tar

DrP,

The UK does not have the opioid epidemic prevalent in the U.S. due to the over prescription of Oxy.

You totally misread my feelings about addiction.  I in no way feel superior to my wife, because she still smokes and I do not.  The draw of the dopamine exists in us all.  That is my only point, I was not making any discriminatory statement.  If somebody has only one thing that makes them happy, they probably have a problem.

To me it is better to be home, making dinner for the family then to be lying in the street with a needle in your arm.

The first is workable, sustainable dopamine, the latter is expensive, destructive, illegal obtaining of the exact same dopamine.

The point is not that I live in the suburbs and others do not, the point is that certain life choices yield sustainable happiness and survival and others work against that goal.

But my only point, is that it is the same dopamine.  And whether a doctor prescribes it, or you get it winning  a game of solitaire on the computer, you are satisfying a survival need, a drive that evolution has built into us.  So concentrate on what gives you dopamine, that will also give me dopamine.  Why concentrate on how virtuous you are, compared to me?  Gives you dopamine, but portrays me as a heel, which I am not.

Regards. TAR

But we absolutely should not think our conscious mind can master our Id.  The ego is a go between, a moderator between the Id and the Superego.   The master of ones own condition, able to put the body/brain/heart group in the best position for survival and happiness...but as the opioid epidemic shows us, we are very subject to the emotions, to misreading the pleasure, and life and victory we feel while high as actual victory.   An addict, high on his drug of choice can "feel" on top of the world, victorious, and alive, while lying penniless, friendless and loveless in his own filth in the gutter.

3 hours ago, Gees said:

 

Tar;

Actually, sentience would probably be a better word. But many people think like Dennett and don't understand that all species are sentient, so I explain that it is simple awareness that I am discussing.

The problem is that if we take science's explanation of consciousness, the rational mind, and we take science's explanation of evolution, and we take science's explanation of life, we end up with a mess.

If we try to trace evolution backward, we soon find that consciousness, the rational mind, peters out rather quickly, so what makes all of the other species seem conscious? It must be an intelligent designer or "God" directing all of these things. At least a dozen theories of consciousness travel down this path.

OR

We decide that all other species are not really conscious, even though a great body of evidence disputes this, and we are just special, which leads us back to the "God" ideas. Some theories and many religions travel this path.

OR

We go the solipsism idea, so the only really conscious mind is mine, and everything else is a dream or illusion that I am having. It is a little narcissistic, but there are also theories that follow this path.

 

So I find it much easier, and less confusing, to just accept philosophy's explanation of a simple awareness and that conscious life is evolving physically and mentally. It started with a spark that we do not yet understand and continues to become more complex until it includes the rational mind.

Gee

Gee,

Your last sentence seems to be the best way to look at this.  It is not a matter of showing we are better than reality or that we must be manufacturing reality, but it is, in my opinion required that we accept we are in and of reality.   And as you said, part of a continuum following the "spark", that put layer upon layer of workable "life" into the next generation of a particular species, and it all, by definition had to "fit" reality, as it evolved.  And the rational mind part of humans, the science and the math, and the technological advances and the Turing machines,  laws and religions, came only recently on this planet...in the last 10,000 years or so, and can rightly be thought of as consciousness, outside that that a Zebra is capable of.  And still, even with the advantages that the structure of the human brain brings humans, over Zebras, and the value of the institutions that humans have built using our natural brains and emotions,  we still are, more than 90 percent Zebra, probably. and the various pheromones and hormones and neurotransmitters and body parts and brain parts found in a human are also there in a Zebra.  The differences are slight, but important, and still we have the 90 percent of "instincts" that the Zebra has.  Yet we probably have our first 90 percent of consciousness in common with the Zebra, as well.

Regards, TAR

Gee,

In the case of your idea about consciousness, that it is based on feeling or emotion, I totally agree and this is consistent with my thought that one can functionally interchange the idea of (feeling) "good"  (or alive, or feeling right or victorious) with the flow of dopamine in the human brain.

Regards, TAR

in other words, I think everything that occurs requires a reason or cause or mechanism, and neurotransmitters (or a chemical functionally similar) are that mechanism in the case of sentience

personally I think sentience can be understood through looking at the reasons for and activity of neurotransmitters...things that make us aware of the need to respond to a situation in a manner useful for maintaining the "self" whether that self be a single celled organism or  a complex organism with a brain stem

Gee,

Might be good, in using various definitions of consciousness to separate sentience out as a word similar to and associated with consciousness but meaning the things we are talking about as innate, that might well be common attributes we have with plants and animals, but where it is not required that other aspects of human consciousness, like introspection and language be carried through into the "minds" of the plant in question.

From wiki article on sentience.

Philosophy and sentience[edit]

In the philosophy of consciousness, sentience can refer to the ability of any entity to have subjective perceptual experiences, or as some philosophers refer to them, "qualia".^[2] This is distinct from other aspects of the mind and consciousness, such as creativity, intelligence, sapience, self-awareness, and intentionality (the ability to have thoughts about something). Sentience is a minimalistic way of defining consciousness, which otherwise commonly collectively describes sentience plus other characteristics of the mind.

Some philosophers, notably Colin McGinn, believe that sentience will never be understood, a position known as "new mysterianism". They do not deny that most other aspects of consciousness are subject to scientific investigation but they argue that subjective experiences will never be explained; i.e., sentience is the only aspect of consciousness that can't be explained. Other philosophers (such as Daniel Dennett, who also argues that non-human animals are not sentient) disagree, arguing that all aspects of consciousness will eventually be explained by science.^[3]

Regards, TAR

and left in the lurch would be anyone, religious or scientific, that thinks their consciousness is going anywhere, without their body/brain/heart group

Gee,

I actually am in strong alignment with certain aspects of your understanding of consciousness, as I have discussed certain aspects with you, concerning hormones and pheromones and the thrust of some of your ideas have played important roles in my personal theories surrounding the serotonin, norepinephrine, dopamine complex we have that establishes desire, motivation and reward in humans across the board, in a similar manner.  The survival instinct, you are talking about is heavily bound to this complex, in my estimation.

So it is not helpful in segregating instinct from consciousness because the neurotransmitters are, according to my muses, bound to both these innate phylum wide survival instincts, and our consciousness and thought and language, and problem solving abilities found in humans more than our relative mammals.  It is not that I don't believe other animals are conscious,  they are, and its probably for similar reasons that we are, but we have taken it further, then other species, and can think, be conscious, as a group, more successfully than other species.

Other mammals, having similar brain construction, and being relatives on the evolutionary tree, probably have analogs to our serotonin norepinephrine dopamine system...a leap I make without evidence or knowledge, as a test of my theory.   If we developed our survival instinct and maintained it, passed it on through our genes to our children, through the development and passing on of the serotonin norepinephrine dopamine desire, motivation, reward system then it would be required that other lifeforms, displaying a survival instinct similar to ours, would have something close to, or something with the same working components, as our desire, motivation, reward system.

That is the people arguing on this thread for instinct and innate to be considered the same idea would be satisfied.

And the people arguing that other mammals have consciousness would be satisfied.

Left in the lurch would be creationists that do not believe in evolution or our relationship to the apes,  and those scientists that think they are operating on some higher plane that does not require animal desires, motivation and reward.

Regards, TAR

,

Gee,

I call your calling my definition of instinct from high school hogwash, hogwash.

I read the wiki article and it said exactly what I said. 

It must be (FAP),  a complex series of behavior, it must exist in most members of the species (species wide), and must be unlearned.

So far I am not seeing where you see my definition as outdated.  We use the same one we had in 1980.

And the article did not provide me with the hundred human instincts you say scientists have isolated in the last 37 years, that I have not been informed about.

Can you provide a link?

Please also provide the definition of instinct, different from our 1980 definition (and wiki's current definition) that you wish to go by in a non hogwash fashion.

Regards, TAR

Ten Oz,

I would think life and consciousness might be more closely aligned than to allow consciousness to arise without life accompanying it.

I am particularly thinking of people's conception of heaven. That the consciousness can continue on, once the body has died, or perhaps the AI thought that one's consciousness could be recorded and reestablished in a computer. I am pretty much of the belief that heaven is not a workable plan, as you cannot have pleasure without the dopamine that stopped flowing and affecting how you felt, when you died. How are you going to walk through the gates without legs, see God without eyes, or be in a rapture condition, without the neurons or the neurotransmitters, to make it happen. And if heaven is a state of mind and you don't have a functioning one anymore, where does the consciousness reside. What real thing is having the conscious experience, and what is it that the conscious thing is conscious of.

The hopes of transferring your consciousness to a machine that will continue for a lot longer than a human lives, is a hope or thought that many have had, but that is just because we would rather live. survive, be alive, be conscious and happy forever, rather than dying and not having life and consciousness any more.

So some have considered Heaven and crossing the Rainbow Bridge and being reunited with the dog you had to put to sleep, and such, but these thoughts are of the same type as hoping for an AI piece of equipment to house your consciousness. The ghost in the machine idea, I think is incorrect. We actually are alive and conscious, and it is not permanent or magical. And the two are not completely separate things that can exist independently.

To some extent, on this board, I have seen an illogical downplay of life after death thoughts, when espoused by religious people, and an illogical upholding of wishes and dreams for consciousness to be replaced by technology. I don't think you can have it both ways. Either the soul is bound to the body and stops when the body stops, or there is a reality beyond this life, that we can and will experience when our bodies stop.

Personally I don't think heaven makes any sense, but I am sort of hoping that I will be alright, after I die...whatever that might mean.

Regards, TAR

dimreepr,

So, in terms of instinct and consciousness, are you suggesting you are closer to your dog in consciousness, while being closer to Stalin in instinct? That is you can put yourself in your dog's shoes, and understand his or her motives and thoughts, more easily than you can put yourself in the shoes of an adversary human, that has your same brain construction?

If I may, not to move the goalposts, but to parse in TAR language (me trying to figure out my dopamine theory) it is important to us humans to be right. We get dopamine from having a correct model of the world. When it matches, we like it. We like to align ourselves with other peoples thoughts, and we like it when other people understand our logic and our thinking. We don't like it when others get us wrong. But politically we align ourselves with others that we think, think like us. We have to be actually wrong about what others think, as in it is impossible that all people that voted for Trump think alike, or that all people that voted for Sanders think alike, or that all people that voted for Hillary think alike. In fact it is almost a sure thing that somebody you agree with on climate change you would disagree with on a religious issue.

But in terms of the instinct v consciousness idea, it is my feeling that we are closer to Stalin in our consciousness than we are our dog. Even though we understand our dog and not Stalin.

Regards, TAR

We are also closer to Stalin than our dog when it comes to instincts.

iNow,

Your suggestion earlier that consciousness varies in amplitude and vibrancy rather than kind, reminds me of the term "consciousness raising". That is, consciousness determined as a qualitative judgement.

Regards, TAR

dimreepr,

Well we actually can put ourselves in Stalin's shoes, and determine where he did it differently than he should have.

And we can ascribe intentions that are incorrectly ascribed, as I did iNow, just before. But we can still converse with each other, and believe that the other actually has a mind that has intentions and thoughts in it. We can do this with other humans, because we have done it with ourselves, and allow that what our mind seems to be like, is something similar to what is going on in the other. Difficult to do with Zebra. We can make allowances and imagine that if we were a human in a Zebra body, what might we be thinking. But we cannot imagine what a zebra consciousness is actually like, having never been a Zebra. We can put ourselves in the shoes of the creator of the Universe, and imagine what he/she/it is thinking...that is the reason why we, some of us, believe in an anthropomorphic god. Or if we are mathematicians, imagine Pi taken to infinite digits, or if we are physicists, imagine all molecules in the universe obeying a simple gas law, but the exercise is occurring in a finite, chemical brain. Just a bunch of synapses and neurotransmitters and arrangements of cells with different ion concentrations, but that is all we are, and that is everything we are. There again, is no shame in being human. It is something rather central to our existence. We can be no other entity than the one we are.

Regards, TAR

Well, you must not know me as well as you think. It's the opposite, really. I don't believe there's a distinction between humans and non-humans in the way so many people suggest (like you did by offering that there is "consciousness" and "human consciousness" as if they were two different things.

 

The difference IMO is one of degree, not one of type. There is no zebra consciousness or human consciousness... there are just consciousnesses of different magnitudes and vibrancy.

 

No, not even close. If that's how you perceive me, then I've failed in my communications.

iNow,

But Zebra consciousness and human consciousness are different, in that you can put yourself in another person's shoes, but you cannot put yourself in a Zebra's shoes, because you are not a Zebra.

Regards, TAR

This is chemistry, not knowledge. It truly is ridiculous what you're saying. How can we respond in a way that this becomes more clear to you? What type of example would you like us to provide to highlight this fact in a way that you can comprehend?

 

I don't have to know how to metabolize sugar for it to happen. Infants don't have to know, either, yet they do it, too.

The iron doesn't have to understand oxidation in order to rust, yet it happens because of the underlying physics of the universe.

The salt doesn't need to understand dissolution in order to dissolve into the glass of water, nor the sugar to sweeten the tea.

.

However, your position seems to mandate inanimate objects have such an understanding. It's not just ridiculous, it's a category error.

iNow,

What examples must I give you to show you that we also are subject to the laws of physics, and are equally inanimate as all other lumps of chemicals extant. Except for the "spark of life" which has to be not magically or divinely inspired, but something which occurred and is occurring because of the physics of the universe. That is, we have to understand how we pulled ourselves up by our own bootstraps, from inanimate to animate. There is no category error. Life has to come from non-life. We are a lump of chemicals. Particularly arranged to grab life and form and pattern and structure from a universe, otherwise heading toward entropy. We are already victorious, by being alive, by surviving, by being us. There is no shame in being human. It is good.

Regards, TAR

ridiculous? Except we actually do know how to metabolize sugar. We get hungry, we search out the hive, we get the honey, we eat it, and we metabolize it. All on purpose.

no, I am suggesting that our DNA conspires to metabolize sugar

Ten Oz,

I perhaps think of these discussions more as brainstorming then arguments.

It is not important for me to be right, when I am wrong I see it and move on. But it is important to me that I get it right in the end. That is, that we all have it right.

Regards, TAR

dimreepr,

while no particular snowflake feels responsible for the avalanche, there would not be an avalanche of snow, without particular snowflakes being involved

Ten Oz,

I don't agree with your suggestion that I walk away when an idea of mine fails. I instead, as you correctly state, move the goal posts accordingly. I spent 3 years in my 12 sections of the sphere thread to determine the divisions I proposed were of equal area.

In all discussions I take part in, I attempt to fit the various aspects of my understanding of the world into one consistent worldview. That is, whatever I believe, it has to explain religion, politics, scientific evidence, how I feel about my wife, neurochemistry, language and the meaning behind language, and why people get addicted to stuff. It is all one puzzle to me. I do not ever walk away from attempting to solve it.

Regards, TAR

 

Why?

dimreepr,

A certain knowledge of how to metabolize sugar must be held within you, or you would not be able to do it.

Regards, TAR

A human does not accidentally eat honey. A human does it on purpose.

Ten Oz,

Was thinking this morning about your example of life/non-life being a binary thing, as consciousness is in your view. I had incorrectly thought you were binding life to consciousness, and thought perhaps the two conditions should not be bound, but I think now, perhaps there is a connection.

There are patterns all over the place. A wisp of smoke creates a meaningful curve as convection currents twist it this way and that...but it, the wisp, makes no effort to maintain its pattern. It is and then it is gone. No children, no identity, no pattern brought to the next wisp. Your example of crystal growth as non-life is interesting to me, because I used it once to explain how perhaps life can come from non-life in stages. A crystal does grow, and repeats its pattern...says this is how reality is going to look right here, right now and it is going to be this shape and this color with this garnet geometry. There is a level of life, that is chemical in nature. Certain patterns of amino acids, repeated in certain order that create a certain specific chemical or positional reality. The complex grows, and maintains itself. Causes a border to form between what is the entity and what is not. But on a certain level, the entity is "trying" to be the entity, at the expense of, or in opposition to, any and all other entities trying to establish themselves. Weeds growing in the garden are "trying" to live, without much evident concern over the life of the petunia or the tomato plant. The pattern is repeated in the offspring of the lifeform. A certain knowledge, of how to be a weed is required for this to happen.

Regards, TAR

iNow,

Sort of an unspecific finding on your part. Can you specifically mention what is the peg and what is the hole I am forcing it into?

Knowing you, I am concerned you are concerned about ascribing consciousness to non-humans. Perhaps even according to Dunning-Kruger you are against allowing anybody to be superior to you in particular. You have certain arguments you have repeated throughout the many years we have both been on this board, and you habitually come out with ad hominem arguments, that portray me, or your adversary as somehow foolish, without mentioning the particular part of my argument, that you find foolish.

In this thread, one of the issues is are animals, and even perhaps are plants, conscious, or do they operate on autopilot, building their nest according to wiring, without any conscious involvement. To this, I offered a definition widening solution, where we differentiate between being conscious, and having human consciousness. That is, a Zebra has Zebra consciousness and a human has human consciousness, and that requires that there may be some similarities between Zebras and Humans, that allows both to be conscious, but also allows for differences between the two that would explain why Zebras run in herds, and humans do crossword puzzles.

Regards, TAR

Worse in what sense, iNow?

Ok, perhaps we can make a distinction between consciousness and human consciousness.

but I would not say life and consciousness are automatically bound together as one idea

to that I would ask, "is a string of DNA aware of itself?"

is a virus alive? Is it self aware? It probably does not have a fully functioning TPJ or any ears or eyes and probably was not told bedtime stories by it parents

So what do you figure it is conscious of?

Just conscious of being a pattern of amino acids? How?

Ten oz,

Well I do have a little logical bind there in the theory, if the TPJ is responsible for consciousness, how does a 2 year old achieve consciousness before the TPJ functionality is operational. Well I am not sure how exactly that works, but I am thinking that a less than 3 year old, while perhaps not having the moral discussions with oneself possible after the TPJ gets going, is still capable of a rudimentary theory of mind. Knows who mama is and understands from experience it is better to please mama than to make her mad...and such. So I would imagine the TPJ is not absent, just not developed as it will be after a few years. I think I remember Dr. Saxe saying the TPJ continues to develop right into adulthood and never actually stops developing.

There is a term in evolution and fetal development that I forget but that says there are analogs between how the fetus develops and how we as a species developed. That is things like a little tail and webbing between the fingers and toes and such, that may have been actual characteristics of our ancestors, are seen in stages of the fetal development, where they manifest and then morph into the next stage, reminiscent of the evolutionary trail. In this way, perhaps the development of the TPJ as the child grows might be analogous to its importance and development in the evolutionary path.

But to the thread title, instinct vs consciousness, I have to think that consciousness did not just pop up all of a sudden, and it make sense to try and model a progression, where various senses form, and the ability to match the senses to build a model of the place, and then facilities emerging, like mirror neurons, and TPJ where the consciousness of seeing and smelling an hearing and feeling and tasting becomes more human like. as facilities for language and sharing thoughts and experiences developed. Not much evolutionary work has been done on the human consciousness in the last 5 or 10 thousand years, but a lot of functional knowledge and experience sharing has gone on. This would say to me. that we were probably nearly as smart 10000 years ago as we are today. That is, our brains were ready to learn about the world and share the experience with other humans.

Instinct and consciousness are not, under this idea at odds, or found over here and not over there. It makes more sense to me, if we accept we have the evolutionarily built equipment to be conscious humans, and in that sense, instincts, though pretty much gone from humans, because of socialization, are still built in, and we cannot be other than human in our consciousness because of the wiring we have.

Regards, TAR

Embryonic Recapitulation is the evolutionary theory that embryos reconstruct evolutionary forms in the development of the organism. This is often stated as "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.".

It is the theory that a human embryo's development appears to represent the different stages in evolutionary development

Ten Oz,

Perhaps that is what we call it, but I was thinking more specifically about the portion of the brain Rebecca Saxe is studying that develops at the age of 3 or 4 that seems to be responsible for having a theory of mind about yourself and others. In some way this seems to me to be WHY we are conscious. And this ability to be aware of a mind, is something that not all living things have. At least even humans don't fully have it until the age of three or four. A two year old is conscious, but according to Rebecca Saxe's work, they do not put themselves in other people's shoes or make moral judgements until this part of the brain begins to develop to its full operational status.

https://spectrumnews.org/news/profiles/rebecca-saxe-fine-tuning-the-theory-of-mind/

This facility evolved in us. One could easily argue it evolved for survival reasons, and made us able to think as a group, thus enhancing our knowledge and problem solving abilities by an additive amount, if not a multiplicative amount. It might exist in rudimentary form in other mammals.

Regards, TAR

Ten oz,

I don't know how it was determined that Neanderthals were stronger than humans but not as smart, I took it as a given as it was on a definition block on my browser.

However, I also had read somewhere that the nasal passage and smelling apparatus were superior in the Neanderthal, to where, to your point, they may have been more successful at tracking or finding prey and avoiding predators. But since humans seem to have wiped out Neanderthals, I would maybe guess that in the long run the humans outsmarted the Neanderthals, and their physical strength was not successful in seeing them victorious over human smarts.

But although I am not sure what happened on an encounter by encounter basis between the humans and the Neanderthals, and how interbreeding affected the dynamics, I am guessing that somewhere along the line there was a situation where the one species thought themselves superior to the other and thought it best to proceed without the other on the planet, perhaps. Maybe some other dynamics, disease or adaptability issue was involved, but it seems possible that humans became the dominant species on the planet by finding ways to neutralize the threat to survival posed by any and all other species.

As to me, myself and I being a yes or no consideration, I am thinking you might be wrong, and it instead is a continuum. The ability to put yourself in other people's shoes, allows one to develop a theory of mind, and to be self aware and to converse with unseen others and imagine that they have a mind like your own and can think thoughts that will affect their behavior toward you and so on...but other animals may have similar brain components as we have, and mirror neurons and the like, that allow them to put themselves in other Zebra's shoes. They might not be aware of being a person, but they might be completely aware of being a Zebra. I am thinking of fish schooling, and plains animals herding and pack animals hunting and such. They must each have some facility that allows them to put themselves in each other's shoes. We are related to other mammals and have some of the same brain parts, I do not know that you could draw a line on being conscious although you could probably draw a line on having human consciousness.

Regards, TAR

Maybe human farts and BO were so distressingly awful to the Neanderthals that they lost the will to survive.