What constitutes evidence of consciousness?

As I said elsewhere, I'm not aware of any macro-characteristics that cannot be reduced to micro properties. We aren't dumbfounded by the existence of liquidity, solidity, flight, pressure, etc., etc. When we break things down, big structures to smaller structures, eventually to particles - or processes to sub-processes, eventually to the particles involved in the smallest processes - we understand how the properties of the particles are the foundation of the specific macro we're looking at.

I don't have reason to think the macro-processes of consciousness is [I]not[/I] reducible in the same way. But we can't figure out what the responsible micro-property is. I don't see how any combination of physical processes become aware of anything, much less their own awareness, or have subjective experience, due to the various properties of particles and fundamental forces. The existence and function of the physical processes can be explained, but how it is that they are something other than physical processes can't. Feedback loops are physical processes, and we can explain any of them with physics. We have created countless feedback loops in our inventions. There's no reason to think adding more of them to any system would make the system other than a physical system simply because it now has more physical feedback loops.

We cannot detect consciousness with our senses, or the devices we've built to enhance our senses. We can detect parts of the brain that correspond to various aspects of consciousness and various types of thinking. But we don't look at those brain scans and see consciousness. No physicist would look at them and say, "What the heck is this??? Above and beyond the physics taking place, something else is going on!"

Yet the consciousness is there. It is not detectable or explainable by the particles and forces we can perceive with our senses or devices. So it's possible there are things our senses and devices can't perceive that are the foundation of this imperceptible macro-characteristic. It makes sense that we can't perceive the micro-properties.

I know that it's almost impossible to pin down a definition, but my current one I think is quite simple: The most fundamental unit of consciousness is a reflection of the outside from on the inside, and vice versa. There is an " in here" and an "out there".

I do not have any idea of where evidence could be found though.

Quoting bert1

We're familiar with TV crime dramas. We have a suspect we think may have done a murder. Why do we think that? We have some evidence. And we are seeking more evidence in order to obtain more certainty on the matter. So what might we look for? In the case of this crime, we might look for:

- a dead body
- proximity of people to that body in time and space
- a report on the cause of death
- fingerprints on the crime scene
- alibis
- motive
- opportunity
- DNA

...etc. All the usual stuff.

Hmm. Is a TV crime drama a useful analogy? These are often written and directed to highlight certain things about the suspects and manipulate an audience - false leads, clues and behaviours specifically filmed and constructed to deceive and take you in a direction. This is not like ordinary evidence, it is contrived to elicit a response. Maybe true crime would be a better analogy? Or maybe crime is not useful at all. Perhaps what you are saying can be made more simple - what are the key indicators of consciousness? How do we determine if something has consciousness?

Quoting Patterner

So it's possible there are things our senses and devices can't perceive that are the foundation of this imperceptible macro-characteristic. It makes sense that we can't perceive the micro-properties.

Righto, OK, thanks. That sounds like you are open to the possibility of panpsychism. Is that right? It also sounds like you might be a mysterian like McGinn, perhaps: the idea that we can never know exactly how physical processes cause or constitute consciousness, while nevertheless accepting that they do.

Quoting Tom Storm

Hmm. Is a TV crime drama a useful analogy? These are written and directed to highlight certain things about the suspects and manipulate an audience - false leads, clues and behaviours specifically filmed and constructed to take you in a direction. This is not like ordinary evidence, in is contrived to elicit a response. Maybe true crime would be a better analogy? Or maybe crime is not useful at all. Perhaps what you are saying can be made more simple - what are the key indicators of consciousness? How do we determine if something has consciousness?

Well yes, I did wonder if my framing was not helpful. I gave it because I was specifically asked for "evidence". So I drew the first analogy that came to mind. Evidence appears in other contexts, but crime is the most obvious one. I shouldn't have framed it in terms of fiction, I should have stuck to real life to avoid your criticism about contrivance. True crime would be better, and that's really what I meant.

Broadly I guess it's a reframing of the problem of other minds, and possibly the problem of one's own mind as well.

I was going to write a different OP titled something like "Is there any theory-neutral evidence for consciousness?" but I thought that would narrow the discussion too much. But perhaps it would have been better. With murder, we have a fairly clear concept of what a murder is. That concept then determines what we admit as evidence. So, a bloody dagger found in a bush near a dead body may very well be the kind of thing that would be evidence of a murder. But an observation of a wobble of a star wouldn't be evidence of murder at all. However the observation of the wobble of a star might well be evidence of a planetary orbit, and the dagger is totally irrelevant. So what we admit as evidence is determined by a whole load of definition and theory. In the case of murder, a statutory definition (or common law depending on jurisdiction). For the wobbly star, there's a whole load of background theory that makes the wobble relevant. For example, we need a concept of gravity, and circular orbits, and mass, and the sky as having depth and not like a 2D firmament, etc etc.

But with consciousness, what do we use to determine what to admit as evidence? Do we look in dictionaries for definitions? Well, I think we should. That will help. But people typically don't do that, and that's really weird. They think definitions are up for grabs. They're not really, not unless we want to invent a technical term. And some definitions, like the Glasgow Coma Scale (thanks to @Banno) make the job really easy. It tells us exactly what to look for. But of course that doesn't capture the sense of 'consciousness' implicated in debates about subjective phenomenal experience. There are dictionary definitions of phenomenal consciousness, e.g.:

"the fact of awareness by the mind of itself and the world"

...there's lots of variations on the theme. And they tend to heavily employ synonyms, which is interestingly uninformative. Such definitions don't really help much when trying to decide what to admit as evidence. So with phenomenal consciousness, do we need to move beyond definition to theory to know what to admit as evidence? I rather think we do. Taking panpsychism for example, my view is that matter does what it does because of how it feels. Regardless of the truth of that, it does provide a criterion for determining what to admit as evidence. Is that stone conscious? Well, is it doing something? Yes, it's energy-matter behaving in a rockish-way. That action is evidence of its consciousness, but only if we assume panpsychism first! But that's no good is it? When @apokrisis and @180 Proof ask me for evidence, what they want is evidence that doesn't pre-suppose panpsychism! They want a reason to believe it that doesn't pre-suppose it. Similarly, if we look for the presence of brains as evidence of consciousness, that assumes a theory, namely that consciousness has something critical to do with brains. So that led me to try to think of evidence that doesn't pre-suppose any theory at all. And the only single piece of evidence that did not imply a whole load of argument and theory, was the fact that I am conscious. I know I am, regardless of any theoretical commitments (and I know some will question even that).

So, with regard to a rock and another human being, is there any theory neutral evidence to be had?

@fdrake
@Michael

Quoting Watchmaker

I know that it's almost impossible to pin down a definition, but my current one I think is quite simple: The most fundamental unit of consciousness is a reflection of the outside from on the inside, and vice versa. There is an " in here" and an "out there".

I quite like that. Is it a definition or a theory? if you were a lexicographer, would you consider writing that in your dictionary you are authoring?

Quoting bert1

As a panpsychist I have been asked a few times for evidence of consciousness in rocks and other such objects.

Not being a panpsychist, looking for consciousness in inanimate objects is not something I would normally do, but since you brought it up... It seems clear to me the idea of consciousness originated to refer to a human mental process. There have been lots of attempts to observe similar mental processes in other animals, with some success. What success there has been has come from comparing animals behavior with human behavior and inferring similar mental processes. How would that work with non-living entities? I don't know. It seems to me your job would be to show how what we recognize as consciousness in humans is also observable in rocks.

I think that's what's required - start by defining consciousness in humans and then show how that criteria is applicable elsewhere. To make that work, seems to me you have to either 1) show that rocks have mental processes or 2) show that consciousness in humans is not a mental process at all. If you can't do that, you should just come up with a different name for the process you're describing.

Quoting T Clark

Not being a panpsychist, looking for consciousness in inanimate objects is not something I would normally do, but since you brought it up... It seems clear to me the idea of consciousness originated to refer to a human mental process.

Maybe, but even that sentence is theory-laden. It's stipulating it's a process. And I'm doubtful that earliest thinkers about consciousness did necessarily restrict it to human beings. If we're going to start somewhere, I suspect it's not processes in human beings - that's a way down the road. The starting point is my awareness. If I wasn't aware I wouldn't even suspect other people of being guilty of it.

Quoting bert1

Maybe, but even that sentence is theory-laden. It's stipulating it's a process.

True.

Quoting bert1

If we're going to start somewhere, I suspect it's not processes in human beings - that's a way down the road. The starting point is my awareness.

That makes sense. Now I guess you're going to show us how what we experience as awareness can be observed in rocks.

Quoting bert1

I should have stuck to real life to avoid your criticism about contrivance. True crime would be better, and that's really what I meant.

:up:

Ture crime is fine, but as I said you are just asking what are the key indicators of consciousness. Not sure your enquiry requires much more elaboration than that.

Quoting bert1

I was going to write a different OP titled something like "Is there any theory-neutral evidence for consciousness?"

Can you give me an example of theory neutral evidence?

Quoting bert1

But with consciousness, what do we use to determine what to admit as evidence? Do we look in dictionaries for definitions? Well, I think we should. That will help. But people typically don't do that, and that's really weird.

I'm not sure what constitutes consciousness in human beings (except in a trivial sense) let alone inanimate objects.

Quoting T Clark

To make that work, seems to me you have to either 1) show that rocks have mental processes or 2) show that consciousness in humans is not a mental process at all. If you can't do that, you should just come up with a different name for the process you're describing.

Yes, that's kind of where I was going to go. Possibly stuck between Rupert Sheldrake and Daniel Dennett. :wink:

Quoting T Clark

Now I guess you're going to show us how what we experience as awareness can be observed in rocks.

Unfortunately not! If it were that easy the philosophy of mind would be over long ago. But we (perhaps) infer consciousness in other humans from their behaviour. But rocks also exhibit behaviour. It's not clear to me why the behaviour of rocks should not also evidence of consciousness.

Quoting bert1

What are we going to look for as evidence of consciousness in (a) a rock, and (b) a human?

Well generally speaking...

We could look for some common denominator or set thereof between humans and rocks, such that it is solely by virtue of having those commonalities(whatever they may be) that both rocks and humans can be rightly called "conscious entities".

In short, we would need to arrive at a minimum criterion for what counts as consciousness, such that any and all candidates under consideration which meet that minimum criterion could be sensibly called "conscious"...

Quoting bert1

...with consciousness, what do we use to determine what to admit as evidence?

Well, we could always start by carefully analyzing known conscious creatures as a means for determining what it is about them, specifically, that causes them to have meaningful conscious experiences. Makes perfect sense to me for us to start by looking at ourselves...

Then we could also look at examples of humans who are still alive, but not conscious in the sense we're discussing here, and take note of the differences.

The evidence clearly shows that severe brain trauma affects/effects human consciousness. If it's severe enough, there's evidence(or lack thereof) that clearly leads us to conclude that the subject under consideration no longer has the same sort of meaningful conscious experiences that we typically generalize under "consciousness".

The obvious take away is that - at the very least - there's certain biological machinery required.

The biological machinery includes a complex central nervous system, replete with sensory organs and a brain. That much is clear because when those components are damaged enough, the result is a human that is alive, but no longer capable of having meaningful conscious experiences that they once did.

The conclusion regarding consciousness in humans and rocks...

Some humans no longer have what it takes, and rocks never did.

To answer the question posed in the thread title directly...

What constitutes evidence of consciousness?

(Very roughly)The ability to draw meaningful correlations between different things.

I'd guess the following style of inference would work for it:

"What behaviours must an entity exhibit that renders consciousness the most plausible explanation for them?"

That's an ampliative inference - fallible, non-deductive. Sometimes called inference to the best explanation.

The inference would need to be fallible because behaviour is only a proxy of internal constitution, even if behavioural observations were error free. The inference would need to be non-deductive as a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for a being to be conscious is not forthcoming; the concept is likely a cluster concept (also see here). Further, no behaviour strictly entails any internal state absent a background theory which fills in the gaps.

If we'd need to infer something is conscious, I can thus think of no better criterion than its behaviour compelling us to treat it as if it were conscious over a suitably large subset of concepts in the consciousness cluster.

1 ) Capability of exhibiting an "internal state", there needs to be some part of its material constitution that has representational capacity. A computer has transistors that store bits which symbolically relate to patterns, which form content of that state. Patterns of neuronal firing can take the same role.
2 ) Capability of modifying the material bearers of its "internal state" in response to environmental changes. A computer would need a sensor of some kind inputting numbers. A cell would need a chemoreceptor. This means capability of recognising a difference, storing it, and responding to it (being the site of a difference that makes a difference).
3 ) Individuation from an environment; the thing must work as a system unto itself without changing its essential constitution. EG, if you remove a water droplet from a cloud, it could be rain or steam - so this would fail. If you remove a chimp from a tree, it remains a chimp.
4 ) Homeostasis. The system should regulate itself. Bonus points if the system regulates itself in a manner that the internal state informs.
4 ) Habit of reporting its internal state. A computer read out, a human saying "I feel good today"
6 ) Exploratory habits. A bee's foraging, a human's eye movements. The thing should be seeking out causal nexuses in its environment - flowers, movements.
7 ) Expressions - predictable responses to stimuli that are identifiable with internal states ("owwie" for pain eg, an error message when you run syntactically incorrect code).
8 ) A habit of the experimenters taking an intentional stance toward the thing's behaviour would help.

Hopefully this is indicative of methodology and method. Just a hot take.

Reply to fdrake Sounds good.

Reply to bert1 How do you think these 8 points sit with identifying panpsychism?

Quoting Tom Storm

How do you think these 8 points sit with identifying panpsychism?

Oh it's a disaster for panpsychism!

Great post from fdrake though, many thanks.

Arguments about panpsychism can easily devolve into mere word play. If one introduces behavior as a kind of corollary of consciousness one must contend with the notion that things like glass possess behaviors when acted upon by various forces and environments: A behavior of glass is it melts at high temperatures. When I pick up a rock and drop it, it falls as behavior when subjected to gravity. If I heat the rock it may crack at a certain temperature - according to its patterns of behavior.

Quoting bert1

So it's possible there are things our senses and devices can't perceive that are the foundation of this imperceptible macro-characteristic. It makes sense that we can't perceive the micro-properties.
— Patterner

Righto, OK, thanks. That sounds like you are open to the possibility of panpsychism. Is that right? It also sounds like you might be a mysterian like McGinn, perhaps: the idea that we can never know exactly how physical processes cause or constitute consciousness, while nevertheless accepting that they do.

I am definitely open to panpsychism. Although, if I understand the terms, I would say panprotopsychism. I don’t think every particle is conscious. But I think it’s possible that proto-consciousness is a property of every particle.

I will have to Google mysterian and McGinn.

I am currently addressing this here https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/14370/subjective-and-objective-consciousness if you want to join in. I don't want to spread the same topic to multiple threads out of respect to the forum.

It's an insolvable problem. The only thing we can be sure of is our own consciousness. For the longest time, it was also a trivial problem, but now we have Ai's with human level abilities, and it's not so trivial anymore.

Reply to bert1
I googled. No, I am not a mysterian. You never know.

Wikipedia says Thomas Nagel is a mysterian, but says citation needed. I'd like to see that citation.

I had a chat with Bing AI, asking if a rock has consciousness. It gave a well-reasoned reply, but ended by asking me if I believed a rock has consciousness. Wise ass robot.

Reply to jgill :lol:

Quoting creativesoul

In short, we would need to arrive at a minimum criterion for what counts as consciousness, such that any and all candidates under consideration which meet that minimum criterion could be sensibly called "conscious"...

Right. That's pretty much the conclusion I came to, I think. So we need a definition, or theory, to guide what we are looking for. And then the stuff we find when looking constitutes evidence. Is that right?

So to take your "The ability to draw meaningful correlations between different things," I think is your definition/concept/theory of consciousness. And then if something, say ChatGPT, appears to draw meaningful correlations between things, then that is evidence that it is conscious. Am I following you?

Thank you for trying to tackle the question directly.

Quoting bert1

I quite like that. Is it a definition or a theory? if you were a lexicographer, would you consider writing that in your dictionary you are authoring?

Well, it's a definition I had yesterday. It may not be suitable for a dictionary, but perhaps add it to a daily definition of consciousness app for phones.

Quoting fdrake

I'd guess the following style of inference would work for it:

"What behaviours must an entity exhibit that renders consciousness the most plausible explanation for them?"

That's an ampliative inference - fallible, non-deductive. Sometimes called inference to the best explanation.

Yes, I agree in general. However I wasn't asked for arguments, I was asked for evidence, and that's what I want this thread to be primarily about. And it may be a short thread as a result. Regarding the substantive issues about the nature of consciousness, arguments and analysis do a hell of a lot more useful work than evidence does.

Anyway, from the responses I'm not sure there's much of an issue. It does seem like we need definitions and theories in order to determine what we admit as evidence.

Quoting Tom Storm

Can you give me an example of theory neutral evidence?

I'm not sure I can. There may be no such thing, unless it is the world at large, which any true theory must be consistent with. Thoughts on this are very welcome. The one bit of theory neutral-evidence I can think of is exactly related to consciousness, and that is the insight that I am conscious. That thought has minimal content. The more complex the observation, or perception about the world, the more theory-laden it becomes, perhaps. For example, observing condensation on a window is theory-laden. Even observing water on the inside of a window is theory-laden - you're assuming it's water.

So perhaps the punchline here is: we should allow theory-laden evidence. It's no problem. So if I say the evidence for panpsychism is anything at all happening, that's OK. I haven't done an illegal move. But that evidence is not at all persuasive, as it is prima-facie consistent with non-panpsychist views as well. What a panpsychist needs is not evidence of panpsychism, there's an overabundance of that, but a priori reasons for taking panpsychism seriously as a theoretical competitor with more popular theories that also purport to explain the same body of evidence. And arguments are indeed what panpsychists offer. When justifying their view panpsychists make arguments, they don't say "There is no matter that isn't doing something, therefore panpsychism." They make arguments such as the argument from the non-vagueness of consciousness, or the argument from parsimony, or the argument from idealism, or whatever.

Quoting fdrake

Further, no behaviour strictly entails any internal state absent a background theory which fills in the gaps.

Yes, that seems right.

Quoting fdrake

the concept is likely a cluster concept (also see here).

I strongly disagree with this! Or at least, if this is true, we as philosophers of consciousness are fucked. Cluster-fucked you might say. It seems clear to me that consciousness is not a single cluster concept, but one word with several distinct meanings. A topic in itself perhaps and well worth a thread if someone can be arsed.

Quoting bert1

I strongly disagree with this! Or at least, if this is true, we as philosophers of consciousness are fucked. Cluster-fucked you might say. It seems clear to me that consciousness is not a single cluster concept, but one word with several distinct meanings. A topic in itself perhaps and well worth a thread if someone can be arsed.

Interested in why you strongly disagree with consciousness being a cluster concept. There seem to be a lot of types of conscious states that have radically different qualities, but we'd call all of them conscious. That to me connotes approaching the idea as a fuzzy unity of overlapping things, which can be disambiguated as needed based on the context. In my mind that's a cluster concept.

Have you checked out any of Thomas Metzinger's work on classifying awarenesses (also @Wayfarer , you'd probably get something out of his "neuro-Buddhism")

Quoting bert1

Thoughts on this are very welcome. The one bit of theory neutral-evidence I can think of is exactly related to consciousness, and that is the insight that I am conscious.

I generally suspect that all our ideas exist in a web of relationships alongside other ideas, so everything is what it is by virtue of its relation to everything else. You can't isolate anything in its 'purity' because it exists entirely in those relationships.

I am not as confident as you in variations of 'I think therefore I am'. Do I know it is me doing the thinking? I've worked with many people who have schizophrenia, who experience thought insertion and voices. They are often not sure whose consciousness they are aware of. What are my thoughts? If pressed, the best I can say is there is thinking. I hope it's me. :wink: Common sense - which may be more useful than philosophy - tells me I am conscious. But so what?

Quoting T Clark

If we're going to start somewhere, I suspect it's not processes in human beings - that's a way down the road. The starting point is my awareness.
— bert1

That makes sense. Now I guess you're going to show us how what we experience as awareness can be observed in rocks.

What birds experience as flight cannot be observed in a rock. But the properties of subatomic particles that give rise to flight in birds are present in the subatomic particles that make up rocks. Centuries ago, people might’ve assumed rocks and birds are made of different things. We know better.

if the properties of subatomic particles we are aware of cannot explain consciousness, then perhaps unknown properties are present. And a rock is made up of the same subatomic particles that we are.

Quoting bert1

What are we going to look for as evidence of consciousness in (a) a rock, and (b) a human?

When we are looking for evidence for the existence of something --animate or inanimate-- we are looking for the presence of special characteristics attributed to that something, i.e. elements that would indicate the existence or occurrence of that something. E.g. in the case of a murder that you mentioned, such elements would be a dead body, fingerprints, etc. The case of consciousness, however, is much more complicated because here we have to deal with a concept, an abstract idea, compared to a much more concrete case, which is murder. Yet, in both cases, the characteristics, the elements we are to look for are part of the definition of the subject in question: what is murder and what is consciousness, resp/ly.
If we don’t know the meaning of them, looking for evidence about them has no meaning either, right?

So, since you have not offered such a definition --I believe you should-- I will have to assume at least a simple definition of consciousness, which is, a state and ability to perceive things in the immediate surroundings and --for human beings-- within ourselves. But let's ignore the second one, in order to make things simpler and more direct.

So, I know for myself that I am conscious because we I can perceive things in the environment. OK, but how do I know that the other person next to me is also conscious? First of all, what applies to me as far as consciousness is concerned, applies to that person too, since he (for brevity) is also a human being. But we can go further and observe that he reacts to the surroundings. To do that he must be able to perceive, that. is to be conscious.

This applies not only to humans but to every form of life, i.e. to life in general. Even plants can perceive. (Yes, they do! :smile:)

So, the evidence that we must look for regarding consciousness --i.e. whether something is conscious or not-- is signs of perception and by extension reactions to the environment.

Now, can we obtain such evidence, i.e. observe such signs in objects, like a rock? Can we establish that a rock perceives ans reacts to the environment?

I'm leaving the answer to you. :smile:

Reply to Alkis Piskas
Is consciousness more than the perception and response of an archaea, or the automatic door at the supermarket? Some will say not; that it is much more complex, due to many feedback loops, but is entirely mechanical.

Quoting Patterner

Is consciousness more than the perception and response of an archaea, or the automatic door at the supermarket? Some will say not; that it is much more complex, due to many feedback loops, but is entirely mechanical.

Consciousness is more than just perception --and much more complex, as you say-- but his is something outside this thread. Perception, IMO, is a very basic characteristic of it and using it is the best way to describe it for the purposes of most discussions in here.
And there are indeed kind of "feedback loops" as you say, more of which are --or at least seem-- automatic, mechanical. But these interactions are happening by and are due to the mind (esp. thinking). And there of course biological reactions to thoughts and vice versa. But the mind has also a regulator role. With it we can control these "feedback loops" to a greater or lesser degree. And this needs not to be mechanical. Free will is not something mechanical. Conscious and voluntary actions are not mechanical.

And, of course, consciousness is far from being something mechanical. To be mechanical, something must operate. Consciousness is only a witness, an observer of these reactions and the whole processes involving these reactions. Consciousness does not act. It does not even feel. It's just what we are perceiving and experiencing. We are aware of what is happening outside and inside us. That's all.

Reply to Alkis Piskas
I'm sorry, I don't understand. If we observe reactions to the surroundings, which also prove perception of the surroundings, how do we know there is consciousness, as opposed to the simple stimulus and response that we can find in any number of mechanical devices?

Quoting Patterner

f we observe reactions to the surroundings, which also prove perception of the surroundings, how do we know there is consciousness, as opposed to the simple stimulus and response that we can find in any number of mechanical devices?

Good question. I don't know! :grin:
But biologists know. Here's something interesting that I have brought in recently in another discussion, showing that even plants are endowed with the faculty of perception:

"Plants perceive the stimuli of the environment (rain, wind, cold, heat, attacks from herbivores or pathogens, and so on) and remember for a sufficiently long period, not these stimuli as such but rather the type of reaction they should have. This capacity is a precious asset enabling plants to produce a response adapted to all these stimuli and their fluctuations. If a plant perceives a stimulus to which it has previously been subjected, its response will be stronger."
(Sensory properties, memory and communication in the plant world)

The key word is "perception". There are things that work on a stimulus-response mechanism but they themsleves can't perceive and thus they have no consciousness. One of these our brain. Our brain does not percieve. It just receives and transmits signals. It is us --as living organisms-- who perceive. The brain only help us, e.g. to use our vision to see something. And we can only do that if we are conscious.

Quoting Patterner

What birds experience as flight cannot be observed in a rock. But the properties of subatomic particles that give rise to flight in birds are present in the subatomic particles that make up rocks. Centuries ago, people might’ve assumed rocks and birds are made of different things. We know better.

if the properties of subatomic particles we are aware of cannot explain consciousness, then perhaps unknown properties are present. And a rock is made up of the same subatomic particles that we are.

It seems like I'm always responding to you in particular, Patterner. I hope it doesn't seem like I'm picking on you. I guess you just say things in ways that get me thinking.

Anyway, a key difference between a bird and some rock we might suppose contains the same chemical elements in the same proportions as the bird, is the way those chemical elements are situated with respect to each other.

So it is not a matter of unknown physical properties making the difference. It is a matter of how the various elements are situated in molecule, how those molecules are situated in cells, how some cells are situated in muscles and brains, etc...

The difference in arrangement of the components makes a difference, and no new physics is needed to understand this.

Edit: I should have started with the fact that, how the subatomic particles are situated with respect to each other to form chemical elements is another part of the scientific picture, in order to address what you said.

Quoting bert1

Oh it's a disaster for panpsychism!

In a previous answer to one of my posts you wrote:

Quoting bert1

Not being a panpsychist, looking for consciousness in inanimate objects is not something I would normally do, but since you brought it up... It seems clear to me the idea of consciousness originated to refer to a human mental process.
— T Clark

Maybe, but even that sentence is theory-laden. It's stipulating it's a process. And I'm doubtful that earliest thinkers about consciousness did necessarily restrict it to human beings. If we're going to start somewhere, I suspect it's not processes in human beings - that's a way down the road. The starting point is my awareness.

As I replied to that comment, I think you were right. The only way you can sell panpsychism is to look at it from the starting point of your awareness. Reading your responses to other people's comments in subsequent posts, it seems like you haven't followed up on that insight. The comments you are responding to are "theory-laden," but you haven't really tried to sell the self-awareness aspect. Or did I miss something?

I'd like to hear you try to make a chain of inferences from your personal self-awareness to awareness in rocks.

As an afterthought - As I see it, panpsychism is a metaphysical concept. There is no way it can be tested empirically. It's more a way of thinking about things, a point of view, than it is a statement of fact. So... why would I do that? What value or insight do I get from thinking of consciousness the way you propose? This is a serious question, no irony intended.

Quoting wonderer1

It seems like I'm always responding to you in particular, Patterner. I hope it doesn't seem like I'm picking on you. I guess you just say things in ways that get me thinking.

:D No worries!

Quoting wonderer1

The difference in arrangement of the components makes a difference, and no new physics is needed to understand that.

I understand what you're saying, but I don't agree. It's fine when we're talking about a physical process like flight. Physical properties of particles can build physical structures; which can interact in physical ways with other physical structures; on and on - all giving us the physical process of flight. All of the components of a rock are not arranged correctly to give it flight.

The same can be said about the functions of our bodies and brains. Particles build structures. Retina, neurons, whatever the heck the current theory of how memories are stored is, muscles, etc. Photon hits retina, signal travels via optic nerve to brain, memories are triggered, responses geared toward safety and health come out on top after all pros and cons are weighed against each other, action potentials to bting about something safe and healthy are initiated, we move in whatever way came out on top. Stimulus and response.

All of that is physical. An incredibly complex web of physical things and processes, but physical. But it is accompanied by subjective experience and awareness. Why is that? All of the physical processes would take place without our awareness of, and feelings for, them, would they not? Photon would hit retinal, signal would travel up optic nerve, etc. If it’s all just physical interactions, they are going to happen, regardless of our awareness of them. So what point that awareness? Why should we have preferences and feelings about anything if they are going to play out as they do because they are just physical interactions?

But that's just an aside. My real problem is that physical processes don't feel happy or sad, and don't contemplate concepts. Those things happen because of our recognition of patterns in the physical processes. If it's just the laws of physics, then the laws of physics built the Great Wall of China and constructed computers, wrote The Malazan Book of the Fallen and the Heileger Dankgesang, and are planning a colony on Mars. Laws of physics don't do such things. Without consciousness, those things wouldn't exist. There's something not laws of physics at work. But how did it come to be?

When folk hereabouts think rocks conscious, evidence is extraneous.

Laugh and walk away.

Reply to Banno I think the same way about brain consciousness.

Quoting bert1

In short, we would need to arrive at a minimum criterion for what counts as consciousness, such that any and all candidates under consideration which meet that minimum criterion could be sensibly called "conscious"...
— creativesoul

...So we need a definition, or theory, to guide what we are looking for. And then the stuff we find when looking constitutes evidence. Is that right?

Yes, but I want to be on record as stating that it's a nuanced affirmation, to put it very mildly.

"Consciousness" is a concept/notion/idea/name/tool that, depending on the user, may or may not be being used in order to pick out something(s) to the exclusion of all else.

I would think that prior to looking for something one would need to be able to know what they're looking for. Consciousness, however, is a term that is fraught with all sorts of issues and confusion, not the least of which is the utter lack of clear and concise delineation/definition/identity. Hence, I tend to think it best if a slightly different tack is taken. It seems to me that consciousness is what we've historically attributed to creatures capable of having meaningful experience(s). This is one way of beginning to delineate the scope.

If all creatures capable of having meaningful experiences count as conscious creatures, then if we can glean knowledge regarding what counts as having meaningful experience, and more importantly, what it takes in order to have them, then we can glean knowledge about what it takes in order to be and or become a conscious creature in the relevant sense.

However, it becomes readily apparent that the entire project will hinge directly upon a bare minimum criterion regarding what exactly counts as having a meaningful experience.



Quoting bert1

So to take your "The ability to draw meaningful correlations between different things," I think is your definition/concept/theory of consciousness. And then if something, say ChatGPT, appears to draw meaningful correlations between things, then that is evidence that it is conscious. Am I following you?

Drawing meaningful correlations is not the same thing as appearing to. Yes, the ability to draw meaningful correlations between different things amounts to one step on the reductive ladder towards the bare minimum(irreducible) criterion regarding what it takes to have meaningful experiences, and thus what it takes in order to be conscious in the relevant sense of the term.

There's a bit more reduction to go...


Quoting bert1

Thank you for trying to tackle the question directly.

You're welcome, but there's no need to thank me. I'm just like that.

Quoting fdrake

Interested in why you strongly disagree with consciousness being a cluster concept. There seem to be a lot of types of conscious states that have radically different qualities, but we'd call all of them conscious. That to me connotes approaching the idea as a fuzzy unity of overlapping things, which can be disambiguated as needed based on the context. In my mind that's a cluster concept.

It would be a cluster concept if none of those 'types of conscious states' had one essential defining feature. But they do. They're all phenomenally conscious in the sense that there's something it is like to be in them. That said, if one of them doesn't have the the feature of phenomenal consciousness (say, a robot (or zombie or whatever) creating a model of the world it can use to make predictions 'in the dark'), then it's not a conscious state in that sense. Phenomenal consciousness picks out exactly one feature/property and one feature only, the presence of which is essential to the definition. That sense of 'consciousness' isn't a cluster concept.

Quoting Tom Storm

If pressed, the best I can say is there is thinking.

Identity aside, we can be sure that there is consciousness. I don't particularly like Descartes' formulation.

Quoting Tom Storm

Common sense - which may be more useful than philosophy - tells me I am conscious. But so what?

It's a datum that must be accounted for in any complete worldview. Hence the hard problem. How do we fit it in? Can we start with structure and function and get consciousness out of that? If not, what do we do? Do we have to add it into the starting conditions? That's typically the panpsychist position.

If there is evidence for anything, it is evident to someone who is conscious. Therefore, all and any evidence is evidence of consciousness.

This will not satisfy, because you do not want evidence of your consciousness, but of mine. But then you are trying to make my subjectivity objective, and visible to you, which would be to deprive me of my consciousness and make it yours. Don't be so greedy. :razz:

:D

I'm just going to answer in terms of (what I understand of) Metzinger's approach, since it is amenable to me and is materialist while taking phenomenal selfhood seriously.

Quoting bert1

It would be a cluster concept if none of those 'types of conscious states' had one essential defining feature. But they do. They're all phenomenally conscious in the sense that there's something it is like to be in them.

To my knowledge, Metzinger disagrees with the inference you just made. Specifically he claims that there can be "core components" of phenomenal selfhood and phenomenal experience which are universally shared, but nevertheless the concept is a cluster concept. That universal aspect of phenomenal selfhood he calls "minimal phenomenal selfhood", and the universal aspect of experience is "minimal phenomenal experience".

With those terms in place, I think he also strongly disagrees with the claim that "minimal phenomenal selfhood" and "minimal phenomenal experience" contain anything like what qualists intend by "what is it like" states.

That said, if one of them doesn't have the the feature of phenomenal consciousness (say, a robot (or zombie or whatever) creating a model of the world it can use to make predictions 'in the dark'), then it's not a conscious state in that sense. Phenomenal consciousness picks out exactly one feature/property and one feature only, the presence of which is essential to the definition. That sense of 'consciousness' isn't a cluster concept.

I believe there's a connotation in there, in contrasting phenomenal consciousness (in humans) to an absence of phenomenal consciousness (in robots), it construes consciousness as a binary property - on or off. Which might be true for Metzinger, but only for minimal phenomenal experience/selfhood - if someone is said to have experience or selfhood at all, they will have minimal phenomenal experience/selfhood (definitionally). The content and structure of such a state is left unanalysed (so far in this thread at least) save for the assertion that it consists of "what is it like" states, or even a general impression of "what is it like" over state-aggregates in a unified phenomenal experience (to be disambiguated).

The "rub" of making these distinctions is that what a qualist may construe as a definitive of phenomenal experience/selfhood may turn out to be too much - in that it contains unnecessary structures or types of content. How "what is it like" relevant states are construed by intersect with that non-necessary content. Those structures of experience that come with qualia that do not come with minimal phenomenal experiences.

Metzinger's account of minimal phenomenal experience (MPE) extracts 6 constraints that phenomenal experience must satisfy.

Wakefulness) The phenomenal character of tonic alertness (see section 3.1). [hide=*]Metzinger clarifies tonic alertness as:

"Put differently, an organism can be tonically alert without knowing that it is alert: Consciousness is knowing that one is alert. An organism can embody a rich space of epistemic capacities without having an internal model of this fact."

What that puts me in mind of is the ongoing feed of downtuned sensations from my back when I'm laying down and drifting off to sleep. That "floating on a cloud" feeling. I am receptive/modelling the sensations of my back on the bed without having an awareness that I am doing so (an internal representation of that representation, as it were).
[/hide]


Low Complexity) often described as the complete absence of intentional content, in particular of high-level symbolic mental content (i.e., discursive, conceptual, or propositional thought), but also of sensorimotor or affective content

Self-luminosity): a phenomenal property instantiated during some MPE episodes, typically described as “radiance”, “brilliance”, or the “clear light” of primordial awareness. [hide=*] (Metzinger clarifies this as the "functional autonomy of tonic alertness" - it's a process that goes on all the time, and it doesn't care if you currently have a self, ego, are conscious etc. Luminosity seems to be a form of pre-perspectival attunement and registration of bodily signals, the pre-self building blocks of individuated "sense impressions" which come to take on conceptual and qualitative character when filtered and chunked through internal modelling. I'm thinking of them as the feelings which just slip away before they're there![/hide]
Introspective availability) We can sometimes actively direct introspective attention to consciousness as such and we can distinguish possible states by the degree of actually ongoing access.

Epistemicity) The phenomenal experience of knowing, which comes in degrees and can also be described as the subjective quality of confidence

Transparency/Opacity) Like all other phenomenal representations, MPE can vary along a spectrum of opacity and transparency [hide=*](transparency is degree to which a phenomenal state is not experienced as a representation) - me)[/hide]


Broadly construed, this is "awareness of awareness" without "awareness of the individuated content of awareness". In that state, the body's self-modelling processes which normally would intend, judge, see red apples, and be aware that "I" need to eat breakfast don't occur. Awareness without the cognitive retrojection of objects and a self identifying perspective subsuming them. That does not resemble anything like qualia, does it? There's little room for an embodied, self aware agent with mind states directed towards objects' properties in that construal. At least in the way qualists contend.

Which isn't to say the kind of states that qualists think of are impossible, just that those states perhaps aren't the essential characteristics of consciousness. Insofar as one can have phenomenal experience without anything resembling a quale (as often construed).

At the very least, I think Metzinger's efforts put the ball in qualists' courts for trying to show that those states are irreducible and primitive. In particular he suggests the following list that characterises "minimal phenomenal experience'

Paper here.

And if we're looking for evidence of such a thing - I think my list covers the bases. Though it isn't tailored to discriminate each facet individually.

Reply to fdrake Many thanks fdrake. That looks like a very interesting paper. I'll process it and reply. Hopefully soon.

Quoting unenlightened

If there is evidence for anything, it is evident to someone who is conscious. Therefore, all and any evidence is evidence of consciousness.

Absolutely. All thinking is autological in this sense.

Quoting fdrake

Have you checked out any of Thomas Metzinger's work on classifying awarenesses (also Wayfarer , you'd probably get something out of his "neuro-Buddhism")

I'm generally well-disposed to Metzinger (and Damasio and Christof Koch) - he seems a congenial spirit and quite a sound analyst, but I find coming up to speed on his science seems hardly worth the effort when you actually get to the philosophical kernel. It's like he's trying to package some worthwhile insights in such a way as to gain ground with a scientistic audience. I've downloaded the Being No-one Précis, I'll try and devote a bit more time to it.

Quoting Patterner

the properties of subatomic particles that give rise to flight in birds are present in the subatomic particles that make up rocks

However, such bare reductionism presents no credible account of the higher-level factors that come into play in the organic domain. You could never deduce from the examination of fundamental particles the principles of organic chemistry, let alone evolutionary biology. Furthermore as you're no doubt aware physics itself nowadays seems to implicate the higher-level (and non-reducible) role of the observer.

Quoting bert1

What are we going to look for as evidence of consciousness in (a) a rock, and (b) a human?

As an empirical question, it's rather ridiculous but I suppose as a thought-experiment it might be useful. I think fdrake covers it pretty well however I would question the following as question-begging:

Quoting fdrake

there needs to be some part of its material constitution that has representational capacity.

This assumes that the 'representational capacity' is indeed part of its 'material constitution', when it is the nature of representational capacity, and whether this can be explained in terms of material constitution, which is at issue!

Quoting Watchmaker

The most fundamental unit of consciousness is a reflection of the outside from on the inside, and vice versa. There is an " in here" and an "out there".

:up:

Quoting Wayfarer

This assumes that the 'representational capacity' is indeed part of its 'material constitution', when it is the nature of representational capacity, and whether this can be explained in terms of material constitution, which is at issue!

I hadn't meant "material constitution" in a substantial sense. Just something the thing does. Like walking. Do you think it would be evidence for consciousness (something like a sufficient condition), even if it doesn't behave like a screen (something like a necessary condition)?

Quoting fdrake

I hadn't meant "material constitution" in a substantial sense. Just something the thing does. Like walking.

Which is basically behaviourism. 'We can't say what is going on inside the thing, but we can report on what it does'. But I suppose in terms of the way the question has been posed (as distinct from the much blurrier question of 'what *is* consciousness?') then your answer does hit the mark.

Quoting bert1

Right. That's pretty much the conclusion I came to, I think. So we need a definition, or theory, to guide what we are looking for. And then the stuff we find when looking constitutes evidence. Is that right?

One challenge for a theory about rock consciousness is that it would conflict with our present worldview. That means it would stretch the meanings of words. A theory of that type wouldn't be taken seriously until society in general has shifted ideologically.

Quoting fdrake

I hadn't meant "material constitution" in a substantial sense. Just something the thing does. Like walking. Do you think it would be evidence for consciousness (something like a sufficient condition), even if it doesn't behave like a screen (something like a necessary condition)?

Metzinger is another who naively accepts the framing of consciousness as the problem of a self in the world. There is this phenomenological “stuff” - the Cartesian res cogitans. And this other noumenal stuff of the res extensa, the realm of physical being.

So we walk - which is somehow on the side of physics and merely the physiological behaviour. And then at some level - usually quite subconscious unless we stumble - there is the phenomenology that seems painted on a passively representing mental screen.

An antique and dualist metaphysics is baked into the discussion by classing the mind and world as relata rather than as itself a pragmatic relation.

In practice, the neurobiology of self is all about making a running self-world distinction. What we are conscious of is being this thing of what we call “a self in its world”, or an Umwelt.

So there is no self, and there is no world. These are modelling constructs. What there is instead is a running habit of discrimination where we are continually dividing our phenomenal existence along those lines. At every scale of biological and neurological being, from metabolism, to immunology, to feet acting on ground, we are having to decide what is self, what is other.

The feeling of running a rocky trail is one of complete world mastery - it is all me as every footstep makes nimble snug ownership of the hollows and angles of the track, until it isn’t and I get the aggrieved realisation that a chunk of stone has leapt out to catch at my toe with animistic aggression.

One instant, I am owning the world, making it my passive backdrop. The next, I am aware of myself in frozen suspension, a tumbling passive weight of body falling helpless and surprised to whatever crunching impact the world has in store.

The self makes no sense without its world. And Metzinger’s focus on phenomenologising the one side of the equation - what is is like to be a mind - leaves out the other of what it is like to be my world.

That is the key to the Umwelt, and a Kantian epistemology in general. Descartes did not get the enactive equation of minds being modelling relations.

The fact is that brains exist to make a discrimination of self from other, self from world. And one is not more fundamental or real than the other. They are together the two complementary halves of the one phenomenological relation.

As relata, both are equally a construction of the modelling. Selves and worlds are to the same degree “illusions” of the mind. And yet also useful illusions as both are involved in organising physical change in the actual physical world.

There is a trail. I am indeed running it. This is possible because I have a fluid and dynamical sense of the fact that relies on a sharp discrimination of what seems self, and what seems other, in any given moment.

Treating consciousness as a screen of neural representation is homuncular. Who is there to witness the display.

An enactive and pragmatic view of consciousness says the “neural screen” is really a filter of self-other discriminations that support a dynamical accomodation of organismic goals to environmental opportunities.

As sensory deprivation experiments reveal, both world and sense of self disintegrate quickly when there is nothing to sustain a process of self-other discrimination. Sensory receptors need physical variation that can start the whole business of “having phenomenology” in terms of being a self in its world - the bit that knows it stands apart from the bit is not a part of.

….Or the tl;dr version. :grin:

Which should one problematised as the essential scientific question?

What kind of thing is this ineffable phenomenal self? Or what is the neurobiology of sensori-motor discrimination?

What counts as evidence is pretty straightforward for the later.

Do rocks make self-other discriminations? Not from the available evidence as rocks on trails don’t actually grab at your skimming feet.

And the fact that these discriminations cash out in terms of voluntary and goal-constrained physical actions makes overt behaviour perfectly good evidence of sentience. We can reliably detect agency in terms of counterfactual self-other discriminations that make a real difference in the real world.

Quoting apokrisis

So there is no self, and there is no world. These are modelling constructs. What there is instead is a running habit of discrimination where we are continually dividing our phenomenal existence along those lines.

So the "owner" of the model is constructed by the model's very functioning -- it's not some pre-existing thing that then adds to itself a model by which it distinguishes itself from its environment. The running model is that distinction, and without it -- or at death -- there is no self to "have" such a model.

And we can call this a "holistic" approach to -- I guess "experience" as a big vague catchall? Or maybe just "life"? Something like this goes on anywhere an organism maintains its organization as a going concern, yes? It's just that not all organisms develop the additional capacity to "monitor" (non-homuncularly) this constructed self to some degree.

It all sounds broadly Heideggerian to me. ;-)

Quoting Srap Tasmaner

it's not some pre-existing thing that then adds to itself a model by which it distinguishes itself from its environment. The running model is that distinction,

Right. It’s the logic of the dichotomy or symmetry breaking. The self is defined in terms of not being the world, and the world is defined in terms of not being the self.

Rather than having to imagined neurobiology following a complicated computer engineering approach - some kind of homuncular self model being grafted onto some kind of world model - you just need a simple neural learning algorithm.

Every newborn baby is born a blooming, buzzing, confusion of impulses and reflexes. The infant waves clenched fists about without any idea they could be instruments of its will. But a few accidents where hands are open and reflexive closing grabs objects in the world, then further learning leads to the skill of moving them to mouth or throwing them around the cot, and you can say the child knows the hands are a part of a self that is opposed to world.

So no sense of self or knowledge of the world needs to be genetically baked in. A baby’s neurology will self-organise around the central idea that there is the part of the world that is the handled, and the part of its world which is thus the handler.

Quoting apokrisis

hese are modelling constructs. What there is instead is a running habit of discrimination where we are continually dividing our phenomenal existence along those lines. At every scale of biological and neurological being, from metabolism, to immunology, to feet acting on ground, we are having to decide what is self, what is other.

I read Metzinger as saying essentially this. Up to and including the self/world distinction as a bodily modelling process with environmental feedbacks.

Quoting apokrisis

So no sense of self or knowledge of the world needs to be genetically baked in. A baby’s neurology will self-organise around the central idea that there is the part of the world that is the handled, and the part of its world which is thus the handler.

I don't know what Metzinger says about psychogenesis, though it would surprise me if he believed the self is "genetically baked in" - considering his minimal phenomenal selfhood idea doesn't contain a self as usually construed. And specifically, tonic alertness is construed as an essential component (and precursor of) what we'd normally construe as a self - which is the autonomous cortical feedback of that blooming, buzzing confusion of impulses and reflexes.

Quoting Wayfarer

the properties of subatomic particles that give rise to flight in birds are present in the subatomic particles that make up rocks
— Patterner

However, such bare reductionism presents no credible account of the higher-level factors that come into play in the organic domain. You could never deduce from the examination of fundamental particles the principles of organic chemistry, let alone evolutionary biology. Furthermore as you're no doubt aware physics itself nowadays seems to implicate the higher-level (and non-reducible) role of the observer.

I'm not sure what you mean by deduce. If you mean, for example, someone who has never heard of chemistry or organic chemistry, but knows all the rules of physics, would never come up with the idea of organic chemistry, or evolutionary biology, you’re probably right. But that’s because our intellect’s are not up to the task. I am not aware of any events taking place in the realms of organic chemistry or evolutionary biology that are not reducible to fundamental particles.

Quoting Patterner

I am not aware of any events taking place in the realms of organic chemistry or evolutionary biology that are not reducible to fundamental particles.

You are aware of ‘reductionism’, though, right? It is 'the practice of analysing and describing a complex phenomenon in terms of its simple or fundamental constituents, especially when this is said to provide a sufficient explanation.' Claiming that organic chemistry and evolutionary biology are reducible to fundamental particles is a reductionist claim. But there are numerous objections to the idea:

1. Emergent properties: Critics argue that reductionism fails to account for emergent properties, which are characteristics or behaviors that arise in complex systems but cannot be solely explained by understanding their individual components. Organic chemistry, for instance, involves the study of molecules and their interactions, which can give rise to emergent properties such as self-assembly or enzymatic activity. These properties cannot be accounted for solely on the basis of the physical analysis.

2. Context-dependence: Reductionism neglects the significance of context in understanding complex phenomena. Organic chemistry and evolutionary biology involve intricate networks of interactions and dependencies that go beyond the principles of physics alone. The specific context in which chemical reactions occur or the environmental factors influencing evolution play a crucial role in shaping the behavior and outcomes, which cannot be fully captured by reductionist approaches.

3. Levels of analysis: Reductionism typically focuses on explaining phenomena at the most fundamental level of analysis, often neglecting the relevance of higher-level concepts and principles. Organic chemistry and evolutionary biology operate at higher levels of complexity, incorporating concepts such as molecular structure, functional groups, genetic information, and natural selection. These higher-level concepts and principles cannot be derived from the laws of physics, although it can be and often is argued that they 'supervene' on them. But in this context, supervenience is a philosophical term of art, which seems suspiciously close to ad hoc argumentation in many cases.

4. Methodological limitations: Critics argue that reductionism faces methodological challenges when attempting to apply reductionist strategies across different scientific disciplines. The methodologies, experimental techniques, and theoretical frameworks employed in physics may not always be directly applicable or sufficient for investigating organic chemistry or evolutionary biology. The inherent complexities and unique features of these fields often require specialized methods and approaches that go beyond reductionist principles.

5. Epistemological constraints: Reductionism assumes that the most complete and accurate understanding of a phenomenon can be achieved by breaking it down into its constituent parts. However there are phenomena that have properties that are irreducible or not fully captured by reductionist explanations. Consciousness or subjective experience, for example, is a topic that poses challenges for reductionism, as it is difficult to explain or understand solely based on physical or chemical principles (which is the subject of the 'facing up to the hard problem of consciousness' argument of Chalmers).

6. Last but by no means least, quantum physics raises philosophical questions about the role of the observer in the measurement process. The act of observation and the establishment of measurement outcomes seem to play a fundamental role in determining the observed properties of the objects of the analysis, which are, purportedly, also the fundamental particles of physics. This connection between observation and the physical world suggests that reductionism, which aims to explain everything solely in terms of physical entities and processes, is insufficient in accomodating or accounting for the role of the observer. Related to this is the known incompleteness of the standard model of physics, which despite being the most accurate predictive model ever devised, fails to account for dark matter and energy which are believed to account for more than 90% of the total mass-energy of the known universe, as well as for gravity.

So those are some of the directions the argument can take.

Quoting fdrake

I don't know what Metzinger says about psychogenesis, though it would surprise me if he believed the self is "genetically baked in" - considering his minimal phenomenal selfhood idea doesn't contain a self as usually construed. And specifically, tonic alertness is construed as an essential component (and precursor of) what we'd normally construe as a self - which is the autonomous cortical feedback of that blooming, buzzing confusion of impulses and reflexes.

I admit my response is largely based on what he was saying about 30 years ago. So maybe he applies the simplifying logic of dichotomies and symmetry breaking to brain architecture now?

But I've skimmed a few sources and he still seems to be coming from a cognitivist paradigm and so sees both this "minimal phenomenal selfhood" and "conscious self-awareness" as brain located functions. One as the low-level story, down in the basement of the brainstem; the other a high-level process, up in the prefrontal.

My approach is biosemiotic and so I see ordinary animal awareness as embodied and enactive, but
human self-awareness as a further learnt linguistic skill – a capacity that is socioculturally constructed in the Vygotskian psychology sense.

The "narrative consciousness" that humans enjoy is a habit of thought shaped at the level of our neurobiology as constrained by the cultural semiosis which is humans coming together as a dissipative social organism.

Thus the ability to pay introspective attention to our embodied existence – to model our selves as selves – is not something that is genetic and so explicable as some kind of particular neurological function. It has to be explained in terms of the kind of reality model that our societies need us to have to function as "self regulating" social beings within its socially collective space.

So Metzinger's more recent MPE work may now be informed by the enactive turn in cognitive science. The importance of embodiment to any account of the "phenomenal self" is recognised. But that is still some distance from my biosemiotic perspective which gives far more weight to the sociocultural shaping of what actually fills our heads and shapes our cognition.

And likewise, the dissipative structure foundation to that biosemiotic perspective gives far more weight to the structuralism that says brains are in general organised by the triadic logic of a system, regardless of whether we are talking biology or sociology. Ideas about computation and modularity – a construction-based ontology – has to give way to an organic causality that is based on constraints on uncertainty. A vague potential gets dichotomised and thus becomes hierarchically complex, in symmetry-breaking fashion.

The metaphysics that grounds a naturalised account of "consciousness" is quite different when you shift from cognitivism to organicism.

Quoting fdrake

I read Metzinger as saying essentially this. Up to and including the self/world distinction as a bodily modelling process with environmental feedbacks.

I agree; I see little difference between what @apokrisis is saying about the self and world being a modeling relation and what is presented by Metzinger in Being No One.

Reply to apokrisis I'd say Metzinger is not concerned with the metaphysical and scientific angles on the self/world modeling relation which you like to explore; he focuses on a phenomenological account.

Reply to Wayfarer The functioning of an internal combustion engine motor vehicle cannot be understood in terms of the fundamental particles that constitute it. So, all you seem to be saying is that there are different levels of explanation when you get to macroscopic objects and their relations. And how much more complex than a motor vehicle is a mammal? A human?

Quoting Janus

I see little difference between what apokrisis is saying about the self and world being a modeling relation and what is presented by Metzinger in Being No One.

Check the references. Note the lack of a sociocultural or systems perspective. It's all neurobiology and functionalism.

Reply to apokrisis As I say above, Metzinger gives a neuro-phenomenological account. The socio-cultural aspect is simply an amplification of the self/ world modeling. So, of course a detailed sociological account is also possible, but the fact that it is not Metzinger's focus does not detract from his work. I don't follow you in thinking there is one overarching account, different accounts are valid from different perspectives.

Quoting Janus

The socio-cultural aspect is simply an amplification of the self/ world modeling.

It ain't simply an amplification according to me. A change in code is a change in levels. It's not about more. It is about different.

So a biosemiotic perspective is an advance on good old fashioned cognitivism in two ways. It is both more general and more particular.

It is more particular in pointing to the difference in kind that comes with evolving new levels of symbol-processing – the steps from the genetic, to the neural, to the linguistic, to the actually symboilic.

And it is more general in indeed showing that life and mind have the same general rational structure. It is all a play on semiosis – the triadic modelling relation which results in organisms with Umwelts.

Reply to apokrisis Sure, the way I understand it is that animals also have a self/world model but it is not symbolically reflective. So, with symbolic language, i.e. with human culture, comes a complexification of the more basic pre-linguistic animal self/ world modeling.

That brings with it a qualitative difference as well; a profound difference in that we now have the arts, the sciences, religion, philosophy and history. So yeah, I agree this is also a difference in "level".

That said, I hesitate to say the human level is "higher" or "better" than the animal level, rather than just more complex. which is pretty much what I meant by "amplification".

Quoting Janus

That said, I hesitate to say the human level is "higher" or "better" than the animal level.

In the logical sense, it is more abstract and so less concrete.

So higher in abstraction. And thus better at maximising entropy production. Intelligence buys access to entropy gradients.

As to moral judgements, we can tell just how much those are central to a social level of semiosis, but not a technological level, by the ruthless way they have been ripped out of modern political and economic theory.

That is another advantage of the biosemiotic turn. It places the spotlight on the current human plight.

You should enjoy Gowdy and Krall on this. We’ve evolved beyond social apes to become … technological termites.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25915060/

Reply to apokrisis The abstract looks interesting, but I couldn't access the full article.

Interesting point about the technological destruction of morality. Have we climbed all the way up the ladder and reached the level of the social insects? Those insects don't have parties, entertainment, festivals, the arts, religion, science, philosophy and history though.

Reply to Janus Download here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305375362_The_Economic_Origins_of_Ultrasociality

Quoting Janus

Those insects don't have parties, entertainment, festivals, the arts, religion, science, philosophy and history though.

They garden fungus, we harvest the biosphere. They have been successful at sustaining ecosystems for hundreds of millions of years. We are blowing through the world’s fossil fuels and mineral gradients in a couple of hundred.

So same, but different.

The point is that if we talk about the consciousness of social insects, it actually is understood in terms of a groupmind or social intelligence. The hive or nest acts as a social organism.

Realising that the highest level of ant and termite-dom is agriculture - the domestication of their ecosystems - should certainly be pause for thought when it comes the Hegelian structure of evolutionary history.

Bacteria of course had already done the Gaian thing about 2 billion years ago by learning how to domesticate the planetary carbon cycle by balancing O2 and CO2.

Semiosis is the big picture ontology.

Quoting apokrisis

We are blowing through the world’s fossil fuels and mineral gradients in a couple of hundred.

That's true, and I wonder if we would have achieved such spectacular levels of "entropification" if we hadn't discovered fossil fuels. That discovery has arguably enabled a massive population explosion.

Or perhaps our symbolic capabilities would have made that outcome inevitable, just coming to pass over a longer period. Symbolic language seems to have allowed us to be too adaptable for our own long term good. Being higher on the abstraction scale is not necessarily a good thing, it seems. When animals, notably apex predators, proliferate and overuse abundant resources, they are naturally knocked back, but we are so clever at abstract thinking we have so far avoided that.

Thanks for the link.

Quoting Janus

The functioning of an internal combustion engine motor vehicle cannot be understood in terms of the fundamental particles that constitute it.

Do you mean just the fundamental particles? What if you knew the fundamental particles and all their interconnections/arrangements? Wouldn't you be able to figure out that you were looking at an engine?

Reply to RogueAI I don't think so; in any case it's not just a matter of knowing you are looking at an engine or whole motor vehicle but of being able to explain all its macroscopic functions, interactions and inter-relations in terms of the basic understanding of fundamental particles.

Even if it were possible, it would be such a complex task, I think it could hardly be referred to as "reductionism". All models are reductive, and they are reductive for the purposes of simplifying explanations, not rendering them unnecessarily complex.

Quoting Janus

I don't think so; in any case it's not just a matter of knowing you are looking at an engine or whole motor vehicle but of being able to explain all its functions and macroscopic interactions and inter-relations in terms of the understanding of fundamental particles.

Even if it were possible, it would be such a complex task, I think it could hardly be referred to as "reductionism".

Fair enough. Let's assume an alien (or better yet, machine intelligence) was examining, for the first time, an engine and a brain. I don't think the engine would be mysterious in any way, but I think the alien/machine intelligence would not be able to figure out the brain was capable of consciousness.

Reply to RogueAI Sure, but only if you can see the engine or motor vehicle working and not if you just saw it standing there would it lack mystery as to its function, but further investigation would be needed to understand its functioning. Similarly, just looking at the surface of a brain doesn't tell you it is working or what it's doing. And the same goes for just looking at an animal or a human just standing there. Even if you see the animal or human moving that doesn't tell you anything about its cardio-vascular, respiratory and digestive functions.

Reply to Janus OK, suppose you have a working brain hooked up to life support and a running engine. Would the engine be mysterious in any way? Would the alien/machine intelligence know that the working brain is conscious?

Quoting Wayfarer

You are aware of ‘reductionism’, though, right? It is 'the practice of analysing and describing a complex phenomenon in terms of its simple or fundamental constituents, especially when this is said to provide a sufficient explanation.'

Indeed. I've been arguing that it does not suffice to explain consciousness, or even make the attempt. It addresses only the physical activities.

Quoting Wayfarer

Organic chemistry, for instance, involves the study of molecules and their interactions, which can give rise to emergent properties such as self-assembly or enzymatic activity. These properties cannot be accounted for solely on the basis of the physical analysis.

Can you give me an example of this kind of self-assembly or enzymatic activity?

Reply to Patterner Isn't that at the basis of molecular biology and mitosis etc? I'm not trained in biology, but I would have thought this was common knowledge. (There's an article I frequently refer to, What is Information? Marcello Barbieri, who is one of the founders of what he describes as 'code biology'.)

Reply to RogueAI You would have to pull the engine apart and examine the components and analyze their functions and inter-relations in the overall process of its running in order to understand how it works. This is just what neuroscience is doing with the brain. The brain is much more complex than the engine, though, and you cannot pull a living brain apart to examine its structures and since the functional components are microscopic and not obviously mechanical in functioning like the engine the task is much more complicated and difficult.

Taking vision as the paradigm, the fact that the brain produces visual images (as does a camera) and also the seeing of those images, and the awareness of seeing those images seems impossible to explain in mechanistic terms. Perhaps we will never be able to give a comprehensive causal account of that process since causal models are generally mechanistic in nature. It doesn't follow that anything magical or supernatural is going on.

Quoting Janus

You would have to pull the engine apart and examine the components and analyze their functions and inter-relations in the overall process of its running.to understand how it works.

OK, the alien/machine intelligence takes apart the engine after it stops running. Then it takes apart the working brain. Is the engine going to be mysterious in any way? Is the brain?

Reply to RogueAI I already said the engine is easier to understand being far less complex, and also because our models are mechanistic and the engine is a machine, and it just may not be possible to understand how the brain gives rise to consciousness mechanistically. What more are you angling for?

Quoting Janus

I already said the engine is easier to understand being far less complex, and also because our models are mechanistic, and it just may not be possible to understand how the brain gives rise to consciousness mechanistically. What more are you angling for?

It seems obvious to me that the alien/machine intelligence could know every physical fact there is to know about brains, and still not know the most salient fact: they're conscious. Do you agree? Doesn't that put brains in an entirely new class of things: things you could know all the physical facts about and still not understand them completely?

Quoting Janus

That's true, and I wonder if we would have achieved such spectacular levels of "entropification" if we hadn't discovered fossil fuels. That discovery has arguably enabled a massive population explosion.

Correct. This is something I’ve been researching this year. It is remarkable how human entropy production maintained a Malthusian balance even through the agrarian era showed some technical advance between 1100 and 1700. Any increase in food surplus was cancelled out by a matching growth of population, bringing everyone back to a steady state economic level.

But then technology and science made its sudden left turn with the discovery that the British midlands and European lowlands had all this buried coal. The per capita entropy production of the West became an exponential curve which then turned super-exponential with the discovery of oil.

So that is my argument. Humans have just been riding the dissipative wave of a succession of entropic bonanzas. Homo erectus already started things by stumbling across the notion of firewood and big game hunting. No one else was burning the trees or cooking the flesh. This entropic bonanza shaped a whole new level of mentality - a “self model” of the hunter-gatherer in its savannah/steppe world.

Agriculture was the next step up. And then fossil fuels became something different in that it now looked like Homo sapiens had finally tapped an “infinite resource”. And in complementary fashion, that justified a self-model as the “other” as no longer the gardener of nature, but instead the liberator of unlimited entropy production. The Elon Musk fantasy of peak humanity.

Population growth hopped on this exponential curve, finally released from its Malthusian limits. Human entropy production in general became a game of how quickly we could find more opportunities to dissipate and so do proper justice to a world of made of unlimited material resources.

Before you know it, the planet was populated by dudes like Hanover saying unbound growth is nature at work and simply an expression of the human destiny.

Quoting Janus

When animals, notably apex predators, proliferate and overuse abundant resources, they are naturally knocked back, but we are so clever at abstract thinking we have so far avoided that.

That’s the Malthusian equation. And if we had listened to science when it modelled the Limits of Growth in the 1970s, we would have realised how we had allowed fossil fuels to hijack our reasonably clever human social systems for its own mindless purpose.

We did fall upwards in previous rounds of the game. We ate all the Steppe mammals during the ice ages but took good advantage of the Holocene’s climate stability to switch to agriculture as the new thing.

And we could have also heeded the ecologists in them1970s and begun the Green transition to a more sustainable burn rate. The future would indeed have been sweet. Even if world population would have been stuck at around 1900s levels, and per capital energy expenditure at 1950s levels.

But win some, lose some.

Reply to apokrisis That all makes sense to me, although I would add to this:

Quoting apokrisis

we would have realised how we had allowed fossil fuels to hijack our reasonably clever human social systems for its own mindless purpose.

that the motivator for the willful blindness to the science was economic: the greed of some for money and power and the general complacency that comes with comfortable levels of prosperity,

Quoting RogueAI

It seems obvious to me that the alien/machine intelligence could know every physical fact there is to know about brains, and still not know the most salient fact: they're conscious. Do you agree? Doesn't that put brains in an entirely new class of things: things you could know all the physical facts about and still not understand them completely?

Firstly, I doubt it's possible to know all the physical facts about anything let alone brains, and secondly most of what we call physical facts are conceptual models given in mechanistic causal terms. So, for me it appears that what you are claiming just amounts to saying that brains cannot be understood entirely in terms of mechanistic models, which I have no argument with. In fact, I think the same goes for biology in general. There are other modes of investigation and understanding on the horizon it seems, and I think it's too early to pronounce on what they will be able to come up with.

Understanding of time, memory, and decision making as a result of real or imagined past, present, and future states of another biologic being.

Edit: Absent of programmed nature. Which is argued that the human brain is little more than a sponge that retains and in a sense "obeys" what is generally thought of as "mindless" programming of past experiences and education albeit with a degree of randomness.

Quoting Janus

Firstly, I doubt it's possible to know all the physical facts about anything let alone brains, and secondly most of what we call physical facts are conceptual models given in mechanistic causal terms.

You don't need to know all the physical facts of an engine to figure out what it is and what it does. The same should be true of brains, but it's not. No matter how much an alien/machine intelligence studies a working brain, it will not know if it's conscious or not. Is your claim then that there is some undiscovered method of science the machine intelligence/alien could use to figure out whether something is conscious or not? Shouldn't we at least have some hints by now of what that could be? Are you a mysterian?

Quoting RogueAI

You don't need to know all the physical facts of an engine to figure out what it is and what it does. The same should be true of brains, but it's not. No matter how much an alien/machine intelligence studies a working brain, it will not know if it's conscious or not.

You are assuming that the percentage of all the possible facts that could be known about the brain that we currently know should be sufficient to understand consciousness, and this is merely an assumption, not something you know.

Quoting apokrisis

I admit my response is largely based on what he was saying about 30 years ago. So maybe he applies the simplifying logic of dichotomies and symmetry breaking to brain architecture now?

I'm quite sure you have different concerns!

Quoting bert1

As a panpsychist I have been asked a few times for evidence of consciousness in rocks and other such objects.

I'm currently re-reading Peter Ells' 2010 book, Panpsychism, because he discusses in detail many controversial topics that arise in philosophical metaphysics of Consciousness. One aspect of his terminology is puzzling to me though. Ells asserts that "experiential entities are the fundamental entities of idealist panpsychism". Although he is very explicit in his definitions of other terms, he seems to take the existence of "experiential entities" as a given or essential axiom. Is the word "experiential" in this usage, a metaphor for conscious human subjective experience? Or does he really believe that atoms are literally aware of their environment? Where does the Psyche (mind) come-in to this equation?

I presume that minimal "experience"*1 means to sense (to be affected by) incoming energy/information . And ultimately perhaps to make sense (meaning) of that data. If so, in what sense does a grain of sand experience its environment? Maybe a physical meaning of "to experience" is to undergo change due to a causal event. But how does that kind of experience add-up to the kind of human experience that we call "knowledge" or "memory" or "psychic" experience? Again, I can understand Brainless Experience as a metaphor for inputs & outputs of energy. But Ells seems to view it more literally as something equivalent to human cognition.

I should mention that my own understanding of fundamental entities in the world acknowledges that they exchange energy/information with their environment, and they record that input/output as a change in the material form (e.g. temperature ; structure ; position) of the object, but without gaining any conceptual knowledge that I would call meaningful "experience". For example, a grain of sand might be moved in location by the impact of momentum from another object. But, is the grain consciously aware of that moment in its history? I suspect that a lot of the incredulity toward Panpsychism hinges on such ambiguous terminology. :smile:

PS___As a panpsychist, Ell's assumes that Consciousness (experience) is fundamental to the world. But since objective evidence for such Awareness only appeared on the scene after billions of years of evolution --- the emergence of Living & Thinking things with centralized brains of some kind*2 --- I began to refer to proto-consciousness in terms of Information Theory. As the "power to enform", that prototype of Cognition is equivalent to physical Potential Energy, which can transform into actual Mass/Matter. But as the world evolved & complexified, a new form of Generic Energy/Information emerged as what we call "Mind" : an immaterial function (activity) of material brains.


*1. To Experience : (philosophy)
Experience refers to conscious events in general, more specifically to perceptions, or to the practical knowledge and familiarity that is produced by these processes. Understood as a conscious event in the widest sense, experience involves a subject to which various items are presented.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experience

*2. I must admit that, in microscopic videos of brainless single cell organisms, they appear to know what they are doing, as they search for food. But a scientist might say the appearance is due to anthropomorphic interpretation of blind mechanical inputs & outputs, as a human would experience it.

Quoting Gnomon

experiential entities

a.k.a. 'beings'

Quoting Gnomon

Where does the Psyche (mind) come-in to this equation?

As far as we know, with the first organic beings.

Have a geez at this.

Quoting Gnomon

Is the word "experiential" in this usage, a metaphor for conscious human subjective experience? Or does he really believe that atoms are literally aware of their environment?

I haven't read it, but from what you quote it's almost certainly literal. Panpsychists literally think that, in some sense or other, everything is conscious.

Quoting Gnomon

I presume that minimal "experience"*1 means to sense (to be affected by) incoming energy/information . And ultimately perhaps to make sense (meaning) of that data.

I think that presumption is wrong in the context of panpsychism. I suspect that's not what most panpsychists mean.

Quoting bert1

Is the word "experiential" in this usage, a metaphor for conscious human subjective experience? Or does he really believe that atoms are literally aware of their environment? — Gnomon
I haven't read it, but from what you quote it's almost certainly literal. Panpsychists literally think that, in some sense or other, everything is conscious.

Yes. His version of Panpsychism is Idealist, and assumes that Consciousness is fundamental to reality. My alternative version could be called Pan-Informationism, which understands Causation as fundamental and Consciousness as emergent, so only the potential for complexification was essential. That's why it took 14 billion years for Self-Consciousness to appear on a minor planet on the edge of an ordinary galaxy of a near-infinite cosmos. Anyway, it's that "some sense" that I'm grasping at. :smile:

Quoting bert1

I presume that minimal "experience"*1 means to sense (to be affected by) incoming energy/information . And ultimately perhaps to make sense (meaning) of that data. — Gnomon
I think that presumption is wrong in the context of panpsychism. I suspect that's not what most panpsychists mean.

Apparently, there is some variety of interpretations of philosophical Panpsychism, but Ells does seem to mean that his "experiential entities" actually know what's happening. In the book, he asks a question : "But an experiential entity is a tiny mind. Doesn't mind require grounding in matter, or at least in some kind of 'substance' " He then answers his own question : "they are fundamental and thus require no grounding in matter, 'substance' or anything else." If "Mind" here is not metaphorical, but literal, it implies conscious awareness of experiences.

I still have difficulty imagining Atomic (elemental, unanalyzable) Minds exchanging knowledge with other "tiny minds" on a sub-atomic scale : a tiny chat room or Twitter. That sounds like a Reductive definition of an otherwise Holistic concept. However, I could describe the equivalent elemental bit of Causal Information as an "Enformation Vector"*2 by analogy with a mathematical/physical Vector (magnitude + direction). Yet, in a cosmic ontological sense, such a Vector could be described as (being + becoming).

I won't delve into the similarities & differences with my own story of Consciousness here. But FWIW, I'll note that Ells ends the book with : "No one starts out nowadays by being a panpsychist, still less an idealist. . . . My religious beliefs have changed also, and from a secular humanist I have become a Quaker . . . . Nonetheless, I am more than a Deist, as I believe in the efficacy of prayer in aligning ourselves to the will of God . . ." Do you view Panpsychism as more than a personal philosophical worldview, and perhaps as a social religious belief system?

Although Enformationism has some parallels to Panpsychism, I remain ambivalent about a personal God for us to pray to. That position would make one vulnerable to the Problem of Evil, that could be traced back to an original Evil or incompetent Mind. Which is one reason I modified Idealistic Panpsychism into a somewhat more realistic extrapolation of Information Theory. :smile:

PS___I apologize if I seem to be pushing this thread off-track. But understanding the Panpsychism underpinnings of my own worldview is important to me. Maybe a little push-back will help.


*1. Mind : the element of a person that enables them to be aware of the world and their experiences, to think, and to feel; the faculty of consciousness and thought. ___Oxford

*2. CAUSAL ENFORMACTION VECTOR : magnitude = phi, as in Integrated Information theory

Quoting Gnomon

I still have difficulty imagining Atomic (elemental, unanalyzable) Minds exchanging knowledge with other "tiny minds" on a sub-atomic scale : a tiny chat room or Twitter. That sounds like a Reductive definition of an otherwise Holistic concept.

I just quoted these elsewhere recently.

Goff is quoted in an article:

Panpsychism as defended in contemporary philosophy is the view that [I]consciousness[/I] is fundamental and ubiquitous, where to be conscious is simply to have [I]subjective experience[/I] of some kind. This doesn’t necessarily imply anything as sophisticated as thoughts.

In a Ted Talk, Chalmers says:

Even a photon has some degree of consciousness. The idea is not that photons are intelligent, or thinking. You know, it’s not that a photon is wracked with angst because it’s thinking, "Aaa! I'm always buzzing around near the speed of light! I never get to slow down and smell the roses!" No, not like that. But the thought is maybe the photons might have some element of raw, subjective feeling. Some primitive precursor to consciousness.

Skrbina said:

Minds of atoms may conceivably be, for example, a stream of instantaneous memory-less moments of experience.

I don't know if any panpsychists believe anything like the scenario you have difficulty imagining, but it doesn't seem these three do.

Quoting Patterner

I don't know if any panpsychists believe anything like the scenario you have difficulty imagining, but it doesn't seem these three do.

I had assumed that's the case, but wanted to get a second opinion. So my problem is not with the general concept, but with the specific terminology, such as "mind" and "experiential entity". In common usage, both of those words typically refer to human-scale consciousness & feelings & meanings. Yet, would an electron "mind" being ionized (separated from its atom)? Most of the criticisms of Panpsychism I've seen, focus on the plausibility of "tiny minds".

So, although my philosophical thesis has some parallels with Panpsychism, I use various forms of the term "Form" (Information : EnFormAction) to describe the doing & knowing aspects of reality. I suppose you could say it's a 21st century secular update of ancient religious Panpsychism.

I asked the question about "experiential entities" because that's the only part of Peter Ells' argument for Universal Mind, that sounded implausible to a modern mind. :smile:


Mind :
[i]1. the element of a person that enables them to be aware of the world and their experiences, to think, and to feel; the faculty of consciousness and thought.
2. be distressed, annoyed, or worried by.[/i]

Psyche :
the human soul, mind, or spirit.

Form :
the logical structure of something as distinguished from its material.

Reply to bert1 There is no secure evidence that consciousness exists other than,our own experience. This would be why Behaviourism flourished in the sciences for a while, and it's the cause of the 'other minds' problem.

The empirical evidence cannot reliably decide whether nothing is conscious, everything is conscious or everything simply is consciousness.
.

Quoting bert1

Now apply this to consciousness. I have accused two things of being conscious. A rock and a human being. What are we going to look for as evidence of consciousness in (a) a rock, and (b) a human?

For an object to be conscious, it has to be

1. a living - such as a person, dog, cat, monkey ... etc. Non living objects like machines cannot be conscious, even if it behaves intelligently, acts, and works like a conscious being.

2. must be able to communicate intelligently with another conscious being via behaviour (intelligent animals like monkeys, dogs and cats) or language (in case of human being),

3. respond to environmental changes / demands, or carry out their act of biological demands for their survival. (such as wild animals hunting for survival, birds feeding their chicks etc)

Therefore rocks are definitely not conscious, while most humans are. Some humans are not conscious (those in comma, sleeping or fainted drugged or drunk to unconscious state)

Quoting Corvus

sleeping

What about when dreaming?

Reply to bert1 Quoting bert1

What about when dreaming?

When dreaming being unconscious, the person cannot communicate with others, hence cannot be conscious.

Reply to Corvus OK, it seems like your view is a stipulative definition, rather than a theory of something we already agree the is the referent of the term 'consciousness'.

Reply to bert1 Yes, it is just my own opinion :)

Reply to Corvus Sure, that's fair enough, and on topic for this thread.

Reply to bert1 Thank you.

Inanimate matter does not have consciousness, but it does have the ability to produce organic molecules, which lead to life.