Nick -
I must say, I am grateful and pleased by all these testimonials and I
am beginning to sense method in my madness.
I'm glad you were willing able to wade through my gallop of
observations/reflections/experiences with these two highly central
creatures in my household.
I notice you are much vaguer about Cyd than you are about Hank.
Very much so, as I experience with many cats, she does not reach as far
into human psyche/nature to meet me as most dogs (Hank in particular) does.
So, in your assertion that Cyd is both conscious and self
conscious, I am inclined to ask for more details. So the method goes
something like this
We statt with the intouition that because Cyd does X, Cyd is conscious.
I think you know from my pan-consciousness self-diagnosis that all of
the things I am inclined to report about Cyd also applies to the
hummingbirds, the lizards she stalks, and the fish Hank barks at.
Cyd has a very highly adaptive sensorimotor system which not only allows
her to be good at stalking and catching lizards but also at begging her
people to let her out to do so, or to give her a helping of "second
dinners" like the hobbit she channels. She observes, considers, acts,
observes the consequences of her acts (the book falling from the top of
the bookcase when she traverses it too rambunctioiusly, the way Mary
jumps up and lets her out when she hits the right note of plaintive
meow, the way the lizard freezes when it senses her). This is an
overwhelming indication of consciousness in my apprehension of the world.
We were implying that an animal's "Love" or "loving relationship with" a
human familiar had something to do with consciousness. I think that is
a red-herring, I don't think the lizards love Mary when she frees them
from Cyd's jaws, but I do think they are acutely conscious.
From our prior usage of the term, we know that if Cyd is conscious,
he will do things A, B, C, D, ....N with greater frequency than
otherwise. We check t o see if this is true. Does Sbe? Ifso, we now
add Cyd to the list of conscious beings. Now we check to see if
other conscious beings do X with greater frequency than non conscious
ones. If so, we have added to the list of things that conscious
beings do.
See above... A==sense, B==process, C==respond. I don't know that A,
B, C singularly without both of the others even makes sense.
The fish in the pond are almost continuously in some level of motion,
they appear to be sensing with their photon and olfactory and
vibration/pressure-wave sensors. They respond to signals (shadow of
human or dog looming over pond, insect landing on the surface of the
pond, bit of high-nutrient food sinking in the pond) by bolting or
gulping or seeking more input (curiosity). While a lot of their
processing may be prewired/instinctive, I do believe that part of their
processing is in support of "learning". The dragonflies who like the
high-ground of the tips of everything they can alight on seem yet more
automatic/instinctual yet they appear (because I project?) to learn...
they appear to become more and more tolerant of my approaching them the
more I do it? They likely recognize that despite the appeal of the tip
of my car antennae, the tips of the cat-tails in the pond seem to be
more appealing given the likely food-flux they can spy and grab from
that vantage (but this is a just-so projection since I'm not a very
disciplined naturalist, I really have nothing but anecdotal observations).
So perhaps D might be "learn"...
Which takes me to the trees and bushes I feel a strong
affinity/familiarity with. Do they A, B, C (and even D?). I say yes.
They don't have lenses over their photo-receptors, but since their
primary/singular energy gathering activity is photonic/light, they
clearly sense light. They also seem to be able to extend root growth
toward water and nutrients, or along same said nutrients... this
represents A and C as does growth "reaching" growth out from under the
shade to gather more light? What about B? B would seem to be entirely
pre-wired processing, not adaptive at the scale of the individual
single-lifetime organism? Which spills over to "learning" (D) which
maybe isn't happening at the scale of the individual... does a branch or
root keep "reaching" even if it gets stymied over and over? I'm not
sure. So if B and even D are required for "consciousness" then perhaps
it is only a population of such organisms and the germline phenotypic
expression which we must acknowledge some level of "proto-consciousness"
to?
To go on down the line of lower-and lower complexity entities or systems
i'd have to grasp further and seek the existing guidance of others in
the pan-consciousness world who have worked through this in their own ways.
Bottom line, is that the "bottom line" of consciousness feels very hard
for me to even begin to want to draw between Hank and Cyd or where it
excludes Lizzy or Fishy or DraggyFly or any and all of the
yet-less-familiar creatures they stalk and eat. Interesting that all of
these are predators, no?
Yet another free-associateve gallop?
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