Friam

RE Self consciousness and Passive Darwinism.

Classic

List

Threaded

5 messages Options

Nick Thompson

RE Self consciousness and Passive Darwinism.

Let's say we are in two dodgem's cars on an empty dodgem's thingy. Let's
say I am tryiing to collide with you. To manage a collision I have to make
all sorts of calculations that involve facts about me as well as facts
about you. For instance, if I do not not know the ratio of turning of the
steering wheel to turning of my car (or the ratio of my movement of my arms
to the turning of of the steering wheel), then I cannot manage the
collision, can I? That is all information about ME.

I guess I have stipulated that I think that being self conscious is the
same as processing information about ME.

Thanks for the oportunity to try and clarify.

Nick

Nicholas Thompson
nickthompson at earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson

> [Original Message]
> From: Russell Standish <r.standish at unsw.edu.au>
> To: <nickthompson at earthlink.net>; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity
Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>

> Date: 6/26/2006 12:55:42 AM
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] RE Self consciousness and Passive Darwinism.
>
> On Sun, Jun 25, 2006 at 12:19:13AM -0400, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
> > I have never understood the idea that animals are not self conscious in
> > some useful sense. Heck, self consciousness is a necessary part of any
> > feed forward system, isnt it?
> >
>
> Why do you say this?
>
> --
> *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which
> is of type "application/pgp-signature". Don't worry, it is not a
> virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this
> email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you
> may safely ignore this attachment.
>
>

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 8308 3119 (mobile)
> Mathematics 0425 253119 (")
> UNSW SYDNEY 2052 R.Standish at unsw.edu.au
> Australia
http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks
> International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Russell Standish

RE Self consciousness and Passive Darwinism.

So you would say that a thermostat (which process information about
itself, ie its set temperature) is self-aware. (The term self-aware is
more usual, and I take it to be what you mean by self-concsious).

This is an unusual definition, to say the least. Self awareness is
usually applied to a situation where an agent uses itself as a
model for what other similar agents might do. The really clever trick is
to establish what you would do in a particular situation _without_
actually doing it and so giving the game away.

There is some evidence that a few of the higher species of animals
have this ability - apes, dolphins, maybe macaques - have this ability,
but that is about it. It is an extremely rare ability in the animal
world.

On a neurology front, the phenomenon seems to be linked dwith the
notion of "mirror neurons", giving a somewhat objective way of
establishing its existence.

Cheers

On Sun, Jun 25, 2006 at 05:08:40PM -0400, Nicholas Thompson wrote:

> Let's say we are in two dodgem's cars on an empty dodgem's thingy. Let's
> say I am tryiing to collide with you. To manage a collision I have to make
> all sorts of calculations that involve facts about me as well as facts
> about you. For instance, if I do not not know the ratio of turning of the
> steering wheel to turning of my car (or the ratio of my movement of my arms
> to the turning of of the steering wheel), then I cannot manage the
> collision, can I? That is all information about ME.
>
> I guess I have stipulated that I think that being self conscious is the
> same as processing information about ME.
>
> Thanks for the oportunity to try and clarify.
>
> Nick
>
> Nicholas Thompson
> nickthompson at earthlink.net
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson
>
>
> > [Original Message]
> > From: Russell Standish <r.standish at unsw.edu.au>
> > To: <nickthompson at earthlink.net>; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity
> Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
> > Date: 6/26/2006 12:55:42 AM
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] RE Self consciousness and Passive Darwinism.
> >
> > On Sun, Jun 25, 2006 at 12:19:13AM -0400, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
> > > I have never understood the idea that animals are not self conscious in
> > > some useful sense. Heck, self consciousness is a necessary part of any
> > > feed forward system, isnt it?
> > >
> >
> > Why do you say this?
> >
> > --
> > *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which
> > is of type "application/pgp-signature". Don't worry, it is not a
> > virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this
> > email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you
> > may safely ignore this attachment.
> >
> >
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 8308 3119 (mobile)
> > Mathematics 0425 253119 (")
> > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 R.Standish at unsw.edu.au
> > Australia
> http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks
> > International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02
> >
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>

--
*PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which
is of type "application/pgp-signature". Don't worry, it is not a
virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this
email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you
may safely ignore this attachment.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 8308 3119 (mobile)
Mathematics 0425 253119 (")
UNSW SYDNEY 2052 R.Standish at unsw.edu.au
Australia http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks
International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : /pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20060625/dd6fb127/attachment.bin

Phil Henshaw-2

RE Self consciousness and Passive Darwinism.

>
> So you would say that a thermostat (which process information
> about itself, ie its set temperature) is self-aware. (The
> term self-aware is more usual, and I take it to be what you
> mean by self-concsious).
for me, no, not at all. Consciousness in some primitive sense might not
be 'self-consciousness'. Is an ant self conscious? Doubtful. Does
it have an awareness of some kind, and act as a whole as it's awareness
responds to events? Maybe not for every definition of the terms but
then that would leave you without terms for what kind of unity of
behavior an ant has.

> There is some evidence that a few of the higher species of
> animals have this ability - apes, dolphins, maybe macaques -
> have this ability, but that is about it. It is an extremely
> rare ability in the animal world.
Dogs too. Some are emotional ditzes, and some real crafty. You can
see a whole range of their awarenesses and levels of intention on any
street corner, well maybe if you let what they do be a little
suggestive. How else are you supposed to know what's going on inside
other things that obviously are not controlled from the outside? Some
pull the dodge that there's really nothing with an inside since we can't
make rules about anything except information and we have none. QED?
(but maybe it's ambiguous which way)

Phil Henshaw ????.?? ? `?.????
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
680 Ft. Washington Ave
NY NY 10040
tel: 212-795-4844
e-mail: pfh at synapse9.com
explorations: www.synapse9.com

Russell Standish

RE Self consciousness and Passive Darwinism.

Dogs are perhaps an ambiguous case. They do not pass the mirror test
for self-awareness, although there may be other reasons for this.

But they do have pack politics, which according to the Machiavellian
theory of intelligence, is a strong indicator of self-awareness.

Cheers

On Sun, Jun 25, 2006 at 11:35:42PM -0400, Phil Henshaw wrote:

> Dogs too. Some are emotional ditzes, and some real crafty. You can
> see a whole range of their awarenesses and levels of intention on any
> street corner, well maybe if you let what they do be a little
> suggestive. How else are you supposed to know what's going on inside
> other things that obviously are not controlled from the outside? Some
> pull the dodge that there's really nothing with an inside since we can't
> make rules about anything except information and we have none. QED?
> (but maybe it's ambiguous which way)
>
>
>
>
> Phil Henshaw ????.?? ? `?.????
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 680 Ft. Washington Ave
> NY NY 10040
> tel: 212-795-4844
> e-mail: pfh at synapse9.com
> explorations: www.synapse9.com
>
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Phil Henshaw-2

RE Self consciousness and Passive Darwinism.

In reply to this post by Nick Thompson

Nick,

> Let's say we are in two dodgem's cars on an empty dodgem's
> thingy. Let's say I am tryiing to collide with you. To
> manage a collision I have to make all sorts of calculations
> that involve facts about me as well as facts about you. For
> instance, if I do not not know the ratio of turning of the
> steering wheel to turning of my car (or the ratio of my
> movement of my arms to the turning of of the steering wheel),
> then I cannot manage the collision, can I? That is all
> information about ME.

I couldn't figure out what this was about at first, something about
setting a collision course with toy race cars... Then I thought of the
response to discovering real danger and how a whole landscape of
possibilities explodes in your mind, regarding a suddenly very important
collision course. I'd sure rate it as a defining experience of
self-consciousness. Say you're on a winter hike through a beautiful
snowy woods, and you kind of loose track of time trying to get back to
the trail, and with an unexpected shudder you find you're actually
rather cold and don't really know which way it is or how far to the car.
All your powers of physical analysis rush in as the dozen scenarios and
many choices within each survival strategy suddenly take over your
thoughts.

One might say only minds using world models with self-images playing
roles are self-conscious. I think there's more to what consciousness
itself is though. Maybe the most primitive state of consciousness is
simply having an identity, a presence as an individual, whether you have
a brain for making 'pictures' or any other part of the multiplex theater
that consciousness is for people. In-between is the kind of
consciousness when you just behave coherently with a completely blank
mind, perhaps the most normal kind of consciousness. We're completely
unaware of most of our smooth executions of very complicated
interactions with our world, and there's lots of amazing 'collision
course calculus' involved too. Just a kiss is an amazingly complex
orchestration of physical systems we don't need to pay any attention to.
Are we conscious *of* something happening at the time, sure, but I think
the consciousness experienced and displayed goes a lot deeper than what
might dart through our minds.

> I guess I have stipulated that I think that being self
> conscious is the same as processing information about ME.
>
> Thanks for the oportunity to try and clarify.
>
> Nick
>
> Nicholas Thompson
> nickthompson at earthlink.net http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson
>
>
> > [Original Message]
> > From: Russell Standish <r.standish at unsw.edu.au>
> > To: <nickthompson at earthlink.net>; The Friday Morning Applied
> > Complexity
> Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
> > Date: 6/26/2006 12:55:42 AM
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] RE Self consciousness and Passive Darwinism.
> >
> > On Sun, Jun 25, 2006 at 12:19:13AM -0400, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
> > > I have never understood the idea that animals are not self
> > > conscious in some useful sense. Heck, self consciousness is a
> > > necessary part of any feed forward system, isnt it?
> > >
> >
> > Why do you say this?
> >
> > --
> > *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my
> email, which
> > is of type "application/pgp-signature". Don't worry, it is not a
> > virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to
> verify this
> > email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you
> > may safely ignore this attachment.
> >
> >
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> --------------
> > A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 8308 3119 (mobile)
> > Mathematics 0425 253119 (")
> > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 R.Standish at unsw.edu.au
>
> > Australia
> http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks
> > International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02
> >
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> --------------
>
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
>
>