its half true — Miller

:ok: :smile:

But ‘determined’s opposite is an impossible currency. — PoeticUniverse

Fortunately for us humans, Self-Determination is not the "opposite" of Determinism, but a "complement" (complete-ment). The output of a complex system is not the same as the input. The system re-arranges the incoming energy/information into novel forms and meanings. Most important of those novelties is a meaningful relationship to Self (observer). Meaning is not a natural "currency", it is a preter-natural evaluation. Nature is indifferent to me. But my personal meanings & beliefs are the "difference that makes a difference" (i.e. Information). :smile:

PS__Thanks for your challenging responses. They inspire new ways to view stale ideas.

Complement : 1 : something that makes whole or better
i.e. the je ne sais quoi (qualia) that makes a random collection into a functional integrated holistic system

The inboard motor of neuronal analysis still does what it has to as what it was meant to do. — PoeticUniverse

Hmmm! Meant by whom to do what? :chin:

I wasn't familiar with the tech term "neuronal analysis". Can they interpret the neural patterns to reveal the subjective meanings being processed? Can they read subjective intentions from those tea leaves? If not, how would they know that neuronal changes can motivate the body to turn toward a specific goal, rather just moving indiscriminately hither thither and yon -- like an outboard motor with no one holding the tiller? :joke:

neuronal analysis :
Analyzing morphological changes of a nerve cell (i.e., neuron) is one of the key methods for understanding the behavior of neurons in response to various stimuli
https://www.nature.com/articles/srep17062
Note : I assume they measure physical inputs (stimuli) and outputs (behavioral response). Stimulus & response is Behaviorism --- suitable for understanding animal instincts. But Poets and non-scientists are typically more interested in the meaningful inputs (information) and purposeful outputs (intentions) of human minds. The "doing what it has to do" is just mechanics or instincts.

Ah, in the whole you’re just afraid of being unfree,
But, hey, look, behold! There is still so much beauty!
A sublime law, indeed, else what beauty could there be?
The coin’s other side speaks—a toss up, weighted equally. — PoeticUniverse

Who's afraid of being dominated by Determinism? Not me! Stacks of stones may imprison my bones, but Determinism will never un-free me.

If both sides of the coin are equal, each flip will be neutral. Hence, "no direction home", as noted by Bob Dylan. In order to make progress or to choose beauty, we need to influence the coin-flip in some way. Otherwise, it will just be a meaningless random pattern. Should we be more afraid of "being unfree" or of being meaningless? :cool:

WHICH PATTERN IS ORDERED AND MEANINGFUL???


https://telescoper.wordpress.com/2015/02/21/when-random-doesnt-look-random/

Hmmm! Meant by whom to do what? — Gnomon

Not by "whom", but to do what they have to do as how they are. How would the will not follow the will? What other source would do the willing instead?

Not by "whom", but to do what they have to do as how they are. How would the will not follow the will? What other source would do the willing instead? — PoeticUniverse

How could the A> human Will (the decider) not follow B> whose Will? The Accidental Impetus of Determinism? Or the downward directional causation of Energy/Enformy? Who or what was the Aboriginal Arbiter, or the Initial Impulsive Intender? Whatever that First Cause was, we infer that it had the Potential for Life & Mind & Willful behavior in its creatures. Could a cosmic explosion do all that with no deciding & directing Will of its own? Again, who is this Will you speak of? :chin: :wink:

The Salient Source :
Who or What programmed
a schematic system
to emerge & evolve
from a sub-atomic speck
of potential probability
or embryonic egg
. . . . . . . . . .into a
constantly complexifying cosmos
that even fleet-footed fluorescence
can't cross in epochal eons?
___Guess Groking Gnomon

Whatever that First Cause was, we infer that it had the Potential for Life & Mind & Willful behavior in its creatures. — Gnomon

Yes, but not made from a Higher Will, for not even a composite can be First, much less the complexity of a Planner. There's no Big Guy named Will.

Yes, but not made from a Higher Will, for not even a composite can be First, much less the complexity of a Planner. There's no Big Guy named Will. — PoeticUniverse

You sound confident that our "unbounded" universe is a cosmic accident. But logically, there must be a nameless Initial Event or First Cause with the extra-mundane Potential to cause a world to appear, as-if-by-magic from who-knows-where. And if there was no Plan or "Planner", how could the complexity of our self-observing world emerge from a random confluence of atoms? Randomness is patternless.

For example, a human egg is just a jelly-like lump of protoplasm. Left alone, it does nothing, and is soon recycled into pre-proto-stuff. Yet, when a wiggle-tail protozoan accidentally-on-purpose bumps into it, a "miracle" occurs : it comes to life. The sperm conveys nothing new to the egg, except Information. And that integrated genetic data becomes the blueprint (the plan or program) for a new living being. A holistic self-directed & self-motivated & self-aware organism born from the convergence of abstract Information with the compulsion to follow its inborn pattern of goals & guides.

So, what would you call the hypothetical "seed" that impregnated the hypothetical nanoscopic nucleus of Potential, to initiate a program of complexification that is still exploring new possibilities after 14 billion solar cycles? The cosmic impetus for such a flourishing program of evolution might warrant a name expressing the origin of a teleological future form. or an inevitable succession of events leading to some future finale. So, what more descriptive appellation could you find than the four letter English word : "Will"? :wink:

Will : 1. expressing the future tense.
2. expressing inevitable events.

The manifest complexity of many parts of the universe, especially living organisms and their byproducts, was formerly thought to be an expression of divine creativity, but is now widely believed to result from a general capacity of matter, implicit in known physical laws, to "self-organize" under certain conditions.
https://cqi.inf.usi.ch/qic/94_Bennett.pdf
Note -- the matter, energy & laws are taken for granted, requiring no explanation, by pragmatic scientists. But impractical philosophers tend to push the envelope beyond conventional assumptions. Under what "conditions" do inert matter, and un-directed energy, learn to self-organize?

PS___Once a computer program is underway, it requires no further external input, but due to its internal logic & governing criteria (operating system), it proceeds to "self-organize" itself, under specified conditions, by combining old information in novel ways. In a sense, the program is like a living organism, using available energy & material (data) to construct the mathematical structure we call "Software". And the final output will be (future tense) the answer to a question proposed by the Programmer. Some questions can only be answered by doing the math. :nerd:

You sound confident that our "unbounded" universe is a cosmic accident. — Gnomon

Like a vacuum fluctation ...

But logically, there must be a nameless Initial Event or First Cause with the extra-mundane Potential to cause a world to appear, as-if by magic[quantum tunneling] from who-knows-where.

... at the planck scale ...

And if there was no Plan or "Planner", how could the complexity of our self-observing world emerge from a random confluence of atoms[virtual events]? Randomness is patternless.

... a random fluctuation of the non-spatiotemporal (eternal) vacuum with a sufficiently minimal symmetry-breaking structure (re: Noether's theorem, etc) "inflates" into a far-from-equilibrium (not-maximum complexity) cosmos. Complexity from simplicity (i.e. minimum complexity)? :point: Check out cellular automata (e.g. Conway's "Game of Life", Wolfram's "computational irreducibility", Deutsch's "constructor theory", etc). Still incomplete; but no woo-of-the-gaps needed, Gnomon. :eyes:

I'm uncomfortable with pure chance as an explanation (for the origins of the universe or anything else for that matter) for the simple reason that probability is, at the end of the day, about ignorance rather than knowledge.

To say the universe is a fluke is kinda like saying one knows that one doesn't know how the universe came into existence.

'Quantum uncertainty' is well-established knowledge of 'the fundamental limit of knowledge'. It's a brute fact (i.e. feature, not bug, of classical systems) and not "an explanation". The function of science is not to make you less "uncomfortable", Smith; that's religion's job (re: placebos, woo-of-the-gaps).

Plan or "Planner" — Gnomon

In science, there is one thing, mass-energy, and it is conserved, unable to be created or destroyed; so, it just is, as the base existent that has to be, given no alternative, akin to the fields in motion of the quantum ‘vacuum’ due to the uncertainty principle that prohibits stillness. Quantum systems constantly fluctuate in their lowest energy state as described by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, even at absolute zero temperature. There is no such thing as a ‘true vacuum’.

There seems to be tendency in First Philosophy thinking to still ever posit some higher level from which the simplest obtains, albeit that the simplest can’t even be built, it having no parts.

Yet, still, meta-, super-, extra-, and hyperphysical realms are proposed, as if automatically they ought to be there. They haven’t showed up at all during the history of the universe: no shortcuts, no miracles, nothing non-physical.

So, still, for the average believer, that’s where the thinking ends, case closed, no further analysis. The Bible said so.

The more responsible believers, some even theologians, note the begging of the question that leads toward an infinite regress of ever having to explain something as having to come from a greater Something even though they’ve already cleverly declared non physical meta-stuff to be responsible, albeit unwarranted and unseen.

The first wrong step in direction was to deny that the simplest can give rise to the more and more complex, just as we see in our universe, but to think that the complex has to give rise to the simplest.

To try to salvage the wrong step, it then gets declared that the great Meta or Hyper is of infinite power so that the buck can stop there—and so they can now drop the template that says the lesser can only come from the Greater.

Still incomplete; but no woo-of-the-gaps needed, Gnomon. — 180 Proof

Speaking of "woo" in the breach, your reply reminds me of Apostle Paul's definition of Faith : "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen". You expressed your faith in several things unseeable, which you "hope" will some day prove true : "vacuum fluctuation" ; "planck scale" ; "non-spatiotemporal (eternal) vacuum", or "virtual events". I can't confirm or deny such "woo-woo", because I have no experience of "oscillations of emptiness" ; "mathematical measurements of the infinitely small" ; " changes that are not in space or time" ; or "unreal events". I assume that the scientists, who propose such literal non-sense, know what they are talking about. but I have to take it on faith, plus a grain of doubt. So, my confidence is limited by moderate skepticism.

Regarding my own conjectures into the unknown and unknowable, they are not intended to be taken on faith as facts. But merely as possibilities for philosophical exploration. And they are no more woo-ish than the conjectures of scientists into the great beyond that lies in the infinity-eternity before the spatio-temporal Big Bang : e.g. Multiverses, Many Worlds, Parallel Realities, etc. Does your faith in such obscure opinions make you "less uncomfortable" with the religious implications of the mathematically proven creation event (discovered by astronomers, not astrologers) that scientists are still trying to disprove after a century of evasive tactics, such as miraculous instantaneous inflation? :joke: :cool:


Woo-woo is a slang term used to describe those who believe in phenomena that lacks substantiated evidence to prove the claim of the phenomena.
Note -- the noetic notions mentioned above are "the substance of things hoped for", because they are not evident to the human senses. They are knowable, in the abstract, only to arcane mathematicians. I accept their postulations provisionally, up to the edge of the abyss of ignorance (The Gap) beyond human experience. Past that jumping-off point only theoretical thinkers & philosophers dare to speculate. :nerd:

Respectfully, sir, your lack of scientific literacy does not render my layman's comprehension "faith" or the well-established theoretical results of scientists mere "conjectures" open to your idle (paper) doubts. Scientists' speculative 'interpretations' of scientific theories are the very "possibilities for philosophical exploration" you speak of, Gnomon, which are extrapolated from 'problematic' theoretical results and are not just tu quoque woo-of-the-gaps.

↪Gnomon
Respectfully, sir, your lack of scientific literacy does not render my layman's comprehension "faith" or the well-established theoretical results of scientists mere "conjectures" open to your idle (paper) doubts. Scientists' speculative 'interpretations' of scientific theories are the very "possibilities for philosophical exploration" you speak of, Gnomon, which are extrapolated from 'problematic' theoretical results and are not just tu quoque more woo-of-the-gaps. — 180 Proof

Spoken as a True Believer!
However, you seem to dis-respect my "scientific literacy" as a layman. Unless you have formal training in the sciences -- mine was limited to basic classes in each major field -- my comprehension of cutting edge science may be as good as yours -- except for the degree of faith in authorities.
Tu quoque works both ways . . . sir. Woo hoo! :joke:


The meaning of TU QUOQUE is a retort charging an adversary with being or doing what the adversary criticizes in others.

3.Miracle of Creation :
Notable Scientist’s opinions on BB theory
Fred “Big Bang” Hoyle (British astrophysicist): "A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question." (changed his tune)
https://www.quora.com/Was-the-Big-Bang-a-miracle-1

In science, there is one thing, mass-energy, and it is conserved, unable to be created or destroyed;. . . .The more responsible believers, some even theologians, note the begging of the question that leads toward an infinite regress . . . . The first wrong step in direction was to deny that the simplest can give rise to the more and more complex, — PoeticUniverse

I have no problem with Conservation of that-which-exists. But since animated Mass-Energy is eventually embalmed as cold dead Entropy, I can't accept it as eternally existing, in any constructive sense. That single "substance" of reality may be conserved as it flips back & forth between Cause & Effect --- subsequent to the original Instantiation. But when & where did it do its phase changing prior to the point-of-beginning of space-time?

Presumably, in the mathematical Singularity there was no actual mass or energy, only statistical Potential. Once their flip-flopping has begun, there is one-more-thing necessary : the Laws that regulate when & how they change. Unregulated change would result in random chaos. So, "responsible believers" agree that Mass-Energy exists only in space-time, which is destined to end in Heat Death (max Entropy). Who or what was the Lawmaker or Potentiator?

responds to my criticism of the fringes of cutting-edge science as-if I reject the work of serious scientists for religious reasons. But, I have no religion. So, my criticism is merely Philosophical. And is focused on implicit assumptions rather than pragmatic utility. For example, I am dubious of feeble attempts to explain away the Creation Event, by postulating an infinite regression of Big Bangs (question begging??). Since they have no empirical evidence of anything beyond the bounds of our known universe, my layman's guess is as good as their expert shot-in-the-dark.

My typical response to the Complexity-from-Simplicity question is to define the Ultimate Singularity. Just as you are a singular Self composed of millions of interacting parts, the Whole of which our world is an active part is a Singularity : no parts, just Potential (Tendency not Actuality). So, I think space-time Mass-Energy is dependent on infinite-eternal Potential. Nothing comes from Nothing; but Everything comes from Potential. :smile:

Singularity : where the curvature of spacetime becomes infinite.

Coincidence vs Creation :
Physicists tend to take Matter & Energy for granted, without questioning their origins, or their philosophical meaning. Matter is merely the furniture of Nature. Energy is the builder of natural things. But as Materialists, they have a problem with the Laws of Nature, since laws are normally found only in human Culture. Laws are aspects of human thought & behavior, as exemplified in Government and Religion.

In my opinion, free will isn't a popular delusion, its a useful lie. It just renders the world so much more tangible, way easier to work with.

Doesn't matter how many times you say "I don't have will." In your brain, eventually your going to stand up and make yourself a sandwich. That is to say, that not much changes whether we have free will or not.

the Whole of which our world is an active part is a Singularity : no parts — Gnomon

Yes, the simplest.

The will is the will. Claiming it to be free is just as stupid as to claim it to be not. It's not determined by natural laws standing above it and directing it. That's an image we project on it. Neither is it free in that it does anything it likes. Only in relation to the action following from it can you label it free or constrained.

'Quantum uncertainty' is well-established knowledge of 'the fundamental limit of knowledge'. It's a brute fact (i.e. feature, not bug, of classical systems) and not "an explanation". The function of science is not to make you less "uncomfortable", Smith; that's religion's job (re: placebos, woo-of-the-gaps). — 180 Proof

I understand quantum uncertainty is an aspect of nature i.e. there are no hidden variables that, if found, will render the quantum world (as) deterministic (as the the macro-world).

Are you saying the origins of physical world (the Big Bang) was a quantum phenomenon? I think you are. If so, no beef.

:eyes: :sweat:

:up:

In my opinion, free will isn't a popular delusion, its a useful lie. It just renders the world so much more tangible, way easier to work with. — john27

Those who call FreeWill an illusion or delusion, were encouraged by the Libet experiment, showing that the brain is prepared to act before the mind is even aware of choosing to act. But even Libet didn't interpret that as evidence of no Choice. It's true that we typically become aware of what the body is doing, only after the act is underway. So our consciousness of the act is an afterthought. But there is also a momentary gap between the brain's "action potential" and the body's movement. (see "time delay" below)

That's where the "free won't" comes in, giving us an opportunity to veto the action. That notion came from Michael Shermer, editor of SKEPTIC magazine. But FreeWill is more than just a negation. Your ability to imagine and anticipate the future allows you to program your brain to act quickly and appropriately, without waiting for your mind to become aware of what the body is doing.

A vivid example of that train-the-brain notion is found in sports events. Athletes practice, practice, practice, and get "coached-up" to be aware of what they did right and wrong. So, in the game they don't have to think before doing. Steph Curry, weaving & pinwheeling toward the basket, has given his brain a goal, then allows his voluntary neural control system to "go get it". Consequently, even though he is moving like a blur, and flying off-balance through the air, he makes the basket. As the old TV ad said of Michael Jordan, don't think, "just do it". But even the GOAT couldn't make such magic, without practice, to communicate your will to the brain.

Another way to train the brain, is in the process we call "building character". We learn from our mistakes, by becoming aware of what we did wrong. That ethical awareness tells the brain your values, which become subconscious motives for future behavior. So, if you choose to believe that you are a Free Moral Agent, you now have some backup. FreeWill is neither a "lie", nor a delusion, it's what makes humans unique among animals : the ability to change the future, and even to alter the course of evolutionary destiny with what we call Culture ; the result of collective free choices. :smile:


"The time delay gives us the opportunity to change a thought, to cancel an action --- this gives us, in effect, free won't."
Peter Carter, MD; The Single Simple Question

your lack of scientific literacy — 180 Proof

It's true, that I'm merely an interested layman, not a practicing scientist. But, what you interpret as "lack of scientific literacy" may be simply my tendency to go beyond Reductive dogma to see the Holistic implications of Quantum and Information theories. For example, Einstein was not an empirical technician doing lab experiments. Instead, he was a theoretical philosopher, looking at the big picture, while others were pinning down the details. His radical notion of Relativity forced scientists to view the world from a new perspective. :nerd:

PS___No, I'm not claiming to be the next Einstein. Other scientists & philosophers are already paving the path to a new information-theoretic worldview. Maybe, your own "literacy" is lacking in that area. :smile:

" Albert Einstein's theory of relativity is famous for predicting some really bizarre realities ... he began to consider a notion that was simple but radical."
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/einstein-relativity-thought-experiment-train-lightning-genius

Those who call FreeWill an illusion or delusion, were encouraged by the Libet experiment, showing that the brain is prepared to act before the mind is even aware of choosing to act. — Gnomon

Libet wha-

FreeWill is neither a "lie", nor a delusion, it's what makes humans unique among animals : the ability to change the future, and even to alter the course of evolutionary destiny with what we call Culture ; the result of collective free choices. :smile: — Gnomon

What's a choice?

This is what I was referring to as your apparent lack of scientific literacy ...

You expressed your faith[confidence] in several things unseeable, which you "hope" will some day prove true : "vacuum fluctuation" ; "planck scale" ; "non-spatiotemporal (eternal) vacuum", or "virtual events". I can't confirm or deny such "woo-woo"... — Gnomon

You cherry-pick which theoretical results are scientific and which theoretical results are "woo" depending on whether or not they agree with your own ad hoc, quixotic speculations. If you "can't deny" the most precisely well tested theoretical results in the natural sciences to date – no one has or can – then, with all due respect, calling them "woo" (or (my) accepting them as "faith") proves your (willful) ignorance. The physical "facts" are not in dispute (e.g. QM), Gnomon, only ontological / epistemological "interpretations" of them are debatable (e.g. Copenhagen, local hidden variables, MWI, LQG, RQM, etc). Take issue with , I welcome it, but not the textbook stuff, man. My undergraduate engineering and physics studies and graduate work in cognitive science (psychology) barely make me scientifically literate enough to recognize where physical facts end and metaphysical speculations (i.e. interpretations of physical facts) begin – and to recognize those who conspicuously do not. :sparkle:

That's where the "free won't" comes in, giving us an opportunity to veto the action — Gnomon

"us" is still the subconscious brain will analysis going on just like always.

There is no such thing as a ‘true vacuum’. — PoeticUniverse

The quantum vacuum might even be negatively curved, thereby offering, when matter is confined to three spatial dimensions, a negatively curved spatially 4d structure, a Planck-sized wormhole between two extended 4d structures. From this wormhole, kept stable by the nature of the quantum vacuum, the virtual fields could be pulled into real existence. Quantum bubbles pulled into reality. inflation would be solved.

the virtual fields could be pulled into real existence. Quantum bubbles pulled into reality. inflation would be solved. — Raymond

Well, we know that the universe grew very large in a hurry, which could already be called an 'inflation' as a normal word and that there is a humongous, even extravagant amount of material, like 2x10**76 or so particles, indicating that material is very easy to come by. The 2x part is to include antimatter, and the 10**76 part began as 10**85 because there are now ten billion photons for every proton and so there were 10**9 or so annihilations of matter and antimatter early on.

The proposed inflation would have driven the virtual particles and their anti-particles faster than they could recombine and annihilate. We still need a lot of positive kinetic energy to have come forth and gravity can supply it because its negative potential energy can grow more negative without bound. This doesn't violate the law of energy conservation because the net energy amount remains constant, as zero or near zero.

The quantum fields are lightweights and and probably don't have enough energy, although they got predicted to have energy that was 121 orders of magnitude too large, which was the most embarrassing notion in science, perhaps because they should have instead looked to gravity for the energy.

If we find a lot of gravity waves way back that have a lot of b-mode polarization then we can better hone in on what kind of inflation there was. Inflation also flattens the universe, which makes it work out better than it having curvature. I don't know if the new telescope does any of that WMAP kind of stuff.

(There's no 'true vacuum' because all is field.)

Libet wha- — john27

"Many people believe that evidence for a lack of free will was found when, in the 1980s, scientist Benjamin Libet conducted experiments that seemed to show that the brain “registers” the decision to make movements before a person consciously decides to move."

How a Flawed Experiment “Proved” That Free Will Doesn’t Exist
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/how-a-flawed-experiment-proved-that-free-will-doesnt-exist/

What's a choice? — john27

You can Google Libet's experimental setup to see how he defined a "choice". But your personal definition may vary. Basically, humans try to change the future by choosing between optional paths into the time-that-has-not-yet-come. But the no-free-will theory says that what you perceive as a choice is actually predestined by your genes and your situation in the world. Libet merely added the notion that your subconscious Brain makes choices automatically, but your conscious Mind takes credit for that fateful selection. If so, your ability to choose between Good & Evil is a delusion. As in Calvinism, you were pre-destined for Heaven or Hell from the very beginning. And there's nothing you can do to change your Fate. :gasp:

" According to Daniel Wegner, for instance, “The experience of willing an act arises from interpreting one’s thought as the cause of the act.” In other words, our sense of making choices or decisions is just an awareness of what the brain has already decided for us".

Take issue with ↪180 Proof
, I welcome it, but not the textbook stuff, man. — 180 Proof

I am not a student of any particular branch of Science. So, I don't take issue with the textbooks. I leave that up to professional teachers and book editors. Science textbooks must be constantly updated, as the older doctrines are replaced by new understandings. The textbooks that you take as gospel truth, may already be obsolete, since scientific understanding is evolving at a rapid pace.

Surely, you are aware that Quantum Theory and Information Theory have completely flipped the script from only a century ago. Besides, the issues we are discussing in this thread are not scientific in nature, but philosophical. It's not about absolute "facts", but personal opinions about those facts. You take issue with my interpretation of the evidence, and I take issue with your dogmatic attitude. But hey, if we didn't have differing opinions, this forum would have no reason for being. :joke:

In many sciences, the textbooks are often outdated by the time they are printed,
https://thejetstreamjournal.com/24904/news/a-textbook-case-of-outdated-information/

Yes, the one absolute truth in science is there are no absolute truths in science.
https://www.quora.com/Are-there-absolute-truths-in-science

"us" is still the subconscious brain will analysis going on just like always. — PoeticUniverse

So, the conscious Mind has no role in human behavior? Materialists seem to believe that awareness of what we are doing is superfluous. Single cell organisms seem to go about their business without any self-awareness : merely action & reaction. Are you no more sentient than an amoeba?

Philosophers have proposed that human consciousness allows us to produce holistic concepts -- generalities, universals, categories -- that don't exist in the physical world. We can't see a category in the real world, but we can conceive it in our imaginary ideal world of the Mind.

Sure, the physical brain is still the mechanism that converts physical sensations into mental constructs, but the Mind/Brain system, as a whole, is what gives humanity a leg-up on the competition from less integrated organisms. The Mind is not a physical thing, it's the holistic function of a hunk of meat. :smile:

A Role For Consciousness :
"Consciousness enables an organism to respond to circumstances grasped as wholes, . . ."
https://philosophynow.org/issues/65/A_Role_For_Consciousness


What is a Function?
A function relates an input to an output. ... It is like a machine that has an input and an output. And the output is related somehow to the input.
https://www.mathsisfun.com/sets/function.html
Note -- the function is not the machine, but what it does, the processed output. For a brain, the output is not a physical substance, but a menta-physical concept, an idea, an ideal.

PS___Holism is the difference between a semantic Forest and a bunch of trees. The concept is not the referent. The subjective symbol is not the objective object.