Sounds like a James Brown song, don’t it?
Now, you were saying . . .
your humble TubaDiva/SDStaffDiv
for the Straight Dope
As to mammals, I was simply replying to Big Iron’s statement:
“Not questioning your neuron count, necessarily, but it’s been pretty well demonstrated
that squid and other cephalopods are highly intelligent vis a vis their cousins in the higher
mammal kingdom (for example).”
I wouldn’t even put mice in the “higher mammal kingdom”.
Whatever, I don’t think this issue has a lot in it to affect the consciousness question of these threads.
Ray
{{As to mammals, I was simply replying to Big Iron’s statement:
“Not questioning your neuron count, necessarily, but it’s been pretty well demonstrated
that squid and other cephalopods are highly intelligent vis a vis their cousins in the higher
mammal kingdom (for example).”
I wouldn’t even put mice in the “higher mammal kingdom”.}} Nanobyte
Nor would I, nor did I, so your response here fails to justify the silly response you made earlier, which, as has been shown, ignored the fact that it was you who introduced the issue of comparisons with all other vertebrate critters. The passage you cite here was far back in the exchange.
But, like I said, clams, squid, they’re all the same, right? 
More in line with the original thread subject, I highly recommend the recent piece by Stephen Jay Gould that has been making the rounds in syndication (it appeared originally, I believe, on the New York Times op-ed page). Sadly, I could not find an on-line link for it, so I’ll just share a fragment of the article and synopsize the rest, in the hopes that one of my betters here has a link for all to see.
Gould’s piece, on the difference between “animal” and human intelligence/consciousness, severely criticizes the human tendency to view human intelligence as something qualitatively different than the intelligence of the other higher animals, i.e., the desire to define some “golden barrier” between man and the animals. “We have generally tried to unite our intellectual duty to accept the established fact of evolutionary continuity with our continuing psychological need to see ourselves as separate and superior,” he writes, “by invoking one of our worst and oldest mental habits: dichotomization, or division into two opposite categories, usually with attributions of value expressed as good and bad or higher and lower.” This, he asserts, reflects “a deep fallacy of human thought.”
The idea for Gould’s column came from recent studies showing overwhelming evidence that chimpanzees have complex culture, and that (in the words of one of the studies) they have “a remarkable ability to invent new customs and technologies and that they pass these on socially rather than genetically.” Thus, Gould notes, one more attempt at establishing a “golden barrier” between man and “the animals” must be abandoned, as have various behaviors (e.g., use of tools) and mental attributes (e.g., existence of a moral sense) have had to be abandoned previously.
Thus, Gould comes to the same clear conclusion as Darwin: “The difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind.”
Of course, he notes, this should serve as no cause for fear, since “[a] sufficient difference in quantity translates to what we call difference in quality ipso facto. A frozen pond is not the same object as a boiling pool – and New York City does not represent a mere extension of the [chimpanzee] tree nests at Gombe.”
Yeah, yeah … “appeal to authority” can be a logical fallacy, too.
"The passage you cite here was far
back in the exchange.
But, like I said, clams, squid, they're all the same, right?"
Well, I guess we learn from Big Iron here that slipping around a bit while your mind is at sea is a sin, but waiting a few posts before you conflict with your prior statements is legitimate weaseling out.
Ray (Where are weasel wits on the scale?)
[[“The passage you cite here was far
back in the exchange.
But, like I said, clams, squid, they’re all the same, right?”
Well, I guess we learn from Big Iron here that slipping around a bit while your mind is at sea is a sin, but waiting a few posts before you conflict with your prior statements is legitimate weaseling out. ;-)]] Nanobyte
No, we learn that you made a mistake going for a snide remark.
[[Ray (Where are weasel wits on the scale?)]]
"Marge, don’t discourage the boy! Weaseling out of things is important. It’s what separates us from the animals …
.
.
.
… EXCEPT the weasel.
So, now we’s’ll stick to the topic, right?
Ray
Hi all. It’ll probably be awhile again 'fore I can visit, but in the meantime allow me to obfuscate matters further.
[But first: we seem to have reduced the complexity of the original subject to a couple of ping-pong arguments about how to simulate simple minds. Okay, but please, if anyone wants to weigh back in with the subjective, philosophical stuff - which DOES have a place here, even if it isn’t exactly the same place as ANN/seaslug races - NOW is the time.]
Onward!
Big Iron: enjoyed the snippet of Stephen Jay G., though I’d point out that, if Ah 'member correctly, the popular articles about chimp culture were referenced earlier in Consc. I.
My instant reaction, though, was to quibble with his sweeping generalization of “dichotomization…[as a] a deep fallacy of HUMAN thought,” as if we’re all equally “guilty.” YES, it is a fallacy as usually applied, and YES, humans are very prone to it, BUT it, like so many things, seems to be rather culturally conditioned. My own life experiences tell me that in general Amurricans are PARTICULARLY prone to that particular fallacy, and humans of many other (especially some of the non-Western) cultures may be less so. And that applies to some extent also to “our” apparent “need” to see ourselves as living above the muddy environs of the beasts.
Think about it in terms of “our” (that is, our American) upbringing. Our childrens tales are quite often (almost always?) drawn in terms of pure good and evil - a dichotomy which mature humans should(?) agree is rarely quite so easy to draw in “growed-up society.” Our scientific method comes to us as an end product of centuries of “reductionism” - control the variables and study just the thing you want to see more of. Our major religion tells us we were “made” separately from the beasts, to shepherd them. Dichotomization infuses this culture. (Two party system. Boss/worker (vs. “team”). Nuclear family (vs. “village”). Heterosexual-only marriage - or anything. Even the NN / ANN discussion seems to have headed down that or a similar road. …In fact, it’s as obvious as black & white that this is a day/night issue…)
By contrast, a number of other “world” religions de-emphasize the “difference between” humans and animals (without necessarily instilling any greater respect for humans or animals). Some of our major competitors as a nation emphasize the team/nationmore than the individual (and suffer their own problems for it). Nothing says that we must promote the balance (of ideas and values) we have evolved to. If, as proposed earlier, one descriptor (or requisite, or emergent behavior - takes yer pick) of consciousness is an ability to “reorganize” - then what is the societal-level analog?
Could we give up some portion of, or reprioritize, or redescribe, our values to achieve some end or avoid some ending? (And aren’t those values just, in a way, the social-level equivalent of instinct?) Does that idea threaten? WHY? If we could change course - or perhaps, in history when certain peoples CHANGED course - would/did that mean that the society was acting not only intelligently but in some way Consciously?
Yes, we are learning that the study of complexity has its place and merits too (especially if we call it economics or genetics and make a bundle). But think how much progress might be made - or at least what other types of progress might be more possible - if we brought our children up to see larger patterns as well as, rather than instead of just, their own egos…
Or maybe not…
Glad to see this thread get back on track… I’d all but given up on it…
David writes:
As much as I’d like to defend that position, I suspect that THIS “equality” between humans and other animals is probably more a product of beliefs in reincarnation than it is of intellectual insights or observations.
JoeyBlades: “I suspect that THIS [other religions’] “equality” between humans and other animals is probably more a product of beliefs in reincarnation than it is of intellectual insights or observations.”
Didn’t mean to suggest otherwise. CERTAINLY didn’t mean to imply a value judgment with regards to the value system or the resultant actions (that’s a very different thread). But I also think that it’s a chicken ‘n’ egg thing - i.e. must the intellectual insight that animals and humans are but different versions (levels?) of the same thing derive from a hopeful belief in reincarnation, or could the belief just as easily evolve from the observation that the differences aren’t so big and that we all occupy a larger web?
In fact, it seems to me that our (or their) understanding of the two ideas could have evolved mutually, each affecting the other (with a lot more influences thrown in to boot) - in which case (correct me if I’m wrong) the “need” to apply or create a chronological distinction / order of precedence / implied order of importance(?) would be…another example of dichotomization…?
Anyway (and to dichotomize!), I think we can introduce to the discussion the topic of cultural variability and its differing effect on human perception and consciousness while at the same time largely ignoring or smoothing over the stickier and more maddifying parts like religious politics and competition for world-view dominance. …At least, I intend to try!
David writes:
I’ll buy that… though, like my mom with her countless RonCo and Tupperware products… I’m not sure if I’ll ever have a need to use it. [wink]
Hmmph!
So if you can’t play the game, it becomes “ping-pong”, huh? Dichotomy is nothing but numerical minimization of categorization/pigeonholing. And “simple minds”, as opposed maybe to ‘simple brains’, definitely implies “philosophical stuff”. But stuff that’s all subjective – what can you do with it? If you live in much the same world subjectively, you say, “Oh, that’s the way it is.” If you don’t, I guess you should watch what you say, but it usually shows through that you think that’s all a bunch horse pooky. That, versus objective statements (or necessarily a mix if you have to include consciousness), which can involve an intellectual argument having possible resolution. . . . Well, OK, let’s see what kind of dogma. . .er. . .karma. . .er. . .stigma. . .we’re going to get in the sermon today.
Well, hey, today we get knocked for stereotyping. So what else can a poor mind/brain do but stereotype or dichotomize. . .or maybe play ping-pong. The non-“culturally conditioned” genetically and asocially conditioned human brain/mind, i.e., environmentally exposed NNs. . .[sneak]. . .are built to stereotype (even w/o a 3D keyboard ), but a lot of environmental conditioning – of any consistent sort – will make it categorize.
Well, as I recall, Coyote got a little foxy about things, but basically did up the good/evil thing, when he wasn’t just explaining things and felt like it.
But then “we” seems to get further dichotomized into 1) those who should “shepherd” and 2) those who should put down their paddles and be listening sheep. (Well, you definitely wouldn’t like me to play shepherd.)
Please, that’s ‘1’ and ‘0’.
Can we human sheep reorganize? Nah, I guess we’re not conscious. . .but we’re part of society. . .and some of us have studied analog circuits, so we ought to be able to take care of that “societal-level analog”.
I keep tellin’ ya, recognition of consciousness is a matter of empathy. For empathy, you have to be quite similar to the empathizee. Thus to detect consciousness ina society. . .you guessed it. . .you have to be another society, not an individual shepherd. Sorry, we liked your resume, but we don’t have an opening for your particular high qualifications at this point.
What larger patterns are there than those showing complexity? Those showing extensiveness? Morgan die Welt!
Hey, the “Amurrican” way says you should be part of the team and play ball. . .but if you can steal a base now and then. . . Yeah, there’s that dichotomy – “them” and “us”. . .and if I can get ahold of enough androstenedione. . .well, “us” becomes “me”. Is that ego? Or is that just that old objective chemistry?
“Progress”, huh? That’s a pretty dangerous word, you know. Mi progreso no es necesariamente su progreso. And now you’re willing to substitue quantity of progress for simply variety of progress. 'Sa matter? Your life ran out of spice? Hey, if diversity is so hot these days, perversity ought to be next to godliness. Oops! I forgot; sheep are not allowed to talk that way. Hey, where’d that ping-pong game go anyhow?
Ray
From DF, we have:
Well, as one arachid to another: Yes, the Web is getting very large these days. . .because there are so many people and other animals making all those long subjective statements by means of their technological reincarnations of mice. Does that click? I’ll have a double, thank you.
Now, wait a minute! Good shepherding preachers don’t say, “Now, correct me if I’m wrong.” But, unh. . .Baaaaa!: As an amateur horologist-chronologist-historian-causologist-parliamentarian-judge, I wish to jump in here and dichotomize right and left. . .or is that left and right. Whatever’s hot / cool / unacceptable in the context. So, categorically, I nominate this last paragraph as an entry into the next Bullwer-Lytton contest. That contest is a very nice and subjective authoritative evaluator of such things, wouldn’t you say? Now, of course, I could never disagree that “cultural variability and its differing effect on human perception and consciousness” can be introduced into this discussion by one of us. . .but what I question is whether “we” can do this – altogether like. Now, surely, it would not be in the interest of alternative progress to simply permit one of us to do this task. Heck, even the seconding of such an act by another one of us would create a horrible dichotomy in this troika. . .er, well, what do they call one shepherd and two sheep? (Excuse me, but the conversation here is making my thinking a bit woolly.)
But to variably progress, I would like to offer a nice objective spatula to our “trying” friend, for the purpose of “smoothing over the stickier and more maddifying parts like religious politics and competition for world-view dominance.” Now, this is not your run-of-the-millenium spatula; it is. . .ta-da!. . .microprocessor-controlled – with an integral dichotomizer.
OK, so I am “trying” also. . .but a sheep is allowed to be trying; shepardim are supposed to rely on the good judgment of their crooks; they should not have to just try.
Ray (When did they repeal the Law of the Jungle?)
JoeyBlades purchases:
And so they blend into the sunset, as just another mutual-admiration society. I think this forum should be pronounced: “Interred in Intersubjectivity. R. I. P.”
Ray (I. I. I.!)
{{[[Anyway (and to dichotomize!), I think we can introduce to the discussion the topic of
cultural variability and its differing effect on human perception and consciousness while at
the same time largely ignoring or smoothing over the stickier and more maddifying parts like
religious politics and competition for world-view dominance. …At least, I intend to try!]]
Now, wait a minute! Good shepherding preachers don’t say, “Now, correct me if I’m wrong.” But, unh. . .Baaaaa!: As an amateur horologist-chronologist-historian-causologist-parliamentarian-judge, I wish to jump in here and dichotomize right and left. . .or is that left and right. Whatever’s hot / cool / unacceptable in the context. So, categorically, I nominate this last paragraph as an entry into the next Bullwer-Lytton contest.}} Nanobyte
I guess some people aren’t programmed to recognize irony. <g>
{{ That contest is a very nice and subjective authoritative evaluator of such things, wouldn’t you say? }}
The Bulwar-Lytton Award? For the worst opening line of a novel? If you say so …
Nanobyte tries to stir the pot:
Ahhh… So if I agree with you, I’m insightful - if I agree with someone else, I’m a sychophant???
David (rightly) points out that what we ALL believe is product of BOTH observation and faith (I use that term very loosly to include both spiritual faith, as well as theoretical ‘science’).
Naw, I said nothing about having to agree with me; the comment just referred to the too-mellow scene of the “subjective types” not arguing.
Is that what he said? Hey, I’ll buy that. Now, we can all fade into the sunset and close the thread.
_
__ \ | | / ( )__
( ) ,,, (_____)
Ray _____(),’/ ',_________
This seems to have become a dead thread, but…
NanoByte: “What larger patterns are there than those showing complexity? Those showing extensiveness?”
From the earlier list “cell, organ, entity, tribe” I would say that each of those (somewhat artificailly delineated) systems is complex, but some are drawn larger than others. The same applies, it seems to me, for levels of analysis such as “entity, family, community, nation” or (loosely) “IC, computer, LAN, Internet.”
If you’re asking for semantic direction for expressing concepts of nested levels of complexity, I’m open to suggestion. System/subsystem/subsubsystem works for some purposes.
But if you’re suggesting that, once “complexity” has been obtained, further description is unnecessary or impossible, I would respectfully disagree. The difference between what I have called here “different levels” and “larger patterns” is not one merely of extent. Nations are different from individuals in more ways than population count. They exhibit different behaviors, different abilities, etc. A given chip designer might have little understanding and less interest in the physical and virtual nature, behavior and workings of the Internet, but hi/r lack of interest in the differences between it and hi/r creations does not mean they cannot be observed and described. And if you balk at saying that the Internet is a larger pattern than a CPU, what would you prefer?
If you meant that, as we individuals cannot empathize with the “community” or the “nation” we therefore should not waste time here pondering the nature of its present or future Consciousness, if any - well, I disagree. You may ultimately be proven right, but it is an interesting question in the meantime, and one the pursuit of which might yield valuable insight.
Would you say that humans will never be able to recognize machine consciousness due to lack of empathy? Would you discriminate between machine intelligence and machine consciousness?
OK, I read back through all that horrible subjective stuff to see what the devil you’re talking about.
So, when I commented about your “larger patterns”, I wasn’t checking your verbiage very carefully, because all that kind of simply politically correct subjective stuff doesn’t a lot for me. It appears that you were using the comparative ‘larger’ to relate the order of patterns of social interactions in general to individuals’ (“our children’s”) immediate actions, referred to as “egos”. When I was playing around with this, I took this comparison to of yours to be that of patterns of complexity to something “larger”.
No, I wasn’t trying to contend that there could not be anything that should lie beyond some level of complexity. I don’t know anything about any thresholds of complexity anyhow; to me it’s all just a continuum. As to a categorical term for different levels of entities that be hierarchized in any sense, such as you example of Internet > CPU, I s’pose I’d refer to the open end of the above symbol as signifying ‘of higher order’, rather than ‘larger’.
In regard to our ability as individuals to empathize with higher orders of organization, such as “communities” or “nations”, and thereby recognizing consciousness in them, or the usefulness of our doing such things – yeah, I think the practice is nonsense, perhaps a form of insanity. Cf. our biological cells trying to empathize with us. And furthermore, I see nothing interesting in such a thing at all; it’s all just politically correct babble. We don’t even seem to empathize all that well with things on our same hierarchical level, such as other animals, as has been noted earlier here. But all this is not to deny that individuals can have a cognizant relationship to societal levels of organization.
No, I’m exactly not saying we couldn’t empathize with much more complex and more anthropomorphically designed machines some day, but I do say that somehow picking out consciousness from human views of either other humans or machines and trying to stuff it into science cannot be a scientific process, because the notion of consciousness is a totally subjective one.
Ray
I’m not so sure we (I’d say YOU but that sounds rather accusatory, hostile, and divisive, whereas saying WE sounds inclusive and makes it sound like we’re compatriots discussing in civilized manner a matter of intellectual interest; and before you accuse me of more PCness, think of it as a harmless rhetorical technique designed to keep unnecessary emotion out of the discussion and the focus on the real subject; and if that doesn’t work for you, feel free to write it off as an idiosyncrasy of mine when dealing with people I’ve never met and whose behavior I cannot predict) should be so dismissive of “subjectivity.”
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On a purely theoretical level concerning subjectivity vs. objectivity, how do you draw the line of THAT particular continuum? (How do you know you are what you think you are reading the guage on a meter that is what you think it is, which has some direct, unchallengeable link to “reality” which won’t vary tomorrow? Etc.) Before you get up in arms, I’m really not as “fuzzy” as that may sound; I just maintain a certain perspective and try to remember that larger philosophical questions DO come into it at some point. If we agree that professions of faith have no place in this discussion…then where does that leave us? I’d say: doing the best we can, until and unless we are provided OBJECTIVE proof of OBJECTIVE reality. (Good luck. The whole point of this thread is ‘we don’t even know FOR SURE what is going on in our own heads,’ to which for this purpose I’d add ‘or outside, either.’ Fuzzy, no. Honest, yes.) Lacking such never-before-seen irrefutable TRUTH, we are left making predictions based on subjective theories based on past, believed-to-be-true observations we believe we remember truly. ALL of which is to say: there’s no need to get all het up; let’s roll up our sleeves, agree on some givens, and find out what we can.
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From a history-of-science perspective, the divider between objective and subjective observation has been sliding along that continuum as new physical, theoretical, and philosophical tools become available. That is one of the things some systems scientists are trying to do: qualify and quantify the study of complexity. What some dismiss today as “subjective and unmeasurable” will certainly become the hot new science of tomorrow. And just because we do not currently possess the tools to accurately measure something today does not mean it does not exist. Like one’s lap, or “Life,” or “flight,” or the idea of the “corporate citizen,” states of a system have an identifiable (if admittedly ephemeral) existence. The question, in my estimation, should not be “is that subjective,” but rather “is that a useful area for current investigative effort?” And I suspect great (economic and political, at least) rewards await those who first figure out (quantify and accurately PREDICT - the first steps to management and control) human social systems. Charlatans, soldiers, and priests, et. al. have been exerting control for millennia through guesswork and empathy, mostly by working on greed, fear, and sloth; whomsoever “scientifies” the practice will probably inaugurate a new era of history. If that doesn’t hold your interest, that’s okay. That does not necessarily mean it deserves your contempt.
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I’m not so sure I agree with your insistence on the presence of empathy for recognition or identification of consciousness to take place. Perhaps you could define “empathy” for these purposes. You admit we can have cognizant relationships with - or concerning - other orders of organization, so where do you draw the line? Would you say that anthropomorphicization is a process of creating false (or at least questionable) empathic connections? Does that enhance or hopelessly confound the possibility for achieving a “meeting of consciousnesses?” Is such a thing possible?
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You point out that “the notion of consciousness is a totally subjective one.” While awaiting better technique, I agree. I’d go so far as to propose that it is a notion based on false experience, at least in so far as there may be a stuff to it rather than merely a recognized persistence-of-state. But so what? (Ultimately EVERYTHING we experience is subjective so what are we going to do - crawl into bed and stay there?) The fact that you are participating here strongly suggests you also like to work with philosophical aspects of reality…no? I think you’d agree that philosophy has never insisted on objectivity as a starting point (or even, often, as an ending point), so a little speculation might not hurt…