Consciousness & evolution

[Stranger]

The problem with hundreds and thousands of well documented peer reviewed examinations of phenomena is that the mind becomes microscopic and is unable to see the woods for the trees. 

There is no problem with science in its place. The microscopic mind has its uses no doubt. But when the same microscopic mindset is used to attempt an explanation of life in general, it is not up to the task. It is a zoom-in mind which is unable to zoom-out and see the big picture. It gets consumed in details.

It is a perception problem.

Vacuous nonsense. Churning out your usual empty mantras is neither a substitute for, nor a counterargument against, actual thought and real evidence. Science has nothing to do with 'zooming in' or a 'microscopic mind'. It's just about building hypotheses that fit the evidence and then testing them.

In this instance, not only have you provided no evidence or reasoning, you have shown, multiple times, that you don't even understand the concepts you are attempting to address.

On the subject of you not understanding, it's also worth pointing that the basis of the article in the OP would be undermined by both of the other speculations you posted on the other thread (The universe is conscious?). So you've now indicated three wild speculations, any one of which would rule out the others.

[Sriram]

Vacuous nonsense. Churning out your usual empty mantras is neither a substitute for, nor a counterargument against, actual thought and real evidence. Science has nothing to do with 'zooming in' or a 'microscopic mind'. It's just about building hypotheses that fit the evidence and then testing them.

In this instance, not only have you provided no evidence or reasoning, you have shown, multiple times, that you don't even understand the concepts you are attempting to address.

On the subject of you not understanding, it's also worth pointing that the basis of the article in the OP would be undermined by both of the other speculations you posted on the other thread (The universe is conscious?). So you've now indicated three wild speculations, any one of which would rule out the others.

Panpsychism is just a broad concept now. Its just the very beginning. There are bound to be self contradictory models to begin with. Doesn't science have self contradictory models...? Of course it does!

The idea will evolve and find its moorings by and by. Reality will prevail...

 

[ProfessorDavey]

I am frequently reminded of the CS Lewis lecture entitled "Fern Seed and Elephants" in which he compares some modern theorists with explorers who get carried away with examining the fern seeds beneath their feet and fail to see the elephant in front of them.

Pot and kettle.

It is, of course, the theists who are obsessed with the 'seed', their man-made god, who typically fail to appreciate the 'elephant', being the amazing natural phenomena that comprise the universe.

[Stranger]

Panpsychism is just a broad concept now. Its just the very beginning.

No it isn't. It's been around since about 600BCE (source).

There are bound to be self contradictory models to begin with. Doesn't science have self contradictory models...? Of course it does!

There are contradictory hypotheses but that's not really the point. You are trying to convince people of panpsychism (actually, not only that but pretty much anything that hints at consciousness or intelligence outside of brains) and the fact that you latch on to any idea at all that suggests it (even when they contradict each other) just emphasises that none of them have any evidential support and that it isn't that you have reason to believe it but that you just desperately want to believe it.

The idea will evolve and find its moorings by and by. Reality will prevail...

Since you have no evidence and no reasoning, this can only be blind faith. 

[Alan Burns]

Argument from incredulity ... and actually argument from ignorance as there are loads of examples of what we may perceive as exquisite complexity arising as an unintended by-product of random forces of nature.

Here is a good example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowflake

Astonishing and exquisite crystalline structure that are unique and also (in human terms) amazingly beautiful. Yet clearly this complexity arises as the unintended by-product of random forces of nature.

The notion that complexity only arises through the actions of something more complex is a fool's grand of infinite reduction. Nope - the only logical explanation is that complexity must arise bottom up from more simple form and of course that explanation builds on massive amounts of evidence.

But what does the snowflake actually do apart from nurture the conscious admiration of those who choose to view it?

In comparison, the DNA molecule may not be as attractive, but what it actually achieves is truly mind blowing.

[ProfessorDavey]

But what does the snowflake actually do apart from nurture the conscious admiration of those who choose to view it?

In comparison, the DNA molecule may not be as attractive, but what it actually achieves is truly mind blowing.

Oh dear AB - you really are achingly anthropocentric aren't you.

The point is that in both cases the complexity of the snowflake or the DNA arises out of something simpler and due to basic physical processes of energetics. That DNA also achieves something further than that is also due to those basic energetics processes applied to simpler (as we might perceive them) states. That we find the snowflake 'attractive' and the DNA 'truly mind blowing' is mere anthopocenticism.

[Outrider]

The problem with hundreds and thousands of well documented peer reviewed examinations of phenomena is that the mind becomes microscopic and is unable to see the woods for the trees.

No, that's not a problem, because whilst there are papers that focus on microscopic - and even submicroscopic - elements of the interconnected set of events, there are others that implement those findings in ever broader sweeps and explanations, such that some of those peer-reviewed papers, resting on the foundations of the well established details, establish the broader phenomenon.

You have a problem with relying on the evolutionary mechanism to explain the world, but the explanation is well supported and your contentions are not. 

There is no problem with science in its place.

Science's 'place' is in the observation of actual phenomena and investigations to attempt to explain how they come about - if it's happening, it's in science's remit. For you to establish that something is outside of science's remit you'd have to either establish that something is a) magic or b) not real.

The microscopic mind has its uses no doubt. But when the same microscopic mindset is used to attempt an explanation of life in general, it is not up to the task.

Or, perhaps, when a head that's full of mumbo-jumbo tries to accept an explanation that doesn't rely on woo, it's not up to the task?

It is a zoom-in mind which is unable to zoom-out and see the big picture. It gets consumed in details.

What 'big picture'? At what scale does the current explanation of evolution by natural selection acting upon variation start to break down? It explains the diversity of life on Earth currently, it explains individual vestigial organs in Amazonian birds, it explains the inordinately circuitous route of the recurrent laryngeal nerve in giraffes, it explains why we keep getting COVID-19 variants... it seems the scale of this 'big picture' failure is approximately the size of one human head...

It is a perception problem.

It's quite remarkable how you've come to the right conclusion in answer to entirely the wrong question on the topic - it's almost as though you can't see the big picture.

O.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

In comparison, the DNA molecule may not be as attractive, but what it actually achieves is truly mind blowing.

You’re trying the reference point error (also known as the lottery winner’s fallacy) again. You’ve made the same mistake many times before, been corrected on it just as many times, and consistently just ignored the corrections.

What then would be the point of correcting you on it yet again?   

[torridon]

But what does the snowflake actually do apart from nurture the conscious admiration of those who choose to view it?

In comparison, the DNA molecule may not be as attractive, but what it actually achieves is truly mind blowing.

There is a profound principle to be understood here - the snowflake reminds us that the universe even though gradually disordering on long timescales, does produce orderliness, spontaneous self-organisation in spite of the overall tendency to disorder, and maybe even because of it.

Once you understand the example of the snowflake, you are one step on the way to understanding how a disordering universe not only can, but must, produce cells, and insects and fruit bats and insurance salesmen quite naturally, wherever, and whenever the conditions are conducive.

[SusanDoris]

It is a pleasure as usual to read the logical, sensible, rational posts.

And no, that is definitely and most decidedly NOT you, AB!! Nor is it you, Sriram!

[Alan Burns]

Oh dear AB - you really are achingly anthropocentric aren't you.

The point is that in both cases the complexity of the snowflake or the DNA arises out of something simpler and due to basic physical processes of energetics. That DNA also achieves something further than that is also due to those basic energetics processes applied to simpler (as we might perceive them) states. That we find the snowflake 'attractive' and the DNA 'truly mind blowing' is mere anthopocenticism.

There are two completely different forms of complexity involved.
One that produces a pretty pattern.
One that produces an entity which has conscious awareness of the universe in which it resides.

It is a relatively easy task to differentiate which could be an unintended consequence of natural forces, and which was an intended goal of an unimaginable creative force.

To try equate the two as both being accidental by-products of the purposeless forces of nature truly beggars belief.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

There are two completely different forms of complexity involved.
One that produces a pretty pattern.
One that produces an entity which has conscious awareness of the universe from which it comes.

It is a relatively easy task to differentiate which could be an unintended consequence of natural forces, and which was an intended goal of an unimaginable creative force.

To try equate the two as both being accidental by-products of the purposeless forces of nature truly beggars belief.

It only "beggars belief" if you fail to understand the fallacy on which that conclusion relies though. I've explained the fallacy to you several times before now, so I don't know why you've just returned to it.   

[jeremyp]

I am frequently reminded of the CS Lewis lecture entitled "Fern Seed and Elephants" in which he compares some modern theorists with explorers who get carried away with examining the fern seeds beneath their feet and fail to see the elephant in front of them.

Ferns are amazing organisms. Some species have been around, apparently unchanged, for up to 180 million years. Just because they are not big and grey and mammalian does not mean they are not objects worthy of study. And if you or CS Lewis had bothered to do anything more than sneer, you would know that ferns don't produce seeds.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

I am frequently reminded of the CS Lewis lecture entitled "Fern Seed and Elephants" in which he compares some modern theorists with explorers who get carried away with examining the fern seeds beneath their feet and fail to see the elephant in front of them.

The problem with that of course being that "the elephant" actually means "whatever pops into my head". If you want to claim that "theorists" are missing the bigger picture that's fine so far as it goes, but then you have all your work ahead of you still to demonstrate that bigger picture rather than just assert it to be so.

This is basically the same vacuousness that Sriram peddles - "scientists" engage in "microscopic thinking" apparently, whereas he supposedly is capable of the macroscopic version. The problem with that though is that he hasn't one ounce of a jot of an iota of an inkling of a method to demonstrate that this supposed bigger picture actually exists, rather than it being just whatever notion happens to take his fancy.       

[Stranger]

It is a relatively easy task to differentiate which could be an unintended consequence of natural forces, and which was an intended goal of an unimaginable creative force.

But apparently completely beyond your ability to provide the slightest hint of a sound argument or the smallest morsel of evidence to support this assertion.   

[Alan Burns]

But apparently completely beyond your ability to provide the slightest hint of a sound argument or the smallest morsel of evidence to support this assertion.   

You and I are the evidence.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

You and I are the evidence.

No you're not. I can tell you why you're not in plain and comprehensible language. I can support the explanation for why you're not with reasoned argument. You though will just ignore the plainly expressed, reason-justified explanation I give you and will make exactly the same mistake again when you want to come back to it.

What's the point?     

[Sebastian Toe]

You and I are the evidence.

...of biological brains working happily under the auspices of determinustic principles!

[Stranger]

You and I are the evidence.

Reasoning-free drivel. 

We have a perfectly good explanation for the existence of humans that doesn't require your magic sky fairy. Even if we didn't, making the assumption that we are the "intended goal of an unimaginable creative force" would still be baseless.

You really don't appear to have the first hint of a clue as to what 'evidence' actually means.

[Alan Burns]

AB,

No you're not. I can tell you why you're not in plain and comprehensible language. I can support the explanation for why you're not with reasoned argument. You though will just ignore the plainly expressed, reason-justified explanation I give you and will make exactly the same mistake again when you want to come back to it.

What's the point?     

Your profound ability to consciously come up with reasoned argument provides all the evidence I need to know that you are more than just an unintended by-product of the crude process of natural selection from random mutations.

[Alan Burns]

Reasoning-free drivel. 

We have a perfectly good explanation for the existence of humans that doesn't require your magic sky fairy. Even if we didn't, making the assumption that we are the "intended goal of an unimaginable creative force" would still be baseless.

You really don't appear to have the first hint of a clue as to what 'evidence' actually means.

The truth is that you haven't a clue what comprises the conscious "you" within the material elements which make up your material body.  Every one of those material elements are just replaceable parts of the amazing machine over which you have the conscious freedom to control.

[Stranger]

Your profound ability to consciously come up with reasoned argument provides all the evidence I need to know that you are more than just an unintended by-product of the crude process of natural selection from random mutations.

This is just childish foot-stamping. You have provided bugger all that connects what you call 'evidence' to your supposed conclusion. As I said, you don't appear to have the first clue what evidence is. You can't use the brute fact of the existence of something to distinguish between rival hypotheses about how it came to exist or how it works.

It's not even as if you have a rival hypothesis - nothing can ever possibly be evidence for something that is self-contradictory.

The truth is that you haven't a clue what comprises the conscious "you" within the material elements which make up your material body.

I have a far, far better clue than impossible, self-contradictory magic.

[torridon]

The truth is that you haven't a clue what comprises the conscious "you" within the material elements which make up your material body.  Every one of those material elements are just replaceable parts of the amazing machine over which you have the conscious freedom to control.

A bit like the elephant having conscious control over its trunk then, or a peacock having conscious control over its tail then ? Or me having conscious control over my kidneys ? Oh, hang on a minute ....

[Sebastian Toe]

Your profound ability to consciously come up with reasoned argument provides all the evidence I need to know that you

...are the product of a biological brain working happily under the auspices of determinustic principles!

[torridon]

There are two completely different forms of complexity involved.
One that produces a pretty pattern.
One that produces an entity which has conscious awareness of the universe in which it resides.

It is a relatively easy task to differentiate which could be an unintended consequence of natural forces, and which was an intended goal of an unimaginable creative force.

To try equate the two as both being accidental by-products of the purposeless forces of nature truly beggars belief.

I'm not sure there are different sorts of complexity, but rather there is a gradient, or spectrum, of complexity, with simple things at one end, and very complex things at the other. A snowflake and a DNA molecule are at different points on the same spectrum of complexity.  If you can understand how one forms, then you should be able to understand how the other forms, it just requires a little more work.  Incredulity is a sign of lazy thinking