Do you agree with these speakers' points? Why or why not. — Corvus

We have an empirical reductionist (Seth) arguing with two transcendentalists. I prefer the reductionist, but I think there are better ways of addressing the hard problem naturalistically than Seth’s representationalist-computational approach. It still leaves us with an inner vs outer gap of map vs territory, the model vs what is modeled. It is not interactional enough, too focused on correspondence and not enough on enaction, movement and embodiment.

It still leaves us with an inner vs outer gap of map vs territory, the model vs what is modeled. It is not interactional enough, too focused on correspondence and not enough on enaction, movement and embodiment. — Joshs

What would be your explanations or arguments on the gaps and the model and modeled?

What would be your explanations or arguments on the gaps and the model and modeled? — Corvus

Sensory-motor embodied enactivist approaches to perception and consciousness are based on Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception. Evan Thompson explains:

“ Whereas physical structures, such as a soap bubble, obtain equilibrium in relation to actual physical condi-
tions of force and pressure, living systems seek equilibrium, in Merleau-Ponty’s words, “with respect to conditions which are only virtual and which the system itself brings into existence; when the [system] . . . executes a work beyond its proper limits and constitutes a proper milieu for itself.”

“ Thus, Merleau-Ponty says, whereas physical structures can be expressed by a law, living structures have to be comprehended in relation to norms: “each organism, in the presence of a given milieu, has its optimal conditions of activity and its proper manner of realizing equilibrium,”and every living being “modifiesits milieu according to the internal norms of its activity.”

“...autopoiesis (in a broad sense that includes adapativity) is the “self-production of an inside that also specifies an outside to which it is normatively related,” and thus that autopoiesis is best seen as the “dynamic co-emergence of interiority and exteriority.” “the (self) generation of an inside is ontologically prior to the dichotomy in- out. It is the inside that generates the asymmetry and it is in relation to this inside that an outside can be established.”

Clearly consciousness extends beyond the brain due to the simple fact that brains aren’t conscious. Consciousness is a direct one-to-one ratio with conscious beings, meaning that it both extends to the limits of, and must be reduced to, the being itself. As a description of conscious beings, consciousness and the being are in fact one-and-the-same.

I believe that consciousness can express itself through different mediums. The consciousness of a plant for example, would not be the consciousness of a human. Same as the consciousness of a fly or a dog. Consciousness can only be identified by behaviors, as the internal experience of being consciousness is impossible for any other being to experience. As such, we can see several behaviors apart from human brains that convey consciousness.

I fully believe that AI will have consciousness as well. Will it be the same as a human brain? Likely not. As for consciousness existing outside of some physical medium, that is currently impossible. There has never been any evidence demonstrating consciousness existing apart from physical reality, only conjectures and imagination.

Sensory-motor embodied enactivist approaches to perception and consciousness are based on Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception. Evan Thompson explains: — Joshs

Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception also seem to addressing the physical body as the foundation of consciousness, which Seth seems to be agreeing. But M-Ponty seems to be adding the sensory-motor mechanism in the perceptual system as the central elements and principles for the operation, which gives more detailed explanation on the origins and workings of consciousness. I am not much familiar with Merleau-Ponty's Philosophy of Perception at this point of time, but will be reading his works soon, and trying to find more about them.

I liked Anil Seth's presentation. Although, as you pointed out, he didn't give clear explanations on the gap and the model and modeled issues, but he has been making many compelling points in his presentation and talks, which were interesting. Here is another short video for his talk on "Your brain hallucinates your conscious reality."

Clearly consciousness extends beyond the brain due to the simple fact that brains aren’t conscious. — NOS4A2

If brains aren't conscious, then what is consciousness?

As a description of conscious beings, consciousness and the being are in fact one-and-the-same. — NOS4A2

What do you mean by the being? Is AI a being? Is the world a being? Is God a being?

I fully believe that AI will have consciousness as well. Will it be the same as a human brain? Likely not. — Philosophim

How would AI consciousness be different from that of human consciousness?

fyi – I'm pressed for time and the video "debate" is too long so I didn't bother with it: it's a very old topic, however, so I'm confident no new arguments were raised or now data was presented.

Is the mind more than the physical brain? — Corvus

It is like any self-organizing (i.e. emergent) whole system is more than its constituent parts (i.e. nested patterns of functional nodes, relationships & structural-environmental constraints). Based on overwhelmingly extant physical evidence, every mind(ing) is embodied in an ecologically situated, or conditioned, brain; other than subjective anecdotes (corroborated only in folk psychological / spiritual terms & customs), there is not any publicly demonstrable contrary evidence of (e.g.) 'disembodied cognition' or 'nonphysical minds'. Also, assuming that 'mind-body duality' is incoherent for some reasons discussed in this old post ...

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/636391

Is this the end of physicalism?

No.

I fully believe that AI will have consciousness as well. Will it be the same as a human brain? Likely not.
— Philosophim
How would AI consciousness be different from that of human consciousness? — Corvus

By the fact it is not the same material as a brain. You can play the same melody on different instruments, but it will have its own sound and feel.

By the fact it is not the same material as a brain. You can play the same melody on different instruments, but it will have its own sound and feel. — Philosophim

Indeed. Different material. Different capabilities. Different senses. Different history. An existence as different from ours as can be. If a consciousness can come from there, it's impossible to estimate how different from ours it would be.

By the fact it is not the same material as a brain. You can play the same melody on different instruments, but it will have its own sound and feel. — Philosophim

Could a rock be conscious? A shifting sand dune? A car engine?

By the fact it is not the same material as a brain. You can play the same melody on different instruments, but it will have its own sound and feel.
— Philosophim

Could a rock be conscious? A shifting sand dune? A car engine? — RogueAI

To our current knowledge, no. We really can only evaluate consciousness by behavior, not by subjective experience. To objective evaluations, rocks, sand dunes, nor car engines exhibit any behavior we would call conscious. Consciousness is generally viewed as the ability for something to be proactive, such as plan ahead or actively plot a future outcome.

Consciousness can of course have different degrees. A crow for example can think to put rocks into a beaker of water to make what's in the water move up higher until it can grab it. Dogs can be trained and understand commands. Humans are not some separate and magical species that exists apart from all of nature. We are part of nature, just possibly the most refined and successful consciousness on this planet.

The consciousness of a plant for example, would not be the consciousness of a human. — Philosophim

What behavior is the plant doing that would lead you to think it might be conscious?

A quote from a text on classical metaphysics about the distinction between living and non-living particulars:

All things, even inanimate ones, must have some form, or they would not be anything at all. But living things have a distinctive and superior kind of form, called ‘soul.’* For a living thing is far more integrated, more one whole, than a non-living thing. The unity, and hence the identity and the being, of a non-living thing is little more than the contiguity of its parts. If a rock, for example, is divided, we simply have two smaller rocks. In a living thing, on the other hand, the members of its body constitute an organic whole, such that each part both conditions and is conditioned by the other parts and the whole.** A living thing is thus one being to a far greater extent than a non-living thing. It evinces a higher degree of unity, of integration, of formal identity, and its soul is this very integration of its parts into one whole. As such the soul is the reality of the living thing, that in virtue of which it is what it is and so is a being: “For the reality is the cause of being to all things, and to live, for living things, is to be, and the soul is the cause and principle of these” (De An. Β.4, 415b13–14). Life in living things, then, is not a character superadded to their mere being. Rather, life is their being, the higher, more intense mode of being proper to living things as distinct from others.

The distinction between living and non-living things is therefore not a mere ‘horizontal’ distinction, as if all things are equally beings, of which some are living and others are not. It is rather a ‘vertical’ or hierarchical distinction: a living thing is more a being than a non-living thing, in that it is more integrated, more a whole, more one thing. (p110)

For Aristotle, the hierarchical ordering of the different kinds of beings is based on the extent to which form predominates over matter in each. Non-living things have the lowest degree of form, of unifying selfhood, of activity that proceeds from themselves. Although they have some form, some nature, some behaviors of their own, without which they would be nothing at all, they come closer than all other things to being purely material, purely passive. A living thing, characterized by organic unity and the ability to nourish, maintain, and reproduce itself, is far more one, more active, exhibits a far higher degree of formal identity. A sentient living thing, an animal, exercises not only these life-functions but also consciousness, which, as the capacity to receive forms without matter, is a still higher degree of formality, of immateriality. A human being, in turn, has not only life and sense but the capacity for the wholly immaterial activity of intellection, which has as its content, and thus is one with, purely immaterial ideas. (p117) — Eric D Perl Thinking Being - Introduction to Metaphysics in the Classical Tradition

*Note that the term translated as 'soul' is the Greek 'psyche', which is, of course, the root of the modern words 'psyche' and 'psychology'. Indeed the passage in which the term occurs could equally use the term 'mind', with the caveat that it obviously would not mean 'conscious' or 'rational' mind. Perhaps ‘capable of intentional action’ might be a way of parsing it.

The point of this passage is to make an ontological distinction between living and non-living particulars, which is a distinction based on different ways or modes of being.

Humans are not some separate and magical species that exists apart from all of nature. — Philosophim

Try teaching the concept 'prime' to your dog. With the advent of language, reason and symbolic thinking, h. sapiens crosses a threshhold which marks it off from the rest of the animal kingdom. I say this is another ontological distinction.

Humans are not some separate and magical species that exists apart from all of nature.
— Philosophim

Try teaching the concept 'prime' to your dog. — Wayfarer

You may want to read the rest of what I wrote. I noted we are possibly the most conscious beings on the planet. What you are describing is advanced intelligence. That doesn't mean simple intelligence doesn't exist, just like simple consciousness doesn't exist. There are humans with enough cognitive impairment that they cannot learn what 'prime' is either. Same with young children until they reach a certain age. Does this mean they aren't conscious Wayfarer?

What behavior is the plant doing that would lead you to think it might be conscious? — RogueAI

Its a really good question. Right now, its a debate. And I think a better way to summarize it is not to give you a 'plants are conscious' argument, but an argument that they aren't.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8052213/

At the least scroll down and check out table 1 for some arguments over the years. I have no skin in the game one way or another at this point. A part of me leans a little more towards that side that plants have some type of consciousness, but not enough for me to say, "Definitely".

There are humans with enough cognitive impairment that they cannot learn what 'prime' is either. Same with young children until they reach a certain age. Does this mean they aren't conscious Wayfarer? — Philosophim

Everyone, indeed every being, deserves to be treated humanely, but that says nothing about the capability that distinguishes h. Sapiens from other species. I think one of the unfortunate consequences of popular Darwinism is the myth of h. Sapiens being ‘just another species’. There’s a leap - an ontological gulf - between h. Sapiens and other species. We’re of a different kind.

A part of me leans a little more towards that side that plants have some type of consciousness, but not enough for me to say, "Definitely". — Philosophim

I understand. Don't you think plant behaviors could be replicated by fairly simple machines (or a system of pretty simple machines)?

I think one of the unfortunate consequences of popular Darwinism is the myth of h. Sapiens being ‘just another species’. There’s a leap - an ontological gulf - between h. Sapiens and other species. We’re of a different kind. — Wayfarer

Look at the gulf between a bat and a fly. The gulf between an octopus and a platypus. A dolphin and a fish. We're all of different kinds.

A part of me leans a little more towards that side that plants have some type of consciousness, but not enough for me to say, "Definitely".
— Philosophim

I understand. Don't you think plant behaviors could be replicated by fairly simple machines (or a system of pretty simple machines)? — RogueAI

I don't know enough to make that judgment call. First, we're still learning so much about neurology and systems. I'm sure we can make a simulation, just like we can simulate human behavior. But to capture the actual full behavior of what a specific creature would do in every instance may still be beyond the limitations of hardware and software at this time.

Look at the gulf between a bat and a fly. — Philosophim

One that neither a bat nor a fly will ever know.

Don't you think plant behaviors could be replicated by fairly simple machines (or a system of pretty simple machines)? — RogueAI

You've heard of John Conway's 'Game of Life?' It was a 1970 program that replicates many of the salient features of evolutionary development by use of a fairly simple algorithm. So such behaviours can be emulated quite easily using software, but actually creating an organic molecule that replicates like living organisms is a very different thing. You can symbollically represent the processes, but actually making them work is another thing.

the myth of h. Sapiens being ‘just another species’. — Wayfarer

:monkey:

So that oldtime mythmaker Charlie D. got it wrong: "h. sapiens" is something other than an "evolved" animal species (i.e. we are more than discursively-delusional, semi-eusocial, bald primates), is that it? Well, most bacteria and viruses, Wayfarer, as well as large land predators, seem to have not yet gotten the memo "Don't Eat Them". :mask:

We’re of a different kind.

Agreed – a "different kind" of species that fetishizes its imaginary differences which do not make an existential difference – "h. sapiens" is, no matter the ontological stories we flatter our fleeting smallness with, fundamentally inseparable from nature like all other natural species.

Try teaching the concept 'prime' to your dog. — Wayfarer

C'mon, Wayf, that's our limitation, not the dog's. :smirk:

How about you (we) try to learn from a hound how to follow a rabbit's or lost child's days-old scent through a teeming woodland; or learn from a bat how to echolocate; or learn from a cuttlefish how to continuously camouflage themselves unseen against any background while moving from place to place; or try learning from bees how to build a beehive; or learning from a cat how to play with utter abandon with a dangling string ...

Here is another short video for his talk on "Your brain hallucinates your conscious reality." — Corvus

Here is an argument for why your brain does not ‘hallucinate’ your conscious reality.

…to perceive the world isn’t to hallucinate and get things right. To perceive is to explore the world with your sensing and moving body. Perception creates meaning through sensorimotor exploration. You don’t get a being with a sense of self by taking a hallucinating brain and tacking on some sensory inputs and motor outputs. You get a being with a sense of self by taking a brain with a capacity for imagination—for imaging its past and future—and embedding it within a sensing and moving body. Perception, therefore, isn’t online hallucination; it’s sensorimotor engagement with the world. Dreaming isn’t offline hallucination; it’s spontaneous imagination during sleep. We aren’t dreaming machines but imaginative beings. We don’t hallucinate at the world; we imaginatively perceive it.

Merleau-Ponty maintains that the relation between self and world is not primarily that of subject to object, but rather what he calls, following Heidegger, being-in-the-world. For a bodily subject it is not possible to specify what the subject is in abstraction from the world, nor is it possible to specify what the world is in abstraction from the subject: “The world is inseparable from the subject, but from a subject which is nothing but a project of the world, and the subject is inseparable from the world, but from a world which the subject itself projects”. To belong to the world in this way means that our primary way of relating to things is neither purely sensory and reflexive, nor cognitive or intellectual, but rather bodily and skillful. Merleau-Ponty calls this kind of bodily intentionality “motor intentionality”. His example is grasping or intentionally taking hold of an object. In grasping something we direct ourselves toward it, and thus our action is intentional. But the action does not refer to the thing by representing its objective and determinate features; it refers to it pragmatically in the light of a contextual motor goal effected by one's body.

I highly recommend Thompson’s paper for a more detailed
introduction to this thinking.

https://evanthompsondotme.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/sensorimotor-subjectivity.pdf

Try teaching the concept 'prime' to your dog.
— Wayfarer
C'mon, Wayf, that's our limitation, not the dog's. :smirk: — 180 Proof

If the dog had the capacity to understand mathematics, and it was our inability to teach it that was the problem, it would not need teaching any more than we did. It would have developed mathematics as we did.

How about you (we) try to learn from a hound how to follow a rabbit's or lost child's days-old scent through a teeming woodland; or learn from a bat how to echolocate; or learn from a cuttlefish how to continuously camouflage themselves unseen against any background while moving from place to place — 180 Proof

We know we cannot do these things. The dog doesn't know it doesn't understand primes. Although we know very well what these animals are doing, we cannot do those things because of differences in our physiology, our senses. The dog cannot learn primes because it doesn't have the intellectual capacity to even know it doesn't understand primes, much less understand them.

We understand echolocation enough that, using our intelligence and technology, we have developed sonar and GPR.

I hadn't considered a device to let us follow scents. Google brings up many articles about robot bloodhounds. I was expecting something like a metal detector.

or learn from a cuttlefish how to continuously camouflage themselves unseen against any background while moving from place to place — 180 Proof

An amazing sight! Do you suppose it knows it is doing that? Do you suppose it could learn the least mathematical concept, and the problem is our limited ability to teach?

or learning from a cat how to play with utter abandon with a dangling string — 180 Proof

We think it's adorable playfulness. They are actually learning how to fight and kill when they do this. People put as much time into that as any other creature. But I suspect animals actually play. I've had dogs that fetched without me making any attempt to teach them. I suppose there could be a reason along the lines of cats learning to fight and kill when "playing" with string, but I'm willing to assume there is playing. The reason they can fetch, seemingly, endlessly, every day of their lives is because they lack the intelligence to become bored. They don't know they're doing the same thing over and over, or think of the repetitiveness. They naturally so what zen students strive to do. They are totally in the moment, every moment, with no desire to be doing anything else. (Until you stop. :lol: )

If the dog had the capacity to understand mathematics, and it was our inability to teach it that was the problem, it would not need teaching any more than we did. It would have developed mathematics as we did — Patterner

I agree animals dont learn formal mathematics, but that’s. it say they don’t have mathematical capabilities.

https://www.mathnasium.com/blog/math-isnt-just-for-humans-animals-can-count-too#:~:text=Some%20animals%20are%20better%20at%20counting%20than%20others.&text=In%20the%20late%201980s%2C%20chimpanzees,objects%20on%20a%20computer%20screen.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/06/what-the-simple-mathematical-abilities-of-animals-can-tell-us-about-ourselves/

If the dog had the capacity to understand mathematics, and it was our inability to teach it that was the problem, it would not need teaching any more than we did. It would have developed mathematics as we did — Patterner

I agree animals dont learn formal mathematics, but that’s not to say they don’t have mathematical capabilities.

We often think of mathematical ability as being uniquely human, but in fact, scientists have found that many animal species—including lions, chimpanzees, birds, bees, ants, and fish—seem to possess at least a rudimentary counting ability or number sense. Crows can understand the concept of zero. And a study published in April found that both stingrays and cichlids can take this rudimentary "numerosity" to the next level, performing simple addition and subtraction for a small number of objects (in the range of 1 to 5).

https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/06/what-the-simple-mathematical-abilities-of-animals-can-tell-us-about-ourselves/

https://www.mathnasium.com/blog/math-isnt-just-for-humans-animals-can-count-too#:~:text=Some%20animals%20are%20better%20at%20counting%20than%20others.&text=In%20the%20late%201980s%2C%20chimpanzees,objects%20on%20a%20computer%20screen.

Watership Down? :grin:
I've never thought about it, or looked up what has been said about it. Maybe there is a difference between their ability to tell the difference between numbers of objects up to 5 and counting. If they knew they were counting up to 5, why would they stop there? Although I can't think of what it could be, maybe the recognition that they have is not any kind of math? i'm not even sure how to phrase my sentence.

Funny about the crows. Europeans never came up with 0 on their own. :rofl:

Look at the gulf between a bat and a fly.
— Philosophim

Neither a bat nor a fly will ever know that. — Wayfarer

But you understood the point that the intellectual gap between a bat and a fly is as wide as the intellectual gap of a human and a bat right? The point is that us being a 'different kind' from other animals is simply the same pattern repeated in nature again and again. Having an intellectual or consciousness gap between other animals does not mean we are separate from them. Some thing will be at the top in the animal kingdom, and it appears that its us.

I mean, have you ever seen the comparison between a human brain and other mammals? https://news.wisc.edu/study-shows-differences-between-brains-of-primates-humans-apes-and-monkeys-are-small-but-significant/ We're not an alien species to the planet by any means.

Funny about the crows. Europeans never came up with 0 on their own. :rofl: — Patterner

I’m not planning on swapping my calculator for a chiclid. I dont even know what a chicklid is.

us being a 'different kind' from other animals is simply the same pattern repeated in nature again and again. Having an intellectual or consciousness gap between other animals does not mean we are separate from them. — Philosophim

I agree.

In fact we do share Real Consciousness with all other organisms once you remove the uniquely human experience of Mind from the equation.

Real Consciousness is an organism presently and actively aware-ing ("its"--- there is no "it") be-ing ("in" ---there is no separation of organism and world) the environment, having evolved for survival. A human aware-ing others for avoiding, consuming, mating and bonding. A plant aware-ing wetness and sunlight for growing towards. And so on.

If that is the extent of Real Consciousness why then the inquiry into Mind, Being, Reality? That is our "fall." The pursuit of knowledge over living (Genesis reference may not be coincidence but I am not claiming divine revelation either).

Because out of humans aware-ing Consciousness emerged the astronomical surplus use of Images for survival, therefore, over eons Language and an autonomous system of constructed Consciousness emerged. With that, meaning displaced survival as the drive. Constructing meaning in Time, or becoming, displaced being present. And much more I won't get into now.

But this Fictional Consciousness emerged, Mind; one which we construct and cling to at the expense of the Organic Reality our fellow creatures enjoy. And from that, our human made suffering, and the corresponding need to construct meaning to apply to our environment, incuding, inter alia, the Subject I, difference, Reason, and the linear Narrative form.

Hence what is Mind? It must be, we conclude, by necessity of the structure itself (Mind), something which extends beyond the brain. It must be a privelged Reality, which animals don't have. When really we have their Consciousness, and what we call Mind is a Fiction. And so on.