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Logos01 comments on [link] Back to the trees - Less Wrong Discussion
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I'm a little confused by this use of the word sentient. I understand it to mean "qualia-bearing", and I believe that chimps and other animals probably have qualia. Perhaps they meant that it probably didn't have our depth of human experience, i.e. it probably had a similar degree of consciousness (or qualia) to a chimp.
Incidentally I am reminded of the disturbing science fiction novel Blindsight by Peter Watts, which explores (fictional insight only, of course!) similar ideas.
This is now my favourite fact.
It's the same kind of horror one feels after reading Eliezer's "Beyond the reach of God". I'd love to know what the neurological difference is between knowing something on a surface level, and actually internalising it such that the full horror of it is felt.
Fascinating conjecture; what path of history would be required for that strain of organisms to develop into a tool-manufacturing multicellular organism?
The first, hard step on that path would probably be surviving outside dogs. At least, I don't want to think about paths that miss this step.
They seem more probable though. How familiar are you with this parasite?
Could this perhaps work with a brain?
Even after reading the Wikipedia article, I'm having trouble imagining how a small/medium mammal evolves into a tumor.
I think the trouble might come from imagining the process as a gradual process by which a dog population evolved into a tumor population (which is not what happened; the wording in the original post is pretty misleading). The dog-to-tumor part is actually the easier and less shocking part of the story. Tumors are basically just cells that by some mutation have trouble regulating cell division and then divide uncontrollably. Malignant tumors (what we call cancers) are just tumors that happen to harm the organism (and maybe metastasize). So this particular tumor was once a dog cell, just as every human cancer starts out as a human cell. The interesting part of the story is that the tumor got to have a limited ability to survive outside of the original dog's body, and got to be able to survive within other dogs and other canids.
The dog evolved into a tumor in the same sense in which Henrietta Lacks evolved into a cell line. If the cell lines descended from the original Lacks culture managed to spread into the wild, you would have essentially the same story. You might then say that Lacks evolved into a species of single-celled organisms.
The genes that built her found a better vector to spread themselves.
I don't know, but H.R. Giger needs to illustrate it.