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Consciousness
#78577
06/19/06 00:46
06/19/06 00:46
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Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 718
Wisconsin
Irish_Farmer
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Yes, and exactly what would prove that? Can you prove that our social behavior isn't hardcoded in our genes? That we need devine inspiration to act clever? Come on, I can hardly take you serious when you come with arguments like these.
You can prove this one yourself. Next time a girl (who you find worthy) offers to sleep with you, don't do it. You've just acted contrary to your genes, which tell you to have sex with anything that looks good.
We don't need divine inspiration to act clever. I'm saying that we are more than our genes. There's no reason to believe that any other animal is, however.
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>Evolution makes things like rape, and doing whatever you feel like, sound ok.
>Or not as bad, what have you.
The biologists are coming! Quick, everybody inside!
Perhaps this might have made more sense if you weren't referring to someone who will soon be going to college for biology.
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back before radio-carbon dating
Because it would really be a huge loss if we didn't know the exact year that King Tut died....Radio Carbon dating has nothing to do with anything. They don't date rocks (that includes fossils) with it. So I don't see your point with this.
In fact, radio carbon dating backs up a young earth because if the earth were millions of years old the c14 in the atmosphere would have reached equilibrium.
The rest of your argument is a rant about people who opposed science, most of which included atheists, and that's somehow relevant to anything?
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Genes dont "dictate" behavior...because genes play no active role in how an organism functions on a day-to-day basis, something else must guide it.
You wouldn't be appealing to a supernatural force now, would you?
Certainly extremely complex behaviors can be encoded in an animal's genes. Take the walking fungus for example. It has no brain.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v22/i3/fungus.asp
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agree that this is a contentious issue, and maybe not fully solvable. However, I think the concept of human uniqueness is species chauvinism
No, its common sense. Starfish aren't exactly like chimpanzees. Certainly, chimpanzees are unique in that non-chimpanzees are not chimpanzees. Its simple logic.
Apes aren't anywhere near as intelligent as people are. Birds themselves are more intelligent than monkeys. However, we are unique as the smartest animals on earth. I don't know why you find this idea so offensive.
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just because a chimp cant talk to us, doesnt mean they dont have some kind of self-awareness and sense of being.
Just because you want them to doesn't mean that they do, however.
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I think that many animals have emotions, and form attachments to other animals (including poeple), as most pet owners would agree.
The question is whether or not they have a consciousness of those emotions, however.
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A perfectly logical argument can be made by any idividual that he/she is the only self-aware person in existence, because there is no real way to prove otherwise.
This is yet another example of humanistic pseudo-logic that people use to feel smart about themselves.
I can logically say that I am not the only human with consciousness. We would agree that humans are humans because of their genetic code. If I have a consciousness because of my genetic code, then by extension so does every human. That's logically sound. In fact, I would have to purposely prove that there is something so different about other people that they wouldn't have a consciousness. For instance, I could prove this by showing everyone else is a robot, or what-have-you.
Otherwise, its logically unsound to say that I am the only conscious person in existence.
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"for all I know, everyone else is an android or a gollum created by an evil spirit, etc. They can insist that they aren't but they could be lying."
Okham's razor.
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To conclude: there are observable similarities between apes and humans that seem too close to be purely chance coincidences. When combined with the genetic evidence that show we share about 98% of our genes with chimpanzees, the evidence for a close and receent ancestral link is undeniable. This then naturally requires a process of biological change, which is provided by Darwin.
Quite. This is, once again, the argument that, "Animals look the same, so they must have evolved." This is an interesting hypothesis, but itself is not proof. If humans and chimps are 98% similar, why are our proteins 70% different? Why do we look more than 2% different? Why are we many many times more intelligent?
Science needs more than just interesting thoughts. We need proof.
Last edited by Irish_Farmer; 06/19/06 00:47.
"The task force finds that...the unborn child is a whole human being from the moment of fertilization, that all abortions terminate the life of a human being, and that the unborn child is a separate human patient under the care of modern medicine."
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Re: Consciousness
[Re: Irish_Farmer]
#78578
06/20/06 04:34
06/20/06 04:34
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Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 535
Michigan
ICEman
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Michigan
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Well.. I would say this: Our natural inclinations, such as those to have sex with anything that looks good.., are hardcoded into our genes. They are primative in nature and put there for a reason, just as they are with every animal..for a reason. All animals that proliferate by sexual means must possess instinctual instructions to do so. We proliferate our species sexually, and therefore need an instinctual urge to do so. Animals have what you could call sexual preferences which allow them to discriminate between healthy, unhealthy, more healthy mates.. so as to produce stronger offspring. Our preferences are more advanced than that of animals because our cognition is more complex. We ..value asthetic beauty and therefore seek it in the subcognitive hope to make those traits a part of offspring (this is less apparent in males as we.. stick to the more basic explanation of just wanting to have sex with something hot). We have hard code instructions but they are primative and serve only to maintain our continued flourishment..like any living animal. This in no way validates rape. What separates us from animals.. and enables us to not act so primatively based solely on these hard coded instructions without consideration is that we are more intelligent. We have the ability to apply ethical, economical, logistical considerations to our instincts. We know rape is wrong, so we dont do it..even though, per your example, youre outright lying if you dont at least think about having sex with said hot girl who has propositioned you. Instincts are what they are. We have them, all sexual animals do. Our intellect simply gives us sovereignty over them. Some animals even display more discipline than others as far as their instinctual activities. Only physical genetic code is law.. the rest is..guideline. As for the monkeys being 98% similar to us...pfft.. They are too far inferior, and too physiologically different to be that close. the realtiy of that is, they have similar features.. but are no more related than earthworms and rattlesnakes. Science has proven that all humans are 99.98 percent the same...the rest being our individual distinctions and minor evolutionary divulgences..  So far that knowledge hasnt brought us any closer.
I'm ICEman, and I approved this message.
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Re: Consciousness
[Re: Irish_Farmer]
#78579
06/20/06 05:08
06/20/06 05:08
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Joined: Oct 2003
Posts: 4,131
Matt_Aufderheide
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First of all you cant cite the Answers in Genesis website in a serious science discussion, as they are not a reliable source of science information. Doing so just makes you look silly, and damage your arguement rather than supports it.
However, this discussion here seem to be philosophical in the main. Not being an amoeba I cant say how or why they behave how they do. But the fact is genes dont directly influence behavior. Genes simply code for the creation of proteins, which eveuntually gives rise to a new organism. Other than that I am not well-versed on genetics and molecular biology.
Genes dont determine sex drive. While genes can determine basic hormones level in a given indivdual, often life style or diet, exercise, and social conditioning determines an indiviudal's sexual drive.
This is of course a contentious issue, with no clear answers as to what guide or directs an individual's behavior. It is easy to suggest that a person, for instance, behaves purely according to chemical and electrical chnages in the brain. But this purely mechanist approach seem to be inadequate. How can planned action be explained in this way? One c0uld say no action is planned, just rationalized afterwards. While this may be true on a small scale, humans can create a long temrs plans and goals, and follow through with actions.
So clearly there is somehting in the cognitive loop that acts in some way independent of chemical drives. What might be comonly called free will, or the soul, or the conscious mind--this eneity that is the core of a human being, is so far elusive and unknowable.
Descartes belived that living being like a humanm was composed of two distinct "substances", the everyday physical matter, and a non-physical substance of the soul. And only the non-physcial substance was capable of thought.
While modern science and philopsophy has long since discredited DesCartes material dualism, he may still have been on to something: the consciousness might still be thought of as a non-physical entity. Take for instanee a computer program-- it is not a physical thing in itself, but a sequnce of data. The structure is what is important, not the physcal reality. The human mind likely works in similar way.
So while the brain is composed only of matter, the arrangment of the matter is what makes the magic.
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Re: Consciousness
[Re: Matt_Aufderheide]
#78580
06/20/06 19:43
06/20/06 19:43
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Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 3,236
San Diego, CA
Marco_Grubert
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San Diego, CA
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@Matt: Very well said !
However: I would be careful with the software analogy; just because this is the height of our current technological understanding does not mean that unknown processes can or should be mapped to it. Staying with Descartes here for a moment, the big breakthrough at his days were hydraulic automatons (i.e. life-size puppets that were animated due to water pressure). Based on that he theorized that the life spirits coarsing through our veins work in a similar way. Now that we have electricity and understand neurons it's easy to see that this description was way off base. What might a future generation think when they hear us comparing consciousness to a piece of software ?
My initial reaction would also be that genes do not encode behavior, but how then do you explain identical behavior across a species? There's an impressive example in "Goedel, Escher, Bach" of an insect inspecting its cave before putting food in it. When the food is slightly moved after cave inspection the insect will check the cave again, when you move the food afterwards it will check the cave again, etc. Hard-coded behavior stuck in a while loop.
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Re: Consciousness
[Re: ICEman]
#78581
06/22/06 00:25
06/22/06 00:25
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Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 363
Ottawa
MathewAllen
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Posts: 363
Ottawa
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Quote:
As for the monkeys being 98% similar to us...pfft.. They are too far inferior, and too physiologically different to be that close. the realtiy of that is, they have similar features.. but are no more related than earthworms and rattlesnakes.
Science has proven that all humans are 99.98 percent the same...the rest being our individual distinctions and minor evolutionary divulgences..
So far that knowledge hasnt brought us any closer.
Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa? I am confused!!
You seem to reject what you want to and keep what you want to. yes, all humans are about 99.98% the same genetically. This is true. Chimpanzee's, Orangutangs, and Bonobos, are about 98% the same as humans genetically, with chimpanzee's being the closest of the three and orang's being the farthest off.
You can't just pick and choose what facts you want to accept. Either denounce genetic analysis totally, or accept it's findings as far as they go, I'm not saying you can't believe all humans are very very similar and not believe in evolution - the similarity genetically between us and other GREAT APES is a truth, it doesn't necessarily prove anyhting about ancestry. Please, just don't deny statistics from the same field, and indeed research groups, as ones you laud - for the sake of everyone else's sanity.
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Re: Consciousness
[Re: Marco_Grubert]
#78582
06/22/06 01:05
06/22/06 01:05
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Joined: Oct 2003
Posts: 4,131
Matt_Aufderheide
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What might a future generation think when they hear us comparing consciousness to a piece of software?
I think the comparison is apt, because I'm not claiming that the mind is a software program, but that the structure of the brain is what generates consciousness. This seems somewhat obvious, but to be frank, most people have a very limited idea of what the mind is, just that it is "me".
The only real danger with this observation is the obvious implication that if the brain has a "programmed" structure, then it must have a "programmer". Not so, because the term "program" describes a structured system, and a system can occur naturally.
Take the weather patterns, an "organic" system of extreme complexity, which seem to behave according to rules that can be understandable (even if we dont fully understand them). However, no one can deny that the weather occurs naturally, without intervention from a "programmer" (unless you want to go back to rain dances and such.. good luck).
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Re: Consciousness
[Re: Matt_Aufderheide]
#78583
06/22/06 04:26
06/22/06 04:26
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Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 718
Wisconsin
Irish_Farmer
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First of all you cant cite the Answers in Genesis website in a serious science discussion, as they are not a reliable source of science information. Doing so just makes you look silly, and damage your arguement rather than supports it.
Matt. Step outside your little 'intellectual' bubble for two seconds. The entire article was on the behavior of a single celled organism (that behaves like a multicellular organism). If you have a specific problem with the science in that article, please point it out. However, it was meant to illustrate a point. Apparently you're too smart to read, though.
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However, this discussion here seem to be philosophical in the main. Not being an amoeba I cant say how or why they behave how they do.
Yeah, but if you knew anything about science (something most amateur evolutionists do not  ), then you would know they behave the way they do because of their genetics.
Simple as that. If you want to argue against science, please do. You'll make your theory look more ridiculous.
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But the fact is genes dont directly influence behavior.
Not in humans. At least not ALL of our behavior. But in the majority of animals (especially simple and single celled creatures) yes it does.
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Other than that I am not well-versed on genetics and molecular biology.
I know. If you were, you wouldn't believe evolution.  BUT! That's just a little fun poking. No need to get into evolution here. That was just a wise crack.
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Genes dont determine sex drive. While genes can determine basic hormones level in a given indivdual, often life style or diet, exercise, and social conditioning determines an indiviudal's sexual drive.
Misuse of the phrase sex drive. Let me put it this way. If it weren't for genes we wouldn't have the desire to have sex in the first place, we wouldn't be able to have sex, and we wouldn't be designed for sex.
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This is of course a contentious issue, with no clear answers as to what guide or directs an individual's behavior.
Its pretty clear cut. Our genetics give us the desire and ability to have sex. Our consciousness gives us the choice to follow our genetics or not. Smoking pot felt pretty good. But I choose not to do that anymore. My consciousness gives me that choice to do something contrary to my programming. Get a million cats together, put catnip in front of them and see how many of them refrain from eating it.
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So clearly there is somehting in the cognitive loop that acts in some way independent of chemical drives. What might be comonly called free will, or the soul, or the conscious mind--this eneity that is the core of a human being, is so far elusive and unknowable.
Agreed. I don't even know how you could begin to study consciousness. It defies the material nature of our universe. But that's a whole other discussion.
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You seem to reject what you want to and keep what you want to. yes, all humans are about 99.98% the same genetically. This is true. Chimpanzee's, Orangutangs, and Bonobos, are about 98% the same as humans genetically, with chimpanzee's being the closest of the three and orang's being the farthest off.
Depends on who you ask. Some figures put us at 96% the same as chimpanzees. Any creationist would be remiss to ignore that. However, it proves only one thing. Our genome is 96-98% similar to a chimp's.
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Chimpanzee's, Orangutangs, and Bonobos, are about 98% the same as humans genetically, with chimpanzee's being the closest of the three and orang's being the farthest off.
As far as I last knew we weren't that close to anything but chimps. Do you have a source?
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The only real danger with this observation is the obvious implication that if the brain has a "programmed" structure, then it must have a "programmer".
I like how you find this idea dangerous. Says a bit about your reasoning.
Also, what's so problematic about this? If something looks programmed, then it probably is. If I'm a biologist, and I'm studying frogs I don't go, "Well, this specimin looks like a frog, but that's dangerous thinking." Geologists don't see mountains and say, "Well it looks like some kind of force moved these continents together, but that's dangerous thinking."
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Take the weather patterns, an "organic" system of extreme complexity, which seem to behave according to rules that can be understandable
What does weather have to do with complexity? Actually I don't even want to know, because it'll get this discussion sidetracked....
Last edited by Irish_Farmer; 06/22/06 04:33.
"The task force finds that...the unborn child is a whole human being from the moment of fertilization, that all abortions terminate the life of a human being, and that the unborn child is a separate human patient under the care of modern medicine."
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Re: Consciousness
[Re: Irish_Farmer]
#78584
06/22/06 04:33
06/22/06 04:33
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Joined: Oct 2003
Posts: 4,131
Matt_Aufderheide
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I don't even know how you could begin to study consciousness. It defies the material nature of our universe.
If you think that you missed my entire point, that physical structure and organization may be what defines and generates consciousness, therfore not definy material reality.
Also, there are many means of studying consciousness. Here you display more ignorance of science, and the entire hisory and purpose of philosophy which is almost entirely a study of consciouness.
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