Cats and consciousness
Oct. 24th, 2005 01:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
green_amberSomeone suggested I upfront this comment as a post so here we go:
Oddly, consciousness is the other thing I was noodling about at the weekend. My cats are so obviously conscious, and in really quite subtle ways I never imagined before I lived with animals. They are disappointed, happy, enticing, vain, frustrated, envious and irritated. Yet they have brains like peas no? How stupid do you have to get before consciousness vanishes? Do bees have consciousness? Do goldfish? Do rats? Do all human beings who are not in comas? Do babies, and if so from what age? Is having consciousness the same as thinking? (DO babies think? They dream don't they - is that the same either? My cats dream.)
And where consciousness exists continues to mystify me. Anyone who's studied the Turing test realises that intelligence as an externally observed factor is not the same as intentionality. WE can simulate intelligence but we can't simulate consciousness. Does this indicate there is some kind of mind/brain dualism actually going on?
Oddly, consciousness is the other thing I was noodling about at the weekend. My cats are so obviously conscious, and in really quite subtle ways I never imagined before I lived with animals. They are disappointed, happy, enticing, vain, frustrated, envious and irritated. Yet they have brains like peas no? How stupid do you have to get before consciousness vanishes? Do bees have consciousness? Do goldfish? Do rats? Do all human beings who are not in comas? Do babies, and if so from what age? Is having consciousness the same as thinking? (DO babies think? They dream don't they - is that the same either? My cats dream.)
And where consciousness exists continues to mystify me. Anyone who's studied the Turing test realises that intelligence as an externally observed factor is not the same as intentionality. WE can simulate intelligence but we can't simulate consciousness. Does this indicate there is some kind of mind/brain dualism actually going on?
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no subject
Date: 2005-10-24 01:27 pm (UTC)You might like to have a go at telling us what you're meaning by 'consciousness' if you're hoping for meaningful answers...!
'Brains like peas'? Not really. They've got brains quite a lot like humans, only less wrinkly and not as big. Occasional cases of people with only a small portion of a normal human-sized brain have shown that brain size isn't as big a deal as it's made out to be... And it's plainly clear that a lot of animals do a lot more thinking - and feeling - than people mostly give them credit for; hence the scale of the whole meat industry thing, animal testing for cosmetics, etc. etc.
I don't think we can actually simulate intelligence all that well yet; and it's not obvious that it will ever be possible to do so without building in (or causing to emerge) something a lot like consciousness.