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While I agree with his reasoning based on his definition of consciousness, I am not sure if this is the most appropriate way of defining consciousness. We stil
by anon_z88 7y ago
While I agree with his reasoning based on his definition of consciousness, I am not sure if this is the most appropriate way of defining consciousness.
We still do not properly understand it, thus we cannot define it. While I try to stray from vague or ambiguous interpretations, I do think it's significant to point that out.
Let's look at the generic definition:
* consciousness - "the state of being awake and aware of one's surroundings."
* awareness - "knowledge or perception of a situation or fact."
While a plants' consciousness may not be COMPLEX, it does not mean the absence of conscious. There are things such as cellular intelligence which we know is exhibited in even the smallest of prokaryotes and eukaryotes cells.
At the most abstract interpretation I think consciousness can be defined as a closed system that contain both input and output, in which information is gathered and alters some component of the system itself.
There was a really interesting article the other day on here about how plants were more adaptive to radiation (specifically in Chernobyl) compared to the regions animal counterparts.
To this definition, I think plants exercise consciousness. When we look at life we have to analyze on both the fundamental and complex aspects.
Just my 2 cents.
- rotrux 7y agoBy this definition my air conditioning system is conscious.
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- mikeg8 7y agoI don't think so. Being turned on/powered up is not equivalent to being awake. "Awake", at minimum, implies a living subject.
- JetSpiegel 7y agoThat is just kicking the definition can down the "living" road.
- sebringj 7y agoExactly. People do this all the time. They project their own experience onto something without taking the time to think if that even applies. Our brain has billions of neurons and trillions of axons, so many that it allows a platform of emergence, not magic. Plants having nothing like this.
- panic 7y agoHow do you know that it isn't?
- uj8efdjkfdshf 7y agoI'd personally back such a definition of consciousness, and reframe the question more as one of what level of consciousness (eg complexity of processing, breadth of collected inputs) must an entity possess before we consider its consciousness as being meaningful to us.
- ta1234567890 7y agoLove this way of framing the subject. Following that line of reasoning, you could say that even the smallest particle/bit of energy has some level of consciousness. Then you could also say that Earth (and any planet or star), is also conscious, and at a way higher level than we (humans) are.
- blackhaz 7y agoSo we've got to panpsychism. Why not? We're in the company of Thales, Plato, Spinoza and Leibniz.
- ta1234567890 7y agoThank you for teaching me something new, had never heard of panpsychism before - fascinating. Do you know of this concept has been incorporated into physics somehow? Are there any models in physics that consider panpsychism as fundamental? (i.e. That consider consciousness as a basic property of matter/energy, just like the 3 special dimensions or time)
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- cnvqjpwips 7y agohttps://reducing-suffering.org/is-there-suffering-in-fundamental-physics https://reducing-suffering.org/is-there-suffering-in-fundame...
- solipsism 7y ago
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- daveFNbuck 7y ago> At the most abstract interpretation I think consciousness can be defined as a closed system that contain both input and output, in which information is gathered and alters some component of the system itself. This is very similar to the definition I was given for "robot" in an embedded systems course.
- justwalt 7y agoI think this is the point that the poster is trying to make. They’re saying it’s difficult to declare something conscious or not using exact criteria. A popular definition (in my experience) is the existence of a central nervous system, but we don’t really know whether or not that’s responsible for consciousness. I wonder if we’ll ever know for sure.
- matt-attack 7y agoWell an unconscious body has a central nervous system but is clearly not conscious.
- scarejunba 7y agoOkay so based on those generic definitions, I’m practically pulling someone off life support when I turn off my Google Home. Or maybe my learning thermostat.
- hn_throwaway_99 7y ago> At the most abstract interpretation I think consciousness can be defined as a closed system that contain both input and output, in which information is gathered and alters some component of the system itself. This seems like a reductio ad absurdum definition of consciousness, to echo rotrux's "By this definition my air conditioning system is conscious" comment. Consciousness may be hard to define, but it certainly is something that at least appears "special", and I think it's a big mistake to not include at least some level of self-awareness in the definition.
- anon_z88 7y agoI reduced it to a minimum so we could find points that we can agree on. I think self-awareness is a more complex system of consciousness, such as sentience. Which I do not believe an air conditioner is. For example, is nature (evolution) conscious? I mean this in the most literal sense, the system which created your definition of "consciousness", is that system itself consciousness? The material that makes up our neurons once came from a non self-aware system. (basic minerals, etc.)
- baddox 7y agoI'm not so against considering an air conditioning system to be conscious. If the goal is to define "consciousness" deliberately in such a way that you get to keep considering only a certain set of things to be conscious, then you might as well just define it as exactly that set of things.
- evancox100 7y agoThat's a straw man, no one has that goal. And it's pretty clear a definition of consciousness that would include a thermostat is so broad as to be nearly worthless.
- solipsism 7y agoI think it's a big mistake to not include at least some level of self-awareness in the definition These are the most boring sorts of arguments. You want to talk about only systems that have self awareness? Fine, you go do that on this side of the room. You want to talk about systems that don't necessarily have self awareness? Okay, do that on the other side of the room. If you can't decide on common definitions for words, you can't play together. You seem to be saying that there's a "special" thing, and that thing must include self awareness by your reckoning, and you call that thing "consciousness". Instead of arguing about whose definition of the word "consciousness" is better, just define that thing rigorously, call it anything you want, and then we can talk about it.
- ta1234567890 7y agoCompletely agree that it's very hard to have conversations about implications of consciousness without first having a definition that we can all agree on. In that line, what do you define as a "closed system"? Technically, nothing exists that doesn't somehow interact with its surroundings. Including humans (we breath, eat, absorb/exchange heat from air/sun, etc). Also black holes (Hawking radiation).
- anon_z88 7y agoBy closed system, I mean anything which you can isolate from anything else. For example, a car and a truck are both vehicles, but a vehicle is neither a car or a truck. The truck or car are the subject/closed system.
- hathawsh 7y agoThe word "consciousness" has important connotations that are not captured by the generic definition. As others noted, an air conditioner with a built in thermostat can fit the generic definition of consciousness. When I say an entity is conscious, I mean to say it not only has the ability to react to stimuli, but it can also abstractly choose how to react. It can rewire its own reactions, not just in a Pavlovian sense, but it can also develop internal thought frameworks and route its reactions through the frameworks it prefers. The only mechanism plants have for improving the way they react to their environment is biological evolution. You could call that mechanism a type of consciousness, but in doing so you would have to treat the species as the conscious entity, not the individual plant; individual plants are like passing thoughts. Thus I don't think individual plants are conscious unless they have some way to improve their reaction to their environment outside of biological evolution.
- DonaldFisk 7y agoDavid Chalmers discusses the consciousness of theromostats here: http://consc.net/notes/lloyd-comments.html http://consc.net/notes/lloyd-comments.html
- lottin 7y agoI tend to agree, but at the same time an entity capable of choosing how to react would violate the law of cause and effect. So, can conscious beings really choose how to react, or is consciousness just the illusion that we can make choices?
- hathawsh 7y agoI'm not sure I understand the question. You might be right if there is no passage of time, but thanks to time, the effect of one instant can be a cause in the next instant. The choice of reaction develops with time.
- ebg13 7y agoIt sounds like you're starting from an assumption that thoughts are somehow inherently different from responses. But we don't actually know if they are. Nothing that we've ever learned about how brains work has ever shown that choices, really all thoughts, are anything other than automatic. Our behaviors are tremendously complex, but that doesn't demonstrate that we have free will. So the question shouldn't be whether we can adapt in ways that plants can't but rather what degree of adaptability feels sufficiently thoughtful to our meat computers.
- tempguy9999 7y ago> There are things such as cellular intelligence which we know is exhibited in even the smallest of prokaryotes and eukaryotes cells Ah, that's a biiig claim. Which may be true nonetheless. Can you be more precise in this context about 'intelligence' as distinct from action-reaction? BTW there is a claim that plants can be conditioned a la pavlov. I'll try to dig out the ref (recently in new scientist). Amazing if verified. > about how plants were more adaptive to radiation Adapted in this context means adaptations so as to 'not die' I suspect. Please correct me if needed.
- MaxBarraclough 7y agoYou might like this TED talk, The Real Reason for Brains. It goes in a similar direction to the article. Life forms that don't move don't need brains. Sophisticated decision-making isn't a challenge that a plant has to meet. I think this is a strong point against the idea of plants being conscious. https://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_wolpert_the_real_reason_for_brains https://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_wolpert_the_real_reason_for...
- aidoejebrji 7y agoFollowing Thomas Nagel, I understand 'x is conscious' to mean roughly 'there is something that it is like to be x'. In this sense, a system can be intelligent without being conscious. Consciousness, intelligence, and self-awareness might all be orthogonal. We currently know vastly more about how to build an intelligent machine (extremely low as the level of intelligence may be) than about how to build a conscious machine (we know nothing at all about that). Imagine waking up from deep sleep. In the first few seconds, there is virtually no intelligence present other than basic autonomous body survival intelligence, which is also present during deep sleep. So what has changed? What is the difference between being in deep sleep and being in the state of unintelligent awareness a second after waking from deep sleep? There is not something that it is like to be in deep sleep. There is something that it is like to be just awakened from deep sleep. There is a lot of confusion in most conversations between consciousness, intelligence, and self-awareness. The three are different concepts and the relationships between them are poorly understod. I can imagine a human-level intelligence that lacks consciousness (this is sort of what is meant by the term 'p-zombie'). I can imagine a being that almost or completely lacks intelligence (in the sense of problem-solving ability, pattern recognition, etc.), yet is conscious. Humanity currently has a lot of knowledge about how various material phenomena (drugs, being hit in the head with a brick, etc.) affect consciousness, but as far as I know humanity currently has zero knowledge about the mechanisms by which material phenomena affect consciousness. Consciousness in its essence is not understood at all and may be fundamentally beyond the reach of science. There is no reason to assume that it is in principle possible to objectively evaluate whether some entity is conscious.
- naasking 7y ago> Consciousness, intelligence, and self-awareness might all be orthogonal. Maybe, but probably not! > I can imagine a human-level intelligence that lacks consciousness (this is sort of what is meant by the term 'p-zombie'). I can imagine a being that almost or completely lacks intelligence (in the sense of problem-solving ability, pattern recognition, etc.), yet is conscious. I can imagine living forever, but it's actually impossible. The p-zombie argument depends upon a rhetorical trick that exposes our ignorance, much like Zeno's paradox. > There is no reason to assume that it is in principle possible to objectively evaluate whether some entity is conscious. Whatever argument you might use to to justify this, would also suggest that it is not possible in principle to objectively evaluate whether something is healthy, or alive or feels pain. And yet we seem quite adept at this.
- eternalban 7y ago> At the most abstract interpretation I think consciousness can be defined as a closed system ... Why closed? Who says it is closed? I claim it is open, and, spans the entirety of physical reality, fully entangled. > ... that contain both input and output, in which information is gathered and alters some component of the system itself. That sounds like a model for computation not consciousness. A JIT compiler would qualify.