On Monday, August 31, 2015, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]> wrote: > > On 31 Aug 2015, at 00:42, Russell Standish wrote: > > On Sun, Aug 30, 2015 at 12:34:18PM +0200, Bruno Marchal wrote: >> >>> >>> On 30 Aug 2015, at 03:08, Russell Standish wrote: >>> >>> Well as people probably know, I don't believe C. elegans can be >>>> conscious in any sense of the word. Hell - I have strong doubts about >>>> ants, and they're massively more complex creatures. >>>> >>> >>> I think personally that C. Elegans, and Planaria (!), even amoeba, >>> are conscious, although very plausibly not self-conscious. >>> >>> I tend to think since 2008 that even RA is already conscious, even >>> maximally so, and that PA is already as much self-conscious than a >>> human (when in some dissociative state). >>> >>> But I don't know if PA is more or less conscious than RA. That >>> depends of the role of the higher part of the brain consists in >>> filtering consciousness or enacting it. >>> >>> >>>> But it probably won't be long before we simulate a mouse brain in toto >>>> - about 2 decades is my guess, maybe even less given enough dollars - >>>> then we're definitely in grey philosophical territory :). >>>> >>> >>> I am slightly less optimistic than you. It will take one of two >>> decades before we simulate the hippocampus of a rat, but probably >>> more time will be needed for the rest of their brain. And the result >>> can be a conscious creature, with a quite different consciousness >>> that a rat, as I find plausible that pain are related to the glial >>> cells and their metabolism, which are not taken into account by the >>> current "copies". >>> >> >> What is blocking us is not the computing power - already whole "rat >> brain" simulations have been done is something like 1/10000 of real >> time - so all we need is about a decade of performane improvement >> through Moores law. >> >> What development is needed is ways of determining the neural >> circuitry. There have been leaps and bounds in the process of slicing >> frozen brains, and imaging the slices with electron microscopes, but >> clearly it is still far too slow. >> >> As for the hypothesis that glial cells have something to do with it, >> well that can be tested via the sort of whole rat brain simulation >> I've been talking about. Run the simulation in a robotic rat, and >> compare the behaviour with a real rat. Basically what the open worm >> guys a doing, but scaled up to a rat. If the simulation is way >> different from the real rat, then we know something else is required. >> > > > I can imagine that the rat will have a "normal behavior", but as he cannot > talk to us, we might fail to appreciate some internal change or even some > anosognosia. The rat would not be a zombie rat, but still be in a quite > different conscious state (perhaps better, as it seems the glial cell might > have some role in the chronic pain. >
In general, if there is a difference in consciousness then there should be a difference in behaviour. If the difference in consciousness is impossible to detect then arguably it is no difference. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
