Darwinism’s biggest (and least discussed) problem
| October 31, 2007 | Posted by Granville Sewell under Intelligent Design |
The biggest problem of all with Darwinism, in my opinion, is one that is almost never discussed by either side. In my Dec 2005 American Spectator article (updated version here) I tried to express the problem as follows: “When you ask [the modern scientist] how a mechanical process such as natural selection could cause human consciousness to arise out of inanimate matter, he says, ‘human consciousness — what’s that?’ And he talks about human evolution as if he were an outside observer, and never seems to wonder how he got inside one of the animals he is studying.”
You may be able to convince a gullible layman that natural selection of random mutations can cause mud to evolve into robots with advanced computers controlling their motions, but you will have a much harder time convincing him that it can cause these robots to become conscious. But scientists almost completely ignore this problem, because we haven’t the slightest idea what “consciousness” is. And rather than take the approach that science should be concerned with explaining the things we experience, the modern scientist takes instead the attitude that “if we can’t measure it or quantify it, it doesn’t exist”–or at least it isn’t science. They define consciousness down, and say that if a computer can pass a “Turing test” the computer must be considered to be conscious. To pass a Turing test, a computer has to convince the human communicating with it that he is talking to another human. Now, maybe computers will someday be able to pass a Turing test (maybe they already can), but I don’t believe that makes them conscious. I cannot be sure that there isn’t “someone” inside my PC who experiences the same consciousness that I experience, or that improving the hardware and software of computers sufficiently will never make them conscious, because I can’t even define consciousness, but I doubt that it will. And if I don’t believe that intelligent computer designers can ever make computers conscious, how could I believe that an unintelligent, mechanical process such as natural selection could do it?
44 Responses to Darwinism’s biggest (and least discussed) problem
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dave557, RP was active in more threads than just this one. His other comments were even more inane than the one here, which was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
I’m a layman, but even I can come up with a decent rebuttal to RP’s inflammatory nonsense, to wit:
If ID is an “old science” attempt to backtrack to a point in history when we understood less than we do know, then abiogenesis is an “old science” attempt to take us back before we knew spontaneous generation was impossible, and the Big Bang is an “old science” attempt to take us back before the ancient Greeks came up with the eternal universe.
Yes… since the Greek theory of an eternal universe was backed up by physical and mathematical evidence… and the current Big Bang theory is based solely on mythical stories and and legends.
No, a layman cannot come up with a decent rebuttal
Yes… since the Greek theory of an eternal universe was backed up by physical and mathematical evidence…
It held up nicely until the 1950s. There are still a couple of hold-outs on the Steady State whose reasoning is much like the ID hypercritics – the implications of the new idea is simply too scary for them.
and the current Big Bang theory is based solely on mythical stories and and legends.
No more so than abiogenesis, thanks to Pasteur.
No, a layman cannot come up with a decent rebuttal
That may be. At least I’m not a sockpuppet for a banned commenter.
“ReligionProf is no longer with us.”
Which side leads to fascism…
“the implications of the new idea are simply too scary for them.”
Apologies, bad grammar from bad editing. That’s what I get for banging out a reply just before quitting time.
Which side leads to fascism…
“DON’T TASE ME BRO!”
MacT (5): The Edelman paper explictly sets out a model of consciousness that relies on an evolutionary framework. I find Edelman’s (evolutionary) account of consciousness interesting and compelling. I’d be very interested to hear what evidence you would cite that counters his model.
Edelman calls his hypothesis “neural Darwinism.” Darwinian evolution, being based entirely on the combination of chance (variations) and necessity (natural selection) can’t generate complex specified information, but intelligent agency (human consciousness) can.
__________
Alternatively:
Roger Penrose, Shadows of the Mind (1994), p. 354:
__________
toc (26): Francis Crick addressed this issue by declaring (loosely stated here) that human consciousness is nothing more than the activity of molecules colliding against each other.
For the record:
Francis Crick, The Astonishing Hypothesis (1994):
I’d rather be a “sockpuppet” for someone who is rational, truthful and correct. The alternative is a little backward
I’d rather be a “sockpuppet” for someone who is rational, truthful and correct.
You’ll need to pick someone other than a self-confessed layman, then, since you have implied that laymen know nothing.
Also, you’ll have to prove you’re not a layman yourself.
Otherwise, I wouldn’t be surprised if you share an IP address with our dear ReligionProf, considering how sensitive you are over my simplistic rebuttal. Either that or you’re some student of his.
A ban for ReligionProf . . . for what?
It might be useful if someone in authority here could briefly explain why this individual’s particular contributions on this thread resulted in termination. If this is meant to be a place to discuss ID in terms of science, then what could possibly be objectionable about dissenting views, set out articuately and politely?
Not only do I not share an IP with the dear Prof in question, but I have never spoken to him in my life.
And I’ll, email you a copy of my degree in Genetics if you like.
Not only do I not share an IP with the dear Prof in question, but I have never spoken to him in my life.
Good, then you can stop being so defensive of him, since he confessed to be ignorant of genetics and the mechanics of DNA replication.
If he didn’t share your collegiate rubber-stamped worldview, you’d be busting on him for his lack of biology education and ties to religion instead of trolling me.
And I’ll, email you a copy of my degree in Genetics if you like.
A scanned check stub from your current employer will suffice, thanks. Otherwise, you’re just another cookie-cutter wet-behind-the-ears egotistical troll who just as well claim that he’s the King of Spain.
MacT wrote:
I’m far from an authority here, DaveScot has his own reasons for banning RP, but from what I observed in the few posts of his I read, he was not very polite and not willing to discuss anything other than how ID is not science.
In this thread alone, he insisted on not reading anything on this site that contradicted his disbelief of mind/brain duality and instead kept implying that anyone who didn’t agree with him was ignorant (i.e., not “well-informed”).
He chose to keep insulting people like Dr. Dembski, Ms. O’Leary, and the other knowledgable people who contribute to this site by implying they were ill-informed – not just in this thread, either. Thus, instead of being a respectful guest, he chose to be boorish and was banned because of it.
ellazimm:
Duly noted.
I had no derogatory intent in this post. My comment was to imply (apparently without success), when addressing conscious issues, particularly those concerning values or ethics, Crick’s statement (thank you j):
“your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules”.
leads me to wonder why his statement can be considered authoritative. It is a bit unnerving to read in such strong language someone whose intent, as his was, to destroy the notion of religious belief. Like the Logical Positivists, asserting that no proposition can be true unless it could be empirically verified, his proposition is either true, or it collapses by virtue of his own argument. Were those just his nerve cells and their associated molecules talking or is this statement empirically verifiable?
I have not read every ream of text written on the subject; but I do have difficulty believing something to be true objectively if nothing can be found to be objectively true — particularly if the propostion is nothing more than a material consequence of some apparent unknown cause.
TOC:
Sir Francis is simply stating one of the many forms of the inner — too often unrecognised — incoherence of evolutionary materialism as an account of mind and reasoning.
For, if in the end, all traces to chance plus mechanical necessity acting on and through space-time and matter-energy, there is no dynamical basis for a credible mind. Thence, self-referential incoherence and self-contradiction or absurdity as you note.
(My just linked gives several ways this can, does and has happened over the 150 years or so of the modern emergence and dominance of this view.)
GEM of TKI