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Author | Topic: Human Intelligence | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
NosyNed Member Posts: 8996 From: Canada Joined: |
From another thread:
Skeptick writes: Is human consciousness the result of a long string of random accidents? Common sense isn't
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Dr Jack Member Posts: 3514 From: Immigrant in the land of Deutsch Joined: Member Rating: 8.7 |
Skeptick asked me other on the other thread:
I see. Two quick questions: Is evolution a string of events that are random or designed? Neither. Evolution works by a mixture of deterministic and random processes.
Is evolution accidental or intentional? Evolution is accidental in the philosophical sense. I don't think the question makes any sense for any other sense of the word 'accidental'.
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Skeptick Inactive Member |
Evolution is accidental in the philosophical sense. That answer certainly dodged my question. Ok, I'll play. If it's "accidental in a philosophical sense", is it also accidental in a "factual" sense?
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
I would say that he did answer your question.
And if by "factual" you mean "common usage" then the answer is "no" - which is why the answer specifies that he is using an unusual meaning (the "Philosophical sense") of "accident.
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kjsimons Member Posts: 821 From: Orlando,FL Joined: Member Rating: 6.7 |
I see. Two quick questions: Is evolution a string of events that are random or designed? Is evolution accidental or intentional? These questions are along the line of "When did you stop beating your wife?". In other words, false dichotomies. The events that lead to us are not all random and were probably not designed, but there are other type of events than just those two. Mutations could be considered random events, but natural selection on those mutations is not random and is most certainly not designed. A mutation that is neutral or that aids the organism so that it can pass on more of it's genetic material to the next generation will be selected for. Some processes of evolution are "accidental" but I wouldn't characterize all of evolution that way. Evolution as a process has no master plan or purpose so I would say evolution is not intentional. Just my two cents worth.
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Dr Jack Member Posts: 3514 From: Immigrant in the land of Deutsch Joined: Member Rating: 8.7 |
That answer certainly dodged my question. Ok, I'll play. If it's "accidental in a philosophical sense", is it also accidental in a "factual" sense? I'm not playing games here. How can it be described as 'accidental' if not in the philisophical sense? What would that 'accidental' mean?
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DBlevins Member (Idle past 3775 days) Posts: 652 From: Puyallup, WA. Joined: |
Ok, hopefully this is in-line to what I think the question was pertaining to. I personally like the theory that human intelligence (I wonder if there is such a thing sometimes?) came about because of climatic change. That these selective pressures throughout our past forced us into being generalists. The route we took in our evolution as generalists was toward a larger brain. This larger brain allowing us to adapt to changing environments and take advantage of various niches. The fact that we have such a large control over our environment is just a by product of this evolution. That our social constructions have allowed us to create large relatively stable social groups that have increased our reproductive fitness. Elizabeth Vrba and Rick Potts are two anthropologists that come to my mind who describe something along these lines. If you get a chance read: Humanity's Descent: The consequence of Ecological Instability. by Rick Potts. 1996. Avon Books.
ps. haven't checked it out yet but i just noticed that they have a website listed on the copyright page. AvonBooks.com I appologise beforehand if this wasn't comprhensive enough. Quick answers aren't always the best.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1466 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
Is human consciousness the result of a long string of random accidents? I feel comfortable concluding that it's the result of language, actually.
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Skeptick Inactive Member |
These questions are along the line of "When did you stop beating your wife?"... I don't see how you arrived at that. It's a good argument, but it doesn't apply here.
Mutations could be considered random events, but natural selection on those mutations is not random and is most certainly not designed. A mutation that is neutral or that aids the organism so that it can pass on more of it's genetic material to the next generation will be selected for. Ok, so now you're dodging me too. Ok, I'll play. Instead of full blown evolution, let's talk your terms: Mutations. This only leads me to ask the same basic question again: Are mutations accidental or intentional? Did the mutation happen by itself? Or if the mutation was "caused", what was the "effect"?
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1466 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
Are mutations accidental or intentional? I think we all can agree that a specific mutation is accidental - say, the change of a base from T to A - but that mutations in general are inevitable. The direction that evolution takes is accidental, yes. That evolution will take a direction is guaranteed. I think that's all we're trying to say, maybe.
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Yaro Member (Idle past 6495 days) Posts: 1797 Joined: |
Skeptic,
The term accident is a human term, it don't exist in reality. Everythng is just a long stream of cause and effect. Nothing happens for a "purpose" or "no-purpose", these are mearly human values applied to occurances we percive. Everything is the result of a cause, things knocking in to each other etc.
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Skeptick Inactive Member |
The term accident is a human term, it don't exist in reality. Everythng is just a long stream of cause and effect. Nothing happens for a "purpose" or "no-purpose", these are mearly human values applied to occurances we percive. All terms are human; does anything exist at all? If a tree falls in the forest.... does it make a sound? To pursue this, we would need to start a topic about Clinton-speak (...that depends on what the word "is" is....) But to your comment that is more in line with this topic:
Everything is the result of a cause, things knocking in to each other etc. You are so right. But what caused the cause? And the cause before that? Maybe we're asking "where did it all begin?" Where did the energy orignate that caused the first "thing" to build up speed to "knock" into another "thing"? Maybe we're asking where did the "superatom" come from? Or the energy to make it spin? Or explode? Or where did God come from? Who made God? Where did God get his energy? What is the real purpose of our question here? [This message has been edited by Skeptick, 02-03-2004]
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Skeptick Inactive Member |
The direction that evolution takes is accidental, yes. That evolution will take a direction is guaranteed. I think that's all we're trying to say, maybe. Thank you giving a direct answer to the question. So, life is the end result of an event or events that were set into motion by accident?
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Loudmouth Inactive Member |
quote: What humans call an accident is something that goes against what a human would predict. Sometimes "accident" is related to a mistake, such as a car accident. In nature, the closest thing to "accident" that you get is a statistically random phenomenom, which applies to mutational events. However, those mutations are then selected for, which is not an accident with respect to random distributions. Selection causes non-random distributions, the opposite of accident.
quote: Evolution has nothing to do with origins. For example, we don't time how long it takes a sprinter to get to the starting line, the real race starts at the gun. Evolution's starting gun is the first replicator, thats it.
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Skeptick Inactive Member |
What humans call an accident is something that goes against what a human would predict. Sometimes "accident" is related to a mistake, such as a car accident. In nature, the closest thing to "accident" that you get is a statistically random phenomenom, which applies to mutational events. However, those mutations are then selected for, which is not an accident with respect to random distributions. Selection causes non-random distributions, the opposite of accident. If it rained on the rocks for millions of years, then one day lightning struck the ground (or the water, or whatever) and suddenly there was a living microbe, would you consider the living microbe to be the intentional result of a "cause"?
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