Evolution is not "goal-directed". The consequence (i.e. increased reproductive fitness) of adaptive mutations via natural selection is called "survival".

Where's the tautology? — Daemon

Establishing the reality of first person conscious experience via tautological means, as in "if I am conscious of X then ipso facto I am conscious of X [...]". Thing is, there is no known inferential means of establishing the reality of first person conscious experience. See for example the problem of other minds, solipsism, and so forth. So @180 Proof is complaining about me not having made the currently impossible somehow possible, this by providing an inferential demonstration of me being consciously aware of things. So, that's that, me thinks. Besides, I'm guessing he has no answer to the question I asked him, hence the deliberate obfuscation. (So far no ad hominems, though.)

Where do you find a benefit for a near complete either-or approach to the reality of intentionality in respect to consciousness and the unconscious? — javra

I'm guessing he has no answer to the question I asked him — javra

:sweat: It's even worse than that, javra. I have no idea what you're (poorly) trying to ask. Does anyone?

I'll translate: If, as you say, intentionality occurs in the unconscious mind, why then conclude that conscious intentionality must be illusory rather then real? Myself, I see no reason to deny that intentionality is equally real, non-illusory, in both aspects of mind. And, again, that I am conscious of things is fact.

I'll translate: If, as you say, intentionality occurs in the unconscious mind, why then conclude that conscious intentionality must be illusory rather then real? — javra

We're using the term "illusory" (or illusion) differently. I do not mean 'not real' by "illusion"; rather I mean something seeming to be something else.

It's an 'illusion of consciousness' produced by unconscious (subpersonal) brain processes. Objectively, 'intentionality' is not what it subjectively seems — 180 Proof

We're using the term "illusory" (or illusion) differently. I do not mean 'not real' by "illusion"; rather I mean something seeming to be something else. — 180 Proof

To clarify, if you mean something other than "conscious intentionality seems to be true but it is not", please further specify the way in which you are using the word. I can only understand this interpretation of "something seeming to be something else" as "a seeming that is not true and, thereby, not real as that which it seems to be". For example, the mirage of an oasis in the desert is "something [desert] seeming to be something else [oasis]" as is "not real as the oasis which is seems to be". So, my being conscious of things is - in how I so far interpret your position - a seeming that is discordant with what is real, or else really happening.

I ask this because I still don't understand what you might mean by "my being consciously aware of things (which is fact) is 'something seeming to be something else'". Adding the adjective "objectively" doesn't help any.

I intend to be away for a while. Just wanted to take up @Harry Hindu's position a bit.

Evolution is not "goal-directed". The consequence (i.e. increased reproductive fitness) of adaptive mutations via natural selection is called "survival". — 180 Proof

If so, then "survival" would be the telos (goal) which governs (directs) the process of adaptive mutations via natural selection.

For the record, this moronic (?) view that natural selection is teleological is shared with folks such as Darwin himself, Thomas Huxley (Darwin's "bulldog"), and more recently folks such as Francisco Ayala, whom I once upon a time had the pleasure to meet:

Explanations in terms of final causes remain common in evolutionary biology.[17][32] Francisco J. Ayala has claimed that teleology is indispensable to biology since the concept of adaptation is inherently teleological.[32] In an appreciation of Charles Darwin published in Nature in 1874, Asa Gray noted "Darwin's great service to Natural Science" lies in bringing back Teleology "so that, instead of Morphology versus Teleology, we shall have Morphology wedded to Teleology." Darwin quickly responded, "What you say about Teleology pleases me especially and I do not think anyone else has ever noticed the point."[17] Francis Darwin and T. H. Huxley reiterate this sentiment. The latter wrote that "the most remarkable service to the philosophy of Biology rendered by Mr. Darwin is the reconciliation of Teleology and Morphology, and the explanation of the facts of both, which his view offers."[17] James G. Lennox states that Darwin uses the term 'Final Cause' consistently in his Species Notebook, On the Origin of Species, and after.[17] — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_causes#Biology

Evolution is not "goal-directed". The consequence (i.e. increased reproductive fitness) of adaptive mutations via natural selection is called "survival". — 180 Proof

I said earlier tha behaviors are goal-directed, not natural selection. NS is the means by which goal-directed behaviors come to exist in organisms. So instincts and habits (behaviors) are goal-directed.

NS is simply the process by which other processes adopt attributes that allow them to persist through time.

Goal-directed behaviors are attributes that allow certain things to persist through time by integrating stored information with live (sensory) information.

I said earlier tha behaviors are goal-directed, not natural selection. NS is the means by which goal-directed behaviors come to exist in organisms. So instincts and habits (behaviors) are goal-directed. — Harry Hindu

One could add that the normative , goal-oriented nature of self-organizing systems is itself an aspect of evolution.

As Evan Thompson points out:

“Darwin's Newtonian framework, in which design arises from natural selection conceived of as an external force, does not address the endogenous self-organization of the organism. This aspect of development and evolution, rooted in the organism's autonomy, had to be rediscovered in modern biology, with tools the Darwinian tradition did not provide.”

Given that what natural selection has to work with is already constrained by the normatively determined ecological functioning of the organism-environment interaction, one could say that evolution is normatively constrained.