evolution

[Angrboda]

No more than a persons self awareness and ideas about beauty, themselves, certify that the contents of their awareness or that particular standard is based on some aspect of factual reality.

Very beautiful people have been known to see themselves as incredibly ugly and it does seem like that influences some of the actions they take.  Whether or not they are, in fact..ugly..just like whether or not there is..in fact, a god..is immaterial to whether or not a perception can influence mental and physical events.  Whether it's an ability A.

No, it's very material because you've made it material. What something seems is the only reason you've given for believing that certain things are in A. The short walk to a reductio ad absurdum argument is very short indeed.

(ps. I added to the previous post.)

[The Grand Nudger]

What was supposed to be absurd? I do believe that you (or humans in general) are capable of having the experiences you describe - and it does seem like those experiences can influence mental and physical events. We can add that to the massive list of incredibly specific coincidences in category b if we like, but I don't know how I'd make that case.

Objecting the the accuracy of the inputs or the parameters of the selections is fine - but feeling god where there is no god..and changing your life because of it..is still a mental event influencing other mental and physical events just as feeling ugly when you are beautiful and ending your life because of it is a mental event influencing mental and physical events.

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-Did you have something more or else in mind for an ability A - because I'm only working with what you provided. An upline and a downline. It seems, now, that there are other requirements.

[Angrboda]

What was supposed to be absurd?  I do believe that you (or humans in general) are capable of having the experiences you describe - and it does seem like those experiences can influence mental and physical events.  We can add that to the massive list of incredibly specific coincidences in category b if we like, but I don't know how I'd make that case.

Objecting the the accuracy of the inputs or the parameters of the selections - feeling god where there is no god..and changing your life because of it..is still a mental event influencing other mental and physical events.

[emphasis mine]

You're equivocating between the content of an experience and the intentional object of an experience. In your case, you were saying that it seems like attentional direction is in A. That would be the object, the intentional content of the experience, the "what" that the experience is about. I have no doubt that you have the experience of attentional direction seeming to be in A, but the object of that experience, being in A or not being in A is not the experience itself. The fact of attentional direction being in A is not confirmed by you having the experience that it seems to be in A. Apply the same argument to free will: I experience myself freely choosing therefore I am freely choosing. That to you is a compelling argument? And please try to keep things straight. You're wandering all over the place and I'll bore much quicker in direct proportion to how sloppy you are in your analysis.

The bolded is an ipse dixit argument. Please do not simply make assertions in lieu of argument.

[The Grand Nudger]

It seems it seems it seems. But, we're considering that it may not be this way. Well, okay, it's not this way in that it doesn't have an up and down line, or it's not that way in that even though it does have an up and down line it's lacking some third unspoken thing? Or maybe a third and a fourth? Accuracy of content and free will™?

A minimally self aware machine can also be faulty or be spoofed. We might also contend that it lacks a free will (even if it reports itself as having one - I selected this, I selected that - no "you" didn't, "you" merely referred to a list of preset parameters I supplied you with). Even so, they outperform. I don't consider it a requirement that our every perception be perfectly accurate or that our system be impervious to mal or mis function to suggest that we have at least one ability A, and nothing like that was included in your description of an ability a. Just that it had up and down lines. I think we do, I think that it's fairly difficult to make the case that none of the examples we've discussed..and in fact no possible example, is an ability A - even though a great many may not be abilities A+(+).

[Angrboda]

I have no problem with you suggesting that these things are in A. But you stated that there's no credible debate about things in A having evolutionary advantage. That requires, at minimum, that something relevant actually is in A. You can suggest all the doo-dah day long for all I care. That's not what this discussion is about. I don't have to demonstrate that nothing is in A to observe that you haven't demonstrated that any relevant thing actually is in A. We're talking facts, not speculation, conjecture, or suggestions. Since "it seems" doesn't even pass the smell test, do you have anything of actual substance to offer in defense of your proposition?

[The Grand Nudger]

Because there isn't. It's open to debate as to whether that's why we possess abilities A, though only barely ...that's evolutionary theory - but it's not at all difficult to quantify the advantage to human beings and even minimally self aware machines of being able to attend to and direct attention. Or being able to quantify the detriment to things which either lack this ability, or when it's functionally or physically impaired. Comically so in the case of desiring, seeking, and securing a mate. We absolutely and demonstrably do use these (or this) ability A to address our biological imperatives.

It is one of the things we use it for, regardless of whether that's why we have it. This is why I likened it to the fact of evolution, regardless of whether any given theory which seeks to explain that fact is accurate.

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-and here again, just because I want to stress that I'm at a loss as to what we actually disagree about that causes our conclusion to diverge here...I can concede that maybe it only seems like minimal self awareness and abilities A premised on them are advantageous in our experience, and in the lab, and in the field - whether we're talking machines or human beings.

It's just a whole lot of oddly specific and inexplicably uniform coincidental seeming. It stretches credibility, or at least it stretches mine beyond breaking point and I can think of no possible response to any possible thing which wouldn't ultimately round down to some comment we could rinse and repeat this seeming business about. Is this an assault on the very idea of a fact, all facts in toto - or just one well reasoned bit of skepticism about a particular (asserted) fact in contention? Do you really believe, and have good reason to believe, that the human ability to perceive itself and make physical changes to itself in reference of that experience, standards of attraction, and the predicted attention of others....in order to attract a mate... is -not- reproductively advantageous? We're dressing up, we're painting ourselves, we're going to the bottom of the ocean and to the bottom of mines to adorn ourselves with rare materials, we're breaking our bodies at the gym, we're moderating our behavior for potential offense. None of it, absolutely none of it, is getting any of us laid at any rate greater than we would if we just sat at home eating cheetos and chocodiles watching maury and saying annoying things at roughly the pace of a machine gun.

That has not been my experience, nor is that, I think, a position supported by evidence...to put it mildly.

[Angrboda]

The evolutionary argument is of no interest to me if you cannot demonstrate that those things that you list are actually in A. The question is not "do brains have evolutionary utility" but rather does consciousness have evolutionary utility, and that is only true if some useful ability can be isolated as being in A. Btw, you're wandering again. This discussion is about consciousness specifically. Simply listing behaviors that have utility does fuck all to show that they have anything to do with them being in A.

When I encounter a fact in your rambling I will try to remember to alert you to its presence. But no, this is not an attack on facts. You'd have to present one in order for me to attack it.

[Anomalocaris]

The statement that there is evolutionary advantage in consciousness is not a fact but a plausible, but unproven, explanation for the presence of consciousness.

It is certainly plausible to construct a scenario in which only behavior we associate with consciousness can enable survival. The trick is construct such a scenario which also matches what has been shown to have actually occurred.

[The Grand Nudger]

I'm not using it as a plausible but unproven explanation for consciousness. That's an evolutionary hypothesis.

I'm pointing out that we use it that way, that it has been shown to be advantageous, and that experiments have been constructed to quantify the advantages of so much as a minimal self awareness with an ability A. That it's useful is beyond credible debate. Whether that accounts for it's existence is not. I'm absolutely certain that neither minimal self awareness -nor- human consciousness in full are required for survival.

But it does seem like the ability to direct my attention to my hand as I hold a knife..or as I throw a projectile (a human specialty, btw) is useful to my survival.

[Angrboda]

Let me offer up an example. There is a certain Australian beetle that recognizes its mates by certain features, specifically that they are brown, have a mottled surface, and are shiny. Unfortunately for this beetle, empty beer bottles discarded by humans are also brown, mottled, and shiny. This has led to no rare incidence of beetles attempting to mate with beer bottles. Now I'm sure this beetle if it could talk would explain that it is thrusting its hips toward its ersatz mate because it has consciously identified it as being a female beetle. However, we can be assured the beetle isn't doing so because his consciousness has sized her up as a suitable prospect but rather because a combination of feature detection and pattern recognition happening outside his consciousness has recognized what normally is a suitable mate, or so it has concluded, and triggered a mating response. The beetle's consciousness is just a slave to impulses originating elsewhere in its brain. Does the beetle mating with brown, shiny, mottled objects possess evolutionary utility? Yes, it does, because some of those things are actual mates. Does the beetle's consciousness feeling that it has found a female and that the thrusting of its hips, which it cannot control, will result in a new brood have evolutionary utility? No, it does not, because that feeling is epiphenomenal; it has no impact on whether the beetle will or will not attempt to mate with the beer bottle. The beetle may feel that it has consciously chosen to mate with the beer bottle, but that is an illusion because the real work of that decision occurred elsewhere.