Hints of 'time before Big Bang'

[Souron]

I could program a function in C++ to recognize itself. That doesn't really make it self-aware, does it?

A function isn't a physical thing, so calling it or not calling it self aware does not tell us anything about the consciousness of physical entities.

 

[Souron]

Birdjaguar the definition of consciousness is strait forward, you quoted it yourself earlier in this thread. The only thing blurry about it is that it is hard to know that another thing is self aware. But that does not make the definition itself blurry.

Are dogs self aware even if the fail the mirror test? Is self awareness more complex than the mirror test? Or is it simpler?

The mirror test proves self awareness, but it does not define it.

The easiest would be to draw it a the life/non life border and say that life creates self awareness.

Then why bother calling it consciousness. The border between life and non life is the ability to reproduce using internal machinery. This is not the same as the border between awareness and non awareness.

Your definition hinges on what it means to "recognize".

I think we can agree what it means to recognize something.

It seems to me that when a cell comes in proximity of another cell and then it reacts to that proximity by doing something, it has recognized "self from non self". Explain to me how that is not so.

Cells can't think. All they do is detect the chemicals of adjacent cells, and react in a manner predicted by the laws of chemistry. It's not even cells doing the detecting, but the chemicals on their surface. A cell is only considered a separate thing because it is useful for us as humans to model it that way. But the line is much more blurry than we make it out to be. When you take an real look at it, a cell is just an drop of water, surrounded by a thin layer of oil.

Now you say that a broader definition is less useful because it changes the staus quo and things thought of as non self aware suddenly become self aware. By broadening the definition, new ways of thinking about things are possible and new comparisons can be made. By allowing magpies to be included among the self aware, we have to think aobut ourselves and other living things differently. The wider definition enhances the opportunity for discovery, not limit it.

Changing the dictionary does not induce new thought, it just makes you harder to understand.

 

[Birdjaguar]

The mirror test proves self awareness, but it does not define it.

Could a critter be self aware and still fail the mirror test?

Then why bother calling it consciousness. The border between life and non life is the ability to reproduce using internal machinery. This is not the same as the border between awareness and non awareness.

Where do you put that border then? Are dogs self aware?

Cells can't think. All they do is detect the chemicals of adjacent cells, and react in a manner predicted by the laws of chemistry. It's not even cells doing the detecting, but the chemicals on their surface. A cell is only considered a separate thing because it is useful for us as humans to model it that way. But the line is much more blurry than we make it out to be. When you take an real look at it, a cell is just an drop of water, surrounded by a thin layer of oil.

And do our brains do anything more than that?

Changing the dictionary does not induce new thought, it just makes you harder to understand.

Touche!

 

[Souron]

Could a critter be self aware and still fail the mirror test?

Yes. Certainly the mirror test is not effective on animals that don't rely on sight greatly.

Where do you put that border then? Are dogs self aware?

Probably not. They have emotion, but that is not the same as consciousness. Then again, maybe the reason dogs fail the mirror test is that their reflection does not smell anything like them.

And do our brains do anything more than that?

Well yes, we as humans can imagine the concept of ourselves. Each of us considers ourselves as distinct from other people. Now we don't really know what physical process is going on under the hood, but the result is apparent. I think of myself as distinct from the world around me.

Individual cells show no indication of being able to have such a concept.


Note also that there is a whole spectrum of words to refer the various things that are generally thought to separate humans from animals. Wikipedia seems to have a [wiki=Template:Cognition]template on the matter[/wiki]

 

[Birdjaguar]

I see the anthropomorphic approach to consciousness and self awreness that you seem to espouse just like the "Humans, the tool making animal" standards of my childhood. We defined ourselves in terms of an imagined gap between humans and the rest of life.

Tool use was once thought to distinguish humans from animal — until, that is, so many animals proved able to use them.

Granted, the fine folks at Leatherman aren't about to be undercut by cheap chimpanzee-manufactured multitools. But it's hard not to feel a species-level déjà vu when seeing a gorilla using a walking stick or capuchin monkey thoughtfully selecting an ideal nut-cracking stone.

Below is a compilation of some of the most interesting animal tool use yet observed. Much more likely remains to be found: until Jane Goodall watched chimpanzees fishing for termites with sticks, scientists had been reluctant to credit animals with such sophisticated behavior — perhaps because, as Charles Darwin noted, “Animals, whom we have made our slaves, we do not like to consider our equal.”

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/01/animaltools.html

We have defined consciousness in a similar way: so that only humans fit the definition. And lo and behold, cracks in that imaginary world are appearing as we discover it may not just be a human trait. Now you can say that no other critter has the same consciousnes as a person and be correct. But that is not of much more use than saying "No one else has the same personality as me!" It may be correct, but so what? A more interesting question is how are our differeing personalities similar? Or what makes mine different from yours?

Like with tools, I suspect that we will see that consciousness/awareness will be found thoughout life and the task ahead will be to discover how it differs between people and elephants and dogs, as well as, how is it similar. The human inclination to set humanity apart from the animals is most likely a product of our greater awareness, but that does not make it true.

I am not claiming that dogs have human consciousness, only that they have dog consciousness which is less refined and less capable than ours, but none-the-less similar and connected to ours through evolutionary development.

Yes. Certainly the mirror test is not effective on animals that don't rely on sight greatly.

Probably not. They [dogs] have emotion, but that is not the same as consciousness. Then again, maybe the reason dogs fail the mirror test is that their reflection does not smell anything like them.

So with a better test, you might accept that dogs are self aware? And with a better test we might be able to show that horses are self aware. If that is the case, then the problem is that we have not figured out how to test for awareness and not that the critters have it or not. History has often shown us that generally we assume things incorrectly and later figure out how wrong we were. I'm trying to give you a jump start on the future.

Well yes, we as humans can imagine the concept of ourselves. Each of us considers ourselves as distinct from other people. Now we don't really know what physical process is going on under the hood, but the result is apparent. I think of myself as distinct from the world around me.

I think it is apparent that dogs also think of themselves as distinct from other dogs, as well as, people. And with dogs we have even less knowledge of what is "going on under the hood".

Individual cells show no indication of being able to have such a concept.

They may not think of themselves as people thinkl of themselves, or even "think" at all, but they do ssense what is around them and have the ability to respond to changes in that environment. Isn't that rudimentary awareness?

 

[Souron]

We defined ourselves in terms of an imagined gap between humans and the rest of life.

Doing so justifies our treating the rest of life by a different standard then humans. It is widely believed that a humans life is more important that a pets life. The fact that that pet isn't self aware justifies this value assessment. If we cannot make that distinction, then a serious reconsideration of values must be considered.

As we are slowly learning, the difference that separates humans and animals is largely of the degree of applicability of certain traits, not the presence of any traits themselves. Self awareness seems one of those properties that is largely boolean, that humans have and that most animals don't. It is also a metric that is directly related to they way it is treated; if an animal is not self aware, then it's life has no value to itself, so the justification holds.

So with a better test, you might accept that dogs are self aware? And with a better test we might be able to show that horses are self aware. If that is the case, then the problem is that we have not figured out how to test for awareness and not that the critters have it or not. History has often shown us that generally we assume things incorrectly and later figure out how wrong we were. I'm trying to give you a jump start on the future.

A better test may show that dogs are self aware, only if dogs actually self aware. If they aren't, you can try to improve the test as much as you want, you still won't get a different result.
You cannot argue that just because we tend to get things wrong most of the time that we are wrong this particular time.

I am not claiming that dogs have human consciousness, only that they have dog consciousness which is less refined and less capable than ours, but none-the-less similar and connected to ours through evolutionary development.

You are applying a gradient scale, to something that should be a boolean state. Can you explain how something can be slightly self aware?

I think it is apparent that dogs also think of themselves as distinct from other dogs, as well as, people. And with dogs we have even less knowledge of what is "going on under the hood".

If you want to argue that dogs are self aware, and should therefore be treated like humans, I won't stop you. I am inclined to disagree, but it is a disagreement on the traits of a dog, not of the definition of self awareness.

They may not think of themselves as people thinkl of themselves, or even "think" at all, but they do ssense what is around them and have the ability to respond to changes in that environment. Isn't that rudimentary awareness?

It's no more of a sense of awareness then the ability of a planet to circle the sun, or piece of metal to cling to metal. Everything interacts with everything else according to natural laws. There is nothing special about that.

 

[Ayatollah So]

I'm confused about "time before the big bang". Wasn't the big bang the start of the three spacial dimensions and the time dimension? If so then time before that makes on sence. Its like saying whats -1m away from a point (without specifying a direction).

Thank you sir, I believe you nailed it.

I think they mean "before" in the causal sense; causes always precede effects, so whatever caused the big bang must have come "before" the big bang. We can think of it as defining (ordinal) time in terms of cause and effect. In this way, we don't need to refer to any specific notion of time at all.

Damn, that's clever. Now let me (and Perf) shoot it down:

So how would we determine which universe caused the existance of another?

In other words, what's causality without time (and entropy)?

Exactly: causality alone does not provide an arrow of time. Causality relates two things, but does not appoint either one "master".

I reject the notion that "it's elephants all the way down."

So do I. It's TURTLES all the way down!

 

[Ayatollah So]

Here is a link for it at New Scientist:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20026861.500-did-our-cosmos-exist-before-the-big-bang.html

Hmm, according to the link, the "time" in the "previous" universe really is the same old time as ours, in the theory. I guess it might just be turtles all the way down, after all.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Doing so justifies our treating the rest of life by a different standard then humans. It is widely believed that a humans life is more important that a pets life. The fact that that pet isn't self aware justifies this value assessment. If we cannot make that distinction, then a serious reconsideration of values must be considered.

Exactly my point. The assumption that humans are better than other critters is one of our making without foundation. Racism and sexism have the same principles at their root.

As we are slowly learning, the difference that separates humans and animals is largely of the degree of applicability of certain traits, not the presence of any traits themselves. Self awareness seems one of those properties that is largely boolean, that humans have and that most animals don't. It is also a metric that is directly related to they way it is treated; if an animal is not self aware, then it's life has no value to itself, so the justification holds.

Is your "boolean nature" claim of self awareness actually supported by any science or just wishful thinking and ignorance of the minds of other things?

A better test may show that dogs are self aware, only if dogs actually self aware. If they aren't, you can try to improve the test as much as you want, you still won't get a different result.
You cannot argue that just because we tend to get things wrong most of the time that we are wrong this particular time.

Nor can you argue that jsut because dogs are not like humans they are not self aware.

You are applying a gradient scale, to something that should be a boolean state. Can you explain how something can be slightly self aware?

As above, why should it be boolean?

If you want to argue that dogs are self aware, and should therefore be treated like humans, I won't stop you. I am inclined to disagree, but it is a disagreement on the traits of a dog, not of the definition of self awareness.

I am not trying to argue that dogs or any other animals should be treated differently than they are. Self awareness is not a morality issue. Either it is boolean or works on a gradient scale. I don't think it can be both.

It's no more of a sense of awareness then the ability of a planet to circle the sun, or piece of metal to cling to metal. Everything interacts with everything else according to natural laws. There is nothing special about that.

Nothing special? The natural laws seem pretty awesome to me.

Given that chemistry and the other laws of nature pretty much define everything in our world, why shouldn't they also define self awareness? On a gradient scale it makes perfect sense.

 

[warpus]

A function isn't a physical thing, so calling it or not calling it self aware does not tell us anything about the consciousness of physical entities.

Who says that consciousness has to be confined to physical entities? When exactly did that get established?

I was analyzing BirdJaguar's consciousness test and applied to to a scenario where it fails to be a useful.

You can't just say "oh but that's different, because computer programs aren't like people!", because his original definition did not specify anything about the entity having to be physical.

It is obviously wrong and/or incomplete. If you want to bring the physical into it, you're going to have to explain why that is a good quantifier.

 

[Souron]

Who says that consciousness has to be confined to physical entities? When exactly did that get established?

I was analyzing BirdJaguar's consciousness test and applied to to a scenario where it fails to be a useful.

You can't just say "oh but that's different, because computer programs aren't like people!", because his original definition did not specify anything about the entity having to be physical.

It is obviously wrong and/or incomplete. If you want to bring the physical into it, you're going to have to explain why that is a good quantifier.

Saying a function is conscious, is like saying that a hypothetical conscious being is couscous. What you would be doing is redefining consciousness as something that can be used in lambda calculus. That is a perfectly fine thing to do, but it doesn't tell us anything about the physical world.

Now if you had said you could program a robot to have consciousness, you would have a point (perhalps). With a program it's fuzzy; what is a program exactly? But a C++ function is clearly just a description of behavior. A description of the comparison of two numbers, two function pointers, interpreted as consciousness.

Ironically it is actually not possible to define a function that can directly recognize itself in C++. This because the definition is recursive: you would be defining a function that takes as a parameter a function that takes as a parameter a function ... ad infinitum. You can however define a function that recognizes itself in a box, that is a function take takes a struct containing itself.

 

[warpus]

Saying a function is conscious, is like saying that a hypothetical conscious being is couscous. What you would be doing is redefining consciousness as something that can be used in lambda calculus. That is a perfectly fine thing to do, but it doesn't tell us anything about the physical world.

I see you're slowly catching on!

The absurdity of my scenario illustrates the absurdity of the claim that cells can be conscious.

 

[Souron]

Exactly my point. The assumption that humans are better than other critters is one of our making without foundation. Racism and sexism have the same principles at their root.

Consiousness is an example of such a foundation. The capacity for pain is another. So is the capacity for judgment. Admittedly, all of these have been arived by working backwards from the assumption that humans are better, but if the data fits the conjecture, then conjecture becomes justified.

Is your "boolean nature" claim of self awareness actually supported by any science or just wishful thinking and ignorance of the minds of other things?

As above, why should it be boolean?

How can somebody be partially aware? Awareness is a Boolean condition by definition.

Nor can you argue that jsut because dogs are not like humans they are not self aware.

I wasn't. But I do think that in some cases you can: Humans are self aware, so behavior typical of humans can in some cases be a symptom of self awareness. So if dogs don't have those properties, then that could be taken as a sign of not having self awareness. I think a discussion about when this applies would be off topic to our current discussion.

I am not trying to argue that dogs or any other animals should be treated differently than they are. Self awareness is not a morality issue.

Yes it is. If an individual is aware of its existence and does not wish for it to end, what right do you have to take that life away. Why is that individuals life worth less than any others?

Either it is boolean or works on a gradient scale. I don't think it can be both.

Agreed.

Nothing special? The natural laws seem pretty awesome to me.

Awesome maybe. But being special means being rare, which cannot apply to the laws of nature, since we have nothing objective to compare them against. It is therefore not useful to make categories that encompass everything that exists, especially if the term already has a specific and useful meaning.

Given that chemistry and the other laws of nature pretty much define everything in our world, why shouldn't they also define self awareness? On a gradient scale it makes perfect sense.

Because self awareness is already defined in terms of thought, and we don't know enough biochemistry to understand the process of thought. Maybe when we do learn how the brain works, we can create a definition of awareness based on the development of specific brain structures. This would be like life which once ment something that grows, now means something that can reproduce by its own mechanism.

 

[warpus]

Listen, if a cell was self-aware, it would be possible to communicate with it and ask it what its favourite colour is, or something.

You really think that'd be conceptually possible, BirdJaguar?

 

[Birdjaguar]

It is late for me; I will reply tomorrow. But I will leave you both with a question. Are elephants, dolphins, apes and magpies our equal in terms of awareness?

 

[Birdjaguar]

Consiousness is an example of such a foundation. The capacity for pain is another. So is the capacity for judgment. Admittedly, all of these have been arived by working backwards from the assumption that humans are better, but if the data fits the conjecture, then conjecture becomes justified.

Where you begin (your base assumptions) will determine where you end up. So if you begin with an assumption that humans are better than or separate from all other life, then, as you have done, you will only see the world through those glasses. I do not believe though that there is any actual scientific evidence that your assumption is actually true. We all have to start somewhere and those basic assumptions (yours and mine) are pretty much unproven. If by "judgment" you mean the capacity to make choices, then most higher life forms have it. If by judgment you mean on moral judgment, then I suspect that you would limit it to those that are self aware: humans, apes, elephants, dolphins and magpies.

How can somebody be partially aware? Awareness is a Boolean condition by definition.

If its boolean, then humans, apes, elephants, dolphins and magpies are all equally self aware or the whole mirror test thing a "stupid pet trick". If its boolean and only humans are self aware, then elephants and sheep would have to be equally unaware, which they clearly aren't. Now one way to deal with this problem is to make sure that the definition of self aware only fits humans (the tool making mammal )
and add something like the "capacity for moral judgments". I think though that both apes and elephants may have crossed that line already.

Yes it is. If an individual is aware of its existence and does not wish for it to end, what right do you have to take that life away. Why is that individuals life worth less than any others?

So when an animal chews off its foot that is caught in a trap so that it can live, it would seem to be showing that it does not want to die. Or is chewing off your foot just an instinctual behavior?

Because self awareness is already defined in terms of thought, and we don't know enough biochemistry to understand the process of thought. Maybe when we do learn how the brain works, we can create a definition of awareness based on the development of specific brain structures. This would be like life which once ment something that grows, now means something that can reproduce by its own mechanism.

So you accept that I could be proven right as soon as science catches up with my thinking.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Listen, if a cell was self-aware, it would be possible to communicate with it and ask it what its favourite colour is, or something.

You really think that'd be conceptually possible, BirdJaguar?

If awareness in on a continuum it most certainly is. right now to communicate with a cell we have to reduce our communications to chemical level where we have found them to be responsive.

Cells may not have a favorite color, but many seem to have chemical preferences. In fact humans still communicate at the chemical level as well. Our improved awareness just gives us a greater choice of communication devices and a broader vocabulary.

What kind of self awareness would we have without chemistry? Is there any other fundamental basis for awareness than chemistry?

 

[warpus]

BirdJaguar, the way we experience the world is dozens (hundreds?) levels of abstraction removed from the way a cell does.

Cells do not have 'preferences'. A cell doesn't investigate its surroundings and think "Hmmm today I'm going to go.. east". Its interaction with its environment is several magnitudes more simplistic than what we know as instinct. There is no self-awareness involved.

 

[Souron]

Where you begin (your base assumptions) will determine where you end up. So if you begin with an assumption that humans are better than or separate from all other life, then, as you have done, you will only see the world through those glasses. I do not believe though that there is any actual scientific evidence that your assumption is actually true. We all have to start somewhere and those basic assumptions (yours and mine) are pretty much unproven. If by "judgment" you mean the capacity to make choices, then most higher life forms have it. If by judgment you mean on moral judgment, then I suspect that you would limit it to those that are self aware: humans, apes, elephants, dolphins and magpies.

If you wish to argue that a wider selection of animals have the properties that are generally used to excuse a divide between animals an humans, I have no objection. But again this discussion can only be had if you use terms like self awareness in the same way as everyone else.

If its boolean, then humans, apes, elephants, dolphins and magpies are all equally self aware or the whole mirror test thing a "stupid pet trick". If its boolean and only humans are self aware, then elephants and sheep would have to be equally unaware, which they clearly aren't. Now one way to deal with this problem is to make sure that the definition of self aware only fits humans (the tool making mammal )
and add something like the "capacity for moral judgments". I think though that both apes and elephants may have crossed that line already.

You aren't arguing why it is Boolean, you are arguing that it would be convenient if it weren't, because then we can say that all animals are "not sufficiently self aware" without defining an awareness limit beyond defining humans as above that limit. You accuse me of wanting define self awareness as something that applies only to humans, but it is you who is making such a definition.

I agree with your statement:
If its boolean, then humans, apes, elephants, dolphins and magpies are all equally self aware or the whole mirror test thing a "stupid pet trick".
Self awareness is boolean. There are other criteria, such as the capacity for moral judgement that may or may serve as a better boundry. These criteria need to also be boolean to be useful. But ultimately if the boundary is found to include certain other members of the animal kingdom, then those members must be given all inalienable human rights, to the greatest extent possible.

This has the convenient benefit of preventing the possibility of the planet being overrun by talking apes who brake free of their enslavement.

Yet even if we accept your conjecture that self awareness is gradient, there is no reason to extend that gradient to individual cells.

So when an animal chews off its foot that is caught in a trap so that it can live, it would seem to be showing that it does not want to die. Or is chewing off your foot just an instinctual behavior?

The fear of an avoidance of death is a primal instinct. The realization of what death actually means is self awareness. Only humans and elephants seem to associate any special meaning to death, as indicated by ceremonies both have surrounding it.

So you accept that I could be proven right as soon as science catches up with my thinking.

I agree on which point? certainly not on the awareness of cells. As an atheist, I am inclined to agree that self awareness must be the product of known natural laws.

 

[Fifty]

Another option might be that "consciousness" is somehow programmed to "see" or "experience" an arrow of time that does not exist out side of it.

Another option might be that "you" are completely "crazy" and your "theories" are "incoherent new-age clap-trap".
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