Nov 24, 2023 03:11 PM
What is it like to be a crab?
https://aeon.co/essays/are-we-ready-to-s...d-the-like
EXCERPTS: If the easy problem is this hard, what does that make the ‘hard problem’? David Chalmers described the hard problem of consciousness as understanding why material beings like us have experience at all. Solving the hard problem would give us a secure theory of consciousness that explains the nature of conscious experience.
Philosophers and scientists alike want to solve the hard problem, and to do so many are focusing on the easy problem. But all that attention is making the hard problem harder than it needs to be.
[...] Arguably, it was Christof Koch who helped turn consciousness studies into a real science with the publication of ‘Towards a Neurobiological Theory of Consciousness' (1990). This paper was coauthored with Francis Crick...
[...] By supposing that ‘higher mammals’ possess some essential features of consciousness, Crick and Koch took up Griffin’s call to study consciousness in animals. By taking this courageous approach, Crick and Koch put aside the still-common Cartesian view that language is needed for conscious experience...
[...] By rejecting the language-centrism of the day, Crick and Koch were giving scientists more puzzle pieces to work with. Specifically, they suggested that scientists focus on a capacity that humans share with ‘higher animals’ – vision. The reasons they give for this choice are pragmatic, but also explicitly anthropocentric and theory driven...
[...] The anthropocentrism in Crick and Koch’s original proposal, perhaps surprisingly, led to new conclusions about other conscious animals. This shift away from humans might be seen as an invitation for scientists to profitably study consciousness in new species such as octopuses.
However, in the past 10 years there has not been a big shift in the species studied, with most labs still focusing on vision in humans and monkeys, and still committed to the idea that consciousness correlates to the degree of complexity of the nervous system. Change can be hard, and expensive, especially when it centres around primate research. But by not shifting attention to other species and other aspects of consciousness, we’re making the hard problem so much harder.
[...] The opinion that worms aren’t conscious is reflected in a 2020 survey of philosophers’ opinions about major philosophical issues...
[...] If future AI systems are anything like current AI systems, they will not have neurons, but they will closely resemble us in terms of linguistic behaviour. Today, even as scientists approach the question of consciousness by examining neural correlates, we are wondering about nonbiological consciousness in AI systems. The question of AI consciousness sits uneasily next to the neurocentrism of current science.
It may be that the anthropocentrism drives opinions about what is conscious more than the neurocentrism. Neurocentrism is a consequence of the anthropocentric reasoning that drives consciousness research, with mammalian-like nervous systems being identified as the key feature. If Chat-GPT encourages researchers to move away from neurocentrism, we may end up back with the language-centrism that Griffin worked to undermine. That would not be productive science.
[...] A few researchers are studying consciousness in invertebrates, but this research tends to be focused on identifying markers that provide evidence that the animal is conscious...
[...] What might we learn if our anthropocentrism didn’t lead us to focus on the brain as the relevant part of physiology needed for consciousness, but instead led us to examine the behaviours that are associated with experiences? We could then study the nature of consciousness by looking at bees, octopuses and worms as research subjects. All these animals have a robust profile of behaviours that warrant the hypothesis that they are conscious...
[...] Studying consciousness in animal species who lack a mammalian nervous system doesn’t help the science avoid anthropocentrism. We are still starting with the case of humans, and considering the sorts of behaviours we engage in that are associated with conscious experience – perceiving the environment, sensing pain and pleasure.
And that’s OK. Anthropomorphism is unavoidable in the science of consciousness studies as much as it is unavoidable in our other sciences. This is because we are human, and we see things from our human perspective. As the philosopher Thomas Nagel pointed out, there is no view from nowhere. Instead, there are views from various perspectives.
As humans, we have some shared perspectives given typical human physiology and life history. But we also have perspectives that are incredibly different from one another. The perspective reflected in the survey of philosophers that infant humans are probably conscious, that fish may be, and that plants probably are not, is a cultural perspective that reflects the demographics of today’s professional philosophers...
The science can start with understanding consciousness as a property of humans, and still sit with surprising and perhaps disturbing cases of consciousness in unfamiliar places – in animals whose lives are largely hidden from us due to their size, morphology or habitats. Finding similarities between us and the smallest and simplest animals might make some uneasy, but such similarities also raise intriguing puzzles and give us more pieces we can use to solve the problem... (MORE - missing details)
https://aeon.co/essays/are-we-ready-to-s...d-the-like
EXCERPTS: If the easy problem is this hard, what does that make the ‘hard problem’? David Chalmers described the hard problem of consciousness as understanding why material beings like us have experience at all. Solving the hard problem would give us a secure theory of consciousness that explains the nature of conscious experience.
Philosophers and scientists alike want to solve the hard problem, and to do so many are focusing on the easy problem. But all that attention is making the hard problem harder than it needs to be.
[...] Arguably, it was Christof Koch who helped turn consciousness studies into a real science with the publication of ‘Towards a Neurobiological Theory of Consciousness' (1990). This paper was coauthored with Francis Crick...
[...] By supposing that ‘higher mammals’ possess some essential features of consciousness, Crick and Koch took up Griffin’s call to study consciousness in animals. By taking this courageous approach, Crick and Koch put aside the still-common Cartesian view that language is needed for conscious experience...
[...] By rejecting the language-centrism of the day, Crick and Koch were giving scientists more puzzle pieces to work with. Specifically, they suggested that scientists focus on a capacity that humans share with ‘higher animals’ – vision. The reasons they give for this choice are pragmatic, but also explicitly anthropocentric and theory driven...
[...] The anthropocentrism in Crick and Koch’s original proposal, perhaps surprisingly, led to new conclusions about other conscious animals. This shift away from humans might be seen as an invitation for scientists to profitably study consciousness in new species such as octopuses.
However, in the past 10 years there has not been a big shift in the species studied, with most labs still focusing on vision in humans and monkeys, and still committed to the idea that consciousness correlates to the degree of complexity of the nervous system. Change can be hard, and expensive, especially when it centres around primate research. But by not shifting attention to other species and other aspects of consciousness, we’re making the hard problem so much harder.
[...] The opinion that worms aren’t conscious is reflected in a 2020 survey of philosophers’ opinions about major philosophical issues...
[...] If future AI systems are anything like current AI systems, they will not have neurons, but they will closely resemble us in terms of linguistic behaviour. Today, even as scientists approach the question of consciousness by examining neural correlates, we are wondering about nonbiological consciousness in AI systems. The question of AI consciousness sits uneasily next to the neurocentrism of current science.
It may be that the anthropocentrism drives opinions about what is conscious more than the neurocentrism. Neurocentrism is a consequence of the anthropocentric reasoning that drives consciousness research, with mammalian-like nervous systems being identified as the key feature. If Chat-GPT encourages researchers to move away from neurocentrism, we may end up back with the language-centrism that Griffin worked to undermine. That would not be productive science.
[...] A few researchers are studying consciousness in invertebrates, but this research tends to be focused on identifying markers that provide evidence that the animal is conscious...
[...] What might we learn if our anthropocentrism didn’t lead us to focus on the brain as the relevant part of physiology needed for consciousness, but instead led us to examine the behaviours that are associated with experiences? We could then study the nature of consciousness by looking at bees, octopuses and worms as research subjects. All these animals have a robust profile of behaviours that warrant the hypothesis that they are conscious...
[...] Studying consciousness in animal species who lack a mammalian nervous system doesn’t help the science avoid anthropocentrism. We are still starting with the case of humans, and considering the sorts of behaviours we engage in that are associated with conscious experience – perceiving the environment, sensing pain and pleasure.
And that’s OK. Anthropomorphism is unavoidable in the science of consciousness studies as much as it is unavoidable in our other sciences. This is because we are human, and we see things from our human perspective. As the philosopher Thomas Nagel pointed out, there is no view from nowhere. Instead, there are views from various perspectives.
As humans, we have some shared perspectives given typical human physiology and life history. But we also have perspectives that are incredibly different from one another. The perspective reflected in the survey of philosophers that infant humans are probably conscious, that fish may be, and that plants probably are not, is a cultural perspective that reflects the demographics of today’s professional philosophers...
The science can start with understanding consciousness as a property of humans, and still sit with surprising and perhaps disturbing cases of consciousness in unfamiliar places – in animals whose lives are largely hidden from us due to their size, morphology or habitats. Finding similarities between us and the smallest and simplest animals might make some uneasy, but such similarities also raise intriguing puzzles and give us more pieces we can use to solve the problem... (MORE - missing details)