Consciousness and color (split from darkness defined)

[quickquestion]

Why are you sure of that?

I didn't understand your post; nor did at least a couple of other people.

Calling someone's post gibberish is insulting.

 

Also, it is not true that consciousness is undefined

 

True, consciousness has multiple definitions.

[dimreepr]

Calling someone's post gibberish is insulting.

 

Not if it's true.

 

True, consciousness has multiple definitions.

 

 

maybe, but we don't know which is true.

Edited April 14, 2017 by dimreepr

[quickquestion]

 

Not if it's true.

 

 

maybe, but we don't know which is true.

If I call a fat person fat, you're telling me that's not insulting?

 

Both definitions can be true...that's how multiple definitions work.

Lead means a heavy metal...this is true.

Lead means to lead people and such...both are true.

Edited April 14, 2017 by quickquestion

[Manticore]

What is your cite for that? I doubt that that was the only text.

No. Most had, as a secondary definition, something like: n. When you are awake and aware of your surroundings.

Edited April 14, 2017 by Manticore

[quickquestion]

 

No; the point is that just responding to some stimuli is not proof of an inner experience; otherwise the problem would be vastly simpler than it is.

We know this because:

1. Not all stimuli humans react to include inner experience (for example our reflexes) and

2. We can make very simple machines that respond to stimuli of various kinds e.g. light-sensitive diodes. If they have inner experience, then everything has.

 

And leading on from observation 1, a common idea now among cognitive- and neuro- scientists is that subjective perception is likely linked to choice. Knee-jerk responses don't need (and therefore likely don't have) inner subjective experiences. But where we need to make unique plans (for some common stimulus...obviously we can't evolve inner experiences for everything) it makes sense to have subjective phenomena as inputs.

 

If that's the case, then we'd likely be happy to say most mammals have subjective experience of, say, color, and happy to say very simple lifeforms are like our light-sensitive diode. Inbetween, who knows? It's among the things we're trying to figure out.

 

When it comes to pzombie discussions (I use the word pzombie because Consciousness has multiple definitions and people seem to never get the one I am meaning)...You can never be fore sure if solipism is real or not.

 

What you can do is this.

A. If solipisim is not real, then animals are probably not pzombies, since they exhibit behavior and feel similar to humans.

B. If solipism is real, then both animals and humans are pzombies, and thus there is no reason to have laws and rules protecting human or animals at all.

 

Given the assumption that A. Solipism is fake, we can deduce that animals probably are not pzombies, based on their behavoir. Some of their behavoir includes hunting and planning, as well as jealousy and boredom.

With babies their whining seems to be a simple reaction to lack of stimulus, but with dogs it seems to be a carefully planned and pent up jealousy of not getting attention, and when they try to communicate with their owners it seems like a response that is emotionally stacked over time, and deliberate and manipulative, and not a simple immediate response to a condition.

[koti]

If I call a fat person fat, you're telling me that's not insulting?

 

If the fat person is running around naked in a swim suit fitness tournament screaming "look at me! I'm great looking!" that is a little over the line wouldn't you say? I'm overweight myself and I wouldn't do that. Edited April 14, 2017 by koti

[Sriman Dutta]

Honestly I haven't got the faintest idea of what's going on. Half of the posts talk about insults, some other define consciousness. I can't get the topic or the title.

[dimreepr]

If I call a fat person fat, you're telling me that's not insulting?

 

Is that person fat?

[StephenH]

Color perception is not a reflex. You're moving goal posts.

 

Of course color perception is not a reflex.

 

The simple point is this: you said that color detection exists for good evolutionary reasons (true). And therefore that organisms must have an internal perception of color (false).

 

I demonstrated that this logic is flawed by giving an example of a response to stimuli that also exists for good evolutionary reasons: reflexes. These do not have an internal perception. Therefore they refute your argument.

No. Most had, as a secondary definition, something like: n. When you are awake and aware of your surroundings.

Can you give a single cite? I'm sure that being awake is one of the definitions of consciousness. It's clearly not the definition that is used in this context, in a philosophy forum discussion.

And I'm dubious that any dictionary would only put that first definition and omit the latter.

 

This is all a handwave anyway: instead of engaging with what I was saying, certain posters wanted to play a trump card of "Consciousness isn't defined!". But the handwave fails because in this case I can simply call your bluff and ask you to look up the word in a dictionary.

[koti]

 

Of course color perception is not a reflex.

 

The simple point is this: you said that color detection exists for good evolutionary reasons (true). And therefore that organisms must have an internal perception of color (false).

 

I demonstrated that this logic is flawed by giving an example of a response to stimuli that also exists for good evolutionary reasons: reflexes. These do not have an internal perception. Therefore they refute your argument.

Can you give a single cite? I'm sure that being awake is one of the definitions of consciousness. It's clearly not the definition that is used in this context, in a philosophy forum discussion.

And I'm dubious that any dictionary would only put that first definition and omit the latter.

 

This is all a handwave anyway: instead of engaging with what I was saying, certain posters wanted to play a trump card of "Consciousness isn't defined!". But the handwave fails because in this case I can simply call your bluff and ask you to look up the word in a dictionary.

 

The simple point is this: that is not what I said. Please read again what I said, try to digest it and please stop with the straw man arguments:

 

 

 

If an organism has the ability to see a particular color then it surely must have an evolutionary reason to do so. Which leads to believe that this organism must have an internal sensation of that color within it's own level of perception. Saying (like you did) that a primitive organism being able to see a certain color but not being able to have a sensation of it because it doesn't have a conscious mind in a human sense is not only unjustly degrading to that organism but also plain false reasoning.

[StephenH]

What is straw man about it? What part of "If an organism has the ability to see a particular color then it surely must have an evolutionary reason to do so. Which leads to believe that this organism must have an internal sensation of that color within it's own level of perception." have I misunderstood? You are reasoning that if an organism has a good evolutionary reason for detecting some stimulus then it must have an internal sensation of that input.

Why do reflexes not refute this argument?

 

And that's twice now you've just used a label like "straw man!" or "moving the goalposts!" as an excuse to ignore an argument being put to you. If you really want to discuss this topic in good faith, perhaps next time you at least show why you think the argument is affirming the consequent or whatever.

[koti]

What is straw man about it? What part of "If an organism has the ability to see a particular color then it surely must have an evolutionary reason to do so. Which leads to believe that this organism must have an internal sensation of that color within it's own level of perception." have I misunderstood? You are reasoning that if an organism has a good evolutionary reason for detecting some stimulus then it must have an internal sensation of that input.

Why do reflexes not refute this argument?

Because we agreed that color perception is not a reflex. We also established that organisms which do not have the brain capacity nor have a brain at all are capable of sensing colors and we also established that there must be an evolutionary reason for those organisms to sense colors within their level of perception. You're saying that reflexes refute my argument, you might as well say that breathing or swallowing refutes my argument and this does not make sense to me.

I have to note that I'm not sure what is the goal of our discussion (yours and mine) This thread is so vague that I think we should establish what were trying to argue. My position is that although color perception is not a simple fenomena, it seems to me that it does not require consciousness or senscience in our human sense and that's about all I'm arguing here.

I referred to your last post as a straw man because you shifted what I said a little. But no worries really...what we are talking about here is so fluid due to "consciousness" that I don't think we are getting to come to any concrete conclusions apart from this evolving into a disagreement.

Edited April 17, 2017 by koti

[StephenH]

What kind of maniac would say color is a reflex? That was never my argument.

 

I'll go through it step-by-step as you've misparsed what I've said completely.

You said: ""If an organism has the ability to see a particular color then it surely must have an evolutionary reason to do so. Which leads to believe that this organism must have an internal sensation of that color within it's own level of perception" .

 

From this, we can extract the underlying reasoning to formalize it as Molecule's Conjecture: If an organism has the ability to sense some stimuli then it surely has an evolutionary reason to do so. Which leads us to believe that it must have an internal sensation of that stimulus.
Agreed?

 

But then we can plug in other kinds of stimulus and trivially see the Conjecture doesn't work. For example:

 

If a human has the ability to sense oxygen levels in the blood (part of chemoreception) then we must have an internal sensation of that stimulus. However we do not. It's one of the things processed by the autonomic system. (before you say it, oxygen levels in the blood are not responsible for feelings of suffocation; that's CO2).

[koti]

What kind of maniac would say color is a reflex? That was never my argument.

 

I'll go through it step-by-step as you've misparsed what I've said completely.

You said: ""If an organism has the ability to see a particular color then it surely must have an evolutionary reason to do so. Which leads to believe that this organism must have an internal sensation of that color within it's own level of perception" .

 

From this, we can extract the underlying reasoning to formalize it as Molecule's Conjecture: If an organism has the ability to sense some stimuli then it surely has an evolutionary reason to do so. Which leads us to believe that it must have an internal sensation of that stimulus.

Agreed?

 

But then we can plug in other kinds of stimulus and trivially see the Conjecture doesn't work. For example:

 

If a human has the ability to sense oxygen levels in the blood (part of chemoreception) then we must have an internal sensation of that stimulus. However we do not. It's one of the things processed by the autonomic system. (before you say it, oxygen levels in the blood are not responsible for feelings of suffocation; that's CO2).

We also have no sensation of breathing (most of the time) and dozen other functions of the human body but I fail to see how this correlates to my assertion which is that color perception in living organisms does not require conscious though. If narrowing the question down to humans - its impossible to answer because there is no clear definition of what consciousness is.

[quickquestion]

I will define consciousness as it pertains to this discussion:

Something existing in Subjective space at some time.

If a tree falls in the wood with nothing around, it is not conscious.

If something happens to a pzombie, it is not conscious.

[StephenH]

We also have no sensation of breathing (most of the time) and dozen other functions of the human body but I fail to see how this correlates to my assertion which is that color perception in living organisms does not require conscious though. If narrowing the question down to humans - its impossible to answer because there is no clear definition of what consciousness is.

 

Let's focus on one point at a time.

Do you now agree that detection of some stimulus does not necessarily correlate with an internal sensation? That some stimuli are processed by the autonomic system in humans, or reflexes, or just don't have obvious internal qualia separate to other senses (e.g. proprioception)?

Edited April 19, 2017 by StephenH

[koti]

 

Let's focus on one point at a time.

Do you now agree that detection of some stimulus does not necessarily correlate with an internal sensation? That some stimuli are processed by the autonomic system in humans, or reflexes, or just don't have obvious internal qualia separate to other senses (e.g. proprioception)?

We are talking about color and consciousness here. Im asserting that an organism which detects color has an evolutionary reason for that detection thus it experiences a "sensation" of that color within its own perception capabilities. There is clearly no correlation between consciousness and color perception in primitive organisms because primitive organisms are incapable of conscious thought. A human on the other hand can be completely color blind (or better yet completely blind since birth) and obviously can be capable of conscious thought. Whether or not a human who is not capable of conscious thought could process/perceive/interpret colors is unclear to me and Im afraid we wont find an answer to this question. It looks to me like color perception and conscious thought are not correlated in humans as well but this is realy a pointless statement from me as the term "consciousness" is so vague.

 

Color perception in humans is a very complex subject though.

Edited April 19, 2017 by koti

[StephenH]

Im asserting that an organism which detects color has an evolutionary reason for that detection thus it experiences a "sensation" of that color within its own perception capabilities.

 

Yes I know that's what you're asserting, I even gave it the special label Molecule's Conjecture before demonstrating why it doesn't work with example after example.

Either the statement is outright false, or "within its own perception capabilities" necessarily includes includes no perception whatsoever.

 

There is clearly no correlation between consciousness and color perception in primitive organisms because primitive organisms are incapable of conscious thought.

 

The point is: we don't even know if primitive organisms have color perception, period. The human autonomic system is far more complex that a bee's brain, for example. And detects, and responds to, various stimuli. It does not result in any kind of "perception" however.

The fact that a bee responds to EM stimuli doesn't in itself tell us anything about whether it experiences color qualia.

[koti]

 

The point is: we don't even know if primitive organisms have color perception, period.

Yes we do. Most of living organisms have color perception (within their own capabilities) The fact that their color perception is less advanced than that of a human is irrelevant.

Edited April 20, 2017 by koti

[Manticore]

From: http://currentaffairs.gktoday.in/bees-choose-flowers-landing-color-petals-07201414231.html

 

As per a scientific study, Bumblebees select most nutritious flowers for providing best food for their young simply by looking at the colour of the petals even before landing on the flower. As bees do not ingest pollen unlike nectar while foraging on flowers, it has been unclear whether they are able to form associative relationships between what a flower looks like and the quality of its pollen. The study used bumblebee foragers housed under controlled conditions to test whether they do learn about flowers during pollen collection.

The findings showed that bumblebees can individually evaluate pollen samples and differentiate between them during collection, quickly forming preferences for a particular type of pollen. They are able to detect differences in pollen, even before landing, which means they may be able to discriminate, just from the colour of the petals, which flowers are richer in nutritious content.

[StephenH]

Yes we do. Most of living organisms have color perception (within their own capabilities)

 

This is a thread discussing inner experiences of color. You yourself have used phrases like "inner sensation", which is appropriate because that's the topic.

So if by "color perception" what you now mean is just "animals can see colors" then yes, very obviously they can. They have eyes. Their eyes have color cones. This is very clear and not disputed at all. But it's also not what we were talking about.

 

If you're saying that they have an inner experience of color, color qualia, AKA what we were talking about, then my response is that I see no reason to presuppose that is true. Your attempt to prove that it logically follows is flawed, as I have explained in detail such as in post #38.

If you think you've found an error in that argument, then please point it out. Genuinely I'd love to hear that and learn something. Otherwise just concede the point so we can advance the discussion.

 

From: http://currentaffairs.gktoday.in/bees-choose-flowers-landing-color-petals-07201414231.html

 

As per a scientific study, Bumblebees select most nutritious flowers for providing best food for their young simply by looking at the colour of the petals even before landing on the flower. As bees do not ingest pollen unlike nectar while foraging on flowers, it has been unclear whether they are able to form associative relationships between what a flower looks like and the quality of its pollen. The study used bumblebee foragers housed under controlled conditions to test whether they do learn about flowers during pollen collection.

The findings showed that bumblebees can individually evaluate pollen samples and differentiate between them during collection, quickly forming preferences for a particular type of pollen. They are able to detect differences in pollen, even before landing, which means they may be able to discriminate, just from the colour of the petals, which flowers are richer in nutritious content.

 

See my previous post.

The fact that bees can see colors is a readily-demonstrable fact disputed by no-one.

Edited April 21, 2017 by StephenH

[Manticore]

The point is not that bees can see colour.

It is that they can remember colours and make judgements based on those memories. To do that they must have an 'inner experience' of colour. No way can you put this down to reflex.

[koti]

 

This is a thread discussing inner experiences of color. You yourself have used phrases like "inner sensation", which is appropriate because that's the topic.

So if by "color perception" what you now mean is just "animals can see colors" then yes, very obviously they can. They have eyes. Their eyes have color cones. This is very clear and not disputed at all. But it's also not what we were talking about.

 

If you're saying that they have an inner experience of color, color qualia, AKA what we were talking about, then my response is that I see no reason to presuppose that is true. Your attempt to prove that it logically follows is flawed, as I have explained in detail such as in post #38.

If you think you've found an error in that argument, then please point it out. Genuinely I'd love to hear that and learn something. Otherwise just concede the point so we can advance the discussion.

 

See my previous post.

The fact that bees can see colors is a readily-demonstrable fact disputed by no-one.

If "inner experience" is equivalent to "consciousness" then indeed that is what we are discussing. I certainly don't know if that is the case. I used the term "sensation" as a subjective term specific to the capability of a given organism, it seems obvious to me that both a human and a bee have "sensation" when perceiving color. I think its pointless to explain that bee's "sensation" of color is a lot more crude that that of a human but thats, like I said before - irrelevant.

You seem to be using human consciousness as a reference point for judging the perception of other animals, for me this stance is just wrong. In your post #38 you attempt to prove (please tell me what you are actually trying to prove) that because humans have no ability to sense oxygen levels in their blood that somehow correlates to this discussion about color perception. I'm not sure what you want me to concede, please enlighten me.

Edited April 21, 2017 by koti

[Delta1212]

 

If "inner experience" is equivalent to "consciousness" then indeed that is what we are discussing. I certainly don't know if that is the case. I used the term "sensation" as a subjective term specific to the capability of a given organism, it seems obvious to me that both a human and a bee have "sensation" when perceiving color. I think its pointless to explain that bee's "sensation" of color is a lot more crude that that of a human but thats, like I said before - irrelevant.

You seem to be using human consciousness as a reference point for judging the perception of other animals, for me this stance is just wrong. In your post #38 you attempt to prove (please tell me what you are actually trying to prove) that because humans have no ability to sense oxygen levels in their blood that somehow correlates to this discussion about color perception. I'm not sure what you want me to concede, please enlighten me.

I think it might help to dial the discussion down a level and build up from there, because animals are always going to be a philosophically fuzzy subject when discussing internal experience.

 

So let's look at a camera instead. Digital cameras include a light-sensitive sensor. It can detect color. Putting aside more modern ones that have facial recognition and whatnot for a moment and just going with an older basic model, there is no real processing of the content of the image. It is very basic input-output, action-reaction stuff.

 

Does such a camera have an internal experience of what it "sees"? I think that the straightforward answer is likely "no." If it did, it would mean that pretty much every chemical, physical or quantum interaction would generate an internal experience in something. Based on the demonstrated importance our nervous system and brain play in our own internal experience of the world, I feel safe in saying that this is not the case, or at the very least that if some internal sensation exists in all things in the universe, it is of a completely different kind and with a different basic mechanism than our own.

 

So then an internal experience is not merely the result of perception of a stimulus, but is the result of the brain processing that perception and constructing a mental model of the world based on the information that stimulus provides (in conjunction with all of the other stimuli being received). This is why, for instance, color perception varies significantly based on context and you can get things like the black-blue/white-gold dress.

 

The qualia are not faithful representations of what is detected by the eye, but generated by the brain as part of its modeling process. Different people may receive the same input and have very different internal experiences based on how the brain winds up collating all of the information and building its model.

 

Because of this, I consider it probable that most organisms with a complex central nervous system have some kind of internal experience of their senses with the odds of this more or less increasing with the complexity of their interactions with the world.

 

I think it is likely, for instance, that anything capable of displaying problem-solving skills when faced with a novel problem, especially when any degree of tool use is involved, most likely has the ability to do some level of predictive modeling in order to recognize what the likely results of different actions it can take will be. And I find it unlikely that anything would obtain the ability to model future states of a system without having a brain that maintains some degree of modeling of the active state of their environment based on sensory input.

 

If the internal model is the thing that provides us with qualia, then it seems reasonable that such creatures also have an internal experience. And I think at least the basic modeling of the environment spreads much father out in the animal kingdom than just the obvious tool-users and problem-solvers. Those are just the ones I'm most confident likely have an internal experience of their senses.

 

In general, I think it's likely that anything with seriously complex sensory input probably has an internal model of it. So single photo receptor that detects day/night cycles? That may just alter certain functions within the organism in response to amount of light received without any direct perception by the organism itself. The compound eye of an insect where the input from each sensor needs to be put together in order to facilitate object recognition for the detection of food, threats and family? I'm pretty sure that that requires a degree of internal modeling and thus, probably, qualia.

 

This is also the major reason why I'm curious as to whether some of our most advanced AIs have started having some degree of limited experience because they are essentially performing a degree of internal modeling on sensory input including that very same object recognition I was talking about.

 

Ultimately, though, we don't really fundamentally know where subjective experience comes from, and so everything and nothing having it is technically within the realm of possibility. In my more existentialist moments, I'm even open to the possibility that I don't have a subjective experience of anything either and that this is a delusion generated in my brain telling me that I have subjective experience. I could even quibble a bit with cogito ergo sum, although not very strenuously.

 

Anyway, there are no hard answers available as far as the internal experiences of others, including other species and even other objects, but I do think what indirect evidence we have points more or less in the direction outlined above.

Edited April 21, 2017 by Delta1212

[koti]

Great post Delta. +1