Philosophy Discussion Forums

I was referring to consciousness in the broad sense, which has nothing to do with the intelligent design argument.

"In my own stripped-to-the bones definition consciousness is simply the ability to absorb information from the environment and use it purposefully to aid in survival."

Your definitions are not descriptive, they are merely redundent, e.g., "consciousness is the evolution of the capacity for purposeful behaviour." By "purposeful behaviour" you mean what exactly, a will to survive? And you're saying this capacity is "emergent"? Fine, how did it emerge?

I'm still waiting for you to explain the "well-understood evolutionary processes" that explain the emergence or origin of consciousness. So far all I've heard is circular reasoning.

Felix wrote: I'm still waiting for you to explain the "well-understood evolutionary processes" that explain the emergence or origin of consciousness. So far all I've heard is circular reasoning.

You'll be waiting a long time, Felix, because explaining evolution to somebody who can't grasp its basic principles is not something I can do in a forum such as this, but luckily there are plenty of people around who can do this far better than I can. I'll give you a bit of a list in order. Start with Charles Darwin to get the basics. Then move onto J.B.S. Haldane, E.O. Wilson, Steven J Gould, Jared Diamond and Richard Dawkins. These scholars present what I would call "classical" evolution theory. However evolutionary theory has itself evolved over time, as all scientific paradigms do except those used in physics, and 21st century evolutionary theory is now the preserve of the complexity theorists who focus on the notion of living systems as conforming to the mathematical protocols of non-linear dynamics. The leading players in this expanded field are Ilya Prigogine, Fritjof Capra, Lynn Margulis, James Lovelock, Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela.

Once you've got through all of them get back to me and I'll give you another list.

Regards Leo

None of those sources you mention can explain how or why consciousness arose or emerged (whatever word you want to use for it), only how it may have evolved once it did arise.

But we need a new thread on this subject, if there isn't one already - probbaly is.

Felix wrote:None of those sources you mention can explain how or why consciousness arose or emerged (whatever word you want to use for it), only how it may have evolved once it did arise

How do you know if you haven't read them? If you've already made up your mind then you'd probably be wasting your time but if you've already made up your mind then I can't understand what you're doing here. Obviously the facts are of no interest to you and even less so the interpretation of such facts by those who have spent their lives in disciplined scholarship. You embarrass yourself.

Regards Leo

I've read many of the sources you mentioned, but like I said we, need a new thread... hopefully in it you'll explain how even the simplest unicellular organisms can process "information" from the environment and engage in "purposeful behaviour."

Yep, Felix, I completely agree with you. Trying to explain how psychological phenomena like consciousness, awareness, and intelligence somehow 'arose' solely via the interaction of physical phenomena like 'dead matter', energy, force, mechanics, physics, etc is a logical absurdity and is clung to by many only due to their insistence on upholding their subjective worldview of the Universe as some kind of gigantic whirling mechanical toy.

To tie the original and tangential topics of this thread together: IF consciousness emerged from matter, we could say that "abstract time" emerged when it (consciousness) did. Prior to that, time could have existed physically - as atomic time or whatever - but not as an abstract, measureable concept. However, it is nonsensical (literally) to affirm the existence of something that can not be perceived or conceived. Without the perceiver there are no percepts - and vice versa.

Felix. I've moved on from this thread because I felt it was getting a bit bogged down, mostly in semantics, as such things often do. However I haven't given up and have been posting in the Big Bang thread and also in What is a Brain. These may seem like unrelated subjects at face value but if you check them out you'll find that I don't regard them as such. If you're interested please join in but as a matter of courtesy you'd be wise to start at the beginning of both before offering your two bob's worth, which I'd be very interested in hearing.

Regards Leo

Felix, no one can explain how consciousness arose from 'dead matter' because it never did. The mere idea is absurd. Note that your detractor did not take up your challenge, but rather threw out a ad-hominem and suggested you were too ignorant to talk to. This is typical of this type of person.

Consciousness is an inherently, fundamentally, different type of phenomenon as mechanicalness. It could not be the result of their interaction with each other. Something new is now present that cannot be an agglomeration of the former. If a bunch of mechanical forces interact with each other the end result will be mechanicalness. This is sound reason and holds up to the reality we see around us. The only reason some people oppose this fundamental truth is because they personally don't like it. The mere idea of unknown Conscious forces playing a big role in the Universe is their greatest fear and their worst nightmare.

Atreyu. "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent"

Ludwig Wittgenstein

This metaphysicist may be interesting reading (if you can find his works on the internet):

John McTaggart Ellis McTaggart, commonly John McTaggart or J. M. E. McTaggart (3 September 1866 – 18 January 1925) was an idealist metaphysician.

PhilX

I studied Mc Taggart in some considerable detail because all philosophies of time are relevant to my own. I wouldn't suggest to anybody else not to seek him out, but I personally thought he was a dickhead. This was then, and is still now, the prevailing opinion of the philosophical community, so I was relieved to find that I wasn't alone.

Regards Leo

Despite this unfortunate experience I still have a warm affection for the Scots. Like us Aussies they have an irreverent sense of humour.

McTaggart wrote about Presentism in 1908, which is the opposite of Eternalism. Einstein is considered to have adopted an eternalist viewpoint, but later in life he switched to presentism. See "A World without Time: the Forgotten Legacy of Gödel and Einstein". It's heavy going at times (!) but interesting reading.

Sorry if all this has been mentioned before.

Consciousness requires neurological functioning. Neuroanatomic and other neuroscientific observations correlate the state of consciousness with a type of tissue called the "reticular formation," in the central nervous system of sensate beings

Very small beings such as insects have consciousness, if we define consciousness as being aware of and independently able to react to events in their surroundings.

The "insect" analogy suggests that beings as small as that possess amounts of certain types of central nervous system tissue sufficient to process consciousness (and instinctive behavior, another function these tiny beings possess). To me, that means that a minuscule amount of certain types of nervous tissue (types of tissue mediating consciousness and instincts) are required for these abilities. Other abilities, like rational thought, would require larger amounts of other types of central nervous system tissues, such as gray matter.)

Philosophy Explorer wrote:Several threads about time have run. Yet we haven't gotten down to the nitty gritty, does time exist? Makes no sense to try to define time with measuring devices like clocks or calendars without first determining if time exists because if it doesn't exist, then with or without those measuring devices (including calendars), we may be wasting our time trying to define time on the basis of measuring devices and time-explicit and time-implicit equations may have no backbone to them if we don't know whether time exists.

A closely related question to the topic title is whether abstract time is objective? Because if so, we may never know the true nature of time. Now I turn the floor over to you.

PhilX

I think time is IN everything, and each thing is a clock to another thing, and if there were no things, there would be no time. Time, as most people think of it as a ghost or a phantom, is just an illusion. The atoms and subatomic particles in my hands are “clocks / time” the moving and position of things are the only real “time” that there is. What makes a clock to move is firstly itself and then gravity and speed at which it is traveling.

That’s why absolute zero is not possible, because that means atoms stand still, and in a moving universe, that’s a bit weird. That’s also why I had a post where you visited where I claimed that to copy something and to time travel is almost the same difference. A copy of yourself, three years back, puts that copy as much into the future as when the “real” person would visit your time. There is virtually no difference, because the atoms, how they move and at what speed is what makes the time nothing more nothing less.