Consciousness & evolution

[ProfessorDavey]

I am convinced (and perhaps even some scientists and philosophers are beginning to think that way) that life is essentially about consciousness.

You can be convinced all you like ... that doesn't make you right. And it doesn't surprise me that someone whose world (or rather universe) view is achingly human-centric sees consciousness as somehow the be all and end all.

It is consciousness that makes organisms adapt and evolve.

You are wrong ... not because that is my opinion, but because the evidence indicates as such.

The old school ...random variation, natural selection and other chance factors....are so archaic now!  New ways of thinking are called for.

We are talking about some here today, gone tomorrow, fashion. We are talking about understanding fundamental mechanisms based on evidence. 

I am optimistic...

Fine - that's up to you. But your opinion about evolution wont have one iota of impact on the actual process, nor our understanding of it.

[Outrider]

This sort of to and fro could go on forever.

Only because one side isn't updating their understanding based on the evidence.

I am convinced (and perhaps even some scientists and philosophers are beginning to think that way) that life is essentially about consciousness.

Convinced by what?

It is consciousness that makes organisms adapt and evolve.

We have a very well supported model of how evolution works, and it doesn't involve consciousness.

The old school ...random variation, natural selection and other chance factors....are so archaic now!

Whereas allegations of 'soul' are so 2022, right?

New ways of thinking are called for.

No, new ways of thinking are called for if evidence emerges that calls into question old ways of thinking, or if old ways of thinking are insufficient to the task of explaining or predicting phenomena; so far as evolution goes, that's not the case.

I am optimistic...

It's easy to be optimistic when your hypothesis, evidence and conclusion are independent of actual events.

O.

[SusanDoris]

Only because one side isn't updating their understanding based on the evidence.

Convinced by what?

We have a very well supported model of how evolution works, and it doesn't involve consciousness.

Whereas allegations of 'soul' are so 2022, right?

No, new ways of thinking are called for if evidence emerges that calls into question old ways of thinking, or if old ways of thinking are insufficient to the task of explaining or predicting phenomena; so far as evolution goes, that's not the case.

It's easy to be optimistic when your hypothesis, evidence and conclusion are independent of actual events.

O.

I'm beginning to think it is even more painful to read Sriram's words than it is Ab's!

[torridon]

This sort of to and fro could go on forever.

I am convinced (and perhaps even some scientists and philosophers are beginning to think that way) that life is essentially about consciousness. It is consciousness that makes organisms adapt and evolve.

The old school ...random variation, natural selection and other chance factors....are so archaic now!  New ways of thinking are called for.

I am optimistic...

It's not usually a good plan to throw baby out with the bath water.  There might be a paradigm shift or two coming in order to reconcile QM with GR or to integrate experience and mental phenomena into the material sciences; but the principle of mutation with selection is not likely to be abandoned any day soon.  That happens at a higher level of emergence than whatever new insights we derive with respect to the underlying fundamental nature of reality.

[Sriram]

It's not usually a good plan to throw baby out with the bath water.  There might be a paradigm shift or two coming in order to reconcile QM with GR or to integrate experience and mental phenomena into the material sciences; but the principle of mutation with selection is not likely to be abandoned any day soon.  That happens at a higher level of emergence than whatever new insights we derive with respect to the underlying fundamental nature of reality.

If consciousness (mental phenomenon) is integrated with the physical world....there is no reason to assume that everything else will continue as usual (randomness etc). 

The very fact that organisms (even the simplest) have a survival and reproductive instinct shows a direction with consciousness behind the evolutionary process.  Quite clearly, Neo Darwinism is not the way forward. We need a bigger picture with more subtle elements influencing the process.

Why is this so difficult to understand?

You guys are allowing your God phobia and distrust of religions to color your thinking.

[torridon]

If consciousness (mental phenomenon) is integrated with the physical world....there is no reason to assume that everything else will continue as usual (randomness etc). 

The very fact that organisms (even the simplest) have a survival and reproductive instinct shows a direction with consciousness behind the evolutionary process.  Quite clearly, Neo Darwinism is not the way forward. We need a bigger picture with more subtle elements influencing the process.

Why is this so difficult to understand?

You guys are allowing your God phobia and distrust of religions to color your thinking.

Trying to crowbar gods into an explanatory model doesn't work.

https://twitter.com/nvanzalk/status/1022517034389786625/photo/1

It's a cheap way out of doing the hard work to gain understanding. Whatever fundamental new insights are suggested they are tested against observation and if they don't explain observation then they are wrong. Your new model of reality, whatever it is, has to allow for speciation through genetic mutation and natural selection at the level of biology because it is observed.  And as for direction, we already have one, the unidirectional arrow of time, thermodynamics, the overarching tendency to disorder, it is this perhaps that results in the phenomena  that we observe, that water going down a plughole spontaneously self-organises into a vortex, that trees grow but don't ungrow, that life arises from unliving matter and that genetic mutations that happen to confer a reproductive advantage will tend to be conserved and not the other way round.

[Sriram]

Trying to crowbar gods into an explanatory model doesn't work.

https://twitter.com/nvanzalk/status/1022517034389786625/photo/1

It's a cheap way out of doing the hard work to gain understanding. Whatever fundamental new insights are suggested they are tested against observation and if they don't explain observation then they are wrong. Your new model of reality, whatever it is, has to allow for speciation through genetic mutation and natural selection at the level of biology because it is observed.  And as for direction, we already have one, the unidirectional arrow of time, thermodynamics, the overarching tendency to disorder, it is this perhaps that results in the phenomena  that we observe, that water going down a plughole spontaneously self-organises into a vortex, that trees grow but don't ungrow, that life arises from unliving matter and that genetic mutations that happen to confer a reproductive advantage will tend to be conserved and not the other way round.

You equate consciousness to gods?!  This is what I mean by the God phobia...

[Stranger]

The very fact that organisms (even the simplest) have a survival and reproductive instinct shows a direction with consciousness behind the evolutionary process.

If you had the slightest inkling of an understating of natural selection, you wouldn't make such idiotic assertions. I'm seriously finding it hard to believe that you really are that clueless. Look, if some organism has some (heritable) trait that aids its survival and others don't have that trait, do you think that individual is likely to have more or less offspring that the others? Given that the trait will be passed on to many of said offspring, what about their relative reproduction? What impact will it have on the population over time?

Try thinking about it.

Quite clearly, Neo Darwinism is not the way forward. We need a bigger picture with more subtle elements influencing the process.

Baseless assertion.

Why is this so difficult to understand?

It's not, it's just obviously based on nothing but misunderstanding, your blind superstitions, and what you'd like to be true.

You guys are allowing your God phobia and distrust of religions to color your thinking.

From the person who latches desperately on to anything at all he imagines will support his baseless superstitions. Hilarious.

[Sriram]

If you had the slightest inkling of an understating of natural selection, you wouldn't make such idiotic assertions. I'm seriously finding it hard to believe that you really are that clueless. Look, if some organism has some (heritable) trait that aids its survival and others don't have that trait, do you think that individual is likely to have more or less offspring that the others? Given that the trait will be passed on to many of said offspring, what about their relative reproduction? What impact will it have on the population over time?

Try thinking about it.

Baseless assertion.

It's not, it's just obviously based on nothing but misunderstanding, your blind superstitions, and what you'd like to be true.

From the person who latches desperately on to anything at all he imagines will support his baseless superstitions. Hilarious.

Why does an organism need to survive and reproduce at all?!!

[Stranger]

Why does an organism need to survive and reproduce at all?!!

They don't - but we only observe those that do because the others are dead.

This really isn't difficult. If you have variation and some resulting trait confers a survival advantage, then those individuals with it are the ones whose offspring are going to dominate future generations. After billions of years, the only living things left are the ones that have been the very best at survival and reproduction (due to the succession of survival traits that they've inherited).

[torridon]

Why does an organism need to survive and reproduce at all?!!

That's a bit like asking why does a race need to have a winner ? Races will have winners and losers by definition. All life is competitive, so the forms of life we observe are those that are better at surviving than other forms.  Individuals with a strong will to survive and reproduce will more likely pass on that instinct to their descendants than others who aren't really all that fussed about staying alive.

[Sriram]

You guys are not getting it. You are taking survival and reproduction for granted.

My question is fundamental....why do organisms need to survive and reproduce at all?  What generates this instinct and why is there a race at all?  Just because a RNA strand is formed due to abiogenesis does not mean that living organisms should evolve or that they should have the need to survive and reproduce.   

[torridon]

You guys are not getting it. You are taking survival and reproduction for granted.

My question is fundamental....why do organisms need to survive and reproduce at all?  What generates this instinct and why is there a race at all?  Just because a RNA strand is formed due to abiogenesis does not mean that living organisms should evolve or that they should have the need to survive and reproduce.

Your conceptualisation is all back to front.  Things don't reproduce because they have a-priori needs to survive so much as those needs and those wills to survive derive from the competition of existing in a world of constant change. If the universe was static, unchanging over time, then you would not have will to survive, you would not have DNA and you would not have antelopes or fraudsters or bus stops. We have these things because we live in a universe with a time dimension, which means constant change, which means competition, which means winners and losers which means life has to arise which means mind and consciousness will inevitably evolve wherever and whenever conditions are conducive.

[Stranger]

You guys are not getting it. You are taking survival and reproduction for granted.

My question is fundamental....why do organisms need to survive and reproduce at all?  What generates this instinct and why is there a race at all?  Just because a RNA strand is formed due to abiogenesis does not mean that living organisms should evolve or that they should have the need to survive and reproduce.

It's you who seems unable to grasp this rather simple concept. Reproduction is what started it all. That's what made the first RNA strand (assuming that hypothesis for a moment) special. All the other molecules that didn't reproduce are lost to history. Once you have reproduction (with some variation), natural selection is inevitable because it's just the simple fact that those things that reproduce better than the others, reproduce more than others. The better survivors are (incredible as it seems!) the ones that survived more, so everything left alive today comes from an unbroken line of survivors.

There is no fundamental imperative that life exists or that it's good at reproduction and survival, that is the simple consequence of starting with something that reproduces with inheritance and variation.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

You guys are not getting it. You are taking survival and reproduction for granted.

My question is fundamental....why do organisms need to survive and reproduce at all?  What generates this instinct and why is there a race at all?  Just because a RNA strand is formed due to abiogenesis does not mean that living organisms should evolve or that they should have the need to survive and reproduce.   

Why does a lottery winner need to win the lottery at all?

Once again, you're making a basic mistake in reasoning here called the reference point error (also the lottery winner's fallacy). You look at the "winners" (ie, life) and just assume an a priori reason (or "need") for their success. Evolution though functions bottom up, not top down (see also the Occam's razor principle you didn't understand either).   

[Sriram]

You guys are just repeating the same thing over and over again. Why should any organism survive or fight for survival or get selected at all? Why are survival  and reproduction at all important?   

[BeRational]

You guys are just repeating the same thing over and over again. Why should any organism survive or fight for survival or get selected at all? Why are survival  and reproduction at all important?

It's not that its important it's just that it happens.
It happens because it can happen

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

You guys are just repeating the same thing over and over again.

There are only so many ways to explain why 2=2=4. Perhaps if you tried to engage with the arguments you wouldn't keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again?

Why should any organism survive or fight for survival or get selected at all? Why are survival  and reproduction at all important?

I explained to you in my last Reply why this is wrongheaded thinking. You're still looking down the wrong end of the telescope - evolution functions bottom up, not top down and "important" is just a value judgment you apply after the event. 

[Stranger]

You guys are just repeating the same thing over and over again.

If you actually engaged your brain and tried to address what has actually been said many times already, we'd maybe get somewhere.

Why should any organism survive or fight for survival or get selected at all?

Completely arse about face. Things are selected exactly because they are better at surviving and reproducing. The first replicators didn't "fight for survival", but every trait that aids survival would survive better and therefore dominate the population. The "fighting for survival" or "survival instinct" would be built up one tiny step at a time, each one slightly better at survival.

The absolutely inevitable result of natural selection is that everything is good at surviving (in the context of their environment) and that means things that "fight for survival" or have a "survival instinct". Those things are the result of variation and selection, not its input.

Why are survival  and reproduction at all important?

They aren't. It's just what inevitably happens when you get replication with inheritance, variation, and limited resources.

[Sriram]

Why don't you guys grit your teeth and face up to the fact that you have no explanation for why organisms reproduce and fight for survival?!  You can only cite 'chance' or 'emergence' as an explanation. Or contend that the question 'why' is irrelevant or some such.....

However life came about...it evolved and continued to exist in increasingly complex forms only because there was a driving force within that induced the reproductive instinct and the survival instinct. Without these two, life would not have evolved at all. This is a fact.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

Why don't you guys grit your teeth and face up to the fact that you have no explanation for why organisms reproduce and fight for survival?!  You can only cite 'chance' or 'emergence' as an explanation. Or contend that the question 'why' is irrelevant or some such.....

“We” do have an explanation. It's called the Theory of Evolution. We keep giving it to you too. That you cannot or will not address the explanation is a matter for you though, not for the people trying to educate you.

However life came about...it evolved and continued to exist in increasingly complex forms only because there was a driving force within that induced the reproductive instinct and the survival instinct.

Why on earth would you think there to be a “driving force” when there’s no need for it in evolutionary theory, no evidence for it in practice and no way to arrive at that conclusion without false reasoning (or no reasoning at all)?
 

Without these two, life would not have evolved at all. This is a fact.

No it isn’t. It’s just the unqualified conclusion of a lazy or reason-impaired mind. It's good enough for the Christmas cracker level  “philosophy” that appeals to you, but that’s all.   

[Stranger]

Why don't you guys grit your teeth and face up to the fact that you have no explanation for why organisms reproduce and fight for survival?!

Are you even being serious? Is this a joke? The reason is that it's patently untrue. You have been given the explanation. Not understanding it, or refusing to think about it in case it challenges your cherished beliefs (which seems more likely - surely you can't be too stupid to get it if you tried), does not mean it doesn't exist or hasn't been explained to you (multiple times).

You can only cite 'chance' or 'emergence' as an explanation. Or contend that the question 'why' is irrelevant or some such.....

Drivel.

However life came about...it evolved and continued to exist in increasingly complex forms only because there was a driving force within that induced the reproductive instinct and the survival instinct. Without these two, life would not have evolved at all. This is a fact.

No, it is not. You're still looking at everything backwards and mistaking effect for cause.

[torridon]

Why don't you guys grit your teeth and face up to the fact that you have no explanation for why organisms reproduce and fight for survival?!  You can only cite 'chance' or 'emergence' as an explanation. Or contend that the question 'why' is irrelevant or some such.....

However life came about...it evolved and continued to exist in increasingly complex forms only because there was a driving force within that induced the reproductive instinct and the survival instinct. Without these two, life would not have evolved at all. This is a fact.

i've already given you one contender for that 'driving force' - thermodynamics.  Might not be the whole story of course but it might provide a way to understand life in a broader context of basic physics.  Putting a boulder in a mountain stream will create a phenomenon that wasn't there before - a whirlpool.  This is a case of spontaneous self-organisation of the water that has to happen, it allows the water to get from the top of the mountain to the bottom whilst doing the least work. If you can understand that, then you are on the way to understanding life in the same terms - all living things are effective dissipative structures, increasing entropy over time.  Life has to arise wherever it can just as surely as whirlpools have to form around a boulder in a stream in order to be consistent with the overarching tendency to increase entropy. And likewise forms of life that are better at dissipating energy will inevitably tend to replace less efficient forms.  This is consistent with what we observe with life on Earth - it starts with simple organisms and gets gradually more complex over time, until you get Americans driving to the local shop in a Hummer using ridiculous amounts of energy in the process. 

[Sriram]

You cannot offer mechanisms as causes.  Causes define mechanisms, not the other way around.  Mechanisms cannot arise spontaneously by themselves.

You guys are mixing up the 'how' and the 'why'. 

[Stranger]

You cannot offer mechanisms as causes.  Causes define mechanisms, not the other way around.  Mechanisms cannot arise spontaneously by themselves.

The mechanism of natural selection is a simple logical consequence of having things that reproduce with inheritance and variation in an environment with limited resources. The "survival instinct" is the logical consequence of natural selection.

This has been explained to you multiple times, why don't you actually address the explanations given instead of just making assertions?