Where does sapience start?

I think I've badly de-railed this thread, so I'm going to back out here.

A lot of my information comes from this guy's books. I'd say they're worth checking out, if only to get a different perspective while you decide what you believe. (Check out the reviews too.)

If you guys really want to continue this, though, you should send me a PM, or an IM, or an e-mail. Otherwise, I'll see you around.

Threads like these make me want to become a vegetarian but ultimately, I'm just too horrible of a person.

Yeah, I was getting the Ishmael vibe reading your posts. I'd start to provide rebuttals, but everything I've read is second hand. Myr's read it and could, though. Where is he when you need him?

Threads like these make me want to become a vegetarian but ultimately, I'm just too horrible of a person.

Same.

Ignorance is bliss?

Until a fish sings to me and begs for its life , I'm pretty sure that I'll never be vegan-ish. Stuff like dolphins and monkeys however, I already leave them alone. Eating them would kind of freak me out.

Good thing fish have such absurdly small brains.

edited 13th Feb '11 1:05:06 PM by TheMightyAnonym

Do you think in a weird roundabout way, that Sapience Is basically a form of personification similar to that of anthropomorphism but of the mind Instead of the body. When do you think a fantastic sapient species, maybe it should be associated with sliding scale of anthropomorphism!!!

Ability to override or act in direct opposition to instinct would be at least one key factor, no? An animal acts as instinct dictates, whereas a human may not because of social mores, moral or ethical objections, or other complex factors. Sure, you can train certain animals into certain patterns of behavior that seem to go against their instincts, but that training usually involves reinforcing with rewards or punishments, and those also play into the animal's instincts to seek reward and avoid punishment.

Way to necro a thread! Did you come across this by accident, or were you looking for it?

Anyway, I'm going to interpret "Sapience" as "conceptual self-awareness" or something like that, as I don't think the term has a precise technical definition. So far as I know, no other animal besides human beings provides clear evidence of possessing this characteristic.

Humans appear to become self aware sometime around the age of two, when we leave the sensori-motor stage of cognitive development, and enter the pre-operational, when we begin to think about things and relationships symbolically. No other animal engages in symbolic "pretend" play. I own a cat that will chase a small ball across the room—but I think it's chasing a small object that is challenging to catch, not symbolically pretending it's a mouse. I can't prove this, obviously, and the difference may be more incremental than I'm making it sound.

I don't see how anyone could acquire and engage in symbolic thought without the ability to create and manipulate symbols. So far as I know, no other animal spontaneously creates and uses symbols in the wild (yes, we taught chimpanzees how to use sign language, but that's an obviously artificial situation).

One problem with this conclusion is that we do not really know what self-awareness is or what causes it in the brain. With no clear definition, we can't measure it, and therefore can't observe how it varies systematically across different situations. Is the ability to think symbolically a skill that people can learn, or is it an inborn capacity that everyone has? Does it vary from person to person in a quantifiable fashion, or is it an either/or, "you have it or you don't" sort of thing? I see evidence in both directions.

It's a tricky problem, that's for sure.

I mean issue with whole sapience conversation is that its the whole moving goal post thing. As far as humans are concerned, you need to be human to have human rights, or at very least you need to be able to communicate to humans in human language

I think real question should be "Do you need actually to be same type of intelligence as humans have to have rights to be treated well"? Heck why IS intelligence a qualifier for being treated humanely at all anyway is good question

"Somewhere between the ability to ask questions and the ability to make a hafted tool"

My view (which echoes some things from earlier in the thread) is that sapience is a totally arbitrary concept meant to separate humans from animals for moral purposes. While it's possible to come up with an ad hoc definition that suits your needs, such as the use of symbols in thought as mentioned, that's still just something you made up after thinking very carefully about what might separate humans from animals. It's not inherent to the definition of the word or something everyone who uses the word would agree on.

In other words, the definition of sapience is only "whatever it is I believe separates humans from other animals," no more and no less. It has no concrete, empirical meaning, and even if you assign it one that's completely meaningless and arbitrary because you can't actually use the word to communicate anything.

In other words, thinking about the definition of sapience is a total waste of time and energy. Perhaps we should consider it a type of "play" then.

That said, bees are known to use abstract movements ("dancing") to communicate directions to other bees, and these directions involve abstract concepts like numbers and colors ("turn right after the third blue") that other bees can understand. IE: There is currently nothing blue or three in their perceptions, but they are made to imagine it abstractly. I'm not saying bees are smart, just that symbolic communication doesn't necessarily require much intelligence. Bees are hyper-specialized in communicating directions to other bees so naturally they are good at it.

Edited by Clarste on Sep 5th 2020 at 3:01:50 AM

I'm a huge fan of the hard problem of consciousness by Chalmers. It frustrates people but I believe it is accurate as a true fact that we're looking at the source of consciousness wrong.

I also love Roger Penrose's take on the subject.

At heart, a lot of people want consciousness to just be a thing that functions of the machine but it flat out does not work that way and our attempts to replicate it do not succeed so claims otherwise are wrong.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Sep 5th 2020 at 3:04:52 AM

@Spooky: Given the history of human exploitation, I really don't think that if animals had human intelligence that would stop us from exploiting them. As Protag mentioned below, it has a whole lot more to do with the power to protect yourself.

@Clarste: The difference between science and just making stuff up is that you have to formulate your beliefs in the form of a hypothesis, and then collect objective data to test your beliefs. We have collected a lot of data with regard to human cognitive development, and the differences seem to be real.

As for the bees, they obviously have some ability to communicate using directions. But it isn't an "either/or" condition: do they engage in imaginative play? Do they ever communicate directions to a place that they only pretend has food? Can an object represent the queen and provide a source of practice? Probably not, so we are seeing a qualitative difference here.

Technically speaking "turn right after the blue flower" possesses no symbolic content—those are ''signs'', not symbols, in that they directly represent something that exists. Many animals can use signs (I once knew a dog that could point its' nose at a child playing hide and go seek), but so far as I know, only humans use symbols.

@Charles: Could you provide some links to those sources? As far as machine intelligence is concerned, if self-consciousness is a product of neural connections in the brain, then in theory we should be able to simulate it using program code. Unless you believe that awareness comes from some other source than our physical brains?

Roger Penrose and others have been pretty clear that they believe the current models of consciousness are wrong and that AI is probably impossible. Because information and self-awareness is not a product of "just" neurons and information interacting but the result of a different function.

What this function is is anyone's guess but he challenges the belief that we should be looking for it. Basically, in simple terms, "Humans are not like computers and the reason we keep trying to think of them as such is cultural inertia not fact."

The Hard Problem of Consciousness is the fact that someone basically asked, "How exactly is consciousness generated? No one actually can explain how neurons have self-awareness."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness

Which has led to some interesting ideas like Orc-Arc theory and the idea of consciousness as an irreducible element of creation.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/david-chalmers-thinks-the-hard-problem-is-really-hard/

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/will-science-ever-solve-the-mysteries-of-consciousness-free-will-and-god/

Quantum theory that is not related to "woo" (i.e. nonsense) does argue that information may actually make up creation on a level beyond brain activity through microtubbles. Too bad Stuart Hammeroff has gone completely into woo but Japanese scientists have discovered the quantum vibrations that he postulated are real and may be where consicousness originates.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchestrated_objective_reduction

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140116085105.htm

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Sep 5th 2020 at 12:08:10 PM

Penrose’s quantum consciousness theory doesn’t hold up to scientific scrutiny. Tegmark’s rebuttal showed that even in the model Penrose proposed the brain is too “hot and wet”, essentially, for quantum effects to be influential. The Orch-OR model in particular has been fully debunked, the “quantum effects within micro-tubules” thing which is its centerpiece doesn’t pan out.

Additionally, mapping of neuron activity in response to things like general anesthesia show that classical effects are the main actor in the brain.

Quantum mind theories are firmly in the domain of woo as a whole. They’re not serious science, or science at all really.

Edited by archonspeaks on Sep 5th 2020 at 12:51:37 PM

Yes, Tegmark's theory was solidly disproven by Japanese researchers and I even included a link. But if you didn't bother to read the articles:

https://www.kurzweilai.net/discovery-of-quantum-vibrations-in-microtubules-inside-brain-neurons-corroborates-controversial-20-year-old-theory-of-consciousness

Now we have proof that quantum activity is happening in the brain in microtubbles, so we can disabuse ourselves of both "woo" and people like Tegmark who tried to lecture an expert on his (Penrose's) own field outside of his (Tegmark's) field.

Tegmark should stick to his own lane.

Oh and as a note, they confirmed the results of the Japanese study at MIT independently.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Sep 5th 2020 at 2:31:01 AM

There are quantum vibrations in everything. Saying quantum vibrations have been discovered in microtubules is like saying water has been discovered to be wet.

The problem is the assertion that quantum vibrations can affect consciousness. The Tegmark analysis you so readily dismiss shows that quantum systems in the brain decohere in less than picoseconds, too quickly to have any effect on neural processing. No faults have been found with this analysis, and it accurately predicted that Orch-OR could not simulate mental effects such as general anesthetic, or even brain behavior in general.

Orch-OR is on the same level as creationism in terms of scientific validity. It has been falsified dozens of times, failed every experimental test its been put to, and torn apart by experts in biology and quantum mechanics. Supporting it at this point is laughable.

Here’s a good explainer: [1]

Edited by archonspeaks on Sep 5th 2020 at 4:18:06 AM

Ooh, yes. Quantum decoherence, a favorite topic of mine since I watched the PBS Space Time video about it. And it's exactly as was said above. Everything in the universe is built from quantum events, certainly. However, above a certain scale (and absent very weird scenarios present only in laboratories or the centers of dead stars), these events decohere and dissolve into the predictable, mechanical universe that we are familiar with.

Just noticing that we've seen its use in plants reaction, bird navigation, and other locations.

I think its worth not discounting it.

the quantum effects possibly involved in photosynthesis operate on a radically different mechanism than what’s being proposed in Orch-OR.

It’s not accurate to say the theory has been “discounted”. It’s been evaluated and falsified numerous times, whereas cognition based on classical effects has a deep body of support. There’s no reason to entertain a theory that we know to be wrong.

To be honest I'm not quite sure what consciousness even is such that we're looking for the source of it. You talk about "self-awareness" but it's trivial to program a computer to say "I am self-aware." IE: The fact that we can proclaim ourselves to be self-aware means nothing either. Is there any evidence that any creature with even the most primitive nervous system isn't self-aware? What does that even mean?

Frankly it makes me think about how a lot of people say that insects or fish don't feel pain, even though they will clearly react to certain damaging stumuli. Isn't that the very definition of pain? I don't care if they don't use the same chemical signals that mammals do, and maybe their "pain" is something completely alien to us, but why does that even matter? Why is consciousness a property we feel necessary to assign to humanity?

To be blunt, I want to call it pseudoscience. You're taking the religious idea of a soul and trying to cram it into a scientific framework. People used to think the soul was housed in the pineal gland and it's the same thing here.

Edit: Apparently the pineal gland thing was just Descartes and also apparently he had an extremely poor understanding of anatomy even compared to his contemporaries which I find incredibly appropriate for this topic. "I think, therefore there are thoughts."

Edited by Clarste on Sep 6th 2020 at 5:35:17 AM

It is true that we have a very hard time defining exactly what sentience/awareness/consciousness is in objective terms. No one has yet come up with a way to measure standardized units of self-awareness. But we do have evidence that exists. I already linked to classic research on human cognitive development which documents the kinds of problems and skills that children acquire as they age. For example, the "Three Mountain Task (scroll down to page 24, the second page of the pdf file) tests whether or not a child can imagine the visual perspective of another person, and distinguish it from their own.

What these and other studies point out is that awareness of oneself develops hand in hand with awareness of other people, who have different experiences than oneself. "Self-Awareness" and "Other-Awareness" are two sides of the exact same cognitive skill. We only become aware of ourselves in contrast to others.

The ability to conceive of the experience that someone else must be having, and contrast it with the experience oneself is having, and note the differences, is a test of the imagination. One must be able to create a simplified model of the other person's mind, and contrast that with a similar model one has of one's own mind. I propose that this simplified model of one's own mind is the "Self-Concept."

There is a ton of research on all of these concepts. Most of this falls under the general rubric of theory of mind, for example developing the ability to know when another person does not have the same information as onself does. There is some evidence that the better you are at understanding other's mental reasoning, the better you are at managing your own mental processes (executive function skills), and vice versa.

The point being that I know of no evidence that even the most intelligent animals can do any of this. At the very least our ability to transcend egoism and model other minds is far advanced beyond that of any other animal.

Unfortuntely the evidence may indicate that sentience is not a single coherent thing, it's many different cognitive abilities acting together in complex ways. As such, perhaps we shouldn't expect a simple test or single measurable trait to be able to clearly differentiate between humans and other animals.

But something is different between us, that seems very clear.

It is my opinion that what we think of as sapience is an emergent phenomenon from an incredibly complex underlying system of interactions. Whether it is quantum or chemical in nature seems like a specious debate. What use could we make of this information? If you're interested in "proving" whatever woo you have to offer, you can go **** yourself.

Edited by Fighteer on Sep 6th 2020 at 10:57:50 AM

Ah, quantum consciousness. Somehow it's gotten more way more credibility than a lot of pseudoscience. And that is precisely what it is: pseudoscience woo bullshit.

I guess some people are just really uncomfortable with the implications concerning free will if our brains really are almost entirely dependent on classical mechanics and physical law.

Edited by M84 on Sep 6th 2020 at 11:08:41 PM

The thing about quantum consciousness is the fact that a lot of people use "quantum" in front of words that don't mean anything. While quantum theories of consciousness are entirely valid because they've been proposed, tested, and have evidence.

Is it emergent or an irreducible?

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Sep 6th 2020 at 8:17:24 AM

All they prove is that quantum vibrations in the brain are a thing. But they're a thing in pretty much everything.

They don't really say anything relevant about the nature of consciousness.

Edited by M84 on Sep 6th 2020 at 11:24:09 PM