Instinct vs Consciousness

[Ten oz]

1 hour ago, Tub said:

Just for the purposes of my post, allow me to alter the original title from " Instinct vs Consciousness " to " Instinct vs Thought ", as i feel that consciousness can include both. I think that, for human beings, thought has gradually superseded instinct as a prime mover but we still need both. For instance,  some years ago, as a small boy, i clambered over a high and unfamiliar garden-wall to retrieve my football; just as i picked up the ball, a large dog came running down the garden towards me barking, and the next thing i knew i was standing on the safe side of the wall, without the ball and minus one shoe. When there had been no time for me to think, instinct took over and got me out of danger. So though we now depend more on thought, instinct is still important too: we need both, and both are part of human consciousness. I definitely think all animals  are conscious too, or else they wouldn't be able to respond to any stimuli or fend for themselves, but as String Junky suggested earlier, consciousness does not necessarily imply self-consciousness. Some animals such as pigs etc, at the higher end of dimreepr's intelligence spectrum, may indeed possess some level of self-awareness, but is it at all necessary or desirable for them?

All in all, we shouldn't (if we do) treat instinct as inferior to thought, and i think that animals, apart from humans, don't need any capacity other than instinct to survive; for any creature that doesn't aspire to much beyond pure survival,instinct alone is perfectly adequate for that survival: they can live " by bread alone ", perfectly attuned to Nature. ( Without free-will, maybe, but perhaps in some way that's not such a bad thing). If this is the case,i feel that animal behaviour doesn't really need to go through any great radical evolution.Natural mutation does occur, obviously, sometimes quite quickly, so animals can adapt to changing situations. A very recent book on evolution suggests that deers' antlers and elephants' tusks are getting smaller, so as to deter poachers. Fish are getting smaller as well, so they can slip through fishing-nets, though this may be caused by genetics.  Pavlov's experiments have shown, too, that instinctive behaviour is not immune to being irrevocably changed under certain circumstances.

As for the programme - is it self-preservation/survival?  As for the programmer - who knows?

 

 

Thought is defined as an idea or opinion produced by thinking or occurring suddenly in the mind. With your story about the dog were you truly without thought; I do not believe so. A rush of adrenaline sped up your thought process and greatly narrowed your focus. Ultimately everything you did was still controlled by your mind and as such still falls under the purview of thought. That is why even when panicked Police, Pilots, Soldiers, Doctors, Fire Fighters, and etc are still accountable to do the right thing. Because fear induced instinctive reaction is not a medically or legally accepted thing. A police officer can't shoot and kill people then write in his report instinct took over and he or she doesn't know what happened.

 

As for animals surviving on instinct alone I don't think we have a clear definition of what instinct is to make a clear statement regarding the extent it is used. If you take a healthy adult human who has no survival training and an average dog which has been raised as a standard family pet, abandon each in the wild alone with nothing I think the dog would fair better. Not because of instinct though. A dog's superior sense of smell and hearing would increase its chances of successfully scavenging for food and locating water. A dogs fur is better at regulating body temperature. The also see better in the dark. Using superior adaptations is not equal to instinct. If a dog knowingly uses its sense of smell to locate food than, in my opinion, it isn't instinct anymore than when we humans use our smell to see if milk has gone bad or the gas has been left on. Animals are not "perfectly attuned" to nature. The overwhelming majority of every species which has ever lived has gone extinct and the mortality rate of nearly all mamals is 50% or greater. Humans came together and built communities to shelter ourselves from nature because of how brutal and hard it actually is. Animals use the adaptations they have to survive. I believe using those adaptations require a learning curve and as such require thought. Wolves, tigers, killer whales, bears, and etc fail to catch prey countless times before they suceed. A learning curve is involved.

 

Deer antlers do not evolve to be smaller so to deter humans and fish do not shrink so to wiggle through nets. That is not how evolution works. Rather it is the smaller fish and deer with smaller antlers which are able to reproduce are healthier numbers on the account of not being killed which results in the changes.

[Tub]

3 hours ago, Ten oz said:

Thought is defined as an idea or opinion produced by thinking or occurring suddenly in the mind. With your story about the dog were you truly without thought; I do not believe so. A rush of adrenaline sped up your thought process and greatly narrowed your focus. Ultimately everything you did was still controlled by your mind and as such still falls under the purview of thought. That is why even when panicked Police, Pilots, Soldiers, Doctors, Fire Fighters, and etc are still accountable to do the right thing. Because fear induced instinctive reaction is not a medically or legally accepted thing. A police officer can't shoot and kill people then write in his report instinct took over and he or she doesn't know what happened.

 

 

 

I don't agree with that definition of thought. I would say that thought is a response from memory and as i had no memory of being attacked by a dog, or any animal,thinking didn't come into it. I didn't "know " what to do and without an instinctive reaction i would have frozen in terror. It was an act of natural intelligence rather than an act of thought and maybe adrenaline is involved in that.  Police, pilots , soldiers etc are all highly-trained and well-drilled professionals and that training replaces the instinctive reaction, so that they do know what to do under stress and their training takes over in the situations that they have rehearsed over and over as part of that training. I can't believe, either, that medical science doesn't recognize  some fear-induced reaction. Surely such things as crying, screaming, fainting, shivering, trembling, panic-attacks and the " fight or flight " instinct etc have physiological and psychological roots in fear?  Fear is a natural, necessary response to danger common to all animals and animals can't think as we do, only react instinctively. They don't need to think. I don't know a great deal about legal matters, but surely a plea of murder in self-defence as a response to to a vicious, unprovoked knife-attack would be considered as as a " fear-induced instinctive reaction ". What jury would convict a defendant in such circumstances?

3 hours ago, Ten oz said:

 

Deer antlers do not evolve to be smaller so to deter  humans and fish do not shrink so to wiggle through nets. That is not how Evolution works.  Rather it is the smaller fish and deer with smaller antlers which are able to reproduce healthier numbers on the account of not being killed which results in the changes.

Yes, i agree with this. I said i thought it was rather more down to genetics than evolution: evolution could give the fish sharp teeth to gnaw through those nets, simple genetics couldn't, so the smaller fish that could already escape the nets would obviously breed similar smaller fish, while the larger fish would not have escaped the nets to reproduce more large fish.  The habits of the smaller fish would not evolve  as they would just be smaller fish with the same instincts. The same for the smaller-antlered deer and tuskless elephants too.

 

3 hours ago, Ten oz said:

Humans came together and built communities to shelter ourselves from nature because of how brutal and hard it actually is. Animals use the adaptations they have to survive. I believe using those adaptations require a learning curve and as such require thought. Wolves, tigers, killer whales, bears, and etc fail to catch prey countless times before they suceed. A learning curve is involved.

 

 

I agree , too, that humans were not best equipped to deal with Nature " red in tooth and claw ". It seems that Mother Nature is more inimical to us than other animals so we are more at war with Her in order to survive, puny creatures as we are.  Fortunately we can use thought to our advantage. Animals are better-adapted to survive in the wild, as you say, but i cannot agree that animals use thought  as humans do: thought requires a complex and sophisticated language to operate ( try and think of anything without the word associated with it ) and animals don't need it. Of course they have intelligent brains and they do have to learn how to hunt and develop those hunting-skills but that is a function of their intelligence rather than a thinking-process. Intelligence and thought are not the same thing.

As for extinction and mortality - everything dies in the end.

[Ten oz]

19 minutes ago, Tub said:

I don't agree with that definition of thought. I would say that thought is a response from memory

The definition I used is the actual definition:

thought¹

THôt/

noun

noun: thought; plural noun: thoughts

1. 1.

   an idea or opinion produced by thinking or occurring suddenly in the mind.

   https://www.google.com/search?q=termendous+&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8#q=thought+

Edited July 24, 2017 by Ten oz

[Tub]

1 hour ago, Ten oz said:

The definition I used is the actual definition:

thought¹

THôt/

noun

noun: thought; plural noun: thoughts

1. 1.

   an idea or opinion produced by thinking or occurring suddenly in the mind.

   https://www.google.com/search?q=termendous+&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8#q=thought+

 The definition you used is the definition of a thought, which is a noun.

 The definition i used is the definition of  thought as the past tense of the verb " to think ".  

 A thought is the product of thinking which, as i said, is the response of memory. Try thinking of something without using what that you've got stored in your memory cells. Instinct isn't  a product of thinking and isn't " an idea or opinion ".

 

[Gees]

On ‎7‎/‎22‎/‎2017 at 4:05 AM, Itoero said:

The amount of neurons in the brain might a nice guideline for the consciousness.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_by_number_of_neurons#Whole_nervous_system

Itoero;

Did you post this in response to my post about science teaching us about consciousness in species? If so, I thank you. It is a very informative and interesting bit of information, but then, science is good at interesting information. I don't think that it can answer Ten oz's questions, as it is limited to animals with brains. Consciousness is not limited to animals with brains -- neither is instincts limited to animals with brains. In order to have any definitive value in this thread, it would have to apply to all species.

The word consciousness has too damned many definitions as it can be applied to the brain, the mind, psychology and/or medical science, life, species, the nature of nature, the supernatural, "God" ideas, physics, the universe, and all of the current theories on consciousness and religions. Since it can be applied to all of the above, it is easy to see why there is no comprehensive theory of consciousness, as it is a vast and extremely complex subject. There are some good theories of aspects of consciousness, but they do not give a complete picture or understanding, hence the confusion of definitions.

There are two distinct definitions of consciousness that work fairly well: The first is the definition from science, medical and psychological, wherein the conscious mind is divided from the unconscious mind. This is what most people think of when they hear the word "consciousness", and this definition is about the "rational mind", where we do our planning and thinking and make our decisions. This is what psychology calls the Ego and what medical science expects us to be, conscious, when we are OK and not knocked out.

The second definition is from philosophy and simply means the ability to perceive or sense our surroundings, to be aware of our surroundings (conscious of them). It does not imply any thinking or planning, requires no brain, only requires that it recognize food, water, and other necessities in order to comply with it's survival instincts.

I have seen in many threads where people confuse these two definitions of consciousness. It is imperative that these ideas not be confused, or nothing will be accomplished. So if I say crabgrass is conscious, I do not mean that it is plotting to take over your yard, even if it may seem so. I am just saying that it responds to sunlight and water in a way that will cause it's survival.

On ‎7‎/‎23‎/‎2017 at 6:34 AM, Ten oz said:

Children born with disabilities like the various ranges of Asperger's syndrome may never how to manipulate others. Are they born without this instinct your describing? 

Ten oz;

It is entirely possible. What people often fail to consider is how instincts work. I am not talking about genetics or DNA, I am talking about what activates the instincts. Instincts activate through feeling/emotion. I believe ALL instincts activate this way, I am sure that all of the survival instincts activate through feeling or emotion.

Feelings and emotions activate through chemicals in our brains and bodies, so it is possible that we are encoded to have this instinct, but it does not activate because of a chemical problem. Remember that many mental problems are treated with chemicals. Hormones are the most successful treatment for schizophrenia at this time. Also consider that people are looking at everything chemical that they can from preservatives in food to insecticides in the environment to try to find the cause.

On ‎7‎/‎23‎/‎2017 at 6:59 AM, Ten oz said:

How do we define the difference between brain and mind? Per standard defines the mind is just a process of the brain. There are no degrees or minimum levels of a brains ability to process or inherent instincts used to define mind. 

Well, brain is easy; it's that wormy looking thing in your head.

Mind is much harder. Consider: Freud broke down the mind into three divisions. One of those divisions was the Id. The Id contains the instinctive "drives" that cause us to preserve the "self", also called survival instincts.

So if a daffodil has survival instincts, does it also have an Id? It certainly does not have a brain. Does a daffodil have a "self"? If  it does not, then what are those survival instincts trying to preserve?

Gee

[tar]

Gee,

Might be good, in using various definitions of consciousness to separate sentience out as a word similar to and associated with consciousness but meaning the things we are talking about as innate, that might well be common attributes we have with plants and animals, but where it is not required that other aspects of human consciousness, like introspection and language be carried through into the "minds" of the plant in question.

From wiki article on sentience.

Philosophy and sentience[edit]

In the philosophy of consciousness, sentience can refer to the ability of any entity to have subjective perceptual experiences, or as some philosophers refer to them, "qualia".^[2] This is distinct from other aspects of the mind and consciousness, such as creativity, intelligence, sapience, self-awareness, and intentionality (the ability to have thoughts about something). Sentience is a minimalistic way of defining consciousness, which otherwise commonly collectively describes sentience plus other characteristics of the mind.

Some philosophers, notably Colin McGinn, believe that sentience will never be understood, a position known as "new mysterianism". They do not deny that most other aspects of consciousness are subject to scientific investigation but they argue that subjective experiences will never be explained; i.e., sentience is the only aspect of consciousness that can't be explained. Other philosophers (such as Daniel Dennett, who also argues that non-human animals are not sentient) disagree, arguing that all aspects of consciousness will eventually be explained by science.^[3]

Regards, TAR

Edited July 26, 2017 by tar

[tar]

personally I think sentience can be understood through looking at the reasons for and activity of neurotransmitters...things that make us aware of the need to respond to a situation in a manner useful for maintaining the "self" whether that self be a single celled organism or  a complex organism with a brain stem

Edited July 26, 2017 by tar

[tar]

in other words, I think everything that occurs requires a reason or cause or mechanism, and neurotransmitters (or a chemical functionally similar) are that mechanism in the case of sentience

 

Edited July 26, 2017 by tar

[tar]

Gee,

 

In the case of your idea about consciousness, that it is based on feeling or emotion, I totally agree and this is consistent with my thought that one can functionally interchange the idea of (feeling) "good"  (or alive, or feeling right or victorious) with the flow of dopamine in the human brain.

Regards, TAR

 

Edited July 26, 2017 by tar

[Gees]

On ‎7‎/‎24‎/‎2017 at 10:02 AM, Ten oz said:

Thought is defined as an idea or opinion produced by thinking or occurring suddenly in the mind. With your story about the dog were you truly without thought; I do not believe so. A rush of adrenaline sped up your thought process and greatly narrowed your focus. Ultimately everything you did was still controlled by your mind and as such still falls under the purview of thought.

Ten oz;

First, I would like to thank you for starting this thread; it has proven very interesting and I am learning things. Second, I seem to be typing in the thread instead of the posting area and have no idea why or how to get back. (chuckle)

Regarding the above, I agree and disagree with you. Your statement that adrenaline speeds up the thought process is a good one -- most people don't really get that. But when it speeds it up, it turns thinking into emotion, and emotion works through the unconscious aspect of mind -- not the conscious. So you can't really say that it is "under the purview of thought" because there is no way we can think about it, or even be consciously aware of anything other than the feeling.

Quote

That is why even when panicked Police, Pilots, Soldiers, Doctors, Fire Fighters, and etc are still accountable to do the right thing. Because fear induced instinctive reaction is not a medically or legally accepted thing. A police officer can't shoot and kill people then write in his report instinct took over and he or she doesn't know what happened.

Don't you watch the news? Police all over the country are getting in trouble because they "think" they are in danger, that they "think" they see a nonexistent weapon, so they shoot to defend themselves. They are rarely convicted and often not even prosecuted. All they have to do is convince people that they genuinely "thought" they were in danger -- feared they were in danger.

Quote

Animals use the adaptations they have to survive. I believe using those adaptations require a learning curve and as such require thought. Wolves, tigers, killer whales, bears, and etc fail to catch prey countless times before they suceed. A learning curve is involved.

Agreed. A learning curve is most definitely involved. Is there some reason that you believe that instincts can't learn? Or maybe that they can not advance? If so, then how does evolution work?

Earlier in this thread, there were two posts regarding this issue, one by Mordred and one by String Junky. They were fascinating. I should actually go back and put "up" votes on each of them. One of the things I noted, as I gave a quick review of those ideas, was that "stress" was involved in the changes. Stress is emotion and emotion works through the unconscious -- we do not "think" emotion -- we react to it. Instincts work more through knowledge than through thought.

On ‎7‎/‎24‎/‎2017 at 1:36 PM, Tub said:

I don't agree with that definition of thought. I would say that thought is a response from memory and as i had no memory of being attacked by a dog, or any animal,thinking didn't come into it. I didn't "know " what to do and without an instinctive reaction i would have frozen in terror. It was an act of natural intelligence rather than an act of thought and maybe adrenaline is involved in that. 

Tub;

I think I have to agree with you as thought is generally related to thinking, or an idea that comes to us. The problem with emotion is that it works directly though the unconscious, so it never really comes to us until after the event is over and we try to work out what happened. We are not aware of the processes of the unconscious mind.

Quote

Police, pilots , soldiers etc are all highly-trained and well-drilled professionals and that training replaces the instinctive reaction, so that they do know what to do under stress and their training takes over in the situations that they have rehearsed over and over as part of that training.

This is true as far as it goes; training can rework instinctive reactions, but it is important to note that training does not remove instinctive reactions. In order to remove the instincts, you would have to remove the emotions and probably the chemicals that strongly relate to those emotions.

An example of retraining instincts might be: You are driving on an icy road and your car starts to slide out of your control. Out-of-control cars are dangerous, so you would instinctively try to stop it -- hit the brakes. Experience and training teaches us that hitting the brakes can be disastrous, so instead you learn to steer into the slide and regain control of the vehicle.

Training does not always work. Take the example of soldiers. Since wars first started, there has always been rape after war; this is well documented throughout history. Why is that? There have been a lot of theories, but I think that it is instinctive. Consider that when warriors fight, their adrenaline and testosterone levels rise significantly. When the fighting is over, these levels do not immediately return to normal, so the survivors grab the first person that they can find and shove themselves into that person.

Why do I think it works this way? Because instincts do not just preserve the individual life form, they also work to preserve the specie. So the same chemicals that are responsible for the killing are also responsible for a resurgence of life -- to preserve the specie. It is the nature of nature to balance and preserve itself, and I have found a few surprising ways that nature accomplishes this.

Back in the day, this phenomenon was accepted, and the solution was "camp followers"; families and women who would follow the armies and take care of the soldiers needs. Now we either hide it, overlook it, or prosecute boys who have been through hell and tell them they are criminals. This is not a very pragmatic solution and smells of reality vs idealism in my mind.

Quote

I can't believe, either, that medical science doesn't recognize  some fear-induced reaction. Surely such things as crying, screaming, fainting, shivering, trembling, panic-attacks and the " fight or flight " instinct etc have physiological and psychological roots in fear?  Fear is a natural, necessary response to danger common to all animals and animals can't think as we do, only react instinctively. They don't need to think. I don't know a great deal about legal matters, but surely a plea of murder in self-defence as a response to to a vicious, unprovoked knife-attack would be considered as as a " fear-induced instinctive reaction ". What jury would convict a defendant in such circumstances?

Medical science is very aware that people can actually die of shock, so they clearly know that emotional matters are very relevant.

I do know a little about legal matters, and self-defense is a valid legal defense. It is also a valid defense in most states as it regards the larger self, the spouse and children.

Quote

Fortunately we can use thought to our advantage. Animals are better-adapted to survive in the wild, as you say, but i cannot agree that animals use thought  as humans do: thought requires a complex and sophisticated language to operate ( try and think of anything without the word associated with it ) and animals don't need it. Of course they have intelligent brains and they do have to learn how to hunt and develop those hunting-skills but that is a function of their intelligence rather than a thinking-process. Intelligence and thought are not the same thing.

Here I don't agree. Other species have language skills, some of them quite advanced, and a lot of them that we don't yet understand. Then you must also consider body language, which is effective both inter and intra specie.

When a man has been pushed past all endurance and is so angry and frustrated that he is beyond rational thought, you might find him making a fist and waving his arms in the air. It is interesting to note that a bear will do the same thing, and so will a horse (with it's front legs), and so will a tarantula, and so will an ant, and so will my cat. This is almost a universal sign of anger and frustration that other species will acknowledge. This means that they understand communication.

18 hours ago, tar said:

Gee,

Might be good, in using various definitions of consciousness to separate sentience out as a word similar to and associated with consciousness but meaning the things we are talking about as innate, that might well be common attributes we have with plants and animals, but where it is not required that other aspects of human consciousness, like introspection and language be carried through into the "minds" of the plant in question.

From wiki article on sentience.

Philosophy and sentience[edit]

In the philosophy of consciousness, sentience can refer to the ability of any entity to have subjective perceptual experiences, or as some philosophers refer to them, "qualia".^[2] This is distinct from other aspects of the mind and consciousness, such as creativity, intelligence, sapience, self-awareness, and intentionality (the ability to have thoughts about something). Sentience is a minimalistic way of defining consciousness, which otherwise commonly collectively describes sentience plus other characteristics of the mind.

Tar;

Actually, sentience would probably be a better word. But many people think like Dennett and don't understand that all species are sentient, so I explain that it is simple awareness that I am discussing.

The problem is that if we take science's explanation of consciousness, the rational mind, and we take science's explanation of evolution, and we take science's explanation of life, we end up with a mess.

If we try to trace evolution backward, we soon find that consciousness, the rational mind, peters out rather quickly, so what makes all of the other species seem conscious? It must be an intelligent designer or "God" directing all of these things. At least a dozen theories of consciousness travel down this path.

OR

We decide that all other species are not really conscious, even though a great body of evidence disputes this, and we are just special, which leads us back to the "God" ideas. Some theories and many religions travel this path.

OR

We go the solipsism idea, so the only really conscious mind is mine, and everything else is a dream or illusion that I am having. It is a little narcissistic, but there are also theories that follow this path.

 

So I find it much easier, and less confusing, to just accept philosophy's explanation of a simple awareness and that conscious life is evolving physically and mentally. It started with a spark that we do not yet understand and continues to become more complex until it includes the rational mind.

Gee

Edited July 27, 2017 by Gees
I wasn't even half finished. It was a mistake.

[Ten oz]

2 hours ago, Gees said:

Ten oz;

1 - Regarding the above, I agree and disagree with you. Your statement that adrenaline speeds up the thought process is a good one -- most people don't really get that. But when it speeds it up, it turns thinking into emotion, and emotion works through the unconscious aspect of mind -- not the conscious. So you can't really say that it is "under the purview of thought" because there is no way we can think about it, or even be consciously aware of anything other than the feeling.

2 - Don't you watch the news? Police all over the country are getting in trouble because they "think" they are in danger, that they "think" they see a nonexistent weapon, so they shoot to defend themselves. They are rarely convicted and often not even prosecuted. All they have to do is convince people that they genuinely "thought" they were in danger -- feared they were in danger.

3 - Agreed. A learning curve is most definitely involved. Is there some reason that you believe that instincts can't learn? Or maybe that they can not advance? If so, then how does evolution work?

1 - Whether via an emotions, unconscious, subconscious, or etc it is all still a function of the mind. We do not have empirical definitions for an unconscious vs subconscious vs emotional process.  Ultimately it all occurs in one mind (brain) and being aware that it occurred is a conscious recognition. Additionally memory is not reliable. People misrecall events or can't remember events they were involved in all of the time. The story involving to dog and the fence, said to have happened over a decade ago, it is not a good example for this discussion as there is no way to know what happened. It counts on the accuracy of a childhood memory that was charged by a fight or flight response.

2 - You are referencing a U.S. behavior. Police in the U.S. kill more people a week that than U.K. police kill per decade. The prevalence of police shootings in the U.S. vs other Western Countries supports the notion that training and education impacts response in fight or flight situations.

3 - Referring back to #1 do we have a clear definition for instrinct and a remote operator for action? You are asking why can't instinct learn yet some in this thread are arguing that there is no such thing as instinct. I personnally am not sure if it exists. How many drives does a person have and do we all have the same ones: emotional drives, instinctive drives, unconscious drives, subconscious drives, conscious drives, and etc.I think it overly compartmentalizing the mind to imply instinct vs something else is learning x, y, or z. Considering the fact whole portions of the brain is devoted to things like eyesight and hearing; I thing we've isolating process too much.

[tar]

3 hours ago, Gees said:

 

Tar;

Actually, sentience would probably be a better word. But many people think like Dennett and don't understand that all species are sentient, so I explain that it is simple awareness that I am discussing.

The problem is that if we take science's explanation of consciousness, the rational mind, and we take science's explanation of evolution, and we take science's explanation of life, we end up with a mess.

If we try to trace evolution backward, we soon find that consciousness, the rational mind, peters out rather quickly, so what makes all of the other species seem conscious? It must be an intelligent designer or "God" directing all of these things. At least a dozen theories of consciousness travel down this path.

OR

We decide that all other species are not really conscious, even though a great body of evidence disputes this, and we are just special, which leads us back to the "God" ideas. Some theories and many religions travel this path.

OR

We go the solipsism idea, so the only really conscious mind is mine, and everything else is a dream or illusion that I am having. It is a little narcissistic, but there are also theories that follow this path.

 

So I find it much easier, and less confusing, to just accept philosophy's explanation of a simple awareness and that conscious life is evolving physically and mentally. It started with a spark that we do not yet understand and continues to become more complex until it includes the rational mind.

Gee

Gee,

Your last sentence seems to be the best way to look at this.  It is not a matter of showing we are better than reality or that we must be manufacturing reality, but it is, in my opinion required that we accept we are in and of reality.   And as you said, part of a continuum following the "spark", that put layer upon layer of workable "life" into the next generation of a particular species, and it all, by definition had to "fit" reality, as it evolved.  And the rational mind part of humans, the science and the math, and the technological advances and the Turing machines,  laws and religions, came only recently on this planet...in the last 10,000 years or so, and can rightly be thought of as consciousness, outside that that a Zebra is capable of.  And still, even with the advantages that the structure of the human brain brings humans, over Zebras, and the value of the institutions that humans have built using our natural brains and emotions,  we still are, more than 90 percent Zebra, probably. and the various pheromones and hormones and neurotransmitters and body parts and brain parts found in a human are also there in a Zebra.  The differences are slight, but important, and still we have the 90 percent of "instincts" that the Zebra has.  Yet we probably have our first 90 percent of consciousness in common with the Zebra, as well.

 

Regards, TAR

[tar]

But we absolutely should not think our conscious mind can master our Id.  The ego is a go between, a moderator between the Id and the Superego.   The master of ones own condition, able to put the body/brain/heart group in the best position for survival and happiness...but as the opioid epidemic shows us, we are very subject to the emotions, to misreading the pleasure, and life and victory we feel while high as actual victory.   An addict, high on his drug of choice can "feel" on top of the world, victorious, and alive, while lying penniless, friendless and loveless in his own filth in the gutter.

[DrP]

49 minutes ago, tar said:

 An addict, high on his drug of choice can "feel" on top of the world, victorious, and alive, while lying penniless, friendless and loveless in his own filth in the gutter.

 

You often talk as if your neighbourhood is full of these people. Out of all the people I have met, bought tea for and listened to and hugged and comforted that have been 'penniless and loveless in their own filth in the gutter', I can honestly say that I have NEVER met a single one that would suggest that they feel on top of the world, victorious and alive. Most people, however disgusting and below you you think they are, aren't all on the jolly laughing at you in your nice house with your nice family and good job for working so hard while they lounge around all day. They are torn, broken, disparaged and forgotten by society. I still find this attitude of hating the unfortunate totally despicable and without any human feeling or understanding on your part at all.  

 

[DrP]

On topic - I would like to say that of course animals are conscious...  it seems pretty obvious to me...  but it is not something I have read any studies on and I am not convinced what could be determined from any studies anyway. I don't think we know enough about the subject to objectively quantify consciousness and determine who or what has it in nature. Anyone who has connected with an animal or a pet will know that they all have their own little personalities and idiosyncrasies. I would find it very hard to believe that were not conscious.

[EdEarl]

1 hour ago, tar said:

But we absolutely should not think our conscious mind can master our Id.  The ego is a go between, a moderator between the Id and the Superego.   The master of ones own condition, able to put the body/brain/heart group in the best position for survival and happiness...but as the opioid epidemic shows us, we are very subject to the emotions, to misreading the pleasure, and life and victory we feel while high as actual victory.   An addict, high on his drug of choice can "feel" on top of the world, victorious, and alive, while lying penniless, friendless and loveless in his own filth in the gutter.

Your sketch of an addict is IMO not nuanced; even addicts are human and complex. They know what they are doing is dangerous to their health and offensive to their loved ones, and often feel inept and worthless, which combined with withdrawal symptoms drives them to more drugs. the opioid epidemic in the US is IMO an indicator that our culture is failing. And, our criminal justice response, which is inappropriate, drags us down. If we put everyone who does an illegal drug in prison, more than half of the US would be jailed.

On topic:

Consciousness is not binary, IMO. Every living thing is conscious of its environment, and limited in its own way by its body and mind.

[tar]

DrP,

The UK does not have the opioid epidemic prevalent in the U.S. due to the over prescription of Oxy.

You totally misread my feelings about addiction.  I in no way feel superior to my wife, because she still smokes and I do not.  The draw of the dopamine exists in us all.  That is my only point, I was not making any discriminatory statement.  If somebody has only one thing that makes them happy, they probably have a problem.

To me it is better to be home, making dinner for the family then to be lying in the street with a needle in your arm.

The first is workable, sustainable dopamine, the latter is expensive, destructive, illegal obtaining of the exact same dopamine.

The point is not that I live in the suburbs and others do not, the point is that certain life choices yield sustainable happiness and survival and others work against that goal.

But my only point, is that it is the same dopamine.  And whether a doctor prescribes it, or you get it winning  a game of solitaire on the computer, you are satisfying a survival need, a drive that evolution has built into us.  So concentrate on what gives you dopamine, that will also give me dopamine.  Why concentrate on how virtuous you are, compared to me?  Gives you dopamine, but portrays me as a heel, which I am not.

 

Regards. TAR

 

 

 

[Evgenia]

As a transhumanist i believe every person is resposible for the perfection of his body, intellect and moral qualities. I am currently test all the new methods of improving myself which are avalaible for me. For my body i do exercices.The good shape is a visible proof of doing well.For my brain i use different nootropics and investigate the results with all possible details. I can admit it is helpful and effective cause i can registrate i calculate faster, have better memory and am able to concentrate more easily. For the health of my subconscious i use some routine to operate my dreams and to reduce the stress by art therapy. And this one is the most difficult part of all three. The result isn't visible, i am not sure it helps and i can't ask my conscious about it too. I can never support people who take drugs but i see this problem as a lack of methods to operate our subconscious and some instincts. It's a big failure of the modern science we still do not have useful dophamine in pills which can have the same effect as drugs do but safe for health and brain. This dophamine should not switch a person off the society but give some enthusiasm to be an effective part of it.

[tar]

Ed Earl,

 

I agree people are nuanced and complex.  And nobody can tell somebody else what should or is going to make them happy, feel right, feel alive and OK. But in my readings and discussions, with professional in the field of addiction, through my association to both a town alliance and a county prevention organization, I know that dopamine plays a role, both in human happiness and motivation and purpose, and in addiction.  The common element goes directly to the OP.   No matter how you were brought up, educated, socialized and no matter who it is you wish to please in your actions and thoughts and plans, you are operating in order to obtain dopamine, and this fact is completely outside human planning.  That is it is built in, innate, instinctual stuff, that exists in Ed Earl, and Ten Oz and TAR and anybody and everybody else, and possibly to certain degrees in animals, and maybe even plants.

So through consciousness and thought and agreement and institutions we can decide which ways of surviving, of feeling right, of feeling victorious are preferable to others, but nobody can shake the need to survive, to want that feeling of dopamine existing in your synapses.  It is built in.

Regards, TAR

 

[dimreepr]

3 minutes ago, tar said:

Ed Earl,

 

I agree people are nuanced and complex.  And nobody can tell somebody else what should or is going to make them happy, feel right, feel alive and OK. But in my readings and discussions, with professional in the field of addiction, through my association to both a town alliance and a county prevention organization, I know that dopamine plays a role, both in human happiness and motivation and purpose, and in addiction.  The common element goes directly to the OP.   No matter how you were brought up, educated, socialized and no matter who it is you wish to please in your actions and thoughts and plans, you are operating in order to obtain dopamine, and this fact is completely outside human planning.  That is it is built in, innate, instinctual stuff, that exists in Ed Earl, and Ten Oz and TAR and anybody and everybody else, and possibly to certain degrees in animals, and maybe even plants.

So through consciousness and thought and agreement and institutions we can decide which ways of surviving, of feeling right, of feeling victorious are preferable to others, but nobody can shake the need to survive, to want that feeling of dopamine existing in your synapses.  It is built in.

Regards, TAR

3

You're going off topic with this argument, tar, so I'm not going to reply in this thread but please start a new topic, there's much to discuss. 

[tar]

Evginia,

I like your approach.  We have many ways to obtain dopamine, free and easy, or at least inexpensive, and readily available, legal, helpful to others or unobtrusive to others, ways.

So good approach.

However, I am mixed on providing dopamine, and blockers and reuptake inhibitors and such in a mechanical, chemical approach.  I don't think our consciousness is clever enough to out think our own subconscious, much less someone else's.  Consider the oxycodone problem came about because the medical profession wanted to lessen human pain and suffering.  We technically have the way to provide dopamine in a safe manner.  Except providing it too much makes it an unwise method.   Better not to fool with mother nature, and just feel bad when you are hurt. and feel good when you have healed.  In moderation of course.  Fentanyl was made for people in severe pain dying of cancer, to make their last moments of live bearable.  It might be highly inappropriate to apply this satisfaction mid stream, since you have not actually reached the other shore, there is no useful reason to feel that way ahead of time.

 

I learned that addicts in withdrawal feel like they are dying, feel like they are not surviving, feel that the only option, to stay alive is to get their drug of choice.  They will steal money from their mom's purse to buy another hit.   Not good to be able to buy happiness like this, to buy the feeling that you are alive.  Better to have good, clean fun. And MUCH better to actually engage in behaviors that help yourself and your family and your team and your company and your friends and your school and your church and your neighborhood and your county and your state and your country and your species survive.  Then the dopamine you get, for pleasing yourself and your loved ones is real and actually works toward survival, as its supposed to.

Regards, TAR

 

Edited July 27, 2017 by tar

[bimbo36]

@Ten Oz

 

This is probably because you don't know anything about simple computer logic or how a brain works

Edited July 28, 2017 by bimbo36

[Gees]

On ‎7‎/‎27‎/‎2017 at 3:56 AM, Ten oz said:

1 - Whether via an emotions, unconscious, subconscious, or etc it is all still a function of the mind. We do not have empirical definitions for an unconscious vs subconscious vs emotional process. 

Ten oz;

I apologize for taking so long to respond, but there was a lot to consider in your post. I have been off-line for more than a year, partly because of an attack from MS (Multiple Sclerosis) which makes me a little stupider, and partly because my computer crashed and burned taking all of my files, notes, and references with it. I will try to give you good information as much as I am able, and hopefully not have to delve into the vast and complex idiosyncrasies of ideas regarding consciousness -- as that could take us well off topic.

First I should state that unconscious and subconscious are generally the same thing. The people, who study psychic phenomenon usually use the word "subconscious", which offends the medical community which prefers the word "unconscious". Both terms reference thoughts and ideas that are below the conscious level. Psychology uses the term "preconscious" which references thoughts and ideas that are not conscious, but can be summoned. Like when you can't think of something that you know and it takes a while to "pull it up" into your consciousness. I suspect that this is what is meant by "subconscious", an idea or thought that is not known consciously, but can be summoned.

If you go to Wiki and look  up "Id, Ego and Superego", about half way down there is a picture of an iceberg depicting the breakdown of aspects of consciousness.

It would be more accurate to say that the "emotional process" is something that vs intentionality. This is how we divide the conscious from the unconscious. The ideas and thoughts in the conscious aspect of mind are directed by us; we do our thinking, planning, decision making, and even day dreaming in the conscious mind. We are aware of these thoughts and ideas, we are directing these thoughts and ideas -- this is intentionality.

The unconscious mind is not directed by us. We have no awareness or idea of what it is doing until it does it. Science tells us that it is directing our breathing and our heart pumping, but we have no awareness of that dictate, only awareness of the action. All of our bodily functions are directed automatically through the unconscious aspect of mind. Our survival instincts are also directed by the unconscious, so we are only aware of them when we see a reaction or behavior.

So the question becomes, if we are not directing the unconscious aspect of mind, then who or what is? As far as we can tell, two things direct the unconscious -- chemistry and emotion. The unconscious reacts to chemicals, hormones, pheromones, neurotransmitters, and other chemicals that I don't know about. It also reacts to stimuli from our environment in the form of emotion, whether it be fear of something dangerous, or a beautiful sunset, the stimuli will cause chemical reactions within us and influence our behavior. Since emotion can cause the production of chemicals, and chemicals can cause emotion, this is where the idea that the reactions of emotions guide the unconscious aspect of mind.

As far as I know the above is an accurate, if simplified, explanation.

Quote

Ultimately it all occurs in one mind (brain) and being aware that it occurred is a conscious recognition.

Actually, this is not true. To be perfectly honest, your complaint that we do not have "empirical definitions" for the divisions of mind seemed rather odd, as we do not have an "empirical definition" for the mind itself. The concept of "mind" is still very much a theory and studied by philosophy; we don't even understand the parameters of mind. Finding the divisions of the mind was a tremendous boon to our knowledge of mind.

Neurology has done some wonderful work and learned a great deal about thoughts and emotions as they relate to the brain, but this is not mind. It is not the wholeness of mind. A metaphor might make this easier to understand: Consider that each thing neurology has learned about thought and emotion in the brain is like a drop of water, but we do not yet know if that water is in a cup or a bucket or in the ocean. Although there is evidence that the conscious aspect of mind is connected to the brain and private within the body of each individual, there is also evidence that the unconscious aspect of mind is shared -- specifically, between the life forms of a specie. You might want to look up Jung's Oneness theory. (I believe there is a quick explanation in Wiki.)

I know that science tells us that the mind is just a product of the brain, but let us try to be honest here. If that were true, then all species with brains, would also have some kind of mind -- we are talking ants and spiders here. Until mainstream science is willing to admit that, I am going to look at this idea as more hogwash. The concept smacks of religion: people have souls (minds), other species do not.

Quote

Additionally memory is not reliable. People misrecall events or can't remember events they were involved in all of the time. The story involving to dog and the fence, said to have happened over a decade ago, it is not a good example for this discussion as there is no way to know what happened. It counts on the accuracy of a childhood memory that was charged by a fight or flight response.

True. It should be noted that this unreliability refers to emotional memory. We can remember that 2 + 2 = 4 all of our lives, but emotional memory changes. This is well documented, and it is preferred to have the memory stated and documented within days of the event. But it is also true that people can "blank out" in emotional situations, sort of like a temporary shock, so I do not find either of these arguments conclusive.

Quote

2 - You are referencing a U.S. behavior. Police in the U.S. kill more people a week that than U.K. police kill per decade. The prevalence of police shootings in the U.S. vs other Western Countries supports the notion that training and education impacts response in fight or flight situations.

True. I will agree that education and training can impact the response in fight or flight situations. But how does it impact the response? It impacts it by reducing the fear. This idea does not say anything about the relationship between emotion and instinct, only about the relationship between education and emotion.

I will address number 3 tomorrow. I am getting tired.

Gee

[Ten oz]

3 hours ago, Gees said:

Ten oz;

1 - I know that science tells us that the mind is just a product of the brain, but let us try to be honest here. If that were true, then all species with brains, would also have some kind of mind -- we are talking ants and spiders here. Until mainstream science is willing to admit that, I am going to look at this idea as more hogwash. The concept smacks of religion: people have souls (minds), other species do not.

2 - True. It should be noted that this unreliability refers to emotional memory. We can remember that 2 + 2 = 4 all of our lives, but emotional memory changes. This is well documented, and it is preferred to have the memory stated and documented within days of the event. But it is also true that people can "blank out" in emotional situations, sort of like a temporary shock, so I do not find either of these arguments conclusive.

3 - True. I will agree that education and training can impact the response in fight or flight situations. But how does it impact the response? It impacts it by reducing the fear. This idea does not say anything about the relationship between emotion and instinct, only about the relationship between education and emotion.

I will address number 3 tomorrow. I am getting tired.

Gee

Thank you for the well thought out response, +1.

 

I previously started a thread which specifically discusses the conscious & unconscious mind. Much of your response is addressed there at length so I am not going to delve into it here. When you have time and if your are interested we can discuss it there:

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/105499-consciousness-and-the-illusion-of-choice/

 

1 - This is exactly to the point of this thread. Ants do have a brain. They also have distinct behaviorsand are capable of problem solving. Why is it ridiculous to think they have a thoughts? Their ability to build colonies, collect food, work together to cross water and opennings, and etc came from somewhere. If it is purely instinct which is programed into them than where did it come from and how'd it get in them. To me the simplier solution is to accept that they think. Obviously they lack human levels of ability to process information but it isn't human level or nothing is it? Modern day computers are significantly more capable then computers where 40yrs ago. That doesn't mean that the basica fundamentals are different. It is still one and zeros. Ants do have brain cells.

 

2 - I have told this story before but don't recall in which thread. About 10yrs back my wife and  I were in a fender bender. A van came into our lane and hit us. Low speed, no one was hurt, very little damage. I remember, in my mind, everything about it crystal clear. A year or so back I mentioned the fender bender to my wife is casual conversation. I recalled the van that hit us as being black. My wife recalled it as being tan. My memory was, is, crystall clear on this. The van was black and I even recall a chrome pin stripe along the side. I see the van in my mind as black and it is picture perfect. My confidence that the van was black was 100%. My wife dug up her old phone, charged it, flipped through her pictures, and found pics of the van she had taken. The van was tan and didn't have a chrome stripe. I have no idea why I remember it as black yet even after my wife showing me pictures I still see a black van in my mind. Memory simply isn't reliable.

 

3 - The juxtaposition in the dog/fence story was that instinct took over and not a process of the mind resulting in no memory or concious control. If you concede education and training impacts fight or flight response than you're acknowledging that the thing being called instinct which jumped over the fence is consciously influenced. If instinct can be educated and trained than isn't really just a type of consciousness?

 

[tar]

Gee,

Yes, nice response.   It is important I think to consider instinct and consciousness together as not separate things, and to understand the chemical mechanics of the thing, but to understand a chemical. like you say as a drop of water.  You need the drop to make a cup of water or a lake, or a river, or an ocean, but the useful understanding is not that H20 or NaCl is present, but whether you are likely to run into a jellyfish if you were to go swimming.  That is, a holistic view of the thing is preferable to a formulae.  Mechanically you can or should be able to piece together the chemicals to describe the activity, but it seems in human terms, we should talk in metaphor and speak about emotion as if it is the same thing as the chemical and physical complex that creates it.

When we talk about humans, we are not talking about a simple mass of billions of neurons with various neurotransmitters floating about within the cells and synapses...well we are, but that is just the drop, not the context.  In amongst the folds are dreams and hopes and memories, and promises and expectations...emotions, that are as hard to describe in chemical and physical terms as a hurricane is to describe using just air and water and heat.

Ten Oz,

I think an ant is part of a colony.  The entity, the self, we are talking about, with ants, I think is the colony, not the ant.  Sort of like the ants are cells or organs within the entity, that are connected by chemical trails, not sinews and fibers, muscle and bone.

Perhaps people are a little like this as well.  We each are a separate ant, but attached to those we love into a greater being.  To this, and the thread title, you can not have this greater being, without the individuals that compose it, and you can not have either without instinct and consciousness, emotion and thought.

Regards, TAR