Quote:
Originally Posted by TheLonelyChemist
That's the term our textbook used.
Edit : I originally said that "the ability to respond to stimulus" seems to be a part of consciousness, and it seems to be accurate. I think humans are the most conscious, but psychology isn't experimental physics so we still are going to have definitions rewritten in the coming decades.
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Whilst I have no evidence to regard the universe as I understand it, as sentient/conscious, I think an argument can be made to regard it as something able to respond to stimulus - at least in terms of it being a functioning system, that is capable of applying forces & capable of atrophying into a non-functioning inert system. Earth, it's inhabitants, solar system, other galaxies & everything else in the universe all appear to be parts of this functioning system (and for all we know the universe may make up some part of an even larger functioning system).
Interesting, if thoroughly unanswerable topic -
any of the suggestions in this thread could conceivably turn out to be accurate - we simply don't know at this point.