On 2/11/2019 7:34 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 11 Feb 2019, at 01:24, Brent Meeker <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:
On 2/10/2019 3:34 PM, Philip Thrift wrote:
Two recent books:
The First Minds: Caterpillars, Karyotes, and Consciousness
Arthur S. Reber
https://books.google.com/books/about/The_First_Minds.html?id=RBLEugEACAAJ
Brain-Mind: From Neurons to Consciousness and Creativity
Paul Thagard
https://books.google.com/books/about/Brain_Mind.html?id=jJjHvAEACAAJ
via
When Did Consciousness Begin?
Paul Thagard
https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/hot-thought/201901/when-did-consciousness-begin
Thagard's 10 hypotheses:
1. Consciousness has always existed, because God is conscious and eternal.
2. Consciousness began when the universe formed, around 13.7 billion years ago.
3. Consciousness began with single-celled life, around 3.7 billion years ago
(Reber).
4. Consciousness began with multicellular plants, around 850 million years ago.
5. Consciousness began when animals such as jellyfish got thousands of neurons,
around 580 million years ago.
6. Consciousness began when insects and fish developed larger brains with about
a million neurons (honeybees) or 10 million neurons (zebrafish) around 560
million years ago.
7. Consciousness began when animals such as birds and mammals developed much
larger brains with hundreds of millions neurons, around 200 million years ago.
[Thagard]
8. Consciousness began with humans, homo sapiens, around 200,000 years ago.
9. Consciousness began when human culture became advanced, around 3000 years
ago (Julian Jaynes).
10. Consciousness does not exist, as it is just a scientific mistake
(behaviorism} or a “user illusion” (Daniel Dennett).
A good exposition, but I wish he had taken some time to consider what is
consciousness. I think he recognizes that there are different kinds and levels
of consciousness, but he doesn't make it clear what they are; how are they
related to memory and communication and planning. It seems clear to me that
different kinds and levels of consciousness appeared at different times.
Are you OK that consciousness is, from the first person perspective, something
which can be said to be
1) true
?? Propositions are true (or false).
2) knowable
I think that distinguishes one level of consciousness: self-reflection,
perceiving that you are conscious. But I doubt that spiders have self
reflection. I suspect it appears in social animals as an evolutionary
adaptation, seeing yourself as others see you.
2) non provable
Proof is a relation between propositions mediated by rules of inference.
3) indubitable
Ok.
4) non definable
?? When we talk about consciousness we rely on ostensive definition to
understand one another: "You know that feeling you get when you step on
a tack?"
5) anticipable
If yes, then all universal machine is confronted with this, although only
Löbian machine can assert this, with precaution.
Consciousness is not much more than the first person belief in some reality.
It's a recognition that reality consists of "me and not-me". But that
is the most basic level. There is also the hypothesis of other minds
and of other's view of yourself. There is consciousness of one's place
and in time and history; which probably requires language.
Brent
It accelerates the learning of distinguishing prey and predators for the
self-moving self-eating types of creatures.
There are many possible experience of consciousness, and even sorts of state of
consciousness, from highly dissociative, with or without amnesia, to many
mundane state, like each of us at all instant of our normal waking life. It
makes easy to get new beliefs and to abandon ancient beliefs. When Löbian, it
generates “fear” (the local expectation of local unsatisfiabilty condition).
Bruno
Brent
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