That much is not needed: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/conscious — Lionino
I Wouldn't say we are using 'conscious' in the same sense in the two sentences:
"Tim is conscious and in the hospital"
and
"Human's are conscious due to their brains" — 013zen
In the first example, its clearly being used synonymously with being aware, and in the second sense, which is the sense I believe OP to be using, we can't simply substitute "awareness". — 013zen
Well, I would. — Lionino
Sure, but there are no things without a mind. — bert1
Tim had triple bypass surgery, and Nancy had a full frontal lobotomy. — 013zen
But, if I were to ask in the sense of the OP: "Is Tim conscious in the same sense as Nancy?" we would all, I think, answer 'no'. — 013zen
It's a difficult word to tackle because of semantics but as far as I gathered, they meant has a lack of an "I" sensation/experience of self, therefore little to no agency to apply to a self, and act mindlessly on mere precribed impulses. — Benj96
Are lobomites conscious? If yes, they are conscious in the same way; if no, "Nancy is conscious and in the hospital" is an incorrect statement, and should be changed.
The counterargument is that what we mean by "conscious" is in fact an umbrella of related properties. But this is not a point I want to debate so I will just concede. — Lionino
I'm curious what you mean by "awareness" though — 013zen
if say, a motion detecting camera spots me, and follows my movements, would that count as awareness, or is it something more complicated for you? — 013zen
All in all, this is barely even philosophy, it is pragmatics of the English language. — Lionino
Most people would say sponges are not conscious — Lionino
But then again, are they reacting any differently than when a rock reacts when we kick it by flying away into my neighbour Giorgios' window? — Lionino
The question is on what grounds, if you are not a panpsychist. — Lionino
Correct. The idea is that there's a mental property, just as there are physical properties (mass, charge, etc.). Although some panpsychists think that mental property is an actual mind, or consciousness, not all do. My own thinking is along the lines of proto-consciousness. As the physical properties combine in various ways that give us macro physical properties, like liquidity, perhaps proto-consciousness combines to give us consciousness.Disagree that there is nothing without a mind? :chin: — Lionino
I would say they are reacting differently. The rock kicked through the window is a chain of brute-force, physical interactions. Like dominoes.Most people would say sponges are not conscious, but they are "aware" of their surroundings because they react to stimulus. But then again, are they reacting any differently than when a rock reacts when we kick it by flying away into my neighbour Giorgios' window? In a way, a sponge reacts to its environment through a series of chemical reactions in its structure, which are physics-based — in the deep end it is all Newton's third law. — Lionino
They then discuss several increasingly complex minds. The sponge is not one of them. They start with the simplest existing mind, that of the archaea, which has two sensors (rhodopsin) and two doers (flagella, more properly called archaella). When the light changes, the rhodopsin changes shape. This begins a chain of chemical events that reach the archaella, which move, thus moving the archaea.A mind is a physical system that converts sensations into action. A mind takes in a set of inputs from its environment and transforms them into a set of environment-impacting outputs that, crucially, influence the welfare of its body. This process of changing inputs into outputs—of changing sensation into useful behavior—is thinking, the defining activity of a mind.
Accordingly, every mind requires a minimum of two thinking elements:
•A sensor that responds to its environment
•A doer that acts upon its environment
Some familiar examples of sensors that are part of your own mind include the photon-sensing rods and cones in your retina, the vibration-sensing hair cells in your ears, and the sourness-sensing taste buds on your tongue. A sensor interacts with a doer, which does something. A doer performs some action that impinges upon the world and thereby influences the body’s health and well-being. Common examples of doers include the twitchy muscle cells in your finger, the sweat-producing apocrine cells in your sweat glands, and the liquid-leaking serous cells in your tear ducts.
A mind, then, is defined by what it does, rather than what it is. “Mind” is an action noun, like “tango,” “communication,” or “game.” A mind responds. A mind transforms. A mind acts. A mind adapts to the ceaseless assault of aimless chaos. — Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam
A mind is a physical system that converts sensations into action. A mind takes in a set of inputs from its environment and transforms them into a set of environment-impacting outputs that, crucially, influence the welfare of its body. — Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam
This process of changing inputs into outputs—of changing sensation into useful behavior—is thinking, the defining activity of a mind. — Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam
They start with the simplest existing mind, that of the archaea, which has two sensors (rhodopsin) and two doers (flagella, more properly called archaella) — Patterner
Yes, all. Including organisms and plants. They all perceive and react to their environment. Because they all want to survive. And multiply.Are all living things conscious? — Christoffer
Yes, all. Including organisms and plants. They all perceive and react to their environment. Because they all want to survive. And multiply. — Alkis Piskas
I, of course, don't know the source of your definition. But none of these are nearly as cut & dried as "all things (alive or not) have a mind."Ok, but the definition of panpsychist I am aware of is someone who thinks all things (alive or not) have a mind. — Lionino
Panpsychism is the view that mentality is fundamental and ubiquitous in the natural world.
...
The word “panpsychism” literally means that everything has a mind. However, in contemporary debates it is generally understood as the view that mentality is fundamental and ubiquitous in the natural world. Thus, in conjunction with the widely held assumption (which will be reconsidered below) that fundamental things exist only at the micro-level, panpsychism entails that at least some kinds of micro-level entities have mentality, and that instances of those kinds are found in all things throughout the material universe. So whilst the panpsychist holds that mentality is distributed throughout the natural world—in the sense that all material objects have parts with mental properties—she needn’t hold that literally everything has a mind, e.g., she needn’t hold that a rock has mental properties (just that the rock’s fundamental parts do). — SEP
Panpsychism is the view that all things have a mind or a mind-like quality.
...
Panpsychism, then, is not a formal theory of mind. Rather, it is a conjecture about how widespread the phenomenon of mind is in the universe. Panpsychism does not necessarily attempt to define “mind” (although many panpsychists do this), nor does it necessarily explain how mind relates to the objects that possess it. As a result, panpsychism is more of an overarching concept, a kind of meta-theory of mind. More details are required to incorporate it into a fully-developed theory of mind. — IEP
Panpsychism, taken literally, is the doctrine that everything has a mind. In practice, people who call themselves panpsychists are not committed to as strong a doctrine. They are not committed to the thesis that the number two has a mind, or that the Eiffel tower has a mind, or that the city of Canberra has a mind, even if they believe in the existence of numbers, towers, and cities.
Instead, we can understand panpsychism as the thesis that some fundamental physical entities have mental states. — Chalmers
Consider the version of panpsychism that holds that there is a material universe, and that a fundamental and universal (and not at all understood) property of all matter, from the smallest portion up, is that it is experience-realizing or experience-involving. — Galen Strawson on in Mental Reality
Panpsychism is sometimes caricatured as the view that fundamental physical entities such as electrons have thoughts; that electrons are, say, driven by existential angst. However, panpsychism as defended in contemporary philosophy is the view that consciousness is fundamental and ubiquitous, where to be conscious is simply to have subjective experience of some kind. This doesn’t necessarily imply anything as sophisticated as thoughts.
Of course in human beings consciousness is a sophisticated thing, involving subtle and complex emotions, thoughts and sensory experiences. But there seems nothing incoherent with the idea that consciousness might exist in some extremely basic forms. We have good reason to think that the conscious experiences a horse has are much less complex than those of a human being, and the experiences a chicken has are much less complex than those of a horse. As organisms become simpler perhaps at some point the light of consciousness suddenly switches off, with simpler organisms having no subjective experience at all. But it is also possible that the light of consciousness never switches off entirely, but rather fades as organic complexity reduces, through flies, insects, plants, amoeba, and bacteria. For the panpsychist, this fading-whilst-never-turning-off continuum further extends into inorganic matter, with fundamental physical entities – perhaps electrons and quarks – possessing extremely rudimentary forms of consciousness, which reflects their extremely simple nature.
Even a photon has some degree of consciousness. The idea is not that photons are intelligent, or thinking. You know, it’s not that a photon is wracked with angst because it’s thinking, "Aaa! I'm always buzzing around near the speed of light! I never get to slow down and smell the roses!" No, not like that. But the thought is maybe the photons might have some element of raw, subjective feeling. Some primitive precursor to consciousness.
Minds of atoms may conceivably be, for example, a stream of instantaneous memory-less moments of experience.
I, of course, don't know the source of your definition — Patterner
But none of these are nearly as cut & dried as "all things (alive or not) have a mind." — Patterner
But the thought is maybe the photons might have some element of raw, subjective feeling. Some primitive precursor to consciousness.
Is it metabolism when an organism's sensor detects poison, and, because of the signal it seems to the doet, the doer takes the organism away from the poison? What was the beginning of thinking, if not this?A mind is a physical system that converts sensations into action. A mind takes in a set of inputs from its environment and transforms them into a set of environment-impacting outputs that, crucially, influence the welfare of its body.
— Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam
One does not need to think a lot to see the issue with this physicalist account of what a "mind" is. The problem is that this definition of "mind" also describes things that we don't call mind. At this point, you are just changing the definition of 'mind' to mean something that seems pretty close to what we call metabolism. — Lionino
Perhaps, although I don't know much of anything about idealism. Regardless, it's not a belief that the photon has a mind.But the thought is maybe the photons might have some element of raw, subjective feeling. Some primitive precursor to consciousness.
I am aware of that view. But it ultimately reminds me of idealism, though there is likely some minute difference between the two. — Lionino
Yes, all. Including organisms and plants. They all perceive and react to their environment. Because they all want to survive. And multiply. — Alkis Piskas
Well, enactivism holds that cognition is a necessary condition for the existence of consciousness. In my discussions with people on the subject of consciousness, I realized that most of them add such conditions, even thinking. So, anyone can add what condition one thinks is necessary for consciousness. So, what this actually means is different definitions of consciousness. That is everyone has a different perspective on the subject. This reminds of the alegory of different people looking at an elephant from different angles. So any fruitful discussion or conclusion on this subject is actually impossible, isnt it?Enactivist approaches argue that perception and reaction are not sufficient for consciousness. — Joshs
This is exactly what I said. Here we see moods, feelings and emotions being part of consciuousness. So, according to this, if I don't have any particular mood, feeling or emotion it means that I am unconscious!Consciousness is intrinsically affective, and affectivity arises out of the organisms’s ability recognize what is better or worse for it in relation to how it is functioning. — Joshs
Yes, I did.Not sure why you quoted me with the title of the thread — Christoffer
None of them requires the other. Consciousness and awareness are similar concepts. They can be even used alternatively in some cases.consciousness require awareness. — Christoffer
Right.It doesn't require self-awareness, but awareness of the processes that occurs to them and reactions by them. A rock isn't measurably aware of the hammer hitting it, a bug is. — Christoffer
In my turn, I can't see your problem with this. :smile:But I still don't know what you are actually answering to or why you quoted the thread's title as if I asked it? — Christoffer
Isn't your title "Are all living things conscious?" a question? And isn't my answer congruent with it? — Alkis Piskas
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