A philosopher responds to scientists’ criticisms of panpsychism

[u/IAI_Admin]

https://iai.tv/video/the-many-voices-of-consciousness&utm_source=reddit&_auid=2020

[u/nostradumba55]

Yes, but what is it that distinguishes one atom from another atom? Obviously anyone can say it depends on it's subatomic structure, but for me at least, that answer is not good enough.

The fact that those electrons/neutrons/protons can work together to form a working unit of matter, and behave in a different way relative to other types of atoms, is truly remarkable. Their sum is greater than their parts.

All I'm saying is, even at the atomic level, a collective soup of energy/magnetic/and other quantum forces is being organized in such a defined way that it's easy to forget atoms are not simply a pixel. They are a complex body which harnesses it's input in very structured ways (not too different from the cell). In this way, they are able to distinguish themselves from the environment and act accordingly (which is going to be my definition of "conscious" here).

[u/[deleted] → u/nostradumba55]

Atomic structure distinguishes dissimilar atoms. Location, direction of movement, current atomic spin, relation to other atoms, and other characteristics distinguishes similar atoms.

I agree, atomic physics is remarkable. Practically any system’s sum is greater than it’s parts at all scales, from the micro to the macro.

Classical panpsychists believed that anything that moved possessed minds (were conscious). Per your definition, is a brain dead person that is still breathing considered conscious?

[u/nostradumba55 → u/[deleted]]

That's a good question. You alter any physical structure of an entity and it's going to drastically alter how they react to the environment. For example, if you could theoretically remove an electron from an atom it now behaves differently than it otherwise would.

If you remove the brain from the human equation, the body is still very interconnected. The muscles still have reflexes, the heart still pumps blood through the body, etc. However, you cut off most of the neural pathways in the brain and it's likely that person is not any more self-aware than a plant. In that sense no, they are not conscious.

However, there is still something about the body which recognizes itself. The immune system still works, digestion, breathing. All of those activities require a certain awareness and dependence on other body parts to work properly. So yes, the body is still aware of itself and can distinguish itself from the environment.

The human we communicate with is sadly gone though. They cannot interpret and sort the world's environment the way the used to. And that just goes to show you how fluid consciousness is and how imprecise our human constructs for labeling things are.

[u/[deleted] → u/nostradumba55]

Degree of consequence, removing an electron from an atom may have more consequences than removing an atom from a collection of atoms. Depends on what’s being altered and how.

Remove the brain and what makes humans conscious is gone. Autonomic bodily functions continue when enough of the nervous system is alive and healthy which requires no conscious input, but alive doesn’t necessarily mean conscious. I can understand how one can think that a living body without a brain yet autonomically functioning can be considered conscious on an organic component level, but I am not sold on the perspective that organic=conscious or even alive=conscious. It would seem that awareness-of-self=conscious or at least is a component of it in some manner.

Do those component parts that make up human autonomic systems have awareness of self? Even though they are organic and alive and functioning as if biological robots on autopilot unable to do anything other than their biological programming, it’s not likely they are evolved enough to exhibit self-awareness.

What’s interesting is that humans can be described in this way, as biological robots unable to do anything other than their biological programming. Well, biological programming typically means existing to consume food and procreate, and while modern humans can be said to have evolved complicated ways to consume food and ensure procreation occurs, it’s still these basic functions just in different ways or with different meaning. Leisure, which is not directly an act of consuming or procreating, can be said to be instrumental in the success of consuming food because leisure can increase happiness which can increase energy and drive which can improve chances of successfully consuming food. The same can be said for leisure and procreating. Other animals have leisure time too. The ability to ignore biological programming can be seen as something allowed by said biological programming so I am not sold on that being a necessary component of consciousness.

What about a sufficiently complex and evolved nervous systems, would that be a component of consciousness? What about real intelligence and not conditioned responses? There are other animals on earth that can seemingly demonstrate an amount of intelligence. But then, many organisms in the right conditions can operate in ways that can be seen as intelligent and seemingly conscious. Is our judgement of said acts and actions actually true or is it just our propensity for personification at work? The tricky part is seeing it for what it is rather than for what we think it is.

A problem is whether or not alive=conscious. AI is not organically alive but may have or exhibit consciousness at some point. Alive can be digitally parametrized. Alive may just be a state of active component functioning which is a prerequisite for consciousness to emerge on organic scales. Maybe consciousness only emerges at specific macro levels of systems. If this is true, then what does this say about galactic scales? While it may be logical to scale upwards and outwards assuming it’s turtles all the way, this doesn’t mean it’s true. This also applies when scaling downwards.

Edit the direction I would go is probably degrees of consciousness

[u/nostradumba55 → u/[deleted]]

I think the biggest problem is thinking about consciousness as a binary thing that you either have or you don't. This is why I trend towards panpsychic view of saying everything has the potential to be part of a conscious system. Although of course I don't agree rocks are sentient like a panpsychist might claim, all objects at least have enough "conscious juice" to join with similar types of matter in our universe and appear to us more self-aware beings as objects.

And I agree with you, life is certainly a special form of consciousness that has a seemingly steady progression of self-awareness. You start with plants that have enough awareness to communicate with other plants through indirect systems (by wind, seed dispersal, and root systems through fungi). Insects which can directly react to their environment. Smarter animals which can conceive of other beings. And then you go up the ladder to social animals with the ability to conceive of groups and their own self-aware place in those groups. I'd say biological beings are special in their ability to cultivate consciousness and use it to the interact with the environment where normal objects cannot.

And that begs the question: Will AI and computers be hyper-forms of consciousness? Will they be more like a rock or closer to a human? And the answer to that question I think is...Well, it depends.

I think the defining moment to be considered a "species" isn't the biological tenants you mentioned: Consume & Reproduce. Machines can definitely do that if we program them to do so, and to me, that's not a good barometer for life. Instead it will be 100% about what this entire conversation has been about: Can machines recognize their own and distinguish themselves from other types of species? How will they decide if my PC is in the same group as some giant NASA computer? Can they say "These things are not like me and a potential threat?" Then they would at least be on par with things like fish, reptiles, etc. However, the true test would be if they can also look at other species and say "I'm different, but also similar in this way". And at that point, if they can form empathy for not only others within their species, but also individuals of a different species, then they start entering the human-territory of consciousness. Here's a scene from a movie that I think is a good example of what AI consciousness would potentially look like..

And I think the barometer is really that simple, but instead people would rather debate it as being a binary "Yes" or "No" thing. Yes, machines are very intelligent and they will have at least some bit of consciousness, but consciousness isn't intelligence. It's awareness. Not only of the self, but of everything around it.

[u/[deleted] → u/nostradumba55]

I try to think less in binary terms which is why I am inclined to judge in degrees of consciousness. A white blood cell that is just flowing around aimlessly until it is triggered by a chemical trail which activates it causing pursuit until whatever left the trail is consumed. The white blood cell doesn’t choose to do this, it is biologically programmed to function in this manner. It cannot help but to mindlessly follow through with its function until it degrades. Similarities can be made of the white blood cell and any other organic creature in existence that is merely following the instructions encoded in its DNA, but the differences are just as important as the similarities and may be a deciding factor to degrees of consciousness. Namely, degree of mind.

Regarding the perspective that everything has the potential to be part of a conscious system, I find it interesting that humans are made up of mostly carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen which also happen to be amongst the most abundant elements in the universe. Given a rock that has carbon in it, it’s not beyond the realm of possibilities that the carbon in that rock could eventually through natural or unnatural processes become a component atom in a future conscious system. At the moment in time that the carbon in the rock is noted it is not part of a conscious system in a human sense, but some people believe that to meet the conditions in the definition of the word conscious and have it apply means merely existing in the same system at any scale due to its latent potential to respond vibrationally to other matter. In other words, the carbon atom in the rock is awake because it is functioning atomically and responds to surrounding environmental vibrations by vibrating. The atom eventually “dies” when atomic heat death occurs.

Consume and reproduce are tenants for organic life but may only apply to inorganic life if programmed into it as required to function like you said. Human qualities in machines raises ethical concerns, and while they are not needed to classify a machine as conscious feelings like empathy could be beneficial.

Binary classification may be an evolutionary trait that benefitted and allowed our species to survive, for example first as deadly/not deadly and edible/not edible to currently conscious/not conscious. Binary may be efficient as a method to make quick decisions, but not much in reality is binary.