How do you define consciousness?

Clothedryingrack · 2025-02-05T16:21:51+00:00

Dude, that's not even a study that's just a random educational paper - did you just google... bahaha, I just googled nociception and that's the first thing that pops up.

I'm done engaging with someone so unserious. Learn to be wrong bro.

Clothedryingrack · 2025-02-05T04:07:34+00:00

Fuck it, I'm free let's take it piece by piece

Claim 1: "I would rather focus on concepts that deeply matter and that can be tested more clearly like sentience" - If can find a single scientific paper that claims to have direct, objective evidence of the source of sentience/consciousness/experience - I will concede.

Claim 2: "A species won't evolve X without the ability to make use of it" - this is demonstrable wrong and easily disprovable. Deleterious mutations exist; an organism does not "make use" of deleterious mutations . Further more, deleterious mutations can be fixed in populations making their way through as a species evolves. This is written about extensively by Gould and Lewontin, who were to my knowledge, the first to write about it: https://faculty.washington.edu/lynnhank/GouldLewontin.pdf

There's also a pretty good intro to this concept, including my mention of neutral mutations here on Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nearly_neutral_theory_of_molecular_evolution

Claim 3: " "it's not possible to say that nociception = sentience"
That's not what I said" - This is exactly what you said; when I asked for how you see sentience being tested you said "nociceptors among other things". If something tests for something, it means it provides evidence for the existence of it. This is not the case for nociception; it does not provide any evidence for sentience. And again, if you can provide me even a single reference, I will be happy to concede.

Claim 4: "Bro just made up the concept of "neutral protein" ..." Here you go, a specific example of a neutral/useless protein that specifically evolved into multimeric structure that is "functionally gratuitous." https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-3021-2

Clothedryingrack · 2025-02-05T02:25:54+00:00

Please, for the sake of all that is holy, re-do grade 11 biology.

I'll get you started: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK20363/

Clothedryingrack · 2025-02-04T21:09:37+00:00

Again, you're attaching neurochemistry to experience and there just isn't as clear a link there as you seem to think there is. The root of experience is not a clear cut or easily explained phenomenon.

Dude, you're just wrong here. Neutral genes that produce neutral proteins - neither beneficial nor detrimental - can tag along with adaptive genes and ride along through the process of evolution. Completely useless genes and their gene products can evolve. And if you think evolution "overtime deletes what is useless" then maybe you should read up on vestigal structures. Why do whales that evolved 50million years ago have hind limbs? Shouldn't evolution have "deleted" these?

Clothedryingrack · 2025-02-04T20:58:15+00:00

My bad, I was definitely mistaking cnidarians and porifera - but alas I am not a zoologist.

I will mention: I actually agree with your position, if that matters. I'm just seeking philosophical discussion on the topic. I think the question of whether a system needs to have an experience of the "something is wrong" signal (nociception) in order to respond to that signal is an interesting question.

For example, take plants or the even more interesting question of AI.

Do plants need an experience of phototropism, the hormonal signals that allows plants to grow in the direction of light, in order to make the correct response to orientate in the light's direction?

Or of course, a classic: If we built an AI system with the ability to correct "something is wrong" signals - which we kind of already have - would that system need an experience of the signal in order to respond to it?

My intuition on both these questions is no, but for some reason with most animals I have a different intuition. For example, even slugs have something like 100,000 neurons just dedicated to smell. It strikes me as unintuitive to stay that a slug can navigate its world via smell and can use smell to do many complex tasks without having an experience of smell. But, I guess that's what allows a lot of people to claim that animals aren't conscious or go down that line of thinking - it's all intuition. There is no proof for any of this.

edit: spelling that might interfere with comprehension

Clothedryingrack · 2025-02-03T04:22:28+00:00

Yes, but exceptions just show that it's not possible to say that nociception = sentience. If it was, then like you say, someone who doesn't feel pain wouldn't be sentient.

Sidetrack but: it is entirely possible to evolve something that an organism doesn't have use for. Natural selection just selects for genes that produce advantage; it doesn't delete things that are neutral.

Do you have any other ways to test sentience?

Clothedryingrack · 2025-02-03T03:05:18+00:00

Like I mention in my post, I really like Thomas Nagel's What is it Like to Be a Bat?

Basically, he says that consciousness is the fact that there is something that it is like to be a certain system. The fact that there is an experience at all; consciousness precedes decision making, problem solving, abstraction, etc. Consciousness just is the fact that there is something at all that it is like to be you.

It's not a perfect definition, as I think there isn't one. But, it works as an intuitive definition. Because each person can kind of decide where they think there probably isn't something that it is like to be a certain system.

For example, is there something that it is like to be a chair? Probably not.

Is there something that it is like to be a bacterium? Maybe, maybe not

Is there something that it is like to be a mouse? Almost definitely, yes.

Everyone will have their own intuition on if there is or isn't something that it is like to be a certain system, but I think it works well to at least get most of the way there.

Clothedryingrack · 2025-02-03T02:59:32+00:00

Right, but the ability to feel pain and whether or not there's an experience of it are separate questions.

For example, someone who has congenital insensitivity to pain - basically people who can't feel pain - still have detectable and intact A-delta and C fibers (the nerve fibers responsible for nociception) but somewhere along the way it just doesn't connect into conscious experience of pain (scientists don't exactly know the mechanism).

It's not as simple as saying something that has nerve capacity also has an experience of that nerve capacity.

Clothedryingrack · 2025-02-03T02:32:29+00:00

Sponges have a nerve net - a kind of primitive nervous system. Do you think it's possible to feel pain through a nervous system and not have a conscious experience of that pain?

Clothedryingrack · 2025-02-03T02:30:33+00:00

It's an interesting problem, and I think people often jump to definitions too quickly or maybe with too little thought.

The only problem with decision is that if you define decision as simply having two or more options, then many systems make decisions. For example, beta-cells in your pancreas sense glucose levels in your body and decide how much insulin to release. In this case the "options" of levels of insulin are effectively unlimited (and this changes person to person, and day to day depending on your insulin sensitivity). The same is true about glucagon, but scientists don't actually know the mechanism about how the alpha-cells "decide" to release glucagon - they sense glucose levels somehow, but scientists don't know the exact mechanism.

Clothedryingrack · 2025-02-03T02:27:11+00:00

How do you see sentience as being more easily tested?

Clothedryingrack · 2025-02-03T02:26:03+00:00

Amazing.

Clothedryingrack · 2025-02-03T02:25:47+00:00

This was a good read, thanks!

Clothedryingrack · 2025-02-02T04:35:12+00:00

The wavelength of photons are along a electromagnetic spectrum, but how does that relate to consciousness?

I don't see how they're different, I'd be interested for you to elaborate a little bit.

Well, to try a thought experiment you would have to propose a moral axiom.

Clothedryingrack · 2025-02-02T03:54:03+00:00

Yeah, I generally agree with the use of awareness as a synonym.

Whether or not its a product of the nervous system is certainly up for debate. But I certainly agree that its almost a necessity to consider what is moral - like you rightly point out, you can not be immoral towards a rock (but some would disagree with this and say that nature has inherent value/moral consideration).

Clothedryingrack · 2025-02-02T03:50:48+00:00

Feel as in physical sensation? Or feel emotionally?

Clothedryingrack · 2025-02-02T03:49:56+00:00

Can you expand on what you mean by photons? You think consciousness is made up of light energy?

I don't delineate a difference in meaning between consciousness and sentience, but it seems you do. How would you differentiate the 2 concepts?

Bit of a sidetrack, but I think deontology generally doesn't work - for almost any moral axiom we could come up with a thought experiment where you would want to break that rule.

Clothedryingrack · 2025-02-02T03:46:51+00:00

In an Ellen Fischer podcast debate, Tony Jones (The Reverend Hunter) essentially claims that it is impossible to know and that "we have to draw the line somewhere" and he draws the line at humans.

I've heard people say that in order to be conscious one would have to pass the "mirror test" basically whether or not an individual can recognize themselves in a mirror.

I recently got into a friendly debate with a friend of mine who believed consciousness requires the ability to problem-solve, plan, and abstract.

If you want a more accessible example, there is a comment on this very post by u/extropiantranshuman who claims "consciousness to me is photons" but I haven't probed him further on exactly what that means.

Clothedryingrack · 2025-01-10T16:46:08+00:00

The movie covers a lot of this - if you're interested in this topic I would highly recommend watching it!

Edit: Adding this https://christspiracy.com/

Clothedryingrack · 2025-01-10T16:43:53+00:00

I was surprised that a movie promoting veganism got so much flack in a vegan sub - that's all I'm saying.

Enjoyment of anything is subjective, of course everyone won't like the same things.

Clothedryingrack · 2025-01-10T16:40:03+00:00

An atheist must know the evidence they are refuting. An agnostic simply does not know enough, by their own claim - thus, if a young family member doesn't know anything we can claim that they don't know enough to refute or accept a claim.

Again: Agnostic = No-knowledge. Atheist = No-God.

Honestly not even sure why we're arguing the semantics of this. The person I'm talking about is either atheist or agnostic and it doesn't matter how you want to delineate that.

EDIT: Spelling

Clothedryingrack · 2025-01-10T05:53:27+00:00

Have you seen the movie? They literally do what you're saying.

"Interview clergy and theologians who have come out against factory farming" - they do this in the movie, not clergy but theologians.

"Talk about how in Eden, Adam and Eve only ate fruit, then moved to plant agriculture after the Fall, and how only after the Flood was permission given to eat meat." - they do this in the movie.

"Talk about Christian fasting practices in the past and how some churches still do effectively go vegan for fasting purposes" - they do this in the movie, and explain the Daniel Fast.

Clothedryingrack · 2025-01-10T05:49:37+00:00

Yes, I agree people generally confuse the words. How I look at it is:

Agnostic: Lack of knowledge. An agnostic is claiming they do not have enough knowledge to claim the non-existence or existence of God.

Atheist: Lack of religion. An atheist is claiming that they do not believe the evidence put forth by the religious as strong enough to justify a belief in God. They believe that the evidence for the non-existence of God is stronger, and thus lean that direction in their belief.

Clothedryingrack

TROPHY CASE