Why is there consciousness?

[atanu]

All analogies fail at some point. That is why they are considered logical fallacies in an argument. Analogies are useful for explaining new concepts, but they can mislead people into thinking that they are making a logical connection rather than merely pointing out a false analogy.

The point was only to introduce 'living' and that has happened.

What? I can't use Star Wars to prove my point? :faint: Scientists tend to believe that abiogenesis is the origin of life--the gradual evolution of complex molecules, which only became possible after stars formed and matured to the point of going nova. That provided the heavy elements necessary to generate life.

It is still a belief and forming a belief requires consciousness. To see a brain requires senses. Thus, it is speculation of origin of itself. Nothing more. It can very well be that the present time gives rise to past. That also is speculation.

But not an intelligent purpose. Evolution is a completely mindless process. When a life form evolves a structure that selects its progeny for better chances of survival, one can use the word "purpose" metaphorically to describe the change as one that serves a purpose. --- There is no intelligent design.

Kindly do not bring ID into it.

How does a mindless system at all come to know which arrangement serves a purpose well? And how does matter keeps track of the arrangements?

Has Darwin or later biologists unequivocally stated that Evolution is a 'mind less'?

One can speculate that, but we have no evidence of purpose to the universe. What is the "purpose" of a rock? If someone picks it up and throws it at another person, is its "purpose" to serve as a weapon? In the mind of the thrower, that is perhaps how it is viewed. Objectively speaking, however, it does not have a purpose.

You now bring in 'purpose of a rock', while we are discussing 'life' .

Now, I feel that you are totally unconscious. If a rock is thrown and seen to be thrown it means presence of an intelligent observer. And that is what we are arguing about all along. How can an inert matter know as to which arrangement is a prefereable one and take appropriate course of action?

So, you prove that evolution cannot be mind-less. If living bodies have a purpose in developing a brain, there has to be a purpose for the nature/universe to give rise to a body with mind-sense abilities.

 

[Copernicus]

It is still a belief and forming a belief requires consciousness. To see a brain requires senses. Thus, it is speculation of origin of itself. Nothing more. It can very well be that the present time gives rise to past. That also is speculation.

Abiogenesis is more than mere speculation. It is based largely on observations about nature. It has not been proven in the sense that we can reconstruct it in the lab, but there are no conceptual barriers to doing that. Scientists have already constructed complex proteins experimentally, so they have done a proof of concept. There are no equally credible alternative theories of how life arose.

Kindly do not bring ID into it.

Well, that does seem to be the only alternative proposal to design by natural selection, and you do seem skeptical of design by natural selection. If you wish to offer a third alternative idea, then please do so.

How does a mindless system at all come to know which arrangement serves a purpose well? And how does matter keeps track of the arrangements?

Evolution has been explained to you before. If you still don't get how it works, I doubt that there is anything more I can say that will help. I do recommend that you look at lengthier treatments of the subject--e.g. Dawkins' The Blind Watchmaker or The Greatest Show on Earth.

Has Darwin or later biologists unequivocally stated that Evolution is a 'mind less'?

Yes, quite unequivocally, although Darwin was put under intense pressure to modify his claims later in life. Hence, he did soften his language on this matter in subsequent reprints of some of his works. However, nobody seriously disputes that evolution is a completely mindless process. Theistic evolutionists sometimes like to claim that God has put a thumb on the scales of evolutionary development, but there is no good reason to believe that.

You now bring in 'purpose of a rock', while we are discussing 'life' .

It doesn't matter as far as my point was concerned. Life is a product of inanimate processes.

Now, I feel that you are totally unconscious. If a rock is thrown and seen to be thrown it means presence of an intelligent observer. And that is what we are arguing about all along. How can an inert matter know as to which arrangement is a prefereable one and take appropriate course of action?

We have not always disagreed about the truth of your claims, just perhaps the reasoning that you have used to justify their truth. Rocks have no intrinsic purpose, but they can acquire purpose in the context of intelligent goal-driven behavior. They can have a purpose with respect to a mind. To claim that the universe has a purpose is equivalent to claiming that a rock has a purpose. It could, if there were some intelligence that were using it toward some purpose. But, AFAIK, there isn't. So it is more like the rock--purposeless in and of itself.

So, you prove that evolution cannot be mind-less. If living bodies have a purpose in developing a brain, there has to be a purpose for the nature/universe to give rise to a body with mind-sense abilities.

Living bodies do not have a literal purpose in developing a brain. That is why I said that the use of 'purpose' with respect to evolution was a metaphorical extension of that word. The reality is that creatures with more complex guidance systems were naturally selected for by environments that favored such systems. There was no intelligent guidance or design behind the development of brains.

 

[atanu]

Abiogenesis is more than mere speculation. It is based largely on observations about nature.

It is still a belief. It is like characters of a novel trying to decipher their origin.

Evolution has been explained to you before. If you still don't get how it works, I doubt that there is anything more I can say that will help. I do recommend that you look at lengthier treatments of the subject--e.g. Dawkins' The Blind Watchmaker or The Greatest Show on Earth. -----
Yes, quite unequivocally, although Darwin was put under intense pressure to modify his claims later in life. Hence, he did soften his language on this matter in subsequent reprints of some of his works. However, nobody seriously disputes that evolution is a completely mindless process. Theistic evolutionists sometimes like to claim that God has put a thumb on the scales of evolutionary development, but there is no good reason to believe that.

Forget God. You do not know yourself. Forget Dawkins. There are better speculators who explain better. I am asking you how a preferred arrangement is known and implemented? By your own admission a stone cannot do it.

And cite Darwin where he unequivocally commented on origin of life. Natural Selection is a process by which nature merely acts as a sieve. But what is allowed through the sieve is an aspect knowledge of which must be evaluated and acted by the living organism itself. There is no God or ID that I am proposing.

It doesn't matter as far as my point was concerned. Life is a product of inanimate processes.

That is an assumption. But even if it is true, it does not prove consciousness is also so.

Rocks have no intrinsic purpose, but they can acquire purpose in the context of intelligent goal-driven behavior. They can have a purpose with respect to a mind. To claim that the universe has a purpose is equivalent to claiming that a rock has a purpose. It could, if there were some intelligence that were using it toward some purpose. But, AFAIK, there isn't. So it is more like the rock--purposeless in and of itself.

Do you understand what you are saying? You are equating environment with a rock. That is your assumption. How can an inert matter like rock know as to which arrangement is a prefereable one and take appropriate course of action? Thus, evolution process cannot be mind-less and rock-like. The role of intelligent living beings is evident.

Further, if you attribute a need of living bodies to have a functional brain, which is nothing but a purpose, there similarly must be a functional purpose embedded in the universe to give rise to a body with mind-sense abilities.

To satisfy your following proposition:

Self-awareness is necessary for a body, because, among other things, it is what gives the body an ability to detect malfunctions in itself, replenish energy, repair itself, etc. Awareness of the environment is necessary, because that allows the body to survive rapidly changing conditions.

The evident conclusion is:

Consciousness existed prior to development of brain, else how could the need for a future time be envisaged by the living body?
............

Best Wishes.

 

[Copernicus]

It is still a belief. It is like characters of a novel trying to decipher their origin.

Yes, we are discussing our beliefs. No, it is not quite like characters of a novel trying to decipher their origin. Reality is different from fiction. Let's not get carried away with metaphors.

Forget God. You do not know yourself. Forget Dawkins. There are better speculators who explain better. I am asking you how a preferred arrangement is known and implemented? By your own admission a stone cannot do it.

Having explained the way evolution works to you a number of times, I have given up hope that I will be able to explain it in a way that is acceptable to you in the future. I mentioned Dawkins, because I find his work appealing and convincing. You do not. We should move on.

And cite Darwin where he unequivocally commented on origin of life. Natural Selection is a process by which nature merely acts as a sieve. But what is allowed through the sieve is an aspect knowledge of which must be evaluated and acted by the living organism itself. There is no God or ID that I am proposing.

I do not recall that Darwin ever endorsed the concept of abiogenesis. Darwin is not the best source of information on that subject. You probably do not need me to repeat what others have said on the subject.

That is an assumption. But even if it is true, it does not prove consciousness is also so.

No. That life is the product of inanimate processes is a conclusion based on what scientists have discovered about the history of the Earth and the nature of living organisms. You may disagree with the conclusion, but it is incumbent on you to explain why you reject the reasoning of modern science, not just my reasoning. Scientists take evolution theory as established scientific theory. That is, the scientific community does not seriously debate its correctness. There is simply too much evidence corroborating it to permit serious challenge to the scientific consensus at this point in time.

Do you understand what you are saying? You are equating environment with a rock. That is your assumption...

No. That is YOUR assumption. It is a category mistake to equate environment, a dynamic system, with a concrete object. Such an equivalence would be nonsensical, IMO.

How can an inert matter like rock know as to which arrangement is a prefereable one and take appropriate course of action? Thus, evolution process cannot be mind-less and rock-like. The role of intelligent living beings is evident.

From my perspective, you do not appear to understand what "evolution" means. It is not a concrete object. It is a process. Your argument is not making any sense at all to me at this point.

 

[Flipper]

Welcome to the forum, and I appreciate the question. I suppose that the most straightforward answer is "no". We are different people, so we have different consciousnesses.

My consciousness is my mind, so it could not extend beyond it. The point is that consciousness relies on brain activity for its existence. We can observe changes to brain activity when people lose consciousness. We can do things to a brain that force a person to lose consciousness.

We can't, but what we do know is that attempts to ignore reality can be very painful. So most of us are pretty convinced that either something exists beyond the self, or it doesn't really matter. We need to behave as if it did.

It is likely that others perceive reality pretty much in the same way you do, because we all have similar bodies with similar sensory equipment and similar central nervous systems. Great minds think alike.

The abbreviation WA stands for the state of Washington in the US, not Western Australia. I'd probably rather be in Australia at the moment, rather than living with this incessant rain.

Hey Copernicus,

You know, I should have know I got the wrong WA, but I'd had about 12 beers when I posted that comment. That's what you get for drunk posting I guess.

My question about extending consciousness beyond yourself was really badly worded on my part. I meant to say, how would you know that anything exists beyond your consciousness? Not to get all Matrix-y, but don't you ever wonder if there is nothing else beyond what you have constructed in your mind? It is an interesting question to ponder.

Granted we most likely do sense the physical universe around us in basically the same manner, we all have essentially the same sensory equipment. A contrary example would colour-blindness. For example, my brother is on the extreme end of the colour blindness scale but he didn't realise that he was colour blind until he took the colour blindness test to join the Army. We had an interesting discussion about how he perceived colour. Essentially he did as we all do when learning. He perceived a shade of colour and he assigned a label to it. For instance, if some one said something was red he assigned the label red to the particular shade that he "saw". The only time it really had an impact on him was when red and green were next to each other, he can't differentiate between the two.

Which led me to ponder, is it not the same for everyone. How can you know that the way you see things is the same as everyone else does. Do we not just assign labels to objects that we perceive based on the labels that others also apply to the same object. It doesn't necessarily follow that we "see" exactly the same thing.

It is like the question of the blind person who has been blind from birth and then regains their sight. They are able to identify objects by feel alone but if you put the same object in front of them when they could see, would they be able to relate to objects that they knew by touch to the objects that they had to identify by sight alone.

 

[atanu]

From my perspective, you do not appear to understand what "evolution" means. It is not a concrete object. It is a process. Your argument is not making any sense at all to me at this point.

Very good Copernicus,

Thank you for the education. You can see me using 'process' several times in my previous posts.

Thank you for positing the timely comparison of a 'dumb stone' and also suggesting intuitively the need/purpose of living body to develop a SOPHISTICATED APPARATUS called BRAIN. In other words, if nature was full of only dumbo stones, no evolution process would be possible.

It has been shown that it would not be possible for the EVOLUTIONARY PROCESS to attain this climax with stone like dumbos as players. The very fact that a sophisticated apparatus called brain has been attained as climax by the evolutionary process calls for a tribute to the consciousness that envisaged the purpose and that monitored the proces through to the climax.



Thanks

 

[atanu]

Thanks again. Your contribution, I must acknowledge:

1. You pointed out that there could be a purpose in developing a brain
2. You compared 'nature's abilty to plan and guide the evolution' to abilty of 'dumb stone'.

Yes. Natural Selection does not mean that the Nature Selects. It means that there are Natural Hurdles on the way. The species which most successfully identifies the hurdles, negotiates them, and envisages the future requirement gets crowned with a BRAIN.

So, consciousness is the basis, impetus, and guide.

 

[PolyHedral]

How can an inert matter know as to which arrangement is a prefereable one and take appropriate course of action?

It doesn't? The "better" arrangements replicate themselves more effectively, and thus crowd out the "worse" arrangements.

The very fact that a sophisticated apparatus called brain has been attained as climax by the evolutionary process calls for a tribute to the consciousness that envisaged the purpose and that monitored the proces through to the climax.

I agree entirely. No such thing exists.

 

[atanu]

I agree entirely. No such thing exists.

Surprise. I agree: No thing exists. Consciousness is not a thing.

 

[PolyHedral]

You're right; it's an abstraction.

 

[atanu]

You're right; it's an abstraction.

Yes, possibly. When stones become intelligent, that must happen.

 

[PolyHedral]

 

[atanu]

And the bold point is what I object to. A dead and a living brain have quite clear, measurable, physical differences between them.

You are confusing yourself again.You equate the emergent properties that happen in a brain to consciousness. Then you show that those emergent properties do not act in a dead brain and agin claim that thus there are physical measurable differences in a living and dead brain.

That only proves that in absence of life, nothing emerges from brain and it becomes earth. A brain in a dead body with its true physical properties intact does not say "I live".

True, but they would still exist. The tree falling in the forest still disturbs the air, even if nobody is around to watch it.

This is what is called rebooting. You were shown what QM says:

http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/2451000-post65.html

I do not go so far. If there is none to observe, the universe is indeterminate. Whatever you are saying is because of consciousness.

You recycle the same points again and again.

 

[jtartar]

Consider these two different views on the nature of consciousness:

1. Consciousness exists everywhere in the universe, and individual minds are just individual units of consciousness that may or may not be part of universal consciousness.
2. Consciousness exists only in individual bodies with physical brains. It exists nowhere else.

There are other possibilities, but these reflect two very different points of view that tend to distinguish religious and non-religious points of view. Christians usually hold that God is immanent--a spiritual consciousness that pervades everything--and that human minds are also spiritual consciousnesses temporarily associated with bodies.

In my Five Reasons to Reject Belief in Gods thread, I took the position that (2) was true ("Minds depend on physical brains."). For me, this is one of the most important beliefs that underpins my personal conviction that personal gods are implausible beings. What follows is a paragraph from one of my last posts in that thread. I thought I would put it here in a separate thread to get reactions from others.

I will try to give a succinct, simple description of what drives me to believe that consciousness (self-awareness) is ephemeral and individual rather than universal. Human cognition--and very likely all animal cognition--is embodied. That is, it develops in response to the sensory inputs--the sensations--of a body. Bodies move around, so their environments change quickly and radically. The brain is the hardware mechanism that drives and guides the body. It reacts to new conditions as they happen, and it anticipates future conditions. Self-awareness is necessary for a body, because, among other things, it is what gives the body an ability to detect malfunctions in itself, replenish energy, repair itself, etc. Awareness of the environment is necessary, because that allows the body to survive rapidly changing conditions. In other words, consciousness has a functional role to play that is directly related to the nature of a moving body. There is no functional role for self-awareness beyond the needs of a moving body. Therefore, it makes no sense that consciousness would exist outside of bodies or extend beyond the life of a body.

Copernicus,
We should all put our complete trust in God's word, because ther is no other place wher we can get information that is trustworthy, something that we can trust with our very everlasting life.
There is an interesting word, Ego Centric Predicament, meaning than men cannot reason effectively on anything, because men are so ignorant, and limited in knowledge. They must reason from what they already know, so they cannot come up with an idea that is so far above their knowledge as The ALKNOWING GOD, whose proper name is JEHOVAH.
Men can start out on a project they think is good, but they do not know where it will lead, maybe death. God has had His Bible written so that we can trust in someone much wiser than any man, someone who wants to help us, if we will only listen, isa 48:17,18, Prov 3:5,6, Prov 2:1-15.
God's purpose is to make this earth a paradise, with perfect people living forever, but many just will not listen, isa 26:10, Dan 12:10. Jesus told the reason people will not listen. It is because they have bad HEARTS, Matt 13:13-15, Jere 17:9.
God wants all people to listen, because He does not want to destroy anyone, but He knows that only a relatively few will listen, 2Pet 3:9,10,10, Luke 13:23,24, Matt 7:13,14.
The Bible points out that we should not let that happen to us, Acts 13:40,41, 2Cor 5:18-20.

 

[drsatish]

Is that a Conscious Question?

Satish

 

[Willamena]

You're right; it's an abstraction.

Abstraction is something.