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At what point do you consider living organisms to be conscious? Any threshold is essentially arbitrary.

yreg 3y ago
We don't know, but the title makes it sound like we do know.
s1artibartfast 3y ago
I personally think self-awareness is a pre-requisite for consciousness. >ar·bi·trar·y, adjective based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. I don't think this threshold is arbitrary. I think it is part of a set of word definitions that and are logically compatible, coherent, and useful. Similarly, I dont think it arbitrary to say the bee is a living organism, but the alarm clock is not. Would you argue that the any definition of "living" is similarly arbitrary?
- Jensson 3y ago
  What is self-awareness? Do you think dogs are self aware? I think dogs are conscious at least even if they fail to recognize themselves in a mirror. Being aware that you are a consciousness requires intelligence, not just consciousness.
  - s1artibartfast 3y ago
    I think dogs can be self aware. I think self-awareness is the ability to comprehend the "Self" as distinct from the "environment" and then compute and weigh the likely outcomes of different actions. It is high level thinking with many pre-requisites. An alarm clock is not self aware, because it doesn't model the world, and select between actions. Similarly, a bee, (which I believe to act on pre-programed instinct, not in the moment reason), is not self aware. This is because it selects between actions, but can not logically model the world. A dog, on the other hand, can build logical models of the world, and then take actions based on that. It can that begging from one person results in treats, while begging from another results in discipline. It can update this logic and behavior based on new information.
    - NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
      So you have arbitrarily decided on units, such as bees and dogs. But perhaps it is an error to consider a singular bee as an arbitrary unit. What if we consider the entire hive/swarm as a unified organism? What would our results be then? What about considering individual cells of a dog instead of that whole dog? Wouldn't that tend to skew your results unfairly?
      - s1artibartfast 3y ago
        My examples weren't arbitrary, they were made for specific reasons. I selected bees because the article and my OP was about bees, and I selected dogs because I was asked about dogs. I don't think a hive is self aware for the same reasons as the bee. It acts conditionally but does not create new logic models of the world. As for the cells, I think they closer to complex alarm clocks than the bees, and are not self aware for the same reason. I think my logic is consistent.
        edgyquant 3y ago
        I think this is inaccurate. Bees definitely model the world, how else would they fly around it? Further they do communicate with one another about their environments which suggests that the hive would have a greater model of the world than any singular bee.
      - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        > What if we consider the entire hive/swarm as a unified organism? We get a less-predictive model for some questions and a more-predictive one for others. Sort of like how asking whether we should model humans as collections of cells, individuals or societies is freshman dorm stuff until we pair it with an actual question.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - why_at 3y ago
      I mean, it's pretty hard to tell what's going on inside any other creature's brain, from dogs to bees to humans. It's generally easier the closer they are to yourself, so it's easier with dogs than with bees. I think you are shortchanging bees a bit, based on your description of a dog building a logical model of the world, I would say bees definitely qualify. >A dog, on the other hand, can build logical models of the world, and then take actions based on that. It can that begging from one person results in treats, while begging from another results in discipline. It can update this logic and behavior based on new information. Bees are capable of a lot of interesting and complex behavior, from learning to communication with other bees.[1] It's been theorized that they can play around just for fun, which is hard to reconcile with them behaving on entirely pre-programmed instincts.[2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bee_learning_and_communication https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bee_learning_and_communication [2] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/bees-can-play-study-shows-bumblebees-insect-intelligence https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/bees-can-...
- masspro 3y ago
  Are viruses alive? They’re pretty close. That pretty-closeness is evidence that the definition of ‘living’ is arbitrary. In high school biology, ‘living’ was a list of five points to be memorized, and those points were definitely made up by humans. And viruses were used as a sorta-joke by the teacher to illustrate that it’s arbitrary. Why I cared enough to dig into that: every word/category is arbitrary; words and word-logic only help us insofar as they tell us useful things about reality.
  - s1artibartfast 3y ago
    > every word/category is arbitrary; words and word-logic only help us insofar as they tell us useful things about reality haha, having useful meanings is the exact thing that makes word categories non-arbitrary. Having different categories and words for food and poison is useful. The distinction is not arbitrary. Similarly, the concept and definition of living/inanimate is not arbitrary. It defiantly tells us something useful. You could say the exact definition of "living" isn't clear, but that doesn't mean every definition is equally good. For example, “things that are purple“, would be a pretty crappy definition of "living". It's not random or arbitrary. Thought and logic went into crafting the definition.
    - masspro 3y ago
      > Having different categories and words for food and poison is useful. The distinction is not arbitrary. A very hot pepper has features of both food and poison. Most things are not perfect binaries, and if you put a dividing line on a spectrum, the placement of that dividing line must be arbitrary. Obviously people try to come up with good definitions of things, but that still doesn’t mean it’s a productive use of anyone’s time/effort deciding which side of an arbitrary divide a thing falls into. > It's not random or arbitrary. No one said arbitrary == random! Arbitrary in this discussion is meaning “a person chose it”. And it is a useful concept to me here in this context because it distinguishes things a person is deciding from things that are just real in-and-of-themselves out here in spacetime.
      - s1artibartfast 3y ago

yreg 3y ago

We don't know, but the title makes it sound like we do know.

I personally think self-awareness is a pre-requisite for consciousness. >ar·bi·trar·y, adjective based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. I don't think this threshold is arbitrary. I think it is part of a set of word definitions that and are logically compatible, coherent, and useful. Similarly, I dont think it arbitrary to say the bee is a living organism, but the alarm clock is not. Would you argue that the any definition of "living" is similarly arbitrary?

Jensson 3y ago
What is self-awareness? Do you think dogs are self aware? I think dogs are conscious at least even if they fail to recognize themselves in a mirror. Being aware that you are a consciousness requires intelligence, not just consciousness.
- s1artibartfast 3y ago
  I think dogs can be self aware. I think self-awareness is the ability to comprehend the "Self" as distinct from the "environment" and then compute and weigh the likely outcomes of different actions. It is high level thinking with many pre-requisites. An alarm clock is not self aware, because it doesn't model the world, and select between actions. Similarly, a bee, (which I believe to act on pre-programed instinct, not in the moment reason), is not self aware. This is because it selects between actions, but can not logically model the world. A dog, on the other hand, can build logical models of the world, and then take actions based on that. It can that begging from one person results in treats, while begging from another results in discipline. It can update this logic and behavior based on new information.
  - NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
    So you have arbitrarily decided on units, such as bees and dogs. But perhaps it is an error to consider a singular bee as an arbitrary unit. What if we consider the entire hive/swarm as a unified organism? What would our results be then? What about considering individual cells of a dog instead of that whole dog? Wouldn't that tend to skew your results unfairly?
    - s1artibartfast 3y ago
      My examples weren't arbitrary, they were made for specific reasons. I selected bees because the article and my OP was about bees, and I selected dogs because I was asked about dogs. I don't think a hive is self aware for the same reasons as the bee. It acts conditionally but does not create new logic models of the world. As for the cells, I think they closer to complex alarm clocks than the bees, and are not self aware for the same reason. I think my logic is consistent.
      - edgyquant 3y ago
        I think this is inaccurate. Bees definitely model the world, how else would they fly around it? Further they do communicate with one another about their environments which suggests that the hive would have a greater model of the world than any singular bee.
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > What if we consider the entire hive/swarm as a unified organism? We get a less-predictive model for some questions and a more-predictive one for others. Sort of like how asking whether we should model humans as collections of cells, individuals or societies is freshman dorm stuff until we pair it with an actual question.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - why_at 3y ago
    I mean, it's pretty hard to tell what's going on inside any other creature's brain, from dogs to bees to humans. It's generally easier the closer they are to yourself, so it's easier with dogs than with bees. I think you are shortchanging bees a bit, based on your description of a dog building a logical model of the world, I would say bees definitely qualify. >A dog, on the other hand, can build logical models of the world, and then take actions based on that. It can that begging from one person results in treats, while begging from another results in discipline. It can update this logic and behavior based on new information. Bees are capable of a lot of interesting and complex behavior, from learning to communication with other bees.[1] It's been theorized that they can play around just for fun, which is hard to reconcile with them behaving on entirely pre-programmed instincts.[2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bee_learning_and_communication https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bee_learning_and_communication [2] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/bees-can-play-study-shows-bumblebees-insect-intelligence https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/bees-can-...
masspro 3y ago
Are viruses alive? They’re pretty close. That pretty-closeness is evidence that the definition of ‘living’ is arbitrary. In high school biology, ‘living’ was a list of five points to be memorized, and those points were definitely made up by humans. And viruses were used as a sorta-joke by the teacher to illustrate that it’s arbitrary. Why I cared enough to dig into that: every word/category is arbitrary; words and word-logic only help us insofar as they tell us useful things about reality.
- s1artibartfast 3y ago
  > every word/category is arbitrary; words and word-logic only help us insofar as they tell us useful things about reality haha, having useful meanings is the exact thing that makes word categories non-arbitrary. Having different categories and words for food and poison is useful. The distinction is not arbitrary. Similarly, the concept and definition of living/inanimate is not arbitrary. It defiantly tells us something useful. You could say the exact definition of "living" isn't clear, but that doesn't mean every definition is equally good. For example, “things that are purple“, would be a pretty crappy definition of "living". It's not random or arbitrary. Thought and logic went into crafting the definition.
  - masspro 3y ago
    > Having different categories and words for food and poison is useful. The distinction is not arbitrary. A very hot pepper has features of both food and poison. Most things are not perfect binaries, and if you put a dividing line on a spectrum, the placement of that dividing line must be arbitrary. Obviously people try to come up with good definitions of things, but that still doesn’t mean it’s a productive use of anyone’s time/effort deciding which side of an arbitrary divide a thing falls into. > It's not random or arbitrary. No one said arbitrary == random! Arbitrary in this discussion is meaning “a person chose it”. And it is a useful concept to me here in this context because it distinguishes things a person is deciding from things that are just real in-and-of-themselves out here in spacetime.
    - s1artibartfast 3y ago