#33 Mind and Evolution Part 1

The evolution of mind is incompatible with the naturalist dogma that intentions cannot cause behavior. This is based on an insight of Alvin Plantinga.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Philosophy
• Mind
• Evolution
• Plantinga
• Naturalism
• Intentional control

[dfpolis]

@BjornSeverinLarsen I did not give a circular definition of awareness, but defined it by its relational role. I don't know what you mean by the body a barrier. It is one aspect of an integral human person. Projecting into a conceptual space is actualizing some objective notes of intelligibility by attending to them, while ignoring others, leaving them potential & unactualized. Our understanding of reality is thus relational. We find value to us as human. Peace, Dennis

[BjornSeverinLarsen]

@dfpolis So awareness is the fact that we are aware that we are apart from other things? That our body is that barrier which defines a person as a person? If we project reality into conceptual spaces (I understand this as: we percieve, interpret and give reality subjective meaning) then how is our understanding of reality not relational? I find it hard to see how we are to find the intrinsic value of anything, when we allways relates reality to ourselves.

[dfpolis]

@BjornSeverinLarsen We can project reality into many conceptual spaces, just as we can project events into many frames of reference. Some conceptual spaces facilitate the solution of a given problem better than others. Awareness, as I use it, is not our state of readiness to accept perceptual data, but standing as a subject to objects. I have no problem with a social aspect of emotional life, but as you point out, it is relational rather than intrinsic. I can emote in isolation. Peace, Dennis

[dfpolis]

@BjornSeverinLarsen Your question is like asking how an election can select a candidate. Neither elections nor NS are voluntary agents. They are the processes by which such agents express their will. NS does not select genotypes directly, but the resulting phenotypes in virtue of superior performance (i.e. behavior). I have no problem with my freely willed intent being expressed in my behavior, but then I'm not a physicalist. Only some behavior is intentional, i.e. that which I will. Peace, DP

[BjornSeverinLarsen]

@dfpolis I don't really understand your argument about immateriality - which is also why I'm trying to stear around it. Actually emotions has 3 aspects. They are physical, cognitive and social. On the physical and cognitive you can see changes in the body - I would argue that awareness is part of the cognitive. The problem with this in understanding emotions is that the social aspect of emotions can't be measured other than from it's cause and effect.

[BjornSeverinLarsen]

@dfpolis How can NS select something? It is not a conscious mechanism. It is but the fact that those best suited to survive, has the highest chance to do so and to pass on their genes. How is that behavior testing? How does intentionality or awareness not influence behavior. What is behavior but an extension of our intentions and reactions to our perceptions (awareness (simple form, need to be aware to percieve consciously))?

[dfpolis]

@BjornSeverinLarsen I do not think of NS as "some kind of mechanical natural something" as can be seen from my response to part 1: it as a law-driven physical process. Yes, individuals with certain unpredictable (not ontologically random) mutations have a higher chance reproducing than others. Why? Because the intentional laws of nature (see my #14) make it so. Behavior, not awareness, is tested by NS. So, if awareness can't cause behavior (epiphenomenalism), NS can't select it. Peace, Dennis

[dfpolis]

@BjornSeverinLarsen Emotions have 2 components: (1) a physical state, (2) awareness of that state. The 1st is hardly immaterial, while the 2nd can in no way be reduced to matter and motion. Natural selection is a process, not a thing. It is driven by immaterial laws acting on material states. Unless consciousness can change physical states, NS can't affect it. Your question on the Higgs Boson assumes an argument I have not made. I've not said ignorance implies immateriality.

[BjornSeverinLarsen]

@BjornSeverinLarsen 3rd part - compared to the population around the individual. Then the genetical difference gives this individual a larger chance to reproduce and spread his genes in the population, thus in time, the trait that gives the advantage is spread in the population. A "better" intentionality in an individual which is based on genetics would give the individual a better survivability, then it is part of a natural selection process. Immaterial or not - doesn't matter

[BjornSeverinLarsen]

@BjornSeverinLarsen 2nd part - Your critism of how evolution sees natural selection as to intention and other immaterial traits I find based on a misconception of natural selection. You call natural selection some kind of mechanical natural something... meaning that it is firmly based on matter and nature i guess. However this is your interpretation of natural selection - natural selection is just: if an individual genetically gains a better chance of surviving compared - cont.