Consciousness - Part 1
We have different measures for measuring different systems. But how do we measure consciousness and how to define it? This post is mostly my brain dump and filled with questions.
I'm currently reading about consciousness. We all know we are multicellular organisms. But what makes the cells collectively become 'conscious'? Can a group of atoms be conscious? Molecular biology defines molecules as agents which have to perform specific tasks in the body but not what makes them act consciously as their individual 'self'. At what point does consciousness originate. What makes consciousness possible?
To define this, we need to define what consciousness means. 'It's the ability to experience things'
What is the difference between plants and humans when it comes to consciousness?
Plants and their parts know how to survive. Even in tough conditions like deserts, the plant systems have the ability to deep root to absorb water thus making the plant survive. The parts/systems that are present inside the plants are making them survive. Evolutionary systems caused those. The cells/genes or whichever collective systems had. the ability to think through and act upon to make a particular plant survive. The genes/DNA carried this physiological information and passed it on to the next generation of plants making survival possible for the next generation. So where does experience comes into play in these plant systems? Are the plants conscious? I'd say somewhat yes, they are
Plants have these adaptive behaviors which include 'Creepers which attach to trees thus by making itself available to sunlight thereby surviving'
Plants and animal systems have one primary motive 'Survival'. Survival is necessary for both. And that's what the genes are optimized for throughout the evolution. The brain isn't necessary for evolution to happen(According to what I’ve known until now). Because jellyfish or even a unicellular organism has this need to evolve because it has to survive from generation to generation. Evidence suggests conditioned behavior in amoebae:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-11677-w
Our body organs act selfishly. Our body cells act inherently selfish too. They all have their information architecture which requires our consistent attention. For eg: When we eat, the stomach automatically recognizes that food is sent and it starts working on its own. The same goes with breathing. We don't put up conscious efforts while we are breathing. It'll take a really lot of energy for the brain if it computes all the actions that are happening within our body. So most of our body parts are somewhat self-governing. If any of the organs don’t act selfishly, another dominant part of the body takes up more energy. For this, tradeoffs would be done for different parts of the body to collectively achieve symbiosis. The overall agenda of the body part is to work cooperatively and survive as a whole system. Does this mean individual organ or cells has their own consciousness? Like at what level we can define consciousness? Is it an organ or cells or molecules? We believe experiencing reality or awareness comes from the brain.
There's a strange thing when it comes to jellyfish. It doesn't have a brain but it's multicellular and seeks food and responds to external stimuli like the environment in which they live. Do they experience things? Do they feel alive?
This makes me move to the next question.
What is the purpose of consciousness? Why has it is been programmed by evolution to humans?
To better answer this, we need to know what it looks like for any organism or any object which doesn’t have consciousness. Understanding viruses is one of the best ways to start because still, we don’t know whether the virus is alive and whether they have the ability to feel alive. But still, they replicate inside the hosts which can be considered as it has some ability to live what we call life. The answer to whether viruses have consciousness still remains unknown.
But most of the time I feel, that consciousness has been programmed by humans to avoid chaos to keep the population moving in a linear direction of evolution.
Read more in Part 2