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Principle of Parsimony and Consciousness


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#1 Brafarality

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Posted 15 September 2012 - 04:06 AM


This is just a slightly different angle from an otherwise familiar vantage, but this one did it for me. It was a powerful moment when I realized what was meant:

We assume other homo sapiens and perhaps a whole bunch of other mammals, birds and animal life with developed nervous systems, have some form of consciousness because they are similar or analogous to the observer. It seems to make perfect sense from that vantage, but there is a huge problem with this assumption that can be attacked from many angles, including philosopher's zombies, the hard problem, the explanatory gap and so on, but I just came across an angle of observation that I did not quite see before in this particular way and which I believe is powerful and will be difficult to satisfyingly counter.

If we observe a biological organism with a developed nervous system and are able to trace its every action to sensory input, processing and output, down to the neuron, then we can pretty much view said organism as a very intricate, extremely complex type of biological machine that obeys natural laws.

Summary: It violates the principle of parsimony to attribute consciousness to this biological machine, since it seems unnecessary and superfluous and postulates "an invisible entity that is not necessary to explain what we observe".

That does not mean that other beings are not conscious, just that, from an observer's standpoint, it is a complete violation of parsimony that they are. To observe a biological organism and attribute this invisible, non-local attribute to it, does not seem reasonable or necessary, but since we are conscious as ourselves, we do it anyway for analogous' sake.

I cannot quite explain the way this thought hit me, but it did. Any thoughts on this?

Edited by Brafarality, 15 September 2012 - 04:12 AM.


#2 rwac

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Posted 15 September 2012 - 02:10 PM

That does not mean that other beings are not conscious, just that, from an observer's standpoint, it is a complete violation of parsimony that they are. To observe a biological organism and attribute this invisible, non-local attribute to it, does not seem reasonable or necessary, but since we are conscious as ourselves, we do it anyway for analogous' sake.

I cannot quite explain the way this thought hit me, but it did. Any thoughts on this?


Would this be an argument against the Principle of Parsimony, ie Occam's Razor?

Edited by rwac, 15 September 2012 - 02:10 PM.


#3 Turnbuckle

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Posted 15 September 2012 - 08:23 PM

Thoughts like those in the OP are most common when using drugs or rationalizing animal experimentation.
  • Ill informed x 1

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#4 Marios Kyriazis

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Posted 16 September 2012 - 10:10 AM

Two general ideas that may help in this discussion are:
1. Consiousness does not simply originate from proggressively more basic biological processess, but has other, philosophical and religous, foundations.
2. Homo sapiens is not merely a collecton of biochemical, biomechanical or neurobiological processess, but he is something over and above other animals with very developed nevrous systems. In other words, we are not the result of a mere progression from simpler animals. We are a new and meta-systemically transitioned (see 'metasystem transition')from other animal groups with lesser intelligence.




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