17 ms·

The surprisingly sophisticated mind of an insect

74 points by anarbadalov 4y ago

andsoitis 4y ago
when the aliens come, will our shouting that we're worth not killing / experimenting on be supported by our level of consciousness, enlightenment?
- TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
  Our shouting will sound to them like the buzzing of bees sound to us. Why would they pay any attention?
anm89 4y ago
> Agitated, anxious honeybees, on the other hand, responded with pessimism when researchers shook them Sorry, all credibility out the window right here. They seem to be more interested in being literary than in being accurate.
- Sakos 4y ago
  What did they get wrong?
  - polishdude20 4y ago
    How does a bee "respond with pessimism"?
    - simonh 4y ago
      Or rather, how do you tell that's what is happening? How do you distinguish buzzing with delight, as described int he article, from buzzing due to hyperactivity from excessive energy levels?
      - giantg2 4y ago
        As a beekeeper, you can actually tell some things by the buzzing. A hive being robbed will sound different from a "normal" hive.
        simonh 4y ago
        I'm sure that's true, they can respond in various ways, but how much can you tell about the internal experience of individual bees? In the article hyperactivity from sugar stimulus was interpreted as delight, but it could just as easily have been having a really bad trip on all that sugar.
        giantg2 4y ago
        Considering that people are generally imperfect in assuming the underlying emotion of others based on their actions, I find these sorts of studies highly suspect. You can't equate animal activity to human emotion equivalents.
    - otikik 4y ago
      It goes like this: bzzz bzzzz bzzz
    - outworlder 4y ago
      HN guidelines say you should not complain about others not reading the article, but this qualifies. See elsewhere on this thread for the actual definition being used by the researchers.
- Footkerchief 4y ago
  In the text, the word "responded" is a link to this study: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982211005446 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096098221... > A pessimistic cognitive bias is manifested in an increased tendency of subjects to classify stimuli as likely to predict punishment (or a reward of less value). We were able to use the same approach to test for cognitive biases in honeybees because bees are capable of associative learning and can base judgments about novel stimuli on previous experiences [24, 25, 26, 27]. Using an olfactory learning protocol for conditioned proboscis extension, we trained honeybees to extend their mouthparts to a two-component odor mixture (CS+) predicting a reward (e.g., 1.00 or 2.00 M sucrose) and to withhold their mouthparts from another mixture (CS−) predicting either punishment or a less valuable reward (e.g., 0.01 M quinine solution or 0.3 M sucrose; Figure 1).
  - anm89 4y ago
    Ok, I'll rollback on this one then. I still think this highlights an issue that drastically reduces credibility in this type of research when they try to overload words to try to make things sound more interesting to people. I would not call that a true overlap with the human trait of pessimism. But fair enough, at least it has a specific definition in this context which I figured it did not.
    - exodust 4y ago
      I thought same thing as you initially, but "pessimism" is tied to anticipation of bad outcomes, which apparently was measured. Just makes the study all the more remarkable, and underscores the importance of animal welfare and habitat preservation.
bjt2n3904 4y ago
> “Humans are no longer seen as at the pinnacle of creation,” Catherine Wilson, a philosophy fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin, told me. “There’s a greater modesty and awareness in which we are just one species — and maybe not even the most important species.” Now there's a loaded, unqualified, and treacherous statement. Especially when the article started off euthanizing "lesser species" for scientific research. EDIT: > Eating crickets... Animal rights... > ... We lose little by elbowing humans out of the center of every decision-making process, instead asking how... There you have it. I hadn't finished the article when I started this comment, but... Now I'm glad I did. People who degrade the value of human life so easily will end up committing atrocities. And I suspect the author will find himself quite shocked when he is "elbowed out" of the decision making process, and relegated to a diet of crickets or subjected to some experiment... Little to lose, indeed.
- Sakos 4y ago
  I'm still not sure what your issue is exactly. Can everybody here try to actually verbalise their issues with the article instead of assuming that everybody else shares their interpretation and view?
  - MarcoZavala 4y ago
  - bjt2n3904 4y ago
    I'll try again. With regard to consciousness, humanity is alone and unique on planet earth, and perhaps the entire galaxy. This is so evident that it is pointless to debate. This article haphazardly and sophomorically suggests that maybe we aren't so self important, and explicitly suggests that humanity should be elbowed out of some "decision making". The cows and bugs, however, are not capable of making decisions, and cannot be part of the decision making process. It is logically impossible to "elbow" humans out. I suspect that in reality, humans will elbow other humans out, under the guise of "you (I mean, we) are a lesser species, and we're all in this together, and so this decision that I'm making is really in your (oops, I mean our) best interest." For a deeper understanding of this point, look to "The Abolition of Man" by CS Lewis. I don't care if insect protein becomes an additional source of sustinence. I very much care if someone "decides" that some food is "too harmful" to "sustainability" and that it needs to be "regulated" for the benefit of humanity. I doubt that anyone has the capacity to be able to make such a decision, and will (intentionally or not) create an Animal Farm type scenario.
WalterBright 4y ago
Since consciousness is a proven successful survival attribute, I expect it would have evolved independently several times.
- d_tr 4y ago
  I can't help feeling that consciousness and more generally an "internal world" arise in a gradual manner as the brain gets more complex. Unfortunately it seems like an impossibly hard nut to crack...
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    I.e. it's an emergent property. Likely so. And then selected for. But consider the programmable computer. It is far more effective than its predecessor single purpose electronic machines. Consciousness is perhaps the brain being able to reprogram itself, i.e. adapt, which works a lot better than hardwired algorithms.
    - uoaei 4y ago
      If it is gradual and emergent as you say, then where do you draw the line between an "unemerged" system without consciousness, and an "emerged" one with consciousness? Doesn't Occam's razor demand that we must assume the distinction is only of degree, and not of kind? If it were the latter distinction, you would have to have three theories -- one for unemerged, one for emerged, and one for the transition between the two. Having one theory (everything is at least infinitesimally conscious) seems much more appropriate given our current understanding of the science and philosophy of consciousness.
      - WalterBright 4y ago
        > where do you draw the line The same place I draw the line between light and dark, between rich and poor, between freedom and slavery, between art and porn.
        4y ago
mikkergp 4y ago
“ My cat almost certainly has a sense of what it’s like to be a cat” Is this true? I always thought this was anthropomorphism. I have dogs and I thought dogs more just “are” rather than self aware. The weirdest thing about these studies to me, is they always latch on to the most basic idea of “consciousness” and then extrapolate that to see we’re all the same. In a philosophical/spiritual way I’m all about the idea of modesty and we’re all connected and I’m/we’re not special. But in practical way I don’t see the “actually insects are just like people.”
- goatlover 4y ago
  Not just like. The article says as much. Bat consciousness would be different from human consciousness, in part they use echolocation to navigate. Insects would be even more different, if they are conscious. Consciousness being some subjective experience of self and the world. Seeing color, feeling pain, being something more than an automaton with an inner life. That subjectivity could be alien to us. Or it could be similar in some ways and very different in others. A cat isn't going to experience the world quite the same as we do, but they are mammals and more closely related than bees.
- jbay808 4y ago
  > I always thought this was anthropomorphism. I have dogs and I thought dogs more just “are” rather than self aware. I'd consider it more from the perspective of Occam's razor and prior probabilities. You have a brain, you are alive, you have goals, make plans, learn, perceive the world, make predictions about the behaviour of other agents, and eat food. You are also conscious. My default assumption would be that anything else that does the former things would also have the latter trait, until I encounter some particular evidence that they don't.
- giantg2 4y ago
  "I have dogs and I thought dogs more just “are” rather than self aware." I think it depends on how deep we are trying to go. Most people are downright terrible at true self awareness and self evaluation.
  - 4y ago
simonh 4y ago
There are some who reduce consciousness down to simple response to stimulus. DD Hoffman has defined a simple 'conscious agent' as a system with an input such as a switch and a counter for how many times it's been stimulated, as a simples elementary conscious system. For me that's basically saying conscious beings are information processing systems, therefore all information processing systems are conscious. Panpsychism does the same thing, but it's just like saying a tank is a vehicle, therefore all vehicles are tanks. For me, consciousness is more than just perception, it's more like the awareness of your own thought processes. It's understanding and being aware that you are a conscious being. That's not a novel view, there are dictionary definitions that are consistent with this. [Dictionary.com] Consciousness - the fact of awareness by the mind of itself and the world. Hoffman's conscious agents clearly don't qualify IMHO, and I'm pretty confident insects don't either. I'm less sure about some mammals like cats and dogs. It does seem like some animals, including some birds, do have a sense of self even if it's fairly rudimentary.
- elmomle 4y ago
  OED: "The state or fact of being mentally conscious or aware of anything" ( (https://www.oed.com/oed2/00047729 https://www.oed.com/oed2/00047729, #3). This jives more with my intuition that a toddler is conscious, even if they aren't really aware of themselves as a perceiving entity (aside, I wonder if such self-awareness is even binary or more continuous). And given this framing, it's very reasonable to ask whether insects may be conscious.
  - simonh 4y ago
    As always the root of most disagreement is actually not disagreement about the issue itself but the terms we’re using to discuss it. I think we have a word for your definition and it’s awareness. Perception might also do. If we say consciousness is the same also, then we have a pileup of three words all for basically the same thing, and no word for the strong sense of self awareness and internal reflection I prefer. I would be absolutely fine accepting your definition of consciousness, as long as we have a clear widely accepted unambiguous term specifically for awareness of your own mental state and thought processes. IMHO we need a term for that, and that’s actually the interesting subject. I think toddlers are conscious in the strong sense I prefer, based on my discussions with my own children when they were toddlers, as I was interested in this question at the time.
munificent 4y ago
Humans are dramatically more intelligent than the next smartest species. We've built spaceships and number two on the intelligence list (however you order it) has barely managed to rub a stick and a rock together. Whenever a species has a property that is that strong of an outlier, it usually implies some evolutionary positive feedback loop. For example, a single cone snail has enough venom to kill 20 adult humans. Why would a little snail that eats small fish and worms need such insane toxicity? It's because it's an evolutionary arms race with its prey species that are building up tolerance to those same toxins. That feedback loop leads to stronger and stronger venom. Humans are a tribal species. Through most of our evolutionary history, we were completely unable to survive when solitary, and our primary competitors for resources were other tribes of humans. In other words, our most valuable friends and more dangerous foes are the same species. This means that to successfully navigate our environment, we need to accurately recognize individual humans, remember who they are, understand their behavior to figure out the underlying intent, and use that to decide if they're on our side or not. Of course, any evolutionary mutant human who can obfuscate that intent and appear to be a friend while actually being a foe would be able to take advantage of others. So we have also needed to evolve to detect dishonesty. To accomplish that, we need a theory of mind: a mental picture of the mental states of the people around us. And, in fact, we need a higher order theory of mind. Each of those simulated minds contains further simultations of other minds. I know that Jan knows that Fred knows that Abby knows that... That iterative process, I believe, led to humans having the most amazing social minds of any species, by a large margin. We understand social interaction they way birds and fish understand fluid dynamics. That level of social cognition is so fundamental to what it means to be human that I think we often don't even see it for what it is. We take for granted that most people have a an "inner monologue" and that thinking in solitude still involves some sort of simulated auditory communication. We anthropomorphize animals and inanimate objects constantly. And when we do that, the properties of humans we impute on to them are almost always around talking and thinking socially like a human. If you accept that, then one theory of what "consciousness" is is simply a theory of mind applied to oneself. If I know Fred then I have my own simulation of his mental state. But I know that he knows me, so my simulation of his mind includes an inner simulation of mine. Thus, it's natural for humans to have both direct cognition but also be able to observe it at a level of remove. We can "watch ourselves think" because we must be able to watch others think. I don't know if that's what consciousness actually is. It's just a wild conjecture. But if that is where it arises from, then we should expect that few other animals have anywhere near the level of consciousness as us. Some more social species appear to have some theory of mind, but it's fairly rudimentary compared to ours. If our perception of consciousness rests on that same social reasoning hardware, then in other animals, it will be comparatively lower fidelity.
h2odragon 4y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_spider https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_spider Some of these critters are far too bright to be that small.
- tlavoie 4y ago
  On the aspect of being small, small spiders' brains actually spread out a bit into the legs, due to lack of space in their heads. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/111219-spiders-big-brains-bodies-legs-webs-animals-science https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/111219-sp...
Koshkin 4y ago
Looking at a single-cell organism [1] that shows many attributes of animal behavior, I readily believe in the intelligence of a praying mantis. [1] https://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large-5/didinium-ciliate-protozoan-steve-gschmeissner.jpg https://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large-5/didi...
- edgyquant 4y ago
  Out another way the difference in complexity between a single cell (the LUCA) and humans are about the same as the complexity between that cell and the base organics we know are needed for all life (and can make in a lab “trivially”.) I see it as the LUCA were the humans of pre-cellular life. As the solar system calmed and mass/energy from the protostellar disk became increasingly expensive, our grandcell and it’s siblings were able to sustain themselves (perhaps at the expense of whatever non-cellular “life” filled the oceans at that time. There’s a whole tree of life that paves the way to the cell. Unfortunately we’ll almost certainly never be able to study these exact paths as we have with cellular life.
323 4y ago
Imagine a drone with the navigation based on the brain of a fly. It would be practically un-crashable.
- contingencies 4y ago
  Just started reading on basic drone aerodynamics. It's not that simple, IIRC. Static stability (the innate ability to immediately remain in equilibrium after a gust of wind, collision, command or other sudden stimulus) is inversely correlated with maneuverability. Intelligent control implies dynamic stability (the ability to eventually return to equilibrium, such as through complex algorithms) but that is correlated with maneuverability and reduced static stability. In other words, to be un-crashable you don't take off, to be stable you aren't intelligent, and to be maneuverable you are intelligent but also delicate.
- yetihehe 4y ago
  Flies are uncrashable only because they are small enough to survive most impacts. I've also seen uncrashable drone toys, you can throw them on ground, pickup and they will fly again. I've also seen flies hitting into things.
- sliken 4y ago
  Flys crash all the time, fail on various maneuvers they attempt, like landing on the ceiling. However for the speeds they fly at they are durable enough to survive those encounters.
Maursault 4y ago
Just a minor nit. Though widely believed, Descartes never wrote cogito, ergo sum. I'm not sure who came up with that, but what Descartes wrote was je pense, donc je suis, and the meaning is subtly different even if we define "so" (donc) as "therefore." What Descartes intended was not a logical proof of existence. What he meant was, "I am, I exist, whenever I think it." There is no "therefore" or quod erat demonstrandum involved.
- lucy_gatenby 4y ago
  Just a minor nit, he wrote Cogito, ergo sum, in Latin in Principles of Philosophy in 1685. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogito,_ergo_sum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogito,_ergo_sum
osigurdson 4y ago
"I think, therefore I am" Maybe not, there is no way to prove that thoughts require an "I" or existence. "There are thoughts" is more accurate.
- newusertoday 4y ago
  this quote is widely misinterpreted https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0SaqNeFf3Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0SaqNeFf3Q
euroderf 4y ago
Aliens that come visiting might be as superior to us as we are to the inhabitants of a meadow. Might we be judged based on how we treat lesser creatures ?
phyzome 4y ago
While I think this is a worthwhile topic, the article mixes moderately strong evidence with extremely weak evidence in a way that makes me kind of discount anything else it has to say.

74 points by anarbadalov 4y ago

when the aliens come, will our shouting that we're worth not killing / experimenting on be supported by our level of consciousness, enlightenment?

TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
Our shouting will sound to them like the buzzing of bees sound to us. Why would they pay any attention?

anm89 4y ago

> Agitated, anxious honeybees, on the other hand, responded with pessimism when researchers shook them Sorry, all credibility out the window right here. They seem to be more interested in being literary than in being accurate.

Sakos 4y ago
What did they get wrong?
- polishdude20 4y ago
  How does a bee "respond with pessimism"?
  - simonh 4y ago
    Or rather, how do you tell that's what is happening? How do you distinguish buzzing with delight, as described int he article, from buzzing due to hyperactivity from excessive energy levels?
    - giantg2 4y ago
      As a beekeeper, you can actually tell some things by the buzzing. A hive being robbed will sound different from a "normal" hive.
      - simonh 4y ago
        I'm sure that's true, they can respond in various ways, but how much can you tell about the internal experience of individual bees? In the article hyperactivity from sugar stimulus was interpreted as delight, but it could just as easily have been having a really bad trip on all that sugar.
        giantg2 4y ago
        Considering that people are generally imperfect in assuming the underlying emotion of others based on their actions, I find these sorts of studies highly suspect. You can't equate animal activity to human emotion equivalents.
  - otikik 4y ago
    It goes like this: bzzz bzzzz bzzz
  - outworlder 4y ago
    HN guidelines say you should not complain about others not reading the article, but this qualifies. See elsewhere on this thread for the actual definition being used by the researchers.
Footkerchief 4y ago
In the text, the word "responded" is a link to this study: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982211005446 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096098221... > A pessimistic cognitive bias is manifested in an increased tendency of subjects to classify stimuli as likely to predict punishment (or a reward of less value). We were able to use the same approach to test for cognitive biases in honeybees because bees are capable of associative learning and can base judgments about novel stimuli on previous experiences [24, 25, 26, 27]. Using an olfactory learning protocol for conditioned proboscis extension, we trained honeybees to extend their mouthparts to a two-component odor mixture (CS+) predicting a reward (e.g., 1.00 or 2.00 M sucrose) and to withhold their mouthparts from another mixture (CS−) predicting either punishment or a less valuable reward (e.g., 0.01 M quinine solution or 0.3 M sucrose; Figure 1).
- anm89 4y ago
  Ok, I'll rollback on this one then. I still think this highlights an issue that drastically reduces credibility in this type of research when they try to overload words to try to make things sound more interesting to people. I would not call that a true overlap with the human trait of pessimism. But fair enough, at least it has a specific definition in this context which I figured it did not.
  - exodust 4y ago
    I thought same thing as you initially, but "pessimism" is tied to anticipation of bad outcomes, which apparently was measured. Just makes the study all the more remarkable, and underscores the importance of animal welfare and habitat preservation.

bjt2n3904 4y ago

> “Humans are no longer seen as at the pinnacle of creation,” Catherine Wilson, a philosophy fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin, told me. “There’s a greater modesty and awareness in which we are just one species — and maybe not even the most important species.” Now there's a loaded, unqualified, and treacherous statement. Especially when the article started off euthanizing "lesser species" for scientific research. EDIT: > Eating crickets... Animal rights... > ... We lose little by elbowing humans out of the center of every decision-making process, instead asking how... There you have it. I hadn't finished the article when I started this comment, but... Now I'm glad I did. People who degrade the value of human life so easily will end up committing atrocities. And I suspect the author will find himself quite shocked when he is "elbowed out" of the decision making process, and relegated to a diet of crickets or subjected to some experiment... Little to lose, indeed.

Sakos 4y ago
I'm still not sure what your issue is exactly. Can everybody here try to actually verbalise their issues with the article instead of assuming that everybody else shares their interpretation and view?
- MarcoZavala 4y ago
- bjt2n3904 4y ago
  I'll try again. With regard to consciousness, humanity is alone and unique on planet earth, and perhaps the entire galaxy. This is so evident that it is pointless to debate. This article haphazardly and sophomorically suggests that maybe we aren't so self important, and explicitly suggests that humanity should be elbowed out of some "decision making". The cows and bugs, however, are not capable of making decisions, and cannot be part of the decision making process. It is logically impossible to "elbow" humans out. I suspect that in reality, humans will elbow other humans out, under the guise of "you (I mean, we) are a lesser species, and we're all in this together, and so this decision that I'm making is really in your (oops, I mean our) best interest." For a deeper understanding of this point, look to "The Abolition of Man" by CS Lewis. I don't care if insect protein becomes an additional source of sustinence. I very much care if someone "decides" that some food is "too harmful" to "sustainability" and that it needs to be "regulated" for the benefit of humanity. I doubt that anyone has the capacity to be able to make such a decision, and will (intentionally or not) create an Animal Farm type scenario.

WalterBright 4y ago

Since consciousness is a proven successful survival attribute, I expect it would have evolved independently several times.

d_tr 4y ago
I can't help feeling that consciousness and more generally an "internal world" arise in a gradual manner as the brain gets more complex. Unfortunately it seems like an impossibly hard nut to crack...
- WalterBright 4y ago
  I.e. it's an emergent property. Likely so. And then selected for. But consider the programmable computer. It is far more effective than its predecessor single purpose electronic machines. Consciousness is perhaps the brain being able to reprogram itself, i.e. adapt, which works a lot better than hardwired algorithms.
  - uoaei 4y ago
    If it is gradual and emergent as you say, then where do you draw the line between an "unemerged" system without consciousness, and an "emerged" one with consciousness? Doesn't Occam's razor demand that we must assume the distinction is only of degree, and not of kind? If it were the latter distinction, you would have to have three theories -- one for unemerged, one for emerged, and one for the transition between the two. Having one theory (everything is at least infinitesimally conscious) seems much more appropriate given our current understanding of the science and philosophy of consciousness.
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      > where do you draw the line The same place I draw the line between light and dark, between rich and poor, between freedom and slavery, between art and porn.
      - 4y ago

mikkergp 4y ago

“ My cat almost certainly has a sense of what it’s like to be a cat” Is this true? I always thought this was anthropomorphism. I have dogs and I thought dogs more just “are” rather than self aware. The weirdest thing about these studies to me, is they always latch on to the most basic idea of “consciousness” and then extrapolate that to see we’re all the same. In a philosophical/spiritual way I’m all about the idea of modesty and we’re all connected and I’m/we’re not special. But in practical way I don’t see the “actually insects are just like people.”

goatlover 4y ago
Not just like. The article says as much. Bat consciousness would be different from human consciousness, in part they use echolocation to navigate. Insects would be even more different, if they are conscious. Consciousness being some subjective experience of self and the world. Seeing color, feeling pain, being something more than an automaton with an inner life. That subjectivity could be alien to us. Or it could be similar in some ways and very different in others. A cat isn't going to experience the world quite the same as we do, but they are mammals and more closely related than bees.
jbay808 4y ago
> I always thought this was anthropomorphism. I have dogs and I thought dogs more just “are” rather than self aware. I'd consider it more from the perspective of Occam's razor and prior probabilities. You have a brain, you are alive, you have goals, make plans, learn, perceive the world, make predictions about the behaviour of other agents, and eat food. You are also conscious. My default assumption would be that anything else that does the former things would also have the latter trait, until I encounter some particular evidence that they don't.
giantg2 4y ago
"I have dogs and I thought dogs more just “are” rather than self aware." I think it depends on how deep we are trying to go. Most people are downright terrible at true self awareness and self evaluation.
- 4y ago

simonh 4y ago

There are some who reduce consciousness down to simple response to stimulus. DD Hoffman has defined a simple 'conscious agent' as a system with an input such as a switch and a counter for how many times it's been stimulated, as a simples elementary conscious system. For me that's basically saying conscious beings are information processing systems, therefore all information processing systems are conscious. Panpsychism does the same thing, but it's just like saying a tank is a vehicle, therefore all vehicles are tanks. For me, consciousness is more than just perception, it's more like the awareness of your own thought processes. It's understanding and being aware that you are a conscious being. That's not a novel view, there are dictionary definitions that are consistent with this. [Dictionary.com] Consciousness - the fact of awareness by the mind of itself and the world. Hoffman's conscious agents clearly don't qualify IMHO, and I'm pretty confident insects don't either. I'm less sure about some mammals like cats and dogs. It does seem like some animals, including some birds, do have a sense of self even if it's fairly rudimentary.

elmomle 4y ago
OED: "The state or fact of being mentally conscious or aware of anything" ( (https://www.oed.com/oed2/00047729 https://www.oed.com/oed2/00047729, #3). This jives more with my intuition that a toddler is conscious, even if they aren't really aware of themselves as a perceiving entity (aside, I wonder if such self-awareness is even binary or more continuous). And given this framing, it's very reasonable to ask whether insects may be conscious.
- simonh 4y ago
  As always the root of most disagreement is actually not disagreement about the issue itself but the terms we’re using to discuss it. I think we have a word for your definition and it’s awareness. Perception might also do. If we say consciousness is the same also, then we have a pileup of three words all for basically the same thing, and no word for the strong sense of self awareness and internal reflection I prefer. I would be absolutely fine accepting your definition of consciousness, as long as we have a clear widely accepted unambiguous term specifically for awareness of your own mental state and thought processes. IMHO we need a term for that, and that’s actually the interesting subject. I think toddlers are conscious in the strong sense I prefer, based on my discussions with my own children when they were toddlers, as I was interested in this question at the time.

munificent 4y ago

Humans are dramatically more intelligent than the next smartest species. We've built spaceships and number two on the intelligence list (however you order it) has barely managed to rub a stick and a rock together. Whenever a species has a property that is that strong of an outlier, it usually implies some evolutionary positive feedback loop. For example, a single cone snail has enough venom to kill 20 adult humans. Why would a little snail that eats small fish and worms need such insane toxicity? It's because it's an evolutionary arms race with its prey species that are building up tolerance to those same toxins. That feedback loop leads to stronger and stronger venom. Humans are a tribal species. Through most of our evolutionary history, we were completely unable to survive when solitary, and our primary competitors for resources were other tribes of humans. In other words, our most valuable friends and more dangerous foes are the same species. This means that to successfully navigate our environment, we need to accurately recognize individual humans, remember who they are, understand their behavior to figure out the underlying intent, and use that to decide if they're on our side or not. Of course, any evolutionary mutant human who can obfuscate that intent and appear to be a friend while actually being a foe would be able to take advantage of others. So we have also needed to evolve to detect dishonesty. To accomplish that, we need a theory of mind: a mental picture of the mental states of the people around us. And, in fact, we need a higher order theory of mind. Each of those simulated minds contains further simultations of other minds. I know that Jan knows that Fred knows that Abby knows that... That iterative process, I believe, led to humans having the most amazing social minds of any species, by a large margin. We understand social interaction they way birds and fish understand fluid dynamics. That level of social cognition is so fundamental to what it means to be human that I think we often don't even see it for what it is. We take for granted that most people have a an "inner monologue" and that thinking in solitude still involves some sort of simulated auditory communication. We anthropomorphize animals and inanimate objects constantly. And when we do that, the properties of humans we impute on to them are almost always around talking and thinking socially like a human. If you accept that, then one theory of what "consciousness" is is simply a theory of mind applied to oneself. If I know Fred then I have my own simulation of his mental state. But I know that he knows me, so my simulation of his mind includes an inner simulation of mine. Thus, it's natural for humans to have both direct cognition but also be able to observe it at a level of remove. We can "watch ourselves think" because we must be able to watch others think. I don't know if that's what consciousness actually is. It's just a wild conjecture. But if that is where it arises from, then we should expect that few other animals have anywhere near the level of consciousness as us. Some more social species appear to have some theory of mind, but it's fairly rudimentary compared to ours. If our perception of consciousness rests on that same social reasoning hardware, then in other animals, it will be comparatively lower fidelity.

h2odragon 4y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_spider https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_spider Some of these critters are far too bright to be that small.

tlavoie 4y ago
On the aspect of being small, small spiders' brains actually spread out a bit into the legs, due to lack of space in their heads. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/111219-spiders-big-brains-bodies-legs-webs-animals-science https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/111219-sp...

Koshkin 4y ago

Looking at a single-cell organism [1] that shows many attributes of animal behavior, I readily believe in the intelligence of a praying mantis. [1] https://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large-5/didinium-ciliate-protozoan-steve-gschmeissner.jpg https://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large-5/didi...

edgyquant 4y ago
Out another way the difference in complexity between a single cell (the LUCA) and humans are about the same as the complexity between that cell and the base organics we know are needed for all life (and can make in a lab “trivially”.) I see it as the LUCA were the humans of pre-cellular life. As the solar system calmed and mass/energy from the protostellar disk became increasingly expensive, our grandcell and it’s siblings were able to sustain themselves (perhaps at the expense of whatever non-cellular “life” filled the oceans at that time. There’s a whole tree of life that paves the way to the cell. Unfortunately we’ll almost certainly never be able to study these exact paths as we have with cellular life.

323 4y ago

Imagine a drone with the navigation based on the brain of a fly. It would be practically un-crashable.

contingencies 4y ago
Just started reading on basic drone aerodynamics. It's not that simple, IIRC. Static stability (the innate ability to immediately remain in equilibrium after a gust of wind, collision, command or other sudden stimulus) is inversely correlated with maneuverability. Intelligent control implies dynamic stability (the ability to eventually return to equilibrium, such as through complex algorithms) but that is correlated with maneuverability and reduced static stability. In other words, to be un-crashable you don't take off, to be stable you aren't intelligent, and to be maneuverable you are intelligent but also delicate.
yetihehe 4y ago
Flies are uncrashable only because they are small enough to survive most impacts. I've also seen uncrashable drone toys, you can throw them on ground, pickup and they will fly again. I've also seen flies hitting into things.
sliken 4y ago
Flys crash all the time, fail on various maneuvers they attempt, like landing on the ceiling. However for the speeds they fly at they are durable enough to survive those encounters.

Maursault 4y ago

Just a minor nit. Though widely believed, Descartes never wrote cogito, ergo sum. I'm not sure who came up with that, but what Descartes wrote was je pense, donc je suis, and the meaning is subtly different even if we define "so" (donc) as "therefore." What Descartes intended was not a logical proof of existence. What he meant was, "I am, I exist, whenever I think it." There is no "therefore" or quod erat demonstrandum involved.

lucy_gatenby 4y ago
Just a minor nit, he wrote Cogito, ergo sum, in Latin in Principles of Philosophy in 1685. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogito,_ergo_sum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogito,_ergo_sum

osigurdson 4y ago

"I think, therefore I am" Maybe not, there is no way to prove that thoughts require an "I" or existence. "There are thoughts" is more accurate.

newusertoday 4y ago
this quote is widely misinterpreted https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0SaqNeFf3Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0SaqNeFf3Q

euroderf 4y ago

Aliens that come visiting might be as superior to us as we are to the inhabitants of a meadow. Might we be judged based on how we treat lesser creatures ?

phyzome 4y ago

While I think this is a worthwhile topic, the article mixes moderately strong evidence with extremely weak evidence in a way that makes me kind of discount anything else it has to say.