TheDiddleyMan

I have a question for evolutionists (creationists need not apply): Where does consciousness fit into evolution? I mean, consciousness isn't physical and yet evolution is based on the physical....I am having trouble figuring out where it all fits.

Kevin

Automaton

Consciousness appears nonphysical because we have such trouble imagining such things. Just because nobody can imagine a four dimensional "sphere", does that mean it doesn't (at least mathematically) exist?

From the first clump of neurons, developing the brain into fully fledged human consciousness would be a rather easy transition in evolution (same with the eye from photosensitive flap of skin). Where did the first clump of neurons come from? Ask Behe, and he'll show you a picture of a mousetrap and shout Goddidit!

excreationist

TheDiddleyMan:
What do you mean by consciousness exactly? Do you mean human-level consciousness? Or the kind of awareness that animals such as cats and dogs would have?
If you are talking about human-level consciousness then this requires them to know a sophisticated language that guides their reasoning processes. Babies don't do this, so they aren't aware that they are thinking like adults are. I think that babies are more like animals. Once we know language we can access and replay past memories and analyse our own thoughts from a detached perspective. That is why people can't remember anything before they knew language (i.e. before the age of 2 or 3)

Happy Wonderer

Baldly stated, consciousness is an attribute of our bodies. It can clearly be turned on and off by manipulating the brain's physical chemistry. It may convey a selective advantage on its own, or it may simply be a "byproduct" of other advances in the brain. The theory is that those advances that improved our memory, reasoning ability, estimating ability, etc. could have also lead to the development of consciousness.

I'm not sure that I agree with your dichomoty. "Consciousness" is not a physical attribute in the same way that "speed" is not a physical attribute. Long legs help an animal to run faster in the same way that complex brains lead to consciousness. (If indeed a complex brain is a requirement, which seems reasonable.)

Survival doesn't depend only on physical attributes or even physically measurable ones. Kittens have been shown to have a fear of heights (look up "visual cliff" experiments in any developmental psychology text) which clearly enhances their chances of surviving to the age of reproduction.

HW

excreationist

The problem with consciousness is that people's ideas about it can be so vague. Well I've been trying to define what consciousness is in a fairly systematic way:

So that's what I mean when I talk about consciousness. Other people on this thread should be clear what they mean by consciousness as well. (e.g. some might be assuming that pets are "conscious")

TheDiddleyMan

So basically, you guys are all saying that consciousness can easily be considered a result of evolution, even though we don't totally understand it yet? That is all I was trying to figure out....

Oolon Colluphid

Yup. Or at least, as with abiogenesis, there's plenty of reasons to think so... gods need not apply.

Oolon

Tharmas

And if I may add to what Oolon says, as with abiogenesis, the situatiuon is far from bleak.

For example, whereas “consciousness” in itself may be difficult to define and measure, particularly in other species, there are phenomena that we may reasonably assume are associated with consciousness that can be measured, such as the ability to recognize that the image in the mirror represents one’s own self and not another animal, or the ability to use and invent language. As would be expected in an evolutionary model, these phenomena emerge in various degrees in various species and are not completely unique to humans.

[ February 18, 2002: Message edited by: Tharmas ]</p>

excreationist

Well consciousness has become recognized as something that science can study only very recently. And they are taking the approach that it evolved and therefore studies on monkey brains would give similar results to ones involving humans.

Another way that researchers are trying to study the brain is by making artificial brains.

from a <a href="http://www.newscientist.com/hottopics/ai/clever.jsp" target="_blank">New Scientist article</a>:
Note that the robot will have 40 million neurons, while a human brain has 100 billion neurons, each connected to 10,000 others.

I think that in the next 50 years we'll be able to make artificial brains that powerful and then it would have to be set up properly so that it is capable of learning a language.

Darwin wouldn't have understood how traits are inherited (DNA) or how photosynthesis works but that doesn't mean that he needed to abandon his theory.

BTW, here's some questions for you:
how do you think that the consciousness (or soul or spirit?) interacts with your brain? Is there a central gateway in the brain to this other realm? What about spoken thoughts or images? Are they just neural signals in the brain or do they exist outside of the brain? (i.e. they don't require brain activity)
Do you see the consciousness as an observer that just looks at what the brain does, or does it "decide" what the brain does? If it decides, what does it base its decisions on? The memories in our physical brain and physical experiences or something else? Is there some external "will" that gives us free will? How can this "free will" be anything more that chance?
If you think that these questions can't be answered then that just shows how poor the supernatural consciousness model is at explaining things. At least the materialists (like me) have a lot of research ahead of them, to test their models.

excreationist

This is because "consciousness" means "human-level consciousness" to some (like me) and "animal-level awareness" to others. And others still use it in a universal mystical way. I've said what my definitions are earlier in this thread. People should be clear on what definition they're using - they can't just talk about all forms of consciousness at once. I think it is easier starting with "aware systems" and "processing/programmed systems", as I defined earlier.

Animals might be able to see that the image "represents" their self, but for them to be really intelligent they have to understand that the mirror is like a camera pointing towards their body. A good experiments would be to make them look in the mirror, then wave some food behind their head. If the animal (or baby or toddler) turns around trying to find the food then they understand how mirrors work. Another thing to do could be to put a hat on them and let them look at it in the mirror, then later put some food in it and see if they try and get the food out... (something like that)

For me, "consciousness" requires the being (or "system") to analyse itself using high-level language. So it could reason about a problem using words, then reason about that reasoning. And to get into philosophy, it would reason about its reasoning about that reasoning. It would also analyse its "self" - the thing that is doing all this thinking. Some people mightn't do this though.