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I have the feeling that self-awareness is inherent in every system. When a flower gets more sunlight from one side than from the other, it starts to turn to th

by mg 2y ago

I have the feeling that self-awareness is inherent in every system. When a flower gets more sunlight from one side than from the other, it starts to turn to that side. Is that different from a person who walks somewhere because they like to? Most people I ask say "Well, the human can say 'I'". But a computer can also say "I". Where is the threshold to call it "self-awareness"?

ImHereToVote 2y ago
The answer, my friend. Lies on the other side of the rainbow. It's in he chafed lips of a unicorn. And the swollen ball-sack of a Leprechaun.
XorNot 2y ago
More over, trees have chemical signalling mechanisms amongst related species in response to environmental stimuli. So a tree broadcasts to surrounding members of its species what's going on.
Aardwolf 2y ago
What if the bimetal of a mechanical thermostat closes a circuit to turn on the heating due to a temperature change? In other words, would you apply this to any system, or only biological ones. Is a sunflower turning to the sunlight as "programmed" as the thermostat?
flir 2y ago
Panpsychism might interest you. On the flip side (or maybe not) there's epiphenomenalism and the narrative theory of the self. Personally I think there's more evidence for the view that consciousness is a post hoc justification for unconscious actions than there is for it's "consciousness all the way down".
- mg 2y ago
  Is there a difference between panpsychism and the idea that consciousness is just a post hoc justification? To me they seem the same. When you say "3 stones make a trio of stones" you don't mean that a "trio" existed somewhere outside of the stones and now moved into the stones, do you? You just gave a name to this specific formation of a stone, another stone and yet another stone.
  - flir 2y ago
    > Is there a difference between panpsychism and the idea that consciousness is just a post hoc justification? I don't think they're necessarily inconsistent (hence "or maybe not"). But I do think that one person is unlikely to believe both of them.
torcete 2y ago
That can also be said about other social groups. At some point, entities like a nation, a country, a social class and others develop self-awareness. Although, there is a difference; while an organism is the one saying "I" and not the cells or tissues. In a social group it's an individual (or group of them) that says "We".
- czl 2y ago
  > an organism is the one saying "I" and not the cells or tissues An organism is a colony of cells and in that colony only some cells are responsible for thinking / communication.
OJFord 2y ago
I'm not sure I understand why what you describe isn't just the behaviour of the system? Even a mechanical system (take two connected cogs on separate shafts, turn one..) you could say something similar about. Surely 'self-awareness' is intended to be about reasoning that the output shaft turned because [...], that the turn was made towards sunlight because [...]. I think this is what you're getting at with the human being able to say 'I', but I don't think you can gloss over that in that case, because it's the whole point isn't it?
- mg 2y ago
  Yes, I would say every system has self-awareness. You say "reasoning" is needed. Ok, but how is that defined? Say you "ask" the cog why it turned by rattling it. Then it will rattle the other cog and, therefore, point you towards it. And you might say "Oh, I understand. You turned because the other cog pushed you". You might say that is just a mechanical mechanism. But if you look at human behavior close enough, it's just a mechanical mechanism too.
  - OJFord 2y ago
    But we have the language to know we're capable of and do that introspection. Isn't it fair to say of the cogs that, lacking the ability to talk about 'I' or whatever, some other way to measure it, we don't know if they possess that self-awareness or not?
    - mg 2y ago
      What exactly does it mean that we "have the language to know"? And how do you prove it? How does the cog's reply in my last comment not match your definition and proof? In my experience, when you try to define and prove it in a way that is not fuzzy, you come up with a definition that also matches the cog.
  - Gormo 2y ago
    I think "self-awareness" as we are discussing it here does not just mean "causal relationship between stimulus and response". It specifically refers to a singular consciousness engaging in thought that translates into intentionality -- this is something that we only directly experience within our own minds, and it doesn't make sense to speculatively apply it to things that are observably very different from ourselves.
Gormo 2y ago
I'm not sure that it makes sense to regard any instance of an entity engaging in stimulus response behavior as being equivalent to self-awareness -- in fact, other comments in this thread include arguments that because humans often respond reflexively to external stimuli, we ourselves are not always self-aware in the process of our own decision-making.

by mg 2y ago

ImHereToVote 2y ago

The answer, my friend. Lies on the other side of the rainbow. It's in he chafed lips of a unicorn. And the swollen ball-sack of a Leprechaun.

XorNot 2y ago

More over, trees have chemical signalling mechanisms amongst related species in response to environmental stimuli. So a tree broadcasts to surrounding members of its species what's going on.

Aardwolf 2y ago

What if the bimetal of a mechanical thermostat closes a circuit to turn on the heating due to a temperature change? In other words, would you apply this to any system, or only biological ones. Is a sunflower turning to the sunlight as "programmed" as the thermostat?

flir 2y ago

Panpsychism might interest you. On the flip side (or maybe not) there's epiphenomenalism and the narrative theory of the self. Personally I think there's more evidence for the view that consciousness is a post hoc justification for unconscious actions than there is for it's "consciousness all the way down".

mg 2y ago
Is there a difference between panpsychism and the idea that consciousness is just a post hoc justification? To me they seem the same. When you say "3 stones make a trio of stones" you don't mean that a "trio" existed somewhere outside of the stones and now moved into the stones, do you? You just gave a name to this specific formation of a stone, another stone and yet another stone.
- flir 2y ago
  > Is there a difference between panpsychism and the idea that consciousness is just a post hoc justification? I don't think they're necessarily inconsistent (hence "or maybe not"). But I do think that one person is unlikely to believe both of them.

torcete 2y ago

That can also be said about other social groups. At some point, entities like a nation, a country, a social class and others develop self-awareness. Although, there is a difference; while an organism is the one saying "I" and not the cells or tissues. In a social group it's an individual (or group of them) that says "We".

czl 2y ago
> an organism is the one saying "I" and not the cells or tissues An organism is a colony of cells and in that colony only some cells are responsible for thinking / communication.

OJFord 2y ago

I'm not sure I understand why what you describe isn't just the behaviour of the system? Even a mechanical system (take two connected cogs on separate shafts, turn one..) you could say something similar about. Surely 'self-awareness' is intended to be about reasoning that the output shaft turned because [...], that the turn was made towards sunlight because [...]. I think this is what you're getting at with the human being able to say 'I', but I don't think you can gloss over that in that case, because it's the whole point isn't it?

mg 2y ago
Yes, I would say every system has self-awareness. You say "reasoning" is needed. Ok, but how is that defined? Say you "ask" the cog why it turned by rattling it. Then it will rattle the other cog and, therefore, point you towards it. And you might say "Oh, I understand. You turned because the other cog pushed you". You might say that is just a mechanical mechanism. But if you look at human behavior close enough, it's just a mechanical mechanism too.
- OJFord 2y ago
  But we have the language to know we're capable of and do that introspection. Isn't it fair to say of the cogs that, lacking the ability to talk about 'I' or whatever, some other way to measure it, we don't know if they possess that self-awareness or not?
  - mg 2y ago
    What exactly does it mean that we "have the language to know"? And how do you prove it? How does the cog's reply in my last comment not match your definition and proof? In my experience, when you try to define and prove it in a way that is not fuzzy, you come up with a definition that also matches the cog.
- Gormo 2y ago
  I think "self-awareness" as we are discussing it here does not just mean "causal relationship between stimulus and response". It specifically refers to a singular consciousness engaging in thought that translates into intentionality -- this is something that we only directly experience within our own minds, and it doesn't make sense to speculatively apply it to things that are observably very different from ourselves.

Gormo 2y ago

I'm not sure that it makes sense to regard any instance of an entity engaging in stimulus response behavior as being equivalent to self-awareness -- in fact, other comments in this thread include arguments that because humans often respond reflexively to external stimuli, we ourselves are not always self-aware in the process of our own decision-making.