Are plants conscious?

Write4U said:
Yes, it has about a high probability of emerging from the primordial soup and would fall under category of "rare events"

We just dont know the exact conditions and sequences, which would create such a "specific" event or separate events. A bio-chemical organic assemblyunder a specific sum of extant conditions.


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I guess even a bookmaker could give the odds on a race involving pigs flying backwards. .... especially if there is money involved.
 
Musika said:
If ideas about how to do things were not different from actually doing them, the world would certainly be a magical place
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I wasn't pointing to ideas, but examples.
Bacteria don't seem to be employing magic at any point of their synthesis.
 
Musika said:
I guess even a bookmaker could give the odds on a race involving pigs flying backwards. .... especially if there is money involved.
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Incomprehensible.

How about laying odds that someday a bird wil crash into your window?
 
iceaura said:
I wasn't pointing to ideas, but examples.
Bacteria don't seem to be employing magic at any point of their synthesis.
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Nor do rednecks in mobile homes.
Rednecks employ the same general method as bacteria (or hedgehogs or the royal family).

If you want to talk of expanding or changing the definition of that genefal method, you have a bit of demonstrating to do (at least in a world where ideas and practical demonstrations are distinct )
 
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Write4U said:
And that makes your statement........understandable?
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If you want to talk about probability in fields that can't be demonstrated (especially in fields whose value lie in demonstration, like racing or science), what's the difficulty in determining the odds in a race of pigs flying backwards?

Actually its even more complex, since you are talking of fields in which those engaged cannot even agree on core ingredients to define the problem. At least with the bookmakers there is a consensus on pigs with wings flying bum first.
 
Write4U said:
How about laying odds that someday a bird wil crash into your window?
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Easier if I am on earth. More difficult if I am on mars 200 million years ago (before birds or windows ... if current estimations on the subject are correct).

In otherwords, when people start talking about the odds of events that are, for all intents and purposes, equal to the odds of the impossible, it becomes interesting to look at why they are choosing to focus on some impossible things at the expense of others. IOW, rather than becoming an exercise in determining what the world can offer, it becomes an exercise to analyze why certain people want the world to offer certain things.
 
Musika said:
Easier if I am on earth. More difficult if I am on mars 200 million years ago (before birds or windows ... if current estimations on the subject are correct).

In other words, when people start talking about the odds of events that are, for all intents and purposes, equal to the odds of the impossible, it becomes interesting to look at why they are choosing to focus on some impossible things at the expense of others. IOW, rather than becoming an exercise in determining what the world can offer, it becomes an exercise to analyze why certain people want the world to offer certain things.
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You're beginning to sound like Jacques Monot.
"The universe is not pregnant with life nor the biosphere with man...Man at last knows that he is alone in the unfeeling immensity of the universe, out of which he emerged only by chance."
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Who is talking about odds of impossibilities? I am talking about odds of possibilities and that does not mean possible or impossible. IT MEANS A RANGE OF PROBABILITIES.

For instance, it is quite easy to make or recognize bio-chemicals and we know that if placed in the proper sequence under the right circumstances, the probability for life increases. All living organisms are proof of this.

As Hazen explained (have you watched the presentation yet?), While those sequences and circumstances may be rare, given the combinatory richness of earth's natural resources and chemical reactions, it requires only time for the right circumstances to occur. In the case of earth, it is self-evident that such circumstances DID occur. It is estimated that this occurred some 4 billion years ago, after which evolution and natural selection did the rest.
 
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Musika said:
If you want to talk of expanding or changing the definition of that genefal method,
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I don't see the need.
You seemed to think that synthesizing chemicals and synthesizing life were qualitatively different activities. I observed that they are not, and provided a clear example (a mindless, purposeless, automatically operating complex of chemical synthesis that routinely produces a new and formerly nonexistent living being).
 
iceaura said:
I don't see the need.
You seemed to think that synthesizing chemicals and synthesizing life were qualitatively different activities. I observed that they are not, and provided a clear example (a mindless, purposeless, automatically operating complex of chemical synthesis that routinely produces a new and formerly nonexistent living being).
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... and that's where we beg to differ .... but even to run with things under your terms, at the very least, you are careful not to use "lifeless".
 
Write4U said:
You're beginning to sound like Jacques Monot.

Who is talking about odds of impossibilities? I am talking about odds of possibilities and that does not mean possible or impossible. IT MEANS A RANGE OF PROBABILITIES.
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If you increase the range of probabilities, you can end up talking about things in the same category as the impossible (assuming you have problems with discussions of a bookmakers assessment of a backward flying pig race). Even technical issues around physics can be surmounted if you add in infinite time and sufficient levels of obscurity.

For instance, it is quite easy to make or recognize bio-chemicals and we know that if placed in the proper sequence under the right circumstances, the probability for life increases. All living organisms are proof of this.
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If you provide the right balance of environmental factors, living entities, if introduced, can flourish there. That is what we know. Anything else you might want to add is inference.

As Hazen explained (have you watched the presentation yet?),
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I'm beginning to wonder if you wstched it. Did you skip the bit at the beginning when he introduced several axioms that his presentation would be encapsulated by?
He even called them axioms and had them on display in point form.
Sheesh.

While those sequences and circumstances may be rare, given the combinatory richness of earth's natural resources and chemical reactions, it requires only time for the right circumstances to occur.
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Yes, I understand the general theory. Do you understand the axiom (that he introduced) that drives this theory?

In the case of earth, it is self-evident that such circumstances DID occur.
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Nonsense.
There is no consensus (and here I am talking about professional people who accept the axiom) on what the conditions are and how they occurred, much less any practical demonstration for self evidence.
You are confusing inference with self evident.

It is estimated that this occurred some 4 billion years ago, after which evolution and natural selection did the rest.
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Yes, according to one contemporary, popular theory.
If you can post pictures from the abiogenesis wiki page, I'm sure you must have read it on occassion.
 
RainbowSingularity said:
does the ability to create and use language define consciousness ?
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Inasmuch as language and comprehension are tools for the self negotiating an environment, they can help define it (for instance pocket calculators utilize a language, of sorts, but kind of fail in the self and environment departments)
 
Musika said:
Inasmuch as language and comprehension are tools for the self negotiating an environment, they can help define it (for instance pocket calculators utilize a language, of sorts, but kind of fail in the self and environment departments)
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pocket calculators do not create language. they can only present an existing language to a pre arranged value.
and... even if they are programmed to process values to present pre-arranged values by themself without a person using them directly as a tool, they can still only perform as they have been directed to at a pre-arranged concept.
Re is there such a thing as free-will debate creeping in.
 
RainbowSingularity said:
pocket calculators do not create language. they can only present an existing language to a pre arranged value.
and... even if they are programmed to process values to present pre-arranged values by themself without a person using them directly as a tool, they can still only perform as they have been directed to at a pre-arranged concept.
Re is there such a thing as free-will debate creeping in.
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Its probably just residual from Billvon's discussions about his autonomous car from a few pages back. I started with the pocket calculators because they are simple and don't have any machine learning functions.

One could introduce machine learning to include arriving at functions outside of pre-arranged concepts ....(such as creating their own language, for example)..... but one could argue that despite such learning, they are not conscious (free will yada yada).

I wasn't sure if you were taking the deep or the shallow definition of "language" (so I was starting at the shallow end).
 
Musika said:
Its probably just residual from Billvon's discussions about his autonomous car from a few pages back. I started with the pocket calculators because they are simple and don't have any machine learning functions.

One could introduce machine learning to include arriving at functions outside of pre-arranged concepts ....(such as creating their own language, for example)..... but one could argue that despite such learning, they are not conscious (free will yada yada).

I wasn't sure if you were taking the deep or the shallow definition of "language" (so I was starting at the shallow end).
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standing squarly in the shallow while quietly gesturing at the deep.
i thought the functional philisophical construct that might enter the discussion might enjoy a shallow start.
err-go can a human that has not been taught something, learn it without being taught by another human ?
is this translatable to a language format by secondary means of communication that would render such learning to be the functional content of a created language ?
can any known living thing duplicate this ?
is this (im hypothasising) form of process able to be outlined as a form of consciousness ?
could the human be unconscious and do this ?(probably not)
thus can we atribute the process solely to humans and or another species ?(i think dolphins & chimpanzees[orca and a few other animals] teach others how to use tools and how to play[im not disecting the play soo much into variant forms of basic behaviour modelling])
 
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Musika said:
Its probably just residual from Billvon's discussions about his autonomous car from a few pages back. I started with the pocket calculators because they are simple and don't have any machine learning functions.

One could introduce machine learning to include arriving at functions outside of pre-arranged concepts ....(such as creating their own language, for example)..... but one could argue that despite such learning, they are not conscious (free will yada yada).

I wasn't sure if you were taking the deep or the shallow definition of "language" (so I was starting at the shallow end).
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OK, you yada yada'ed over the important part. How do we have this concept of free will and other things don't?
 
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