How did consciousness manifest?

My original post was the following quote:

"Nicholas Humphrey sees consciousness as having developed from more primitive sensations which lacked subjective qualities. These arose from early organism attempts to integrate sensory inputs into an internal representation of the outside world. Eventually, through natural selection, the signals began to turn in on themselves. These generated internal feedback, formed multiple representations and ultimately "privatized" sensations. Humphrey suggests that within self-sustaining inward loops, the subjective qualities of consciousness played a crucial role in the perception of time.

Richard Gregory builds on this suggestion of Humphrey, stressing that qualia are useful to "flag" the present moment. Gregory points out that increasingly complex organisms developed a need to identify representations of the present, as opposed to past memory and future anticipation. How does the mind know when is now? By adorning representations of the present with consciousness qualia.

Graham Cairns-Smith says that qualia must play a function to evolve, which implies that they must have a physical bases. He suggests that qualia are generated by biomolecular systems ("qualogens") whose diversified phylogeny matches that of the qualia themselves. He suggests that their underlying nature may be quantum-mechanical: feelings and sensations are associated with vast numbers of microscopic processes bound in some type of macroscopic quantum state.

Steven Mithen examines the fossil record to try and pin down the onset of the type of complex, higher order consciousness with which we are familiar. This type of consciousness, Mithen observes, must surely have grown from interactions among thought, language, behavior and material culture. He traces the course of human evolution in the 6 million years since humans and apes diverged. Mithen focuses on the construction of handaxes by several types of early humans which first appeared in the fossil record 1.4 million years ago. He argues that their construction required not only sensory-motor control and an understanding of fracture dynamics, but also a desire for symmetry, an ability to plan ahead, and internal (unspoken) language. Toolmaking flowed into art and agriculture some 50,000 years ago, representing, Mithen concludes, the "budding and flowering" of human consciousness.

William H. Calvin is concerned with higher levels of consciousness, seeing them as the top rungs in a hierarchical series of a dozen-or-so levels. Percolating upward through this hierarchy, Calvin explains, are the substrates for ideas, actions and sensations which emerge into consciousness by winning a competition with other possible ideas, actions, or sensations. Consciousness is the result of a Darwinian process not only over the course of evolution but in a moment-by-moment competition for a place in the sunshine of awareness."
Source with links:http://cognet.mit.edu/posters/TUCSON3/Hameroff.Evolution.html

Nicholas Humphrey's insight deserves merit and I think it should be explored further.

 

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Haha so now Darwin has influence over consciousness? If that is the case lets copy the roaches and develop our hive, or how about the ants?

 

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Why would a roach be unconscious?

Turn on the light. It moves.

 

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from web:

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JOSEPH LEDOUX
Neuroscientist, New York University; Author, The Synaptic Self

I believe that animals have feelings and other states of consciousness, but neither I, nor anyone else, has been able to prove it. We can't even prove that other people are conscious, much less other animals. In the case of other people, though, we at least can have a little confidence since all people have brains with the same basic configurations. But as soon as we turn to other species and start asking questions about feelings, and consciousness in general, we are in risky territory because the hardware is different.

When a rat is in danger, it does things that many other animals do. That is, it either freezes, runs away or fights back. People pretty much do the same things. Some scientists say that because a rat and a person act the same in similar situations, they have the same kinds of subjective experiences. I don't think we can really say this.

There are two aspects of brain hardware that make it difficult for us to generalize from our personal subjective experiences to the experiences of other animals. One is the fact that the circuits most often associated with human consciousness involve the lateral prefrontal cortex (via its role in working memory and executive control functions). This broad zone is much more highly developed in people than in other primates, and whether it exists at all in non-primates is questionable. So certainly for those aspects of consciousness that depend on the prefrontal cortex, including aspects that allow us to know who we are and to make plans and decisions, there is reason to believe that even other primates might be different than people. The other aspect of the brain that differs dramatically is that humans have natural language. Because so much of human experience is tied up with language, consciousness is often said to depend on language. If so, then most other animals are ruled out of the consciousness game. But even if consciousness doesn't depend on language, language certainly changes consciousness so that whatever consciousness another animal has it is likely to differ from most of our states of consciousness.

For these reasons, I think it is hard to know what consciousness might be like in another animal. If we can't measure it (because it is internal and subjective) and can't use our own experience to frame questions about it (because the hardware that makes it possible is different), it become difficult to study.

Most of what I have said applies mainly to the content of conscious experience. But there is another aspect of consciousness that is less problematic scientifically. It is possible to study the processes that make consciousness possible even if we can't study the content of consciousness in other animals. This is exactly what is done in studies of working memory in non-human primates. One approach by that has had some success in the area of conscious content in non-human primates has focused on a limited kind of consciousness, visual awareness. But this approach, by Koch and Crick, mainly gets at the neural correlates of consciousness rather than the causal mechanisms. The correlates and the mechanisms may be the same, but they may not. Interestingly, this approach also emphasizes the importance of prefrontal cortex in making visual awareness possible.

So what about feelings? My view is that a feeling is what happens when an emotion system, like the fear system, is active in a brain that can be aware of its own activities. That is, what we call "fear" is the mental state that we are in when the activity of the defense system of the brain (or the consequences of its activity, such as bodily responses) is what is occupying working memory. Viewed this way, feelings are strongly tied to those areas of the cortex that are fairly unique to primates and especially well developed in people. When you add natural language to the brain, in addition to getting fairly basic feelings you also get fine gradations due to the ability to use words and grammar to discriminate and categorize states and to attribute them not just to ourselves but to others.

There are other views about feelings. Damasio argues that feelings are due to more primitive activity in body sensing areas of the cortex and brainstem. Pankseep has a similar view, though he focuses more on the brainstem. Because this network has not changed much in the course of human evolution, it could therefore be involved in feelings that are shared across species. I don't object to this on theoretical grounds, but I don't think it can be proven because feelings can't be measured in other animals. Pankseep argues that if it looks like fear in rats and people, it probably feels like fear in both species. But how do you know that rats and people feel the same when they behave the same? A cockroach will escape from danger--does it, too, feel fear as it runs away? I don't think behavioral similarity is sufficient grounds for proving experiential similarity. Neural similarity helps—rats and people have similar brainstems, and a roach doesn't even have a brain. But is the brainstem responsible for feelings? Even if it were proven in people, how would you prove it in a rat?

So now we're back where we started. I think rats and other mammals, and maybe even roaches (who knows?), have feelings. But I don't know how to prove it. And because I have reason to think that their feelings might be different than ours, I prefer to study emotional behavior in rats rather than emotional feelings. I study rats because you can make progress at the neural level, provided that the thing you measure is the same in rats and people. I wouldn't study language and consciousness in rats, so I don't study feelings either, because I don't know that they exist. I may be accused of being short-sighted for this, but I'd rather make progress on something I can study in rats than beat my head against the consciousness wall in these creatures.

There's lots to learn about emotion through rats that can help people with emotional disorders. And there's lots we can learn about feelings from studying humans, especially now that we have powerful function imaging techniques. I'm not a radical behaviorist. I'm just a practical emotionalist"

 

Yes.

 

Here is a related article on mice.
http://www.physorg.com/news71421898.html

It is proven that mice at least, by their behavior seem capable of feeling empathy. But once again this is just our perception. The reason I say we cannot prove consciousness is in the material brain only is because we have a very limited perception while consciousness itself, if we can assume it exists in many different forms, it means the more advanced and evolved we get the more consciousness expands. Consciousness does not behave in a way which makes it seem like it's limited to just our brain, and if we ever developed a way to communicate with animals in say, mouse language, or dog language, we'd actually have a chance to expand our consciousness and theirs, much in the same way it can be expanded by communicating with aliens. Simply by studying animals we came up with the theory of evolution and have solved many mysteries. We also came up with the ideas for the internet by studying insect behavior and the hive mentality, which humans have in the form of the tribal mentality.

The feew emotions we have, likely arent the only emotions that exist in the universe. Even among different humans there are different emotional fingerprints. The only basic emotions that seem to exist accross species are fear, and according to this article empathy. There may be more, and I may be wrong, but when you use your limited senses to try and view the universe, it leaves your ideas inside the box. I don't think Einstein could have come to the conclusion that matter is energy just by looking at it, but he knew matter was made up of things like atoms which could not easily be seen.

 

That is a load of crap. You are telling me you believe the robot is alive and has rights?

What you did was you put your consciousness into the robot when you designed the software, otherwise robots would suddenly awaken when you create the hardware and that has never EVER happened. All evidence points to consciousness being transfered between matter, between each other and also into robots, but robots do not have their own consciousness unless we pour ours into them.

 

No. I'm merely saying that there are degrees of consciousness. Being able to react to environmental changes autonomously would be one of them.

The problem with a robot being alive is that it isn't. Life has the capacity of reproduction. A robot doesn't have this capacity.

How consciousness is kickstarted is of no importance. As long as it is.

 

Because this is not your forum and you do not determine the content of this thread. And if you have a problem with that you can just fuck off.

Try to meta-bollock your way out of that.


And if you were actually just meta-nitpicking:

The statement is referring to the special case of robot consciousness. Does it matter if a creator (humans) created consciousness for robots or evolution did for life? No. It's still consciousness. The kickstart itself doesn't diminish consciousness being there in both cases.

The problem with the robot is that it does not know evolution. As such it's consciousness and that of its replacements is entirely in the hands of their creators. It may very well remain restricted to a very basic level of consciousness. Biological life shows a distinct pattern that some lineages show increased level of consciousness, culminating in high levels of consciousness in primates, cetaceans, proboscideans, some carnivores etc.

 

No, what you understand isn't necessarily valid.


and ...whatever to the second comment.

 

You seem to make no distinction between consciousness and awareness. This is a very useful distinction. Machines can be very aware (sensing even things like EM waves which humans can not.) but lack consciousness. Consciousness is essentially impossible to define but its existence is undeniable, but not demonstrable by behavior. Traditionally a humanoid behaving in all aspect as if were a conscious human is called a zombie in cognitive science circles. Consciousness is a first person, not third person observable thing. Generally it is also associated with "mental states" for example "being thirsty" or "in pain" (These are "qualias" or “feelings“) other mental state are "desires" and "beliefs" etc. Zombies do not (by definition) have mental states.

 

I'm saying awareness is a degree of consciousness.

And as we can see in nature there is gradual slope of consciousness when comparing different animals.

The same sort of discussion occurs when discussing morals. Do other animals have morals. Yes. Just in a different degree. And morals can ultimately be traced to an origin. The emergence of behavioural social patterns. But you can't see morals in the very first of these patterns.

Same with consciousness or awareness.

 

I'll give you an impossible task:
Ask someone who never met another person.

 

duh.

If you ask a person this question then that person knows someone. The person who asked. You!

 

Or that we know them. And wouldn't interacting with other species change our consciousness?

Can't we relate to dolphins because they are less intelligent? Or because we are lacking in consciousness? Are they too intelligent? Too conscious?

Pointless questions of course. Nothing diminishes from the fact that there are different levels of consciousness.

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/cgi-bin...emId=0975991477


"Editorial Review:

Book Description:
The Biology of Belief is a groundbreaking work in the field of New Biology. Author Dr. Bruce Lipton is a former medical school professor and research scientist. His experiments, and those of other leading-edge scientists, have examined in great detail the processes by which cells receive information. The implications of this research radically change our understanding of life. It shows that genes and DNA do not control our biology; that instead DNA is controlled by signals from outside the cell, including the energetic messages emanating from our positive and negative thoughts. Dr. Lipton's profoundly hopeful synthesis of the latest and best research in cell biology and quantum physics is being hailed as a major breakthrough showing that our bodies can be changed as we retrain our thinking."

It says here that "DNA is controlled by signals from outside the cell"

This is what I was trying to express in this thread and evolution threads (paraphrasing) 'genetic variation being driven by our environment' rather than the genes changing randomly by themselves and happenning to be successful or not.

If the scientists above consider that thoughts can change DNA then my question regarding why an organism 'wants' to live are now valid are they not? The fact that DNA is controlled not by biology but from signals outside the cell demonstrates that afterall genetic variation is about 'progress' and not merely a random process.

 

:bugeye:

ToR, if you believe everything you read, then why don't you trust me when I tell you that this guy and his research are bunk...

 

Of Blank Slates and Zombies
Conversations with Zombies
The hardships of cognitive science

Otherwise, feel free to do a Google of your own.

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Why is he bunk? He's a scientist, he's a phD, he's a leader in his field.
You don't like his ideas so you say he's bunk. I am not a flat earthist.

"Bruce Lipton, Ph.D.
The Biology of Consciousness

About Bruce Lipton
Scientist, author, university professor and lecturer, Bruce Lipton, compares the evolution of the cell to that of humankind; clearly demonstrates that much of our technology is in direct imitation of Nature’s designs for cell structures. The myths of genes vs. the magic of membranes. Case made that it is not our genes, but our environment, and our perception of the environment, that ultimately regulates our health and behavior. Based upon his research at Stanford University, Dr. Lipton's most recent research publications on the regulation of cell behavior have yielded insight into the molecular basis of consciousness and the future of human evolution. What is most exciting is that there are patterns in evolution, and the development of community is part of one of these patterns. Bruce is on the cutting edge of the New Biology, which, like the New Physics, is changing the way we see things. In this we find that much of Neo-Darwinian biology is gravely in error and that the bleak picture it paints of our future is, at most, a self-fulfilling prophecy. The vision of the New Biology is far more hopeful."

I just think it's interesting that there is an eminent chap out there with understanding of evolution who managed to spout the alleged 'crap' you all accused me of spouting.

 

Several world famous cognitive scientist debate consciousness and discuss/ define “zombie” here:
http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/chalmersdeb3dft.htm

Goldman’s paper in Consciousness and Cognition journal is a good review for one who know little about the field. See on line at:
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Papers/Py104/goldman.consc.html

Google search:
“cognitive science definition of zombie”

For dozens more that will all tell you what I said in my post.