Consciousness - Revision history

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 ===Awareness===
-The question for [[Consciousness]] is "What function does it serve?"  Clearly for most living organisms, awareness of the environment to enable (1) survival of the person and (2) survival of the species is the over-riding purpose. For humans the overall goal of survival is broken down into tasks that need to be completed on that path. In other words, [[Consciousness]] is a agent for change of the current environment into one that is more conducive to a comfortable existence on the path to survival. This success of this drive can lead to self-importance and other less admirable attributes.<ref>Christof Koch, ''Then I am Myself the World'' Basic Books (2024-05-07) ISBN-13 ‎ 978-1541602809</ref>
+The question for [[Consciousness]] is "What function does it serve?"  Clearly for most living organisms, awareness of the environment to enable (1) survival of the person and (2) survival of the species is the over-riding purpose. For humans the overall goal of survival is broken down into tasks that need to be completed on that path. In other words, [[Consciousness]] is a agent for change of the current environment into one that is more conducive to a comfortable existence on the path to survival. The success of this drive can lead to self-importance and other less admirable attributes.<ref>Christof Koch, ''Then I am Myself the World'' Basic Books (2024-05-07) ISBN-13 ‎ 978-1541602809</ref>
 ==Solutions==

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 ===Awareness===
-The question for Consciousness is "What function does it serve?"  Clearly for most living organisms, awareness of the environment to enable (1) survival of the person and (2) survival of the species is the over-riding purpose. For humans the overall goal of survival is broken down into tasks that need to be completed on that path. In other words, [[Consciousness]] is a agent for change of the current environment into one that is more conducive to a comfortable existence on the path to survival. This success of this drive can lead to self-importance and other less admirable attributes.<ref>Christof Koch, ''Then I am Myself the World'' Basic Books (2024-05-07) ISBN-13 ‎ 978-1541602809</ref>
+The question for [[Consciousness]] is "What function does it serve?"  Clearly for most living organisms, awareness of the environment to enable (1) survival of the person and (2) survival of the species is the over-riding purpose. For humans the overall goal of survival is broken down into tasks that need to be completed on that path. In other words, [[Consciousness]] is a agent for change of the current environment into one that is more conducive to a comfortable existence on the path to survival. This success of this drive can lead to self-importance and other less admirable attributes.<ref>Christof Koch, ''Then I am Myself the World'' Basic Books (2024-05-07) ISBN-13 ‎ 978-1541602809</ref>
 ==Solutions==

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 ===Awareness===
-The question for Consciousness is "What purpose does it server?"  Clearly for most living organisms, awareness of the environment to enable (1) survival of the person and (2) survival of the species is the over-riding purpose. For humans the overall goal of survival is broken down into tasks that need to be completed on that path. In other words, [[Consciousness]] is a agent for change of the current environment into one that is more conducive to a comfortable existence on the path to survival. This success of this drive can lead to self-importance and other less admirable attributes.<ref>Christof Koch, ''Then I am Myself the World'' Basic Books (2024-05-07) ISBN-13 ‎ 978-1541602809</ref>
+The question for Consciousness is "What function does it serve?"  Clearly for most living organisms, awareness of the environment to enable (1) survival of the person and (2) survival of the species is the over-riding purpose. For humans the overall goal of survival is broken down into tasks that need to be completed on that path. In other words, [[Consciousness]] is a agent for change of the current environment into one that is more conducive to a comfortable existence on the path to survival. This success of this drive can lead to self-importance and other less admirable attributes.<ref>Christof Koch, ''Then I am Myself the World'' Basic Books (2024-05-07) ISBN-13 ‎ 978-1541602809</ref>
 ==Solutions==
 * At the very simplest level even an amoeba is self-aware to the extent that it can swim upstream in a sugar gradient. This behavior is labeled "tropism" and seldom considered the source of [[Consciousness]] but there doesn't seem to be any basis for this exclusion as the path from tropism to [[Consciousness]] seems to be a straight path. Really the point of any organism is to survive in the [[Ecosystem]] that it inhabits. It seems obvious that the less stable the [[Ecosystem]] the more adaptable the organism must be.  So it would seems that instability is the direct cause of complex [[Consciousness]]. The organisms that did not adapt to changing [[Ecosystem]]s did not survive. Periodic changes, like the seasons, can be adapted by inherited patterns, but instability does not lead to inherited behavior changes.

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 * Most of the current discussion on [[Consciousness]] is focused on [[Carbon-based Life Form]]s or their simulation on digital computers. But there is no a priori reason to to exclude other large aggregations of energy. For example it has been argued<ref>Noora Al-Sibai, ''BIOLOGIST SAYS THE SUN MAY BE CONSCIOUS'' https://futurism.com/the-byte/biologist-says-sun-conscious</ref> that the sun itself is a good place to look for evidence of self-aware behavior.
 ==Solutions==
 * At the very simplest level even an amoeba is self-aware to the extent that it can swim upstream in a sugar gradient. This behavior is labeled "tropism" and seldom considered the source of [[Consciousness]] but there doesn't seem to be any basis for this exclusion as the path from tropism to [[Consciousness]] seems to be a straight path. Really the point of any organism is to survive in the [[Ecosystem]] that it inhabits. It seems obvious that the less stable the [[Ecosystem]] the more adaptable the organism must be.  So it would seems that instability is the direct cause of complex [[Consciousness]]. The organisms that did not adapt to changing [[Ecosystem]]s did not survive. Periodic changes, like the seasons, can be adapted by inherited patterns, but instability does not lead to inherited behavior changes.

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 ==Full Title or Meme==
 A simple idea of "self aware" well-known by most people, becomes harder to define as digital systems get better at doing things that people do.
 ==Context==

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 * David Chalmers describe the hard problem as finding an answer to why we have any sense of knowing that what we know is provided by sensory perception. We now know that without comparing our internal knowledge to reality we fall into hallucination. This has been shown by GPT which has no sense perception and hallucinates wildly.
 * An early attempt at a definition by Thomas Nagel recognized that trying to reduce [[Consciousness]] was never successful. It always had be be addressed as a feature of a real thing. He asked the question "What it's like to be a bat?"<ref>Thomas Nagel, ''What it's like to be a bat?'' (1974-10) https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Nagel_Bat.pdf</ref> His answer is that it must come from the idea of what it is like to be something. But that misses the point of knowing where to be conscious is it enough to be like a human, or does it need to be what is it like to be one particular human? In other words, is it necessary to be a unique identifiable thing first, or can be be what is it like to be a member of class of things (humans, bats, etc.)?
-* What it's like to have [[Artificial Consciousness]]. (Click on the link.)
+* What it's like to have [[Artificial Consciousness]]. (Click on the link.) And could that be related in any way to a living [[Consciousness]]?
 * Most of the current discussion on [[Consciousness]] is focused on [[Carbon-based Life Form]]s or their simulation on digital computers. But there is no a priori reason to to exclude other large aggregations of energy. For example it has been argued<ref>Noora Al-Sibai, ''BIOLOGIST SAYS THE SUN MAY BE CONSCIOUS'' https://futurism.com/the-byte/biologist-says-sun-conscious</ref> that the sun itself is a good place to look for evidence of self-aware behavior.

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 * At the very simplest level even an amoeba is self-aware to the extent that it can swim upstream in a sugar gradient. This behavior is labeled "tropism" and seldom considered the source of [[Consciousness]] but there doesn't seem to be any basis for this exclusion as the path from tropism to [[Consciousness]] seems to be a straight path. Really the point of any organism is to survive in the [[Ecosystem]] that it inhabits. It seems obvious that the less stable the [[Ecosystem]] the more adaptable the organism must be.  So it would seems that instability is the direct cause of complex [[Consciousness]]. The organisms that did not adapt to changing [[Ecosystem]]s did not survive. Periodic changes, like the seasons, can be adapted by inherited patterns, but instability does not lead to inherited behavior changes.
 * Hod Lipson of the Creative Machines Lab at Columbia University decides to address [[Consciousness]] experimentally, since none of the recent philosophers had achieved much just by philosophizing.<ref>John Pavlus,  ''Curious About Consciousness? Ask the Self-Aware Machines.'' (2019-07-11) Quanta Magazine https://www.quantamagazine.org/hod-lipson-is-building-self-aware-robots-20190711/</ref> “We used to refer to consciousness as ‘the C-word’ in robotics and AI circles, because we’re not allowed to touch that topic. It’s too fluffy, nobody knows what it means, and we’re serious people so we’re not going to do that. But as far as I’m concerned, it’s almost one of the big unanswered questions, on par with origin of life and origin of the universe. What is sentience, creativity? What are emotions? We want to understand what it means to be human, but we also want to understand what it takes to create these things artificially. It’s time to address these questions head-on and not be shy about it.”
-* A group of prominent biologists and philosophers announced a new consensus: There’s “a realistic possibility” that insects, octopuses, crustaceans, fish and other overlooked animals experience consciousness.<ref>Dan Falk, ''Insects and Other Animals Have Consciousness, Experts Declare'' (2024-04-19) https://www.quantamagazine.org/insects-and-other-animals-have-consciousness-experts-declare-20240419/</ref> "In 2022, researchers at the Bee Sensory and Behavioral Ecology Lab at Queen Mary University of London observed bumblebees doing something remarkable: The diminutive, fuzzy creatures were engaging in activity that could only be described as play. Given small wooden balls, the bees pushed them around and rotated them. The behavior had no obvious connection to mating or survival, nor was it rewarded by the scientists. It was, apparently, just for fun."
+* A group of prominent biologists and philosophers announced a new consensus: There’s “a realistic possibility” that insects, octopuses, crustaceans, fish and other overlooked animals experience consciousness.<ref>Dan Falk, ''Insects and Other Animals Have Consciousness, Experts Declare'' (2024-04-19) https://www.quantamagazine.org/insects-and-other-animals-have-consciousness-experts-declare-20240419/</ref> "In 2022, researchers at the Bee Sensory and Behavioral Ecology Lab at Queen Mary University of London observed bumblebees doing something remarkable: The diminutive, fuzzy creatures were engaging in activity that could only be described as play. Given small wooden balls, the bees pushed them around and rotated them. The behavior had no obvious connection to mating or survival, nor was it rewarded by the scientists. It was, apparently, just for fun." Scientists have issued a new declaration. "The empirical evidence indicates at least a realistic possibility of conscious experience in all vertebrates (including all reptiles, amphibians and fishes) and many invertebrates (including, at minimum, cephalopod mollusks, decapod crustaceans and insects)."
 ==References==