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> I would consider "x is aware of y" to only mean (fundamentally) that x is responsive to the state of y, but your notion of awareness clearly goes beyond that.

> I would consider "x is aware of y" to only mean (fundamentally) that x is responsive to the state of y, but your notion of awareness clearly goes beyond that. Well, surely you can agree what you've described isn't awareness in any sense? A plant creeping toward sunlight isn't aware of the sunlight. > Well, no, because you've got this idea of "awareness" in there too. Yes, that's a necessary requirement for sentience. You want to try and equate organisms processing stimuli to a camera, but you can only do so when you omit the key thing that differentiates them. What's the point of that? > A camera can sense things with its sensors, but you don't consider that "true sensing" because there's no awareness going on. It's not sensing anything more than a rube Goldberg machine makes decisions. If you wanted to make a comparison to technology, a roomba would work much better. > I'm not sure what you consider the difference to be, beyond one being more complicated than the other. Self-awareness. > If a machine takes input from a sensor and runs an analytical algorithm on it, how complex does that algorithm need to be before it's considered an act of reflection? Well, we're not even close to programming anything resembling human consciousness, so that's pretty much impossible to answer at the moment. It's basically fantasy. > Does "awareness" involve a specific process that the algorithm may or may not perform, or is it an emergent property of any sufficiently complex algorithm? I'm going to go ahead and guess your the type of person that insists the universe is entirely deterministic, yes? You realize no one can answer these questions right now, right? Consciousness is still very poorly understood. Even if it is just the result of hardware and algorithms, it's hardware and algorithms we are a long way from understanding or re-implementing. So frankly, trying to think of it in the terms that you are here, isn't helpful to any sort of argument or discussion trying to understand it better.

bccdee 2y ago
> A plant creeping toward sunlight isn't aware of the sunlight. Why not? Because the plant isn't conscious? Awareness can't be defined in terms of consciousness if consciousness itself is defined in terms of awareness—that's circular. How do you define awareness? >> I'm not sure what you consider the difference to be > Self-awareness. Yeah but what is that? That's my big stumbling block here—what is "awareness"? What distinguishes things that are aware from things that are not?
- ruthmarx 2y ago
  > Why not? Because the plant isn't conscious? Awareness can't be defined in terms of consciousness if consciousness itself is defined in terms of awareness—that's circular. The problem is we are using the same word to mean different things - all these words are terribly overloaded. > Awareness, in philosophy and psychology, is a perception or knowledge of something.[1] The concept is often synonymous to consciousness.[2] However, one can be aware of something without being explicitly conscious of it, such as in the case of blindsight. This is what the wiki says: Awareness, in philosophy and psychology, is a perception or knowledge of something. The concept is often synonymous to consciousness. However, one can be aware of something without being explicitly conscious of it, such as in the case of blindsight. For sentience: Sentience is the ability to experience feelings and sensations. It may not necessarily imply higher cognitive functions such as awareness, reasoning, or complex thought processes. So the way I see it, you have 'bodily self-awareness'/sentience, which is basically the minimal amount of some kind of mental OS running. processing stimuli, making decisions and reacting to events. These simple beings, like worms, are conscious in the sense they are aware/awake, but they do not have a higher level consciousness, or I would argue any consciousness at all. On top of that you can have base consciousness, which allows for simple wants and needs, some basic decision making, but there is no inner monologue, no awareness of ones own thoughts. Consider something like a fish to be at this level. On top of that you now have higher consciousness and self-awareness. A sense of ones selves as distinct from heir environment. A recognition of the fact that you had a thought and can now have thoughts about that thought. This is largely what separates humans from other animals, with only a few animals being close to humans in this regard (crows, elephants, chimps, dolphins, etc). So the plant, as far as we know, has no kind of 'mental OS' running, so it has no type of awareness. It's just base chemical reactions without that, likely because they never evolved the need for it. The camera as well doesn't have any equivalent. It's a set of actions that happen when a button is pressed. A roomba could be said to have a level of awareness though. > Yeah but what is that? That's my big stumbling block here—what is "awareness"? What distinguishes things that are aware from things that are not? Hopefully I've clarified this above.

bccdee 2y ago

> A plant creeping toward sunlight isn't aware of the sunlight. Why not? Because the plant isn't conscious? Awareness can't be defined in terms of consciousness if consciousness itself is defined in terms of awareness—that's circular. How do you define awareness? >> I'm not sure what you consider the difference to be > Self-awareness. Yeah but what is that? That's my big stumbling block here—what is "awareness"? What distinguishes things that are aware from things that are not?

ruthmarx 2y ago
> Why not? Because the plant isn't conscious? Awareness can't be defined in terms of consciousness if consciousness itself is defined in terms of awareness—that's circular. The problem is we are using the same word to mean different things - all these words are terribly overloaded. > Awareness, in philosophy and psychology, is a perception or knowledge of something.[1] The concept is often synonymous to consciousness.[2] However, one can be aware of something without being explicitly conscious of it, such as in the case of blindsight. This is what the wiki says: Awareness, in philosophy and psychology, is a perception or knowledge of something. The concept is often synonymous to consciousness. However, one can be aware of something without being explicitly conscious of it, such as in the case of blindsight. For sentience: Sentience is the ability to experience feelings and sensations. It may not necessarily imply higher cognitive functions such as awareness, reasoning, or complex thought processes. So the way I see it, you have 'bodily self-awareness'/sentience, which is basically the minimal amount of some kind of mental OS running. processing stimuli, making decisions and reacting to events. These simple beings, like worms, are conscious in the sense they are aware/awake, but they do not have a higher level consciousness, or I would argue any consciousness at all. On top of that you can have base consciousness, which allows for simple wants and needs, some basic decision making, but there is no inner monologue, no awareness of ones own thoughts. Consider something like a fish to be at this level. On top of that you now have higher consciousness and self-awareness. A sense of ones selves as distinct from heir environment. A recognition of the fact that you had a thought and can now have thoughts about that thought. This is largely what separates humans from other animals, with only a few animals being close to humans in this regard (crows, elephants, chimps, dolphins, etc). So the plant, as far as we know, has no kind of 'mental OS' running, so it has no type of awareness. It's just base chemical reactions without that, likely because they never evolved the need for it. The camera as well doesn't have any equivalent. It's a set of actions that happen when a button is pressed. A roomba could be said to have a level of awareness though. > Yeah but what is that? That's my big stumbling block here—what is "awareness"? What distinguishes things that are aware from things that are not? Hopefully I've clarified this above.