(March 2, 2017 at 4:03 pm)Nonpareil Wrote:(March 2, 2017 at 2:27 pm)Won2blv Wrote: So do you at least agree that a large majority of our DNA is identical to all humans?
Yes.
(March 2, 2017 at 2:27 pm)Won2blv Wrote: If you do, then is it that big of a leap to say that we have a similar data set in which to draw from?
No, Won, "humans have similar DNA" is not equivalent to "humans have some sort of collective consciousness". "Humans have similar DNA" does not even begin to imply "humans have some sort of collective consciousness".
(March 2, 2017 at 2:27 pm)Won2blv Wrote: I just don't believe that humans could make any discovery, whether it was using fire to cook meat or the theory of relativity, without having a data set to draw from. This is why we can learn and understand new discoveries that we didn't personally discover
The term that you are looking for is "society".
I am not saying that similar DNA equals a collective conscious. I am just seeing if you agree with the point or not.
Think about a cheetah. Its the fastest land animal but it can only run at top speeds for about 10 seconds. I am sure that some cheetahs can run faster at shorter periods, some slower for longer periods, and everything in between. If a cheetah had a self awareness, it might try to train itself to run at a top speed for a longer period of time. The Evolutionary advantage of this would be huge. They could catch their prey a lot easier. And no doubt, other cheetahs with self awareness would also train this same way. So even though they might have the ability to use their existing advantage and make it better, they can't, because they don't have a self-awareness
Humans have an evolutionary advantage of bigger brains. Our self awareness is a bi-product of our long evolutionary line, not the other way around. I believe that consciousness was a slow and steady development, with the advantage being that an organism could make quicker evolutionary decisions. Does it not makes sense that when humans began using their brains to make conscious evolutionary decisions, that they were drawing on billions of years worth of information that has been succinctly jammed into their DNA?
Michael Graziano illustrates the brain as being like a neuron democracy. Where did the neurons develop their "political beliefs?" From billions of years worth of evolution
