Consciousness as reprogramming

Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan….

Scott Adams (Dilbert) sees human consciousness as unique relative to other animals, including dolphins.

Problem with this is that early Homo sapiens had no idea that their brain, as an organ, subserved consciousness, and yet, no doubt were fully conscious and capable of free-will. So there was certainly no idea as such as “reprogramming”. On the other hand, humans were certainly implicitly aware of their own moods which might be changed through behaviors. But this awareness is certainly not limited to humans. We can see the evidence for such advanced cognition in the Great Apes. Bonobos and Orangutans engage in complex “computer games” with researchers, not for reward (as in juice or food) but rather because they chose to for the intrinsic entertainment of the game.

Money quote from Adams:

Suppose we define a creature to have consciousness and free will if it demonstrates the ability to use the external world to reprogram its own brain toward specific ends. By this definition, reading a book in order to change one’s mood or gain data would be an example of both consciousness and free will. But a monkey using a stick as a tool to get bugs would be nothing more than eating. The monkey is not trying to become a smarter or happier monkey; he’s just feeding his body.

Do I need words to think?

When I experience conscious thought, it is mostly in words (I am making a big exception for the type of conscious thought that accompanies hitting my thumb accidentally with a hammer). When I remember my dreams, for the most part, it seems to me that those remembered dreams included words. There is an old French movie L’Enfant Sauvage, directed by Francois Truffaut about a child who somehow survives in the wild to grow up without words. In the movie, the child clearly thinks. There is good scientific evidence that the Great Apes think without words. I believe my dogs think…without words. And yet, I can’t imagine my own conscious experience without the internal narrative of language. Why is that? Is it just our own species-specific experience of conscious thought that requires language?

Jim

The consciousness of John Searle

I met John at an IBM conference a bit over a year ago in California. Here’s David Papineau of Kinds College in London on John.

Money quote:

Quantum mechanics tells us that the probabilities of physical effects are always fixed by prior physical circumstances. If Searle’s suggestion is right, then this principle breaks down inside the human brain, at those points where conscious minds exert an independent influence on events. This implication is not incoherent, but it seems highly unlikely. Serious physicists are unlikely to start looking for violations of quantum mechanics inside the human skull. With free will, as with consciousness, it seems that Searle’s affinity for common sense has left him in a philosophically unstable position.

Jim