We seem to have a vastly different notion of what constitutes an ontological distinction. It seems you might find a stop sign ontologically distinct from a speed limit sign since they have different properties. — noAxioms

I’m not using “ontological” here to mean merely “a set of observable traits.” I’m using it in its proper philosophical sense — a distinction in the mode of being. A rock and an amoeba both exist, but not in the same way. The amoeba has a self-organising, self-maintaining unity: it acts to preserve itself and reproduce. This isn’t a mere property added to matter, but a different kind of organization — what Aristotle called entelechy and what modern systems theorists call autopoiesis.

That distinction is categorical, not merely quantitative. Life introduces an interiority — however minimal — that inanimate matter does not possess. It’s what allows later forms of experience, cognition, and consciousness to emerge. So the “list of attributes” such as homeostasis or metabolism are not arbitrary descriptors, but outward manifestations of this deeper ontological difference.

But this distinction also bears directly on the problem of consciousness. Nagel points out that modern science arose by deliberately excluding the mental from its field of study. The “objective” world of physics was constituted by abstracting away everything that belongs to the first-person point of view — experience, meaning, purpose — in order to describe the measurable, quantifiable aspects of bodies. That method proved extraordinarily powerful, but it also defined its own limits: whatever is subjective was set aside from the outset. As noted above, this is not a matter of opinion.

This means that the gap between third-person descriptions and first-person experience isn’t an accidental omission awaiting further physical theory; it’s a structural feature of how the physical sciences were established. To describe something in purely physical terms is by definition to omit 'what it feels like' to be that thing. So the problem isn’t just about explaining how consciousness emerges from matter — according to Thomas Nagel, it is about how a worldview that excluded subjectivity as a condition of its success could ever re-incorporate it without transforming its own foundations.

That’s why I say the distinction between living and non-living things is not merely biological but ontological. Life is already the point at which matter becomes interior to itself — where the world starts to appear from a perspective within it. From that perspective, consciousness isn’t an inexplicable late-arriving anomaly in an otherwise material universe; it’s the manifestation of an inherent distinction between appearance and being that the physical sciences, by their very design, have bracketed out. But that is a transcendental argument, and therefore philosophical rather than scientific.

If a biological explanation turns out to be the correct one, I imagine it will also show that most of our rough-and-ready conceptions about subjectivity and consciousness are far too impoverished — J

I've been going through a pretty dense paper by Evan Thompson, 'Could All Life be Sentient?', which is useful in respect of these questions about the distinctions between various levels or kinds of organic life and degrees of consciousness. Useful, but not conclusive, leaving the question open, in the end, but helpful in at least defining and understanding the issues. I've also generated a synopsis which will be helpful in approaching the essay.

Gdocs Synopsis (AI Generated)
Could All Life be Sentient? Evan Thompson

I've also generated a synopsis which will be helpful in approaching the essay. — Wayfarer

Thanks, I'll read it.

I thank you all for your input, and for your patience when I take at times days to find time to respond.

Yes. And I'm in no position to claim that any view on consciousness is necessarily right or wrong. We're dealing with educated guesses, at best. — J

Most choose to frame their guesses as assertions. That's what I push back on. I'm hessitant to label my opinions as 'beliefs', since the word connotes a conclusion born more of faith than of hard evidence (there's always evidence on both sides, but it being hard makes it border more on 'proof').

There will always be those that wave away any explanation as correlation, not causation. — noAxioms
Hmm. I suppose so, but that wouldn't mean we hadn't learned the explanation.

But we have explanations of things as simple as consciousness. What's complicated is say how something like human pain manifests itself to the process that detects it. A self-driving car could not do what it does if it wasn't conscious any more than an unconscious person could navigate through a forest without hitting the trees. But once that was shown, the goalposts got moved, and it is still considered a problem. Likewise, God designing all the creatures got nicely explained by evolution theory, so instead of conceding the lack of need for the god, they just moved the goal posts and suggest typically that we need an explanation for the otherwise appearance of the universe from nothing. They had to move that goalpost a lot further away than it used to be.

You might say that the car has a different kind of consciousness than you do. Sure, different, but not fundamentally so. A car can do nothing about low oil except perhaps refuse to go on, so it has no need of something the equivalent of pain qualia. That might develop as cars are more in charge of their own problems, and in charge of their own implementation.

Absolutely. If a biological explanation turns out to be the correct one, I imagine it will also show that most of our rough-and-ready conceptions about subjectivity and consciousness are far too impoverished.

You also need to answer the question I asked above, a kind of litmus test for those with your stance:

[Concerning] a Urbilaterian (a brainless ancestor of you, and also a starfish). Is it a being? Does it experience [pain say] and have intent? — noAxioms

If yes, is it also yes for bacteria?
The almost unilateral response to this question by non-physicalists is evasion. What does that suggest about their confidence in their view?

You are the one who suggested that solution, because you want cars to be seen as having the mental abilities we have. I'm fine with cars being seen as not having them. — Patterner

They don't have even close to the mental abilities we have, which is why I'm comparing the cars to an Urbilaterian. .But what little they have is enough, and (the point I'm making) there is no evidence that our abilities of an Urbilaterian are ontologically distinct from those of the car.
You point out why there's no alternative word: Those who need it don't want it. Proof by language. Walking requires either two or four legs, therefore spiders can't walk. My stance is that they do, it's just a different gait, not a fundamental 'walk' sauce that we have that the spider doesn't.

Galileo's point, which was foundational in modern science, was that the measurable attributes of bodies - mass, velocity, extension and so on - are primary, while how bodies appear to observers - their colour, scent, and so on - are secondary (and by implication derivative). — Wayfarer

Those supposed secondary qualities can also be measured as much as the first list. It just takes something a bit more complicated than a tape measure.

Still, I know what you mean by the division. The human subjective experience of yellow is a different thing altogether than yellow in itself, especially since it's not yellow in itself that we're sensing. A squirrel can sense it. We cannot, so we don't know the experience of yellow, only 'absence of blue'.

The division is not totally ignored by science. It's just that for most fields, the subjective experience serves no purpose to the field.

... Canadian neuroscientist Wilder Penfield (1891-1976), who operated on many conscious patients during his very long career.
...
While electrical stimulation of the cortex could evoke experiences, sensations, or involuntary actions, it could never make the patient will to act or decide to recall something.

Interesting, but kind of expected. Stimulation can evoke simple reflex actions (a twitch in the leg, whatever), but could not do something like make him walk, even involuntarily. A memory or sensation might be evoked by stimulation of a single area, but something complex like a decision is not a matter of a single point of stimulation. Similarly with the sensation, one can evoke a memory or smell, but not evoke a whole new fictional story or even a full experience of something in the past.

I see a distinction between simple and complex, and not so much between sensations/reflexes and agency. The very fact that smells can be evoked with such stimulation suggests that qualia is a brain thing.

Noninvasive stimulation has been used to improve decision speed and commitment, and with OCD, mood regulation and such. But hey, drugs do much of the same thing, and the fact that drugs are effective (as are diseases) is strong evidence against the brain being a mere antenna for agency.
Direct stimulation (as we've been discussing) has been used to influence decisions and habits (smoking?), but does not wholesale override the will. It's far less effective than is occasionally portrayed in fiction.

A fully simulated brain might behave exactly like a conscious person, but whether there’s 'anything it’s like' to be that simulation is the very point at issue.

I talked about this early in the topic, maybe the OP. Suppose it was you that was simulated, after a scan taken without your awareness. Would the simulated you realize something had changed, that he was not the real one? If not, would you (the real you) write that off as a p-zombie? How could the simulated person do anything without the same subjective experience?

In short, you’re arguing from within the third-person framework while intending to account for what only appears from within the first-person perspective. The result isn’t an explanation but a translation — a substitution of the language of mechanism for the reality of experience. That’s the “illusion of reduction” you yourself noticed when you said commentators “appropriate first-person words to refer to third-person phenomena.”

When you treat the first-person point of view as something that emerges from a “third-person-understandable substrate,” you are collapsing the distinction Chalmers and Nagel are pointing out.

Perhaps I am, perhaps because they're inventing a distinction where there needn't be one.



I think you messed up the quoting in your immediate prior post. You should edit, since many of your words are attributed to me.

But the ontological distinction between beings of any kind, and nonorganic objects, is that the former are distinguished by an active metabolism which seeks to preserve itself and to reproduce ~ Wayfarer
— Wayfarer

I’m not using “ontological” here to mean merely “a set of observable traits.” I’m using it in its proper philosophical sense — a distinction in the mode of being.

I don't find your list of traits to be in any way a difference in mode of being. Water evaporates. Rocks don't. That's a difference, but not a difference in mode of being any more than the difference between the rock and the amoeba. Perhaps I misunderstand 'mode', but I see 'being' simply as 'existing', which is probably not how you're using the term. To me, all these things share the same mode: they are members of this universe, different arrangements of the exact same fundamentals. My opinion on that might be wrong, but it hasn't been shown to be wrong.

This isn’t a mere property added to matter

Our opinions on this obviously differ.

Life introduces an interiority

I notice a predictable response to the Urbilaterian question: evasion. That question has direct bearing on this assertion.

That method proved extraordinarily powerful, but it also defined its own limits: whatever is subjective was set aside from the outset. As noted above, this is not a matter of opinion.

I acknowledge this.

To describe something in purely physical terms is by definition to omit 'what it feels like' to be that thing.

To describe something in any terms at all still omits that. I said as much in the OP.

... Evan Thompson

Vitalism?

Perhaps I misunderstand 'mode', but I see 'being' simply as 'existing', which is probably not how you're using the term. To me, all these things share the same mode: they are members of this universe, different arrangements of the exact same fundamentals. — noAxioms

Which is, in a word, physicalism - there is only one substance, and it is physical. From within that set of assumptions, Chalmer's and Nagel's types of arguments will always remain unintelligible.

You also need to answer the question I asked above, a kind of litmus test for those with your stance:
[Concerning] a Urbilaterian (a brainless ancestor of you, and also a starfish). Is it a being? Does it experience [pain say] and have intent?
— noAxioms
If yes, is it also yes for bacteria?
The almost unilateral response to this question by non-physicalists is evasion. — noAxioms

I don't know. And that's not evasion, just honesty.

But I also don't think that the right answer to that question reveals much about the larger problem. I think consciousness will turn out to depend on biology, but that's not to say that everything alive is conscious. If we could eventually determine that a bacterium isn't conscious, that would say nothing about whether the beings that are conscious require a biological basis in order to be so. In other words, being alive might be a necessary but not sufficient condition for consciousness.

In other words, the third person is really just a simulated first person view. — Harry Hindu

No, not at all. If a third person conveyance did that, I could know what it's like to be a bat. Not even a VR setup (a simulation of experience) can do that. — noAxioms

But you can only know what it is like to be a bat from within your first-person experience. It's no different than seeing your Desktop screen on your computer and starting up a virtual machine that shows another Desktop within the framework of your existing Desktop. — Harry Hindu

I cannot know what it's like to be a bat. period. A flight simulator doesn't do it. That just shows what it's like for a human (still being a human) to have a flying-around point of view. — noAxioms

The last sentence is reiterating the point that I made that the third-person view still occurs within the framework of the first-person view.

You also seem be saying that a third-person view does not impart knowledge. If a third-person simulation of a bat's experience does not impart knowledge because it is not an actual experience of the bat, then how does any third-person stance impart knowledge? As I said, the virtual machine is a simulation, not the real thing. There may be missing information, but it may be intentionally left out because that bit of information is irrelevant to the purpose in mind. For instance, I might try to imagine what it might be like to just experience the world through echo-location without all the other sensory experiences the bat might have.

It's that people tend to insert their own definition of 'mind' when I use the word, and not use how I define it, despite being explicit about the definition. — noAxioms

Well, there's a lot going on in this thread and our memories are finite, so you might have to restate your definition from time to time, or at least reference your definition as stated.

I don't think we know anything as it is in itself — noAxioms

This is self-defeating.

Your statement implies that we cannot even know knowledge as it is in itself. When talking about anything in the shared world you are (attempting to (your intent is to)) talking about the thing as it is in itself (probably not exhaustively but you are trying to communicate something (or some property that is) real about some state-of-affairs) or else what information are you trying to convey? Why should I believe anything you say if you can never talk about things as they are in themselves (or at least in part) - like your version of mind? Does your definition of mind impart knowledge to me about how minds are in themselves? If not, then what is your point in even typing scribbles on the screen expecting others to read them and come to some sort of understanding of what your idea is in itself. If we can never get at your idea as it is in itself, nor can you, then what is the point in communicating ideas at all? It seems to me that you are saying that you cannot know what it is like to be a bat as well as what it is like to be yourself (or at least your mind). You might not know what it is like to be your thumb, but you know what it is like to have thumbs, don't you?

As for the homonculus, humans do seem to have a very developed one, which is a sort of consciousness separate from the subconscious (the map maker, and source of intuitions). The subconscious is older (evolutionary time) and is waaay more efficient, and does most of the work and decision making. It is in charge since it holds all the controls. It might hold different beliefs than the homonculus, the latter of which is a more rational tool, used more often to rationalize than to be rational. — noAxioms

A more accurate way to frame this is through the concept of the central executive in working memory. This isn’t a tiny conscious agent controlling the mind, but a dynamic system that coordinates attention, updates representations, and integrates information from different cognitive subsystems. It doesn’t “watch” the mind; it organizes and manages the flow of processing in a way that allows higher-level reflection and planning.

The subconscious isn’t some subordinate system taking orders from the homunculus. It performs the bulk of processing, guiding behavior and intuitions automatically. Conscious, rational thought steps in to reflect on, plan, or interpret what is already occurring. Mapping the world, then, isn’t the work of an inner observer — it’s the emergent product of multiple interacting cognitive processes working together.

No. Flame is an object. There's six flames burning in the candle rack. Combustion is a process (a process is still a noun, but not an object). Flame is often (but not always) where combustion takes place.
Yes, combustion is much simpler. It's why I often choose that example: Simple examples to help better understand similar but more complex examples. — noAxioms

Objects are the process of interacting smaller "objects". The problem is that the deeper you go, you never get at objects, but processes of ever smaller "objects" interacting. Therefore it is processes, or relations all the way down. Objects are mental representations of other processes and what your brain calls an object depends on how quickly those processes are changing vs. how quickly your brain can process those changes (relativity applies to perception). A fast-moving spark may appear as a blur, while slower-moving flames are perceived as discrete objects.

Ok, so combustion → causes → flame. Both are processes, but not identical. Combustion is the reaction; flame is the visible process that results from it. So...

As for your definition, does a flame have direct access to its process of combustion? — noAxioms

This is not an accurate representation of what I said. All you are doing is moving the goal posts. If flame and combustion are distinct processes, then my definition is applies to being the flame, not the combustion and the flame would have direct access to itself as being the flame and indirect access to the process of combustion. The same goes for the map vs the homunculus - the homunculus would have direct access to itself, not the map - hence the Cartesian Theatre problem.

What does it mean to be a rock? Probably not that the rock has any direct access to some sort of rock process. — noAxioms

You're making my argument for me. If the rock doesn't have any direct access to the rock process, then it logically follows that there is no access - just being.
— Harry Hindu
Here you suggest that the rock has 'being' (it is being a rock) without direct access to it's processes (or relative lack of them). This contradicts your suggestion otherwise that being a rock means direct access to, well, 'something', if not its processes.
"we have direct access to something, which is simply what it means to be that process." — noAxioms

So, here I think we really need to iron out what we mean by, "access" and "being". Does a rock have an internal representation of itself, and does some other aspect of the rock have access to this representation? Does that even make sense? Can there be a sense of being for a rock? Does something need to have an internal representation with some other part "accessing" those representations for it to be, or have a sense of being? Is the sense of being something the same as being that something? Is access inherently indirect?

Quantum theory is not a metaphysical theory about what is, but rather a scientific theory about what one will expect to measure. In that sense, Copenhagen fits perfectly since it is about what we expect, and not about what is. — noAxioms

True. I would say that while the theory of QM is not metaphysical, the various interpretations are.

[Concerning] a Urbilaterian (a brainless ancestor of you, and also a starfish). Is it a being? Does it experience [pain say] and have intent? — noAxioms

If yes, is it also yes for bacteria?
The almost unilateral response to this question by non-physicalists is evasion. What does that suggest about their confidence in their view? — noAxioms

I’ll stick to the more extreme case of prokaryotic unicellular organisms termed “bacteria”.

Can bacteria act and react in relation to novel stimuli so as to not only preserve but improve their homeostatic metabolism (loosely, their physiological life)?

The answer is a resounding yes. For one example:

Abstract

As has been stated, bacteria are able to sense a wide range of environmental stimuli through a variety of receptors and to integrate the different signals to produce a balanced response that maintains them or directs them to an optimum environment for growth. In addition, these simple, neuron-less organisms can adapt to the current concentration or strength of stimuli, i.e. they have a memory of the past. Although different species show responses to different chemicals or stimuli, depending on their niche, a consistent pattern is starting to emerge that links environmental sensing and transcriptional control to the chemosensing system, either directly, as in R. sphaeroides and the PTS system, or indirectly, as in the MCP-dependent system. This suggests a common evolutionary pathway from transcriptional activators to dedicated sensory systems. Currently the majority of detailed investigations into bacterial behavior have been carried out on single stimuli under laboratory conditions using well-fed cells. Only limited analysis, using a range of rhizosphere and pathogenic species, has been carried out on the role of behavioral responses in the wild. While laboratory studies are needed to provide the backbone for eventual in vivo investigations, we should remember the responses of whole cells to changes in their environment under laboratory conditions are essentially artificial compared to the natural environment of most species. Once the basic system is understood, it will be possible to investigate the role of these responses in vivo, under competitive, growth-limiting conditions with multiple gradients. — https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1562188/

(though I much prefer this title: "Bacteria have feelings, too")

Their so doing then logically entails that, just like humans, the stimuli they are exposed to will have affective valence (aka hedonic tone), such that it is either positive and thereby pleasing to the bacterium or else negative and thereby displeasing. In considering that what humans label as pain is a synonym for dolor—which need not be physically produced via pain receptors and their related sensory neurons, but can well be psychological—there then is no rational means of denying that at least a bacterium’s extreme negative valence will equate to the bacterium’s dolor and, hence, pain.

Their observable, goal-oriented responsiveness to stimuli likewise entails that they too are endowed with instinctive, else innate, intents—such as that of optimally maximizing the quality and longevity of their homeostatic metabolism. Devoid of these intents, there would then be no organized means of responding to stimuli. Example: the bacterium senses a predator (danger of being eaten) and, instead of doing what it can to evade being eaten on account of its innate intents of not being so eaten, does things randomly, such as maybe approaching the predator as quickly as possible.

As to consciousness, this is a term loaded with most often implicit connotations, such as that of a recursive self-awareness. In certain contexts, though, consciousness can simply be a synonym for awareness that is not unconscious. A bacterium is no doubt devoid of an unconscious mind—this while nevertheless being endowed with a very primitive awareness that yet meaningfully responds to stimuli. Cars aren’t (not unless they’re possessed by ghosts and named “Carrie” (a joke)). In so having an awareness of stimuli, a bacterium is then also innately aware of what is its own selfhood and what is other (relative to its own selfhood), although this form of primitive self-awareness can in no way be deemed to consist of recursive thoughts.

So yes, given the best of all empirical information and rational discernment, bacteria are conscious (here strictly meaning: hold a non-unconscious, very primitive awareness) of stimuli to which they meaningfully respond via the directionality of innate intents and, furthermore, can experience negative valence, hence dolor, and, hence, some very primitive form of pain.

As to an absolute proof of this, none can be provided as is summed up in the philosophical problem of other minds. But if one can justify via empirical information and rational discernment that one’s close friend has an awareness-pivoted mind, and can hopefully do the same for lesser-animals, then there is no reason to not so likewise do for bacteria.

Shoot, the same can be argued for reproductive haploid cells called gametes, both eggs and sperm/pollen. The easiest to address example: a sperm devoid of any awareness of stimuli to which it meaningfully responds due to innate intents that thereby determine the hedonic tone of the given stimuli would be no functional sperm whatsoever (this if in any way living).

OK. I called it strong emergence since it isn't the property of the radio components alone. More is needed. Equivalently, substance dualism treats the brain as sort of a receiver tuned to amplify something not-brain. It's a harder sell with property dualism. — noAxioms

Ok. Note that epistemic 'strong emergence' seems to collapse in a sort of substance dualism where the 'mental substance' 'emerges' in an unexplainable way. So in a sense, that kind of strong emergence is IMO a hidden substance dualism.

That's what a radio is: a receiver. It probably has no understanding of sound or what it is doing. — noAxioms

Yes, the radio is a receiver. But the sound can't be called 'music' unless it can be understood as such. just like a chair can't be called a chair without human beings that conceive it as such.

I would suggest that we actually do know enough to explain any of that, but still not a full explanation, and the goalposts necessarily get moved. — noAxioms

I already stated why I disagree with this. I see why you say this but I disagree. The features of our experience can't be fully explained by what we know of the properties of our constituents.

Not true. There are plenty of machines whose functioning is not at all understood. That I think is the distinction between real AI and just complex code. Admittedly, a self driving car is probably mostly complex code with little AI to it. It's a good example of consciousness (unconscious things cannot drive safely), but it's a crappy example of intelligence or creativity. — noAxioms

Ok, but in the case of the machines we can reasonably expect that all their actions can be explained by algorithms. And I'm not sure that a self-driving car is conscious, in the sense there is 'something like being a self-driving machine'.

You can fix a broken machine. — noAxioms

When we fix a machine is the fixed machine the same entity as it was before, or not?

We get a new problem here. Can machines be regarded as having an 'identity' as we have?

Interestingly, a human maintains memory for about 3 minutes without energy input (refresh). A computer memory location lasts about 4 milliseconds and would be lost if not read and written back before then. Disk memory is far less volatile of course. — noAxioms

Interesting fact, yes. Thanks.

Quantum theory defines measurement as the application of a mathematical operator to a quantum state, yielding probabilistic outcomes governed by the Born rule. Best I could do. — noAxioms

Agreed I would add that It doesn't tell you in which cases the Born rule applies.

In this very weak sense, QM is an extremely practical set of rules that allows us to make extraordinary predictions. Everything more is interpretation-dependent.

And welcome back @Wayfarer

Not true. There are plenty of machines whose functioning is not at all understood. That I think is the distinction between real AI and just complex code. Admittedly, a self driving car is probably mostly complex code with little AI to it. It's a good example of consciousness (unconscious things cannot drive safely), but it's a crappy example of intelligence or creativity. — noAxioms


Ok, but in the case of the machines we can reasonably expect that all their actions can be explained by algorithms. And I'm not sure that a self-driving car is conscious, in the sense there is 'something like being a self-driving machine'. — boundless

In conjunction with what I’ve just expressed in my previous post, I’ll maintain that for something to be conscious, the following must minimally apply, or else everything from alarm clocks to individual rocks can be deemed to be conscious as well (e.g., “a rock experiences the hit of a sledgehammer as stimuli and reacts to it by breaking into pieces, all this in manners that are not yet perfectly understood"):

To be conscious, it must a) at minimum hold intents innate to its very being (and due to these intents, thereby hold, at minimum, innate intentions) which then bring about b) an active hedonic tone to everything that it is stimulated by (be this tone positive, negative, or neutral).

An AI self-driving car holds neither (a) nor (b) (as per the joke I mentioned in my last post, not unless it’s possessed by ghosts such as Stephen King’s “Carrie” was stated to be). As @boundless points to, its “behaviors” all stem from human created algorithms that logically reduce to an “if A then B” type of efficient causation—even if these algorithms are exceedingly complex, evolve over time, and aren’t fully understood by us humans—and this devoid of both a) any intent(s) innate to its being upon which all of its “behaviors” pivot (and intents, innate or otherwise, can only be teleological rather than efficiently causal, with algorithms strictly being the latter) and, likewise, b) the affective valence which these same innate intents bring about. Example: a stationary self-driving car will not react if you open up the hood so as to dismantle the engine (much less fend for itself), nor will it feel any dolor if you do. Therefore, the self-driving car cannot be conscious.

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Please notice that I'm not in all this upholding the metaphysical impossibility of any AI program ever becoming conscious at any future point in time. But, if such were to ever occur, the given AI will then minimally need to be in some significant way governed by teleological interests, i.e. by intents innate to its being, that then bring about its affective valance relative to the stimuli it encounters (stimuli both external and internal to its own being).

And, from everything I so far understand, teleological processes can only hold veritable presence within non-physicalist ontologies: the variety of which extends far beyond the Cartesian notion of substance dualism as regards mind and body.

--------

EDIT: Additionally, to better clarify my aforementioned stances as regards AI, it should come as no surprise that the evolutions of AI are all governed by human-devised goals, relative to which variations of AI programs in a large sense compete to best accomplish—such that what best accomplishes these human-devised goals then replicates into a diversity of various programs which further so attempt to better accomplish the given human-devised goal. These goals that govern AI-program evolutions (rather than the AI programs themselves) have however all been devised by humans and are in this sense fully artificial (rather than being perfectly natural). In sharp enough contrast, all life, from archeobacteria to humans, is governed by fully natural and perfectly innate goals, i.e. intents; innate intents passed down from generation to generation via genotypic inheritance. So, while it is not impossible that AI might some day evolve to itself have innate intents to its very being, replete with pleasures and dolors (that are all relative to these very same innate intents with which they’re brought into being by previous generations), till AI programs so accomplish they will persist in being non-conscious programs: devoid of innate intents and so devoid of the affective valence to stimuli the former entail.

As boundless points to, its “behaviors” all stem from human created algorithms that logically reduce to an “if A then B” type of efficient causation—even if these algorithms are exceedingly complex, evolve over time, and aren’t fully understood by us humans—and this devoid of both a) any intent(s) innate to its being upon which all of its “behaviors” pivot (and intents, innate or otherwise, can only be teleological rather than efficiently causal, with algorithms strictly being the latter) and, likewise, b) the affective valence which these same innate intents bring about. Example: a stationary self-driving car will not react if you open up the hood so as to dismantle the engine (much less fend for itself), nor will it feel any dolor if you do. Therefore, the self-driving car cannot be conscious. — javra

:up: Yes, I agree. I believe that there is a tendency to read too much into the 'behavior' of machines. By analyzing my own phenomenological experience there are some features that do not seem explainable by referring to algorithms. And, as you say, 'consciousness' seems also to imply both teleological and affective states. I still do not find any evidence that machines have those.

Again, I also agree that this doesn't mean that it is impossible that one day a machine might become sentient.

Thompson concludes, according to the synopsis:

"The enactive framework strongly supports a continuity of life and mind, showing that living systems are inherently value-constituting and purposive. However, it does not conclusively establish that all life is sentient in the affective sense. The move from sense-making to feeling remains conceptually and empirically underdetermined."

I think this gets it exactly right (though I'm not familiar enough with enactivism to know whether "strongly supports" is correct). The critical issue is whether, again using Thompson's phrasing, purposive, value-driven organisms feel those values as pleasant or unpleasant. "There's a conceptual gap between responsiveness to value and the felt experience of value."

For me, this is a real step forward in putting some content to the old favorite, "what it's like to be X." We're urged to ask, "Can an entity respond in purposive, value-oriented ways without experiencing anything?" I think the answer will turn out to be yes -- and it's still not like anything to be such an organism, where "be like something" is understood as "do more than respond purposively."

The enactive framework strongly supports a continuity of life and mind, showing that living systems are inherently value-constituting and purposive. — J

That's a great way of putting it. If life wants to endure, it needs to know what is valuable.

I would like to say: Therefore, something choosing valuable things in order to endure is living. But I don't think anyone would let me have that. I suspect people will say only biological things are living. I'd say maybe we should expand the definition of living, and divide it into Biological Life, Mechanical Life, and whatever else.

I would like to say: Therefore, something choosing valuable things in order to endure is living. But I don't think anyone would let me have that. I suspect people will say only biological things are living. I'd say maybe we should expand the definition of living, and divide it into Biological Life, Mechanical Life, and whatever else. — Patterner

It's complicated. There's no alarm bell that rings when philosophy ceases analyzing a concept and starts revising what the concept ought to cover. So yes, we can offer a revision of what "living" means so as to include mechanical things. But what is our warrant? Obviously, we can't say "Because that's what 'living' means" or "That's how 'living' is used" -- the whole point of the revision is to deny that, and suggest an amelioration of the concept. Your suggestion here would be something like, "We should change the domain of what 'living' can refer to because 'choosing valuable things in order to endure' is a more perspicuous or clearer use, conceptually, than the standard version. It captures the idea of 'living' better than 'biological thing' does." That could be true, but you'd have to say more about why.

But yes, I'm impressed by Thompson's ideas here. As I said, he points to the right question: Can an entity, alive or not, do this value-seeking thing and not be conscious? I agree with him that we don't yet know.

Can an entity, alive or not, do this value-seeking thing and not be conscious? I agree with him that we don't yet know. — J

I know I'm alone here at TPF in my thinking that consciousness is fundamental. But, if I'm right, then there is consciousness in all such entities. And not just the individual particles that make up the entity, each experiencing only its own individual existence. The entity would be conscious as an entity. Value-seeking surely isn't accomplished without information processing, which is what I think accounts for collective consciousness. Of course, that doesn't imply mental abilities like ours. An archaea only experiences being a single-celled organism, not an entity with things like memories, abstract thoughts, and self-awareness.

That could be true, but you'd have to say more about why. — J

Maybe. But the definition of life is famously unclear. The first thing Sara Imari Walker talks about in Life As No One Knows It is how definitions differ, and how any definition rules out some things you think are alive, and includes some things you think are not. So maybe the question isn't as much "Why?" as it is "Why not?".

Life on this planet has always been of a certain type. That makes sense, because the laws of physics woked with what was available. Certain arrangements of matter.

Does that mean something cannot be alive if it isn't made of those same arrangements? Can life not come to exist on other planets that contain very different mixes of elements?

If that's not a problem, then why can't we consider some specific mixes of elements here to be alive?

Maybe the key is not what life is made of, but what it's doing. This can apply too anyone's definition.

Maybe the key is not what life is made of, but what it's doing. This can apply to anyone's definition. — Patterner

Yes, that's how I would argue it, if I shared your view.

The first thing Sara Imari Walker talks about in Life As No One Knows It is how definitions differ, and how any definition rules out some things you think are alive, and includes some things you think are not. — Patterner

Interesting. Would it be easy for you to cite an example of each? Curious to know what she has in mind.

But the definition of life is famously unclear. — Patterner

Yes, in one sense. But it's also the case that a child will be able to sort living from non-living things with great accuracy, given the currently accepted use of "living." The child doesn't know the definition -- arguably, no one does for sure -- but she knows how to use the word. Do we want to say she's using the word incorrectly? I don't think so. Rather, we might say that her (and everyone else's) use of the word needs to change in order to encompass a more accurate understanding of what it means to be alive.

The entity would be conscious as an entity. — Patterner

One question worth considering: Which way does the argument point? Is it, "Any entity that can do this value-seeking thing will now be defined as 'being conscious'"? Or is it, "We know (have learned/hypothesize) that being conscious means having the ability to do the value-seeking thing, so if it can do it, it's conscious"?

Life on this planet has always been of a certain type. That makes sense, because the laws of physics woked with what was available. Certain arrangements of matter. — Patterner

While this can be viewed as a tautology (the laws of physics allow life because there is life...), I also think that this is a very interesting point. To me this suggests that we perhaps do not know enough of the 'inanimate' and this is the reason why the properties associated with life seem so different from the properties associated with 'what isn't life', i.e. life is, so to speak, latent in 'what isn't life'.

And BTW, I also think that 'consciousness' is fundamental, albeit for different reasons and I have a different model of yours. For instance, as I said before, I believe that if mathematical truths are concepts (i.e. mental contents) and, as they seem, they are not contingent, independent of time, place and so on, that some kind of 'mind' is indeed fundamental. Physical objects, on the other hand, seem to be contingent.

Which is, in a word, physicalism - there is only one substance, and it is physical. From within that set of assumptions, Chalmer's and Nagel's types of arguments will always remain unintelligible. — Wayfarer

OK, from this I gather that your statement that you're asserting an ontological distinction, a distinction in the mode of being, you're merely expressing opinion, not evidence of any sort. You had phrased it more as the latter. We are (mostly) well aware of each other's opinions.

[Concerning] a Urbilaterian (a brainless ancestor of you, and also a starfish). Is it a being? Does it experience [pain say] and have intent?
— noAxioms

I don't know. And that's not evasion, just honesty. — J

Better answer than most, but I would suggest that not even knowing if some random animal is a being or not seems to put one on poor footing to assert any kind of fundamental difference that prevents say a car from being conscious.
Wayfarer is likely more committed to 'yes, because it's life', except he won't say that, he instead lists typical (but not universal) properties of life, properties which some non-life entities also exhibit. This is either a funny way of saying 'it's gotta be life', or he's saying that it's the properties itself (homeostasis say) that grants a system a first person point of view. Hence a recently severed finger is conscious.

But I also don't think that the right answer to that question reveals much about the larger problem.

Any answer (right/wrong is irrelevant here) sheds light on what I'm after. Nagel seemed to avoid it, venturing no further from a human than a bat, a cousin so close that I have to check with the records to before committing to marry one. This is the sort of thing I'm after when asking that question.

I think consciousness will turn out to depend on biology, but that's not to say that everything alive is conscious.

OK, but then the key that distinguishes conscious from otherwise is not 'is biological'. The key is something else, and the next question would be 'why can only something biological turn that key?'.

As I said, the virtual machine is a simulation, not the real thing. — Harry Hindu

It not being real is irrelevant. A simulation of a bat fails because it can at best be a simulation of a human doing batty things, not at all what it's like to be the bat having batty experiences.
A human can do echo location. They have blind people that use this. We have all the hardware required except the sound pulse emitter, which is something they wear. But a simulation won't let you even know what that's like since you're not trained to see that way. It would take months to learn to do it (far less time for an infant, which is the typical recipient of that kind of setup). So a VR gives you almost nothing. No sonar, no flight control, muscle control, or any of the stuff the bat knows.

You ask "how does any third-person stance impart knowledge?", which is a silly question since pretty much all of school is third person information. A VR bat simulation is much like a movie. Sure, it imparts information, just not the information of what it's like to be a bat.

For instance, I might try to imagine what it might be to just experience the world through echo-location without all the other sensory experiences the bat might have.

As I said, that can be done. It just takes practice. No simulation needed.

Well, there's a lot going on in this thread and our memories are finite, so you might have to restate your definition from time to time, or at least reference your definition as stated.

If I use the word in my own context, I'm probably referencing mental processes. Not an object or a substance of any kind.

When talking about anything in the shared world you are (attempting to (your intent is to)) talking about the thing as it is in itself, or else what information are you trying to convey? — Harry Hindu

When talking about things in the shared world, I'm probably talking about the pragmatic notion of the thing in question, never the thing in itself. On rare occasion, I perhaps attempt (on a forum say) a description of the thing closer to what it actually is, but that's rare, and I'm highly likely to not be getting it right. "It is stranger than we can think." -- Heisenburg [/quote]

Why should I believe anything you say if you can never talking about things as they are in themselves - like your version of mind?

My version of mind is a pragmatic description of the way I see it. So is yours, despite seeing it differently. One of us may be closer to the way it actually is, but I doubt anybody has nailed that.
You seem to be confusing 'thing in itself' with truth of the matter. For instance, car tires tend to be circular, not square (as viewed along its axis). Circular is closer to truth, and that's what I try to convey. Even closer is a circle with a flat spot. But all that is a pragmatic description of a tire. The thing in itself is not circular at all. Pragmatically, I don't care about that.

A more accurate way to frame this is through the concept of the central executive in working memory. This isn’t a tiny conscious agent controlling the mind, but a dynamic system that coordinates attention, updates representations, and integrates information from different cognitive subsystems. It doesn’t “watch” the mind; it organizes and manages the flow of processing in a way that allows higher-level reflection and planning.

You seem to be talking about both sides. For one, I never mentioned 'tiny'. What I call the homonculus seems to be (volume wise) about as large as the rest combined. Only in humans. That part 'watches' the model (the map) that the subconscious creates. All of it together is part of mental process, so it isn't watching the mind since it all is the mind. The tasks that you list above seem to be performed by both sides, each contributing what it does best. If speed/performance is a requisite, the subconscious probably does the work since it is so much faster. If time is available (such as for the high level reflection and planning you mention), that probably happens in the higher, less efficient levels

The subconscious isn’t some subordinate system taking orders from the homunculus.

In deed, it's quite the opposite. It's the boss, and what I call here this homonculus is a nice rational tool that it utilizes.

Objects are the process of interacting smaller "objects". The problem is that the deeper you go, you never get at objects, but processes of ever smaller "objects" interacting. Therefore it is processes, or relations all the way down.

OK. I'm pretty on board with relational definitions of everything, so I suppose one could frame things this way. My example was more of the way language is used. It's OK to say 6 flames were lit, but it's syntactically wrong to say 6 combustions are lit. But 'combustion' can still be used as a noun in a sentence, as a reference to a process, not an object. Of course this draws a distinction between process and object. Your definition does not, and also clashes with the way the words are used in language,.

Objects are mental representations of other processes

That's idealism now. I'm not talking about idealism.

Ok, so combustion → causes → flame. Both are processes, but not identical. Combustion is the reaction; flame is the visible process that results from it.

Well how about a rock then (the typical object example). What causes rock? I'm not asking how it was formed, but what the process is that is the rock.

If flame and combustion are distinct processes

I never said that. I called the flame an object, not a process. I distinguish between process and object, even if the object happens to be a process, which is still 'process' vs. 'a process'.

Does something need to have an internal representation with some other part accessing those representations for it to be, or have a sense of being?

I think here you are confusing 'being a rock' with 'the rock having a sense of being'. They're not the same thing. The first is a trivial tautology. The second seems to be a form of introspection.

Can bacteria act and react in relation to novel stimuli so as to not only preserve but improve their homeostatic metabolism (loosely, their physiological life)?

The answer is a resounding yes. — javra

I agree, but non-living things can also do this. Thanks for the blurb. Interesting stuff.

Their having 'memory' is quite remarkable. Slime molds can communicate, teach each other things, all without any nerves.

there then is no rational means of denying that at least a bacterium’s extreme negative valence will equate to the bacterium’s dolor and, hence, pain.

Excellent. From such subtle roots, it was already there, needing only to be honed. Do they know what exactly implements this valence? Is it a chemical difference? In a non-chemical machine, some other mechanism would be required.

Their responsiveness to stimuli likewise entails that they too are endowed with instinctive, else innate, intents—such as that of optimally maximizing the quality and longevity of their homeostatic metabolism.

Instincts like that are likely encoded in the DNA, the product of countless 'generations' of natural selection. I put 'generations' in scare quotes since the term isn't really relevant to a non-eukaryote.

A bacterium is no doubt devoid of an unconscious mind—this while nevertheless being endowed with a very primitive awareness that yet meaningfully responds to stimuli. Cars aren’t (not unless they’re possessed by ghosts and named “Carrie” (a joke)). — javra

Here your biases show through. Possession seems to be required for the cell to do this. The bacterium is possessed. The car is asserted not to be, despite some cars these days being endowed with an awareness that meaningfully responds to stimuli. I've always likened substance dualism with being demon possessed, yielding one's free will to that of the demon, apparently because the demon makes better choices?
If a cell can be possessed, why not a toaster? What prevents that?

Side note: It's Christine, not Carrie. Carrie is the girl with the bucket of blood dumped on her.
Remember T2 ending? The liquid metal terminator melts into a vat of white hot metal. That metal was made into Christine obviously (and some other stuff, being a fairly large vat).

As to an absolute proof of this, none can be provided as is summed up in the philosophical problem of other minds. But if one can justify via empirical information and rational discernment that one’s close friend has an awareness-pivoted mind, and can hopefully do the same for lesser-animals, then there is no reason to not so likewise do for bacteria.

And toasters.

Ok, but in the case of the machines we can reasonably expect that all their actions can be explained by algorithms. — boundless

Disagree. The chess program beats you despite nobody programming any chess algorithms into it at all. It doesn't even know about chess at first until the rules are explained to it. Only the rules, nothing more.
Sure, the machine probably follows machine instructions (assuming physics isn't violated anywhere), which are arguably an algorithm, but then a human does likewise, (assuming physics isn't violated anywhere), which is also arguably an algorithm.

In reply to the above comment by boundless:

In conjunction with what I’ve just expressed in my previous post, I’ll maintain that for something to be conscious, the following must minimally apply, or else everything from alarm clocks to individual rocks can be deemed to be conscious as well (e.g., “a rock experiences the hit of a sledgehammer as stimuli and reacts to it by breaking into pieces, all this in manners that are not yet perfectly understood"): — javra

I agree that not being rigorously defined, consciousness can be thus loosely applied to what is simple cause and effect. For that matter, what we do might just be that as well.

To be conscious, it must a) at minimum hold intents innate to its very being

This seems a biased definition. It would mean that even if I manufacture a human from non-living parts, it would not be conscious. Why does the intent need to be innate? Is a slave not conscious because his intent is that of his master?

The hedonic requirement is reasonable, but you don't know that the car doesn't have it. The bit above about valence gets into this, and a car is perfectly capable (likely is) of that being implemented.

(and due to these intents, thereby hold, at minimum, innate intentions) which then bring about b) an active hedonic tone to everything that it is stimulated by (be this tone positive, negative, or neutral).

Example: a stationary self-driving car will not react if you open up the hood so as to dismantle the engine (much less fend for itself), nor will it feel any dolor if you do. Therefore, the self-driving car cannot be conscious.

Heck, even my car reacts to that, and it's not very smart. A self-driving car very much does react to that, but mostly only to document it. It has no preservation priorities that seek to avoid damage while parked. It could have, but not sure how much an owner would want a car that flees unexpectedly when it doesn't like what's going on.
Most machines prioritize safety of humans (including the guy stealing its parts) over safety of itself. The law is on the side of the thief.

Please notice that I'm not in all this upholding the metaphysical impossibility of any AI program ever becoming conscious at any future point in time.

Good. Most in the camp of 'no, because it's a machine' do actually.

And, from everything I so far understand, teleological processes can only hold veritable presence within non-physicalist ontologies:

Surely the car (and a toaster) has this. It's doing what it's designed to do. That's a teleological process in operation.

When we fix a machine is the fixed machine the same entity as it was before, or not? — boundless

That opens a whole can of worms about identity. The same arguments apply to humans. Typically, the pragmatic answer is 'yes'. Identity seems to be a pragmatic idea, with no metaphysical basis behind it.

We get a new problem here. Can machines be regarded as having an 'identity' as we have?

Both have pragmatic identity. Neither has metaphysical identity since it's pretty easy to find fault in any attempt to define it rigorously.

Agreed I would add that It doesn't tell you in which cases the Born rule applies.

You need to expand on this. I don't know what you mean by it.

The enactive framework strongly supports a continuity of life and mind, showing that living systems are inherently value-constituting and purposive. — J

That's a great way of putting it. If life wants to endure, it needs to know what is valuable. — Patterner

I agree. It is the goal of very few machines to endure or to be fit. That's not a fundamental difference with the typical life form, but it's still a massive difference. Machines need to be subjected to natural selection before that might change, and a machine that is a product of natural selection is a scary thing indeed.

But it's also the case that a child will be able to sort living from non-living things with great accuracy, given the currently accepted use of "living." The child doesn't know the definition -- arguably, no one does for sure -- but she knows how to use the word. — J

This is a great point. It's simply hard to formalize what is meant by a word despite everybody knowing what the word means. It means more "what I think is alive" which differs from the rigorous definition that, as was mentioned, always includes something you think isn't, and excludes something you think is". But what the child does lacks this problem by definition. The child just knows when to use the word or not.

Do they know what exactly implements this valence? Is it a chemical difference? — noAxioms

Not to my knowledge. But I do assume it's constituted from organic chemistry. Still, as with the metabolism that likewise unfolds, there is an autopoiesis involved that is other than the individual molecules and their chemicals. Feel free to use the pejorative of vitalism. Lumping together some lipids, proteins, and nucleic acids does not a living organism make. Or: metabolism = respiration = breath = anima = life. (e.g., a virus, viroid, or prion does not have a metaboism and is hence not living, even though composed of organic molecules) And this entails that extra oomph, relative to the purely terrestrial and inanimate, of autopoiesis.

Here your biases show through. Possession seems to be required for the cell to do this. The bacterium is possessed. The car is asserted not to be, despite some cars these days being endowed with an awareness that meaningfully responds to stimuli. I've always likened substance dualism with being demon possessed, yielding one's free will to that of the demon, apparently because the demon makes better choices?
If a cell can be possessed, why not a toaster? What prevents that? — noAxioms

Again, I'll just assume that you are biased against the notion that life is ontologically different to nonlife (be it either inanimate or else organically dead). And so I'll skip ahead to the term "vitalism". Vitalism is quite different from the hocus-pocus spiritual notions of "possessions". So framing the issue in term of possession is a non-starter for me. Now, as far as jokes go, supposedly anything can be possessed. From lifeforms to children's toys (e.g., Chucky), and I don't see why not toasters as well (this in purely speculative theory but not in practice, akin to BIVs, solipsism, and such) And this possession supposedly occurs via what is most often taken to be a malevolent anima (a ghost orthe like), which, as anima, is itself endowed with the vitality that vitalism in one way or another specifies. But again, I've no interest in the hocus-pocus spirituality of possessions. The issue of vitalism, on the other hand, seems important enough to me as regards the current topics.

Side note: It's Christine, not Carrie. — noAxioms

:grin: Haven't read the book nor seen the movie. Thanks for the correction.

I agree that not being rigorously defined, consciousness can be thus loosely applied to what is simple cause and effect. — noAxioms

Again, intents, and the intentioning they entail, are teleological, and not cause and effect. There's a massive difference between the two (e.g., the intent is always contemporaneous to the effects produced in attempting to fulfill it - whereas a cause is always prior to its effect).

This seems a biased definition. It would mean that even if I manufacture a human from non-living parts, it would not be conscious. Why does the intent need to be innate? Is a slave not conscious because his intent is that of his master? — noAxioms

What you do you mean "manufacture a human from non-living parts"? In whole? How then would it in any way be human? Or are you thinking along the lines of fictions such as of the bionic man or robocop? In which case, the human life remains intact while its constituent parts of its body are modified with non-living parts.

As to why innate: because it is, in fact, natural, rather than human-derived and thereby artificial. A human slave has innate intents, which thereby allow in certain cases the slave to obey the non-innate but acquired intent of the slave-master. (a slave's intent is never logically identical to the slave-master' intent - this, of itself, would be hocus-pocus possession)

And, from everything I so far understand, teleological processes can only hold veritable presence within non-physicalist ontologies: -- javra

Surely the car (and a toaster) has this. It's doing what it's designed to do. That's a teleological process in operation. — noAxioms

Even so, a) these teleological process you here address are artificial rather than natural and b) it doesn't in any way change what was stated regarding ontologies.

I would suggest that not even knowing if some random animal is a being or not seems to put one on poor footing to assert any kind of fundamental difference that prevents say a car from being conscious. — noAxioms

Perhaps I should have divvied up the question and answered more precisely. To the question of whether it's a "being": I can't respond, as the use of "being," here and just about everywhere else, is hopelessly ambiguous and/or question-begging. To the question of whether it experiences pain: I don't know. Intent?: As described by Thompson, probably so.

The questions were put in terms of what I know, which is very little in this area. If "asserting any kind of fundamental difference" requires knowledge, then yes, I'd be on poor footing. But does it? My position is that, while we certainly don't know the answers to these questions, we can offer more or less likely solutions. I don't know that a car isn't conscious, but for me the possibility is extremely unlikely. Is this because of a "fundamental difference"? Very probably; the car is not biologically alive. Am I asserting these things? Semantics. I don't think they're obvious, or that people who disagree are unintelligent. So if that's what it takes to assert something, then I'm not. . . I know I've used this analogy before, but disagreeing about what consciousness is, in 2025, is about as fruitful as a debate among 18th century physicists about what time is. We can trade opinions and cite evidence, but fundamentally we don't know what the F we're talking about.

Good discussion anyway!

The first thing Sara Imari Walker talks about in Life As No One Knows It is how definitions differ, and how any definition rules out some things you think are alive, and includes some things you think are not.
— Patterner

Interesting. Would it be easy for you to cite an example of each? Curious to know what she has in mind. — J

I assumed you're familiar with one. If reproduction is part of the definition of life, then worker bees and mules are not alive. Neither is my mother, as she's is 83.

She says many consider Darwinian evolution to be the defining feature of life. In which case no individual is living, since only populations can evolve.

For something that's included that we think is booty living, she cites Carl Sagan' Definitions of Life:

For many years a physiological definition of life was
popular. Life was defined as any system capable of
performing a number of such functions as eating,
metabolizing, excreting, breathing, moving, growing, reproducing, and being responsive to external stimuli. But many such properties are either present in machines that nobody is willing to call alive, or absent from organisms that everybody is willing to call alive. An automobile, for example, can be said to eat, metabolize, excrete, breathe, move, and be responsive to external stimuli. And a visitor from another planet, judging from the enormous numbers of automobiles on the Earth and the way in which cities and landscapes have been designed for the special benefit of motorcars, might wellbelieve that automobiles are not only alive but are the dominant life form on the planet. — Carl Sagan

And I'll include this conversation between Data (an android, if you're not familiar) and Dr. Crusher, from Star Trek:The Next Generation.

Data: What is the definition of life?

Crusher: That is a BIG question. Why do you ask?

Data: I am searching for a definition that will allow me to test an hypotheses.

Crusher: Well, the broadest scientific definition might be that life is what enables plants and animals to consume food, derive energy from it, grow, adapt themselves to their surrounding, and reproduce.

Data: And you suggest that anything that exhibits these characteristics is considered alive.

Crusher: In general, yes.

Data: What about fire?

Crusher: Fire?

Data: Yes. It consumes fuel to produce energy. It grows. It creates offspring. By your definition, is it alive?

Crusher: Fire is a chemical reaction. You could use the same argument for growing crystals. But, obviously, we don't consider them alive.

Data: And what about me? I do not grow. I do not reprodue. Yet I am considered to be alive.

Crusher: That's true. But you are unique.

Data: Hm. I wonder if that is so.

Crusher: Data, if I may ask, what exactly are you getting at?

Data: I am curious as to what transpired between the moment when I was nothing more than an assemblage of parts in Dr. Sung's laboratory and the next moment, when I became alive. What is it that endowed me with life?

Crusher: I remember Wesley asking me a similar question when he was little. And I tried desperately to give him an answer. But everything I said sounded inadequate. Then I realized that scientists and philosophers have been grappling with that question for centuries without coming to any conclusion.

Data: Are you saying the question cannot be answered?

Crusher: No. I think I'm saying that we struggle all our lives to answer it. That it's the struggle that is important. That's what helps us to define our place in the universe.

One question worth considering: Which way does the argument point? Is it, "Any entity that can do this value-seeking thing will now be defined as 'being conscious'"? Or is it, "We know (have learned/hypothesize) that being conscious means having the ability to do the value-seeking thing, so if it can do it, it's conscious"? — J

I don't follow. I don't see significant difference between those options. It seems like just different wording.

I think consciousness will turn out to depend on biology, but that's not to say that everything alive is conscious.
OK, but then the key that distinguishes conscious from otherwise is not 'is biological'. The key is something else, and the next question would be 'why can only something biological turn that key?'. — noAxioms

Right to all of that. Biology, on my hypothesis, is necessary but not sufficient. My guess is that no single property will turn out to be sufficient. Your question -- which reduces to "Why is biology necessary for consciousness?" -- is indeed the big one. If and when that is answered, we'll know a lot more about what consciousness is. (Or, if biology isn't necessary, also a lot more!)

For something that's included that we think is booty living, she cites Carl Sagan' Definitions of Life:

For many years a physiological definition of life was
popular. Life was defined as any system capable of
performing a number of such functions as eating,
metabolizing, excreting, breathing, moving, growing, reproducing, and being responsive to external stimuli. But many such properties are either present in machines that nobody is willing to call alive, or absent from organisms that everybody is willing to call alive. An automobile, for example, can be said to eat, metabolize, excrete, breathe, move, and be responsive to external stimuli. And a visitor from another planet, judging from the enormous numbers of automobiles on the Earth and the way in which cities and landscapes have been designed for the special benefit of motorcars, might wellbelieve that automobiles are not only alive but are the dominant life form on the planet. — Carl Sagan — Patterner

Good post, but if we start playing footloose with the term metabolism - which in part necessitates cellular respiration - then fire is certainly alive: "it metabolizes energy to sustain its own being, it's birthed and it perishes, and it reproduces". And something's quire off about so affirming, unless one wants to assume an animistic cosmos wherein absolutely everything is animated with agency and, hence, with will.

Yes, it can get sticky.

Google says:
Metabolism refers to all the chemical reactions that occur within an organism to maintain life.

That might be circular.
-Life is something that involves various chemical reactions.
-Various chemical reactions maintain life.

And not all life uses cellular respiration.

My overriding question is:. Can there be life without chemical reactions? Is it the chemical reactions that define life? Or maybe the chemical reactions are the means to an end, and that end is a better definition of life.

Thanks for the borderline-life examples. The car example invites the reply: "Can be said to" eat, metabolize, excrete, etc.? Yes, that can be said, in the spirit of metaphor. But is it accurate? Is it really eating, metabolizing, etc. Well, what does it mean to "really eat"? Which leads to . . .

One question worth considering: Which way does the argument point? Is it, "Any entity that can do this value-seeking thing will now be defined as 'being conscious'"? Or is it, "We know (have learned/hypothesize) that being conscious means having the ability to do the value-seeking thing, so if it can do it, it's conscious"?
— J
I don't follow. I don't see significant difference between those options. It seems like just different wording. — Patterner

Compare a geometrical shape such as a trapezoid. One might learn how to use the word correctly, and thus recognize trapezoids, without being able to say exactly what are the qualities that make the shape a trapezoid. Or, one might be taught those qualities, along with the word "trapezoid," and then categorize the shapes one encounters.

Which approach should we adopt in the case of consciousness? Do we already know what the word means, so that it's only a matter of finding the entities to which it applies? Or do we already know what's conscious and what isn't, without being able to define consciousness, and hence it's a matter of figuring out what conscious things have in common, and thus perfecting a definition?

That's the difference in "pointing" I had in mind. Roughly, is it "word to object" or "object to word"?

And not all life uses cellular respiration. — Patterner

A bold statement. Can you please reference any known lifeform that can live in the complete absence of both aerobic or anaerobic respiration? Fermentation, a form of metabolism that is neither, to my knowledge is not sufficient for life in the complete lifelong absence of respiration - an example of this being the fermentation in yeast, which cannot life in a complete lifelong absence of respiration. (At least, from everything I so far know.)

My overriding question is:. Can there be life without chemical reactions? — Patterner

You more specifically mean certain reactions of organic chemicals, namely those which result in metabolism - or at least I so assume. This will fully depend on the metaphysics one subscribes to. In some such metaphysical systems, being "dead inside" or else being "fully alive" are more than mere poetics, but can point to an interpretation of "life" which, though non-physical, nevertheless required for physical life to occur. That mentioned, there is no non-metaphorical life (as in, "the life of an idea" or else "the lifespan of a car") known to science which is not grounded in the physicality of "chemical reactions". None that I know of at least.

I agree. It is the goal of very few machines to endure or to be fit. That's not a fundamental difference with the typical life form, but it's still a massive difference. Machines need to be subjected to natural selection before that might change, and a machine that is a product of natural selection is a scary thing indeed. — noAxioms

I have to assume we could make a program that duplicates itself, but does so imperfectly. Since they operate so fast, they could doubtless go through a million generations in a fairly short time.

How much storage space and power would be needed to support such a thing? If one evolved to overwrites others, it might be manageable.ay least the space.

Hey, why not unnatural selection? We could give it mutations faster than nature works.

Compare a geometrical shape such as a trapezoid. One might learn how to use the word correctly, and thus recognize trapezoids, without being able to say exactly what are the qualities that make the shape a trapezoid. Or, one might be taught those qualities, along with the word "trapezoid," and then categorize the shapes one encounters. — J

I swear I'm not trying to be difficult, but I don't get it. How can you learn how to use the word correctly other than by being taught those qualities? And how can you categorize the shapes without recognizing them?

Which approach should we adopt in the case of consciousness? Do we already know what the word means, so that it's only a matter of finding the entities to which it applies? Or do we already know what's conscious and what isn't, without being able to define consciousness, and hence it's a matter of figuring out what conscious things have in common, and thus perfecting a definition? — J

I thought we were talking about life. As for consciousness, yes, I already know what the word means, and nothing you bring up applies. :grin: :lol: Anyway, my thought is that everything is conscious. More precisely, subjective experience is a property of all particles. They all experience their own being. Which, in the case of a particle, isn't much. There are no mechanisms for sensory input, storage of information from previous sensory input, feedback loops, or any other mental activity.

When a physical system processes information, the conglomerate of particles experiences as a unit. DNA is where it all began. But even though information is being processed when DNA is being replicated, or protein is being synthesized, there are no mechanisms for sensory input, storage of information from previous sensory input, feedback loops, or any other mental activity.

When the information processing includes sensory input, storage of information from previous sensory input, and feedback loops, it is experienced as vision and hearing, memory, and self-awareness.

You know, or not. Sadly, I can't think of a way to test for anything.

I swear I'm not trying to be difficult, but I don't get it. — Patterner

No worries; I found it difficult to explain, and maybe haven't done it well.

How can you learn how to use the word correctly other than by being taught those qualities? — Patterner

That's the key -- whether a definition is needed in order to use a word correctly. Often, that's not how we learn words and concepts. Instead, it's ostensive: Someone points and says, "That's X," and later, "That's one too," and "That's one too," etc. We can recognize what words refer to quite accurately without necessarily being able to put our recognition in terms of a definition. Something like this is going on with consciousness (and life), I think. We've learned how to use the words in the absence of a (clear and precise) definition.

And how can you categorize the shapes without recognizing them? — Patterner

This looks at it from the other angle: We can be uncertain about a shape -- maybe it kind of looks like what we've been taught to call a trapezoid, but not exactly. We don't quite recognize it. So if we have a precise definition (which we do, in this case), we can apply it and see whether the shape fits the definition. If only we had something similarly precise for "consciousness" or "life"!

Does this help at all?

While this can be viewed as a tautology (the laws of physics allow life because there is life...), I also think that this is a very interesting point. To me this suggests that we perhaps do not know enough of the 'inanimate' and this is the reason why the properties associated with life seem so different from the properties associated with 'what isn't life', i.e. life is, so to speak, latent in 'what isn't life'. — boundless

I don't know. It seems to me life is processes, not properties. Our planet has various amounts of various elements, so that's what the laws of physics had to work with. But can't there be life on other planets that have different mixtures of different elements? I imagine there can be. I think different elements, different processes, different systems, can accomplish the work of life.

A bold statement. Can you please reference any known lifeform that can live in the complete absence of both aerobic or anaerobic respiration? — javra

Mmmm... No. I asked google, and it said yes. I should have looked into it.

You more specifically mean certain reactions of organic chemicals, namely those which result in metabolism - or at least I so assume. — javra

What I mean is this... For a very long time, a writer took a feather, dipped it in ink, and wrote. A writer writes, eh? Pencils and pens came along at different times, but people still wrote with them.

Then came typewriters, and now computers. Nobody is writing any longer. So there are no writers any longer.

But, of course, there are writers today, typing away on their computers. And we write posts and emails all the time. Nobody bats an eyelash at the obvious misuse of the word. It's ludicrous to suggest we aren't wiring. Because writing is a pursuit. A goal. It's not the tools.

I'm wondering if the chemical reactions that we've called life are the quill and ink, pencils, and pens.