Simon Conway Morris on animal intelligence (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, January 20, 2017, 17:46 (2864 days ago) @ David Turell

As this discussion is becoming a little diffuse, I’ll try to summarize it, and then David can correct the summary and we can focus on the salient points.

I believe the main differences between ourselves and our fellow animals have arisen from our enhanced consciousness, but “I don’t know if the complexification of the brain triggered the enhanced awareness or resulted from it.” David’s response is that God gave us a large brain first, which “we used to develop new thoughts and concepts.” However, David believes NDEs show that our consciousness survives the death of the brain.

Materialists argue that consciousness cannot survive without the brain, which is its source. As a dualist, David argues that the brain is the receiver of consciousness, not the source.

Problems:
1) If the brain is the receiver of consciousness, how could it have triggered (enhanced) consciousness?

2) The use of “I” and “we” masks the question of what it is that uses the brain. I would suggest that it is the conscious mind and all its attributes (regardless of the influences that have shaped it). Materialists must ultimately argue that the brain uses the brain. NDEs suggest that the patient’s conscious mind/identity survives the death of the brain, and must therefore be independent of it (a clear form of dualism). But if “thoughts and concepts” could not have arisen without it (David’s idea of brain preceding thought), how can a conscious mind think and conceive when the brain is dead?

3) The argument that enhanced consciousness gave rise to the complexified brain (just as exercise expands muscles) is dualistic, but the dualist David rejects it in favour of the materialist argument that the more complex brain gave rise to our enhanced consciousness.