Before we can ask intelligent, falsifiable questions about consciousness we need a rigorous definition of what consciousness is. Personally I think the word is a vague term and that a rigorous definition is impossible. Therefore, if my hypothesis is true, we can not not scientifically investigate "consciousness" any more than we can scientifically investigate "divinity" or "spookiness." If you disagree with my hypothesis then I challenge you to define the term in a non-circular, objective way. My hypothesis is that consciousness is not an objective thing. It is merely an experience of the mind, thus it is an amorphous amalgam of feeling, memory, sensation, thought, embodiment.
Is Consciousness Everywhere?
61–70 of 230 posts
Re: Is Consciousness Everywhere?
#62I 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…
A good place to start, if you are a firm skeptic and not willing to even attempt faith or your own empirical experiences, is a book called Entangled Minds. There is not a single claim made in this book which does not have a reference to a proper peer-reviewed paper attached to it, iirc several hundred papers in all. It firmly supports consciousness being in at minimum earthworms, and probably even ,,lower,, creatures…
I have no doubt that lots of organisms are conscious, maybe even earthworms. And I certainly believe that I am!
My only point is that in the popular articles I've seen on consciousness, that discuss IIT, I have not, over many years, seen any description of a test of the theory, or even a statement of how it could be tested.
Re: Is Consciousness Everywhere?
#63This seems related to Conscious Realism and the conscious-agent thesis: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.0057... Both articles address the combination problem. However, the one I linked to goes into more detail about it and in fact addresses two separate combination problems: “The first is the combination of phenomenal experiences, i.e., of qualia. [...] The second problem is the combination of…
A powerful reminder of why I quit my philosophy degree after a year, thank you.
Re: Is Consciousness Everywhere?
#64I imagine my consciousness as a communion of all my cells... a central decision-making council, if you like.
If my cells are in conflict or disagreement about what action to take (which I presume they often are), my consciousness resolves this by taking a decision.
As such, I find it likely that this sense and experience of consciousness is shared by all, or almost all, multi-cellular organisms on the same evolutionary tree of life.
Re: Is Consciousness Everywhere?
#65Test
Re: Is Consciousness Everywhere?
#66I have one problem with consciousness is everywhere argument. Namely, if everything down to ants is conscious - how lucky are we to end up experiencing the world as humans? The chances are just too small for me to accept it at face value.
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…
This is a bit past me, I wouldn't define "reacts to light" as conscious. In that case my Roomba would be said to be conscious. To me it seems that one is either fully conscious (your definition of meta conscious) or isn't conscious. Otherwise I don't even see what this "consciousness is everywhere" statement would accomplish.
Re: Is Consciousness Everywhere?
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
Burden of proof generally isn't on the skeptic.
I think there is a difference between a proof and the refutation of an argument. I expect proofs from scientific theories, and if a theory of consciousness would posit itself as scientific, I would be in perfect agreement with you that proofs or testable predictions should be provided. But I think here we are well into philosophy grounds, where neither proofs nor predictions are required. If that is the case, a philo…
The author of TFA disagrees with you: "Most importantly, though, IIT is a scientific theory, unlike panpsychism."
Re: Is Consciousness Everywhere?
#68I 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…
A good place to start, if you are a firm skeptic and not willing to even attempt faith or your own empirical experiences, is a book called Entangled Minds. There is not a single claim made in this book which does not have a reference to a proper peer-reviewed paper attached to it, iirc several hundred papers in all. It firmly supports consciousness being in at minimum earthworms, and probably even ,,lower,, creatures…
How about a single neuron? After all, a single neuron is far more complex than a worm—just like a company is far less complex than the people who compose it.
Re: Is Consciousness Everywhere?
#69I 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…
A good place to start, if you are a firm skeptic and not willing to even attempt faith or your own empirical experiences, is a book called Entangled Minds. There is not a single claim made in this book which does not have a reference to a proper peer-reviewed paper attached to it, iirc several hundred papers in all. It firmly supports consciousness being in at minimum earthworms, and probably even ,,lower,, creatures…
I am a non-materialist and I think consciousness is not a thing. So there's that position too. What do humans, mammals and earthworms have in common that AI or robots do not (as yet?) I would not say it is consciousness (because my position is there is really no such thing) but rather they have in common the fact that they are alive and subject to the Darwinian replication program and guided by common mental processes like, thought, emotion, memory, proprioception, sensation.
By non-materialist I mean I do not see matter as distinct from information. I believe the only thing that exists is information. What is information? It is structure and meaning and pattern and potential. Information is entwined with entropy.
Re: Is Consciousness Everywhere?
#70Before we can ask intelligent, falsifiable questions about consciousness we need a rigorous definition of what consciousness is. Personally I think the word is a vague term and that a rigorous definition is impossible. Therefore, if my hypothesis is true, we can not not scientifically investigate "consciousness" any more than we can scientifically investigate "divinity" or "spookiness." If you disagree with my hypoth…
Well, remember, we can't even rigorously define something like "life". Doesn't mean we can't scientifically investigate it.