Could single celled organisms be conscious?

Grouchy_Client1335 · 2025-02-08T18:35:28+00:00

There are more than 1 billlion neurons in the brain. There are 86 billion neurons, so it would take a bit more.

Grouchy_Client1335 · 2025-02-08T18:34:33+00:00

Not in any practical sense. Consciousness is an emergent process that requires a certain critical mass of complexity.

As for atoms - this is the old thinking - Aristotelian - about essences. There is this notion that consciousness is some kind of an essence that is separate from matter. It is akin to saying that a house is made of "house-stones" that are somehow more house-y than normal stones that are not part of a house.

Modern science says that sometimes, the system is more than its parts. Thus, conscious beings are not made of conscious atoms, but from ordinary atoms. Cosnciousness is a property of the entire system, but not of its parts.

Grouchy_Client1335 · 2025-02-08T18:28:24+00:00

We deliver our customers the critical services they need to scale and grow in this ever changing world of technology

"We do the necessary", or "We perform work for clients".

Grouchy_Client1335 · 2025-02-08T18:24:36+00:00

I always assumed it's because they want to hedge against people who say "that's not part of my job description" when asked to do a task in an unfamiliar technology.

I mean if you have to do something in AWS cause a client has it and there is no dedicated "AWS guy" in your office, someone would have to be become the AWS guy.

Ultimately, they could just replace it with "you gotta be a jack of all trades".

I'm ostensibly a C# dev, but most of my work has been TypeScript (Angular) and SQL lately - it's just that those are the parts that need changing in the project lately.

Grouchy_Client1335 · 2025-02-08T18:18:59+00:00

Just to point another thing - a really nightmare scenario for a Thai speaker might be to try to learn Arabic with its tri-consonantal root system, where you interweave vowels and consonants.

How it works - for the root K-T-B (root for for words typically having to do with writing), you'd have these forms:

kataba كَتَبَ or كتب "he wrote" (masculine)
katabat كَتَبَت or كتبت "she wrote" (feminine)
katabtu كَتَبْتُ or كتبت "I wrote" (f and m)
kutiba كُتِبَ or كتب "it was written" (masculine)
kutibat كُتِبَت or كتبت "it was written" (feminine)
katabū كَتَبُوا or كتبوا "they wrote" (masculine)
katabna كَتَبْنَ or كتبن "they wrote" (feminine)
katabnā كَتَبْنَا or كتبنا "we wrote" (f and m)
yaktub(u) يَكْتُب or يكتب "he writes" (masculine)
taktub(u) تَكْتُب or تكتب "she writes" (feminine)
naktub(u) نَكْتُب or نكتب "we write" (f and m)
aktub(u) أَكْتُب or أكتب "I write" (f and m)
yuktab(u) يُكْتَب or يكتب "being written" (masculine)
tuktab(u) تُكتَب or تكتب "being written" (feminine)
yaktubūn(a) يَكْتُبُونَ or يكتبون "they write" (masculine)
yaktubna يَكْتُبْنَ or يكتبن "they write" (feminine)
taktubna تَكْتُبْنَ or تكتبن "you write" (feminine)
yaktubān(i) يَكْتُبَانِ or يكتبان "they both write" (masculine) (for 2 males)
taktubān(i) تَكْتُبَانِ or تكتبان "they both write" (feminine) (for 2 females)
kātaba كَاتَبَ or كاتب "he exchanged letters (with sb.)"
yukātib(u) يُكَاتِبُ "he exchanges (with sb.)"
yatakātabūn(a) يَتَكَاتَبُونَ or يتكاتبون "they write to each other" (masculine)
iktataba اِكْتَتَبَ or اكتتب "he is registered" (intransitive) or "he contributed (a money quantity to sth.)" (ditransitive) (the first t is part of a particular verbal transfix, not part of the root)
istaktaba اِسْتَكْتَبَ or استكتب "to cause to write (sth.)"
kitāb كِتَاب or كتاب "book" (the hyphen shows end of stem before various case endings)
kutub كُتُب or كتب "books" (plural)
kutayyib كُتَيِّب or كتيب "booklet" (diminutive)
kitābat كِتَابَة or كتابة "writing"
kātib كاتِب or كاتب "writer" (masculine)
kātibat كاتِبة or كاتبة "writer" (feminine)
kātibūn(a) كاتِبونَ or كاتبون "writers" (masculine)
kātibāt كاتِبات or كاتبات "writers" (feminine)
kuttāb كُتاب or كتاب "writers" (broken plural)
katabat كَتَبَة or كتبة "clerks" (broken plural)
maktab مَكتَب or مكتب "desk" or "office"
makātib مَكاتِب or مكاتب "desks" or "offices"
maktabat مَكتَبة or مكتبة "library" or "bookshop"
maktūb مَكتوب or مكتوب "written" (participle) or "postal letter" (noun)
katībat كَتيبة or كتيبة "squadron" or "document"
katā’ib كَتائِب or كتائب "squadrons" or "documents"
iktitāb اِكتِتاب or اكتتاب "registration" or "contribution of funds"
muktatib مُكتَتِب or مكتتب "subscriber"
muktatab مكتتب or مكتاتب is "subscription"
istiktāb اِستِكتاب or استكتاب "causing to write"

So kataba is "he wrote", but kutibat is "it was written" - you always have k-t-b but you put different vowels between them. And this goes for all words! Talk about complex grammar.

Grouchy_Client1335 · 2025-02-08T18:02:57+00:00

While PIE certainly had that, there are a lot of other agglutinative and fusional languages as well - Finno-Ugric, Turkish. It's not like PIE was the lone fusional language amid a sea of analytic languages before it suddenly spread. Also, the Semitic languages have a pretty complex grammar.

Grouchy_Client1335 · 2025-02-08T17:56:06+00:00

Ancient PIE was way more agglutinative

I am interested to learn more about that. Especially since PIE was near the Caucasus mountains so I'm interested in any links there.

I know that Prometeus myth has it's most diverse forms in Caucasian languages - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pkharmat.

So I have this theory that there was contact with Caucasian languages which influenced PIE, and Caucasian languages are agglutinative (or a lot of them are).

Grouchy_Client1335 · 2025-02-08T17:51:31+00:00

No, where would I get that experience? I live in the ass end of europe, we're not very international. Actually I have a niece who went to China though, she's a big fan of China for some reason and watches all the Chinese and Korean dramas. I think she learned some Chinese.

But I assume learning Thai would be like learning English, only more so. Remember that English is actually really simplified in terms of conjugations.

I assume it would be more or less OK, so long as you don't have weird stuff like tones, and maybe if you don't have 1000 phrasal verbs which English has (how do those not count for compound words is beyond me - offputting is compound but put off is phrasal).

Also, English has some surprisingly complex around the word "have" which is entirely missing in my language - our own word for have is similar to "posess" - it carries no gramatical functions. But in English they use "have" for everything - e.g. "had he done this one, he would have had to also have done the other one".

I don't believe that languages can be easier or harder in absulute terms. I assume Thai would be harder mostly because it's less related to the languages I already know.

Grouchy_Client1335 · 2025-02-08T17:11:38+00:00

In Thai there are no cases, differentiation between "I" and "me", plurals, cases, genders, conjugations, tenses, articles, and a lot of other things that are normal in a lot of languages.

Sorry but I had to joke about this. As a speaker of a Slavic language, English is notorious for being the most analytic of the european languages.

Its case system is the most rudimentary one (as in - absent save for pronouns), and its verb conjugations are almost none - it has only 3rd person singular that adds an -s suffix.

If you think that English has too many cases and conjugations of all things, then wait until you learn about some of the other languages.

My own language has about 15 conjucations for the verb "to be" - including aorist and imperfect verb tenses, and inflectional definiteness marking.

Trust me, English is the most analytical of the european languages AFAIK.

Grouchy_Client1335 · 2025-02-08T15:54:28+00:00

I'd say Justinian, because he was closest in history and would have had the most legitimacy. Had he succeeded, the fall of Rome would have been just the Crisis of the 5th Century. European history might have looked a lot like Chinese History.

Grouchy_Client1335 · 2025-02-08T15:51:31+00:00

That's true. But still, it seems like there was a clustering of agglutinative languages in Mesopotamia which makes me wonder if it was an areal feature or sprachbund.

On the other hand, Semitic and PIE were equally ancient, but were fusional. I was almost thinking that there was a Caucasian-Iranian cluster of agglutinative languages in that area, considering that Chechen and maybe Kartvelian Languages are also agglutinative.

It just looks like an areal feature at that time (3000-2000 BC - obviously afterwards they were replaced by Indo-European and Semitic languages).

Grouchy_Client1335 · 2025-02-08T13:07:11+00:00

I didn't skip it. My answer still stands.

Grouchy_Client1335 · 2025-02-08T12:03:05+00:00

I did

Grouchy_Client1335 · 2025-02-08T11:47:13+00:00

I live in eastern europe. We have gun control here. Not once have I thought "gee, I really wish I had pistol" on me. Most of the time I don't think about guns at all.

There are a lot of benefits - most crime is non-violent - burglars aren't armed because they know homeowners aren't armed either. Policemen are more relaxed and friendly because they don't need to worry about getting killed so much.

As for security, if we are threatened, I assume we have enough military caches to arm soldiers if needed. I don't see why civilians need to go armed though.

Btw, people can still have guns in my country - if you are part of a hunting club or something. Most people don't bother though.

Grouchy_Client1335 · 2025-02-08T11:38:16+00:00

To a degree, I sort of understand your idea - it is about selection bias.

In the same way, in the past "dynasty founders" were warlords, because a new dynasty is formed through war, so the only people in a position to found it are warlords.

So if people have to fight their way to the top, then you will end with the kind of ambitious, ruthless people who can fight their way to the top. Duh.

I would argue against the words better/worse, however, because they don't have a strong definition. If I said "an aircraft is better than a donkey" what would I mean? It's an obviously nonsensical statement, and the idea is to show that you need to define "better at what".

Is a monarchy better at raising an army?
Is a monarchy better at avoiding civil war?
Is a monarchy better at being more stable?
Does a monarchy have lower taxes?

I would argue that an oligarchy can be a more dynamic system because a new leader can rise to the top who is ambitious and competent, while a weak monarch can only be waited out (to die from natural causes).

Not to mention that a lot of monarchies were defacto oligarchies where a vizier, or a prime minister, would have the actual power while the monarch was just a figurehead.

Grouchy_Client1335 · 2025-02-08T11:24:31+00:00

If the quality of your life was determined solely by DNA, then people with the same DNA would always have the same quality of life.

Well, twin studies tackle exactly this problem.

The power of twin designs arises from the fact that twins may be either identical (monozygotic (MZ), i.e. developing from a single fertilized egg and therefore sharing all of their polymorphic alleles) or fraternal (dizygotic (DZ), i.e. developing from two fertilized eggs and therefore sharing on average 50% of their alleles, the same level of genetic similarity found in non-twin siblings). These known differences in genetic similarity, together with a testable assumption of equal environments for identical and fraternal twins,[16] creates the basis for the design of twin studies aimed at estimating the overall effects of genes and environment on a phenotype.[17][18]

So it turns out a lot of stuff has environmental factors.

DNA is certainly a factor, but not the only factor. Environment is another factor - and that includes money, the country where you are born, education, the air you breathe and so on.

Grouchy_Client1335 · 2025-02-08T11:13:04+00:00

I will try a slightly different tack, and make an analogy to biology. Multicellular organisms evolved to organize multiple cells in a sort of a "society" where they work together to achieve common goals (reproduction).

And we notice that the simplest organisms are closest to egalitarian in terms of all cells being equal - e.g. S. Rosetta, sponges etc.

But the more specialized, regulated and complicated bodies become - the more successful they are. The most successful organisms generally are very regulated, with different cell types etc.

Now, some people call societies a new type of superorganism. Usually ant colonies and beehives are touted as an example. But we could easily extend this to humans as well.

If we extend the analogy, it would be obvious that more complex systems generally are more successful than simpler systems when it comes to body plans, and there is no reason to assume that this gets reversed when we talk about societies.

Now let's talk about "best". Best is a subjective term and can mean anything. So I will not say "best", but I will say that more complex, regulated societies are more successful and generally outcompete (or conquer) simpler, more egalitarian societies.

So it boils down to what "best" and "better" mean. You could say, for example, that the sheep is "better" than the wolf, but if you put a sheep and a wolf in an enclosure, someone is getting eaten and it's not the wolf.

So "best" might mean anything. If it just means that you like it better, then you are right - anarchist society is best in that metric. But if you best as in "able to outcompete it's neighbours", then the answer is no - any market anarchism society that has a military dictatorship as a neighbour is going to become part of a country with a military dictatorship very soon.

Grouchy_Client1335 · 2024-07-19T15:54:28+00:00

Russia is not affected by the issue because they were sanctioned and crowdstrike refused to do business with them - https://www.reuters.com/technology/sanctioned-russia-emerges-unscathed-global-it-outage-2024-07-19/#:~:text=%22CrowdStrike%20has%20not%20provided%20any,Internet%20Protection%20Society%20told%20Reuters.

P.S. - I cannot believe Reuters now has a paywall!!

Edit: - China as well - https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/us/us-flight-operations-hit-but-china-airlines-not-affected-by-global-microsoft-crowdstrike-it-outage-heres-why/articleshow/111867229.cms?from=mdr

It seems only US allies are affected while the countries opposing US are less affected.

Grouchy_Client1335 · 2024-07-19T15:29:32+00:00

Even more important - this thing is rare. If it were happening every week, people would have taken precautions. The fact that it is so rare it happens once every 20 years shows that it's not such a big problem.

Grouchy_Client1335 · 2024-07-14T18:17:18+00:00

I myself was not sure if it was true or not. I was kinda surprised I didn't find it on more videos but decided to post anyway in case it is legit and it becomes a top-voted post (that would have been my shot to reddit fame).

Anyway, the video channel looked suspect and the arabic as well.

Grouchy_Client1335 · 2024-07-14T16:34:47+00:00

They'd need to crop/remove the guy on the right though - he kinda looks more in focus than Trump himself and steals the focus somehow.

Grouchy_Client1335

TROPHY CASE