Vision and Evolution (A Critique of Dawkins)

[GrandizerII]

Is this a tacit admission of trolling, Johnny?

No ma'am, I'll take any blood tests, x-rays, even lie detection tests you need to prove it. Put me in an MRI machine, you'll see no such religious beliefs swimming through my neurons.

So you're admitting that you're being deceptive?

Ok, so as an example of why I disagree with you there, I would point towards Dawkins example that as a patch of light sensitive cells begins to curve into a cup, the organism is able to detect direction. By focusing solely on the evolution on the eye, the assumption is made that the detection of direction occurs directly on the retina, as a consequence of its curvature. In strictly physical term, a curvature does allow for the perception of direction in ways that a patch does not, but it does not produce it. You need some additional mechanism that can process and perceive direction in perhaps a quite sophisticated way. For example, because of the curvature, light coming from the right hemifield, will activate the left side of the retina. So the organism needs to perceive right as left, and up as down, or risk moving towards a predator when it ought to move away, or away from food when it needs to move towards it.

Not mentioning what goes on behind the scenes, makes it appears as if a curved retina is all thats required to perceive direction. I call that misleading.

You can account for perception of direction by appealing to only the physical/biological. But I think where the confusion is happening is that you think perception is only about the subjective experiential aspect of it, but there's also the physical aspect whereby the nerve cells in the brain are fired in a way as to make properties about the object you're looking to be a certain way that makes sense to the brain. But if you're talking about the subjective aspect, and if it is the case that the brain doesn't really cause this type of aspect, it still wouldn't change the fact that evolution accounts for the eye and vision just fine. Whatever consciousness may be, it's still contingent on the brain in some way. If the brain doesn't really cause it, it sure as hell "turns its switch on" or "fires it up" in some way. Therefore, evolution still can operate on this consciousness via operating on the brain.