Venus fly trap is murky waters. Here's what I can say about my opinion of consciousness. A yeast cell is not conscious. A spider is. Where the transition lay is a mystery. There are a few exceptions to the vagile/sessile rule. For example, an anemone and a hydra can inch around their habitats, but at such a pace as to almost be negligible. And it is unclear that they aren't just moving along a chemical gradient of some sort. To be conscious requires some agency. I don't think moving along a chemical gradient counts as agency. Now, as to the Venus fly trap, its difficult to tell if it has agency or not, but it does appear to 'choose' when to close its trap. That is, it doesn't slam shut when the insect touches one specific organ, so far as I know, but rather it lures the creature in then closes on it when it is comfortably gathering nectar or whatever. Frankly, my judgement may be clouded, because I want the Venus fly trap to be conscious. I want this, because if we can say that it is conscious then that implies automatically that consciousness has arisen more than once here on Earth, that consciousness is a property of life, in some respects and not just an accident of nature. Obviously, its not good to let your hopes cloud your reasoning, but at least I'm aware of it.
Well, then in that sense individual cells of your body would be conscious, too, as there are myriad examples of migrating cells that move along a chemical gradient within you. I would vehemently disagree with that, as I have just written 5000 words about how only organisms can be considered to be conscious. Agency, while not this simple, at least requires something of the structure: [input]-->[decision]-->[output]
That's what I'd argue. I believe our cells have a form of consciouness that is much more simple than the organism they are a part of. Doesn't [decision] imply some dualism? :) IMO trying to define what constitutes a decision just moves the ball.Well, then in that sense individual cells of your body would be conscious, too, as there are myriad examples of migrating cells that move along a chemical gradient within you.
Not if you view it as a black box. I'm not making a judgment as to how it happens, just that it does. Dualism only happens when one uses hand waving to force the facts to support one's beliefs.Doesn't [decision] imply some dualism? :) IMO trying to define what constitutes a decision just moves the ball.
Hm. But what if that's the nature of a decision itself? That it is only exists when viewed as a black box? For a cell, I can see it migrate in one direction, then another. However, through investigation I might find that it was due to a chemogradient that potentiated actin polymerization on one side of the cell, etc. Human decisions might be more complex, but are of the same stuff. In that sense, an organism is in the eye of the beholder.