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Is Consciousness Everywhere?

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Re: Is Consciousness Everywhere?

#41

Post by jstanley »

kkoncevicius wrote: post #28
jstanley wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you clarify? You find the probability that you are human, conditional on already being human, to be too small to accept?

Not quite - I find the hypothesis for "consciousness is everywhere" to be too hard to accept based on the observation that I ended up as human (assuming that humans are somehow "higher" than other being of course). Or stated a bit fancier - the p-value of the null "consciousness is everywhere" is astronomically small, given this observation of me ending up as a human.

But you can forget consciousness and ask the same question.

The chances that the matter you're made of ended up making you is astronomically small compared to it just being random space dust or something. And yet it happened.

I think it's just selection bias.

Re: Is Consciousness Everywhere?

#42

Post by namero999 »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #27
namero999 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An easy resolution of this doubt lays in definition. Do not mix up phenomenal consciousness with meta-consciousness or self-referential consciousness. Clearly, only humans are meta-conscious. Homo sapiens-sapiens, the man who knows that knows. It's our defining characteristic and leads to all sorts of amazing things are we can witness. Mere phenomenal consciousness is anywhere _in living creatures_ so that even a bac…

> Clearly, only humans are meta-conscious. I like how you clearly define these differences. But tow do you know other creatures are not meta-conscious?

Short answer: no other creature has developed complex languages, written books or made art.

Long answer: there is a plausible argument that consciousness might be a gradient. Certain creatures might express some level of meta consciousness, yet still far from what humans can do. For instance, elephants, primates or even just a dog might express some sort of empathy or more subtle mental states that do not equate with the experience itself, which would be mere phenomenal consciousness, but they do not appear to articulate to themselves those mental states and do anything more than simple reactions with those states.

Ultimately the claim comes from empirical observations: there's an immense evolutionary gap between humans and everything else, so that we can plausibly claim that we are the only fully meta-conscious creatures.

Re: Is Consciousness Everywhere?

#43

Post by jbotz »

geophile wrote: post #12

I have been hearing about Koch, and Tononi, and panpsychism, and phi for years now, in these articles summarizing consciousness for laymen, (a group that includes me). And these very long articles bloviate but never go any further than giving a facile description of phi, claiming that this IIT "theory" is testable, and then not saying how it could be tested. The articles from five years ago and this one seem intercha…

Don't "call bullshit" because you can't personally see how to falsify a theory by reading some popularized science articles. There are real papers with math behind these claims, and when you've read them and at least tried to understand the math, then you can call bullshit if you still think so.

Re: Is Consciousness Everywhere?

#44

Post by hntrader »

KingFelix wrote: post #3

From what I remember Koch and Tononi measure consciousness in Phi ( and phi is complexity) I remember a conversation at Towards a Science of Consciousness conference about this. If Phi is measured in complexity you could make a glass window complex and that is conscious. Also during Tononi's talk a guy walked through the isle and said something along the lines of 'Phi is the answer, Phi is god, Tononi is our savior'…

  "If Phi is measured in complexity you could make a glass window complex and that is conscious."
If true, that sounds like a reductio ad absurdum of the hypothesis.

Re: Is Consciousness Everywhere?

#45

Post by geophile »

namero999 wrote: post #30
meepmorp wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree, and would only point out that the ability to get far on properly calibrated bullshit is a well established phenomenon throughout human history.

But then the onus is on those who sense it to point out said bullshit.

See above. TFA claims that IIT is testable, but does not say anthing at all about a test that has been published, a test that has been done, a test that some research group is doing, a test that is being considered, a test that could be done given some scientific or technological development. Nothing.

Re: Is Consciousness Everywhere?

#46

Post by skindoe »

geophile wrote: post #12

I have been hearing about Koch, and Tononi, and panpsychism, and phi for years now, in these articles summarizing consciousness for laymen, (a group that includes me). And these very long articles bloviate but never go any further than giving a facile description of phi, claiming that this IIT "theory" is testable, and then not saying how it could be tested. The articles from five years ago and this one seem intercha…

You should read Consciousness by Anaka Harris it's short read that may help you understand the position a bit better.

Re: Is Consciousness Everywhere?

#47

Post by seph-reed »

tgv wrote: post #25

By what possible commonly agreed upon definition could consciousness be equal to experience? The only result of accepting that definition would be having to invent a new name for what I (and I believe many with me) call consciousness, as badly defined as it is. To put it in the words of Syndrome: if everything is conscious, nothing is.

This seems like another one of those debates where there's a spectrum and a bunch of people disagree about where on that spectrum it's okay to use a certain word.

Re: Is Consciousness Everywhere?

#48

Post by driggs »

I've long pondered the idea that consciousness is inherent to all "things" - animal, vegetable, mineral; atom, planet, solar system - in that things experience _being_, whatever that means for a given thing.

A recent oral surgery gave this hypothesis pause. I was given Propofol as an anesthetic, and upon awakening had an extremely impactful existential experience. My very consciousness had been extinguished, instantly, as if by a lightswitch, and for 45 minutes there was nothing but oblivion.

If consciousness is inherent to being, then how could it so easily be nullified to the point of oblivion, and then brought back online?

Re: Is Consciousness Everywhere?

#49

Post by geophile »

jbotz wrote: post #43
geophile wrote: post #12

I have been hearing about Koch, and Tononi, and panpsychism, and phi for years now, in these articles summarizing consciousness for laymen, (a group that includes me). And these very long articles bloviate but never go any further than giving a facile description of phi, claiming that this IIT "theory" is testable, and then not saying how it could be tested. The articles from five years ago and this one seem intercha…

Don't "call bullshit" because you can't personally see how to falsify a theory by reading some popularized science articles. There are real papers with math behind these claims, and when you've read them and at least tried to understand the math, then you can call bullshit if you still think so.

I am not qualified to do so.

The existence of "real papers with math behind thest claims" is sort of irrelevant. IIT is being proposed as a scientific theory, and the author of TFA claims that IIT is testable, but he has not said anything about actual testing. I cannot judge the math, and I doubt that I could judge a scientific paper describing a test. I'm simply asking: Is there any actualy testing, completed or in progress? TFA did not make such a claim.

Re: Is Consciousness Everywhere?

#50

Post by dr_dshiv »

We all start as single cells. When does the consciousness fairy come and turn the global workspace on? When neurons fire? Because no emergent property seems powerful enough to produce feeling — and because both sheep and snails seem to have different levels of feeling—i subscribe to the panpsychic view. For now.
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