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Consciousness is a material property and the essential component of life. So long as the universe exists life will exist in some form.
I am not aware of any good evidence that any existence of any kind simply ‘popped up’. The last significant idea I know of about life ‘popping up’ was that of spontaneous generation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_generation). That has been dismissed. Experience informs us that something does not come into existence from nothing and everything is interconnected.
Existence exposes itself in dualities. Matter has come to be understood as discrete units of quanta. However, time and space is seen as continuous. (I do not understand quantum theory and there may be hypotheses that consider time and space in terms of quanta but I leave them aside as other ideas.)
Another duality would be this consequence. Existence sees itself though assigning consciousness to the living, which views the non-living.
So we, as individuals, are a coalescence of matter whose consciousnesses have combined in a collaboration (I wish I could use the word conscience without the moral connotation). It is a kind of synergy but I use the word to mean cooperation that produces a common end to the benefit of the participants. I totally reject the fairly commonly expressed notion that synergy produces a ‘total that is more than the sum of the parts’. So maybe all our cells have individual consciousnesses. Material evidence of a common ‘drive’ is the identity of the DNA. Our organs could have their own consciousness sharing benefits with its participant cells in particular. Our subconscious could in fact be self-conscious but we are generally not conscious of that. I am drawing a picture of a hierarchy of consciousnesses but on the way down it would not end at the cellular level.
Disclaimers:
I am not claiming the idea is original.
There is a high risk that if it initiates good discussion those with a predisposition to argue a ‘God by design’ will attempt to hijack the debate. I distance myself from them.
Jeffrey Nador
If you consider consciousness essential to life, then it must precede life's existence, lest the "first" life exist without it. However, if so, then consciousness may exist independently of life. I don't know of any non-living things that are conscious. However, plants and amoebae strike me as life forms that are potentially without consciousness. Then again, I cannot be sure exactly what you mean by consciousness, so it's possible that your definitions applies without paradox here.
Still, in order to be sure, I would need your definition of consciousness. Personally, I would define consciousness as self-other awareness, In this sense, even a common fly is conscious: when you try to swat it, it darts away. However trees are alive, and yet do not seem to have the least inkling of their existence, or the existence of other trees, or other life forms. By my definition, they would qualify as alive but not conscious (by your definition, this is impossible). Even quanta react to one another, so if I were to remove the self-awareness clause from my definition even the could be said to possess consciousness.
Richard Nota 20+
I do not know how you could know what there was before the big bang.
To me consciousness is awareness and self awareness in a perceptive way. By perceptive way I mean they 'know' not just react in the typical physical way of your quanta reference.
Consciousness is essential to life but does not need to precede it. My idea is not the emergent property you state, which is why I did not know whether you were addressing me.
By the way, to describe 'emergence' as a property seems to be a contradiction in terms.
Lee Cronin 50+
If you reply, please note I am playing devils advocate...
Richard Nota 20+
Our consciousness may present an illusion but that we are conscious cannot be an illusion. A fiction movie is still really a movie but we would not see it if we were not conscious.
To see reality we need to separate one part of it from another. In this case the conscious from the 'unconscious', the abstract from that being represented by the abstract . The abstract still has real existence even if it is a mistaken representation.
These dualities are a limitation to understanding the universe and the meaning of the universe and everything at once. A theory of truly everything would by necessity have to be self evident by being self proving. There is no parallel universe to gather the evidence. Such a theory would also necessarily invalid itself by current understanding. The dualities are complimentary.
Jeffrey Nador
Mark Meijer 100+
But let's not stick with the implication that illusions are not real. An illusion is still a real illusion. If we can accept the idea that everything except consciousness is an illusion, and we also accept that everything is still "real enough" for everyday practical and functional intents and purposes, then we should also be able to accept the same for consciousness itself. I'm not saying it's an illusion, I'm not saying it's not. Just saying it could be.
Depends as always on what exactly we mean by consciousness, of course. For one thing, is consciousness the actual illusion, or is it that which gives rise to the illusion. Or is it the former if we don't know it to be an illusion, and do we conveniently redefine it to the latter if we should find out that it is. If indeed it is, that is...
Also, let's not conflate intellect with consciousness. While perhaps one needs consciousness to think, one does not need thought to be conscious. And in fact if we assume for the sake of argument that consciousness is the only "real" thing in existence, I would still argue that thought is as illusory as everything else. In that regard, in my opinion, whether Descarte had the wrong notion or whether he just chose a poor formulation, his statement about thinking wasn't entirely as thoughtful after all (although this doesn't mean he was necessarily on the wrong track).
Philip Tunis
Even today particle physics and radio astronomy try to answer the questions as well.
I agrre with your disclaimer
Richard Nota 20+
Carl Shaw
Dualities - I'm not sure I can agree with your premise that existence ALWAYS exposes itself in them.
If the universe is steady-state then the conclusion is that consciousness is an inherent part of its make-up and not a random feature. In other words; existence has always been and always will be, consciousness is a necessary part of that existence.
Gerard – I am not aware of any relevant recent physics on the matter, but I am aware of some research a Mr Alex Green has carried out into the structure of space required to accommodate consciousness. You can find his original paper and some discussion at: http://newempiricism.blogspot.com/2011/02/what-is-new-empiricism.html
Richard Nota 20+
The big bang would not be a discontinuity and I doubt the serious scientists think it is. It is a theoretical thing based on the supposed evidence of an expanding universe. The theory is treated with having a certain precision. However, the closer you got to the event the less precise it would be and the theory would be found to be very deficient. It is just that for all practical purposes (not very close to the event) it works and that is an easy way to explain it to the layman. The big bang was sudden by our standards but would not have been literally instantaneous.
Carl Shaw
If the universe is steady-state then the conclusion is that consciousness is an inherent part of its make-up and not a random feature. In other words; existence has always been and always will be, consciousness is a necessary part of that existence.
Gerald - I don't know of any relevant substrate physics. On the other hand I am aware of some basic physics analysis of the structure of space required to accomodate consciousness carried out by Mr Alex Green. His original work and some discussion may be found at: http://newempiricism.blogspot.com/2011/02/what-is-new-empiricism.html
Kamchatka Dawn
Richard Nota 20+
The crystal 'material' has a consciousness because to draw a line somewhere such that things on one side have consciousness and things on the other do not is arbitrary.
However, the crystal grows for the normal physical reasons we understand it to grow. The question now is in what way could it be conscious. Well, it could be passively conscious in the sense that our own senses of sight, hearing etc are passive. The growing crystal may be aware that it is growing in size. The awareness that it is growing does not have to be a fully fledged abstract understanding but an elemental consciousness (so elemental that we do not understand it - yet). If it has an active consciousness then that active consciousness is dormant or relatively dormant, which could differentiate it from a living thing. There is still the possibility to distinguish between living and nonliving but that is getting more involved.
Having determined that it is likely that consciousness suffuses all existence all questions are just like the very question you ask. What does consciousness mean to a crystal, a cell, water, or an atom?
So why approach it this way. It seems to be defining a solution in order to ask questions. My answer is that we are basically doing that anyway with the question of life. My approach makes more sense to me than drawing the arbitrary line between what is and is not conscious because consciousness seems to be fundamental. To think that it could have just happened to come from nothing or is an unlikely 'accident' is contrary to all my experience.
In the immediate future it makes negligible difference to our everyday understanding of anything. In the long term it might have a profound effect. Then again maybe it will not.
Kamchatka Dawn
Yet Professor Jim Al-Khalili in a recent documentary on theoretical physics ("Everything and Nothing") suggests exactly this, that particles are constantly being created from nothing but are also being immediately annihilated. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQ8rd7AkMmY
This is a much deeper question than the title of this posting. Matter is being created from nothing - but why?
For sure we can stuff this hole in our understanding with the comfort blanket of an arbitrary catch-all (your concept of conscience) but that gives us no basis on which to set about experimentation nor therefore prediction. The conscience argument would appear then to be no more practical than putting everything down to divinity, surely?
Richard Nota 20+
To accept what he claims is to accept that it is impossible to explain.
Mark Meijer 100+
Sorry Richard, but one can't get much more obvious than that :P.
Richard Nota 20+
Nothing does not exist and something does not come from nothing. Experience is that no such past claim has survived scrutiny.
A divinity is the escape route of understanding. Something that is used to explain everything but explains nothing.
I fail to see my idea as an arbitrary catch-all. If that is my fault then so be it. However, on the practical side I have already dismissed it as being an immediate benefit in daily life. It would answer very little in practice but is a small difference in perspective.
The point in putting the idea was to put a concept compatible with my experience. A very small point, not a catch-all.
You may readily dismiss my idea as readily as you accept something coming from nothing but more obvious than what?
Mark Meijer 100+
Which is what you suggested.
Richard Nota 20+
Mark Meijer 100+
Adam Balmer
For the ongoing debate amongst philosophers on panpsychism, try here: http://consc.net/online/1.4g
Richard Nota 20+
My initial reaction is that I am no quite so ambitious in wanting to answer 'everything at once'.
Richard Nota 20+
Mark Meijer 100+
While I've been arguing for the reality of emergent phenomena, which according to panpsychism is mutually exclusive to their philosophy, I first of all want to say that I don't know whether consciousness and mind are actually the same "thing". Secondly, with regards to consciousness and the physical world, I don't claim to know exactly which arises out of which, or if both arise out of something else.
And may I add that, if panpsychists think their philosophy is mutually exclusive to what they call emergentist philosophies, then they've never heard of buddhism. While buddhism defines a notion of consciousness as arising out of the contact of a sense object with a sense organ (for example a shape "hitting" the retina, and also a thought "hitting" the mind), they also have a notion of awareness being all-pervasive in the interaction between expansive and contractive activity.
The latter is illustrated by the Zen saying "in sight only the seeing, in sound only the hearing". This is meant to convey the idea that there is no seer as distinct from the activity of seeing, and no hearer as distinct from the activity of hearing, but instead that the activity of seeing and hearing itself constitutes the awareness of sight and sound. Actually this is not different from the prevous paragraph.
In other words, there is no real distinction between consciousness and the physical world. They are one and the same, and I guess both arise simultaneously (and non-distinctly) out of the activity of expansive and contractive forces (including minute ones, so some sort of consciousness also arises from the mere activity of an elementary particle, which is really an energetic wavelet).
Mark Meijer 100+
Note that in a way this is also what I've argued elsewhere in this conversation to be the nature of matter. After all, what are energetic wavelets, if not interacting expansive and contractive activity.
By the way, many hold that the emptiness or nothingness out of which those two forces arise, is actually the absolute, and is none other than pure awareness (i.e. awareness without object). This seems to be contrary to the early buddhist notion that there are no absolutes whatsoever, nonetheless many buddhists hold this view and some claim to know the experience of it first hand.
Note also I've been using the words consciousness and awareness interchangably here, and I should add that I don't know if those two are the same "thing" as well. I think there exist differentiating definitions for them.
If I've been getting increasingly vague here, it's because for my part I'm venturing into increasingly uncertain territory with this, and I myself am getting dangerously close to treading on Deepak Chopra territory :P. But I just basically wanted to make the point that I don't think panpsychism and emergentism are necessarily mutually exclusive. Which isn't an easy point to make! :o
Richard Nota 20+
I see emergence as mutually exclusive to panpsychism but only if it incorporates the idea that the total can be more than the sum of the parts. Without that concept panpsychism could incorporate emergence but it would hardly be of significance.
"In other words, there is no real distinction between consciousness and the physical world." I make a distinction in the form of dualities. I do not trust those descriptions especially from 'religious' groups. They are typically based on feelings and not using language analytically.
I would consider that idea of nothingness that 'many' hold as absurd (in the nicest way of course). It is nowhere, does nothing and has no properties whatsoever. It is not. Here is a claim. The concept of nothingness is a special abstract concept. What makes it special is that it is the only concept that is absolutely abstract. Every other concept, even false representations, has some connection with reality. The simple ambiguous statement 'nothing does not exist' has one true interpretation and I do not know how to express it without ambiguity.
Mark Meijer 100+
As for the concept of nothingness, you're right that it is purely abstract. And those who use it in the way I described (and have a clue what they're talking about) are very much aware of that. That's why there are so many different words for that which they mean to refer to, with the knowledge that any concept (and therefore any word) is inadequate.
The word nothingness or emptiness is often used simply because that word probably brings the least amount of unwarranted baggage along with it (contrary to words like God, Infinite Consciousness, The Unmanifest, or what have you). But if you are a fan of dualities, surely you must agree that "existence" can't be without its dual opposite.
Once again, to be clear, I'm still not sure where I stand myself on this topic. I'm simply arguing for the other side of your coin at the moment.
Richard Nota 20+
Nothingness is the opposite of existence but it is an abstract concept. However, it is not just an abstract concept but a special concept in that it is purely abstract. Its existence is only in the consciousness on which it lies but it does not represent anything. That is how the duality exists.
I think the ambiguity is there because the concept of something is created just to be negated.
Mark Meijer 100+
So, where a concept of some thing is created to be able to refer to the thing (and let's not gloss over the fact that "existence" is also an abstract concept, because there is no such "thing" as existence), a concept of nothing is created to be able to refer to no-thing. It's quite handy, that one. Did you know, mathematics has actually done without the number zero for quite a while? Because people figured there would be no point to being able to refer to nothing. I'm not making this up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero#History
As for any "attempt to experience it" (nothingness), I challenge you to "attempt" it (by the way pay particular attention to what he says during the entire 6th minute):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFFMtq5g8N4
You can't attempt to experience nothingness any more than you can attempt to cast a reflection. It's just what happens under the right conditions, which in this case usually requires an incredible cultivation of neural gymnastics, so to speak. Even approaching it as an attempt to cultivate neural gymnastics, is only going to take you exactly in the opposite direction. Let alone approaching it as an attempt to experience nothingness.
So I don't think either of us are in any position to actually know in quite what way "they truly understand it". What I did mention about that, is also not something I made up, but something I've learned from those people who know the experience. So basically I'm repeating here what they themselves say is the way "they truly understand it".
I'm curious now, though. You refer to your "experience" a lot in this conversation for the purpose of supporting your case, what exactly are we talking about here?
Richard Nota 20+
My experience is things do not come from nothing. Singularities are theoretical points that have no real existence. Nothing happens literally instantaneously. In particular, the total is always the sum of the parts, never more, never less. The synergy concept that says otherwise is merely a value judgement. To change my mind I need demonstrable examples.
Richard Nota 20+
Brian Nesbitt
Richard Nota 20+
I may not see ants building satellites but I do see ants building some complex civil engineering and social structures.
I also see other animals using tools and others with time on their hands. What I see is a continuum. I can empathise with an ape or a dog. It gets very hard when I get to the level of a fish. I can also see some people at the level of an ape or a dog and I can empathise with them. So, as in a previous comment, I can agree that people are special but not so special that they have something that other life does not have to some degree. It seems like the latter is what you believe so I ask why do you believe it?
I would not have a clue what the consciousness of a low level life form would be like. The point of my idea is that it is more sensible to think that consciousness and life always existed than to say that it spontaneously generated at some point.
As for how does consciousness evolve? I can write very little except one important thing. If the idea is correct it would be safe to surmise that conscious evolution runs in concert with evolution as we already understand it.
When you state “ ... when and how does consciousness arise?” do you realise that you seem to have missed the idea or lost the plot or gone in a circle. The idea is that consciousness does not arise just as physical matter does not arise.
Mark Meijer 100+
http://www.ted.com/talks/lee_cronin_making_matter_come_alive.html?c=316849
And note when I'm referring to an "emergent phenomenon", I'm referring to the same thing as that wikipedia article called "Emergence" which I linked to earlier. And note that basically an emergent phenomenon is something (an "integrative level") that arises on top of a lower level (or stack of lower levels, strata), which has characteristics that can't be reduced to the characteristics of the lower level(s). Which by the way is contrary to your stated rejection of "the fairly commonly expressed notion that synergy produces a ‘total that is more than the sum of the parts’."
So for example, each "atomic element" in the periodic table of elements, has characteristics that can't be reduced to the characteristics of its "subatomic particles". And as mentioned in my comments linked above, atoms didn't even exist until several hundred thousand years after the ostensible big bang. So they certainly arise, or they would have always existed, and they would in fact not have emerged our of a lower level stratum (which I refer to as a substrate in the above linked comments, but whatever the correct name, point remains the same).
Btw. I don't claim to know the relationship between consciousness and the rest of existence, but for one thing, it depends entirely on what one means by consciousness. There seem to be a lot of variations in use in this conversation alone. Also I think anyone would be hard pressed to find anything in existence that can't be said to "arise" (out of what though, eh?), and consciousness would be no different. Unless you simply define consciousness as that out of which everything arises. But then you're getting dangerously close to an unfortunately all too common mix of utterly worthwhile eastern philosophy and touchy-feely new-age pop culture (a-la Deepak Chopra).
Richard Nota 20+
I made this topic in response to the link you give.
In the particular "Emergence" link I find nothing of substance to contradict my idea. In particular it writes "An emergent property need not be more complicated than the underlying non-emergent properties which generate it." It does not explicitly say the opposite and I am pressed to find a substantial inference of the opposite. The important point there is not that it cannot be more complex but whether the emergent thing is "more than the sum of its parts". Its explicit use of the word synergy is not contrary to my view of synergy at all. It does refer to "processes of sudden changes in evolution." They are only sudden in long time historical or geological scales. There are certainly not instantaneous and fundamental changes would need to happen in an instant of delineation. There just is no evidence of such fundamental or instantaneous change. It is a good article but I think you are reading more into it than it actual writes.
The transformation of matter from one form to another is just that a transformation of the same ingredients as the situation of circumstances change. Atomic elements are no exception . To take the closer example of atomic elements. They do not quite exist every where in the sun as atoms but as plasma because the conditions of the sun are such that the atomic forces just cannot hold them together.
I only know Deepak Chopra by the occasional references to his name (it was not I who introduced him/her to the topic). I for my part think anyone would be hard pressed to find anything in existence that can be said to "arise" and will stand up to scrutiny. This can only be expanded by examples.
Mark Meijer 100+
Contrary to what you seem to imply, atoms are not little balls of solid stuff that can be broken into multiple smaller balls of solid stuff, their "ingredients". An atom has no more substance than a Star Wars light sabre. The reason we can't walk through walls is not much different from the reason two light sabres can't pass through eachother, if that helps to illustrate.
So what we tend to think of as matter, the interaction between stuff and other stuff, which creates the illusion of solidity, arises out of something else. Keep referring to the "something else" as "matter" if you must. But that only proves the fact of your own admission, that you're still not aware of the reality of emergent phenomenon, and of the fact that whatever constitutes matter at some lower level of integration, does not have the identifying characteristics of matter as we conceive of it. Hence those characteristics that identify matter as matter, are emergent phenomena.
There is no such thing as solidity. Matter is just a concept in our minds, a mental model of a specific category of interactions. This mental model exists for practical everyday purposes, but it has no reality beyond that. Its only reality is as an emergent phenomenon. And in fact this is true for everything, that's why it can be tricky to grasp.
The levels of integration we ourselves are centered at, tend to be seen as the basic level of reality. It's not easy to imagine many lower or higher levels, or when we do it's usually only in terms of the levels we're centered at. Calling energetic wave packets matter, or not recognizing earth as alive.
But to be honest, as long as you deny the reality of emergent phenomena per se, it shouldn't surprise if the above makes no sense.
Richard Nota 20+
I suggested that consciousness is a material property. Colour is a material property that does not have the solidity to which you refer.
"There is no such thing as solidity." On the contrary, the concept of solidity remains in a modified form. As you describe, the more you investigate the more space and less solidity you find. Regardless of how our understanding gets modified we cannot walk through walls. Existence exposes itself through dualities.
I identified consciousness as a property of matter. If you think matter is just concepts of the our mind then so is my idea. I understand why it slipped under the radar but, with respect, there was no sneakiness.
Actually, I think the idea of emergence is entirely compatible within my idea except for your idea of synergy that the total can be more than the sum of its parts.
"Universe" is a very old and functional word. When someone uses the word in a context such as parallel universe I intuitively understand. However, "universe" means everything. A pedantic but necessary point is that when something new is discovered or a new idea put forward it should be included as part of the universe and not another universe. Otherwise the word "universe" would need to be continually replaced with another that means exactly the same thing. In what I am guessing is the pan tradition I include everything to be in the universe (I do not exclude consciousness).
Mark Meijer 100+
As for assumptions sneaking in under the radar, I didn't mean to imply that you were purposefully trying to be misleading. I meant that one's own assumptions can sneak in under one's own radar as well. That's usually how it works with assumptions, until someone else points them out.
Incidentally, I would argue that color is not a material property. Instead I would argue that color arises from our visual perception of electromagnetic waves. While materials change those waves as they bounce off and into our eyes, the resultant color depends at least on the incoming wave, which can vary.
So at best it is a property of the wave. Although I would go one step further and say that a wave doesn't become a color until the moment of perception. After all, different observers with different perceptual faculties will see different components of the spectrum present in that wave. So color would rather be a property of those perceptual faculties.
Btw. I do think that I agree with some of your ideas, just not all of them. Perhaps it could use some more thought. I know, for one, that my own ideas can always use more thought :P. Which is my way of saying, I don't claim to know for sure in just what ways either of us is right, or wrong. But for sure it's been interesting debating this. :) Thanks.
Richard Nota 20+
I interpret that you are arguing that colour is not a material property because it is specifically a conscious experience.
It is still a material property in so far as an object under the appropriate lighting results in the experience. From that perspective it a real material property without the solidity to which you referred.
Also, unless one of us is colour blind our conscious experience of colour may be different. I doubt that they actually are different but the point is that we can agree on the colour even if our conscious experience is different.
The two supposedly different properties are 'intimately' connected.
No analogy is perfect and the difference between colour and consciousness is that consciousness it the experiencing of the effect while the colour is the effect.
Mark Meijer 100+
Humans tend to be most sensitive to frequencies centered around "green", and are also sensitive to frequencies centered around "blue" and "red" (note that these are only the names humans give those frequencies, because of our perception of them and not in spite of it, and I'm not terribly inclined to look up the exact numeric frequency values just now so you'll have to un-substitute them on your own).
On the other hand, mosquito's don't see much of anything other than "infra-red" (same footnote). Some animals don't differentiate between wave frequencies at all, they only differentiate between wave amplitudes ("greyscale" vision). And some don't even see anything other than movement (i.e. only changes over time in frequency and/or amplitude).
If each of these examples of animals were looking at the exact same object, none of their visual sensory machinery would even objectively register the same wave frequencies or amplitudes or any of their derivatives, forget about their subjective experience.
And what we call color (unless you want to tweak with that definition as well), is usually not the entire range of frequencies and amplitudes present in a wave reflected by an object, but only those components of it that we actually perceive. So that's why I would argue that color isn't even a property of the wave, but of the senses. Until a wave is filtered and processed by the activity of visual perception, there is no color to refer to.
So you see how easily assumptions (false or not) tend to sneak in under the radar?
Mark Meijer 100+
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence
Richard Nota 20+
Thank you, the site is relevant. My immediate reaction is that it seems to intentionally treat living and non-living things separately for ‘traditional’ reasons. My idea is intended to incorporate the concept that consciousness, like physical matter is subdivisible. Not only is it subdivisible but every bit of physical matter has its own consciousness and just as every bit physical matter is interconnected with every other bit of physical matter so are the consciousnesses, by necessity.
You had another post (7 hours ago) to which there was not the provision to reply. Can I make these comments? On the one hand, I do not think that there is anything at all in my idea to suggest humans are not special. On the other hand, if the intent is the say that human are special in that they possess something that nothing else possesses to some degree then it is the antithesis of my idea.
Gerald O'brian 30+
What's all this about bits of subdivisible consciousness? Come on. You don't need this. And you know it, it's just messing things up for you. You're building a wonderverse with bits of subdivisible science.
Richard Nota 20+
Benny boy
Richard Nota 20+
As for quantum mechanics, how could you possibly be sure that it could explain?
Benny boy
sense make? lol
Gerald O'brian 30+
Gerald O'brian 30+
But I find this interesting. Centuries ago, people defended the idea against reason that the earth was the center of the universe. Then they defended the idea of Creation against reason.
Today, you'd expect this anthropocentrism to be definitely wiped out by modern physics and biology, from multiverse theory to our ability to sequence our entire genome. But no. People need to hang on to the idea that their existence is meaningfull to the rest of the universe(s).
So take some quantum physics jargon, some obscure genetic facts, mix it up and you get new age metaphysics. People read it, find it confusing enough to look like serious science and buy the basic idea that they're fishing for :
Their being there is special after all.
Pseudo-scientific concept of consciousness is today's fashionable way of remaining at the center of the universe.
Richard Nota 20+
It would never happen but suppose everyone thought that the sun revolved around the earth and in one day someone convinced them that the earth revolved around the sun. They would all go to bed and carry on the next day with negligible impact. However, over time their appreciation of themselves, the universe and their place in the universe would grow.
To simplify the idea. Cronin’s talk assumed that life could be spontaneously generated in a ‘chemical soup’ under the right conditions. The ‘dead’ is made to come alive. That life began on earth at some time is a common, understandable perspective. Here and now it makes more sense to me that there was always life but the right conditions came about to develop the life that pre-existed in the form we recognise today.
Gerald O'brian 30+
Then you'll fail to see anything mysterious and drop "nano-consciousness theory".
Trust me.
Richard Nota 20+
Someone wrote those books you suggest I read. I am not putting forward this idea to penetrate some deep mystery that would reveal all or can never be revealed. In fact the the idea is very simple, just not commonly thought in these terms. Therein only would be it profound if it has any real merit at all.
lynn eschbach 30+
Gerald O'brian 30+
Has anything changed?
Mark Meijer 100+
So, in that sense, I would certainly argue that there is something special about humans. But what I think you're talking about, is first of all that this doesn't make humans the centre of the universe (there might well be other instances out there of dead molecules becoming self-aware, to put it that way). And second of all, that this line of thinking is only all too often used to affirm a sense of self-importance that is rooted in an egocentric feeling of inadequacy and/or vanity. Which, when you think about it, does a bit of an injustice to the underlying premise :P.
Frans Kellner 50+
You suggest Gerald, that there’s a scientific understanding of consciousness. Where can I find this?
Gerald O'brian 30+
It was studies on other animals, other apes mostly, which taught me otherwise. There is a gradient of self awareness among animals. The other problem is that all the other "highly conscious" species are extinct (neanderthall, homo erectus, habilis, etc...), making an exception out of us in the animal kingdom. (It seems the world cannot hold several species with this kind of awareness, but that's another question). Just saying that allas, the second most conscious is far back, chimps or bonobos, because of this reason.
I don't understand exactly how self awareness is done but I believe it to be a question for computation.
I just think the basis of the problem is letting go of the miracle argument.
Frans Kellner 50+
There is no miracle to it indeed at least not less as everything is miraculous beautiful.
I agree that awareness is gradually growing as life develops into more complex organisms. The exception with humans is due to vocal language through which learned experience can be passed on over generations.
Some monkey's can use an array of vocal warnings and signals to communicate danger and feelings. The difference with humans is that we talk about abstractions which is possible because we coded all things in names that we can recall from memory.
In my view consciousness is something different as awareness. A one cellular creature is conscious in that sense that it "knows" what is needed inside to survive and what is available outside and where to get it. The same goes for the cells of our body. They have a joint venture and once far back in evolution different cells joint expertise’s to safe energy and coded it into DNA.
It is all about computing but every computer needs a user.
Mark Meijer 100+
Incidentally, it also begs the question of how far up that gradient goes, and what does it mean if human level of self-awareness is not the end of it. Because I would say it means we're not quite as self-aware as we'd like to think. And also that we can't possibly have a clue what more self-awareness would be like, just as a chimp can't possibly have a clue what human awareness is like (and just like us, chimps can't possibly know what they're missing).
Gerald O'brian 30+
Frans Kellner 50+
Gerald O'brian 30+
This is a tough one fore most species but an easy one for us. Very interesting indeed to imagine a test we would fail.
Let's see if we can find one...
Mark Meijer 100+
Anyway, about definitions of consciousness, as has been pointed out before, I don't think it's the same as self-awareness, actually. Even if we can say consciousness and awareness are the same thing (which of course also depends on how you define both), then there still is the qualifier of "self". Any animal can be aware of a sensate experience (such as the sound or sight of a ruffle in the brush), without being aware of itself, or being aware of being aware.
Not many animals can pass the mirror test, and humans pass it only from a certain age. But I seem to remember reading that magpies can pass the test also, for example. As you undoubtedly would know, the mirror test basically tests whether a subject has a well enough developed sense of self as distinct from other, and also happens to have well enough developed visual processing and intellectual capacity to recognize itself in a reflection. Incedentally, the mere fact that humans conceived of this for testing self-awareness, already provides clues about where we ourselves are in this.
The mirror test is a yes/no test, and so at best it tests for the achievement of a specific level on that self-awareness capacity gradient (and likely it inadvertently tests for the simultaneous achievement of specific levels of visual processing and intellectual capacity as well, and who knows what other capacities are required to come together for this particular task).
(cont.)
Mark Meijer 100+
So, while having a surface-level awareness of a limited sense of self is an evolutionary step up from having none, continued development of it is likely to manifest as a deepening of the awareness of self, and a broadening of those limits.
For example, we may have some level of awareness when it comes to our impulsive or emotional reactions, such as elation, anticipation (be it of something positive or negative), defensiveness, frustration, fear, etc. Or our sense of agency and volition. Sure enough all that is part of our sense of self. But we tend to be surprisingly unaware of exactly how those come to occur. Otherwise, for example, we wouldn't temporarily lose a measure of control, or lose sight of something, and then react in a way that we regret only shortly thereafter.
The regret part might well be an important part of self-awareness, but given that it occurs only after the fact means that during the act we weren't quite as aware. Often by a long shot. Also, as I'm sure you know, as your age increases, you'll start seeing ways in which younger people behave, ways in which you also used to behave, but which you were hardly as aware of in the same way that you are now. These are examples of what I mean by different depths of awareness. And obviously, as your awareness deepens, it will allow you to do something with (or about) those newly discovered things.
(cont.)
Mark Meijer 100+
How all this would proceed onwards would take a lot more space to explain, because at some point it becomes tricky :P and of course my own understanding is also limited. But it boils down to coming to such a broad perspective, and an understanding of the nature of the limits of the sense of self (which comes about by the deepening of awareness), that the strict line between different perspectives and between self/not-self starts to become blurry, and eventually even dissolves in some ways. So in a sense, it's coming full circle. It's where selfishness and selflessness more and more become basically the same thing. Imagine that...
(cont.)
Mark Meijer 100+
And since we're coming back full circle, it also means your ability to empathize with other forms of life becomes greater. Note that this does not involve the urge to cuddle with termites or anything. Urges and other such impulsive emotional behaviours have been mentioned already, as processes that are increasingly seen through with deepening awareness.
Another way to test for an increased level of self-awareness might be to see how easily one is provoked into regrettable action. As mentioned, this can only occur to the extent that those processes aren't been seen through in that moment, as a result of deepening awareness. And as a result of broadening perspective and increased empathy, the urge to respond in certain ways is also diminished. Yet another way to test might be to see how one deals with pain or fear. Although obviously this is all getting increasingly blunt, heheh...
Again, it's quite telling in more ways than one, that humans came up with the mirror test for assessing self-awareness. It shows the limits of our sense of self, a relative lack of depth in our awareness compared to what it could be, and a preoccupation with visual appearance (vision may be our most developed of the five commonly named sensory modalities, but that isn't always the case for other animals).
(end of essay :P)
Gerald O'brian 30+
I like the part about being able to recognize bits of ourselves in more things than we are able now.
At first, I was bothered by the way you seemed to merge different definitions of consciousness. I felt empathy, as other emotions, belong to the realm of instinctive action-reaction programs. Great empathy power as a by-product of superior intellect, to the most. Not the core of consciousness.
But yeah. This part about the bits of ourselves found elsewhere...
Makes some sense, I guess. Makes me think.
A feeling of self getting larger, setting foot farther away from the genes in charge...
And that feeling being more and more enclosed and restrained as consciousness is reduced. An ape may have this feeling roaming broadly around him (I don't like to use words like aura, it confuses people with a sweet tooth for superstition, but it'd be handy right now), and an insect may have that feeling in a tight capsule around its basic program.
How do you like this : the more consciousness an organism has, the farther away from its genes can it experience the feeling of self.
Mark Meijer 100+
Also I'm slightly (though happily) surprised to see that I didn't scare you off with some of this stuff! :) To speak in stereotypes, hardcore materialists and hardcore spiritualists tend to find eachother at opposite sides of the room. I consider myself neither of those and I think it's a false distinction to make between the material and the spiritual anyway (and I admittedly often feel awkward using either of those kinds of terms). But I wasn't sure what you would consider yourself to be, and how that would affect your reaction to my essay :P
Awesomeness.
Gerald O'brian 30+
I'd gladly talk to a roman catholic if he'd be willing to genuinely discuss spiritual subjects with me.
But 'spiritualists' often lack the capacity to hear criticism and counter arguments.
Or have I been unlucky in my encounters?
Anyway, this talk about concsiousness was very interesting and although english is not my native tongue, I apreciated your clean writing.
Mark Meijer 100+
As for stubborn tunnel-visioned persistence, I think that's a common trait to be found in the best of people, as well as the worst. Which in both cases could be for better and for worse, and not necessarily in that order. :P
Scott Ferguson
Also the physics of the last 50 years or so has shown more and more that consciousness affects matter and is some sort of substrate to matter. I see on the side of science the same phenomenon. I have to agree with the following quote:
“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it”
Max Planck
Gerald O'brian 30+
Jeffrey Nador
I know I'm giving you an analogy and not a full answer, but the full answer requires years of dedicated study in biology. Personally, I've been at it for 10 years, and I still don't have a full understanding of it.
Gerald O'brian 30+
Isn"t that what neurobiology is about? I had the feeling that consciousness was getting a peculiar treatment, like that of the photon created by the oscillating electron...
does neurobiology really consider consciousness in this way?