Are some humans less conscious than others

[Mole]

Go on...

Under literacy our central nervous system is on the inside, and under the electronic media our central nervous system is electronically on the outside, and shared emotionally with our etribe in the global village.

So we are exquisitely sensitive to shared emotion across the globe in real time. This is in contrast to reading a book alone, silent and disengaged from those around us.

So the slogan is: the book is dead, and the God of the Book is dead, while the God of the internet lives, and Marshall McLuhan is the Patron Saint of the internet.

Another way of expressing it is: just as the manuscript is the content of the book, so the book is the content of the internet. And by clicking on the internet at http://robynbacken.com/text/nw_research.pdf you will discover a book. Voila!

 

[Tengri]

What the hell is consciousness?

That's the essential problem with this argument. Consciousness is ill-defined and developmentally speaking, changes throughout life. Think of the accelerated growth of cognizance from infants to 8-year olds when personality forms. Then consider advanced age, dementia, or for example's sake, Alzheimer's or neurological conditions and how they alter (self)perception, especially in terms of hallucination or relating selfhood to external reality. Logically speaking, to say there exists a higher level of consciousness would infer that a peak of human consciousness, evolutionarily speaking, has plateaued and is utilized by a majority of the species. I mean, our dreams are separate from waking reality and we spend 4-months a year unconscious. If anything, Jung was on the right track and we need to tap into that symbolic part of our minds.

Shameless plug: There's a fun theory offered by ethnobotanist Terrence McKenna the author of Food of the Gods that throws a unique spin on altered consciousness here

 

[All]

Hi, What d'ya think ? btw this could both fit in philosophy and science so I don't necessarily expect some treaty of semiology. Any approach is of course welcome. I mean some people are more intelligent than others Some people are more sensitive to x or y than others. If consciousness is a feature of the human mind then why don't we hear about 'CQ' (consciousness quotient). It's kind of assumed it's just a constant everywhere - which it's extremely unlikely to be. And how would you go about testing it etc. ? edit: I googled it and some people actually do talk about a consciousness index but it's very limited (it's basically almost all coming from one source, just mentioned several times) I found their test but I sincerely doubt it's accuracy - questions seem very biased so far (like 'when i wake up in the morning i find the world is full of mystery' - no when i wake up in the morning I'm extremely grumpy and as I don't wake up in some new heroic fantasy world every day I have no reason to suspect any more mysteries than the day before) CQ-i (C) Free Online Assessment

What do you mean by intelligent? Different people have different talents, do you call a writer's ability to create a creative story as intelligent? Or a scientist who invent something new?
Different people are more sensitive to different things, but there are too mamy kinds of things, so we can't measure it.

 

[EcK]

What do you mean by intelligent? Different people have different talents, do you call a writer's ability to create a creative story as intelligent? Or a scientist who invent something new?
Different people are more sensitive to different things, but there are too mamy kinds of things, so we can't measure it.

Well by your own example : if someone has MORE of these and more talents than someone else it's fair to say they are more intelligent no?
Your argument breakdown in its very premise. That's like saying that because there are different types of water water can't be defined. That's silly.

In general intelligence seem linked with abilities that made civilizations develop their infrastructure, create the kind of complex cooperative structures allowing for - for example - western civilization. Basically the reason why you're not living in a cave trading your iphone for banging rocks together.
There's plenty of research on the topic, and I don't think it would be useful to call any trait you'd like 'intelligent'. Yes we can but then it just becomes meaningless.

A good dancer is not 'intelligent' he/she is a good dancer. We already have categories for that and people tend to intuitively agree on what constitutes intelligence.
We are not all equal at all things, saying someone can be better at x or y or z than another person and that we have 'many talents' doesn't contradict it.

There are exceptions of course, but overall more intelligent people are rarely just good at 'one thing' - we are not talking about Hollywood-movie-like clichés. Intelligent people tend to be better than average at a vast majority of cognitive tasks/skills not just say 'be good at math'. Someone who's simply very good at one thing would be - for example - a 'savant' but these are abnormalities and not the rule.
Aboriginal Australians for example are better than westerners at navigating in the Australian plains - finding a spot and their ways home and have excellent spatial memory. However would you call them 'more intelligent' just because of that despite the fact that they never managed to invent the bow and are , overall, utterly failing at navigating the landscapes of modern civilizations despite billions invested in uplifting them? I wouldn't.

In the case of IQ for example someone with a high performance IQ means they are better and faster than average at a multitude of types of cognitive tasks, it usually also comes together with a high verbal IQ (so language proficiency, a more varied lexicon and better general comprehension etc.), more ease at grasping concepts, greater neural activation patterns (so to simplify, more complex thought), accelerated learning curve, and a plethora of other things. IQ has also been correlated with the success of nations with a far greater success at applying western type technological civilization in countries with a population at similar or superior IQ levels than in the western world (East Asia for example) etc etc etc.
Would I call western-type civilizations superior to say hunter gatherer societies? Absolutely.

 

[Hypatia]

Yes.

This shouldn't even be a debate at this point.

I would divide consciousness between two factors: Ability to detect deception in the self and self-discipline to prevent it from influencing other people insidiously and covertly, like a lesbian snake. Unfortunately we live in a society where it is considered upstanding to pander to the most lowest of the lowest of denominators. And we wonder why things like birth rate are declining. It serves society right.

Also maybe to some extent these people even have some vague understanding regarding their innate weaknesses, but instead of doing anything to correct it to try to become decent people in society, for themselves and others, they use the camouflage of weakness and vulnerability to deliberately attempt to elicit unwarranted sympathy from others, covertly bullying others through misinformation narratives intended only to extract vile, repetitive, loathsome, and deceptive acts of sympathy.

 

[Pionart]

Well obviously a human has a bigger consciousness than an animal, so yes there are varying degrees of consciousness among humans.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

People are obviously more conscious than others but everyone assumes they are one of the more conscious ones. Convenient how that works, huh?

 

[Maou]

Everything seems to be on a spectrum, consciousness should be as well. We have seen things like aphantasia, as well as people who do not have "inner monologues". Then there are also people who are on the opposite side, with synesthesia and complete simulation in the imagination. I do not however, think intelligence is inherently correlated with any of these abilities. There are certain abilities, that amplify certain skills, that can make one more intelligent. But with the multitude of intelligences, there is no "best".