Other than consciousness

[Alkaloids03]

Hi,

 

Animals and humans have consciousness (confirmed)... and nature might too. some say animals got consciousness from plants.

 

but if there's consciousness.... is there something else other than consciousness that would still have the same power or meaning?

 

such as if there was life on other planets, maybe they would not have 'consciousness', but something else?

 

any idea please?

[Phi for All]

You need to give us your definition of consciousness. It's clear that humans and other species are different in their levels of awareness regarding the existential properties of the world around us. Do you mean consciousness as in " being awake", "aware of your own mortality", "cognizant of your impact on the future"? There are many distinctions, so how do you define it in this context?

 

I would take our own experiences as supportive evidence that extraterrestrial species might naturally have varying levels of what you may call consciousness.

[curiousone]

I know consciousness for me comes from ones mind. As far as I know ,I for one cannot see that anyone on this planet has found a alien as of yet, I to would love to know what a alien thinks. consciousone

[Alkaloids03]

You need to give us your definition of consciousness. It's clear that humans and other species are different in their levels of awareness regarding the existential properties of the world around us. Do you mean consciousness as in " being awake", "aware of your own mortality", "cognizant of your impact on the future"? There are many distinctions, so how do you define it in this context?

 

I would take our own experiences as supportive evidence that extraterrestrial species might naturally have varying levels of what you may call consciousness.

 

What I mean is 'awareness' or consciousness is a feature.

To us it may all be about consciousness, but maybe in other universes or something their main life,etc does not focus on consciousness/awareness.

something else?

 

I'm just talking about 'consciousness/being aware' is part of nature and animals.

 

 

Maybe there is some other thing in the universe that would be of as equal importance/big deal to consciousness as its main feature..

 

any idea

Example,

there's the neurons in the brain ... /consciousness/unconsciousness....

 

but if you look at the root system of plants and the brain you can see that they look very similar.

[Phi for All]

Well then, you need to make a prediction about alien consciousness, and support it with some evidence we can validate. Otherwise it's just guessing, and we don't do that in the Other Sciences section. We need some mainstream knowledge to back up conjecture so we can trust it a little better.

[Ten oz]

@ Alkaloids03, "aware" is how you define conciousness. Aware of what? Our minds do many things we are not aware of. There was a many with retrograde amnesia named Henry Molaison. He could not form new memories. At least not ones he was aware of. He basically woke up each day thinking is was the same day unaware of time passing. Everyday having to be introduced for the first time to people that he met with everyday for years. Despite his inability to remember events or time he researchers found he was able to develop motor functions. His ability to improve his coordination for tasks remained intact despite the fact he could not recall and was not aware of every having performed these tasks. I recommend reading up on his case. I think to some extend it may partially answer your questions about different types of conciousness. Because if you are defining consciouse as aware Henry Molasion was developing skills without consciousness.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Molaison

[The Angry Intellect]

I know consciousness for me comes from ones mind. As far as I know ,I for one cannot see that anyone on this planet has found a alien as of yet, I to would love to know what a alien thinks. consciousone

 

One important thing that humans seem to ignore is that human "emotions" play a significant role in their understanding of "consciousness" and their decision making.

 

I'm just taking a wild guess.... That a more advanced "alien" intellect would not go about research the same way as a human does, they would not have the same agendas or "goals" as a human.

 

The "alien" may also have almost no emotions what so ever, which would not hinder their research or findings. The biggest issue with humans is that everything they ever do or say is based mostly on their own "views" of a particular subject, based on what they "feel" is right or should be done.

 

This is the biggest problem with humanity, their emotions get in the way, for instance with questions regarding "consciousness", it's just a term humans came up with, deciding that if a life form is aware of it's self, it knows its place in the world and can think of cause & effect and that doing certain things would affect other life forms in it's world, then it must be conscious.

 

Aliens with a far more advanced intellect may not care if something is conscious, since it has no relevance to their research or goals in life, they would probably have long since moved on from such philosophical and pointless questions about "consciousness".

 

Just taking a guess... And if someone tries to argue otherwise, they can think twice about what they are saying. Since no one has ever met an "alien" race and could not know for sure, it would be pointless to argue otherwise, since humans simply do not know. All humans can do is take a guess based off what they already know..

 

I am going to say... Aliens don't think anything of the matter, They simply don't care, it's a human thought. Aliens do not have human agendas or goals, they don't have emotions to guide them down some pointless path.

 

Don't ask why I "think" that, you don't want to know the answer.

[Alan Watson]

Hi

I think I understand your question and wish to propose a potential alien consciousness existing for a lifeform on a distant pair of worlds.

 

Imagine two worlds of relatively high density orbiting each other at relatively close distance and rapid rate so that the alien thinking is dominated by two very strong competing gravitional influences.

 

Compare that with the relatively benign gravitational conditions here on earth.

 

These distant alien minds would be highly exercised by the planetary motions and so would their consciousness. They may not be as outward looking as humans, their thoughts dominated by 'daily' perturbations. They would also probably be far more conscious of the influence their planetary pair has on their health and well-being than we are. They may be more 'tied' to their home.

 

It takes benign conditions at home for a being to begin to look outward.

 

But benign conditions make a comfortable home.