On Dec 31, 2:21 pm, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote: > On 12/30/2011 12:41 PM, John Clark wrote: > > > Yes it makes a lot of sense, but why did Evolution invent consciousness? > > Evolution can > > see intelligence but it can no more see consciousness than we can (other > > than our own) > > because it is a purely subjective phenomena, and yet I know for a fact that > > Evolution > > came us with consciousness at least once and probably many billions of > > times, so the > > conclusion is inescapable. Either Darwin was wrong or consciousness is a > > byproduct of > > intelligence. I don't think Darwin was wrong. > > I assume you're familiar with the theory of consciousness put forward by > Julian Jaynes. > It would imply that consciousness as we experience it, an inner narrative, is > an accident > of evolutionary development. Imagination and ratiocination are forms of > internal > perception because evolution adapted structures that developed for external > perception. > So it might be possible to create AI that was intelligent but not conscious > in this same > way by having separate modules for seeing and for visual imagination for > example. We > would suppose it was conscious in some way because it acts intelligently, but > it would > seem impossible to say exactly how its consciousness was different. >
I like Jaynes ideas about the bicameral mind. That reasoning presents a good way to understand how our multiple conscious and subconscious agendas coexist within consciousness. It doesn't explain how evolution to invent awareness in a universe devoid of the possibility of awarenss. It presumes that since we are conscious and our brain has mechanistic processes, then awareness itself must arise from an arrangement of mechanistic components. I don't think that is possible. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
