Interesting, I assume you won't let me off by saying that not all traits selected for by natural selection are beneficial, will you? Can you explain further why consciousness is not beneficial to survival?

Suddenly emerged?

So, there couldn't have been things like... oh I dunno, how about: A basis in simple stimulus-response system, which became increasingly complex as the generations passed. Simple short-term memory. Parts of that system start to specialize in motivators: fear, pleasure. Also specializes in greater sensory adaptation: visual, audio, tactile. As the generations go on you get more complex memory and longer term. More ability to compare memory to the outside world. A greater and greater sense of me-other. Eventually crossing some threshold becoming what we would call consciousness.

And that consciousness and self-awareness is itself a property that emerges from that now very complex series of simpler stimulus-response systems all interacting with one another. And that self-aware consciousness is a huge advantage to the phenotype that has it. It can out-plan predators. Seek food in the most likely paces to find it. Work as a group in hunting. Use tools to make tasks easier.

Each little piece of that system making the phenotype just a wee bit more likely to survive to mating, passing on that new piece of the system.

Ah. You must be an expert on the subject matter of evolution via natural selection. Would you care to enlighten us, then, as to what evolution via natural selection actually means, in terms of the mechanism?

Oh, you've already written that. Good work!

Nope. What you've written here is the gist of the idea first written down by Charles Darwin. Believe it or not, we've learned things since then.

Principally, we've learned that natural selection is far more dependent on an organism's ability to aquire characteristics that assist it in reproducing rather than surviving. Going much deeper than that... well, fuck, the whole field of cellular biology wasn't even around in Darwin's day! 

You need to read something more recent on the subject matter.

...No reproductive benefit? Are you kidding me?

Well, first you have to understand why asexual reproduction is inferior to sexual reproduction (I leave it up to you to do your own homework here, if you care to learn anything). After that, it should become obvious that being able to be aware of what a potential mate wants (or, otherwise, how to manipulate them/force them into accepting your genetic material) is a huge boon to your genetic goal of propagating alleles.

As for the concept of free will, it doesn't exist, at least no in the christian sense, we all make decisions based on our previous experiences, with that said we can still make decisions that go against our previous experiences. However we do not make decisions based on free will meaning no previous experience is used at all. 

I have not questioned your intelligence, merely made an assumption of your desire to undrestand the material presented to you by your previous and continuous erroneous undertanding of materialism and atheism. As all explainations given to you explaining to you why your idea or concept of atheistic materialism is the only way for an atheist to live is incorrect. So my assumption is that you will not bother with anything presented to you.

Sorry, the deterministic, mechanical worldview that is scientific materialism reduces human beings to "robots with consciousness."  Hopefully, you will demonstrate a modicum of intellectual honesty and acknowledge this. Based on your worldview, you're not really a participant in life, just a spectator.  

What we call conscious-awareness is simply the product of a complicated system, isn't it? 

 

Jillswift hasn't responded yet, but I'm betting that's a no. It's a gradual, natural phenomenon, and the terms "conscious" and aware" are rather subjective.

Subjectivity and conscious-awareness are interchangeable terms. 

The problem lies paisley is the defintion of conciousness, what exactly is it, there are so many defintions and forget the philisophical problems that arise as well. A simple search has the following definitions.

the quality or state of being aware especially of something within oneself

the state of being characterized by sensation, emotion, volition, and thought

the upper level of mental life of which the person is aware as contrasted with unconscious processes

A sense of one's personal or collective identity, including the attitudes, beliefs, and sensitivities held by or considered characteristic of an individual or group

Special awareness or sensitivity

knowing and perceiving; having awareness of surroundings and sensations and thoughts;

an alert cognitive state in which you are aware of yourself and your situation

Our own awareness of ourselves and the world; the mental processes that we can perceive; our thoughts and feelings.

Orientation with respect to time, place and self, with responsiveness of the mind to impressions made by the senses.

Using any number of these definitions we can say that a molecule does not have consciousness, it can react to it's enviroment but it cannot make decisions based on any form of knowledge. Same goes for simple cells, they merely react to external stimuli. However a group of cells, multicellular organisms, oh like say a worm, is it conscious? Well again that depends on the definition that you are using, it may or may not be. However we can say species with higher forms of intelligences, monkeys, apes, dolphines, whales, humans, etc, etc, etc that say can and do show emotions, able to feel various forms of sensations they are conscious, but then again what is exactly conscious?. However robots yeah to a extent, we are, but it's not the same concept at all, we have basic programming from out evolutionary background, such as the capability of breathing and digesting food without the need of "conscious" awareness. However we can react all differently to the same situation as well, we can make decisions based on our experience, where a robot cannot it simply does as it was programmed to do from the beginning.....predestination if you will. Were we are not predetermined from the moment of conception or birth.

You come in, parade around alleged expertise, apparently cannot back-up claimed expertise, and then accuse me of intellectual dishonesty.

My, my - is the ice you're standing on ever getting rather thin.

 

Do you know a single Goddamn thing about consciousness, Paisley? Or, at the very least, what science says about it? It's awfully tough to intelligently reject a theory you know nothing about, so do tell:

 - What is the current 'map' of the human brain? What are the different regions, and what is the function of each?

 - What is the current understanding of how different damages and stimulations to specific regions effects our perceptions? Give examples.

 - What is 'emergence' (as in, an 'emergent property') in scientific parlance? What is the mechanism by which emergent phenomena arise? Give examples.

For bonus points, also demonstrate you know what the Hell you're talking about when you throw robotics/artificial intelligence into the mix by describing how programming languages are 'read' by machines, what the most common/popular languages are in use in today's robotic software and give an example piece of original code and explain how it works.

You're conflating two meanings of "emergence" here. The first use indicates a temporal event, like a baby emerging from a womb. The last couple of uses indicate a system of simple, deterministic rules that combine to produce stochastic results. I'm not sure that has much bearing on the situation, but the two different meanings in the same argument are potentially confusing.

You use "mental" in the same sense that you are using "consciousness," so you are basically saying, "To explain the emergent property of consciousness, you can't use any other example of emergence, because they're not consciousness."

And, you haven't provided any support to the assertion that consciousness as a (poorly-defined) emergent property is significantly different than evolution or any information-processing system. What are the features that differentiate mental processes from any other stochastic emergent processes? Why do you assume consciousness is not physical in nature?

You make the assumption that, because your mind seems separate from your brain, that it is. I contend it is not, and so "mental" processes really aren't any different than any other emergent process in nature that deals with information, such as the production of an organism from DNA. The information substrate is physical; the information processing chain is physical; and the final result is physical. Yet information processing undeniably occurs. The information itself is not physical, but at every step along the way, it is physically encoded.

I guess you could argue for a sort of dualism, in which information exists separately from materialism. It'd be a tough haul, though, as so far we have no evidence that information exists without a material encoding, so the counter-argument is that information is an emergent property of materialism.

In any case, there are at least two examples of information processing systems in nature: the production of organisms from DNA, and evolution. Those emergent processes are just as non-physical as consciousness.

What exactly is your point? That conscious free will does not confer a survival benefit?

Free will as it is commonly understood in ordinary parlance means that, given the same situation and circumstances, I could have chosen otherwise. That's it. Free will implies that there is an element of indeterminacy at play in the world.

In philosophy, there are basically two conceptions of free will - namely, libertarian free will and compatibilist free will.  Libertarian free will is what the general population understands the term "free will" to be. Compatibilist free will is the redefinition of free will (i.e. it redefines "free will" by eliminating the "could have chosen otherwise" aspect) to be "compatible" with determinism - hence, the term. Without going into too much detail, free will is incompatible with determinism because, in a deterministic world, what you call free will must necessarily be determined by forces external to the subject. Indeed, every thought you think, every choice you make is predetermined by the cosmic process in its entirety (or what we can call infinite causality).

Clearly, subjective awareness is INVISIBLE. And yet each of us knows that it is real. 

The basic illusion of the world (and of materialism in particular) is the belief that ulitmate reality is constituted by permanent "things" in motion. But we know that this cannot possibly be the case because subjective awareness is not a "thing." Our first-person experience of our own subjectivity is proof-positive that the immaterial is real.

You still don't define anything of what your talking about. Please show me some evidence that contradicts that this is a material universe, that there is another relam of existance, a immaterial world, a spritual world or any other form of existance outside of this material world. Second what definition of consciousness besides awareness are you using, and if possible define awareness. Because I have given you a few definitions of consciousness and how we could not be mere robots with consciousness as well how molecules (that ridiculous part that you brought up) cannot be conscious.

Can you even properly define what the hell your talking about, or any of the words your using? Because to date, you haven't. You have started threads without ever providing any evidence for what the hell your talking about. It just comes off that your ignorant of what your talking about and ignoring everything everyone is presenting, and your ignorance about what Jill presented regarding simple response to stimuli, well you got learn more about evolution than what you have presented so far. You just come off as completely ignorant of the facts and really what your trying to present, and your complete lack of understanding of atheism and materlism, even though I have already shown you there are immaterial pursuits that many atheists can and do seek, you still reject and say no no no la la la it's all materialism or nothing.

There are two forms of emergence in philosophical discourse...

What?

I can mix blue paint with red paint and I observe purple paint. That is an example of an emergent property. But I cannot observe when "conscious-awareness" or "subjectivity" emerges. I can only infer it.

But I am not arguing for or against emergence here. I am simply asking why was "consciousness" naturally selected in the evolutionary process in light of the fact that consciousness exerts no causal influence (at least it doesn't in a materialistic world).

Overlooking the fact that you are now taking an excursion into the realm of bloviated obscurantism,  you have just contradicted yourself. Either "information" is physical or it is not. If it is not, then you are making an argument against materialism.

I'm afraid that you have already argued for some sort of dualism.

Is this a concession? Are you conceding the point that the nonphysical is real?

I'm not sure you do know what emergence is. The form of the word "emerge" which you are using it here is strictly in the temporal sense, which is not what emergence is about. Consciousness is an emergent property of the physical structure and natural processes of the brain. It isn't that it "emerged" at some point in the past. The proper word there is that "evolved" some time in the past.

Secondly, you are claiming consciousness is non-selectable as it is a neutral survival trait. Do you have any reason to suppose it is a neutral survival trait? Or do you just assume it's a neutral survival trait? As it is, it seems that consciousness would be a very handy trait to have, as has been pointed out in several of the previous posts that you have not read. (I assume you have not read them, as if you had, you would have to refute their claims that consciousness is a positive survival trait before you made the claim that  "it is not causally-efficacious." )

Even if we assume consciousness itself is a neutral trait, it is likely that consciousness is a side effect of the way our brain works. The same physical processes that give us intelligence also gives us increased awareness. There seems to be a correlation in nature between intelligence and self-awareness. If this is correct, it's tied to a strongly positive trait.

I'm of the opinion that intelligence and self-awareness are one and the same, or at least two aspects of the same set of processes.

"Strong emergence" is a form of emergence which cannot be deconstructed into its set of simpler constituent components. One who holds the view of strong emergence believes the emergent system exhibits behaviours not specifically codified in the system components, but rather, the emergent property supervenes on the system as a whole.

"Weak emergence" is a form of emergence in which the system can be deconstructed into its simpler constituent systems, and the emergent property is traceable to the properties of the system components.

The distinction between "strong" and "weak" is made mostly in philosophy. In science, "emergence" generally refers to the weak variety.

That post only demonstrates precisely what I suspected:

You have no idea what you're talking about. You had to quote a wiki article, and could not produce an original argument upon request.

 

Shame we don't have a 'Fraud' badge.

what exactly do you mean by conscious awareness? A plant could be considered conscious as it is aware of where the sunlight is, as many plants that are indoor grow towards the sunlight by that VERY VERY vague description that you use for everyhting. Please define what your talking about, because otherwise your not making any sense, and just using words in the most vague of terms to make them mean something else.

In using aware what do you mean, as in being in a congnitive state that you are aware of yourself and your sitiuation? Or as in understanding of, appreciation of, recognition of, attention to, perception of, consciousness of, acquaintance with, enlightenment with, sensibility to, realization of, familiarity with, mindfulness of, cognizance of, sentience of? which one of these meaning defintions are you using with awareness?

Again what do you mean by conscious? Can you define any of these terms with your own words on how you are using the terms, and please no websters dictionary terms, your own words, using your own thoughts on HOW your using these termenologies and definitions.

Computers don't really have artificial intelligence, your desktop or laptop has no AI, information and information out, but it does not have any form on intelligence, it cannot make decisions, it cannot be aware of a situation, all it does is output information based on what is inputed, it cannot change the output of the information or seek any other type of input or output beyond what it has been programmed to do. Humans will never be robots as you describe, because a humans learn from their experiences, robots don't, they can't. Your entire argument has been faulty from the beginning.

Oh again, if you can actually read, IN SCIENCE, "EMERGENCE" GENERALLY REFERS TO THE WEAK VARIETY, IT DOES NOT MEAN ALWYAS, generally, so yes it can make the appeal to strong emergence if the situation calls for it, however that is not the norm, do you have to go back to school to learn how to properly read and comprehend what people are stating?

In this specific chain of discussion, we were discussing emergence. I pointed out that you were using "emerge" in both the temporal sense, and the sense of emergent properties. I did this because I thought you were doing this unintentionally. I simply wanted to point out this possible communication problem.

As this whole discussion progressed, it became quite clear that you actually thought "emergence" specified a point-in-time. Your reply here pretty much confirms that you are confused about the meaning of "emergence" in reference to properties of physical systems.

No, you didn't. You made a bunch of unfounded assertions with no logic or evidence to provide support.

The problem here is that "consciousness" is left undefined, and you make whatever claim you want about it. Your arguments presuppose dualism, and so any rebuttal that doesn't fall into the dualist model is rejected, even though the rebuttal is sufficient.

Consciousness is nothing more than our perception of our brain at work. It's the brain observing itself, as it were. This may make us "robots with consciousness," or even just "robots." Big deal. In any case, the act of observing the brain at work affects the working of the brain. Like a feedback loop, it affects the processing of the brain. If this isn't "causally-efficacious," then nothing is.

Libertarian free will does not necessitate, nor make an argument for, an immaterial soul. That is something tacked on by supernaturalists.

I didn't say that it was. I stated that one possible answer to your question of the evolutionary basis of consciousness is that it is part of the same process that produces intelligence. I didn't say that one caused the other; I said that, since intelligence seems to correlate with consciousness, they stem from the same mechanism. Therefore, selecting for intelligence would also select for consciousness.

That's really basic evolutionary theory.

Computers do not have artificial intelligence. Not even close. Research into AI has increased our knowledge of information theory, but we are still a long way from artificial intelligence.

And as computers are built on a completely different information processing substrate than our brains, there would be nothing that would necessitate that an intelligent computer must also possess consciousness.

As for the "robots without consciousness" goes: considering you haven't offered up a coherent definition of consciousness, I can't even begin to tell if we're robots without consciousness or not.

Let's see. I said, "In science, 'emergence' generally refers to the weak variety." At what point did I exclude strong emergence? I believe the word "generally" indicates non-exclusivity. So, conclude whatever you like. It's not what I said, but whatever. You seem to do it a lot.

In any case, I'm not sure where I stand on strong emergence. I'm not convinced there's a case for supervenience, for instance. There's certainly no identified example of strong emergence. But again, our understanding of emergence is in its infancy.

We don't have any tools for working with emergence, so we don't really have any idea how to determine whether the emergent property is derivable from the contituent elements. So we've no method of determining if supervenience really occurs, even if we identify what we consider a strongly-emergent system.

Nowhere did he postulate that consciousness began nonexistent and then went through some other phase on its way to existence. You can have consciousness exist or not exist as the only options while simultaneously postulating that the current, highly complicated forms evolved from simpler forms. You seem to have argued that he contradicted himself, but one cannot find a contradiction in what he said. Your conclusion is a non-sequitur.

You argue that the intelligence to accurately respond to environments can exist without consciousness, but what reason do you have to bolster your argument, aside from the sophistic flab you have repeatedly offered us thus far? It appears that you have used an argument by analogy whereby you compare humans and robots. Seeing as how robots never evolved, you cannot use an argument by analogy to make a point about evolution. It simply doesn't work. We can make robots without consciousness that can accurately respond to their environments and nature has created beings that do the same, but that does not mean that evolutionary processes cannot lead to certain neuronal configurations that would result in consciousness. Your conclusion is a non-sequitur.

Consciousness and intelligence are aspects of the same features within the brain. Neither causes the other; they are caused by the same feature. As intelligence is a positive survival trait, that physical feature was selected. As that feature also conveys consciousness, consciousness was also selected.

Obviously you don't know what emergence is - and I'm not interested in discussing "philosophical" anything. Science gets far superior information. Also, why do you keep insisting that consciousness is not causally-efficacious?

Tell me what I'm equivocating, or you're just projecting.

Proto-conciousness is awareness of context without being aware of that awareness. In essence it is a very complex stimulus-response system. The overall system is complex enough to generate complex behavior, but not complex enough to have emergent systems.

Where "true" conciousness includes an awareness of self-other and an awareness of the awareness of context. A sufficient number of the stimulus-response subsystems in such a brain are internal - their stimulus is from other stimulus-response subsystems, and their response is always to send a stimulous to other subsystems. The result is an emergent system most would call a "mind".

Define this "concious-awareness" so I know how it differs from conciousness. It sounds like a tautology to me.

Yes there are. Their simplicity does not allow for complex behavior.

 

 

I have clearly defined in the OP of this tread the term "consciousness" to mean "AT THE VERY LEAST, consciously-aware."

"The quality or state of being aware." <= This is how I am using the term in the context of this thread.

How do we know that a molecule does not have conscious-awareness? After all, we can only infer consciousness on basis of external behavior.  A molecule is a "stimulus-response system" that interacts with its environment. Why can't I infer that it has consciousness based on its behavioral traits?

What about an electron? An electron exhibits truly random behavior (i.e. it is unpredictable). Based on quantum theory, the electron appears to "choose" from a possibility of superposed states. Why can't I infer that an electron is conscious? 

What about cells? They interact with their environment and their behavior is not wholly predictable. Why should I not infer that they exhibit conscious behavior?

And you seem to be equivocating with worms. What makes you think that a worm does not experience the "state of being aware?" The worm is a "stimulus-response system" that exhibits behavior that is not wholly predictable. I see no reason why I shoud not believe that a worm is consciously-aware.

Regardless of an organism's intelligence (which is open to interpretation), there is no reason to assume that some living organisms do not experience the "state of being aware." It may be true that some are aware of more things than others.  But that is not what is at issue here. The only question here is whether or not a "stimulus-response system" experiences the "state of being aware."