Theory number 3.

[Angrboda]

@Genk (if you don;t mind Apo...lol, one of those rare moments that you and I are in lock-step on this subject..lol, I plan to milk it)

Academically....it is very difficult to distinguish between what is conscious and what is not without adding a boatload of additional qualifiers that are all, themselves, open to scathing criticism.

Well, obviously. Otherwise consciousness would not be such a fascinating subject. So, what is the line (along with those additional qualifiers)?

I'll break with that lock step of Rhythm's for the moment in suggesting that the concept of a specific process or entity that is unified spatially and temporally, and which presents some minimum of a particular property or process across all instances is a folk psychological concept. It doesn't exist. So attempting to "explain consciousness" is much akin to attempting to explain phlogiston or the elan vital. The definition and meaning and such will change with the needs and context of the argument because it is trying to explain a bundle of complex, similar effects as one, unified, simple thing.

Beyond that, as Rhythm alludes to, depending on who you talk to, the qualifications become more substantial, and more poorly justified. There is, I think, a break between the naturalists and, for lack of a better term, the Mysterians. The Mysterians believe that even our everyday consciousness displays traits which cannot be materialistically explained. In this camp are those who believe in quantum consciousness; the idea that the backbone of conscious process which we don't understand lies in quantum effects which we don't understand.

[The Grand Nudger]

Again, that's precisely the problem, there is no accepted operational definition, there is no cutoff...but that doesn't mean we can't impose one for discussion, experiment, or just to break it up into smaller chunks to make it easier to communicate or parse (so long as we're willing to acknowledge that the line we have created is ultimately arbitrary, circular, or fuzzy -perhaps all of the above-). All qualifiers would somehow involve wealth or depth of experience, awareness. That this awareness or experience is itself so far undetectable (Apo and I might suggest that this is because it is not actually -there-, as we commonly think of it, more of a shorthand term for an aggregate process) leaves us with nothing beyond effect and architecture to determine whether or not any give example meets our (likely arbitrary, circular, and fuzzy - see above) definition of consciousness. One of the first criticisms of any definition we give will be a reference to the demonstrable fact that two unrelated structures, dissimilar in organization, can achieve a similar or identical effect. So, if we say the cutoff is neurons or central nervous systems (decidedly higher order architecture) we have to at least acknowledge that fundamental effects we propose as "consciousness" or at least evidence of it ca be achieved by something like a thermostat...which we do not intuitively feel is "conscious" (though simultaneously a central nervous system can achieve much more than a thermostat).

[Mystic]

Honestly the rudeness I think just reflects insecurity over the issue. I wrote this:

But right now, I don't have confidence in these reasoning. So I don't believe in them. Just they gave me a strong hope that a higher power exists.

I would like to understand how you solved the paradox, but to be honest, I think you rather muddy the issue, then actually address it.

I also stated before I wanted to go do more reading about this and talk to scientist about it.

I even stated to Rhythm I need to go read about it, because, I don't know for sure if both premises of the paradox are true.

[Edwardo Piet]

@ Rhythm, I agree, if all animals are instinctual that doesn't mean none of them are conscious. Instincts aren't necessarily unconscious therefore. I was thinking as instincts as unconscious because most of our instincts that drive us probably are unconscious.

Most instincts are unconscious maybe, but not all.

I agree that logically consciousness need not require neurons. It is just that we gain evidence for consciousness by extrapolating the evidence of our own consciousness. So the less like us something is, the harder it is to find evidence of its consciousness, this is true whether it is conscious or not. Maybe this is evidence it has no consciousness, or less consciousness or maybe it just means that its consciousness is less like ours.

[Angrboda]