4 ms·

I think some animals have florbghji. What is florbghji? Well, I’m not going to define it. I’m just going to go on and on about it with no definition as though t

I think some animals have florbghji. What is florbghji? Well, I’m not going to define it. I’m just going to go on and on about it with no definition as though this wasn’t a total waste of time.

noSyncCloud 3y ago
Thanks for contributing absolutely nothing to the conversation and pretending it's incredibly profound. Classic HN.
crazygringo 3y ago
> I think some animals have florbghji. What is florbghji? Well, I’m not going to define it. I’m just going to go on and on about it with no definition as though this wasn’t a total waste of time. The entire article is about the controversies and difficulties of defining consciousness, and the hypotheses of neural correlates, and at what stage of evolution those correlates appeared. So the literal thing you seem to be snarkily complaining about, is precisely what the article is trying to directly address. With various competing scientific definitions. I honestly don't know what more you want.
88913527 3y ago
I don't see why people struggle with consciousness. I've found it to be concrete. It's the experience of having inputs (vision/hearing/etc) and outputs (response to stimuli). Whether or not you're actively aware of "hey, I have inputs and outputs" doesn't really matter. It's just the process of it. Do you have a pet dog or cat? It's obviously conscious. I guess my construct breaks down if we consider things like plants, they obviously respond to their environment.
- rustymonday 3y ago
  So by this definition bacteria has consciousness. I would have to disagree that bacteria are conscious.
  - 88913527 3y ago
    Bacteria using their flagella to move away from danger seems like a conscious decision to me. It's analogous to the "Are viruses life?" question, where on the fringe it does get a bit more interesting. Any poorly defined term is going to raise interesting questions on its edge cases.
    - Turskarama 3y ago
      A fridge turns on when the temperature sensor detects that it's too warm inside, is that consciousness?
      - 88913527 3y ago
        Can a temperature sensor have experiences? It's stateless. Maybe that's an element to it. To revise, inputs and outputs with some concept of statefulness.
      - Solvency 3y ago
        Relative to its own perspective and contextual existence, sure, yes it is. Does that intimidate your human consciousness for some reason?
        Turskarama 3y ago
        I think if you're going to define consciousness this simply then the word ceases to have any real meaning.
        scatterhead 3y ago
        This is obviously not what people mean when they use the word. You've "resolved" the difficulty by just avoiding it.
- awb 3y ago
  Autonomy seems important as well. Plants are at the mercy of their environment to a much larger degree than conscious animals that can strategically assess their environment.
- ggm 3y ago
  *> Whether or not you're actively aware of "hey, I have inputs and outputs" doesn't really matter. It's just the process of it. No, thats exactly wrong inverse-style. Simply producing outputs from inputs is not consciousness. Being actively aware you exist is the whole and being of consciousness: Absence of inputs and outputs we can understand invites us to say "not conscious, no evidence of consciousness" but thats subject to validation. I don't personally believe plants are conscious, but I'm open to somebody demonstrating a sense of awareness. It probably won't be a mirror-test.
- softsound 3y ago
  It's all the different levels and degree to think about, from the tiny cell to the plants that can mimic what they see (even if it's just plastic, they still try to copy it), you are you but what is it that is you? Anti-addiction drugs are starting to be studied that make people not feel like over-shopping or over-eating and the results of new diabetic drugs that study this effect are very interesting. I guess I probably see plants like fish not exactly conscious though they certainly respond to their environment. Plants are quite noisy if you pet them, the audio is just outside our hearing range but we have devices that can track that sort of thing now. And some fish actually like to be pet, my great grandmother apparently had some fish she would pet, never met her just know of the stories. Probably everything that can grow has some level of it. Also fun fact worm memories are stored outside the brain, their are some trained worm studies you can Google that are interesting too.
strogonoff 3y ago
If you believe having no agreed-upon definition of “consciousness” means we should not bother talking about it at all, try to define the “I” in “I don’t know what consciousness is and therefore refuse to talk about it”, you might get a tad closer to the crux of the issue and perhaps see why it is considered “the hard problem”.
- Yizahi 3y ago
  The thing is - just because we can't find an answer to a hard problem we can't simply use a whatever placeholder "answer" in the meantime. There is no mandate from the above to have some/any answer, as a must have thing. If we don't have a real (maybe incomplete) answer then we just don't. Full stop. We can't substitute it with random words just because it is convenient. So your counterpoint should be actually split into two parts: 1. Should we work on the unsolved problem even when it is very hard and ambiguous and there is no even clear hypothesis for the solution? Of course we should. 2. Should we make new conclusions derived from the the unsolved problem #1? No, we must not. So listing the different parties: a) Scientists should work on the researching consciousness problem. b) Animal activists should continue protecting animals, but not because they are supposedly conscious, but because they MAY be. We just don't know yet. c) Journalists MUST stop writing that such and such animal has consciousness.
  - strogonoff 3y ago
    > Journalists MUST stop writing Oh please. There is a position about what consciousness is which implies many animals may have it. This article is about that position. Journalists have a moral obligation to keep writing about such positions, if we are to assume that imparting harm and pain on conscious beings is evil. There are also positions that animals, even including humans, don’t have consciousness, and consciousness doesn’t exist. They are more comfortable to most humans, especially meat eaters. This article is not about those positions. The incompleteness theorem has an important implication that we would not be able to construct a full and verifiably formally correct model of the system from within which we ourselves operate. All we have is hypotheses. Saying that people are not free to make hypotheses that are uncomfortable to you, or that journalists are not free to write about them, is a self-serving position.

I think some animals have florbghji. What is florbghji? Well, I’m not going to define it. I’m just going to go on and on about it with no definition as though this wasn’t a total waste of time.

noSyncCloud 3y ago

Thanks for contributing absolutely nothing to the conversation and pretending it's incredibly profound. Classic HN.

crazygringo 3y ago

> I think some animals have florbghji. What is florbghji? Well, I’m not going to define it. I’m just going to go on and on about it with no definition as though this wasn’t a total waste of time. The entire article is about the controversies and difficulties of defining consciousness, and the hypotheses of neural correlates, and at what stage of evolution those correlates appeared. So the literal thing you seem to be snarkily complaining about, is precisely what the article is trying to directly address. With various competing scientific definitions. I honestly don't know what more you want.

88913527 3y ago

I don't see why people struggle with consciousness. I've found it to be concrete. It's the experience of having inputs (vision/hearing/etc) and outputs (response to stimuli). Whether or not you're actively aware of "hey, I have inputs and outputs" doesn't really matter. It's just the process of it. Do you have a pet dog or cat? It's obviously conscious. I guess my construct breaks down if we consider things like plants, they obviously respond to their environment.

rustymonday 3y ago
So by this definition bacteria has consciousness. I would have to disagree that bacteria are conscious.
- 88913527 3y ago
  Bacteria using their flagella to move away from danger seems like a conscious decision to me. It's analogous to the "Are viruses life?" question, where on the fringe it does get a bit more interesting. Any poorly defined term is going to raise interesting questions on its edge cases.
  - Turskarama 3y ago
    A fridge turns on when the temperature sensor detects that it's too warm inside, is that consciousness?
    - 88913527 3y ago
      Can a temperature sensor have experiences? It's stateless. Maybe that's an element to it. To revise, inputs and outputs with some concept of statefulness.
    - Solvency 3y ago
      Relative to its own perspective and contextual existence, sure, yes it is. Does that intimidate your human consciousness for some reason?
      - Turskarama 3y ago
        I think if you're going to define consciousness this simply then the word ceases to have any real meaning.
      - scatterhead 3y ago
        This is obviously not what people mean when they use the word. You've "resolved" the difficulty by just avoiding it.
awb 3y ago
Autonomy seems important as well. Plants are at the mercy of their environment to a much larger degree than conscious animals that can strategically assess their environment.
ggm 3y ago
*> Whether or not you're actively aware of "hey, I have inputs and outputs" doesn't really matter. It's just the process of it. No, thats exactly wrong inverse-style. Simply producing outputs from inputs is not consciousness. Being actively aware you exist is the whole and being of consciousness: Absence of inputs and outputs we can understand invites us to say "not conscious, no evidence of consciousness" but thats subject to validation. I don't personally believe plants are conscious, but I'm open to somebody demonstrating a sense of awareness. It probably won't be a mirror-test.
softsound 3y ago
It's all the different levels and degree to think about, from the tiny cell to the plants that can mimic what they see (even if it's just plastic, they still try to copy it), you are you but what is it that is you? Anti-addiction drugs are starting to be studied that make people not feel like over-shopping or over-eating and the results of new diabetic drugs that study this effect are very interesting. I guess I probably see plants like fish not exactly conscious though they certainly respond to their environment. Plants are quite noisy if you pet them, the audio is just outside our hearing range but we have devices that can track that sort of thing now. And some fish actually like to be pet, my great grandmother apparently had some fish she would pet, never met her just know of the stories. Probably everything that can grow has some level of it. Also fun fact worm memories are stored outside the brain, their are some trained worm studies you can Google that are interesting too.

strogonoff 3y ago

If you believe having no agreed-upon definition of “consciousness” means we should not bother talking about it at all, try to define the “I” in “I don’t know what consciousness is and therefore refuse to talk about it”, you might get a tad closer to the crux of the issue and perhaps see why it is considered “the hard problem”.

Yizahi 3y ago
The thing is - just because we can't find an answer to a hard problem we can't simply use a whatever placeholder "answer" in the meantime. There is no mandate from the above to have some/any answer, as a must have thing. If we don't have a real (maybe incomplete) answer then we just don't. Full stop. We can't substitute it with random words just because it is convenient. So your counterpoint should be actually split into two parts: 1. Should we work on the unsolved problem even when it is very hard and ambiguous and there is no even clear hypothesis for the solution? Of course we should. 2. Should we make new conclusions derived from the the unsolved problem #1? No, we must not. So listing the different parties: a) Scientists should work on the researching consciousness problem. b) Animal activists should continue protecting animals, but not because they are supposedly conscious, but because they MAY be. We just don't know yet. c) Journalists MUST stop writing that such and such animal has consciousness.
- strogonoff 3y ago
  > Journalists MUST stop writing Oh please. There is a position about what consciousness is which implies many animals may have it. This article is about that position. Journalists have a moral obligation to keep writing about such positions, if we are to assume that imparting harm and pain on conscious beings is evil. There are also positions that animals, even including humans, don’t have consciousness, and consciousness doesn’t exist. They are more comfortable to most humans, especially meat eaters. This article is not about those positions. The incompleteness theorem has an important implication that we would not be able to construct a full and verifiably formally correct model of the system from within which we ourselves operate. All we have is hypotheses. Saying that people are not free to make hypotheses that are uncomfortable to you, or that journalists are not free to write about them, is a self-serving position.