Brent: after lots of back-and-forth you wrote: *"...I don't see the analogy. I don't think consciousness can be negative, or even that it can be measured by one dimension. "All-or-nothing" would be a function that is either 1 or 0. If you can be conscious of red and green, then I'd say you are more conscious than someone who is red/green colorblind (albeit by a tiny amount). In order to have beliefs about arithmetic requires that you be conscious of numbers and have a language in which to express axioms and propositions. I doubt that simpler animals have this and so have different consciousness than humans. I don't venture to say less consciousness because I think of it as multi-dimensional and an animal may have some other aspect of consciousness that we lack. Brent "*
Please consider my definition for that monster of a word (I deny to use): * consciousness * NOT IDENTICAL to the noun referring to "being conscious (aware!) of" but a * PROCESS* of responding to relations. Human, animal, stone,idea, anything. The Totality (Everything) that exists. Including Bruno's favorites (Loebianism, universal anything, numbers, etc.) and much more. The infinite complexity we have no access to, only to a small segment. I cannot imagine a 'negative' of a process that either goes on, or not. (Maybe the reverse can be called so, but that would be the 'triggering of a response' - different from the response, not a negative of it.) The *'response'* is richer than we could 'restrict' (again!) into dimensions of our views. We may 'see' only some dimensions in the way how *WE ARE CONSCIOUS OF * it. Colorblind, or not. And your fragment: *"...animals have this and so have different consciousness..."* refers to a THING, the noumenon of "being conscious of". John M On Wed, May 29, 2013 at 2:33 AM, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote: > On 5/28/2013 11:13 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote: > > > On 28 May 2013, at 19:23, meekerdb wrote: > > On 5/28/2013 9:04 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: > > > On 28 May 2013, at 01:53, meekerdb wrote: > > On 5/27/2013 2:18 PM, John Mikes wrote: > > Bruno: > do you indeed exclude the "other" animals from being selfconcious? or - > having a logic on their own level? Or any other trait we assign (identify?) > for humans - in our terms? > > A question about plants (rather: about being conscious): > you may feel free to define 'being conscious' in human terms, or mammal > (etc.) terms, but the "response" plants exude to information > (circumstances, impact. etc.) shows reactivity we may appropriate to us > humans. > > So do not deny consciousness from fellow DNA-bearing plants. > > How about the DNA-not-bearing other creatures? (crystals, stones, water, > impact you may call energy, - whatever?) > Anthropocentric? zoocentric? phitocentric? what-CENTRIC? > > > I don't think consciousness is an all-or-nothing property. You have to > ask "Consciousness of what?" There's consciousness of surroundings: sound, > photons, temperature, chemical concentrations.... There's consciousness of > internal states. Consciousness of sex. Consciousness of one's location. > Consciousness of one's status in a tribe. I think human-like consciousness > requires language of some kind. > > > > Hmm... I would have agreed some years ago. I would have even say that > consciousness always involve consciousness of time. But I am no more sure > on this. Some altered conscious state seems to be like being conscious of > literally only one thing; being conscious, and nothing else, but such state > are quasi not memorizable, and might quite exotic. Sometimes there is > consciousness of something, but which is not related to anything temporal > or spatial. My be in math some feeling like that can occur, when > understanding a proof, for example. > > Many aspect of human consciousness requires languages, but humans have > still a big part of the animal consciousness. You don't need language to > feel the hotness of a fire. > > > Then you are agreeing now. If you agree that consciousness can have > different aspects and some aspects may be lacking in some species, then > consciousness is not all-or-nothing. > > > > Why? > Consciousness can take many shapes. > I would say it is "all-or-nothing", like a continuous function is either > non-negative or negative, even if it can be close to zero. > > > I don't see the analogy. I don't think consciousness can be negative, or > even that it can be measured by one dimension. "All-or-nothing" would be a > function that is either 1 or 0. If you can be conscious of red and green, > then I'd say you are more conscious than someone who is red/green > colorblind (albeit by a tiny amount). In order to have beliefs about > arithmetic requires that you be conscious of numbers and have a language in > which to express axioms and propositions. I doubt that simpler animals > have this and so have different consciousness than humans. I don't venture > to say less consciousness because I think of it as multi-dimensional and an > animal may have some other aspect of consciousness that we lack. > > Brent > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. 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