Newsgroups: comp.ai,comp.ai.alife,comp.ai.philosophy
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!howland.reston.ans.net!news.sprintlink.net!pipex!uunet!timbuk.cray.com!walter.cray.com!mwd
From: mwd@cray.com (Mark Dalton)
Subject: Re: Thought Question
Message-ID: <1995Jan20.020541.19152@walter.cray.com>
Followup-To: comp.ai.alife,comp.ai.philosophy,comp.ai,alt.consciousness
Lines: 94
Nntp-Posting-Host: pajarito.cray.com
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 021193BETA PL3-CRIb]
References: <3f23q4$oc4@ixnews1.ix.netcom.com> <1995Jan12.184559.2530@galileo.cc.rochester.edu> <3f4k1d$8ae@news.u.washington.edu> <1995Jan14.035322.12858@news.media.mit.edu> <1995Jan17.161446.11851@walter.cray.com> <1995Jan18.161502.22823@galileo.cc.rochester.edu>
Date: 20 Jan 95 02:05:41 CST
Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu comp.ai:26652 comp.ai.alife:1875 comp.ai.philosophy:24823

Greg Stevens (stevens@prodigal.psych.rochester.edu) wrote:
: In <1995Jan17.161446.11851@walter.cray.com> mwd@cray.com (Mark Dalton) writes:

: >	Also you will need to recognize minds and brains across organisms
: >are VERY different.  I could not say that if one has a brain, he then
: >can has consciousness/self-awareness/or understanding.

: What is something which has a brain which you think is not conscious? What
: do you take as evidence in human behavior that they have more consciousness
: than any other animal with its behaviors?

I don't have the 'answer'.  I don't think of it as either 'on' or 'off',
I think of this in degrees of consciousness.

I guess the point is:
	1. What is a brain?
	   - a collection (congregation) of neurons. Rotifers have a 
	     'brain', but are they conscious.  Is your spinal cord
	     conscious or have 'thoughts' independent of your 'higher' brain?
	     The reason I bring that up is that basically the brain of
	     lower organisms (much lower) is basically just a chemotaxis
	     response, or stimulus-response, no real process.
	     I guess if you include rotifers, you would need to include
	     things even without neurons like plants.
	        Plants do have intercommunication between its parts, granted
	        they are basically just chemical reactions and basically as
		complex as the rotifer and still a plant has no 'brain'.

	2. What is thought?
         webster thought
         Cross references:
           1. idea                  
 
         1. thought  past of THINK 
         2. thought \'tho.t\ n [ME, fr. OE tho-ht; akin to OE thencan to think
            more at THINK] 1a: the action or process of thinking : COGITATION
            1b: serious consideration : REGARD 1c: RECOLLECTION 2a: reasoning
	    power 2b: the power to imagine : CONCEPTION 3: something that is
	    thought : as 3a: an individual act or product of thinking 3b:
	    INTENTION, PLAN 3c: OPINION, BELIEF 3d: the intellectual product
	    or the organized views and principles of a period, place, group,
	    or individual 4: a slight amount : BIT

		- In these definitions I don't think of a fluke or rotifer
		  thinking or having 'thought'.

	    I think thought differs from mere reaction (which humans have both
	    the lower brain/spinal cord are more reactive, where as the
	    higher brain IMHO is where a thought comes together influenced
	    by every part of the being (and inderectly the past and external
	    world through the memories and senses respectively)).

	3. Is conscious a Yes or No?
	   con.scious.ness \'ka:n-ch*-sn*s\ n 1: awareness esp. of something
	     within oneself; also : the state or fact of being conscious of an
	     external object, state, or fact 2: the state of being character-
	     ized by sensation, emotion, volition, and thought : MIND 3: the
	     totality of conscious states of an individual 4: the normal state
	     of conscious life 5: the upper level of mental life as contrasted
	     with unconscious processes

		I would not say that one species has it and another does
		not, but more that perhaps there are degrees of consciousness
		in all living things.

	   But with the most basic definition of consciousness, i.e. awareness
	   I think (I am not sure we can know??) that many organisms are aware
	   of themselves or thier 'reasonings'.  Yes they build patterns of
	   actions (chemotaxis,phototaxis) It is an action like a simple robot
	   bumping into a wall and backing up because it had a switch, that
	   switched the current to the motor.  Conscious??

I would say thier are more 'levels of consciousness'.  A human is more
conscious/self-aware, than a fruit flie or a fluke and even rotifers
have 'brains'.  Just because one can respond to a stimulus, I don't
think it makes that 'thing' have thought and definitely not consciousness
or self-awareness. (Robots have collections of interconnections of 
neuron like (transistor networks) but are they conscious?).


Well, I think I have said enough (^8.  No I don't say a dog is not conscious
but I would not speak of a dogs consciousness the same as a I would a humans,
a dolphins or a rotifers 'consciousness' either.

Mark
----------
Mark Dalton       CH3-S-CH2 H                      H      O       H
Cray Research,Inc.      |   |                      |       \      |
Los Alamos,NM 87544     CH2-C-COO    //\ ---C--CH2-C-COO    C-CH2-C-COO
mwd@cray.com                |       |  ||   ||     |       //     |
                            NH3      \\/ \ / CH    NH3    O       NH3
                                          NH
URL = http://lenti.med.umn.edu/~mwd/mwd.html

