[Ham]
Why don't you feed your questions to an e-mail machine that will
automatically post them at regular intervals?
[Arlo]
I should. Lest you forget that you haven't actually answered them.
[Ham]
I gave you the answers "I offer instead" and you called them "gobbledygook".
[Arlo]
Because they answered NEITHER question, directly OR indirectly. If
you feel they have, then please, by all means, cut and paste your
reply beneath my questions where you feel answers are given.
[Ham]
Your interest clearly lies in anthropology or paleontology, and not
metaphysics. I'm not an authoritative source of such information,
nor do I believe it contributes to philosophical insight.
[Arlo]
First of all, my questions are about YOUR claims. YOURS. Second, how
on earth you think you can make proclamations about what
consciousness IS, without that implying or being concerned with where
IT COMES FROM or HOW IT EVOLVES, is amazing. Your idea of philosophy
really is "it exists, but we can't say where it comes from, why or
how it evolved, but it just is". That's philosophy? I don't think so.
[Ham]
I've repeatedly said that evolutionary timelines and physiological
development are not my specialty. This isn't a lie or an evasion of
your inquisition; it happens to be the truth.
[Arlo]
And yet YOU claimed that at one point primates did not have
consciousness, and at another they did. THAT'S a claim about a
timeline. And you said, "consciousness evolves from genus to
species". THAT'S a claim about development. My questions are just
simply logical follow-ups to YOUR claims.
[Ham]
Your questions relate to the phyla of species in a historical
context. Most of them are answered in the works of anthropologists.
[Arlo]
And these are the very answers YOU say are WRONG. About "what
changed?", YOU say the physiologists who say "genetic mutations" are
WRONG, YOU say the social theorists who say "the advent of social
activity" are WRONG. So which answer of the anthropologists do you
now say is RIGHT? About the evolution of consciousness, you say the
physiologists who say "DNA" are WRONG. YOU say the social theorists
who say "collective consciousness" are WRONG. So which answer do you
propose is RIGHT?
[Ham]
I've shown you why your mechanistic theory doesn't hold water, and
provided a metaphysical alternative that you reject without consideration.
[Arlo]
The only alternative you offer, albeit with obfuscating language, is
"Essence, as God, poofed consciousness into man". You clearly stated
this as "consciousness is a gift from on high". Okay, this is you
"metaphysical alternative". But how does your alternative account for
the evolution of consciousness (again YOUR claim)? The only answer I
can gleen from your evasions is "Essence bestows up successive
generations of primates a new and improved model of consciousness".
If you think for one minute that this (poorly conceived) theism
disproves my "mechanistic" theory, then you are truly
self-delusional. What you seem to want to do is to make claims, and
then when those claims lead logically (as they inevitably do) to
noticeable absurdity, you fall back into a cloud of language that no
one else but Brilliant Ham seems to be able to understand.
And its not so much that I "reject" your metaphysical alternative,
its that your metaphysical alternative (like Platt's) is simply
theism. You have replaced Yahweh with Essence, and your Bible is not
nearly as readable, but that's pretty much all you've done. Like
Platt's "Qualigod" revision of the MOQ, the ONLY alternatives to my
questions you have offered is "Abracadabra! Poof! Qualigod Made It So!".
The worst part is, like poor theists do, you lack all sorts of
internal consistency in your arguments. YOU say "consciousness
evolves", but they claim any follow-up question to that which you
can't answer is just the result of a unintellectual mind.
It's that simple.
YOU claim "consciousness evolves". Got that. YOU claim this.
YOU claim "consciousness is not physiological". YOU claim
"consciousness is not sociological". Got that. YOU claim these things.
But then the question, "Alright then, HOW?" you deride as being "mechanistic"?
It's this simple.
YOU claim that at one point primates lacked consciousness. YOU claim
that at another point they had it. Got that YOU claim this.
YOU claim that "what changed in between to account for this" is
physiological. YOU claim it is not "sociological". Got that. YOU
claim these things.
But then the simple question, "Alright, then WHAT?" you deride as
being "mechanistic"?
Can I be more clear?
The ONLY answers you've alluded to, as I said, are a "Divine
Intervention" and an "Updated Model Supplied By God" theory. But you
can't even be honest about THAT. Instead I get lengthy, irrelevant
text about "Essence", and accusations again about "poor stupid Arlo
who is too dumb to comprehend the Great Ham".
[Ham]
My thesis is certainly no more "Poof!" than your "mythos" of
collective consciousness.
[Arlo]
Your theory is "Abracadabra! God Poofed It Into Being!". Mine is
"Aha! An unintended consequence of natural evolution!" Fair enough.
But at least from my theoretical perspective I have no problem
answering the questions above. Yours appears to be to bereft for that.
[Ham]
I'd say it's the outcome of being stubborn as a kicking mule. Now
THERE's an animal you can readily identify with!
[Arlo]
Gee. If you would have answered my questions at any point, this
conversation would have ended back then. And yes, I admit to being
stubborn when it comes to dealing with charlatans.
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