`Human Consciousness: Role of the unconscious (Humans)

by dhw, Tuesday, February 16, 2016, 16:14 (3201 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: 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 [and of manoeuvrability, adaptability, perception, social organization] etc. Simple.-DAVID: I continue to disagree, having read Adler's whole book on the subject. For example we have inherited instinctual behavior in evolution just as animals have, but we have the distinct advantage of being able to reason and control them when they are not appropriate. You are looking at patterns like the Pentadactyl limb type. Our bodies may look the same but our immaterial thought patterns are totally different than lower organisms. Different in kind.-I do not think that degrees of intelligence, manoeuvrability, adaptability, perception, social organization can be equated with the pentadactyl limb type. However, I am happy to agree with you that our immaterial thought patterns are totally different from (and vastly more complex than) the immaterial thought patterns of ants, dogs and elephants, just as the immaterial thought patterns of ants, dogs and elephants (judging by their behaviour and lifestyle) are totally different from one another. All species (broad sense) are different in kind, and so it is only natural that their thought patterns will also be different in kind. You have, however, accepted that there are basic common patterns which humans have inherited and developed on a vast scale (e.g. exploration, social organization, appreciation of beauty) and which 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.” Since according to you the weaverbird's nest and the rest of evolution's innovations and natural wonders could not have been created by undirected evolutionary processes, I am simply pointing out that with your interpretation of evolution, there is no need for any of this discussion. In brief, ALL species' (broad sense) thought patterns are different in kind, the degree of our intelligence is indeed surprising and remarkable, as are the complexity of the weaverbird's nest, the strength of the spider's silk, and the life cycle of the monarch butterfly. For you they are ALL special, and - according to you - their special attributes ALL provide evidence that your God directed evolution. So why single out humans?