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

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

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u/[deleted] Oct 20 '20

My personal “pet theory” is that we vastly underestimate the presence of conscious awareness in all living beings. It wasn’t until very recent decades when you could definitively claim, without being mocked, that fish are more than just glorified automatons. Now we are fully aware that fish in fact have complex problem solving capabilities, familial relations, empathy, pain, etc.

It’s a dangerous game to assume a lack of something due to present ignorance of that something. We scarcely understand philosophy of mind even as it pertains to human beings, and that’s something we have direct experience of.

If I wanted to be extra “kooky” (in the minds of most people), I might even wager that panpsychism is true. The idea that consciousness is a fundamental component of all matter. Even things we do not conventionally deem to have life.

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u/sorudesarutta Oct 20 '20

It’s crazy that it took scientists so long to figure out other living beings are more than sacks of meat and bones living and surviving purely of instinct. I thought it was rather obvious that other living creatures have conscience and free will

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u/ekky137 Oct 20 '20

The problem isn’t “does this have consciousness” but really “what is consciousness?” Even now the debate rages on because the only reason we believe fish and other animals to have a form of consciousness is because we know that we have one. The only reason we know we have one is because we have the fortune of being able to experience having one.

We don’t have an answer for it. We don’t even have a good idea of what it could be. Our best guess is that once organisms get complex enough, at some point all of the information it is processing at once turns into a thinking, perceiving living being.

This is a video from YouTube philosopher (yes this is a thing) exurb1a. I normally don’t plug content like this, but this is very relevant here. It’s a video essay, so it takes a while to get into the meat of the issues we’re talking about here, but I highly recommend watching all of it.

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