James Randi Challenges Skeptiko’s Telepathic Dog

[Topher Cooper]

Originally Posted by David Bailey

Why is it remarkable - well because anaesthetics are supposed to work on the neurons of the brain in some way - here they are doing a suspiciously similar job in a single-celled creature.

Do single celled creatures with zero neurons still have some kind of consciousness, or is this just a cute coincidence?

General anesthetics work by affecting the membranes of the neurons -- probably in part by being dissolved into them -- and thereby preventing the transport of sodium ions across those membranes. They apparently affect other cell membranes as well, which is why general anesthetics have long lasting side effects. That substances with these properties might effect independent cells is not at all surprising -- it would almost be surprising if it didn't. That the effect is paralysis of the sophisticated chemical motors that are cilia is only slightly more so. Calling this process "anesthesia" begs the question.

So I would weigh in on the side of a coincidence (cute or otherwise is for you to judge) and a not terribly unlikely one in my opinion.

Also, I'd like to point out that we use the term "consciousness" to mean a number of different things. When I say that I am a "conscious being" and am troubled by qualia and questions about the hard problem I am speaking about a particularly complex kind of awareness related to awareness of self, examination of my own internal mental state, and biographical memory. How far down the animal kingdom, and to what extent that sense of consciousness extends is more problematic than one might think -- far before we get to paramecium.

Another sense of consciousness is simply awareness of and response to the external environment. Certainly this is related to the first but it is not the same. In fact, when I am in REM sleep I am not conscious (sense 2) but definitely have a sense of self, however distorted (consciousness sense 1). It is the second kind of consciousness that anesthetics affect. The nerves stop firing and most thought stops and all awareness of my surroundings. Even if, say squirrels have no awareness of their own minds (please no attacks of human centrism, it is not any respect to the dignity of animal's own nature to simply assume that they are humans with low intelligence) they have an awareness and ability to interact with their environment -- fairly adequately explained by physicalist theories of the brain -- that is stopped by anesthetics.

[David Bailey]

Paul and Topher,

I did not originally raise the issue of anaesthetising single cells - Roger Penrose did. Maybe it is a complete red herring, but we are talking about a group of chemicals that are safe enough to pump into a human body - selectively removing consciousness without disrupting the tissues too badly in other ways, and these same compounds can do the same thing to single celled creatures - at least to the extent that they stop waiving their arms about

I guess the fact that some people claim to have demonstrated learning in paramecia is also irrelevant.....

David

[Topher Cooper]

Originally Posted by David Bailey

Paul and Topher,

I did not originally raise the issue of anaesthetising single cells - Roger Penrose did. Maybe it is a complete red herring, but we are talking about a group of chemicals that are safe enough to pump into a human body - selectively removing consciousness without disrupting the tissues too badly in other ways, and these same compounds can do the same thing to single celled creatures - at least to the extent that they stop waiving their arms about

"The same thing" is what is at issue. What the "same thing" is, presumably, is cause moderate disruption of the operation of cell membranes. Penrose has some interesting things to say, but I'm afraid that in my opinion he just throws a whole bunch of facts together and declares them to add up to what he wants them to. His whole argument starts off with the bald, unsupported assumption that because people have some ability to operate on a level of abstraction that allows them to change "the rules" when trying to solve a problem (something very possible in the orthodox theory of computability) that they must be able to do this to an unlimited degree, and so, since this is impossible according to the theory of computability that governs what can be done by classical systems, then the human mind (and therefore brain, according to Penrose) must not be a classical system, which leaves only a quantum mechanical system. Not only is his assumption of infinite capability unjustified, but the best evidence (though this hasn't been completely established yet) is that quantum computers are limited in the same way (they can just do the same things much, much faster).

I guess the fact that some people claim to have demonstrated learning in paramecia is also irrelevant.....

David

Yep, even more definitely. While we do learn cognitively, there are lots of other kinds of learning -- in the sense of adapting to the environment in novel ways in response to stimuli. Our immune system learns, our skeleton learns (where there is a break or even just strain, our bones grow thicker), etc.. For that matter, germ lines of all living systems learn -- that is what evolution is, and artificial evolutionary systems are part of the field of "learning systems" in computer science. Being able to change behavior in response to previous events is a fundamentally useful ability for any living thing, and this does not require anything even approximating cognition, must less consciousness.

[David Bailey]

Topher,

RP's Godel theorem argument stands or falls independently of some of the other evidence that he collects in his book.

Where do you think the paramecium stores its unremarkable memories?

David

[Topher Cooper]

Originally Posted by David Bailey

Where do you think the paramecium stores its unremarkable memories?

I don't really know -- or whether it stores them at all (the evidence is much argued about) -- I am not a cellular biologist, and it is one of my weaker subjects to follow. I just said that it would not be surprising if some mechanism had evolved.

However, I can speculate a bit, just to show that it isn't so unlikely.

First off, you should be wary of the term "memory". Its not incorrect but it is misleading. We usually reserve the term of episodic/biographical learning -- "I remember that sunset the day we met" type stuff. We wouldn't normally use the term in relation, for example, to what takes place when our body develops a tolerance to a drug though that's more analogous to what would be going on.

Anyway, a paramecium, like any organism, responds to its environment. In particular it can sense various stimuli and can respond in various ways, for example moving towards a desirable stimuli (i.e., food) and away from a noxious stimuli. There are mechanisms in place that causes this to happen.

As I remember the claims, it was a learning an association -- something analogous to Pavlov's famous dogs. The paramecia in question are presented a noxious stimulus, which they respond to, and a neutral stimuli (a flash of diffuse light is one I think I remember) that they would normally not respond to. After multiple exposures, the claim is that they start responding to the neutral stimuli by itself, as if it were noxious stimuli.

Clearly there is some cascade of biochemical and biophysical reactions that results in the noxious stimuli being recognized and eventually leading to the response. The neutral stimuli under the untrained condition would also begin a cascade of such reactions but at some point that cascade neither the condition necessary to trigger the avoid or seek reactions is reached (I'm guessing, for example, that in the case of the diffuse light, a cascade would be triggered that would normally discover that the light is coming from a particular direction and determine if it is too bright, or whatever, but the diffuse light would not meet all the necessary conditions), and the signal disappears. But when the stimuli are presented together, modifications can take place in these cascades, essentially short circuiting them together, resulting in the two cascades eventually becoming equivalent.

There would obviously be a benefit to the paramecia for this to be possible -- allowing it to anticipate and avoid harmful situations even when the recognizably harmful stimulus is not yet apparent.

[Chris Noble]

Originally Posted by Topher Cooper

Certainly they are related but they are not the same. Consciousness being an irreducible causative agent is idealism or dualism. Vitalism refers to the theory that there is a substance (which may well be a kind of material) that confers living things with life.

You're right I did conflate conciousness with life.

I don't think many people would agree that elan vital is or could be a material substance. Unless, like Sheldrake, you want to be extremely vague about what you mean by material.

[Topher Cooper]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

I take it then that you are philosophically opposed to calling any kind of software an interpreter. Yet astonishingly the computer science community has adopted that terminology.

Edited to add: Of course you were not assuming that I think a ribosome "understands the meaning" of mRNA.

~~ Paul

Nope, I have no such philosophical opposition. It would, certainly have made my life irritating, though, at the various times in my life that I made my living developing computer language processing systems such as interpreters if I had. I do, however, have a philosophical opposition to someone thinking that the term is meant literally rather than metaphorically -- that the interpreters do in any real way "understand" the code that they process or associate real "meaning" with it. They just react mechanically to their inputs and respond in a way that hopefully we, their users, understand and find meaningful.

And no, I do not assume you think that -- but it is what you were saying. I foolishly thought that objecting and pointing out that there was a risk of confusing the literal and metaphorical use of the term.

[Topher Cooper]

Originally Posted by Chris Noble

You're right I did conflate conciousness with life.

I don't think many people would agree that elan vital is or could be a material substance. Unless, like Sheldrake, you want to be extremely vague about what you mean by material.

Perhaps today you are right -- those who still believe in a "life essence" probably generally see it as something more "spiritual" than material.

But at the height of the scientific respectability of the concept this was not the case. The world was seen as containing many kinds of substances. In those days, the periodic table and the modern atomic theory had not lead to such a narrow idea of what a material substance was (a bunch of atoms, or occasionally atomic fragments and/or electrons, and perhaps in far away places, atoms compressed so much they stop being atoms). People had a broader, and yes, vaguer, idea about what a material was. In addition to the obvious substances (whose connection with each other was not apparent) there were many more subtle materials out of which the universe was "known" to be made. There was various ethers (or aethers -- most importantly,but not solely, the luminiferous ether) that filled the universe and served as a substrate for light, magnetism, electrical forces, gravity, etc. There was phlogiston that could be seen in fire. And there was elan vital -- the essence of life.

These were seen as having mechanical, physical properties, often times similar to but differing from those of less subtle forms of substance. Though they could permeate "courser" kinds of matter they nevertheless had position and extent (the classic requirement for matter) and could flow (away at death or when close to death; from parent to child at conception) and figuring out just what those properties were was part of what physicists did.

For a classic view of how elan vital was viewed just check out "Frankenstein, A Modern Prometheus". There the good Doctor sought to draw elan vital from the skies -- physically manipulating it -- and put it back into a body made of living parts from which the elan vital had departed. Of course, it was considered that there must be some relation between elan vital and yet another subtle substance (or was it two?), electricity. Hadn't Volta shown that electricity could be used to impart movement -- a sign of life -- to dead muscular tissue? His error, was that while he could impart life, a material substance, to dead tissue, he could not impart a soul -- only God could do that (for those who have only seen the old movies -- this was the point in the book, the movie, being from a more secular time, explained the creature's flawed character from its having a criminal's brain).

[Chris Noble]

Originally Posted by Topher Cooper

Perhaps today you are right -- those who still believe in a "life essence" probably generally see it as something more "spiritual" than material.

But at the height of the scientific respectability of the concept this was not the case. The world was seen as containing many kinds of substances. In those days, the periodic table and the modern atomic theory had not lead to such a narrow idea of what a material substance was (a bunch of atoms, or occasionally atomic fragments and/or electrons, and perhaps in far away places, atoms compressed so much they stop being atoms). People had a broader, and yes, vaguer, idea about what a material was. In addition to the obvious substances (whose connection with each other was not apparent) there were many more subtle materials out of which the universe was "known" to be made. There was various ethers (or aethers -- most importantly,but not solely, the luminiferous ether) that filled the universe and served as a substrate for light, magnetism, electrical forces, gravity, etc. There was phlogiston that could be seen in fire. And there was elan vital -- the essence of life.

These were seen as having mechanical, physical properties, often times similar to but differing from those of less subtle forms of substance. Though they could permeate "courser" kinds of matter they nevertheless had position and extent (the classic requirement for matter) and could flow (away at death or when close to death; from parent to child at conception) and figuring out just what those properties were was part of what physicists did.

For a classic view of how elan vital was viewed just check out "Frankenstein, A Modern Prometheus". There the good Doctor sought to draw elan vital from the skies -- physically manipulating it -- and put it back into a body made of living parts from which the elan vital had departed. Of course, it was considered that there must be some relation between elan vital and yet another subtle substance (or was it two?), electricity. Hadn't Volta shown that electricity could be used to impart movement -- a sign of life -- to dead muscular tissue? His error, was that while he could impart life, a material substance, to dead tissue, he could not impart a soul -- only God could do that (for those who have only seen the old movies -- this was the point in the book, the movie, being from a more secular time, explained the creature's flawed character from its having a criminal's brain).

It is interesting to note that people have used analogies with electricity and magnetism in the past to describe "psi" phenomena.

As electricty and magnetism have become increasingly well understood the analogy of choice has shifted to quantum mechanics.

[David Bailey]

Topher,

Your approach to these issues is interesting because although you follow orthodox scientific attitudes almost to a tee, you do acknowledge the evidence for Ψ. Clearly you think Ψ can be stuffed into the scientific picture with very little disruption, whereas I don't.

The problem is that there are two kinds of scientific explanation operating here. There are large areas where the facts are well established and basically beyond contradiction, unfortunately there also seem to be substantial areas where the explanation is little more than an educated guess. You tend to back all the standard guesses, whereas I am a bit more suspicious. Which approach is closer to the mark, only time will tell, but it is important to distinguish between scientific facts and orthodox scientific assumptions. In my opinion, here are some of the latter:

The assumption that consciousness is a phenomenon associated with nets of neurons. This may have seemed obvious once, but the fact that learning of whatever kind can be found in single celled creatures should raise a question mark - as should the fact that anaesthetics do the same thing for us and single cells. As you point out, other non-neuron systems, such as the immune system, can also learn, but that hardly seems to weaken my point. I am less inclined to split hairs over different types of learning/consciousness, because I just don't think enough is known to do that properly.

The idea that the definition of living is akin to the definition of a planet - i.e. more or less arbitrary. Clearly there is no 'elan vital' in organic chemicals, but that does not in any way rule out the possibility that there is a spirit component to life - not a metaphor, but something real.

As indicated above, I am suspicious of the all embracing explanatory power of complex systems and emergent phenomena. Vague concepts with enormous explanatory power are potentially dangerous because they lull us into believing that we understand more than we do.

Science has, of course a standard explanation for all things Ψ. Various psychological traits, such as the desire to find order where there is none, statistical artifacts, various unrecognised uses of the senses, etc. All these explanations can be found in textbooks, but they are guesses, and in this case even you accept that they are wrong.

The conventional explanation of NDE's - that dying neurons short of oxygen and poisoned by glutamate, go on a final spree of activity - seems like a classic guess. Uncontrolled nervous signalling isn't really likely to generate a meaningful experience - people don't get beautiful halucinations from epileptic seaisures (correct me if I am wrong), or strokes - indeed these things tend to induce a period of amnesia.

Another assumption is that the entire blueprint to create an animal is stored in its DNA. Maybe the blueprint is stored in a spirit/morphic field form. Sheldrake certainly knows about HOX genes, and could spout the standard explanations if he wanted to - but he is not convinced. The facts here are that DNA contains the blueprints for the proteins components for cells, plus some regulatory mechanisms. The assumption that this is the entire blueprint is speculation. The surprisingly small number of human genes - about 30000, I believe - most of which we share with a wide range of other creatures - might hint in Sheldrake's direction.

Of course, if part of our blueprint is spiritual, that opens up some interesting questions about natural selection - but we have been there before

I don't want to assert belief in any of the above concepts - I don't really do belief - but I think that it is important not to swallow orthodox guesses totally uncritically.

David