What is ' consciousness ' ?

[Thomas123]

This word appears to be at the centre of many discussions on this forum. It also appears to mean different things to different people and, therein lies the root of our miscommunication. What range and definement do you attribute to, ' consciousness ' ?

Is there an external consciousness in the world?. Can I tune into a shared consciousness. I am listening to Prime Minister's Question Time, ....is Boris tuned into a universal human consciousness as he delivers his address. Is his brain working ,simultaneously and in tandem with my own consciousness and with that of others?

[2ndRateMind]

[Replying to EarthScienceguy in post #103]

It is absurd to believe that animals can think, feel and create like humans can. Give a monkey a pencil and see if it can even make stick figures.

Would animals care if Hitler killed 6,000,000 million Jews?
Do animals care if Stalin killed 30 million people?

Humans are animals that happen to walk on two feet and have a more advanced brain than anything else alive today. But as Darwin said ... "man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin."

And, indeed, his/her psychology, also.

Best wishes, 2RM.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to DrNoGods in post #108]

Anyone who has dogs, cats, horses, and other animals can see that they play around for the fun of it, exhibit sadness and happiness, and many mammals display empathy and will offer and share food, etc. They may not contemplate death or engage in abstract thought like a human, but it is the degree of development of the brain that is responsible for that... not some fundamental difference between "animals" and humans (unless you believe that humans were specially created by a god being, rather than developing from apes who evolved a highly complex and capable brain that allows them to conceive of themselves as special creations).

Animals cannot contemplate their place in the universe as a human can. Blaise Pascal describes it like this:

The greatness of man consists in thought. Man is a mere reed, yes, but he is thinking reed. the universe might crush him like a gnat; but even so, man is nobler than the universe because he knows that it crushes him, and the universe has no such knowledge. Man's whole dignity consists, therefore, in thought. "By space, the universe encompasses and swallows me up like a mere speck; by thought, I comprehend the universe." Man's greatness, then, then lies not in his having the solution to his predicament, but in the fact that he alone in all the universe is aware of his wretched condition. Reasonable Faith Craig page 53

Is there any other physical being in the universe that can contemplate their position in the universe?

They may not contemplate death or engage in abstract thought like a human, but it is the degree of development of the brain that is responsible for that... not some fundamental difference between "animals" and humans

Do animals not have neurons? Do they not have synapses? Animals are not conscious in the same sense as humans are conscious. Humanity is different than all the rest of creation. There is nothing in all the universe like a man. Nothing in all the universe can contemplate like like a man can.

Bigger brains do always mean smarter. https://theconversation.com/mammals-bra ... ter-159141

Humanity is unique in all the universe. Pascal

[Clownboat]

[Replying to DrNoGods in post #108]

Anyone who has dogs, cats, horses, and other animals can see that they play around for the fun of it, exhibit sadness and happiness, and many mammals display empathy and will offer and share food, etc. They may not contemplate death or engage in abstract thought like a human, but it is the degree of development of the brain that is responsible for that... not some fundamental difference between "animals" and humans (unless you believe that humans were specially created by a god being, rather than developing from apes who evolved a highly complex and capable brain that allows them to conceive of themselves as special creations).

Animals cannot contemplate their place in the universe as a human can. Blaise Pascal describes it like this:

The greatness of man consists in thought. Man is a mere reed, yes, but he is thinking reed. the universe might crush him like a gnat; but even so, man is nobler than the universe because he knows that it crushes him, and the universe has no such knowledge. Man's whole dignity consists, therefore, in thought. "By space, the universe encompasses and swallows me up like a mere speck; by thought, I comprehend the universe." Man's greatness, then, then lies not in his having the solution to his predicament, but in the fact that he alone in all the universe is aware of his wretched condition. Reasonable Faith Craig page 53

Is there any other physical being in the universe that can contemplate their position in the universe?

They may not contemplate death or engage in abstract thought like a human, but it is the degree of development of the brain that is responsible for that... not some fundamental difference between "animals" and humans

Do animals not have neurons? Do they not have synapses? Animals are not conscious in the same sense as humans are conscious. Humanity is different than all the rest of creation. There is nothing in all the universe like a man. Nothing in all the universe can contemplate like like a man can.

Bigger brains do always mean smarter. https://theconversation.com/mammals-bra ... ter-159141

Humanity is unique in all the universe. Pascal

To the bold:
Is a platypus not unique? Is it somehow more profound it I add the qualifier, "in all the universe". What have we now learned about the platypus?
Is the Blobfish not unique?...
Surely the Tufted Deer with its canines is unique. There is no other deer in all of the universe with such a feature.
And on and on we go... Learning absolutey nothing from this type of thinking.

Humans cannot see as well as some other animals.
Humans are not as strong as some other animals.
Humans cannot hold their breath as long as some other animals.

All this means nothing in regards to consciousness, much like your post unless I missed your meaning.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to Clownboat in post #113]

All this means nothing in regards to consciousness, much like your post unless I missed your meaning.

I am defining consciousness as the difference between man and beast.

The op is not about the physical attributes of animals but what consciousness is.

Are you arguing that the level of consciousness between the animals you have listed and man is the same?

Do you have any evidence in support of that thesis?

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to 2ndRateMind in post #104]

So, broadly speaking, I should say it is self awareness. The ability to be aware of one's own consciousness Thus do some escape the boundaries of determinism and achieve free will.

I would agree with you. Although I believe that the difference goes deeper than what you are expressing. The ability to be aware of one's own existence or consciousness is the ability to contemplate the morality of thoughts and actions and their place in eternity and or history. All you have to do to see this is simply walk through a graveyard. A president looks to the legacy that he wants to leave on the country.

[Clownboat]

I am defining consciousness as the difference between man and beast.

A pizza is still a pizza even if it is the only one that has mushrooms on it. You are simply pointing at different topings and marveling at how they are different.

Let's see if your reasoning leads us anywhere useful. What if humans were the only animal that could fly via thought? Surely that topping is very unique compared to the topings we see in the rest of the animal kingdom. We learn nothing from this is the point?

The op is not about the physical attributes of animals but what consciousness is.

Thus why I said: "All this means nothing in regards to consciousness"

Are you arguing that the level of consciousness between the animals you have listed and man is the same?

Are you arguing that the strength between a mouse and a human is the same?

Do you have any evidence in support of that thesis?

What evidence can you supply that would suggest that mice are as strong as humans?

Straw-maning is fun!

Heat is the product of fire. There is nothing magical about fire, just chemicals reacting to their proporties. You know, like how we get snowflakes. No magic involved. This suggests to me at least that consciousness is a property of a working (human in this case) brain. Chemicals reacting to their properties much like how it seems the rest of the universe works.

[William]

[Replying to Clownboat in post #113]

All this means nothing in regards to consciousness, much like your post unless I missed your meaning.

I am defining consciousness as the difference between man and beast.

The op is not about the physical attributes of animals but what consciousness is.

Are you arguing that the level of consciousness between the animals you have listed and man is the same?

Do you have any evidence in support of that thesis?

If there is any difference between animal consciousness and human consciousness it is in the forms occupied rather than the consciousness occupying the forms.

[brunumb]

I am defining consciousness as the difference between man and beast.

You don't get to define consciousness. All your points do no more than highlight differences in level of intelligence. Not the same thing.
Meanwhile:

The Emerging Science of Animal Consciousness
A conscious being has subjective experiences of the world and its own body. Humans are conscious beings, but are we alone? In 2012, the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness crystallised a scientific consensus that humans are not the only conscious beings and that ‘non-human animals, including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures, including octopuses’ possess neurological substrates complex enough to support conscious experiences. This consensus has allowed debates about animal consciousness to move on from the old question of whether any non-human animals are conscious to the questions of which animals are conscious and what form their conscious experiences take.
https://www.cell.com/trends/cognitive-s ... 20)30192-3

[William]

If one slows down and smells the roses one can even detect signs of self-consciousness in the insects.

They are fascinating...at least to my vast mind...

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to EarthScienceguy in post #112]

Do animals not have neurons? Do they not have synapses? Animals are not conscious in the same sense as humans are conscious. Humanity is different than all the rest of creation. There is nothing in all the universe like a man. Nothing in all the universe can contemplate like like a man can.

You're still referring to intelligence and the capability of abstract thought, rather than consciousness (as others have also pointed out). Humans evolved a very complex and capable brain, which gives us the ability to contemplate the origins of life and the universe, our place in it, the existence of god beings and their characteristics, life after death, and all sorts of other things that humans are capable of due to our complex brains.

The inability of other animals to think at this level is a matter of degree ... their brains are not sufficiently developed to have the same capability our brains do, but they do think and make decisions, etc. The very fact that our mental capabilities compared to "lower" animals is so much higher is one of the primary reasons a lot of people think we are special and therefore must have been created by a god being. But the evidence shows that we evolved from earlier primates in a very bushy evolutionary process, with a rapid (in evolutionary terms) expansion in brain size, structure and capability being a key part of that. And no one said physically bigger brains means a more intelligent creature ... a sperm whale's brain is about 8000 cc compared to a human's brain at about 1300 cc.

As far as "nothing in all the universe can contemplate like a man can", you may want to replace the word universe with earth. We've explored only a miniscule part of the universe ourselves ... there may well be living creatures out there somewhere who would put us to shame but are so far unknown to us due to the vast distances and speed of light limitations nature has imposed.