This is way over my head, but when I read quotes like "the view that all matter has some associated consciousness – is an increasingly accepted position with respect to the nature of consciousness." I have to take this as junk science or physiological banter.
I don't think a chair or a rock has any consciousness in it. Even if you could somehow connect a brain to either they would still be lifeless inanimate objects.
I don't think a chair or a rock has any consciousness in it. Even if you could somehow connect a brain to either they would still be lifeless inanimate objects.
This is also significantly over my head, too. But to your point, in the comments section, the author replies to some commenters, with this reply:
"A rock’s constituents (atoms and molecules) enjoy a very rudimentary variety of consciousness under our approach. The rock qua rock may fairly be said to not have consciousness because its internal connectedness and its processing power are negligible, limited to thermal/heat gradients. That said, our quantification framework would still return a tiny amount of consciousness in the rock qua rock – but so negligible that it would make the consciousness present in one of its atoms look like an Einstein in terms of its complexity. As the piece here describes, the central thesis of our approach is that resonating frequencies connect constituents into a greater whole. The shared resonance among a rock’s parts is extremely minimal so as to be effectively zero."
"A rock’s constituents (atoms and molecules) enjoy a very rudimentary variety of consciousness under our approach. The rock qua rock may fairly be said to not have consciousness because its internal connectedness and its processing power are negligible, limited to thermal/heat gradients. That said, our quantification framework would still return a tiny amount of consciousness in the rock qua rock – but so negligible that it would make the consciousness present in one of its atoms look like an Einstein in terms of its complexity. As the piece here describes, the central thesis of our approach is that resonating frequencies connect constituents into a greater whole. The shared resonance among a rock’s parts is extremely minimal so as to be effectively zero."
Richard G.
So you're telling me a rock (qua rock) does have consciousness though...
Linking too many unconnected things together (lasers, fireflies, the Moon) makes it sound like some kind of wannabe unified theory.
Everything resonates on some level. Agreed. But if everything is resonant, resonance cannot therefore explain why consciousness is special - why only some things demonstrate consciousness. If we say everything is conscious we're not solving the problem; we're only specifying it in vaguer terms.
If there is some fundamental unit or element of consciousness - a kind of "vibration" - then that element on its own isn't sufficient for consciousness. It may be an essential element but it's not consciousness itself. It's like saying atoms are essential to make a brain. Yes, maybe they are, but so what? The conscious brain is more than its parts.
A rock doesn't need to be conscious because it can't do anything. It has no senses, no nervous system. It has no program; no way of organising thoughts or sensations into memories; no way of learning. The only mechanisms in play are crystalline growth and I don't see how something so uniformly deterministic could give rise to consciousness.
As for gnats, bats, rats and cats - they're on a continuum of nervous system/brain complexity. There have to be complex feedback mechanisms in play before we get anything we'd recognise as consciousness. I think consciousness is an emergent property. You get it from a certain organisational complexity level. The level where consciousness can't be specified exactly because consciousness is itself a fuzzy term. It's pretty hard to define if you think about it.
I don't think the theory does anything to solve the "hard" problem of consciousness. Resonance certainly may be a mechanism in brain function - alpha waves etc. but that's more akin to neuron function than an explanation of what we experience as sentient beings.
@ Jehannum- Very well said. A lot makes up our consciousness. Brain, nerves, etc. I sum it up as "self awareness”. Or “I think therefore I am”.
Of course there are different levels of consciousness depending on the development of the brain. Babies, dogs and cats would have a lower sense of consciousness.
I think smaller animals like insects are probably on autopilot and they don’t think so much but react on instinct. I could be wrong but that would be my guess.
To differentiate consciousness from intellect: I think insects, slugs and the like may experience sensation in a way that we would recognise as rudimentary consciousness: physical feelings from nerves, perhaps even a sense of fear. Such creatures are somewhere on the sliding scale, but they can't break their programming like we can. They're not much more than a set of responses to stimuli.
When we look at a chimp or orang utan we get a sense of recognition of a being much more self-aware and closer to us in terms of consciousness; tantalisingly so, in fact.
It's easy to conjecture that there could be beings with a greater level of consciousness (and intellect) than ourselves (e.g. the "Minds" in Iain M. Banks's Culture books having trillions of times more capacity for thought than humans). Perhaps artificial intelligence will surpass us one day. But if consciousness can be simulated digitally it suggests that the "resonance" idea is not a fundamental part of it. Who knows?
There's also the tricky area of memory retention. Are you conscious if you can't retain sensations, thoughts and experiences?
I'd say yes, if you can experience the present moment in terms of sensations then you are conscious. That's all we truly experience anyway. Our memories are fallible, and always weaker than the actual experience.
All of this stuff is tricky. I don't pretend to understand consciousness. I don't think anyone else understands it either! I think sentient artificial intelligence is further off than many people realise.
