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That tells us something about your imagination, and nothing about insects. Like all animals, we share a common ancestor with insects. At what point do you imag

That tells us something about your imagination, and nothing about insects. Like all animals, we share a common ancestor with insects. At what point do you imagine our ancestors evolved this property that you imagine insects lack? You personally began life as a single cell, which rapidly multiplied. At what point during your embryogenesis or subsequent development do you believe you gained the property of consciousness?

Teever 6y ago
> You personally began life as a single cell, which rapidly multiplied. Did he? or did he begin at the point when that single cell multiplied into a sufficient number of properly organized cells? That's what I take OPs argument to be, and you haven't provided any evidence as to why that isn't the case. If you want to claim that an insect has consciousness or that a single cell does as well, why would you draw the line at a single cell? What would you say to someone who would claim that a virus has consciousness, or a ribosome? Why can't rocks be conscious?
- stagehn 6y ago
  Panpsychists don't draw the line at a single cell and would say that a rock is conscious, to a smaller extent than a human is or an insect is. Doing this gets around the issue of consciousness suddenly arising in a discontinuous way along the spectrum of a rock to a human
- wombatmobile 6y ago
  Would you like to answer the question, Teever? At what number of cells do you figure consciousness exists? Call that N. How does the addition of cells beyond N-1 imbue consciousness? How did you determine N?
  - bonoboTP 6y ago
    This is an argument from Sorites' paradox and can be used to deny the existence of mountains.
  - tsimionescu 6y ago
    Most likely the number of cells is irrelevant, but there really is no way around the fact that an egg and a sperm are not conscious and that a 5-year old is conscious (for any useful definition of consciousness). Sure, you could opt for the scientific version of panpsychism, where we attribute a property that we call consciousness purely by analogy to any system with some physical properties. But that still leaves you with the hard work of (a) proving that that property has anything to do with what we normally understand as consciousness (qualia, inner voice, etc.), and (b) defining the point/range where a system has enough panpsychism-consciousness to be considered conscious in the regular sense - e.g. at what size/age does a human have its first experience of thought? When the first neurons differentiate? When it is born? Later? Panpsychism could be a way to give an answer, but you still need to actually quantify this. Of course, spiritual/religious panpsychism doesn't have this problem, it can posit that the soul should exists even outside of a physical body, that electrons can feel love etc. It is not provably wrong, but it is also outside the realm of what we can scientifically study, at least for now.
    - srtjstjsj 6y ago
      You can't assume your conclusion like that. If you define consciousness as "something a child has that a sperm doesn't have" you are muddled up right at the start -- maybe thumbs are the essence of consciousness.
      - tsimionescu 6y ago
        I'm not defining consciousness like that. I defined consciousness (rather vaguely, but in line with the common usage) as having internal experiences, like an inner voice or qualia. I am then asserting that (disregarding spiritual ideas) it is obvious that sperm cells don't have this kind of consciousness, while 5 year old children do have it (and at least some animals as well!). My point is that panpsychism seems to me to be using definitions to try to hide away the fact that it can't actually answer the questions of consciousness that we are really interested in any more than brain-based theories can.
        6y ago
  - Teever 6y ago
    It's not just the number of cells but the layout and connections between them. Imagine if you could feed a tumour everything it needed to live and it would grow to be disgustingly large mass of undifferentiated cells the size of a whale. That thing isn't conscious.
adwn 6y ago
> Like all animals, we share a common ancestor with insects. At what point do you imagine our ancestors evolved this property that you imagine insects lack? Would you claim that sub-atomic particles have consciousness? If not, and if you accept that humans have consciousness, then there are two options: 1) The step occured somewhere between sub-atomic particles and humans, so why not somewhere between insects and humans? 2) Consciousness is gradual, in which case I wouldn't be surprised if an insects consciousness is closer to a sub-atomic particle's consciousness than to a human's consciousness.
- bonoboTP 6y ago
  Ask the same question about color or temperature. Atoms by themselves have no color, nor temperature, but macro scale objects do. It makes no sense to say an atom has a little bit of temperature. These are emergent properties that describe the interactions and interworkings of many many individual components. It's not necessary that elementary particles have a "little bit" of consciousness. They also don't have any temperature, it not "a little" but undefined. It could be that you can only apply the concept of consciousness to sufficiently complex systems. It reminds me of how some ancient Greeks felt there was a contradiction in 2 being large when compared to 1,but small when compared to 3. How can 2 possess the quality of smallness and largeness at the same time? Perhaps it has some smallness in it and also some largeness? Today we would say small and large are relative terms that apply to two things, it's a function that takes two inputs. They didn't have a solid grasp on concepts that exist in the relations between objects instead of them residing in the objects. I think today's consciousness debate is analogously misguided.
  - adwn 6y ago
    I'm not sure why you're arguing with me. I didn't claim that atoms are conscious, nor did I claim or imply that the consciousness of a complex organism emerges from the consciousness of its sub-atomic components. If consciousness is gradual – and I believe it is – then it's possible that insects are not conscious, and simple consciousness only starts at the complexity of, e.g., a reptile's brain, or somewhere along the development of a fetus. To be clear, when I say "closer to a sub-atomic particle's consciousness", I mean "not conscious at all". Hmm, I admit, that sentence could be misunderstood. Sorry, that was my fault.

Teever 6y ago

> You personally began life as a single cell, which rapidly multiplied. Did he? or did he begin at the point when that single cell multiplied into a sufficient number of properly organized cells? That's what I take OPs argument to be, and you haven't provided any evidence as to why that isn't the case. If you want to claim that an insect has consciousness or that a single cell does as well, why would you draw the line at a single cell? What would you say to someone who would claim that a virus has consciousness, or a ribosome? Why can't rocks be conscious?

stagehn 6y ago
Panpsychists don't draw the line at a single cell and would say that a rock is conscious, to a smaller extent than a human is or an insect is. Doing this gets around the issue of consciousness suddenly arising in a discontinuous way along the spectrum of a rock to a human
wombatmobile 6y ago
Would you like to answer the question, Teever? At what number of cells do you figure consciousness exists? Call that N. How does the addition of cells beyond N-1 imbue consciousness? How did you determine N?
- bonoboTP 6y ago
  This is an argument from Sorites' paradox and can be used to deny the existence of mountains.
- tsimionescu 6y ago
  Most likely the number of cells is irrelevant, but there really is no way around the fact that an egg and a sperm are not conscious and that a 5-year old is conscious (for any useful definition of consciousness). Sure, you could opt for the scientific version of panpsychism, where we attribute a property that we call consciousness purely by analogy to any system with some physical properties. But that still leaves you with the hard work of (a) proving that that property has anything to do with what we normally understand as consciousness (qualia, inner voice, etc.), and (b) defining the point/range where a system has enough panpsychism-consciousness to be considered conscious in the regular sense - e.g. at what size/age does a human have its first experience of thought? When the first neurons differentiate? When it is born? Later? Panpsychism could be a way to give an answer, but you still need to actually quantify this. Of course, spiritual/religious panpsychism doesn't have this problem, it can posit that the soul should exists even outside of a physical body, that electrons can feel love etc. It is not provably wrong, but it is also outside the realm of what we can scientifically study, at least for now.
  - srtjstjsj 6y ago
    You can't assume your conclusion like that. If you define consciousness as "something a child has that a sperm doesn't have" you are muddled up right at the start -- maybe thumbs are the essence of consciousness.
    - tsimionescu 6y ago
      I'm not defining consciousness like that. I defined consciousness (rather vaguely, but in line with the common usage) as having internal experiences, like an inner voice or qualia. I am then asserting that (disregarding spiritual ideas) it is obvious that sperm cells don't have this kind of consciousness, while 5 year old children do have it (and at least some animals as well!). My point is that panpsychism seems to me to be using definitions to try to hide away the fact that it can't actually answer the questions of consciousness that we are really interested in any more than brain-based theories can.
      - 6y ago
- Teever 6y ago
  It's not just the number of cells but the layout and connections between them. Imagine if you could feed a tumour everything it needed to live and it would grow to be disgustingly large mass of undifferentiated cells the size of a whale. That thing isn't conscious.

adwn 6y ago

> Like all animals, we share a common ancestor with insects. At what point do you imagine our ancestors evolved this property that you imagine insects lack? Would you claim that sub-atomic particles have consciousness? If not, and if you accept that humans have consciousness, then there are two options: 1) The step occured somewhere between sub-atomic particles and humans, so why not somewhere between insects and humans? 2) Consciousness is gradual, in which case I wouldn't be surprised if an insects consciousness is closer to a sub-atomic particle's consciousness than to a human's consciousness.

bonoboTP 6y ago
Ask the same question about color or temperature. Atoms by themselves have no color, nor temperature, but macro scale objects do. It makes no sense to say an atom has a little bit of temperature. These are emergent properties that describe the interactions and interworkings of many many individual components. It's not necessary that elementary particles have a "little bit" of consciousness. They also don't have any temperature, it not "a little" but undefined. It could be that you can only apply the concept of consciousness to sufficiently complex systems. It reminds me of how some ancient Greeks felt there was a contradiction in 2 being large when compared to 1,but small when compared to 3. How can 2 possess the quality of smallness and largeness at the same time? Perhaps it has some smallness in it and also some largeness? Today we would say small and large are relative terms that apply to two things, it's a function that takes two inputs. They didn't have a solid grasp on concepts that exist in the relations between objects instead of them residing in the objects. I think today's consciousness debate is analogously misguided.
- adwn 6y ago
  I'm not sure why you're arguing with me. I didn't claim that atoms are conscious, nor did I claim or imply that the consciousness of a complex organism emerges from the consciousness of its sub-atomic components. If consciousness is gradual – and I believe it is – then it's possible that insects are not conscious, and simple consciousness only starts at the complexity of, e.g., a reptile's brain, or somewhere along the development of a fetus. To be clear, when I say "closer to a sub-atomic particle's consciousness", I mean "not conscious at all". Hmm, I admit, that sentence could be misunderstood. Sorry, that was my fault.