Why would we rationally want that? — 180 Proof

Why would we think wanting is rational? :wink:

I just asked the question in hopes of thinkers thinking about it. I'm more interested in hearing other's thoughts to learn how they might inform my own.

I voted for '1' as the closest fit. I'm not too sure about the "epiphenomenal" part, though. I think all causes are physical and I think consciousness both evolved and is causal (or at least the neuronal processes associated with consciousness are).

Given the complexity of the human brain, comprehending it theoretically and thereby eliminating dysfunctions produced by the brain's organic defects probably requires more-than-human-intelligence (via cognitive augmentation and/or AGI). Technical capabilities of indefinitely postponing human senescence (i.e. disease & aging) is worth the price / risk of "them understanding us better than we understand ourselves" (or them), no? I think so.

Epiphenomenalism — petrichor

Oh come now that can't be a word.

On a broader point, your current premises of "feeling pain" being different than "responding to stimuli" is lacking in merit. And that's a charitable view at best.

Surely you mean, accessing a former state of non "pain" and thus mentally calculating a situation, act, or moment is "wrong" and needs to be immediately corrected by further action. This is a huge difference between your current premise as-is. This requires both retainable and accessible knowledge of A,) past B.) present and C.) future (that is to say ability to formulate or postulate a future action or state by applying something from either (A) or (B).

Experience is undeniable, yes. But unconscious billiard balls can experience impacts, and unconscious computers can experience changes in state or configuration, analogous to our messier brain shivers. — bongo fury

When people normally use the word experience when saying something like "billiard balls experience impacts", I don't think they are implying at all that they believe that balls literally have subjective experiences of the impacts. The word is used figuratively, or in a different sense. It is like saying that an electron is "excited". To equate the two senses of experience is a mistake. Do you believe that billiard balls experience impacts in the same sense that football players experience impacts? In other words, do billiard balls feel their impacts? Is there something-it-is-like for them to exchange kinetic energy?

Second, and I suspect this is the real issue, are emergent properties (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/properties-emergent/) and your use of `cause'. You can say that fluid dynamics caused a tornado, and that a tornado caused some damage. Or you could say the fluid dynamics caused the damage. People won't mind if you're talking about tornados. I think that many of the scientists you're criticising would say that consciousness is emergent like a tornado. — GrahamJ

It seems to me that in the case of tornados, these are only different levels of description of the same thing. Or you could say that this is an example of weak emergence. If you look at all the small-scale goings-on, and then zoom out to see the larger happening constituted by the small-scale stuff, it isn't very surprising. You can see how these small things, when put together in this way, add up to this larger thing. And it makes sense practically to talk about it at this higher level, as one big thing. Also, both the high level description of the tornado and low-level description of the movements of molecules are objective/third-person and quantitative.

In the case of consciousness, if all we were confronted with were large-scale behavior, and not with any subjective inner life, I think it could be argued that the two cases are analogous, even though the degree of complexity of human behavior is vastly higher than that of a tornado. But when we find ourselves conscious, not just with complex behavior, having also a first-person perspective and qualitative experiences, and we are told that this simply "emerges" from a special way of arranging bits of matter that in themselves have nothing even remotely like subjectivity, this seems vastly more surprising and harder to see how it could work. I don't think it is analogous at all.

With consciousness, it is like there is a whole other "side" to things. The entity in question is no longer just an object. It is something for itself. In the tornado case, you are going from small objects to a larger object. Pretty straightforward. In the case of consciousness, you are going from small objects to a subject. Not so straightforward.

One is a case of weak emergence, or simply different levels of description, and the other is a case, if of emergence, of strong emergence, which is much harder to justify.

Right. Brain tissue is metabolically expensive and it doesn't make sense in evolutionary terms that neurology supporting non-causal consciousness would evolve. — wonderer1

It's so much simpler than that. How can anything that doesn't make any difference make a difference to survival? Obviously, for something to be selected for, it has to make some kind of objective difference. The idea that epiphenomenal consciousness could be selected for is just flat out incoherent.

Imagine that we have two sets of dominoes. One set is a zombie set, and has nothing subjective at all going on. Impacts are not felt. We then also have a second set that has phenomenal properties. There is something it is like for the dominoes themselves to experience the falling and colliding. But imagine that these two sets are objectively identical in all ways. All their physical properties are the same. In other words, the "consciousness" of the dominoes that feel is epiphenomenal. If we didn't know which set was which, how could we find out? There would be no possible way to arrange the dominoes such that their pattern of falling would reveal which set is the set with phenomenal properties.

Now imagine that there are two versions of you, one with epiphenomenal consciousness and one that is a zombie. Since the consciousness makes no difference to behavior, there would be no way to tell which is conscious. And if the two were to talk about consciousness, this talk would have nothing to do with any actual consciousness, as it is clearly independent of it and caused by something other than any actual presence of consciousness.

Clearly, with an epiphenomenon, there is nothing for the evolutionary process to work with.

I voted for '1' as the closest fit. I'm not too sure about the "epiphenomenal" part, though. I think all causes are physical and I think consciousness both evolved and is causal (or at least the neuronal processes associated with consciousness are). — Janus

If you think consciousness (I read subjectivity) is real and is causal, and also that all causes are physical (I read objective), what does this mean? Isn't all the behavior fully accounted for by the low-level, non-conscious physical causes? Doesn't any appeal to any conscious causes amount to overdetermination?

Epiphenomenalism
— petrichor

Oh come now that can't be a word. — Outlander

It most certainly is! :smile: I am not sure if you are joking. In case you aren't:Epiphenomenalism

On a broader point, your current premises of "feeling pain" being different than "responding to stimuli" is lacking in merit. And that's a charitable view at best. — Outlander

One is subjective and the other is objective. Perhaps they are two sides of a coin. Still, they are worth distinguishing.

You could conceivably be incapable of pain and still retract your hand from a hot stove, no?

One is a case of weak emergence, or simply different levels of description, and the other is a case, if of emergence, of strong emergence, which is much harder to justify. — petrichor

Scientists like Sean Carroll believe that consciousness is weakly emergent, and you only seem to have an argument from incredulity against them.
https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/19311/1/Consciousness%20and%20Laws%20of%20Physics-full.pdf

Do you believe that billiard balls experience impacts in the same sense that football players experience impacts? — petrichor

In the more mundane of the two senses which you are right to separate, yes. (The sense of "undergo".) Balls and players both.

Are you sure that sense is irrelevant? Couldn't it be the ground of your incredulity here?

I can't imagine how, if there is actually no experience, there could be a situation where it nevertheless seems that there is an experience. — petrichor

That sense removed, aren't we left with

I can't imagine how, if there is actually no [theatre in the head], there could be a situation where it nevertheless seems that there is [a theatre in the head]. — petrichor

?

I voted for '1' as the closest fit. I'm not too sure about the "epiphenomenal" part, though. I think all causes are physical and I think consciousness both evolved and is causal (or at least the neuronal processes associated with consciousness are). — Janus

At least to my understanding, and forgive me if I'm overexplaining:

The difference here would be that the neuronal processes associated with consciousness are causal, but the actual feeliness of the world is not. That's epiphenomenalism: experience is a real, but an after-affect of the causal network. Else, the feeliness is in some sense causal upon the neuronal processes -- so that what we feel will effect neurons in some capacity that's functionally measurable. So if an experience of a movie then has effects upon the neuronal activity at some later point, rather than the movie encoding itself into the neurons in some "deep"* way and then that pattern re-emerging due to this deeper pattern and thus we have a memory of a movie (but the causal pattern is at the level of neurons rather than experience), then we'd infer epiphenomenalism is not the case with respect to this particular experience-event. But if our experiences are in some way only coming from the neuronal events, and that feeliness never effects neurons, then we'd be epiphenomenalists.

(I should say the reason I think the question unanswerable at this time -- we simply don't know enough about consciousness to even start making headway on its relationship to natural selection. It could very well be a conceptual mistake, which is my favored approach to the problem of consciousness, or even a phenotypic accident that's in no way related to natural selection)

*deep meaning, something other than what we presently measure

The difference here would be that the neuronal processes associated with consciousness are causal, but the actual feeliness of the world is not. — Moliere

If you think consciousness (I read subjectivity) is real and is causal, and also that all causes are physical (I read objective), what does this mean? Isn't all the behavior fully accounted for by the low-level, non-conscious physical causes? Doesn't any appeal to any conscious causes amount to overdetermination? — petrichor

I don't see it as a case of the "feeliness" of experience "affecting neurons", but since that would be to espouse dualism, I would rather say the felt quality of experience must be causal (if neuronal processes are) since it too would be a neuronal process. If the felt quality were not present then the neuronal processes would be different and thus different causally. That's why I think epiphenomenalism makes no sense.

The same goes for the p-zombie notion; the idea that our neuronal processes could be exactly as they are when felt experience is present and yet we could nonetheless have no felt experience seems completely absurd to me. Ironically it presupposes dualism, because it imagines the felt quality of experience as something "ghostly" that exists over and above the neuronal processes.

So, all the behavior can indeed "be accounted for by the low-level physical causes", but why should we think that the low-level physical processes should be the same regardless of whether they were associated with consciousness or not? And if the differ, why would they not differ causally?

It's so much simpler than that. How can anything that doesn't make any difference make a difference to survival? — petrichor

Sure, but in light of the metabolic cost of useless brain tissue we have reason to understand that carrying around superfluous brain should be actively selected against. More energy efficient zombies should outcompete members of a population which need to consume more to feed epiphenomenally conscious brain tissue that only monitors what is going on in the brain but produces no output.

Given the complexity of the human brain, comprehending it theoretically and thereby eliminating dysfunctions produced by the brain's organic defects probably requires more-than-human-intelligence (via cognitive augmentation and/or AGI). Technical capabilities of indefinitely postponing human senescence (i.e. disease & aging) is worth the price / risk of "them understanding us better than we understand ourselves" (or them), no? I think so. — 180 Proof

Yeah, I can appreciate such possibilities, but I can imagine a lot of dangers humanity is woefully unprepared to understand.

Yeah, I can appreciate such possibilities, but I can imagine a lot of dangers humanity is woefully unprepared to understand. — wonderer1

Such as – ? The prospective rewards seem to me more than worth the un/foreseeable risks.

I don't think I can answer the poll in good faith because under monism I see epiphenomenalism as a red herring but the clarification

"For options three and four, "not all causes are physical" can be also be taken as "epiphenomenalism is not true"."

is still dualistic.

In the first definition, you say about consciousness that it is "not merely a behavioral disposition".
In the second definition, you say about consciousness that "it doesn't influence behavior".
Aren't these two in conflict?

Now, behavior is --among other things-- the response or combination of responses to internal and external stimuli.
Aren't these stimuli perceived by me when and because I am conscious? Isn't therefore my behavior in this case based and shaped by my consciousness? And isn't the statement that consciousness "doesn't influence behavior" wrong?

Consciousness is essentially a state and ability to perceive internal and external stimuli. And behavior is a response to these stimuli.
But because these stimuli also include thoughts and other internal stimuli, behavior is also affected by the subconscious, in a more or less automatic way, i.e., by elements that usually we are not aware (conscious) of. In short, our behavior is affected by both the conscious and the subconscious parts of the our mind.

It seems that now all the discrepancies and conflicts I described above are resolved. Doesn't it?

In defining concepts, it is always best to think of what they are and mean essentially.

All causes are physical. A full explanation of behavior can be given by a purely physical, third-person description of the objective situation without any appeal to subjective experience. — petrichor

Isn't thinking, reasoning and other purely mental faculties, which are non-physical in nature, also causes? Don't they also affect behavior?

Epiphenomenalism: Consciousness, though real, and though its form is determined by physical events, has no causal power. It doesn't influence behavior. All causes are physical. A full explanation of behavior can be given by a purely physical, third-person description of the objective situation without any appeal to subjective experience. — petrichor

No. Consciousness is partly shaped by physical events, but partly determined by metaphysical (mental) interactions. For example : a motivated physical sperm is obviously alive, but typically shows minimal signs of consciousness : its movement seems to be directed mostly by external forces in the womb, which guide its thrashing toward the uterus, where it accidentally bumps into the oosphere. And its penetration into the egg is controlled primarily by the cell-wall of the ovum. But once the twain have become one, a transformation occurs : motion & control (energy & organization) are combined into a cybernetic organism : input > output > feedback > modified output. Internal & external energy/information are integrated into a teleological system, with a mind/purpose of its own, so to speak.

After that organic system is expelled into the cold cruel world, it becomes an independent operator. At first, the baby is mostly a passive object pushed & pulled by external forces. But it gradually learns to impose its Will, its Purpose, on the outside world. And eventually, that Willpower becomes a goal-directed force-to-be-reckoned-with : e.g. Elon Musk. Few would deny that Musk is a conscious being, and that he has an indomitable Will, focused on whatever mission is currently in his Mind : e.g. rocket to mars. So, the pertinent question here is whether a rocket to mars would happen naturally, or would be the physical expression of a conscious mental map of space-faring humanity, with the ability to escape the effects of its own mis-management of its inherited habitat.

If you think subjective Consciousness is powerless to influence the behavior of other minds, and of mindless matter, don't get between Musk and his mission. :smile:


The Causal Efficacy of Consciousness :
Mental causation is vitally important to the integrated information theory (IIT), which says consciousness exists since it is causally efficacious. . . . . The causal efficacy of consciousness is vital to the integrated information theory (IIT) of consciousness. IIT opposes eliminativist and illusionist views that deny the ontological existence of consciousness, claiming to the contrary that consciousness is a real feature of the natural world
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7517407/

We are conscious, not all causes are physical, and consciousness evolved by natural selection.
30%
We are conscious, not all causes are physical, and consciousness did not evolve by natural selection
35% — petrichor

The two most popular options in this poll accept that Consciousness (C) is an immaterial causal phenomenon, but differ on how it came to be whatever it is : natural selection or other (divine ensoulment?). One option A> views Sentience as an emergent feature of the gradually developing world, while the other B> seems to assume that it is an otherworldly (unnatural) introduction into an otherwise natural process. So, A> is fairly conventional secular philosophy, while B> is closer to religious theology. Is that a fair assessment?

Both A & B seem to reject the definition of Conscious awareness as an Epiphenomenon*1. Which denies that it is an important primary feature of reality, being instead a useless incidental side effect or illusion. The definition below mentions that C remains, after all these years, a peculiar product of unknown etiology --- not observed, but experienced. So part of the problem with discussing C philosophically, is the mystery of its insubstantial existence in a material world.

Epiphenomenalism dismisses the non-physical connection between Being & Knowing as a minor metaphysical quibble, instead of an important physical phenomenon, such as causal Gravity*2 --- also an immaterial mystery, a century after Einstein's definition of Gravity as, not a physical force but metaphysical Geometry. Is that a fair assessment?

So, what have we learned here? That C is a "hard" problem because is is so empty & incorporeal & ethereal? Or that it falls into the crack between Real & Ideal, between Physics & Metaphysics, between Science & Religion? :smile:


*1. An epiphenomenon is a secondary phenomenon that occurs alongside or in parallel to a primary phenomenon. The word has two senses: one that connotes known causation and one that connotes absence of causation or reservation of judgment about it. ___Wikipedia

*2. Arrow of Causality and Quantum Gravity :
Causality, rather than the arrow of time, may be a more natural discriminant between the past and the future in quantum theories. ___American Physical Society
https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.171601

Consciousness is partly shaped by physical events, but partly determined by metaphysical (mental) interactions. — Gnomon

Clarification: so you are a substance dualist?

If not, what non-trivially distinguishes "physical events" from "metaphysical interactions"?

If so, how do you solve 'the interaction problem' and account for the apparent violation of the physical substance's Conservation Laws (i.e. causal closure)?

Consciousness is partly shaped by physical events, but partly determined by metaphysical (mental) interactions. — Gnomon
Clarification: so you are a substance dualist?
If not, what non-trivially distinguishes "physical events" from "metaphysical interactions"?
If so, how do you solve 'the interaction problem' and account for the apparent violation of the physical substance's Conservation Laws (i.e. causal closure)? — 180 Proof

# Substance Dualist? :
No. I'm a Substance Monist. But my hypothetical ultimate substance (EFA) violates your immanentist exclusionary rule.

Although both Matter & Mind are immanent, the Primary Origin of all post-big-bang secondary substances is presumed to be pre-BB. Does Immanentism allow for an eternal "Multiverse", or "Big Bounce" scenarios, powered by endless Energy and controlled by beginingless Laws? If not, then the immanent deity must be self-existent & self-contained, and the BB must be a scientific myth.

In my thesis, the universal substance is EnFormAction : the generic power to transform --- physical Energy being just one instance. Similar to Plato's universal FORM, it transforms from formless immaterial Potential into all Actual material & mental forms in the world : Energy, Matter & Mind. Of course, like Energy, you can't find EFA under a microscope. You can "see" it only via rational inference. It requires imagination. Does Immanentism have a place for metaphysical Imagination?

For example, just as the Big Bang was inferred by tracing current matter/energy patterns backward to a mathematical origin point, +/-14 billion years in the past. My thesis tracks current incarnations of EnFormAction (things & ideas) pointing back toward the original pre-space-time power-source that Plato called FORM. Obviously, that's not a Real thing ; merely an Ideal concept equivalent to an infinite pool of Potential. You also won't find this Aristotelian Substance in science books. If you do ever find it, it will exist only metaphorically in your immaterial mind (ideal), within a material vessel (real).

Note 1 --- I made up a name for my metaphysical force --- EnFormAction --- because immaterial "Energy" has too much Materialistic baggage, and immaterial Spirit has too many Religious impedimenta.
Note 2 --- Your Immanentism seems to be generally similar to my PanEnDeism, except that, like Spinoza's deus sive natura, it assumes that the universe is eternal. In which case, the Big Bang theory must be a scientific myth with no basis in fact. {see image below}
Note 3a --- Immanentism : the belief that the Deity indwells and operates directly within the universe or nature.
Note 3b --- Big Bang - Wikipedia :
One of the common misconceptions about the Big Bang model is that it fully explains the origin of the universe. However, the Big Bang model does not describe how energy, time, and space were caused, but rather it describes the emergence of the present universe from an ultra-dense and high-temperature initial state.


# Physical vs Metaphysical :
One traditional distinction between Physical and Metaphysical is that Physical Objects are Real (known via the senses) and Metaphysical Concepts are Ideal (known via reason). Therefore, “Physical Events” are those that are Perceived, and “Metaphysical Interactions” are Conceived. Does that categorization sound "trivial" to you?

Since our animal senses are inherent in human bodies, we seldom have a need to argue about whether we are seeing something Real. But since our Concepts are abstractions from reality, they are always moot, and fodder for philosophy. The waves of light entering our eyes are physical & real (quanta), but the mental image & feeling of color is metaphysical & ideal (qualia).

Meta-physics includes the properties, and qualities, and functions that make a thing what it is (essence). Matter is just the clay from which a thing is made (malleable stuff). Meta-physics is the design (form, purpose); physics is the product (shape, action). The act of creation brings an ideal design into actual existence. The design concept is the “formal” cause of the thing designed.

# The Interaction Problem :
Since Descartes' Dualism drew a do-not-cross line between physical Matter and metaphysical Mind, some have argued that such an impassible barrier prevents those separate domains from interacting. It would also prevent Mind from having any causal effect on Matter. Ironically, that wall-of-separation is just as impassible as the one between Church & State. I have references on Information Causation, if you are interested.

I don't share Descartes' substance dualism. Instead, my thesis postulates that both Mind and Matter are secondary & local instances of an Aristotelian primary & universal Substance (Essence or Genus). That's because my thesis is based on the polymorphic substance now known in physics as shape-shifting Information (energy - matter - mind). I call the Prime Substance EnFormAction : the power to transform (physical Energy being the most familiar causal form).

Since Quantum Physics combined with Information Theory to transform the Certainty & Determinism of classical mechanical Physics into the Uncertainty & Probability of 21st century science, we are now faced with the philosophical consequences of Einstein's Relativity. Hence, the mind of the observer is now a player in the physics game. And mental/mathematical Information can be converted into Energy & Matter, and vice-versa.

My thesis and blog go into extensive detail to describe the steps & stages between Universal Primary Progenitor Substance and its plethora of evolved secondary forms : e.g. Energy ; Matter ; Mind.
For more of my subjective observations and technical references on this topic see the thread on Dualism and Interactionism https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussi ... ent/846487

Spinoza's PanDeism vs Gnomon's PanEnDeism (thanks to


PS___ Early-on, I assumed that your antipathy to my ideas was due to a perceived Materialism vs Spiritualism posture. But now that you have given me another label (Immanentism) I see that the opposing postures are more like Natural vs Supernatural. But my BothAnd position is somewhere in between : both Immanent/Materialistic and Transcendent/Idealistic. Due to our similar-but-different worldviews, our associated vocabularies make communication difficult. So, I don't expect all this literal non-sense verbiage to be convincing. :smile:

I'm a Substance Monist. — Gnomon

Okay, again I ask

... what non-trivially distinguishes "physical events" from "metaphysical interactions"? — 180 Proof

So you are a (non-Cartesian :roll:) substance dualist after all, Gnomon, as you distinguish between "act of creation" and "creation" (or "design" and "designed" ... "immaterial" and "material")

Meta-physics is the design (form, purpose); physics is the product (shape, action). The act of creation brings an ideal design into actual existence. The design concept is the “formal” cause of the thing designed. — Gnomon

... in effect, invoking Aristotle's (down-to-earth version of Platonic duality) 'teleological hylomorphism'. How latter-day Scholastic (i.e. :sparkle:-of-the-gaps) of you ...

Does Immanentism allow for an eternal "Multiverse", or "Big Bounce" scenarios, [ ... ]?

Of course. Why wouldn't it?

latter-day Scholastic (i.e. :sparkle:-of-the-gaps) of you ...
Of course. Why wouldn't it? — 180 Proof

This is why I can't have a philosophical dialog with you. I take your questions seriously, and provide long detailed answers. But you respond only with scorn, casting disrespectful aspersions on the intelligence & integrity of the questioner. That's an evasive Trump-like political counter-attack, not a Socratic dialogue. :cool:

PS___ Apparently your singular alternative to my Substance Monism, is to arbitrarily conflate an immaterial "act of creation" (verb) with its material product : the "creation" (noun). By contrast, my Ultimate substance is both the Power to Act (adverb) and the Potential for created things (adjective). They are attributes known by philosophical reasoning (e.g. Plato & Aristotle), not observed Forces & Objects of physics.

I take your questions seriously, and provide long detailed answers. — Gnomon

If that were so, then you would have given "detailed answers" instead of just more of your usual run-on gibberish. The fact is, Gnomon, you're intellectually allergic to direct questions put to your idiosyncratic confusions and never give "detailed answers" to them, such as

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/709894

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/718369

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/742056 — 180 Proof

C'mon, Gnomon, rectify this failing on your part by giving succinct, direct answers to my questions either in my previous post and/or in these old posts linked above (or show that the questions are invalid in someway/s).

There is another option:

We are conscious, all causes are physical, and consciousness is an emergent property of complex biological systems.

The thing is, saying consciousness evolved by natural selection says almost nothing about it - everything else evolved by natural selection, ok, now what? We should attempt to give some account as to why it exists, what does it do and so on.

It doesn't influence behavior. — petrichor

This is something I don't understand. If you see something which you find morally reprehensible or if you are playing baseball or whatever, how doesn't consciousness play a role in how you react or how you hit the ball?

Is nobody else annoyed at the clear lack of one option?

We are conscious, epiphenomenalism is NOT true, all causes are physical, and consciousness evolved by natural .

I don't like the conflation of physical causality with epiphenomenalism

C'mon, Gnomon, rectify this failing on your part by giving succinct, direct answers to my questions either in my previous post ↪180 Proof
and/or in these old posts linked above (or show that the questions are invalid in someway/s). — 180 Proof

OK. As usual, my unconventional & idiosyncratic answers are "invalid" from your authoritarian perspective. So, tell me what answers --- to your three questions --- you want to hear, and I'll feed them back to you, to see If I understand them. Parrots are succinct, because they simply repeat what they hear from others. Novel ideas require more verbiage to demonstrate the "difference that makes a difference".

Typically your evasive answers are so brusque, cryptic & "succinct" that they are enigmatic to my simple mind. There's an old saying : "if you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with BS". So the question here is "who's zooming who?" :joke:


Who's Zoomin' Who?
Song by Aretha Franklin

You thought I'd be naive and tame
(You met your match)
But I beat you at your own game, oh
Take another look and tell me, baby . . .
Guess you believed the world
Played by your rules
The fish jumped off the hook, didn't I, baby?
(Who's zooming who?)

Once again, for all to see, you refuse to succinctly answer my direct questions of your "idiosyncratic" – problematic & confused – statements (re: their presuppositions and/or implications), so I'm compelled to no longer give you the benefit of the doubt that you're an intellectually honest participant on TPF and finally conclude, sir, that Socratically engaging with you is futile.

saying consciousness evolved by natural selection says almost nothing about it - everything else evolved by natural selection, ok, now what? We should attempt to give some account as to why it exists, what does it do and so on. — Manuel

One of the issues with functionalism in phil of mind, though, is that 'functions' can potentially be ascribed all over the place, not just to the products of genetic evolution. The biologist McShea writes about that in terms of naturalistic goal-directedness even.