Thanks for provoking this thought further : Fesenjoon2 iamfine Soosan Khanoom
‘Ashraful Makhlookaat – Human being is the prime creation of God.’ Islam – ‘A perfection created and designed in Gods shape.’ Christianity. A “perfectly efficient” thinker, such an entity would possess the greatest intelligence theoretically possible in this universe. Hence, the highest SQ is about log10(1.4 x 1050) ~ 50. We human has an SQ rating of miserly +13.
We are an imperfect design with limited operability! Yet, a great thinking engine if our minds are free. We humans are pathetic in all aspect of five senses sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing. We are only exceptional and ‘Prime’ because we have Mind that is Conscious i.e. our ESP; our perception. Without a ‘sentient’ status ‘human is not a ‘human but an animal. Ashraful Makhlookaat!!! Gods ‘Prime Creation’ is actually a very imperfect but for its ‘Mind and Consciousness.’
The Universe is Mind/Consciousness! Consciousness is indefinable; inexpressible, it has no boundaries, it is timeless, has origin that synchronises with our evolutionary battle with the sentient hurdle. ‘Consciousness is prime’. There is nothing else! Irony is that scriptures want to chain the ‘prime faculty of consciousness’ and let us get on with the other lesser faculties. Without a ‘sentient’ status ‘human is not a ‘human but a low animal, with quite inferior five senses. Our mind, ambidexterity and ability to talk corporealises our humanism. Without these together we would be an extinct species. A number of scientists today suspect that the phenomenon of consciousness may be an emergent arising naturally from the organizational complexity and processing efficiency found in the human brain. Numerologists have delved more deeply into the workings of the brain, and many have concluded that a general physiological theory of human consciousness is in offing.
The concept of ‘sentience quotient’ concept was introduced by Robert A. Freitas Jr. in the late 1970s. It defines sentience as the relationship between the information processing rate (bit/s) of each individual processing unit (neuron), the weight/size of a single unit and the total number of processing units (expressed as mass). The sentience quotient (SQ) of an individual is a measure of the efficiency of an individual brain, not its relative intelligence, and is defined as: SQ = log(I/M) where I is the information processing rate (bits/s) and M is the mass of the brain (kg). The lower (astrophysical) limit of SQ is approximately −70, while the upper (quantum) limit is about 50. According to this equation, humans have an SQ of +13. A human neuron has an average mass of about 10−10 kg and one neuron can process 1000-3000 bit/s, giving us an SQ rating of +13. Some comparative examples of SQ (measured against our human brain) are as follows:
Plants have an SQ of -2.
Dogs have an SQ of +4
The Cray I supercomputer has an SQ of+9.
These are the frontiers of evolving conciousness, and lets get back to we humans with our sensory capacities that are limited but cerebral capacities that has no bounds. Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) is credited with the traditional classification of the five sense organs: sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing. As far back as the 1760’s, the famous philosopher Immanuel Kant proposed that our knowledge of the outside world depends on our modes of perception. Human beings, along with monkeys, apes, and birds, are among the rare life forms that are principally audiovisual, and correspondingly weak in vision, hearing, sensory touch, taste and smell.
Vision: Our vision is limited to a tiny segment of the electromagnetic spectrum, we see only a tiny bit in the middle of the whole, which we refer to as the “visual spectrum. Our optical apparatus divides this accessible piece into the fuzzy divisions we call colours. Just beyond blue in frequency is ultraviolet, which insects can see but we cannot. Bees, on the other hand, are sensitive to polarized light, and have a visual range that extends into the ultraviolet. Some kinds of snakes have special infra-red sensors that enable them to hunt in absolute darkness using only the heat emitted by their prey. Birds have a higher density of light-sensing cells than humans do in their retinas, and therefore, higher visual acuity.
Hearing: We hear only a few of the sound frequencies around us. The human ear can perceive frequencies from 16 cycles per second, which is a very deep bass, to 28,000 cycles per second, which is a very high pitch. Bats and dolphins can detect frequencies higher than 100,000 cycles per second. Bats are far superior they orient with the echoes of ultrasound, at a frequency too high for our ears, and elephants commune with peevish at very low frequencies. Sound is a pressure variation that can be detected by the human ear. The number of pressure variations per second is called the frequency of sound, and is measured in hertz (Hz). The normal hearing for a healthy young person ranges from approximately 20 Hz to 20000 Hz (20 kHz). In terms of sound pressure levels, audible sound ranges in humans are from the threshold of hearing at 0 dB to the threshold of pain at 130 dB and over. Humans can hear between 20 Hz – 20,000 Hz.
However, some animals can hear lower or higher than humans. Sounds that are lower than human hearing (below 20 Hz) are called Infra-sound. Sounds that are higher than human hearing (above 20,000 Hz) are called Ultrasound. Why do bats fly with their mouths open? They are vocalizing high frequency chirps that bounce or “echo” back to them. This form of navigation is called echolocation. A bat can fly through a dark cave and catch moths in mid-air using echolocation.Why do grasshoppers need to hear frequencies up to 50,000 Hz? They are listening for predators like the shrew — the smallest of all land mammals. Shrews are insect-eating animals called insectivores, and they use echolocation to locate crunchy little snacks like the grasshopper. The phrase, “quiet as a mouse?” It’s not that mice are quiet, it’s just that much of their communication is ultrasonic. When a baby mouse calls for its mother, it does so at 40,000 Hz — and adult mice can communicate up to 70,000 Hz! Compare this to the hearing range of a cat and you will understand how high-frequency communication can be a survival strategy. Our 20 Hz – 20,000 Hz is pathetic low 5 out of 10 if compared to the Animals. But ‘Sentient status’ we are 9, they are 3 on a scale of 10.
Smell: The cavity of the nose is lined with mucous membranes that have smell receptors connected to the olfactory nerve. The smells themselves consist of vapors of various substances. The smell receptors are sensitive to seven types of sensations that can be characterized as camphor, musk, flower, mint, ether, acrid, or putrid. Dogs have a sense of smell that is many times more sensitive than man’s.When measuring odor, there is a difference between emission and immission measurements. Emission measurement can be conducted by olfactometry using an olfactometer to dilute the odor sample. A bear’s brain is a third of the size of ours, yet the part devoted to smell is five times larger. They possess big noses and the inside surfaces of their nostrils are enlarged with folds that make room for thousands of smell receptors. Their sense of smell is certainly better than a bloodhound’s and, quite possibly, is the best of any land animal. Two-thirds of a shark’s brain is dedicated to smell and it can detect the tiniest drop of blood from more than a mile away. Astonishingly even uninjured fish are not safe from a shark’s surveillance.
Best ‘mate’ detection – The Moth. Imagine being able to sniff your future wife from 6-7 miles away. Well, that’s what a moth does using its feathery antennae.A bloodhound can stay on the trail of a person after several days, even if that person has walked through busy shopping centres and streets. In fact their sense of smell is so good, it’s better than the best man-made odour detecting machines. Some dogs can even detect certain types of cancer and they do so with greater accuracy than state-of-the-art screening equipment. Most sensitive nose – The star nosed mole This poor-sighted creature’s unique nose has almost six times more touch receptors than a human hand and it uses its nose more for feeling than smelling. As it makes its way down a tunnel, it sweeps its 22 fleshy tentacles back and forth with incredible speed touching 10-12 different objects per second. And as soon as a tasty worm is detected, it’s eaten within milliseconds. On olfactometer we are pathetic low 3 out of 10 if compared to the Animals. But ‘Sentient status’ we are 9, they are 5 on a scale of 10.
Touch: The sense of touch is distributed throughout the body. Nerve endings in the skin and other parts of the body transmit sensations to the brain. Some parts of the body have a larger number of nerve endings and, therefore, are more sensitive. Four kinds of touch sensations can be identified: cold, heat, contact, and pain. The fingertips and the sexual organs have the greatest concentration of nerve endings. The sexual organs have “erogenous zones” that when stimulated start a series of endocrine reactions and motor responses resulting in orgasm. Body has about 20 different types of nerve endings that all send messages to our brain. The nerve endings in the skins can tell you if something is hot or cold etc.
Most common receptors are: Pain, Heat, Cold and Pressure.Pain receptor are probably the most important because they can protect us by warning our brain that our body is hurt. Body parts with more nerves are more sensitive.Tropical fishes use electric pulses to orient and communicate in opaque murky water, having evolved to high efficiency a sensory modality entirely lacking in humans. Humans cannot feel the Earth’s magnetic field, which migratory birds use for orientation. The polarization of sunlight from patches of the sky that honeybees employ is invisible to humans, this on a cloudy days guide honeybees from their hives to flower beds and back. Best earthquake detector – The catfish Catfish are probably the most finely tuned creatures on earth. Unlike most fish, they don’t have scales and their smooth skin gives them a heightened sense of touch. In addition tiny hairs that run along the catfish’s side are very sensitive to vibrations. So much so, catfish are rumoured to be able to detect earthquakes days in advance.
Best fire detector – The jewel beetle Using an infra-red sensor under one its legs, this beetle can detect a fire over 50 miles away. Astonishingly, the beetle then chooses to fly towards it. This is because once the inferno has passed, the burnt tree trunks that remain offer a rare opportunity for the jewel beetle to mate and lay its eggs in a predator-free environment.
Deadly vibrations – The crocodile & alligator These deadly predators have 1000’s of tiny receptors – the size of the tip of a pencil -dotted mainly around their jaw line. These receptors enable them to sense the presence, movement and location of animals through vibrations in the water. For instance, they can pick up on the faintest change in their environment such as a when a wildebeest stops to take a drink. Good vibrations – The spider A male spider will often cause the web of a female spider to vibrate in a special manner to alert her that he is about to approach. The vibrations tell the female that the intruder on her web is a potential mate and not a juicy insect ready to be eaten.
Taste: We are very poor connoisseurs, however, we have a pitiful sense of taste and aroma. Scientists disagree about whether humans can detect more than five basic tastes (sweet, sour, bitter, salty and umami). Dating back to ancient Greece and China, the sensation of taste has historically been described as a combination of a handful of distinct perceptions. Western food research, for example, has long been dominated by the four “basic tastes” of sweet, bitter, sour and salty. Over 99 percent of all existing species, from microorganisms to animals, rely on chemical senses to find their way through the environment. Everybody has taste budsAll mammals have them. Lizards have them. Fish have them. Bugs have them.
The “chemical senses” (smell and taste) are the oldest senses, in evolutionary terms. In some sense amoebas ARE taste buds: they sense particular chemicals and go towards them. In invertebrate animals (like insects), some cells are devoted to chemical senses, and those are the direct evolutionary equivalents of our taste buds.
Tongues are a feature of vertebrates. Every vertebrate has a tongue, and every tongue has taste buds. They evolved from the chemical sensing cells in other animals. They have also perfected the capacity to communicate with one another with special chemicals called pheromones. The receptors for taste, called taste buds, are situated chiefly in the tongue, but they are also located in the roof of the mouth and near the pharynxes. They are able to detect four basic tastes: salty, sweet, bitter, and sour. Generally, the taste buds close to the tip of the tongue are sensitive to sweet tastes, whereas those in the back of the tongue are sensitive to bitter tastes. The taste buds on top and on the side of the tongue are sensitive to salty and sour tastes.
At the base of each taste bud there is a nerve that sends the sensations to the brain Women, in general, have a greater number of taste buds than men.The pleasant tastes (sweet and umami) are mediated by a family of three T1R receptors that assemble in pairs. Diverse molecules that lead to a sensation of sweet bind to a receptor formed from T1R2 and T1R3 subunits. Cats have a deletion in the gene for T1R2, explaining their non-responsiveness to sweet tastes. Also, mice engineered to express the human T1R2 protein have a human-like response to different sweet tastes. The receptor formed as a complex of T1R1 and T1R3 binds L-glutamate and L-amino acids, resulting the umami taste.
On all accounts many better species exist, but we are only exceptional because we have a ‘Mind that is Conscious.’ Silicon-based super-civilizations could theoretically have an SQ of +23. 10 orders of magnitude beyond human beings. It’s presumed that such a disparity would render useful communication all but impossible. Using Planck’s constant as a by-law, the most advanced “alien” intelligence could have a SQ of +50.
What is the theoretical maximum SQ of any thinking entity in the universe?
While this question may at first appear intractable, actually it is not. According to H.J. Bremermann, if energy levels are used as information markers (the most efficient markers imaginable) then the theoretical maximum amount of information that can be processed by a totally dedicated lump of matter is 1.4 x 1050 bits/sec-kg.3072 (See further discussion in Section 25.2.2.) An alien being capable of handling data this rapidly would have to be considered a “perfectly efficient” thinker. In any given mass category, such an entity would possess the greatest intelligence theoretically possible in this universe. Hence, the highest SQ is about log10(1.4 x 1050) ~ 50.
If we assume that SQ for any being in the universe is about 50, and that human bodies have an SQ of about 10. We can speculate that with each decade of improvement in the SQ, a qualitatively new level of awareness might emerge, comparable to our own “consciousness” but vastly more efficient in terms of data processing. This defined an arbitrary series of six orders of sentience which we described as “reactivity,” “consciousness,” “communality,” “hypersociality,” “galacticity,” and “universality,” based on the assumption that new modes of thinking emerge every time a thinker can increase its information processing capacity per unit mass by roughly ten orders of magnitude. The road to “universality,” and peace is all about raising human level of awareness.
The Universe is Mind/Consciousness! Consciousness is indefinable; inexpressible, it has no boundaries, it is timeless, has origin that synchronises with our evolutionary battle with sentient hurdle. Consciousness is god’. There is’ nothing else!
