Galileo and Consciousness

[Sriram]

If any of you can demonstrate that a robot dog can get created purely through random variations and NS, I will agree that I have no basis to assume an independent consciousness.

[torridon]

If any of you can demonstrate that a robot dog can get created purely through random variations and NS, I will agree that I have no basis to assume an independent consciousness.

We can do better than that. Real dogs have arisen through random variations and NS - their ancestors were wolves, and real dogs are way more complex than robot dogs.  No consciousness magic was involved in the process.

[Gordon]

If any of you can demonstrate that a robot dog can get created purely through random variations and NS, I will agree that I have no basis to assume an independent consciousness.

That makes no sense, and is a category error: robot dogs contain no biology and are designed and manufactured by people whereas real dogs are biological and were, originally, the consequences of random variations and natural selection (albeit there has been subsequent artificial selection due to the actions of humans). 

[Sriram]

Hi everyone,

The only difference between the real dog and the robot dog is Consciousness. Therefore obviously Consciousness must be responsible for its development.

Both the real dog and the robot have evolved from simpler models. The robot obviously has developed due to Consciousness and Intelligence (human) which have directed its development. Assuming a similar pattern (self similarity) for the real dog....there must be Consciousness and Intelligence directing its development also.

You people can keep peddling your random variation story....but it simply doesn't wash. There is direction and objective to evolution.  We may not know what the objective is but then, as Donald Hoffman says....we are only shown the interface, not the inner reality.   All we can see is the objective of survival and reproduction.

I know you guys will keep asserting that......'there is no objective'....'it is all due to random variation'....and so on.   That is your dearly held belief so you are not going to let go so easily. Strong memes!

I am passing time anyway. Maybe all of us are! 

[Outrider]

The only difference between the real dog and the robot dog is Consciousness.

No.

Therefore obviously Consciousness must be responsible for its development.

Notwithstanding premise one, no again.

Both the real dog and the robot have evolved from simpler models.

No.

The robot obviously has developed due to Consciousness and Intelligence (human) which have directed its development.

Not evolved, but otherwise yes.

Assuming a similar pattern (self similarity) for the real dog....there must be Consciousness and Intelligence directing its development also.

This is a conclusion from your flawed presumption that the robot dog and the real dog are fundamentally similar, which is not the case.
 

You people can keep peddling your random variation story....but it simply doesn't wash.

The overwhelming majority of scientists, scientific institutions and - given how you like to pitch this as science vs religion sometimes - even the major religions all agree that actually random variation acted upon by natural selection is demonstrably 'the story' here. You can repeatedly tell us that you don't believe, and that's fine, but if the only evidence of an issue here is that you don't believe I'm afraid that's unlikely to be sufficient to convince many people.

There is direction and objective to evolution.

Based on what? What is the direction, what is the objective? How do you know? If there's an objective have we reached it, or what's the ultimate goal?

We may not know what the objective is but then, as Donald Hoffman says....we are only shown the interface, not the inner reality.

If you don't know what the objective is, what makes you so sure there is one? Who set it?

All we can see is the objective of survival and reproduction.

Those are not objectives, those are traits that can be retroactively identified.

I know you guys will keep asserting that......'there is no objective'....'it is all due to random variation'....and so on.   That is your dearly held belief so you are not going to let go so easily. Strong memes!

It's not a 'belief', it's a conclusion from the evidence. Your attempt to reduce this to equal levels of unjustified or wrong is partly just a failure to understand science, but mainly a tacit confession that you know you've got diddly squat to support your case and your best bet is to muddy the waters and hope that people think the alternatives are as shoddily put together as your claim - they aren't.

I am passing time anyway. Maybe all of us are! 

But that's no reason to be gratuitously wrong while you do it, surely.

O.

[torridon]

Hi everyone,

The only difference between the real dog and the robot dog is Consciousness. Therefore obviously Consciousness must be responsible for its development.

..

That doesn't follow : it is circular thinking.  The difference between dogs and cats is that dogs bark, therefore barking must be responsible for the evolution of dogs.  Hmmff.  A difference between Europeans and East Asians is lactose tolerance.  Therefore lactose tolerance must be responsible for the evolution of Europeans. A difference between humans and chimpanzees is our large brains, therefore large brains must be responsible for the evolution of humans.

You've been looking down the wrong end of the telescope for years, it seems, mistaking outcomes for their own origins.

[jeremyp]

Hi everyone,

The only difference between the real dog and the robot dog is Consciousness. Therefore obviously Consciousness must be responsible for its development.

Is that what you think? I can think of several others.

Two important ones:

the real dog isn't designed

the robot dog cannot reproduce.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

OBE - out of body experience?

What on earth do you mean by a real OBE - that presupposes that there is something not associated with a neurological phenomenon

Looks more like you presupposing it is associated with a neurological phenomenon. His evidence is of course his apparent empirical observation of his geographical spatio-temporal position. You have to get from that to something going on in his head, convincingly.

[Outrider]

Looks more like you presupposing it is associated with a neurological phenomenon.

More like concluding that it's a neurological phenomenon, based on the extensive evidence that our sensory impressions are the subjective experience of neurological phenomena. In order to presume this was anything else you'd need something to justify the claim that sensory impressions could be arrived at some other way.

His evidence is of course his apparent empirical observation of his geographical spatio-temporal position.

Which is demonstrably unreliable.

You have to get from that to something going on in his head, convincingly.

That's the accumulated history of neurology, pick a page and start reading.

O.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

More like concluding that it's a neurological phenomenon, based on the extensive evidence that our sensory impressions are the subjective experience of neurological phenomena. In order to presume this was anything else you'd need something to justify the claim that sensory impressions could be arrived at some other way.

So what is going on then. That is what we want to know, the process or a synopsis thereof.

''It's a neurological phenomenon'' in your hands i'm afraid sounds more like an '' It's bound to be a neurological phenomenon''

[Walt Zingmatilder]

.

That's the accumulated history of neurology, pick a page and start reading.

Wait a minute, hasn't the accumulated history of neurology refused to touch this?

[Sriram]

More like concluding that it's a neurological phenomenon, based on the extensive evidence that our sensory impressions are the subjective experience of neurological phenomena. In order to presume this was anything else you'd need something to justify the claim that sensory impressions could be arrived at some other way.

Which is demonstrably unreliable.

That's the accumulated history of neurology, pick a page and start reading.

O.

You have not heard of the 'Hard problem of consciousness' then?

[Enki]

Wait a minute, hasn't the accumulated history of neurology refused to touch this?

No.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC535951/

[Outrider]

You have not heard of the 'Hard problem of consciousness' then?

Yes. The problem is demonstrating HOW consciousness emerges from brain activity - there's still no reason to presume there's any other viable possibility, and the hard problem of consciousness isn't about trying to determine where consciousness comes from.

O.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Yes. The problem is demonstrating HOW consciousness emerges from brain activity - there's still no reason to presume there's any other viable possibility, and the hard problem of consciousness isn't about trying to determine where consciousness comes from.

O.

No, I think the hard problem of consciousness includes whether your assumption can ever be verified. You are playing down the fact that until a complete explanatory mechanism is found for your assumption your possibility isn't viable.

One problem of course is the definition of consciousness as expressed in the argument ''Has New atheist and fourth Horseman Daniel Dennett explained consciousness or has he merely explained it away?''

Neurology has a bit of a reputation of;''''''''''''''''''''''''''p0 £E$$WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW$k'j;#;;;;;;;;;;###############################################jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjwe33333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333i[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeefor it's achievements being bigged up.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

No.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC535951/

And would you say that these findings do anything to or for your beliefs or world view?

[Outrider]

No, I think the hard problem of consciousness includes whether your assumption can ever be verified.

You keep conflating 'assumptions' and 'conclusions', it's really not that hard to keep track of them.

You are playing down the fact that until a complete explanatory mechanism is found for your assumption your possibility isn't viable.

On the contrary, until a complete explanatory mechanism is found for the provisional conclusion (which may never happen), there are any number of 'viable' possibilities; most of them, though, have absolutely no reason to support them.

One problem of course is the definition of consciousness as expressed in the argument ''Has New atheist and fourth Horseman Daniel Dennett explained consciousness or has he merely explained it away?''

Part of the reason for the lack of an absolute explanation is the lack of an absolute understanding, regardless of which of the viable explanations ends up being the correct one.

Neurology has a bit of a reputation of;''''''''''''''''''''''''''p0 £E$$WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW$k'j;#;;;;;;;;;;###############################################jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjwe33333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333i[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeefor it's achievements being bigged up.

As opposed to the subtle reticence of New Age woo and religion?

O.

[Sriram]

We can do better than that. Real dogs have arisen through random variations and NS - their ancestors were wolves, and real dogs are way more complex than robot dogs.  No consciousness magic was involved in the process.

Therefore.... quite clearly the wide variety of dogs have arisen due to intelligent design....through artificial selection (from wolves). Certainly not random variations.

Consciousness is not magic. It is the source of adaptations and complexity and of all basic instincts of survival and reproduction.

[Outrider]

Therefore.... quite clearly the wide variety of dogs have arisen due to intelligent design....through artificial selection (from wolves). Certainly not random variations.

No, fundamentally wrong again. Entirely from random variation - people do not cause the variations, nor do they limit which ones occur. They select for them by breeding the examples with the variations they like - the selection is 'artificial' rather than natural, but the variation is functionally random. Whether this is a form of intelligent design is debatable, but there's no evidence to suggest that it's what's happened in evolutionary history.

Consciousness is not magic.

We aren't the ones suggesting that it is.

It is the source of adaptations and complexity and of all basic instincts of survival and reproduction.

No. Bacteria adapt and have variations of complexity and survive (or not) and reproduce... is there any basis for a claim that bacteria have a consciousness?

O.

[Sriram]

No. Bacteria adapt and have variations of complexity and survive (or not) and reproduce... is there any basis for a claim that bacteria have a consciousness?

O.

Anything that reacts and responds to the environment through suitable adaptations....is conscious.

[Outrider]

Anything that reacts and responds to the environment through suitable adaptations....is conscious.

I suspect that's not the use of 'consciousness' that everyone else in the conversation is using. My take was more akin to, for instance, the Wikipedia definition of "sentience or awareness of internal and external existence."¹

I don't see bacteria as having consciousness to any degree. I'd struggle to say where the dividing line was, it might that all vertebrates have consciousness to some degree, it might be just a few of those, it might be some more intellectually developed invertebrates such as octopuses do... Worms, insects and bacteria, though, no.


¹ - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness

[Sriram]

I suspect that's not the use of 'consciousness' that everyone else in the conversation is using. My take was more akin to, for instance, the Wikipedia definition of "sentience or awareness of internal and external existence."¹

I don't see bacteria as having consciousness to any degree. I'd struggle to say where the dividing line was, it might that all vertebrates have consciousness to some degree, it might be just a few of those, it might be some more intellectually developed invertebrates such as octopuses do... Worms, insects and bacteria, though, no.


¹ - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness

How are you equating 'sentience' with 'awareness of internal and external existence'.  Sentience is just about sensing ones environment. All living organisms sense their environment and respond suitably to anything that threatens their existence.

Awareness of internal and external existence is a higher level ability that requires self awareness.

Consciousness is present in all living organisms, including plants and microorganisms.

[Outrider]

How are you equating 'sentience' with 'awareness of internal and external existence'.

If you note, whilst I appreciate that wikipedia is not the foremost of scientific references, it fairly comprehensively demonstrates that this is not me equating those, it's broadly considered to be the definition.

Sentience is just about sensing ones environment.

Is it? According to, again, wikipedia it's "the capacity to be aware of feelings and sensations." which includes that environmental sense, but also a sense of internal activity.

All living organisms sense their environment and respond suitably to anything that threatens their existence.

But do they feel anything in response, and are they aware that there is something there to have those feelings?

Awareness of internal and external existence is a higher level ability that requires self awareness.

Yep. And the consensus seems to be, and certainly my understanding was, that self-awareness was part of the baseline requirement for consciousness.

Consciousness is present in all living organisms, including plants and microorganisms.

If you are to suggest that plants and bacteria have consciousness then you strip the word of any meaningful sense.

O.

[Sriram]

If you note, whilst I appreciate that wikipedia is not the foremost of scientific references, it fairly comprehensively demonstrates that this is not me equating those, it's broadly considered to be the definition.

Is it? According to, again, wikipedia it's "the capacity to be aware of feelings and sensations." which includes that environmental sense, but also a sense of internal activity.

But do they feel anything in response, and are they aware that there is something there to have those feelings?

Yep. And the consensus seems to be, and certainly my understanding was, that self-awareness was part of the baseline requirement for consciousness.

If you are to suggest that plants and bacteria have consciousness then you strip the word of any meaningful sense.

O.

I am surprised  () you  treat consciousness and self awareness as the same thing!   Very few organisms are self aware. Mainly humans, with maybe a few other higher order animals. Consciousness on the other hand is a basic property of all living organisms.....including insects, microbes and plants.

Consciousness in plants.....try this.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/andreamorris/2018/05/09/a-mind-without-a-brain-the-science-of-plant-intelligence-takes-root/?sh=13db510d76dc

***********

“My work is not about metaphors at all,” says Monica Gagliano. “When I talk about learning, I mean learning. When I talk about memory, I mean memory.” Gagliano, an evolutionary ecologist, is talking about plants. She's adopted methods from behavioral experiments used to test animal intelligence and found that plants respond in a similar manner. The results of her research suggest plants might possess intelligence, memory and learning, although the mechanisms at play may be fundamentally different from those of humans and animals.

the scientific community may have to reckon with intelligent organisms independent of the traditional brain and nervous system model. If her interpretation of the data is correct, we may be in the early stages of waking up to a world long-populated by considerably more intelligent, sentient beings than previously acknowledged. It would be a major paradigm shift.

I don't understand why it's so scary. To me, the role of science is to explore, and to explore especially what we don't know. But the reality is that much research in academia tends to explore what we already know because it's safe and in a career sense, it's much easier.

Although in general, scientists don't seem too keen to mingle with the philosophers, so we're missing out on that intellectual space, I think, where frontier thinking of potential possibilities can truly emerge. The little bit that I've combined my work with philosophers has been incredible and has given me a lot of ideas of what I could be looking at when I design my experiments.

************

[torridon]

I am surprised  () you  treat consciousness and self awareness as the same thing!   Very few organisms are self aware. Mainly humans, with maybe a few other higher order animals. Consciousness on the other hand is a basic property of all living organisms.....including insects, microbes and plants.

Consciousness in plants.....try this.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/andreamorris/2018/05/09/a-mind-without-a-brain-the-science-of-plant-intelligence-takes-root/?sh=13db510d76dc

***********

Most creatures with a brain have some degree or quality of self awareness.  It is simplistic to imagine this is something you either have, or don't have.  At its basic level this is what proprioception is; all creatures have to know where they end and the rest of the world begins, where their boundaries are and it is boundaries that define a 'self'

When people talk about 'consciousness in plants' you have to remember they are using the word in a non-conventional way.  The generally accepted meaning of the word is (broadly speaking) that mental state which is lost when you fall asleep and regained when you wake up.  Clearly plants do not have mental states, they do not have minds.  However they do react to their environment in which we we might call 'intelligent' if we indulge the expressive power of language.  A phototropic response in a flowering plant for instance would be a deterministic biochemical response to external change; but all the changes that go on in brains are also deterministic biochemical reactions, so there may be some explanatory substrate that is common to both the simple responses of plants and to the neural activity in brains which manifests as what we term 'intelligence' and 'consciousness'.