On 16 March 2015 at 06:49, John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Sun, Mar 15, 2015 Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.com> wrote: > > > Organisms apply pressure on surfaces, even if they are dead. This is >> just a property of chunks of solid matter. Evolution did not create this >> behaviour > > > I disagree. Evolution didn't select for that behavior but it did cause it, > without Evolution no cadaver would exist and so there would be no pressure > at that spot. > > > The question is simple: why can't organisms generated by evolutionary >> processes possess properties that are not the result of evolutionary >> pressure? >> > > All the properties that an animal has are the result of evolutionary > pressure although sometimes it's indirect, the property may not confer a > reproductive advantage and it might even be invisible to Evolution but > Evolution could still produce it if it's the product of some other property > that does have an evolutionary advantage. Not every aspect of a building > is the result of a decision by an architect, some features are just the > byproduct of other decisions; if he wants to put a arch in a rectangular > enclosure he's going to get a spandrel whether he wants it or not. It's the > same with evolutionary spandrels, if intelligence confers an Evolutionary > advantage it will be selected for and its byproduct, consciousness, will > come along for the ride even if it has no Evolutionary advantage > whatsoever. >
So, consciousness - evolutionary advantage or spandrell? -- 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.
