Self medication in birds

[Sriram]

Why anthropocentric??!!

[ProfessorDavey]

Why anthropocentric??!!

Because you see everything as if humans are the centre of the universe and that everything revolves around human-like attributes. We aren't and it doesn't and there is no reason why humans need to exist at all - the universe could quite happily trundle along without humans, as indeed it did for virtually all its existence to date.

[Enki]

You guys are taking too much trouble to come up with convoluted 'explanations'. Accepting consciousness as a fundamental attribute of living things is the simplest explanation.

It's just as simple to say that there is no such thing as consciousness. That, of course, doesn't make it right, anymore than suggesting that consciousness resides in all living things.

I see no reason to think that a sponge is a conscious entity but I see good reasons to suggest that a chimpanzee is a conscious entity. Hence I distinguish between the two.

[jeremyp]

Why are you getting angry?!!

Because you are openly bringing up superstitions bullshit on a science thread.

[jeremyp]

jeremyp.... Reincarnation is a valid hypothesis given the number of cases Jim Tucker has highlighted. Yes....they are anecdotal. That is the way research in such matters happens. You don't expect some instrument to record instances of reincarnation, do you?!

How would you try to falsify reincarnation?

This is not science. It's bollocks.

[Enki]

As I have mentioned on the other thread....simply attributing our consciousness to neurophysiology is like attributing all the traits of a robot to its circuitry. It is the human using it who forms its core. If not for the human using it, the robot is just a rusting piece of junk, just as the body is just a rotting piece of flesh.

Unless one rejects the idea that there is a 'human' controlling this 'robot' and instead sees the 'human' as the material mind within the 'robot'. Then it makes complete sense and has the useful addition of being supported by the evidence.

[Sriram]

Regardless of what you people may keep asserting....

Reincarnation is a valid hypothesis.  Consciousness being present in all living beings is also a valid hypothesis.

Thanks guys....

[jeremyp]

Regardless of what you people may keep asserting....

Reincarnation is a valid hypothesis.  Consciousness being present in all living beings is also a valid hypothesis.

Thanks guys....

They are both bollocks. Is a bowl of petunias conscious?

[ProfessorDavey]

Regardless of what you people may keep asserting....

Reincarnation is a valid hypothesis.  Consciousness being present in all living beings is also a valid hypothesis.

For a hypothesis to be valid it needs to be:

a) Based on prior evidence and
b) Testable

Struggling to see how reincarnation fits either. Universal consciousness seems only to fit if you re-define consciousness. But then there is no real hypothesis to test as you are simply answering your hypothesis through changing a definition rather than through subjecting it to rigorous testing.

[Sriram]

They are both bollocks. Is a bowl of petunias conscious?

Plant consciousness has been discussed here many times.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_cognition

https://www.forbes.com/sites/andreamorris/2018/05/09/a-mind-without-a-brain-the-science-of-plant-intelligence-takes-root/?sh=7f50ac0976dc

[ProfessorDavey]

Plant consciousness has been discussed here many times.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_cognition

Sriram - cognition and consciousness are different things. You seem to have slipped from a discussion on consciousness to one on cognition.

Cognition involves nothing more that the ability to gain information about surroundings via sensing etc. Of course plants are able to do this, as are all sorts of artificial systems.

Consciousness goes well beyond simple cognition, although conscious entities tend to exhibit cognition too. For consciousness there needs to be some element of self-awareness. So this goes far beyond the ability of an entity simply to sense its surroundings.

[ProfessorDavey]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/andreamorris/2018/05/09/a-mind-without-a-brain-the-science-of-plant-intelligence-takes-root/?sh=7f50ac0976dc

I think we'd discussed this in the past. Realistically this discussion is about memory and learning. Can plants learn and do they have memory - sure they do, that's hardly controversial. And so, of course do all sorts of artificial systems that are able to build up memory of their surroundings and 'learn' from sensing their surrounding.

None of that comes close to consciousness, that unless you head down the most extreme re-defining, requires self-awareness. Does a plant know that it is a plant? I don't think there is any evidence that it does even if it can exhibit cognition of its surrounding, develop a memory of that information and develop alternative behaviours, i.e. learning. None of that is consciousness.

[Sriram]

The assumption that consciousness is just an emergent property of  certain chemical reactions is what needs to be further investigated. Life itself needs to be further investigated outside our current assumptions about it. We have hardly scratched the surface. 

[Udayana]

The assumption that consciousness is just an emergent property of  certain chemical reactions is what needs to be further investigated. Life itself needs to be further investigated outside our current assumptions about it. We have hardly scratched the surface.

Do you mean that you accept that the Rishis didn't work it all out thousands of years ago?

Also not sure exactly why this needs to be investigated. Does anyone have any plans for what they are going to do once we know everything?

[Nearly Sane]

Do you mean that you accept that the Rishis didn't work it all out thousands of years ago?

Also not sure exactly why this needs to be investigated. Does anyone have any plans for what they are going to do once we know everything?

Nice long bath, some chocolates, and a smooth Brunello in my case.

[Sriram]

What are we going to do by discovering more and more galaxies and how many light years away they are?

At least understanding consciousness, life and death could mean something to each of us as individuals and could even change our priorities and our ideas of right and wrong.....

[ProfessorDavey]

The assumption that consciousness is just an emergent property of  certain chemical reactions is what needs to be further investigated.

If you wish to make a claim that consciousness isn't an emergent property of a high complex set of chemical reactions then the onus is on you to provide the evidence for this. Currently there seems to be no evidence that consciousness can exist outside of or beyond the context of those complex chemical reactions, so it becomes a reasonable assumption that it is an emergent property of those reactions. 

Life itself needs to be further investigated outside our current assumptions about it. We have hardly scratched the surface.

Why do think there are thousands of biologists and life scientists around the globe working tirelessly on research projects aimed at exactly that - understanding more about life processes. And over the past decades we have made enormous strides forward in our understanding, but you are correct we have only scratched the surface - but to go further requires more and better biological research and life science research. What we don't need to people to try to fill the gaps, in a 'god of the gaps' manner, with incoherent and unevidenced woo.

You like the word 'assumptions' don't you Sriram. Well when our 'assumptions' are actually the evidence-base the that seems entirely appropriate. When people start making assumptions that have no evidence to back them up, e.g. consciousness exists outside of chemical processes, then we are in trouble. But I think we know which one of us bases their assumptions on evidence and which one assumes stuff without evidence.

[Udayana]

What are we going to do by discovering more and more galaxies and how many light years away they are?

Who knows, but there is interest in it and plenty of funding. There is always the possibility of breakthrough discoveries allowing for improvements in energy use and engineering. In life sciences, for disease control, health and so on. Practical reasons.     

At least understanding consciousness, life and death could mean something to each of us as individuals and could even change our priorities and our ideas of right and wrong.....

Meaning and morality are in a different box. People, likely for over a million years, have lived their lives with or without meaning, choosing their priorities and to do right or wrong as determined by their own nature and logic. How will more metaphysical or subjective understanding change that? How will they even agree on any findings or results?

   

[jeremyp]

Plant consciousness has been discussed here many times.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_cognition

https://www.forbes.com/sites/andreamorris/2018/05/09/a-mind-without-a-brain-the-science-of-plant-intelligence-takes-root/?sh=7f50ac0976dc

They don't have a nervous system. They are not conscious.

[Sriram]

https://mindmatters.ai/2021/05/quick-facts-on-iit-the-leading-theory-of-consciousness/

*********

One line of argument takes the principles of integrated information theory (IIT) to their logical conclusion. Some level of experience can be found in all organisms, it says, including perhaps in Paramecium and other single-cell life forms. Indeed, according to IIT, which aims to precisely define both the quality and the quantity of any one conscious experience, experience may not even be restricted to biological entities but might extend to non-evolved physical systems previously assumed to be mindless — a pleasing and parsimonious conclusion about the makeup of the universe.

CHRISTOF KOCH, “IS CONSCIOUSNESS EVERYWHERE?” AT THE MIT PRESS READER (MARCH 15, 2021)

*********

[Enki]

https://mindmatters.ai/2021/05/quick-facts-on-iit-the-leading-theory-of-consciousness/

*********

One line of argument takes the principles of integrated information theory (IIT) to their logical conclusion. Some level of experience can be found in all organisms, it says, including perhaps in Paramecium and other single-cell life forms. Indeed, according to IIT, which aims to precisely define both the quality and the quantity of any one conscious experience, experience may not even be restricted to biological entities but might extend to non-evolved physical systems previously assumed to be mindless — a pleasing and parsimonious conclusion about the makeup of the universe.

CHRISTOF KOCH, “IS CONSCIOUSNESS EVERYWHERE?” AT THE MIT PRESS READER (MARCH 15, 2021)

*********

Which is certainly interesting, but don't forget the objections to this line of approach, particularly those of Searle and Aaronson,  and for which I have some sympathy.