most of our internal systems don’t require information directly from the brain to continue operations, — Possibility
I wouldn’t agree. Most systems do required input from the brain to continue operations; the hypothalamus secretes several hormones that regulate the bodies different systems; hunger, core temperature, sweating, blood volume, uterine contractions etc. Also how do any autonomous aspects of our tissues work without the fundamental voluntary act of Finding food and water, chewing swallowing etc all of which are governed by the brain.
The only reason brain dead patients “survive” is because of myriad interventions to keep them breathing, fed, remove wastes, prevent skin ulcers and infection due to inability to self clean. Basically a hospital takes over all the executive functions that normally would be carried out by the brain. So no most of our internal systems do require nervous impulses and even critical indirect cause effect reactions with the external world caused by our brain. — Benj96
Experiments have demonstrated the ability of some monocellular animals to learn, forget, and relearn something or some behavior (relearn in far less time than it took then to learn the first time around).Does this mean cells cannot be sentient or if so that their sentience is completely removed from the individual humans sentience? — Benj96
What is to be said for the foreign tissue cells themselves? — Benj96
The confounding question for me really is what is it about the organisation of all of our cells that solidified our sense of awareness. Where to we place the transitions the boundary or so to señal isolate that part of ourselves which identifies and reflects on said self? Assuming the common belief that the brain is involved, how many Neurons constitutes an aware brain that satisfies the conditions we identify as Human — Benj96
I agree with pretty much everything you said. Philosophy aside, we routinely apply the idea that appearing human indicates experiencing yourself as human. If some ethical or metaphysical stance connects form to substance in this way, we can inquire how using appearances allows us to discern consciousness, what kind of metric separates being sentient from being insentient (number of cells in the brain, organization of those cells). If the metric implicitly exists, we can inquire for some hypothetical justification or explanative devices behind its implicit construction, and hence delve in its micro- and macro- extrapolations. If is it done purely by association with the statistically normative human form, it becomes a rather crude metric for something so decisive and a disguise for hypocritically disinterested viewpoint to me. Social/political/legal conventions are out of convenience or necessity, but while they may never be made precise in practice, we can at least dissect them philosophically.The crux of the issue of whether anything is sentient is that, to be frank, no level or detail of data/information short of directly experiencing consciousness in an other will ever be conclusive and that's impossible (as of now, I must admit). — TheMadFool
My personal view - panpsychism and pantheism might be one and the same. — simeonz
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