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+--- Thread: Article Studies on animal minds suggest consciousness is not computation (/thread-20097.html)
Studies on animal minds suggest consciousness is not computation - C C - Apr 1, 2026
https://iai.tv/articles/studies-on-animal-minds-suggest-consciousness-is-not-computation-auid-3535?_auid=2020
INTRO: We’re often seduced by the idea that the mind is a computer, and that consciousness is just a matter of running the right code. But philosopher Peter Godfrey-Smith, renowned for his work on octopus minds, disagrees. Fresh research into animal minds—from bees to jellyfish—suggests that consciousness arises not from software but from electrical oscillations moving rhythmically across cell membranes in living brains. And those oscillations, Godfrey-Smith argues, are unlikely to be reproducible in artificial hardware. Perhaps, then, only living brains can truly be conscious... (MORE - details)
RE: Studies on animal minds suggest consciousness is not computation - Magical Realist - Apr 1, 2026
Interesting thesis. Unfortunately it is still plagued with the sizeable explanatory gap between electrical oscillations across brain tissue and what it feels like to be electrical oscillations across brain tissue. How did electrons suddenly acquire this magical property of a unified subjective experience, and even more amazing, to generate a knowing awareness of everything going on outside of the brain? What, iow, awakens electrified matter from its otherwise normal slumber to suddenly become a feeling and perceiving and thinking person inside a physical body inside a physical universe?
RE: Studies on animal minds suggest consciousness is not computation - confused2 - Apr 2, 2026
Let's imagine you have a staircase with ten steps. The folks on the steps tend to wander about so the people who started on the bottom step tend to wander up and vice versa. To keep them under control you have a supervisor that does things every five minutes. The supervisor says "If you're below step three go and stand on the bottom step" .. then "If you're above step number 7 go and stand on the top step. " .. in this way folks are prevented from randomly wandering all the way from the top step to the bottom step (and vice versa).
Philosopher sees a thing and thinks 'Consciousness!' .. I see a thing and think housekeeping.
RE: Studies on animal minds suggest consciousness is not computation - Ostronomos - Apr 4, 2026
(Apr 1, 2026 11:30 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: Interesting thesis. Unfortunately it is still plagued with the sizeable explanatory gap between electrical oscillations across brain tissue and what it feels like to be electrical oscillations across brain tissue. How did electrons suddenly acquire this magical property of a unified subjective experience, and even more amazing, to generate a knowing awareness of everything going on outside of the brain? What, iow, awakens electrified matter from its otherwise normal slumber to suddenly become a feeling and perceiving and thinking person inside a physical body inside a physical universe?
CC once again ignores the explanatory gap and assumes that consciousness is material in nature. Thereby losing sight of reason and logic.
I happen to know for a fact that consciousness continues after the death of the body. Science is far from explaining conciousness. It will take a genius of ultimate caliber to mathematicize consciousness. One who has access to the metaphysical realm. All of this I know to be a fact.
RE: Studies on animal minds suggest consciousness is not computation - Zinjanthropos - Apr 4, 2026
(Apr 1, 2026 10:28 PM)C C Wrote: https://iai.tv/articles/studies-on-animal-minds-suggest-consciousness-is-not-computation-auid-3535?_auid=2020
INTRO: We’re often seduced by the idea that the mind is a computer, and that consciousness is just a matter of running the right code. But philosopher Peter Godfrey-Smith, renowned for his work on octopus minds, disagrees. Fresh research into animal minds—from bees to jellyfish—suggests that consciousness arises not from software but from electrical oscillations moving rhythmically across cell membranes in living brains. And those oscillations, Godfrey-Smith argues, are unlikely to be reproducible in artificial hardware. Perhaps, then, only living brains can truly be conscious... (MORE - details)
There are plants that actively kill other plants for space and resources. They do this in a number of ways from chemical to physical attacks. They don’t kill their own. No brains here, yet they seem to mimic one.
I think when it comes to AI, even if it appears to be conscious, it’s just on par with the plants. Unless of course you believe plants are conscious.
RE: Studies on animal minds suggest consciousness is not computation - confused2 - Apr 5, 2026
Even the best computers have orders of magnitude less cpu power than a human brain. We're inherently asking a less powerful computer to simulate a more powerful one so the result is (inherently) a simulation. No matter how good the simulation gets there'll always be the gotcha - it's a simulation.