On 4/10/2013 3:26 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:
On Wednesday, April 10, 2013 6:08:31 PM UTC-4, Brent wrote:
On 4/10/2013 2:08 PM, Terren Suydam wrote:
Hi Telmo,
Yes, those are good counter examples.
But I think to say "pain and pleasure are fine-tuned by evolution..." is a
sleight
of hand. Pain and pleasure are phenomenological primitives. If evolution
created
those primitives, how did it do that? By what mechanism? �
Another way to think of this is to acknowledge that pain signals are
mediated by
special nerves in the nervous system. But what makes those nerves any
different
from a nerve that carries information about gentle pressure? �You may be
able to
point to different neuroreceptors used, but then that shifts the question
to why
different neuroreceptors should result in different characters of
experience.
You have to ground the interpretation in behavior and its relation to
evolutionary
advantage. People who put their hand in the fire withdraw it quickly and
exclaim to
warn others.� People that don't suffer reproductive disadvantage.
That's begging the question. People would withdraw their hand with the exact same
rapidity regardless of the aesthetic quality of the signal.
No, that's answering the question. Whatever aesthetic quality causes one to quickly
withdraw and warn other is the answer to "What aesthetic quality is pain?"
Terren and I understand this, and we understand that your view does not
understand this.
You use "understand" as a synonym for "assert". Your "understanding" has no predictive
power and is not consilient with other science.
In a deterministic universe, there is no need to motivate stones to roll down hill. You
can't remove all causal efficacy from will on one hand and then rely on it to justify
aesthetics on the other.
I'm not the one relying on will - you are.
It doesn't work, and even if it did, it doesn't answer Terren's question: "how did it do
that? By what mechanism?". Does evolution simply conjure "pain" from a magical box of
infinite experiences, or are there some rules in place as to their nature?
I gave the rules - that's why it's an answer.
Brent
Craig
Brent
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