[ExI] consciousness

Will Steinberg steinberg.will at gmail.com
Tue May 6 01:08:48 UTC 2014


Humans are self-conscious.  A bunch of animals who pass the mirror test are
self-conscious.  Humans are the animals with the most advanced
technological culture.  Myriad animals have technological culture and very
simple animals have been shown to pass down memes which are not genetically
coded for at all.  I haven't seen data but I would also be very confident
in saying that lots of plants and "lower beings" use memes to communicate
that are mediated by hormones/antibodies and other non-gene chemical
messengers.

All animals are conscious.  And all plants, and bacteria, and rocks,
chemical reactions, atoms, etc.  The universe.  Integrated systems that
rely on all information within the system to proceed are the hallmark of
consciousness.

There may be self-consciousness modules in self-conscious animals, but it
is probably a completely psychic module that is different in all animals
(down to the individual), and indeed is even CREATED by the mirror test
just as we create consciousness in babies by using the logic of language to
point them towards the "necessity" of self.  C.f. feral children where they
call it the "critical period" and relate it to language which I figure is
probably a proxy for self-consciousness.

I'm pretty sure the last few of my posts on this list have been separated
by many months and always pertaining to the more general nature of
consciousness and the anthropocentric mistake of ascribing it to humans
only!  And I have fun every time! ;)

Hope this flips the switch,

-Will
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