On Mon, Aug 15, 2022 at 7:11 AM Telmo Menezes <[email protected]> wrote:
*> I agree with your premises but not with your conclusions. I agree that:* > > *- I am conscious.* > *- There is overwhelming evidence in favor of Darwinian evolution.* > OK. > > > *I disagree that:* > > *- Natural selection "invented" consciousness.* > > *Maybe stars are conscious. Why not? How do you know?* > I "know" that stars, rocks and rotting corpses are not conscious in the same way that I "know" that I'm not the only conscious being in the universe, some things behave intelligently and some things do not, stars, rocks and rotting corpses do not. Like me, Evolution is interested in intelligent behavior, not so much with consciousness. > >> If you could have intelligent behavior without consciousness then >> natural selection could never have invented it. >> > > > *> Why? Some people are born without legs. Does that means that natural > selection could not have invented legs?* > Some people are born with a mutation that causes them to have no legs because, although the genetic code is very good, it is not perfect, and sometimes it makes a mistake; but such a mutation would not confer a survival advantage in the current environment and therefore would be unlikely to be passed onto the next generation. If the Turing Test, which is basically just a test for intelligent behavior, did not work for consciousness and there was no connection between the two things then even if a person accidentally acquired consciousness because of a mutation that consciousness gene would soon go extinct in the genepool because it would confer no survival advantage; that's why species of animals that have lived in pitch dark caves for thousands or millions of years have no eyes, eyes would convey no survival advantage and would even be a disadvantage because it would waste valuable resources on something useless, an animal that had a mutation for no eyes would have an advantage over its fellow creatures in the cave environment and the gene for no eyes would become dominant in the genepool. John K Clark See what's on my new list at Extropolis <https://groups.google.com/g/extropolis> 2ct i -- 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/CAJPayv1PUwjFh0UbqT%2B6tyttPhdbqwiKxDJV-ryWrurnirRFFw%40mail.gmail.com.
