Current Events > How would define consciousness?

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Michio Kaku theorizes that:

Consciousness is the number of feedback loops required to create a model of your position in space with relation to other organisms and time.

He believes a thermostat has 1 unit of consciousness - it senses the temperature around it. A flower has around 10 units of consciousness - understands temperature, weather, humidity, gravity, etc.

Level 1 Consciousness: Example - reptiles. Understand position in space.

Level 2 Consciousness: Example - mammal. Understand relation to other organisms - emotions, social hierarchy.

Level 3 Consciousness: Example - humans. Understand relation to time, ability to imagine the future.

Do you agree with him?
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I think, therefore I am.

Something like that.
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Level 4 Consciousness: Wearing a fedora for full euphoria

i would say self-awareness is what really defines the human consciousness and what makes it supreme over animals or machines or w/e

the ability to understand our emotions/experiences/life/death/whatever beyond what is happening in the present is the big one in my opinion, it's a pretty incredible concept when you think about it. if you think of a human being without this essential sense of self-awareness they're either very young children or complete insane psychopaths
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consciousness is the result of the id and ego expressing itself
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I think it's closer to a construct that mystifies the mind. I don't think it is a meaningful construct.
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The whole idea of levels of consciousness is absurd. Awareness of self is the best definition, Kaku is going to have his own definition since he's like 70 year old wizard but let's not pretend we understand what he's saying, it's complete nonsense.

catboy0_0 posted...

consciousness is the result of the id and ego expressing itself

Is it?
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we know brains take input from environments/etc and create responses based on those inputs. like if you hear something your brain will interpret it. I think the only difference between brains is how complex these responses are. a human brain and most likely some other animal brains (apes, elephants, whales, dolphins, etc) can reflect inwardly and create responses based on previous inputs and on inputs created within the brain, sort of like a feedback loop. the ability to generate thoughts about things that haven't directly happened to you yet is what separates 'higher' levels of consciousness to 'lower' levels of it. I'm probably not making any sense but it makes more sense in my head
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Interesting thoughts.
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bump
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LordRazziel posted...

catboy0_0 posted...

consciousness is the result of the id and ego expressing itself

Is it?

I don't really know, I just wanted to say thing
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COVxy posted...

I think it's closer to a construct that mystifies the mind. I don't think it is a meaningful construct.

I think it's meaningful as it can be applied to how we evaluate the moral status of animals and people.
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