Galileo and Consciousness

[Sriram]

Plants do have consciousness. That is what the article linked in 109 above discusses. That is what the entire discussion is about.

[jeremyp]

Plants do have consciousness.

Not by any reasonable definition of "consciousness".

[ProfessorDavey]

Plants do have consciousness. That is what the article linked in 109 above discusses. That is what the entire discussion is about.

So what - just because one (or a few) person argues for an extreme and non-standard definition of consciousness doesn't mean it is accepted. Any standard definition of conscious will not include bacteria, viruses, plants, fungi and primitive animal species, because to do so would require including anything that is simply capable of sensor-reactor processes, which would include vast numbers of completely irrelevant chemical and physical processes. To do so renders the notion of consciousness as completely meaningless if such a broad definition is adopted. And that is why any sensible person will not accept such a broad definition.

[Outrider]

Its quite simple. If someone uses a robot to perform a function...there is consciousness behind the robot. There is consciousness using the robot for a purpose...

Even disregarding the point that I was saying rocks, and not robots, the point still stands - I'm happy to accept that there's a consciousness behind the robot, but that's a vastly different claim to saying there is a consciousness of the robot's own.

With biological organisms it is the same thing.

No, it isn't. We know that robots are manufactured things, we have no evidence to support the notion that biological organisms are a deliberate creation of something.

Without the consciousness the organism is dead and lifeless like a discarded robot.

Robots don't have consciousness or life in the first instance.

The difference between a dead organism and a live one is consciousness. Life is consciousness.

No. Bacteria are alive. Bacteria are not conscious, they have no mechanism by which they could be conscious, there is no nervous system, not neurology, no rationality. Unless you redefine consciousness to a meaningless degree, life and consciousness are not synonymous.

Whether you say that the organism is conscious or consciousness is working through the organism....it is the same thing.

I disagree, but that's an entirely different discussion.

O.

[Sriram]

Consciousness is not just our conscious self awareness and wakefulness. 

According to David Eagleman, neuroscientist.... “The conscious you, which is the part that flickers to life when you wake up in the morning, is the smallest bit of what’s happening in your head.

“It’s like a broom closet in the mansion of the brain.”

Also.....

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080414145705.htm

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Contrary to what most of us would like to believe, decision-making may be a process handled to a large extent by unconscious mental activity. A team of scientists has unraveled how the brain actually unconsciously prepares our decisions.  Even several seconds before we consciously make a decision its outcome can be predicted from unconscious activity in the brain.

when it comes to decisions we tend to assume they are made by our conscious mind. This is questioned by our current findings."

Haynes and colleagues now show that brain activity predicts -- even up to 7 seconds ahead of time --  how a person is going to decide.

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[Harrowby Hall]

Haynes and colleagues now show that brain activity predicts -- even up to 7 seconds ahead of time --  how a person is going to decide.

Sriram - do you drive?

[jeremyp]

Consciousness is not just our conscious self awareness and wakefulness. 

According to David Eagleman, neuroscientist.... “The conscious you, which is the part that flickers to life when you wake up in the morning, is the smallest bit of what’s happening in your head.

“It’s like a broom closet in the mansion of the brain.”

Also.....

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080414145705.htm

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

Contrary to what most of us would like to believe, decision-making may be a process handled to a large extent by unconscious mental activity. A team of scientists has unraveled how the brain actually unconsciously prepares our decisions.  Even several seconds before we consciously make a decision its outcome can be predicted from unconscious activity in the brain.

when it comes to decisions we tend to assume they are made by our conscious mind. This is questioned by our current findings."

Haynes and colleagues now show that brain activity predicts -- even up to 7 seconds ahead of time --  how a person is going to decide.

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

What point are you trying to make here? That because humans have a part of their mind that they are unaware of, plants must also have a mind? Your logic seems faulty.

[ProfessorDavey]

What point are you trying to make here? That because humans have a part of their mind that they are unaware of, plants must also have a mind? Your logic seems faulty.

I know - it is complete nonsense. The functioning of the hugely complex human brain when we are in a subconscious state (such as sleeping) in terms of its level of consciousness and awareness is absolutely nothing like a bacterium, or a plant or a fungus. That's because humans have consciousness (the level of which fluctuates over time), but have consciousness nonetheless. Bacteria, plants and fungi lack consciousness - both when they are awake and when they are asleep - which are also nonsense terms for bacteria, plants and fungi, as sleep in physiological terms is linked to brain/neuronal activities. Plant demonstrate other patterns of varying activity over 24 hour periods, but that isn't sleep as we might recognise it in consciousness terms.

[Sebastian Toe]

Consciousness is not just our conscious self awareness and wakefulness. 

According to David Eagleman, neuroscientist.... “The conscious you, which is the part that flickers to life when you wake up in the morning, is the smallest bit of what’s happening in your head.

“It’s like a broom closet in the mansion of the brain.”

Also.....

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080414145705.htm

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

Contrary to what most of us would like to believe, decision-making may be a process handled to a large extent by unconscious mental activity. A team of scientists has unraveled how the brain actually unconsciously prepares our decisions.  Even several seconds before we consciously make a decision its outcome can be predicted from unconscious activity in the brain.

when it comes to decisions we tend to assume they are made by our conscious mind. This is questioned by our current findings."

Haynes and colleagues now show that brain activity predicts -- even up to 7 seconds ahead of time --  how a person is going to decide.

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

Not from the Alan Burns School of Reality then!?

[Sriram]

It is quite simple and I have discussed this many times....

1. Consciousness is not just wakefulness and self awareness. It also consists of the unconscious mind.

2. We have an unconscious mind that is far more powerful and intricate than the conscious mind that we are normally aware of. Like an iceberg, 90% of our mind is hidden below the surface of our awareness.

3. The unconscious mind is not just a storeroom of repressed memories. It is like a complex workshop. The conscious mind that we are aware of is like a front desk (refer Eagleman).

4. Our unconscious mind takes decisions before the conscious mind is aware of it. Refer Benjamin Libet.   Even the placebo effect and our intuitions could be a product of the unconscious mind.

5. Consciousness (not conscious self awareness) is a property of all living things. It is consciousness that makes a living thing different from a non living thing.

6. Consciousness could be ubiquitous according to many philosophers (David Chalmers). We could even have a common consciousness that could be coordinating the entire ecosystem.  In fact, some philosophers (and scientists like Donald Hoffman)  believe that all space-time is a product of consciousness. 

[Harrowby Hall]

Sriram, one of the problems with your posts in this thread is that you are using one word consciousness and using it to discuss two different phenomena in the same sentence and expecting the reader to comprehend your meaning. Until you find some alternative terminology which adequately differentiates these phenomena then people reading your contributions will remain confused (to say the least).

[Sriram]

Sriram, one of the problems with your posts in this thread is that you are using one word consciousness and using it to discuss two different phenomena in the same sentence and expecting the reader to comprehend your meaning. Until you find some alternative terminology which adequately differentiates these phenomena then people reading your contributions will remain confused (to say the least).

I am using the words that are generally used by most philosophers and neuroscientists. The word 'Consciousness' is often used to refer to several things such as mind, general awareness, self awareness, the subject, Self, unconscious mind, subconscious mind, common consciousness and so on.

This is probably because consciousness is the most complex phenomena we have.....and we are still not sure how to divide it up and label it. It has so many layers and so many different forms.

Basically we are trying to objectivize something that is the essence of subjectivity.

[jeremyp]

It is quite simple and I have discussed this many times....

1. Consciousness is not just wakefulness and self awareness. It also consists of the unconscious mind.

Agreed. But you have to have a mind to have an unconscious mind. Plants and bacteria manifestly do not have minds.

5. Consciousness (not conscious self awareness) is a property of all living things. It is consciousness that makes a living thing different from a non living thing.

No it isn't and no it is not.

6. Consciousness could be ubiquitous according to many philosophers (David Chalmers). We could even have a common consciousness that could be coordinating the entire ecosystem.  In fact, some philosophers (and scientists like Donald Hoffman)  believe that all space-time is a product of consciousness.

There's no evidence for any of this.

[ProfessorDavey]

I am using the words that are generally used by most philosophers and neuroscientists.

You might use the words that most philosophers and neuroscientists use, but you most certainly don't use the definitions of those words that most philosophers and neuroscientists use. And that is the most important point - most philosophers and neuroscientists would find your definitions of consciousness and intelligence to be bizarre, if not, bonkers.

[SteveH]

But we know that born blind people have no evidence of light.  In an isolated situation....why and how would they find evidence of light?

No-one can detect neutrinos using their senses, but we know they exist.