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Message: <blockquote data-quote="2old4this" data-source="post: 18581" data-attributes="member: 174998">Here are my thoughtsDoes a cat know it's a cat? If not, does it lack consciousness?Imagine the answer to that is "yes". What about mice? Insects? Bacteria? I think the answer is that there are different gradations of "knowing". A cat probably does have some rudimentary sense of identity. A bacterium probably not (simply bnecause it has no central nervous system within which such a sense could arise). If an animal has no sense of self then I personally believe it is not conscious. Consciousness is in my view inextricably linked to (or indeed synonymous with) a sense of self. If I know I'm a human, does that make me conscious?You are posing this (and the previous) question in such a way as to pre-suppose a dichotomy between knowing onself, and consciousness. In fact I believe they are the same thing.Is consciousness an absolute state, or are there degrees of consciousness?Degrees of. Even a particular human can be more conscious than another, or indeed achieve varying degrees of consciousness him/herself. I am more conscious when I am awake. What happens to consciousness when we're asleep?When we are asleep we are for the most part unconscious. This doesn't mean we become something that is inherenntly incapable of consciousness. Just that our consciousness is suspended temporarily. Similarly when we are drugged, or brain-injured (as in a coma).However, I believe that we emerge into rudimentary consciousness when lucid-dreaming. Lucid-dreaming is a fascinating and even exilarating phenomenon. I've had lucid dreams since the age of at least eight, although (sadly) with decreasing frequency as I've got older. During lucid dreaming, I am fully aware of the fact that I am in a dream. I am even able to manipulate the dream at will, though I've discovered that the more bizarre the manipulation, the sooner I emerge into a waking state. This in fact suggests to me that during lucid dreaming we are not yet fully conscious - but that in confronting an increasing lack of reality in the environment, the brain is eventually tippped into full consciousness. In fact, it is the act of recognising a facet of a dream as unrealistic that tips me into the lucid dreaming state in the first place. One of the techniques for generating lucid dreaming is based around just that concept. The idea is to constantly be checking and confirming the reality of everyday situations during wakefulness. When that becomes a habit, the habit is incorporated into one's dreams. When in a dream one asks the question "can what just happened be real?" the anwer will often be "no", and that realisation causes lucidity in the dream. One concrete example is to read a bit of text, look away, and read it again. Deliberately ask yourself whether the text is the same as the first time. Genuinely do this. Think about the answer. Take it seriously. If the text was the same, you are probably awake. If not, you will almost certainly be dreaming. What happens to consciousness when we're anaethstetised?See above. I do not believe we are conscious at all in this state, though I have often toyed with the idea that we may be FULLY conscious (if paralysed) yet have our memory of the event disrupted by the anaesthetic. Perhaps everyone of us who has ever undegone surgery actually suffered excruciating pain and terror of helplessness at the time but can simply no longer remember it. Such thoughts also raise the interesting question of whether we can be conscious with no memory. Could a being that had no way of storing memories (not even short-term memories) be conscious?If AI is not intended to emulate consciousness, what use is it?There are a huge range of applications for artificially intelligent systems, conscious or not. In fact, most of the products so far of AI research fall into this category. They are often called expert systems. The computer programme which attempts to diagnose a patient's illness is one example. No-one has ever claimed it is conscious. Another product of AI is the neural network. They are systems designed to learn in a way that mmics the human brain. I personally believe that a large enough neural network would be conscious (and that one of sufficient complexity would even be MORE conscious than we are).When I get to have ethical problems about switching off my pc, I'll know I'm in serious trouble.Do/did you have problems putting your kids to bed at night?2old</blockquote>

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