Medical How Do Various States and Forms of Consciousness Differ?

[Ryan_m_b]

I thought these questions had been dealt with already. Thing's that have no consciousness have no consciousness. They do not feel or think about anything

 

[apeiron]

I thought these questions had been dealt with already. Thing's that have no consciousness have no consciousness. They do not feel or think about anything

Although also, of course, you need a good definition of the phenomenon to decide when and when it is not present.

Plants show some degree of integrative capacity. So definitions are not a simple issue here.

Plants, scientists say, transmit information about light intensity and quality from leaf to leaf in a very similar way to our own nervous systems.
These "electro-chemical signals" are carried by cells that act as "nerves" of the plants.
The researchers used fluorescence imaging to watch the plants respond
In their experiment, the scientists showed that light shone on to one leaf caused the whole plant to respond.
And the response, which took the form of light-induced chemical reactions in the leaves, continued in the dark.
This showed, they said, that the plant "remembered" the information encoded in light.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10598926
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=plants-cannot-think-and-remember-bu-2010-07-16
http://www.plantcell.org/content/22/7/2201.full.pdf

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Although also, of course, you need a good definition of the phenomenon to decide when and when it is not present.

Plants show some degree of integrative capacity. So definitions are not a simple issue here.

Yes but to go back to an early answer in the thread

Ok this issue needs some definitions, I propose that (btw these are just definitions that I think are useful here, they may not be 100% accurate)

-Consciousness is a process by which an intelligence compares it's sensory input to memory and can create predictive models in order to plan it's actions
-Feeling is to ambiguous a word, we should use sensing instead
-Perceiving is when a conscious entity examines sensory input.

With that out of the way let's address some specifics;

An organism without a brain, ie plant or bacteria
Plants and bacteria can sense but without a central nervous system there is no consciousness and therefore no perception. Any sensory input directly causes the behavioral output. Again no experience

Sensing is something that plants do but there is no conscious perception, there is no consciousness therefore it is impossible to "feel like a plant".

 

[Pythagorean]

How do you know plant don't have subjective experience? We don't even know how we've come to have it?

Plant apices do carry active conducting channels that code information much like neurons and cam be said to be "making decisions".

Plants, in fact, must be very adaptive given their inability to move.

Whether they (or single celled eukaryotes or even prokaryotes/arch) have a subjective experience is up for grabs.

You can say emergence, but we still really don't know how subjective experience emerges.

 

[SamirS]

Well it is assumed that plants only react to inputs, at least those which do "move" (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_movements ).

It is assumed because plants lack a real nervous system and also a brain or any device to actually interpret information.

If a venus flytrap reacting to something landing inside its petals amounts to subjective experience, then a button that closes a circuit and moves some mechanical part could in theory also have this kind of experience. A light sensor doesn't need subjective experience to react to light.

So because plants lack any of the known required devices for subjetive experience, and the fact that they are based on the same laws as we are, it is very very unlikely that they have a subjective experience, which is for all intents and purposes the same as for now declaring they don't have it.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Well it is assumed that plants only react to inputs, at least those which do "move" (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_movements ).

It is assumed because plants lack a real nervous system and also a brain or any device to actually interpret information.

If a venus flytrap reacting to something landing inside its petals amounts to subjective experience, then a button that closes a circuit and moves some mechanical part could in theory also have this kind of experience. A light sensor doesn't need subjective experience to react to light.

So because plants lack any of the known required devices for subjetive experience, and the fact that they are based on the same laws as we are, it is very very unlikely that they have a subjective experience, which is for all intents and purposes the same as for now declaring they don't have it.

Precisely, all evidence points to them not having consciousness.

 

[Pythagorean]

So because plants lack any of the known required devices for subjetive experience, and the fact that they are based on the same laws as we are, it is very very unlikely that they have a subjective experience, which is for all intents and purposes the same as for now declaring they don't have it.

I don't find this to be very sound reasoning. Plants have a respiratory system, but no lungs, a circulatory system, but no heart. Plants have stress hormones.

These systems are easy to identify by their functionality. Plants also have decision making capabilities in their apices:

http://ds9.botanik.uni-bonn.de/zellbio/AG-Baluska-Volkmann/plantneuro/pdf/NeuroPlantTZ-Biologia.pdf

so all the evidence based on functionality points to them adapting similar traits to us in order to survive.

Once you start talking about subjective experience, do you really know what you're talking about? Do you really know the physiological mechanism for consciousness? Is it even a productive question in science yet?

 

[Ryan_m_b]

I don't find this to be very sound reasoning. Plants have a respiratory system, but no lungs, a circulatory system, but no heart. Plants have stress hormones.

These systems are easy to identify by their functionality. Plants also have decision making capabilities in their apices:

http://ds9.botanik.uni-bonn.de/zellbio/AG-Baluska-Volkmann/plantneuro/pdf/NeuroPlantTZ-Biologia.pdf

so all the evidence based on functionality points to them adapting similar traits to us in order to survive.

Once you start talking about subjective experience, do you really know what you're talking about? Do you really know the physiological mechanism for consciousness? Is it even a productive question in science yet?

There is nothing that shows that plants have a co-ordinating ability greater than that of local genetic and biochemical processes.

There still remains to be no evidence that plants possesses a consciousness. There is no observed mechanism of decision making or sensory processing etc

EDIT: although I do agree that subjective experience is a hard thing to analyse and discuss. It's easier to measure if things are conscious (as we would recognize it) and so for the purposes of answering the OPs question plants do not have consciousness.

 

[DaveC426913]

I don't find this to be very sound reasoning. Plants have a respiratory system, but no lungs, a circulatory system, but no heart. Plants have stress hormones.

These systems are easy to identify by their functionality. Plants also have decision making capabilities in their apices:

http://ds9.botanik.uni-bonn.de/zellbio/AG-Baluska-Volkmann/plantneuro/pdf/NeuroPlantTZ-Biologia.pdf

so all the evidence based on functionality points to them adapting similar traits to us in order to survive.

Argument by analogy? Because we breathe air and they do, because we pump fluids and they do too, it follows that, since we think, they probably do too?

Come on Pyth.

Plants do not have a nervous system. Nor is there any suggestion that there's something we're missing in the makeup of a plant that could contain a subjective experience.

 

[thorium1010]

I read somewhere, to perform the kind of activities like calculations, planning, speech etc etc the brain requires a intensive form of energy . I think we can distinguish between plants and humans (or animals in general ) one way is aerobic respiration, and only possible on this planet because of Oxygen, which gives us a enormous source of energy to maintain our brain activity . In fact our brain uses about 25 % of our total energy.

Each glucose molecule gives 18 ATP through aerobic respiration. But in photosynthesis the number of ATP molecules are much less.

So our consciousness (and intelligence ) comes at a very high price.

 

[candydude357]

So if plants are like mechanical machines then they DON'T sense?

 

[Ryan_m_b]

So if plants are like mechanical machines then they DON'T sense?

Plants do sense. They have faculties to sense light, chemicals in soil, gravity, mechanical forces etc etc but they do not have a consciousness with which to perceive and think about these sensory inputs.

In the same way as my laptop can adjust it's screen display brightness by monitoring light levels through it's camera but it is not conscious. It just reacts to it's input.

 

[candydude357]

So in order to be different from a computer, for example they would have to be conscious? What about babies? I always thought that they didn't have consciousness.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

So in order to be different from a computer, for example they would have to be conscious? What about babies? I always thought that they didn't have consciousness.

It's not clear cut what makes the difference between non-conscious and conscious. A baby is conscious. It doesn't magically gain the ability to think after a certain number of years

 

[candydude357]

It's not clear cut what makes the difference between non-conscious and conscious. A baby is conscious. It doesn't magically gain the ability to think after a certain number of years

Doesn't it develop it though?
Also I always thought there were mammals that didn't really have consciousness.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Doesn't it develop it though?
Also I always thought there were mammals that didn't really have consciousness.

Your consciousness does not develop; your intelligence, knowledge, personality etc all do. By their very nature mammals have consciousness (they have a CNS)

 

[candydude357]

Wait, so the computer's reaction is also classified as sensing?
So if we could invent a way for computers to reproduce they would be classified as living?!

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Wait, so the computer's reaction is also classified as sensing?
So if we could invent a way for computers to reproduce they would be classified as living?!

Yes computer's sense, sensing isn't that big a deal. Reproduction is a whole different issue! If something can reproduce then yes it could be classed as alive (if it reproduced with variation it would even evolve)

 

[candydude357]

Yes computer's sense, sensing isn't that big a deal. Reproduction is a whole different issue! If something can reproduce then yes it could be classed as alive (if it reproduced with variation it would even evolve)

But if sleeping, or even people in a coma could sense sounds that would be different from how computers sense...?

 

[Ryan_m_b]

But if sleeping, or even people in a coma could sense sounds that would be different from how computers sense...?

I thought we'd already gone through this? People in a coma do not have conscious thought, contrary to popular belief sleeping people do have conscious thought (though perhaps not in all stages of sleep).

 

[candydude357]

What stages of sleep are completely unconscious?
Also where does anaesthesia come in with conscious/unconscious.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

What stages of sleep are completely unconscious?
Also where does anaesthesia come in with conscious/unconscious.

As far as I am aware NREM sleep is unconscious. When you are under anesthesia you are unconscious.

Put it this way, whenever you are not thinking you are unconscious

 

[candydude357]

But doesn't sleepwalking and other reactions occur in nREM?
EDIT: and non-lucid dreams

 

[Ryan_m_b]

But doesn't sleepwalking and other reactions occur in nREM?

Yes in the slow wave period of NREM however the sleepwalker is not in a full state of consciousness

 

[candydude357]

Yes in the slow wave period of NREM however the sleepwalker is not in a full state of consciousness

Does that mean COMPLETE lack of consciousness or "partial" consciousness?

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Does that mean COMPLETE lack of consciousness or "partial" consciousness?

Enough to mean you have no recollection, don't perform entirely rational acts and have a limited capability to respond to the environment

 

[Pythagorean]

Argument by analogy? Because we breathe air and they do, because we pump fluids and they do too, it follows that, since we think, they probably do too?

Come on Pyth.

Plants do not have a nervous system. Nor is there any suggestion that there's something we're missing in the makeup of a plant that could contain a subjective experience.

The argument is that you don't know, not that I know. It's a subtle difference, but with something like subjective experience, It's an important one.

I still haven't heard any mechanism for consciousness, so it's not really me who has the onus. I'm not claiming plants are conscious. I'm claiming it's not even a scientific question.

Though at any time, any of you are welcome to show me formally how matter can be conscious in the first place and simply prove me wrong.

Maybe I just missed that breakthrough.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

The argument is that you don't know, not that I know. It's a subtle difference, but with something like subjective experience, It's an important one.

I still haven't heard any mechanism for consciousness, so it's not really me who has the onus. I'm not claiming plants are conscious. I'm claiming it's not even a scientific question.

Though at any time, any of you are welcome to show me formally how matter can be conscious in the first place and simply prove me wrong.

Maybe I just missed that breakthrough.

We don't require an understanding on the mechanism of consciousness to characterize and recognize it anymore than we need to understand the mechanisms of digestion to recognize what it is, what it isn't and what is required or not. Psychology and cognitive neuroscience are devoted to studying aspects of consciousness, are you going to say their efforts are unscientific because they do not understand the mechanism?

 

[DaveC426913]

The argument is that you don't know, not that I know. It's a subtle difference, but with something like subjective experience, It's an important one.

I still haven't heard any mechanism for consciousness, so it's not really me who has the onus. I'm not claiming plants are conscious. I'm claiming it's not even a scientific question.

Though at any time, any of you are welcome to show me formally how matter can be conscious in the first place and simply prove me wrong.

Maybe I just missed that breakthrough.

Perhaps I misunderstood. Or perhaps you were actually being sarcastic/facetious.

In your earlier post, you seemed to be arguing that plants might have a form of subjective experience, since they evolved along similar lines as higher life forms. I just don't follow that logic.

all the evidence based on functionality points to them adapting similar traits to us in order to survive.

 

[Pythagorean]

I'm trying to point out the difference between functional and phbomological.

All we have a grasp of in science (and this is the bio forum, not the philo forum) is functionality.

Sure, we play sound with consciousness in cognitive sciences, but that's more stamp collecting than mechanistic models.

The few successful models that can be argued from neuroscience (ie say selfridges pandemonium model) DON'T point to a correlated master controller as Ryan implied, they point to neural competition.

The point is not to bring plants up to "our level" but to bring us down to the level of, if all you could do was measure your physical states, you wouldn't guess humans are conscious besides for the very bias fact that you're conscious.