I reduced it to a minimum so we could find points that we can agree on. I think self-awareness is a more complex system of consciousness, such as sentience. Which I do not believe an air conditioner is.
For example, is nature (evolution) conscious?
I mean this in the most literal sense, the system which created your definition of "consciousness", is that system itself consciousness?
The material that makes up our neurons once came from a non self-aware system. (basic minerals, etc.)
This is actually a really interesting comparison. From what I have studied, mushrooms behave similar to a neural network. This is one of the reasons they are so good at revitalizing forests and are seemingly unaffected by viruses. Not to mention their benefits on immune regulation in primates.
This is a fallacy all humans experience, however, what is the probability specifically that all these problems are unrelated? At what probability is it mathematically impossible that these problems are unrelated?
While I agree with his reasoning based on his definition of consciousness, I am not sure if this is the most appropriate way of defining consciousness.
We still do not properly understand it, thus we cannot define it. While I try to stray from vague or ambiguous interpretations, I do think it's significant to point that out.
Let's look at the generic definition:
* consciousness - "the state of being awake and aware of one's surroundings."
* awareness - "knowledge or perception of a situation or fact."
While a plants' consciousness may not be COMPLEX, it does not mean the absence of conscious. There are things such as cellular intelligence which we know is exhibited in even the smallest of prokaryotes and eukaryotes cells.
At the most abstract interpretation I think consciousness can be defined as a closed system that contain both input and output, in which information is gathered and alters some component of the system itself.
There was a really interesting article the other day on here about how plants were more adaptive to radiation (specifically in Chernobyl) compared to the regions animal counterparts.
To this definition, I think plants exercise consciousness. When we look at life we have to analyze on both the fundamental and complex aspects.
This skepticism is important. What is the timeline of these changes in temperature? Can we compare it to the changes 100 years ago? 500 years ago? 1000 years ago? 10,000 years ago?
Are we accounting for positioning and skewing of the sun (on it's natural cycle)?
So much more goes into temperature regulation than simply "carbon emissions", if we were to realistically tackle an environmental disaster I would point to the plastic waste in the ocean and the fish farms.
For example, a car and a truck are both vehicles, but a vehicle is neither a car or a truck.
The truck or car are the subject/closed system.