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Add to this that a lot of people presume that peoples experience is the same.

E.g. I have aphantasia - I don't picture things in my "inner eye". Through discussions with people about that, a lot of people described own differences from the perceived norm, and it is clear a not insignificant numbers also have other differences, such as not thinking consciously in words.

A lot of people then tend to express disbelief, and question the whole thing on the basis of a belief that if people's inner life does not match theirs, people couldn't possibly be conscious or reason.

People make far too many assumptions about the universality of their own experience of consciousness.

I'm curious about aphantasia - if I asked you to draw a floorplan of your home/office etc. would you not be able to do it?

If you could wouldn't that involve you imagining what the building looks like from the inside and how the rooms are connected together?

Or would do it some other way?

(I'm assuming you could do it, since if you couldn't I think that would be a majorly debiliating condition rather than just some amusing fact)

Yes, in fact my ability to draw from memory places I've seen is, if anything, from experience, substantially above average. However, when I draw from memory, my drawings do tend to be more stylized.

I can "imagine" what a building looks like, but I can't see it. Even our language makes this hard to describe, and the reason why I didn't realise that this isn't how other people do it, because most of our language for remember how something looks uses terms that implies we see them, so I just assumed until a few years ago (and I turn 50 this year) that that was just a metaphor to everyone else too.

How do you imagine (there's that word again...) blind people remember places they can't see?

To me, the notion that I'd need to "see" what the building looks like to draw it is bizarre because I know where everything is in relation to each other, and their shapes, so why would I need to see it?

EDIT: increasingly, and in part drive by split-brain experiments, I tend to think that a whole lot of what we see as our conscious decision-making, are instead shallow retroactive attempts by parts of the brain at rationalising decisions largely already taken autonomously into a cohesive self/ego.

You have probably heard this before but this is really bizarre and fascinating to someone like me who writes difficult words correctly because I see them (visualize the word) in my head and judge if they look right. It is like it all has to be visual for it to make any sense.

As a molecular biologist I often deal with minute quantities of substances in small containers, but I just picture them there, the molecules, what happens to them as I dilute a sample or add some enzyme. Reading a book is like watching it play out.

I have a colleague who is also much more text oriented. I really wondered how she can function without seeing all the departments in an overview and the connections between them, and how governance structures overlap with those departments, etc. For me it's a lot to hold in, overwhelming at times. But she's absolutely great in these types of things, just masterful, very structured as well. Her mind must be very alien to me, I always wonder what her experience of life looks like (or not "looks like", apparently... But how it is to her...)

I write a lot, including a couple of novels, and I realised as I found out about aphantasia that it explains a lot about what I read and write, and what I like. E.g. I skim or even entirely skip sections that focus on how something looks, unless it is beautifully written. I care about the language and the ideas much more than about any visual description, because I don't get much value from the visual description. I could, if I wanted to, sketch out a picture of things I've read a description of. E.g. I remember drawing some scenes from Lord of the Rings when I read it for the first time as a child, but I don't get the visual part of the satisfaction of those descriptions until I've drawn them.

But with some works - like Tolkien's, I will still enjoy the descriptions because the language itself is beautiful.

Just to make this weirder: I remember many things by appearance. E.g. I can find my place in a paper I've read years ago by what the page looks like. But I can't see it.

I do however see things when I'm dreaming, and I have one solitary experience I think of seeing things awake, during meditation. I say "I think", because there is the possibility that I fell asleep even though I don't believe I did, and the imagery was far clearer than during my dreams.

But I also can't recall images from my dreams while awake, and usually don't remember dreams at all past the first 30 seconds or so awake.

I am largely in the same boat -- I've taken to telling people that I think very well spatially (that is my primary method of thought) but not at all visually. I am much better than most people seem to be when it comes to tasks involving space, direction, and so on -- basically abstractions of reality, not images of it. But if you want me to actually visualize an apple in my head? Yeah, I can't do that at all. Not even a "stylized" apple.

If you wanted me to draw an abstract floorplan of my house, or the layout of my town, I can do that easily. I can navigate an extended road trip unassisted by simply looking at a map ahead of time and mentally storing an abstraction of where I need to go. But if you wanted, say, an image of my house, or the main intersection in the middle of town, or anything like that -- I'm no good. I can't "see" it, and I would not be able to draw anything remotely accurate.

To circle back around too your "imagine" vs. "see" problem -- my response to the often-referenced "imagine a ball rolling on a table" exercise often elicits some confusion from people. I can imagine a ball rolling on a table just fine. What color is the ball, though? It has no color. What size is it? It has no size. It is just "a ball", in the abstract -- its only property is shape (spherical), which is ultimately all that is necessary for imagining rather than seeing. If you wanted me to visualize a large red ball on a green table, though, that's beyond me.

Yeah, I also sometimes describe it as spatial thinking. I'm pretty sure that the extent to which I can draw from memory is down to having spent quite a lot of time drawing as a child and getting good at drawing from spatial recollection.

E.g. if I draw a fantasy drawing, it will be closer to impressionism in style, the same way as if I draw something in front of me. It'll be messy. If I draw from memory, the lines are clear, and stylized.

The clearest example of that was an art class at school where we were asked to draw our shoes first from memory and then while looking at it, and both were highly detailed, but without any conscious decision, the line-work was entirely different.

Same as you when it comes to the "ball rolling" scenario. It "has" the properties people add to it, but if they're not affecting the behaviour, they're just verbal labels attached to an abstract concept - I'll remember them, but they won't change anything about the "imagined" scenario.

This seems similar to how mine works too.

It’s as though the connections among things are dimensional rather than visual. I can “render” blueprints as this thread discussed, or know which way I’m facing deep in an intricate tube station, but am not “picturing” it, it’s just, this is how these things relate in space time. Although I can do the same with exterior architecture (is that an image?) or street corners. I don’t think I’ve ever “seen” anything: picture yourself on a beach, counting sheep, always assumed were metaphorical expressions.

I also feel concepts are dimensional, and can tell if a piece of a concept is missing because where it should be is empty. Think how periodic table of elements worked.

A red ball on a green table maps to billiards in dimensional concept space so I can render that too.

When I close my eyes (and especially if I rub them when they are closed) I see a grey/brown empty space with letters and numbers inscribed everywhere within the field, although the letters and numbers are oriented randomly and not from any script or language I’m familiar with.

Also fifty. Realized this when I was about seven and it hasn’t materially changed since. I have no problem drawing things like blueprints of my house but when it comes to more curvy objects I’m a terrible artist.

> assumes that there are no degrees in consciousness

And I don't get why, it seems to me quite self evident that you yourself can experience reduced-consciousness states, be it being half-asleep or quite drunk.

The problem for me is that we haven't conceptualized what we mean by "reduced" consciousness. Reduced in what way?

If we create an analogy with audio - audio can have 2 properties: frequencies and volume. Frequencies are the content of the audio and volume is how "present" the sound is.

Well the same could be applied to consciousness. When we say reduced consciousness do we mean that the mind experiences less content (frequencies) or do we mean that all the frequencies are there but at a reduced volume?

Personal experience would tell me "both" - less complex thoughts with less intensity and with worse SNR.

Reduced in what way?

In any.

C. is a complex thing, and these can fail to lower level in myriads of ways. You have to align millions* of things to make it work. The biological (in our case) nature of it allows for some slack rather than immediate breakdown, so there are thousands of parameters to play with.

* numbers arbitrary

And these aren't even generally low-functioning or undesirable! The much-sought-after 'state of flow' is defined in part by a lack of self-aware consciousness.

The article’s real contribution is in highlighting evidence of complex behavior in living systems that often get excluded from definitions of "intelligence". In doing so, it invites deeper philosophical reflection, even if it doesn’t mount that reflection itself.

> We do attribute great value to organisms that have this image of self.

My impression is we attribute great value to organisms that can effectively push back against us.

respect based on force.

Not saying I want things to be that way.

Does that mean LLMs can already be considered conscious at some level since they are able to reason and self reflect?

tbf, many materialists dislike the "degrees of consciousness" idea because a theory that posits "consciousness is on a spectrum" is one that starts to resemble panpsychism, which they consider magical woo.