Mystery of Self-Consciousness?
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Actually after reading that article I'll have to go back and check my notes, because maybe it wasn't that the finding was disputed, but rather that it was very very rare for elephants to pass the test. I think with great apes the best of them only pass 50% of the time. And with elephants it was way less.
I'm kind of remembering my lecturer showing us a video of the elephants in the experiment too, and it was really not convincing that they were trying to remove the mark.
I'm kind of remembering my lecturer showing us a video of the elephants in the experiment too, and it was really not convincing that they were trying to remove the mark.
Could it not just be "Ooh - you have a spot... I wonder if I do?" rather than "Ooh - I have a spot!"
The movement would be the same, but the reasoning behind it would be different.
And then there's the whole question of whether elephants are just apathetic to the whole issue. "Ooh - I have a spot. Meh. So what."
As for great apes... apparently they have the same self-awareness but then lose it with age.
It's argued that with self-awareness comes awareness of your own mortality - and that rather than go mad toward the end of their life as their death gets closer, that the apes have adapted by losing the self-awareness - and thus no longer have death awareness.
Interesting idea.
The movement would be the same, but the reasoning behind it would be different.
And then there's the whole question of whether elephants are just apathetic to the whole issue. "Ooh - I have a spot. Meh. So what."
As for great apes... apparently they have the same self-awareness but then lose it with age.
It's argued that with self-awareness comes awareness of your own mortality - and that rather than go mad toward the end of their life as their death gets closer, that the apes have adapted by losing the self-awareness - and thus no longer have death awareness.
Interesting idea.
Some stuff I found from my old lectures:
Unconscious processes occur prior to
awareness
– Liben found that brain activation occurs
about .5 seconds prior to reported
conscious experience or intention
• E.g. direct stimulation of cortex leads to
reported sensation 0.5 sec later
– Problem of free will (activation before
conscious choice!)
Different meanings (or levels) of
consciousness
To feel (i.e. sentience – to experience
qualia)
To think (i.e. to simulate sensations
and perceptions)
To be self-aware (i.e. to reflect on
one’s own thinking or feeling)
How the body creates minds
Many proposals
– Dennett: sentient experiences are cognitive illusions.
• Once we have isolated all the computational and neurological
correlates of sentience, there is nothing left to explain
– Searle: first-person experience is real and needs to
be explained.
• Consciousness is an emergent property of the brain.
• Artificial intelligence is unrealistic
– Penrose: quantum physics holds the key
Also
90% of 24 month olds pass the mark test.
Unconscious processes occur prior to
awareness
– Liben found that brain activation occurs
about .5 seconds prior to reported
conscious experience or intention
• E.g. direct stimulation of cortex leads to
reported sensation 0.5 sec later
– Problem of free will (activation before
conscious choice!)
Different meanings (or levels) of
consciousness
To feel (i.e. sentience – to experience
qualia)
To think (i.e. to simulate sensations
and perceptions)
To be self-aware (i.e. to reflect on
one’s own thinking or feeling)
How the body creates minds
Many proposals
– Dennett: sentient experiences are cognitive illusions.
• Once we have isolated all the computational and neurological
correlates of sentience, there is nothing left to explain
– Searle: first-person experience is real and needs to
be explained.
• Consciousness is an emergent property of the brain.
• Artificial intelligence is unrealistic
– Penrose: quantum physics holds the key
Also
90% of 24 month olds pass the mark test.
the mirror test is intrinsically flawed as it assumes a similar degree and nature of sensory awareness for all parties involved. a dog has vastly superior olfactory senses--at least 80 times that of the human--but markedly impaired vision, especially with respect to stillness.
wrong. several species of mammal, and a few birds, have passed the mirror test. and correlated tests for the other senses have been devised and tested with other species to establish self-awareness.
you need to update your research.
behaviorists are incapable of entertaining such ideas. well, behaviorists are incapable of any sort of reflection whatsoever--ironic that certain behaviorists are drawn to wittgenstein.
of course, this brings in matters of temporality and has inspired innumerable lab tests which illuminate the comical limitations with respect to critical thinking on behalf of behaviorists--they just can't seem to "get" the observer phenomenon.
My first assertion was that they were aware of the world around them, which they are, often moments after birth this is obvious. As far as when they are self-aware, this is a) not a simple thing to test and b) not exactly clear what it means. Self-awareness between adults in different cultures and between individual adults within the same culture varies wildly. It is clearly not a digital phenomenon - IOW it is not either yes or no but rather covers various degrees and areas.
I would tend to think that babies are solipsists, which is a form of self-awareness. Whether they are aware there are others is another can of worms.
IOW instead of I exist, it is more, not everything is me.
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hmm. this seems a rather archaic perspective, and i'm inclined to agree with heliocentric's assessment that one dualism has simply been swapped for another. certainly, that's an oversimplification but it's captured the gist of it. (see post on maturena and varela in "my problems with empiricism thread")
obviously this can't be tested (although i suppose one day it might be), but i'm not so sure that such would be the case. certainly the brain is inextricable bound with the rest of "you" by virtue of the nervous system, but isn't everything else? sure, you can remove a hand, a leg, replace an organ, and still feel that you are "you"; though many do in fact feel a difference. do you think this difference is exclusively by virtue of the replacement (well, if their is one) not being an exact duplicate of the original? this is indeed a factor, but is it the only one? the argument that the brain is the only organ, which if replaced would, uh, redifine you isn't all that compelling, because we don't know this with absolute certainty.
partial lobotomies--of essential and active regions of the brain--have been performed, and the individual still (usually) feels mostly "himself." and then there have been lobotomies performed, along with radical e.c.t. "treatment," for which the individual no longer feels "himself"--though traces and reminders may surface.
this is speculation based on intuition, and it hasn't really been "established," but don't you often feel that you are thinking with your hands, or your gut, or your ??? one might argue that these are "figures of speech" and their meaning is limited and contingent, but again, individuals have undergone replacement surgeries and claimed that they no longer feel wholly themselves.
do you mean differentiate "you" from the relationship between the inputs/outputs (body and experiential "device" and the brain rather? i suspect not, but i also think that thinking in this fashion--of inputs/outputs--is flawed.
moreover, i think that "you" are also inextricably bound to your environment and context. obviously, a person is constantly put into new contexts, and some radically different, perhaps even apparently "immediately," contexts all the time, but the contexts are still enormously significant not only for "defining" one's world but for defining oneself. as an example of the seemingly "immediate" change of contexts, i'm epileptic and my consciousness has lapsed from anywhere from seconds to days--and i still perform in my world, IOW i am unconscious, but i am still carrying out my routines, and sometimes my "routines" are hardly routine--i've "awakened" to find myself in a completely different place, sometimes hundreds of miles from the place which i last recollect, and this is alarming and disconcerting in more ways than the obvious ones: i am sometimes (often, really) so discombobulated that i do not recognize "myself" as "myself," and it takes some time before i am able to recognize myself.
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It's not really dualism - rather just focussing on where the important stuff is.
How much of a person's body can you remove and that person still have self-awareness / self-consciousness? I am not considering merely changes in personality but in whether you affect their sense of "I".
Personality might change with the environment - including loss of limbs, brain damage, and would, imo, be due to changes in the inputs/outputs and the relationships thereof. You expect inputs from your leg, your personality includes it, and when those inputs aren't there you will undoubtedly have an effect - some more pronounced than others.
Likewise if you actually damage the brain then even with the same inputs as before you might get different outputs - again a change in the relationship - and so a different personality.
Are we still talking about the sense of "I", or are we now talking about personality?
With personality then the input/output view can explain it rather easily.
Your body is the input and output mechanism - the brain the processor.
Your personality is the relationship of the input to output.
If you adjust / remove / alter the input compared to what is expected from memory then you risk altering the output, even if the processor is the same.
If you damage the processor then even with the same inputs as before you can risk different outputs.
In each case - changing either the inputs or processor from the norm (i.e. what is expected from memory) risks a change in the input/output relationship.
I see no issue with these examples. Changes in the processor are not guaranteed to affect the personality - and I'm sure there are some areas of the brain that have little to no impact in determining personality.
Memory is an oft underrated part in all this, i'm sure.
Presumably you wake up with the sense of "I" - but it is in establishing the "I"'s place in the environment that you struggle with - which requires memory. As does determining who "you" are (i.e. personality).
So I can not really see that what you are commenting is contrary to what I have said. But that is undoubtedly me missing the point.