Exploring consciousness

Research and Sense-Making
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One’s reaction to this article will likely depend mostly on how the word “consciousness” is defined. According to some definitions, it make sense. According to others, no sense. (See definitional options here)"

I like the Vedantic notion of “chit”. Expansive, pan-species notions of “consciousness” make sense under that POV. However, the word “consciousness” appropriately has narrower definitions for other purposes. When under general anesthesia, for example, the patient loses “consciousness” in narrow terms of particularized body/mind situational awareness. The patient (patients who recover, anyway!) certainly does not lose “chit”. Chit was in the room the whole time, in the form of the room, the medical team, the unconscious patient, the equipment in the room, etc. Maybe even the patent had an out-of-body experience and floated over the table and saw the team at work on the anesthetized body. That body was “unconscious” while the patient was “conscious” in a different way and “consciousness” itself as ground - chit - provisions a world in which all of these phenomena manifest.

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Robert, I think you’re right that much of the disagreement comes down to definitions. If consciousness is defined narrowly as self-reflective awareness, autobiographical memory, or the ability to report subjective states, then plants almost certainly do not qualify. Under those definitions, even many animals would fail the test.

However, I am not sure that resolves the deeper question. Historically, as noted, science has repeatedly discovered that capacities we once thought exclusive to humans, or at least to animals with large brains, exist in far simpler forms elsewhere. Communication, memory, decision-making, learning, cooperation, anticipation of future conditions, and even forms of problem-solving have all been pushed progressively down the biological ladder. The interesting question is therefore not whether plants possess consciousness identical to ours, but whether the sharp boundary we have traditionally drawn between “mere biological response” and “cognition” is actually real.

What strikes me is that many critics approach the issue in a highly categorical way: either plants are conscious in the human sense or they are not conscious at all. Yet nature often seems to operate through continua rather than binary divisions. Evolution rarely produces abrupt ontological cliffs. Your mention of chit is interesting in a metaphysical sense, and reminds me of the Jungian idea of a collective subconscious. Even if one rejects Vedantic notions such as chit, there remains a legitimate scientific question: at what point does information processing, environmental modelling, memory, adaptation, signalling, and decision-making become sufficiently integrated that the distinction between “behaviour” and “mind” begins to blur?

I suspect that future research may reveal that consciousness, cognition, awareness, and intelligence are not single phenomena but nested layers. Human self-awareness may simply be one highly elaborated expression of processes whose roots extend much deeper into life itself.

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Generally following UTOK (which includes Henriques and lots and lots of collaborators), I would like to distinguish “'behavior”, “mind”, and “consciousness”. First “behavior”. Per this article, any system has it -

https://medium.com/unified-theory-of-knowledge/now-utoking-behavior-670fb6718e1c

Per this second article, the notion of “mind” arises with animal behavior:

https://medium.com/unified-theory-of-knowledge/now-utoking-mind-dca25e773404

Regarding plant behavior, this summary below.

In the Unified Theory of Knowledge (UTOK), plant behavior refers to the observable ways in which plants adapt, grow, and alter their relations within the environments they inhabit. Under this framework, plant actions are classified as “Life-Organism” behaviors, bridging basic physical matter and animal consciousness. [1, 2]

Key Behavioral Attributes

UTOK categorizes plant responses into several distinct adaptive mechanisms, driven by sophisticated chemical and electrical signaling networks without the need for a central brain.

  • Directional Growth (Tropisms): Plants intentionally direct their growth in response to external stimuli. Common examples include phototropism (growing toward light) and geotropism (roots growing downward with gravity).

  • Chemical Defense & Signaling: When attacked by herbivores, plants can release volatile organic compounds (VOCs) to deter pests, signal nearby plants to prepare defense genes, and attract predators that eat the attacking insects.

  • Root Foraging: Plant root systems proactively track positive nutrient gradients, anticipating future resources rather than merely reacting to immediate surroundings.

  • Intrinsic Polarity: Plants exhibit fundamental root-shoot polarity. Severed sections of a plant actively reorient themselves to regenerate roots on the bottom and shoots on the top. [11, 12]

The UTOK Framework

Within the broader UTOK architecture, plant actions fall into the following contexts:

  • The Tree of Knowledge (ToK) System: Maps the evolution of the universe into four nested, ontological planes of existence. Plant behavior resides squarely in the Life-Organism plane, emerging just above physical “Matter” and below animal “Mind”.

  • Consciousness: In the UTOK hierarchy, plants possess “Consciousness 1”—meaning they exhibit functional awareness, responsivity, and complex adaptation—but they lack the subjective, internal experiential awareness (feeling/emotion) associated with the Mind-Animal level. [15]

Learn more about the broader scientific classifications through the EuropeNow Journal, or explore the overarching map of reality on the UTOK Basics page.

AI responses may include mistakes.

[1] https://medium.com/unified-theory-of-knowledge/now-utoking-behavior-670fb6718e1c

[2] https://medium.com/unified-theory-of-knowledge/the-utok-seed-of-life-d04f62061908

[3] https://humantold.com/blog/rooted-and-aware-the-psychology-of-plants/

[4] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352250X25000399

[5] https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/resource-library-organisms-behavior/

[6] https://academic.oup.com/jxb/article/68/13/3441/3868380

[7] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjJG6GLR_5A

[8] https://www.studyclix.ie/leaving-certificate/biology/higher/plant-responses/created-by-studyclix/plant-responses-definitions

[9] https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2024/08/09/is-there-such-a-thing-as-plant-behavior/

[10] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEzpBguDtBg

[11] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xHF1WB1loU&vl=en

[12] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgYLbH56ldw

[13] https://medium.com/unified-theory-of-knowledge/the-utok-wisdom-bees-aa85e849b84f

[14] https://www.beautifulhayscounty.org/hays-humm/the-light-eaters-1

[15] https://medium.com/unified-theory-of-knowledge/now-utoking-consciousness-df6cb156d62e

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UTOK on consciousness is a complex business. It’s very far from simple-minded materialism, that’s for sure!

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UTOK is incoherent quasi-materialistic nonsense. It is the bargaining stage of grief for bereaved physicalists. Here is a video posted yesterday, with Brendan asking Gregg Henriques lots of questions.

From Matter to Mind: Inside the Unified Theory of Knowledge | Dr. Gregg Henriques - YouTube

Here is my comment:

Thanks for making the video. Lots of stuff I am very interested in. Here are my thoughts. UTOK appears to start by assuming its conclusion. It starts with a psychological or epistemological stack, and then claims that somehow this must translate into ontology: that there is a conscious layer on top of a life layer on top of a physical layer. But where is this ontology actually justified? This appears to be indistinguishable from physicalist emergence theories, and to suffer from exactly the same problems. How life emerges from matter does not pose any show-stopping problems, but how do we explain how subjectivity emerges from purely material life? Saying “panpsychism doesn’t solve the problem” (and I agree that it doesn’t) does not mean we must assume mind can just “emerge from matter”. Other options are possible, and not just dualism and idealism. Emergence cannot be “framed coherently”. Matter cannot “give rise to consciousness”. Unless you believe in inexplicable magic, this simply does not make sense.

Gregg says he can’t answer certain questions: are mosquitoes conscious? The reason he can’t answer it is that he doesn’t recognise the need for a threshold at which point consciousness becomes possible. Without some idea of what that threshold is, we have no way of guessing what crosses it. But in fact there is an obvious candidate, because there is currently no accepted explanation for the Cambrian Explosion, and it just happens that that is when the first brains evolved. If so, mosquitoes are conscious. This line of reasoning leads to very interesting places.

48:30 Gregg asks “why are we having this debate?” The answer is that his own theory does not and cannot explain how subjectivity arises from matter. Nowhere in this video is a clear answer to this question supplied, and without a clear (and coherent) answer, the debate cannot end. Dawkins certainly isn’t framing it correctly, but Gregg’s framing only helps to clarify the problem: it does not provide a coherent solution. The reason for this is that no coherent solution is even possible if you try to explain consciousness as something which emerges from matter. The true relationship must be different to this. Gregg is still asking the wrong questions. He’s trying to answer metaphysical questions with computational psychology, and it doesn’t work. You can only coherently answer these questions if you start with metaphysics instead. And if you start with those question then you end up with something like Whitehead’s system: consciousness is how possibility (quantum reality) is resolved into actuality (classical-relativistic reality). At the level of basic metaphysics, this is totally incompatible with emergence theories: it is a completely different kind of metaphysical structure, because it starts with infinite unrealised possibility instead of a realised physical cosmos. The question then changes from “how does consciousness emerge from matter?” to “how is actuality selected from possibility?”, at which point it becomes much easier to provide a solution, becaue Gregg’s own model suggests that this is the function of consciousness: to model the world and select a possible future.

53:04 Brendan…I agree, consciousness needs a brain. This goes back to the threshold question: what qualifies as a brain, and why? This is exactly the question we must ask. I also agree with what you said next: there’s something more basic needs to be included in the model. Atman = Brahman, but Atman on its own isn’t consciousness – it needs a brain in order to be embodied. This is why I call the threshold “the Embodiment Threshold”. Your question at 55:00 is the crucial one. And the answer was just “it emerges”. Gregg is trying to defend ontological continuity, but consciousness indicates something non-continuous. I think we need two “phases”, not just one. Phase 1 is before brains, consciousness and wavefunction collapse (Whitehead’s possibility) and Phase 2 is after brains, where the wavefunction is collapsed because an informational self exists which can make meaningful choices about which possibility it would prefer to actualise.

I would be very interested in hearing to what extent this different metaphysical model could accomodate Gregg’s ideas about psychology, many of which still make sense (the basic function of consciousness is modelling the world dynamically, so a meaningful choice about what is the best possible world can be made).

Do you care about an actual integration of knowledge? Or do you just support UTOK because Gregg is one of the gang and it suits you to accept what he says, even if it cannot be correct?

Mind cannot “emerge from matter”! If the answer was that simple, we’d have had a proper science of consciousness decades ago.

Is 2R serious about what it is trying to do? Or is this all just a empty game, where a bunch of people who already have power and influence get together to re-inforce the existing epistemic anarchy in the Big Tent?

Which of you is even attempting to make sure all the pieces fit together?

UTOK conference

I bet that’s a money-spinner, eh?

One of the main difficulties new paradigms have in breaking through, it that those who are invested in the old paradigm have a financial incentive to protect the old one from the new one. And in this case the situation this is exacerbated to the maximum, because of the context of Gregg Henriques’ involvement with a movement which claims to be guiding people towards the new one. Would be a bit awkward if it turns out UTOK is incompatible with the new paradigm, wouldn’t it?

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Generally, those of us taking part in these discussions are on Team Human.

A prerequisite for doing this is a shared purpose, right? This seems to be what you’re proposing with your Epistemic New Deal. We discussed that in detail, and from my point of view, no one really signed on. A “my way or the highway” approach isn’t really conducive to shared purpose.

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You’re right, they didn’t. As I have repeatedly pointed out, nobody here gives a **** about the truth. All of you are pretending to search for a new paradigm, while actually trying to dress the old one up in new clothes. You yourself belatedly admitted that 2PC might actually be what I am claiming it is, but you still aren’t interested in updating your own belief system accordingly.

The new paradigm demands new thinking, and nobody here is prepared to do that. So nobody signed on, or even seriously considered doing so. Must mean 2PC is wrong, eh? After all, if the idea was any good, some people would have signed on, right?

Your narrative is still all about the messenger, and the way the message was delivered, while persistently ignoring the actual message.

A “my way or the highway” approach isn’t really conducive to shared purpose.

It is if “my way” is actually the truth, and your supposed purpose is to search for truth. You are still mis-represtenting 2PC as just any old item on the menu of incoherent worldviews, and you are using that as a justification for criticising me for insisting that it isn’t.

Your “shared purpose” is the defence of the old paradigm. Literally - your argument above boils down to "in order to foster shared purpose, we must permit infinite epistemic freedom and respect. Everybody is right! Long live the Old Paradigm!!"

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So which one is it – am I able to admit that your theory might be valuable, or I am unable to update my views? You can’t claim both.

Again, I’m not interested in your postmodern, evidence-free assertions. Every time you make ridiculous claims like this, I ask for evidence, and without fail, you ignore the requests.

Where’s the evidence you were removed from the forums due to your opposition to materialism? Still waiting on that. As I said before, I won’t hold my breath. Your accusations of epistemic anarchy are actually projections. You accept LLM results that confirm what you believe, and reject those that don’t.

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If 2PC is right, then all sorts of other things are necessarily wrong. That is the key update to your views which is required, and no you aren’t willing to do it.

On the forum. I was suspended after being warned to be more respectful to the physicalist who is a member of the gang, and I refused on principle, because physicalism is a central part of the problem. When I point blank refused to accept physicalism as respectable, I was suspended for a year.

Ooops.

Your accusations of epistemic anarchy are actually projections.

You actually believe that, do you? If so, you are considerably more detached from reality than I thought you were. Nothing could be more obvious than my argument in the opening post of the thread on the Big Tent Paradox. Even Robert said he was 85% in agreement with it, but now you are claiming it is all in my own mind.

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I’m also mostly in agreement with what you propose. So what? I may be 90% in agreement with Donald Hoffman, and he’s not a “my way or the highway” kind of guy. Given that the map is not the territory, many visions can be functionally useful and valid.

I did not once claim it is all in your own mind. Quote me directly.

Telling on yourself again. Rather than being disrectful to individuals, it’s possible to critique ideas in their own right.

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@GeoffDann I’ll be happy to read your book. (I’m retired now - time on my schedule has opened up). However, there are terms and conditions.

  1. please post here (in this thread) the best link to the most current and authoritative version of your book.
  2. I will open a brand new Forum thread specifically on the book.
  3. In that thread, I will react chapter by chapter or section by section to each part of it.
  4. In those reactions, I will compare your views to many other competing views.
  5. I will invite others to do the same.

Fair enough? My position on “truth’” is that truth will out.

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Here’s what I’d propose, @GeoffDann. Since we all care about the metacrisis, why don’t we just upload your approach and any necessary documentation into an LLM, along with competing approaches, and ask the question,

Which of these approaches has the best chance of solving the metacrisis? Evaluate them impartially, only on the merit of the ideas.

Would you accept the results if we did? Would you accept that, if you did not accept the results, it would actually make you the epistemic anarchist?

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This is ridiculous. ANY new theory which is actually capable of displacing the old one (epistemic anarchy) is necessarily “this way or the highway”. That is logically entailed by the situation itself. And you are now repeatedly and cynically misrepresenting that as an individual “not being epistemically humble enough”. Your views haven’t changed one iota. You are still setting up a catch-22 whereby I cannot possibly be right.

This is bad faith communcation.

Bad Faith Communication

Discourse that is intended to achieve behavioral outcomes (including consensus, agreement, “likes”) irrespective of achieving true mutual understanding, with the result of decreasing the faith participants have in the value of communicating.

Some Signs of Bad Faith Communication [edited to remove inapplicable items]:

  • Refusing changes in position based on new information
  • Strawmanning the position of others
  • Avoidance or omission of careful clarifications and evidence
  • No attempts to find shared base realities and values
  • Emergence of stalemates, polarization, and simplifications
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Not if you are allowed to rig the prompts, no. I’ve seen the way you try to mislead people using AI. I would be happy to run some sort of test of this sort, but there needs to be an agreement about exactly how it would work, and we cannot have just one person running the test and the posting the results, because that is wide open to abuse. At least two people need to run the same test, on the same AI.

Also, if we do it, then 2R has to be willing to accept the results also.

What do you think?

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It is frustrating to see this kind of correspondence. I had engaged with you in good faith previously, trying to draw out your rationale. You often present yourself as being more scientific, or the other view of being ‘not scientific’, so I addressed that directly, and also provided links to some peer reviewed articles that are relevant. It seems whenever you are put precisely on the spot, and asked to elaborate in detail, the response is evasion. In this case that entire engagement to your response was simply batted away with the line ‘I can’t be bothered - all humans are stupid’ or something of the ilk.

Why should I read in detail your views if you are unable to address attempts to elucidate them? Actually I am now just giving up on it as it has happened multiple times now and I see no signs this will change.

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Oh, you mean by providing links to the chats so that the extracts I post can’t be misleading?

I just gave you a possible prompt we could use. If you don’t like it, feel free to propose another.

Here’s another one:

which of these two theories has a better chance of moving humanity towards a resolution to the metacrisis:

It’s possible to post a link to the chat do prove that the LLM was not primed to provide certain types of answers. In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been doing this in my posts, and you haven’t.

Which of my posts is an example of bad faith LLM usage, in your opinion?

(There I go asking for evidence again.)

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Why should I answer the same question for the tenth time when you didn’t take any notice the previous nine times?

There is a vast amount of neuroscientific evidence to support the claim that brains are necessary for consciousness. What part of that do you not understand?

Nobody treats plants as if they were conscious. Not even you. So why do you claim you believe they are conscious, even though they don’t behave as if they are, and they don’t have nervous systems (let alone brains)? Why are you forcing us to have the same fruitless, pointless discussion, over and over again? Why can’t you just accept the science, and move on to the next question?

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This question is itself a perfect example. It’s a strawman, because I never said anything about “bad faith LLM usage”.

You’ve strawmanned my position hundreds of times on this forum, and I have not done it to you even once.

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For a guy who’s really got a bone to pick with postmodernism, you sure enjoy playing semantic games.

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Pointing out logical fallacies is not “playing semantic games”. That accusation is itself pure postmodernism.

1 Like