5 ms·

The trouble I have with much of this discussion is it assumes many traits of animal behavior are indicative of consciousness. Bees play with balls, therefore co

The trouble I have with much of this discussion is it assumes many traits of animal behavior are indicative of consciousness. Bees play with balls, therefore consciousness? You can't just jump straight to that conclusion. There is so much our brains do that is subconscious, that we are not aware of. Heck, even signs of self awareness may not be indicative of consciousness. Arguably we are at the point that we could train a robot AI to recognize itself in the mirror. I'm in the camp that believes animals are conscious, I'm not arguing against that. But what I'm arguing is that the current body of evidence doesn't conclude anything. Until we have a better fundamental understanding of consciousness, I don't think we can make such conclusions merely from observing animal behavior. Who's to say that one behavior is evidence of consciousness and another behavior is not? What do we base that upon?

jbotz 2y ago
I don't think it's really the case that "much of this discussion assumes" certain behaviors as being indicative of consciousness. Rather, it has been the case until recently that behaviorists pointed to various behaviors as being unique to humans, and jumped to the conclusion that this indicates that humans are conscious and other animals aren't. What has been happening recently is that one by one these behaviors have been show as not being truly unique to humans. It is becoming more and more undeniable that even when humans are fairly unique in the quantity of some of these characteristics, none of them are completely absent in all other animals, and many can be found to some degree even in very simple animals.
- squigz 2y ago
  I think we're going to realize soon that consciousness isn't really all that complex
  - poikroequ 2y ago
    I believe consciousness started off simple but evolved to become much more complex. Like how eyesight began with simple photosensitive cells.
    - gunapologist99 2y ago
      Even if I agree, I still have trouble seeing how simple photosensitive cells evolved into even a simplified view[0]. If you see what I mean. 0. https://www.aao.org/eye-health/anatomy/parts-of-eye https://www.aao.org/eye-health/anatomy/parts-of-eye
      - poikroequ 2y ago
        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_eye https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_eye
fjfaase 2y ago
It is indeed a hard question that one could also apply to humans. There is no way to know if someone else is conscious. It might be obvious for all people, but what about babies or people with advanced stages with dementia or certain types of brain damage? What about people with mental disabilities? (I have experienced some of these in family members.)
- andrepd 2y ago
  Even for "normal" humans, the point is that consciousness is by definition unobservable from the outside, so everyone else but you can be un-conscious and you would have no way of telling. It's the p-zombies thought experiment.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    > so everyone else but you can be un-conscious and you would have no way of telling Indeed, though* all of us should be confident that there is at least a second conscious being besides ourselves, the one who coined the term. * ignoring A J Ayer for a moment, even though "there is a thought now" would be the only form of consciousness that a current LLM could possibly have if it had any at all
phito 2y ago
What if the subconscious is also conscious
doodaddy 2y ago
While what you say about drawing conclusions is maybe true, it does not seem to have started with modern scientists. Rather, my takeaway from the article was that everyone is still playing by Descartes’ rules: that is to conflate intelligence, language, and consciousness. So instead of trying to redefine that basis, researchers are simply going with it (however flawed it may be) and saying, “well, if language and intelligence are the only sure ways to detect consciousness, then here are a whole bunch of animals that exhibit intelligence, language, or both.”
ilaksh 2y ago
I don't think the word "conscious" is generally used in a way that is the least bit scientific. So that's the first problem. Here you combine "self-aware" with "awake" or "stream of experience" and possibly intelligence.
grantcas 2y ago
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deleted 2y ago
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ssijak 2y ago
I think a lot of people are conflating illusion of free will with consciousness.

jbotz 2y ago

I don't think it's really the case that "much of this discussion assumes" certain behaviors as being indicative of consciousness. Rather, it has been the case until recently that behaviorists pointed to various behaviors as being unique to humans, and jumped to the conclusion that this indicates that humans are conscious and other animals aren't. What has been happening recently is that one by one these behaviors have been show as not being truly unique to humans. It is becoming more and more undeniable that even when humans are fairly unique in the quantity of some of these characteristics, none of them are completely absent in all other animals, and many can be found to some degree even in very simple animals.

squigz 2y ago
I think we're going to realize soon that consciousness isn't really all that complex
- poikroequ 2y ago
  I believe consciousness started off simple but evolved to become much more complex. Like how eyesight began with simple photosensitive cells.
  - gunapologist99 2y ago
    Even if I agree, I still have trouble seeing how simple photosensitive cells evolved into even a simplified view[0]. If you see what I mean. 0. https://www.aao.org/eye-health/anatomy/parts-of-eye https://www.aao.org/eye-health/anatomy/parts-of-eye
    - poikroequ 2y ago
      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_eye https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_eye

fjfaase 2y ago

It is indeed a hard question that one could also apply to humans. There is no way to know if someone else is conscious. It might be obvious for all people, but what about babies or people with advanced stages with dementia or certain types of brain damage? What about people with mental disabilities? (I have experienced some of these in family members.)

andrepd 2y ago
Even for "normal" humans, the point is that consciousness is by definition unobservable from the outside, so everyone else but you can be un-conscious and you would have no way of telling. It's the p-zombies thought experiment.
- ben_w 2y ago
  > so everyone else but you can be un-conscious and you would have no way of telling Indeed, though* all of us should be confident that there is at least a second conscious being besides ourselves, the one who coined the term. * ignoring A J Ayer for a moment, even though "there is a thought now" would be the only form of consciousness that a current LLM could possibly have if it had any at all

phito 2y ago

What if the subconscious is also conscious

doodaddy 2y ago

While what you say about drawing conclusions is maybe true, it does not seem to have started with modern scientists. Rather, my takeaway from the article was that everyone is still playing by Descartes’ rules: that is to conflate intelligence, language, and consciousness. So instead of trying to redefine that basis, researchers are simply going with it (however flawed it may be) and saying, “well, if language and intelligence are the only sure ways to detect consciousness, then here are a whole bunch of animals that exhibit intelligence, language, or both.”

ilaksh 2y ago

I don't think the word "conscious" is generally used in a way that is the least bit scientific. So that's the first problem. Here you combine "self-aware" with "awake" or "stream of experience" and possibly intelligence.

grantcas 2y ago

[dead]

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

ssijak 2y ago

I think a lot of people are conflating illusion of free will with consciousness.