Good point. Since plants have no brains and no neurons and no muscles and do not move
they have no "patterns of doings" and therefore no consciousness. There is a
paper from Taiz et al. which argues plants neither possess nor require consciousness.
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Plants-Neither-Possess-nor-Require-Consciousness.-Taiz-Alkon/ba409ce6518883973eb585c9cda1714b1c44707d
I found a reference to the paper in the book "Dancing Cockatoos and the Dead Man
Test: How Behavior Evolves and Why It Matters" from Marlene Zuk
https://wwnorton.com/books/dancing-cockatoos-and-the-dead-man-test
-J.
-------- Original message --------
From: Nicholas Thompson <[email protected]>
Date: 7/13/24 3:34 AM (GMT+01:00)
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Why the Mystery of Consciousness Is Deeper Than We Thought
I have no trouble stipulating that consciousness is a degree-thing so long as
we understand it with reference to patterns of doings rather than in terms of
the equipment organisms carry around.
Nick
On Fri, Jul 12, 2024 at 7:21 PM Jochen Fromm <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
The dictionary defines intelligence as the ability to learn or understand or to deal with new
or trying situations. H.G. Wells says in his book "The Time Machine" that "There is
no intelligence where there is no change and no need of change. Only those animals partake of
intelligence that have to meet a huge variety of needs and dangers." LLMs are the result of
endless training cycles and they show amazing levels of intelligence. Apparently there is a
relation between learning and intelligence.
I think languages and codes are more essential to understand self-awareness
and consciousness because consciousness and self-awareness are a side effect of
language acquisition which allows to bypass the blind spot of the inability to
perceive the own self.
Maybe Steve and Dave are correct that there is a spectrum of consciousness:
plants have 1 bit of consciousness because they are aware of sunshine and water
levels in the environment. Animals have 2 bits of consciousness because they
are additionally aware of predators and food sources in the environment.
Primates have 3 bits of consciousness because they are aware of injustice and
inequalities (e.g. by being jealous). Humans have the most bits of
consciousness because of language and self-awareness. Wheeler's it from bit
comes to mind.
-J.
-------- Original message --------
From: Pieter Steenekamp <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>>
Date: 7/12/24 11:25 AM (GMT+01:00)
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Why the Mystery of Consciousness Is Deeper Than We
Thought
Jochen,
Thank you for your thoughtful and engaging post! It's never too late for a
good discussion, even if we sometimes get distracted by the call of daily life
(or perhaps the allure of a particularly captivating cat video).
Your points on the necessity of language for meta-awareness and the intriguing idea
of the "blind spot" of self-perception are fascinating. However, I’d like to
suggest a slight pivot in our focus. Rather than concentrating on consciousness per se,
why not delve into the realm of intelligence?
Why, you might ask? Well, what we're really curious about is what’s going
on in our heads when we're conscious. I'd rather frame it as exploring what’s
happening when we think. This shift allows us to focus on understanding
intelligence, which is arguably more tangible and easier to study objectively.
Imagine we endeavor to create intelligent AI. By doing so, we can define
intelligence, observe it externally, and measure it objectively. This aligns
with Karl Popper's idea that for something to be considered scientific, it
should be falsifiable. Now, while I don't entirely subscribe to the notion that
everything in research must be falsifiable (after all, some of the best
discoveries come from uncharted territories), there's undeniable merit in
having a testable hypothesis.
Studying consciousness often leads us into murky waters where our findings
might not be easily falsifiable. On the other hand, examining intelligence –
with its overlap with consciousness – offers us the chance to make objective,
external observations that could ultimately shed light on the very nature of
consciousness itself.
In the end, by focusing on intelligence, we might just find ourselves
uncovering the secrets of consciousness as a delightful side effect. It’s a bit
like trying to understand a cat's behavior by studying its fascination with
cardboard boxes – the journey is just as enlightening as the destination.
Looking forward to your thoughts!
Pieter
On Fri, 12 Jul 2024 at 00:06, Jochen Fromm <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Please excuse the late response, I was distracted a bit.
What is the reason that one or more languages are essential for meta
awareness? I guess we all agree that all animals know their environment and are
aware of it. This is necessary to move around in it, to find food and to avoid
predators. Their biological blueprint can be found in their DNA.
Therefore one language is necessary for the (DNA) code to specify an
actor which is embedded in a world and able to move around in it. Beings who
are embedded in an environment can perceive everything except themselves
because the own self is the center of all perceptions that can not be perceived
itself. As observers we are always attached to our own bodies. The own person
is the blind spot which a person is unable to see or hear clearly.
A second language is necessary to get access to the world of language
and to move around in it. It is not necessary for salmons who come back to the
stream where they were born (they use smell to do this) or for ants who follow
pheromones to find the shortest path to tasty food sources. But it is necessary
for us to become aware of ourself because it allows us to remove the
limitations of the blind spot. To consider ourself as an object of reflection
requires the ability to perceive ourself in the first place.
Paradoxically it is the blind spot of the inability to perceive the own self that makes the
"I" special. As Gilbert Ryle writes in his book "the concept of mind" on page
198
"‘I’, in my use of it, always indicates me and only indicates me. ‘You’,
‘she’ and ‘they’ indicate different people at different times. ‘I’ is like my ownshadow;
I can never get away from it, as I can get away from your shadow. There is no mystery
about this constancy, but I mention it because it seems to endow ‘I’ with a mystifying
uniqueness and adhesiveness."
Is this a baby step in the right direction? I am not sure.
-J.
-------- Original message --------
From: Nicholas Thompson <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>>
Date: 7/8/24 11:20 PM (GMT+01:00)
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Why the Mystery of Consciousness Is Deeper Than We
Thought
i am moved by the romance and beauty of your account, but ultimately
left hungry for experiences I can put my foot on.
You and I are clearly inclined to disagree, and I was raised to
experience disagreement as a discomfort.. So how then are we to precede. I
think, not withstandijng Goethe and Cervantes, that baby steps is the only way.
Of course, you might be citing Goethe and Cervantes as authorities on the
matter, in which case I can only reply, perhaps blushing slightly at my own
callousness, that they are not so for me.
So, what facts of the matter convince you that one or more languages
are essential for meta awareess. Or is it elf-evident
On Mon, Jul 8, 2024 at 4:49 PM Jochen Fromm <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
IMHO it is not one language which is necessary, but more than one.
Languages can be used to create worlds, to move around it them, and to share
these wolds with others. Tolkien and J.K. Rowling have created whole universes.
The interesting things happen if worlds collide, if they merge and melt, or if
they drift apart.
Cervantes in Spain, Goethe in Germany and Dante in Italy helped to
create new languages - Spanish, German and Italian, respectively. They also
examined in their most famous books what happens if worlds collide.
Cervantes describes in "Don Quixote"
what happens when imaginary and real worlds collide and are so out
of sync that the actors are getting lost.
Goethe decribes in his "Faust" what happens when collective and individual
worlds collide, i.e. when egoistic individuals exploit the world selfishly for their own benefit
(in his first book "The sorrows of young Werther" Goethe focused like Fontane and Freud
on the opposite).
Dante describes in his "Divine Comedy"
what happens when worlds diverge and people are excluded and
expelled from the world.
Language is necessary for self awareness because it provides the
building blocks for a new world which is connected but also independent from
the old one. This allows new dimensions of interactions. The connections
between worlds matter. A label is a simple connection between a word in one
world and an class of objects in another. A metaphor is a more complex
connection between an abstract idea and a composition of objects, etc.
-J.
-------- Original message --------
From: Nicholas Thompson <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>>
Date: 7/7/24 5:13 PM (GMT+01:00)
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Why the Mystery of Consciousness Is Deeper
Than We Thought
I think of large language models as the most embodied things on the
planet, but let that go for a moment. Back to baby steps.
Can you lay out for me why you believe that language is essential
to self-awareness. Does that believe arise from ideology, authority, or some
set of facts I need to take account of. To be honest here, I should say where
I am coming from. A lot of my so-called career was spent railing against
circular reasoning in evolutionary theory and psychology. So, if language is
essential to self-awareness, and animals do not have language, then it indeed
follows that animals do not have self-awareness. But what if our method for
detecting self awareness requires language? Now we are in a loop. Are we in
such a loop, or are there facts of some matter, independent of language,
convince you that animals are not self-aware. Is self awareness extricable
from language?
It is an old old trope that animals are automata but that humans have soul.
Descartes swore by it. Is "language" the new soul?
Nick
On Sun, Jul 7, 2024 at 7:29 AM Jochen Fromm <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
I would say cats, dogs and horses don't have meta-awareness because they
lack language. They live in the present moment, in the here and now. Without language
they do not have the capability to reflect on their past or to think about their future.
They can not formulate stories of themselves which could help to form a sense of
identity. Language is the mirror in which we perceive ourselves during "this is
me" moments. Animals lack this mirror completely. One dimensional scents trails do
not count as language.
Large languages models lack consciousness because they do not
have a body which is embedded as a actor in an environment. These two things
are necessary: the physical world of bodies, and the mental world of language.
When both collide in the same spot we can get consciousness.
-J.
-------- Original message --------
From: Nicholas Thompson <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>>
Date: 7/6/24 5:05 AM (GMT+01:00)
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Why the Mystery of Consciousness Is Deeper
Than We Thought
Well, that's because Socrates claimed not to know what he
thought, and since I genuinely don[t know what I think until I work it out, the
conversation has the same quality. I apologize for that. my students found it
truly distressing.
So, if you will indulge me, why don't you think your cat has
meta=awareness? Authority, ideology, or is there some experience you have had that
leads you to think that. It would be kind of odd if it she didn't because animals have
all sorts of ways of distinguishing self from other. They have ways of knowinng that
"I did that". (e.g., scent marking?)
On Fri, Jul 5, 2024 at 3:19 PM Jochen Fromm <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Well yes, if meta-awareness is defined as acting in
response to one's own awareness then I would say animals like a cat don't have
it but humans have. As an example I could say this almost feels like I am a
participant in a dialogue from Plato...
I would be surprised if it can be described in simple
terms. If the essence of consciousness is subjective experience then it is
indeed hard to describe by a theory although there are many attempts. Persons
who perceive things differently are wired differently. And what is more
subjective than the perception of oneself?
https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/what-is-consciousness/
<https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/what-is-consciousness/>
If we can describe it mathematically then probably as a way
an information feels if it is processed in complex ways, ad infinitum like the
orbits of a strange attractor.
https://chaoticatmospheres.com/mathrules-strange-attractors
<https://chaoticatmospheres.com/mathrules-strange-attractors>
-J.
-------- Original message --------
From: Nicholas Thompson <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>>
Date: 7/5/24 6:56 PM (GMT+01:00)
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Why the Mystery of Consciousness Is
Deeper Than We Thought
,
Great! Baby steps. "If we aren't moving slowly, we aren't moving."
So, can I define some new terms, tentatively, /per explorandum/ ? Let's call
acting-in-respect-to-the-world, "awareness". Allowing this definition, we certainly
seem to agree that the cat is aware. Lets define meta-awareness as acting i respect to one's own
awareness. Now, am I correct in assuming that you identify meta-awareness with consciousness and
that you think that the cat is not meta-aware and that I probably am? And further that you think
that meta-awareness requires consciousness?
Nick
On Fri, Jul 5, 2024 at 12:17 PM Jochen Fromm <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
I would say a cat is conscious in the sense that it is
aware of its immediate environment. Cats are nocturnal animals who hunt at
night and mostly sleep during the day. Consciousness in the sense of being
aware of oneself as an actor in an environment requires understanding of
language which only humans have ( and LLMs now )
https://www.quantamagazine.org/insects-and-other-animals-have-consciousness-experts-declare-20240419/
<https://www.quantamagazine.org/insects-and-other-animals-have-consciousness-experts-declare-20240419/>
-J.
-------- Original message --------
From: Nicholas Thompson <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>>
Date: 7/5/24 5:02 AM (GMT+01:00)
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Why the Mystery of Consciousness
Is Deeper Than We Thought
Jochen,
/I think the first step in any conversation is to decide whether
your cat is conscious. If so, why do you think so; if not, likewise. I had a
facinnationg conversation with GBT about whether he was conscious and he denied it
"hotly", which, of course, met one of his criteria for consciousness. /
//
/So. Is your cat connscious?/
//
/Nick/
On Thu, Jul 4, 2024 at 7:26 PM Jochen Fromm <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
I don't get Philip Goff: first we send our children
20 years to school, from Kindergarten to college and university, to teach them
all kinds of languages, and then we wonder how they can be conscious. It will
be the same for AI: first we spend millions and millions to train them all
available knowledge, and then we wonder how they can develop understanding of
language and consciousness...
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-mystery-of-consciousness-is-deeper-than-we-thought/
<https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-mystery-of-consciousness-is-deeper-than-we-thought/>
-J.
