What’s there to explain.
Consciousness starts with awareness of one’s own existence and distinctness from everything else.
There is no reason for this to be true. I take it to be true because, I believe the experience.
People who have NDEs, claim this same conscious awareness leaves the body. The source of information is the same.
If one is a delusion. Why shouldn’t the other be?
I’m failing to understand how it could be untrue. Are you saying that you might not exist or might not be an individual? Talking about Maya here?
There’s evidence that this is not true, yet there is no evidence that your consciousness doesn’t exist.
The point is that NDEs could be an evidence for having a spirit. This evidence would be qualitatively similar to you or me having a consciousness.
I am not arguing against the existence of consciousness here.
Thank you @vjtorley for an excellent summary of the problems here.
Are most scientists anti-saltational these days when it comes to the onset of language?
I think Genesis should be classified as myth, I doubt an historcal Adam and I still think this is problematic, especially in regards to the ethical treatment of animals. I have my leanings on how to resolve the issues, but for now, I plan on sitting back and waiting for the science and archeology to be absolutely clear on all this. And yes, I know that might not be in my lifetime.
And hi all, it’s probably been over a year since I’ve posted on here.
They would be if they were actual out-of-body events. But they aren’t. That’s the problem. The evidence is not in any way similar to us having consciousness.
This is the same as you saying I dont have a consciousness.
Both are subjective experience reality which is shared by others.
It isn’t the same in any way. This is a most bizarre conversation.
Hi @Mark,
Good to hear from you. Re your question as to whether most scientists are anti-saltational when it comes to the onset of language, it would appear so: see here, here, here and here.
We find that although a macro-mutation is much more likely to go to fixation if it occurs, it is much more unlikely a priori than multiple mutations with smaller fitness effects. The most likely scenario is therefore one where a medium number of mutations with medium fitness effects accumulate. This precise analysis of the probability of mutations occurring and going to fixation has not been done previously in the context of the evolution of language. Our results cast doubt on any suggestion that evolutionary reasoning provides an independent rationale for a single-mutant theory of language.
A single computational step need not correspond to a single-mutation or a single-rewiring event. In fact, to our knowledge, there is not a single case of a novel behavior arising from a single genetic mutation. Instead, each gene deemed important is but one cog in a network of genes [32, 33]. Even in domains that are easier to probe than cognition, such as concrete physical traits, it is extremely hard to find true evolutionary novelty and even more so to attribute it to single gene changes [34, 35].
Hope that helps. Cheers.
We think in words - it is fun to try to think without words - and the ability to do this is in keeping with what has been referred to as consciousness in the discussion. But words were not invented to think, but to communicate (that may be too simplified, but let me carry on…) It strikes me that the inner state we identify with our humanness is really an outgrowth of our social dimension, as language is inherently social. This consideration couples the appearance of human beings with their social ability to communicate.
This doesn’t seem correct…
Are you implying that cats don’t have consciousness because they dont have language?
The ability to have abstract thoughts is a prerequisite for language as far as I know.
So, it would be more appropriate to say that words became necessary to Express thoughts. Not the other way round.
I guess it’s possible to think of intelligence slowly increasing over time and communication getting more complex from grunts and howls to words and poetry…
However, this works only on the assumption that the ability to think abstractly is non-discrete. Ime it’s something that can continuously increase… as opposed to just emerging.
To me, your objection seems to be based on the idea that abstract thinking is discrete… one something that’s either ther or not there. It seems so by definition.
No. I was just using consciousness in the sense others used it for a human state of awareness.
Maybe it is better to say words and thoughts are pretty tightly coupled. Words are the abstraction, the ability to assign specific objects and actions into categories. I doubt language would have arisen if humans lived solitary lives. Humans are not equipped with much in the way of speed, strength, or other survival gear; socially based coordination and complexity is the strategy, and the rest is history. So in regards to the “magic moment” when truly human beings first appeared, I am inclined that the first French speaker discussion is more than an analog here. If that were a discrete, instantaneous moment, it would have had to be so in a very limited, very very arbitrary sense.
Words are ot the only way to Express a strategy thought.
We see that in the form of sign language for those who cannot speak.
Language turns out to be the most convenient way to express abstract thought because we can speak also.
It would be wrong to claim words are the abstraction.
Perhaps…
However, there is atleast one study showing that most existing languages arose from a common language in Africa 50000 to 100000 years ago.
If this is true, then language quickly following a threshold ability for abstract thinking doesn’t seem unfeasible.