Nick, I guess my criterion for consciousness would be something like "has an inner subjective life". It's not something that I can measure and it has the problem of circularity --if you ask me what I mean by an "inner subjective life" I will soon be making a circular definition. I am willing to concede that I don't have a suitable definition for a scientific study of consciousness. Still the question of whether a thermostat has consciousness seems meaningful to me. (I don't have an answer --other than "I doubt it". ) Perhaps, I am making some kind of error. If so, could you explain what my mistake is.
--John ________________________________________ From: Friam [[email protected]] on behalf of Nick Thompson [[email protected]] Sent: Friday, August 15, 2014 10:20 AM To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' Subject: Re: [FRIAM] BBC News - Ant colony 'personalities' shaped by environment So, I looked up David Chalmers … Yeh, I know: I shouldn’t have HAD to look up David Chalmers. Here from Philosophy Index A potential problem with this speculation, which Chalmers acknowledges, is that it may imply the consciousness of things that we would not normally consider to have consciousness at all. For instance, Chalmers wonders if this means that a thermostat may have some experiential properties, even if they are especially dull. He does not commit to the notion that they do, but the possibility remains in the more speculative area of his thought. This is one of those “TED” insights, to which the only rational response is, “Duh!” Why exactly is that a problem? What exactly would it have meant to say that “humans are conscious” if it were not possible to discover that (1) things other than humans are conscious and/or that humans are not, in fact, conscious. Either we have a criterion for consciousness or we don’t; once we have a criterion, we either apply it rigorously or … we are dishonest. It’s really quite simple, actually. N Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ From: Friam [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Eric Smith Sent: Friday, August 15, 2014 9:45 AM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] BBC News - Ant colony 'personalities' shaped by environment Quick, somebody call David Chalmers! On Aug 15, 2014, at 9:25 AM, Eric Charles wrote: Weird that they want to call it "personality" instead of more simply saying that ant colonies seem to adapt to their local environment. Of course, the flashiness of the claim is the only reason it is being covered on the BBC, so I guess it isn't that weird after all. ----------- Eric P. Charles, Ph.D. Lab Manager Center for Teaching, Research, and Learning American University, Hurst Hall Room 203A 4400 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W. Washington, DC 20016 phone: (202) 885-3867 fax: (202) 885-1190 email: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> On Fri, Aug 8, 2014 at 3:57 PM, Gillian Densmore <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: A few swarm inteligence from the 90s described that. Scott Kelly's "Fast Cheap and Out of Controll" touched on that. In his case they knew ants (and often uncles) could pass around experience- and displayed something simillar to hummans sense of experience they didn't have a explination. Then again his forray into science was from the 90s. On Fri, Aug 8, 2014 at 9:01 AM, Tom Johnson <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: So who is going to integrate this into the sugar model? http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-28658268 =================================== Tom Johnson - Inst. for Analytic Journalism Santa Fe, NM [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>. 505-473-9646<tel:505-473-9646> =================================== ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
