Eugene questions Dawkins

Michael 345 said:
My first knee jerk reaction would be the dog is reacting to your tone of voice
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Actually, dogs act this way even before their owners show up, let alone speak. They often confine themselves to their 'bad dog corner'.

But regardless, what does it mean to 'react to his owner's tone'? Shame is shame. He is clearly self-aware of his own past actions and that his owner will be directly displeased with him.
 
DaveC426913 said:
Actually, dogs act this way even before their owners show up, let alone speak. They often confine themselves to their 'bad dog corner'.
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Learnt behaviour
DaveC426913 said:
But regardless, what does it mean to 'react to his owner's tone'? Shame is shame
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Learnt behaviour. If I act like this and I will not get smacked (or what ever your mode of punishment entailed)

Next time dog breaks vase - act all happy and be full of praise

Then check the number of broken vases next time you come home

Learnt behaviour

:)
 
When one of our cats was a kitten, we used to always set him down on the floor if he went onto the dining-room table while we were eating food. He started sitting on the back of the living-room couch, climbing onto my shoulder and tried walking down my arm to investigate our dinner.

He found a loophole to the rule because he technically was never on the table.

I'd say that was a sign of consciousness.
 
Daecon said:
When one of our cats was a kitten, we used to always set him down on the floor if he went onto the dining-room table while we were eating food. He started sitting on the back of the living-room couch, climbing onto my shoulder and tried walking down my arm to investigate our dinner.

He found a loophole to the rule because he technically was never on the table.

I'd say that was a sign of consciousness.
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And the other cats and / or other pets which never did the same or some equivalent activity?

Those did not have concessness?

:)
 
spidergoat said:
No. Consciousness is awareness of sensory input, which is no less in a dog than a human, perhaps more.
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Some confusion with word
Conscious which is awake and aware of sensory inputs and able to react as opposed to unconscious
AND
Consciousness which is more deep and puts more meaning into the word as in being aware of one's self and of others and the detail that you are different from the others - they are different from you although you, and others like yourselves share much

Most dictionaries are not much help as they tend to muddle the words together

Instant expert here as I am currently reading about concessness, Concessness Explained. About ½ way through. Heavy going in parts

Just last night got through the chapter about animals. Seems the number of animals with a form of concessness is about 5 with also SOME members of other species also SOME from of concessness

:)
 
Eugene Shubert said:
- - -And "literacy in science" seems almost useless, as a concept - what would it mean? - -
It takes just a low level of scientific literacy to figure that out. If you goggle the phrase "literacy in science", you'll find 402,000 hits.
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Do any of them explain the difference between "scientific literacy" and "literacy in science"?
Do any of them explain the significance of having read and understood works on Darwinian evolution - even Darwin's original magnum opus specifically - in earning the description "scientifically literate"? How about just plain "literate"?
Read those ones.
btw: I just entered "numerology in science" in science into the Google search bar, and got 709,000 hits. "Scientific numerology" narrowed it down to 554,000. Apparently numerology is at least 20% more important than literacy, in science - one learns new things every day.
Eugene Shubert said:
No. These Kamikaze snakes are just power-assisted gliders. Just wait for the more powerful versions to evolve.
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They already evolved, lasted a couple of hundred million years, and went extinct: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pterosaur
 
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spidergoat said:
No. Consciousness is awareness of sensory input, which is no less in a dog than a human, perhaps more.
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In that case a fire alarm is the most conscious system on the planet. But that sort of definition is pretty facile; consciousness is more than that, and any reasonable definition involves a coherent sense of self.
 
billvon said:
In that case a fire alarm is the most conscious system on the planet. But that sort of definition is pretty facile; consciousness is more than that, and any reasonable definition involves a coherent sense of self.
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A fire alarm has two states, on and off, it's literally the least conscious system possible. And the smallest microbe knows which hole to shove the food in, how is that for a sense of self?
 
spidergoat said:
A fire alarm has two states, on and off, it's literally the least conscious system possible.
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By your definition - "Consciousness is awareness of sensory input" - it is the most conscious system imaginable. It is completely and utterly aware of its input, and reacts as violently and as strongly as possible to that input - indeed, that is the only thing it _can_ do. By that definition, humans are less conscious than fire alarms, since we are quite good at ignoring/suppressing/not reacting to sensory input when it suits us (i.e. pain when playing sports, hunger when dieting, sexual attraction when in situations where it is inappropriate to express such things.)

A better definition of consciousness involves a sense of self - a sense that one is a separate entity from the environment around it, that one makes independent, intentional decisions based on sensory input, past history, expected outcomes, and more abstract concepts like morality and duty.
And the smallest microbe knows which hole to shove the food in, how is that for a sense of self?
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Nope, no more than we "know" to secrete amylase when we eat bread. Yet we still have a sense of self.

Consciousness is a continuum. A microbe has almost none. Lizards have some. Mammals have more.
 
SpiderGoat: Your Post 87 implies that you consider insects, microbes, & other life forms to be conscious.

While perhaps all but minerals & vegetables are conscious, I see no reason to believe that such is the case.

I am not sure where to draw the line. At least some (if not all) microbes do not seem to be conscious. Are jelly fish conscious?

Mammals are the only life forms which I am firmly believe are conscious. This is based on extrapolation from humans & observing the behavior of animals like squirrels.

I am not sure about reptiles & octopi, but would not argue this issue either way.

I do not know how to determine what animals other than mammals are conscious. How can consciousness be detected?
 
spidergoat said:
A fire alarm has two states, on and off, it's literally the least conscious system possible. And the smallest microbe knows which hole to shove the food in, how is that for a sense of self?
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No microbe I know has a cakehole. Can you provide a name please for this mutant microbe?

All the ones I know smoother what ever it is they wish to have a absorb it through the membrane

:)
 
Dinosaur said:
I am not sure where to draw the line. At least some (if not all) microbes do not seem to be conscious. Are jelly fish conscious?
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imho anything that
1) exhibits organized, complex, and delayed responses to stimuli and
2) sleeps

is possibly conscious to some degree. Some jellyfish, apparently, sleep. Ants sleep.
 
billvon said:
By your definition - "Consciousness is awareness of sensory input" - it is the most conscious system imaginable.
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I would hazard to say that the argument is:
Consciousness is proportional to sensory input*.

Ergo, a fire alarm is the least conscious because it is only sensitive to a single input.
A human, by contrast is sensitive to the effect of the dappled moonlight on her lover's eyes. i.e. a nearly boundless array of input of infinitely abstractable nuance.

*(and subsequent processing)
 
iceaura said:
imho anything that
1) exhibits organized, complex, and delayed responses to stimuli and
2) sleeps

is possibly conscious to some degree. Some jellyfish, apparently, sleep. Ants sleep.
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I think you are using sleep in a broad way.
Lots of animals have periods of inactivity.
Complex-brained animals have sleep where their brain processes (which are very complex) lapse into a restorative state.
Jellyfish do not have brains. They do not lapse into a cognitive restorative state.
 
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