What we must accept if we accept evolution

Faith has raised many interesting points in the latter part of this thread. Here is an attempt at answering them. First of all, I agree with Omnivorous and nwr that the distinction 'corporeal / incorporeal' is inappropriate when talking about the mind. The mind is not a thing, it's an activity, like walking. No one in his right mind would ponder the question whether walking is corporeal or incorporeal. A better distinction would be 'physically caused / non-physically caused'.By asking "don't you have to be able to locate it, measure it?", Faith implies that one cannot do so. But that is not true. We can locate the mind. Being an activity of the brain, it is located in our head. But again, the mind being an activity of the brain, and more specifically the result of the interactions of a hundred billion brain cells, it is smeared out, as it were, all over the brain. The precision of locating the mind ends there. Some aspects of the mind may be pinpointed more precisely as located in some specific areas of the brain, but if something is the result of the interactions of a large number of brain cells, then you cannot pinpoint it more precisely than that. It would be like asking in which country the world economy is located.We can also measure it. Brain surgeons have done so in locally anaesthetized patients, by probing certain areas of the brain and asking the patients what they experienced. That's how we know that certain experiences are always affected in the same way if probed in the same way. Brain scans also reveal that certain functions reside invariably in certain locations. Certains drugs have a predictable influence on the working of the mind. Since the mind is an activity, it is susceptible to thinking about it in evolutionary terms, just like one can think in evolutionary terms about the mating dance of, say, birds of paradise. If a creature must respond to outside influences, it must have a way of internally representing the outside environment, or aspects thereof. Even non-living things can be thought to work that way. Think of a thermostat. To regulate the temperature, it has to have some way of measuring the outside temperature and representing it internally to compare it to an internal representation of the target temperature.For a creature to survive in a changing environment, having representations of outside things alone is not enough. You have to have a representation of yourself with respect to outside things, and processes to monitor all those representations.Having more and more ways to monitor the environment and the self within it at some point calls for a way to monitor the many monitoring processes going on. If monitoring the representations of the environment can be called "being aware of the outside", then monitoring the selfrepresentation with respect to representations of other things is "being self-aware". The monitoring of the monitoring must be "being aware of being aware", and lastly, the monitoring of being self-aware may lead to consciousness.But these are all my private musings on the topic, I do not claim to have any authority in these matters. I can say that it helps a lot to read about it. But in summary, to use a cliché: it's just a theory. That's not true. Electricity is generated by physical means. Without the physical, there is no electricity. You could be the only mind in existence, the rest of us could be zombies, automatons that respond by looking up suitable responses in a large database, or carrying out mindless routines to create responses, without really having an internal mental life. There's no way you can be sure. You should google 'Benjamin Libet'. He's done some fascinating experiments that suggest that our consciousness is actually lagging behind events, i.e. that you may think that it's you who initiates a body movement, say as a response to a stimulus, but that in reality, your brain was already generating the commands for the movement, before you were conscious of the stimulus. In other words, your brain operates independently and tells you afterwards what it has done.I realise that my making the distinction between 'your brain' and 'you' in the previous paragraph invokes all kinds of unwanted images about the mind, so here's another way of saying the same thing: your brain does something, and then tells itself about it. "Forget all the instrumentality required to convey them."That's the crux of the matter: you can't do that. Without the physical means of having and conveying thoughts, there are no thoughts. Thoughts are (dynamic) patterns in physical substrates. Without the physical substrates, there can be no patterns and no thoughts. Isn't that obvious? In my view, you have it exactly the wrong way around. The mind doesn't generate anything. It is itself generated, by the brain. Those ideas and illusions? They are your mind. The starting point is the brain, not some ethereal, independent 'I in there'. The Cartesian Theatre is empty. Or better, there is no Cartesian Theatre.This message has been edited by Parasomnium, 27-Jan-2006 12:11 PM

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"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science." - Charles Darwin.

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I'm saying the theory of evolution logically includes materialism. At one time in the history of earth, there were no "minds." Consciousness evolved. If minds are incorporeal, then one day in the history of evolution, corporeality produced incorporeality. That seems impossible.

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Mind is produced by the brain.Why is that "impossible"?

We must accept athiesm if we accept ToE.
We must accept materialism if we accept ToESo sayeth RR. RR claims that ToE is different from all other theories because other theories: (Message 74)Trying to point out that there is a difference between common ancestry and the ToE got me nowhere, coming to a conclusion with RR getting rather, I don't know the word but 'emotional' seems to fit, in Message 161 followed by the final post complaining of equivocation in Message 164.I have even pointed out that the distinction between the ToE and common ancestry is, without equivocation, held to exist by evo-biologists such as Futuyma in Message 170, but silence followed.I have attempted to as often as possible have a paragraph in each post which basically says "even if you are right about ToE, or even if you changed what your OP, replacing ToE with 'common ancestry', you'd still be wrong about logical philosophical conclusions".You see, the big difference between common ancestry and Germ Theory is that it deals with 'origins'. This makes no difference. At the very worst it dictates the methodology that a creator might have used...however not all gods are creator gods. Many gods are irrelevant to human origins and the purpose of life. Why do we need to stop accepting these gods because we reject some other gods?We don't. Therefore we don't need to be atheists to accept the ToE.RR claims that ToE claims the mind is only physical, and if it is only physical it must be deterministic.RR has been unable to substantiate that the ToE says this. Actually despite my numerous definitions of the ToE, RR hasn't actually put one forward. Above this there has been no acceptance that quantum indeterminancy might reject the determinist idea.To conclude, one can accept the ToE and believe in Eos. Theism with no logical inconsistency.One can accept the ToE and believe that mind is not subject to evolution and comes from elsewhere. Not materialism.One can accept the ToE and believe that the mind is purely physical and not deterministic.

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Not actually looking for a reply. I just like to sum things up for the lurkers and myself so the debate has a sense of closure.

Hi, Faith. I'm in the office busily rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar's, so I can't reply at the length our discussion merits until later.But for now: I personally feel that the human brain is breathtakingly beautiful, inside and out, and, yes, that experiential state is the experience of mind. I agree, much better, though there are many, many more entries in that Omni Book of Insults--I merely honored you with the choicest bits. Actually, that incident is a good case study of mind. Anyone who knows me personally would be shocked by that particular post ("Omni said that?") because I have worked hard at draining the vast reservoir of rage that my early years filled to the brim; in person, I am quiet almost to the point of shyness, and I function among family, friends, and co-workers as a peacemaker. I rarely argue with anyone, let alone become heated.But the stress of disabling injuries and multiple surgeries, and the disinhibiting effects of narcotic pain meds, opened the sluice gates to that rage more widely than they have opened in decades.To me, that "perfect storm" of circumstance confirms my brain-generates-mind model: it was not that my wicked mind was lying in wait for a moment of neurologic weakness, so it could impose fiery anger upon it, but that stress and drugs removed the inhibiting patterns I have established in my brain through years of effort, and that rage--a response that was appropriate for survival long ago, but is no longer--reemerged.Oops. More time gone by than I intended--I'll respond more specifically to your post later.

But this I've already answered. The fact that you can affect the mind through the body and brain does not make the mind corporeal, any more than the fact that you can track and predict the actions of electricity through a physical apparatus makes electricity corporeal. Yes, but as you guys all tend to do, you are question-begging, assuming the ToE here, assuming that brains "get more complex" over aeons of evolution. From your opponents' point of view, they don't "get more complex" they simply represent varieties of brain design for various purposes. An efficient economy of design puts similar kinds of apparati where they are needed to do similar kinds of work. If a portion of the human brain resembles the brain of reptiles, this is simply because it is efficient at doing a similar kind of work in this physical world we live in. There is no need to assume genetic descent. The obvious greater complexity of the human brain above all other brains reflects the fact that God made us more complex than the animals, and equipped us for living in the physical world by physical means similar to those He used for all His creatures, but with differences according to what they were designed for.In other words, the observed similarities (and differences) in brain design don't prove the corporeality of the mind, or any causal connection between brain and mind, or that the mind evolved out of biological processes.{Edit corrected last sentence substantially. Hope it's not a problemThis message has been edited by Faith, 01-27-2006 12:35 PM

This is true. They are incorporeal realities. Why? They are in fact incorporeal realities. Well you are the one equating "incorporeal" with "abstraction," nobody else that I can see. And you are now also the one requiring that the mind float free of the body if we are going to use the term, which nobody else has required that I can see.The idea of incorporeality is very simple it seems to me. We all know we have a mind, we all know everybody else has a mind, and we all know we can't point to it. We can point to the brain but not the mind. The mind is in our communications for instance. You can't point to those communications. Mind is incorporeal in the simplest possible sense. There's no need for all these complicating notions. But its not being "made of stuff" is the sense in which it has been used all along here. Introducing some other sense of the idea merely complicates the conversation unnecessarily. Its not being made of stuff indicates this? It seems to me you have conceptual layers in there that don't need to be in there. It is quite possible to define the mind as quite real although incorporeal, not an abstraction, and not an artifact of language or an epiphenomenon of brain activity.

I have to be gone for a while but I'll get back to your post.All I want to say now is that it looks like you're begging the whole question by merely defining mind as an activity of the brain.

What on earth makes you think electricity is incorporeal?The physical basis of electricity is well understood.You may argue that there is an underlying quantum mechanical mechanism which some might say is incorporeal, but if you go that far then you are effectively saying that everything is essentially 'incorporeal' which makes a nonsense of the argument.TTFN,WK

That's fine, maybe electricity isn't incorporeal, although you haven't demonstrated that. For that you'd have to define its physical properties apart from the apparatus used to channel it. So it's an imperfect analogy. In any case, mind remains incorporeal.This message has been edited by Faith, 01-27-2006 01:10 PM

I'm very busy right now, but I wanted to get in a general comment. I will respond to individual posts as soon as possible. Modulus, I was not ignoring you--I mean to respond.This thread is about what we must accept if we accept the theory of evolution. In my view, we must accept a lot. Some people, I think, want to hedge and have it both ways. They believe in evolution, but they also want to retain some cuddly human qualities like mind and free will and, in some cases, even God. To me, this is mere sentiment. All these notions have to be thrown out.If evolution is true, we are physical organisms and nothing but that. Even our reasoning is theoretically suspect since our logical beliefs are caused. If they are physically caused then they have not been deduced or inferred. We exhibit a fair imitation of logical thinking--very like a computer. A computer may seem like it's thinking but of course it's not really thinking. It's just going through some physical operations automatically. That's what we do; that's what we have to do if we are purely physical, and that's what we are if we evolved from nothing but physicality.To say that the "mind" is corporeal is a euphemism. A corporeal mind is just another term for "brain." How else are we to distinguish "brain" from "mind" except by saying that one's corporeal and the other's not? I suppose you might say that the mind is part of the brain, but that doesn't matter. It's just brain-stuff.Our thoughts are physical events. If we had brain-feelers, we might feel something physically when we thought. I visualize it like the rumbling sensation we have in the stomach when it's acidic. Let's say I had a very nasty, unpleasant thought. If my brain had feelers, it might feel like a rumbling in the head to me. But such is not the case with the brain, so as a result we have this sense of incorporeality. Is it any wonder that we would as a species so naturally tend to believe in the ghosts and the gods, who are incorporeal? We feel like we are incorporeal too.This message has been edited by robinrohan, 01-27-2006 12:25 PM

I disagree with your conclusions. I would like to see a convincing argument for this. I don't believe that there could be such an argument.Pretend, for the moment, that substance dualism is true. That is, pretend that we are spirits, temporarily occuping a body. The theory of evolution is a theory only about the body component of that duality. The theory of evolution says nothing at all about whether there is a spiritual component and how that arises. If our reasoning is theoretically suspect, what theory is that which makes them theoretically suspect.What's a logical belief? The term "logical beliefs" sounds nonsensical to me.What's the basis for saying that beliefs are caused? Physicists are telling us that we live in a world with many uncaused events.What, exactly, would be the problem if beliefs are caused? I have a belief that the coffee mug in front of me is almost empty. If that belief happens to have been caused by the fact that the coffee mug in front of me is almost empty, in what way would that causation be a problem? Why is a deduction or an inference being excluded as an allowable cause? A computer doesn't do any logical thinking. A computer can be said to do logic (although that is challengeable), but computers do not think. Or at least current computers do not think. Okay, I'll modify that. If you consider a person to be a computer, then there are some computers that think. You finally said something I can agree with. You need to define what you mean by "physical", and then show the logic by which you reach these conclusions.For myself, I don't agree that we are purely physical. Our bodies are purely physical. And maybe everything we do can be accounted for in terms of our bodies and their interactions with the world. But that word "we" is not a reference to our bodies. And if "we" is not a reference to our bodies, then it isn't at all clear that *we* are purely physical.

Interesting to think of this. I myself would assume that if thoughts are entirely physical (which I believe them to be), and if they are each a response to various stimuli (which I believe them to be); then there is a possibility that thoughts (and their resulting actions) could be entirely predicted.The problem with this, is that each stimulus may have a limited number of responses. But if each of those responses have an equal chance of occuring; then there is no way of predicting with 100% certainty an outcome from a certain stimulus. Only a general prediction can be made of the various responses.We do this naturally each day when we anticipate the reactions of those around us. Think of a series of roads which all split off from one another. For example: when I gave my ex-girlfriend flowers (stimulus), I predicted her "emotions" (resonse) would take a road of general happiness. Now down this road are many other off-shooting roads (each represents happiness, but different specific reactions). If we can predict one of the roads (the main one), then there is no reason why we cannot predict the other, more specific, roads. That is to say, that some roads (responses) are more likely to occur than others, allowing for predictions. Our brains may not be able to do such predictions, but there is no reason that a higher "brain", such as a computer, could not.I believe that with proper technology and know-how, it is possible to predict EVERY action of EVERY human being simply based on environmental stimuli (including that from other humans).Trék

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In considering the Origin of Species, it is quite conceivable that a naturalist... might come to the conclusion that each species had not been independently created, but had descended, like varieties, from other species. - Charles Darwin On the Origin of Species

Our ancestor was a one-celled life form. OK. That's not a problem, since it's very natural to pretend such. What it says is that consciousness evolved. Now how the physical can become spiritual is a bit of a problem. The "spiritual" is not natural--it's supernatural. So the supernatural did not come from nature. You can say it came from God if you like, but this is no good god. There are logical problems with a non-conventional definition of "God." Another theoretically suspect theory. (It's all a madness.) The fact that we are physical organisms. If beliefs are caused, then there is no reason to say they are logical. There were not arrived at through a logical process but through a physical process. They can only be true accidentally. A deduction or an inference is not physical. It's incorporeal. We ruled that out. Thank God.

Hardly a convincing argument. No. The theory of evolution says nothing about consciousness. It deals only with the biology.The evidence against dualism comes from psychology and neuroscience, not from ToE. And even then, many people find it less than convincing. Can you let us in on the secret? What theory is it that you are referring to here? Hardly convincing. Can you fill in the gaps that get you from that assertion to your statement about beliefs? Is there any reason to say that they are not logical?Let me add here, that I am doubtful about beliefs. We may say that people have beliefs, but there isn't anything that they have which justifies our saying this. Beliefs are things we attribute to people, not things that the people actually have. When was that ruled out?I remember discussing that thoughts might not be physical. But a deduction is not a thought, it's an action.

Not to be picky I hope, but strictly speaking, the spiritual is no less natural than the physical. It's another part of nature, part of the created order. Strictly speaking, although informally we refer to the spiritual realms, angels and demons and so on, as "supernatural," the only thing that is truly supernatural (above nature, above Creation) is God Himself. Your point is still valid though, as far as I can see. Nobody has yet made a believable case for sentient spirit's derivation from matter.