Evolution, maybe someone can explain?

[cladking]

Consciousness is well understood and defined in science,

You are just making this up and refusing to support it.

"Consciousness is, for each of us, all there is: the world, the self, everything. But consciousness is also subjective and difficult to define. The closest we have to a consensus definition is that consciousness is “something it is like to be”. There is something it is like to be me or you – but presumably there is nothing it is like to be a table or an iPhone."

Consciousness

How your brain creates the feeling of being

www.newscientist.com

Your contention is untrue. Indeed they aren't even asking the right question to define it. They are asking "what is it like to be a bat"

What Is It Like to Be a Bat? - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Here I am telling you that your entire belief system breaks down because you ignore individuals which are the only thing that exists and focus on "species" that don't exist and you double down on bats. I ask what happens if every upside down bat in the world drops dead and only upright ones survive and you both ignore the question and suggest there's a "bat consciousness" that would make new bats from the survivors.

Ignoring my argument and pretending there is a scientific measurable definition for consciousness is simply smoke and mirrors which is all anyone gets when they challenge premises.

It is not your reasoning that is flawed. It is your 19th century assumptions. It is the assumptions we have all learned on our parents' knees for 4000 years. We forget that our taxonomies and abstractions aren't real so we create massive constructs of words and ideas without realizing they are dependent on words and that science is dependent on experiment which has never confirmed gradual change in species caused by survival of the fittest.

 

[cladking]

What's in question, I think, isn't consciousness, but awareness.

I've defined consciousness in such a way that it can be studied.

I would define "awareness" in such terms as to make it a part or a function of consciousness. But then I'm assuming that when you use this word you mean "awareness of self" rather than "alertness".

 

[shunyadragon]

You are just making this up and refusing to support it.

"Consciousness is, for each of us, all there is: the world, the self, everything. But consciousness is also subjective and difficult to define. The closest we have to a consensus definition is that consciousness is “something it is like to be”. There is something it is like to be me or you – but presumably there is nothing it is like to be a table or an iPhone."

Consciousness

How your brain creates the feeling of being

www.newscientist.com

Your contention is untrue. Indeed they aren't even asking the right question to define it. They are asking "what is it like to be a bat"

What Is It Like to Be a Bat? - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Here I am telling you that your entire belief system breaks down because you ignore individuals which are the only thing that exists and focus on "species" that don't exist and you double down on bats. I ask what happens if every upside down bat in the world drops dead and only upright ones survive and you both ignore the question and suggest there's a "bat consciousness" that would Consciousness is well understood and defined in science,make new bats from the survivors.

Ignoring my argument and pretending there is a scientific measurable definition for consciousness is simply smoke and mirrors which is all anyone gets when they challenge premises.

It is not your reasoning that is flawed. It is your 19th century assumptions. It is the assumptions we have all learned on our parents' knees for 4000 years. We forget that our taxonomies and abstractions aren't real so we create massive constructs of words and ideas without realizing they are dependent on words and that science is dependent on experiment which has never confirmed gradual change in species caused by survival of the fittest.

Consciousness is well understood and defined in science,.

This discussion involves years of threads and references in which you persist in stoic denial with self- imposed ignorance of science, Your problem goes beyond your problems comprehending science.

 

[cladking]

It is not your reasoning that is flawed. It is your 19th century assumptions. It is the assumptions we have all learned on our parents' knees for 4000 years. We forget that our taxonomies and abstractions aren't real so we create massive constructs of words and ideas without realizing they are dependent on words and that science is dependent on experiment which has never confirmed gradual change in species caused by survival of the fittest.

Your belief system breaks down because that which you ignore, individuals, are the only conscious thing in a world where consciousness not only decides life and death but is the only mechanism bestowed by nature to allow the individual to survive. We see baby turtles digging out of the ground but it looks very different to the turtles who understand that they must quickly get to the sea while dodging predators and armed with nothing but consciousness and fast legs.

Every individual must struggle to be comfortable. This extends far beyond merely rushing to the sea or gathering acorns for the winter. They must think and plan as much as their limited knowledge and consciousness allows. They have only one advantage on humans: Despite their inability to know what their forebearers learned they see reality directly instead of through layers and layers of assumptions and doctrine. When the turtle sees a predatory bird it tries to make itself invisible without slowing down. I don't need to know what it's like to be a turtle because they already know what it's like to be an individual which may or may not be like every other turtle. No two individuals are alike and some are much less alike than others. The "theory" of evolution simply doesn't hold. It is unsupported. Every real experiment can be interpreted to mean something else.

 

[cladking]

No two individuals are alike and some are much less alike than others. The "theory" of evolution simply doesn't hold. It is unsupported. Every real experiment can be interpreted to mean something else.

When only the least alike individuals survive a new species is born.

Nature plays tricks on life and our homo omnisciencis brains play tricks on us. We can't see reality directly like a baby turtle. We see reality only in bits and pieces and our beliefs interpret it for us. The mechanism for this interpretation is complex language that arose only 4000 years ago when the tower collapsed in the mother of all speciation events.

TMK this is supported by every experiment ever done and it was derived by the consideration of experiment (et al).

 

[cladking]

Consciousness is well understood and defined in science,.

So you are denying my source that essentially says the word isn't defined at all!

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Consciousness is well understood and defined in science,.

This discussion involves years of threads and references in which you persist in stoic denial with self- imposed ignorance of science, Your problem goes beyond your problems comprehending science.

Just searching consciousness in a literature review brings back 5,740,000 results in 0.06 seconds. Probably 5,740,000 more results than those self-appointed, seemingly omniscient purveyors of empty assertions about consciousness are even conscious of.

 

[shunyadragon]

So you are denying my source that essentially says the word isn't defined at all!

Your sources are selective to justify your bizarre absurd agenda, and are most often fringe second hand sources from layman publications that are not the basic peer reviewed research on consciousness, Much of your argument is "arguing from ignorance" concerning unanswered questions which are part of ALL sciences.

See post #2,107.

 

[Pogo]

So you are denying my source that essentially says the word isn't defined at all!

Your source is a thought experiment by one philosopher which explains why there is no definition in your mind, it is philosophy and being philosophy or nothing but maunderings, it isn't science just a bunch of assertions.

 

[cladking]

Your source is a thought experiment by one philosopher which explains why there is no definition in your mind, it is philosophy and being philosophy or nothing but maunderings, it isn't science just a bunch of assertions.

But there is NO source that provides a scientific definition because it doesn't exist.

 

[cladking]

There are an infinite number of ways to define something like "mile". There are an infinite number of ways to define or express "momentum" or "atom". Defining "neuron". "amygdala", or "grey matter" is easy. Every single scientific word has a definition that can be understood in scientific terms. "Bottleneck" is "a large reduction to near zero in population". There is no definition for "consciousness" which I provide over and over as "an endowment by nature to every living thing that facilitates survival through pattern recognition and free will". Many scientists exercise their free will by believing it doesn't even exist.

Where is your definition? The last time it was equivalent to "not sleeping".

Consciousness is more universal than any definition will ever cover. Consciousness includes everything from alertness to preferences in foods and mates. It includes abilities, proclivities, habits, instincts, logic, observation, and accumulated knowledge as well as memory and social preferences. It will forever be impossible to reduce to experiment in aggregate so we'll someday after we define it need to study some of its parts.

Our species wants to reduce all of reality to taxonomies and types and then pretend there's nothing but. The reality is all of these are mere mnemonics. Don't tell a spiny anteater it must not lay eggs. Don't tell Pluto it isn't a planet. Pluto doesn't even care if you can't find it in a telescope. The anteater would prefer you not come looking for it. It is what it is and there are no two identical things in existence so there is no such thing as species or whether or not dogs are conscious. Reality doesn't care what Darwin thought or what anyone today thinks. It does what it does until intent circumvents it.

Species don't evolve by survival of the fittest because Darwin believed in it. And if it did evolve it wouldn't be because anyone believes that consciousness doesn't matter.

 

[shunyadragon]

But there is NO source that provides a scientific definition because it doesn't exist.

Your intentional ignorance of science need not apply.

 

[blü 2]

There are an infinite number of ways to define or express "momentum" or "atom".

An infinite number of ways? Really?

Then you'll have no trouble setting out five distinct, necessary and sufficient (and non-overlapping) definitions of an 'atom'.

Please do so before we continue the discussion.

 

[cladking]

An infinite number of ways? Really?

Then you'll have no trouble setting out five distinct, necessary and sufficient (and non-overlapping) definitions of an 'atom'.

Please do so before we continue the discussion.

How about the reciprocal of avogadros number? Use your imagination. Everything palpable is composed of them and each of them affect every other one of them in the universe in the here and now. There are all kinds and sorts of them and even their building blocks can be called "atoms".

"Momentum" is even easier and you can work any number of definitions for "mile" into it.

Just as math is merely a means of quantifying logic our language can express anything logical or not in terms of anything else. Science is merely a set of rules for making meaningful comparison which is why we need a scientific definition for consciousness. In Ancient Language these comparisons were automatic because the language itself was metaphysical.

 

[shunyadragon]

How about the reciprocal of avogadros number? Use your imagination. Everything palpable is composed of them and each of them affect every other one of them in the universe in the here and now. There are all kinds and sorts of them and even their building blocks can be called "atoms".

"Momentum" is even easier and you can work any number of definitions for "mile" into it.

Just as math is merely a means of quantifying logic our language can express anything logical or not in terms of anything else. Science is merely a set of rules for making meaningful comparison which is why we need a scientific definition for consciousness. In Ancient Language these comparisons were automatic because the language itself was metaphysical.

This response follows the trend over the years of your foggy view of the definitions of the nature of our physical existence relying on your personal philosophical beliefs and not science.

 

[cladking]

Science is merely a set of rules for making meaningful comparison which is why we need a scientific definition for consciousness.

Calling "consciousness" the opposite of sleep in a living person is not a scientific definition because there is nothing meaningful. How do you perform an experiment; wake up 50 of 100 sleepers? Give groups of people stimulants to see how much more consciousness there is for a given time? Are such "experiments" meaningful?

How do you compare two peoples' consciousness or that of a rabbit to a butterfly. How about a specific rabbit to a specific butterfly? We can not even address such questions or devise experiment with no definition of consciousness. By the time we set up a tiny MRI for a tse tse fly it will have died of old age.

 

[shunyadragon]

Calling "consciousness" the opposite of sleep in a living person is not a scientific definition because there is nothing meaningful.

True, this is not how science defines conciousness.

How do you perform an experiment; wake up 50 of 100 sleepers? Give groups of people stimulants to see how much more consciousness there is for a given time? Are such "experiments" meaningful?

No

How do you compare two peoples' consciousness or that of a rabbit to a butterfly. How about a specific rabbit to a specific butterfly? We can not even address such questions or devise experiment with no definition of consciousness. By the time we set up a tiny MRI for a tse tse fly it will have died of old age.

Not remotely what science bases its definition and research over time as the basis for understanding consciousness.

 

[cladking]

Then you'll have no trouble setting out five distinct, necessary and sufficient (and non-overlapping) definitions of an 'atom'.

I should also remind you that a "sufficient" scientific definition would include neither everything known about it nor everything there is to know because everything known would fill many volumes and everything there is to know is infinitely larger than what is known. We don't even know how the fundamental forces affect any atom or understand the material that comprises them. If we were tiny enough to dig into an atom what would we find? Is it homogenous? What does it taste like?

Our species sees what it believes. We believe that as soon as we define something it must exist and our knowledge is complete. Some people think survival of the fittest exists therefore is the mechanism by which every species gradually evolve. The niceties of this equation don't matter because we can ponder the fossil record and "fitness" has such a nice ring to it. Without proper definitions and relevant experiment they are nothing but words.

 

[shunyadragon]

I would define "awareness" in such terms as to make it a part or a function of consciousness.

Yes

But then I'm assuming that when you use this word you mean "awareness of self" rather than "alertness".

Yes, dreaming is a common example of "awareness of self" in the animal kingdom

 

[cladking]

Not remotely what science bases its definition and research over time as the basis for understanding consciousness.

ANY understanding of consciousness would lead to models such that individuals could see the specific differences in the consciousness of individuals in some species or individuals. We have no such understanding. No such models. And no such definitions.