Interesting article on discovering the extent of mental blindness. I didn't know that the two visual paths in the brain were independent of each other.

But I don't think I subscribe to a theory of consciousness from the interesting information in this article.

He tries to establish sentience with the following quiz. Do you pass?

Do you have a robust sense of self, centred on sensations?
Do you engage in self-pleasuring activities – be it listening to music or masturbation?
Do you have notions of ‘I’ and ‘you’?
Do you carry your sense of your own identity forward in time?
Do you attribute selfhood to others?
Do you use your brain to understand others’ feelings?

https://aeon.co/essays/how-blindsight-answers-the-hard-problem-of-consciousness

Is it affected by the form of brain death known as Mormonism?

I sentient you to think about what thinking . . .

Does a good and proper AI think of humans as sentient?  

We humans don't mostly give that courtesy to young children, much to their dismay in many situations.

How can I tell if I am sentient ?

Put a mirror under your nose and breathe on it.

Well, in America you have's to be at least 18 years old to be sentient… and 21 to deaden your sentience in alcohol.

"But I don't think I subscribe to a theory of consciousness from the interesting information in this article."

COMMENT: Here is the author's [Nicholas Humphrey] 'theory of consciousness' in two nutshells:

"I believe the upshot – in the line of animals that led to humans and others that experience things as we do – has been the creation of a very special kind of attractor, which the subject reads as a sensation with the unaccountable feel of phenomenal qualia. This attractor is still a type of sentition, which originates as a response to sensory stimulation, and still carries information about ‘what’s happening to me’. But this information now comes in a remarkable new package. It comes, if you like, as part of a riddle written on the brain (see Figure 2d above)." [From the linked essay]

In his book, *A History of the Mind: Evolution and the Birth of Consciousness* (1992) Humphrey says this:

"The theory under review -- conscious feeling emerges as a remarkable kind of intentional doing -- a kind of doing that creates its own extended present outside of physical time, and of which the conscious subject is author, audience, and enjoyer, rolled into one."

TO the extent this is coherent, it is at best magical and at worst, just nonsense. And as typical, he throws in a bit of evolution for good measure, but not in a form that is realistic, much less helpful. Humphrey makes dualism seem respectable after all. (Note: One of Humphrey's more recent books is called *Soul Dust: The Magic of Consciousness* (2011). Humphrey is one of those materialist philosophers who is attempting to "naturalize the mind" as I mentioned in another thread.
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"He tries to establish sentience with the following quiz. Do you pass?

Do you have a robust sense of self, centred on sensations?
Do you engage in self-pleasuring activities – be it listening to music or masturbation?
Do you have notions of ‘I’ and ‘you’?
Do you carry your sense of your own identity forward in time?
Do you attribute selfhood to others?
Do you use your brain to understand others’ feelings?"

COMMENT: No, you have misunderstood. Regarding ANIMAL sentience, he says:

Bringing these ideas into the field of *animal behaviour*, I’ve looked at a range of diagnostic criteria that might apply. Does the *animal*:

1. Have a robust sense of self, centred on sensations?
2. Engage in self-pleasuring activities – be it listening to music or masturbation?
3. Have notions of ‘I’ and ‘you’?
4. Carry their sense of their own identity forward?
5. Attribute selfhood to others?
6 Lend out their minds so as to understand others’ feelings?

Broadly, these tests confirm my hunch that it’s only mammals and birds who make the cut. Chimpanzees, dogs, parrots we can be sure of. Lobsters, lizards, frogs we can rule out."

Humphrey uses this distinction to establish an evolutionary cut-off point that he thinks supports is 'late evolution of consciousness' theory.

So I'm not an ANIMAL??

Henry Bemis Wrote:
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> Humphrey uses this distinction to establish an
> evolutionary cut-off point that he thinks supports
> is 'late evolution of consciousness' theory.

Humphrey, 1992.

You're like a Mormon with his books of scripture that represent ultimate truth regardless of all science and research since the time of writing.

"There is nothing new under the sun."

--Ecclesiastes, 1:9, ca 400 BCE

Nope... not me. But I know a guy, who knows a guy who is.

So I'm not an animal?

Depends on if I've had coffee...

If that's a cross between sedentary and ancient, then, yes.

Ancient? One day you may become centient.

Ha!

Police Officer:
Sir, are you classified as human?

Korben Dallas:
Negative, I am a meat popsicle.

Negative. I'm an ugly bag of mostly water.

I've never felt entirely comfortable with that axiom for a variety of reasons, the most important of which is that it implies that rocks and plants and anything without a central nervous system cannot exist.

A bullet, for example, does not think and hence does not exist. Yet it is real enough to rob a thinking being of the ability to think and thereby to transform it into something that has instantaneously ceased to exist even though its corpse will lie there for decades or even centuries without completely decomposing.

Surely any principle that leads us into such cul-de-sacs is problematic.

Well it is a personal declaration. Everyone wanted to follow and decouple their minds from their bodies.

Still quite the rage.

One rarely sees such a transparent error in elementary logic as you have exhibited in this response. In fact, the error was so blatant, I fully expected someone else to call you out on it and waited to see who might win the prize. I guess loyalty runs deep. Anyway, here's the problem in case anyone cares.
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"I've never felt entirely comfortable with that axiom for a variety of reasons, the most important of which is that it implies that rocks and plants and anything without a central nervous system cannot exist."

COMMENT: Cognito ergo sum (I think therefore I am) in no way implies what you are suggesting, namely that rocks, etc. cannot exist because they don't think. (i.e. don't have a central nervous system) Descartes' Cognito expresses a commitment to the following universal quantification:

(A) (x)(If x thinks, then x exists) (Read: "For all x, if x thinks, then x exists.)

Your fallacious interpretation of (A) changes this statement to:

(B) (x) (If x exists, then X thinks)

Then, applying (B) to rocks, et al., you conclude that since rocks don't think, they don't exist. Of course, this latter statement (B) does not in any way follow from Descartes' statement, in any form whatsoever!

So, your 'discomfort' is entirely based upon your inability to understand basic logic, and not on any problem inherent in the logic of the Cognito.

I am a rock.

...in the sea of life, thus ... an island.

Henry Bemis Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> So, your 'discomfort' is entirely based upon your
> inability to understand basic logic, and not on
> any problem inherent in the logic of the Cognito.

Oh, I understand Descarte's logic and I realize that my discomfort with it may be personal, which is why I stated it as a personal opinion rather than objective truth.

Your satisfaction with the subjective basis for Descarte's philosophy is not surprising; you evince it all the time with your selective use of sources and your refusal to consider evidence that contradicts your views. But I would prefer that a general theory of existence be based on a general standard rather than an egocentric one. For Descarte's logic yields very different results if employed by a paranoid schizophrenic or a religious extremist. In other words, I'm discomfited by any system of thought founded on the principle that "truth is what makes sense to me."

Dagny unintentionally made the point the other day when she expressed sadness for the rest of us because when she dies we will cease to exist.

"Oh, I understand Descarte's logic and I realize that my discomfort with it may be personal, which is why I stated it as a personal opinion rather than objective truth."

COMMENT: This is ridiculous back-peddling. You said that your stated fallacious objection to the Cognito was based upon your specifically expressed logic, which you claimed was the "most important" source of your discomfort. Why can't you ever own anything.

I will add that many of your posts are laced with this same sort of fallacious reasoning, usually more subtle, but fallacious just the same. You have a problem with logical reasoning, pure and simple. That's fine. I am sure you have other positive qualities that I don't have. But when I point out some error, you just dig deeper and deeper.
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"Your satisfaction with the subjective basis for Descarte's philosophy is not surprising; you evince it all the time with your selective use of sources and your refusal to consider evidence that contradicts your views. But I would prefer that a general theory of existence be based on a general standard rather than an egocentric one.

COMMENT: I said nothing about my satisfaction with Descartes, or his reasoning. And, again, all you can do is attack me with rhetorical nonsense, while mischaracterizing my views, of which you know nothing about.
__________________________________________________

"For Descarte's logic yields very different results if employed by a paranoid schizophrenic or a religious extremist. In other words, I'm discomfited by any system of thought founded on the principle that "truth is what makes sense to me."

COMMENT: First, it's 'Descartes' (not 'Descarte') which you mistakenly spelled three times. You don't even know how to spell his name. Moreover, from the above quote, it is apparent that you have no idea what his views were, or their implications. You are just rambling in the dark, without rhyme, reason, or knowledge.

I hope RfM readers can see this transparent nonsense and take your response here, and your other posts, with the "pillar of salt" they deserve.

Yep, let's let yours be the last word. People can reach their own conclusions from what we have respectively written.

I think
Therefore I am
I think

"Don't judge me by my thoughts or deeds; only judge me by my looks and platitudes!"

--Judic West, while attending a Halloween party dressed as a Western White-visaged Politician

"EOD is particularly scentient this morning."

--ziller's third wife, and everyone felt uncomfortable

"I continue to resist having an autopsy performed on me"
Russell M. Nelson

Apropos that a dead man spends billions buying work for the dead.