On Thu, Apr 29, 2021 at 5:13 AM John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 28, 2021 at 6:18 PM Terren Suydam <terren.suy...@gmail.com> > 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. 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.
