04-25-2024, 02:12 PM
I sometimes think that we, as humans, may be biased beyond our own ability to quantify.
While we understand that consciousness itself is a quality, or state, which we cannot quantify or definitively measure; we are also aware that such a discernment is largely subjective.
Non-human creatures, even those which we cannot being to observe without scientific methodology, often display behaviors which seems to at least mimic or imply consciousness. Scientists - in their universal paradigm of physical measurability - associate physical brain structures, neurologic functioning, and biochemical processes as indicators which relate intimately with what we designate as "human" cognizance.. in other words, we see things as we can measure them, and anything else is non-data.
It may be, and it may not, that consciousness as we are attempting to describe it, only applies to the human animal, the construct of our own structure and functioning, and that on a larger scale, this is short-sighted and a stunted way of considering consciousness... as in the notion that "Only humans have feelings."
The physics, the chemistry, and the biological functioning may not actually be the 'sum total' of consciousness. It may also be matter of perspective. How can you compare an apple and an orange... a sighted human with a blind cave fish, a terrestrial animal with a flying one. Orders of consciousness must differ as the vehicle of that consciousness manifests in different forms.
At least scientists are affirming that we have a challenge in this regard, and that neither base assumption, nor "science by diktat" will cut the mustard any longer.
While we understand that consciousness itself is a quality, or state, which we cannot quantify or definitively measure; we are also aware that such a discernment is largely subjective.
Non-human creatures, even those which we cannot being to observe without scientific methodology, often display behaviors which seems to at least mimic or imply consciousness. Scientists - in their universal paradigm of physical measurability - associate physical brain structures, neurologic functioning, and biochemical processes as indicators which relate intimately with what we designate as "human" cognizance.. in other words, we see things as we can measure them, and anything else is non-data.
It may be, and it may not, that consciousness as we are attempting to describe it, only applies to the human animal, the construct of our own structure and functioning, and that on a larger scale, this is short-sighted and a stunted way of considering consciousness... as in the notion that "Only humans have feelings."
The physics, the chemistry, and the biological functioning may not actually be the 'sum total' of consciousness. It may also be matter of perspective. How can you compare an apple and an orange... a sighted human with a blind cave fish, a terrestrial animal with a flying one. Orders of consciousness must differ as the vehicle of that consciousness manifests in different forms.
At least scientists are affirming that we have a challenge in this regard, and that neither base assumption, nor "science by diktat" will cut the mustard any longer.
