(January 1, 2019 at 10:50 am)bennyboy Wrote: Thoreauvian, you are enumerating the points of your world view. Saying "X is good, so must be evolution" is not a particularly convincing argument for why the Universe has the capacity, under any material formation or process, of sustaining subjective experience. Why, for example, couldn't things learn, interact, say stuff, make babies, and so on purely mechanically without ever really having qualia?
And more importantly, how am I to establish that isn't the case?
Alternately, how am I to determine that any of the things I take as real aren't just idealistic representations? How do I know space is real, or anything of the objects in it or their properties? By experiencing them as such, maybe? That leads to a nasty circle-- if 100% of everything you base a theory of mind on is dependent on a world view you developed with that mind, you're going to have a problem establishing a foundation. The Matrix might be feeding you mutually coherent data that represents no actual reality, or perhaps the Mind of God makes pure ideas seem like physical reality, or maybe Ulthar the Magnificent is poking your (Xarathrian, not human) brain with a hard-tipped boodledyboo in a jar somewhere because you've been dead for 10 Xarathrian days and the Ritual of Rezooberification is set to commence.
There are a variety of evolutionary strategies. Are you denying that consciousness is one of them?
We determine that the things we take to be real are real to whatever extent by taking a pragmatic, trial-and-error approach. That approach has given us science and logic, since they work. My construct of a mind in a body is based on observations, and my assertions regarding them are the simplest explanations in my opinion. They also have the benefit of avoiding the qualia problem of consciousness studies.
I am not a philosopher, and I don't think a philosopher's ideal of absolute knowledge is relevant to what is most probably correct. If you really think we are brains in vats, you have the burden of proof.
