[HN Gopher] The idea that everything is conscious is gaining aca...
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       The idea that everything is conscious is gaining academic
       credibility (2018)
        
       Author : herbertl
       Score  : 13 points
       Date   : 2021-04-20 21:59 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (qz.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (qz.com)
        
       | ncmncm wrote:
       | In other news, academia is coming to accept that "consciousness"
       | can have no objective definition. Users of outlying definitions
       | that appear useful in their field thus have no need to invent a
       | new word for their particular choice. In some cases the entire
       | lack of any meaningful definition is the whole point of using the
       | word.
       | 
       | Lack of a definition, or agreement on a definition, has never
       | been seen to be an impediment to publication, and that is
       | ultimately all that matters.
        
       | strofcon wrote:
       | Seems they're playing fast and loose with the word "credibility".
        
       | fighterpilot wrote:
       | I got paywalled, can someone share an archive or outline link?
        
         | Avshalom wrote:
         | https://outline.com/8z79aN
         | 
         | though the article isn't really anything more than a
         | description of panpsychism,
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panpsychism#Arguments_in_favor...
         | and the Arguments Against section below that are basically a
         | better version of the article
        
       | milesvp wrote:
       | I think it's important to think of consciousness as a spectrum.
       | Having studied artificial life, the conclusion I came to is that
       | something needs to be situated and have some degree of nervous
       | system to be conscious. A rock is not concious, but a tree might
       | be. A fly is less concious than a dog. A robot may be concious if
       | it has enough sensors to react and significantly change it's
       | behavior due to processing (rather than simple bump or range
       | sensors acting as limiters).
       | 
       | But really at the end of the day, it's sort of a bullshit word
       | people tend to use to imply that humans are somehow special
       | beyond just having an insane number of neurons pound for pound.
        
         | spiritplumber wrote:
         | Reminds me of Gaia from Asimov's Foundation.
        
       | charliebreslau wrote:
       | Whaaaaat... bs
        
       | zeeshanqureshi wrote:
       | Wrong ideas can often hold academic credibility. Not saying this
       | particular idea is right or wrong, just that academic credibility
       | may not mean much when it comes to matters of mind of which we
       | know very little about.
       | 
       | Uncertainty is the only certainty.
        
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       (page generated 2021-04-20 23:01 UTC)