Низовцев Юрий Михайлович : другие произведения.

How do thinking and consciousness relate to each other?

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  • Аннотация:
    If we follow Descartes' thesis: "I think, therefore I exist," which he has attributed exclusively to a person, then, contrary to him, it turns out that both primates and, in some respects, even the artificial intellect think. However, if this is the case, then they are hardly equivalent to a person in understanding their own existence. Therefore, it would be nice to understand what it is in a person, in addition to the ability to think, making him a person compared to a monkey or a robot.
  
  
  Rene Descartes in his "Principles of Philosophy" in the section "On the foundations of human cognition" argues about the sign of existence of the person so: "... we cannot but believe that the conclusion I think, therefore, I exist truly... ... we exist only because we think... ... we still doubt whether there are bodies in the world, but we know with certainty that we think" (see, for example, "Anthology of World Philosophy". Volume 2. P. 239. "Thought." Moscow. 1970.
  Descartes further explains what he means by thinking: "Without a doubt, all kinds of the thought activity that we note in ourselves can be attributed to two main ones: one of them consists in perception by the mind, the other - in determination by the will. So, to feel, to imagine, even to comprehend purely intellectual things are all just different kinds of perception, whereas to desire, to be disgusted, to affirm, to deny, to doubt are different kinds of volition..." (ibid., p. 246).
  Thus, Descartes believes that the totality of the types of the thought activities indicated by him is a true sign of a person's definition of his own existence.
  For our part, consider whether these types of the thought activities are present in animals.
  Let us take a cat about which much is known because it is the most popular pet.
  The cat, of course, wants to eat something when she is hungry, but it is clearly disgusted if she is given tasteless food, and it confirms this disgust with all its behavior. The cat has a negative attitude towards moving it from a familiar place to an unfamiliar environment and may express its dissatisfaction with anxiety and even specially performed defecation in a conspicuous place. As for doubts, it is problematic to force this animal to perform actions that are unusual for it. Trainers are well aware of this, since any cat expresses doubt or even denial with its whole appearance if it is forced to perform some circus exercises.
  If we turn to the types of the perception pointed out by Descartes, then not only animals, but all living beings have certain sense organs, as well as the organs for controlling their body. The organs for controlling in animals this is the brain and neural networks, in plants and bacteria, part of their organizing cells, which allows all of them to exist in the environment for a certain time.
  Therefore, since there are sense organs, then all living beings have the ability to the sensations of one kind or another, transmitting the data received by these organs to their control centers, which process this data, turning it into information necessary for controlling the organism, and on this basis, over time, recipes are developed that in the course of development of organisms become instincts and reflexes, within the framework of which they exist.
  That is, these centers give commands both to cells and to all organs of the body, including it as a whole, as a result of which this organism is constantly adapted to a changing environment in order to preserve the sensations received from the sense organs and, if possible, to improve their quality, that is, to make them more enjoyable. And all these living beings do not want to lose the received sensations and thanks to them, desires, for the sake of empty nothingness, with which they are familiar from fainting or falling into hibernation. The sensations themselves not only give them a feel of life with all its diversity, but also give them an impetus to preserve these sensations in posterity.
  Thus, every living being, first of all, wants to stay in the information flow, which it is able to perceive and comprehend at the level of considerations it has, differing from things that do not understand anything in that it uses the data, processed in the control bodies, for its own benefit, preservation and reproduction, in competition with other living beings.
  Therefore, all living beings actively, that is, consciously, but on a purely instinctive-reflex level, use the environment to maintain themselves in action (nutrition and metabolism), trying to push competitors away from food (dominance), in contrast to a person, whose activity is not limited only by instincts and reflexes on a hormonal background.
  The finiteness of their own existence, which all organisms, except humans, do not understand, but feel by the deterioration in the functioning of certain parts of the body, they overcome by procreation (transfer of their own genome) in all possible ways, up to budding, which requires a special program of growth and development as individual, and general (generic). This program is already at conception laid into every cell of any organism.
  If we turn to the imagination and comprehension of objects and phenomena that Descartes points to as an integral part of human thinking, then in cats, like some other animals, this component of thinking is also present, being a necessary help for solving problems of survival, as a rule, in a hostile environment, without which the development of organisms stops.
  Imagination, as such, does not give objects in all their details and versatility, but in general, the idea of things is preserved, and the resulting images can be manipulated for some time and evaluate their own reaction to the influence of the environment in the next moment.
  In other words, in the imagination, a kind of materialization of objects is manifested in a mental-figurative form.
  Due to this, a certain pause is created, necessary for making a decision, which allows the animal, for example, when catching mice by cats, to consider in his mind certain options for the upcoming action at the next moment, on which the very existence of the subject of the action sometimes depends, which loses as it develops the ability to multiply in billions of copies, and it am forced to compensate for this loss with a higher degree of quick-wittedness in order to preserve the existence of both oneself and the genus.
  Moreover, any creature always tries to create the most suitable situation for survival and improvement of its status in the corresponding niche by searching for the best perspective for itself in a more or less distant future. This search, in particular, for the most developed animals is expressed in the formation of mental images of certain objects and their consideration on the basis of past events that have been deposited in the memory, due to what these animals, for example, are able to anticipate the danger and evade it.
  For example, wild cattle gather in a herd, minimizing the threat of predator attacks, female birds begin to build nests at certain times, cats with the approach of winter find warm basements.
  Imagining a more or less distant future, each sufficiently developed being is able to materialize information mentally-figuratively for an acceptable way out of the present into the future, using the reserves of his own memory for this, as a result of which the chances to avoid the stagnation or death for this living being, is raised.
  This current reality is naturally reflected in the immediate feelings, images and thoughts of any animal in every moment of the present, forming a contour, in which it can operate most effectively, sensing what the available senses are able to recognize; imagining something what can reflect the shape and some components of the surrounding objects in accordance with the signals from the senses, as well as the available memory; attracting own quick-wittedness about what and how to do (be) in the current situation.
  An example of amazing mental abilities are also the ordinary rats.
  They, like people, communicate with each other with a large number of various signals, with the difference that these signals are ultrasonic.
  Rats are able to understand the meaning of a whole range of words spoken by people competing with them, and use them meaningfully in accordance with the situation.
  Rats can generalize a range of situations and use the abstract forms that have formed in their heads. They are also capable of deriving general rules of conduct from accumulated life experience and using them to solve problems that they have not yet encountered.
  Rats even know how to adequately assess the correctness of their own decisions made in ambiguous situations, thereby increasing the likelihood of the legitimacy of their own actions in the future.
  Primates have similar abilities.
  It turns out that, at least, animals with a developed brain, although they think in full accordance with the types of thinking listed by Descartes, and, of course, exist, but, contrary to Descartes' thesis, they are not aware of their own existence, or rather, they are not looking for opportunities to understand this, constantly doing something completely different - wanting only to consume the sensations supplied to them by their surroundings for the best arrangement of themselves in this surroundings.
  In other words, this aspiration completely blocked them the opportunity to be aware its existence, and this means that neither the cat nor other natural beings, like her, except for a person, need such awareness, since they are completely merged into the environment and do not have the independent significance in it, being, in essence, adaptants, that is, they do not possess subjectivity.
  From this it is clear that Descartes" thesis "I think, therefore I am" leads to contradiction, since, for example, both higher mammals and people quite definitely think, but if people are just as definitely aware of their own existence, then even the highest mammals are far from this awareness.
  Judging by the fact that, despite the ability to think, they remained animals, that is, specimen who are not interested in the analysis of existential and epistemological problems, but only in the problems of nutrition, reproduction and dominance, they do not strive to realize the fact of own existence in the world and to make the appropriate conclusions from it for their own development.
  What, then, is the difference between them, which leaves some mammals as animals and others makes the humans?
  The answer to this question can be as follows.
  Not only the highest mammals, but all living beings do not think in order to be aware of their own existence in the natural environment and draw appropriate conclusions from this, which is typical only for people, and all the aspirations of these creatures are directed exclusively on the problems of survival, creating the most convenient conditions for oneself and producing offspring.
  All kinds of their thinking are oriented only to stay in this environment for the consumption of sensations that it provides to them in the quality of its own integral components, and these countless natural components are given the opportunity to compete with each other until they are eaten.
  And if they have not yet been eaten or they are not so easy to devour, then they are by no means aware of their approaching death, but only feel it due to the loss of the ability to sense fully.
  Unlike all other creatures, a person not only feels the approach of death, but also knows that he will certainly die, because, unlike other creatures, he understands that he is in the current time, which changes him, gradually wearing out the body until it completely loses its basic functions.
  In other words, the animals struggle in every possible way for their existence, concentrating their thoughts only on sensations, without any reflection on the fact that they exist, but with thoughts about how to stay longer in this process of consuming sensations, and nothing more.
  For example, the difference between primates and humans in relation to their own existence is rooted in the fact that they have a different attitude to actions in the environment, programmed from the moment of conception. And this event determines purely adaptive contacts with the environment for the primate, but for a person - not only the adaptive.
  Therefore, all primates do not seek to become aware of themselves in the world, but are limited to sensing themselves in it with an assessment of their own actions, characteristic only of animals with a sufficiently developed brain. Nevertheless, even they correct their behavior, with rare exceptions, by trial and error and only in the current circumstances, locking themselves, apart from survival, only to the aspiration to consume sensations, preferably the most pleasant.
  That is, they use the environment exclusively for the realization of this need, and they do not seek to go further, remaining only the active components of this environment, completely merged into it.
  Thus, the main property of animals, as well as other living beings, unlike humans, consists solely in their adaptability to the environment, as a result of which they are nothing more than its active components, using it without any attempts to change it purposefully for themselves.
  Therefore, the program of action of any living beings, up to primates, which is in the genome of every cell of any organism, is tuned for survival and the best arrangement in its own surrounding, and not for the conscious change of this surrounding on an ongoing basis.
  For example, it is known that female chimpanzees are able to identify themselves with a reflection in a mirror, which helps them, in particular, comb out parasites from local areas of the back without the help of other monkeys.
  It seems that in this case there is no difference between a person who recognizes himself in a mirror image, and a monkey who also recognizes oneself in a mirror image.
  However, the behavior of the monkey is reduced only to scratching oneself with pleasure and removing parasites from the back. Here there is no the constructive interaction of monkeys with its surroundings, as a result of which there would be a targeted change in this surrounding.
  A person is able to use a mirror not only to correct his hairstyle. For example, he uses mirrors in a car for comprehensive viewing, uses them in telescopes and many other devices and facilities, thereby achieving the planned, and not momentary, goals.
  Generalizing, we can say that a person is able to evaluate his actions even in the distant future, creating various models and analyzing them in accordance with the goals set and the available resources.
  Thus, a person in his communities, unlike a seemingly equally gregarious monkey, acquired, in addition to its adaptability to the natural environment, also completely new features in relation to interaction with the environment - goal setting and variability of the vision of the problem in the right perspective, allowing to achieve the goal in various ways depending on his own ingenuity, the most effective of which are creative ones.
  These features gave him the opportunity to understand his existence in the world not only thanks to the thinking that is characteristic of cats, rats, and primates, that is, animals with a sufficiently developed brain, but, unlike them, - goal-setting and creativity, which allow a person to interact with the environment in accordance not only with their urgent needs, but also with interests that may not coincide with the needs and change all the time, and their range is expanding.
  In other words, the program of the human actions has expanded dramatically in the direction of acquiring the ability to set goals and achieve them, using the creative abilities that have appeared in him, penetrating into the future thanks to his ideas, and thereby owning time, that is, being aware himself in it, whereas the animals are always limited only to the present in the form of sensations.
  Therefore, only this type of self-consciousness means the true humanization of a living being, since it leads to the recognition of one's own existence not only in the world of sensations, but also in the world of ideas, combining quite harmoniously in one face the ability to feel and the ability to know both the surrounding world and oneself.
  The volume of information flows in this case increases dramatically, the environment begins to change purposefully under the influence of these creatures, changing also them at a much faster pace than it happened before.
  That is, a person in his communities falls into the field of ever-increasing information flows that are perceived by his senses, developing both them and the body's control organs, as a result of which, for example, the mass of the human brain compared to the mass of the brain of primates has grown in about two million years several times.
  Thus, the evolution represents the gradual accumulation of the various, more or less difficult living beings appearing and disappearing during natural selection during billions of years. These beings are characterized by the full unity with the environment, i.e. they aren't capable to separate themselves from the environment independently, because the action program which is written down in genes of each living being determines it as a component of the living environment, and the sole support which is a instinctively-reflex activity, but not as the certain subject who is executing the conscious-target impact on the environment.
  It is possible to understand this representation by analogy with operation of the computer according to various programs, introduction of which changes properties of the computer, but which the computer isn't capable to generate independently.
  If, nevertheless, to allow the emergence of such independence, then becomes inexplicable absence of similar transformation, for example, at a chimpanzee during millions of years, whose genome only for 1% differs from the human genome.
  All this indicates the lack of smooth evolutionary transition of the primate, merged with the nature, into the creative person, which is separated from nature to a large extent
  The lack of similar smooth evolutionary transition is confirmed by data of the research conducted by the international consortium of 67 scientists from 23 scientific institutions of 5 countries - the USA, Israel, Spain, Italy and Germany.
  They have found the fact of unusually rapid restructuring of a genome, contradicting the speed of evolutionary development which is usually stated by the evolutionists. During the research they used the computer overlay of the genome map of a chimpanzee on the genome map of a person that has allowed them to mark out three categories of so-called DNA-duplications - those that are available in a human genome, but are absent in a genome of a chimpanzee, those that are available in a genome of a chimpanzee, but are absent in a human genome, and those that are available in a genome of both types. DNA-duplication is one of forms of a mutation at which the site of a chromosome is doubled. In this case the segments of DNA with the length not less than 20 thousand nucleotide pairs were considered. It turned out that about a third of DNA-duplications, found in the person, are absent at a chimpanzee. This figure fairly surprised the geneticists, inasmuch it testifies to very high frequency of mutations for short (on evolutionary measures) period (See, e.g., dw.de» decryption of a genome ... and ... its comparing ... human).
  This shows that the explanation of emergence of the person, offered by evolutionists, as a result of smooth transition of one of type of primates to the person, connected with labor activity and manifestation of communication with the help of words, which it is unclear why not recognized for other primate species by the evolutionists, doesn't maintain criticism.
  So, the influence of work and communication on the transformation of a primate into a hominid, apparently, is nothing more than the consequence of additional programming of the genome, which until then (for billions of years) it was programmed in all living beings only for instinctive-reflex activity, as a result of which they can be defined as slaves of sensations, since they do not go beyond adaptability to the environment.
  It was this additional coding that initiated the gradual - for at least two million years - the transformation of appeared hominids into humans in process of their collective actions, while the rest of the primates are still, at best, knocking bananas off trees with a stick just like tens of millions of years ago, without transforming, as it should be, if evolutionists are to be believed, into people.
  Such, apparently, is the process of transformation of the primates, oriented only to instinctive-reflex activity in the natural environment, into the hominids, that is, creatures capable of not only adapting to the environment, but purposefully changing it, and moreover, creatively.
  Outwardly, this transformation of the primates through hominids into the humans manifested itself in the fact that in addition to the individuality that any animals possess, a person, in addition to it, also became a personality.
  The individuality of any animal consists in the features and properties that distinguish it from other individuals of this kind, being unique compared to the rest.
  Individuality is formed on the basis of the genotype, to which is added the impact of the appropriate environment, which is determined by the dissatisfaction of the consciousness of the individual with the existing conditions in relation to nutrition, reproduction and status in the flock or herd.
  The very term "individuality" clearly indicates the main property of any individual - its egocentrism, that is, the paramount concern for oneself alone as a being who wants to preserve own sensations, mitigated, however, by the fact that the forced stay of an individual in a group cannot but reflect its attitude to the members of this group, expressed in behavior that is dictated by the group, that is, the collective consciousness.
  Thus, a semi-primate-human could not but preserve the individuality of an animal in himself, like any individual in the animal world, more precisely, a person retained an animal consciousness in himself, outwardly expressed in his individuality.
  The individuality of a being is reflected in the behavior, temperament, character of the animal, its physiological characteristics, appearance, ability to feel, the ability to pry.
  The main properties of the individuality of any animal are quick-wittedness, sensitivity, impressionability, decisiveness, one or another degree of sociability (cooperation) in actions, the ability to pry, dominance, stubbornness.
  All these properties are also present in a person.
  However, it also appeared those properties that are absent in animals, namely: conscious diligence or laziness, self-confidence or self-criticism, politeness or rudeness, responsibility or bad faith, conviction or unscrupulousness, which are features of a person's personality, being produced mostly by his mind, which, already being a property of a person's personality, has significant differences from quick-wittedness of an animal in its focus not only on nutrition, reproduction and dominance.
  In addition, the abilities for goal-setting and creativity, that have appeared in a person, have largely brought a person out of slavery only to sensations, giving him already as a personality, the opportunity to enjoy the fruits of knowledge and art.
  And yet the main characteristic of the personality is altruism, which includes kindness, friendliness, empathy, compassion, mercy, unselfish concern for others, in contrast to the unchanging egocentrism of animal consciousness, thereby creating a counteraction of one to another, which has become the most effective driving force of the human communities, having accelerated their development many times compared to slowed time, in which all other communities of living beings are located.
  It should also be noted that Descartes, designating only thinking as a definition of own existence by a person, has not indicated the true master, whose tool is any person, and has not noticed that thinking is not the only feature that really detaches a person in relation to one 's own existence from other living beings.
  We have shown above that the primate thinking in the forms indicated by Descartes does not differ from the human thinking, however, it is aimed only at realizing the desire of the primates to consume sensations, without going beyond adaptability to the environment.
  Therefore, it is impossible to determine one's own existence only by the ability to think.
  For example, a modern humanoid robot thinks logically like a person, perceiving, processing and transmitting information without being distracted, however, like a human, by desires, doubts and imagination. Nevertheless, he has articulated and meaningful speech, clearly answers questions, solves the tasks assigned to him, provides the requested information, uses sensors to control various devices by modeling the situation in accordance with the goal set for him.
  Moreover, the amount of memory and speed when using the programs entered into it exceeds the same characteristics of the human brain.
  However, this thinking "being" does not understand that it exists, and is not interested in its own existence, differing from animals and humans still in that it does not want anything. The owner of the robot can change the program of its actions, can turn it off and reconnect it to work. The robot, and in the broader sense, and artificial intellect, all this is indifferent, that is, it has neither individuality nor personality, and it can only be attributed to soulless objects.
  It is precisely because of the complete lack of independence, but in appearance - the reasonable work, actually programmed by an external consumer to obtain the required results, the artificial intellect of any type is not able to set goals and be creative, that is, go beyond the formal logic.
  In other words, this creation of the human hands and mind, thinking within the indicated framework, and seemingly even more perfect in comparison with a person, is indifferent to its own existence, while all living beings behave themselves quite reasonably in the world, wanting to live in the stream of the most pleasant sensations and therefore they struggle for their existence, although, unlike humans, they are only adaptive to the environment, and not self-active, like humans.
  Therefore, the primates, like other organisms, have certain ways of thinking activity - from the most primitive to the most highly organized, since they willy-nilly have to process information in the appropriate centers, but they do not have self-consciousness which is expressed in goal-setting, creativity and altruism, but there is only a sense of themselves in the world with an assessment their own actions for the alteration their behavior, in order to stay in existence, and this assessment is realized, as a rule, only in the current circumstances, mainly by trial and error, focusing on the desire to consume sensations, preferably the most pleasant ones.
  That is, all organisms on the planet, except for a persons, use the environment only to receive the sensations and fulfill their desires, which stem from dissatisfaction with the present, and the artificial intellect in all its forms is not capable of sensing, and therefore has no desire to exist.
  Therefore, the fears of many scientists and politicians about the replacement of humanity with one form or another of the artificial intellect are completely unjustified.
  On the other hand, an attempt to create a living being as an assembly in the form of an exact biological copy with a genome was unsuccessful.
  The only conclusion that can be drawn from all these collisions is that all organisms in its diversity is able to feel and desire, or even understand its own existence, not due to only its ability to think thanks to the work of the organ that controls the processing of incoming information, not due to the ideal design of all parts of the body, and also not in the possession by them of the sense organs, but to something or someone else.
  The fact is that any living being, except for an intellect, which, in fact, technically processes data coming through the senses to it, controlling the functioning of its own body, that is, turning these data into information that is understandable for use by a living being, beginning with the cellular structure, ought to have as if an manager-consumer of this information who came from the outside, for this manager to solve current tasks or achieve goals set by him, whether it is survival problems, the desire to get the most pleasant sensations or awareness of oneself in this world for the sake of knowledge and change of this world.
  The intellect of any organism, represented by the information processing unit and the unit for controlling the functions of the organism (a kind of biological internal computer), does not turn on without this "internal" leader and consumer of the supplied information.
  This invisible consumer of information and the leader of the actions of a living being makes the intellect in the form of a biological internal computer to work only at the moment of its own manifestation in a being, more precisely, in its embryo, and only this manifestation immediately makes this creature alive (active, and subsequently by capable for reproduction), and with the disappearance of this consumer and owner of a living being, or a serious failures in it or in his carrier, for example, the destruction of neural circuits, sensory organs or a disease of other important organs, the intellect of this organism, despite the preservation of its organic structure, having lost its leader, loses its activity - ceases to act (death of the creature) or the information, which is supplied to this chief by the intellect does not find proper application (madness).
  This manager, who is not perceived by any means, uses any organism at any level of its complexity for his own purposes, getting life for oneself in all its manifestations, and through a person gaining an understanding of his own existence not only through the ability to observe, feel and think, but also the ability to create, solving various tasks, setting certain goals for himself and striving to achieve them.
  All this allows him to radically transform his environment on the basis of the accumulation of knowledge about the world and about himself in the face of the living beings, and therefore this leader is called consciousness.
  Briefly, about existence and a person permissibly to express thus.
  You can think without feeling, and be only a robot, you can think, feel and desire, but be in life without understanding own existence in time, like animals.
  A sufficiently developed natural being becomes a person not only because he senses and thinks, but because, receiving sensations, this being comprehends them not only to solve momentary tasks in order to survive, but sets certain goals for himself to find out what he lives for, and tries to achieve them in a variety of ways.
  All this is characteristic not only for a person, but also for a child who, in contact with personalities, becomes such himself.
  This means that everyone can say about himself: I understand my existence only because I am able not only to feel, desire and think, but also to set goals and achieve them.
  It was this kind of understanding that has transformed the animal with its individuality into a personality who did not lose the individuality.
  Such features of the psyche enable a person to realize his own existence, that is, to gain self-consciousness, thereby ensuring for a person in the face of his communities the use of the environment for their own purposes on the basis of the organization and regulation of interaction with it not only to adapt to this environment, but also for its artificial transformation, providing each person with more and more free time and, accordingly, more opportunities for general development, which was previously hindered by the problem of survival, and hence, for the accelerated development of consciousness itself, which, paradoxically, is imperceptible, but exists in us while we are alive.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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