Consciousness

[dlamberth]

I have observed brains. Both living and non-living once.
Whenever I observe cosciousness, it is being produced by a living brain. Never a dead brain. Never no brain at all.

I'm wondering how that applies to the consciousness of things like plants and trees?

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

You said a lot of interesting stuff in that post.

Glad you found it interesting - it's not anything set in stone, just my best-fit model based on the evidence I've seen for how it might all hang together. I'm happy to have it challenged or refined with ideas that better fit the evidence.

An elk is just as much the substance of reality as is the finest grained fundamental particle. I'm a bit bothered by what I call "scale privilege" whereby we consider, or speak of, components as somehow more real that the whole.

I can just hear someone: "well that elk is really just these six fundamental particles playing out their interactions". I'd say that elk is also those particles.

I agree; and emergence means that larger scale manifestations of that substance behave according to different laws, so an elk is something quite different in many ways from the fundamental particles it's made of, and knowledge of those particles in itself doesn't tell you anything particular about elks; we're all made of the same particles.

But that reductionist micro-scale reality is no more real that the human scale bones and organs of the creature, not to mention its social and ecosystem relationships.

Agreed.

My meaning of 'the substance of reality' in the previous posts was what it's ultimately 'made of'; i.e. if quantum fields are fundamental, what are they made of? I'm not sure it's a question that is meaningful for the most fundamental constituents of reality.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

There are some theories. Here's a recent Scientific American article by neurobiologist Christoph Koch.

What Is Consciousness?

Consciousness isn't well understood now, but that doesn't mean it never will be.

Yes, good stuff...

I find Global Workspace models plausible - although being conceptual rather than physical, I'm not sure how they can be tested; and it seems to me that Tononi's 'Integrated Information' may well be necessary but not sufficient - the idea that a grid of logic gates connected so as to have a high Phi value can have consciousness seems far-fetched... I suspect the mapping and modelling by the system of the system and its place in the world is also a requirement. Also, I don't think II necessarily implies that consciousness can't be generated computationally; if you can emulate analog neural networks on digital systems by emulating their structural components and their interactions with sufficient resolution, I don't see why the information processing of any physical architecture can't be emulated in a qualitatively different processing system (i.e. universal computability).

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

I'm wondering how that applies to the consciousness of things like plants and trees?

Trees are plants. There's no evidence that they are conscious in the way we generally understand it.

They do have some fairly complex behaviours we might call intelligent, but it's not clear how much flexibility and adaptability these involve; they may be functionally relatively simple.

 

[dlamberth]

They do have some fairly complex behaviours we might call intelligent, but it's not clear how much flexibility and adaptability these involve; they may be functionally relatively simple.

Isn't even simple flexibility and adaptability consciousness? There wouldn't be much intelligence there, but plants know where the Sun is, for instance.

 

[SpiritualBeing]

I'm wondering how that applies to the consciousness of things like plants and trees?

Depends how you define consciousness. Plants are definitely aware.

 

[expos4ever]

Consciousness is a function of a material brain.

I agree, but I think there is something rather unique about consciousness.

 

[DogmaHunter]

I'm wondering how that applies to the consciousness of things like plants and trees?

If you are going to say that plants and trees have "consciousness", then clearly we don't mean the same thing by that word.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Isn't even simple flexibility and adaptability consciousness? There wouldn't be much intelligence there, but plants know where the Sun is, for instance.

No, they don't "know".

Just like a compass doesn't "know" where north is.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Isn't even simple flexibility and adaptability consciousness? There wouldn't be much intelligence there, but plants know where the Sun is, for instance.

No. Plants 'know' where the sun is because chemicals in certain cells in their stems are activated or deactivated by light; for example, this may cause the cells on the unlit side to swell slightly, producing a lean towards the light. There are various ways phototropism is achieved, but it's via relatively simple chemical 'reflexes'.

Limited flexibility, adaptability, and even basic learning can be achieved through relatively simple molecular switches, feedback loops, cascades, etc., and interacting sequences of habituation and dishabituation.

Evolution itself demonstrates how undirected processes can potentially show flexibility, adaptability, and even simple learning - responses often associated with intelligence over shorter timescales (albeit, in the case of evolution, via extremely wasteful trial-and-error).

It seems to me that consciousness evolved because flexibility, adaptability, and learning are such a huge selective advantage, particularly in social creatures. Modeling and mapping the self and the world enables virtualising possible futures, predicting the behaviour of others, and planning ahead; reasoning helps with problem-solving and planning intermediate goals, and using a controlled focus-of-attention to guide goal-seeking behaviour helps achieve the goals. The simplified conscious self provides a social representative or avatar for the whole, and a locus for important attributes such as agency, location, ownership, bounds, etc.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Depends how you define consciousness. Plants are definitely aware.

Aware in the sense they can sense and respond to changes in the environment, yes. But they don't have a brain or complex nervous system to mediate all the sophisticated features we associate with consciousness and conscious awareness.

 

[SpiritualBeing]

Aware in the sense they can sense and respond to changes in the environment, yes. But they don't have a brain or complex nervous system to mediate all the sophisticated features we associate with consciousness and conscious awareness.

True they don't have a complex nervous systems but plants are still a very complex organism. Just in a different way

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

True they don't have a complex nervous systems but plants are still a very complex organism. Just in a different way

Yes. Complexity is necessary but not sufficient for consciousness as commonly understood.

 

[dlamberth]

If you are going to say that plants and trees have "consciousness", then clearly we don't mean the same thing by that word.

I'd say there are levels of consciousness. Plants and trees aren't self conscious like we are. But they do react to outside forces and they do know how to do things. They know where water is, were the sun is, some expel stuff to keep pest away, some trees share water with other near by trees, there's a lot of stuff that I'm convinced shows a low level of consciousness.

 

[dlamberth]

No. Plants 'know' where the sun is because chemicals in certain cells in their stems are activated or deactivated by light; for example, this may cause the cells on the unlit side to swell slightly, producing a lean towards the light. There are various ways phototropism is achieved, but it's via relatively simple chemical 'reflexes'.

Isn't that in a way how the Human Brian operates, with chemical reflexes?

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Isn't that in a way how the Human Brian operates, with chemical reflexes?

The brain does mediate some reflexes, and its neurons function electro-chemically, but a reflex is basically a direct stimulus-response, where the signal from the input neuron directly triggers the output neuron to respond (known as a 'reflex arc') with no intermediate processing of the signal. Many reflexes are handled by connections in the spinal column and neural ganglia elsewhere, and don't involve the brain.

Most of the brain is concerned with complex signal processing, pattern matching, and so-on.

With hindsight, the 'reflex' analogy is a little over simplified, and doesn't help if you don't know exactly what a reflex is!

To the best of my knowledge, plants don't have a dedicated system to integrate and coordinate responses, but a disparate collection of stimulus-response patterns, mostly relatively simple, with a few more complex ones.

 

[DogmaHunter]

I'd say there are levels of consciousness. Plants and trees aren't self conscious like we are. But they do react to outside forces and they do know how to do things. They know where water is, were the sun is, some expel stuff to keep pest away, some trees share water with other near by trees, there's a lot of stuff that I'm convinced shows a low level of consciousness.

We've been over this. Plants don't "know" these things any more then a compass "knows" where north is.

Consciousness is not defined by such automated action-reaction systems.

 

[Willis Gravning]

I recognize that ‘My consciousness come from My brain’ but I think it is not correct for me to then extrapolate...’therefore all consciousness must come from a brain.’

Although this may well be true, I really can present no objective evidence for even my own consciousness.

 

[dlamberth]

We've been over this. Plants don't "know" these things any more then a compass "knows" where north is.

Consciousness is not defined by such automated action-reaction systems.

That's how you think. But you won't find the same kind of thinking with the Ingenious cultures. They see consciousness where your unable to. We in the West have lost that intuitive aspect of knowledge. As we can see in the remnants of what's left in the surviving Indigenous Cultures, at one time it was the Reality with our ancient ancestors that we were very aware of the consciousness of Plants. Plants have a lot more going for them than being a simple compass.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

That's how you think. But you won't find the same kind of thinking with the Ingenious cultures. They see consciousness where your unable to. We in the West have lost that intuitive aspect of knowledge. As we can see in the remnants of what's left in the surviving Indigenous Cultures, at one time it was the Reality with our ancient ancestors that we were very aware of the consciousness of Plants.

There could be several reasons for that (you probably meant to say indigenous cultures):

Intuition can be very useful when you have expertise in the relevant area, but very misleading if you don't. The cultures you refer to are/were probably unaware of the biological information that leads us to think that a relatively sophisticated nervous system is necessary for consciousness.

Many indigenous cultures are animist; they believe that plants have associated spirits to which they may attribute conscious agency. There is no evidence for this and there is a body of research that suggests that humans have a strong tendency to attribute sentient agency to even inanimate objects. It's a result of our 'hyperactive agency detection device' (HADD), a gift of evolution in more dangerous times.

Our definitions of consciousness may differ; what is your definition of consciousness?

Plants have a lot more going for them than being a simple compass.

Has anyone said they don't?