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> Seen as biological robots, their cognition is essentially in service to this, and so must necessarily be algorithmic, and limited. All to say they are general

> Seen as biological robots, their cognition is essentially in service to this, and so must necessarily be algorithmic, and limited. All to say they are generally assumed to have lesser forms of consciousness. This seems to define consciousness as measurable by algorithmic determinism and limitation, which seems a complete non-sequitur. Seeing something as a biological robot need not necessarily imply anything at all about consciousness. > Perhaps consciousness doesn’t come in degrees at all. If I consider my altering states of awareness (awake & alert vs foggy vs dreaming) as degrees of consciousness, then yes it does. (But perhaps the question is really one of semantics.) > Some people may be unable to articulate their inner life, but is there any doubt they feel intense, recognizable emotions? Does not water for them taste as it does to us, does not touch reassure, does not heat burn and ice freeze, do not their emotions swell and slosh within them? I do doubt this (eta: at least in regards to animals; for humans, see comment about states of awareness above), for I see no evidence that any earthly creatures other than humans can actually reflect on their own feelings and therefore create an emotional feedback loop that serves to intensify emotions. (Granted, without the ability to communicate, or behave in a way that human intelligence can recognize as intelligent (the metrics for which are another rabbit hole), I'm not sure what such evidence would consist of.) Anyway, without a concrete definition of consciousness, does something necessarily even need a brain to be considered conscious? What's to stop every feedback loop in existence from being conscious? Or, for that matter, every atom in the universe?

vlovich123 5y ago
> for I see no evidence that any earthly creatures other than humans can actually reflect on their own feelings and therefore create an emotional feedback loop that serves to intensify emotions. Haven’t we observed complex human-like emotions for elephants, dolphins, and various other primates (eg grieving rituals for lost family members)? Heck even dogs clearly show signs of depression and happiness although whether they reflect on these feelings (whatever that means) is obviously up in the air.
- shannifin 5y ago
  > Haven’t we observed complex human-like emotions for elephants, dolphins, and various other primates (eg grieving rituals for lost family members)? I think we observe complex behavior that we associate with our own emotional experiences (which seem appropriate given our genetic / biological / physiological similarities), I just doubt they're necessarily as intense as we experience them given our ability to reflect on them. And if you can't reflect on an emotion, can you even necessarily be conscious of it at all? It seems more likely to me that animals experience no conscious awareness of their own emotions at all, however complex they may be.
  - EamonnMR 5y ago
    Could the fear I feel when I see an oncoming bus really be so different than the fear a squirrel feels when I make a sudden move towards it?
    - shannifin 5y ago
      Of course it could. What is the difference between the fear felt from an oncoming bus vs flinching at someone popping out and saying "boo"? It's our ability to think about the meaningfulness of the stimulus. We know the bus could kill us (or at least deliver tremendous pain), whereas the scare from a prank is just a sort of autoresponse from our sympathetic nervous system; we jump before we're even conscious as to why our body is reacting. (We may even enjoy the autoresponse and purposefully seek out jump scares.) So, for a squirrel, perhaps it's like our unconscious sympathetic nervous system autoresponse, but all the time.
      - foxes 5y ago
        I definitely think dogs, for example, have the capacity to reflect on it to a extent. You can play games with dogs, they seek it out. I believe there is evidence they can plan. I think they can observe you and then adjust themselves accordingly. If you are angry they can be sad or cautious. If you look sad they can comfort. But they also seem to possess their own independent moods. Planning and adapting to stimulus seems like consciousness to me. I think in Humans language can actually be a big component of that feedback, you can structure your thoughts and reason with it. An internal dialogue. But I am not sure it is entirely necessary.
osobo 5y ago
Interpreting animal communication requires an amount of empathy that not all people are capable of. And without spoken feedback or confirmation, it's easy to read too much into animal behavior. But animals can definitely sulk, which for me is an example of an emotional feedback loop.
- srean 5y ago
  and have nightmares.
machinehermiter 5y ago
I think much of this is just a language problem leading to endless communication problems and debate. If you are going to say consciousness has degrees then what about degrees of unconsciousness? It doesn't make sense to be more or less unconscious. When we say conscious though we don't really mean the opposite of unconscious most of the time. Usually it is the opposite of unconscious + many other things. Then we debate what those other things are. To me this is exactly a language philosophy problem and imprecision in our language causing philosophical problems.
- shannifin 5y ago
  > When we say conscious though we don't really mean the opposite of unconscious most of the time. Usually it is the opposite of unconscious + many other things. Then we debate what those other things are. True. I'm thinking of it a bit like a one dimensional spectrum with "unconciousness" at one end, and "as alert as you can be" at another end (imprecisely defined as that is), and various states of alertness between (tired, under the influence, dreaming, etc). Lacking a measurable numeric metric, these are not necessarily in a specific order, just somewhere between unconscious and fully conscious. > To me this is exactly a language philosophy problem and imprecision in our language causing philosophical problems. Definitely; especially with trying to define "consciousness" we reach the limits of language, as we're trying to make concrete the source of language and meaning itself.

vlovich123 5y ago

> for I see no evidence that any earthly creatures other than humans can actually reflect on their own feelings and therefore create an emotional feedback loop that serves to intensify emotions. Haven’t we observed complex human-like emotions for elephants, dolphins, and various other primates (eg grieving rituals for lost family members)? Heck even dogs clearly show signs of depression and happiness although whether they reflect on these feelings (whatever that means) is obviously up in the air.

shannifin 5y ago
> Haven’t we observed complex human-like emotions for elephants, dolphins, and various other primates (eg grieving rituals for lost family members)? I think we observe complex behavior that we associate with our own emotional experiences (which seem appropriate given our genetic / biological / physiological similarities), I just doubt they're necessarily as intense as we experience them given our ability to reflect on them. And if you can't reflect on an emotion, can you even necessarily be conscious of it at all? It seems more likely to me that animals experience no conscious awareness of their own emotions at all, however complex they may be.
- EamonnMR 5y ago
  Could the fear I feel when I see an oncoming bus really be so different than the fear a squirrel feels when I make a sudden move towards it?
  - shannifin 5y ago
    Of course it could. What is the difference between the fear felt from an oncoming bus vs flinching at someone popping out and saying "boo"? It's our ability to think about the meaningfulness of the stimulus. We know the bus could kill us (or at least deliver tremendous pain), whereas the scare from a prank is just a sort of autoresponse from our sympathetic nervous system; we jump before we're even conscious as to why our body is reacting. (We may even enjoy the autoresponse and purposefully seek out jump scares.) So, for a squirrel, perhaps it's like our unconscious sympathetic nervous system autoresponse, but all the time.
    - foxes 5y ago
      I definitely think dogs, for example, have the capacity to reflect on it to a extent. You can play games with dogs, they seek it out. I believe there is evidence they can plan. I think they can observe you and then adjust themselves accordingly. If you are angry they can be sad or cautious. If you look sad they can comfort. But they also seem to possess their own independent moods. Planning and adapting to stimulus seems like consciousness to me. I think in Humans language can actually be a big component of that feedback, you can structure your thoughts and reason with it. An internal dialogue. But I am not sure it is entirely necessary.

osobo 5y ago

Interpreting animal communication requires an amount of empathy that not all people are capable of. And without spoken feedback or confirmation, it's easy to read too much into animal behavior. But animals can definitely sulk, which for me is an example of an emotional feedback loop.

srean 5y ago
and have nightmares.

machinehermiter 5y ago

I think much of this is just a language problem leading to endless communication problems and debate. If you are going to say consciousness has degrees then what about degrees of unconsciousness? It doesn't make sense to be more or less unconscious. When we say conscious though we don't really mean the opposite of unconscious most of the time. Usually it is the opposite of unconscious + many other things. Then we debate what those other things are. To me this is exactly a language philosophy problem and imprecision in our language causing philosophical problems.

shannifin 5y ago
> When we say conscious though we don't really mean the opposite of unconscious most of the time. Usually it is the opposite of unconscious + many other things. Then we debate what those other things are. True. I'm thinking of it a bit like a one dimensional spectrum with "unconciousness" at one end, and "as alert as you can be" at another end (imprecisely defined as that is), and various states of alertness between (tired, under the influence, dreaming, etc). Lacking a measurable numeric metric, these are not necessarily in a specific order, just somewhere between unconscious and fully conscious. > To me this is exactly a language philosophy problem and imprecision in our language causing philosophical problems. Definitely; especially with trying to define "consciousness" we reach the limits of language, as we're trying to make concrete the source of language and meaning itself.