Evoluiton can't account for higher-level animal behaviour

[GrowingSmaller]

Good for you.

Let us all know when you have evidence for it, rather than silly rhetoric.

What are the conditions for accepting the evidence?

 

[GrowingSmaller]

I don't know what this means; it seems too vague to comment - what attraction? what force? rational in what way (and how)? irrational in what way?

Life forms aren't drawn towards existence. They produce a lot of variations and some are better able to reproduce than others. In the long-term, most just die out, becoming extinct.

IMO attraction is another way of looking at selection and organism. The organism mutates, beneficially, and there is a magnet like force acting on the organism from the natural environment. If another environment were there, other than the one its adapted to (e.g. a fish were put in a forest) then the 'attraction' or selective mechanism which keeps the fish alive would not be there...

Instead there would be "repulsion". The same goes for bad mutants, they are not drawn into continued existence. Deleterious mutations are repulsed.

organism <"repulsion"> environment (...over time)


Definition of attraction (physics): a force under the influence of which objects tend to move towards each other. (source)

organism <"attraction"> environment (...over time)


So over time the fish is drawn to the pond, the amphibian is drawn towards the shore, the pigeon avoids the sea, the beached whale dies etc....

Originally the idea came from my take on ethics. Sometimes (especially when in pain) we are "in flight" from existence.

"Oh, no! I don't want this! It's terrible..."

When in severe pain existence can be repulsive. Note, the euthanasia campaigns etc. are a response to this fact.

In extremis:

"I sometimes wish I were dead!"

At other times we are drawn towards existence, cognitively:

"The food is good too, cutie, so do you fancy a date?"

Another definition of attraction (same source): a quality or feature that evokes interest, liking, or desire.


The rational / irrational distinction comes from the idea that non-conscious entities cant be consciously or ethically rational. Theyre on the purely 'irrational' physical plane. They're attracted but like magnets without a mind.

"Non-conscious machine organisms" differ from conscious ones as the latter have some form of rational or conscious response system in place to deal with their qualia like hunger, arousal etc. They act due to hunger, to alleviate hunger, and this involves consciousness (or I call it rationality, as it involves decisions using a logic fit for responding to the contingencies of sentience like "I'm feeling hungry, therefore I ought to eat") in their toolkit.

So alongside physical attraction, and a more mechanical 'drawing towards' they have cognition based attraction and are drawn continued existence emotionally, in feeling etc.

"You said "Yes"?! I love you, I'm now happy to be alive..." etc. etc. etc.

Or as Nietzsche said "Joy wants the eternity of all things, wants deep, wants deep eternity."

So the irrational replicators do not have "sentient logic" whereas the rationals do.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

IMO attraction is another way of looking at selection and organism. The organism mutates, beneficially, and there is a magnet like force acting on the organism from the natural environment. If another environment were there, other than the one its adapted to (e.g. a fish were put in a forest) then the 'attraction' or selective mechanism which keeps the fish alive would not be there...

Instead there would be "repulsion". The same goes for bad mutants, they are not drawn into continued existence. Deleterious mutations are repulsed.

organism <"repulsion"> environment


Definition of attraction (physics): a force under the influence of which objects tend to move towards each other. (source)

organism <"attraction"> environment


So over time the fish is drawn to the pond, the amphibian is drawn towards the shore, the pigeon avoids the sea, the beached whale dies etc....

I think I can see what you're saying, but I also think it's completely the wrong way to look at evolution. There is no 'force', no direction, it's a filtering process; at best, you could say the environment provides an attractor, so that when creatures adapt to water, land, and air, they do so in characteristic ways (e.g. fins, legs, wings), but this is trivially true, I don't see how it adds anything useful.

Originally the idea came from my take on ethics. Sometimes (especially when in pain) we are "in flight" from existence.

"Oh, no! I don't want this! It's terrible..."

When in severe pain existence can be repulsive. Note, the euthanasia campaigns etc. are a response to this fact.

In extremis:

"I sometimes wish I were dead!"

At other times we are drawn towards existence, cognitively:

"The food is good too, cutie, so do you fancy a date?"

Another definition of attraction (same source): a quality or feature that evokes interest, liking, or desire.

You seem keen to view evolution as a teleological process, but it isn't; it's entirely undirected. Evolution has resulted in various 'drives' in creatures - feelings and associated patterns of behaviour that favour survival & reproduction - via a process of elimination.

The rational / irrational distinction comes from the idea that non-conscious entities cant be consciously or ethically rational. Theyre on the purely 'irrational' physical plane. TEyre attracted but like magnets without a mind.

I would suggest 'non-rational' is better than 'irrational' here. Irrational typically means contrary to reason (e.g. illogical); non-rational simply implies the absence of reasoning.

"Non-conscious machine organisms" differ from conscious ones as the latter have some form of rational or conscious response system in place to deal with their qualia like hunger, arousal etc. They act due to hunger, to alleviate hunger, and this involves consciousness (or I call it rationality, as it involves decisions using a logic fit for responding to the contingencies of sentience like "I'm feeling hungry, therefore I ought to eat") in their toolkit.

I think some care is necessary when talking about consciousness in this context. In evolutionary terms, the self-aware deliberative consciousness that we have is an extension or add-on to more primitive brain structures that support a simpler kind of consciousness, which, in turn, is an extension of more primitive structures still (down to the hind-brain, sometimes called the 'lizard brain').

Neurologically, the basic feelings of hunger, pain, satiation, etc., derive from these lower levels, so degrees or levels of consciousness don't appear to be binary in the way you describe (i.e. either deliberative rationality, or no consciousness at all). It appears to be more a continuum, from simple awareness of feelings and drives, to fully reasoning, deliberative, flexible response.

So alongside physical attraction, and a more mechanical 'drawing towards' they have cognition based attraction and are drawn continued existence emotionally, in feeling etc.

"I love you, I'm now happy to be alive..." etc. etc. etc.

Or as Nietzsche said "Joy wants the eternity of all things, wants deep, wants deep eternity."

I don't think it works that explicitly, except in creatures with high-level self-aware consciousness. Evolution has rigged the reward system to provide temporary pleasure sensations which quickly fade. Most animal expressions of pleasure or joy seem to involve social bonding or rehearsal of crucial skills, e.g. youngsters play-fighting.

 

[sesquiterpene]

IMO attraction is another way of looking at selection and organism. The organism mutates, beneficially, and there is a magnet like force acting on the organism from the natural environment. If another environment were there, other than the one its adapted to (e.g. a fish were put in a forest) then the 'attraction' or selective mechanism which keeps the fish alive would not be there...

Instead there would be "repulsion". The same goes for bad mutants, they are not drawn into continued existence. Deleterious mutations are repulsed.

organism <"repulsion"> environment (...over time)


Definition of attraction (physics): a force under the influence of which objects tend to move towards each other. (source)

organism <"attraction"> environment (...over time)


So over time the fish is drawn to the pond, the amphibian is drawn towards the shore, the pigeon avoids the sea, the beached whale dies etc....

Originally the idea came from my take on ethics. Sometimes (especially when in pain) we are "in flight" from existence.

"Oh, no! I don't want this! It's terrible..."

When in severe pain existence can be repulsive. Note, the euthanasia campaigns etc. are a response to this fact.

In extremis:

"I sometimes wish I were dead!"

At other times we are drawn towards existence, cognitively:

"The food is good too, cutie, so do you fancy a date?"

Another definition of attraction (same source): a quality or feature that evokes interest, liking, or desire.


The rational / irrational distinction comes from the idea that non-conscious entities cant be consciously or ethically rational. Theyre on the purely 'irrational' physical plane. They're attracted but like magnets without a mind.

"Non-conscious machine organisms" differ from conscious ones as the latter have some form of rational or conscious response system in place to deal with their qualia like hunger, arousal etc. They act due to hunger, to alleviate hunger, and this involves consciousness (or I call it rationality, as it involves decisions using a logic fit for responding to the contingencies of sentience like "I'm feeling hungry, therefore I ought to eat") in their toolkit.

So alongside physical attraction, and a more mechanical 'drawing towards' they have cognition based attraction and are drawn continued existence emotionally, in feeling etc.

"You said "Yes"?! I love you, I'm now happy to be alive..." etc. etc. etc.

Or as Nietzsche said "Joy wants the eternity of all things, wants deep, wants deep eternity."

So the irrational replicators do not have "sentient logic" whereas the rationals do.

Why do you feel a need to construct an elaborate analogy for selection? It is a very straightforward idea directly related to the survival of offspring.

An analogy will always carry some excess baggage, and thus can hinder rather than help your understanding of a subject. Attraction, in physics, will usually carry a term for distance - r2, for instance. The equations for selection are much simpler, look up "selection coefficient".

 

[SLP]

What are the conditions for accepting the evidence?

It must be verified/corroborated; empirical; physical.

No bible verses, not tall tales, no stories.

 

[expos4ever]

No, I don't think they are epiphenomenal - my suggestion is that the patterns of neural activity are qualia for the individual in which they occur; IOW qualia are what it is like to have those patterns of activity in your brain.

I find it difficult to see how qualia are patterns of neural activity. So I have trouble with your first sentence. I entirely agree with your second sentence although I believe it clashes with your first (although I may be taking your word choice more literally than you intended).

Perhaps I am splitting hairs but there is, in my view, a big conceptual distinction between saying that qualia are patterns, on the one hand, and saying that qualia are "what it is like" to have those patterns. I will (I think) echo David Chalmers: all third-party models of the world are really fundamentally about structure and function. Here is a quote from Chalmers:

The usual methods of science involve explanation of functional, dynamical, and structural properties—explanation of what a thing does, how it changes over time, and how it is put together.

I would assert it is self-evidently obvious that qualia are a different "kind" of animal - any model of them that is based on structure, function, and dynamics necessarily leaves out the "what it is like-ness" of the qualia we all (presumably) experience.

I suspect you will accuse me of begging the question with my claim that it is self-evident that qualia can not be fully reduced to matters of structure, function, and dynamics. But I don't think I can do any better given the necessarily first-person character of qualia. I cannot, for the life of me, see how one could possibly maintain that an explanation for qualia can be found in terms of structure, function, and dynamics. That is, without leaving the "what it is like-ness" bit out.

But, as stated, I can - and do - buy the argument that qualia are "what is like" to have certain physical processes in the brain.

 

[expos4ever]

I don't agree that qualia are somehow 'fundamental', but I do agree with Chalmers that they won't be directly explicable in terms of atoms and forces, because they're not stuff, they're phenomenal processes, patterns of neural activity.

Again, I am uncertain what you are saying. On the one hand, I agree that qualia are not directly explicable in terms of "atoms and forces". And I agree they are not "stuff". But I am unclear on what you mean by "phenomenal processes" (and I am pretty sure I understand what the word phenomenal means). I think that the furthest we can go is to say that when ABC pattern of neural activity happens, XYZ phenomenology (qualia) are experienced. But that is not the same thing as saying that qualia ARE patterns of neural activity. Do you see what I mean?

Support for an identity between neural activity and qualia comes from neuroscience. One example was demonstrated by Paul Churchland in 2005, involving the activity of colour-opponent neurons in the visual cortex. By modelling the activity of these neurons it's possible to predict the range of colour experiences their activity can provide.

All I think such an experiment shows is that we can use third-party determinations of neuronal activity to predict reported first-person qualia. I see no identity.

The point is, that by modelling neural activity alone, you can predict entirely novel qualia, and experience them by modifying that activity appropriately. This seems to me to be strong support for an identity between specific objective neural activity and specific subjective phenomenal experience. It seems to me that this is the simplest model that fits the data. YMMV.

Again, we agree that neuronal activity predicts qualia - no need for any additional factor in terms of predicting. But I cannot see how that justifies an identity between the two. Perhaps you are using the word "identity" differently than I am.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

I find it difficult to see how qualia are patterns of neural activity. So I have trouble with your first sentence. I entirely agree with your second sentence although I believe it clashes with your first (although I may be taking your word choice more literally than you intended).

My current position is that your consciousness is the interacting patterns of neural activity in your brain. From the outside (i.e. objectively) they're interacting patterns of neural spike trains, from your perspective as the entity involved (i.e. subjectively), those interacting patterns are your thoughts and qualia. Two perspectives of the same physical phenomenon. Nothing else involved. As far as I am aware, that's all that the evidence suggests.

This predicts that every experience, every thought, every sensation will correlate precisely with some specific patterns of activity and will be changed by modifying that activity. Alternative hypotheses that propose that there's something else involved, only need to demonstrate that 'something' to falsify the simple identity hypothesis.

Perhaps I am splitting hairs but there is, in my view, a big conceptual distinction between saying that qualia are patterns, on the one hand, and saying that qualia are "what it is like" to have those patterns.

I don't think it's a meaningful distinction. When the relevant pattern of activity is present, the relevant quale is experienced; when that activity is absent, the quale is absent. The specific pattern of activity is necessary and sufficient for the quale to be experienced. Don't get me wrong, this isn't a localised pattern of activity - to reach conscious awareness, supra-threshold sensory inputs must produce widespread activation of areas all across the cortex, but there will be some consistent characteristics of that activation, traceable to the sensory input, for every quale in the focus of attention, i.e. the 'global workspace'. Having this activity occurring is what we mean by 'what it is like'.

I suspect you will accuse me of begging the question with my claim that it is self-evident that qualia can not be fully reduced to matters of structure, function, and dynamics. But I don't think I can do any better given the necessarily first-person character of qualia. I cannot, for the life of me, see how one could possibly maintain that an explanation for qualia can be found in terms of structure, function, and dynamics. That is, without leaving the "what it is like-ness" bit out.

I quite understand the conceptual difficulty of reconciling the "what it is like-ness" subjectivity of actually being a system that functions in this way, but I'm going with the neurological evidence. I'd love for some novel physics to emerge that would help explain how subjective experience comes about, but I see nothing remotely plausible at present, nor any likelihood of it. Within the existing framework, Tononi's IIT (Integrated Information Theory) is a plausible step towards establishing the requirements for consciousness - integrated information is clearly necessary (but not sufficient, despite their enthusiasm that it should be).

 

[GrowingSmaller]

It must be verified/corroborated; empirical; physical.

No bible verses, not tall tales, no stories.

Ok, I rely on abductive reasoning (inference to the best explanation)....
Abductive reasoning - Wikipedia

We chat about consciousness. We claim we're conscious. We even write books and papers on it. From Mary's Room scenarios, and Zombie thought experiments to ideas about the User Illusion.

Now. Is it more reasonable to suppose that A) consciousness has a causal role in these expressions, or B) that they're due entirely to non-conscious processes.

I go for A. Simply because if consciousness had no causal properties, its difficult to think of why a 'non-conscious engine' (i.e. a brain unaffected by consciousness) would produce these conversations, essays, and books etc. on the nature, properties, and existence of consciousness...

What's your take...

And why?

 

[GrowingSmaller]

It must be verified/corroborated; empirical; physical.

Is actual verification actually not impossible, a priori? I'm not sure.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

You seem keen to view evolution as a teleological process, but it isn't; it's entirely undirected. Evolution has resulted in various 'drives' in creatures - feelings and associated patterns of behaviour that favour survival & reproduction - via a process of elimination.

I'm not a teleologist, excepting that I beleieve that artificial selection can be teleological, for instance. We breed cattle for more beef. We have long term planning skills. We select things for a purpose, including our partners.

I would suggest 'non-rational' is better than 'irrational' here. Irrational typically means contrary to reason (e.g. illogical); non-rational simply implies the absence of reasoning.

Ok, that's fine.

I think some care is necessary when talking about consciousness in this context. In evolutionary terms, the self-aware deliberative consciousness that we have is an extension or add-on to more primitive brain structures that support a simpler kind of consciousness, which, in turn, is an extension of more primitive structures still (down to the hind-brain, sometimes called the 'lizard brain').

Ok.

Neurologically, the basic feelings of hunger, pain, satiation, etc., derive from these lower levels, so degrees or levels of consciousness don't appear to be binary in the way you describe (i.e. either deliberative rationality, or no consciousness at all). It appears to be more a continuum, from simple awareness of feelings and drives, to fully reasoning, deliberative, flexible response.

I suppose also that in terms of "rarionality" there may also be non-conscious gene computaitons in plants for instance, that create growth (or "ontogenesis") towards light, just as taxis in animals makes them move towards light, or shade, or dampness etc.

I don't think it works that explicitly, except in creatures with high-level self-aware consciousness. Evolution has rigged the reward system to provide temporary pleasure sensations which quickly fade. Most animal expressions of pleasure or joy seem to involve social bonding or rehearsal of crucial skills, e.g. youngsters play-fighting.

That Nietzsche quote was just an example. There are in the history of ethics myriad examples of people valuing things because they are not only subjectively attractive (like pleasure, happiness, flourishing) but they also serve an evolutionary purpose (pursuing these emotions and states intelligently tend to be linked to survival and better replication chances)...

Ok, no news there.

But seeing them as forms of attraction seems to me to be a stunning coincidence. Because, were attracted physically, and this process over time causes us to have the brains which allow us to be attracted consciously.

Ok we have equations for natural selection. I've read a book on evolutionary ecology which has some basics. However, also, to add some authority, in a book "The Web of Life" F Capra (iirc) says life forms or living systems are strange attractors.

Now, I'm happy see a non-conscious life form as a strange or chaotic attractor. But viewing myself that way, no. Its existential headache territory.

Replicating organism, random mutations, natural selection - they don't seem to be able to capture selfhood. Existence. Folk psychology.

If I say "Hedonism - with the love of healthy pleasures - results from replication, mutation and selection..."

and compare it to

"Hedonism - with its love of healthy pleasures - is a form of attraction to existence" the latter wins!

Likewise with Aristiotle's idea of flourishing.

Or even Plato's aristocratic ethics, perhaps.

Or Utilitarianism.

Even in the hundu shastras there is sat-chit-ananda (meaning: being consciousness and bliss) which is the state of a realised soul, and to some degree part of everyone's spiritual nature accept it or deny it. So its similar again.


So, maybe consciousness and ethics are like self-similar aspects of life. Life at a physical level is "attraction to the universe" and ethics is also in some way "attraction to the universe" but at a different order of magnitude / level of analysis.

The lens of "Darwinian terminology" clouds things at that level of magnitude, for me at least...

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

I'm not a teleologist, excepting that I beleieve that artificial selection can be teleological, for instance. We breed cattle for more beef. We have long term planning skills. We select things for a purpose, including our partners.

What is a 'teleologist' - someone who does everything with a purpose?

Artificial selection is teleological pretty much by definition.

I suppose also that in terms of "rarionality" there may also be non-conscious gene computaitons in plants for instance, that create growth (or "ontogenesis") towards light, just as taxis in animals makes them move towards light, or shade, or dampness etc.

How can something non-conscious be rational in its actions? That contradicts your last post: "Non-conscious machine organisms" differ from conscious ones as the latter have some form of rational or conscious response system..."

There are in the history of ethics myriad examples of people valuing things because they are not only subjectively attractive (like pleasure, happiness, flourishing) but they also serve an evolutionary purpose (pursuing these emotions and states intelligently tend to be linked to survival and better replication chances)...

But seeing them as forms of attraction seems to me to be a stunning coincidence. Because, were attracted physically, and this process over time causes us to have the brains which allow us to be attracted consciously.

Ok we have equations for natural selection. I've read a book on evolutionary ecology which has some basics. However, also, to add some authority, in a book "The Web of Life" F Capra (iirc) says life forms or living systems are strange attractors.

Now, I'm happy see a non-conscious life form as a strange or chaotic attractor. But viewing myself that way, no. Its existential headache territory.

I don't know where you're getting all this from, and I don't know what you think it means...

'Attraction' is a word used in many unrelated contexts - the attraction of a physical force, the attraction of a strange or chaotic attractor, and interpersonal attraction are very different things; equivocating those uses will only cause confusion. That the same word is used for different things in different circumstances is not a 'stunning coincidence'.

Fritjof Capra's point was that fractals and attractors are visual descriptions of the complex dynamics of living things and living systems, e.g. ecosystems.

Replicating organism, random mutations, natural selection - they don't seem to be able to capture selfhood. Existence. Folk psychology.

If I say "Hedonism - with the love of healthy pleasures - results from replication, mutation and selection..."

and compare it to

"Hedonism - with its love of healthy pleasures - is a form of attraction to existence" the latter wins!

Likewise with Aristiotle's idea of flourishing.

Or even Plato's aristocratic ethics, perhaps.

Or Utilitarianism.

Even in the hundu shastras there is sat-chit-ananda (meaning: being consciousness and bliss) which is the state of a realised soul, and to some degree part of everyone's spiritual nature accept it or deny it. So its similar again.

So, maybe consciousness and ethics are like self-similar aspects of life. Life at a physical level is "attraction to the universe" and ethics is also in some way "attraction to the universe" but at a different order of magnitude / level of analysis.

The lens of "Darwinian terminology" clouds things at that level of magnitude, for me at least...

OK... to me that reads like a daydream stream of consciousness. Let me know when you have something coherent.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

What is a 'teleologist' - someone who does everything with a purpose?

Artificial selection is teleological pretty much by definition.

ok.

How can something non-conscious be rational in its actions? That contradicts your last post: "Non-conscious machine organisms" differ from conscious ones as the latter have some form of rational or conscious response system..."

Ok, peace, I thought you were intruducing the idea of a progressive set of adaptattions, some more raitonal than others.

I don't know where you're getting all this from, and I don't know what you think it means...

'Attraction' is a word used in many unrelated contexts - the attraction of a physical force, the attraction of a strange or chaotic attractor, and interpersonal attraction are very different things; equivocating those uses will only cause confusion. That the same word is used for different things in different circumstances is not a 'stunning coincidence'.

To return to an earlier point you made, and asked about the environment is a force(s).

So, because of natural forces (wind, rain etc), or IOW at a more fundamental level the forces of physics (electromagnetism, nuclear forces etc.) acting on an life form...

And also because of mutation / variance, it evolves.

Now, then, as a physicalist you might go along with the idea that there is attraction to an environment. Physically. If not why not? Its not teleology, it stems from definitions and observations....


Because:

Now in science, attraction is: a force under the influence of which objects tend to move towards each other...

Over time (t) a force (or, collectively: natural forces - is that ok?) act on a replicator (life form) which physical complex tends to bring the objects closer together or at least equidistant (the life form has a direction in space-time, due to the action of the "natural forces" on the "variant replicator" . Which takes it - or attracts it - towards its niche).

Its evolution, just another way of stating things. Why not?

If the diagram had 2 red lines, travelling together, then that would basically represent organism and niche. Being connected via attractive force (natural selection on life form's world line, joining it to a ecological world line) in the absence of which attraction the connection would be lost (eg. extinction, or migration to a new habitat).

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

But I am unclear on what you mean by "phenomenal processes" (and I am pretty sure I understand what the word phenomenal means).

It just means processes to do with experience; literally, concerned with or about phenomena.

I think that the furthest we can go is to say that when ABC pattern of neural activity happens, XYZ phenomenology (qualia) are experienced. But that is not the same thing as saying that qualia ARE patterns of neural activity. Do you see what I mean?

Yes, you're saying we can only say there is a correlation between them. I'm simply proposing that the correlation is apparent because all your subjective mental experiences are what we describe objectively as patterns of neural activity. They are two different descriptions of the same phenomena. When you say you're seeing a particular red colour, that's a subjective description of what is objectively observable as particular patterns of neural activity in your brain.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Ok, peace, I thought you were intruducing the idea of a progressive set of adaptattions, some more raitonal than others.

Evolution is a progressive set of adaptations, but there's no rationality involved, no reasoning.

To return to an earlier point you made, and asked about the environment is a force(s).

So, because of natural forces (wind, rain etc), or IOW at a more fundamental level the forces of physics (electromagnetism, nuclear forces etc.) acting on an life form...

And also because of mutation / variance, it evolves.

Now, then, as a physicalist you might go along with the idea that there is attraction to an environment. Physically. If not why not? Its not teleology, it stems from definitions and observations....

No, I wouldn't call it an attraction because it's not a particularly apt or useful description; it implies a particular direction for success in each environment, which isn't the case. There is a better term for it, 'selection pressure'. You might say that particular types of environment are attractors for particular classes of morphological or behavioural solutions, e.g. the physics of each environment leads to similar solutions for moving fast through it, but that's an indirect effect - in all environments, there are many different solutions to reproductive success.

Over time (t) a force (or, collectively: natural forces - is that ok?) act on a replicator (life form) which physical complex tends to bring the objects closer together or at least equidistant (the life form has a direction in space-time, due to the action of the "natural forces" on the "variant replicator" . Which takes it - or attracts it - towards its niche).

Its evolution, just another way of stating things. Why not?

Because it's not particularly useful - different forms of life will have different ways of exploiting particular environments, and may establish niches through competition and cooperation, i.e. niche segregation. Evolutionary niches are ecological roles that typically co-evolve with the ecosystem. Life moulds niches as much as niches mould life.

When developing models of the world you need to ask how much explanatory and predictive power they have; how useful are they?

 

[xianghua]

Why should we believe this guy over experts trained in biology?

first: the majority of biologists believe in higer power. second: if we have evidence then even a single scientist should be enough. and since we have evidence for design (see my signature link for instance) we need to conclude design.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

Evolution is a progressive set of adaptations, but there's no rationality involved, no reasoning.

Objectively, for science, that's true. There is no "guiding hand"..

But subjectively for the organism, that often false. Humans for instance are rational creatures, and this capacity is an adaptation.

No, I wouldn't call it an attraction because it's not a particularly apt or useful description; it implies a particular direction for success in each environment, which isn't the case. There is a better term for it, 'selection pressure'. You might say that particular types of environment are attractors for particular classes of morphological or behavioural solutions, e.g. the physics of each environment leads to similar solutions for moving fast through it, but that's an indirect effect - in all environments, there are many different solutions to reproductive success.

Ok, but IF you see the environment as an attractor. Not a conscious, deliberative one, but merely physical. Not even a fancy Lorenz one.

Lets use the example of nutrients in a sea vent situation.

Then, aren't certain classes of microbes going to be attracted to it? And if early life developed there, then isn't "replicator-environment attraction" terminology just another way of viewing "replicator-natural selection"?

Its not a conscious pull or tug on the part of the environment, but a set of natural forces which "drag" the "replicating molecules" along a certain world line in line with the habitat.

I've tried to google 'Minkowski diagram + ecology world line' but no one seems to be using them.

Because it's not particularly useful - different forms of life will have different ways of exploiting particular environments, and may establish niches through competition and cooperation, i.e. niche segregation. Evolutionary niches are ecological roles that typically co-evolve with the ecosystem. Life moulds niches as much as niches mould life.

When developing models of the world you need to ask how much explanatory and predictive power they have; how useful are they?

If an extremophile could be asked, which type of habitat do you like, wouldn't it like (be consciously attracted to) e.g. a deep sea vent?

If you had a choice of habitat, which would you be attracted to - heaven or hell? See next paragraph, but if an extreme thermophile ( Thermophile - Wikipedia ) could "choose a heaven" it would probably not be Islamic. What good are so many too cool rivers to a such microbe? So, some basic insights into religion may come from evolutionary theory.

Can't we use the argument "Mind is an adaptation, adaptations function to attract to certain habitats, therefore we ought to expect some habitat preferences (subjective liking, attraction etc.) to be expressed in mind?" as a valid basis for study???


Is seems too much of a coincidence to me that e.g. taxis (movement towards a stimulus) in animals thought to be aware e.g. a cockroach looking for dark and damp places, IIRC. has developed through a process of natural selection (or attraction.) And the insect selects it (or is attracted to it, i.e. the roach to a dark and damp place) because of natural forces.

As a world line to travel along...


Its like a symmetry. There is selective pressure on the organism (emanating from a certain habitat) which leads to the selection of that habitat by the organism. Given a evolving choice, its attracted to the conditions which keep it alive.



In microbial language:

"If you select me, then I select you...

If you attract me, then I'm attracted to you...."

 

[SLP]

Ok, I rely on abductive reasoning (inference to the best explanation)....
Abductive reasoning - Wikipedia

Ok, that works for me.
But you have to actually have evidence to work with.

So, what is your evidence?

We chat about consciousness. We claim we're conscious. We even write books and papers on it. From Mary's Room scenarios, and Zombie thought experiments to ideas about the User Illusion.

Evidence?

Now. Is it more reasonable to suppose that A) consciousness has a causal role in these expressions, or B) that they're due entirely to non-conscious processes.

I would need more data/evidence from which to abduct.

Where is it?

I go for A. Simply because if consciousness had no causal properties, its difficult to think of why a 'non-conscious engine' (i.e. a brain unaffected by consciousness) would produce these conversations, essays, and books etc. on the nature, properties, and existence of consciousness...

What's your take...

My take is that you are arguing from feelings, not evidence.

And why?

Because you present no data or evidence.

Me?
I don't really have an opinion because I do not know enough about the topic. I am just curious as to the foundations of the certainty of supernaturalists for their largely evidence-free positions.

 

[SLP]

Is actual verification actually not impossible, a priori? I'm not sure.

I don't know.

But I do not find rhetorical arguments or fallacious arguments to be convincing.

 

[SLP]

first: the majority of biologists believe in higer power. second: if we have evidence then even a single scientist should be enough. and since we have evidence for design (see my signature link for instance) we need to conclude design.

Yes - human design.

Is it your position that:

A. Analogies to human design are evidence for non-human design
or
B. Humans designed humans

?