39. Clive Wynne, Animal Consciousness, Making Friends With Skeptics (Podcast)

[jacob]

I second the idea of asking Sheldrake about the research of N'kisi. It really looks fascinating.

[David Bailey]

Dyson,

LOL - I had to read your last post a couple of times before I realised that you had quoted first me and then Venom - until then, it made no sense at all! I have wondered how to do a multi-quote on this site, it has never worked for me (using FireFox). Obviously I could hack it together 'by hand' in an editor.

I still find it hard to imagine thinking without words - I imagine the dog in your example thinking "Oh great - food!". It is particularly hard to imagine planning - such as a squirrel planning how to get to up to an inaccessible bird feeder - without 'words'. However, who is to say that intelligent animals don't have an internal set of mental 'words', they just don't share them with others.

David

[Open Mind]

Originally Posted by DysonSphere

I think its pretty clear that consciousness is not a result of language, people who have strokes are temporarily unable to communicate or understand language, numbers, yet they are still able to have conscious thoughts.

Similarly here is a nice quote from Professor of Neurology, Antonio Damasio ....

'.......As I studied case after case of patients with severe language disorders caused by neurological diseases, I realized that no matter how much impairment of language there was, the patients thought processes remained intact in their essentials, and, more importantly the patients consciousness of his or situation seemed no different from mine..... in every instance I know, patients with major language impairments remain awake and attentive and can behave purposefully...' - Professor Antonio Damasio

The above quote is from an entertaining, very good book called 'Does It Matter? - The Unsustainable World of the Materialists' by Graham Dunstan Martin
Amazon.co.uk: Does It Matter?: The Unsustainable World of the Materialists: Graham Dunstan Martin: Books

[David Bailey]

Open Mind,

Thanks for that reference. Here is a summary of the contents of Martin's book:

The End of Materialism by Graham Duncan Martin

Unfortunately (unless I have misunderstood the argument) it seems to be marred by the old idea that Darwinian evolution is impossibly improbable based on the probability of assembling various molecules by chance. While the probability of Darwinian evolution fully explaining the genesis of life is an interesting question (IMHO), the process is meant to work in incremental steps, not in one giant 'accident'.

David

[Open Mind]

David,

I agree that language perhaps does help focus consciousness in humans (and animals) but I think you would agree that it is probably not enough to create consciousness alone, such as computers programmed to listen, respond coherently and speak .....then automatically obtaining consciousness.

Originally Posted by David Bailey

The End of Materialism by Graham Duncan Martin

Unfortunately (unless I have misunderstood the argument) it seems to be marred by the old idea that Darwinian evolution is impossibly improbable based on the probability of assembling various molecules by chance. While the probability of Darwinian evolution fully explaining the genesis of life is an interesting question (IMHO), the process is meant to work in incremental steps, not in one giant 'accident'.

David, yes, I do not totally agree with everything he writes, although still a good book. Graham Dunstan Martin's book pretty much expresses the side of some popular intelligent design arguments which neo-Darwinists believe they can explain away as likely to occur over time. I get the impression both sides are somewhat in error, the intelligent design proponents are number crunching in an attempt to show life is too far beyond luck and must be smartly designed and the materialists are saying a series of random steps to an evolutionary advantage are not lucky just require enough mutations to occur. It is the blind watchmaker of neo-Darwinism VS the blind rubik cube solver suggested by Hoyle.

Perhaps 'intelligent evolution' would be a better term than 'intelligent design' the latter implies a preplanned design. My own current viewpoint is that the natural selection of random mutations is not quite enough but it does not necessarily require an all knowing, perfect God of religion either. Bergson 100 years ago was implying the brain was a filter of the mind and that evolution did not necessarily require and end goal or purpose and that if something resembling God came to exist, this God was the result of evolution, part of evolution, not necessarily an all knowing designer or creating a universe running on autopilot. The religious do not on the whole like this possibility .... perhaps factors such as psi hint at the evolution of an intelligence beyond matter too, evolution beyond our physical senses. .

G. D. Martin appears to favour some some sort of designer (and perhaps he over emphasizes it IMHO) however he clearly stops short of religious creationism when he writes '.....I am not committed to either moral or the technical perfection of any supernatural creator......one suspects that most thinkers are obsessed by the Christian God, that alleged perfect and infallible being as the only possible candidate for a designer ... but why should the designer be perfect? ...... Evolution is sometimes too good to be true, sometimes too bad to be true. Evolutionary mechanism though indubitably part of the truth, are not enough to constitute the whole truth...' .

Martin doesn't suggest the missing mechanism, his book is not on psi, more a critique on materialism. I get the impression he hasn't made his mind up on psi, he briefly refers to apparitions and views these whether real or hallucinations, either would still cast doubt upon the materialists viewpoint.

Good book, particularly for people new to the long running philosophical debate against materialism, perhaps not for everyone in here like yourself who clearly have been following the debate for years and may have encountered the arguments against materialism from other sources.

[David Bailey]

Open Mind,

I still think the question about whether natural selection has enough power to do what it is supposed to have done (with or without the actual genesis of life) is an interesting question - but probably very hard to answer definitively.

I tend to cringe at the very mention of God or religion because these seem to be concepts derived from the worst of human politics. Nowadays particularly, every organisation seems to require a boss with a super salary who frequently struts about and wrecks the very institution he is supposed to be leading. If we had a God like that we would really be in trouble!

David

[Open Mind]

Originally Posted by David Bailey

Open Mind,

I still think the question about whether natural selection has enough power to do what it is supposed to have done (with or without the actual genesis of life) is an interesting question - but probably very hard to answer definitively.

Yes, I know that from reading many of your posts. That is perhaps the most sensible position to hold. I was just trying to clarify G D Martin's viewpoint and what emphasis I do not quite agree with in his interesting book.

Incidentally I don't quite agree with Sheldrake's quote in this Skeptiko edition either when he says telepathy is 'normal not paranormal', natural not supernatural .... likely to be an evolutionary advantage' ...... but it is probably just a terminology problem due to Sheldrake speaking off the cuff .......

Personally, I do agree telepathy will have natural causes and be part of nature ..... but 'normal' implies 'common' and telepathy is not commonly obvious (at least to die-hard skeptics! ) .... whether telepathy is 'normal' or an evolutionary advantage may depend on whether it is conscious or collectively unconscious effect. I would guess it perhaps more of an evolutionary advantage at the collective level and hard to evolve as an advantage and often disadvantageous at the individual level.

Different viewpoints are good, one of the reason I like Paul's post - even although I disagree.

As always ..... I could be wrong

[Venom]

Originally Posted by Open Mind

Incidentally I don't quite agree with Sheldrake's quote in this Skeptiko edition either when he says telepathy is 'normal not paranormal', natural not supernatural .... likely to be an evolutionary advantage' ......

If telepathy was real, the natural selection would have selected much more (because being able to read the mind of a predator is a very very strong evolution advantage), and the effect would be really obvious today.

I really thing that the "evolution argument" is against telepathy being real, and I don't understand Sheldrake's position (that it would be an evolutionary advantage, even with so subtle effects - such has parapsychologists claim to be real).

[Open Mind]

Originally Posted by Venom

If telepathy was real, the natural selection would have selected much more (because being able to read the mind of a predator is a very very strong evolution advantage), and the effect would be really obvious today.

No, this is the most common of mistakes by die-hard skeptics Telepathy found in parapsychology is not like a private telephone call from sender's brain to receiver's brain, it seems interactive even with experimenter. The effect seems stronger amongst friends, yet seemingly disrupted by rival or sceptic

Venom, if you shared perfect telepathy with a group of others. How would you know whose thought is whose? Are you now collectively a single mind or still separate minds? . All of this hints at a more collective interaction, difficult in nature to evolve more selective or private without shutting telepathy down in competitive environments.

In other words the brain evolved to filter out telepathy of minds, the exact opposite is occurring IMHO. Telepathy bubbles up from the unconscious level IMHO

The situation is slightly different for remote viewing and precognition. Now these indeed would be an incredible evolutionary advantage but these are weak in lab trials. Why didn't these evolve strong? Quite simply they aren't brain generated functions. The mind is not the same as the brain. You won't find any super-remote viewing dogs or super precognition dogs either IMHO .... I predict only stronger telepathy amongst animals than in humans, particularly those with less clear cut sense of individuality. In humans sense of individuality is strong, too strong to be great at telepathy IMHO.

What about claims of remote viewers with strong clairvoyance? Frankly if you ask the few good ones, they aren't sure if the information is being passed to them by another mind (such as a discarnate mind) or whether it is under their control ... most good ones believe in survival, not super-psi theory. ... however science is stuck in a paradigm that the brain generates consciousness, therefore psi. Scientists need to listen to the actual claimants, survival of consciousness is the reoccurring theme in most cases of strong phenomena ... not super-psychic powers under personal command, that more often belongs to the conjuring acts out to make a buck.

I really thing that the "evolution argument" is against telepathy being real, and I don't understand Sheldrake's position (that it would be an evolutionary advantage, even with so subtle effects - such has parapsychologists claim to be real).

I don't know Sheldrake's exact position on this either ..... however I would predict Sheldrake's morphic resonance/formative causation effects will bubble up from an unconscious level, largely beyond our conscious control.

[David Bailey]

Originally Posted by Venom

If telepathy was real, the natural selection would have selected much more (because being able to read the mind of a predator is a very very strong evolution advantage), and the effect would be really obvious today.

I really thing that the "evolution argument" is against telepathy being real, and I don't understand Sheldrake's position (that it would be an evolutionary advantage, even with so subtle effects - such has parapsychologists claim to be real).

Well, first of all, the Ψ effects in dogs don't seem so subtle! However, it is clearly a mistake to claim that evolution will tend to maximise every beneficial trait because that depends on the cost. Why for example don't we all run as fast or faster than our many predators in our recent evolutionary history? You don't know what disadvantages the possession of a strong Ψ sense might have - for example, it may distract from situations that demand attention - a bit like using a mobile phone while driving!

David