Ants are not conscious

[russell standish-2]

I have just submitted my "ants are not conscious" argument to a
journal, and to arXiv. If you're interested, the arXiv identifier is
arXiv:0802.4121. Please wait a few hours before trying arXiv, though,
until the paper is made public by the system.

Cheers
--

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[Jason Resch-2]

Hello Russell,

Congratulations on your latest publication.

Today on my way home I begin to question whether or not I still
believe self-sampling assumptions are valid tools for drawing
conclusions.  I decided that though self-sampling assumptions may lead
to conclusions that are true for the greatest number of observers,
correct conclusions are entirely coincidental.  In the same way
correlation is no indication of causation, likelihood of truth for the
majority of observers is not caused by something being true for one's
self.

By definition every OM with a non-zero measure has a 100% guaranteed
chance of being experienced, even if its measure is 10^(-20) that of
another more prolific OM.  The only thing that can be reasoned from
current experience is that one's current OM has a non-zero measure.
Attempting to use properties of one's vantage point to draw
conclusions about other OMs can be disastrously wrong, for example
take the Doomsday Argument:

The doomsday argument allows the largest number of observers to
correctly predict the doom of their civilization, but it achieves this
by having every observer who has ever lived believe that doom is just
around the corner.  If a nuclear holocaust occurs tomorrow, the 6.66
billion alive today would have been correct, but the people alive
today represent just 10% of the total number of humans who have ever
lived, leading 90% to be wrong.

The main objection I have to anthropic reasoning in this case, is that
it leads to the conclusion that life forms which are reactive to their
environments and capable of thought / decision making are
philosophical zombies.  Though it is easier to imagine that ants are
not conscious, what about other animals far more numerous than
humans?  Are chickens, mice, and sheep zombies?

I also do not see how the leap from "Russell Standish" is conscious,
to "All other humans are conscious" can be made yet stop short of
"Bonobos are conscious", "Chimps are conscious", and perhaps even
lemurs and squirrels are conscious.  How does the ability to produce
viable offspring with another relate to whether or not that other can
be conscious?  Drawing the line between species seems arbitrary to me,
especially considering how small of steps evolution takes.  If you
conclude other humans are conscious because we have similar brains,
could you not likewise conclude all mammals are conscious because
mammals too have similar brains and share a common ancestor?  Where in
the evolutionary tree did the first human ancestor's consciousness
appear?  The term consciousness was not clearly defined in your paper,
do you consider it to be a binary property, or something that can have
varying levels of sophistication?

I look forward to your response,

Jason

On Feb 27, 9:48 pm, Russell Standish <li...@...> wrote:

> I have just submitted my "ants are not conscious" argument to a
> journal, and to arXiv. If you're interested, the arXiv identifier is
> arXiv:0802.4121. Please wait a few hours before trying arXiv, though,
> until the paper is made public by the system.
>
> Cheers
> --
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> A/Prof Russell Standish                  Phone [phone] (mobile)
> Mathematics
> UNSW SYDNEY 2052                         hpco...@...
> Australia                                http://www.hpcoders.com.au
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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[russell standish-2]

Jason, just to let you know I'm not avoiding your comments, but I'm a
bit snowed under at the moment. I'll try to look at your comments over Easter.

On Tue, Mar 18, 2008 at 02:24:40AM -0700, Jason wrote:
>
> Hello Russell,
>
> Congratulations on your latest publication.
>
> Today on my way home I begin to question whether or not I still
> believe self-sampling assumptions are valid tools for drawing
> conclusions.

....

--

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[russell standish-2]

On Tue, Mar 18, 2008 at 02:24:40AM -0700, Jason wrote:

>
> Hello Russell,
>
> Congratulations on your latest publication.
>
> Today on my way home I begin to question whether or not I still
> believe self-sampling assumptions are valid tools for drawing
> conclusions.  I decided that though self-sampling assumptions may lead
> to conclusions that are true for the greatest number of observers,
> correct conclusions are entirely coincidental.  In the same way
> correlation is no indication of causation, likelihood of truth for the
> majority of observers is not caused by something being true for one's
> self.
>
> By definition every OM with a non-zero measure has a 100% guaranteed
> chance of being experienced, even if its measure is 10^(-20) that of
> another more prolific OM.  The only thing that can be reasoned from
> current experience is that one's current OM has a non-zero measure.
> Attempting to use properties of one's vantage point to draw
> conclusions about other OMs can be disastrously wrong, for example
> take the Doomsday Argument:
>
> The doomsday argument allows the largest number of observers to
> correctly predict the doom of their civilization, but it achieves this
> by having every observer who has ever lived believe that doom is just
> around the corner.

This is not true. See the appendix "How soon until doom" in my book
Theory of Nothing. For most of humanity's history, doom is a long way off.

> If a nuclear holocaust occurs tomorrow, the 6.66
> billion alive today would have been correct, but the people alive
> today represent just 10% of the total number of humans who have ever
> lived, leading 90% to be wrong.
>

The DA just predicts that population will drop in the near future -
perhaps catastrophically, but more gentle drops are also compatible
with it.

> The main objection I have to anthropic reasoning in this case, is that
> it leads to the conclusion that life forms which are reactive to their
> environments and capable of thought / decision making are
> philosophical zombies.  Though it is easier to imagine that ants are
> not conscious, what about other animals far more numerous than
> humans?  Are chickens, mice, and sheep zombies?
>

I don't think these animals are that much more  numerous than humans,
but it is also true that it is far from clear these animals are
conscious either. None of the species you mention pass the mirror test
of self-awareness.

> I also do not see how the leap from "Russell Standish" is conscious,
> to "All other humans are conscious" can be made yet stop short of
> "Bonobos are conscious", "Chimps are conscious", and perhaps even

I don't. I rather suspect these animals are conscious.

> lemurs and squirrels are conscious.  

These ones possibly aren't. There is a test called the Gallup mirror
test, which is strongly indicative of self-awareness. Most apes pass
this test, bottlenose dolphins and also elephants have found to pass
the test. Virtually no other species does, although it wouldn't
suprise me if some other species were found to pass it. It may also be
that certain species will pass a suitably modified version of the
test, that do not pass the current version of it.

> How does the ability to produce
> viable offspring with another relate to whether or not that other can
> be conscious?  Drawing the line between species seems arbitrary to me,
> especially considering how small of steps evolution takes.  If you
> conclude other humans are conscious because we have similar brains,
> could you not likewise conclude all mammals are conscious because
> mammals too have similar brains and share a common ancestor?

Human brains are far more similar to each other than to other
mammalian brains. In the absence of an adequate theory of
consciousness, we can't really draw the line anywhere, however there are
bound to be some species that are conscious, and others that aren't,
just as there are some species pass the mirror self-awareness test and others
that don't.

> Where in
> the evolutionary tree did the first human ancestor's consciousness
> appear?  The term consciousness was not clearly defined in your paper,
> do you consider it to be a binary property, or something that can have
> varying levels of sophistication?
>

It is defined operationally as being a member of the reference class
used in anthropic reasoning. It is therefore a binary property (you
are either in the reference class, or you aren't).

Consciousness is sometimes used to refer to something that is
graduated: ie the term "level of consciousness" used in
anaethsiology. This is not how I would use the term, and would prefer
to use "awareness" or "alertness" to describe the differing states
before and after having a strong cup of coffee (for instance).

> I look forward to your response,
>
> Jason

--

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Mathematics                        
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[Jason Resch-2]

Russell,

Thanks for your answers.  I think my description and understanding of
the Doomsday argument was overly simplified, but there is a very
similar anthropic reasoning problem I heard before.  The situation is
something like this:

There are 5,000 females and 5 males that are created as part of some
experiment.  They are the only humans that exist at the time.  200
years later after all the humans in the study have died the alien
experimenter creates 5 females and 5,000 males.  Now if you are in
this experiment and find yourself to be male, you could reasonably
guess that you are part of the second batch of humans, since 99.9% of
males in the experiments belong to the second batch.

The original 5 males short of being given extra information will also
conclude they are part of the second group.  What would they conclude,
however, if they were told they are part of the first batch?
Personally I would conclude, "Well it had to be someone, there was
after all, an original group.  I just happen to be one of those few
rare ones."  ASSA looks for explanations elsewhere, such as concluding
that perhaps the aliens likely never go through with the second half
of the experiment in the future, or maybe the aliens mess up the
creation of the humans and create non-conscious zombie males.  The
danger I see in using SSAs to determine what animals can be conscious
is that inevitably there are human generated OMs, regardless of there
being ant OMs or not.  We may be extremely rare in the set of all OMs,
but I don't see the probability that my OM is experienced as some
value between 0 and 1, I see it as 1.  This I think is the root of the
difference in conclusions between you and I.

Regarding the mirror test, I see two problems with it.  The first is
that there is some bias to it, it is biased towards animals that are
visually orientated.  Dogs for example, do not pass.  However can a
dog recognize its own scent?  I believe they can, they can follow
their own tracks.  If Dogs ruled the world and subjected humans to a
self-smell test would humans be capable of passing?  Would it be valid
for the dogs to conclude humans weren't conscious because they
couldn't identify themselves by their scent?

My second objection is that I don't think self-awareness is a
necessary requirement for consciousness.  I equate awareness with
consciousness.  One could be aware of many things without being aware
of the self.  The phenomenon of "ego death" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_death
is a case when humans can lose the sense of self, yet they don't lose
consciousness in the process.  I think there is some process in the
brain that generates the sensation of the self being a distinct actor
within an environment but I think this is just a tool that evolution
developed.

My view on consciousness is similar to Chalmer's, in that perhaps all
informational processes might be conscious in some manner:
http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/254?in=00:22:04&out=00:30:01
Chalmers also mentions the more conservative view that only certain
types of informational processes are conscious.  Perhaps some type of
self-reference is required, but I am not yet convinced.  I have Godel,
Escher, Bach on my reading queue and may change my opinion after
reading it, as my understanding of it is that it says consciousness is
the result of "strange loops".

Jason

On Mar 22, 1:15 am, Russell Standish <li...@...> wrote:

> On Tue, Mar 18, 2008 at 02:24:40AM -0700, Jason wrote:
>
> > Hello Russell,
>
> > Congratulations on your latest publication.
>
> > Today on my way home I begin to question whether or not I still
> > believe self-sampling assumptions are valid tools for drawing
> > conclusions.  I decided that though self-sampling assumptions may lead
> > to conclusions that are true for the greatest number of observers,
> > correct conclusions are entirely coincidental.  In the same way
> > correlation is no indication of causation, likelihood of truth for the
> > majority of observers is not caused by something being true for one's
> > self.
>
> > By definition every OM with a non-zero measure has a 100% guaranteed
> > chance of being experienced, even if its measure is 10^(-20) that of
> > another more prolific OM.  The only thing that can be reasoned from
> > current experience is that one's current OM has a non-zero measure.
> > Attempting to use properties of one's vantage point to draw
> > conclusions about other OMs can be disastrously wrong, for example
> > take the Doomsday Argument:
>
> > The doomsday argument allows the largest number of observers to
> > correctly predict the doom of their civilization, but it achieves this
> > by having every observer who has ever lived believe that doom is just
> > around the corner.
>
> This is not true. See the appendix "How soon until doom" in my book
> Theory of Nothing. For most of humanity's history, doom is a long way off.
>
> > If a nuclear holocaust occurs tomorrow, the 6.66
> > billion alive today would have been correct, but the people alive
> > today represent just 10% of the total number of humans who have ever
> > lived, leading 90% to be wrong.
>
> The DA just predicts that population will drop in the near future -
> perhaps catastrophically, but more gentle drops are also compatible
> with it.
>
> > The main objection I have to anthropic reasoning in this case, is that
> > it leads to the conclusion that life forms which are reactive to their
> > environments and capable of thought / decision making are
> > philosophical zombies.  Though it is easier to imagine that ants are
> > not conscious, what about other animals far more numerous than
> > humans?  Are chickens, mice, and sheep zombies?
>
> I don't think these animals are that much more  numerous than humans,
> but it is also true that it is far from clear these animals are
> conscious either. None of the species you mention pass the mirror test
> of self-awareness.
>
> > I also do not see how the leap from "Russell Standish" is conscious,
> > to "All other humans are conscious" can be made yet stop short of
> > "Bonobos are conscious", "Chimps are conscious", and perhaps even
>
> I don't. I rather suspect these animals are conscious.
>
> > lemurs and squirrels are conscious.
>
> These ones possibly aren't. There is a test called the Gallup mirror
> test, which is strongly indicative of self-awareness. Most apes pass
> this test, bottlenose dolphins and also elephants have found to pass
> the test. Virtually no other species does, although it wouldn't
> suprise me if some other species were found to pass it. It may also be
> that certain species will pass a suitably modified version of the
> test, that do not pass the current version of it.
>
> > How does the ability to produce
> > viable offspring with another relate to whether or not that other can
> > be conscious?  Drawing the line between species seems arbitrary to me,
> > especially considering how small of steps evolution takes.  If you
> > conclude other humans are conscious because we have similar brains,
> > could you not likewise conclude all mammals are conscious because
> > mammals too have similar brains and share a common ancestor?
>
> Human brains are far more similar to each other than to other
> mammalian brains. In the absence of an adequate theory of
> consciousness, we can't really draw the line anywhere, however there are
> bound to be some species that are conscious, and others that aren't,
> just as there are some species pass the mirror self-awareness test and others
> that don't.
>
> > Where in
> > the evolutionary tree did the first human ancestor's consciousness
> > appear?  The term consciousness was not clearly defined in your paper,
> > do you consider it to be a binary property, or something that can have
> > varying levels of sophistication?
>
> It is defined operationally as being a member of the reference class
> used in anthropic reasoning. It is therefore a binary property (you
> are either in the reference class, or you aren't).
>
> Consciousness is sometimes used to refer to something that is
> graduated: ie the term "level of consciousness" used in
> anaethsiology. This is not how I would use the term, and would prefer
> to use "awareness" or "alertness" to describe the differing states
> before and after having a strong cup of coffee (for instance).
>
> > I look forward to your response,
>
> > Jason
>
> --
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> A/Prof Russell Standish                  Phone [phone] (mobile)
> Mathematics
> UNSW SYDNEY 2052                         hpco...@...
> Australia                                http://www.hpcoders.com.au
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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[russell standish-2]

On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 11:48:17AM -0700, Jason wrote:

>
> Russell,
>
> Thanks for your answers.  I think my description and understanding of
> the Doomsday argument was overly simplified, but there is a very
> similar anthropic reasoning problem I heard before.  The situation is
> something like this:
>
> There are 5,000 females and 5 males that are created as part of some
> experiment.  They are the only humans that exist at the time.  200
> years later after all the humans in the study have died the alien
> experimenter creates 5 females and 5,000 males.  Now if you are in
> this experiment and find yourself to be male, you could reasonably
> guess that you are part of the second batch of humans, since 99.9% of
> males in the experiments belong to the second batch.
>
> The original 5 males short of being given extra information will also
> conclude they are part of the second group.  What would they conclude,
> however, if they were told they are part of the first batch?
> Personally I would conclude, "Well it had to be someone, there was
> after all, an original group.  I just happen to be one of those few
> rare ones."

That you are even in such an experiment at all is a rare situation,
and a cause to look for explanations elsewhere.

> ASSA looks for explanations elsewhere, such as concluding
> that perhaps the aliens likely never go through with the second half
> of the experiment in the future, or maybe the aliens mess up the
> creation of the humans and create non-conscious zombie males.  The
> danger I see in using SSAs to determine what animals can be conscious
> is that inevitably there are human generated OMs, regardless of there
> being ant OMs or not.  We may be extremely rare in the set of all OMs,
> but I don't see the probability that my OM is experienced as some
> value between 0 and 1, I see it as 1.  This I think is the root of the
> difference in conclusions between you and I.
>

I don't think thought experiments work. We cannot arbitrarily define
the reference class like you did above. Sorry, but I don't find this
line of argument convincing.

> Regarding the mirror test, I see two problems with it.  The first is
> that there is some bias to it, it is biased towards animals that are
> visually orientated.  Dogs for example, do not pass.  However can a
> dog recognize its own scent?  I believe they can, they can follow
> their own tracks.  If Dogs ruled the world and subjected humans to a
> self-smell test would humans be capable of passing?  Would it be valid
> for the dogs to conclude humans weren't conscious because they
> couldn't identify themselves by their scent?
>

Absolutely agree. I comment on this very thing on page 95 of my book.

> My second objection is that I don't think self-awareness is a
> necessary requirement for consciousness.  I equate awareness with
> consciousness.  One could be aware of many things without being aware
> of the self.  The phenomenon of "ego death" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_death
> is a case when humans can lose the sense of self, yet they don't lose
> consciousness in the process.  

As I have said before, it is only a requirement that one be capable of
self-awareness in order to be capable of consciousness, (this comes
from the anthropic principle reasoning) not that self-awareness is
required every waking moment. Nevertheless, it is still of passing
interest to see what people who've experienced this phenomenon
actually report of their consciousness, just as it is interesting to
see what people report of their experiences of sensory deprivation.

> I think there is some process in the
> brain that generates the sensation of the self being a distinct actor
> within an environment but I think this is just a tool that evolution
> developed.
>

Sure.

> My view on consciousness is similar to Chalmer's, in that perhaps all
> informational processes might be conscious in some manner:
> http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/254?in=00:22:04&out=00:30:01
> Chalmers also mentions the more conservative view that only certain
> types of informational processes are conscious.

An informational process is just a physical process that is
interpreted in a symbolic way by some observer. Consciousness must be
an objective property of a process. In order to be restrict
consciousness to just information processes independent of all other
observers, it has to  self-interpret symbollically, ie be
self-aware.

Of course informational processes need not be self-aware, but in that
case they are information only by virtue of being so interpreted by
another conscious entity.

> Perhaps some type of
> self-reference is required, but I am not yet convinced.  I have Godel,
> Escher, Bach on my reading queue and may change my opinion after
> reading it, as my understanding of it is that it says consciousness is
> the result of "strange loops".
>

Hofstadter has some extremely interesting speculations along these
lines, and GEB is a very entertaining read, however you won't find the
idea of strange loops well developed in that book. You would probably
learn more from the Wikipedia page. Apparently, he has written a more
recent book on the topic, or you could try Ian Stewart and Jack
Cohen's "Figment of Reality".

Incidently, strange loops are a recurring theme in my Theory of Nothing


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Mathematics                        
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[Dr Nick]

Russell
I notice in your book "the theory of nothing that there is a test for self awareness (Gordon Gallup) called the mirror test.  Not many animals are known to have passed this test.  However I wonder whether many more would if the spot painted on them actually was not odourless or indeed was an irritant.  My point is that why should self awareness be measured by a response from signals from the eye to the brain rather than any other of the senses to indicate that the spot is present and therefore prompt the spotted one to look into the mirror to see what's what?

russell standish-2 wrote:

I have just submitted my "ants are not conscious" argument to a
journal, and to arXiv. If you're interested, the arXiv identifier is
arXiv:0802.4121. Please wait a few hours before trying arXiv, though,
until the paper is made public by the system.

Cheers
--

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Mathematics                        
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[Jason Resch-2]

Dr Nick,

I think part of what the mirror test attempts to establish is that the animal recognizes the reflection as itself, therefore showing the animal has a sense of itself as an independent actor within an environment as opposed to simply an ego-less series of experiences.

If an irritant were used instead of paint and the animal responded, it would certainly show the animal was aware of the irritation, but it wouldn't necessary prove the animal is aware of itself being an independent entity.

I think there are lots of problems with the mirror test, at least insofar as it being used as a means of separating self-aware animals from non-self aware ones.  I think it can be used to prove self-awareness but not disprove it.  For instance, there are many dogs and cats that look at their reflection and don't react as if it were another animal, is this evidence they recognize their own reflection?

I came up with a modified mirror test, which I call a surprise test.  Have an animal set such that it can see itself in a mirror.  Then using a probe that is silent, orderless, etc, have it slowly approach from behind (so as to be visible in the mirror but not directly) and touch the animal.  If its level of surprise is greater than when repeated without the mirror, then one might conclude the animal anticipated being poked by the probe as it saw its reflection about to be touched.

Jason

On Sat, Sep 12, 2009 at 4:43 PM, Dr Nick <mn@...> wrote:

Russell
I notice in your book "the theory of nothing that there is a test for self
awareness (Gordon Gallup) called the mirror test.  Not many animals are
known to have passed this test.  However I wonder whether many more would if
the spot painted on them actually was not odourless or indeed was an
irritant.  My point is that why should self awareness be measured by a
response from signals from the eye to the brain rather than any other of the
senses to indicate that the spot is present and therefore prompt the spotted
one to look into the mirror to see what's what?

russell standish-2 wrote:
>
>
> I have just submitted my "ants are not conscious" argument to a
> journal, and to arXiv. If you're interested, the arXiv identifier is
> arXiv:0802.4121. Please wait a few hours before trying arXiv, though,
> until the paper is made public by the system.
>
> Cheers
> --
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

> A/Prof Russell Standish                  Phone [phone] (mobile)
> Mathematics
> UNSW SYDNEY 2052                       hpcoder@...
> Australia                                http://www.hpcoders.com.au
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> >
>
>

--

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[John Mikes]

Russell,

 

is there a chance I could read your paper referred to below? (Those 'some' hours passed what you suggested to require for getting it on the internet).

I wonder if you referred to individual ants or a hive - that IMO may be socially conscious (depending on our def. of conscious). 

It all goes into the socialized 'self'  idea - maybe a further 'evolutionary' phase from the contemporary 'human' ideas. Or: vice versa, when the individual entities combined (symbiotically?) into a 'neuronal brain'. Either way I cannot condone reasonable thinking based on our present anthropomorphy (plus 'human terms').

 

I am not an 'antologist', I missed your paper last year.

 

Have a good time

 

John Mikes

 

 

On Sat, Sep 12, 2009 at 6:03 PM, Jason Resch <jasonresch@...> wrote:

Dr Nick,

I think part of what the mirror test attempts to establish is that the animal recognizes the reflection as itself, therefore showing the animal has a sense of itself as an independent actor within an environment as opposed to simply an ego-less series of experiences.

If an irritant were used instead of paint and the animal responded, it would certainly show the animal was aware of the irritation, but it wouldn't necessary prove the animal is aware of itself being an independent entity.

I think there are lots of problems with the mirror test, at least insofar as it being used as a means of separating self-aware animals from non-self aware ones.  I think it can be used to prove self-awareness but not disprove it.  For instance, there are many dogs and cats that look at their reflection and don't react as if it were another animal, is this evidence they recognize their own reflection?

I came up with a modified mirror test, which I call a surprise test.  Have an animal set such that it can see itself in a mirror.  Then using a probe that is silent, orderless, etc, have it slowly approach from behind (so as to be visible in the mirror but not directly) and touch the animal.  If its level of surprise is greater than when repeated without the mirror, then one might conclude the animal anticipated being poked by the probe as it saw its reflection about to be touched.

Jason

On Sat, Sep 12, 2009 at 4:43 PM, Dr Nick <mn@...> wrote:

Russell
I notice in your book "the theory of nothing that there is a test for self
awareness (Gordon Gallup) called the mirror test.  Not many animals are
known to have passed this test.  However I wonder whether many more would if
the spot painted on them actually was not odourless or indeed was an
irritant.  My point is that why should self awareness be measured by a
response from signals from the eye to the brain rather than any other of the
senses to indicate that the spot is present and therefore prompt the spotted
one to look into the mirror to see what's what?

russell standish-2 wrote:
>
>
> I have just submitted my "ants are not conscious" argument to a
> journal, and to arXiv. If you're interested, the arXiv identifier is
> arXiv:0802.4121. Please wait a few hours before trying arXiv, though,
> until the paper is made public by the system.
>
> Cheers
> --
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

> A/Prof Russell Standish                  Phone [phone] (mobile)
> Mathematics
> UNSW SYDNEY 2052                       hpcoder@...
> Australia                                http://www.hpcoders.com.au
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> >
>
>

--

View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Ants-are-not-conscious-tp15738939p25418478.html
Sent from the Everything List mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

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[russell standish-2]

The "paper" referred to below is my book "Theory of Nothing", which is
available as a free download from my website
http://www.hpcoders.com.au/nothing.html, or in dead tree format from
Amazon.

There is also a paper "Ants are not conscious" which takes that argument a
bit further, and more technical, which is available as an e-print from
arXiv. However, it doesn't discuss the mirror test. I will be revising
this paper in light of referees' comments, hopefully later this year.

Cheers

On Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 07:20:53AM -0400, John Mikes wrote:

> Russell,
>
> is there a chance I could read your paper referred to below? (Those 'some'
> hours passed what you suggested to require for getting it on the internet).
> I wonder if you referred to individual ants or a hive - that IMO may be
> socially conscious (depending on our def. of conscious).
> It all goes into the socialized 'self'  idea - maybe a further
> 'evolutionary' phase from the contemporary 'human' ideas. Or: vice versa,
> when the individual entities combined (symbiotically?) into a 'neuronal
> brain'. Either way I cannot condone reasonable thinking based on our present
> anthropomorphy (plus 'human terms').
>
> I am not an 'antologist', I missed your paper last year.
>
> Have a good time
>
> John Mikes
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Sep 12, 2009 at 6:03 PM, Jason Resch <jasonresch@...> wrote:
>
> > Dr Nick,
> > I think part of what the mirror test attempts to establish is that the
> > animal recognizes the reflection as itself, therefore showing the animal has
> > a sense of itself as an independent actor within an environment as opposed
> > to simply an ego-less series of experiences.
> >
> > If an irritant were used instead of paint and the animal responded, it
> > would certainly show the animal was aware of the irritation, but it
> > wouldn't necessary prove the animal is aware of itself being an independent
> > entity.
> >
> > I think there are lots of problems with the mirror test, at least insofar
> > as it being used as a means of separating self-aware animals from non-self
> > aware ones.  I think it can be used to prove self-awareness but not disprove
> > it.  For instance, there are many dogs and cats that look at their
> > reflection and don't react as if it were another animal, is this evidence
> > they recognize their own reflection?
> >
> > I came up with a modified mirror test, which I call a surprise test.  Have
> > an animal set such that it can see itself in a mirror.  Then using a probe
> > that is silent, orderless, etc, have it slowly approach from behind (so as
> > to be visible in the mirror but not directly) and touch the animal.  If its
> > level of surprise is greater than when repeated without the mirror, then one
> > might conclude the animal anticipated being poked by the probe as it saw its
> > reflection about to be touched.
> >
> > Jason
> >
> >
> > On Sat, Sep 12, 2009 at 4:43 PM, Dr Nick <mn@...> wrote:
> >
> >>
> >>
> >> Russell
> >> I notice in your book "the theory of nothing that there is a test for self
> >> awareness (Gordon Gallup) called the mirror test.  Not many animals are
> >> known to have passed this test.  However I wonder whether many more would
> >> if
> >> the spot painted on them actually was not odourless or indeed was an
> >> irritant.  My point is that why should self awareness be measured by a
> >> response from signals from the eye to the brain rather than any other of
> >> the
> >> senses to indicate that the spot is present and therefore prompt the
> >> spotted
> >> one to look into the mirror to see what's what?
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> russell standish-2 wrote:
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > I have just submitted my "ants are not conscious" argument to a
> >> > journal, and to arXiv. If you're interested, the arXiv identifier is
> >> > arXiv:0802.4121. Please wait a few hours before trying arXiv, though,
> >> > until the paper is made public by the system.
> >> >
> >> > Cheers
> >> > --
> >> >
> >> >
> >> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >> > A/Prof Russell Standish                  Phone [phone] (mobile)
> >> > Mathematics
> >> > UNSW SYDNEY 2052                       hpcoder@...
> >> > Australia                                http://www.hpcoders.com.au
> >> >
> >> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >> >
> >> > >
> >> >
> >> >
> >>
> >> --
> >> View this message in context:
> >> http://www.nabble.com/Ants-are-not-conscious-tp15738939p25418478.html
> >> Sent from the Everything List mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> > >
> >
>
> >

--

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prof Russell Standish                  Phone [phone] (mobile)
Mathematics                        
UNSW SYDNEY 2052                 hpcoder@...
Australia                                http://www.hpcoders.com.au
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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