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When examined after such stabilization has taken place, and in the setting of the home environment upon which these medically fragile children are crucially dependent, they give proof
of being not only awake, but of the kind of responsiveness to their surroundings that qualifies as conscious by the criteria of ordinary neurological examination. The report by Shewmon and colleagues is the only published account based upon an assessment of the capacities of children with hydranencephaly under near optimal conditions, and the authors found that each of the four children they assessed was conscious.
Shewmon, D.A., Holmes, G.L. & Byrne, P.A. (1999). Consciousness in congenitally decorticate children: developmental vegetative state as self-fulfilling prophecy. Developmental Medicine and
Child Neurology 41: 364–374.
Ha, goal post moving. These are different children with a different degree of brain damage. You did look at the scans, no?
It also 1) does not answer the questions I asked about those specific children, and 2) STILL argues that consciousness is a product of the brain.
They may simply be following evolved instinctive rules.
I know we have been taught this all throughout our lives with respect to other animal species and even insects. However this is a theory that I don't ascribe to. All it takes is observing spiders to know they are not simply behaving on instincts.
This link from NASA shows a spider that exhibits learning behavior. The spider figured out how to change her hunting style in outer space. Changing behavior or learning something new requires conscious inputs.
there are different levels of conscious. Its the mount of processing. Its a matter of complexity. but people that don't know what they don't know will either deny it, minimize it, or claim god did it. Its probably somewhere in between.
there are different levels of conscious. Its the mount of processing. Its a matter of complexity. but people that don't know what they don't know will either deny it, minimize it, or claim god did it. Its probably somewhere in between.
It is far from clear what precisely a level of consciousness is supposed to be.
I wonder where the line is between awareness and consciousness. Or if there is one.
And this is the game Diesel is now playing, equating a poor child with limited abilities to that of a healthy person.
And awareness is just one aspect of consciousness. So if you look at consciousness as a whole, there will be different degrees for different aspects (sight, sound, awareness, self awareness, feelings, qualia, etc). I doubt there is a line, and the different aspects make the idea of levels of consciousness only a basic guide.
I wonder where the line is between awareness and consciousness. Or if there is one.
I don't there is a line per say. But we can look look at the stages as complexity increases. "awareness" is more for our communication than anything else. Like "natural" and "unnatural". everything is made by the universe. But when the universe uses humans to make something we call it "artificial". but its not.
A rock reacts when you touch it. Its just that its so basic we don't classify it as aware.
a cell reacts when you touch it, its more complex in its response so it is "more aware" that it was touched. But we wouldn't classify it as "multi cellular" aware.
A dog reacts to a touch, but its so much more complex that we classify it as "aware". It has many more responses available to it over time.
Then humans, we have more degrees of freedom. so much so that we take on the illusion that we are "free to choose". when in fact, we will respond exactly like our state at that time dictates. just like the rock.
Its just we have different states through time, like tired, hungry, and begging for bread. The rock has far fewer states and thus far easier to predict.
not so fast harry ol chum. this is a tweener notion.
genetic material is a running program. It is an automatic assembly processes based on that program, and the conditions around it. Not that different different than a factory making cars. The only difference is complexity. when is a computer a computer? without a program? just its parts? when do they pick up the title?
one can imagine a factory set up to make cars without humans. it might not be human "aware", but, like a simple animal or plant, its something.
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