Different in degree or kind (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, November 12, 2013, 19:22 (3818 days ago) @ David Turell

DHW: Read Torley. There is a colon after "discontinuities", which he explains as being the two kinds of consciousness. I have pointed out that this does not mean discontinuity. You are substituting your own argument for his. Of course I accept our self-awareness as a "major gap", just as I would accept that there is a major gap between a student who gets 90% in an exam and a student who gets 10% in the same exam. I am answering Torley, not Adler.-DAVID: My problem is I've read Adler and understand the import of his argument, as we both do. Difference in kind means God exists. -That is indeed your problem. If only you could prove that God specially made man, you'd be able to say God exists. Mind you, if anyone could prove that God made all forms of life by inventing an intelligent mechanism that enabled cells to...ah well...-Dhw: If you believe evolution happened, but somehow humans are to be set apart from their animal ancestors, you are arguing for separate creation, as Torley does with his God suddenly endowing post Heidelberg homo with a soul.-DAVID: Yes, I'm on Torley's side. The ancient Hebrews (our ancestors) gave a different soul, but a soul, to animals. [...] I don't know when ensoulment happened, but I equate it with the arrival of the very advanced human consciousness, whenever that happened. We don't even know if it was a gradual or a sudden event. If we could identify which type of event it would push the argument one way or the other toward degree or kind.-Interesting. If you wish to limit the soul to humans, you certainly have to believe in your "difference in kind". Following my pet panpsychist hypothesis, and if I believed in a soul, I would argue that energy is contained within all organisms, and as life forms become more complex, so the individualized energies become more complex too (i.e. evolve). This would mean that all organisms have their own form of "soul", which survives the death of the material container, from amoeba to Archie Optrex, to tortoise, to tiger, to Turell. All individualized energies. That might be the source of your species consciousness too. I don't suppose you'll like the idea, though. Not anthropocentric enough, eh?