The brain is still one organ? Unless in such situations where a person goes in and physically cuts the corpus callosum, the brain functions as one organ.
This is a bizarre question to ask and frame as an unknown. Anyone who has held or had to watch after a baby can tell you that, although there is plenty of "autopilot" software running the show, there are moments of complete lucidity.
The complete disconnect between journalism and literally the most fundamental of basic human experiences is astounding.
If babies were not conscious then killing them would be no problem. It is their capacity for consciousness (however nascent) that makes them human, and therefore, sacred.
Your own reaction shows a certain level of thinking / quality of thinking or depth of thinking.
Its hard to describe or explain this to you because you will only realize this when you look back after you thought more.
Babies are not sacred. You and me are not sacred. Humans are not sacred.
Our biological programming / priming gives us this 'feeling'.
And consiousness alone is not the thing which makes us not kill most humans, after all we still kill babies and humans daily.
Alone the word sacred is weird in this context. A lot more of questioning the level of consciousness.
Btw. the lucidity you mentioned, might be a conscious experience in development. it might be the same as what you do, it might be not. You point it out because for you its the quality of a human
Yes, it's good that the science exists. But framing an obviously true fact - one which underpins so much of our morality - as up for debate (as the headline does), is caustic.
> If babies were not conscious then killing them would be no problem. It is their capacity for consciousness (however nascent) that makes them human, and therefore, sacred
Once you have a neural network as sophisticated as a baby’s will it be immoral to turn it off?
The article says "newborns", not generically babies. Newborns don't have language, memory or plans, and can't really see or control their bodies. I'm not sure how you would prove that they're conscious.
> If babies were not conscious then killing them would be no problem.
Say what? No. Killing them would be a problem because they're human. With that comes the capability to become conscious, whether or not they are at the time they are babies.
> It is their capacity for consciousness (however nascent) that makes them human, and therefore, sacred.
The sun will become a red star in 5 billion years. We have voids in our universe which are not crossable.
From my pure nihilistic view, it doesn't matter, never has, never will. From an idealistic view: we are humans, i value the uniqueness of mine and the complexity and uniqueness of everyone else being part of my experience.
By saying "becomes", I was intending to leave open the possibility that, by somebody's definition, a baby might not be conscious. But they aren't going to stay a baby forever.
There is no one gene for humanness. Never the less, human DNA (the sum of the DNA carried by any one human) is distinctly human, rather than chimp or canine or lizard. That's why the organism becomes a human body, not a chimp or a canine or a lizard.
People incorrectly think LLMs are conscious because they output language. Yet we question consciousness and intelligence and so on in dogs, cats and now babies.
It’s a ridiculous human bias. Nobody thinks an image generator is conscious. Nobody thinks a human image generated by an image generator is real. But LLMs generate text and so people mistakenly assume they are conscious. LLMs can deep fake personas and act like characters and people think that’s what they actually are. It’s all a deep fake. When you talk to an LLM you are “talking” to a deep fake of a person in the same manner as an image generator deep faking a human image.
An now a paper of record is questioning whether babies are conscious. Why? Just because they don’t use language or have access to memories we question this!? Ultimately that’s what it boils down to regardless of what this article says.
Its a fundamental question to us what consciousness is, who has it, what levels or qualities of it gets.
Only 50 years ago the nazis dehumanized mentally and bodily disabled people.
Other cultures to this day lock humans away with mental illness because they don't understand it.
The complexity of LLMs reached already dimensions that are not that far away from the complexity of human brains and we are only at the beginning of this journey potentially.
World models are getting developed and we havent even tried to build systems similiar to what our brains architecture with a default mode network would look like. We only throw massive amount of resources onto LLMs.
Related:
https://x.com/Austen/status/2106408006216814862
But, is brain the source of consciousness?
If brain is the source. And it is two organs. Which of the organs is the source?
It is slightly interesting question. There is unlikely to be too many good outcomes from answers. But it might be something to think about...
The brain is still one organ? Unless in such situations where a person goes in and physically cuts the corpus callosum, the brain functions as one organ.
Can the observer be observed(by the observer) ?
Of course
gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/05/science/consciousness-bra...
Interesting. This increased my credence that newborns are conscious / sentient (which had been somewhat low).
https://archive.today/uWrVU
This is a bizarre question to ask and frame as an unknown. Anyone who has held or had to watch after a baby can tell you that, although there is plenty of "autopilot" software running the show, there are moments of complete lucidity.
The complete disconnect between journalism and literally the most fundamental of basic human experiences is astounding.
If babies were not conscious then killing them would be no problem. It is their capacity for consciousness (however nascent) that makes them human, and therefore, sacred.
Your own reaction shows a certain level of thinking / quality of thinking or depth of thinking.
Its hard to describe or explain this to you because you will only realize this when you look back after you thought more.
Babies are not sacred. You and me are not sacred. Humans are not sacred.
Our biological programming / priming gives us this 'feeling'.
And consiousness alone is not the thing which makes us not kill most humans, after all we still kill babies and humans daily.
Alone the word sacred is weird in this context. A lot more of questioning the level of consciousness.
Btw. the lucidity you mentioned, might be a conscious experience in development. it might be the same as what you do, it might be not. You point it out because for you its the quality of a human
For decades, surgery was performed on infants without anesthesia because they were believed not to be conscious.
Probably something to do with the way we tend not to retain memories from before about 2 y/o.
And yes, obviously absurd, one would think. Yet something that it’s important for modern medicine to have evidence of.
Yes, it's good that the science exists. But framing an obviously true fact - one which underpins so much of our morality - as up for debate (as the headline does), is caustic.
> If babies were not conscious then killing them would be no problem.
That's why the EMTs and paramedics all cluster around car accident victims, asking whether they are conscious, so they can kill them already
"911, what is your emergency? ... Oh, your grandmother is unconscious? We'll send out our firing squad right away!"
> If babies were not conscious then killing them would be no problem. It is their capacity for consciousness (however nascent) that makes them human, and therefore, sacred
Once you have a neural network as sophisticated as a baby’s will it be immoral to turn it off?
I think so.
[dead]
The article says "newborns", not generically babies. Newborns don't have language, memory or plans, and can't really see or control their bodies. I'm not sure how you would prove that they're conscious.
What a bizarre response to this.
It's not bizarre. What is bizarre is questioning whether babies are conscious.
All conclusions must be checked, especially the obvious ones. Unless you're proposing that 'babies are conscious' is axiomatic.
> If babies were not conscious then killing them would be no problem.
Say what? No. Killing them would be a problem because they're human. With that comes the capability to become conscious, whether or not they are at the time they are babies.
> It is their capacity for consciousness (however nascent) that makes them human, and therefore, sacred.
No, it's their DNA that makes them human.
So is a single cell human "because dna"? Also, the possibility to become something (conscious, or a human being) implies not being that thing now.
Anyway, personally I have a higher view of what a human being is and why it's deserving of protection than just a string of information.
Why?
The sun will become a red star in 5 billion years. We have voids in our universe which are not crossable.
From my pure nihilistic view, it doesn't matter, never has, never will. From an idealistic view: we are humans, i value the uniqueness of mine and the complexity and uniqueness of everyone else being part of my experience.
What is your "higher view"? whats your pedestal?
By saying "becomes", I was intending to leave open the possibility that, by somebody's definition, a baby might not be conscious. But they aren't going to stay a baby forever.
There's no gene for 'humanness'. It's a lie told to children to make biology easier to learn.
There is no one gene for humanness. Never the less, human DNA (the sum of the DNA carried by any one human) is distinctly human, rather than chimp or canine or lizard. That's why the organism becomes a human body, not a chimp or a canine or a lizard.
[dead]
Off topic to the title/question but I find the babies wearing those ultrasound devices on their head to be incredibly cute although dystopian.
Humans have a flawed view of this stuff.
People incorrectly think LLMs are conscious because they output language. Yet we question consciousness and intelligence and so on in dogs, cats and now babies.
It’s a ridiculous human bias. Nobody thinks an image generator is conscious. Nobody thinks a human image generated by an image generator is real. But LLMs generate text and so people mistakenly assume they are conscious. LLMs can deep fake personas and act like characters and people think that’s what they actually are. It’s all a deep fake. When you talk to an LLM you are “talking” to a deep fake of a person in the same manner as an image generator deep faking a human image.
An now a paper of record is questioning whether babies are conscious. Why? Just because they don’t use language or have access to memories we question this!? Ultimately that’s what it boils down to regardless of what this article says.
Its a fundamental question to us what consciousness is, who has it, what levels or qualities of it gets.
Only 50 years ago the nazis dehumanized mentally and bodily disabled people.
Other cultures to this day lock humans away with mental illness because they don't understand it.
The complexity of LLMs reached already dimensions that are not that far away from the complexity of human brains and we are only at the beginning of this journey potentially.
World models are getting developed and we havent even tried to build systems similiar to what our brains architecture with a default mode network would look like. We only throw massive amount of resources onto LLMs.
> Nobody thinks an image generator is conscious.
Plenty of arguments on HN that LLMs are conscious. They are, of course, wrong, but plenty of people seem to believe it-Lord know why.
How can you conclude they’re “wrong”?
You can’t say LLMs are missing the thing that causes consciousness, because we don’t know what that is.
You don't know that the stripper doesn't love me. She acts like she does
only the fully-conscious Four Seasons Orlando baby.