It's time to stop being afraid of ridicule

[The Barbarian]

But surely the belief that God was involved does imply that there should be some design and teleology found in evolution which changes the assumptions about how evolution works and therefore should be reflected in a different ontology, epistemics and paradygm.

The thing is, science is too weak a method for metaphysics. I mean "metaphysics" in the precise sense, the rules by which the rules of the universe were made. You're looking for faith or philosophy. A pretty bright IDer suggests something like this. Michael Denton, in Nature's Destiny, proposes a teleology that made this world precisely right for living things including man to evolve. But he points out that such a view is diametrically opposed to special creationism.

I don't think he's a theist at all, so the reasoning of St. Thomas Aquinas probably wouldn't sway him. But I think it's worth considering for anyone who believes in an omnipotent Creator:

The effect of divine providence is not only that things should happen somehow, but that they should happen either by necessity or by contingency. Therefore, whatsoever divine providence ordains to happen infallibly and of necessity happens infallibly and of necessity; and that happens from contingency, which the divine providence conceives to happen from contingency.
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae

IMO, God is more competent than Michael Denton thinks such a being could be.

 

[Jipsah]

There's no such thing as theistic evolution.

Wrong right out the gate.

There's either evolutionary theory or intelligent design.

Not at all mutually exclusive. You're simply saying that there are things that God could not have done in the course of the Creation. As have often stated, any idea that includes the notion that God is somehow unable to anything He so desires is simple rubbish. If God wanted/wants to use evolution as part of His design of creation,He both can and will.

Because they are opposing theories

They're not.

Evolutionary theory is an explanation for how life came to be what it is through natural, unguided processes.

That's a materialistic viewpoint. The idea that God used evolution as a part of Creation is the theistic one.

So you've huing your entire argument on one big honking fallacy, based on a "God can't" premise. That renders it DOA.

No guidance. No plan. No creator.

Intelligent design is exactly as the name says. An intelligent, purposeful mind is the explanation.

As long as God follows the rules that your doctrine lays down for Him.

Even if you believe God could have coded a program to cause evolutionary change

Very big of you to grant to God, even hypothetically, the ability to have used other methods than a stern look and a loud voice to bring about His Creation.

over billions of years, that is still not evolution.

Word gaming here."It ain't Evolution if God did it." Fail.

That is intelligent design. But, listening to the way people talk, I get the feeling that they call it theistic evolution because it's safer than calling it intelligent design.

Rubbish.

I had an atheist tell me that he genuinely believed it was not only okay, but good, to ridicule Christians because reasoned arguments just don't work on them.

If you used your silly sophistries on the atheist you were unintentionally supporting his opinion.

The ridicule is like being cruel to be kind.

Who cares? If the atheist has to resort to school yard nyah-nyah to support their ill-considered opinions, I've already won, whether the atheist has the smarts to know it or not.

To quote Captain Fluellen from Henry V:
If the enemy is an ass and a fool and a prating
coxcomb, is it meet, think you, that we should also,
look you, be an ass and a fool and a prating
coxcomb, in your own conscience now?

 

[stevevw]

Turns out it's just random mutations and natural selection. The "other factors" are the way God created the world to make it so. If you like, you could use the thought that some IDers use; "designer front-loaded the rules of the universe to make this stuff happen."

Then that wouldn't be random. I don't think God played dice with creation. If it were random then our existence may or may not have happened. It would be just luck that we came about.

Which developed by random mutation and natural selection. Would you like some examples?

OK. I can also give an example that doesn't seem to be the result of random mutations. Random mutations is not the only way variation happens. For example plasticity can bring about variation without gene change at all. Niche construction can bring variation that has been directed by a creatures own choices similar to artificial selection where specific traits (not random) are engineered by a dog breeder for example.

Extra genetic variation (epigenetics) can bring about variation due to the particular behaviours creatures engage in. Developmental bias will produce non random variation due to developmental processes that produce specific changes that are well suited and adaptive rather than any random variation. Meaning natural selection isn't working on any random variation but on specific ones that NS just releases.

The key to understanding why lizards lose particular toes is found in the way that lizard embryos develop toes in the first place. A bud sprouts off the side of the body, and then five digits emerge. But the toes always appear in the same sequence. And when lizards lose their toes through evolution, they lose them in the reverse order. Müller suspects this constraint is because mutations can’t create every possible variation. Some combinations of toes are thus off-limits, and natural selection can never select them in the first place.

Smartweed plants adjust the size of their leaves to the amount of sunlight they get. In bright light, the plants grow narrow, thick leaves, but in low light, the leaves become broad and thin. In dry soil, the plants send roots down deep in search of water, while in flood soil, they grow shallow hairlike roots that that stay near the surface. Plasticity — can itself help drive evolution. It allows plants to spread into a range of habitats, for example, where natural selection can then adapt their genes.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/scientists-seek-to-update-evolution-20161122/

For tens, perhaps hundreds, of the cichlid species in Lake Malawi, there exists an independently evolved, ‘duplicate’ species in Lake Tanganyika, with a strikingly similar body shape and way of feeding. Such likenesses are usually explained through convergent evolution: random genetic variation has bubbled up as usual, but similar environmental conditions have selected the genes to produce equivalent results. The way that organisms grow and develop might limit which traits arise, but the variation itself is assumed to be essentially random.

However, the extraordinary level of parallel evolution seen in these two lakes suggests that something else might be going on. What if some ways of building a fish are just more probable than others? What if trait variation skews towards certain solutions? Selection would still be part of the explanation, but parallel evolution would be much more likely.

Cheek teeth (molars) in mammals provide some of the most convincing data for bias. Studies show that it’s possible to use a mathematical model, based on laboratory mice, to predict the size and number of teeth in a sample of 29 other rodent species. Rather than being free to make any shape or number of teeth, it appears that natural selection is pushing species along a highly specific pathway created by the mechanisms of development. https://aeon.co/essays/science-in-flux-is-a-revolution-brewing-in-evolutionary-theory

Darwin's discovery was that it was random mutation and natural selection. But if you have something specific to add to it, I'd like to hear about it.

Now it seems there are additional sources of variation besides random mutations and natural selection is not the only way variation is selected. In fact some variation bypasses NS or would not have been selected by NS as adaptive and still was beneficial and heritable.

Apart from the above examples here is some info on these processes.

Like artificial selection, niche construction reliably generates consistent features in selective environments, whereas there is frequent unpredictability and local contingency of natural selection in other natural populations. Unlike artificial selection, diverse living organisms rather than humans produce the evolutionary bias, but unlike natural selection stemming from non-constructed environments, here there is feedback from the organisms' niche-constructing activities and the environment, which stabilizes environmental states, and hence stabilizes the strength and direction of natural selection.
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsfs.2016.0147

The Third Way has a similar view to the EES.
The DNA record does not support the assertion that small random mutations are the main source of new and useful variations. We now know that the many different processes of variation involve well regulated cell action on DNA molecules. Genomes merge, shrink and grow, acquire new DNA components, and modify their structures by well-documented cellular and biochemical processes.
https://www.thethirdwayofevolution.com/

Specific adaptive phenotypes generated need not be the direct targets of past selection, but may be the expression of the more general ability of developmental processes to accommodate novel inputs adaptively, thereby enabling functionally integrated responses to a broad range of conditions [27,34]. Moreover, through niche construction, environments can be changed by organisms to benefit themselves.
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2015.1019

Perhaps you should read Adrian Bejean's Design in Nature. What you're suggesting relates to the Constructal Law.

Amazon.com

I will thanks. Sounds similar to what I have linked especially the EES.

 

[stevevw]

The thing is, science is too weak a method for metaphysics. I mean "metaphysics" in the precise sense, the rules by which the rules of the universe were made. You're looking for faith or philosophy. A pretty bright IDer suggests something like this. Michael Denton, in Nature's Destiny, proposes a teleology that made this world precisely right for living things including man to evolve. But he points out that such a view is diametrically opposed to special creationism.

It does and it doesn't I think. I think we should expect if we are honest to find Gods finger prints all over His creation across all areas of seeing the world biologically, psychologically, archeologically, in physics and cosmology.

Much of the language in evolution implies teleology its just assumed to be naturalistic in the sense that the creative ability is being attributed to creation or the powers of nature itself. So really much of the evdience can be evidence for creation and design in reality. Naturalistic explanations just attribute that design to non designed causes. But there's not really any justification for that. Its just assumed.

Heres a link for explaining how teleology can be found in evolution.
Evolutionary Teleonomy as a Unifying Principle for the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321339258_Evolutionary_Teleonomy_as_a_Unifying_Principle_for_the_Extended_Evolutionary_Synthesis

I don't think he's a theist at all, so the reasoning of St. Thomas Aquinas probably wouldn't sway him. But I think it's worth considering for anyone who believes in an omnipotent Creator:

The effect of divine providence is not only that things should happen somehow, but that they should happen either by necessity or by contingency. Therefore, whatsoever divine providence ordains to happen infallibly and of necessity happens infallibly and of necessity; and that happens from contingency, which the divine providence conceives to happen from contingency.
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae

IMO, God is more competent than Michael Denton thinks such a being could be.

Yes I agree. I mean what does supernatural mean. I think we can get lost in the trees without seeing the forest. To me planets somehow floating in infinite space is sort of supernatural when you think about it. What is gravity and dark matter for that matter (pun intended) that some invisible force is keeping celestial bodies in motion in such an orderly way.

You can give all the explanations for how that happens but it doesn't explain how that happens because explanations alone don't explain the nature of how this can happen in the first place.

I like what Dr Lennox said when debating Professor Atkins to summarize was explaining just how math can come tumbling out of nothing with the invention of integers so can we imagine something (universe) coming tumbling out of the void (absolute nothing).

Lennox mentions that Scientific explanations don't create anything and maths doesn't just come tumbling out of nothing. As he mentions 2 + 2 never put $4 in his pocket and it takes a creative mind to have a universe made of math rather than come from absolutely nothing.

 

[The Barbarian]

It does and it doesn't I think. I think we should expect if we are honest to find Gods finger prints all over His creation across all areas of seeing the world biologically, psychologically, archeologically, in physics and cosmology.

Much of the language in evolution implies teleology its just assumed to be naturalistic in the sense that the creative ability is being attributed to creation or the powers of nature itself. So really much of the evdience can be evidence for creation and design in reality. Naturalistic explanations just attribute that design to non designed causes. But there's not really any justification for that. Its just assumed.

Perhaps you're familiar with The Evolution of Vertebrate Design, by Leonard Radinsky, or Design in Nature by Adrian Bejean, both of whom used that sense of "design" in their books, without attributing it directly to any sentient process.

Heres a link for explaining how teleology can be found in evolution.
Evolutionary Teleonomy as a Unifying Principle for the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis
https://www.researchgate.net/public...ciple_for_the_Extended_Evolutionary_Synthesis

I'll get a copy of that. Sounds interesting. To me, the teleological process was making a universe in which such things would appear by natural processes.

 

[The Barbarian]

OK. I can also give an example that doesn't seem to be the result of random mutations. Random mutations is not the only way variation happens. For example plasticity can bring about variation without gene change at all.

But of course variation and evolution are not the same things. Two identical twins may vary in skin color because one is exposed to more sunlight. That's plasticity, but not evolution. And there is epigenetic change, in which the effects of the environment may change phenotypes for a few generations.

Then that wouldn't be random. I don't think God played dice with creation. If it were random then our existence may or may not have happened. It would be just luck that we came about.

As I mentioned elsewhere, An omnipotent being could use contingency to His purposes as easily as He might use necessity.

Niche construction can bring variation that has been directed by a creatures own choices similar to artificial selection where specific traits (not random) are engineered by a dog breeder for example.

Some species of trees drop leaves that decay and leave acids that leach nutrients deeper in the soil where other plants can't get them as easily as the trees can. Lots of that. And of course, dog breeders have always depended on random mutations to change breeds. It's where Darwin got his realization that it works naturally, too.

The key to understanding why lizards lose particular toes is found in the way that lizard embryos develop toes in the first place. A bud sprouts off the side of the body, and then five digits emerge. But the toes always appear in the same sequence. And when lizards lose their toes through evolution, they lose them in the reverse order. Müller suspects this constraint is because mutations can’t create every possible variation. Some combinations of toes are thus off-limits, and natural selection can never select them in the first place.

Smartweed plants adjust the size of their leaves to the amount of sunlight they get. In bright light, the plants grow narrow, thick leaves, but in low light, the leaves become broad and thin. In dry soil, the plants send roots down deep in search of water, while in flood soil, they grow shallow hairlike roots that that stay near the surface. Plasticity — can itself help drive evolution. It allows plants to spread into a range of habitats, for example, where natural selection can then adapt their genes.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/scientists-seek-to-update-evolution-20161122/

For tens, perhaps hundreds, of the cichlid species in Lake Malawi, there exists an independently evolved, ‘duplicate’ species in Lake Tanganyika, with a strikingly similar body shape and way of feeding. Such likenesses are usually explained through convergent evolution: random genetic variation has bubbled up as usual, but similar environmental conditions have selected the genes to produce equivalent results. The way that organisms grow and develop might limit which traits arise, but the variation itself is assumed to be essentially random.

However, the extraordinary level of parallel evolution seen in these two lakes suggests that something else might be going on. What if some ways of building a fish are just more probable than others? What if trait variation skews towards certain solutions? Selection would still be part of the explanation, but parallel evolution would be much more likely.

Cheek teeth (molars) in mammals provide some of the most convincing data for bias. Studies show that it’s possible to use a mathematical model, based on laboratory mice, to predict the size and number of teeth in a sample of 29 other rodent species. Rather than being free to make any shape or number of teeth, it appears that natural selection is pushing species along a highly specific pathway created by the mechanisms of development. https://aeon.co/essays/science-in-flux-is-a-revolution-brewing-in-evolutionary-theory

Yes. Evo-devo has a lot of these. One of the dinosaur/bird issues was which digits were actually lost in the formation of wings. Ornithologist Alan Feduccia was particularly insistent that this showed dinosaurs were a sister taxon of birds, not the ancestors of birds. Apparently, the issue is now resolved, and birds really are dinosaurs:

Insights into bird wing evolution and digit specification from polarizing region fate maps​

Insights into bird wing evolution and digit specification from polarizing region fate maps - Nature Communications

Bird wings resemble the digits on the hands of dinosaurs, but which digit positions gave rise to those seen in modern birds is still unclear. In this work, long-term fate maps of the chick wing polarizing region are presented, supporting fossil data that birds descended from theropods that had...

www.nature.com

 

[stevevw]

But of course variation and evolution are not the same things. Two identical twins may vary in skin color because one is exposed to more sunlight. That's plasticity, but not evolution. And there is epigenetic change, in which the effects of the environment may change phenotypes for a few generations.

Plasticity can lead to evolution as the plastic variations can later be cemented by genes. First comes the variation due to environmental conditions and pressures on the body affecting cells and tissues which may or may not be adaptively beneficial but simply due the body's ability to be shaped and reshaped by the conditions it's subject to.

A plant in shade will develop wider and thicker leaves as opposed to the same plant in sunny conditions having thinner leaves. Two complertely differnt shaped plants which could be mistaken for different species being shaped by their surroundings. Or how some insects have different colours depending on season to better camoflauge themselves.

Instead of phenotypes being randomly changed to suit environments, creatures bodies and the environment are connected and work together to shape and change bodies to suit environments. In this sense its not so random and blind but rather guided towards adaptive and beneficial changes that suit the particular creature and its environment.

This may account for the vast amount of comnvergent evolution we see in that many different species having similar body shapes due to similar conditions. Thus these conditions don't produce any random shape but direct evolution along specific shapes that are more predictable and therefore guided.

As I mentioned elsewhere, An omnipotent being could use contingency to His purposes as easily as He might use necessity.

Yes thats true. But it seems an amazing conincident that the contingency so often sems to fit and work towards a particular end. I think its more a case that Gods creation was good and if anything changes to the status quo is detremental rather than positive. Thats why I guess most mutations are an error and that adpative beneficial change is not just random but directed towards helping life live on the planet and with each other.

Some species of trees drop leaves that decay and leave acids that leach nutrients deeper in the soil where other plants can't get them as easily as the trees can. Lots of that. And of course, dog breeders have always depended on random mutations to change breeds. It's where Darwin got his realization that it works naturally, too.

But is it random changes. It seems to be breeders are choosing particular genes to produce particular traits rather than leave it to chance. Let alone more high level manipulation such as CRISPR.

Yes. Evo-devo has a lot of these. One of the dinosaur/bird issues was which digits were actually lost in the formation of wings. Ornithologist Alan Feduccia was particularly insistent that this showed dinosaurs were a sister taxon of birds, not the ancestors of birds. Apparently, the issue is now resolved, and birds really are dinosaurs:

Insights into bird wing evolution and digit specification from polarizing region fate maps​

Insights into bird wing evolution and digit specification from polarizing region fate maps - Nature Communications

Bird wings resemble the digits on the hands of dinosaurs, but which digit positions gave rise to those seen in modern birds is still unclear. In this work, long-term fate maps of the chick wing polarizing region are presented, supporting fossil data that birds descended from theropods that had...

www.nature.com

Yes I also read somewhere but I can't find it now where they showed how in fish there is a trigger that switches on the development of limbs when they are subject to terrestrial conditions.

Experiements with flies show they can manipulate control genes that can develop extra sets of wings and eyes on the back of flies. So it seems sudden big changes can happen through the switching on and off of control genes which are similar throughout all body plans and may explain the Cambrian period and how most of evolution is in stasis in the fossil records with punctuated periods of rapid change.

 

[stevevw]

Perhaps you're familiar with The Evolution of Vertebrate Design, by Leonard Radinsky, or Design in Nature by Adrian Bejean, both of whom used that sense of "design" in their books, without attributing it directly to any sentient process.


I'll get a copy of that. Sounds interesting. To me, the teleological process was making a universe in which such things would appear by natural processes.

I think in the early days before evolution and even afterwards at first a lot of the language was teleologically based and some didn't like the implications for creation. So they came up with the idea that creatures can be programmed to seek some purpose and ends which sort of attributed the teleology to genetic programming rather than them having any agency.

This was all part of dumbing down the ability of living things especially the more intelliegnt beings to have some say and control over reality whether that be in evolution, psychology or physics. Creatures were just passive organic robots determined by mechanical forces.

But as we have seen in recent times with quantum physics and the behavioural aspects of evolution that there is a lot the classical view of the world can't explain about behaviour, agency and consciousness.

 

[The Barbarian]

I think in the early days before evolution and even afterwards at first a lot of the language was teleologically based and some didn't like the implications for creation. So they came up with the idea that creatures can be programmed to seek some purpose and ends which sort of attributed the teleology to genetic programming rather than them having any agency.

This falls into the realm of psychology, more than biological evolution. The big conflict in my day was between behaviorism ("it's all stimulus and response") advocated by B.F. Skinner and ethology ("behavior is innate") advocated by people like Konrad Lorenz. I love animals; always have, and Lorenz seems to me to best describe what we actually see in animal behavior. Have you read King Solomon's Ring? Animals have minds and consciousness, and they are capable of what we thing of as human emotions.

I don't pretend to understand consciousness. I only observe it in myself and others. Have you read The Mind's I by Douglas Hoffstader?

 

[The Barbarian]

A plant in shade will develop wider and thicker leaves as opposed to the same plant in sunny conditions having thinner leaves. Two complertely differnt shaped plants which could be mistaken for different species being shaped by their surroundings. Or how some insects have different colours depending on season to better camoflauge themselves.

Environment-determined pleomorphism is more common in plants and prokaryotes than in animals but it does happen in some cases. I know that a number of plants have different morphs depending on the altitude at which they grow.

Yes I also read somewhere but I can't find it now where they showed how in fish there is a trigger that switches on the development of limbs when they are subject to terrestrial conditions.

I've heard of this, but didn't have time to look at it then. (Barbarian checks) ah...

Cell 2021

Feb 18;184(4):899-911.e13

Latent developmental potential to form limb-like skeletal structures in zebrafish ​

Abstract ​

Changes in appendage structure underlie key transitions in vertebrate evolution. Addition of skeletal elements along the proximal-distal axis facilitated critical transformations, including the fin-to-limb transition that permitted generation of diverse modes of locomotion. Here, we identify zebrafish mutants that form supernumerary long bones in their pectoral fins. These new bones integrate into musculature, form joints, and articulate with neighboring elements. This phenotype is caused by activating mutations in previously unrecognized regulators of appendage patterning, vav2 and waslb, that function in a common pathway. This pathway is required for appendage development across vertebrates, and loss of Wasl in mice causes defects similar to those seen in murine Hox mutants. Concordantly, formation of supernumerary bones requires Hox11 function, and mutations in the vav2/wasl pathway drive enhanced expression of hoxa11b, indicating developmental homology with the forearm. Our findings reveal a latent, limb-like pattern ability in fins that is activated by simple genetic perturbation.

From a different site:

https://th-thumbnailer.cdn-si-edu.com/dkbab5pCUoARS0BiDdIkTlh9KT4=/fit-in/1072x0/filters:focal(1318x350:1319x351)/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer/6d/fa/6dfac882-b7e6-4402-81a2-ce19e4854075/254724_web.jpg

Experiements with flies show they can manipulate control genes that can develop extra sets of wings and eyes on the back of flies.

Arthropods are much different than chordates. For them the modification of body segments is much more compartmentalized, although segments can be combined to form larger structures called tagmata. The heads of insects are an example. Mandibles, pedipalps, and antennae are all modified legs, each on separate body segments that have been joined by tagmosis.

 

[stevevw]

This falls into the realm of psychology, more than biological evolution.

Or maybe epistemology and philosophy as well. I think psychology has been a bit of a hard problem for the Evolution, fitting it in that is and explaining behaviour and its role. Its usually relegated to the background as a product of genes or genes being the ultimate cause.

The big conflict in my day was between behaviorism ("it's all stimulus and response") advocated by B.F. Skinner and ethology ("behavior is innate") advocated by people like Konrad Lorenz. I love animals; always have, and Lorenz seems to me to best describe what we actually see in animal behavior. Have you read King Solomon's Ring? Animals have minds and consciousness, and they are capable of what we thing of as human emotions.

No I have'nt read them but they sound interesting and my kind of reading. The thing I find interesting is that agency and behaviour, intentions, motivations and choices can be understood in all the disciplines. Its soemthing all the disciplines have to address. How a conscious being can influence reality.

I think behaviouralism still influences thinking. Certainly in the Humanities where human nature is a social construction. But also I think in evolution where theres a tendency to overlook and even undermine agency, consciousness and free will. Where behaviour is the result of chemical reactions.

I don't pretend to understand consciousness. I only observe it in myself and others. Have you read The Mind's I by Douglas Hoffstader?

No but I have read some of Hoffstader's work as I see his name pop uo quite often. I have read mainly David Chalmers but I like his stuff on phenomenology and epistemology.

The Content and Epistemology of Phenomenal Belief

 

[The Barbarian]

But also I think in evolution where theres a tendency to overlook and even undermine agency, consciousness and free will.

Ethology is certainly increasing in influence at the expense of behaviorism. The evidence that organisms push back against their environments is a clue, but that can be interpreted behaviorally.

I guess the key is in the fact that we can look at behavior as stimulus and response in most cases, but we are seeing consciousness and agency in more and more living things. Crows, for example, not only know things, but are also aware of what they know and don't know. Chimpanzees and elephants (and probably lots of other animals) are capable of inferring mental states in others.

Cognitive scientist Paul Thagard:

Paul Thagard Ph.D.

Paul Thagard, Ph.D., is a Canadian philosopher and cognitive scientist. His latest book, published by Columbia University Press, is Falsehoods Fly: Why Misinformation Spreads and How to Stop It.

www.psychologytoday.com

has proposed an alternative to panpsychism he calls "panlifism" to suggest that consciousness is a property of all living systems.
But if I'm on the right track, then we don't need to extend attribution of consciousness all the way down to every bit the universe. Consciousness is an emergent property of special kinds of complex systems, namely large groups of neurons. Perhaps, consciousness might also turn out to be a property of other kinds of extremely complex systems, for example ones that operate in computers. But if computers ever turn out to be conscious, I suspect that it will result from having approximate analogs of the three kinds of mechanisms that I think make consciousness working human beings: representation, repeated binding, and competition among complex representations. Once this more sophisticated account of consciousness has been developed, there will no need to suppose that there is even a tiny bit of consciousness in various bits of the universe other than brains and similarly complex systems.

Is Consciousness a Property of Everything in the Universe?

Panpsychism implausibly claims that consciousness belongs to everything.

www.psychologytoday.com

Pope John Paul II wrote that the mind is not merely an epiphenomenon of the brain. Not merely. But that might be one of the things it is.

 

[Jipsah]

I think psychology has been a bit of a hard problem for the Evolution, fitting it in that is and explaining behaviour and its role.

I can't see that as a problem for Psychology any more than it's a problem for Physics.

Its usually relegated to the background as a product of genes or genes being the ultimate cause.

How much should a psychologist care about ultimate causes? Her problem is to help sort out the problems of the patient in front of her.

 

[stevevw]

I can't see that as a problem for Psychology any more than it's a problem for Physics.

For psychology its explaining the subject and agents behaviour and thinking like free will, choices especially morally that cannot be explained by evolution. Mainly because much of our thinking is beyond the physical and mechanical. Evolution basically reduces humans and other living things to passive creatures programmed by deterministic foces with no free will.

For physics well that has been obvious for some time now. Trying to fit the conscious observer into the equation. That has been recognised by the pioneers of quantum physics.

The laws of quantum mechanics itself cannot be formulated … without recourse to the concept of consciousness.
Eugene Paul Wigner

I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.
Max Planck

Its interesting that in both psychology and physics its about fitting the conscious being with agency, free will to choose and control what is happening physically that seems to be the Hard problem for the deterministic and reductiononist view of reality.

A truely united theory of reality would include the subject, the conscious observer, the scientists making the measurements. Its not until this happens will we truely understand evolution. Theories that try to include the conscious observer are very different to the Neo Darwinian view of evolution.

How much should a psychologist care about ultimate causes? Her problem is to help sort out the problems of the patient in front of her.

Because knowing ultimate causes or being open to understanding behaviour and thinking beyond a the gene centric and adaptive view takes a more dynamic and open view. It doesn't restrict explanations to mechanics such as genetics, chemicals and electrical signals but includes the conscious subjective who has the ability to influence reality which is more transcendent.

I am sure our psyche is influenced by consciousness. But then the materialist view would make our consciousness a product of material processes and our thinking and beliefs just delusional. A delusion created by underlying genes and natural selection. Yet we don't really believe that in the way we think and behave.

 

[stevevw]

Ethology is certainly increasing in influence at the expense of behaviorism. The evidence that organisms push back against their environments is a clue, but that can be interpreted behaviorally.

I guess the key is in the fact that we can look at behavior as stimulus and response in most cases, but we are seeing consciousness and agency in more and more living things. Crows, for example, not only know things, but are also aware of what they know and don't know. Chimpanzees and elephants (and probably lots of other animals) are capable of inferring mental states in others.

Cognitive scientist Paul Thagard:

Paul Thagard Ph.D.

Paul Thagard, Ph.D., is a Canadian philosopher and cognitive scientist. His latest book, published by Columbia University Press, is Falsehoods Fly: Why Misinformation Spreads and How to Stop It.

www.psychologytoday.com

has proposed an alternative to panpsychism he calls "panlifism" to suggest that consciousness is a property of all living systems.
But if I'm on the right track, then we don't need to extend attribution of consciousness all the way down to every bit the universe. Consciousness is an emergent property of special kinds of complex systems, namely large groups of neurons. Perhaps, consciousness might also turn out to be a property of other kinds of extremely complex systems, for example ones that operate in computers. But if computers ever turn out to be conscious, I suspect that it will result from having approximate analogs of the three kinds of mechanisms that I think make consciousness working human beings: representation, repeated binding, and competition among complex representations. Once this more sophisticated account of consciousness has been developed, there will no need to suppose that there is even a tiny bit of consciousness in various bits of the universe other than brains and similarly complex systems.

Is Consciousness a Property of Everything in the Universe?

Panpsychism implausibly claims that consciousness belongs to everything.

www.psychologytoday.com

Pope John Paul II wrote that the mind is not merely an epiphenomenon of the brain. Not merely. But that might be one of the things it is.

Thagard's idea seems similar to panpsychism and in particular perhaps IIT Integrated Information Theory by Giulio Tononi and Christof Koch and others. At the heart of the latest version of the theory [19, 25, 26, 31, 40] is an algorithm which, based on the level of integration of the internal functional relationships of a physical system in a given state, aims to determine both the quality and quantity (‘Φ� value’) of its conscious experience.

The Integrated Information Theory of Consciousness | Issue 121 | Philosophy Now

Hedda Hassel Mørch asks: what is IIT all about?

philosophynow.org

I still don't think the Information theories truely capture consciousness because they are only accounting for the quantitative aspects of consciousness and not the qualitative dimension.

I am not sure any theory can truely capture consciousness. Sometimes it can happen with little brain power, sometimes small quality effects can stimulate mass brain activity such as in music and meditation states. Sometimes in unconscious states and NDE which seem to transcend the physical processes.

I think rather than an epiphenomena of something physical which is sort of how Neo Darwinism sees a lot of behaviour being a sort of epiphenomena of genes. But rather a phenomena in of itself existing in the world beyond the physical. Perhaps a fundemental field or force that we tap in and out of which requires a reciever or transmitter being complex life. One in which we can become part of the universe and able to influence the world.

Interestingly the pioneers of quantum physics believed that even electrons had a rudimentary form of consciousness which could account for the non local aspects of QM. Conscious thought being non local and able to be in many places at once. Electrons may have a rudimentary awareness of themselves within a greater field of particles and forces that have an effect on each other.

Freeman Dyson argued that "mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent inherent in every electron".[3]

 

[stevevw]

This falls into the realm of psychology, more than biological evolution. The big conflict in my day was between behaviorism ("it's all stimulus and response") advocated by B.F. Skinner and ethology ("behavior is innate") advocated by people like Konrad Lorenz. I love animals; always have, and Lorenz seems to me to best describe what we actually see in animal behavior. Have you read King Solomon's Ring? Animals have minds and consciousness, and they are capable of what we thing of as human emotions.

I don't pretend to understand consciousness. I only observe it in myself and others. Have you read The Mind's I by Douglas Hoffstader?

Speaking of brainy animals I just had a magpie (Native Australian bird) a bit like a crow came into our kitchen looking for food. I walked into the kitchen and there he or she was looking up yet not scared. A sort of eye to eye communication. Clever bird lol.

I think there is a lot to understand about human and animal behaviour. Theres an unspoken communication in nature, between living things and with the environment. Its like living things can pick up signals and connections in a reciprical relationship and these have a ripple effect. Indigenous peoples know this as they still live this way and have done for 10's of thousands of years.

 

[The Barbarian]

I think rather than an epiphenomena of something physical which is sort of how Neo Darwinism sees a lot of behaviour being a sort of epiphenomena of genes. But rather a phenomena in of itself existing in the world beyond the physical. Perhaps a fundemental field or force that we tap in and out of which requires a reciever or transmitter being complex life.

I think that's very likely, but I have no way of knowing.