`Human Consciousness: Role of the unconscious (Humans)

by dhw, Sunday, February 14, 2016, 12:52 (3207 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: That animals might have souls is a tenet of Judaism, nothing more.
dhw: You have never to my knowledge discounted the possibility. See below for further comment on animal thought.
DAVID: I never meant to 'discount' it. I accept it as a possibility.
Dhw: Thank you. Therefore you think it possible that Adler's difference “in kind” (only humans have an “immaterial” mind) is wrong.

DAVID: No. If you knew Jewish theology you would know that animal souls are not the same as human souls, and the Hebrew words are different, nefesh and neshamah. And Adler's point is not what you state. Human aesthetics and immaterial conceptualizations are part of his argument. Can an ape write Beethoven's Fifth?

Could Beethoven sing like a nightingale? First came birdsong, and millions of years later came humansong. Yes, a huge gulf, but a natural evolutionary progression once awareness had arrived at new levels. As for the soul, if it exists, it is that part of the organism that lives on when the material body is dead. I would not expect an elephant/dog/ant soul to be the same as a human soul. The point is its immateriality. Immaterial conceptualizations connected with the quest for knowledge, morality and aesthetics are the whole point of O'Hear's anti-evolutionary argument, which you say echoes Adler, and I have suggested that they are explicable in evolutionary terms of human self-awareness building on our animal ancestors' own explorations, social structures and “appreciation of beauty”. You accept that these are “an evolutionary extension, just the magnitude is extremely surprising.” Magnitude = degree. You then claim that “we are so different in degree it is obvious we are different in kind because that degree in difference could not have been created by undirected evolutionary processes.” According to you, even the weaverbird's nest could not have been created by undirected evolutionary processes, so if that is the point you are trying to make, why not use the same argument for both: human intelligence, like the weaverbird's nest, is too complex to have been created by undirected evolutionary processes. We may not agree, but at least we can then dispense entirely with the non-argument of degree versus kind. (I have suggested, ad nauseam, that the direction in all cases is provided by an autonomous, intelligent, inventive mechanism - origin unknown - within the organisms themselves.) 

BBella: According to evolution do not all beings share a common ancestor? And if so, wouldn't that mean all beings are truly only different in degree from each other? It would seem to me, only for categorizations purpose would something be different in kind.
dhw: The perfect summary. Bacteria, ants, dogs, eagles, elephants, humans....all categorically different in kind, and all with varying degrees of intelligence, manoeuvrability, adaptability, perception, social organization etc., explicable in terms of the evolutionary drive (origin unknown) for survival and/or improvement.

DAVID: You both miss the point. Stick to the mental aspect. Adler only discusses the differences in consciousness and capacity of that consciousness, nothing about phenotypes, which are beside the point. The 'kind' difference is only in that aspect of life.

Dealt with above. BBella and I are simply trying to sort out the linguistic mess, which has led to your claiming that difference in degree (capacity, like magnitude, is another difference in degree) = difference in kind. All species (broad sense) are different in kind, and all species have different degrees - sometimes massively so - of intelligence etc., as above. Simple.