Consciousness: awareness and metacognition (General)

by dhw, Monday, September 25, 2017, 13:17 (2614 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: I'm sorry but I disagree. To be conscious is not consciousness. Organisms are conscious by recognizing stimuli and reacting to them both inside and out. Consciousness involves being aware of that state and philosophizing about it. I make a much sharper distinction than you do. As for intelligence and use of stimuli, simple organisms respond using intelligent information they are given.

dhw: You seem to think the noun has a different meaning from the adjective! You agree that an organism is conscious if it recognizes stimuli and reacts to them both inside and out. I’ll settle for that, thank you. Bacteria are therefore conscious. But I do not for one second believe that their degree of being conscious extends to their being self-conscious and philosophizing about being conscious.

DAVID: My goodness, we agree!

I have just walked round the house, announcing your agreement that bacteria are conscious, and I heard a strange sound in every room. It took some time for me to identify it, but with my newly invented microscope-amplifier-unicell-detector, I eventually discovered what it was. All the bacteria were singing “Cellelujah!”