Why was consciousness naturally selected?

[Guy Threepwood]

Also, even with the brain capacity to deal with abstract thoughts and reasoning, a person needs to be trained in a sense in doing so, by their social interactions. We have a certain ability in our brain, but that's just the platform. It's very important to imprint the actual experience in a child growing up to use their reasoning and abstractions, or it won't work. I've noticed that there are quite many humans I've met and discussed with who has very limited ability to reason or think in abstractions. It might be something lacking physically or biologically, but I suspect it's also upbringing.

It's also a common mistake to assume intellectual superiority over people with different beliefs. That's why acknowledging personal faith in our beliefs is important. The wise man knows himself a fool

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

I just did, our unique capacity for learning is unambiguous

Our capacity to learn is too little understood to be unambiguous, but there are a number of animals whose capacity for conceptual processing, while vastly inferior to our own (thanks mostly to language), are readily comparable to us in terms of learning.

Of course we can't prove the negative

Let P be the proposition "there exists no negative proposition which can be proven". P is a negative proposition (i.e., it asserts something about a negative is universal and always holds true). If P is true, then it must be that there exists at least one negative proposition that can be proven. Ergo, P is necessarily false.

Layperson's version: asserting that we can't prove a negative is to assume a negative can be proven. It is self-referential, only what it references it denies can exist, therefore it can't exist.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

It is not my fault that you like to make categorical yet unsupported assertions, now is it?

My original post was to get past the subjective sliding scale of awareness and point out an objective fundamental superiority of human awareness

I concede that it is entirely possible, that some animals are just as intelligent, thoughtful and capable of abstract thought, problem solving, and are simply very good at stubbornly concealing it, despite the painstaking efforts of humans to eek it out of them. That's all subjective speculation.
The objective observation here is that however brilliant- animals have not put this hidden genius to the practical purpose of learning about creation that we have.
our awareness of creation, again is what is uniquely consistent with us being the primary intended beneficiaries of that creation.

 

[viole]

Our capacity to learn is too little understood to be unambiguous, but there are a number of animals whose capacity for conceptual processing, while vastly inferior to our own (thanks mostly to language), are readily comparable to us in terms of learning.



Let P be the proposition "there exists no negative proposition which can be proven". P is a negative proposition (i.e., it asserts something about a negative is universal and always holds true). If P is true, then it must be that there exists at least one negative proposition that can be proven. Ergo, P is necessarily false.

Layperson's version: asserting that we can't prove a negative is to assume a negative can be proven. It is self-referential, only what it references it denies can exist, therefore it can't exist.

You don't need to go that far.

P = there is no prime number that is divisible by 4

P can be easlily proven, defeating thereby the idea that negatives cannot be proven, in general.

Ciao

- viole

 

[Rick O'Shez]

... us being the primary intended beneficiaries of that creation.

Maybe we aren't though....

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Our capacity to learn is too little understood to be unambiguous, but there are a number of animals whose capacity for conceptual processing, while vastly inferior to our own (thanks mostly to language), are readily comparable to us in terms of learning.



Let P be the proposition "there exists no negative proposition which can be proven". P is a negative proposition (i.e., it asserts something about a negative is universal and always holds true). If P is true, then it must be that there exists at least one negative proposition that can be proven. Ergo, P is necessarily false.

Layperson's version: asserting that we can't prove a negative is to assume a negative can be proven. It is self-referential, only what it references it denies can exist, therefore it can't exist.

the objective empirical measure of the capacity to learn is the observed practical results of that capacity

laypersons version: the proof is in the pudding!

maybe humans are the dumbest creature on Earth, but what meager capacity for learning we have, we have demonstrated to the point of learning the history of the universe, whereas the smartest animals we know of can't be taught to drive a golf cart if their lives depended on it

And yes that's the official test cmon you take my point here surely!

 

[viole]

Maybe we aren't though....

Bacteria seem to do pretty fine too.

Cio

- viole

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Maybe we aren't though....

I forget, but wasn't it mice?

 

[Straw Dog]

Maybe we aren't though....

Everyone knows that mice are in charge.

Why do you think they make us do all those tests?

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

the objective empirical measure of the capacity to learn is the observed practical results of that capacity

Then our ability to learn to make ant hills or display the kind of learning/intelligence "superorganisms" like ant colonies are capable of is dismal. "Practical" is always relative.

laypersons version: the proof is in the pudding!

There is no laypersons proof.

maybe humans are the dumbest creature on Earth, but what meager capacity for learning we have, we have demonstrated to the point of learning the history of the universe, whereas the smartest animals we know of can't be taught to drive a golf cart if their lives depended on it

Our capacity for conceptual professing is, as I said, vastly superior to any other animal (largely due to language). Our capacity to learn to process concepts rather than the learning most organisms and all computers are capable of (syntactic) is still readily comparable to mice.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Then our ability to learn to make ant hills or display the kind of learning/intelligence "superorganisms" like ant colonies are capable of is dismal. "Practical" is always relative.


There is no laypersons proof.



Our capacity for conceptual professing is, as I said, vastly superior to any other animal (largely due to language). Our capacity to learn to process concepts rather than the learning most organisms and all computers are capable of (syntactic) is still readily comparable to mice.

what is the current mouse school of thought on whether pluto should be a planet or not?

 

[Midnight Rain]

On the materialist view, consciousness is considered an epiphenomenon. That is, it is a causally inert by-product. (To argue otherwise is to presuppose free will and therefore dualism.) So, this raises the question: Why was consciousness naturally selected?

The development of intelligence is an interesting study and is sentience a by-product of a high functioning intelligence? That seems to be our best explanation from a purely materialistic viewpoint. And we know how the brain was developed and more or less why.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

what is the current mouse school of thought on whether pluto should be a planet or not?

That those who are familiar neither with astronomy nor astrophysics shouldn't ask questions when the answers to these will have no meaning.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

The development of intelligence is an interesting study and is sentience a by-product of a high functioning intelligence? That seems to be our best explanation from a purely materialistic viewpoint. And we know how the brain was developed and more or less why.

It only happened once, very suddenly, given millions of species and 100's of millions of years.. that alone demonstrates that it's not something evolution just 'naturally' tends to acheive. If thousands of species developed sentience and strove to question their own existence..

I'd accept that there is no special significance to our conciousness, but that's just not the case, I'm willing to accept the opposite implication also.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

That those who are familiar neither with astronomy nor astrophysics shouldn't ask questions when the answers to these will have no meaning.

exactly, why are mice not familiar with astronomy? there is no fundamental difference in their learning capability right? they are nocturnal which should give them a huge advantage!

 

[Robert.Evans]

I understand why a more powerful carbon-based information processing system would be naturally selected over a less powerful one. But what I'm asking is why a sentient carbon-based information processing system was naturally selected over an insentient one. There is nothing that a sentient one can do that an insentient one cannot do in theory.

You are saying a man with no brain can drive a car??

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

exactly, why are mice not familiar with astronomy?

Why are humans completely incapable of swarm intelligence?

there is no fundamental difference in their learning capability right?

There is a fundamental difference in their ability to represent learned concepts via language.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Why are humans completely incapable of swarm intelligence?


There is a fundamental difference in their ability to represent learned concepts via language.

I'd dispute that we're incapable of swarm intelligence, but whatever the differences, the point remains, our 'differences' are greatly and fundamentally superior in our capacity for learning and awareness of creation itself

 

[Robert.Evans]

Surely the more pertinent question would be, How the heck could it mutate something such as consciousness in the first place, seeing as we would be pretty much stuffed without it.

 

[Midnight Rain]

It only happened once, very suddenly, given millions of species and 100's of millions of years.. that alone demonstrates that it's not something evolution just 'naturally' tends to acheive. If thousands of species developed sentience and strove to question their own existence..

I'd accept that there is no special significance to our conciousness, but that's just not the case, I'm willing to accept the opposite implication also.

Almost all animals have a sentient form of consciousness. I would not differentiate between ours and lets say a cat. If you mean only "once" do you mean the common ancestor to all sentient animals? That would have been a very very long time ago and would have been over a much longer period of time.