Hard consciousness: binary? cline? else?

[Roger Ramjets]

So when, biologically, does consciousness emerge?

It 'emerges' when the organism has a nervous system sophisticated enough to support consciousness. On the evolutionary scale this is generally considered to have coincided with the development of central nervous systems.

I wonder how dualistic perceptions emerged.

Consciousness is a kind of dualism, in the sense that the 'self' is perceived as being separate from the body it inhabits. It becomes full-on dualism when the mind believes it can survive outside the body (which with current technology is impossible) and therefore exists on a separate 'plane' than the physical Universe.

It would seem, then, that many a philosopher abuses, even tortures, language!

Apparently so. Certainly ascribing consciousness to a single celled organism or an electron is torturing it beyond recognition.

so even in the deepest level of sedation, a human has consciousness, but as whatever is going on in the brain is not available to introspection, there are no qualia?

There are different levels of consciousness. When a person is unconscious they have (by definition) no consciousness, but when asleep they have levels of consciousness depending on the sleep state. This correlates with measured brain activity.

So only some animals can have consciousness, as sponges, jellyfish, and starfish do not have brains.

As far as we can tell, yes.

What is the minimal set of brain functions an animal must have (“higher brain function”) in order for it to possess consciousness? Do ragworms qualify?

It's possible the ragworm has a tiny bit of consciousness. But why do we need to draw a line? It's like looking at birds to determine the 'minimal set of avian functions an animal must have to fly', then asking 'but what about feathered dinosaurs?'. Or hey, an electron can 'fly', so it must be a bird, right?

 

[Darat]

"I think therefore I am." Thanks Descartes, what is next?

Circular logic.

 

[Darat]

It would seem, then, that many a philosopher abuses, even tortures, language! [emoji14]



So only some animals can have consciousness, as sponges, jellyfish, and starfish do not have brains.



What is the minimal set of brain functions an animal must have (“higher brain function”) in order for it to possess consciousness? Do ragworms qualify?

What is the minimum set of physical functions an animal must have in order to possess run?

That isn't my usual mangling of English, it is to try and illustrate why your question doesn't really make sense, like movement I. e. “run" consciousness isn't a single definition and can be relative. To have consciousness similar to humans you need neurology like humans. As I said earlier I think the evidence is that consciousness of any kind requires as a minimum a nervous system and a processing unit of neurons, I suspect that "read/write" memory of some sort is also required.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

I used to think that my dog decided where to pee based on where other dogs had peed. Then I realized it was probably just as likely that no thought at all was occurring, and that the smell simply induced the need to pee.

Why wouldn't that be thought? Does the sound of running water make you need to pee? Do you bemoan your lack of free will in doing so? Dogs are incredibly thoughtful creatures with a constant social calculus going on behind their eyebrows. Your dog could choose not to pee there, if it understood that The Alpha (you) would get upset. Isn't that free will?

Human behavior may have more complex interplays of instinctive vs. learned responses, but no matter how many loops there are, maybe each second we are ultimately acting in a stimulus-response mode, which happens to be accompanied by an internal narrative about why we're doing what we're doing.

Yes, that's more or less how it works. There are some situations where the two get out of sync, and curious things happen.

 

[JeanTate]

Per the definition William Parcher posted, qualia exist. As I said, headaches are an example of qualia, as is nausea*.

*of course, I may have misunderstood that definition; if so, I hope William Parcher will be along soon to set me straight

I dug into this a bit more.

In contemporary (Western) medicine, all symptoms are subjective, by definition. The objective things are signs; of course there may be both signs and symptoms for a condition (a skin rash, say). In everyday English, “symptoms” may be fuzzier in meaning.

So, by definition, all symptoms (in the technical, medical sense) are qualia (per the definition WP posted). No doubt there are qualia which are not symptoms (in the narrow sense).

More: you have to be able to describe symptoms, even if only via a (long) series of yes/no Q&As, though you can describe symptoms you are not, right now, experiencing (“I had this nasty headache yesterday”). However I expect that (some) philosophers are perfectly happy to generalize from narrow descriptions by some people to a universal certainty for all things with consciousness, at all times.

 

[steenkh]

It is not random which mutation survives, but the mutation itself is random.

Correct. The mutations can go in all directions, but only viable directions will survive. The end result is non-random.

 

[Loss Leader]

So, where does consciousness begin, and end? When did it first evolve? Any convergent evolution (e.g. Octopoda vs Primate)?

As a lawyer, of all things, I've learned that everything gets blurry around the edges. Your civil rights start to drop the closer you get to the border between the US and any other country. When exactly does it happen? That's all just very gray.

A person asked me a few weeks ago about what the law says about when a parent can relocate with a child, altering the visitation agreed to and ordered by a judge. The answer, very unsatisfactorily, is that there's no magic number or formula. The father away you move, the better reason you need. But where that line exactly is cannot be known. It varies from judge to judge. It may vary from whether the judge considers the matter before or after lunch.

I think you'll find that hard consciousness behaves the same way. We know there are definitely times it applies and there are definitely times it doesn't. But where in all the gray area tha line exists? It may not exist and, even if it does, may no be knowable.

 

[Minoosh]

It 'emerges' when the organism has a nervous system sophisticated enough to support consciousness.

I don't know enough about information processing to understand why having a central nervous system is the sine qua non for consciousness, but I suspect there's some circularity in defining what is sophisticated enough. "To be conscious, an entity must have the ability to experience consciousness" sounds like a tautology. However perhaps we've modeled with computers how much juice would be needed for feedback, memory etc.

Consciousness is a kind of dualism, in the sense that the 'self' is perceived as being separate from the body it inhabits.

Agreed - but it seems tautological as well: "Being a dualist means you see your 'self' as a separate entity," and "Seeing your 'self' as a separate entity means you are a dualist." I wonder how it developed. I'm curious about when, why and how humans acquired this trait, and if any other animals experience it.

Circular logic.

I wonder why more people don't see that. Descartes presupposes that he exists; it's the subject of his sentence. But I am seriously uninformed about the context of his work and that of other philosophers.

What is the minimum set of physical functions an animal must have in order to possess run?

Yep. "Run" doesn't exist without bodies to run with. Nausea doesn't exist outside some creature feeling nauseated. That's the problem I see with qualia.

Why wouldn't that be thought? Does the sound of running water make you need to pee? Do you bemoan your lack of free will in doing so? Dogs are incredibly thoughtful creatures with a constant social calculus going on behind their eyebrows. Your dog could choose not to pee there, if it understood that The Alpha (you) would get upset. Isn't that free will?

I don't bemoan my lack of free will at all. I find it kind of comforting, actually: Nothing is my fault.

I would like to think my dog is thoughtful and loves me, but (almost?) all of her behavior can be explained by instinct and conditioning. She gets praise when she pees outside. Scolding has taught her that I don't want to see her pee inside, so she doesn't do it in front of me. She's still a puppy. So, literally, baby steps.

She was cute as hell doing manic puppy circles in the park this morning on dew-covered grass; does that mean she was "feeling" playful? Something I've noticed about the breed: They don't like getting wet. My previous doggo would run around to dry herself off. This one's tummy was wet with dew, but running just made her wetter, so she kept running and I kept laughing and I theorize she likes the sound (or smell?) of laughter. "Kisses," burrowing under the covers, cuddling - well-socialized dachshunds are known for this. There's no behavior I can think of that can't be explained by instinct and operant conditioning. I don't know what that says about the concept of free will.

Correct. The mutations can go in all directions, but only viable directions will survive. The end result is non-random.

Random mutations determine who survives to breed. Sperm-ova combinations are random in themselves. l know I'm missing something about natural selection here but can't quite get my head around the fact that each change in the genome is dictated by random events, including how long a given organism survives, so randomness is at least as important as non-randomness. A whole clutch of fish eggs may have some advantageous mutation, but if some other sea critter eats the whole batch, the mutation could die out.

The thing is, I don't like the conclusion that consciousness simply emerges. In fact by nature I think I'm a dualist. Literally by nature. My mother had a completely different upbringing from me but we have a similar vague "feeling" that some factor exists beyond the purely material. (I have just run across the phrase "human exceptionalism" which I need to explore, but it would be compatible with a binary belief about consciousness: Humans do indeed have "magic beans" that other organisms don't).

ETA: This post seems to jump around a bit, but I experience these thoughts as connected. Suitable transitions would make it even longer, so it is what it is.