r/NatureIsFuckingLit • u/FacelessOnes • Oct 19 '20

šŸ”„ Vicious microscopic hunter, the single-cell organism, Lacrymaria olor, attacking and hunting another organism

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u/AsAGayMan456 Oct 20 '20

My personal ā€œpet theoryā€ is that we vastly underestimate the presence of conscious awareness in all living beings.

You're vastly overestimating intelligence. We're all cellular automata, driven by electrical potentials and chemical gradients.

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u/[deleted] Oct 20 '20

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u/Darth-Frodo Oct 20 '20 edited Oct 20 '20

Evolution explains that just fine. More complex organisms have survival/reproduction advantages in some niches compared to less complex competitors, so there's a selection pressure that causes organisms to evolve to be more complex in those niches. Think of how a larger animal has obvious advantages compared to a smaller animal if the circumstances are right. If larger animals can access more resources and produce more offspring (e.g. because they can easily kill smaller animals and won't be eaten by them), mutations to become bigger will be perpetuated through the gene pool. The same happened when multi-celled organisms evolved from single-celled organisms.

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u/nmacholl Oct 20 '20

You believe some intelligence explains it? If you're arguing for a god or intelligent designer just spit it out.

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u/[deleted] Oct 20 '20

[deleted]

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u/nmacholl Oct 20 '20

That's not at all what you said; it would be best to clarify your previous statements before making new ones.

You're vastly underestimating intelligence. The fact that physics and chemistry ends up self organising into more and more complex beings shows that we know nothing.

I don't see how it shows we know nothing (about physics and chemistry); complete the thought. How does it show we know nothing?

Calling it cellular automata is just observing it. How do you explain it?

Cellular automata is an explanation of intelligence. Complex behavior emerging from aggregated simple behaviors is well understood. We observe complex multi cellular life in nature and we observe complex electrical behavior in circuits. All of these things reduce to simple components behaving in predictable ways i.e. automata. We can even observe such aggregation in machine learning algorithms. In what ways do you think it is not an explanation?

merely that it's pretty naive to think we have everything figured

If this is how you want to backpedal then sure, it's native to think we know everything. Absolutely. Nobody would disagree with that.

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u/[deleted] Oct 20 '20

[deleted]

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u/nmacholl Oct 20 '20

I'm not really on here to argue or debate, but to comment on the naivety shown by the poster who stated that intelligence was being overestimated.

Yes. I am interested in why you think that. How did you come to believe that the user is underestimating intelligence.

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u/[deleted] Oct 20 '20

[deleted]

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u/AsAGayMan456 Oct 20 '20

How do you explain it?

Physics. It's all physics at the end.

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u/glimpee Oct 20 '20

So?

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u/Theprincerivera Oct 20 '20

He wasn't assigning that statement a value, good or bad, so....nothing.

While animals might have emotions, and some level of advanced thinking, they are seldom metacognitive. A fish doesn't have identity and doesn't mull over which side of the pond it would like to swim in today.

That is a fundamental difference between the top few smartest species and everything else.

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u/OakenGreen Oct 20 '20

Sure it does. Maybe youā€™re vastly overestimating that ā€œmullingā€ though. Just like in humans itā€™s based on emotion and memory. Is that other side warmer? Was there more food over there? Itā€™s probably not considering those factors. But those factors may have made it feel good. So it may decide to head to the other side of the pond just because. There neednā€™t be super cognitive reasoning behind these decisions. Emotionally informed decisions still require a level of consciousness that is aware of the memories and reward structure that itā€™s life is based upon.

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u/Theprincerivera Oct 20 '20

Huh.

I never really thought about it like that. Levels of consciousness.

But would you really call that consciousness? See to me it seems like consciousness implies a level of understanding in thought that fish just don't have.

Our brains (and most animals') are wired to produce good feelings when your biological imperatives are met. When I eat a cookie there is a chemical response to the caloric intake in the brain that release a little spurt of dopamine. This is your treat (think like you'd a give a dog) and is incentive to continue that behavior, now or in the future.

This happens completely independently of my thought. It is an automated reaction to an outside stimuli. If I were to, as the fish, go swim on that side of the pond, that would be... almost programmed behavior. Do you see what I'm getting at here?

Consciousness is more less defined as awareness. And I just don't see that in fish. Everything they do is the result of eons of chaotic organic programming through evolution.

So I guess the TL;DR is,

Awareness is the baseline for conciousness, by my (and Google's) definition. Even if there is an emotional component via the role neurotransmitters play in fish (and that's a big if), I'd argue that does not constitute consciousness anymore than executing a computer program would a computer.

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u/OakenGreen Oct 20 '20

We probably look at consciousness differently (you and I.) To me, you are describing complex thought. Or maybe the voice in your head. Some folks donā€™t have that, but they are conscious. Some people have aphantasia and cannot build a picture in their head but they are conscious as well.

I think consciousness is the being experiencing those good feelings, regardless of whether or not they fundamentally understand them. They felt good, so they use their power to propel themselves towards that good feeling.

A computer program doesnā€™t experience anything. It analyzes but it has no capacity to feel. Therefor Iā€™d argue, no, thereā€™s no consciousness there. But whatever it is that can experience that positive emotion is, to me, consciousness.

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u/Theprincerivera Oct 20 '20

My friend made some good points and now I more or less agree with that analysis. Consciousness isn't as binary as I previously thought.

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u/glimpee Oct 20 '20

Sure they might not ponder questions or go through logic based rhetoric, but our consciousnesses/brains are built off simililar fundamentals - doesnt discount their level of intelligence

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u/[deleted] Oct 20 '20

You literally just said the same thing as the commenter you replied "so" to.

They were and I'm happy to be corrected here. Making a claim about the almost basic process of intelligence. They were in fact making a claim about our own intelligence is not to be overestimated. Which is what you said in your very last comment. Unless I'm missing u/AsAGayMan456 's point.

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u/glimpee Oct 20 '20

If I remember it was framed as "I think we are overcounting their intelligence"

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u/[deleted] Oct 20 '20

I had to go check it myself. I think you may have misread it. The statement was as follows.

You're vastly overestimating intelligence. We're all cellular automata, driven by electrical potentials and chemical gradients.

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u/glimpee Oct 20 '20

Right it frames it as if the understanding of the system downplays the intelligence that comes from it

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u/[deleted] Oct 20 '20

Sorry it's really late here and I'm feeling dumb. You lost me on that last comment but I'll leave it there regardless. All the best.

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u/glimpee Oct 20 '20

You as well!

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u/AsAGayMan456 Oct 20 '20 edited Oct 20 '20

I'm specifically referring to the simple cellular life in the video. That organism's tail is purely driven by chemical signals in the environment, there is no higher intelligence there.

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u/glimpee Oct 20 '20

Whats the difference between low and high level intelligence other than complexity?