Thanks, Jamie and Chance.
The intelligence and potential for consciousness in bees is fascinating. Chance, I think opening ourselves up to something “in-between” is exactly what is needed from my scientific humanistic/sentient-values based way of viewing the world. As you know, the P – M => E formulation of experiential consciousness, brain and behavior might be exactly that. Would be very cool if that mapped onto the world of bees in some way.
Jamie, you raise a good question re Integrated Information Theory. The Unified Framework embraces that notion as a general frame for the broad view of the relationship between consciousness and complexity, which is represented in many ways by the vertical dimension of the ToK. For a more complete way to frame the problem of consciousness, I think IIT needs to be paired with a variant of global neuronal workspace theory, which is more a theory of human phenomenological experience than a general theory of consciousness/complexity (see here for how the UF updates Baars’ global workspace theory).
A key aspect of the connection between the ToK and IIT is found in the idea of “information interface” between the various dimensions of complexity. See this blog for how information interface relates to all of this. Also, check out this Ted Talk by Donald Hoffman on human perception/perspectival phenomenology for how our inner experience can be conceptualized as a form of neuro-computational informational interface.
One of the interesting thing about the Unified Framework is how it affords much clearer linkages between neurocomputation and phenomenology. I have been reading up on how Ray Jackendoff characterizes this in an interesting way, namely as the “mind-mind” problem. He writes
“The upshot is that psychology now has not two domains to worry (brain and mind) about, but three (the brain, the computational mind, and the phenomenological mind)….The mind-mind problem is…What is the relationship between neuro-computational states and experience?”
The nice thing about the UF is how cleanly the puzzle pieces fit together in this seemingly very difficult “mind-mind” problem. As you will see in the blog, I actually believe human mental behavior has four different domains to worry about: 1) neuro-computational; 2) subjective phenomenological; 3) functional awareness and overt action (exterior); and 4) intersubjective linguistic justification.
The UF posits that human consciousness and behavior must be framed as the informational interface between these domains ,which are then placed in an evolutionary developmental social systems context.
Best,
Gregg
From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]>
On Behalf Of Chance McDermott
Sent: Wednesday, February 26, 2020 3:37 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Consciousness and Bee Cognition
Thank you, Gregg. A worthy read indeed.
When I was a small boy I lived for a while on a rural hillside that was very much a part of the wildlife. I would play outside daily, and was accompanied by a bumblebee that follow me or hover next to me while I did whatever I was doing. This "friendship" felt natural. So in this article I was struck by the assertions that there is evidence that Bees can recognize faces and also experience positive mental states. As a reflective adult, I am encouraged by the possibility of something in-between reductive stimuli-response models of animal and insect life versus projecting human-levels complexity onto the behaviors of creatures.
On Tue, Feb 25, 2020 at 3:55 PM Jamie D <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
I was thinking recently, from your latest graphic showing the levels of complexity within a person, that perhaps subjectivity might have to do with the very fact there is a jump in levels.
I’m reading Christoph Koch’s latest book called The Feeling of Life Itself, on Integrated Information Theory, which says that experience results from, or is, the “whole”, that emerges from integrated parts, or information, measured by phi.
It seems worth exploring connections to these ideas.
Jamie
On Mon, Feb 24, 2020 at 8:37 AM Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Hi TOK List,
Here is an interesting article on how bumble bees can engage in cross modal sensory recognition.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2020-02-21/bumblebee-objects-across-senses/11981304
I am particularly interested in it because in my current book, one of the key emphases is on the various ways in which we define/conceptualize “mind”. My argument is that we need Mind (capital red) as the third dimension of behavioral complexity to refer to the set of “mental behaviors”.
We also need a scientific conception of the mind, which refers to the information instantiated within and processed by the nervous system. The mind (as defined here) is studied via what I call “neurocognitive functionalism” which basically means you observe the functional awareness and response of animals and build and test neuropsychological models that attempt to describe and explain the patterns of mental behavior. Thus, we can readily consider the above study as a study in bee cognition.
A key conceptual problem is the jump from this neurocognitive behavioral-functional scientific view of mind to the subjective experiential view of mind. This is the reference of what it is like to be an animal? In this case, what is the experience like to be a bumble bee? This is very hard to know because this involves the two hard problems of phenomenological consciousness. The first problem is the epistemological problem. We can never see what the first person experience is like from anyone or any animal directly. So we can’t observe it firsthand. Second, the ontological problem is that we still don’t know exactly why, in a neurobiological engineering sense, the activity of the brain actually produces the miracle of first person experience.
Just some food for thought on a Monday J…
Peace,
G
___________________________________________
Gregg Henriques, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Graduate Psychology
216 Johnston Hall
MSC 7401
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Be that which enhances dignity and well-being with integrity.Check out my Theory of Knowledge blog at Psychology Today at:
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