From: nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos)
Subject: Re: What is consciousness? (was Re: The christian perspective...?)
Organization: USC  Department of Computer Science
Date: 15 Sep 92 15:48:36 GMT

In <h+zn2a=.bskendig@netcom.com> bskendig@netcom.com (Brian Kendig) writes:

>eric_gorr@coglab_psych.uoregon.edu (Eric Gorr) wrote (in article <1992Sep15.005154.9711@nntp.uoregon.edu>):

>I agree with you, but I suspect that if I were to go through an
>encyclopedia with you and ask you what things therein possessed
>"consciousness", we'd probably only disagree on a few of them.

That would surprise me very much.  Consider the following four quotes:

Descartes:

	I do not explain the feeling of pain without recourse to the
	soul...but I do explain all the external motions which in us 
	accompany that feeling: these alone are found in the beasts,
	and not pain properly speaking. 
			--Letter to Mersenne dated June 11, 1640

	We are so accustomed to persuade ourselves that the brute
	beasts feel as we do [a habit of thought engendered by "the
	resemblance between most of the actions of the beasts and
	our own"] that it is difficult to rid ourselves of this 
	opinion.  But if we were as accustomed to seeing automata
	which imitate perfectly all those of our actions that they
	can imitate, and to taking them for automata only, we 
	should have no doubt at all that the irrational animals
	are automata too.  --Letter to Mersenne dated July 13, 1640

Hume:
	Animals undoubtedly feel, think, love, hate, will, and even
	reason, though in a more imperfect manner than men; are
	their souls also immaterial and immortal?
			--from _Of the Immortality of the Soul_

Don Rhoades, Curator of Education at Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia, SC:

	Tool use, language, abstract thought, awareness of self--
	all have been nominated as the single trait that sets humans
	apart, but science investigation has shown that, as 
	important as each has been in human evolution, none is 
	uniquely ours.
		--From the January-February 1990 issue of the
		glossy magazine put out by Riverbanks Zoo.

Comments: 1. In the words of Laurence Tribe, we have a real "clash of
opposites here."

2. Rhoades is certainly correct about "tool use". "Language"? it depends
on how elaborate and specific a language you have in mind.  But "awareness
of self" is a case of "science investigation" overstepping its proper
bounds and getting tangled up in philosophy.  "Abstract thought" could
be more of the same.

>>Please define more clearly what you mean by consciousness and provide a test
>>to prove that some does have it.  Without this, it is a meaningless concept.

>Okay, lemme take a stab at it.  The dictionary defines 'consciousness'
>as "awareness of one's own feelings, what is happening around one,
>etc."  'Conscious' is "having a feeling or knowledge (of one's own
>sensations, feelings, etc. or of external things); knowing or feeling
>(that something is or was happening or existing); aware; cognizant."

I would take any of these as sufficient for consciousness. "Feeling of
one's own sensations" is the most rudimentary, and could almost be
taken as a definition of the proper philosophical concept of consciousness,
which is what Descartes refers to above.

>This is still something of a flaky definition, but better than
>nothing.  I would add that conscious implies memory and the capability
>to learn, and that "feelings" implies moods or emotions.

If that is your definition, you are loading down the words more than
necessary.

>How does this apply to the real world?  An ant's actions are governed
>by instinct and simple chemicals alone; it probably never stops to
>think that it's hungry or uncomfortable.

If it did, that would be more than enough for consciousness.

>  Neither does a computer,
>whose actions are governed by a finite-state program.

I agree, and so would Descartes ("automata"!!!) but a lot of people
in AI are suckered by a fallacious bit of sophomoric philosophy
known as "the Turing test."

>A two-month fetus doesn't have a functioning brain,

It does function, but not as a coherent whole, apparently.

> so I'd think it's
>not capable of satisfying the dictionary definition of
>"consciousness."

But it could well satisfy mine.

>I'm out of my element in this discussion; I haven't studied the
>philosophy of conscious thought.

I have, for the last 27 years, though not as much as my own
specialty, topology.  I've been largely holding off until now
in talk.abortion, looking for the right place to start.  This
post is my best handle so far.

Peter Nyikos



Newsgroups: talk.abortion