You could function perfectly well, doing all the thinking, choosing and reacting you do now, on automatic without consciousness and no one else could tell.
Consciousness is not your ability to reason or your common sense. It is much more than just the ability to react to your environment. It is your ability to appreciate your environment, to care what happens.
If you are conscious, there is somebody home, truly feeling, experiencing, worrying, not just going through the motions.
Another sort of definition: consciousness is an apprehension of the whole that emerges when a threshold of electro-chemical activity is reached.
You presume, not that unreasonably, that fellow humans are also conscious when they are awake or dreaming.
But you don’t really know that much about their internal experience. For example, colour blind people experience red and green as very similar. Yet to your eyes, they likely appear very different. Some people could even experience green subjectively as red and red as green. They would be totally unaware of the switch. You could be one of them. There is no way anyone could tell. They would label all red and green objects correctly, just feel them differently inside. They might even experience the rainbow in some way that is unlike any internal colour experience you have, e.g. synthesesia.
It is obvious we experience colours differently, at least to some degree, or everyone would like the same colours. The way we experience a colour is partly as an emotion, partly as associations, partly as memories. Imagine a new colour unlike any you have ever seen before. Perhaps that is how others experience red.
Because there is so little genetic information in your DNA (Deoxyribonucleic Acid), only a million genes or so, there is no way the details of all the interconnections in the brain could be genetically determined. This leaves things open for much more variety than we might first expect to find.
We know that brain waves quiet down when you become unconscious, but as far as I know, no one has done experiments to correlate brain wave activity with subjective consciousness intensity. If there were, you might be able to compare two people and say person A is currently more conscious than person B.
People have been dead, with flatline brainscans and still have managed to hear and report what went on later, sometimes with an out of body experience or a near death experience.
I presume all humans are conscious unless they have been shown to have brain activity the same as someone under anaesthesis — impairment in function is not sufficient.
We discover sages who seem more awake than usual. They tell us their internal experience is infinitely richer and more intense than ordinary waking consciousness.
Most people have at least a few experiences of cosmic consciousness in their lives.
We share a part of our brain (the brainstem) with the reptiles and fish. It handles basic survival such as breathing and movement.
We share a part of our brain (the hippocampus) with the other mammals from mice to whales. It handles emotions.
We share a part of our brain (the neocortex) with dolphins, whales and elephants. It handles logic and reasoning.
We assume that consciousness and some part of the brain are intimately linked, though in other times in history people associated the seat of their being with the heart or the liver.
We don’t know much about how consciousness and the various parts of the brain are linked. We do know that people can lose large chunks of their brains and still function normally, apparently conscious.
Some people, usually Christian, argue that only man is intelligent and only man is conscious. Therefore only man matters. Though other creatures may look like they are struggling and feeling, they are just going through the motions. They point to man’s large brain as proof. The only catch is that the brains of dolphins, elephants and whales, are considerably larger than human brains. Further, there is evidence these creatures too are intelligent, perhaps in some ways more intelligent that humans. So if large brains are an indicator of consciousness, it seems to me then surely dolphins, elephants and whales are also likely conscious.
Genetically humans are 98.6% identical with mountain gorillas. What is so different about us that would explain how the gorillas would not be conscious and we are? Were our ancestors the Cro Magnon and Neanderthals conscious? When did this consciousness thing that makes us so all fired important kick in during evolution?
You are also conscious when you dream. We know for example that dogs dream. Those that believe dogs are not conscious tell us that dogs just pretend to dream, just go through the motions, they don’t actually experience anything internally. Why postulate such elaborate pretence without any evidence for it?
Man has a sense of humour. Perhaps that is the key indicator of consciousness. So do elephants and dolphins.
Man is compassionate. Perhaps that is the key indicator of consciousness. Both dolphins and elephants care for the sick. Elephants adopt orphans.
The most obvious sign of human consciousness is awareness of the environment and reacting to it. By that criteria every living thing is likely conscious. You can even see microscopic animals probing their environments and reacting to what they find.
I assert that since we have no way of knowing what is conscious and what is not and since we have no direct measure of consciousness, I believe, that in the absence of precise information, you should err on the side of presuming consciousness exists. So I assume all fish, mammals, reptiles, birds, amphibians are conscious.
For example, in 1800 people argued that it was ok to mistreat slaves and horses because they had no eternal souls. This was their way of talking about consciousness. The soul (consciousness) was something that inhabited a body and survived after death. Once it became economically feasible to give up slavery and work horses, we decided that mistreatment was wrong.
Similarly, today people argue it is ok to torture chickens in the production of eggs, by wiring their feet to the bottoms of their cages to stop them from moving around and wasting calories and making it possible to pack many chickens into a small space. They argue that is ok to scald chickens to death. Anyone who has suffered even a small scald wound knows how painful they are. They tell us when chickens squawk, it does not matter. The pain is just simulated. There is really nothing home in the chicken.
My view is that we don’t know for sure one way or the other, so we should err on the side of humane treatment. I eat only free range eggs. To me, if a chicken squawks in pain, I’d think, that unless I have extremely strong proof otherwise, I should presume I am truly hurting it.
From my personal experience, chickens are not that bright, but they are protective of their young and show worry, pride, contentment and terror with different clucking sounds.
I would hope anyone contemplating torturing me because they doubted my consciousness would give me the same benefit of the doubt I give to chickens.
When computers start doing most of the things that humans can do, the question will come up, are they conscious? Like the android Data and the holographic Doctor on Star Trek, they may claim to be conscious, but how could we tell?
We may decide to treat them as conscious, on the pragmatic grounds that they have the power give us trouble if we hurt them or refuse them the rights of conscious beings.
To some people, the notion of computers being conscious is just as ludicrous as the notion that life could be created in the test tube was a decade ago. After all, life was something mystical requiring divine intervention. It turned out life was much more mundane than we thought. It may turn out that consciousness is no big deal either.
Christians love to quote Genesis 1:26 : "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
They mistakenly think it gives them the right to destroy the planet and to enslave every other species. I look forward to the day when we have proof that consciousness is much more common than most imagine and man will feel mightily ashamed for all the past suffering he has brought on other species.
Life is instantaneous and living is dying. Just as the chariot-wheel in rolling rolls only at one point on the tire and in resting rests at once point, in the same way the life a living being lasts for only the period of one thought. As soon as that thought has ceased the being is said to have ceased.Paradoxical though it may seem: There is a path to walk on, these is walking being done, but there is no traveller. There are deeds being done, but there is no doer. There is a blowing of the air, but there is no wind that does the blowing. The thought of self is an error and all existences are as hollow as the plantain tree and as empty as twirling water bubbles.
Therefore there is no self, there is no transmigration of a self; but there are deeds and the continued effect of deeds.
~ Gautama Buddha (563 BC 483 BC age:80)
From his point of view, consciousness keeps spontaneously arising in thought quanta, but there is no permanent experiencer.
Quantum scientists did not drive themselves insane over the paradoxes of quantum mechanics. They stuck to the math and learned how matter on a small scale behaves in precise detail.
I could imagine an intelligent species bedazzled for millennia by their first contact with water, trying to understand its essential nature. Eventually they would simply accept that was different from anything else they had encountered and get on with studying how it behaves.
I suspect we are stuck studying consciousness because we want primarily to know what it is. We are not content to say it is its own thing, quite unlike anything else. It deserves its own category, just like space, time, matter, energy etc. We won’t make headway until we change our focus from what is consciousness? to questions such as:
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recommend book⇒Mind Children: The Future of Robot and Human Intelligence | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| by | Hans P. Moravec | 978-0-674-57618-6 | paperback | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| birth | 1948-11-30 age:69 | 978-0-674-57616-2 | hardcover | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| publisher | Harvard Univ Pres | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| published | 1990-01-02 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| This book tackles the fundamental problem of identity in a quite accessible way. Am I my body, my pattern, my process, my consciousness? He points out the coming merger of man and machine will crack our age old notions of life and death. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Greyed out stores probably do not have the item in stock. Try looking for it with a bookfinder. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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recommend book⇒The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| by | Ray Kurzweil | 978-0-14-028202-3 | paperback | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| birth | 1948-02-12 age:70 | 978-0-670-88217-5 | hardcover | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| publisher | Penguin | 978-1-101-07788-7 | eBook | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| published | 2000-01-01 | 978-0-14-086888-3 | audio | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| B002CIY8JW | kindle | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| A fascinating book giving the evidence why computers exceeding human intelligence are imminent. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Greyed out stores probably do not have the item in stock. Try looking for it with a bookfinder. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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recommend book⇒How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| by | Ray Kurzweil | 978-0-14-312404-7 | paperback | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| birth | 1948-02-12 age:70 | 978-0-670-02529-9 | hardcover | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| publisher | Viking Adult | 978-1-101-60110-5 | eBook | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| published | 2012-11-13 | 978-1-4692-0386-7 | audio | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| B007V65UUG | kindle | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| If you have ever wondered about how your mind works, read this book. Kurzweil’s insights reveal key secrets underlying human thought and our ability to recreate it. This is an eloquent and thought-provoking work. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Greyed out stores probably do not have the item in stock. Try looking for it with a bookfinder. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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recommend book⇒The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| by | Dalai Lama, XIV | 978-0-7679-2081-0 | paperback | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| birth | 1935-07-06 age:82 | 978-0-7679-2066-7 | hardcover | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| publisher | Broadway | 978-0-7679-2291-3 | eBook | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| published | 2005-09-13 | 978-0-7393-2265-9 | audio | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| B000FCKCZQ | kindle | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The Dalai Lama brings a very interesting perspective to the consciousness debate. He gets himself invited to all kinds of scientific conferences and most of the great scientists of the world are happy to spend a few days acting as his tutor. At the same time he represents an ancient contemplative tradition. He is the exact opposite of dogmatic. Amusingly, he chides the religious fervour and certaintly often masqueranding as scientific objecitivity. He does not want debate prematurely closed on any issue. One of his most delightful characteristics is his complete honesty about what he knows and does not. It is so odd a person of his stature being so down to earth. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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