> If you’re a materialist, you probably think that rabbits are conscious.
Can anyone explain this please? I don’t understand.
If Materialism Is True, the United States Is Probably Conscious (2015)
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Re: If Materialism Is True, the United States Is Probably Conscious (2015)
#32> If you’re a materialist, you probably think that rabbits are conscious. Can anyone explain this please? I don’t understand.
Materialists believe that what you can see and plainly interact with is what’s real, that there is no metaphysical ghost juice powering consciousness.
Re: If Materialism Is True, the United States Is Probably Conscious (2015)
#33Am I the only one who thinks that this essay appears to be mocking materialism by making a far fetched argument?
Probably not.
But the argument is not in fact a reductio ad absurdum. This is par for the course in contemporary philosophy of mind.
This author, as he mentions in the conclusion, has argued that all metaphysics of mind will have bizarre consequences according to our ordinary understanding. He remains uncommitted to whether or not the argument in question shows that the U.S. is conscious, or that materialism is false.
Re: If Materialism Is True, the United States Is Probably Conscious (2015)
#34I think groups of people are conscious in a sense. When I say conscious I'll use a definition where consciousness is the behavior of a physical system that is:
* directional/goal oriented
* exhibits higher order patterns / behaviors which are greater than the sum of its parts.
A riot would probably be the easiest example to start with. You get a group of mildly angry people together and they can become enraged and do things they wouldn't normally do. Not only that, the anger of the group can rise and fall together. It's like people synchronize with each other and the riot becomes this living agent of chaos. Basically a human is a higher order pattern on top of cells and biochemistry while a group of people can exhibit higher order patterns like a riot.
When you get to the nation state level you can see higher order patterns as well. For example the BLM protests. A single even triggered this burst of goal -oriented activity among millions of disparate individuals like a wildfire. Or it's like the country, not just the people in the country but the country itself, became enraged.
And I'm not just talking about protests and riots that's just an example. If you look at history, there are lots of other examples of collective, higher-order, goal-oriented activity at the nation state level. Groups building cities or opening up areas to farming or setting up trade networks or going to war. Sometimes these actions are based on the will of one person like a king but other times they are the result of thousands of individuals coordinating autonomously.
Re: If Materialism Is True, the United States Is Probably Conscious (2015)
#35I am not familiar with this topic, so of course there is something I don't understand: I don't understand how the United States is reasonably bounded for this example. I'm bounded by my body, which travels together. I can communicate with others, temporarily, but then we separate and I am again alone to some degree. The United States is always in communication with other countries, it is never alone, so what are its…
You appear bounded when examined at a macroscopic level but you aren't really. You constantly have skin cells sloughing off into the air (is that you?) and you're filled with bacterial cells that are not genetically related to you (are they you?). Not to mention half-digested food.
Re: If Materialism Is True, the United States Is Probably Conscious (2015)
#36I have little doubt it is. The question is how do we actually contact it (obviously contacting an ambassador, a president or any other person is not the same).
I don't think we'd ever be able to, unfortunately. The difference between us and the theoretical United States super-consciousness is probably as different as our own consciousness and the cells we're composed of. Communication in either direction is impossible.
Re: If Materialism Is True, the United States Is Probably Conscious (2015)
#37The author has perhaps overlooked CAP theorem. Consciousness requires both consistency and high-availability, thus it can't arise in situations of partitioned networks. Brains (or, at least, most healthy brains) are unpartitioned. But any given community of brains is at best intermittently connected: I wave to my neighbour, then my neighbour disappears from sight. I call my parents on the phone, then the phonecall te…
There are times when my brain is neither consistent nor available for certain data. I conclude that these are not requirements for consciousness.
Re: If Materialism Is True, the United States Is Probably Conscious (2015)
#38I think groups of people are conscious in a sense. When I say conscious I'll use a definition where consciousness is the behavior of a physical system that is: * directional/goal oriented * exhibits higher order patterns / behaviors which are greater than the sum of its parts. A riot would probably be the easiest example to start with. You get a group of mildly angry people together and they can become enraged and do…
I don't know what it means to define consciousness without self awareness. Sounds like just emergent behaviors.
Re: If Materialism Is True, the United States Is Probably Conscious (2015)
#39The author has perhaps overlooked CAP theorem. Consciousness requires both consistency and high-availability, thus it can't arise in situations of partitioned networks. Brains (or, at least, most healthy brains) are unpartitioned. But any given community of brains is at best intermittently connected: I wave to my neighbour, then my neighbour disappears from sight. I call my parents on the phone, then the phonecall te…
I don't know about you, but my consciousness availability is a lot closer to nine fives than it is five nines.
Re: If Materialism Is True, the United States Is Probably Conscious (2015)
#40From the abstract it sounds like the author here is drawing a false equivalence between consciousness and intelligence. Reading more into the article, it really sounds like this is the case. More specifically, it sounds like the only connection between intelligence and consciousness comes out of some pretty strained definition usage. Digging deeper, the issue I see with this essay is that to accept the end conclusion…
I think it’s even more complicated than you lay out. There are so many ways to exist on this earth and many of those ways approach consciousness or intelligence “but different”. We could say the brain is conscious but what about all the unconscious influences it apparently receives from gut flora? And gut flora are affected by what we eat and our culture. So where do we draw the line? Are you sad today because of bra…
You've made a lot of interesting points, but I disagree with you, let me try to explain why.
I'm generally of the understanding that consciousness is marked by being with reflexivity. That can definitely be applied to non-biological, not classically living entities.
That being said, I deeply disagree with your idea that "any dichotomous distinction between conscious and non-conscious [...] systems on Earth falls apart upon closer inspection". I don't think there's any compelling way to argue this in a way which is coherent, and does not involve breaking down the meanings of words to the point where they become meaningless. This is mostly why I disagree with the author. I find that on close inspection, their argument becomes nonsense in a lot of places. The way the definitions are strained render a lot of them meaningless, and as a result we can't reason with them anymore. That being said, a lot of these words are then used to infer other conclusions.
Your argument, to me, really implies that intelligence necessitates reflexive being, or another interpretation: is synonymous with consciousness. "The sheet could be assigned a kind of consciousness as it seems to be self-modifying" is one example where I see this inference. Simply because something is self modifying does not mean that it is conscious, this to me comes off as a false equivalency. Further, saying that "there is certainly something “like being” slime mold" does not mean that that being also has reflexivity.
I see the points you're making, and you've got a lot of interesting ideas for sure. That being said, I think you've fallen into a similar trap as the author in drawing a false equivalency in a few places.