(May 31, 2013 at 3:53 am)bennyboy Wrote:(May 31, 2013 at 1:30 am)whatever76 Wrote: My answer would be because it is to our advantage to have subjective awareness in a world composed of physical interactions. The advantage that it gives us is the ability to adapt the environment to meet our biological imperatives.
Having data collected together, storing patterns in the brain to assist with later processing, having parallel modules working together, and having parts of that system mediated by some behaviors that are hard-coded in the DNA, are all useful. These are the things the brain can be observed to be doing in response to the environment.
Nobody yet has explained why there has to be a sentient entity who is experiencing all these processes in the way that I do, and that presumably all animals do to varying degrees.
In short, I totally agree with you. But as nice a story as it is, it's missing two important parts: the ability to prove it objectively, and a good explanation why experience > pure mechanical function. (by which I only mean brain function that doesn't involve conscious awareness)
So I think what you are saying is, if the world is just purely a mechanical process, then the entities in that world would be purely mechanical. Since you are a conscious being there is a break down in the equivalency (or reduction) between mechanical universe and the your existence as a self-aware being. I'm just making sure I understand what you are saying.
Let's back up to the solipsist argument. We are all solipsists by default. I cannot leave my own mind and stand outside of it to perceive what the world actually is, I only know the world as constructed by my senses and the derivative assumptions from the data that my senses provide. Due to that limitation, it is possible that I am dreaming or that I am hooked up to a machine that is stimulating my brain to produce the world that I sense or that I am pure consciousness and the world exists is entirely within me. Despite these possibilities, my unquestioned assumption would be that there is an objective world "out there" and an subjective world "in here".
This problem cannot be resolved. I cannot know for certain that there is really an objective world, mechanical or otherwise. Philosophy and science proceed from the assumption that there is. Their explanations stand or fall on that assumption and there is always the question of whether they are right or not. The scientific theories of an unconscious universe that evolved conscious being sounds counter-intuitive for that reason.
The one caveat is that our very lack of certainty is what gives rise to a scientific explanation being more probable than a metaphysical one. If you proceed from the notion that you cannot be certain of anything, than you arrive at a methodology that is scientific.
I'm trying to answer what I think is the essence of your inquiry. In answer to your direct questions:
Our ability to improve our survival by changing the environment is easily proven objectively (the reason I suggested for why we are self-aware) and our world is non-linear, therefore an entity that relies upon linear mechanical processes would be at a disadvantage.
Looking specifically at what we call subjective awareness, it is a feedback loop that uses language (including all sensory symbols) to adjust my organism to conditions. Language is a means of gauging my social acceptance and rank with other humans, which is indirectly tied to my imperatives to survive and reproduce. This can be proven by directly optimizing my actual ability to survive/reproduce because my internal feedback (self-talk) will change automatically.
