Consciousness; proposed new research (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, June 19, 2015, 16:35 (3233 days ago) @ David Turell

Dhw: Without the ability to recognize stimuli (a definition I am quite happy to accept), no organism can survive, but these experts do not confine themselves to that ability: they also talk of cognition, intelligence, decision-making, cooperation, communication. Sentience can therefore be regarded as the attribute that provides the material on which intelligence works, whether in single-celled or multicellular organisms. You are clutching at lexical straws.-DAVID: You have neatly bypassed the major observation in the quote: "However, that is a question that right now can't be answered in any meaningful empirically accessible manner."-I did not bypass it at all. I wrote: “...sentience doesn't “simply” mean the ability to recognize stimuli; it can also mean “awareness”, and the quotation goes even further, in the direction of self-awareness (“it feels like something to be a worm”). Not even experts like McClintock, Margulis, Albrecht-Bühler, Shapiro etc. claim human-type self-awareness for bacteria or worms.” In other words, the question that can't be answered relates to self-awareness, not awareness. -DAVID: Why do McM, Mar, A-B, and Shap all then add words like: "cognition, intelligence, decision-making, cooperation, communication" in view of the observation above. -Because they have studied the behaviour of these organisms, conducted experiments with them, and drawn the conclusion that these attributes are present. The above observation, however, posits a degree of self-awareness that McClintock et al do not claim for bacteria.-DAVID: Clutch at the straws you want, but they are blowing up a concept of 'sentience' beyond all recognition. I repeat once again, most all the chemical reactions to provide reaction to stimuli are described. [...] Sentience, by your own admission is a recognition of stimuli, but that meaning 'awareness' does not imply cognition, since automatic reactions can supply the same result, seen externally to the organism.
 
Of course you are free to reject the findings of these scientists who have spent a lifetime in this particular field. The argument that automatic reactions seen externally can supply the same result may be applied to your belief in human free will, but you will do an intellectual somersault if a determinist puts that argument to you. Back to Shapiro's explanation of your anthropocentrism: “Large organs chauvinism, so we like to think that only we can do things in a cognitive way.”