On Wed, Sep 17, 2014 at 7:30 PM, John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 17, 2014 at 9:01 AM, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote: > > > There might be non relationship between consciousness and smartness. >> > > If there is not a relationship between consciousness and smartness then > Darwin was wrong, > Darwin and consciousness are only related if you assume at that start that consciousness emerges from complexity. I'm not sure Darwin ever said such a thing. > but there is no evidence that Darwin was wrong and there is a avalanche of > evidence supporting Darwin's idea, > Agreed, but this is a straw man for the above reason. Suppose, for example, that everything is conscious. Darwinism explains neatly how mater organised into complex things like human beings. Nothing is lost on the darwinist side of things by saying that consciousness and smartness are unrelated in this scenario. Insisting that the emergence of consciousness from complexity is the only scientific explanation is just dogma. We have no way to measure or detect consciousness, so it just lays outside the scope of science (for the moment, of course). Even neural correlates are bullshit, because they are just based on an assumption, like you do in the beginning. Saying that something is outside the scope of science is becoming a taboo. This is a very unscientific attitude. The correct scientific stance is to admit our ignorance when appropriate. Telmo. > an idea that has been called the best single thought any human being has > ever had. In science there is always a possibility that you're mistaken, > and there have certainly been refinements in the 150 years since Darwin's > book was published, but I think you'd need scientific notation to express > the probability that any of the important fundamental concepts in that old > book (like natural selection and random mutation) were wrong. > > John K Clark > > -- > 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
