Consciousness

AI is usually, in itself, a side-issue to a discussion of consciousness, yet people love to speculate on the inevitability of consciousness in AI. This, before we can even define our own consciousness. I personally feel that purposefully building any “consciousness” into AI could be considered as unethical as it would be to experiment with any huma…[Read more]

Consciousness is not one thing. It is a combination of neural processes that include attention; awareness/experience of self and awareness of sensory input; recall of episodic memory, metaphorical, numerical, estimational, and artistic cognition; an inner narrator that speaks in our native language and is able to focus on various aspects of inner…[Read more]

It was Jung who wrote about the Shadow Self.

(Your much too Jung to be aFreud).

Freud said that part of the ego exists in the unconscious.  I think this is true, i.e., there is a part of consciousness that is “unconscious”, and part of the ego operates within it.

What is the unconscious?  I think it contains things that are known to the mind but not to conscious awareness.  Those things might be dynamic manoeuvres like su…[Read more]

In fact, Freud might have said that the ego is that part of consciousness that looks after you in the short and long term.

What I find fascinating is the way that the pressure to thrive/survive/reproduce combines with consciousness to produe the ego – that “machine for looking after you”.

If you think about it, the ego is constantly monitoring one’s environment, ferreting out opportunities and, especially, threats.

You could say we’re too clever for our own good.  It may be that consciousness – awareness, intelligence, language and moral guidance, among other things – are there to use for cooperating, and doing complex things, in a social world.

If we compare our probable survival duration to that of sharks or roaches I would venture to say that consciousness and frontal lobe development will prove to be a detriment to survival. In fact as self aware beings with wants and desires we have diminished ability to avoid changing the very environment we evolved to live in.

_Robert_ wrote:
I think “consciousness” as hard as it is to define is probably a byproduct of frontal lobe evolution/development that has nothing to do with survival.

I think that’s not completely incorrect. But I’d say that, at some point even back in the early evolution of consciousness, many new thoughts and new behaviors could be exp…[Read more]

I think “consciousness” as hard as it is to define is probably a byproduct of frontal lobe evolution/development that has nothing to do with survival.

Conscious of what?  The real world.  This has to have something to do with evolution.  Consciousness gives a survival advantage.

The religious assertion that individual consciousness (usually defined as one’s “essence”) can survive brain death is simple completely detached from any real evidence or facts. I think “consciousness” as hard as it is to define is probably a byproduct of frontal lobe evolution/development that has nothing to do with survival.

Simon Paynton wrote:
[…] Apologists also maintain that atheists have no objective standard of morality, but human well being is an objective criterion in my opinion.

Having said that, I’m sure that atheist anti-theist arguments are full of straw men as well.

Yeah, and speaking of human consciousness, we all have that cognitive bias toward s…[Read more]

I don’t think that members of a species cooperate with each other to propagate the species.

Agreed. But it builds stronger bonds between cooperating individuals who will watch out for each other which in turn makes the overall society stronger.

A strong and healthy silver fish is not as well adapted (or “fittest”) as a brown fish in a murky r…[Read more]

I’ve read Richard Dawkins in “The Extended Phenotype”, and he lists about 11 definitions of fitness.  I agree that “best adapted” makes one definition, but “strong and healthy” is another in my opinion, both leading to the same outcome – relatively more reproduction than one’s fellows.

I don’t think that members of a species cooperate with each…[Read more]

When we speak of the “survival of the fittest” we should be clear what the term “fittest” means. It was never used by Darwin. Most theists and a good many atheists think it means the strongest or even the most aggressively competitive. But it would better read as “survival of the best adapted” (to their environment). This could mean the best ca…[Read more]

the original arguments that gods regulated our every thought 24/7

I’m sure (but don’t know) that this is still the case.

What bugs me is the straw men, particularly over morality.  Evolutionary explanations are dismissed on the grounds that evolution means “the survival of the fittest”.  This is true, but evolution also means “thriving of the f…[Read more]

The last arguments that apologists for religions stand with seem to be the scientific frontiers concerning abiogenesis, consciousness (NDE), objective morality, quantum mechanics and pre-big-bang suppositions. That is a far cry from the original arguments that gods regulated our every thought 24/7 (that lasted for hundreds of years). It is amazing…[Read more]

I think that someone with “access” to the “spirit world” or whatever gained power through this.  This power then enabled control of the group.