the Alantic: Scientists are totally rethinking cognition

[David T]

Scientists Are Totally Rethinking Animal Cognition

A very interesting article in regards to scientific perceptions on the topic, since it starts out talking about an minority religion in india, Jainism.

I am not sure there is much to actually discuss What ever any of us come up with, it mearly is our expressions in how we experience. Even if clothed in religious or scientific clothing. A kind of possibly debatable topic, but actually ,not reallly.

 

[shunyadragon]

Scientists Are Totally Rethinking Animal Cognition

A very interesting article in regards to scientific perceptions on the topic, since it starts out talking about an minority religion in india, Jainism.

I am not sure there is much to actually discuss What ever any of us come up with, it mearly is our expressions in how we experience. Even if clothed in religious or scientific clothing. A kind of possibly debatable topic, but actually ,not reallly.

The rethinking of animal cognition is nothing new. The difference between humans and other animals is not totally a matter of differences between human and animal cognition and consciousness.

In the Baha'i Faith it is matter of the limits of comprehension and cognition by the animal kingdom of the human consciousness, and not whether the animal kingdom.experiences consciousness and cognition.

From: An Unknowable God | What Bahá’ís Believe
Each kingdom of nature is incapable of understanding the level of existence higher than itself. A rock cannot imagine the growing power of a plant; a tree is unable to understand the powers of sight, hearing, smell or movement possessed by an animal; and an animal will never attain the consciousness that distinguishes a human being. Similarly, human minds will never be able to grasp fully the operations of the spiritual kingdom. “All superior kingdoms are incomprehensible to the inferior; how therefore could it be possible that the creature, man, should understand the almighty Creator of all?”

 

[sun rise]

That's an interesting story. I've read a fair amount of animal self-awareness but nothing with this particular focus on cognition itself.

 

[Nous]

Scientists Are Totally Rethinking Animal Cognition

A very interesting article in regards to scientific perceptions on the topic, since it starts out talking about an minority religion in india, Jainism.

I am not sure there is much to actually discuss What ever any of us come up with, it mearly is our expressions in how we experience. Even if clothed in religious or scientific clothing. A kind of possibly debatable topic, but actually ,not reallly.

Yes, fer God's sake, non-human animals are conscious. We just have difficulty imagining what the conscious experience of an ant, a frog or a dog is like.

I find the persistence of the idea that consciousness is somehow an effect of something happening in brains to be quite interesting and highly informative. Nothing unique is happening in brains. If consciousness were an effect of something happening in brains, such as an effect of electrical activity, there is no reason why consciousness wouldn't be an effect of electrical activity outside of brains. And if one assumes that consciousness is an effect of electrical activity in brains, it would seem to imply that consciousness is just an inherent aspect of electromagnetic fields. Indeed, to the best of my understanding, it seems that the current evidence suggests that general anesthetics produce unconsciousness by disrupting the coherence of spatially extended EM fields. E.g.:

According to the theory of Tononi, consciousness emerges from the dynamic interaction of large-scale networks of the brain that function to integrate information (Tononi, 2004,2005, 2008). These functional networks may bind information from endogenous and exogenous sources and make the computational result globally accessible across the brain (Baars, 2005). Anesthesia may suppress consciousness by disrupting (Alkire et al., 2008; Hudetz, 2006) or unbinding (Mashour, 2005) this integrative process.
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General Anesthesia and Human Brain Connectivity

On a recent broadcast of Radio Lab on NPR, a woman described her experience of having a stroke, in which she said she experienced "joy, pure joy." She said that as she slowly recovered her brain functioning and became more aware of her environment, this unadulterated joy gradually subsided.

I am reminded of the delightful comedy Soap Dish, starring Sally Fields and Kevin Kline, in which the neurosurgeon was slightly reluctant to perform an impromptu brain transplant between the soap star (Fields) and her daughter, with a hack saw on top of a bar counter, in order to save the daughter's life. The surgeon explained, "But if I do this, you're going to lose your brain forever," with Fields urging him to hurry up and do it, saying, "I don't need a brain!" That's what I say. I think I'd be better off without a brain. I never use it. It's just eating up and dispersing energy.

 

[David T]

Yes, fer God's sake, non-human animals are conscious. We just have difficulty imagining what the conscious experience of an ant, a frog or a dog is like.

I find the persistence of the idea that consciousness is somehow an effect of something happening in brains to be quite interesting and highly informative. Nothing unique is happening in brains. If consciousness were an effect of something happening in brains, such as an effect of electrical activity, there is no reason why consciousness wouldn't be an effect of electrical activity outside of brains. And if one assumes that consciousness is an effect of electrical activity in brains, it would seem to imply that consciousness is just an inherent aspect of electromagnetic fields. Indeed, to the best of my understanding, it seems that the current evidence suggests that general anesthetics produce unconsciousness by disrupting the coherence of spatially extended EM fields. E.g.:

According to the theory of Tononi, consciousness emerges from the dynamic interaction of large-scale networks of the brain that function to integrate information (Tononi, 2004,2005, 2008). These functional networks may bind information from endogenous and exogenous sources and make the computational result globally accessible across the brain (Baars, 2005). Anesthesia may suppress consciousness by disrupting (Alkire et al., 2008; Hudetz, 2006) or unbinding (Mashour, 2005) this integrative process.
​

General Anesthesia and Human Brain Connectivity

On a recent broadcast of Radio Lab on NPR, a woman described her experience of having a stroke, in which she said she experienced "joy, pure joy." She said that as she slowly recovered her brain functioning and became more aware of her environment, this unadulterated joy gradually subsided.

I am reminded of the delightful comedy Soap Dish, starring Sally Fields and Kevin Kline, in which the neurosurgeon was slightly reluctant to perform an impromptu brain transplant between the soap star (Fields) and her daughter, with a hack saw on top of a bar counter, in order to save the daughter's life. The surgeon explained, "But if I do this, you're going to lose your brain forever," with Fields urging him to hurry up and do it, saying, "I don't need a brain!" That's what I say. I think I'd be better off without a brain. I never use it. It's just eating up and dispersing energy.

"I think I'd be better off without a brain"

Amen!! Lol

I sometimes laugh at our absurdities collectively. If we start down the conversation of conciousness in science it gets reductively absurd instantly. I think thats normal actually. In religion different language same thing. I have often times said trees are smarter than people and most of the confusion starts in the self labeled region of the brain the higher functioning. Based on what itself? And in regards to people trying to squeeze conciousness into the brain what about a sea annenome? Or a star fish they experience and neither have brains. So most of the diphead things today on the topic which you hace alluded to and iiunderstan are about as attune as the psyhactric world was that had homo sexuality classified as a mental disorder till 1974. Please really! Lame.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Scientists Are Totally Rethinking Animal Cognition

A very interesting article in regards to scientific perceptions on the topic, since it starts out talking about an minority religion in india, Jainism.

I am not sure there is much to actually discuss What ever any of us come up with, it mearly is our expressions in how we experience. Even if clothed in religious or scientific clothing. A kind of possibly debatable topic, but actually ,not reallly.

I have often times wondered which animal besides ourselves will gain sapience.

There's no doubt that some seem to be very close from an evolutionary standpoint.