Re: Evolutionary question concerning God.


Ross Langerak wrote:
"someone2" <glenn.spigel2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1157927002.150283.73780@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Ross Langerak wrote:
"someone2" <glenn.spigel2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1157914548.767962.5930@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Ross Langerak wrote:
"someone2" <glenn.spigel2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1157876263.836905.96890@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Ross Langerak wrote:
"someone2" <glenn.spigel2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1157833307.520977.87110@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Ymir wrote:
In article
<1157798159.402553.278330@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
"someone2" <glenn.spigel2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Between which two? I couldn't understand either of the
options
above
since I don't yet understand what you mean by
'coincidence'
or
'translation'.


By coincidence I mean that there is no evolutionary
advantage
and
therefore reason for our conscious experience to make
sense
(the
world
is presented such a way in that choices could be based on
it).
This
has
been explained above, and again and again and again during
our
discussions, and in your previous post you seemed to raise
no
objections to the concept of 'zombies'.

There is no coincidence involved. Our experience is part of
what
allows
us to act sensibly in response to the environment, so to
claim
it
has no
evolutionary advantage is absurd.

I did raise an objection to the concept of zombies -- I
suggested
that
one could not create an entity with the same range of
responses
to
the
environment which lacked the sort of awareness that we have.
That
awareness has, at its root, a purely physical basis.

By translation, I mean presumably you conscious experience
would
have
to be what it is like to experience an energy of some
type,
that
spans
the brain, and is effected simultaneously by various
changes
in
neural
state (else how are the states of the various neurons
known/experienced
simultaneously). Also there would need to be found to be
differences
between the neural sets which govern our various senses,
so
that
the
natural experience of them could be differentiated into
senses.
There
would also be questions to why we don't get a visual of
the
neurons
for
example which correlates to the outside world, instead of
what
we
do
experience which is a visual without the slightest hint of
a
neuron.

I do not understand this paragraph at all.

You said:
"There is no coincidence involved. Our experience is part of
what
allows us to act sensibly in response to the environment, so
to
claim
it has no evolutionary advantage is absurd."

How does the experience of chemistry effect the biochemistry,
and
therefore how the organism behaves?

The "experience of chemistry" IS the biochemistry. Your
distinction
is
entirely artificial. Alter the biochemistry and you alter the
experience.

I understand your claim, what I am asking is how the experience
effects
the biochemistry, or doesn't it, is it just simply is the
experience
associated with that biochemistry?

The experience doesn't affect the biochemistry, it IS the
biochemistry.
Deprive the brain of oxygen and you lose consciousness. Take LSD
and
your
perception of the world changes. Alter the DNA that affects the
development
of the brain and you alter consciousness.

You say it is the biochemistry, could you explain, what part of the
biochemistry is green?

When we see something that is green, it produces a pattern or chemical
signal that the brain interprets as a color. This pattern or signal is
different for different colors. Our awareness of the color green is
just
the result of the appropriate pattern or signal in the brain. Unless,
of
course, you are colorblind. Which raises a question: if recognition of
color is not a physical process in the brain, then how do you explain
the
existence of colorblindness? Likewise, if recognition of color is not a
physical process in the brain, then how can mind altering drugs, like
LSD,
alter your perception of color?


Sorry, can I just be walked through this slowly, I wouldn't want to
miss anything.

When we see something that is green, I presume you mean when a
electromagnetic wave of a frequency that we consciously experience as
green, creates a series of signals, transferred through neurons..and
this is where I am a bit unclear, when you say:

"it produces a pattern or chemical signal that the brain interprets as
a color."

Are we talking a pattern or a chemical signal here? The former seems to
suggest multiple neurons, the latter a single neuron. I'll assume you
mean a multiple neurons, though I am not sure what the 'brain' is. I
know that sounds silly, but I am thinking of it as an organised bunch
of neurons. Are you saying that one organised bunch of neurons looks at
another bunch of organised neurons? When I say looked at, I mean its
state is effected by. Though I still end up with an organised bunch of
neurons in a certain state. What experiences the colour green, and what
is the mechanism whereby the state of the relative organised bunch of
neurons is known?

I am not a neurologist. There may be people who can answer your question,
but I am not one of them. However, even if no one knows the answer, that
does not justify your claim that consciousness is somehow distinct from the
process in the brain that produces consciousness. The evidence suggests
that consciousness is a physical process that takes place in the brain.
This is true even if we don't currently understand all of the details.

Your original claim was that consciousness or experience of consciousness
are not aspects of physical laws, and therefore, cannot be affected by
physical laws. This argument falls apart when we realize that consciousness
itself is a physical process and that the components of that physical
process are controlled by physical laws.


There is no evidence to show that consciousness is a physical process
that takes place in the brain, what the evidence suggests depends on
your understanding. To you it suggests that consciousness is a physical
process that takes place in the brain.

My original claim was not that at all. Though I might agree with it, if
you mean that consciousness is not created by the physical, and that
the conscious you cannot be affected by the physical presentation other
than in terms of experience.

My original claim was that our findings in the physical world we
experience is that things operate in it according to the rules of
physics and chemistry, which regard as irrelevant whether things
experience or not.

If physics and chemistry are correct, then there can be no evolutionary
advantage for our brains to be organised in a way that our experience
should make sense. In fact our mainstream scientific understanding has
no explanation for how we experience, or why we should experience, and
evolution wouldn't have cared about the arrangement of the chemical
structures, other than functional advantages.

Additionally our experience itself is that our experience is important.
This would obviously have to be a deception, as it couldn't effect the
way the chemicals behave.

So do you see that your claim that just because people can't show that
your experience is a coincidental deception, it doesn't mean it isn't,
doesn't look that strong, especially if on the back of that is the
coincidence that the universe happens to work in a way which supports
organisms which it could make sense experiencing being.

But why should you listen, you have your assumption that God doesn't
exist, after all where's the evidence?

I am not disputing the presentation is based on neural state.

Also just for the record, I don't consider it losing consciousness, I
just consider it not remembering.

So, you think that when someone loses consciousness, they continue to
walk
around and interact with people and objects and maybe go for a drive,
and
they just don't remember it later?

People who have drunk heavily might have no memory of parts of the
evening, they might even experience "waking up", yet were never asleep.

Alcohol is a chemical that alters brain function, but I wasn't talking about
passing out. My example was a loss of consciousness due to a lack of
oxygen. So the question remains, do you think that when someone loses
consciousness, they continue to walk around and interact with people and
objects and maybe go for a drive, and they just don't remember it later?


No, as I said:
Though I was actually just pointing out the incorrect though commonly
used terminology for the experience.


.

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