On Thu, Apr 29, 2021 at 5:13 AM John Clark <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 28, 2021 at 6:18 PM Terren Suydam <[email protected]> > wrote: > > >> If you believe in Darwinian evolution and if you believe you are >>> conscious then given that evolution can't select for what it can't see >>> and natural selection can see intelligent behavior but it can't see >>> consciousness, can you give me an explanation of how evolution managed to >>> produce a conscious being such as yourself if intelligence is not the >>> inevitable byproduct of intelligence? >>> >> >> *> It's not an inevitable byproduct of intelligence if consciousness is >> an epiphenomenon. * >> > > That remark makes no sense, and you never answered my question. If > consciousness is an epiphenomenon, and from Evolutions point of you it > certainly is, then the only way natural selection could've produced > consciousness is if its the inevitable byproduct of something else that is > not an epiphenomenon, something like intelligence. And you know for a fact > that Evolution has produced consciousness at least once and probably many > billions of times. > I mostly agree, my only hang up is with the word 'inevitable'. I think it's possible there was consciousness before there was intelligence, depending on how you define intelligence. > > >> *> As you like to say, consciousness may just be how data feels as it's >> being processed. If so, that doesn't imply anything about intelligence per >> se, beyond the minimum intelligence required to process data at all.* >> > > For the purposes of this argument it's irrelevant if any sort of data > processing can produce consciousness or if only the type that leads to > intelligence can because evolution doesn't select for data processing it > selects for intelligence, but you can't have intelligence without data > processing. > You keep coming back to intelligence in a conversation about consciousness. That's fine, but when you do you're implicitly working with a theory of consciousness. Then, you're demanding that I use your theory of consciousness when you insist that I answer questions about consciousness through the framing of evolution. It's a bit of a contradiction to be using a theory of consciousness to point out how pointless theories of consciousness are. > > *> do you agree that testimony of experience constitutes facts about >> consciousness?* >> > > Only if I first assume that intelligence implies consciousness, otherwise > I'd have no way of knowing if the being giving the testimony about > consciousness was itself conscious. And only if I am convinced that the > being giving the testimony was as honest as he can be. And only if I feel > confident we agree about the meeting of certain words, like "green" and > "red" and "hot" and "cold" and you guessed it "consciousness". > OK, fine, let's say intelligence implies consciousness, the account given was honest (as in, nobody witnessing the account would have a credible reason to doubt it), and we can agree on all those terms. Then do you agree that said account constitutes facts about consciousness? Terren > John K Clark See what's on my new list at Extropolis > <https://groups.google.com/g/extropolis>. > . > >> >> -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv1e47JG3rfVnTCp6KxLRFnqmZRKQHNcNKVhrNBRaEkk5A%40mail.gmail.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv1e47JG3rfVnTCp6KxLRFnqmZRKQHNcNKVhrNBRaEkk5A%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAMy3ZA--EL1q98oqi%3D0ruRCXudn_O0phjRGBBxZ2Vh_-kg4u_w%40mail.gmail.com.
