From: Scott R (jse885@spinn.net)
Date: Sat Sep 06 2003 - 02:57:44 BST
Andy,
> You ask: "What evidence? I don't know of a single case where one species
has
> been observed to come into existence due solely to random genetic mutation
and
> natural selection. In fact, I doubt that one could ever determine that:
the
> doubter could always say, how do you know there were no other factors
involved?"
>
> Andy: THere you go again. You are asking for proof. All we have is
evidence.
> DNA, Archeological records, genetic theory, fossils. All of this and
more
> provides evidence supporting Darwin's theory. But if you want proof, I
cannot
> help you.
None of this is evidence for Darwinism. It is evidence for evolution, which
no one denies except Biblical fundamentalists.
>
> You said in a very brief answer to my points on self-consiousness: "But,
my
> view is that language, self-consciousness, and episodic memory are all
> co-dependent. One needs the other two to have any one, so describing one
in
> terms of another seems wrong to me."
>
> Andy: Please, please...How so? Maybe they are all co-dependent, but what
I
> really want to know is if you think self-consciousness is given and
something we
> should just take for granted like consciousness.
It is certainly given. We are self-conscious. So, like good empiricists, we
should take it for granted. Actually, it is the possibility of
non-self-conciousness, in animals, or babies, that we have to assume. But,
regardless, I figure if we assume it (which I do), then it is an open
question whether self-consciousness can be seen to be built up in some way
on non-self-consciousness. I personally doubt it, but I can't offer good
arguments for why I think so (at least I'm not ready to at this point).
So. why are they co-dependent. Actually, on thinking it over, I don't see a
way to show how episodic memory is dependent on language or
self-consciousness, but I can indicate how language is dependent on
self-consciousness and episodic memory, First, I should explain that
episodic memory is remembering particular events, like what I had for
breakfast this morning. This distinguishes it from habitual memory, like
knowing what "breakfast" means. If we had no episodic memory, then we would
live solely in the present. It enables me to say now that the person eating
breakfast this morning is the same person as me, which provides the sense of
self. So self-consciousness depends on episodic memory. (To show the reverse
is just to note that to know that the person having breakfast this morning
is me, I have to have a sense of self).
To show that language is dependent on self-consciousness, I have to
distinguish between human language and other activities that are often
called semiotic, like mating rituals in birds. That difference is that in
humans, there is the capacity for on-the-spot invention. That is, we can
make entirely new, yet meaningful sentences at any time, while birds cannot.
But if I am going to say something new, there has to be some particular
event or thought that I wish to voice. That means that there had to be an I
that experienced, or thought that new event or thought, that held it,
however briefly, before the saying. There has to be a remembered self, a
continuity of self, or I would have nothing new to say. Without
self-consciousness, I am restricted to forced, determined replies to all
input, as is the case with animal language.
>
> Your response to my question on a perfectly spatio-temporal universe:
Strictly
> speaking, I am saying that a belief that spacetime is prior to
consciousness is
> what leads to the necessity to think in terms of smallest units, which it
turns
> out to be impossible to reduce consciousness to consciousness to *because*
of
> the belief."
>
> Andy: This helps me not at all. You were offering a computer for an
example of
> the failure of a perfectly spatio-temporal mechanism.
Huh? I thought I said a computer is a perfectly spatio-temporal mechanism.
I'll grant the "perfect" may be a bit hyperbolic, since anything concrete is
going to be a little less than perfect, but I meant that for a computer to
work, all quantum weirdness must be eliminated: a bit cannot be almost on or
off, each instruction has to wait for the last instruction to update all
registers before it can start (or they have to operate in strictly distinct
parallelism), etc. What a computer fails at is being conscious, because it
is a spatio-temporal mechanism, and so each event in the computer is
spatially or temporally separated from all others.
You then went on to say
> the brain must also suffer from the same defects. I was only pointing out
that
> the computer is NOT a perfectly spatio-temporal mechanism and the brain
perhaps
> is. this would have a very large impact on your beliefs in the futility
of a
> materialistic worldview, would it not?
Um, there seems to be some misunderstanding. First, what laws of spacetime
are broken in a correctly operating computer that leads you to say it is not
perfectly spatio-temporal? If you're referring to the fact that computers
run on transistors, which employ quantum principles, then you're overlooking
that enough electrons run through the machine to make its operations fully
deterministic. That is, if some quantum weirdness happened, or a cosmic ray
switched a bit, the computer would likely crash. For that matter, a computer
does not have to built out electronic components, for example Babbage's
original machines.
In any case, I said that a brain *considered as a spatio-temporal
mechanism* cannot be conscious. Why should this affect my beliefs on the
futility of a materialistic worldview? I thought it established my position
on the futility of a materialistic worldview: we are conscious. No
spatio-temporal mechansim can produce consciousness. Therefore we are not
spatio-temporal mechanisms. Therefore materialism is false (see my
definition of materialism a couple of posts back. More specifically, any
materialism that allows for the non-spatio-temporal at the macro-structural
level has ceased to be meaningfully distinguishable from idealism or
dualism).
- Scott
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