Calling Cofty and others regarding evolution

by dubstepped 340 Replies latest jw friends

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  slimboyfat

  I said a lot about awareness and gave links to lengthy discussions of the topic, including one between Sam Harris and David Chalmers.

  Most people can recognise that there are degrees of awareness. For example dogs are conscious and many people would say have personalities. Fewer people would say that flies or spiders are conscious and have personalities. But it is probably appropriate to attribute some sort of "awareness" below the threshold of what we describe as "consciousness" to such creatures. These are complicated issues and people draw the lines of consciousness, awareness, personality, and so on in different places.
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  cofty

  Yes and what sort of absurdity is required to draw the line of awareness at a point that includes rocks? utter gibberish - but here you go hijacking yet another thread.
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  slimboyfat

  Well I can remember people made fun of the idea that plants and trees are aware. Not so much these days. Many ideas that were once utterly ridiculous are now "facts".

  The discussion was about evolution and had come to focus on consciousness, and my comment was relevant. I'm tired of you claiming I have to justify any comment I make. All you ever say is either "ridiculous" or "irrelevant", never actually contributing anything.
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  cofty

  The idea that rocks are aware will always be ridiculous to all but the most gullible.
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  slimboyfat

  I don't know if it's "true" or not, but many have held to pansychism over many centuries. At times it was orthodoxy. At present a number of serious philosophers and scientists hold to forms of pansychism, and it is enjoying something of a revival.

  You have previously described Sam Harris as a great thinker. He entertains the idea of pansychism at length in this discussion. Is Sam Harris a great thinker or most gullible?

  https://youtu.be/1bmHL1sbntw
  
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  cofty

  I watched that video last time. He really doesn't 'entertain' the awareness of rocks. Even if he did so what? My thoughts are not coterminous with those of Harris or anybody else.
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  slimboyfat

  I didn't say your thoughts are coterminous with Sam Harris. You said that the idea "that rocks are aware will always be ridiculous to all but the most gullible". Sam Harris nowhere describes pansychism or general awareness of matter as ridiculous in this discussion. Instead he explores the issues and the implications in some detail. By your standard does that make him gullible? Seems like a reasonable and specific question. Protestations about non-coterminous thinking are a red herring.
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  cofty

  By your standard does that make him gullible?

  No not unless he conceded that rocks are aware. In that case, by any standard, he would be a woo-woo disciple on the scale of Deepak Chopra.

  At what point in the conversation do they discuss rocks?
  
  
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  slimboyfat

  There's clearly a difference between not conceding something and finding it ridiculous. Sam Harris doesn't concede pansychism, but neither does he treat it as ridiculous, which was your original standard (a few posts up) for avoiding the label gullible.

  I don't "concede" pansychism either, in that I think it is possible but not proven. So you have shifted the goalposts considerably.
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  hothabanero

  I wonder if a computer program can be aware. Arguments can be made on both sides. interesting times!