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Consciousness question

Mercutio said:
I disagree. Consciousness is a very fuzzy term--look at the contortions people here go through in order to define, or to keep from defining, their view of consciousness--and not all of the fuzzy definitions of it require the "conscious thing" to be alive. (Dennett, for instance, has a consistent definition that does not require "life"--although, frankly, the definition of "living" is, itself, hazy.)

If you look at our language, we frequently ascribe consciousness terms to ostensibly inanimate objects: my computer hates me and does everything it can to screw up my files; my car hates to start on cold mornings; my hot water heater has decided to start acting up. One thing that is similar in most of these cases is the salience of the causes of the "behavior". If we know what my car's problem is, it is the alternator; if we do not, it is the car acting up on me. If we know the computer has a particular virus, that is one thing; if we do not know, my computer hates me. The same thing applies to us. If we saw the environmental variables that lead us to behave in one or another manner, we could ascribe our behavior to that variable; too often, we do not (and historically, we have not even looked for these causes), and so we say that this behavior is due to a conscious decision, a conscious choice, a conscious will.

Certainly, we do not use "consciousness words" only with living things. To understand consciousness, we need to look at how we really use the word, not how we ideally define it. We learn the word from real use, not from ideals.
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Yes, people apply words incorrectly (dare I say "metaphorically"?;) ) all the time. But if you ask the straight question, "is a water heater conscious", most folks will agree that it is not, at least not in the sense that we normally use the word.

I agree though that a legitimate case can be made for group or social consciousness, (zeitgeist anyone?) but again we are talking about groups and societies of living things.

As for life, I tend to go with the biologic definitions based on the entity possessing certain characteristics:
  • Organized structures that are composed of heterogenous chemicals - in units of "cells"
  • Metabolism: chemical and energy transformations
  • Maintain internal conditions separated from an outside environment: homeostasis
  • Growth: conversion of materials from the environment into components of organism
  • Reaction to select stimuli, physiologically and/or behaviorally
  • Reproduction: making copies of individuals via the mechanism of genetic transfer: sections of DNA molecules that contain instructions for organization & metabolism
  • Evolution: change in characteristics of individuals, resulting from mutation & natural selection - these result in adaptations
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I might quibble a little bit about the "cells" and DNA part because I can envision life with a different construction, but even so it might simply require refining what we call a "cell" and speak of "genetic transfer" without specifying the structure used.

Many non-living things exhibit one or more of these characteristics, but if has all of these, then it is alive.
 
Iacchus said:
Yes, but life does not begin with a single brain cell.
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And your point is...?
The brain (in conjunction with the body) is a collective of cells. Which kind of makes sense, since consciousness entails the whole level experience of the body ... to the degree that it is alive that is.
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You started out so well...and then went back to the circular argument you have been so fond of.
Yes, and is an amoeba conscious?
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Gee, do you think maybe that was my point? Since it was you that brought up the "single cell" to begin with?
 
Tricky said:
Yes, people apply words incorrectly (dare I say "metaphorically"?;) ) all the time. But if you ask the straight question, "is a water heater conscious", most folks will agree that it is not, at least not in the sense that we normally use the word.
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"Incorrectly"? It is how we use the words that determines how we learn the words. The "straight question" is the verbal equivalent of the dissection--the moment you start to dissect a frog, the first thing you end up with is an ex-frog. The answers you get are good, and important, but they are not answers about how the frog acts.
I agree though that a legitimate case can be made for group or social consciousness, (zeitgeist anyone?) but again we are talking about groups and societies of living things.
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I agree. This example goes tho opposite direction from mine, sort of a "greater than one human" rather than a "less than one human" consciousness.
As for life, I tend to go with the biologic definitions based on the entity possessing certain characteristics:
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...and if we define "flying" as something that is done with feathers, then we can define insects and bats as non-flying entities.
I might quibble a little bit about the "cells" and DNA part because I can envision life with a different construction, but even so it might simply require refining what we call a "cell" and speak of "genetic transfer" without specifying the structure used.

Many non-living things exhibit one or more of these characteristics, but if has all of these, then it is alive.
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Do you (I know better) suggest that this is the only legitimate place we can draw this line?
 
Tricky said:
Yes, people apply words incorrectly (dare I say "metaphorically"?;) ) all the time. But if you ask the straight question, "is a water heater conscious", most folks will agree that it is not, at least not in the sense that we normally use the word.
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That's not exactly how the question was posed, though. "Is a toilet cistern aware?" is an open-ended question that has braod implications, whereas, "Is the toilet cistern aware of the water level in the tank" is specific.

If the mechanism required to refill the toilet were not aware of whether the tank were empty or full, it would not function. "Aware" is still properly used in this sentence. It does not mean that the toilet cistern can think, or even know that it is empty or full, because thinking and knowing requires memory capacity of some type.

Then, of course, we can argue about what it is to "think" and to "know".
;)

I know, I know... I was supposed to be gone from this thread.
 
Iacchus said:
All it takes is a single cell (with the DNA intact of course), to produce a full functioning body, with a brain.
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I think Mercutio is saying that it doesn't take just a single cell, but a mechanism and process as well. A tadpole is not a frog, but a tadpole combined with its life cycle to the stage of a frog is.
 
cpolk said:
I think Mercutio is saying that it doesn't take just a single cell, but a mechanism and process as well. A tadpole is not a frog, but a tadpole combined with its life cycle to the stage of a frog is.
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And yet a frog can be cloned from a single "frog cell" can it not?
 
Iacchus said:
So, can you describe something which is "non-living" that is conscious?
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Depending on how you define consciousness, yes, of course. Several examples have been listed on this and the other thread, from thermostats to cisterns to industrial computers.

Why, have you not understood the threads thus far?
 
Mercutio said:
Depending on how you define consciousness, yes, of course. Several examples have been listed on this and the other thread, from thermostats to cisterns to industrial computers.

Why, have you not understood the threads thus far?
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So, you agree with Tricky then that a water heater is conscious? I am not sure what you are implying here?
 
Iacchus said:
And yet a frog can be cloned from a single "frog cell" can it not?
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Outside of a laboratory? Feel free to demonstrate it.

Let us suppose I say "yes"; what possible difference does it make to this discussion? Do you suggest that a cell which may or may not develop into a frog is, in itself, conscious? Please feel free to explain your reasoning.
 
Iacchus said:
So, you agree with Tricky then that a water heater is conscious?
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By Dennett's definition, yes. (I did not check whether you are misrepresenting Tricky.)

Do you have a coherent definition of consciousness that will allow yes or no answers to such questions?
 
Mercutio said:
By Dennett's definition, yes. (I did not check whether you are misrepresenting Tricky.)

Do you have a coherent definition of consciousness that will allow yes or no answers to such questions?
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And of course in my opinion, anything that entails some form of interactive awareness which, is the whole Universe (which is just one big interaction), is conscious.
 
Mercutio said:
"Incorrectly"? It is how we use the words that determines how we learn the words.
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LOL. So if you learned that "conscious" means "relating to convicts" then that is a "correct" definition? No, you must put aside metaphorical usages of the word when trying to discuss it scientifically.

Mercutio said:
The "straight question" is the verbal equivalent of the dissection--the moment you start to dissect a frog, the first thing you end up with is an ex-frog.
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Depends on how skilled you are. If the definition of a thing must include all the characteristics of a thing, then you will kill a lot of frogs trying to define one, and you still will never have all its characteristics. At some point, you have to say, "this is enough to identify it", and even then be aware that you may have to correct yourself later.

Mercutio said:
...and if we define "flying" as something that is done with feathers, then we can define insects and bats as non-flying entities.
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But only an idiot would define "flying" that way, or else, I was "flying" my wife while she was tied up last night.

Mercutio said:
Do you (I know better) suggest that this is the only legitimate place we can draw this line?
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Of course not. In fact, by this definition, viruses are not alive. But it is reasonably complete, given that we don't have any examples of non-terrestrial life to help us refine the definition.

Lines can be drawn, but they can also be redrawn.
 
Iacchus said:
And of course in my opinion, anything that entails some form of interactive awareness which, is the whole Universe (which is just one big interaction), is conscious.
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Yes. In the absence of any evidence or logic, this is your opinion.

At least the rest of us (save one) have supported our opinions.
 
And remember, the whole Universe sprouted from this one single event/entity called the Big Bang. So, do you think consciousness could have been entailed within its nature right from the get-go?
 
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Iacchus said:
So, you agree with Tricky then that a water heater is conscious?
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I said it wasn't conscious, under the most common definitions of the word. It satisfies some of the characteristics of consciousness, but not enough to put it in that class. Fire satisfies some of the characteristics of life, but not enough to call it alive.
 
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