Do non physical things exist?

[Sparhafoc]

Im not trying to do anything. I literally just thought of this 2 hours ago and I never knew that evolutionists do not classify things as being higher and lower. I thought for sure that they did. This entire disscussion is a surprise to me.

Well, I mean let's quickly address the pachyderm in the parlour... I'm not an 'evolutionist'. Just because you're a Creationist, it doesn't justify shoving an -ist onto the end of a position which doesn't conform to yours. Creationism is an ideology, it's doctrinal, it's religious - it is a faith position.

That's not how science operates. I am not a gravitationalist just because I acknowledge that gravity is a real thing.

So addressed, back to the point: of course evolution doesn't see organisms as higher or lower - that would be entirely antithetical to all understandings of evolutionary history. The concept of 'high' and 'low' suggests a value laden system of division to me, and therefore human-centric, whereas science is interested in finding how nature divides shit, if there are even divisions in the first place.

I asked you already to define this, but you're not offering anything.

Higher could mean bigger
Higher could mean more working parts
Higher could mean neural processing
Higher could mean modern

None of these would work well because there'd be ample examples of organisms that didn't fit neatly into the categories we come up with, and that's because these divisions are artificial and not actually present in nature.

From an evolutionary perspective, we can talk about extant species and archaic species, we can talk about ancestors, we can talk about simple forms, we can talk about functions... but evolution doesn't try to chart species according to a natural scale, or order of things. The order, from an evolutionary perspective, is inheritance with variation selected by the environment.

Well its probably not the best example, but yes. A person will run into a burning building and die trying to save a loved one. This happens.

It does, but the question is.... and?

Other animals will go and rescue their fellows too, putting themselves at risk.

I would say no. Our abillity to act independently out weights the ability of an ants to release pheromones.

Herein lies the problem - you're prepared to engage in value laden, specie-centric ad hoc arguments, whereas I would reject all such contentions because I know they either fit poorly with observations or because they're of zero explanatory power being just contrived expressions of human uniqueness.

I think I might go and find my earlier posts on this to c&p here for you to review.

 

[Sparhafoc]

Do you think that some actions are at least less influenced by enviroment than others?

I simply can't answer you question because it has no meaning to me

Show me an organism that is acting outside of an environment.

 

[Sparhafoc]

we can't even define all the variables

LZ, this is basically why science is so tough, why real knowledge is so hard to come by, and why we in the sciences stopped pretending we were passive observers of phenomena a century ago.

We would struggle to control all the variables we know of - many of them are outside of our control, and then there's all the variables we don't know of... how many variables are there we don't know of? We don't know. The majority of factors influencing any phenomena could be outside of our knowledge. All we can do is look for reproducibility - even if there are factors we don't know of influencing the outcome - if they don't apparently impinge on the expected outcomes, then we can move forward as though they don't exist... but every scientists is aware that the discovery of such an unknown variable is plausibly just around the corner and, as such, we may need to reframe everything we know to take it into account.

Real world knowledge acquisition is hard, and becoming harder by the day as we've long since snatched up the low hanging fruit.

 

[Dragan Glas]

Greetings,

Perhaps Led's idea of "higher" involves sapience (self-awareness) rather than mere sentience (awareness).

Kindest regards,

James

 

[Sparhafoc]

Quite possibly.

If that's the case, then we are on very rocky grounds because it's hard to test for self-awareness.

For sure, mirror tests can show that a species has self-awareness, but can't tell us that a species doesn't have self-awareness. Put a spot on a monkey's face and it will try to brush it off, but perhaps other species are aware that there's a spot on their head but just don't care. How could we know?

 

[Led Zeppelin]

This is very confusing LZ, and I have to apologize as I frankly say that I think the confusion is stemming from you.

What has this got to do with the evolution of consciousness?

I think I stated somewhere in this tread that evolution is the idea that consciousness can evolve from nonliving matter. With all due respect, I think the reason you are still talking about it is because you think I that I think that consciousness invalidates evolution. I think hackenslash gave an explaination that was reasonable enough. I see no reason why I should pretend that I am smart enough to know for sure. I am past the point in my life where I go to web forums just argue with people and never consider anything they say.

 

[Led Zeppelin]

Well, I mean let's quickly address the pachyderm in the parlour... I'm not an 'evolutionist'. Just because you're a Creationist, it doesn't justify shoving an -ist onto the end of a position which doesn't conform to yours. Creationism is an ideology, it's doctrinal, it's religious - it is a faith position.

That's not how science operates. I am not a gravitationalist just because I acknowledge that gravity is a real thing.

So addressed, back to the point: of course evolution doesn't see organisms as higher or lower - that would be entirely antithetical to all understandings of evolutionary history. The concept of 'high' and 'low' suggests a value laden system of division to me, and therefore human-centric, whereas science is interested in finding how nature divides shit, if there are even divisions in the first place.

I asked you already to define this, but you're not offering anything.

Higher could mean bigger
Higher could mean more working parts
Higher could mean neural processing
Higher could mean modern

None of these would work well because there'd be ample examples of organisms that didn't fit neatly into the categories we come up with, and that's because these divisions are artificial and not actually present in nature.

From an evolutionary perspective, we can talk about extant species and archaic species, we can talk about ancestors, we can talk about simple forms, we can talk about functions... but evolution doesn't try to chart species according to a natural scale, or order of things. The order, from an evolutionary perspective, is inheritance with variation selected by the environment.

OK. Probably you are right and I should make what you are saying part of my world view. I am not the smartest person in the world. I actually do appreciate much of what you and others have said about these things. I have no problem with saying that I think everyone's input here has been mostly amazing and I think that when there are areas of dissagreement between you and I, it very well might be because I am not as smart as you.

 

[Sparhafoc]

I think I stated somewhere in this tread that evolution is the idea that consciousness can evolve from nonliving matter.

Did you? Well, that's false.

You are entitled to say whatever you like, of course, but I reject bullshit on rational grounds.

That is not what evolution is. That's the kind of parody you hear from Creationist propaganda outlets. "Molecules to Man".

With all due respect, I think the reason you are still talking about it is because you think I that I think that consciousness invalidates evolution.

No, the reason I am talking about it is, as I've said, because it's nigh on impossible to understand what you're trying to say when you keep formulating sentences with undefined components to them. Thus I keep asking you to expand on those so that we can actually see whether there's an idea lurking below the confused terminology that has some value.

I think hackenslash gave an explaination that was reasonable enough. I see no reason why I should pretend that I am smart enough to know for sure. I am past the point in my life where I go to web forums just argue with people and never consider anything they say.

I think anyone reading the last couple of pages would say that I am working quite hard to get you to explain yourself so that I can consider what you say. But you don't seem to want to unpack your ideas or remain on a single thread of conversation.

I actually want to address your comments regarding the evolution of consciousness because it's a topic I find fascinating, but we need to find some form of common ground and understanding before we can hope to engage in the ideas.

 

[Sparhafoc]

OK. Probably you are right and I should make what you are saying part of my world view. I am not the smartest person in the world. I actually do appreciate much of what you and others have said about these things. I have no problem with saying that I think everyone's input here has been mostly amazing and I think that when there are areas of dissagreement between you and I, it very well might be because I am not as smart as you.

Ok, but I am not asking you to be a genius; I am just asking you to explore your ideas to see whether they stand up to scrutiny. It's not like I have an off-the-shelf explanation to hand out of how consciousness evolved, but I think we can do better than we've managed so far.

 

[Desertphile]

Semantics is one of the most important disciplines in thought, and it's central to all philosophy, science and mathematics included, as a simple matter of logic. Properly, philosophy is the entire reason that rigour in science and mathematics exists. We can't talk intelligently about any thing until we've defined it.

Which is, of course, the central reason that there's never been a single phoneme of intelligent discussion about God.

Thank you. After some consideration I find that I agree with you. Any philosophy I might engage in is the "show leather" kind: how I live shows what philosophies I embrace. I presume to add that I believe this is true of most humans *EXCEPT* the overly religious. From what I have observed, religion inhibits the growth of self-generated moral codes; self-respect; a healthy ethos; ethical behavior. The overly religious remain in an infantile state and tend to never grow up and be responsible, law-abiding adults. They explain their destructive, harmful acts with infantile excuses.

We (sane people) observe such infantile, immature behavior in Creationists. They have never produced credible evidence that shows their gods exist: they only try to invalidate parts of evolutionary theory (and often confuse evolution with the theory of evolution: another infantile behavior). They tend to believe that if evolution itself were invalidated, that only leaves their gods to explain life, universe, etc. By "only" I mean the gods that individual Creationists believe exist.

Creationists only give us sophistry, as sophism is their philosophy.

 

[Deleted member 619]

religion inhibits the growth of self-generated moral codes

Definitely. And for all the same reasons that religion is anything, namely that it's easier. Why go to all that tedious mucking about finding out how reality works when you can just make up a story about it? Why go to all that tedious mucking about thinking hard about our moral choices and their consequences when we can just refer to a checklist?

It's cookie-cutters all the way down.

 

[Sparhafoc]

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.