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I have been thinking lately.. if there is any significant distinction between humans and other animals I wonder if it is not "consciousness" or even "intelligence" but rather simply that we have a separation of conscious and subconscious minds. It seems to me that most animals are just a direct expression of their subconscious with no conscious component acting as a filter. Or at the very least their conscious component is greatly minimalizaed
@freemo Interesting. I think an approach that might simplify this question is to first clearly define “consciousness”.
However, I admit that’s an incredibly tall order (cf: Descartes)
In my own model of how the mind works there is no consciousness, that is just a fictional term we use to feel special... The sense of self-awareness we have, is likely a sense our subconscious has as well, its just seperate from us. We have two parts that likely see themselves as self-aware in our heads... but its not remotely improtant if they are self aware so much as the fact that they are somewhat independent and can hold thoughts and ideas seperately.
@freemo Sounds reasonable, but by “clear definition” I mean non-subjective, repeatable and useable for objective measurements.
As an aside, we also desperately need this for creating frameworks to properly manage the rapidly-evolving AI landscape.
@Dogzilla Right and what I am saying is that the word doesnt need to be defined as we arent using it here at all, and ultimately is probably a word we should avoid since it has no meaning to an outsider, it only has meaning to us within our internal head space.
@freemo I’m not sure I understand. If the difference between humans and animals is a separation between the conscious and the unconscious, how can a definition of those terms not be central?
A definition of the conscious and subconscious mind **is** central... a definition of consciousness is not ..
whether the conscious or subconscious mind pocess consciousness is not relevant to identifying them.
@freemo Ah, I see what you’re saying, but I’m not sure that sidesteps the need for a definition of consciousness. How do you determine the separation of conscious and subconscious mind without it?
Assuming we dont bother trying to get a technical definition for a moment and just accept it as what you are expierncing as awareness.. I would argue both the conscious and subconscious mind has consciousness separately. In that my subconscious is only hidden from me, and I am likely hidden from it.
@freemo Apologies, but I can’t contribute to this discussion while lacking a hard definition. IMHO, that moves the discussion from science to philosophy, which I’m not well-versed in enough to offer anything more than wild-assed guesses.
Not sure why we need a definition for a word that doesnt play a role... Whether either of these two independent minds are conscious or not is not part of the discussion.. It is about if animal minds are compartmentalized or not.
@freemo Maybe I missed something - what exactly are you proposing as “these two independent minds”? Why do you propose there are two entities in animal minds instead of one? Why not 0 entities or 20 entities?
I am proposing as these two independent minds where one is the one that is in direct control of things like speech, its the one I am talking to right now... a second one only interacts with this "primary" mind. It acts by frantically coming up with countless ideas and the ones which it determines is most important it presses upon the primary mind and passes that information along to it.
Both of these minds are compartmentalized in that they think independently.
The hypothesis is not that animals have two minds, humans do.. Other animals may either have a very reduced primary mind, or may just have 1, or 0.. but the hypothesis is that it is effectively one less than humans.
@lxo Im not suggesting language or learning are what make us unique. I am suggesting have a subconscious mind does make us specialhowever.. and by that i dont mean "instincts" I mean a seperate compartmentalized brain capable of independent thought.
@lxo I can only speculate on if other species have the trait... it would be hard to investigate.
That said I have far more certainty about the two-minds idea being true for humans, the only part I cant be certain about is if it is unique to us.
I can both see and interact with mine, anyone who can reach a deep meditative state has expiernced it.
It is fromt his expiernce, and sharing it with others capable of reaching the mental state, it seems clear to me that there is one other such second mind, and that we interact with it. Since this other mind and my own see eachother as seperate (or atleast I see it as seperate) it seems clear to me they are not perceived as one, once one is able to "see" it at all (normally you arent aware of it, in which case I suppose you can say they are seen as one during normal operations :) )
the fable of the struggle between two wolves inside us all is more supporting evidence of our having more than one mind. but why stop at two? we run strange loops in our minds that stand for our models of others' minds, and some even have multiple personalities, in which multiple separate minds seem to inhabit the same brain. IIRC both hoffstadter and damasio perceive some link between the self-referential nature of the mind, with multiple layers of feedback loops, with this explosion of possibilities and complexities
part of the complication is the separation between brain and mind; another part is that we can look at things in different scales, and they may seem inexplicably different at different scales (hoffstadter has great imagery about that), but my earlier point about multiplicity/uniqueness hinges a bit on these issues. different parts of our brains have different specializations, so it might be defensible to qualify them as separate organs, or as a single organ with different parts, just as we can look at our bodies and perceive different organs or a single organism. analogously, minds can probably be decomposed into, erhm, components, that may operate jointly or independently, and be perceived as separate entities or as a single entity, depending on scale and perceptions. hoffstadter also offers some an interesting thought experiment about a mind physically separated from the body, but still controlling it remotely, and then (spoiler follows) cloned exactly, and how they both remain one and the same, operating in perfect unison, until they perceive themselves as separate minds, at which point they diverge and start struggling against each other for exclusive control over the body. I find that experiment fascinating.