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What is it like to be a crab?

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Re: What is it like to be a crab?

#51

Post by messe »

causi wrote: post #44
fsckboy wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

just to add on with a slant toward the types of things HN is interested in, the point of "what is it like to be a bat" is essentially, you can't know what it's like to be a bat unless you are a bat (and I don't mean the paper should be read for that conclusion, you develop far more insight thinking your way through it) The old "how do I even know my red is your red" is a little piece of this puzzle. Perhaps someday t…

how do I even know my red is your red I get why kids ask this. I don't get why adults ask this. If you have normal color vision and don't have a tumor in your visual cortex your red is as close to my red as the red subpixels are on two units of the same television. Sure, you can't look at them and positively measure their identicalness, but they're being generated with the same hardware.

> Sure, you can't look at them and positively measure their identicalness, but they're being generated with the same hardware.

But to continue your analogy, after so many years of experiencing the world differently—different pasts, upbringings, worldviews—are they being interpreted by the same software? And that's the question that the paper really poses: are qualia real, and if so, is it ever possible to conclude that two individuals experience qualia in the same way?

Re: What is it like to be a crab?

#52

Post by felipereigosa »

proc0 wrote: post #50

Good article on Cris / Koch's perspective on this. A follow up to this article could talk about the views of Mark Solms, Joscha Bach. Both of which would include most animals as conscious, but in different ways. Mark Solms talks about how affect (i.e. feelings) is where consciousness arises from. Living organisms developed homeostatic mechanisms (i.e. maintaining oxygen levels, finding energy, etc), and this mechanis…

I agree with you exactly about the simulation idea of consciousness and the difference between conciousness and self awareness. Here's an interesting question, do you actually remember when you were about 1 year old? Apparently most people don't but I do very clearly. I read something recently that autism is correlated with the ability and I always thought I had a bit of it (like a lot of people that is into computers). For people that don't remember and don't know what he's talking about, being conscious without language (so probably what is like to be a dog) is a world of now, there's no past, or future, no planning, no if this then that, just what you can see and hear and feel at that moment. Emotions come and go like clouds for no reason, you don't have the capacity of wondering about reasons and they are very strong, you don't have the ability to regulate them or to compare them with anything else for perspective.

Re: What is it like to be a crab?

#53

Post by ggpsv »

taneq wrote: post #25
gryfft wrote: post #2

> A majority of philosophers accept (or lean toward accepting) consciousness in adult humans (95.15 per cent), I laughed aloud. > The Declaration points to five consciousness markers that are the results of scientific research: homologous brain circuits; artificial stimulation of brain regions causing similar behaviours and emotional expressions in humans and other animals; neural circuits supporting behavioural/elec…

OK so to translate those 'consciousness markers': - You've gotta have a brain like ours - Messing with your brain should do the same thing to you that it does to us - Gotta have 'attentiveness' since the homunculus needs a homunculus too - It's you in the mirror - Get wasted like us Hmmmyeah these seem like good yardsticks for consciousness. /s

As I like to call it, anthropic arrogance.

Re: What is it like to be a crab?

#55

Post by [deleted] »

asQuirreL wrote: post #48
MichaelRo wrote: post #45

Well, I suppose there's a simple "rule of thumb" way to respond to all these "What is it like to be an X?" questions (with X defined as "non human"). So here it is: take the lowest of the lowest IQ but still functional human being, I dunno, IQ in the 40-50 range. I mean someone who's definitely not a rocket scientist but are still not mentally ill and can still tie their shoes and wipe their own a*s. You can probe fo…

I'm not sure if this is a serious suggestion or not, but I don't think trying to measure intelligence gives a full picture of consciousness. I can't know for sure but I also don't believe that if a living being is assessed to be less intelligent, that it feels less or is in some way less conscious. I guess this all speaks to a troubling line of thought that justifies treating other beings as lesser for being less int…

[deleted]

Re: What is it like to be a crab?

#56

Post by [deleted] »

MichaelRo wrote: post #45

Well, I suppose there's a simple "rule of thumb" way to respond to all these "What is it like to be an X?" questions (with X defined as "non human"). So here it is: take the lowest of the lowest IQ but still functional human being, I dunno, IQ in the 40-50 range. I mean someone who's definitely not a rocket scientist but are still not mentally ill and can still tie their shoes and wipe their own a*s. You can probe fo…

[deleted]

Re: What is it like to be a crab?

#57

Post by MichaelRo »

asQuirreL wrote: post #48
MichaelRo wrote: post #45

Well, I suppose there's a simple "rule of thumb" way to respond to all these "What is it like to be an X?" questions (with X defined as "non human"). So here it is: take the lowest of the lowest IQ but still functional human being, I dunno, IQ in the 40-50 range. I mean someone who's definitely not a rocket scientist but are still not mentally ill and can still tie their shoes and wipe their own a*s. You can probe fo…

I'm not sure if this is a serious suggestion or not, but I don't think trying to measure intelligence gives a full picture of consciousness. I can't know for sure but I also don't believe that if a living being is assessed to be less intelligent, that it feels less or is in some way less conscious. I guess this all speaks to a troubling line of thought that justifies treating other beings as lesser for being less int…

I was 100% sure, heck figuratively speaking I was even more certain that my very serious and slightly unconventional opinion will get me downvoted. You see, the world is dominated by imbeciles who feel threatened of anything that's not regurgitated platitude and the HN crowd apart from not being that statistically different from "the world" as much as they'd like to believe, it's also "trigger happy".

More or less I adhere to Neil deGrasse Tyson's opinion that plants are live beings too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fh_3gH7l6Dw

Intelligence and consciousness seem quite plausibly interrelated based on observed samples across the animal world, like there's more intelligent behavior displayed by magpies (who appear to pass the mirror test) than say crocodiles. And since with all it's flaws, we humans have the IQ scale to try quantify our species and within this IQ we observe that the high IQ seems to be generally more capable of intelligent behavior than the very low tail, I don't see why we couldn't use it as a rough extrapolator.

Why limit IQ scale to only humans and not extend it across animal world? Would it be a linear or log-scale (I'd bet on log). Having an universal scale would certainly require it re-imagined it at least to some degree since you can't ask a fish to solve systems of differential equations, at least not in Leibniz notation. What tests would apply universally? That's a good question not just comparing humans with crocodiles but even addressing the complaints that IQ tests tend to favor people who can access a formal education. Like an Amazon forest tribe or the Sentinelese surely have never taken formal school lessons but are very capable of intelligent behavior and statistics says some of them would be very smart. How do you measure that?

But nooo. Show the idiots a smart dilemma and them monkeys start throwing their feces at you (i.e. downvote).

Re: What is it like to be a crab?

#58

Post by closewith »

felipereigosa wrote: post #52
proc0 wrote: post #50

Good article on Cris / Koch's perspective on this. A follow up to this article could talk about the views of Mark Solms, Joscha Bach. Both of which would include most animals as conscious, but in different ways. Mark Solms talks about how affect (i.e. feelings) is where consciousness arises from. Living organisms developed homeostatic mechanisms (i.e. maintaining oxygen levels, finding energy, etc), and this mechanis…

I agree with you exactly about the simulation idea of consciousness and the difference between conciousness and self awareness. Here's an interesting question, do you actually remember when you were about 1 year old? Apparently most people don't but I do very clearly. I read something recently that autism is correlated with the ability and I always thought I had a bit of it (like a lot of people that is into computer…

Given the memory thresholds of the rare few with hyperthymesia, it seems more likely that you hold false memories than that you remember clearly being one year old. Certainly you would be the first person known to have such memories if confirmed.

Re: What is it like to be a crab?

#59

Post by felipereigosa »

closewith wrote: post #58
felipereigosa wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you exactly about the simulation idea of consciousness and the difference between conciousness and self awareness. Here's an interesting question, do you actually remember when you were about 1 year old? Apparently most people don't but I do very clearly. I read something recently that autism is correlated with the ability and I always thought I had a bit of it (like a lot of people that is into computer…

Given the memory thresholds of the rare few with hyperthymesia, it seems more likely that you hold false memories than that you remember clearly being one year old. Certainly you would be the first person known to have such memories if confirmed.

I've considered that, I'm well aware of how easy is to fabricate memories and think they are real, but I've checked with my parents (without giving them the information, just asking questions), the memories are real. To clarify, I'm not claiming to remember everything about being one year old, just to have a few very clear memories that match with what my parents know happened, the layout of the house etc.

Re: What is it like to be a crab?

#60

Post by notahacker »

causi wrote: post #44
fsckboy wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

just to add on with a slant toward the types of things HN is interested in, the point of "what is it like to be a bat" is essentially, you can't know what it's like to be a bat unless you are a bat (and I don't mean the paper should be read for that conclusion, you develop far more insight thinking your way through it) The old "how do I even know my red is your red" is a little piece of this puzzle. Perhaps someday t…

how do I even know my red is your red I get why kids ask this. I don't get why adults ask this. If you have normal color vision and don't have a tumor in your visual cortex your red is as close to my red as the red subpixels are on two units of the same television. Sure, you can't look at them and positively measure their identicalness, but they're being generated with the same hardware.

I mean, the existence of significant numbers of people who don't have "normal colour vision" is a pretty good indication that different perceptions of red is an actual thing. Seems far more childish to insist that that everyone's perception is either identical or impaired.

If it is possible for human perception of colour using similar hardware to be so different that they subjectively experience 550nm and 700nm wavelengths as identical in appearance, it is surely possible for the minds of that people who can reliably distinguish between the two don't necessarily perceive them exactly the same way you do or I do. Apart from anything else, it would explain a lot of people's decorative choices!

Even the "same hardware" argument doesn't stack up because even if it turns out you're actually my identical twin, our visual cortexes and brain structures and chemistry that parses, interprets, emotionally responds to and stores images evidently aren't the same.

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