I was quite surprised recently at the number of people I've spoken to that consider other animals as not "conscious".

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

Most actions that human's take are pretty much out of similar strings of causal behavior as animals. The only difference is that we are adaptable through taking a plan of action. We can evaluate our surroundings to reach a specific purpose. Our behavior looks complex, we sound complex, but we forget that we're just the tip of the spear when it comes to consciousness. If we view the animal kingdom more in terms of a gradient of conscious abilities; since our consciousness evolved; there should be other animals who have similar conscious experiences as us, but remain limited enough to not reach our capacity.

Ravens, for instance, seem to be able to form culture around behaviors. They can spread "ideas" to other ravens who then follow. In that sense they need to understand the difference between a self and another raven in order to understand that they have a perspective that the other raven does not.

The problem with people saying that animals don't have an inner experience like us, is that we don't even know how to define our own inner experience. Our experience of qualia is unknown between people and that means its even more unknown between us and animals.

We can only judge animals out of our standards of behavior, which means we are sure to miss any sort of self-aware qualia of an animal.

One experiment that we've used to make some kind of measurement is through mirrors and the idea of self-awareness out of how lifeforms acts in front of their own reflections. If they behave like they recognize the mirror image as themselves, they are probably able to internalize that the image is of themselves. So far there are a few animals that seem to behave like this, elephants, chimpanzees, gorillas, ravens etc. But we still don't know the differences between our internal experience and that of these animals. They might have an awareness but handle that qualia differently, they may be more aware than we seem to believe.

Some of them may even be on the brink of their own evolutionary step towards high intelligence, we just don't know. But that would be an interesting scenario; if an animal group started to show signs of high intelligence and the ability to study and contemplate about us humans, what then?

Because there's no reason to believe that our consciousness were just some fluke. Our level of consciousness may be a very rare trait, but seen as animals exist in a large gradient range of different conscious abilities and self-awareness, there's definitely an evolutionary incentive towards developing our level of consciousness.

In my theory, that's due to adaptability, because our consciousness is highly synced to that survivability trait. So if some other animal started developing highly adaptable behaviors, then it might not be far fetched to assume that they may form consciousness in a similar form to us.

I would equate life being conscious with being aware of its surroundings and environment and its ability to adapt to environmental changes. The issue then is that plants can respond to environmental changes so does that make them conscious? You could apply a stricter definition of course as being conscious and alive are not quite the same thing.

In that case you’d have to start with the concept of personhood which as you rightly pointed out is sapiocentric.

I think there are different levels of being conscious from plants being able to respond to stimuli to human beings who are aware of their thoughts or aware of being aware (meta-aware).

I'm thinking the "what it is like to be..." is due to subjective experience. Kind of the same thing. If I did not have subjective experience, there would be nothing it is like to be me. — Patterner

I am skeptical of phenomenal properties, so if it were up to me I would strip that out of the definition, thus "salvaging" the word.

Do you think consciousness is subjective experience, but it doesn't lead to "what it is like to be..."? If not, if you don't think consciousness is subjective experience, and you don't think it is the concept of self, then what do you think consciousness is? — Patterner

Consciousness also has a functional component, when someone loses consciousnesses they also lose functionality. As far as I am concerned that is all there is to it.

Apologies if you've told me this before. — Patterner

No worries, it was many months ago on my thread about illusionism.

Consciousness also has a functional component, when someone loses consciousnesses they also lose functionality. As far as I am concerned that is all there is to it. — goremand

if that's all there is to it, do you mean consciousness is functionality?

if that's all there is to it, do you mean consciousness is functionality? — Patterner

That is how I use the word, yes.

I would also like to point out that the kind of consciousness being discussed up until now is individual-centric. Whereas in nature we see considerable evidence of consciousness operating at the level of the collective (colony organisms, hive organisms). So it isn't unreasonable to suppose that there is likewise a collective-consciousness of the human species. Evidenced by the fact that even at the level of individual consciousness, prototypical features like reason are essentially social, communicative, dialogical, dialectical in nature. Which again is in aid of my argument for adopting an expansive rather than a reductive view of the nature of consciousness.

I think consciousness is what dictates the term “alive.”

I think consciousness is what dictates the term “alive.” — Arbü1237

As in “This bacterium is alive”?

Yes

Intentionality, however, is a widely accepted property possessed by conscious beings. The property of being directed towards something, as in behavior or speech about something. — jkop

Being conscious implies having subjective experience, which is related but different from having intentionality. Intentionality is typically defined as a certain type of conscious mental state, so intentionality requires consciousness either way.

As in “This bacterium is alive”? — Joshs

It seems that the statement "Consciousness dictates life" implies that only the things that are conscious are alive, which is wrong as many things are alive and not conscious. If the latter is denied, he is then saying that everything that is alive is conscious, which I refuted here:

Contrary to some posts, reaction to the environment as mediated by metabolism (chemistry) is not consciousness. That is at best called responsiveness. After all, throw water on a pile of salt. The salt is (chemically) responding to its environment by disappearing!
Consciousness is a cognitive process, so while it is debatable whether some beings with really primitive nervous systems such as worms are conscious, single-celled organism and even sponges are surely not conscious — we are not panpsychists, are we? — Lionino

It stands that, unless we admit of computers being conscious or souls or the like, the only relationship between being alive and consciousness is that the former is a necessary condition for the latter — a counterfactual if you will.

It stands that, unless we admit of computers being conscious or souls or the like, the only relationship between being alive and consciousness is that the former is a necessary condition for the latter — a counterfactual if you will — Lionino

Otoh, autopoietic systems theory and embodied, enactivist cognitivism understands a living system as functionally integral and normatively oriented around goals and purposes, which allows us to trace back the precursors of cognition and emotion to the simplest living organisms.

Evan Thompson writes:

“…the genuine interiority of life is a precursor to the interiority of consciousness, and hence the conception of nature presupposed in standard formulations of the hard problem or explanatory gap for consciousness-namely, that living nature has no genuine interiority-is misguided.

I think consciousness is what dictates the term “alive.” — Arbü1237

Does it imply that unconsciousness is what dictates the term "death"?

If it was once living, yes

If it was once living, yes — Arbü1237

When you are asleep, your body is alive, but your mind is unconscious.

Intentionality is typically defined as a certain type of conscious mental state, so intentionality requires consciousness either way. — Lionino

It's a relational property shared by different types of conscious mental states.

SEP

Without intentionality, thoughts would be empty, vision blind, desires aimless and so on.

I don't know of a conscious mental state that doesn't have intentionality (disregarding hallucinations, phantom pain and the like).


* Edited for clarity

Sleeper’s not unconscious just “dormant.”

↪Corvus

Sleeper’s not unconscious just “dormant.” — Arbü1237

Being "dormant" is for the animals (bears, toads, snakes ... etc) having long winter sleep usually from 3 - 4 months. "Being dormant" can be used with some plants too. You don't use the word "dormant" on humans.

I'm not sure I agree. But want to extend the discussion to you. If you think living things are "conscious" or aware or have a "me" from which they reference the world, does this apply to all living things? Or where is the cutoff point? And why? — Benj96

As others have noted, a philosophical discussion of Consciousness needs to be more narrowly defined than just basic chemical or neural Sentience. For example, the sensory ability to distinguish light from dark is an evolutionary advantage for many sub-conscious organisms. Hence, the emergence of light-sensing organs, mostly based on light activated chemicals such as Rhodopsin and Chlorophyll. Those sensations are the foundation of Feelings, but don't amount to Awareness-of-feelings until centralized by a brain. In that case, electrical neurons are necessary to channel sensations to the central processor, for sorting into Good or Bad For Me.

Sapience is sentience developed into Intelligence, as in homo sapiens. But sapience requires some degree of Self-Awareness (a sense of Me) : a reference point upon which to base decisions that are in self-interest. For organisms with a physical Brain and metaphysical Self-Awareness, the next step is to develop a functional Mind. Mind is the basis of Intelligence, and according to Michael Levin : "all intelligence is really collective intelligence". That's because the brain merely coordinates the sentience of multiple sensory cells. And Evolution, since the emergence of single cell living organisms, seems to have been working for eons toward the sophisticated ability to know-what-you-know (Self-Consciousness).

Scientific American magazine (Feb 2024) has an article entitled Minds Everywhere, which reports on recent research into cellular Cognition. The first example is a flatworm with no centralized brain, but with cells that can regenerate a head with eye-spots for light sensing. It can find food and avoid danger automatically, with no apparent sense-of-self. Although most plants have no eye-spots, they have leaves with chlorophyll-filled cells that perform a similar function --- in some cases to even move toward the light. A distributed-nucleus single-cell Slime Mold is not even as sophisticated as a plant, but without a brain or neurons, it can coordinate its oozing cells to move toward food, and to avoid danger. The article even reports an experiment in which a slime mold navigates a maze {image below}, requiring not just sensation, but learning. So, the emergence of Consciousness is a continuum, with no obvious cut-off point, such as homo sapiens.

Based on such discoveries, Levin has concluded that "everything that's alive is doing this amazing thing" : Cognition. Which appears to answer the thread question in the affirmative. But it also indicates that just sensation & coordination & self-control does not amount to what we philosophers experience as Intelligent Consciousness. Which is a recent innovation of evolution, after billions of sol-years of groping in the dark, for slight advantages of fitness --- toward some future state that seems to require coordinated Complexity & Self-Awareness & Intelligence : a Person, not a Thing. :smile:


SLIME MOLD NAVIGATING A MAZE and avoiding a hazardous obstacle

I've been pondering something. Combining a few ponderings. It seems I'm awfully wordy sometimes. :grin:

I don't know enough about IIT to know how much I think it's the answer to the mystery of consciousness. But I think information is definitely the key.

Consider an avalanche. Two rocks on a mountain are held together by ice. Sun melts the ice, and one rock moves. Next thing you know, the mountainside is a gigantic avalanche. When it ends, there's a pile of rocks and snow at the bottom.

There is nothing other than physical cause & effect going on. Just billiard balls. There is no information present. No moment of an avalanche, no interaction of any objects or particles, represents anything or has any meaning. Neither do the overall process or the pile of rocks and snow at the bottom. It may be that some rocks land on top of each other, looking like a tower. Other rocks might form a cave. But no arrangement, no matter what pattern, will form because of any initial conditions that guided events to bring about that arrangement.

DNA is different. DNA is information. It has meaning. The order of its base pairs represents sequences of amino acids. The amino acids link together to form proteins. The amino acids don't just happen to form by chance. Things don't just happen to bump into each other, and voilà. It's not coincidence. As Marcello Barbieri says:

Genes and proteins are not produced by spontaneous processes in living systems. They are produced by molecular machines that physically stick their subunits together and are therefore manufactured molecules, i.e. molecular artefacts. This in turn means that all biological structures are manufactured, and therefore that the whole of life is artefact-making. — Marcello Barbieri

The proteins that are constructed build the organism, then run it. They are structure, hormones, enzymes, and various other things that keep a living organism alive. And they are all constructed according to the information in DNA. All life is the result of information in action.**

If information is a necessary ingredient of consciousness, then what is better qualified to be it's starting point than active information? At least a beginning. A zygote is not conscious. But it has a starting point. Which no non-living thing has. And, as it develops, so will its consciousness. Same with the first life on earth. It wouldn't have been conscious, but it would have been the starting point of consciousness for all of us, just as it was the starting point of life for all of us.

Whether talking about a zygote developing or the first life evolving, consciousness grows as more and more information is processed. This means sensory apparatus appearing and evolving. It also means thinking elements appearing and evolving, rather than simply an eyespot hooked directly to a flagellum, giving a simple input > response. That's a huge advantage when nothing else in the world can do even that. The one-eyed man is king in the land of the blind, after all. But when there are two kinds of sensors hooked to the flagellum, it's better. And better still when there is something between the sensors and flagellum, weighing the strength of the different inputs, and determining which the flagellum responds to. (These things are discussed in Journey of the Mind: How Thinking Emerged from Chaos, by Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam.)

**As opposed to what i guess might be called static information. A book is filled with information, but does nothing. I can read the book, and learn that information. But I need not act. The information can just sit in the book and my head, and nothing ever has to come of it. Otoh, DNA ... compels? RNA polymerase is very important for transcription, which is the process that makes messenger RNA molecules to store the information from a section of the DNA molecule. Messenger RNA then goes to the ribosomes, which make the proteins. Ribosomes are made of proteins and ribosomal RNA. And DNA is what makes it all happen.

I think there are different levels of being conscious from plants being able to respond to stimuli to human beings who are aware of their thoughts or aware of being aware (meta-aware). — kindred

I agree. I think consciousness is far broader a term than we give it credit for. We too often coin the evaluation of consciousness as how it relates to our own, and that surely is, human bias.

A concept of self is much more rare and specific, human babies clearly don't have it in my opinion, I would even say it's more of an idea that we are taught as opposed to an inborn attribute. — goremand

Interesting. I would argue that if something can experience fear, pain and adversity, then that must come from a sense of self to which such conditions are impressed upon. And I'd would say that at the very least, higher order animals certainly experience fear as they attack when cornered. That is "self preservation" and as the term would suggest it would seem to necessitate a "self" in which to defend. A certain expectation or demand to survive. An "I" that wishes to live on.

I believe separating "self" from "consciousness" is tricky. As I can only imagine something without a self as being in an non conscious state and one with a self as being conscious or at least unconscious with activity such as dreams and nightmares that lend themselves to a sense of self.

In my theory, that's due to adaptability, because our consciousness is highly synced to that survivability trait. So if some other animal started developing highly adaptable behaviors, then it might not be far fetched to assume that they may form consciousness in a similar form to us. — Christoffer

I have to agree. Necessity is the mother of all invention and I'm sure consciousness is no exception here. I would love to witness another animal make those leaps. Funnily enough it brings to mind the "planet of the apes" franchise. Its fascinating in the sense that it seems plausible. If it happened once for us when conditions were ripe, why think it impossible for other animals at the very least are closest relatives.

All non-living things are conscious as well as living things.

And I'd would say that at the very least, higher order animals certainly experience fear as they attack when cornered. That is "self preservation" and as the term would suggest it would seem to necessitate a "self" in which to defend. A certain expectation or demand to survive. An "I" that wishes to live on. — Benj96

In my opinion, your thinking here is the result of rationalizing (as opposed to explaining) animal behavior in comfortable terms. The mechanisms of fear and self-preservation in, um... "higher order animals" I believe can be explained without imparting ideas of "self" on them.

I do not understand how you make the distinction, but do you not see patterns of self-preservation in what I suppose you would call "lower order" lifeforms?

I think there are a lot of misunderstandings in this. Consciousness is expressed differently by different philosophers. Simply consciousness can be attributed to awareness. (Not going into the depth or any philosophical concept). Awareness is there for almost all living beings. But things get complicated when the description of consciousness changes. Like that of phenomenology. Different between the ontic and ontological subjects play a great part in it. Self is another complicated notion and these are not one and the same things.

could self be considered as how a consciousness acts out its consciosuness/awareness?
That way we could assume that different living things must inherently be conscious in different ways. Because the self -the body, its sensory organs and how it perceives its environment is different.

you make a good point. I guess self preservation is inherent to all lifeforms. Otherwise they would simply succumb to entropy and not be organised living systems anymore

I believe that "consciousness" is a spectrum of capabilities. When we use the expression, we are using it in a manner which is influenced by our own consciousness. This makes sense, since the meaning we tie to a word is dependent upon our experiences.

When looking at our own consciousness, it seems to involves things like capacity for memory, emotions, reasoning, responsiveness to stimuli, etc. So, we might ask to what degree a thing is conscious insofar as it has such and such capacities. I would say that my dog is more conscious than say a plant, but I'd be willing to attribute some level of consciousness even to plants.

All non-living things are conscious as well as living things. — bert1

In that case , aren't non-living things' consciousness different nature to the living things consciousness? They can't possibly be the same type, class or nature of consciousness. If so, how would they be different? If not so, why wouldn't they be different?

In that case , aren't non-living things' consciousness different nature to the living things consciousness? — Corvus

I don't think so. Their consciousness is exactly the same type. Both are aware of something. What is different is what they are aware of. In the case of dead things, not very much.