4 ms·

The premise of this article reminds me of this essay: "If Materialism Is True, the United States Is Probably Conscious" https://faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/Schw

• olooney 7y ago
  Interesting paper but t feels a little like a "paradox of the heap" argument[1]. A human has 9e10 neurons[2], while a rabbit only has 5e8, and there are only 3e8 Americans. I don't see a problem arguing that consciousness is an emergent phenomenon arising in networks of at least 1e10 nodes, or in networks that have certain recurrent structures regardless of network size, or that "consciousness" is a qualitative concept measured on a sliding scale so that a rabbit is 1/180th as conscious as a human. Though if someone wanted to argue that the United States as a whole exhibits about the same level of consciousness as a rabbit, I don't think I would argue with them... but, having known several pet rabbits, it would feel to me that we are saying the same thing, which is that neither exhibits a meaningful level of consciousness at all. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_by_number_of_neurons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_by_number_of_n...
  • minitoar 7y ago
    I’m probably missing the point of your comment by coming to the defense of pet rabbits but...they are actually quite intelligent! They can be litter box trained and really have a lot going on if you don’t keep them locked in a hutch 24/7.
    • everyfakeword 7y ago
      Metaphorical... I don't want to be ignorant I want to ask, When 'did' the 'usage' of a 'tool' 'became a weapon' ? Cui bono ? BTT (-;