Re: Evolutionary question concerning God.


Jon G wrote:
someone3 wrote:
Jon G wrote:
someone4 wrote:
Jon G wrote:
someone5 wrote:
You said:


You got the point that if the physical were actually the source of our
experience that
"the entire organism's behaviour and properties can be explained using
the laws of physics. We may not have very good models yet to predict
everything yet, but that's the idea. Every electron, neutron, atom,
cell and electric current going through your head as you read this is
following those rules. We may not have found the perfect rule yet, to
unify all the laws we have but through investigation and trial and
error we should."

Though on the very next bit:
"I think in your original post you were wondering (sorry for
paraphrasing you) that since we do not see the physical world as it
actually is (a bat definately sees it differently, so who's got it
right?) why should we experience it?"

Which was a total misunderstanding. Could you possibly post the
sentance that you were having trouble understanding in the original
post (which is about there being no evolutionary reason to evolve an
experience that made any sense).


I'll do this instead:
you say:
Our scientific understanding needs no reference to whether an energy
experiences being an energy, as it has not been found through
experimentation to make any difference even if it did

I understand that it is irrelevant to an experiment, if an energy I am
trying to measure is aware and hence has an experience of me measuring
it. If this intepretation is correct, yes I agree, as far as I know it
would not change the result, hence we do not take that into
consideration.

Then you say:

If our current scientific understanding is correct, given our
understanding of evolution, it is highly improbable that the source of
our experience is the physical world itself, as if it was, it could
only be coincidental that it made any sense (assuming a way in which,
with no translation layer (no evolutionary reason to evolve one) the
experience of the visual sense for example can be mapped from brain
state to what we experience).

I say:
I understand you say that since the world around us makes sense
according to our understanding of it, we have to assume that the ACTUAL
physical world is not the source of the experience of the physical
world because it would coincide with our experience of it, and that
would be very unlikely. you say that as the experience is unnecessary,
we would not have eveolved a way to experience it.

First, our current scientific understanding accounts for very
"coincidental" events like the Physical world, although probably
different from our experience of it, still being the source of our
experience of the physical world, so it can easily make sense as our
experience of it sometimes makes sense.

I think it maybe worth noticing that there are experiences that we have
ut we are unaware of. Even in your own body, you are not aware of your
digestive juices being pumped into the intestine or your cells
breathing the oxygen from your blood, although that "burns" as it
creates energy (the brain is doing that but you are not aware of it).
The central nervous system has to have adapted itself to be aware (a
screen on which to play the succession of your thoughts) of things that
need a higher computing ability, where many more things have to be take
into account. This system ("conscious brain") develops through life
(with experience and feedback) as well as in the womb. As a by-product
of the evolution-acquired ability to compute and predict complex
events, we have the ability of computing very complex problems (not
really, but much better than apes). Not only that, as it was
evolutionarily advantageous to do it as much as possible, it is
PLEASURABLE to investigate and explore and think and make predictions
(like betting).

So your reasoning goes: No experience necessary for a response. We
experience the world around us and that is not the real world. the
world we experience though, makes sense through our understanding of
nature (science). As in evolution, you need an advantage to keep a
trait, and there is no advantage in being aware of the experience of
the world around us, but we are aware of it all, then the theory of
evolution forces us to conclude that there is a God. No, I'm not with
you yet.

Where have I gone wrong? specifically, I'm missing this completely if
what I said here is not an answer to your post
it could
only be coincidental that it made any sense (assuming a way in which,
with no translation layer (no evolutionary reason to evolve one) the
experience of the visual sense for example can be mapped from brain
state to what we experience).

You say:
Therefore beyond reasonable doubt, the physical world we are
experiencing is not the source of our experience.

It seems you say that if our perception of the world is distorted then
the real world is not sending the information we experience. The
physical world is the source of our experiences, but it doesn't mean
wordl=our experiences. world could be not = our experiences, but still
world >> our experiences. We are misinterpreting the physical world,
doesn't mean it doesn't realte at all to the real world. I do not know
what you see when you see green. It could be my yellow, but if we both
stare at what we call green (however you see it) we can both point at
it and say it's green. Your actual experience of green in your head is
irrelevant and only a rapresentation of the real thing. The rpoperties
of the real thing, remain unchanged. The wavelength reamins the same
and all that it comes with. It is necessary for you to see something,
so does the bat (3d form ultrasound), so does the dog (black and white)
etc.. because you need to have all the info in front of you to decide
your actions.

I say: It is the source of our experiences, because our experiences are
responses to what is outside of our brains.

Are you saying that because we are able to make sense of the world and
that was not needed evolutionarily, that it is evidence for God's
existance. This is not a logical statement, so I'm sure it is not what
you meant.

You say:
Would you accept our evolutionary understanding as being a key piece of
evidence in God's existence?
I'd love to consider this statement if I understood how it follows from
the others.

how did I do?

You understood the first paragraph.


With regards to it making sense, what we talking about is say your
visual sense being a single colour, and that is the only sense you
experienced for example, or maybe it would be received as noise on a
television set, or maybe you wouldn't have experienced at all. Whatever
it was, it wouldn't effect how the organic robot would behave, what is
experienced doesn't matter or do anything, as you understood in the
first paragraph.

So compared to the above examples would concede that our experience
does make remarkable sense given no evolutionary reason for it to make
sense at all?

It is an advantage for it to make sense, and for you to be aware of
SOME of the experiences around you. Not evem they are approximations of
the experiences as well, rapresentations that help you conceptualise
and predict events, especially iomaginary events, program your future
actions days in advance, ect.. The system is much more flexible than
the best super-compture ever, that isn't aware of what it knows and
just responds cleverly.

During the first part of your reply, you seemed to be replying to your
own posting, as though it was mine.

In the last paragraph (which was the only actual response to me) you
claim that there is an advantage in your experience making sense. So
presumably the advantage wouldn't be able to be described without
actually including the experience in the explanation, is that what you
are saying?

.

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