On Sep 1, 2004, at 6:50 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
In a message dated 8/31/2004 10:15:20 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
But my point was that in distinguishing oneself from the world, one has
already defined the existence of a place called "the world" from which
one is distinct, and any decisions one takes will have that in the
account. So purely genetics-delimited behavioral definitions do not
wash with me, especially where high intellect (primate, cetacian,
possibly mollusccan) is present
[n.b. I mean cephalopod, not molluscan...]
But the consciousness you have just described is a purely animal one possessed by many animals that we would not consider sensient.
I don't believe so; I was pretty specific about where I thought it existed. The list is really quite short:
1. Gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos. 2. Bottlenosed dolphins. 3. Giant squid and/or some octopus species.
The third is tentative, but cephalopods do seem to be pretty dang bright.
The consciousness present in apes is sufficient for them to produce language when taught to sign. If dolphins are not communicating complexly, then it's pretty hard for us to say we are either (just because we can't decode all the elements of a language doesn't mean it doesn't exist).
The ability to
differentiatte self from non-self is critical to most (but not all animals).
Well, it depends on how you define "animal", perhaps. I'd say all mammals, reptiles, fish and amphibians, at least, are capable of understanding, at least on the limbic level, where they end and the predator begins. ;)
Consciousness is really what Damaso calls "The
feeling of what happens', the ability to monitor the internal state of the
organism and see how it changes when exposed to things in the environment or
its own actions (eating moving seeiong).
That's an interesting definition but I don't know for certain it's that simple.
One does not need to be sensient to have this facility.
Possibly not, but one does have to be sentient to record it, compare it to prior states, and learn from it to understand possible future states.
As we have become
more intelligent we come to believe that somehow our internal reality is
dependent on self-awareness but this is bogus.
I don't know about that either. Without a sense of time -- planning for the future by salting money into an IRA now, for instance -- we're doing something that affects our immediate reality *and* ideally will affect one that doesn't exist yet. None of that would be possible without self-awareness, it seems to me.
-- WthmO
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