From: Scott R (jse885@spinn.net)
Date: Fri Sep 05 2003 - 13:42:15 BST
Andy,
> I asked: "How does Sheldrake avoid this cunumdrum?"
>
> You answered: "That I don't know, but from what I've understood he doesn't
need
> to explain consciousness. Only materialists do, or the whole Darwinist
world
> view falls apart."
>
> Andy: Well, as I admitted before, I am still unsure how you are using
this term
> materialist.
A materialist is one who takes what we sense as the ground of existence. So
thoughts, feeling, words, etc, can be described in terms of atoms moving in
the void. Now quantum mechanics throws a monkey-wrench into this
formulation, since what we know about elementary wave/particles comes from
inference from experiment, but what is inferred is not sense-perceptible --
it's not just that they are too small, it is that they can't be visualized.
So what I see in quantum mechanics is evidence of the immaterial. However,
everything I've seen of materialists trying to explain consciousness assumes
that spatio-temporal mechanism is sufficient for their explanations, that
is, one is dealing with big enough things (like neurons), that quantum
weirdness is not an issue.
Two points thoughgh, first: Sheldrake, as I remember (it has been
> a long time), uses his perceptions and experience to explain some things
that he
> thought Darwinian theory did a poor job answering. Thus, he proposed
these
> fields specific to each specie that they can tap into.
Yes, and these fields are non-local.
However, subsequent
> theorists showed that Darwinian theory answered Sheldrake's examples just
fine.
Like who? I haven't heard that there is a satisfactory theory of how babies
learn language. Nor that instinctive behavior has been reduced to an
animal's neural system.
> Now, I am not up to date on Sheldrake and I am sure I got some of this
wrong,
> but the point is he was using the products of his perception to analyze
his
> perceptions. ANd he proposed a theory. He was using a scientific
methodology .
Yes.
> Second, Darwinian theory does not try and explain consciousness.
Tell that to Dennett.
> This is your pet project.
No, my pet project is to show that consciousness is unexplainable in terms
of atoms moving in the void (or any other way).
Now if you are going to use explaining consciousness as your
> criteria for "right" theories, than you are going to have to throw a lot
more
> out than Darwin. Newtonian physics, SHeldrake, Einstien's relativity,
Quantum
> physics, and all of science as we know it.
Nonsense. Nothing I've said touches science, which is finding and theorizing
about regularities in the products of perception. All I'm saying is that
science cannot study consciousness, other than finding brain patterns that
correlate with certain mental events. No scientific experiment can
distinguish between an epiphenomonal view of consciousness versus a "tuning
in" theory.
Darwinian theory explains many
> things and cosciousness is not one of them. It explains the vast
diversity of
> life and quite well also. However, it does a litttle "bootstrapping" of
its own
> by starting with simple single cell organisms, our common anscestors.
Darwin
> theory has nothing to say about how consciousness develops out of the
inorganic.
> It doesn't even try. So your attempt at throwing out "the whole
Darwinist
> world view" just doesn't make any sense. At least for the reasons you
give.
Darwin didn't try, but Dennett and others sure have.
In any case, as I've said before, the Darwinist explanation of how species
evolve (that is, by random mutation and natural selection -- aka,
spatio-temporal, purposeless mechanisms) is, though implausible, not
impossible. But the notion that consciousness could evolve out of
spatio-temporal mechanisms is impossible. So there is a non-spatio-temporal
factor in the world. So what is the point of insisting on a Darwinist
explanation of how species evolve?
- Scott
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