Problems with this section (Agnosticism)

by Frank Paris , Monday, November 16, 2009, 17:52 (5485 days ago) @ BBella

"I can see what you are saying above; before consciousness, man was living as the other animals on earth, by instinct alone."-Well, not exactly. The emergence of consciousness was not a binary event and not an event that occurred in human beings alone. An example of consciousness in animals besides humans is the sense of beauty and the sense of right and wrong (in elephants for example).-There are also two quality levels of consciousness, what might be called simple awareness of what is around you and awareness of the self. Awareness of the self, or self-consciousnss, is certainly most highly developed in human beings, but I'm not sure you can say that it exclusively appears in human beings. There appears to be rudimentary self-consciousness even in a few higher animals, including some birds, like crows, magpies, and parrots.-Consciousness requires some kind of reflection or awareness on top of instincts, resulting in behavior that modifies purely instinctive impulses. I think it would be a mistake to believe that consciousness arises as if by magic suddenly out of the blue. It is a gradual emergence in higher animals stemming from certain complexifications in the organization of the brain.-"When or what circumstances do you believe brought about the beginning of the rise in consciousness of man?"-As implied by the above, I think this was a gradual emergence that started probably long before creatures arose that could be clearly identified as human. There was no "spark" that suddenly ignited in human beings, like traditional theology believes with the divine creation of a human "soul."-"Do you think this consciousness of man grew along side or out of the birth of the mental conscience?"-I'm not sure that you're making a legitimate distinction here, or if you are, I don't understand what you're asking. -"what do you think could have sparked [the] birth [of consciousness]?"-As mentioned above, there was no "spark." It gradually emerged out of the complexification of certain structures in the brain, and not necessarily exclusively in human beings. -I'll answer the rest of your post in a second one of my own.