John,
You made excellent points, which I'm happy to
reply to ..
John M wrote:
>
> --- James N Rose <integrity.domain.name.hidden>
> wrote:
> JR:
> > ...
> > Make it easier -- a coma patient, inert for decades,
> > re-wakes alone in
> > a room, registers its situation and in an instant -
> > dies. Would that
> > moment qualify for 'conscioueness'?
>
> JM:
> and how would WE know about 'that moment'? does the
> coma-patient push a button to register? If there is a
> "conscious machine" (human or humanoid?) he is not
> alone. So the 'gedankenexperiment' (as all of this
> kind do) fails. Jamie left out HIS version of Ccness,
> to better understand his points. (E. g.:
Actually, gedankenexperiments have been rather successfully
important - eg Maxwell's Demon.
And at the end of my post, I -did- define my version of
CCness: every/any event that embodies a 'change of inertia'
is definable as a primitive form of both moment of action
-and- event of self-environment interaction .. even and
especially when it is environment-with-itself.
But, John, to get back on track with your dispute points...
remember the 19th century query .. 'if a tree falls in a
forest and no (human) is there to hear it, is there sound?'
Same question, different venue.
If -you- have a sentient moment and no one else is around
to acknowledge or affirm or recognize it, are you existentially
'conscious'? According to your standard, no. Your own
self-awareness of 'being' is not sufficient.
But - I do note that you allow for pan-sentience (a concept
liberally considered for a few decades in the field
of consciousness studies).
>
> JR:
> >
> > I put it to the list that there are several factors
> > that are implicit
> > and explicit to the notion of consciousness .. which
> > we humans mis-identify
> > and mis-weight. They involve more than the human
> > arrogance that 'our'
> > sentience is the gauge to measure any/all
> > other-sentience against.
>
> JM:
> Earlier, when I felt an obligation to identify what
> "I" am talking about when I say: Consciousness(?) I
> generalized the concept to ANY sensitivity in ANY
> aspect, (as acknowledgement (and?) response to (any)
> information (meaning any difference that transpires) -
> so Hans Morawetz's teddy bear can indeed have
> 'consciousness' . I called that a universal
> (pan-)sensitivity to escape 'psycho' as in
> 'panpsychic'.
> Jamie continues about his coma-experiment:
> >
> > The questions arise .. could a true 'sentience' have
> > existed in that brief
> > span of time? I.e, "what is the shortest time span
> > of sentient (self)other
> > awareness necessary, to "qualify" for consciousness?
> JM:
> after the excellent extension of the term from human
> udeational restrictions Jamie falls back into physics
> of measurable scales. I allow timeless fulgurations,
> but cannot condone the restricted content of simply
> 'awareness' (except for the anestesiologists, who
> indeed include into the term an observed response.
Why not? And why challenge my mention of a time parameter?
"Duration" is a conditional necessity if one is to get past
the question you pose later on .. is data 'storage'
alone, a sufficient requirement for 'consciousness? Thats
and important question and it includes books in a library-
where the data is effectively 'inert' and not actively
differentiating - sufficient to make-a-difference.
Consciousness, as I note of it, requires transfers/
transforms of data/energy - not simply 'storage'
of states. Duration events and intensity/field events.
> I find the simulacron-pair of consciousness and life
> 'close', at least none of them is identified in a
> widely acceptable content (callable: meaning).
> (Hal Ruhl was the only lister who responded lately to
> my question about 'what do we look at (think of) when
> we say "life", (I owe him a thankful response,) all
> others in dozens of posts satisfied themselves with
> the 'meaning' discussion without identifying what we
> should relate those 'meanings' to.
> JR:
> >
> > Whether human-or-not, 'situational awareness',
> > becomes a parameter for consciousness, as well.
> ---(Amen, for one aspect of it)---
ok then. and this is important, because
here in simplest form , is CCness:
(dynamic) 'situational awareness'.
> >
> > -time
> > -memory/continuity
> > -reactive/interactive capacity
> > ... etc.
> >
> > not just in human terms, but allowed in a spectrum
> > of extent,
> > from just-greater-than-zero to some full-functional
> > (for that
> > system) capacity.
> >
> >
> > When you take the raw parameters criteria, and
> > shrink them
> > down to their minimalist extents -- so that all the
> > BASIC
> > CONDITIONS of 'sentience' are met/present - whether
> > for a
> > femto-second or 2 days or a billion years; whether
> > capable
> > of acting-on-awareness or not, or, only capable of
> > self-registry
> > of received-information; and so on .. we reach a
> > point in
> > the existential scenario when 'computation' falls
> > away as being
> > 'too complex' in the conditions-spectrum.
> >
> > What we reach in this paring-away scenario - are
> > qualia of
> > existence necessary to meet MINIMALISTS conditions
> > for
> > sentience-of-some-sort. Which would not have to be:
> > sentience-of-OUR-sort.
> >
> > In the final existential analysis for 'what is
> > sentience/
> > consciousness' - it become the smallest, shortest
> > contingient
> > situation for an-aspect OF existence to REGISTER
> > that some
> > Batesian "difference that makes a difference" -- is
> > co-present.
> JM:
> Is "sentience" a standing alone phenomenon? IMO it
> requires a chain of processing response-continuation
> to qualify as sentience.
careful :-) "chain of processing" is time durational :-))
NOW, John, would you happen to recall my 1997 ICCS
presentation defining Complexity? :-)
Complexity (emergent) is "a chain of processing
response-continuation" !!! :-)))))
Isn't -that- a tweak of the establishment's nose??!?! :-)))
Complexity is a sample - of consciousness.
> The impact of a photon is not
> (yet) sentience. And the famous Bateson phrase, due to
> a thinking Brit, is more than I need, because a stored
> (acknowledged) difference may not result in a 'making'
> of additional difference (e.g. memory) and yet it
> qualifies for information. Storage may be sort of a
> response without 'making' a difference.
> JR:
> >
> > In the final existential analysis of primary qualia
> > of the
> > universe, I preffered in 1996 that the most
> > FUNDAMENTAL
> > dynamic change in this universe is some/any CHANGE
> > OF INERTIA
> > from a fixed sameness.
> >
> > This puts the formative, functional, primal
> > qualiatative aspect
> > of sentience/consciousness right in the very fabric
> > of the cosmos.
> >
> > It is -not- complex or human consciousness -- which
> > emerges later.
> > But it is the primal foundation-presence and qualia
> > on which
> > emerged forms of consciousness rely - in order for
> > those complex forms
> > to exist, as they do.
> >
> > Food for thought, ladies and gentlemen, food for
> > thought.
> >
> > Jamie Rose
> > Ceptual Institute
> > 4 Jan 2007
>
> John Mikes
>
Jamie
5 Jan 2007 12:15AM PST
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Received on Fri Jan 05 2007 - 03:17:36 PST