[don_esteban]

Here's my question: Is our consciousness fundamentally different than a gorilla's?

> If the answer is no, then I'd ask if a gorilla's consciousness is fundamentally different than a baboon's? I think that answer has to be no by definition, assuming the first answer is no.

> And so on, until we get to where a human's consciousness is not fundamentally different than a tube worm, just a continuum of degrees.

> I'm not sure what to draw from this.

At least the answer to this is simple:

'fundamentally different' is not a transitive function

:-)

[simiones]

The important point is that "not fundamentally different" is probably a transitive function. If A is not fundamentally different from B, and B is not fundamentally different from C, than A is not fundamentally different from C. Here A is human consciousness, B is gorilla consciousness, and C is baboon consciousness.

[don_esteban]

I disagree. Lets go over this slowly.

For almost all purposes, x + epsilon is not fundamentally different from x. Still, 1 is fundamentally different from 10^100, while you can get from 1 to 10^100 by adding epsilon.

Perhaps, one can argue that 0 is fundamentally different from 1. As in 0 + epsilon is fundamentally different from 0, for any non-zero epsilon (e.g. you can't divide by 0, but can for such epsilon).

I think both of us will agree that there is no fundamental difference between the consciousness of baboon and gorilla, and that there is a fundamental difference between the consciousness of a human and a bacteria.

Where we might differ is whether there is a fundamental difference between the consciousness of gorilla and human (some/many? think the humans are unique, and gorilla are not consciouss), and between the consciousness of baboon and a bacteria (maybe some believe 'all life has soul', including bacteria).

Where do you stand? Why do you think 'not fundamentally different' is transitive? Of course, if you apply it twice, the non-transitivity is not obvious. If you apply it 1000x, all the way to bacteria, its non-transitivity becomes obvious. Otherwise, you have to draw a sharp divide somewhere, between 'conscious' and 'non conscious', as in 'these two relatively closely related species are fundamentally different'.

The biggest biological gap I see between bacteria and human is probably between bacteria and eucaryotes, but somehow I doubt you would put the 'fundamentally different, consciousness-wise' there.

Btw., if that is not obvious, from my point of view, baboons are conscious. Not tothe level humans are, but sufficiently enough to make it obvious.