RE: why do we enjoy poetry From the perspective of neuroscience?
January 23, 2019 at 5:05 pm
(This post was last modified: January 23, 2019 at 5:22 pm by bennyboy.)
(January 23, 2019 at 11:39 am)Thoreauvian Wrote:(January 23, 2019 at 9:52 am)Gae Bolga Wrote: Plants accomplish much of what we do without the possession or even means of possession of a conscious experience -at least like we envision it.
Consciousness is a very successful evolutionary strategy. It has obviously evolved in various ways for various creatures. That being the case, I wonder how anyone can assert it is a non-material process.
How can you assert that the experience of qualia exists at all, or ever did, using evolutionary science or any other kind of scientific inquiry?
(January 23, 2019 at 12:41 pm)Gae Bolga Wrote: This is a reassertion, not an explanation. So what if there are 29 other ways to skin a cat...Benny? Things don't evolve for the kind of "reason" you seem to be referring to in the first place.....meanwhile, plenty of ways to skin a cat have evolved.
Hiding behind the evolutionary narrative isn't good philosophy, and I'd say it's not even good science. "Well. . . it's here, so it must have evolved, and that's why it's here" is an explicit begging of the question. Until you can demonstrate that the ability to experience qualia is real in animals, and that despite only being a byproduct corollary of brain function, it somehow provides an advantage in reproductive fitness, then you are saying Evolutiondidit in the same way that Christians say Goddidit. Statements of faith in your world view are highly valued in religion-- but not so much in science, or at least in good science.
