Personally I have never understood why people keep acting and talking as if consciousness were binary. I mean, no other human trait works that way. People don’t pretend that you either have intelligence or you don’t, or that you are either nice or you are mean. Heck, the article even literally states that the woman started out normal and gradually lost consciousness, which seems to very clearly imply that her consciousness level was gradually decreasing from whatever her normal level was to 0. Yet people keep asking things like “do animals have consciousness?” and I keep wondering if I’m missing something or if the answer is just really obviously “yes to varying degrees depending on the animal but almost always less than humans do.”
Personally I have never understood why people keep acting and talking as if consciousness were binary.
I agree and I don’t think that’s what anyone claims it here. What is interesting is that one small area of her brain can be reversibly affected in a way that completely removes both consciousness and memory formation while keeping the person awake otherwise, which is very much different from sedation or general anaesthesia.
Yet people keep asking things like “do animals have consciousness?” and I keep wondering if I’m missing something or if the answer is just really obviously “yes to varying degrees depending on the animal but almost always less than humans do.”
I don’t think serious neuroscientists ask questions like that, and yes, the obvious answer better be correct.
I agree and I don’t think that’s what anyone claims it here.
I’ve definitely seen it used on and around here.
The example that springs to mind is the argument that infanticide is acceptable “before they become conscious” (which in practice seems to mean “before they can talk” for some reason) - which I believe was invented by Eliezer as a steelman of “it’s OK to eat babies” and then escaped into the wild—and I believe I’ve seen it in discussions of vegetarianism and even Friendly AI (“well, there are two options. Either X is conscious, in which case...”)
From a medical perspective, the question of whether rather than to what degree a patient is conscious has serious ethical/practical importance. Basically, to treat a conscious patient you need his/her consent, for an unconscious one you don’t, because you’re excused for not getting it. So that variable, in a binary sense, is something every medical researcher is very aware of.
I agree that it is not ideal as a measure of how well someone is able to integrate information into his/her subjective worldmap (or however you want to define consciousness), but it is very available.
Basically, to treat a conscious patient you need his/her consent, for an unconscious one you don’t, because you’re excused for not getting it.
That’s really stretching the word “basically”. If a patient is unconscious and there’s an urgent issue that will cause serious injury if not addressed and it can’t wait until the patient regains consciousness and you did not have an opportunity to get consent while the patient was conscious, then you have an argument for not getting consent, but you can’t go around treating unconscious patients willy-nilly.
There are at least two distinct senses in which consciousness can be binary. The first sense is the kind you are probably thinking about: the range between e.g. insects, dogs, and humans, or maybe between early and late-stage Alzheimers.
The second sense is the kind that your interlocutors are (I surmise) thinking about. Imagine this: A being that is functionally exactly like you, and that is experiencing exactly what you are experiencing, except that it is experiencing everything “only half as much.” It still behaves the same way as you, and it still thinks the same way as you; it’s just that it’s thoughts only count half.
If this sounds ridiculous to you, well, then you agree with your interlocutors. :) Personally, I think that there IS such a thing as partial consciousness in the sense described above, and I can link you to literature if you like.
EDIT: The place to start is Nick Bostrom’s “Quantity of Experience: Brain Duplication and Degrees of Consciousness,” available for free online.
EDIT: But the people who ask “Do animals have consciousness” are probably talking about the first kind, in which case I share your frustration. The second kind is more what people talk about when they ask e.g. “Could a machine have consciousness?”
I don’t think the first sense and the second are mutually exclusive.
A dog has half as much processing power as a human = a dog can think the same thoughts but only at half the speed. A dog has half as much consciousness as a human = a dog is only half as aware as a human of what’s going on.
And yes, I definitely think that this is how it works. For example, when I get up in the morning I am much less aware of what’s going on than when I am fully awake. Sometimes I pause and go “wait what am I doing right now?” And of course there’s those funny times when you end up going to your old school by accident because you’re not aware of what you’re doing until it’s too late...
The only part I disagree with is “A being that is functionally exactly like you, and that is experiencing exactly what you are experiencing”. A being that is only half as conscious is going to have a different brain, so will act differently. You definitely notice when someone is only at 50% consciousness.
Finally, I submit that consciousness works just like will power: It is a limited resource which you can allocate to certain tasks/thoughts, and by training it you can get more of it. A good rationalist needs a large pool of consciousness.
Imagine this: A being that is functionally exactly like you, and that is experiencing exactly what you are experiencing, except that it is experiencing everything “only half as much.”
Personally I have never understood why people keep acting and talking as if consciousness were binary. I mean, no other human trait works that way. People don’t pretend that you either have intelligence or you don’t, or that you are either nice or you are mean. Heck, the article even literally states that the woman started out normal and gradually lost consciousness, which seems to very clearly imply that her consciousness level was gradually decreasing from whatever her normal level was to 0. Yet people keep asking things like “do animals have consciousness?” and I keep wondering if I’m missing something or if the answer is just really obviously “yes to varying degrees depending on the animal but almost always less than humans do.”
I agree and I don’t think that’s what anyone claims it here. What is interesting is that one small area of her brain can be reversibly affected in a way that completely removes both consciousness and memory formation while keeping the person awake otherwise, which is very much different from sedation or general anaesthesia.
I don’t think serious neuroscientists ask questions like that, and yes, the obvious answer better be correct.
I’ve definitely seen it used on and around here.
The example that springs to mind is the argument that infanticide is acceptable “before they become conscious” (which in practice seems to mean “before they can talk” for some reason) - which I believe was invented by Eliezer as a steelman of “it’s OK to eat babies” and then escaped into the wild—and I believe I’ve seen it in discussions of vegetarianism and even Friendly AI (“well, there are two options. Either X is conscious, in which case...”)
For what it’s worth, you’re not the only one who doesn’t think consciousness is binary.
Here’s a thread on it on felicifa.org.
From a medical perspective, the question of whether rather than to what degree a patient is conscious has serious ethical/practical importance. Basically, to treat a conscious patient you need his/her consent, for an unconscious one you don’t, because you’re excused for not getting it. So that variable, in a binary sense, is something every medical researcher is very aware of.
I agree that it is not ideal as a measure of how well someone is able to integrate information into his/her subjective worldmap (or however you want to define consciousness), but it is very available.
That’s really stretching the word “basically”. If a patient is unconscious and there’s an urgent issue that will cause serious injury if not addressed and it can’t wait until the patient regains consciousness and you did not have an opportunity to get consent while the patient was conscious, then you have an argument for not getting consent, but you can’t go around treating unconscious patients willy-nilly.
You are correct. I omitted these points because they didn’t seem relevant to my point.
There are at least two distinct senses in which consciousness can be binary. The first sense is the kind you are probably thinking about: the range between e.g. insects, dogs, and humans, or maybe between early and late-stage Alzheimers.
The second sense is the kind that your interlocutors are (I surmise) thinking about. Imagine this: A being that is functionally exactly like you, and that is experiencing exactly what you are experiencing, except that it is experiencing everything “only half as much.” It still behaves the same way as you, and it still thinks the same way as you; it’s just that it’s thoughts only count half.
If this sounds ridiculous to you, well, then you agree with your interlocutors. :) Personally, I think that there IS such a thing as partial consciousness in the sense described above, and I can link you to literature if you like.
EDIT: The place to start is Nick Bostrom’s “Quantity of Experience: Brain Duplication and Degrees of Consciousness,” available for free online.
EDIT: But the people who ask “Do animals have consciousness” are probably talking about the first kind, in which case I share your frustration. The second kind is more what people talk about when they ask e.g. “Could a machine have consciousness?”
I don’t think the first sense and the second are mutually exclusive.
A dog has half as much processing power as a human = a dog can think the same thoughts but only at half the speed.
A dog has half as much consciousness as a human = a dog is only half as aware as a human of what’s going on.
And yes, I definitely think that this is how it works. For example, when I get up in the morning I am much less aware of what’s going on than when I am fully awake. Sometimes I pause and go “wait what am I doing right now?” And of course there’s those funny times when you end up going to your old school by accident because you’re not aware of what you’re doing until it’s too late...
The only part I disagree with is “A being that is functionally exactly like you, and that is experiencing exactly what you are experiencing”. A being that is only half as conscious is going to have a different brain, so will act differently. You definitely notice when someone is only at 50% consciousness.
Finally, I submit that consciousness works just like will power: It is a limited resource which you can allocate to certain tasks/thoughts, and by training it you can get more of it. A good rationalist needs a large pool of consciousness.
IOW halfway between a person and a p-zombie?