The neurological activity of my brain allows me to see that tree outside my window—but that experience is only in my mind. The neurological activity of my brain also allows me to experience various other things that have no posited external referent (as in mathematical objects), as well as speculative thoughts about imaginary creatures. It all goes on in my brain and mind—the question is how the electro-chemical actions in the brain result in the qualitative experiences. The only answer that you can accept is that they are somehow identical, my mental experience of a color just is neural firings—a very unsatisfactory answer to me.
Coming in late to this, but why is it an unsatisfactory answer?
Bees see color; is this simply the result of neural firings, or do you believe bees are capable of having Experiences—being mystics? I think we went over this ground before and you never answered. This is when I wish we had some of or closer primate relatives around to interview.
The fact that an experience is only possible because of neural activity in the brain doesn’t mean that the content of the experience is nothing other than neural activity in the brain—I assume that the tree outside my window is real (recognizing that is an assumption, but a pretty secure one). The only reasonable attitude towards experience, as I see it, is suspension of judgement. “I’ve had this experience, what can be learned from it without falling into the assumption that its superficial appearance is the actual reality?”
Please apply all this to bees and tell us what you come up with. Do bees assume that the superficial appearance of flowers is the actual reality of flowers? My guess is that bees don’t ask the question; but on their behalf I can reply that their Experience of flowers is, in fact, the reality of flowers.
Why do you privilege your own species so highly?
I doubt that bees are conscious, if they are not they don’t see color, they react mechanically to specific stimuli in ways that have been genetically programmed over the evolutionary history of bees. In that sense, they are responding to specific aspects of flowers, although they don’t have the concept of flowers and have no thoughts about them—for a bee, a flower is just a cue for an automatic behavior. If you think bees are conscious and do see color, on the other hand, the statement I made still applies because it relates to the experiential consciousness of color and asks how that could be identical with neural electro-chemistry. (There are highly respected scientists who investigate questions like this who do believe the “mind-brain identity theory”, but there are equally respected scientists who do not, it is a matter of opinion at this point.
I doubt that bees are conscious, if they are not they don’t see color
Oh you are on very, very thin ice now. You seem to be saying that bee’s don’t have a concept of what color is. That would be true of a being thats not self aware.
But that aside they most certainly can see color. Actually, I don’t know personally about bee’s though so I won’t say anything about them but many species that don’t have the brain capacity to understand what color is, are perfectly capable of seeing color.
Color as we see it is merely different wavelengths of light. We can see far from all wavelengths, that does not mean we can’t conceptualize them. We know what ultraviolet is, even though we can’t see that frequency. We can many other colors though, and they are a function of the eye combined with brain mechanics for recognizing the colors and “visualizing” them within the brain.
I don’t know where you get the certainty that you need consciousness for that. Color recognition in the brain takes up very little space, and its not even located in the prefrontal cortex, the part of our brain mostly associated with higher brain function.
I doubt that bees are conscious, if they are not they don’t see color, they react mechanically to specific stimuli in ways that have been genetically programmed over the evolutionary history of bees.
Actually not. Bees can learn that sugar water is to be found in areas colored blue and not in areas colored pink, for example. This might be entirely untrue in the wild for these bees; it’s just the way researchers design the experiment to see if bees differentiate color.
If bees can learn to differentiate between colors, they can certainly see them. If they can learn to react differently to experiments that use color than they would to flowers of different colors, it’s not instinctive behavior. So perhaps I should have added that bees not only “see” color, but the reason we know that is because they “learn” to “respond” to different colors.
In that sense, they are responding to specific aspects of flowers, although they don’t have the concept of flowers and have no thoughts about them—for a bee, a flower is just a cue for an automatic behavior.
Okay, so you’re mistaken on all of this. Rethinking in that light, could you respond again?
If you think bees are conscious and do see color, on the other hand, the statement I made still applies because it relates to the experiential consciousness of color and asks how that could be identical with neural electro-chemistry. (There are highly respected scientists who investigate questions like this who do believe the “mind-brain identity theory”, but there are equally respected scientists who do not, it is a matter of opinion at this point.
As I asked before, too: how are you identifying “consciousness”? Are you confusing it with self-awareness?
Consciousness is present to different degrees in different species, some not at all closely related to primates. It’s obvious that consciousness has evolved, just like eyes did—in various ways, at different times—it’s a useful adaptive mechanism.
Self-awareness is a little different. Other primates like chimps and bonobos pass the mirror test for self-awareness, but so do some other vertebrates. I didn’t buy the theory in The Origins of Consciousness in the Bicameral Mind or whatever that book was called, but I do wonder about the point of self-awareness. Is it one of those things that just came along with the genes for something else? Seems too important for that, but who knows?
Who are some of the respected scientists on both sides of the mind-brain identity question? Just curious.
I doubt that bees are conscious, if they are not they don’t see color, they react mechanically to specific stimuli in ways that have been genetically programmed over the evolutionary history of bees.
Actually not. Bees can learn that sugar water is to be found in areas colored blue and not in areas colored pink, for example. This might be entirely untrue in the wild for these bees; it’s just the way researchers design the experiment to see if bees differentiate color.
If bees can learn to differentiate between colors, they can certainly see them. If they can learn to react differently to experiments that use color than they would to flowers of different colors, it’s not instinctive behavior. So perhaps I should have added that bees not only “see” color, but the reason we know that is because they “learn” to “respond” to different colors.
In that sense, they are responding to specific aspects of flowers, although they don’t have the concept of flowers and have no thoughts about them—for a bee, a flower is just a cue for an automatic behavior.
Okay, so you’re mistaken on all of this. Rethinking in that light, could you respond again?
If you think bees are conscious and do see color, on the other hand, the statement I made still applies because it relates to the experiential consciousness of color and asks how that could be identical with neural electro-chemistry. (There are highly respected scientists who investigate questions like this who do believe the “mind-brain identity theory”, but there are equally respected scientists who do not, it is a matter of opinion at this point.
As I asked before, too: how are you identifying “consciousness”? Are you confusing it with self-awareness?
Consciousness is present to different degrees in different species, some not at all closely related to primates. It’s obvious that consciousness has evolved, just like eyes did—in various ways, at different times—it’s a useful adaptive mechanism.
Self-awareness is a little different. Other primates like chimps and bonobos pass the mirror test for self-awareness, but so do some other vertebrates. I didn’t buy the theory in The Origins of Consciousness in the Bicameral Mind or whatever that book was called, but I do wonder about the point of self-awareness. Is it one of those things that just came along with the genes for something else? Seems too important for that, but who knows?
Who are some of the respected scientists on both sides of the mind-brain identity question? Just curious.
Sorry, I was using “see” in the sense of self-aware, that is, I know that I am seeing. For that there has to be an “I” there to see. Certainly bees can distinguish reflectances (and pigeons actually can distinguish colors in a 4-dimensional space rather than just the 3 dimensions we have. Apparently this allows them to locate the position of the sun on a very cloudy day.)
Your question about self-awareness and when it came along is a central issue. I read Jaynes book (bicameral mind) back in the late 70s and didn’t go for it, especially after I found that he was fudging some of his sources to fit his theory. There isn’t any scientific consensus on that right now.
Mind-brain identity: Yes side: Paul & Patricia Churchland (well, not scientists, philosophers); Francis Crick (dead); Christoff Koch (at Caltech, sometime collaborator of Crick).
No side: Roger Penrose & Stuart Hammeroff; the “New Mysterians” (again a bunch of philosophers who don’t think we’ll ever understand consciousness); probably John Searle (hard to say, he thinks consciousness is a biological process just like digestion).
I’d have to check my bookshelves at home to come up with others (am keeping warm in Arizona at the moment).
