Bulletpoint Consciousness - An Introduction (ch14 to 16)

What views on the function of consciousness are there? CH.14

    Two central questions are: (1) when does consciousness arise during human development ?, and (2) which contemporary beings are conscious? Pan psychologists believe that consciousness is not an all-or-nothing principle, but develops in different sizes. They believe that consciousness was already present before the evolution took place.

    Humphrey states that consciousness is an 'emergent property'. This means that the consciousness stands for a combination of factors. He also stated that consciousness is a 'surface feature' that influences natural selection. He states that within the brain there is a kind of internal eye ('inner eye') that gives an image of the brain activity of a person himself (and therefore not of the outside world). A consequence of this theory is that only intelligent and social organisms can have a consciousness.

    Many evolution theories speak about the relationship between natural selection and genes. Evolutionary processes that act on genes also work on all kinds of other forms of 'replicators' (which genes are an example of). Dawkins also calls this universal Darwinism.

How can the consciousness of animals be investigated? CH.15

    There are two views on the question of whether animals also have a consciousness: (1) the view that only people have a consciousness, and (2) the view that many (animal) species are physically similar and that therefore they all have to be aware to have.

    To test whether animals are self-aware, a mirror test can be used. It is then examined whether animals can recognize themselves in the mirror. However, there are two problems with this test: (1) the is not fair for all animal species, for example for animals that can not touch their own face, and (2) most monkeys experience it as threatening when stared at them.

    Part of our consciousness is that we have beliefs, desires and mental states and that we also attribute mental states to other people. We also call this 'theory of mind' (TOM). Imitation is also the basis for experiencing empathy for others. However, there is often an individual learning process that arises through attempts that lead to mistakes and success, which means that there is seldom any imitation of others.

    The biggest difference between people and animals is that people do not have language and animals. This means that if language is the cause of man's self-consciousness, then the consciousness of other organisms should be different than ours. However, it is still not clear whether animals are conscious or not.

How can a machine be taught intellect? CH.16

    When asked if people are a machine, two answers are possible. We can start with biology and try to understand how neural systems work or we can make artificial systems and see to what extent they correspond to a human being.

    Descartes believed that the human body is a machine, but that this machine can not provide voice and rational thought on its own. Tuning believed that there could be a simple machine that could specify steps needed to solve every problem, a Universal Tuning Machine.

    Connectionism is based on artificial neural networks (ANNs) and parallel processing. ANNs are used to mimic human human cells.

    Embodyed cognition ('embodied cognition') stands for the idea that the mind can only be created if something interacts with the environment.

    Tuning has designed various tests to investigate whether machines can think, including a chess test.