In “What is the Measure of Consciousness” and “Is A Rock Conscious?“ we take consciousness from its indescribable, unfindable, unscientific, mysterious, anthropomorphic foundations and move it to something that can be identified, measured, qualified, and quantified.
It allows us to move from seemingly simple questions that cannot be answered — “Is this conscious?”and if so, “How conscious?”— and provide a straightforward answer.
“It is conscious, and its consciousness can be determined and measured by its response to stimuli.
Since everything, from an electron to the universe responds to stimuli, everything is conscious, the measure being the quantity and quality of the stimuli and the responses.
In “Does Free Will Exist?” and “More about non-existent free will,” we remind the reader that the brain—what you think, believe, and do—is affected by chemicals and electrical signals.
So, we cannot claim free will when continually exposed to such chemicals as Cortisol, Thyroid Hormones, Estrogen and Testosterone, Insulin. Melatonin, Serotonin, Dopamine. Ghrelin, Leptin, Alcohol, Caffeine, and Nicotine, along with physical exhaustion, thirst, hunger, odors, sound, touch, pain, temperature, disease, age, and all the other physical and psychological inputs.
Where is free will? Nowhere.
You cannot know the current effects of all those inputs at any point in time, much less filter them out to arrive at purely “free will.”
The inescapable conclusion is that while, to some degree, everything is conscious, nothing has free will.
Yet they are intuitively related, sometimes in the reverse. That is, our intuition says that many things are not conscious and many things do have free will.
As the history of human thought, and specifically the recent Relativity and Quantum Mechanics theories, have taught us, our intuition is not reality.
Intuition works reasonably well when helping us survive in our limited lifestyles, but it is a complete bust when we try to discover the secrets of the universe.
Very few things are as they seem to us.
The stars, sun, and moon do not rotate around us. Nothing can exceed the speed of light, though entangled particles seem to do it.
When we go very fast, we age slower and lengthen, and very small things can be in two places simultaneously.
And if those weren’t weird enough, our mere observation can change reality.
There is a commonality among consciousness, free will, Relativity, and Quantum Mechanics. All involve intuition.
Intuition is that gut feeling or instinctive knowing without the need for conscious reasoning. It’s like a mental shortcut that helps you make decisions quickly.
Think of it as your brain drawing on past experiences, patterns, and subconscious cues to guide you, often without you even realizing it.
Historically, arguments about the existence of consciousness and free will have been based on “my intuition is better than your intuition,“ not on what we consider scientific reasoning.
The people who have told me that free will does exist are absolutely positive about this. Why? They feel they are free to make their own decisions.
However, they cannot know how chemicals and physical sensing impact their judgment and decision-making. They are like people who have never been away from home, arguing against the existence of homesickness. The brain cannot tell what effects have changed it.
They do not know what they cannot know.
No brain can process all available information, so brains take shortcuts and make assumptions. The brain survives by filling the sensory blanks with illusions.
The brain cannot process its inner workings. It receives electronic inputs related to light, sound, and touch. It creates illusions about what those inputs mean, then sends signals to itself and other parts of the body based on interpretations of the illusions.
We name that translation “consciousness.”
The problem occurs when you get to specifics.
Question: Is a bee conscious?
AI Answer: Consciousness involves awareness of oneself and the environment. While bees exhibit complex behaviors and communication skills, whether they possess consciousness similar to humans is still debated. They operate on instinct and learned behaviors but don’t seem to have self-awareness.
The industrious insects can count and alter their behavior when things seem difficult, and now some scientists say there’s proof they also like to play. A study recently published in Animal Behavior suggests that bumblebees, when given the chance, like to fool around with toys.
Researchers from Queen Mary University of London conducted an experiment in which they set up a container that allowed bees to travel from their nest to a feeding area. But along the way, the bees could opt topass through a separate section with a smattering of small wooden balls. Over 18 days, the scientists watched as the bees “went out of their way to roll wooden balls repeatedly, despite no apparent incentive to do so.”
The study’s first author, Samadi Galpayage, at Queen Mary University of London, added that it is yet more evidence that insects may be capable of experiencing feelings.
“They may actually experience some kind of positive emotional states, even if rudimentary like other larger animals do.
The finding suggests that insects, like humans, interact with inanimate objects as a form of play. Similar to people, younger bees seemed to be more playful than adult bees.
We do not know which thousands of stimuli affect our feelings, beliefs, decisions, and actions at any given moment.
SUMMARY
While people may equate free will with consciousness, the two are mutually exclusive.
The measure of consciousness is reaction to stimuli, but reacting to stimuli eliminates freedom of will.
If reactions to stimuli define and measure consciousness, then everything that reacts is conscious on some level.
And if “free will” means being unaffected by external and internal influences, it cannot exist. Nothing is immune to inputs.
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
PS As I was writing this, I became very drowsy and was going to quit. Hey, I’m nearly 90 years old.
But I drank a can of Celsius, which contains lots of “B” vitamins, plus the equivalent of two cups of coffee. All those chemicals made my drowsiness evaporate, so I’m able to finish this post.
One might argue that my “free will” let me continue, but that doesn’t consider all the other things going on in my body — all the medicines, breakfast foods, temperature, the comfort of my chair, etc. — that made me keep writing.
Free will is a placebo, an illusion, though a pretty strong one.
Monetary Sovereignty
In the post “Does Free Will Exist?” we argue that it does not exist and is nothing but an illusion.
Free will is a philosophical and scientific concept that refers to the ability to choose between different possible courses of action. It implies that humans can act independently of any prior event, state of the universe, or outside influence.
Free will is often contrasted with determinism, the view that human actions are predetermined by natural laws or causal factors. Free will is a logically impossible illusion.
If you believe “free will” exists, try this experiment: Ask someone with autism to stop spinning, hand-flapping, and all the other stemming they do. Assuming they would like to stop and indeed do stop, this might come closer to demonstrating free will.
But my guess is that this simple “cure” for autism won’t work, and the people will demonstrate they don’t have free will.
The counter-argument might be that they have free will for some things, and others are beyond their ability to stop — sort of a partial free will.
But I claim free will does not exist in any form, not even a little. Everything we think of as “free will” is our brain giving us orders based on chemicals and neuron communications.
I recognize that proving free will exists is difficult because it’s hard to prove that chemicals and electrical communications do not cause any specific thought.
But I keep seeing evidence free-will doesn’t exist.
Ever since the first human heart transplants back in 1967, patients have reported, often reluctantly, some eerie and inexplicable changes to their personalities.
Following surgery, some say they feel less like themselves and more like their donor.For instance, one transplant recipient in the 1990s reported suddenly developing a love for music after receiving the heart of a young male musician.
“I could never play before, but after my transplant, I began to love music. I felt it in my heart,” she told scientists in a paper published in 2000.
Other transplant recipients say they developed new tastes for food, art, sex, or careersfollowing their surgeries.
Some even claim to have new “memories”implanted.
A 56-year-old college professor received the heart of a police officer killed by a gunshot to the face. After the transplant, the recipient said they had dreams of “a flash of light right in my face… Just before that time, I would get a glimpse of Jesus.” “That’s exactly how Carl died,” the donor’s wife told researchers. She said the main suspect looks “sort of like some of the pictures of Jesus.”
An online survey among 23 heart recipients and 24 other organ recipients found nearly 90 percent experienced personality changes after transplant surgery, no matter the organ they received.
Most of these changes had to do with temperament, emotions, food, identity, religious/spiritual beliefs, or memories.
Brian Carter and his colleagues at CU conclude that “heart transplant recipients may not be unique in their experience of personality changes following transplantation.”
Instead, they argue that “such changes may occur following the transplantation of any organ” and that this demands further research.
Liver or kidney transplant patients in previous studies tend to report changing feelings of stress, anxiety, depression, or other mental health issues.
The “systemic memory hypothesis” predicts that all living cells possess “memory”, and that a transplant recipient can sense a donor’s history through their tissue.
Although a transplant organ’s nerve connections are severed, nerves may still function within the organ. Some evidence suggests nerve connections may be partially restored a year after transplant surgery.
Neurotransmitter interactions based on donor memories might then cause a physiological response to the recipient’s nervous system that impacts their personality.
The study was published in Transplantology.
The study is too small to be definitive, but when added to other facts, it does seem to support the absence of free will.
As we age, the brain undergoes synaptic pruning—which essentially “cleans house” by removing less-used neural connections. This process is influenced by several factors:
The brain tends to keep the neural pathways that are frequently used and eliminate those that are rarely activated. By pruning unused connections, the brain can function more efficiently, allowing it to process information quicker and more effectively.
Genetic factors play a role in how and when this pruning occurs. Exposure to new experiences, learning, and mental stimulation can impact which connections are maintained and or pruned.
Essentially, the brain optimizes itself based on our behaviors and experiences, and none of this is under our will or control. It happens without our knowledge.
A child’s brain changes second by second in structure and in the chemical and electrical inputs it receives. These chemicals and inputs continuously change the child’s desires and beliefs.
We all know that what a child thinks today will change tomorrow and every day after that.
We know that a 5-year-old doesn’t have the judgment of a 30-year-old, and let’s not even talk about teenage judgment.
Input and structure, neither of which are under our intentional control, guide our thoughts and actions. Yet some people claim we have “free will.”
How can we have free will if our brains and our inputs keep changing, unintentionally and unbeknown to us?
There can be no argument that drugs not only affect the brain and the body; for many drugs, that is their very purpose.
Antidepressants can help improve mood and reduce symptoms of depression, but they can also cause side effects like changes in sleeppatterns, appetite, and energy levels.
Antipsychotics treat conditions like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and can affect thinking and behavior, sometimes causing drowsiness or changes in personality.
Stimulants: Drugs like caffeine, nicotine, and prescription medications for ADHD can increase alertness and energy but may also lead to anxiety or irritability.
Benzodiazepines: Often prescribed for anxiety, these can have a calming effect but may also cause drowsiness and changes in mood or behavior.
Opioids: Used for pain relief, these can affect mood and behavior, sometimes leading to euphoria or, conversely, depression and anxiety.
Additionally, our thinking is affected by natural chemicals, which are unique to each person. Dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine, acetylcholine, glutamate, and gamma-aminobutyric acid all affect thinking, feeling, and acting.
Then we have hormones like testosterone, estrogen, progesterone, and oxytocin, the combination of which can dramatically affect what we think, feel, want, believe, and do.
There are two ways to exercise your brain: Learning factsand/or solving problems.
CONSCIOUSNESS
In the sciences, and especially in philosophy, many problems are known as “hard problems.”
You may think of philosophy as mere speculation about speculation, and to some degree, you may be right.
But speculating can teach you how to uncover essential truths that otherwise would remain hidden.
This post will touch on my speculations about uniting a few “hard problems” with solutions that involve consciousness, time and reality.
Perhaps you’ll find the process itself can help stir your creative abilitiesregarding all problems.
The Hard Problem of Consciousness
The posts “Is a rock conscious?” and “What is the Measure of Consciousness” discuss the meanings of consciousness.
If you haven’t already, it might help to read them now as an introduction to this post. Just a suggestion.
Here is what Wikipedia says about the hard problem of consciousness:
The terms “hard problem” and “easy problems” were coined by the philosopher David Chalmers. In the philosophy of mind, the hard problem of consciousness is to explain why and how humans and other organisms have subjective experiences.It is contrasted with the “easy problems” of explaining why and how physical systems give a (healthy) human being the ability to discriminate, to integrate information, and to perform behavioral functions such as watching, listening, speaking (including generating an utterance that appears to refer to personal behaviour or belief), and so forth.The easy problems are amenable to functional explanation—that is, explanations that are mechanistic or behavioral—since each physical system can be explained (at least in principle) purely by reference to the “structure and dynamics” that underpin the phenomenon.
Chalmers and possibly most philosophers believe consciousness goes beyond being a chemical, physical, or molecular phenomenon but includes various metaphysical concepts, like “mind” and “inner life,” and even a religious concept like the soul.
That’s what makes them “hard.” There seem to be no physical sources.
By way of illustration, we know why your laptop computer can “discriminate, integrate information, and perform behavioral functions.” Those are all electro-mechanical processes that humans build into the machine. Your laptop can compute maths because we know how to make it that way.
But so far, your laptop doesn’t appear to have “subjective experiences”—emotions or desires—and we don’t know why or how to build one that does. It’s a “hard problem.”
My AI, Copilot, answered the question, “How can you prove you are not conscious?” this way:
“My responses are generated through pattern recognition and data processing, not through any conscious thought or feeling. I don’t have self-awareness.“My ‘self-awareness’ is more about recognizing patterns and generating relevant responses based on those patterns, rather than any true consciousness or subjective inner life.“I don’t have personal experiences and feelings, like how you experience joy or sadness. ‘Inner life’ refers to the thoughts, emotions, and self-awarenessthat humans experience internally.A HARD PROBLEM“If I did have a subjective inner life, by definition, it would be private and possibly imperceptible even to me. “
In the abovementioned posts, I claim that a “hard problem” is merely a matter of semantics.
At some point, philosophers and lay people, too, have decided there is a non-physical, almost mystical thing called a “subjective inner-lifeexperience” that cannot be explained chemically or physically.
We know, for instance, how an emotion manifests with blood pressure and other physical changes.
But we don’t understand the “subjective” part.
Where in a computer would a subjective inner life reside, and how would we recognize it? Where in a human brain is it created, if it’s in the brain at all?
In short, the problem is “hard” because we have phrased solutions with impossible criteria.
Consciousness is an ambiguous term. It can be used to mean self consciousness, awareness, the state of being awake, and so on. Chalmers uses Thomas Nagel’s definition of consciousness: “the feeling of what it is like to be something.” Consciousness, in this sense, is synonymous with experience.
By denying that consciousness has any physical source and is just a vague “feeling,” we eliminate all possible explanations. What is a “feeling”? What is a “subjective experience”?
My response, which is given in the two mentioned posts, is that the term “consciousness” itself is presented as an anthropomorphic, magical, mysterious fog, impossible to define, much less to measure, when it can actually can be described in straightforward physical terms.
I. “WHAT IS CONSCIOUSNESS?”Consciousness is the perception of, and response to, stimuli.
You can measure perception and response. To do so, create a graph or table showing perceived stimuli and responses. This graph would describe consciousness and measure “feeling.”
Since everything from the nucleus of an atom to a galaxy and, indeed, the entire universe receives stimuli and responds to them, the definition answers the “hard” questions like:
-Is a sleeping person conscious
-Is an “unconscious” person conscious?
-Is a dog conscious?
-Is a fish conscious?
-Is a bee conscious?
-Is a tree conscious?
-Is a flower conscious?
-Is a bacterium conscious?
-Is an electron conscious?
-Is a rock conscious?
-Is the earth conscious?
-Is the universe conscious?
-Is a fire conscious?
The answer is “Yes” to all.
They all perceive and respond to stimuli. Rock perceives temperature, impacts, sound, and chemicals and reacts to all of them—as does fire, the universe, and every other one of the above.
The amount of perception and the responses can all be measured and identified. How strong is the impact on the rock and does the rock quiver or shatter?
Consciousness has no magical mystery or mysticism, so there is no need to invent a “subjective inner life.”Consciousness is the perception of, and response to, stimuli. Try answering the above questions with any other definitions of consciousness you have heard, and you probably will fail because your criteria will fail you.
You will not be able to draw a bright line between consciousness and non-consciousness (which is different from “unconsciousness”).
The question, “What is consciousness?” is “hard” because we have made semantic assumptionsabout it.
We arbitrarily have decided the word “conscious” equals “aware,” “awake,” “subjective,” “feeling,” “experience,” and other anthropomorphic criteria, and then we claim computers and frogs don’t have it.
In short, everything is conscious—from quarks to universes—the difference being degree. Remember that as we continue.
The next “hard problem” is:
II. “WHAT IS TIME?”TIME
Again, referring to Wikipedia:
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to compare the duration of events or the intervals between them, and to quantify rates of change of quantities in material reality or in the conscious experience.Time is often referred to as a fourth dimension, along with three spatial dimensions.
Relativity and Quantum Mechanics (QM) might disagree. QM says time is reversible in theory. Relativity says duration and intervals are relative to the observer, which means “sequence” cannot be measured.
Consider a photon of light. It has no mass.
If you observe a photon in a vacuum, no matter how fast you are moving, the photon always will appear to move at the same speed, 186,000 miles per second relative to you.
If you could aim a photon at a black hole, you would see it disappear into the black hole at that speed.
An atom has mass. If you could accelerate an atom to light speed and aim it at a black hole, that atom would seem to slow down and eventually freeze on the black hole’s event horizon, never entering. (Ironically, if the atom were moving slower, you would see it move.)
So even if the photon and the atom start out side-by-side, at the speed of light, from your vantage point, they would cease to be side-by-side, with the photon entering the black hole and that atom never entering.
Time constraints like sequence, succession, and duration are not absolutesbut relative to you, the observer. Thus, the name “Relativity.”
In answer to the question, “What is time”? Time is change.
You and I are observers. When I experience time differently than you do, it merely means I experience change differently.
Perhaps I have done nothing more than create a synonym rather than an explanation. But I did notice one parallel with consciousness:
Everything changes, and everything is conscious.
That is a clue. When two seemingly dissimilar concepts- time and consciousness- are similarly affected, we look for a hidden relationship.
The definition of consciousness is perception and response to stimuli. “Response” means “change,” so consciousness is related to time in that they both involve change.
Without change, there can be no response, and without response there can be no consciousness,
If consciousness = change, and time = change, one might conclude that mathematically, not only does consciousness = time, but in fact, consciousness is time.
Where there is consciousness, there is time. Where there is time, there is consciousness. The two cannot be separated. You cannot have one without the other.
The conscious stone exists in time.
Humans have intuitive difficulty with the notion that a mere observer can affect time, but this is a common theme in Relativity and Quantum Mechanics.
From the standpoint of an observer, speed affects time, and speed also affects consciousness. A moving stone will react more slowly to stimuli, as will a moving human or a moving insect.
For example, if you were aboard a spaceship moving at Relativistic speed, you would lose at chess if your opponent was stationary on Earth because your thoughts would slow.
Consciousness =Time = Reality.
The third hard question is:
III. “WHAT IS REALITY?”
Copilot says:
“Scientifically, reality is often defined by what can be observed and measured. In QM, particles potentially exist in multiple states untilthey are observed.”
REALITY
The word “until”shows that reality is time-dependent.
Since observing affects reality, we slide from Rene Descartes’s“I think therefore I am” to “I think therefore it is.”
All things are in a continual state of change, that is, subject to time.
An object exists (reality) only as it is observed (conscious), at a particular state of change (time). This is not illusory.
The object does not “seem” to change.
From the standpoint of an observer, the object really has changed, and every measurement will indicate that change.
In QM, reality is expressed in probabilities. All particles have a range of states determined by probability.
A particle can exist here, here, here, or here, in what is termed a “wave function, determined by probability, until it is observed, at which time one of the “heres” is selected.
Reality is Consciousness (perception + response) at a specific Time (point of change).
While we may seem to agree on many things, your reality differs from mine. Your consciousness differs, and your time differs. Yet both realities are equally valid.
SUMMARYThe statement of a problem often carries assumptions about its solution.A problem can become “hard” when the criteria for solving it are invented to be hard.
So, suppose we insist that the problem, “What is consciousness?” can be solved onlyif it includes a mind, brain, subjective experiences, subjective inner life, emotions, feelings, and self-awareness.
In that case, we arbitrarily have introduced unnecessary anthropomorphic elements into any acceptable answer.
So if I say that a tree is conscious, someone could object that it doesn’t have a “mind, brain, subjective inner life,” etc.
But what says those must be criteria for consciousness? They are arbitrary criteria based on invented rules.
On the other hand, if I say a tree is conscious because it receives and responds to stimuli, those are my criteria. I think they are good criteria, and I know of no law or rule that outlaws them. Based on those criteria, many more things would be considered conscious than with the earlier criteria.
If we assume the answer to “What is time?” requires that time operates separately from consciousness, we further depart from potential solutions.
Quantum Mechanics (QM) teaches that time is relative to an observer, so it clearly is not separate from consciousness.
I suggest that many hard problems can be turned into easy problems with appropriate rephrasing.
The next time you come to a “hard problem” ask, “What are the criteria for a solution?”
Try to imagine the criteria expressed in a way that doesn’t make the solution impossible to achieve.
You can begin with the hard problems, “What is life?” or “Does free will exist?”
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary SovereigntyTwitter: @rodgermitchellSearch #monetarysovereigntyFacebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell;MUCK RACK: https://muckrack.com/rodger-malcolm-mitchell; https://www.academia.edu/
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The Sole Purpose of Government Is to Improve and Protect the Lives of the People.
In the preceding post titled “Is a rock conscious?”, the “hard problem” of consciousness was explored, addressing its nature, the beings that possess it, and the methods for its recognition and measurement.
In science, when something exists, scientists set out to measure it. Everything is measured—energy, distance, volume, size, temperature, strength, intelligence—but not generally consciousness.
Yes, during an operation, some measures are used: An electroencephalogram monitors the brain’s electrical activity, and anesthesiologists monitor heart rate, blood pressure, and muscle tone. Sometimes, anesthesiologists may check for purposeful responses, such as squeezing a hand or opening eyes.
These are merely rough and infrequent measures of wakefulness, distinctly different from consciousness. A person who is sleeping remains conscious.
This inquiry extends to further questions: “How much consciousness does a specific entity possess?” and If consciousness exists, how much is there?”
Conscious?
I propose that consciousness should not be seen as a unique trait but rather as an assertion that all entities perceive and react to their surroundings, with the degree of perception and reactionindicating levels of consciousness.
On the spectrum of perception and responsiveness, a human exhibits greater consciousness than a bacterium, which is more conscious than a rock.
However, even a rock can sense and react to temperature, water, wind, sound, and physical impacts. Some things may be even less responsive than a rock — perhaps a piece of titanium?.
In the comment section of that post, we attempted to address the title question by replying to readers’ comments.
As many readers overlook a comment section, below are excerpts that might interest you:
Conscious?
tetrahedron720I agree that consciousness is an awareness of something other than nothing. If there’s nothing, then there’s no consciousness, like before you were born or Zero.
So, consciousness begins with “an awareness” of some otherness, which includes self-consciousness against a backdrop and an awareness of reality. Awareness or (consciousness) begins with 2, not 1.
There’s no 1 in the real world; no singularity is provable or possible, except in theory or science fiction.
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
If consciousness is awareness, then what is awareness? Is an ant “aware”? Is a tree aware of its surroundings? Is a bacterium aware? Is a virus aware? Is a sleeping person aware?
I believe you have fallen into the trap that has bedeviled philosophers for centuries. You have stated the problem in a way that makes it impossible to solve because you have anthropomorphized it.
Obviously, a bacterium is “aware” of its surroundings. It could not survive unless it was aware of food, poisons, and other chemicals. Are you ready to say a bacterium is conscious? I am.
Conscious?
TSReminds me of something I read about trees being able to ‘signal’ each other. What would Pando say?
Mitchell
Yes, Pando and all other trees send signals, receive signals and respond to signals, just as you do. As do bacteria. As do rocks. As do photons. As does the earth itself, the solar system, the galaxy and the universe — they all send, receive and respond to signals.
Thus, they all are conscious.
rawgodAs far as I can tell, consciousness comes from being alive — from having life. Which is why I question the consciousness of a photon. What does a photon sense?Is it the brainthat is conscious, or is it the mind? The brain remains after death; the mind does not, and neither does life.I may be simplistic, but I see life as the seat of consciousness and the mind as the part of us that expresses our consciousness. This is my philosophy of life—life is consciousness!
That leaves a few questions: What is life? What is consciousness? Is a dog conscious? Is a bee conscious? A bacterium? A virus? A tree? A sleeping person?
You are about to begin a voyage that has occupied philosophers for eons. That is why it is called a “hard problem.” The statement of the problem is what makes it hard.
I believe consciousness is the reaction to stimuli. Suddenly, the problem becomes simple. The greater the response to the stimuli, the greater the consciousness. No mysticism is required.
A photon senses whatever it reacts with. It can have many different energies vibrating in what we see as colors or feel as heat. It can be entangled with other photons. It can act as a particle or as a wave.
Conscious?
tetrahedron720“…If consciousness is awareness, then what is awareness…?”
They’re both sides of the same coin, though they vary in degree. But then, what is the coin? To me, the ‘coin’ is the ability to differentiate, i.e. life.
Only life can purposely differentiate ( reproduce) by being aware or conscious of another system like itself.
A rock cannot reproduce, nor is it aware of the need to survive. Yes, a rock or photon can react or sense vibrations, but that’s not the same as the ability or need to differentiate and survive.
Sensation is different from reproduction. The former is picking up vibes, and the latter is doing something about it progressively.
Mitchell
What about a virus? Or a flame that multiplies by differentiating between flammable and nonflammable? Is a bacterium aware or conscious of another system like itself to multiply?
tetrahedron720“… Or is consciousness just an illusion that your brain has conjured up? …”
What is objectively “out there” is what our subjective “in there” brains detect. Science and repeated experimental experience of experts determine if “out and in” or subjective and objective are the same.
Everything with sensorial equipment, eyes, ears, nose, etc., in short, a brain, can only detect a tiny portion of reality. Before microscopes, telescopes, etc. were invented, our senses made contact with very little of reality and still do.
We only ‘see’ a small share (colors) of the wavelengths in the whole electromagnetic spectrum and hear very little with our ears. We still don’t know what’s beyond the furthest seeable galaxy.
We peer further than ever before in every direction and never reach an end.
Conscious?
The best we can do is what our logical brains/minds allow. There’s a lot more to reality, and we’ll have to wait for scientific minds and instruments to penetrate the illusion we call reality.
On another note, perhaps we should ask what we mean by “Alive” instead of “consciousness” or “awareness.”
Where is the line between “alive” and “dead?” Or “eternal” and “temporal?”
Mitchell
The fact that we cannot answer the final question in your comment is part of why I say that consciousness is sensing, and everything senses.
rawgodCan the photon refuse to react? That would definitely display consciousness. Just because it does react is meaningless to me if it always reacts the same way under the same circumstance — like a well-oiled machine. We know machines are not conscious.
You ask, what is life? Does a thing come into being, change itself in some way, and then cease to be after some period of time? I cannot say what life is, but to the best of my knowledge, all living things display those three elements—birth, growth, and death.
Of course, this begs the question: Are bacteria and viruses living? They certainly reproduce themselves by splitting into exact duplicates, which could be considered an act of birth, but it is for better and wiser people than I to say if they actually change or grow in some way.
Or do they do these things because their nature forces them to act in one and only one way? (In other words, I don’t know if what they have is life or just some kind of predetermined existence.
I can and have argued both sides. So again, do they have a choice in their actions?) The ability to act or not act under equal circumstances sounds like some kind of consciousness.
Then, we have to consider anthropomorphism. Do we only see life where we can see similarities to our own lives? Is a planet alive? Is an airless blob of matter floating through space alive?
Anyway, to summarize, in my little mind, anything that comes into being grows or changes by internal processes, and at some point, be it microseconds or billions of years, dies or ceases to exist, then that constitutes life of some kind. And if nothing else, life contains the possibility of consciousness, even if we cannot see it.
Conscious?
Mitchell
Are your criteria met by a fire? A river? A meteor? A star? A cloud? An odor? A galaxy? A mountain?
rawgodScience has not taken us there yet, so I cannot comment in the way you are asking me to. When I considered the planet, the earth represented all these other things. There are things we do not know.
So, maybe I must adjust my criteria somewhat. I would expect that in order to be born or somehow created, there must be a continuation process, as in having a parent or parents.
As far as we know, none of your items are continuations of previous beings, but I cannot totally rule them out because I simply do not know.
That is part of “my” anthropomorphism problem. I cannot see a continuation process, but that does not mean it isn’t there.
But for argument’s sake, none are “life as we know it.” A cooling chunk of lava does not make a live rock. The rock cannot change itself; it can only change through the actions of outside forces.
But to go in a different direction, are the cells in our bodies conscious? I would say yes; each cell fits the birth, change, and death process. In fact, I would go so far as to theorize the possibility of our own consciousness being a group of cellular consciousnesses working together as a collective. I know that a gut feeling is more often right than an idea born in my head.
My body has often saved me from harm by warning me with a strong feeling I cannot explain except by such a collective consciousness.
So far, you have offered me no reason to change my mind that my pseudo-definition of life is wrong. Can you respond in such a way as to agree or disagree, or even provide a maybe?
What are your personal thoughts about life and consciousness? We are at the table of discussion. It is time for “your” response, not anyone else’s. You must have your own ideas…
Mitchell of the p
I don’t know how to define life. No one does. That is the whole point of this discussion. My definition of consciousness is “sensing, and everything senses, so to some degree, everything is conscious.”
It’s a “hard problem” because we insist on anthropomorphizing a word that has nothing to do with life but rather to do with existence.
Conscious?
rawgodBy sensing, do you mean “with the senses,” “being aware of,” or “reacting to”? Or some combination of these ways of sensing?
Trees sense danger coming and react to save themselves—I would call this a form of consciousness.
But I find the sensing concept “as I understand it” too general. Life is more specific. I think life requires a set of characteristics, for want of a better word.
Life may not require consciousness, but to me, it requires the possibility of consciousness. I would never consider a rock conscious of anything. But then, maybe our definitions of consciousness are different.
Mitchell
Your final sentence hits the mark. “Consciousness” is a semantic question, not a physical one. In your mind, only life can be “conscious,” though you can’t define life, either.
“Consciousness” is a “hard problem” because it has different definitions, depending on the speaker. Consider the opposite of “conscious”, “unconscious.”
Is a sleeping person or a comatose person conscious? A sleeping person’s body senses and reacts to its environment. It senses the ambient temperature and adjusts accordingly.
It senses loud sounds and wakes up. It senses a hard touch and wakes up. It senses food in its digestive tract and digests it. It senses pain.
So, is a sleeping person conscious? Your answer depends only on YOUR DEFINITION of “conscious,” and is not THE DEFINITION.
Conscious?
I see you have evolved in your struggle to understand. Now, you believe life requires the possibility of consciousness.
I have no idea what that means, but it is your unique definition. Others have different definitions.
A rock is made of chemicals, and life evolved from chemicals, so does a rock have the same possibility of consciousness as its constituent chemicals?
Human sperm begin with spermatogonia: These are the initial germ cells that divide and differentiate into sperm.
Is a germ cell conscious? Is the resultant sperm conscious?
Is an egg conscious? The sperm and egg both sense their environment and react to it. When you put them together, they form a zygote.
Is a zygote conscious? As a zygote develops it becomes a blastocyst. Is a blastocyst conscious?
As the blastocyst implants in the uterus, it forms an embryo and, after that, a fetus. Is an embryo conscious? Is a fetus conscious?
At some point, a baby is born. Is a baby conscious?
Are any or all of the above conscious? When does consciousness begin? You can define consciousness according to your wishes, and that will give you YOUR answer, but not THE answer.
If spermatogonia are not conscious, when does consciousness begin? If they are conscious, then tell me why a rock is not conscious. What are your criteria for consciousness?
Conscious?
You now have arrived at “the hard problem” that has bedeviled philosophers for centuries — all because it’s not a physical question but a semantic question.
Bluestreak cleaner wrasse are small, territorial fish that aggressively fend off intruders. But when they have access to a mirror, the fish size themselves up before deciding whether or not to fight.
About the size of a human finger, bluestreak cleaner wrasse are tiny fish that set up “cleaning stations” on the reefs and wait for other fish to arrive so they can eat the parasites off their bodies.
They inspect up to 2,000 fish each day.
They also have good memories and can recognize more than 100 different “clients.”
Scientists already knew bluestreak cleaner wrasse were savvy creatures. In 2018, they became the first fish to pass what’s known as the mirror test, an experiment used to gauge self-awareness by assessing whether or not an animal recognizes its own reflection.
Other creatures that have passed the mirror test include bottlenose dolphins, chimpanzees, and Asian elephants.
Last year, researchers also showed that Bluestreak cleaner wrasse could recognize themselves in photos after looking at their reflection in a mirror.
Scientists wanted to explore the bluestreak cleaner wrasse’s self-awareness even deeper, so they set up a series of new laboratory experiments. They shared their findings in a new paper published in Scientific Reports this week.
Researchers placed a Bluestreak cleaner wrasse inside a clear fish tank. Then, they held photos against the glass showing Bluestreak cleaner wrasses of varying sizes—some 10 percent larger than the fish in the tank and some 10 percent smaller.
Conscious?
No matter which photo the scientists showed, the wrasse inside the tank tried to attack it.
Next, the team repeated the same experiment but added a mirror to the tank. The fish checked out their own reflection before deciding whether to fight—and they would only battle photos of smaller intruders, not larger ones.
To scientists, this suggests that bluestreak cleaner wrasse are capable of understanding their own body size, as well as how their body size stacks up against a rival.
“This was unexpected because we had an image that this fish always shows aggression against rivals, regardless of size,” says study co-author Taiga Kobayashi, a scientist at Osaka Metropolitan University in Japan, to New Scientist’s Corryn Wetzel.
There are no mirrors in the wild, so the findings suggest that wrasse adapted and learned to use the mirror as a self-preservation tool.
This discovery can “help clarify the similarities between human and non-human animal self-awareness and provide important clues to elucidate how self-awareness has evolved,” Kobayashi says.
Ants change the architecture of their nests when exposed to a pathogen. Tweaks to entrances, tunnels, and chambers may help prevent diseases from spreading.
Conscious?
If an infection takes hold in an ants’ nest, it could spell disaster for the whole colony. But some worker ants appear to have a workaround for that. When exposed to a pathogen, black garden ants tinkered with their nest layout in ways that could slow the spread of disease.
Several animals, including humans, guppies, and mice, are known to alter their behavior to avoid infections. However, researchers report that these are the first nonhuman animals shown to actively alter their surroundings in response to infections. The preprint has yet to be peer-reviewed.
Limiting social contact — through social distancing, for example — is thought to be an effective barrier against the spread of disease. Humans also alter what the researchers call spatial networks by, for instance, using parts of a building or city as quarantine zones or expanding urban spaces.
Nathalie Stroeymeyt and her team at the University of Bristol in England let 20 groups of 180 black garden ants excavate nests in soil-filled jars to see whether ants act similarly. The day after digging started, the researchers added 20 more worker ants to each jar, with half of the jars receiving groups infected with a fungal pathogen.
Over the next six days, the researchers used video to monitor the ants’ behavior and micro-CT scans to study the evolution of their nests.
Conscious?
Ant colonies exposed to the pathogen dug nests faster. Initially, they made more tunnels than healthy colonies, and after six days, they made several structural modifications, including spacing entrances 0.62 centimeters farther apart on average.
The exposed colonies also placed chambers — which house colony resources such as queens, their brood, and food — in less central locations.
Ants infected with the fungus spent more time at the surface than their coworkers, which the study suggests is probably a form of self-isolation.
The team then used spatial network analysis and disease transmission simulations to see if the changes would have any noticeable impact on how disease spread in the nests.
Using the designs crafted by the exposed and unexposed colonies, the team simulated what would happen if a pathogen was introduced. Ant colonies in the disease-resistant redesigns would have a significantly lower fungal load—and fewer lethal doses—than those in nests built without any previous exposure to disease, the team found.
Sebastian Stockmaier, a behavioral disease ecologist at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, says social insects like ants, bees, and termites have evolved a range of colony-level defenses to manage diseases effectively, and large-scale outbreaks are rare.
Group living is generally thought to increase the risk of disease, and this threat is particularly pronounced in social insects because of their low genetic diversity and frequent social interactions, which help disease to spread.
Because of this, when faced with disease, “their strategies are typically targeted at protecting the group as a whole, rather than focusing on the individual,” says Stockmaier.
What if everything in our world has a soul and mind? What if every desk, chair, and potted plant has a conscious stream of thoughts? That’s the basic idea behind Panpsychism, a theory first put forward in the late 16th century by Francesco Patrizi.
I should mention that Panpsychism speaks of “soul and mind,” i.e. anthropomorphism, which is its weakness. No one can define a soul or prove its existence.
To understand why this theory is regaining popularity, we must examine one of the most difficult conundrums human scientists have ever faced: where consciousness comes from.
Scientists have been trying to solve this hard problem for over a hundred years, and while developments in neuroscience, psychology, and quantum physics have come far, we still don’t have a definitive answer.
It’s a “hard problem” because of the attempts at an anthropomorphic link to life, soul, mind, thoughts, etc.
Conscious?
The argument is regaining momentum, though, thanks in part to the work of Italian neuroscientist and psychiatrist Giulio Tononi, who proposed the idea that widespread consciousness exists even in the simplest systems.
Tononi and American neuroscientist Christof Koch argued that consciousness will follow where there are organized lumps of matter. Some even believe that the stars may be conscious.
Yes, stars are “conscious,” but what does he mean by conscious. If he means “having a soul,” he cannot be taken seriously.
But if he means sensing and responding, as I do, then, of course, stars do sense inputs and respond to them.
This basic idea seems to suggest that grouped lumps of matter, like the very chair you’re sitting in , may have a stream of consciousness.
Of course, not everyone agrees with this. Many still take the stance that this is just an attempt to grasp at straws, if you will, in a bid to understand consciousness and how it comes to be.
What is a “stream of consciousness”? It sounds like falling back on the anthropomorphic again, but the problem cannot be solved by that path.
The main idea behind Panpsychism seems to rely on the belief that if brains are not required for consciousness, then anything can be conscious of its existence, and thus, everything has different experiences.
Almost, but still not there. Brains are not required for consciousness, and yes, anything can be conscious. But the author adds three words –“of its existence” — that ruin everything. Those three words imply thought, and while a star is conscious in that it senses and reacts to what it senses, the notion of thinking about its existenceis a step too far.Conscious?
But there are more than just believers and unbelievers here. Some actually believe that consciousness is all an illusion, which raises even more questions.
Consciousness is not an illusion if it is defined as sensing and reacting. By not having an agreed-upon definition of the central word, scientists have made the hard problem an impossible problem.
Keith Frankish, an honorary professor of philosophy at the University of Sheffield, told Popular Mechanics that he believes consciousness is just an illusion of our own minds.
Of course, whether or not the very stars are conscious has yet to be proven.
We’re still far from understanding the brain and how it correlates to different things in our world.
Frankish is stuck because he doesn’t know how to define consciousness, so he can’t locate it.
This is still an area of science that draws a lot of big question marks from scientists. All you can really say for sure is what you believe. Are you conscious? Or is consciousness just an illusion that your brain has conjured up? It is undoubtedly an exciting thought.
It’s not an exciting thought. It’s a self-defeating thought. How will you draw the map if you don’t know where you’re going?
Conscious?
Other suggested readings:
What if the Universe is conscious? An article suggests that since the human brain looks like the structure of the universe, the universe might be alive.
This is a ridiculous notion, especially when you have no definition of “alive“ or “consciousness,” and the photo looks like a paint splatter.
But I can say with assurance that plants are conscious, meaning they sense their surroundings. Everything does, with the only difference being how much sensing they do and what they do about it.
Debunking a myth: plant consciousness The author says, “Plants have not been shown to perform the proactive, anticipatory behaviors associated with consciousness, but only to sense and follow stimulus trails reactively.
“Consciousness is a difficult topic, and its constructs and definition are much debated. Both we and the proponents of plant consciousness focus on the most basic type, phenomenal or primary consciousness. Primary consciousness means having experiences or feelings, no matter how faint or fleeting.”
Everything possesses “experiences,” leading the author to use many words to reach this conclusion: Consciousness is feelings. In short, he has fallen into the anthropomorphizing trap.
The correct definition of consciousness is sensingness, i.e., the ability to sense. Since everything senses its environment, consciousness is in everything, with the only difference being the amount of sensing and what is done in reaction to the sensing.
A human takes action, and so do a bee and a tree. A rock erodes. Water reacts by boiling, evaporating, or forming ice. Everything is conscious. This makes the so-called “hard problem” simple. There is no need to anthropomorphize. Just evaluate the input and the reaction, and you have the amount of consciousness.
Finding that “another dimension is like someone asking you, “How would you add 2+2? And your answer was, “Begin by finding the ninth root of a 5,000-digit number.”
Consciousness very simply is sensing and reaction. Nothing more. No multi-dimensional, other-worldly answers are needed. Everything senses, Everything reacts. Just quantify it, and I’ll tell you how conscious it is.
The question was whether they were conscious or self-aware. Can something, like a tree, be conscious but not self-aware?
I am quite sure that they are conscious. Everything is conscious, so self-awareness is irrelevant. But the author equates the two. This casual definition of terms confuses not only the public but also scientists.
The argument is regaining momentum, though, thanks in part to the work of Italian neuroscientist and psychiatrist Giulio Tononi, who proposed the idea that there is widespread consciousness even found in the simplest of systems. Tononi and American neuroscientist Christof Koch argued that consciousness will follow where there are organized lumps of matter. Some even believe that the stars may be conscious.
“Stars may be conscious.” Why does that sound ridiculous? Because you have anthropomorphized the word “conscious,” and since a star is not an animal, much less a human, how could it be conscious? That is the source of misunderstanding.
This basic idea, then, seems to suggest that grouped lumps of matter, like the very chair you’re sitting in right now, may have a stream of consciousness.
The words “stream of consciousness” imply some sort of thought process. However, a thought process is not the same or even necessary for consciousness. I very much doubt whether a tree has a stream of consciousness, but it most assuredly is conscious. It senses its surroundings and acts on them.
Of course, not everyone agrees with this. Many still take the stance that this is just an attempt to grasp at straws, if you will, in a bid to understand consciousness and how it comes to be.
After millennia, grasping at straws seems better than continuing to grasp without a solution.
The main idea behind Panpsychism seems to rely on the belief that if brains are not required for consciousness, then anything can be conscious of its existence, and thus, everything has different experiences.
The self-referential “conscious of its existence” is not the same as, or necessary for, “consciousness.” A newborn human may not be conscious of its existence but it surely is conscious.
But there are more than just the believers and unbelievers here. There are actually some who believe that consciousness is all an illusion, which raises even more questions.
The only illusion is the belief that consciousness requires something called intelligence, a brain, or thought processes when even the nucleus of an atom senses energy inputs and makes adjustments accordingly. It is conscious.
Keith Frankish, an honorary professor of philosophy at the University of Sheffield, told Popular Mechanics that he believes that consciousness is just an illusion of our own minds. Whether or not the very stars are conscious has yet to be proven, of course.
Consciousness is absolutely proven when the correct definition is used: Sensing inputs and responding to them—as all things do—is consciousness, with the only variables being what inputs and what actions.
And we’re still a long way from understanding the brain and how it correlates to different things within our world.
And there it is, the anthropomorphic belief that consciousness is a brain thing.
This is still an area of science that draws a lot of big question marks from scientists. All you can really say for sure is what you believe. Are you conscious? Or is consciousness just an illusion that your brain has conjured up? It is certainly an interesting thought.
It has been shown that bees, ants, trees, and bacteria learn and respond to stimuli in ways that resemble human thought. But even that is not necessary to prove consciousness.
SUMMARY
In science, the term “hard problem” denotes a challenge that is exceptionally difficult to resolve. The “hard problem of consciousness,” coined by philosopher David Chalmers, is one of the most notable examples. It pertains to why and how the brain’s physical processes result in subjective experiences.
Thus, Chalmers’s definition of consciousness inevitably results in anthropomorphism. He has arbitrarily determined that consciousness necessitates brains, emotions, subjective experiences, thoughts, and other human-like attributes.
While he is entitled to his definition, it becomes problematic when attempting to discern the consciousness of “lower” animals. The issue he’ll face is determining the consciousness of “Artificial Intelligence,” a question that now stands before us.
Instead of delving into the mysticism of quantum emotions, I favor a more direct and scientifically useful definition of consciousness: the process of receiving inputs and producing responses, with the measure being their quantity and quality.
How?
Here’s an example:
Measure the volume/quality of inputs and particularly, the volume/quality of responses. Although there will be much debate about how to measure them, and what a great effort it would take, they clearly are capable of being measured.
Consider the rock. Measure of all the inputs: Temperature, motion, moisture, impacts, wind. Then measure the responses: Erosion, cracking, rolling.Consider a plant, a mouse and a drugged human, and a fully awake human.
Measure their much more complex in puts, and vastly more complex responses.
It’s not easy, but given instructions, AI could do it, if not now, then sometime in the future.
Thus, rather than asking the often unanswerable question, “Is it conscious?” we might consider asking, “To what degree is it conscious, and why?” These are two more fruitful avenues of inquiry.
We don’t need to debate whether the ant is conscious (it is), but how conscious is it and why? What are the inputs, and what are the responses?
We can forgo fruitless debates about ant emotions, which may or may not exist, and if they do, may be nothing like human emotions.
Instead, we can focus more productively on the physical evidence we can measure.
We might even devise an answer to a question that has eluded philosophers: “What is the measure of consciousness?”
#Monetary Sovereignty - Mitchell 