Either the gentle arousal of sleeping beauty or disturbing a sleeping dragon, which is it?
The part:
An individual human could not become a self-reflective, thinking adult without the necessary bodily systems, processes and organs which comprise the whole organism.
The whole:
Earthly life could not reach a stage in which individual organisms become self-reflective, rational thinking beings without the forms of life which develop in a way that comprises the vast supporting structure that allow these few seeds of nascent self-aware consciousness to spring from the living earth. Life on earth is one self-regulating body while humanity provides the mind within that body.
The majority of earthly life forms only developed so far along the path, some along ever narrowing, one-sided branches, while the balance of the whole is ever maintained. The one-sided nature of some creatures is obvious. Giant pandas being a classic example. The hoof of a horse, the wing of an albatross, the middle finger of an aye-aye, are all much more specialised than the human hand. Ideally suited to their specific tasks. But this speciality becomes a hindrance to further novelty.
Like pacemakers in a race, various creatures forego their own advancement to give an outcome which was destined in the long run. And to achieve this outcome whereby nature can look upon herself with a spark of understanding, self-conscious individuals are a necessity. The sleeping beauty that is nature begins to wake up. Or has the dragon been poked with a stick?
The ubiquitous instinctive wisdom of nature which has been in control since physical life began is handing over its power to the still ripening human wisdom. And of course there is no guarantee that the newly sapient creatures that we are will be up to the task of handling this new found power responsibly. Adolescents can be unpredictable when they encounter novel freedom before they have gained the experience to deal with it.
Our minds are our exception within nature. And human exceptionalism rightly regarded is a privilege granted us by nature. It is not something for us to boast about; we did not get here by means of our own efforts. We did not wake of our own accord. This is a responsibility which was thrust upon us and we are now left in a position where we have a great deal of control over the destiny of earthly life. Will we gain sufficient maturity to enhance life or are we the seeds of earthly destruction?
The future will determine if our efforts turn out to be praiseworthy. We can claim no credit for getting to this point. Will we be considered worthy of credit for what follows? We haven’t made the best of starts but who would have expected otherwise.
So why would this make Homo sapiens specialized?
According to National Geographic:
“In the field of ecology, classifying a species as a generalist or a specialist is a way to identify what kinds of food and habitat resources it relies on to survive. Generalists can eat a variety of foods and thrive in a range of habitats. Specialists, on the other hand, have a limited diet and stricter habitat requirements.”
Humans will eat most of animal or plant substances around so long as they aren’t poisonous.
The human species have been known to construct and dwell in igloos, indlus, bothies, multi-story apartment blocks, log cabins, bungalows, bivouacs, space stations, ships, tepees, yurts, mansions, lighthouses, humpies, hotels, motels, tents, cave dwellings, mud huts, house boats, blackhouses, hanoks, but’n’bens, condominium, hogans, underground houses, oil rigs, roundhouses, castles and keeps, favelas, minkas, mobile homes and many other types of dwelling. We live in hamlets, villages, towns and cities; in the country and in boats.
That’s a fairly wide selection of types of habitat.
But as individuals we can be extreme generalists or specialists or anywhere in between. There are people that choose to be strict vegans, some have no choice but to eat very little but rice. Other individuals eat a large variety of meats and vegetables.
This makes humans unique.
By that definition, humans are specialist.
Obviously, we are reading the definition differently.
Yes, humans can eat a wide variety of foods, as long as they can find them at the local grocery store. It is that dependence on grocery stores, refrigeration, cooking, etc that makes us specialist.
This video tells us about “The Insane Biology of: Ant Colonies”. They have a very complex and sophisticated communication system using pheromones. They use an alphabet of over twenty different pheremones in their intricate language.
Weaver ants construct their tree houses in a remarkable way. The image below shows how they glue leaves together using a special silk exuded from their larvae. Each ant carries a larva in its mandibles and uses it as a living glue gun to stitch the leaves together. You can watch them at work doing this from here
Now those are houses made by very competent specialists. No ant has a mind that can compare with the human mind but their group wisdom far surpasses that of any that we demonstrate.
What does? To expose myself to criticism and mockery from biologists, sociologists, historians, let me assert that biological evolution has had little to with the cultural development and expansion of the human race from our early modern ancestors. All the evolutionary traits were in place many millenia ago.
Do you think that every indigenous person living in the amazon basin, or every person living throughout China and India is dependent on grocery stores and refrigeration? These are luxuries for the select few.
And even those who do have this luxury have an extremely wide choice of foods available to them. I can sit here in the North West of Europe eating an orange from South Africa or an apple from New Zealand. I can sit in my house in mid winter eating my way through a bowl of tropical fruit while my Australasian counterpart might be tucking into a plate of Scottish salmon with a glass of fine Speyside malt.
Compared to other species humans can hardly be classed as a specialist species.
For a start, our cultural development makes us unique. Also the vast range of individual specialities within the species makes us unique.
Most of them probably do depend on grocery stores, even if they manage without refrigeration.
Humans are specialized to being part of a complex society. Yes, individuals can find their own path and avoid that social dependency. But if everybody were forced to do that, the size of the human population would greatly shrink and humans might even go extinct.
Cultural evolution even. It is in some ways an analogous process to biological evolution. Unique, certainly on this planet.
Yes, the question is why are all the ducks in a row for the explosion of human civilisation (“civilization”) already in a row 100,000 years before it happens? Well, I find that an interesting question.
They weren’t already in a row.
Yes, the biological components were all there. But a lot of cultural evolution was needed, and that takes time.
That’s what I meant. If you were able to steal and time-transport a Cro-Magnon infant and place her with a wealthy caring family and give that child the benefit of a modern education and so on, would that child be handicapped in any way? I don’t know, we’ll never know, but there’s no evidence to suggest she would be.
I think that’s plausible. I’m not a biologist, sociologist, or historian but I read a lot across the fields and it seems right to say that there’s not been much biological evolution in the past 200,000 years or so.
Kantian Naturalist,
The spelling police might be after me though! Millennia not millenia.
I depend on grocery stores, local butchers, energy suppliers, road builders and maintenance teams, emergency services, garages, petrol stations, delivery drivers, health and dental services, heating engineers, pharmacies, farmers, textile workers, banks, insurance companies, refuse collectors, white goods manufacturers; the list is endless. What sort of specialist does that make me?
Individuals can be specialists and generalists. They are more than likely to be both at the same time. On the whole nothing points to the human race being a specialist species.
What about the evolution of consciousness? How do you see that fitting in?
And why was there an unconscious single cell with the potential to be a self-conscious organism moving down some fallopian tube decades before its product started posting on TSZ?
The mystery of life is a wonderful thing.
You are somehow not noticing that the meanings of “specialist” and “generalist” are different when talking about humans within our society, than they are when talking a biological species.
Context matters.
Way back as Joe F said. Consciousness is not all-or-nothing (nor is it a thing, in my view). Sentience, awareness, self-awareness are not unique to humans.
And that is precisely why, when you said
Neil Rickert: Yes. But that makes us more specialized, not less specialized.
I replied
You’ll need to explain your reasoning here. Do you mean we as individuals, or as populations or as a species?
Yes I agree, that’s all true. Consciousness is a state of being. It’s not even a consistent state in us over the course of days. Indeed it is not even contemporaneously consistent in any single individual. The famous video of the person in a gorilla suit walking about during a basketball game demonstrates this. Anyone watching it would have the ‘gorilla’ in their field of vision but might be quite unaware of it. So they are aware of the players but not of the ‘gorilla’. A baby watching this might be aware of the players and the ‘gorilla’ but he would be unaware of the meaning and context of the movements he is witnessing. And it would be the same for a dog or cat. We should distinguish sense perception and cognitive perception. Seeing with the eyes and seeing with understanding.
In order to understand we need to have recognition along with sense perception. And along with being able to recollect, this leads to one of the most unique attributes of humans. This unique attribute is science. Animals do not have scientific understanding and nor do they need it.
In the video Consciousness: Neuromania & Darwinitis the atheist and humanist Raymond Tallis argues against what he calls the two pillars of unwisdom, neuromania & Darwinitis. It is a mistaken belief that ‘neural activity is identical with consciousness, that you are your brain and all that stuff’.
He looks at our feeding behaviour compared to that of animals.
Raymond Tallis: “sitting down to a meal is a long journey away from biology. Cooking, eating, eating regulated by the clock and the calendar. The complex structure of meals and the grammar of what goes with what. The ritualistic, symbolic and celebratory aspects of eating. The multitude of items of tableware that have come from near and far. The journeys undertaken by the food to the table. The journeys undertaken by those who gather round the table and the use of money as the all-purpose commodity to purchase food. These are just a few of the ways in which all human dining is distanced from animal eating.”
Human consciousness cannot be reduced to physics. Intentionality (not to be confused with intentions) works in the opposite direction to causes producing effects. Certainly the light from image on the screen we are looking at conveys the writing to our visual system. It is the cause of the image falling on our retinas. But without our intentionality focusing on the screen and giving it meaning it would just be so much patterns of light and darkness. As Tallis puts it, “unfortunately for neuroscientism, the inward causal path explains how the light gets into your brain but not how it results in a gaze that looks out”.
.
Human consciousness is not just different in scale from animal consciousness, it transcends animal consciousness, it is different in kind.
You’ll have to explain what you and Tallis mean by neuromania and Darwinitis if you want me to watch a video. I find the medium of video a poor one for the disemination of ideas.
Ah, I see there’s a book. Not cheap!
ETA @ Charlie, is this accurate? (from an Amazon review)
The one flaw that I kept finding in Tallis’s thought, is one that seems to me to be a bit confused – though hinting in the right direction – is that Tallis often talks as if consciousness where some kind of separate phenomena from the physical universe, and he keeps repeating this point, without formally committing himself to a kind of Cartesian-like dualism.
ETA2 I mean, hinting at dualism without committing; that could be you, Charlie.
Until you have a go at a clear operational definition of “consciousness” and have some ideas how it can be evaluated in comparison to other species, you are not saying much.
“Human beauty is not just different in scale from animal beauty, it transcends animal beauty, it is different in kind.”
“Human intelligence is not just different in scale from animal intelligence, it transcends animal intelligence, it is different in kind.”
Equally meaningless unless you can define beauty or intelligence.
These are Tallis’ terms and I’m afraid the easiest way to get an idea of what he is talking about is to watch the video. Or you could always search his name. If found this after a quick search.
Do you also think that the giving of lectures in universities is a poor way of disseminating ideas?
Depends if there is an opportunity to ask questions and the lecturer is responsive to questions. Otherwise the lecturer could merely diseminate his notes. Listening to sermons reinforced my atheism.
That’s how I found his book. Can you summarize his video? Was the review accurate? Tallis doesn’t seem to have caught much attention.
What is the physical universe without the mind? How can you conceive what it’s like without using your mind?
Tallis does criticize Cartesian dualism in the video. Regarding consciousness he says that the one thing he knows is that he doesn’t know.
Myself, my belief is more in line with idealistic monism than materialistic monism. Mind is more fundamental than matter.
For someone who has decided that the human mind is “not something for us to boast about” you seem awfully pleased with it.
I am not even convinced that it is true. I confess that it is not entirely clear to me what “intentionality” is, but I believe that the mental states of affection and fear exhibit it. Those are not restricted to humans.
With matters of consciousness I can speak from experience as can you. We cannot experience what other animals are experiencing but we can look at studies that have been done on other animals to gain a fair understanding of the level of consciousness they have. You believe that some animals have a level of self-consciousness. How do you know this? Do you also believe that some animals are not self-conscious?
Tallis does mention some experiments that have been done on aplysia (a type of sea slug).
I know that I do have a measure of self-consciousness. On the other hand I wouldn’t describe myself as particularly beautiful, nor intelligent. 🙂
We can discuss the concepts of consciousness, beauty and intelligence with each other. There is no evidence whatsoever that animals can do this. Do you think that a colony of gannets sitting on a rocky island somewhere will be enthusing over a beautiful sunset with each other? Or arguing over the best entry angle when diving for fish?
Whilst “the mind is what the brain does” is a good encapsulation we are up against that problem I may have already mentioned. We are incapable of completely understanding ourselves. Any sentient entity is capable only of comprehending something less complex than itself.
I know there was a smiley there but you don’t have a measure. At. All.
So students that attend lectures but don’t ask questions get nothing out of them?
I’d have to watch it again to do that properly. I’ll see what I can do. I don’t find that review to be accurate.
My experience may be different from others. If the resources on-line (indeed, if there had been an on-line) were available when I was an undergraduate, I think I would have learned much more than I did in crowded lecture theatres and chasing books and papers that someone had already taken out from the library.
There is no evidence that Charlie can discuss these concepts, since he keeps changing the subject — in this case to communication abilities.
And what makes you think that they aren’t?
One of the more impressive examples of the “so what you’re saying…” trope. Quick question, Charlie: did you honestly think that Alan was claiming that students who do not ask questions get nothing out of lectures? Based on what?
To revert to Alan’s point: if you are trying to sell an idea, product or service, do not expect your audience to sit through more than four minutes of video; ideally restrict your pitch to two minutes or less.
If you really want me to sit through a 45 minute presentation (let alone 82 minutes!) then provide me with a transcript. Add key graphics if necessary. Then I can decide whether to invest time in watching the video.
So what you’re sayin’ is… Whaddaya sayin’?
/Fargo.
To be fair, paraphrasing is a technique I use myself when I’m not sure I’ve understood correctly. Closed end questions work best. “So do I need a lawyer” rather than “why am I being arrested”.
Absolutely. As I tried to explain to nonlin, there is a distinction between honest readback “What I understand you to be saying is X” and the rhetorical technique of “So what you’re saying is [<insert non-sequitur here>]”. Hence my question to Charlie: did he really misconstrue your point that badly?
DNA_Jock,
I guess I take exception when misrepresented despite an attempted clarification. Possibly my least favourite:
“You say you are an atheist but really you just hate God.”
PS @ DNA_Jock
Following your link. Precisely.
And you seemed such a decent guy,
Here is my very rough summary of his arguments in the video
He has been following his interest in human nature for 30 years and concludes that consciousness cannot solely be attributed to neural activity (neuromania). And this being the case human consciousness is more than just an advanced form of animal consciousness, The belief that there is no essential difference between the two he calls calls Darwinitis. Neuromania & Darwinitis he sees as the two pillars of what he calls biologism.
In his student days he used to witter on about the inability of neuroscience to explain memory to his university tutor and he is still talking about it today. He explains biologism as the belief that humans are essentially animals and biology is the best way to understand them.
Quoting E.O.Wilson he says, “total consilience holds that nature is organized by simple unified laws of physics to which all other laws and principles will eventually be reduced. This is an extreme position but there are some “half-way houses” Neuro-aesthetics attributes creativity and aesthetic pleasure to neurons. Darwinian aesthetics explains it in evolutionary terms.
Neuroscience reveals some necessary conditions for behaviour and awareness. Neuromania considers these conditions sufficient. He criticizes papers such as the one that claims to have discovered a neural basis for romantic love. That would be an example of ‘neuromania’.
Some unique features of human consciousness are intentionality, first person being, unity within and over time, and temporal depth. We have difficulty in explaining basic consciousness such as perception let alone higher levels of consciousness such as rational thought, love and conscience.
Physical science is supposed to eliminate viewpoints. It is a view from nowhere. For physical science there should be no first person perspective. How do we unify all our separate experiences into a meaningful whole instead of it being just a mush. This is known as the binding problem.
He claims that if we agree that consciousness is more than just neural activity then this pulls the rug from under Darwinitus. Darwinitus is a condition that regards human behaviour as having no essential difference from animal behaviour. He uses the examples of feeding behaviour and learning behaviour to demonstrate the differences between the two. He does believe that our brains are the product of Darwinian evolution.
I hope this helps. If you would like more clarity or details then all I can say is watch the video.
Thank you for that useful summary.
My conclusion: it is nonsense, so I need not waste my time watching it.
Those were just hypothetical examples, honest. 😇
Though, seriously, the law and medical issues are where I wouldn’t rely on my competence in a second language.
That unfortunately is a deal breaker. It’s an argument from ignorance that can only be salvaged by proposing what additional elements are needed to create consciousness.
Well, again, the plain assertion fails without some idea of what differences those would be.
I am extremely pleased that I am in possession of one. I couldn’t face life without it 🙂
That what is true? And what is the “I” that is not convinced?
Here are a few thoughts on intentionality.
Perceiving is active. We only see surfaces not volumes. So if I look at a brick my senses do not provide its solidity, we add this by way of conception. We must be active if we are to understand the brick. We never actually see the far side nor the interior of the brick but we understand that they must be there.
Look at an image of a Necker cube and you should be able to flip it between its two familiar attitudes. The sense impression stays the same but through your own activity you can change how it appears to you. (I find the most difficult representation to see it as is the one that it actually is, a flat image, just lines on a two dimensional surface). We change its appearance not through vision but through intent.
And in the case of the gorilla in the basketball game, it may very well be within our vision but it will not enter our consciousness unless we attend to it. Intentionality is required. Intentionality is something in our seeing that is not the result of pure sense perception.
A similar effect can be had when we are sitting in a familiar room with a clock constantly ticking. We are so used to it that we don’t hear it. It is only when we deliberately concentrate on listening out for it that we become conscious of it.
Intentionality is the way that we attend to entities, both inner and outer, in our field of consciousness.
When Hamlet remarks to Polonius, “Methinks it is like a weasel”, or when he compares it to a camel or a whale, he is creating an image. The concept of these animals in his consciousness have attributes that roughly match the shapes formed by the clouds. This is not an optical illusion because he is not mistaking clouds for animals.
We see the world by means of the combination of sense impressions and the intentionality of our active minds.
It encapsulates nothing but a poor understanding of the mind.
Only for those who think that mechanistic/mathematical knowledge is the only type of knowledge there is.
And the most important things in life are beyond the confinement of being shackled by measuring and numbering.