RE: Sam Harris On Defining Consciousness
August 25, 2015 at 5:37 pm
(This post was last modified: August 25, 2015 at 5:46 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
I'd caution against conceptualizing it as "higher" up some evolutionary ladder. You'd make for a positively retarded sunflower (as would I...not singling you out..lol). Your brain just isn't capable of recieveing, let alone handling the data or stimuli or processes they handle as a matter of course in a meaningful way, from that organisms pet perspective.
Perhaps, rather than thinking of it as x is "more" conscious than y, we simply accept that there can be differences in consciousness between two individual representatives. Not more, just different. More than one way to skin the conscious cat. The sunflower doesn't -need- a brain to provide that effect, and because they aren't mobile, an organ like that would be detrimental, not beneficial. The simplest plant represents a mastery of organic chemistry that is effectively -magic- to us, brains be damned, they're as good at what they do, or better, as we are at what we do.
Perhaps, rather than thinking of it as x is "more" conscious than y, we simply accept that there can be differences in consciousness between two individual representatives. Not more, just different. More than one way to skin the conscious cat. The sunflower doesn't -need- a brain to provide that effect, and because they aren't mobile, an organ like that would be detrimental, not beneficial. The simplest plant represents a mastery of organic chemistry that is effectively -magic- to us, brains be damned, they're as good at what they do, or better, as we are at what we do.
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