to prove either way, but I do think most would say that the plant is not intelligent.

Actually, from an entirely materialistic view of the universe, that's exactly the same as a human doing something - more complex, but, essencially, exactly the same.

[Smeggle]

wondering if I could maybe move this in a different direction. Most are getting hooked up in the anology of 'Life' or 'Living Entities' as a complex whole.

Move it back to Atoms and there constructional parts - then hook that with 'Frequency' and/or 'Resonance'.

here's an interesting statement;

'The Colour(color) of Sound' or should it be 'The Sound of Colour(color)'?

If 'Colour(color) is a sound - Then can colour(color) be made from sound?

btw some very interesting ideas and points - thanks for the input

~

[Mrs_Mia_Wallace]

I'm not really sure what you mean Smeggle but I know people who are Synesthetics - they see colors when they hear sounds etc, their senses are all mixed up...but that's not what you are referring to I think.

A color for me is light of a certain wavelength, not a sound, could you maybe specify your question?

Mia

[SSJ4 Gogitta]

In a way, colors are sounds, because as Mia said, colors are just frequencies on the electromagnetic spectrum. The spectrum runs from subsonic, sound, AM Radio waves, shortwave radio waves, FM radio and Television, Radar, to Microwaves, far IR (Infrared), IR, visable light (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indago, violet), UV (ultra violet), x-ray, gamma rays, cosmic rays.

the visable light spectrum runs from 384 THz to 769 THz (That's TERAherts. 1 THz = 1,000,000,000,000 hertz).

code:
Color  | Wavelength (nm) | Frequency (THz) 

Red    | 780 - 622       | 384 - 482 

Orange | 622 - 597       | 482 - 503 

Yellow | 597 - 577       | 503 - 520 

Green  | 577 - 492       | 520 - 610 

Blue   | 492 - 455       | 610 - 659 

Violet | 455 - 390       | 659 - 769

The thing with light though, is that the photon acts both as a wave and a particle (the particle being the carrier particle for electromagnetic interactions). This can be seen by shining a light through two very thin slits on a piece of cardboard, and looking at the resulting light pattern that shines through the slits.

Also, all objects absorb light. When you see something that has color to it, it is becuase a small part of the visable light wavelength is being reflected off of the surface, while the rest of the wavelengths are being absorbed. You see a shade of red on an object because that object may be reflecting the 660 nanometer wavelength, and absorbing the rest.

[Russ]

That's shit. Sound is not an electromagnetic wave, QED you are wrong .

[SSJ4 Gogitta]

Sound can be converted into electromagnetic energy and electromagnetic energy can be converted to sound. I see no reason why electromagnetic waves can't be seen as sound in that sense. Ever heard the hum of a power transmission line?

[Russ]

They can be converted to sound, that doesn't mean they ARE sound, far from it. Electromagnetic waves are electromagnetic energy, sound waves are kinetic energy.

For instance, the frequencies used for shore to submarine radio communication are the same as the audible frequency range, transmitted at ridiculously high power. Thankfully, we can't hear them, or we'd be hearing an awful 1kHz screeching all the time.

[mark]

there was something on the news a while back (or maybe it was in the breaking news forum here) about some color blind music student who got a nifty set of headphones that converted color to sound so that he could hear the color. twas nifty.

[Traffanstedt]

Originally Posted by Hydroxide76

I don't think it is physically possible for something without bodily organs, or a brain in the matter, to try to became "aware" of their surroundings, understand it, then react to it in their own specific way. They can't be that intellegent.

But then again I am proving myself wrong by saying we get infected with bacteria and viruses all the time that seemingly "know" where to attack, infect, and then produce inside the host. The issue of how the common cold is slowly becoming immune to most antibiotics because we are breeding a superbug that "learns" from the antibodies is an example.

Ok then... how do you explain jellyfish? A living, fully functional creature with no eyes, ears, brain, or heart. And marine biologists have found that these creatures don't just endlessly swim around with no purpose. So, if jellyfish are possible without brains or vital organs, then it's possible for an atom to be intelligent. Anything that reacts to something else have some sort of intelligence. Everything.

[BoomerBlammo]

Oh the things they must have seen if they are intelligent...

[gaekwad2]

Originally Posted by Traffanstedt

Ok then... how do you explain jellyfish? A living, fully functional creature with no eyes, ears, brain, or heart. And marine biologists have found that these creatures don't just endlessly swim around with no purpose. So, if jellyfish are possible without brains or vital organs, then it's possible for an atom to be intelligent. Anything that reacts to something else have some sort of intelligence. Everything.

If you extend your definition of intelligence to being affected by external influences which would a) not be a very useful definition and b) simply create a tautological argument.

Also, jellyfish still are an organism consisting of living cells that may not be as specialized as those in our nervous system but are capable of processing and transmitting information.

[Dachip]

From a human perspective probably not but, from some broader definition, maybe so?

[gaekwad2]

A perspective that includes spirits and the tooth fairy.