by Joey Lawsin
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| Intuitive Aneural Network |
Most concepts in philosophy - like dualism, physicalism, panpsychism, functionalism, epiphenomenalism, the theory of the mind, closing the explanatory gap, and solving the hard problem - are often misinterpreted because the foundations of their ideas are basically flawed. The Hard Problem in itself is not actually hard - if and only if - the proponents of a said idea simply understand the origin, creation, and evolution of early information based on the theory of Information Materialization (I.M.). By utilizing I.M., specifically its two most important seminal theories- the Caveman in the Box Trilogy and the Human Mental Handicap - the inherently flawed ideas in the study of the mind can be properly addressed.
In his works on I.M., Joey Lawsin coined the catchphrase "the Human Mental Handicap", or the Human Boundaries, in an attempt to define consciousness in its simplified form. He claimed that "No Human ever can think of a thing without labeling or associating such thing with something like an object, a word, or description". This measure of comparative labeling, tagging, or one-to-one correspondence is technically known as Associative Recognition. It is the main indicator of consciousness. Lawsin, in his book Evolution of Creation, defines Consciousness as Recognition, a recognition of one's self and one's environment. These two factors are the key determinants of Consciousness. If one of them is not present, then consciousness doesn't exist. A newborn baby may react to his environment but it doesn't mean the baby is conscious. Why? The baby is not conscious because he doesn't recognize himself and he doesn't recognize his environment. Like an artificial sentient robot, the baby simply interacts with the environment through its biological sensors but cannot recognize itself and its environment.
Lawsin argued that Recognition is totally different from Awareness. For example, if plants can hear, smell, feel, and remember their surroundings, then it shows that they have the potential to associate what they sense with other objects. This is a form of Recognition. This means plants can associate one thing with another thing. If they can feel warm, then they can differentiate between hotness and coldness. If they react to sounds, then they can differentiate noise from music. If they can do a one-to-one correspondence, the ability to match one thing with another thing, then plants are conscious beings. Animals without brains like sea anemones, sea squirts, and many sea creatures are conscious beings because they have the talents to match things with other things like the ability to change skin colors or hide during an attack. Dogs use objects like bowls, balls, and bones and pair them with words like food, play, and walk. Their skills to associate mental images with physical objects just show that dogs are conscious beings. (The Bowlingual Experiment, Lawsin 1988)
Lawsin also defined consciousness in a simple equation: If x is conscious with y then x is conscious, else, if x is by itself alone, then x is not conscious. In other words, he said, if I am conscious with my dog then I am conscious. If I exist alone by myself, without my dog and anyone else surrounding me, then I will never be conscious. Thus, consciousness is made up of two basic elements: X and Y. If one of the two variables is missing, then consciousness is not present. This means to be conscious one must be aware of oneself and one's surroundings, from where in this case, the surrounding is another person. Thus to become conscious, two things must be present: a being and a surrounding or, a being and another being. (Definition-1, Lawsin 1988).
Meanwhile, consciousness is different from self-consciousness. A plant can be conscious but it doesn't mean it is self-conscious. Scientists suggest that plants and trees are aware of their surroundings. IM standards also assert they are conscious. But, the question is - Can plants recognize themselves? They can spray or flash "irritant powder" that can deter intruders like me. Grass produces leafy odors during mowing to signal others. Some can catch and digest their prey. Others can even destroy, invade, protect, and work as a community. Do these behaviors indicate plants are self-conscious? While in the animal kingdom, although all animals interact with their surroundings, some animals are not conscious of themselves just like dogs which are conscious beings but cannot recognize themselves in a Mirror test. So what really makes one conscious and one self-conscious? Are they one and the same or not?
Based on Originemology, the key factor of consciousness and self-consciousness is information materialization. Without information being materialized through information acquisition and associative recognition, consciousness and self-consciousness will not emerge and develop. These two main ingredients are the basic recipe for consciousness. Information doesn't just exist in the brain. It undergoes a process. It has to be acquired, compared, processed, and sent. These instructions make up a procedural system. Consciousness follows this procedure. Thus, to be conscious, one can process information through acquisition, association, codexation, and transmission. (Definition-2, Lawsin 1988).
Thinking is the by-product of this consciousness process. It may be synonymous with consciousness but not with existence as portrayed by the famous quote "I think, therefore I exist" by Rene Descartes. His association of existence with consciousness is definitely a misconception as you will see later. Anyways, according to psychology, kids are not self-conscious yet at the ages of 1 to 3. This claim is true since babies first acquire information by copying or mimicry just like all other young lets according to the Caveman Trilogy. They can't carry out the process of thinking at a very young age. A puppy copies what his mom does but doesn't know what they are for. Kids and babies in general are not self-conscious at an early age due to the Absence of Thoughts (but obviously Rene they exist). Thinking, and associative recognition a basic indicators of consciousness.
Now, if thought is synonymous with consciousness, does this mean consciousness must emanate from the brain through a mental process, or, it can emerge otherwise from other neural networks or Dermal Networks like the scales, feathers, hairs, pores, roots, glands, or skins of plants and animals as proposed by Lawsin in his book, the Silver Species. Remember, the skin is the largest sensory organ found in both plants and animals, and all biological sensors evolved from the skin. It can process information as seen from animals without brains or plants capable of performing a range of responses to different circumstances like protecting their own species. Is it possible that consciousness emanates from dermal networks? Or, is it a simulated condition as proposed by Lawsin in his works on the Animation Effect, the Xylophone Effect, and the Neural System of the Dermal Network?
The seven definitions of consciousness:
1. Consciousness is the ability to acquire information. (Definition-1, Lawsin 1988).
2. If I can match x with y, therefore I'm conscious. (Definition-2, Lawsin 1988).
3. Collaborative Determinants of Consciousness (Definition-3, Lawsin 1988).
4. Grand Script of Consciousness (Definition-4, Lawsin 1988).
5. Codexation (Definition-5, Lawsin 1988).
6. Algorithmic Animation (Definition-6, Lawsin 1988).
7. Information Materialization (Definition-7, Lawsin 1988).
The complete definitions of Consciousness can be found in the book Originemology by Joey Lawsin.
1. How did information emerge into the early minds of the very first humans?
2. Who supplied our primitive ancestors with information?
3. Where did it originate? Where did it come from?
4. Was the source of information a who or a what? Was it god, space aliens, or something else?
5. If a bat was also placed inside the box, would it develop consciousness?
In the experiment, the primary subject was a newborn baby who was placed in a box. He was a prehistoric son of a caveman who was kept at birth inside a special "room" with six walls as his only surroundings. He was forbidden ever to interact with the outside world, never allowed to see anyone nor hear anything entirely throughout the rest of his life. He was totally isolated from the world from birth to adulthood.
Parallel to this same scenario was another box — the box of the father, the first human on earth, the second subject of the experiment. He was also placed in isolation from birth to adulthood. The only difference between the father's box and the son’s box is that the father lives side by side with the natural world — a place surrounded by living and non-living things - plants, animals, water, sky, stars, and all other natural elements.
A third box was also in the picture — the box of a dog. Zero, a puppy of Alaskan malamute descent, who was also occupying the same environment as his master, was the third subject of the experiment. He was also isolated from birth to adulthood. The only difference between his box and his master's box was that he was an animal — a lower-life form.
By these 3 characters, more questions were raised like - Who among the three will acquire more information? Who will never acquire any information at all? Will they become aware of themselves? Will they become aware of their own surrounding? Will they figure out that they are alive? Will they understand the things surrounding them? How? How many pieces of information will they acquire? How will they know and understand them? How did they acquire the ability to associate physical objects with mental images or vice versa? Which minds will stay empty forever? Which brains will give rise to consciousness and self-consciousness? They are open questions that can be rationally answered by common sense observations, systematic inferences, and comparative analysis. Questions that will provide the definition of consciousness in its simplified form.
-QED-
How did humans acquire their ability to associate mental images with physical objects? Examining the second box, the father learned everything from his surroundings - the living environment. He saw how birds fly, how lions get their food, how deers drink water, and how every creature in his environment behaves, creates sounds, and lives life in their own ways. He eventually copied their actions and reactions. He began to mimic them. With these real-time experiences, bits of information were gradually building in his mind. Subsequently, these pieces of information were converted into some called knowledge. He then learned the art of judging and choosing, the concept of right and wrong, discovering and inventing new things, and converting abstract ideas to physical realities. Because of Mother Nature, he becomes a conscious being. Humans become conscious beings.
People don't realize that if they try to humanize a dog, a cat, a bird, or a bear, they are actually raising a human being in an animal suit. This might be a strong statement. But this is a fact. Humans and animals might be seen as two different species. But when they live side by side, with the same surroundings, they become actually two similar objects. When they are raised both in the same controlled environment like our homes, humans, and animals are emotionally, mentally, physically, and socially alike. How is this so?
Imagine that we are simultaneously raising two newborn beings: a puppy and a baby.
The baby lives in a house with her mother, father, and her brothers and sisters. The baby hears the sound of her mother's call, sees her mother's smile, feels her mother's touch, tastes her mother's milk, and even smells her mother's scent. The baby also reacts subconsciously with her home environment, the temperature of her room, the sounds from the television, the aroma from the kitchen, the noises generated from the interactions within the whole family. All these pieces of sensations are information that will eventually find their ways into the baby's mind. The house, a confined surrounding or environment, is the primary source of her mental information.
The puppy also lives in the same house like with the baby. He is also surrounded by the same dad, mom, and kids. The puppy also hears, smells, sees, and feels everyone and everything in the house. He also reacts with the temperature inside and outside the house, the sounds from the radio and television, the aroma from the kitchen, the taste of the food, and the synergies within the family. Again, the same pieces of information, that make his environment, are also stored in his brain. Just like the baby, the dog's surrounding becomes the primary root or source of information.
From the two examples, we can deduce that our surrounding is where we get our information. The environment is the source of our information. Since both baby and puppy lives in the same environment, the information obtained by the baby will exactly be the same information gained by the puppy. The baby and the puppy will acquire such same information because they are identically surrounded with the same objects and people. While these pieces of information will develop the emotions, morals, consciousness, free will, and behavior of the child, these same pieces of information will gradually evolve, develop and hone the wholeness of the puppy as well.
Remember that what the baby sees, smells, feels, hears are what the puppy sees, smells feels, and hears as well. When love and care are provided to the baby, the same love and care are felt by the puppy. When both baby and puppy are placed in a bed next to with the owner, both species will also experience the same comfort, protection, and affection. When the baby and the puppy are put in the garage overnight, both will also experience the same coldness, loneliness, and anxieties. Whatever the situation is, both entities will identically undergo the same exact experience. It is not because one is a puppy or a baby, but it is all because they were brought up in the same exact environment. Their environment makes who they are. They are programmed by the information they get from their environment. They both receive the same exact information.
However, some might argue that the child is totally different from the puppy because the child's brain is more complex than the puppy's brain. Thus, the baby is more intelligent and can comprehend easily than the dog. But, this is another misconception. Why? Since both are still babies, they don't have any ideas of what all these objects surrounding them are. They don't know what a smile is, a father, a mother, hunger, noise, and even the difference between cold and hot. They simply react to their environment. From these reactions and repetitive interactions, they instinctively "inlearn" things mechanically. And over time, this learned instinct transforms into understanding, emotions, and intelligence eventually.
"I label X with Y, therefore I am conscious".
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~ Joey Lawsin
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If instinct is true, what are these instincts that they had before? How did these instincts develop in the first place? Will they eat their poo and drink their pee? Will they still stay and act like babies throughout adulthood? ... How did they live when they were inside the wombs? Acquired Information? Reflexes? Mechanical? Cause and Effect? Virtual Consciousness? Doe consciousness even come from the brain? Does it even exist? Is it merely an illusion, a product of cause and effect?
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How is the neural system of the dermal network wired? How do humans pee? How do humans poo? How does a toilet bowl work? Is breathing in the brain? Why does the brain need oxygen? Why do humans need to eat and drink? Is everything biological, automatic, mechanical, or sensor-actuator activated? If consciousness needs a being and a surrounding, does self-consciousness do? What is subconsciousness? Do we really need a brain to be conscious?
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Excerpt: Biotronics: The Silver Species by Joey Lawsin
About the Author :
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Disclaimer: This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited as follows: Originemology, Joey Lawsin, 1988, USA.
