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I lost the thread in the first two paragraphs. Can anyone explain to me why it's so obvious infants are conscious? THis seems to be taken as a given for the res

I lost the thread in the first two paragraphs. Can anyone explain to me why it's so obvious infants are conscious? THis seems to be taken as a given for the rest of the article. Couldn't they be in a state similar to sleepwalking which seems not conscious to me? Perhaps consciousness flashes on as you have your first few "flashbulb memories".

hasenj 9y ago
Consciousness does not have to mean being "mentally" (intellectually) aware of what's going on. It's about experiencing stuff, and having a _sensation_
- dwaltrip 9y ago
  In my view, the two dynamics are incredibly intertwined. The sensation is largely made up of and intertwined with an understanding of what the sensation _means_. I'll try to give an example: Think of a complex modern art painting. It's much more difficult to perceive the colors used in the painting, as the boundaries between different parts and components of the painting are far less meaningful or distinguishable, compared to most objects we encounter. When you look around your kitchen, the sensations of color are nearly instantaneously associated with rich semantic information about the various objects. E.g. that red object is the "top" of the "peanut butter" "jar" that "I" "bought" "last week" (this is the tip of the semantic iceberg). This makes it easy to hold onto that perception -- it is able to quickly take root in a rich semantic soil that the brain has been developing over our entire lives. This doesn't happen with a messy, semantically-limited perception like looking at a modern art painting. Sure, we can focus very hard to isolate the different streaks and blurs and blobs of color, but it is noticeably more difficult. With an infant, as their semantic soil is very shallow compared to an adults (or even a young child), I imagine that their perception of the world is perhaps more like a modern art painting. Slowly, the colorful blurs and blob and smells and sounds take on meaning as the infant learns about the world and builds up an understanding of the complex patterns in life.
  - monktastic1 9y ago
    > When you look around your kitchen, the sensations of color are nearly instantaneously associated with rich semantic information about the various objects. Nearly. This is why the main thrust of meditation is about becoming aware of ever-subtler processes, both on- and off-cushion. When there's enough awareness to distinguish between the arising of bare perception and the associations it triggers (for example), it becomes clear why we identified consciousness with association, and why it doesn't quite capture what we were originally curious about. Something interesting remains. As more and more functions (modeling, associating, remembering, attending, etc.) get distilled away, you'd think the mystery gets smaller and smaller. But experientially speaking, I think it only gets bigger.
    - dwaltrip 9y ago
      Hi monktastic! > This is why the main thrust of meditation is about becoming aware of ever-subtler processes. Indeed. It's an incredible method to find insight. > When there's enough awareness to distinguish between the arising of bare perception and the associations it triggers... I would argue that the concept of bare perception, absent of any sort of understanding (the understanding could be quite minimal, as with an infant, dog, or even an ant), is a non-sequitur. It's like asking for mass without of gravity. The consciousness _is_ the understanding of each instantaneous moment. This is why meditation can only take us so far, as it is impossible to become an ant or an infant, to completely abandon all accumulated understanding. But by reducing our assumptions and constructed frameworks of meaning as much as possible, interesting things may happen. > it becomes clear why we identified consciousness with association, and why it doesn't quite capture what we were originally curious about. Something interesting remains. This is the crux. Without being able to totally abandon your associations and understanding, how do you know for certain some aspect of consciousness lies beyond them? That seems to me something no human could ever experience, and that if they could, they would no longer function nor possess any awareness at all.
      - monktastic1 9y ago
        Hi dwaltrip :) > It's like asking for mass without of gravity. The consciousness _is_ the understanding of each instantaneous moment. Of course, if someone were to somehow spend time conscious without association, they wouldn't be able to convince anyone they did so. Maybe it's impossible, maybe it's possible, but it's not very amenable to debate. So I'm trying to stick to more empirically testable claims. In particular, here I'm hypothesizing that the reason we believe consciousness is equivalent to its various functions is that we don't have enough precision of awareness to distinguish them. The experiment is simple (though not easy): become increasingly aware of the subtle processes, and plot your belief over time. My own result (and that of many who have done the experiment) is that I've clarified two aspects of my experience ("the sheer fact of experience" and "the particular forms it takes") in such a way that I no longer identify them. YMMV, but I think it's a wonderful exercise! Relatedly, I'm curious what you think of the idea that you can only know that you are conscious, whereas it is impossible (even in principle) to know whether another being is. Thanks as always for the chat.
- goialoq 9y ago
  Does a thermostat have a _sensation_ of temperature? Why or why not?
  - pixl97 9y ago
    A thermometer senses temperature, much like the human skin does. But we would not consider it conscious because it is a reactionary device. Of course at some point along our development of machine intelligence that may change. At some point in the past all life was reactionary, then as it evolved that changed. My take on it is the first consciousness in life occurred when creatures started making predictions on when they would eat something or get eaten and act before it occurred.
    - red75prime 9y ago
      It already happened then. https://www.engadget.com/2017/07/25/deepmind-create-ai-imagination/ https://www.engadget.com/2017/07/25/deepmind-create-ai-imagi... AI makes predictions and acts on them.
  - hasenj 9y ago
    Probably not. Why? That's the trillion dollar question.
- dontreact 9y ago
  I'm not even experiencing anything when I am sleep walking, and it seems plausible that infants are in a similar state. How do we know that infants are experiencing something?

hasenj 9y ago

Consciousness does not have to mean being "mentally" (intellectually) aware of what's going on. It's about experiencing stuff, and having a _sensation_

dwaltrip 9y ago
In my view, the two dynamics are incredibly intertwined. The sensation is largely made up of and intertwined with an understanding of what the sensation _means_. I'll try to give an example: Think of a complex modern art painting. It's much more difficult to perceive the colors used in the painting, as the boundaries between different parts and components of the painting are far less meaningful or distinguishable, compared to most objects we encounter. When you look around your kitchen, the sensations of color are nearly instantaneously associated with rich semantic information about the various objects. E.g. that red object is the "top" of the "peanut butter" "jar" that "I" "bought" "last week" (this is the tip of the semantic iceberg). This makes it easy to hold onto that perception -- it is able to quickly take root in a rich semantic soil that the brain has been developing over our entire lives. This doesn't happen with a messy, semantically-limited perception like looking at a modern art painting. Sure, we can focus very hard to isolate the different streaks and blurs and blobs of color, but it is noticeably more difficult. With an infant, as their semantic soil is very shallow compared to an adults (or even a young child), I imagine that their perception of the world is perhaps more like a modern art painting. Slowly, the colorful blurs and blob and smells and sounds take on meaning as the infant learns about the world and builds up an understanding of the complex patterns in life.
- monktastic1 9y ago
  > When you look around your kitchen, the sensations of color are nearly instantaneously associated with rich semantic information about the various objects. Nearly. This is why the main thrust of meditation is about becoming aware of ever-subtler processes, both on- and off-cushion. When there's enough awareness to distinguish between the arising of bare perception and the associations it triggers (for example), it becomes clear why we identified consciousness with association, and why it doesn't quite capture what we were originally curious about. Something interesting remains. As more and more functions (modeling, associating, remembering, attending, etc.) get distilled away, you'd think the mystery gets smaller and smaller. But experientially speaking, I think it only gets bigger.
  - dwaltrip 9y ago
    Hi monktastic! > This is why the main thrust of meditation is about becoming aware of ever-subtler processes. Indeed. It's an incredible method to find insight. > When there's enough awareness to distinguish between the arising of bare perception and the associations it triggers... I would argue that the concept of bare perception, absent of any sort of understanding (the understanding could be quite minimal, as with an infant, dog, or even an ant), is a non-sequitur. It's like asking for mass without of gravity. The consciousness _is_ the understanding of each instantaneous moment. This is why meditation can only take us so far, as it is impossible to become an ant or an infant, to completely abandon all accumulated understanding. But by reducing our assumptions and constructed frameworks of meaning as much as possible, interesting things may happen. > it becomes clear why we identified consciousness with association, and why it doesn't quite capture what we were originally curious about. Something interesting remains. This is the crux. Without being able to totally abandon your associations and understanding, how do you know for certain some aspect of consciousness lies beyond them? That seems to me something no human could ever experience, and that if they could, they would no longer function nor possess any awareness at all.
    - monktastic1 9y ago
      Hi dwaltrip :) > It's like asking for mass without of gravity. The consciousness _is_ the understanding of each instantaneous moment. Of course, if someone were to somehow spend time conscious without association, they wouldn't be able to convince anyone they did so. Maybe it's impossible, maybe it's possible, but it's not very amenable to debate. So I'm trying to stick to more empirically testable claims. In particular, here I'm hypothesizing that the reason we believe consciousness is equivalent to its various functions is that we don't have enough precision of awareness to distinguish them. The experiment is simple (though not easy): become increasingly aware of the subtle processes, and plot your belief over time. My own result (and that of many who have done the experiment) is that I've clarified two aspects of my experience ("the sheer fact of experience" and "the particular forms it takes") in such a way that I no longer identify them. YMMV, but I think it's a wonderful exercise! Relatedly, I'm curious what you think of the idea that you can only know that you are conscious, whereas it is impossible (even in principle) to know whether another being is. Thanks as always for the chat.
goialoq 9y ago
Does a thermostat have a _sensation_ of temperature? Why or why not?
- pixl97 9y ago
  A thermometer senses temperature, much like the human skin does. But we would not consider it conscious because it is a reactionary device. Of course at some point along our development of machine intelligence that may change. At some point in the past all life was reactionary, then as it evolved that changed. My take on it is the first consciousness in life occurred when creatures started making predictions on when they would eat something or get eaten and act before it occurred.
  - red75prime 9y ago
    It already happened then. https://www.engadget.com/2017/07/25/deepmind-create-ai-imagination/ https://www.engadget.com/2017/07/25/deepmind-create-ai-imagi... AI makes predictions and acts on them.
- hasenj 9y ago
  Probably not. Why? That's the trillion dollar question.
dontreact 9y ago
I'm not even experiencing anything when I am sleep walking, and it seems plausible that infants are in a similar state. How do we know that infants are experiencing something?