snatchbalance

MU,

I agree, when we both say "red", you may be experiencing something completly different than me. But we have just both learned to call it red.
However, whatever our respective internal experiences are, we both agree that the wavelength in question is called red.

As far a bat out hunting insects, well, even here we have some commonality. Does a bat label an insect as an insect? Probably not in any way that we would recognise as a useable lable. But do both the bat and I know that it is an insect? I think the answer has to be yes.

From eating them on a regular basis the bat probably has a much greater knowledge about certain aspects of insects than we will ever have.

The hunter and the retriever, the falcon and the falconere, both know the same prey. The farmer and the horse both know the barn. In some cases, the animal knows the human label.

There is, IMO, a certain level of shared experience between all animals. I think this is largly discounted because in many cases the experience just seems too remote.

sb

snatchbalance

Ierrellus

Well, he's still breathing, he can feel the breath going in and out of his nose and lungs. He's in a warm saline solution, data pouring in from all his nerve endings.

More like a restricted diet. His brain needed somthing to chew on.

When you said NO sensory data, I thought only of death. My nihilism is showing.

SB

DRFseven

That's because he WAS on LSD! Someone else who participated in Lily's experiments, without benefit of drugs, wrote about the experience under the name "Adam Smith" in his book Powers of Mind. To keep from panicking after being enclosed in the deprivation tank, he tried to retrace his steps to the tank; he "mindwalked" back down the hallway past the paintings, out the door to the parking lot, to his car, put the key in the ignition, started it, backed up, drove his car down the street, etc. After a while, he suddenly couldn't tell if he were thinking about driving or actually driving; the experience was quite profound. I'll tell you one thing; I'll never get into a sensory deprivation tank!

Ierrellus

DRFseven,

The mixing and "matching" of external and internal stimuli provides the adaptational potential of any organism, regardless of species.
We humans tend to use evidence of the one or evidence of the other to define the totality of our ability to know what is other than ourselves.

If the mixing and matching of these two types of stimuli refer in any way to consciousness, then a comparison of this activity, whether brain collated or simply nerve or other method of collation, would provide a comparison of ranges of sentience.

My sources for this thread include Chalmers' Online Papers on Consciousness and A {IMO} brilliant article entitled "Animal consciousness" in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy {also on the net}.


Ierrellus

PAX

DRFseven

Actually, the water temp was body temp, so no warmth could be detected. The ears were plugged; the tank was kept in total darkness. There was cotton wadding between the fingers and toes. Of course there was sensory data, but it was minimal in relation to normal experience.

Ierrellus

Snatchbalance,

Methinks there is a wee bit of humans, the crown of creation. hubris going on out there.

Example from SEP article, "Animal Consciousness"-- Carruthers claims animals do not have a theory of mind. Most developmental psychologists believe that a human child under the age of four does not have a theory of mind. In other words, humans under the age of four do not have consciousness according to Carruthers.

Ierrellus

PAX

DRFseven

But why are you linking supposed measurements of sentience with subjective perception? I don't see how you're trying to get them to jive.

tronvillain

Ierrellus:
Oh please. You are aware that not all dualism is Cartesian? I simply suggested that there may not actually be something like there is to be a bat in the same sense there is something like there is to be a human. Where is the line above which there is something like there is to be something drawn? While it may be fuzzy and extend throughout the animal kingdom, it may also be sharply defined.

Now, if your dog licks your face, does it mean that he likes you? Do you actually know enough about the way a dog works to be sure of that, or are you simply attempting to understand your dog within a human framework? It is entirely possible that "never the twain shall meet", at least in the sense of experiencing what it is like to be the other, but this does not preclude knowledge and understanding.

It is an example of using echolocation. Is it an example of using echolocation the same way a bat does? There is nothing supernatural about humans being unable to process certain information the same way a bat does - their is no reason to suppose that the experience is at all analagous to anything in our experience. If an alien race only had sense analagous to sight, smell, taste, and touch, how would you explain sound to them? They would lack the brain mechanisms responsible, so they could only understand it in terms of the physical phenomenon of pressure waves and information processed for their other four senses.

Well, here is Nagel's <a href="http://www.zoosemiotics.helsinki.fi/What%20is%20it%20like%20to%20be%20a%20bat.doc" target="_blank">What is it like to be a bat?</a>. Exactly what do you think Carruthers and Dennett were agreeing with him about that supports your position?

tronvillain

Ierrellus:
I assume that Carruthers thinks that a theory of mind is a prerequisite for consciousness? Do you think that humans under the age of four have consciousness?

[ June 29, 2002: Message edited by: tronvillain ]</p>

Laurentius

AVE


Ierrellus

You say:

In another thread I paraphrased an idea from N. Humphrey, A History of the Mind. The idea is that if there were no bodily feedback to the brain, there would be no concept of a self or an "I".

That is, inner awarness is built along with external awarness. Of course.

Rid yourself of all sensory data received from the "outside" world, and there would be no concept of anything but self or "I". {MO}.

Kind of a consequence of the point above...

So why are we referring to either anthropomorphism or solypsism as accurately defining limits of our knowing anything?

Whoa... where's the connection?
I mean, it is you that have just said that the self is constructed during a process that engages the whole sensorial system made up of both the brains and the receptacles. Although superior, the human self is therefore limited in its unique shaping up by the physical parametres of the human senses and by the special features of the intellect.

Using analogy, I can imagine what it's like to be a bat, only that imagining is not knowing.

Somehow, this problem resembles one of God's paradox: "Could God create such a rock that he himself wouldn't be able to lift it off the ground?" --&gt; "Could a genius think of a guy with such a poor intellect that he himself would find it impossible to think what it's like to be in the stupid guy's shoes?"

Anyway, how can one actually use one's intellect and stop it at the some time in order to intellectually understand what it is like not to be endowed with such intellect?

A genius can imagine what it is like to be retarded, but he can actually know it?

Scientists can accurately describe how bats' sonars work. They can explain the process so that the public will understand. That's knowledge. But scientists can't describe how it feels to be a bat. They could imagine it, of course, but that would only be speculation: what would it be like and how would it feel to be a bat?

Knowledge implies rational understanding of and logic discourses on phenomena illustrating individual cases and/or universal principles.

Knowing what it is like to be a bat would simply refer to the irrational and hypothetical. It just wouldn't be knowledge any more.

AVE