Or the reverse.
How do I know what the feeling of satisfaction is? How do I know the computer I'm typing this on doesn't "feel" something like (if not identical) to satisfaction as it helps me complete this task of asking you this question?Could you devise a consciousness test the Sun and computer would fail but a conscious brain-in-a-jar would pass?
To answer the more specific second question, feelings like satisfaction are the result of a brain state, which is in turn the result of electrical and chemical structures arranging themselves in a particular way. Given that neither computers, nor the sun, contain structural analogues to the neural networks of a mammal brain, there is no reason to think that these things experience satisfaction.
In principle, a man-made computer that experiences "satisfaction" or consciousness could exist, though it's beyond the current ability of science to engineer such a device.
To answer the more specific second question, feelings like satisfaction are the result of a brain state, which is in turn the result of electrical and chemical structures arranging themselves in a particular way. Given that neither computers, nor the sun, contain structural analogues to the neural networks of a mammal brain, there is no reason to think that these things experience satisfaction.
In principle, a man-made computer that experiences "satisfaction" or consciousness could exist, though it's beyond the current ability of science to engineer such a device.
In saying that you believe computers can -in principle- experience satisfaction you are stating you believe things other than the neural networks of an organic brain can experience this sensation. If that is the case, on what grounds are you saying the structures in the sun cannot cause this sensation?
Additionally, what tests would the man-made computer need to pass for you to declare it consciousness? That is to ask: if you think computers can -in principle- experience satisfaction, on what grounds are you saying they've not yet reached this point?
Could a conscious (and paralyzed) brain-in-a-jar pass those same tests you would insist the computer must pass?
One major obstacle to solar consciousness is the Sun's inability to receive and respond to stimuli. The Sun is so ludicrously far out of equilibrium with its surroundings that none of the physical phenomena that take place in our neighborhood of the galaxy can impart information to it. Suppose you believed the Sun was conscious and you wanted to "poke" it in such a way that would provoke a response. How would you do that?
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A limit of time is fixed for thee
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
To answer the more specific second question, feelings like satisfaction are the result of a brain state, which is in turn the result of electrical and chemical structures arranging themselves in a particular way. Given that neither computers, nor the sun, contain structural analogues to the neural networks of a mammal brain, there is no reason to think that these things experience satisfaction.
In principle, a man-made computer that experiences "satisfaction" or consciousness could exist, though it's beyond the current ability of science to engineer such a device.
In saying that you believe computers can -in principle- experience satisfaction you are stating you believe things other than the neural networks of an organic brain can experience this sensation. If that is the case, on what grounds are you saying the structures in the sun cannot cause this sensation?
There is no magical divide between artificial and biological. An electronic brain with structural complexity and design analogous to the human brain could theoretically experience the same feelings and thoughts as a human. Just like how a robot with mechanical legs could walk similarly to a human with biological legs. But the sun is far too large and too hot to support legs, so I can say with confidence that the sun cannot walk.
Likewise, I can assert that the sun isn't conscious because the environment of the sun isn't able to support structures that we have observed give rise to consciousness.
Additionally, what tests would the man-made computer need to pass for you to declare it consciousness? That is to ask: if you think computers can -in principle- experience satisfaction, on what grounds are you saying they've not yet reached this point?
Could a conscious (and paralyzed) brain-in-a-jar pass those same tests you would insist the computer must pass?
I don't have to define consciousness with any degree of accuracy to defeat your argument. And I'm not sure I could do so in a satisfying way. If our general starting point for consciousness is "this phenomenon that we know goes on in a healthy human brain and is at last partially caused by electrical and chemical signalling between brain cells," then I can summarily say that the hot, dense environment of the sun does not support the kind of entropic stability that these structures need.
So it's your burden, as the person making the extraordinary claim that the sun might be conscious, to provide some kind of support (such as logic or evidence) to back this up.
Otherwise, if we're having debates based on unfounded assertions, here are some more great topics:
Prove consciousness exists.
Prove your dog isn't the sun.
Prove bitterroot isn't a figment of your imagination.
I think bitterroot is saying consciousness requires a minimum amount of systemic activity.
For example, how do biologists know that a piece of metal isn't a alive? Maybe it is! Maybe it has hopes and dreams.
Well we do know that metal is 1. made of metal atoms in which electrons may flow freely throughout the bonds 2. That's it.
On the other hand, we know that life has a lot of internal activity going on. Any metabolism requires a tremendous degree of complexity.
And we know that neural activity also involves a ridiculous amount of interactivity. It's doing *something*
The sun as we know it is nothing more than a sustained fusion reaction. So we're pretty good to conclude that the sun is not conscious in the same way we can conclude metal isn't alive.
There is no magical divide between artificial and biological. An electronic brain with structural complexity and design analogous to the human brain could theoretically experience the same feelings and thoughts as a human.
I never said that there is a "magical divide" between 'artificial' and biological. However, I would hope you would agree that a circuit board is different from a brain. One is electrochemical while the other is normally just electric;(edit: that's wrong) they're composed of different materials with different properties; etc.
Likewise, I can assert that the sun isn't conscious because the environment of the sun isn't able to support structures that we have observed give rise to consciousness.
I'm still not sure how you're making this assertion. You're saying that circuits and neurons are both able to create consciousnesses. Why are you then going on to say the core (which is a pretty active and complex place) of the Sun cannot create it?
To be clear, I am essentially playing devils advocate. I agree the sun isn't conscious and computers can be. However, I don't think this is a testable hypothesis because I don't think the mechanisms that create "feelings" are really understood. I'm not even sure how I would go about demonstrating other humans have feeling without first assuming I have them.
I don't have to define consciousness with any degree of accuracy to defeat your argument. And I'm not sure I could do so in a satisfying way. If our general starting point for consciousness is "this phenomenon that we know goes on in a healthy human brain and is at last partially caused by electrical and chemical signalling between brain cells," then I can summarily say that the hot, dense environment of the sun does not support the kind of entropic stability that these structures need.
Neither does a motherboard. (I mean, you could set one up that would support a human brain, but it wouldn't be the same kind that would be made to create consciousness. The point I'm making here is the inside of a computer -thinking or otherwise- is hostile to an organic brain.)
So it's your burden, as the person making the extraordinary claim that the sun might be conscious, to provide some kind of support (such as logic or evidence) to back this up.
I've not made any claim. I've been asking questions, not making statements. I'm looking for some clarification about these ideas. They genuinely perplex me.
I'd like to just mention that I am, in fact, the sole being alive that can communicate with the sun. After some very enlightening, and to be frank, overly sexual conversations with Mr. Sunshine [that's what he (although the sun hasn't really confirmed it's gender I can only assume that it's identity is male based on how it refers to itself as "Mr.") refers to himself by] I can confirm his sentience.
The sun is just a quiet guy/gal. It likes us, but it prefers to have its own affairs. It feels self conscious about its size, but I doesn't realize that everyone is okay with the sun for who it is, and we all appreciate its size. It wants to hug us, but it knows that it is so strong that it would do some serious damage to us. The sun is just happy with keeping us warm from a distance with a nice big smile every day. It hasn't realized that we turn away from it every 12 hours.
See, the sun has a conscience. You just need to give it a personality.
One major obstacle to solar consciousness is the Sun's inability to receive and respond to stimuli. The Sun is so ludicrously far out of equilibrium with its surroundings that none of the physical phenomena that take place in our neighborhood of the galaxy can impart information to it. Suppose you believed the Sun was conscious and you wanted to "poke" it in such a way that would provoke a response. How would you do that?
I really like this answer.
However, it reveals one of your underlying assumptions. The Sun doesn't process information, therefore it can't be cognitive. It's not cognitive, therefore it can't be conscious.
I rely like referring back to the information-theoretic (and, in principle, physically objective) statement that the Sun doesn't relate to stimuli. However, can we not wonder if there are noncognitive consciousnesses?
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I really like this answer.
However, it reveals one of your underlying assumptions. The Sun doesn't process information, therefore it can't be cognitive. It's not cognitive, therefore it can't be conscious.
I rely like referring back to the information-theoretic (and, in principle, physically objective) statement that the Sun doesn't relate to stimuli. However, can we not wonder if there are noncognitive consciousnesses?
Well, we can certainly wonder anything we want to. If you're asking whether I think noncognitive consciousness makes sense, then I'd say we have to define terms first. If consciousness is "a thing that has qualia" and cognition is "the information-processing substrate that underpins consciousnesses (that have such a substrate)" then no, I don't think noncognitive consciousness makes any sense.
Suppose there is a live specimen of a supposedly-noncognitive consciousness and we've got it in an interrogation room. We ask it a question about some quale, say "have you ever been moved by a poem?"
However it answers, whether it be in the affirmative or the negative, it has transmitted to us one bit of information about its consciousness. Where did that information come from? Its cognition, says I, for the cognition is precisely the locus of information about the consciousness, so if such information exists it must be found there, and if it exists there then there has to be a "there" there.
(I note in passing that here I do not insist that the cognition be assembled from a "mundane" physical substrate; it could be sunshine rainbow magic for all it matters here. What is essential is that every consciousness must have an associated thing that carries around the information about its qualia.)
I am again fascinated that you entangled consciousness and cognition, but in the direction you did. I was expecting to see someone say that consciousness entails cognition. You've said cognition entails consciousness. You can go pretty far down the evolutionary chain and still get cognitive things, you know.
But then the argument you give goes in the other direction. Okay. What you're really doing is making an argument from truth-makers. You're saying something has to make it the case that X has a qualitative state. I can dig that intuition. But in what world, in what medium, with what kind of stuff can something make that the case? The idea of an information-bearing construct may not be extricable from physicalism. In which case, here's a puzzle for you. I have a qualitative experience of thought about the Sun. My thought is about the Sun; it happened just now, instantaneously. It didn't take eight minutes to get there. Therefore, it's nonphysical. Can this gap be bridged? (edit: between this nonphysical notion and the claim of its physical "underpinnings" being -essential- to it)?
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I am again fascinated that you entangled consciousness and cognition, but in the direction you did. I was expecting to see someone say that consciousness entails cognition. You've said cognition entails consciousness.
I think you've misread me. My claim is much closer to the former than the latter. I'm saying that cognition is ontologically prior to consciousness.
But then the argument you give goes in the other direction. Okay. What you're really doing is making an argument from truth-makers. You're saying something has to make it the case that X has a qualitative state. I can dig that intuition.
Right; cognition is the "truth-maker" for consciousness.
But in what world, in what medium, with what kind of stuff can something make that the case? The idea of an information-bearing construct may not be extricable from physicalism.
Categorically false, as far as I can see. Information theory is a branch of pure mathematics; the claims I'm making about the relationship between cognition and consciousness are analytic. One does not need the substrate to be physical in order to apply information theory. (In fact, when we do philosophy, we're typically operating under the auspices of classical logic, which can in turn be embedded into information theory (the assignment of truth and falsity to propositions and properties can be thought of as binary bits in an ensemble...) -- so, in fact, it's always coherent to take an information-theoretical viewpoint about analytic philosophy.)
Mind you, when we drill down from the abstract nonsense about the relationship between consciousness and cognition and engage with an actual synthetic question -- such as whether a particularly-specified object like the Sun is conscious -- then we have to engage more directly with the question of physicalism, and of course in the case of the Sun there is every reason to accept its physicality and no reason to doubt it.
In which case, here's a puzzle for you. I have a qualitative experience of thought about the Sun. My thought is about the Sun; it happened just now, instantaneously. It didn't take eight minutes to get there. Therefore, it's nonphysical.
I've no idea why nonphysicality follows from anything you've said. Your thoughts about the Sun are surely as physical as all your other thoughts; they exist in your consciousness and are as physical as it is.
Can this gap be bridged? (edit: between this nonphysical notion and the claim of its physical "underpinnings" being -essential- to it)?
I don't see the nonphysicality, so I don't see the gap and thus can't answer the question.
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A limit of time is fixed for thee
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
One major obstacle to solar consciousness is the Sun's inability to receive and respond to stimuli. The Sun is so ludicrously far out of equilibrium with its surroundings that none of the physical phenomena that take place in our neighborhood of the galaxy can impart information to it. Suppose you believed the Sun was conscious and you wanted to "poke" it in such a way that would provoke a response. How would you do that?
I really like this answer.
However, it reveals one of your underlying assumptions. The Sun doesn't process information, therefore it can't be cognitive. It's not cognitive, therefore it can't be conscious.
I rely like referring back to the information-theoretic (and, in principle, physically objective) statement that the Sun doesn't relate to stimuli. However, can we not wonder if there are noncognitive consciousnesses?
I wouldn't entertain the stimuli argument route. It's too particular. I think its better instead to generalize towards a systemic activity route.
Responding to stimuli as some kind of prerequisite for consciousness runs into cases like Stephen Hawking who is slowly losing control of all of his neural functions.
Clearly regardless of Hawking's ability to respond to external stimuli he remains conscious.
I wouldn't entertain the stimuli argument route. It's too particular. I think its better instead to generalize towards a systemic activity route.
Responding to stimuli as some kind of prerequisite for consciousness runs into cases like Stephen Hawking who is slowly losing control of all of his neural functions.
Clearly regardless of Hawking's ability to respond to external stimuli he remains conscious.
You're interpreting it too particularly. You're conflating "Responds to stimuli" with "ordinary human sensory apparatus intact." However, I mean any stimulus whatsoever, including, say, direct electrochemical stimulation of nerves, and by response I mean any kind of response, including any measurable brain activity. So in fact, Stephen Hawking would fail to meet these conditions only if he were brain-dead, which is a state I'm happy to call unconscious.
The problem with the Sun is that it can't be stimulated even in principle except by extremely high-energy phenomena that only very rarely happen in this neck of the universe. Even if the whole surface of the Sun were covered with perfect photon detectors, they would be saturated with solar radiation scattering back to the surface. It just can't receive signals from outside, unlike Stephen Hawking's brain, which could at least in principle receive stimuli even if it were disconnected from his ordinary senses.
You could also say that Dr. Hawking is responding to stimuli from far back in the past, just not so well and not so articulately to online, moment-to-moment stuff.
If Information Theory is a branch of pure mathematics only, then you are burdened to justify that its theorems resemble the real world. We don't want to cut up one sphere and end up with two, here; I have to know the data theory really describes what's there, and what the equivalences are between physical tokenings and the formalisms.
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If Information Theory is a branch of pure mathematics only, then you are burdened to justify that its theorems resemble the real world. We don't want to cut up one sphere and end up with two, here; I have to know the data theory really describes what's there, and what the equivalences are between physical tokenings and the formalisms.
The position I'm arguing is that consciousness entails cognition; the only burden I need to shoulder is to show how information theory is applicable to that particular problem. And I think I engaged with the burden; if a consciousness has quale X, then "has quale X" constitutes one bit of information about the consciousness (via the correspondence between information theory and binary logic), so consciousness is inseparable from information. Cognition is just a name for the locus of all that information, and since the information is necessarily present, so is the cognition. All of this is analytically the case without reference to physics or the physical nature of consciousness. I can't identify an undischarged burden of proof in this line of reasoning.
That being said, if I had to, I could bury you in references about how information theory is synthetically applicable to the physical world, from classical thermodynamics to the bleeding edge of quantum gravity. In fact, in the past 50 years the general information-theoretical viewpoint has become a standard tool in the theoretical physicist's toolbox.
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A limit of time is fixed for thee
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
I wouldn't entertain the stimuli argument route. It's too particular. I think its better instead to generalize towards a systemic activity route.
Responding to stimuli as some kind of prerequisite for consciousness runs into cases like Stephen Hawking who is slowly losing control of all of his neural functions.
Clearly regardless of Hawking's ability to respond to external stimuli he remains conscious.
You're interpreting it too particularly. You're conflating "Responds to stimuli" with "ordinary human sensory apparatus intact." However, I mean any stimulus whatsoever, including, say, direct electrochemical stimulation of nerves, and by response I mean any kind of response, including any measurable brain activity. So in fact, Stephen Hawking would fail to meet these conditions only if he were brain-dead, which is a state I'm happy to call unconscious.
The problem with the Sun is that it can't be stimulated even in principle except by extremely high-energy phenomena that only very rarely happen in this neck of the universe. Even if the whole surface of the Sun were covered with perfect photon detectors, they would be saturated with solar radiation scattering back to the surface. It just can't receive signals from outside, unlike Stephen Hawking's brain, which could at least in principle receive stimuli even if it were disconnected from his ordinary senses.
the sun responds to the galaxies gravitation. i wouldnt be surprised if its magnetic field which itself feeds back to the surface phenomenon couldnt respond to magnetohydrodynamic processes that are transecting its ambient environment.
anyhow the information theoretic argument involves overextension of explanatory resources from one level to another, and produces concepts that are too baggy fitting for their objects. we do not want to maintain that every minimally constituted information system is also a cognitive system. this gives an interpretative pan psychism which adds nothing to the explanatory resources already given to us by natural science which sees no need to indulge in interpretative panpsychism.
kind of an amusing aside, a historical debate involving the sun took place between ayer and bataille with bataille maintaining that absent human consciousness there was no sun-in-itself, and ayer holding that this was absurd.
The problem with the Sun is that it can't be stimulated even in principle except by extremely high-energy phenomena that only very rarely happen in this neck of the universe. Even if the whole surface of the Sun were covered with perfect photon detectors, they would be saturated with solar radiation scattering back to the surface. It just can't receive signals from outside, unlike Stephen Hawking's brain, which could at least in principle receive stimuli even if it were disconnected from his ordinary senses.
the sun responds to the galaxies gravitation. i wouldnt be surprised if its magnetic field which itself feeds back to the surface phenomenon couldnt respond to magnetohydrodynamic processes that are transecting its ambient environment.
anyhow the information theoretic argument involves overextension of explanatory resources from one level to another, and produces concepts that are too baggy fitting for their objects. we do not want to maintain that every minimally constituted information system is also a cognitive system. this gives an interpretative pan psychism which adds nothing to the explanatory resources already given to us by natural science which sees no need to indulge in interpretative panpsychism.
You realize you just committed Denying the Antecedent?
kind of an amusing aside, a historical debate involving the sun took place between ayer and bataille with bataille maintaining that absent human consciousness there was no sun-in-itself, and ayer holding that this was absurd.
Well there isn't a natural class "the Sun". The world is made of neither objects nor events. I don't want to make presuppositions about metaphysics in this thread, but it's fair to guess that the world is just a bunch of stuff that happens. We imagine the boundary of the Sun, and the period of its history. Yes, for any pre-specified set of rules, there is (maybe) an objective fact about what is there and whether it counts as a thing according to the rules, but "Sun" is only in "human consciousness". Which is why I really love Wittgenstein more and more. So much of inquiry is just language.
So if bataille meant ding-an-sich then yeah, objectivism/realism is fairly intuitive, but if he meant "sun"-in-itself, then it's not so absurd.
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At the cosmological scale, space is basically homogeneously populated with galaxies, so in the present state of the Universe the mutual effect of faraway galaxies' gravitation on any given particle is essentially to cancel each other out. Also, the magnitude of the gravitational effect of any particular galaxy on the Sun is very small on account of r^2 falloff. Therefore, in order to send a signal to the Sun using gravitation that would exceed the noise produced by other, closer gravitating objects, you would have to move a great many galaxies into a very nonhomogeneous configuration. Physically possible, but does not appear to ever have occured in the actual universe.
i wouldnt be surprised if its magnetic field which itself feeds back to the surface phenomenon couldnt respond to magnetohydrodynamic processes that are transecting its ambient environment.
Can you give an example of a "magnetohydrodynamic process that is transecting its ambient environment?" As far as I know the only magnetohydrodynamic processes happening anywhere near the Sun are those caused by the Sun.
we do not want to maintain that every minimally constituted information system is also a cognitive system. this gives an interpretative pan psychism which adds nothing to the explanatory resources already given to us by natural science which sees no need to indulge in interpretative panpsychism.
I don't maintain that, nor does it follow from anything I know of in information theory. In fact, information theory is probably the human discipline which has the richest language for making discernments between systems of varying complexity and capability -- and so is a natural setting for distinguishing degrees of consciousness and non-consciousness.
In fact I would go so far as to say that the only way to avoid panpsychism or nonpsychism -- the only way to have a universe in which there are rationally distinguishable states of consciousness -- is by applying something that will be, mathematically, a branch of computational complexity theory.
At the cosmological scale, space is basically homogeneously populated with galaxies, so in the present state of the Universe the mutual effect of faraway galaxies' gravitation on any given particle is essentially to cancel each other out. Also, the magnitude of the gravitational effect of any particular galaxy on the Sun is very small on account of r^2 falloff. Therefore, in order to send a signal to the Sun using gravitation that would exceed the noise produced by other, closer gravitating objects, you would have to move a great many galaxies into a very nonhomogeneous configuration. Physically possible, but does not appear to ever have occured in the actual universe.
i wouldnt be surprised if its magnetic field which itself feeds back to the surface phenomenon couldnt respond to magnetohydrodynamic processes that are transecting its ambient environment.
Can you give an example of a "magnetohydrodynamic process that is transecting its ambient environment?" As far as I know the only magnetohydrodynamic processes happening anywhere near the Sun are those caused by the Sun.
we do not want to maintain that every minimally constituted information system is also a cognitive system. this gives an interpretative pan psychism which adds nothing to the explanatory resources already given to us by natural science which sees no need to indulge in interpretative panpsychism.
I think his point is that the sun is capable of responding to stimuli once you open up stimuli to a wider definition, wider perhaps than you mean to imply.
It doesn't matter whether the sun's response to other galaxies gravity or forces are small, what matters is that they are measurable.
I'll maintain the stimuli route is a bad route. Ultimately, divisionbyzero's point is that nonconscious objects are perfectly capable of responding to stimuli--or perhaps that is too broad for you.
But I maintained that Hawking is incapable of responding to stimuli which is too narrow for you.
Bad way to argue in my opinion. It's conceptually messy dividing line.
Conscious is enirelly subjective. And it is why we precieve to give non human objects; human charachistics. Such as a chair dancing across a room. (I do know that it is to give the chair some feeling so the reader can relate, but again. that doesnt disprove that we do it.)
But i'd like to say that the sun isnt conscious because I say it isnt. There is no proof backing up that I am also conscious. I however feel I am, so thus I am.
Im trying to point out that this topic is up to the beholder to determine if it is or isnt, there is no solid proof backing up your decision 100%.
You either say, A) the sun isnt conscious because i think it doesnt operate as such as I do. (which is valid) Or your can say B) The sun is conscious because I dont know if it is conscious.
This exact reasion is why toy story might be possible. If you take out the knowns of something being not conscious, It could be misunderstood as conscious.
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"When people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together." - Michael Shermer
Hey all, I had some free time and got interested in the debate, I will try not to answer the question but to give some tools so you can reflect more deeply upon it.
There are several problems entangled in your question:
a) How do I prove my own consciousness?
b) How do I prove my own existence?
c) How do I prove other's consciousness?
d) How do I prove my own knowledge of others, and therefore, other's consciousness?
The most easy solution to A and B is the classic affirmation of Augustine of Hippo "Si fallor, sum" (If I am mistaken, I am), which is pointing that by petitio principii (begging the question) you are already stating that "you are", which means that how a conscious self could question its consciousness if it needs to be conscious to do so? This is to my regard the most important antecedent to Descarte's "I think therefore I am".
C and D are closely related in which they have a common root, that is, the problem of knowledge. The problem of knowledge can be explained in a really simple manner but it hasn't been answered that easily I'm afraid:
"How do I know my knowledge of things is real?"
Let's split this in two separate problems so we can have a better grasp of the issue:
"How do I know (things)?"
This question asks how is it possible to human intellect to learn, it is a question prior to psychology in that psychology assumes that you already know things and you are a subject with a personality. It is also closely related to neurology, but neurology is somewhat better at telling how a brain works and not how concepts work. It is also related to linguistics in that it seems to be a problem of language, but it is also unclear whether all meaningful mental content is just a series of restricted language constructions.
"How do I know real things?"
Here it's easy to confuse if things are real because we perceive them, or that they are real and independent of our subjective perception of them.
"How do I know the reality of things?"
This is asking for how the 'sphere' in which we 'build' knowledge of things is made? ('sphere' is not a formal term but just an expression that I used), and it can assume either that this sphere is physical or abstract in nature.
So with this information I suggest to look again to the question, maybe it will spawn a different one.
This question was asked back in the 15th-16th centuries, St. Thomas Aquinas (man who originally conceived the idea of the Matrix [yes the movie] ) said it best: "I think there for I am." Regardless of how you perceive reality it is none the less your reality, as long as you continue to exist and think you are technically alive, hence why when you die there is the question of the soul and if that is a real thing or not; and whether or not your soul contains your consciousness (other stuff he tackles as well). As for the sun it is impossible to know how it perceives its own reality (if at all)
Stellar logic. All decks that will ever be tier 1 or 2 have already been discovered. Might as well lock up the forum here and stop brewing everyone. Format solved.
This question was asked back in the 15th-16th centuries, St. Thomas Aquinas (man who originally conceived the idea of the Matrix [yes the movie] ) said it best: "I think there for I am."
Did you mean to say "René Descartes"? And did you mean to say "the 17th Century"?
As for the sun it is impossible to know how it perceives its own reality (if at all)
Can we know that other people are conscious, or are David Chalmers' philosophical zombies a possibility? Are you just saying the sun is a great big glowing philosophical zombie? Or is there anything to distinguish the question of the sun from that of other people? Can we assign degrees of confidence to the propositions, perhaps -- say the sun is more likely or less likely to be conscious than a person is? Might it be relevant that the sun behaves differently than a person?
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How do I know what the feeling of satisfaction is? How do I know the computer I'm typing this on doesn't "feel" something like (if not identical) to satisfaction as it helps me complete this task of asking you this question?
Could you devise a consciousness test the Sun and computer would fail but a conscious brain-in-a-jar would pass?
In principle, a man-made computer that experiences "satisfaction" or consciousness could exist, though it's beyond the current ability of science to engineer such a device.
Additionally, what tests would the man-made computer need to pass for you to declare it consciousness? That is to ask: if you think computers can -in principle- experience satisfaction, on what grounds are you saying they've not yet reached this point?
Could a conscious (and paralyzed) brain-in-a-jar pass those same tests you would insist the computer must pass?
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
There is no magical divide between artificial and biological. An electronic brain with structural complexity and design analogous to the human brain could theoretically experience the same feelings and thoughts as a human. Just like how a robot with mechanical legs could walk similarly to a human with biological legs. But the sun is far too large and too hot to support legs, so I can say with confidence that the sun cannot walk.
Likewise, I can assert that the sun isn't conscious because the environment of the sun isn't able to support structures that we have observed give rise to consciousness.
I don't have to define consciousness with any degree of accuracy to defeat your argument. And I'm not sure I could do so in a satisfying way. If our general starting point for consciousness is "this phenomenon that we know goes on in a healthy human brain and is at last partially caused by electrical and chemical signalling between brain cells," then I can summarily say that the hot, dense environment of the sun does not support the kind of entropic stability that these structures need.
So it's your burden, as the person making the extraordinary claim that the sun might be conscious, to provide some kind of support (such as logic or evidence) to back this up.
Otherwise, if we're having debates based on unfounded assertions, here are some more great topics:
For example, how do biologists know that a piece of metal isn't a alive? Maybe it is! Maybe it has hopes and dreams.
Well we do know that metal is 1. made of metal atoms in which electrons may flow freely throughout the bonds 2. That's it.
On the other hand, we know that life has a lot of internal activity going on. Any metabolism requires a tremendous degree of complexity.
And we know that neural activity also involves a ridiculous amount of interactivity. It's doing *something*
The sun as we know it is nothing more than a sustained fusion reaction. So we're pretty good to conclude that the sun is not conscious in the same way we can conclude metal isn't alive.
One is electrochemical while the other is normally just electric;(edit: that's wrong) they're composed of different materials with different properties; etc.I'm still not sure how you're making this assertion. You're saying that circuits and neurons are both able to create consciousnesses. Why are you then going on to say the core (which is a pretty active and complex place) of the Sun cannot create it?
To be clear, I am essentially playing devils advocate. I agree the sun isn't conscious and computers can be. However, I don't think this is a testable hypothesis because I don't think the mechanisms that create "feelings" are really understood. I'm not even sure how I would go about demonstrating other humans have feeling without first assuming I have them.
Neither does a motherboard.
(I mean, you could set one up that would support a human brain, but it wouldn't be the same kind that would be made to create consciousness. The point I'm making here is the inside of a computer -thinking or otherwise- is hostile to an organic brain.)
I've not made any claim. I've been asking questions, not making statements. I'm looking for some clarification about these ideas. They genuinely perplex me.
Not right now. Maybe some other time.
But, the first one is pretty intriguing. If you started a thread about it I would likely post on it.
See, the sun has a conscience. You just need to give it a personality.
I really like this answer.
However, it reveals one of your underlying assumptions. The Sun doesn't process information, therefore it can't be cognitive. It's not cognitive, therefore it can't be conscious.
I rely like referring back to the information-theoretic (and, in principle, physically objective) statement that the Sun doesn't relate to stimuli. However, can we not wonder if there are noncognitive consciousnesses?
Awesome avatar provided by Krashbot @ [Epic Graphics].
Well, we can certainly wonder anything we want to. If you're asking whether I think noncognitive consciousness makes sense, then I'd say we have to define terms first. If consciousness is "a thing that has qualia" and cognition is "the information-processing substrate that underpins consciousnesses (that have such a substrate)" then no, I don't think noncognitive consciousness makes any sense.
Suppose there is a live specimen of a supposedly-noncognitive consciousness and we've got it in an interrogation room. We ask it a question about some quale, say "have you ever been moved by a poem?"
However it answers, whether it be in the affirmative or the negative, it has transmitted to us one bit of information about its consciousness. Where did that information come from? Its cognition, says I, for the cognition is precisely the locus of information about the consciousness, so if such information exists it must be found there, and if it exists there then there has to be a "there" there.
(I note in passing that here I do not insist that the cognition be assembled from a "mundane" physical substrate; it could be sunshine rainbow magic for all it matters here. What is essential is that every consciousness must have an associated thing that carries around the information about its qualia.)
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
But then the argument you give goes in the other direction. Okay. What you're really doing is making an argument from truth-makers. You're saying something has to make it the case that X has a qualitative state. I can dig that intuition. But in what world, in what medium, with what kind of stuff can something make that the case? The idea of an information-bearing construct may not be extricable from physicalism. In which case, here's a puzzle for you. I have a qualitative experience of thought about the Sun. My thought is about the Sun; it happened just now, instantaneously. It didn't take eight minutes to get there. Therefore, it's nonphysical. Can this gap be bridged? (edit: between this nonphysical notion and the claim of its physical "underpinnings" being -essential- to it)?
Awesome avatar provided by Krashbot @ [Epic Graphics].
I think you've misread me. My claim is much closer to the former than the latter. I'm saying that cognition is ontologically prior to consciousness.
Right; cognition is the "truth-maker" for consciousness.
Categorically false, as far as I can see. Information theory is a branch of pure mathematics; the claims I'm making about the relationship between cognition and consciousness are analytic. One does not need the substrate to be physical in order to apply information theory. (In fact, when we do philosophy, we're typically operating under the auspices of classical logic, which can in turn be embedded into information theory (the assignment of truth and falsity to propositions and properties can be thought of as binary bits in an ensemble...) -- so, in fact, it's always coherent to take an information-theoretical viewpoint about analytic philosophy.)
Mind you, when we drill down from the abstract nonsense about the relationship between consciousness and cognition and engage with an actual synthetic question -- such as whether a particularly-specified object like the Sun is conscious -- then we have to engage more directly with the question of physicalism, and of course in the case of the Sun there is every reason to accept its physicality and no reason to doubt it.
I've no idea why nonphysicality follows from anything you've said. Your thoughts about the Sun are surely as physical as all your other thoughts; they exist in your consciousness and are as physical as it is.
I don't see the nonphysicality, so I don't see the gap and thus can't answer the question.
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
I wouldn't entertain the stimuli argument route. It's too particular. I think its better instead to generalize towards a systemic activity route.
Responding to stimuli as some kind of prerequisite for consciousness runs into cases like Stephen Hawking who is slowly losing control of all of his neural functions.
Clearly regardless of Hawking's ability to respond to external stimuli he remains conscious.
You're interpreting it too particularly. You're conflating "Responds to stimuli" with "ordinary human sensory apparatus intact." However, I mean any stimulus whatsoever, including, say, direct electrochemical stimulation of nerves, and by response I mean any kind of response, including any measurable brain activity. So in fact, Stephen Hawking would fail to meet these conditions only if he were brain-dead, which is a state I'm happy to call unconscious.
The problem with the Sun is that it can't be stimulated even in principle except by extremely high-energy phenomena that only very rarely happen in this neck of the universe. Even if the whole surface of the Sun were covered with perfect photon detectors, they would be saturated with solar radiation scattering back to the surface. It just can't receive signals from outside, unlike Stephen Hawking's brain, which could at least in principle receive stimuli even if it were disconnected from his ordinary senses.
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
If Information Theory is a branch of pure mathematics only, then you are burdened to justify that its theorems resemble the real world. We don't want to cut up one sphere and end up with two, here; I have to know the data theory really describes what's there, and what the equivalences are between physical tokenings and the formalisms.
Awesome avatar provided by Krashbot @ [Epic Graphics].
The position I'm arguing is that consciousness entails cognition; the only burden I need to shoulder is to show how information theory is applicable to that particular problem. And I think I engaged with the burden; if a consciousness has quale X, then "has quale X" constitutes one bit of information about the consciousness (via the correspondence between information theory and binary logic), so consciousness is inseparable from information. Cognition is just a name for the locus of all that information, and since the information is necessarily present, so is the cognition. All of this is analytically the case without reference to physics or the physical nature of consciousness. I can't identify an undischarged burden of proof in this line of reasoning.
That being said, if I had to, I could bury you in references about how information theory is synthetically applicable to the physical world, from classical thermodynamics to the bleeding edge of quantum gravity. In fact, in the past 50 years the general information-theoretical viewpoint has become a standard tool in the theoretical physicist's toolbox.
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
the sun responds to the galaxies gravitation. i wouldnt be surprised if its magnetic field which itself feeds back to the surface phenomenon couldnt respond to magnetohydrodynamic processes that are transecting its ambient environment.
anyhow the information theoretic argument involves overextension of explanatory resources from one level to another, and produces concepts that are too baggy fitting for their objects. we do not want to maintain that every minimally constituted information system is also a cognitive system. this gives an interpretative pan psychism which adds nothing to the explanatory resources already given to us by natural science which sees no need to indulge in interpretative panpsychism.
kind of an amusing aside, a historical debate involving the sun took place between ayer and bataille with bataille maintaining that absent human consciousness there was no sun-in-itself, and ayer holding that this was absurd.
You realize you just committed Denying the Antecedent?
Well there isn't a natural class "the Sun". The world is made of neither objects nor events. I don't want to make presuppositions about metaphysics in this thread, but it's fair to guess that the world is just a bunch of stuff that happens. We imagine the boundary of the Sun, and the period of its history. Yes, for any pre-specified set of rules, there is (maybe) an objective fact about what is there and whether it counts as a thing according to the rules, but "Sun" is only in "human consciousness". Which is why I really love Wittgenstein more and more. So much of inquiry is just language.
So if bataille meant ding-an-sich then yeah, objectivism/realism is fairly intuitive, but if he meant "sun"-in-itself, then it's not so absurd.
Awesome avatar provided by Krashbot @ [Epic Graphics].
At the cosmological scale, space is basically homogeneously populated with galaxies, so in the present state of the Universe the mutual effect of faraway galaxies' gravitation on any given particle is essentially to cancel each other out. Also, the magnitude of the gravitational effect of any particular galaxy on the Sun is very small on account of r^2 falloff. Therefore, in order to send a signal to the Sun using gravitation that would exceed the noise produced by other, closer gravitating objects, you would have to move a great many galaxies into a very nonhomogeneous configuration. Physically possible, but does not appear to ever have occured in the actual universe.
Can you give an example of a "magnetohydrodynamic process that is transecting its ambient environment?" As far as I know the only magnetohydrodynamic processes happening anywhere near the Sun are those caused by the Sun.
I don't maintain that, nor does it follow from anything I know of in information theory. In fact, information theory is probably the human discipline which has the richest language for making discernments between systems of varying complexity and capability -- and so is a natural setting for distinguishing degrees of consciousness and non-consciousness.
In fact I would go so far as to say that the only way to avoid panpsychism or nonpsychism -- the only way to have a universe in which there are rationally distinguishable states of consciousness -- is by applying something that will be, mathematically, a branch of computational complexity theory.
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
I think his point is that the sun is capable of responding to stimuli once you open up stimuli to a wider definition, wider perhaps than you mean to imply.
It doesn't matter whether the sun's response to other galaxies gravity or forces are small, what matters is that they are measurable.
I'll maintain the stimuli route is a bad route. Ultimately, divisionbyzero's point is that nonconscious objects are perfectly capable of responding to stimuli--or perhaps that is too broad for you.
But I maintained that Hawking is incapable of responding to stimuli which is too narrow for you.
Bad way to argue in my opinion. It's conceptually messy dividing line.
But i'd like to say that the sun isnt conscious because I say it isnt. There is no proof backing up that I am also conscious. I however feel I am, so thus I am.
Im trying to point out that this topic is up to the beholder to determine if it is or isnt, there is no solid proof backing up your decision 100%.
You either say, A) the sun isnt conscious because i think it doesnt operate as such as I do. (which is valid) Or your can say B) The sun is conscious because I dont know if it is conscious.
This exact reasion is why toy story might be possible. If you take out the knowns of something being not conscious, It could be misunderstood as conscious.
There are several problems entangled in your question:
a) How do I prove my own consciousness?
b) How do I prove my own existence?
c) How do I prove other's consciousness?
d) How do I prove my own knowledge of others, and therefore, other's consciousness?
The most easy solution to A and B is the classic affirmation of Augustine of Hippo "Si fallor, sum" (If I am mistaken, I am), which is pointing that by petitio principii (begging the question) you are already stating that "you are", which means that how a conscious self could question its consciousness if it needs to be conscious to do so? This is to my regard the most important antecedent to Descarte's "I think therefore I am".
C and D are closely related in which they have a common root, that is, the problem of knowledge. The problem of knowledge can be explained in a really simple manner but it hasn't been answered that easily I'm afraid:
"How do I know my knowledge of things is real?"
Let's split this in two separate problems so we can have a better grasp of the issue:
"How do I know (things)?"
This question asks how is it possible to human intellect to learn, it is a question prior to psychology in that psychology assumes that you already know things and you are a subject with a personality. It is also closely related to neurology, but neurology is somewhat better at telling how a brain works and not how concepts work. It is also related to linguistics in that it seems to be a problem of language, but it is also unclear whether all meaningful mental content is just a series of restricted language constructions.
"How do I know real things?"
Here it's easy to confuse if things are real because we perceive them, or that they are real and independent of our subjective perception of them.
"How do I know the reality of things?"
This is asking for how the 'sphere' in which we 'build' knowledge of things is made? ('sphere' is not a formal term but just an expression that I used), and it can assume either that this sphere is physical or abstract in nature.
So with this information I suggest to look again to the question, maybe it will spawn a different one.
Can we know that other people are conscious, or are David Chalmers' philosophical zombies a possibility? Are you just saying the sun is a great big glowing philosophical zombie? Or is there anything to distinguish the question of the sun from that of other people? Can we assign degrees of confidence to the propositions, perhaps -- say the sun is more likely or less likely to be conscious than a person is? Might it be relevant that the sun behaves differently than a person?
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.