Evolution vs Creation

#601

I can see from your summary of my position that you don’t understand what I’m saying. It doesn’t matter how many times you nest an if/then statement, its still taking an input (a set of conditions) and producing one and only one output. Not awareness. If a computer could take an input/output and produce an input, then respond to that input recursively and variably, it would be aware in my definition.

If you’re saying everything from a rock up is aware in some degree, then no. According to my definition, yes, the difference is “subjective context.” I think you’re confusing the test for the thing, with the thing itself. Just because you think something is aware, doesn’t mean it is, and just because you don’t think it’s aware, doesn’t mean it isn’t. It doesn’t matter if it “appears” aware to you or not, in the least bit.

My original question was, what produces this awareness that a rock has?

#602

Like I said, today’s computers are no where near the potential of an organic brain.

#603

So, it’s up to “choice” then? Take an input and have a random output based on that input? Human beings don’t even do that.

You take the average human. He’s been taught (had inputted/programmed into him, using the computer analogy) that he’s not to take what isn’t his; that stealing’s wrong. He goes to the store and sees a woman taking something that isn’t hers. With what he’s been “programmed” with, there is only one output to respond to this input with: Confront the woman that’s stealing.

Ah, but I know where you’re going right now. He has a choice whether to confront the woman. I say he doesn’t. Based on all the input he received (maybe part of the input is that the store he’s in has wronged him in some way and he wants to see someone “get back” at the store), he wouldn’t confront the woman and would simply “look the other way”.

What I’m saying is that, at some base level, our output is based on the input, a la the extremely primitive, by comparison, Clippy from Microsoft Office.

There are many studies going on in what “consciousness” is and we don’t currently have a working theory quite yet…but you’d do well to steer clear of argumentum ad ignorantiam. :slight_smile:

#604

You’re still not getting it, it isn’t about choice. It’s about being able to handle recursion (input -> output -> input). There’s no way for an entity without subjective context (such as a computer crashing because of an infinite feedback loop) to handle the second level of input because there’s nothing there to receive it. The presence of layers of subjective context results in variable response to input, i.e. “choice,” but it isn’t caused by it. It’s just a more useful test for awareness than pure input/response - and again you’re confusing the test with the thing itself.

“Argument from ignorance” is totally irrelevant to the conversation, by the way. Do you think throwing out random latin phrases earns you points in this discussion?

Denying the existence of awareness (i.e. claiming there’s no differentiation between conscious and not-conscious) is one way of getting around the problem with answering what property of matter creates awareness in material objects, I guess. But answer flies in the face of the human subjective experience.

#605

The Latin phrase was completely relevant; it wasn’t random at all. We are currently “ignorant” of the causes of consciousness but that doesn’t mean there IS no explanation.

I guess you’re right. I’m not “getting it”. Awareness exists and is an inherent property of all matter if the matter “comes together” correctly. What that “correct way” is, however, I don’t know.

#606

I never said there is no explanation - it’s totally irrelevant.

Are you saying that certain configurations of matter act as an “antenna” that receives consciousness in the same way a bird’s sense organs allow it to respond to the earth’s magnetic field? If so, that’s an interesting contention. The analogy between consciousness and gravity as a “unified field” which applies to everything is also interesting, if not particularly “scientific” at all. In fact it’s more consistent (in the abstract) with the religious conception of a higher being which is everywhere and aware of everything.

#607

Your first part started fine (and, again, this is my position and my position alone, though there are those that agree), but then you contradicted yourself in the second part when you called it a “religious conception of a higher being which is everywhere and aware of everything”.

Only certain configurations of matter != “every”.

What you’re basically asking for, mattemuse, is the difference between “life” and “nonlife” and the origins of life thereof. Is “X” life or not?

I think that’s the biggest problem with either-or thinking in matters that might not be either-or. Take a box of instant mashed potato flakes and prepare according to the box’s directions but before you add any flakes to the bowl, is it a bowl of mashed potatoes? No? Then add a single flake, stir. Is it potatoes yet? No? Add another flake. Repeat.

At what point do you have mashed potatoes?

At what point do you have life?

At what point do you have awareness?

DISCLAIMER: This exercise assumes that you consider “instant mashed potatoes” as “mashed potatoes”.[/SIZE]

#608

If as you say there is no demarcation between [aware] actions and [unaware] reactions, then everything that reacts is aware. If everything that reacts is aware, even inanimate material, then awareness is an innate property of all materials (since every substance reacts to something). The idea of awareness being innate to materials reminds me of the religious concept of omnipotent awareness (awareness = knowledge in the literal definition, the concept of an “all-knowing” God). I fail to see how that’s a contradiction of anything except all the religion-bashing ITT.

The potato analogy is interesting, since dehydrated mashed potatoes are literally mashed potatoes. There is no point when something which is “not mashed potatoes” becomes “mashed potatoes” because thats what it always was. It only becomes more obvious to an observer when reconfigured in the familiar fashion. To redundantly make the implications of your analogy explicit:
there is no point when something which is not aware becomes aware, because it was always aware. It only becomes more obvious when configured to react to stimulus. If any matter can be aware when configured differently, it was aware even before the re-configuration.

#609

The best analogy is probably the oldest; the Ship of Theseus. The ship itself was quite old and kept having old planks replaced, which brought up the question of just when enough had been added to make it a different ship.

#610

Humans have difficulties applying their “either-or” logic that they use for their own convenience of thinking to actual natural processes.

At what point does an embryo or a fetus become a human? Is there any point in its evolution when it suddenly turns into a human from one second to another? No, there isn’t. But humans can’t understand this. Anti-Abortionists and Pro-Life (= Anti-Woman) activists are the result.

At what point does an evolving species become a different species? When did the first dinosaur become a bird? There was no instant in time when that suddenly happened by the flip of a second, but our logic demands that we think that way. It is false.

Same with the difference between “living” and “dead”. We have invented a very rigid list of features that are required for a living being to be considered “alive”, but “dying” is a natural process. Thus there are still bodily functions going on in a corpse.

A human does not suddenly turn into an adult in the last second before midnight on his 18th birthday. We just made that rule up for our convenience.

This, effectively, is the reason so many people are unable to grasp the concept of evolution. Not only is it a process, but it usually takes so long that we are unable to observe it.

Sometimes we can trace it back, as was the case with Darwins Finches on the Galapagos Islands. There are many different species of Finches on the Galapagos Islands - all of which are certainly descendant from one population of one species of Finches that inhabited those islands long ago. They were, along with other animals he encountered there, what convinced Darwin of the process of evolution.

Just because humans have difficulty grasping a concept, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Even “unthinkable” things can easily exist. Our inability to understand them doesn’t keep them from existing.

And even a universe without us in it would still exist and evolve. Regardless of the fact that we are not there to marvel at it and create stupid thought concepts like “either-or” logic that keep us from understanding it.

I find that a soothing thought.

#611

No, I didn’t say that awareness was innate to materials. I’m saying that the preponderance of materials interacting in a certain way is “awareness”.

Or, to put it another way, you have a skin cell that you pulled from a human being. Is that skin cell a “human being”? How about a cell pulled from a muscle? Hair? Lining of stomach? Are any of these “human beings”?

Alternatively: You have a lugnut from a car. Is that lugnut a car? You have a seatbelt. Is that seatbelt a car? You have an alternator. Is that alternator a car? Container for windshield washer fluid? Headlight lightbulb? So on and so on? At what point do these materials become a “car”?

I’ve not seen any religion-bashing ITT but I digress.

No no, you misunderstand. You take butter, milk, and water and combine them in a bowl and heat in the microwave so you have a bowl of liquid. Then add a potato flake. Is the bowl now “mashed potatoes” or simply milk, water, and butter with a potato flake in it?

#612

That bowl will never be mashed potatoes in any way or form because mashed potatoes = potatoes with egg, milk, butter and nutmeg all mashed up.

#613

Read my disclaimer, Bolteh, on post #614.

#614

Well that’s just silly…

That’s like asking whether $10 bills are better for wiping your ass than $20 bills (disclaimer: this only applies if you consider money to be toilet paper).

Find some other analogy. I liked the boat one, go with the boat.

#615

I’m sticking with this analogy, it’s awkward but it proves a point -

Does the bowl have mashed potato in it, when you put a single flake of dehydrated mashed potato in it? Yes. It’s not even a close question.

Your analogy implies that awareness (mashed potatoes) is something that gets “added” to matter (the rest of the ingredients), so therefore it must exist independently and discretely from matter.

Making instant mashed potatoes = combining something which is mashed potatoes (dried), with things that are not (milk, butter), and producing something that looks and tastes good to a human.

Awareness = combining something which is aware (not matter?), with things that are not aware (matter), and producing something that behaves aware to human observation.

In other words, combining the ingredients doesn’t produce anything that wasn’t there in the first place, it just makes the original nature of the ingredients more obvious to an observer.

This bears up my original point in this thread, that saying “we are all stardust (matter/ingredients)” is false because doesn’t account for awareness which your analogy says must be added discretely to certain configurations of matter.

#616

It’s pretty simple actually. We are all stardust. Every piece of matter and empty space our bodies consist of is in effect “stardust.”

Awareness is simply a result of billions of years of reactions and movement which combined that dust in the state it is in now.

#617

As per Danielsango’s potato analogy, no combination of matter can create something which wasn’t there originally - it can only make its presence more obvious to an observer. The question is what accounts for the original presence of awareness in these reactions between matter and matter?

#618

The original presence of awareness? Awareness is just a result of the way the matter in our body interacts, which is a result of evolution and the conditions that created life, which were ultimately created by the interaction that occurs in the matter released from stars.

Now if the question is at what point can a construct of matter be considered aware, there really is no answer. It’s a product of evolution, and like the difference between one species and the one that evolved from it, it can’t be pinpointed to one certain state.

#619

It’s a “result?” That’s like saying magnetism is a “result” of the way the matter in two magnets interacts. It’s true superficially, but the deeper truth is that magnetism is a universal property of all matter, and the only thing unique in a magnet is how it’s behavior is obvious to us.

#620

So what you’re saying is that awareness is a symptom of properties inherent in matter, like magnetism is a symptom of the magnetism inherent in matter?

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