Kharakov

It is a rather simple concept. Only arrangements of matter that behave in certain ways (arrange themselve into an organized unit you can recognize) are conscious.

The behaviors of globs of conscious matter consist of awareness of self or others, thought, emotion, sensation, volition, all of which the glob of matter experiences by itself, without any other glob of matter being aware of whether or not that glob of matter experiences consciousness. This glob of matter does not need to display any outward sign of consciousness in order to be conscious, thus, it fools many into thinking that it is not conscious.

Why would you make such a huge assumption about whether or not something is conscious? At least don't think one way or the other about it, since you have no clue about it. How do you know that a rock doesn't feel solid (and think about other rocks that it could grind ). You don't even know how your brain creates qualia out of the environment that effects it, much less whether or not another arrangement of matter can experience these qualia as well.

I am confident that you do not know if the arrangement of matter determines whether or not matter is conscious. What I don't understand is your belief (faith or whatever) that matter has to be arranged in a certain way or behave in a certain manner in order to be conscious. I don't understand why some people think that the physical activity a piece of matter displays indicates whether or not that matter has a form of consciousness.

There is absolutely no way that you can determine or predict if something is conscious by its physical appearance or behavior.

Vorkosigan

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Kharakov:
Why would you make such a huge assumption about whether or not something is conscious? At least don't think one way or the other about it, since you have no clue about it. How do you know that a rock doesn't feel solid (and think about other rocks that it could grind ).

Exactly! But why stop at consciousness? What about other properties of complex objects? How do you know that all arrangements of matter do not conduct nuclear fusion and send out heat like the sun? How do you know that all arrangements of matter do not have event horizons like black holes?

I am confident that you do not know if the arrangement of matter determines whether or not matter is conscious. What I don't understand is your belief (faith or whatever) that matter has to be arranged in a certain way or behave in a certain manner in order to be conscious. I don't understand why some people think that the physical activity a piece of matter displays indicates whether or not that matter has a form of consciousness.

There is absolutely no way that you can determine or predict if something is conscious by its physical appearance or behavior.

I agree. But why stop at consciousness? There is absolutely no way that you can determine if an something is conducting nuclear fusion in its interior by its physical appearance or behavior. There is absolutely no way that you can determine if an something is conducting digestion by its physical appearance or behavior. There is absolutely no way that you can determine if an something is undergoing deposition and erosion....

Michael

[ February 01, 2002: Message edited by: turtonm ]</p>

Kharakov

excreationist,

Even by your definition of awareness, a rock that does not make an obvious response does not necessarily lack awareness (or have awareness). Just because one form of consciousness displays numerous obvious behaviors (us) doesn't mean that every other form of consciousness needs to display those same behaviors. As long as the consciousness is learning, observing, aware, has the intent to learn, etc. it is conscious. You can determine nothing about the conscious state of any object through observation because the conscious state is an internal one (although it sometimes affects the external environment).

Kharakov

Why stop?

Because by observation, I can tell that matter (at least my glass of water) is not sending out energy like the sun. It was empirical observation that allowed us to determine that fusion was going on in the sun in the first place.

Black holes? Empirical observation once again- although they were predicted by relativity before observation gave us what we believe is evidence (xrays from matter fallin' into that there event horizon thingy (that is probably conscious )).


However, since consciousness cannot be determined through observation I cannot tell whether the sun or my glass of water are conscious.

The reason I stop at consciousness is because I can't determine whether or not an object has it (consciousness) through empirical observation.

excreationist

I agree! And if that is the case, dualism would be true.

I said I agree.

Since you said that I guess you agree with it. And note that I am talking about *awareness* here, not consciousness.

I said I was talking about whether something is aware or not, and systems can demonstrate whether they can learn and have goals/desires. This is how I define awareness - the system as a whole is "aware". Some part of the system is managing the learning and goals/desires otherwise the system would be incapable of displaying that behaviour. The ONLY other explanation is chance. Do you have any hypothical examples of systems that do meet my criteria for awareness, and aren't aware?

Adrian Selby

I still don't see what's wrong with making an empirical observation based on behaviour. We can all adapt the concept of consciousness, but empirically speaking, that which has been said safely to be conscious is the kind of thing that displays volition, action, awareness, and in us, self awareness.

Now in doubting this proposition, one could point to humans that display none of these and one can point to rocks. One could extrapolate from the fact that some humans don't seem to be conscious that if we can't tell in that instance, perhaps we're just not able to tell in other instances.

If very many humans display the above aspects of consciousness and one or two don't, we would of course think that they either aren't conscious or that they could be but we can't tell. But given rocks of any sort have never in our experience ever behaved such that we can ascribe consciousness to them, I don't see how its sensible to lump humans and rocks together. But when we examine humans and rocks we notice that consciousness seems to be associated with patterns of neurons etc. etc. and when these are altered, consciousness is altered, or switched off, for example, when said neurons are put, in that colourful analogy, through a mincer.

But given that brain activity can be identified with consciousness, surely that can begin to be a measure of consciousness. A brain without brain activity is not conscious. A rock has no brain activity.

It can be theorized that a rock could be conscious in a way we don't understand, but the problem with that is that we're saying of consciousness, it is or can be in things that show awareness, volition etc. and in things that never show those traits, regardless of their physical makeup.

I'm not sure the onus is on me to show why, given brain activity in a species, or any self generated activity in a complex central nervous system seems to at the least cause consciousness, that is an unsound basis for precluding other kinds of arrangements of matter. So far no rock or plastic cup has expressed any volition. I can't prove it isn't conscious, but then I can't prove there isn't a God, I just develop and marshall what evidence I have for these things and show that until there's a better reason for thinking anything could be conscious there's no point in altering my thinking with regard to arrangements of matter.

What possible grounds could someone have for suggesting that a rock is conscious? Is it only because we can't prove consciousness in some humans? Is it with some reference to computer programs that trick us into thinking they're conscious? Fine, get a rock to trick me into thinking its conscious and I'll move my position, until then, I think consciousness resides in particular arrangements of matter.

"Why would you make such a huge assumption about whether or not something is conscious? At least don't think one way or the other about it, since you have no clue about it. How do you know that a rock doesn't feel solid (and think about other rocks that it could grind ). You don't even know how your brain creates qualia out of the environment that effects it, much less whether or not another arrangement of matter can experience these qualia as well."

I don't KNOW anything, but I can surmise the rock doesn't feel solid because to 'feel' usually requires a certain arrangement of matter. How do I know, because it is the prerequisite arrangement in all organisms that have ever suggested to me what it is to feel, usually through their behaviour and through their descriptions of their behaviour. So, I think its possible that when an arrangement of matter like a brain is present in something, be it a massively parallel computer (I'm thinking much more massively parallel than anything to date) or a brain, that thing is capable of feeling. Nothing about rocks or plastic cups have EVER suggested they feel. Why am I wrong to exclude them on the basis of arrangements of matter? Surely my extrapolations regarding feeling and consciousness are made with the only evidence available, behaviour, evidence of the senses, such as brain activity even where limbs and other bodily organs are not exhibiting volition.

Your comment 'creates qualia' I'm not sure of. To be the brain is to be experiencing qualia. The act of perceiving qualities of objects just is the brain receiving and processing sensory data. I'm not sure it 'creates' anything, you'll have to specify further what you mean for me I'm afraid.

Anyway, I'm confident that other matter can't experience qualia because all the evidence so far shows its only brains and other complex central nervous systems that have ever given an indication that any kind of experience is present.

Again, why is this such a wrong basis for materialism?

"I don't understand why some people think that the physical activity a piece of matter displays indicates whether or not that matter has a form of consciousness. "

Maybe you don't, I'm not sure what that means. I just wonder why it is that in saying I'm conscious I give you all the things I can do, and neurally speaking a great amount of activity is occurring across my brain. Someone comes along and minces that brain, I'm no longer typing this response and displaying how conscious I am.

Hmm, the arrangement of matter must have been important then, if the minced soup I put back in the skull seems to not be responding or acting any more.

If we want to redefine consciousness as 'anything that just sits there, and never moves or anything' then I'm not sure what we're defining, or how sensible the basis is for that definition.

But I think there is a basis, that of behaviour and activity in patterns of matter we call complex central nervous systems. Also, its not that a piece of matter displays any particular activity, its the kinds of activity that are important. Amoeba display activity, I'm not keen on calling them conscious, though they're more in the frame than rocks are. I'm of course not saying its at all easy to classify what is and isn't conscious, but if one takes certain kinds of beahviour as the basis, and certain kinds of nervous systems, one seems to be able to rule out rocks and plastic cups, and glass doors and all manner of other things that it currently makes sense to rule out.

Adrian

[ February 02, 2002: Message edited by: Adrian Selby ]</p>

Vorkosigan

Kharakov, be serious.....

NURSE: Doctor, the patient has lost consciousness.
DR. K: How do you know? Don't you know that there is no way to determine or predict if something is conscious by its physical appearance or behavior?
NURSE: But doctor! What action should we take?
DR. K: Take no action. We can't know whether the patient is unconscious or not. Oh, and be careful when you walk over here. The concrete may be conscious.

Michael

crocodile deathroll

I see the mind more as an emergent property of matter that reaches a critical level of complexity. Like I can give a example.
It is like a game of chess, and apart from placing all the pieces in their correct positions there are no rules to the setting up of the game. You just grab your fist full of pieces start setting them, and it doesn't really matter if your put all the pawns down first all the big pieces just so long as they all finish up in the right positions, there is no orthodox procedure, but there is an orthodox procedure in playing the game . The game can't get started until the pieces are all set up. It is only when the pieces are configured into the correct order can the real mind game begin, with its complex set of rules, all beginning from that one general pattern common to all games.

Same as matter in the universe, it is only when matter is properly configured can this entity called "consciousness" emerge, or the real mind game begin. Like that mind game of chess, consciousness begins at just one general pattern with and the player can make any one of a limited number possible moves to begin with and the number of possible configurations to consciousness grows exponentially as the game advances. In keeping with the Occam's Razor Principle I do not believe there needs to be any more causes than necessary for the emergence of consciousness which is why I feel a single general cause for the emergence of consciousness to be highly plausible.

crocodile deathroll

Kharakov

Rofl .

You don't know if the patient is dreaming, having thoughts but not displaying them, etc. You can detect lack of physical response through observation however. Anyway, lack of physical consciousness does not indicate anything about what the consciousness of the patient is doing.

This boils down to which definition of conscious you are using:

1 a : the quality or state of being aware especially of something within oneself b : the state or fact of being conscious of an external object, state, or fact

or the standard philosophical definition (I was under the impression that this is what people argue about when they argue about consciousness, and have included this definition in previous posts):

2 : the state of being characterized by sensation, emotion, volition, and thought : MIND

Although you are refering to an entirely different definition than the one that we are arguing about-

4 : the normal state of conscious life &lt;regained consciousness&gt;

(both definitions brought to you by The Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary <a href="http://www.m-w.com)" target="_blank">www.m-w.com)</a>

I have put the definitions of consciousness that I am arguing about in previous posts. Here is an example where definition 4 does not fit in with the definition of consciousness that we have been arguing about in previous posts.

Have you ever been unconscious? I have, and it was wierd- I had the wierdest thoughts and dreams ever- while I was not totally aware of the external world- things from the external world effected my "dreams". I still possessed consciousness, although I was not interacting with the external world in the usual manner. All the other people thought that I was unconscious (only I realize that I still had some type of consciousness).

"Don't you know that there is no way to determine or predict if something is conscious by its physical appearance or behavior?" to quote you

Nice pun though.

Kharakov

I agree and disagree with your statements. I tend to think that different arrangements of matter are conscious in entirely different ways. If you are saying that it is the arrangement of matter that determines the consciousness, then consciousness is likely to be an innate property of matter, that can be built up in many different ways.

In keeping with Occam's Razor, I don't think there has to be a cause for consciousness, it just always existed, in some form or another.