31–40 of 70 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You have to define “thoughts, emotions, sensations” and “complexity” first. Pain, for example, counts as all 3, and some would say it’s simple while others might call it complex.
Pain is strictly a physical sensation. It may however be triggered by thoughts or emotions. The three are rarely ever experienced in isolation.
Hard to tell that to those with lost limbs who suffer from ghost pain.
This seems to define consciousness as measurable by algorithmic determinism and limitation, which seems a complete non-sequitur. Seeing something as a biological robot need not necessarily imply anything at all about consciousness.
> Perhaps consciousness doesn’t come in degrees at all.
If I consider my altering states of awareness (awake & alert vs foggy vs dreaming) as degrees of consciousness, then yes it does. (But perhaps the question is really one of semantics.)
> Some people may be unable to articulate their inner life, but is there any doubt they feel intense, recognizable emotions? Does not water for them taste as it does to us, does not touch reassure, does not heat burn and ice freeze, do not their emotions swell and slosh within them?
I do doubt this (eta: at least in regards to animals; for humans, see comment about states of awareness above), for I see no evidence that any earthly creatures other than humans can actually reflect on their own feelings and therefore create an emotional feedback loop that serves to intensify emotions. (Granted, without the ability to communicate, or behave in a way that human intelligence can recognize as intelligent (the metrics for which are another rabbit hole), I'm not sure what such evidence would consist of.)
Anyway, without a concrete definition of consciousness, does something necessarily even need a brain to be considered conscious? What's to stop every feedback loop in existence from being conscious? Or, for that matter, every atom in the universe?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US breeds and slaughters 8 billion chickens a year. If you at all believe (not you personally OP, as the above punchline makes it obvious that you have the empathetic range of a thimble) that animals have a level of consciousness/agency similar to humans, you should consider if you want to continue to pay for their suffering for a 15 minute meal.
Just an observation: by this metric, bison meat is approximately 200 times more ethical than chicken meat.
all that chicken must have a death wish then
The US breeds and slaughters 8 billion chickens a year. If you at all believe (not you personally OP, as the above punchline makes it obvious that you have the empathetic range of a thimble) that animals have a level of consciousness/agency similar to humans, you should consider if you want to continue to pay for their suffering for a 15 minute meal.
Yes. I will never stop eating meat. Can we compromise? Can I eat some without stopping completely?
How do you wire up the “conscious-o-meter”? What would a function for mapping consciousness to a quantity look like? How about [thoughts, emotions, sensations] .sum { |p| p.frequency * p.complexity } Collecting the data is left as an exercise for the student.
Integrated information theory has one attempt at actually measuring how conscious a system is. It calls it phi.
all that chicken must have a death wish then
The US breeds and slaughters 8 billion chickens a year. If you at all believe (not you personally OP, as the above punchline makes it obvious that you have the empathetic range of a thimble) that animals have a level of consciousness/agency similar to humans, you should consider if you want to continue to pay for their suffering for a 15 minute meal.
a world where meat is grown and animals don’t have to die would be a better one
> Seen as biological robots, their cognition is essentially in service to this, and so must necessarily be algorithmic, and limited. All to say they are generally assumed to have lesser forms of consciousness. This seems to define consciousness as measurable by algorithmic determinism and limitation, which seems a complete non-sequitur. Seeing something as a biological robot need not necessarily imply anything at all…
Haven’t we observed complex human-like emotions for elephants, dolphins, and various other primates (eg grieving rituals for lost family members)? Heck even dogs clearly show signs of depression and happiness although whether they reflect on these feelings (whatever that means) is obviously up in the air.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just an observation: by this metric, bison meat is approximately 200 times more ethical than chicken meat.
Some people are actually starting to think about that, especially in the context of insect "meat". For example, a cow makes ~250kg of meat, a cricket weight ~0.5g. If you believe all life to be equal, eating a cow is 500 000 times better than eating the equivalent in crickets. If you believe that insect are worth 10 000 times less than cows (arbitrary number), that's still 50 times worse. I think it's important that…
> Seen as biological robots, their cognition is essentially in service to this, and so must necessarily be algorithmic, and limited. All to say they are generally assumed to have lesser forms of consciousness. This seems to define consciousness as measurable by algorithmic determinism and limitation, which seems a complete non-sequitur. Seeing something as a biological robot need not necessarily imply anything at all…