What do you make of qualia then? You can't deny that there is indeed a subjective experience when we look at ,say, a colour. Surely self-awareness alone can't account for this.

What is done cognitively with sensory information appears to depend on the complexity of the nervous system. — Txastopher

The cognitive processing of the sensory information does lead to a 'image' so to speak being formed in our minds. When we process certain wavelengths of light, a particular image with a distinct feel and experience emerges in our mind.

it's not necessary whereas in humans it appears to be a useful evolutionary adaptation. — Txastopher

Would you please elucidate how being aware of my existence is beneficial to me. Birds, according to you, are not aware of their existence, they seem to survive just fine.

From what I gather, you don't seem to think any form of consciousness other than self-consciousness exists

What do you mean by self-consciousness? Is it simply the awareness of one's existence or does it also include awareness of one's internal mental states and awareness of the external world?

Do you also think that consciousness is a property of only complex nervous systems and is thus entirely absent in insects,birds and other simpler organisms?

I'd take issue with your use of 'never'. Sure, we don't understand it at the moment, but never predict it? — Txastopher

That is what emergentism holds right? That the property of the system (consciousness) simply cannot be deduced by looking at the composition/ properties of the constituents of the system

To be clear, I am not advocating panpychism as the best theory. Panpychism sound very unintuitive, leads to unintuitive conclusions and still faces a threatening challenge from the combination problem.

Emergentism doesn't hold that any trace of consciousness is already present in fundamental particles but when they combine in a certain way, out of nowhere, a non-physical property arises. We cannot thus deduce how the property arose simply by analysing the constiuents and/or their arrangment.

In other words, the system of matter has a property that is completely different and non existent in its constituents. However,panpyschism holds that this new property of the system is not completely different than the properties of the constituents but simply a collection of 'minds' formed by other simpler and smaller 'minds' so to speak.

An essence of ice-cream already exists in its constituents according to panpyschism, whereas emergentism holds that the constituents of ice-cream have absolutely nothing in common with the ice cream itself and the ice-cream appeared out of the blue when those constituents were combined.

Most panpyschist (?) believe that the emerging property of the system can be reduced and explained in terms of the smaller consciousness of the constituents.

Again, there are many forms of emergentism and panpyschism and there exists similarities between some forms of emergentism and panpyshism.

Emergentism claims that consciousness is more than the sum of its parts. Or put another way, that the parts are a necessary, but not sufficient condition for (self) consciousness.

Panpsychism claims that the parts (or a part) are sufficient for consciousness, but in order to make this claim its proponents need to redefine consciousness as two different things; phenomenal and access. Phenomenal consciousness being a necessary condition of access consciousness. Or, put another way Access, or self-consciousness, emerging from phenomenal consciousness.

Put this way there seems to be little or no difference between the two positions apart from the convoluted terminology required in order to argue for panpsychism. — Txastopher

Is that so? Doesn't emergentism also argue that a new property emerges from simply the combination of matter in such a way that we can never predict such an emergence from simply looking at all the physical property of the constituent matter.

Panpyschism though doesn't make any such radical claim and says that some sort of proto-consciousness is a part of all particles and when those particles come together, full blown consciousness emerges. There is nothing exactly new emerging here nor something that cannot be predicted if we know about what this proto consciousness is.

The functionality of things is what groups them. The way information flows through systems, the causal connectedness or isolation of them.

And phenomenalist panpsychism had the same usefulness as naturalism: it ends up purporting that a completely trivial property belongs to everything (naturalness/first-person experience) sure, but in the process of denying that a property that would be absurd if substantiative applies to everything. — Pfhorrest

Are you suggesting panpsychism or functionalism? Or do you think that some mixture of both is a better theory of consciousness?

Actually nothing in what you wrote implies that consciousness is the result of evolution. Because certain things can be the result of evolution does not mean all things are. — Coben

No I am not claiming that I had provided argument in support of evolution. What I meant was that if consciousness is a trait of organisms possesing neural systems, then it must have evolved. Nothing in my text supports consciousness being a trait.

And scientists, after long bias, are beginning to consider that plants are conscious, despite the lack of nervous systems. They have memory, react to pain, communicate, even across plant species, make choices (albeit much slower than we do in general, but not always), and have across whole plant reactions that look very much like nervous system reactions despite not having one. There is absolutely no reason to assume they are not conscious. Note my wording. — Coben

Okay, there is not much evidence for plants having memories. The only evidence we have of a long time memory is from the mimosa pudica plant that exhibits behaviour that is similar to what we would expect if it had memory. However, it is no way clear that the plant posses memory, only that the exisiting biological mechanisms can't explain the results of the experiment. Again, it could be that they indeed have a memory, but nothing can be said as of now.

Here is the point though, if we assume that plants are conscious in a fashion even remotely similar to humans because they posses a communications system, a memory storage system and so on, then many inanimate things like computers must also be considered conscious in the same sense.

Phenomenal consciousness is nothing more than the having of a first-person perspective, and applies to everything. — Pfhorrest

Everything living? Or everything that exists?

So then we have to consider whether there are two kinds of bodies in the world, conscious and non-conscious, or just one, conscious. If all other things are equal, it seems to me that the default position is that there is one kind of body. — bert1

I disagree. All organisms are similar in the sense that all of them are subject to the same physical laws of nature. However, when subjected to those physical processes, they may come to posses certain traits and abilities that differentiates them from each other.

That would imply that consciousness is a result of evolution and can be explained by neuroscience. That is what I have come to believe.

I don't think consciousness is a some fundamental property of all creation. I think even the most rudimentary forms of consciousness are only in organisms that posses a nervous system and as the complexity of the system increases, it becomes more and more aware. (What it becomes more and more aware of depends on the part of the nervous system that has become more sophiscated)

So then we have to consider whether there are two kinds of bodies in the world, conscious and non-conscious, or just one, conscious. If all other things are equal, it seems to me that the default position is that there is one kind of body. — bert1

I disagree. All organisms are similar in the sense that all of them are subject to the same physical laws of nature. However, when subjected to those physical processes, they may come to posses certain traits and abilities that differentiates them from each other.

That would imply that consciousness is a result of evolution and can be explained by neuroscience. That is what I have come to believe.

I don't think consciousness is a some fundamental property of all creation. I think even the most rudimentary forms of consciousness are only in organisms that posses a nervous system and as the complexity of the system increases, it becomes more and more aware. (What it becomes more and more aware of depends on the part of the nervous system that has become more sophiscated)

Beyond that understanding, the term is meaningless. Yes you can muse about whether a computer, or even a specific program within is "in some sense conscious", but the phrase contains no information, it's empty. You have no idea how such a consciousness would feel like internally, or what it entails for your treatment of the device. — Echarmion

That does make sense, but the question here is whether it is reasonable to think that a single celled is conscious even in the most basic sense, that is, whether it shares some aspects of consciousness, be it in a rudimentary form, with humans.

No, because consciousness implies “mental content”, an infrastructure that can internally model or represent itself vs. everything else. There needs to be a virtual reality simulator built on top of the reactive system, but whether such a system can fit in an insect brain or a single cell is still a question. — Zelebg

Consciousness implies any basic level of the 'mental content'. As far I as I know, we talk about many forms of consciousness such as consciousness of inner mental state (such as awareness that we are experiencing happiness or sorrow), consciousness of the external world where we construct a world view using sensory input and consciousness about our inner state that is awareness that we exist.


If a single celled organism posseses any of these then so must a sophiscated man-made equipment because there is little difference in input-output mechansim of a single celled organism and a man made equipment.

Will get back to this discussion later on, enough time spent today. Didn't expect to come this far along.

Ok, I see you can't answer those basic existential features of our consciousness.

Let's turn then to metaphysics. Does that exist? — 3017amen

Again, what do you mean by basic features of consciousness. We have mapped the location of consciousness in animal brain. Does that count as a basic feature?

Also, what metaphysical feature of consciousness are you talking about? Assuming there exists one,ofcourse.

Then you really can't explain the nature of that metaphysical feature of conscious existence, correct? — 3017amen

You are assumng there is metaphysical feature.

I simply cannot explain conscious existence in complete physical terms, YET.

f your answer is the former, then there is no need, as you are suggesting, no? — 3017amen

Yes, there is no need for abstract maths. I have mentioned that countless times. But need alone is not the mechansim for evolution.

Certainly. I am not contesting that view. For all I know, there could be a creator. However, my only objection is that we are not using the right argument here. Mere existeence of maths, art, music cannot lead us to the conclusion that a creator exists.

There is mystery to it. — Qwex

Mystery to what?

And so you are telling me that you don't know why you have a sense of wonderment, correct? — 3017amen

True, I don't know why I have a sense of wonderment. However, that only indicates the limit of my intelligence and knowledge.

Or to making perhaps more lucid, what event caused mathematical truths to come into existence through consciousness? — 3017amen

The need to express reality in precise and predictable terms led humans to derive the entireity of maths

why does mathematical abstracts exist when they are not needed to survive in the jungle? — 3017amen

I don't know why you are reverting to the same old concept of natural selection being the sole mechanism for evolution.

See, I think we both can agree that evolution of intelligence is certainly advantegeous.

I argued that evolution of maths as part of the evolution of intelligence was certainly advantegeous as well.

Then I said that the development of maths naturally followed even when it gave no advantage. All that was needed was intelligence and basic math concept and the rest developed on its own, fuelled by lets just say curiosity?

Hence, even if abstract math offers no advantage, it evolved. It evolved as a inevitable consequence of the other traits that did offer an advantage.

Why are we even discussing it? Why are you wondering about it? — 3017amen

It was certainly not my intention to end up discussing such things. All I noticed what a weak argument about a existence of a creator that relied on strangeness and was supported by a slightly misinformed knowledge of evolution.

My point here is was simply that neither the existence of strange objects, nor that of mathematical abilties indicates presence of an external being.

all events must have a cause. Is that statement true or false? — 3017amen

I think that the statement would be true for all that exists in the universe. All events occuring in the universe must have a cause, but the universe itself need not have a cause. Hence, the existence of the first fundamental particle that marked the beginning of the universe need not have a cause but everything occuring ever since, must have a cause.

all events must have a cause. Is that statement true or false? Is that statement an axiom for scientific discovery? Why should you care to explore its tenants? Why are we even discussing it? Why are you wondering about it? — 3017amen

I don't understand those questions fully. Would you care to frame them differently perhaps??

I think that the universe simply popped into existence. Talking about what was before the universe is then meaningless and an object can only exist within the universe and the universe is all there is and will be. — StarsFromMemory

I must add that this is something I have not given much thought, but if you were to ask me to, I would go for the sudden popping into existence.

Certainly not, I was born through what is now a well understood mechanism. However it unreasonable to expect that since the contents of the universe cannot pop into existence, the universe cannot too. In other words, it is unreasonable to expect that the universe had a cause just because all its contents have a cause.

I think that the universe simply popped into existence. Talking about what was before the universe is then meaningless and an object can only exist within the universe and the universe is all there is and will be.

But then again, how it simply popped into existence is a mystery. But I am inclined more towards this spontaneous coming into existence of the universe than towards an intelligent creator.

Time has no beginning so the universe couldn’t have been created. Creation happens in time but before time nothing is all that is possible. — Leviosa

Just goes to show how hard it is to even ask the right question when we talk about such topics. Is it correct to talk about 'creation' of universe? Because the universe has always existed. It has been there since the start of time and will be there till the end of it. When was it ,then, created?

Does create even have meaning that is time independant?

You would have to support your argument with the exclusive virtues of survival, purposelessness, randomness and chance, to say the least.

Accordingly, mathematics then becomes redundant since it is not needed for anything, as it specifically relates to that Darwinian criteria. We don't need it to survive.

Then, of course, add art, music, philosophy, wonderment, love, the will, and all other related features of self-awareness from consciousness, that are also beyond logical existence as it were(subconsciousness/un-consciousness) or unexplained phenomena. The evidence points to something beyond said criteria. — 3017amen

Support what argument? It is well proven that traits can evolve from mechanisms other than natural selection.

Mathematics does not become redundant. Mathematics is an incredibly useful tool. It is generally very hard to discuss reasons for evolution of traits since the details and specifics of the conditions long ago are not very well know. It is not enough to say that maths is not needed for survival in the jungle and hence it couldn't have evolved.

Like I said, it is hard to pin point exact reasons but surely I could find a couple uses of maths in ancient times. I suppose the ability to count would confer an advantage to a group or tribe of humans in keeping track of members. Ability to count would also help early settlers to keep track of cattle.

Thus it is not wise to assume that maths didn't provide an advantage. However, the maths you are refering to is perhaps abstract maths. Stuff like linear algebra and number theory which have relatively less practical applications. However, like I said, these naturally developed once human intelligence did.

Regarding art and music, like Alan pointed out, these also conferred a survival advantage by helping groups bond together.


The argument then essentially boils down to evolution of intelligence and more importantly that of consciousness. Why do you assume that consciousness is beyond logic? Why is philosophy, love and a sense of wonder beyond logic? It is just because we haven't understood them fully yet?

Where I'm stuck is the specific meaning of strangeness I had at the time. — Qwex

I would think that the strangeness you speak of is simply that which we cannot explain. I don't think strangeness can be defined objectively i.e such that is holds for an hypothetical creature way smarter than us.

Complexity perhaps can offer little hope as things might just be objectively complex given we use a suitable defination for complexity. But I think even that is a futile endeavour.

When I made the OP I had a small glimpse of a big idea, yes I need to perfect the OP with more information. I'll come back at a later date with a lot of thought put into it. — Qwex

Please do try. It would fascinating to see this idea being developed. However, you would have to try to look from beyond the human persepctive and see things objectively. When you do, you find that there is nothing strange, nor beautiful at all. Those are merely objects of human perceptions and cannot be used to objectively argue for a creator.

What's stopping things from happening when, per se, power such as a universe exists? What's to stop a much simpler world from manifesting? — Qwex

That was because I assumed here that you meant that strange processes must be caused and sustained by a creator without which they cannot exist.

I apologise, but I dont think that makes any difference to my argument here that strangeness is no indication of a creator

Yeah but you assumed I posit that this person is sat there as the moderator or something when all I'm suggesting is he's the catalyst. — Qwex

I am sorry if I did so, could you point out where so I could perhaps rectify. Besides the analogy should still hold. The chimps attribute the flow to an intelligent creature that started it and it has continued ever since. However, this intelligent creature turns out to be an all knowing mountain.

I have not claimed God. I have claimed creator.

That means, resources were ordered so that a big bang would occur, I guess in the form of noxious clouds.

This doesn't mean the spirit of the creator passed into the fray and it become omnipotent. It means it had know-how and resources. — Qwex

This post really doesnt help.

I understand that you don't mean god as depicted in the holy scriptures but arguing for the existence of a creator on the lines that there exists events that we cannot understand or explain is futile.


Strangeness implies we are yet to learn the ways of the universe and nothing more.

To be clear, I dont claim that a creator does not exist, all I am saying is that strangeness cannot be seen even as a faint indication of an external being, be it an omnipotent god or an indifferent creator.

What's stopping things from happening when, per se, power such as a universe exists? What's to stop a much simpler world from manifesting? — Qwex

Why should things that are strange to us not happen on their own and need a external being? Why should a universe, that seems simpler to us be more likely to exist, in the absence of an external being, than a universe that is filled with anomalies and strangeness?

SImply because there are processes we cannot understand doesnt mean those processes need to be sustained by some higher power in the absence of which, only processes we can comprehend can exist.

The way I see it is that you are taking strangeness which is merely a limitation of the human mind, to argue for some external being holding that strange and complicated process in place. That is simply put- ridiculous.

An analogy might help:
Suppose there are group of chimps that live in a forest. They perceive the world and try to make sense of it to the best of their abilities. Now lets say they stumble across a river, something they have never seen before and are puzzled as to how the water is flowing even though the plain is fairly flat. This is very strange to them because they have never seen water flow on its own at this speed. They thus conclude that there must be some external intelligent being that is sustaining this strange mechanism (perhaps by pushing the water if that makes sense).

As humans we know that this is not unusual or caused by an intelligent creature. The flow of the river was merely due to its descent from a steep mountain (something the chimps have no knowledge about).

The point here being, strangeness is merely a limitation of our knowledge and intelligence. Had the chimps known about mountains and gravity and all that, the event would not have been strange to them but precisely because of this limitation, they found it very strange and were quick to attribute it to a intelligent being sustaining that flow.


Simply put, strangeness is not a fundamental characteristic of the universe, it only exists from our perspective. There might be other intelligent life in the universe for whom different events are strange or less events are strange or no events are strange (if such intellifgence is even possible)

My reason to opt for yes, over no, is that there's a lot of strangeness(unknowingness, pure strangeness, super-massive nature, statistical anomalies); so, external to the universe, is probably not nothing, but, some kind of life — Qwex

Why should strangeness (what is pure strangeness??) be seen as an indication of an existence beyond the universe? Why can't strangeness be seen as a limitation of our intelligence to apprehend some of the contents of an old and massive universe?

Lightning, fires and rain were all strange to us not so many years ago. But it is now clear that this strangeness was only due to limitations of our knowledge, intelligence and resources.

I can pretty much guarantee you that if someone were to put a gun to your head or threaten you or your family with something serious that meaning you've been looking for would be back in an instant. — BitconnectCarlos

I think its not meaning that returns to you in that instant. We cling on to our lives simply beacuse we are too scared of death. We simply lack the means to accept death even when the alternative is meaningless existence. This makes sense because we are after all organisms whose primary function is to ensure continuation of our species. However, when we are not threatened by immient death, we can afford to look at things from a logical standpoint. We can afford to see life for what it is and even accept its meaninglessness. Even when we do accept the lack of purpose, we refuse to accept death.We are coded to avoid death.

Hence, any meaning that you cling on to in face of death is simply conjured up so as to motivate a fight against death. It can not be considered true meaning or purpose.


I feel that this is the reason we are even having such a discussion. It is apparent that no objective meaning exists. The universe would not change by the slightest bit if we didn't exist. Even our existence was simply a matter of chance and the world could have been vastly differently had the past been even a slight bit different.
However, that leaves us with the alternative of accepting death. But that too is not possible. Hence, since existence is mandatory, we either live in blissful ignorance or in a distraught state looking for meaning of any sort by trying to extarct it from our surroundings and circumstances. We talk about love and beauty, we talk about success, money, fame and our families, just about anything so we can justify existence. Such things cannot obviously be true the objective reason humans exist simply because they vary from person to person and are choosen just so we can exist in peace.


I personally think that we should look for meaning around us because even if artifically conjured, it helps us survive, which is our only true purpose.

Why should we have two ways to avoid falling objects when one confers no biological survival advantage? — 3017amen

Asking why is again implying that evolution must have a purpose or a direction Why not have two ways of doing so?

Besides, I think development of mathematics is simply a consqeuence of human intelligence. As humans evolved to become more and more intelligence, which helped them survive, plan and adapt better to their environment, mathematics developed naturally. Once humans developed intelligence to spot patterns and make sense of them, to plan their endeavours etc, development of maths was bound to follow. It doesnt matter if maths actually helped the early man.

Also we are better off knowing the exact mechanism of gravity than just knowing that objects fall This grants us the ability to predict exactly when objects will fall that gives us not only a better chance at escaping but also a means to perhaps harness the energy of a falling object. (Again, this is basically intelligence)

Hence, mathematics and physics are simply a consequence of human intelligence and I think that maths did help the early man, although that doesnt matter.

If the atheist can actually make a human and create consciousness, case closed. In the meantime, the phenomenon of 'self aware beings' certainly not only suggests a metaphysical existence or will of sorts, but continues to provide for a sense of wonderment that causes us to think about things like art, music, math, philosophy, cosmology, love et al. all of which confer little to no biological survival value. — 3017amen

Certainly, the phenomenon of self aware beings suggests a metaphysical existence just how the phenomenon of lightning served as proof of metaphysical existence long ago.



And again you assume that art, music, math and philosophy provide no survival advantage and even if they dont, it doesnt mean they can't have evolved gradually.