Consciousness, Reality and Materialistic Evolution

[Pate]

A question that I've pondered occasionally:

If we assume that materialism, determinism and evolution are true, what place that leaves for consciousness? How could consciousness have evolved? If all actions of a being are fully determined by physical factors, what evolutionary value does it add if a being is conscious of those actions?

A computer or a robot does not need to be conscious in order to function properly. In fact, its being conscious (if that were possible) would add essentially nothing to the way that it functions.

Some kind of genuine "free will" seems to be needed for consciousness to play any significant role in the behavior of an organism. But how is that consistent with materialistic evolution? Can mind have control over matter, instead of matter having control over mind?

And besides, even if consciousness did evolve, it seems probable that any primitive forms of consciousness would not include free will, which makes us wonder again, what evolutionary advantage such consciousness would give.

Then there is also the problem of reliability of congnitive faculties. Even if we assume that the evolution of conscious beings somehow got to the level in which they form beliefs and somehow decide their actions based on those beliefs, isn't it more than likely that those beliefs are mostly false? It seems unlikely that such a consciousness, in which there would be any level of significant correspondence between formed beliefs, and objective reality, could not possibly evolve very quickly. And I wonder whether natural selection would be a sufficient bridge over the enormous gulf of unreliability in forming beliefs about reality.

What grounds do we have for believing that our beliefs about the reality are true, if our cognitive faculties are the result of materialistic evolution? What really matters to natural selection is the survival value of the behavior of an organism, not the beliefs that it may have. So, there should be nothing to prevent organisms that have false beliefs, from being successful, if only their behavior is of right kind. And clearly there are, for any behavior, many false beliefs which may lead to it. Therefore, if we believe that our consciousness and cognitive faculties are a product of materialistic evolution, that also gives us a reason to doubt the reliability of any belief that we have, including the belief that our consciousness and congnitive faculties are the result of materialistic evolution. Therefore, it may be argued that the position of materialistic evolutionist is self-defeating.

[Pate]

:bawl:

[TheFiveSolas]

I maintain that strict materialists cannot rationally account for anything like a "will", or "consciousness".
Matter, as far as we know, only acts/reacts the way it does according to its inherent physical properties of size, shape, mass, electron charge, etc. Therefore, there could exist no such thing as a "will" whereby choices are made.

Consciousness poses an even greater problem for strict materialists since it involves many different components (i.e., perception, universalizing concepts, induction, rationality, reliability of sense perception, etc.), none of which can be accounted for in such a worldview.

[Pate]

:smile:

[TheFiveSolas]

Pate,
I'm happy to see that you stopped crying. :tongue:

[Pate]

Yes, I'm happy too. Finally someone commented. :)

The problem of giving a wholly materialistic account of mind is very real, as you mentioned. But as I tried to tell in my post, there would seem to remain some serious problems for an advocate of naturalistic evolution, even if we grant that it's theoretically possible that mind, consciousness etc. could be purely material.

The last point about the reliability of cognitive faculties is taken from Plantinga's evolutionary argument against naturalism (I suppose that some of you are familiar with that). I find that argument to be especially interesting.

[TenDimensions]

02-23-2003 @ 02:31 AM
Pate:

A question that I've pondered occasionally:

If we assume that materialism, determinism and evolution are true, what place that leaves for consciousness? How could consciousness have evolved? If all actions of a being are fully determined by physical factors, what evolutionary value does it add if a being is conscious of those actions?


This is a great question! It's very complicated and if I had more time I'd love to organize my thoughts more clearly. Please bear with the meandering post.

Only recently as a materialistic atheist have I attempted to address my feelings on "free will" and surprised myself when I concluded that as odd as it may seem consciousness and "free will" are mainly illusions.

There are whole books written on this topic and after finishing a book with the hubristic title of Consciousness Explained I feel I have a new outlook on how the brain probably works in broad stroke explanations. Thinking about the concept of free will it definitely seems as though if you're going to think there is free will you're starting to talk about a soul. Since that doesn't exactly fit in with a materialistic philosophy I had to rethink what I thought free will really meant - including what consciousness is.

To begin with (remember this is a materialistic evolutionary model of thinking) one has to examine what purpose the brain and nervous system serve in an organism. You mentioned this when doubting an evolutionary role that free will would play and you're quite right.

Every organism down to the simpliest amoeba has some kind of nervous system or means of reacting to its environment. The evolutionary advantage is obvious. If the little one celled organism finds more food where there is light it makes sense that it would develop a mechanism for detected and moving towards that light. In addition, if danger is represented by say, extremely hot or cold water it would develop a mechanism for detecting and avoiding those circumstances.

Getting into more complicated creatures, such as predators, there comes an evolutionary advantage if the nervous system and senses of that predatory were capable of making "predictions" about its prey. For instance, the cheetah chasing the zebra will catch its prey more often if it can successfully predict the turns and twists the running zebra is going to make.

So, in the most simpliest sense the nervous system probably developed through evolution as a means of 1) detecting danger and avoiding it and 2) detecting food and obtaining it. The more complicated the brain the more advanced the predictions are that it needs to make for survival. There is also the matter of sexual reproduction and finding a suitable mate, but I'm trying to keep this simple. I definitely think humans and the illusion of consciousness is at the end of this continuum.

Another book that puts forth some fascinating ideas about the origin of human consciousness is the book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bi-Cameral Mind by Julian Jaynes. The concept is radical and admittedly I haven't finished the whole book yet, but basically if you're interested in some non-God based theories on the origin of consciousness, check this out.

Anyway, I digress. Let's get back to the issue of free will. The best way I can describe how I view the idea of free will in people is to describe weather patterns. Weather patterns are potentially predictable if somehow you could factor in all the countless variables right down to the butterfly flapping its wings in Nigeria which ends up causing a hurricaine in Florida. Obviously, we're nowhere near achieving this kind of computational ability, but we're at least starting to understand the math behind it - chaos theory.

Free will and the decisions you make are probably very, very similar. Being a materialist, there is nothing more to who you are than the wiring in your brain (dictated by your genes) and your past experiences which re-wire your brain to a certain extent. If somehow it would be possible to factor in all the variables - right down to the very last event that happened to you, yes - it probably would be possible to predict your behavior with a good deal of accuracy - just like the weather. Do I think this is possible? No. Do I think it's possible ever? Potentially not.

Now for the big question: Does this mean if free will is an illusion we aren't responsible for our actions since we are only automatons? Of course not!!!!

Let's twist it around another way: Even though God knows what choices you're going to make - does that mean we have no free will? No - I'm told by others that this doesn't mean we still don't have those choices to make for ourselves.

So, it's rather similar for us materialists. Just because we don't have 'free will' from the perspective of a soul - it does not mean that we are unable to use reason and logic to arrive at 'good' decisions (a whole topic in and of itself!) Does it mean that very often those decisions based on the reason and logic can still be flawed? Absolutely - but the brain is a data digesting device. Given more data you may make different decisions. And depending on your willingness to listen to advice your decision can be swayed that way as well.

There is a whole line of thinking that ties all this together. The idea that certain ideas and concepts that we hold have evolved through the ages - just as people have. Richard Dawkins (the guy you all love to hate) hammered out his theory of memes back in the seventies and it's been applied ever since. The very idea that ideas themselves evolve, mutate, and change over time is absolutely amazing. The Theory of Evolution is a whole lot more than your cutely coined 'goo-to-you-via-the-zoo' phrase. Concepts of evolution apply to not just genes, but the extended phenotype as well (the beaver's dam, the bird's next), and for more complicated creatures such as ourselves - into our very ideas and thoughts.

All that being said (I know, I'm all over the place with this post) - is it a scientific fact that babies born with certain genes or certain centers in their brains non-functional prone to more violence? Yes! Does that mean they aren't responsible for killing someone in a fit of rage? I have no idea.

There are a number of examples in the book Consciousness Explained that discuss how even what we think is a linear fashion of 'perception' is in fact handled in separate areas of the brain at different times. Which leads me to think it might be worth mentioning a little more about this book.

A lot of people see consciousness as a 'place' in the brain where all perception gets 'decoded' and then 'replayed' for some 'person' sitting and observing what is being relayed in from the different areas of the brain. This is in fact, not at all how the brain works. This erroneous model of consciousness is known as the Cartisean theatre as it relates to the philosophy of Descartes.

In any event, in the book, Daniel Dennett, proposes to think of the brain more as a 'multiple drafts' model - where various components of your senses are processed in various parts of the brain - not always simultaneously as demonstrated by a number of example experiments. The book does a much better job of explaining this than I am.

And when you get down to it - is it so hard to imagine that we are more predictable than we'd like to be? There are entire fields of science like psychology, sociology, etc that are devoted to examining human behavior and predicting it under certain circumstances. A number of experiments such as the willingness of people to defer to authority even when it looked like the order action has harming another individual is more than ample proof that many 'alpha male' laws still apply to humans.

There are definitely qualities to humans that are not easily explainable, although some attempts are being made. There is ongoing speculation that appreciation of certain architecture demostrates a direct connection to some deeply rooted hard-wired mechanisms in the brain.

A simple example: Is it so difficult to wonder that so many people find running rivers pleasent? The sound of a river to our ancestors meant one of the most basic necessities were near. A deeply engrained fear of spiders and snakes also point to the very real possibility that a fear of these creatures, who are potentially deadly, saved many of our ancestors and so the engrained fear was passed on in the genes.

If you can accept these simple examples it is not beyond the realm of possibility that we have far less 'free will' than we would like to give ourselves credit for.

[psychopath]

This is a topic that really interests me. TenDimensions, I'm just gonna comment on a few things you mentioned in your post. Please correct me if I misrepresent your position.

First, human consciousness as you described it with respect to Darwinism and natural selection seems inherently deterministic. As you said, the notion of free will strongly hints at the existence of a soul; therefore, within an atheistic and materialistic paradigm, consciousness and action needs to be explained strictly by what takes place within the physical nervous system. However, though the physical brain is certainly highly organized and complex, it is, ultimately, just the combinations of millions and millions of chemicals, cells, proteins, etc. I see no way in which such an organ can bring forth a true "choice" - chemicals obey the laws of nature, so any action one takes seems to boil down to the chemical makeup of one's nervous system at that instant. As you implied, free will is illusory. I really didn't choose to respond to your post; in actuality, due to the specific combination of chemicals that constituted my brain when I read your post, I had no choice but to respond. I didn't have the ability to not respond, because that would require a differenct combination of chemicals; since chemicals obey the laws of nature, the possibility of this different combination was zero, because it would've required that the chemicals in my brain act in disaccord with these laws (ask it that sentence didn't make sense). And the same applies for any action (or lack thereof) that occurs. What occurs within the brain is predetermined by one's genes, environment, etc., which is predetermined by things such as your parents' genes, environment, etc., in a chain that, presumably, goes all the way back to the Big Bang.

Thus, one also has no say in what he believes and thinks. Beliefs and thoughts arise from the physical brain, and everything that comes from the brain (whether it be action, imagination, etc.) is a product of its chemical makeup at that point. I have no choice but to think that 2 + 2 = 4, because that thought is the product of a combination of chemicals which I, ultimately, have no control over.

And this is where I see a problem for determinism. Determinists, presumably, think their view of the universe is a better representation of reality than non-determinists. (If not, then their viewpoint seems kinda worthless.) But what basis do they have for making such a claim? If determinism really is true, they had no choice but to believe in it, and non-determinists had no choice but to not believe in it. Both were completely determined by forces outside the control of the individual.

Now, on to some of your words.

You said:

"Free will and the decisions you make are probably very, very similar. Being a materialist, there is nothing more to who you are than the wiring in your brain (dictated by your genes) and your past experiences which re-wire your brain to a certain extent. If somehow it would be possible to factor in all the variables - right down to the very last event that happened to you, yes - it probably would be possible to predict your behavior with a good deal of accuracy - just like the weather."

I do not see how, for a materialist, this could not be the case. If one was able to factor in every single variable and the cumultalive effect of all of them on the individual, he should be able to definitively predict his behavior. If not, what else is there that would cause such a prediction to be wrong? The only thing I see making these hypothetical predictions not completely accurate (aside from free will, of course) is the randomness that occurs at the quantum level. But this still doesn't give the individual the ability to decide his actions and thoughts, because, though random and unpredictable, the happenings at the quantum level are still forces outside one's control.

You said:

"Just because we don't have 'free will' from the perspective of a soul - it does not mean that we are unable to use reason and logic to arrive at 'good' decisions (a whole topic in and of itself!)"

But within this deterministic paradigm, "reason" and "logic" just become forms of thought that we don't control. If I use "logic" to come to a conclusion, it's only because I was predetermined to have a certain stream of thought flow, which is nothing more than dynamic combinations of chemicals that obey the laws of nature, that led to said conclusion. Thus, "reason" and "logic" become meaningless (or, at least, worthless) - they are just whatever my thoughts happen to be, caused by forces outside my control, and I don't have any choice in the matter.

You said:

"Absolutely - but the brain is a data digesting device. Given more data you may make different decisions. And depending on your willingness to listen to advice your decision can be swayed that way as well."

But what IS a decision? How can decisions exist within a materialistic universe, and what is it that is doing the deciding? Our brain can't be said to be making decisions, because it can only produce that which is in accordance with its biochemical makeup at a given time.

Those are the main comments I wanted to make. Thanks for the well-written post that stimulated this discussion; I look forward to your response.

[A_Theist]

There are whole books written on this topic and after finishing a book with the hubristic title of Consciousness Explained I feel I have a new outlook on how the brain probably works in broad stroke explanations. Thinking about the concept of free will it definitely seems as though if you're going to think there is free will you're starting to talk about a soul. Since that doesn't exactly fit in with a materialistic philosophy I had to rethink what I thought free will really meant - including what consciousness is.


I am currently reading that book; glad to see others with good taste.









Now for the big question: Does this mean if free will is an illusion we aren't responsible for our actions since we are only automatons? Of course not!!!!



Some of the bug bears that people posit to be necessary in determinism are illusory. These fears that emerge when people think that if we don't have a soul our unfounded, so sayeth Dennett.


Let's twist it around another way: Even though God knows what choices you're going to make - does that mean we have no free will? No - I'm told by others that this doesn't mean we still don't have those choices to make for ourselves.

I would argue that by necessity God knows possibilities but not certanties, but that would be a whole other topic on free will.


There is a whole line of thinking that ties all this together. The idea that certain ideas and concepts that we hold have evolved through the ages - just as people have. Richard Dawkins (the guy you all love to hate) hammered out his theory of memes back in the seventies and it's been applied ever since. The very idea that ideas themselves evolve, mutate, and change over time is absolutely amazing. The Theory of Evolution is a whole lot more than your cutely coined 'goo-to-you-via-the-zoo' phrase. Concepts of evolution apply to not just genes, but the extended phenotype as well (the beaver's dam, the bird's next), and for more complicated creatures such as ourselves - into our very ideas and thoughts.



Selfish Gene, a good book:thumb:



There are a number of examples in the book Consciousness Explained that discuss how even what we think is a linear fashion of 'perception' is in fact handled in separate areas of the brain at different times. Which leads me to think it might be worth mentioning a little more about this book.

I am just going to be your personal cheerleader. Go on!


A lot of people see consciousness as a 'place' in the brain where all perception gets 'decoded' and then 'replayed' for some 'person' sitting and observing what is being relayed in from the different areas of the brain. This is in fact, not at all how the brain works. This erroneous model of consciousness is known as the Cartisean theatre as it relates to the philosophy of Descartes.

In any event, in the book, Daniel Dennett, proposes to think of the brain more as a 'multiple drafts' model - where various components of your senses are processed in various parts of the brain - not always simultaneously as demonstrated by a number of example experiments. The book does a much better job of explaining this than I am.


No, you did a really good job. My friend Justin Described it as the brain constantly revising and editing certian thoughts you might have had an hour ago; and although the appeared to be the canonical text, they weren't. The "Multiple Drafts" model is a very good way to explain the conscious. I am sold on the concept, until something better comes along. No more Cartesian Theater, please.



There are definitely qualities [qualia? Hah! Doesn't Dennett dismiss the idea that their are qualitative states in the brain: what it is like to eat ice cream, etc.?] to humans that are not easily explainable, although some attempts are being made. There is ongoing speculation that appreciation of certain architecture demostrates a direct connection to some deeply rooted hard-wired mechanisms in the brain.

There is another book that was recently released entitled, Freedom Evolves, where he covers these ideas that TenDimensions has taken from Dennett's book. I would recommend anyone to check it out. I think bascially the argument comes down to this, "Although we are determined genetically, it isn't the case that all genes have total control over us. And that as the brain evolves, we learn how to outsmart these genes by getting to the root of the problem earlier, and taking care of it.

Forgive me if that didn't make sense: Here is an article:

The Mythical Threat of Genetic Determinism (http://chronicle.com/free/v49/i21/21b00701.htm)


Peace,
Paul

[Pate]

Sorry that I've not been able to respond to this thread yet, though I was the one who started it. There are a couple of other threads for which I currently need to give a priority over this one. But I'll read this through and respond in the near future, I hope.

[Captain Ochre]

03-03-2003 @ 03:39 PM
Pate:

Sorry that I've not been able to respond to this thread yet, though I was the one who started it. There are a couple of other threads for which I currently need to give a priority over this one. But I'll read this through and respond in the near future, I hope.

Great topic, Pate. Sorry it took me a bit to take note of it.
I've argued in the past that consciousness should be an Ockhamian casualty if it's just having its strings pulled by its material constituents, right in line with what you've argued. I haven't caught up with all of the responses to this thread yet, but I'll wade into them later this week (oops! not to imply that i'll need to don waders--the responses look well-considered even if I expect to find subtle flaws!).

[Vorkosigan]

The last point about the reliability of cognitive faculties is taken from Plantinga's evolutionary argument against naturalism (I suppose that some of you are familiar with that). I find that argument to be especially interesting.

Yes, that's the one about the man who has confused tigers and kittens, right? That's not one of Plantinga's brighter moments. He misunderstands both evolution and the problem of reliability, and the result is a total disaster. That essay has been annihilated ad nauseum over at Infidels (mostly because newbies still think it is a brilliant work and occasionally show up waving Plantinga) and I'd be happy to post the links here, if we are allowed to post links to other web forums here.

Vorkosigan

[Celsus]

Pate:
Plantinga's own stance is far weaker than you have stated it. In effect, his argument only extends to stating that we are not in a position to judge that we have reliable cognitive faculties. Fales has a good rebuttal that explains why there are strong reasons for expecting general cognitive reliability. Here is an excerpt:
The neural systems by means of which organisms generate and manage their beliefs are biologically expensive. Both in terms of the genetic coding required, and in terms of energy expenditure devoted to growth and maintenance, neural systems--brains in particular--are costly devices. It is hard to see how it could be otherwise, given the nature and complexity of their functions. This appears to be especially true of the mechanisms for belief formation and processing. First, beliefs must be generated--in our case, by distinct mechanisms linked to the dozens or more sensory, proprioceptive, and introspective modalities with which we are equipped. Next, to be of use, they must be catalogued and stored for efficient retrieval, they must constantly be squared with one another to insure as much consistency and inductive coherence as possible, and there must be inferential mechanisms devoted to the production of further beliefs.

Of course, many organisms get along without all of this--or any of it; but having these capacities, as we clearly do, is an expensive proposition, biologically speaking. That gives the neoDarwinian a prima facie reason for assigning a low probability to the development of such mechanisms unless they confer a decided selective advantage. The selective advantage of intelligence, when linked in an appropriate way to action, can hardly be denied. While many ecological niches can be successfully filled without the benefit of intelligence (witness the cockroach), Plantinga will agree that Homo sapiens has, more than any other species, specialized in intelligence as a survival strategy. We have few other biological advantages; most of our eggs aer in that basket. Our heavy investment in big brains and otherwise mediocre bodies makes it all the more unlikely that resources would be wasted on elaborate belief-forming and processing mechanisms that have no practical utility.

Fales, E., 1996, "Plantinga's Case against Naturalistic Epistemology," in Philosophy of Science, vol. 63, Sept 1996 (italics in orignal, bold emphases mine)
Vorkosigan:
I think you may just be giving Plantinga more credit than he's due. :tongue: The series of exchanges that he had with McMullin and Van Till showed that when it comes to science, he's a fairly standard IDist, quoting the likes of Denton and Behe. Maybe he's changed his position since then--I don't know for sure. For example he thinks that the fact that modern animals all display a similar degree of molecular difference from bacteria is somehow a refutation of evolution. This of course, comes straight out of Denton's Evolution: A Theory in Crisis and is in fact a confirmation of evolutionary divergence.

Joel

[Pate]

03-04-2003 @ 11:50 AM
Vorkosigan:
Yes, that's the one about the man who has confused tigers and kittens, right? That's not one of Plantinga's brighter moments. He misunderstands both evolution and the problem of reliability, and the result is a total disaster.

Perhaps. The other possibility is that those criticizing Plantinga have misunderstood him. I agree that the tiger-example given by Plantinga in his lecture ( http://hisdefense.org/audio/ap_audio.html ) was a little exaggerating. Perhaps he chose that one partly because of its entertainment value. I'm under the impression that Plantinga has developed his argument further and so the criticism of his original argument may not be completely relevant anymore. If I remember correctly, he admits in his book "Warranted Christian Belief" some error previously made by him.



That essay has been annihilated ad nauseum over at Infidels (mostly because newbies still think it is a brilliant work and occasionally show up waving Plantinga) and I'd be happy to post the links here, if we are allowed to post links to other web forums here.

Yes, that would be good. I'm not necessarily in total agreement with plantinga on this issue and I haven't used much time studying it. There may be problems in finding the best way to formulate an argument of this type, but the basic idea seems to be valid and interesting.

[Pate]

The neural systems by means of which organisms generate and manage their beliefs are biologically expensive. Both in terms of the genetic coding required, and in terms of energy expenditure devoted to growth and maintenance, neural systems--brains in particular--are costly devices. It is hard to see how it could be otherwise, given the nature and complexity of their functions. This appears to be especially true of the mechanisms for belief formation and processing. First, beliefs must be generated--in our case, by distinct mechanisms linked to the dozens or more sensory, proprioceptive, and introspective modalities with which we are equipped. Next, to be of use, they must be catalogued and stored for efficient retrieval, they must constantly be squared with one another to insure as much consistency and inductive coherence as possible, and there must be inferential mechanisms devoted to the production of further beliefs.

Of course, many organisms get along without all of this--or any of it; but having these capacities, as we clearly do, is an expensive proposition, biologically speaking. That gives the neoDarwinian a prima facie reason for assigning a low probability to the development of such mechanisms unless they confer a decided selective advantage. The selective advantage of intelligence, when linked in an appropriate way to action, can hardly be denied. While many ecological niches can be successfully filled without the benefit of intelligence (witness the cockroach), Plantinga will agree that Homo sapiens has, more than any other species, specialized in intelligence as a survival strategy. We have few other biological advantages; most of our eggs aer in that basket. Our heavy investment in big brains and otherwise mediocre bodies makes it all the more unlikely that resources would be wasted on elaborate belief-forming and processing mechanisms that have no practical utility.

Fales, E., 1996, "Plantinga's Case against Naturalistic Epistemology," in Philosophy of Science, vol. 63, Sept 1996 (italics in orignal, bold emphases mine)

As far as I can see, this misses Plantinga's point that belief formation and intelligence can lead to behavior which is beneficial with regard to natural selection, in ways other than producing true beliefs.

Also remember that given the other points I made in my first post to this thread, the biologically expensive nature of consciousness that's stressed in your quotation, makes it even more puzzling that we have consciousness, if there's not a clear reason to consider it important from the evolutionary point of view. What makes it important if the conscious being has no freedom of will?

[Celsus]

03-05-2003 @ 01:07 AM
Pate:
As far as I can see, this misses Plantinga's point that belief formation and intelligence can lead to behavior which is beneficial with regard to natural selection, in ways other than producing true beliefs.
I'm not sure I follow you. Could you cite a reference? Plantinga's argument is that, taking evolutionary models of development, belief-generating mechanisms can arise that are not reliable. Fales, in rebutting this point, is emphasising the costs involved--natural selection is rather brutal in weeding out superfluous structures, especially expensive ones.
Also remember that given the other points I made in my first post to this thread, the biologically expensive nature of consciousness that's stressed in your quotation, makes it even more puzzling that we have consciousness, if there's not a clear reason to consider it important from the evolutionary point of view. What makes it important if the conscious being has no freedom of will?
No, there is a clear reason to consider it as important--in fact a prima facie case as Fales argues. The point is that our consciousness must have in some way aided our survival. Thus, our brains' analysis must have at least some understanding of objective reality, as far as our approach to tackling problems goes. If everytime you heard a rustling coming from the left, but your brain interpreted it as coming from the right, it's pretty easy to see that you'd have become catfood well before you could reproduce.

Evolutionary analysis shows that our consciousness and problem-solving skills must have been beneficial to our survival, and so your statement, "if we believe that our consciousness and cognitive faculties are a product of materialistic evolution, that also gives us a reason to doubt the reliability of any belief that we have," is untrue. If our consciousness was haphazard in perceiving reality, weighed against the cost of the neural structures, then there is good reason to believe these would not have evolved.

Joel

[Pate]

I'm sorry that I had no time to respond earlier.



PATE:
As far as I can see, this misses Plantinga's point that belief formation and intelligence can lead to behavior which is beneficial with regard to natural selection, in ways other than producing true beliefs.

CELSUS:
I'm not sure I follow you. Could you cite a reference? Plantinga's argument is that, taking evolutionary models of development, belief-generating mechanisms can arise that are not reliable.


Taken from Plantinga's lecture notes at http://hisdefense.org/articles/ap001pf.html:

"But: first, perhaps it is likely that their behavior is (or was) adaptive; but nothing follows about their beliefs. Everything depends upon the way in which their behavior is related to their beliefs."



Fales, in rebutting this point, is emphasising the costs involved--natural selection is rather brutal in weeding out superfluous structures, especially expensive ones.


I haven't read Fales's rebuttal, other than the part that you quoted, so I don't know how exactly he's arguing this. But one critical point is the behavior/belief distinction that Plantinga makes. He does not suggest that natural selection would not weed out organisms with structures that are not beneficial for their survival. He's making the point that the content of a belief does not in itself have any value with regard to survival in natural selection, it's only the behavior that is associated with this belief that is important. He does discuss the possible relations of behavior and belief, but at least in his lecture to which I've given a link, he does not discuss all relevant matters deeply enough, but only scratches surface. But at least it's not obviously mistaken to think that natural selection could produce such cognitive faculties that they will produce a set of false beliefs that lead an organism to behave in ways that are advantageous with regard to its survival. Even his exaggerated tiger-example establishes this with regard to any belief/behavior-combination that's examined in isolation of others. The more critical question would be whether this is feasible with regard to a whole set of beliefs. At least they have to form a whole that is in some ways consistent. But internal consistency does not in itself guarantee truth.



PATE:
Also remember that given the other points I made in my first post to this thread, the biologically expensive nature of consciousness that's stressed in your quotation, makes it even more puzzling that we have consciousness, if there's not a clear reason to consider it important from the evolutionary point of view. What makes it important if the conscious being has no freedom of will?

CELSUS:
No, there is a clear reason to consider it as important--in fact a prima facie case as Fales argues. The point is that our consciousness must have in some way aided our survival.

Yes, I agree that our consciousness must have in some way aided our survival or otherwise it is not plausible to believe that it's a product of naturalistic evolution. But this does nothing in itself to answer the question that I raised. In what way was consciousness (and all the necessary preceding stages of brain-development that eventually lead to it in the course of evolution) so important to survival, that natural selection did not weed it out, despite its biologically expensive nature? It's not sufficient to just argue in a circle, saying that because consciousness has evolved, it must have been beneficial in some way with regard to natural selection.



Thus, our brains' analysis must have at least some understanding of objective reality, as far as our approach to tackling problems goes.

But my point was that if there's no free will, why would we need the additional complexity that's a prerequisite of consciousness. Isn't it possible that such brains would evolve, that they analyzed the sensations and made it possible for an organism to behave in ways that are appropriate with regard to the information received about the external reality throug sensations, without this organism being conscious of anything that is going on? A robot can do things analogous to this, though it has no consciousness. If all the decisions about a course of action, that are made in the basis of information received through senses, are purely deterministic in nature, there seems to be no role that consciousness needs to play here. So even if the ability to receive information about external reality and ability to behave in accordance with this information are things that are beneficial, that still leaves the existence of conscious person as an unnecessary complexity, unless we assume that this conscious person has free will.



If everytime you heard a rustling coming from the left, but your brain interpreted it as coming from the right, it's pretty easy to see that you'd have become catfood well before you could reproduce.

No, actually it would be just as beneficial if you'd interpret that rustling coming from the right, if you also fled to the right, while thinking that you are fleeing to the left. :smile:

Or you might think that every time you heard that kind of rustling, it was a sign that you immediately need to eat breakfast, and you had a belief that the action of fleeing to the opposite direction is an action of eating breakfast. :brow:

The point is that there are countless possible false beliefs that can lead to the behavior that's beneficial. If this is so, what guarantees that those individualss who have the ability to form true beliefs, are more successful in natural selection than those who have a false belief leading to the same behavior to which a true belief would lead?

[stevencarrwork]

02-23-2003 @ 07:31 AM
Pate:

If we assume that materialism, determinism and evolution are true, what place that leaves for consciousness? How could consciousness have evolved? If all actions of a being are fully determined by physical factors, what evolutionary value does it add if a being is conscious of those actions?

A computer or a robot does not need to be conscious in order to function properly. In fact, its being conscious (if that were possible) would add essentially nothing to the way that it functions.


You really don't think being conscious is a help in negotiationg life's highway.

Put a conscious person and an unconscious person in the middle of a freeway, and see which has the best survival chance.

[Pate]

Today @ 05:29 PM
stevencarrwork:
You really don't think being conscious is a help in negotiationg life's highway.

Put a conscious person and an unconscious person in the middle of a freeway, and see which has the best survival chance.

Presumably you didn't read my post very carefully, or alternatively my English was not as clear as I thought it was (which is a very real possibility, because English is not my native language).

I can try to clarify this if you won't be able to realize my point after reading my post a second time.

[stevencarrwork]

02-23-2003 @ 07:31 AM
Pate:

Then there is also the problem of reliability of congnitive faculties. Even if we assume that the evolution of conscious beings somehow got to the level in which they form beliefs and somehow decide their actions based on those beliefs, isn't it more than likely that those beliefs are mostly false? It seems unlikely that such a consciousness, in which there would be any level of significant correspondence between formed beliefs, and objective reality, could not possibly evolve very quickly. And I wonder whether natural selection would be a sufficient bridge over the enormous gulf of unreliability in forming beliefs about reality.

What grounds do we have for believing that our beliefs about the reality are true, if our cognitive faculties are the result of materialistic evolution? What really matters to natural selection is the survival value of the behavior of an organism, not the beliefs that it may have. So, there should be nothing to prevent organisms that have false beliefs, from being successful, if only their behavior is of right kind. And clearly there are, for any behavior, many false beliefs which may lead to it. Therefore, if we believe that our consciousness and cognitive faculties are a product of materialistic evolution, that also gives us a reason to doubt the reliability of any belief that we have, including the belief that our consciousness and congnitive faculties are the result of materialistic evolution. Therefore, it may be argued that the position of materialistic evolutionist is self-defeating.


Let me see.
Evolution predicts that people (and animals of course) will have false beliefs.

People and animals do have false beliefs.

Therefore, evolution is wrong.

This is perhaps the first time I've seen a scientific theory attacked for making successful predictions.

As for claims that our cognitive faculties might be wrong, well, we all know that we sometimes are decieved by lights or sounds. Our cognitive faculties are sometimes wrong.

Another succeful hit for evolution.

Can evolution be doubted and be false? Yes, which is why it has falsification criteria.

Plantinga is though in a far worse situation.

He firmly believes that there are demonic supernatural powers, capable of, and highly motivated to decieve him. He cannot trust his senses. He cannot even trust his memory of the Bible, or trust that he has read it correctly.

However pate might be right that we should doubt our beliefs. That is why we have invented scepticsm and the scientific method, to test our beliefs to destruction point.

Natural selection has not enabled us to grasp partial differential equations easily (for one example), which is why we have years of training and very artificial selection to produce people who can do research and become experts on evolution.

[Pate]

STEVENCARRWORK:
You really don't think being conscious is a help in negotiationg life's highway.

Put a conscious person and an unconscious person in the middle of a freeway, and see which has the best survival chance.

My point was that consciousness as such seems like an unnecessary complexity from evolutionary point of view, it it doesn't also include free will. Is there any more reason to think that being able to behave in accordance with received sensory input requires consciousness in case of living organism, as in the case of a high-tech robot? If the conscious subject does not freely and actively select the course of action, then there seems to be no reason why there should not have evolved organisms in whom the factors determining what course of action they take, would function without their being conscious of them.

Your example of conscious and unconscious person in the middle of a freeway does not work because while it is obviously the case that our ability to operate effectively is tied to consciousness (and I would argue, free will), it does nothing to disprove the point that our operating this way is a feature functioning in a surprisingly complex and cost-inefficient way to be considered a result of naturalistic evolution.



Let me see.
Evolution predicts that people (and animals of course) will have false beliefs.

People and animals do have false beliefs.

Therefore, evolution is wrong.

This is perhaps the first time I've seen a scientific theory attacked for making successful predictions.

You don't see any problem?

If it's a consequence of believing that we have originated throug the process of materialistic/naturalistic evolution, that our cognitive faculties probably produce mostly false beliefs, that undermines our grounds to think any of our beliefs to be true, including the belief in materialistic evolution itself. I wouldn't be very happy if my worldview would have such epistemic problems, but perhaps that's just my problem.


As for claims that our cognitive faculties might be wrong, well, we all know that we sometimes are decieved by lights or sounds. Our cognitive faculties are sometimes wrong.

Another succeful hit for evolution.

Can evolution be doubted and be false? Yes, which is why it has falsification criteria.

This is of course question-begging, because you need to assume the substantial reliability of our cognitive faculties in order to have any basis to point out the cases where you think it's most likely that our cognitive faculties are mistaken.



Plantinga is though in a far worse situation.

He firmly believes that there are demonic supernatural powers, capable of, and highly motivated to decieve him. He cannot trust his senses. He cannot even trust his memory of the Bible, or trust that he has read it correctly.


At least this is not a problem for a Christian who doesn't think that demons are given such a big authority over people (and I believe that this probably is the case, at least if one is not involved with any serious occult activity etc). Furthermore, it's not even necessary to believe in the existence of demons in order to be a Christian. I would have absolutely no trouble giving up a belief in demons (which is in all practical ways inconsequential belief for me anyway) and still remain a Christian.

I also think that Plantinga's model of warrant for Christian belief as properly basic belief may be expandable to this issue with only little trouble. Therefore the Christian at least has basis for claiming that his belief has warrant if it's true and this is exactly what the naturalistic evolutionist lacks if Plantinga's evolutionary argument is correct.

By the way, I'm not opposed to evolution as such. I think that it's probable that God used the process of evolution as part of his creative work, at least to a somewhat larger extent than the standard Old-Earth-Creationism interpretation allows. I don't rule out quite full-scale Theistic evolution either.

[Woman]

While I agree that the general area of discussion is fascinating, I don't see how one can rationally discuss a group of qualities without first settling on definitions and some broad conclusions about each separately.

[stevencarrwork]

Today @ 09:47 PM
Pate:

At least this is not a problem for a Christian who doesn't think that demons are given such a big authority over people (and I believe that this probably is the case, at least if one is not involved with any serious occult activity etc). Furthermore, it's not even necessary to believe in the existence of demons in order to be a Christian. I would have absolutely no trouble giving up a belief in demons (which is in all practical ways inconsequential belief for me anyway) and still remain a Christian.


Oh dear. Pate believes demons do not influence his beliefs. That is just what the demons want him to believe. He really is begging the question here.

As for consciousness, if you can create a robot that can negotiate our problems as well as we do, then I will accept that consciousness is not necessary. But the burden of proof is certainly on you, as many animals (not just us) appear to need consciousness to survive.

Or do you think dogs, cats, gorillas, dolphins etc are not conscious?

And do you really, really, really think that our scientific beliefs in general relativity, quantum mechanics etc were formed thru natural selection?

[Pate]

STEVENCARRWORK:
Oh dear. Pate believes demons do not influence his beliefs. That is just what the demons want him to believe. He really is begging the question here.

Well, I have no problem to admit that I can't decisively disprove the idea that I'm deceived by a demon. That is actually good example illustrating the point that we can't be absolutely certain about almost anything. But this is not in itself a sufficient reason to deny that we have any knowledge. And you seem to still be missing the point that (assuming Plantinga's argument to be correct) the naturalistic evolutionist's belief has no warrant even if it is in fact true, which is contrary to the epistemic situation that the Christian has. (Plantinga has demonstrated pretty convincingly that if Christian belief is true, it has warrant.)



As for consciousness, if you can create a robot that can negotiate our problems as well as we do, then I will accept that consciousness is not necessary. But the burden of proof is certainly on you, as many animals (not just us) appear to need consciousness to survive.

Or do you think dogs, cats, gorillas, dolphins etc are not conscious?


You're right that consciousness is a feature that many animals have too, not just us. But I don't think that this weakens my case at all. It might even be argued that it strengthens my case, because it's an indication that the evolutionarily expensive and unlikely feature of consciousness is manifested widely in nature. I don't think that I need to bear the burden of proof any further than rephrase what I've already said. If consciousness can be completely reduced to physical, nonconscious factors that work deterministically, then the mental images that are the contents of consciousness cannot function as causes but only as effects. And if this is so, then it seems weird that there exists in the brains those undoubtedly complex mechanisms which give rise to those mental images, because the behavior of the conscious being is determined by factors that don't require the existence of these images in order to function. On the other hand, if the conscious mental images themselves are even partly involved in the process of the conscious being's selecting his behavior, then this implies that this being is also in some sense a free agent whose choices are not fully determined by physical, deterministic factors. Therefore, either consciousness is an unnecessary complexity or it is coupled with some kind of freedom and it becomes useful because of this.

You are right that we can't create a robot that can negotiate our problems as well as we do. But again, I think that this proves exactly the opposite than you seem to think. Just think how complexly a computer or a robot would need to function before it would be even conceivable that it might be conscious in some sense. This gives us a reason to think that with regard to any task for which we might design a robot, the simples and most cost-efficient solution will be a non-conscious robot. Can you conceive of a task in which consciousness would help a robot to perform better, unless you also assume that it somehow actively and freely uses the conscious images that it generates, when determining its course of action? And if you do assume this latter part, you are thinking about a robot that is both conscious and free. Therefore, consciousness without free will seems to be just wasting if one is looking for a cost-efficient solution, which is pretty much what natural selection is all about.


And do you really, really, really think that our scientific beliefs in general relativity, quantum mechanics etc were formed thru natural selection?

No, I really, really, really don't think so. But the naturalistic evolutionist thinks that our cognitive faculties, which we employ in order to achieve scientific knowledge, are merely a result of natural selection. I suppose that you don't deny the obvious fact that the general reliability of human cognitive faculties is a necessary precondition of science.

[TenDimensions]

Today @ 01:29 PM
Pate:
Well, I have no problem to admit that I can't decisively disprove the idea that I'm deceived by a demon. That is actually good example illustrating the point that we can't be absolutely certain about almost anything.

Exactly! The truth (even the simple truth of physical reality) is often very hard to get at. That's why we invented science!

You're right that consciousness is a feature that many animals have too, not just us. But I don't think that this weakens my case at all. It might even be argued that it strengthens my case, because it's an indication that the evolutionarily expensive and unlikely feature of consciousness is manifested widely in nature.

Actually, that's not really the case. The nervous system in the simplest organisms are very, very, basic touch and respond type of mechanisms to keep the little guy out of harm's way or to be able to know when he's brushing up against a tasty little morsel.

The nervous system then consistently and steadily gets more complicated as you move up the chain, eventually collecting in a bundle of neurons that help make predictive behavior for the organism. Such as, moving out of the way of a predator or predicting which way your prey will turn so you can eat it.

Consciousness is nothing more than the gradual complexity of these predictive behaviors getting more complicated and requiring more processing power. Once the neurons started collecting in a brain cavity the survival advantage was astronomical. Not to mention that it played other great roles too, like securing a mate for reproduction and being able to protect your young better. When looked at from the reward perspective the cost was totally worth it. Of course, there is the little mystery as to why the brain capacity of early humans shot through the roof, but that's only a mystery if you accept evolution in the first place. :smile:

If consciousness can be completely reduced to physical, nonconscious factors that work deterministically, then the mental images that are the contents of consciousness cannot function as causes but only as effects. And if this is so, then it seems weird that there exists in the brains those undoubtedly complex mechanisms which give rise to those mental images, because the behavior of the conscious being is determined by factors that don't require the existence of these images in order to function.

I won't harp too much on the fact that your logical deduction included the phrase "it seems weird" (I added the bold). That point aside, how exactly do you know what is required for the conscious being to function? Those images you are referring to aren't being played on some internal movie screen in your head. They are the actual neurons firing when your brain accesses the memory or whatever that yields that mental image. The mental image isn't an "image" at all - it's just the neurons firing. The idea that your brain is collecting data from your senses and then putting it all together in a "conscious center" in your brain is what's known as the Cartesian Theater and it comes from Descartes - and it's highly likely that it's wrong. I was discussing it on another thread, but you should check out Consciousness Explained by Daniel Dennet for more information. Anything by Steven Pinker would be good too.

This gives us a reason to think that with regard to any task for which we might design a robot, the simples and most cost-efficient solution will be a non-conscious robot.

A non-conscious robot would be the effective solution only if placed under very strict environmental constraints. You're still thinking that a brain is somehow "expensive" for evolution. I think you're not only over-estimating the expense, but you're asserting it without actually knowing what's involved with brain processes enough to make an assertion about it.

Can you conceive of a task in which consciousness would help a robot to perform better, unless you also assume that it somehow actively and freely uses the conscious images that it generates, when determining its course of action?

I definitely think you should read that book I mentioned. It talks about a "robot" that was able to determine the shapes of objects placed in front of it's camera. It used algorithms for light and dark shadows and then determine what it was looking at. If somehow we could make this robot intelligent enough to speak with us, do you think it would understand how it was seeing the shapes? It would just say that light was entering it's camera lens and based on the "image it saw" it was able to determine what shape it was. The "image it saw" though would never be more than ones and zeros. So is it accurate for it to describe it that way?

What you're doing is extraordinarily difficult and something humans in general haven't been doing for very long. You're essentially trying to understand how you perceive the world from within the cage that you can't escape. It's not easy.

[Pate]

Exactly! The truth (even the simple truth of physical reality) is often very hard to get at. That's why we invented science!

Yes, I certainly agree that very large part of our knowledge is based on science. But I hope that you didn't mean to suggest that science somehow absolutely removes those more profound problems, like "how can I know that the external world exists" or "how can I know that my mind gives a reliable picture about the external world" or "how can I know that I'm not being deceived by evil demon".


Actually, that's not really the case. The nervous system in the simplest organisms are very, very, basic touch and respond type of mechanisms to keep the little guy out of harm's way or to be able to know when he's brushing up against a tasty little morsel.

Perhaps my choice of words was bad one. I certainly didn't mean to suggest that consciousness is anyting like a universal feature among organism. I just meant there are many animals which very probably do have consciousness. (Gorillas, dolphins, elephants, dogs etc.)


Consciousness is nothing more than the gradual complexity of these predictive behaviors getting more complicated and requiring more processing power. Once the neurons started collecting in a brain cavity the survival advantage was astronomical. Not to mention that it played other great roles too, like securing a mate for reproduction and being able to protect your young better. When looked at from the reward perspective the cost was totally worth it. [. . .]

how exactly do you know what is required for the conscious being to function? Those images you are referring to aren't being played on some internal movie screen in your head. They are the actual neurons firing when your brain accesses the memory or whatever that yields that mental image. The mental image isn't an "image" at all - it's just the neurons firing. The idea that your brain is collecting data from your senses and then putting it all together in a "conscious center" in your brain is what's known as the Cartesian Theater and it comes from Descartes - and it's highly likely that it's wrong.


Certainly the ability to process information can be evolutionarily advantageous. But that in itself is not the same as consciousness. But based on your comments so far, I think you mean to say that consciousness is just a property that emerges when the necessary degree of neurological complexity in the brains is present, and it is a "by-product" in the sense that there actually are not any complex features, like neural connections in brains, that have the production of consciousness as their sole function. If that's what you mean, I can agree with that. I didn't mean to assume the "Cartesian Theater" kind of view of mind (at least not consciously). But I think that this does not solve the most crucial issues. Before I go any further to explain my thoughts about this, however, I want to make sure that I have understood you correctly.

Do you agree with my earlier characterization of the typical materialist position, that the mental images, or the contents of our consciousness, or whatever we want to call them, do not ever work as causes of anything that goes on in the brains or the rest of the body, but it's only the physical and chemical features of the brain processes that are involved as causes (they cause all the physical activity that's going on in the brains, and among the effects that emerge through their causation are the conscious images that an organism experiences)?

Thanks for the book recommendations. Dennett's "Consciousness Explained" already is in my list of books that I plan to read sometimes, but there are so many others in that list that I have no idea whether I'll read it within a couple of months or a couple of years. :smile:


Notification: I just edited a HORRIBLE mistake out of this message. I mentioned "how we can know that the external world exists" as a profound problem, though I obviously intended to say "how can I know that the external world exists".

[TenDimensions]

Yesterday @ 02:06 PM
Pate:
Yes, I certainly agree that very large part of our knowledge is based on science. But I hope that you didn't mean to suggest that science somehow absolutely removes those more profound problems, like "how can I know that the external world exists" or "how can I know that my mind gives a reliable picture about the external world" or "how can I know that I'm not being deceived by evil demon".

These are definitely more philosophical questions. I've always viewed general "reality" in two parts: the physical reality that we walk through and share together and the subjective reality that starts as soon as your senses get input. Science only addresses that in the physical reality.

But based on your comments so far, I think you mean to say that consciousness is just a property that emerges when the necessary degree of neurological complexity in the brains is present, and it is a "by-product" in the sense that there actually are not any complex features, like neural connections in brains, that have the production of consciousness as their sole function. If that's what you mean, I can agree with that.

Yes, that's exactly what I meant. The term consciousness is something we invented trying to contemplate ourselves long, long before we knew very much at all.

But I think that this does not solve the most crucial issues. Before I go any further to explain my thoughts about this, however, I want to make sure that I have understood you correctly.

I believe you have understood me and now you've got me really interested in your additional thoughts! :smile:

Do you agree with my earlier characterization of the typical materialist position, that the mental images, or the contents of our consciousness, or whatever we want to call them, do not ever work as causes of anything that goes on in the brains or the rest of the body, but it's only the physical and chemical features of the brain processes that are involved as causes (they cause all the physical activity that's going on in the brains, and among the effects that emerge through their causation are the conscious images that an organism experiences)?

I'm not sure I followed you in the middle of the sentence there :lol: , but I think I did. Yes, I agree that the materialistic viewpoint is that all functions in the human body are a result of physical processes such as chemical and neurological. Everything we do and how we behave starts and ends in those processes.

Thanks for the book recommendations. Dennett's "Consciousness Explained" already is in my list of books that I plan to read sometimes, but there are so many others in that list that I have no idea whether I'll read it within a couple of months or a couple of years. :smile:

It's good to keep a life long book list! I had a college philosophy professor who taught me that. You keep that book list because there's always time to read it someday and you can never stop learning. Heck, with my materialistic world view one of the most important meanings to my life Iis to never stop learning! :smile:

[Pate]

PATE:
Yes, I certainly agree that very large part of our knowledge is based on science. But I hope that you didn't mean to suggest that science somehow absolutely removes those more profound problems, like "how can I know that the external world exists" or "how can I know that my mind gives a reliable picture about the external world" or "how can I know that I'm not being deceived by evil demon".

TENDIMENSIONS:
These are definitely more philosophical questions. I've always viewed general "reality" in two parts: the physical reality that we walk through and share together and the subjective reality that starts as soon as your senses get input. Science only addresses that in the physical reality.

Yes, but of course our only path to the physical reality goes through the gate of subjective reality. :smile: Therefore, it's the prerequisite of any scientific knowledge that our subjective view of reality, (consisting of sense perception, etc.) is at least relatively reliable.




PATE:
But based on your comments so far, I think you mean to say that consciousness is just a property that emerges when the necessary degree of neurological complexity in the brains is present, and it is a "by-product" in the sense that there actually are not any complex features, like neural connections in brains, that have the production of consciousness as their sole function. If that's what you mean, I can agree with that. ”

TENDIMENSIONS:
Yes, that's exactly what I meant. The term consciousness is something we invented trying to contemplate ourselves long, long before we knew very much at all.

-----------

PATE:
But I think that this does not solve the most crucial issues. Before I go any further to explain my thoughts about this, however, I want to make sure that I have understood you correctly.

TENDIMENSIONS:
I believe you have understood me and now you've got me really interested in your additional thoughts!

----------

PATE:
Do you agree with my earlier characterization of the typical materialist position, that the mental images, or the contents of our consciousness, or whatever we want to call them, do not ever work as causes of anything that goes on in the brains or the rest of the body, but it's only the physical and chemical features of the brain processes that are involved as causes (they cause all the physical activity that's going on in the brains, and among the effects that emerge through their causation are the conscious images that an organism experiences)?

TENDIMENSIONS:
I'm not sure I followed you in the middle of the sentence there , but I think I did. Yes, I agree that the materialistic viewpoint is that all functions in the human body are a result of physical processes such as chemical and neurological. Everything we do and how we behave starts and ends in those processes.

OK. The contents of our consciousness never work as causes. They are only the effects of physical and chemical processes. If this is so, then it obviously follows that the contents of our consciousness are irrelevant with regard to the courses of action that we actually take. And if this is so, then there's no reason to think that the contents our consciousness must accurately reflect anything that's actually going on in the world. There's no reason why our brains should give rise to such conscious images, where there's correspondence between the belief about the world that we form by these images, and the actual states of affairs in the world, instead of such images which do not give any reliable information about how the things are in the world.

[TenDimensions]

Today @ 06:09 AM located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=42855#post42855)
Pate:
Yes, but of course our only path to the physical reality goes through the gate of subjective reality. :smile: Therefore, it's the prerequisite of any scientific knowledge that our subjective view of reality, (consisting of sense perception, etc.) is at least relatively reliable.

Well, that's why things need to be tested over and over again and why one scientists data is never solely relyed upon. It is assumed that repeated testing and experimentation can eventually weed out the errors produced by the subjective version of reality.

And then you apparently fired your conclusion that we've been building up over the course of multiple posts in a handful of sentences! I'm not sure I totally followed you, but I'll break it apart and see how much I understand and how much I'm going to need you to clarify.

OK. The contents of our consciousness never work as causes.

If what you mean by this is that nothing ever pops out of our brains without first taking in data I think I might be willing to agree. But there might be some kind of "randomizer" effect in the brain, though. Meaning, no one really understands why while driving to work one morning you suddenly remember to pick up the dry cleaning. While I stand by my original statement that we don't have free will and that the brain is a data processing machine, this possible existence of a "randomizer" in our head doesn't conflict. There have been some suggestions from the likes of Roger Penrose that something like that may exist at the quantum level in our neurons. Some very cool stuff.

They are only the effects of physical and chemical processes.

I absolutely agree. And like I mentioned above Penrose is suggesting it might even get weird at the quantum level, but it's still a machine.

If this is so, then it obviously follows that the contents of our consciousness are irrelevant with regard to the courses of action that we actually take.

Slow down there! :eek: The biggest problem with your statement is that I don't think we've clearly defined what you mean by consciousness. Is consciousness only the effect of "thinking words" in your head? Or are we talking about the broader term of consciousness - that everything you do is conscious whether you are aware of it or not? I understand that may sound self-contradictory, but it is a broader definition that negates your own self-awareness of what your brain is doing. In other words, it defines consciousness as "everything your brain does".

I suspect you're referring to consciousness as your "thought words" in your head so I'll continue with that assumption.

With that in mind (no pun intended! :rofl:) I think that's a partially correct statement. There are certainly things your brain carries out without you actually thinking about them. While driving your car you could be thinking about next week's exam. In fact, if you pay close attention you'll realize that even the process of talking involves very little if any direct thought. You don't "think" what you're about to say before you say it. Although, some of us should practice that a bit more!! :rofl:

But my point is serious. The actual process of "thinking" really matters very little in what you do on a day-to-day basis. But that doesn't mean your subconscious is driving you around all day. That's why I think the broader term of consciousness is more applicable. A book that talks about the possible origins of "thinking" (and defines "thinking" as consciousness) is The Origin of the Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes. I confess I haven't yet finished it, but man, what an interesting, albeit completely unprovable, theory.

And if this is so, then there's no reason to think that the contents our consciousness must accurately reflect anything that's actually going on in the world.

Now it sounds like you're using a slightly broader definition of consciousness and I'm going to strongly disagree with you. The brain is a data processing device based on sensory input. Its ability to correctly sense its surroundings and be able to make decisions based on that input is directly proportional to the ability of that organism to survive. There is no reason to think an organism could survive one hour in the wild if it couldn't properly process the data surrounding it. Therefore, even if our brains are just machines reacting to their environment, they have to react in such a way as to ensure its own survival. In a purely materialist/evolution worldview, this is sound logic.

There's no reason why our brains should give rise to such conscious images, where there's correspondence between the belief about the world that we form by these images, and the actual states of affairs in the world, instead of such images which do not give any reliable information about how the things are in the world.

In reading this sentence and thinking about it further I think I'm going to refine my statement above.

In any situation where the brain is directly contacting its environment there is no reason to suspect it is a poorly functioning data processing device because it would not survive for very long.

However, in any situation where the brain is not in direct contact with the data there exists the possibility that it could process the data in any given manner, essentially unreliably, due to the fact that it isn't wired for such decisions. I would think this is self-evident due to the vast differences of opinions as to whether Iraq currently is a threat to the world or not.

In other words, I actually agree with you so long as the data is not first hand since there is no logical reason why the brain's survival would depend on being able to process this.

Thanks for helping me clarify that! The more I think about it and put those statements into real world situations the more they make sense.

[Pate]

Now I've finally got some time to respond...


TENDIMENSIONS:
Well, that's why things need to be tested over and over again and why one scientists data is never solely relyed upon. It is assumed that repeated testing and experimentation can eventually weed out the errors produced by the subjective version of reality.

But I'd say that only if we can assume that our cognitive faculties are reliable at least to some degree, doing science is possible. (Remember that this part of our discussion was in the context of very profound philosophical problems like "does the external world exist?" or "how can I know that I'm not deceived by evil demon to believe as reality that which actually is an illusion". Those problems, while they seem quite remote to our everyday life, cannot be solved by observational science.)


Is consciousness only the effect of "thinking words" in your head? Or are we talking about the broader term of consciousness - that everything you do is conscious whether you are aware of it or not? I understand that may sound self-contradictory, but it is a broader definition that negates your own self-awareness of what your brain is doing. In other words, it defines consciousness as "everything your brain does".

I suspect you're referring to consciousness as your "thought words" in your head so I'll continue with that assumption.

Yes, your assumption is correct. When I'm talking about consciousness, I'm talking about the conscious subjective self and when I'm talking about the contents of consciousness, I'm talking about the thoughts, feelings etc that are accessible to the conscious self.


I just formulated an argument quite similar to this in another forum. I'll throw it here to see whether it clarifies my position.


If the "conscious self" is just a result of physical and chemical regularities, then the "conscious self" never works as a cause of bodily activity, and for every bodily activity, there will be a complete explanation of it if we can define all the essential material properties in the brains and other parts of the body, and also the regularities which those properties obey when they function. In other words, if we had a complete knowledge of physical and chemical factors involved in the way a human being functions, we would have a complete explanation of how a human being functions.

If this would be the case, then we would never need any information about what's going on in the "conscious self" of a person, in order to be able to fully explain all human behavior. If this is true, it seems to be the case that the conscious self is only an effect that is caused by the same physical factors that cause the brain processes and other bodily processes. It is a "dead end" in the sense that it's an effect that never works as a cause of anything further, but its existence is possible because of the comlexity of human brains, which allows for the emergence of a "by-product" like this. I think that this view is called "epiphenomenalism", and that's what I'm going to call it from now on.

I think that it's possible to formulate an argument which shows the inconsistency of materialistic atheist's position. That argument would go like this:

1. The materialistic atheist thinks that the physical reality is all that there is.
2. If physical reality is all that there is, then epiphenomenalism is the correct view of human mind.
3. If epiphenomenalism is the correct view of human mind, then the contents of the conscious self never function as causes of any bodily activity.
4. If the contents of the conscious self never function as causes of bodily activity, then we have no reason to believe that the view of reality that we have in our conscious self is reliable at all.
5. If we have no reason to believe that the view of reality that we have in our conscious self is reliable at all, we have no way to know what the reality is really like.
6. If we have no way to know what the reality is really like, then we have no reason to think that the physical reality is all that there is.
7. Therefore, the view of reality adopted by atheistic materialist, is self-refuting.




There is no reason to think an organism could survive one hour in the wild if it couldn't properly process the data surrounding it. Therefore, even if our brains are just machines reacting to their environment, they have to react in such a way as to ensure its own survival. In a purely materialist/evolution worldview, this is sound logic.


Yes, I can agree with that. But the ability to properly process the data surrounding an organism is not a process that requires a reliable picture of reality in its conscious self.

[Pate]

03-23-2003 @ 02:43 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=42902#post42902)
TenDimensions:But there might be some kind of "randomizer" effect in the brain, though.

Ok, This is a point that may be worth considering. But as far as I can see, it does not have any significant effect to the conclusion of my argument.

[TenDimensions]

This is great stuff, Pate! I'm currently very much engaged in an interested debate with TheFiveSolas over here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?postid=45942#post45942) about this very same topic.

Today @ 11:16 AM Pate:
But I'd say that only if we can assume that our cognitive faculties are reliable at least to some degree, doing science is possible. (Remember that this part of our discussion was in the context of very profound philosophical problems like "does the external world exist?" or "how can I know that I'm not deceived by evil demon to believe as reality that which actually is an illusion". Those problems, while they seem quite remote to our everyday life, cannot be solved by observational science.)
I can agree with this statement: We have to assume the external world we observe does exist and is not some elaborate scheme of some demons manipulating our perceptions Matrix-style. If they are then they are doing it in a perfect way and so their existence doesn't matter. In either case, the physical world (real or imaginary) is the only one we are observing until evidence is produced to the contrary.
Yes, your assumption is correct. When I'm talking about consciousness, I'm talking about the conscious subjective self and when I'm talking about the contents of consciousness, I'm talking about the thoughts, feelings etc that are accessible to the conscious self.
Okay, then I think it's important to start pointing out the significant amount of activities you can engage in during the course of a day that requires no conscious thought on your part. Because of this problem I prefer to refer to consciousness as everything your brain does and the parts that you are "aware of" are just one more aspect to what the brain does. I believe this separation of "conscious thought" from everything else your brain does is what leads someone, very naturally I might add, to the erroneous Cartisean Theater model of how the brain works. I would suspect that how you define "consciousness" would be the very clear demarcation point between humans and every other animal. I think this is a very unwise line of thinking and extremely egocentric.
If the "conscious self" is just a result of physical and chemical regularities, then the "conscious self" never works as a cause of bodily activity, and for every bodily activity, there will be a complete explanation of it if we can define all the essential material properties in the brains and other parts of the body, and also the regularities which those properties obey when they function. In other words, if we had a complete knowledge of physical and chemical factors involved in the way a human being functions, we would have a complete explanation of how a human being functions.
Absolutely true, but I'm not sure this means that it "never works as a cause of bodily activity". The brain, in reacting to input provided it can then cause bodily activity. But if you meant that the brain never acts without first being acted upon - yes, I can agree with that statement.
If this would be the case, then we would never need any information about what's going on in the "conscious self" of a person, in order to be able to fully explain all human behavior.
Well - that is true if one could accumulate all the data necessary to make such a calculation. The decisions a brain makes is contingent on innumerable events that happen to the brain starting at birth and perhaps before! I've described elsewhere that this would be akin to making perfect predictions about the weather. Both are completely physical processes and both are so vastly complex that prediction would require a device just as complicated. Even then the device may only be able to mimic in real time since both physical phenomena can be changed with last second "new data".
If this is true, it seems to be the case that the conscious self is only an effect that is caused by the same physical factors that cause the brain processes and other bodily processes.
Absolutely!
It is a "dead end" in the sense that it's an effect that never works as a cause of anything further, but its existence is possible because of the comlexity of human brains, which allows for the emergence of a "by-product" like this. I think that this view is called "epiphenomenalism", and that's what I'm going to call it from now on.
I agree with the term, but you characterizing this as a "dead end" is just your opinion and one I'm not sure I understand. One brain can most certainly affect the decisions made by another brain and so I'm not sure what you mean by it "never works as a cause of anything further".
I think that it's possible to formulate an argument which shows the inconsistency of materialistic atheist's position. That argument would go like this:

1. The materialistic atheist thinks that the physical reality is all that there is.
2. If physical reality is all that there is, then epiphenomenalism is the correct view of human mind.
Agreed.

3. If epiphenomenalism is the correct view of human mind, then the contents of the conscious self never function as causes of any bodily activity.
I think I lost you here. The contents of the conscious self always functions as causes from brain activity. I'm not sure what you're trying to state here. The "contents" of conscious thought which you so egocentrically place extreme value on is nothing more than neurons firing in your head. When you imagine a beach in your mind you don't describe the neurons firing, but the image that you see with your "mind's eye". But no amount of measuring your brain activity would ever yield a little picture in your head for others to see. Conscious thought and "choice" is no different. You don't describe that "your brain just reacted to the situation of encountering signals from your eye and based on your past experience you lifted your foot and applied the brake". You just say, "I saw the stop sign and chose to stop the car". See this post (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?postid=45942#post45942) for more information.
4. If the contents of the conscious self never function as causes of bodily activity, then we have no reason to believe that the view of reality that we have in our conscious self is reliable at all.
Slow down! You already agreed with me (later on) that since the brain's construction of reality must be accurate enough for the organism to survive in the wild then there must be a certain amount of reliability. What I've recently thought, though, is that anything beyond the immediate first hand data gathered by the brain there is a reasonable amount of doubt that can be cast over the constructed reality. In other words, my particular subjective reality regarding the events in Iraq can be argued to have very little basis in reality. The further removed from the first hand data, the less accurate the subjective reality becomes.
5. If we have no reason to believe that the view of reality that we have in our conscious self is reliable at all, we have no way to know what the reality is really like.
Again, I will conditionally accept this if the construction of reality is not based on first hand acquired data. But that's not totally true either. While it is wise to accept that it is very difficult to know what you "know" it is also important to understand how it is acceptable to accept we went to the moon, but it is unacceptable to think the government is hiding evidence of an alien crash in Roswell. The logical process behind understanding how to "trust" data that is not first hand is complex and a completely different thread.
6. If we have no way to know what the reality is really like, then we have no reason to think that the physical reality is all that there is.
This is an excellent point and in fact, I agree with you. There is no reason to think that the observed physical reality to existence is all there is - this is actually another central tenet to scientific inquiry! Of course there is more to be discovered and as soon as it is observed it becomes part of our known physical reality. What isn't logically consistent is that something that is supposed to completely transcend physical existence will never be discovered nor could it actually have an affect on physical reality. Once it affected physical reality it would then be measurable and no longer supernatural - it becomes just another scientific discovery.
7. Therefore, the view of reality adopted by atheistic materialist, is self-refuting.
Well, we're a long way from that particular Q.E.D.
Yes, I can agree with that. But the ability to properly process the data surrounding an organism is not a process that requires a reliable picture of reality in its conscious self.
And so my point is proven. You do feel that "conscious thinking" is an absolute demarcation point between animals and humans. By what evidence do you make this incredibly egocentric assertion?