Clever Corvids: using tools (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, September 02, 2015, 20:23 (3159 days ago) @ David Turell
edited by dhw, Wednesday, September 02, 2015, 20:34

dhw: I'm still waiting to hear how the first cells and their descendants managed to pass down divine computer programmes for billions of innovations and lifestyles over billions of years and organisms through all the random catastrophes that might have destroyed them, but that particular “how” doesn't seem to bother you.-DAVID: Since DNA and the rest of the genome is a multilayered code, there is plenty of room for all the instructions.-Plenty of room for billions of preprogrammed innovations and lifestyles to cope with all those random environmental changes and lead from bacteria to humans via dinosaurs, the duckbilled platypus and the wasp that lays its eggs on a spider's back. All contained in a tiny globule. If there's room for all that, maybe you can find room for an autonomous, inventive, intelligent mechanism that works out its own programmes as the need or opportunity arises.-dhw: If consciousness is produced by the brain, how can it be an entity all by itself? Consciousness is not an external object but an ongoing interior process, as is thought. And if thought is a product of consciousness, then when the producer of consciousness dies, the product of consciousness should die as well. But that is precisely what NDEs contradict: the brain is dead but consciousness survives and thoughts are still produced. In that case, consciousness and thought cannot be produced by the brain. Your dualism depends on the brain being a receiver, not a producer.-DAVID: I understand that. By 'entity' I meant a special emergent production, and although I favor the receiver concept, I not sure enough of it to exclude brain production which can somehow survive clinical brain death once it is produced by the brain.-If you view consciousness as an “entity all by itself”, it has to exist independently of the brain! As I have said below, “emergence” is another explanation, but that only stresses its dependence on what it emerges from. Your key word of course is “somehow”. That is why I complain about double standards, as in the exchange belowhw: ...could it just be that there are different forms of intelligence, and bacteria have different means of thinking? 
DAVID: Pray tell, how?-dhw: And if consciousness is an entity all by itself, and if animals, birds and insects have consciousness (though not on the same level as our own), why should it not be the same for bacteria?-DAVID: Because I think any degree of consciousness requires a brain. Because our consciousness is different than the organisms to which you refer. We have a consciousness which can foresee and plan for the future. Most animal research shows they live in the moment, with very little aspect of future planning found. As for your favorite bacteria, they respond immediately, only in the moment. This is the point you miss.-I can assure you I am perfectly aware of the colossal differences between our intelligence/consciousness and that of baboons, butterflies and bacteria. That is what I mean by “not on the same level as our own”. But in my view the ability to process information, take decisions and solve the vast range of problems posed by an ever changing environment still requires intelligence/consciousness. You acknowledge gradations of consciousness when we discuss animals and birds, and have even somewhat grudgingly acknowledged that my pet ants may have some degree of it, but...see below. -dhw: I am not myself arguing for or against dualism. The “emergence” of thought from chemical interactions is another explanation - with the product being greater than the sum of its parts. But if this is so for humans, it can also be so for bacteria, even without a brain.
DAVID: I'm of the firm opinion that thought requires neurons.-And quite clearly there are many experts in the field who disagree with you, which is why I always find the firmness of your opinion so puzzling!