How Does Evolution Produce Consciousness/Reason?

[Zarathustra]

Sure, you can lose your toe and still be sentient. But you can lose part of your brain and still be sentient. Parts are parts. It might be interesting to probe how far we can lose parts, but I think it's more interesting to investigate how it works as a whole.

[peter]

What are we to think of this idea being touted of intelligence actually being uncoupled from consciousness in the rapidly developing world of AI? I find it difficult to imagine how anything being described as intelligent could be so without at the same time being self-aware ........ but I realize this is due purely to the way I frame my understanding of 'intelligence' (rather than just seeing it in its broader sense of 'being able to solve problems'). And to keep it in the context of this thread rather than to spill over into another one, if this is done - if intelligence equal or superior to our own is developed that has no consciousness, no self-awareness at any level, what will this tell us about consciousness itself? Will it then truly just become the by-product of neuronal (processing) activity that some claim it to be?

[Fist and Faith]

Sure, you can lose your toe and still be sentient. But you can lose part of your brain and still be sentient. Parts are parts.

True. I just said the same thing when I mentioned TBI. But it does not invalidate my point: The brain is where sentience resides. There are parts of the brain that you cannot lose and retain sentience. That cannot be said about any other body part or sense. People have lost anything we can name, and retained sentience. Even multiple things.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is a movie about Jean-Dominique Bauby, who got "locked-in syndrome" after having a stroke. It would seem he retained all of his mental faculties.

Helen Keller lost her hearing and vision when she was nineteen months old.

It might be interesting to probe how far we can lose parts, but I think it's more interesting to investigate how it works as a whole.

I completely agree. How that all works together is beyond extraordinary. Like I said, the brain would be a useless lump of meat if not for the input from the various sources. Presumably a Chicken & the Egg situation? At what point did individual senses, maybe an eye-spot and a sensitivity to touch, get a percursor to the brain to coordinate them? Which became better at handling those senses > gained more senses (something that detects vibrations in the air, for example) > again became better at handling those senses > and the building went back and forth. All leading to now, when the brain is a sponge that has certain amazing potentials, but requires input to get things started. At what point did this precursor gain some sort of awareness of what it was doing?

[Zarathustra]

What are we to think of this idea being touted of intelligence actually being uncoupled from consciousness in the rapidly developing world of AI? I find it difficult to imagine how anything being described as intelligent could be so without at the same time being self-aware ........ but I realize this is due purely to the way I frame my understanding of 'intelligence' (rather than just seeing it in its broader sense of 'being able to solve problems'). And to keep it in the context of this thread rather than to spill over into another one, if this is done - if intelligence equal or superior to our own is developed that has no consciousness, no self-awareness at any level, what will this tell us about consciousness itself? Will it then truly just become the by-product of neuronal (processing) activity that some claim it to be?

AI isn't really intelligent, it's the artificial simulation of intelligence. I agree that you cannot uncouple consciousness from intelligence ... or at least understanding. I think that information processing can certainly happen without consciousness, but not the understanding that leads to true intelligence. Something that cannot comprehend what it is doing cannot be said to be intelligent, imo.

I don't think there are any implications here for conciousness. These machines would not exist without truly intelligent, conscious beings producing them. Consciousness hasn't been taken out of the loop at all.

[peter]

Maybe that is actually what Hawking is talking about when he refers to the dangers of AI; any autonomously operating AI that had not the tempering devices of consciousness and empathy to channel it's output would surely at some point begin to operate in manners/directions that were not in the best interest of large swathes of people.

(Sorry Z - getting my threads confused here; I'll post anyway an the basis of "always ask for forgiveness and not permission" )

[Skyweir]

Wow thank you Vraith and Fisty for that great information. That has helped me so much!

Wow some really fascinating stuff here .. the whole notion of chicken and egg .. what came first .. or how consciousness/sentience has evolved.

I think thats a interesting question Fist: "at what point did this precursor gain some sort of awareness of what it was doing?"

mmm... so when did the brain go from a simple regulatory function, i.e autonomic. This is easier to understand - the body can regulate itself unconsciously .. make heart beat, breathe, regulate blood flow etc.. responding to internal functioning of an organism ..

How did an organism go from this which is would you say brute survival on one level to the development of instinct?


And then from instinctive responses, responding to external stimuli, .. to perception and consciousness/ sentience?


oh and the skin thing, it is an organ and one that receives data through touch, physical feeling, responds to temperature stimuli .. and is the largest organ in the human body .. from a physical perspective seems like a data receptor receiving input processed by our CPUs. Just saying

Agreed an organism retains consciousness in the absence of the losses you identified - sight, hearing, legs, TOES, etc..


So the how - how do organisms evolve from the autonomic to the perceptive .. and does that infer that as intelligence evolves that humans will develop greater abilities .. possibly even unnatural abilities?

[Zarathustra]

Maybe that is actually what Hawking is talking about when he refers to the dangers of AI; any autonomously operating AI that had not the tempering devices of consciousness and empathy to channel it's output would surely at some point begin to operate in manners/directions that were not in the best interest of large swathes of people.

Why assume that its actions won't be in the best interest of large swathes of people? If it is designed to be helpful, but then malfunctions, maybe it will just fail to be helpful. That doesn't necessarily mean harmful.

I really don't think this is hard. I don't see why you couldn't easily compartmentalize the output of AI from its information processing. Whatever it is doing to arrive at a result (presumably with "intelligence") is separate from the implementation of that result. You could very easily restrain that implementation with simple rules ... just like Asimov's Laws.

I read an article recently that AI is becoming too complex for us to understand its decision making process, i.e. how it arrived at a particular result. But we could still put a very simple layer of programming into the system at that end point which analyzes the result of that mysterious process in black or white terms. "Will this harm humans, or not?"

Or, we could just let humans decide if the result is implemented or not. AI could be advisors, not deciders. We don't have to give them control in order to reap the benefits of their intelligence. We are the "tempering devices of consciousness and empathy to channel it's output."

[Fist and Faith]

I don't see how it's possible to have anything unnatural going on, Sky. Even if consciousness, or anything else, is not part of the properties of physics, it would only mean there's an aspect of nature that doesn't involve physics.

And if consciousness is not part of the properties of physics, the question would be: Can physics lead to non-physics? If it cannot, then Nagel must be right.

[Skyweir]

Test

[Zarathustra]

And if consciousness is not part of the properties of physics, the question would be: Can physics lead to non-physics? If it cannot, then Nagel must be right.

I'm not sure I understand your final conditional statement. Why must Nagel be right?

Non-teleological processes lead to purposeful, goal-oriented creatures. Is that physics leading to non-physics? I'm still puzzled by this outcome, how blind, purposeless nature leads to purpose if it all reduces to physics.

[Skyweir]

So an extra sensory perception, mind over anatomy - there are examples of the existence of what I considered unnatural. Not because its not "natural" but not common, or currently explainable.

But that is not to say that everything cannot be explained eventually through the laws of physics or other relevant laws that we might have knowledge of in the future.

The mind (consciously and unconsciously) acts to safeguard and preserve the organism. An imperative? Yeah I think so, 'survival instinct' but also to safeguard its wellbeing as well. There are many examples of the mind blocking memory of trauma to preserve the organisms wellbeing.

On one occassion I clinically died after an incident and was resuscitated - but the memory of the trauma itself is not available to me, its been blocked, by my unconscious mind, or it resides in my unconscious mind where I cannot access it.

On another occasion I haemorrhaged more than 40 units of blood (which apparently is a lot) - yes I was at the same time receiving blood but there is a belief that the body remembers trauma on an anatomical level, and if a similar even were to occur, my body would react by shutting everything down (as it did originally) to preserve higher function.

Because of this event, I am no longer allowed to donate blood, as there is a possibility that my body could go into shock - thinking that a similar event is occurring.

The mind is already capable of acting perhaps contrary to our conscious selves, so who's running the show?

Its silly to suggest that there is a war within organisms between the conscious mind and the unconscious mind - and Im not suggesting that - but the conscious mind can rationalise the donating of blood and that its not equal to the event that my body experienced. But it would seem the unconscious mind could usurp the rational conscious mind.. thats very strange to me.

But are we not the sum total of both our conscious and unconscious minds - (naturally) yet it surprises me that even though I would like that memory of a trauma - I can not will it into existence because my unconscious mind/still me ... fears its potential impact for harm.


Isn't this all kinds of weird?

The mind controls the body, and usurps the body some times too, i.e. shutting physical functions down to preserve itself. I know that when I lost all that blood, the body shut non-essential organs down - I lost my gall bladder not long after that as it was gangrenous - dead lump of flesh. I was 36yo and previous to that trauma fit and healthy.

Some claim "miracles" to explain the unexplained. I don't believe in a god, so divine intervention is not fully accepted by me. The medical profession will term some events and recoveries "medical miracles" but not to acknowledge the involvement of deities but rather an unexplained event.

I think people, (not my personal examples) invest mental energy in belief. And I think the mind can heal its host if the host believes it can.

So future capabilities that may evolve could include, could it not: self-healing, further physical attribute by adaptation or evolution (evolution of intelligence or consciousness). But who knows - the future is the domain of science fantasy after all.. but one day humans may look back and consider us poor mutations of what we eventually become.

[Fist and Faith]

And if consciousness is not part of the properties of physics, the question would be: Can physics lead to non-physics? If it cannot, then Nagel must be right.

I'm not sure I understand your final conditional statement. Why must Nagel be right?

Non-teleological processes lead to purposeful, goal-oriented creatures. Is that physics leading to non-physics? I'm still puzzled by this outcome, how blind, purposeless nature leads to purpose if it all reduces to physics.

The mind and the brain are inextricably bound. MAYBE the brain could manage without the mind. It might be able to keep the organism alive without the mind. But maybe not. And it certainly couldn't do the many voluntary things with the body that the mind initiates. Even more certainly, it would seem the mind does not exist without the brain.

If the mind is not part of the realm of physics [That is, it is not just aspects of physics that we do not yet understand. Rather, it is an aspect of reality that is separate from physics.], and physics cannot bring about something that is outside of itself, then how did this extraordinary symbiotic relationship come about? I would think either a) the non-physics made it come about [The mind directs the brain in some important ways, so we know the non-physics directs the physics at times.], or b) the physics and non-physics were intertwined in the first place, long before consciousness came about.

Wouldn't Nagel be right either way?

[Fist and Faith]

On one occassion I clinically died after an incident and was resuscitated - but the memory of the trauma itself is not available to me, its been blocked, by my unconscious mind, or it resides in my unconscious mind.

It could be the processes that form memories were not functioning at the time. That's obviously the case for the seconds/minutes you were actually dead. But things were not operating normally immediately before and after that span of time, and you weren't conscious for whatever parts of it. So there would be no memories to be blocked or residing in your unconscious mind.

On another occasion I haemorrhaged more than 40 units of blood (which apparently is a lot) - yes I was at the same time receiving blood but there is a belief that the body remembers, and would react by shutting everything down to preserve higher function.

That's a fascinating thing! Scary, too, eh?? Don't get more than a paper cut, or you might be in trouble!

[Skyweir]

Hahahahaha!! No.

It would take the loss of a lot more blood than a paper cut - but giving blood is apparently too risky.

But how can the body/unconscious mind take over .. even more of a quandary is how does it know - if memory collating processes were not operative during that period?

I think those memories are there.. but what do I know?

[Fist and Faith]

I'm just speculating, of course. But you were alive for that episode. Your body felt things the way it normally feels things. Your ears also heard normally, even if your conscious mind didn't. So the memories are there.

But is it more than speculation that your body might shut down if you donate blood? Is it likely? Is it something that happened to one person once, so they have a blanket policy?

[Skyweir]

Its what I have been told by medical professionals. Plus they have refused to take my blood :LOL: and I owe a lot of it.

My husband started donating his blood on my behalf and my oldest son did too.

I have the most common blood type there is O+ .. and they didn't have the amount I needed - as they were transfusing it - I continued to haemorrhage. They put a call on the radio for donors and that got me through. Most people don't survive what happened - I was fortunate to have been taken straight to ICU. So all was good

Its called an amniotic fluid embolism and it occurred when I went into labour with my 4th child. We lost the child and Ive had a run of such bad luck - but I survived this one. Well Ive survived every one .. LOL

Who knew amniotic fluid that you carry within you when pregnant is actually toxic if it gets into the blood stream. Not a brilliant "design" hahahahaha

[Fist and Faith]

Probably most things in our bodies are toxic in our blood. At least not good. Milk. Spinal fluid. Bile. Urine.

Anyway, sorry to hear about your troubles! Sheesh!

[Skyweir]

Anyway .. moving on ..

[Fist and Faith]

[Skyweir]

We need to reboot this topic cos the conscious unconscious mind is fascinating. So autonomic functions occur and we are not conscious of their regulation and occurrence. Of course I am conscious of breathing, but not blood flow, we are conscious of some problems, like indegestion.

Could be getting myself lost a bit here.

So evolution and consciousness. It would seem consciousness is vital for survival, so necessary evolutionary function. Humans wouldnt survive long without consciousness, conscious and deliberate thought seems pretty relevant to human survival and navigating environmental challenges.