Cycles and Sentience

[Shock and Awe]

Catchy title right? Anyway, this idea popped into my head while I was watching this video [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OFThORmR-s] on youtube.The idea is that the universe is completely based on cycles and that sentience can possibly be measured by how a species/entity can interfere, harness, and in later stages; create cycles.

The reason I believe that the universe can possibly be based in cycles is that when you look at almost any process that we know of, it happens in cycles. Whether it is the water cycle and nitrogen cycle here on earth, the life cycle of stars, or even the life cycle of the universe itself(if the Big Bounce theory [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bounce] actually holds water). Everything can be seen as just another part of the overall cycle, even human lives are completely dominated by cycles, such as the sleep cycle, and the eating cycle(just made that term up) We even made artificial cycles that govern our life, such as that seen in government.

On to the main point of my idea, the way cycles can determine how sentient a species/entity is, or how much they can perceive. Lets take for example a simple animal, such as a rat. It is dominated by almost every cycle, while higher species can dominate some cycles while being dominated by other cycles. This way of defining sentient could also possibly be used to define what a god is. A god would have dominance over all cycles in the universe, thus would be at the highest lever of sentience.

Please tell me what you think of this idea and feel free to point out any flaws, that is after all how we improve on these things. Please keep in mind this is a bare bones skeleton of the idea and will probably be filled out later.

 

[Kortney]

I'm not smart enough to deal with specifics, but didn't the bad guys from Mass Effect explain how the cycles work?

 

[teisjm]

Seeing as we, humanity as a whole, have the power to stop the cycles of earth. (we could nuke the shit out of Earth itself, if we we're stupid enough) That would make us gods of our world.

We can also influence a lot of the cycles, both directly and indirectly. Global warminig is an example if indirect incidental influence on some of the cycles.

 

[gbemery]

We can also influence a lot of the cycles, both directly and indirectly. Global warminig is an example if indirect incidental influence on some of the cycles.

could you clarify what you mean by that? Are you just stating that we can influence cycles or are you trying to go somewhere else with it? Another example would be if I kicked someone in the face while they were sleeping, rather mean as it is, it too would interfere with a cycle, their sleep cycle.

 

[teisjm]

We can also influence a lot of the cycles, both directly and indirectly. Global warminig is an example if indirect incidental influence on some of the cycles.

could you clarify what you mean by that? Are you just stating that we can influence cycles or are you trying to go somewhere else with it? Another example would be if I kicked someone in the face while they were sleeping, rather mean as it is, it too would interfere with a cycle, their sleep cycle.

I'm making my points by assuming the OP is right.

What i'm trying to say is, we can influence cycles, we could influence all teh cycles of our own home, Earth. So given the OP's definitions we're (combined, not indepently) basicly gods of the Earth. Maybe only demi-gods, cause we can't influence everything in every way, only in some ways.

Take global warming for insatcne, we can't seem to pull our act togeather and stop it. But if we wanted to, we could prolly, stupid as it might be, go the otehr way pretty easily, and tear up the ozon layer completely. This would drasticly change the way the Earth worked. The bigge rthe greenhouse effect the biggr the global warming. sowhile we can't stop global warming, we can push it in the other direction, and make the earth a really hot place.

 

[Aunel]

wow, this is some deep stuff,

I'll write a song about it

actually I have no idea what you are talking about, can you make it a bit clearer for the retards and me?

 

[gbemery]

We can also influence a lot of the cycles, both directly and indirectly. Global warminig is an example if indirect incidental influence on some of the cycles.

could you clarify what you mean by that? Are you just stating that we can influence cycles or are you trying to go somewhere else with it? Another example would be if I kicked someone in the face while they were sleeping, rather mean as it is, it too would interfere with a cycle, their sleep cycle.

I'm making my points by assuming the OP is right.

What i'm trying to say is, we can influence cycles, we could influence all teh cycles of our own home, Earth. So given the OP's definitions we're (combined, not indepently) basicly gods of the Earth. Maybe only demi-gods, cause we can't influence everything in every way, only in some ways.

Take global warming for insatcne, we can't seem to pull our act togeather and stop it. But if we wanted to, we could prolly, stupid as it might be, go the otehr way pretty easily, and tear up the ozon layer completely. This would drasticly change the way the Earth worked. The bigge rthe greenhouse effect the biggr the global warming. sowhile we can't stop global warming, we can push it in the other direction, and make the earth a really hot place.

okay, I thought I felt more behind that post. I agree that using that line of logic with the OP's definitions then I would agree that as a race we could probably be defined as demi-gods on some level. But then the talk of cycles brings up the question of, if true, how many cycles has the universe gone through (is this the first or 10 billionth) and how far could one get technologically and chronologically before the end of one cycle and start of the next (important for a god if he/she wanted to survive the end of a cycle or dare I say...'recycle', sorry bad pun.) Because if one were in the OP's true sense of a god, by his definitions, then they could stop the cycle of the universe beginning and ending and from there control literally the fate of the universe. There by having dominion over everything right?

 

[teisjm]

Spoiler

We can also influence a lot of the cycles, both directly and indirectly. Global warminig is an example if indirect incidental influence on some of the cycles.

could you clarify what you mean by that? Are you just stating that we can influence cycles or are you trying to go somewhere else with it? Another example would be if I kicked someone in the face while they were sleeping, rather mean as it is, it too would interfere with a cycle, their sleep cycle.

I'm making my points by assuming the OP is right.

What i'm trying to say is, we can influence cycles, we could influence all teh cycles of our own home, Earth. So given the OP's definitions we're (combined, not indepently) basicly gods of the Earth. Maybe only demi-gods, cause we can't influence everything in every way, only in some ways.

Take global warming for insatcne, we can't seem to pull our act togeather and stop it. But if we wanted to, we could prolly, stupid as it might be, go the otehr way pretty easily, and tear up the ozon layer completely. This would drasticly change the way the Earth worked. The bigge rthe greenhouse effect the biggr the global warming. sowhile we can't stop global warming, we can push it in the other direction, and make the earth a really hot place.

okay, I thought I felt more behind that post. I agree that using that line of logic with the OP's definitions then I would agree that as a race we could probably be defined as demi-gods on some level. But then the talk of cycles brings up the question of, if true, how many cycles has the universe gone through (is this the first or 10 billionth) and how far could one get technologically and chronologically before the end of one cycle and start of the next (important for a god if he/she wanted to survive the end of a cycle or dare I say...'recycle', sorry bad pun.) Because if one were in the OP's true sense of a god, by his definitions, then they could stop the cycle of the universe beginning and ending and from there control literally the fate of the universe. There by having dominion over everything right?

If by the OP's definition there was a god of the universe, he would be able to controll the cycles, and start/stop/pause/alter them as he saw fit. Just tlike the christian/jewish/islamic god, who is omnipotent.

 

[gbemery]

Spoiler

We can also influence a lot of the cycles, both directly and indirectly. Global warminig is an example if indirect incidental influence on some of the cycles.

could you clarify what you mean by that? Are you just stating that we can influence cycles or are you trying to go somewhere else with it? Another example would be if I kicked someone in the face while they were sleeping, rather mean as it is, it too would interfere with a cycle, their sleep cycle.

I'm making my points by assuming the OP is right.

What i'm trying to say is, we can influence cycles, we could influence all teh cycles of our own home, Earth. So given the OP's definitions we're (combined, not indepently) basicly gods of the Earth. Maybe only demi-gods, cause we can't influence everything in every way, only in some ways.

Take global warming for insatcne, we can't seem to pull our act togeather and stop it. But if we wanted to, we could prolly, stupid as it might be, go the otehr way pretty easily, and tear up the ozon layer completely. This would drasticly change the way the Earth worked. The bigge rthe greenhouse effect the biggr the global warming. sowhile we can't stop global warming, we can push it in the other direction, and make the earth a really hot place.

okay, I thought I felt more behind that post. I agree that using that line of logic with the OP's definitions then I would agree that as a race we could probably be defined as demi-gods on some level. But then the talk of cycles brings up the question of, if true, how many cycles has the universe gone through (is this the first or 10 billionth) and how far could one get technologically and chronologically before the end of one cycle and start of the next (important for a god if he/she wanted to survive the end of a cycle or dare I say...'recycle', sorry bad pun.) Because if one were in the OP's true sense of a god, by his definitions, then they could stop the cycle of the universe beginning and ending and from there control literally the fate of the universe. There by having dominion over everything right?

If by the OP's definition there was a god of the universe, he would be able to controll the cycles, and start/stop/pause/alter them as he saw fit. Just tlike the christian/jewish/islamic god, who is omnipotent.

agreed