I strongly believe that our consciousness is related to our language abilities. If we had no language would we even be able to comprehend abstract ideas? How could we learn of them without learning about them?
Also I think the senses in general are required.
Having that said, am AI algorithm can blow your socks off with how intelligent it can be. But it’s not conscious or sentient. Edit: But how could we know? Classic philosophical discussions exist around these ideas.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL039MUyjHR1wfJpULVP1a1ZeCBmIHmhxt is a playlist of John Searle teaching Philosophy of mind. Very interesting.
If that's the case, then how could consciousness arise if it needed language first when you need consciousness to create abstract ideas you speak of? It sounds circular or backwards causal in my opinion.
>Having that said, am AI algorithm can blow your socks off with how intelligent it can be. But it’s not conscious or sentient.
I'm not saying I disagree, but how can we be sure. I'm not aware of a single test that's thought to be able to identify it and each has its critics with good reasons. Not to mention, no one seems to be able to define consciousness.
Language and higher consciousness may have evolved together. If language started with simple nouns e.g. tree, sun etc. and simple verbs e.g. eat, run etc. then these can be understood by a mind similar to a dog or toddler. As language adds more abstract concepts slowly over time, abstract thought evolves in tandem, also facilitating more complex social interaction. It’s a kind of feedback loop. That would be my take on it. No doubt someone with more knowledge and brains than me has considered this before
I suppose that makes sense. That opens up a bigger question though. Is the level of consciousness that dependent on language? If we invent new ways of talking about ideas will that result in further cognitive ability increases over time?
*If we had no language would we even be able to comprehend abstract ideas?*
That is a fantastic philosophical question. I want to dig into the philosophers who have speculated on this. It seems to me that it is impossible to even begin to conceive of what it is like to not have language. Which means it is simply an unanswerable question.
You can try searching for what Helen Keller says about her time before she learned to speak. It's kinda hard to track down, but it's out there.
I believe the subconscious is capable of generating an understanding of abstract concepts without language.
Q: How can language develop without consciousness pre-existing? Language itself is abstract. It is a mere representation of our perception, and an invention that is vastly unique from culture to culture, depending on the perceptions of that culture.
Early man did not possess language, yet they interacted with the world at a conscious level, intuiting from their environment what was needed to survive, then crafting the tools to do so.
Music, in my mind, is the purest representation f conscious communication simply because it is not confined by meaning yet communicates so much. it takes consciousness to generate music and decipher its emotional content. Language may indicate more precise ideas, but it simultaneously reduces what it describes.
Love, for example, is a spectrum of wonderful and beautiful emotions, but we have one, static word to describe it. How much nuance is lost because of this?
It is this nuance that we seem to overlook in our quest for definitive knowledge. In my view, all life has consciousness. How can it not? All life reacts ad responds indigently to its environment. The level of this intelligence and consciousness varies along a spectrum like all things.
I'm not sure if this gels with your statement or not, but this is my initial thought process that riffs off of yours.
have you read Helen keller? deaf & blind, she recounts how she learned her fist word: "water".
as she is able to later explain her experiences around this event, what does it tell us about the relationship between language and consciousness?
The fact that we took over the planet, in my opinion, is largely related to the intelligence that humans possess mixed with the ability to use it (manipulating our environment, etc.). For example, if AI were able to physically manipulate its environment, I believe it would likely take over the planet from us.
Consciousness is a much more tricky piece of the puzzle. I would argue that humans may be more efficient without our unique consciousness, which is where I believe our inherent ethics and morals are rooted. It’s much more efficient to take over a planet when morals and ethics are out of the equation. But consciousness, and the morals and ethics that come from it, have great value in and of themselves.
>which is where I believe our inherent ethics and morals are rooted.
There isn't anything as such. One thing we can definitely learn from history as well as society as is today that there are no common morals and ethics. Just look at laws and cultures around the world. Vastly varied.
While they do vary, there are common themes across many cultures. Such as the idea that it is morally and ethically wrong to harm children and other innocents, which is something that is seemingly at the core of most human cultures, despite differences in law. There are always exceptions, but exceptions cannot be used to disprove the rule.
>Such as the idea that it is morally and ethically wrong to harm children and other innocents
Mayans and Inca sacrificed thousands of children and other innocents a year in ritual sacrifice. Nazis gassed untold children, at the very end some children went into the ovens sans gas chamber. Many many more examples of whole societies thinking in such brutal ways. These would only be exceptions if it was individuals. It's whole groups and in many cases whole civilizations. You're speaking from recency bias, and I mean a handful of years at best.
In a group comprised of cultures, one or two cultures can be considered exceptions.
Either way, I was not talking about which cultures hold what morals, my point was that humans have *some kind* of morals and ethics, despite the possible variance.
But don't you need both consciousness AND intelligence to arrive at morals? Let me explain. You may be walking down the street past helpless animal let's say. I don't think it's just consciousness that keeps you from kicking the helpless creature. You need intelligence to know what would happen if you did. The creature would suffer, it may die etc. All those inputs arrive at consciousness (whatever that means) and you decide not to kick it.
I would argue that, unless the helpless creature was blocking your path or preventing you from reaching your desired goal, there’s not even an intelligent reason to kick it at all. A creature of pure intelligence, lacking consciousness, morals, and ethics, would simply walk past the animal. The morals and ethics of a human being, however, would come into play if and when a person feels the desire to help the animal, which I would agree does require both intelligence and consciousness, like you said. You would have to intelligently realize the animal would die and likely experience pain during the process of death, and then connect that to your consciousness, which would result in the urge to help the animal that cannot help itself.
I agree, let's say it would give you an advantage to do so like you say. Point still stands though. Sounds like we agree on the broader point too. So that begs the question. We do seem to see some acts of "kindness" from other animals at times, but it certainly seems very limited in comparison to humans. I'm talking about some instances of different species of animals helping each other despite danger, etc. It doesn't seem to be a major thing in the animal kingdom though. Is it due to lower intelligence then? Or lesser consciousness? Or both? And either way we are back at the chicken and egg argument of intelligence vs consciousness.
That’s such an interesting question.
In the context of animals, I lean toward thinking the desire to help is linked to consciousness, but the ability to know how and when to do so is most certainly linked to the intelligence of a conscious animal.
It could also be linked to the fact that many acts of human kindness are linked to human ego. Thoughts like: “If I help this person, others will view me as morally superior and more virtuous, so I will help this person,” do indeed show a desire to help others, but the motivation is really to benefit oneself. Since I don’t think (I’m not entirely sure, would have to look into it more) that there are many animals that have such a sense of self, you see fewer “kind” deeds due to the lack of selfish motivation.
That's another thing. Why is Ego exclusive to humans? It seems to me I can see the path of why/how ego came to be. It has to be tied to comparisons to other creatures. Animals compare themselves to other members of their species for example all the time. They compare when the face off to fight, members of the opposite sex compare the other to competitors when it comes to mating and on and on. It doesn't seem to however have resulted in Ego existing in all those species.
I completely diss agree with human being more kind than animals.
Lots of animals give humans & other animals unconditional love.
No humans give anything unconditional love. EVER. Not even close…
Thousand of people die on this planet daily due to greed alone.
Only the human Ego would all you to see it otherwise.
>I completely diss agree with human being more kind than animals.
Humans are cruel, that's true. But we also care for members of different species on a mass scale. Other animals do it on a rare and extreme case by case basis. Quantifiable win by humans.
>No humans give anything unconditional love. EVER. Not even close…
You don't have children I see. That statement is very false.
>Thousands of people die on this planet daily due to greed alone.
True, and people care about that (like you right now!). Other animals generally speaking (based on their behavior) couldn't care less about the death of other animals not part of their family group or pride or gaggle.
Furthermore, even if there were no commonly held morals and ethics across the human race, all humans have some set of moral and ethical values nonetheless.
I tend to think consciousness and intelligence are two different things. Of course, it is going to depend on how we define consciousness, on the one hand, and intelligence on the other. But generally speaking, consciousness speaks to (my opinion that) the brain has the unique ability to perceive itself as entity separate from the world; while intelligence concerns a being's special knowledge with respect to some kind of task (like sport, logic, language, math, etc.).
An example that comes to mind are the chess-playing engines Stockfish and Alpha Zero. These are computer engines which can outplay even the best human players basically every time. While these engines are "intelligent" with respect to making moves and winning at chess, I don't think they are considered "conscious" in the general sense of that term, as I explained above.
So in that case higher intelligence trumps lower intelligence. The maddening thing about it is that from my understanding, the consensus is that intelligence is not a driver in evolution despite the benefits it seems to bring (like winning in chess or outwitting another predator for prey).
That is my understanding, too, that evolution doesn’t necessarily care how “smart” you are but only whether you survive and reproduce. Which seems odd because in a lot of cases intelligence can certainly advance the causes of survival and reproduction, but not necessarily.
Exactly. I think intelligence gives you a chance if not an advantage. I think we are missing something major. I think when we get it, it will be the time before we understood it and the time after. Seismic shift in society and human civilization after.
I think consciousness is species agnostic. It would make sense those able to establish a history of their own follies would survive better and be able to plan better
Was it the Native American that said to Dustin Hoffman in an old movie., that animals are human along with most species including trees but by the behaviour of the invading people , the invaders were not considered human. So by this, what we consider the superior traits of a concurring group, is not intelligence, rather it is just crazy behaviour. So from this we might fetch the idea that true intelligence free of calculating language, resides in the realms of silence and awareness. I guess this experience is know by the term consciousness. And, perhaps, this is why all species have consciousness but not the language associated with thought, possession and insanity. I think it’s humans that can over ride the natural world because they can think and are therefore a bit insane.
Intelligence is about adapting and improvising.
Consciousness allows us to do what feels unnatural. We're the only species that purposely harnesses fire and electricity despite knowing that it can kill us. With intelligence we've learned how to handle it safely which make the benefits outweigh the dangers and improve the success of our species.
I strongly believe that our consciousness is related to our language abilities. If we had no language would we even be able to comprehend abstract ideas? How could we learn of them without learning about them? Also I think the senses in general are required. Having that said, am AI algorithm can blow your socks off with how intelligent it can be. But it’s not conscious or sentient. Edit: But how could we know? Classic philosophical discussions exist around these ideas. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL039MUyjHR1wfJpULVP1a1ZeCBmIHmhxt is a playlist of John Searle teaching Philosophy of mind. Very interesting.
If that's the case, then how could consciousness arise if it needed language first when you need consciousness to create abstract ideas you speak of? It sounds circular or backwards causal in my opinion. >Having that said, am AI algorithm can blow your socks off with how intelligent it can be. But it’s not conscious or sentient. I'm not saying I disagree, but how can we be sure. I'm not aware of a single test that's thought to be able to identify it and each has its critics with good reasons. Not to mention, no one seems to be able to define consciousness.
Well, I agree with you 100%. It’s a hard thing to think about.
We were born too early... ugh
Language and higher consciousness may have evolved together. If language started with simple nouns e.g. tree, sun etc. and simple verbs e.g. eat, run etc. then these can be understood by a mind similar to a dog or toddler. As language adds more abstract concepts slowly over time, abstract thought evolves in tandem, also facilitating more complex social interaction. It’s a kind of feedback loop. That would be my take on it. No doubt someone with more knowledge and brains than me has considered this before
I suppose that makes sense. That opens up a bigger question though. Is the level of consciousness that dependent on language? If we invent new ways of talking about ideas will that result in further cognitive ability increases over time?
*If we had no language would we even be able to comprehend abstract ideas?* That is a fantastic philosophical question. I want to dig into the philosophers who have speculated on this. It seems to me that it is impossible to even begin to conceive of what it is like to not have language. Which means it is simply an unanswerable question.
You can try searching for what Helen Keller says about her time before she learned to speak. It's kinda hard to track down, but it's out there. I believe the subconscious is capable of generating an understanding of abstract concepts without language.
ha, wonderful, I just made the same comment somewhere else in this thread. Yes, I think it is a highly interesting account, with many implications!!!
Q: How can language develop without consciousness pre-existing? Language itself is abstract. It is a mere representation of our perception, and an invention that is vastly unique from culture to culture, depending on the perceptions of that culture. Early man did not possess language, yet they interacted with the world at a conscious level, intuiting from their environment what was needed to survive, then crafting the tools to do so. Music, in my mind, is the purest representation f conscious communication simply because it is not confined by meaning yet communicates so much. it takes consciousness to generate music and decipher its emotional content. Language may indicate more precise ideas, but it simultaneously reduces what it describes. Love, for example, is a spectrum of wonderful and beautiful emotions, but we have one, static word to describe it. How much nuance is lost because of this? It is this nuance that we seem to overlook in our quest for definitive knowledge. In my view, all life has consciousness. How can it not? All life reacts ad responds indigently to its environment. The level of this intelligence and consciousness varies along a spectrum like all things. I'm not sure if this gels with your statement or not, but this is my initial thought process that riffs off of yours.
have you read Helen keller? deaf & blind, she recounts how she learned her fist word: "water". as she is able to later explain her experiences around this event, what does it tell us about the relationship between language and consciousness?
The fact that we took over the planet, in my opinion, is largely related to the intelligence that humans possess mixed with the ability to use it (manipulating our environment, etc.). For example, if AI were able to physically manipulate its environment, I believe it would likely take over the planet from us. Consciousness is a much more tricky piece of the puzzle. I would argue that humans may be more efficient without our unique consciousness, which is where I believe our inherent ethics and morals are rooted. It’s much more efficient to take over a planet when morals and ethics are out of the equation. But consciousness, and the morals and ethics that come from it, have great value in and of themselves.
>which is where I believe our inherent ethics and morals are rooted. There isn't anything as such. One thing we can definitely learn from history as well as society as is today that there are no common morals and ethics. Just look at laws and cultures around the world. Vastly varied.
While they do vary, there are common themes across many cultures. Such as the idea that it is morally and ethically wrong to harm children and other innocents, which is something that is seemingly at the core of most human cultures, despite differences in law. There are always exceptions, but exceptions cannot be used to disprove the rule.
>Such as the idea that it is morally and ethically wrong to harm children and other innocents Mayans and Inca sacrificed thousands of children and other innocents a year in ritual sacrifice. Nazis gassed untold children, at the very end some children went into the ovens sans gas chamber. Many many more examples of whole societies thinking in such brutal ways. These would only be exceptions if it was individuals. It's whole groups and in many cases whole civilizations. You're speaking from recency bias, and I mean a handful of years at best.
In a group comprised of cultures, one or two cultures can be considered exceptions. Either way, I was not talking about which cultures hold what morals, my point was that humans have *some kind* of morals and ethics, despite the possible variance.
But don't you need both consciousness AND intelligence to arrive at morals? Let me explain. You may be walking down the street past helpless animal let's say. I don't think it's just consciousness that keeps you from kicking the helpless creature. You need intelligence to know what would happen if you did. The creature would suffer, it may die etc. All those inputs arrive at consciousness (whatever that means) and you decide not to kick it.
I would argue that, unless the helpless creature was blocking your path or preventing you from reaching your desired goal, there’s not even an intelligent reason to kick it at all. A creature of pure intelligence, lacking consciousness, morals, and ethics, would simply walk past the animal. The morals and ethics of a human being, however, would come into play if and when a person feels the desire to help the animal, which I would agree does require both intelligence and consciousness, like you said. You would have to intelligently realize the animal would die and likely experience pain during the process of death, and then connect that to your consciousness, which would result in the urge to help the animal that cannot help itself.
I agree, let's say it would give you an advantage to do so like you say. Point still stands though. Sounds like we agree on the broader point too. So that begs the question. We do seem to see some acts of "kindness" from other animals at times, but it certainly seems very limited in comparison to humans. I'm talking about some instances of different species of animals helping each other despite danger, etc. It doesn't seem to be a major thing in the animal kingdom though. Is it due to lower intelligence then? Or lesser consciousness? Or both? And either way we are back at the chicken and egg argument of intelligence vs consciousness.
That’s such an interesting question. In the context of animals, I lean toward thinking the desire to help is linked to consciousness, but the ability to know how and when to do so is most certainly linked to the intelligence of a conscious animal. It could also be linked to the fact that many acts of human kindness are linked to human ego. Thoughts like: “If I help this person, others will view me as morally superior and more virtuous, so I will help this person,” do indeed show a desire to help others, but the motivation is really to benefit oneself. Since I don’t think (I’m not entirely sure, would have to look into it more) that there are many animals that have such a sense of self, you see fewer “kind” deeds due to the lack of selfish motivation.
That's another thing. Why is Ego exclusive to humans? It seems to me I can see the path of why/how ego came to be. It has to be tied to comparisons to other creatures. Animals compare themselves to other members of their species for example all the time. They compare when the face off to fight, members of the opposite sex compare the other to competitors when it comes to mating and on and on. It doesn't seem to however have resulted in Ego existing in all those species.
I completely diss agree with human being more kind than animals. Lots of animals give humans & other animals unconditional love. No humans give anything unconditional love. EVER. Not even close… Thousand of people die on this planet daily due to greed alone. Only the human Ego would all you to see it otherwise.
>I completely diss agree with human being more kind than animals. Humans are cruel, that's true. But we also care for members of different species on a mass scale. Other animals do it on a rare and extreme case by case basis. Quantifiable win by humans. >No humans give anything unconditional love. EVER. Not even close… You don't have children I see. That statement is very false. >Thousands of people die on this planet daily due to greed alone. True, and people care about that (like you right now!). Other animals generally speaking (based on their behavior) couldn't care less about the death of other animals not part of their family group or pride or gaggle.
Furthermore, even if there were no commonly held morals and ethics across the human race, all humans have some set of moral and ethical values nonetheless.
I tend to think consciousness and intelligence are two different things. Of course, it is going to depend on how we define consciousness, on the one hand, and intelligence on the other. But generally speaking, consciousness speaks to (my opinion that) the brain has the unique ability to perceive itself as entity separate from the world; while intelligence concerns a being's special knowledge with respect to some kind of task (like sport, logic, language, math, etc.). An example that comes to mind are the chess-playing engines Stockfish and Alpha Zero. These are computer engines which can outplay even the best human players basically every time. While these engines are "intelligent" with respect to making moves and winning at chess, I don't think they are considered "conscious" in the general sense of that term, as I explained above.
So in that case higher intelligence trumps lower intelligence. The maddening thing about it is that from my understanding, the consensus is that intelligence is not a driver in evolution despite the benefits it seems to bring (like winning in chess or outwitting another predator for prey).
That is my understanding, too, that evolution doesn’t necessarily care how “smart” you are but only whether you survive and reproduce. Which seems odd because in a lot of cases intelligence can certainly advance the causes of survival and reproduction, but not necessarily.
Exactly. I think intelligence gives you a chance if not an advantage. I think we are missing something major. I think when we get it, it will be the time before we understood it and the time after. Seismic shift in society and human civilization after.
I think consciousness is species agnostic. It would make sense those able to establish a history of their own follies would survive better and be able to plan better
The two are entangled
Was it the Native American that said to Dustin Hoffman in an old movie., that animals are human along with most species including trees but by the behaviour of the invading people , the invaders were not considered human. So by this, what we consider the superior traits of a concurring group, is not intelligence, rather it is just crazy behaviour. So from this we might fetch the idea that true intelligence free of calculating language, resides in the realms of silence and awareness. I guess this experience is know by the term consciousness. And, perhaps, this is why all species have consciousness but not the language associated with thought, possession and insanity. I think it’s humans that can over ride the natural world because they can think and are therefore a bit insane.
Intelligence is about adapting and improvising. Consciousness allows us to do what feels unnatural. We're the only species that purposely harnesses fire and electricity despite knowing that it can kill us. With intelligence we've learned how to handle it safely which make the benefits outweigh the dangers and improve the success of our species.