3 ms·

Insects and the origins of consciousness (2015)

65 points by hardmaru 5y ago

hardmaru 5y ago
This article is from 2015, and there's some good discussion about it on this thread: https://twitter.com/WiringTheBrain/status/1464641272644313088 https://twitter.com/WiringTheBrain/status/146464127264431308... Also response to the article: https://www.pnas.org/content/113/27/E3813 https://www.pnas.org/content/113/27/E3813
- ghostbrainalpha 5y ago
  So was the basic understanding before this article was published that insects didn't have consciousness?
  - mellosouls 5y ago
    No. There are various different schools of thought on consciousness, including some that posit consciousness as a fundamental constituent of the universe - far below the domain of insects. A "basic understanding" of consciousness - in the sense of being generally accepted across the scientific base - did not exist then, and does not exist now.
    - jonathankoren 5y ago
      > No. There are various different schools of thought on consciousness, including some that posit consciousness as a fundamental constituent of the universe - far below the domain of insects. Is this a reference to panpsychism ?
      - simonh 5y ago
        Yes, I think so.
      - mellosouls 5y ago
        Yes.
  - ncmncm 5y ago
    There are various attempts to attract subscription to various definitions of "consciousness", but no agreement at all. Are rocks conscious? Bugs? Crows? People driving to work? Anyone? Ferris? This seems like a better attempt than average, even if only because the others are so abysmal.
bondarchuk 5y ago
>Consciousness is marked by the presence of subjective experience: In the philosopher’s term of art, there is “something it is like” for us to be aware of the world (1). This is exactly what I find the most baffling and amusing about almost every academic writing on consciousness today: this definition of consciousness which uses the weird phrasing "there is something it is like". It is so unusual, yet ubiquitous, yet almost nobody who uses it ever examines this phrase closely or expands on what precisely they mean by it. Maybe it's just a cargo-cultish stand-in for "you know what the fuck I mean". Ah, I did find a paper about this which seems like a good entry point: 'What it is Like' Talk is not Technical Talk by Jonathan Farrell.
- wzdd 5y ago
  This specific usage comes from a foundational paper on the philosophy of mind by Thomas Nagel titled "What is it like to be a bat?" and was made popular by David Chalmers in his writings on the "hard problem" of consciousness (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness#Overview https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness#...). That origin is really the key to the phrase: Nagel's point was that there is no way of talking about subjective experience objectively. Rather, we always have to relate it to our own (think about how you might define subjective experience to someone else, for example). If you buy into Nagel's argument then "something that it is like" makes perfect sense when talking about subjective experience, because the only basis for comparison that speakers have for it is themselves.
  - bondarchuk 5y ago
    Not sure I agree with your interpretation, given that Nagel writes: >But fundamentally an organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is to be that organism — something it is like for the organism. The last part ("something it is like for the bat") seems to contradict the idea that it is only about comparing the bat's experience to the human's.
aussieguy1234 5y ago
We have AI that can detect when a human is thinking of something they've seen before by monitoring their brain (1). What if this was applied to an animal, then we could see if they are thinking of a previous experience? (1) https://www.news18.com/news/tech/new-ai-system-can-read-your-mind-and-thoughts-and-convert-them-to-sentences-2560643.html https://www.news18.com/news/tech/new-ai-system-can-read-your...

65 points by hardmaru 5y ago

This article is from 2015, and there's some good discussion about it on this thread: https://twitter.com/WiringTheBrain/status/1464641272644313088 https://twitter.com/WiringTheBrain/status/146464127264431308... Also response to the article: https://www.pnas.org/content/113/27/E3813 https://www.pnas.org/content/113/27/E3813

ghostbrainalpha 5y ago
So was the basic understanding before this article was published that insects didn't have consciousness?
- mellosouls 5y ago
  No. There are various different schools of thought on consciousness, including some that posit consciousness as a fundamental constituent of the universe - far below the domain of insects. A "basic understanding" of consciousness - in the sense of being generally accepted across the scientific base - did not exist then, and does not exist now.
  - jonathankoren 5y ago
    > No. There are various different schools of thought on consciousness, including some that posit consciousness as a fundamental constituent of the universe - far below the domain of insects. Is this a reference to panpsychism ?
    - simonh 5y ago
      Yes, I think so.
    - mellosouls 5y ago
      Yes.
- ncmncm 5y ago
  There are various attempts to attract subscription to various definitions of "consciousness", but no agreement at all. Are rocks conscious? Bugs? Crows? People driving to work? Anyone? Ferris? This seems like a better attempt than average, even if only because the others are so abysmal.

bondarchuk 5y ago

>Consciousness is marked by the presence of subjective experience: In the philosopher’s term of art, there is “something it is like” for us to be aware of the world (1). This is exactly what I find the most baffling and amusing about almost every academic writing on consciousness today: this definition of consciousness which uses the weird phrasing "there is something it is like". It is so unusual, yet ubiquitous, yet almost nobody who uses it ever examines this phrase closely or expands on what precisely they mean by it. Maybe it's just a cargo-cultish stand-in for "you know what the fuck I mean". Ah, I did find a paper about this which seems like a good entry point: 'What it is Like' Talk is not Technical Talk by Jonathan Farrell.

wzdd 5y ago
This specific usage comes from a foundational paper on the philosophy of mind by Thomas Nagel titled "What is it like to be a bat?" and was made popular by David Chalmers in his writings on the "hard problem" of consciousness (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness#Overview https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness#...). That origin is really the key to the phrase: Nagel's point was that there is no way of talking about subjective experience objectively. Rather, we always have to relate it to our own (think about how you might define subjective experience to someone else, for example). If you buy into Nagel's argument then "something that it is like" makes perfect sense when talking about subjective experience, because the only basis for comparison that speakers have for it is themselves.
- bondarchuk 5y ago
  Not sure I agree with your interpretation, given that Nagel writes: >But fundamentally an organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is to be that organism — something it is like for the organism. The last part ("something it is like for the bat") seems to contradict the idea that it is only about comparing the bat's experience to the human's.

aussieguy1234 5y ago

We have AI that can detect when a human is thinking of something they've seen before by monitoring their brain (1). What if this was applied to an animal, then we could see if they are thinking of a previous experience? (1) https://www.news18.com/news/tech/new-ai-system-can-read-your-mind-and-thoughts-and-convert-them-to-sentences-2560643.html https://www.news18.com/news/tech/new-ai-system-can-read-your...