Moskie

So, in the grand scheme of things, spanning from humanity's beginning to humanity's (impending?) end, is the evolutionary feat of consciousness more helpful or more destructive?

The benefits of it are pretty obvious, I guess. We are the top of the food chain and have no natural predators to worry about. We are able to fight disease with technology. The basic elements of survival are afterthoughts in our lives. (...as I write this, I realize that this might be particular to my/our extremely civilized and/or urbanized life style... i guess we'll stick to that for this discussion though)

But there's also disadvantages. We have the ability to wipe ourselves out pretty easily. War in general. What could be called a screwed up ecosystem.

So, as a species, is consciousness beneficial? Do you think that our species would last longer, or be more effective as a species, without it? What other effects does consciousness have on our existence as a species?

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krwlz

I think that, in essence, we still behave like the "conscious-lacking" animals in our world. (I think you have the wrong word, but I cant think of the correct one.)

In so far as the disadvantages are concerned. Other animals still fight, and destroy each other, we just excel at it.

lordjeebus

Strictly evolutionarily speaking, I don't think that humans would be around without it -- physically we are pretty lame compared to most other species. Compare our babies with those of other species -- it's years before a baby human can fend for itself. So in this sense it's an advantage.

Of course, it's likely to bring down the species in the end, so on the global timescale its probably a very temporary evolutionary advantage.

tecoyah

I would consider sentience(consciesness) pretty much a must for any species to evolve to the next level....as it seems the natural step after tool use and speech, if not before. Without it we would likely have already been replaced by bugs with high level thought or even more likely by cetaceans. Who knows, dolphins and whales may be sentient in many ways, we just dont care enouph to find out. We wont really know the true plus or minus for centuries or mellinia....if indeed we make it that long.

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John Henry

War is a good way of bringing a population down to a sustainable level, before it completely runs out of resources and everyone dies. It also makes sure that the resources then go to the individuals most likely to survive and therefore benefit from them. Nasty, but a good way of not going extinct. The same probably goes for a number of other 'side-effects'

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CSflim

War is not needed for population control.
The population level of a species is self regulating, and will evolve in such a way so as to maintain itself.
A shortage of food/resources, will increase the selection pressure, and thus lower the population.
A population will never grow so large that the environment can't sustain it, and thus cause it to become extinct (except in rare circumstances, and in those cases war isn't going to help anyway).

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Mantus

Perhaps a better word for it would to use here would be “intellect” as “consciousness” simply implies self awareness, which many animals have.

At present we are still mostly animals, and act very much like animals. All the problems you mention are caused by our instincts and emotions. As intellect can override instincts and control emotions it will be essential to our survival in the future when our toys will be too destructive to leave in the hands of an ape.

irateplatypus

wow, this brings up an very interesting question...

what constitutes good or bad with regards to a species development? with what criteria is this determined?

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If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

~ Winston Churchill

lordjeebus

Evolutionary speaking, good implies that the length of a species' survival is enhanced, I would think.

John Henry

OK, now read the second sentence of my post.

War is in fact one of the mechanisms by which a population regulates itself and the exact point I'm making is that war checks population before it gets to the rare cases where it expands so fast that it uses up all its resources.

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"No one was behaving from very Buddhist motives. Then, thought Pigsy, he was hardly a Buddha, nor was he a monkey. Presently, he was a pig spirit changed into a little girl pretending to be a little boy to be offered to a water monster. It was all very simple to a pig spirit."

ARTelevision

Consciousness developed somewhere around worm-stage or IMO way before that, even.

It's probably the whole "point" of evolution, since the development of nervous system complexification is the most recent and rapid expansion of the life process.

Good? I have no idea. That's a value judgement.

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GakFace

Actually with some thought about John Henry's thoughts, I think he made a good point. I mean.. The only time when deer grow like mad is when their predators are low that season (where are our predators? We don't really have any). When the deer are high, we kill them. Well.. Combine that a bit. We in a sense are our own predators, and thus we kill each othen keep ourselves in check. Aslo We understand that killing any other animals to help keep them in check, why do we oppose it so harshly to us as well? I spose that would be another topic for itself. I know I wouldn't want to kill or be killed to keep the system in check, but again perhaps thats why the war is there.

I agree that low resources will more likely make them extinct.. BUT what would you think would be more balance: Growing until out of resouirces and dying off? or Growing and then keeping in check so that resources do not run out? I think that second one sounds more favorable. Its kind of nasty to think that war could quite possibly be a "check" in the system.

Self Awareness is a good thing. If not we'd be 'drones' and not able to have this conversation. It has given us the ability to rise to the top of the food chain (or get out of the chain that could beat us.. you don't see us living in the water....) Again since we're on the top of the food chain.. what animal is there to keep us in check? Well it'd have to be us.. that gives us our balance.. us. We see it as a downside, but nature might just see it as a way of keeping balance. Interesting.

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RoboBlaster:
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gabshu

It is my belief that conscience is the little voice inside out heads that tells us to obey authority, not anything good. We want to look good to authority and reap the benefits thereof.

Conscience is responsible for war and genocide. Just another way of seeing it.

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Ustwo

I always thought conscience was a little green cricket.

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empu

Evolution has no goal. We can look back and decide if a particular evolutionary development turned out to be good or not, but as this discussion is revealing, that evaluation often hinges on what time scale you use.

31Friction

I honestly dont think humans would have lasted this long without the level of brain power we have. I'm not so sure "conciousness" is the best word to describe it but I think I get what your trying to say.

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klt2

"War is a good way of bringing a population down to a sustainable level, before it completely runs out of resources and everyone dies."

A good way?

John Henry

for 'good' read 'effective'. Don't get me wrong, I'm as much of a pacifist as the next person, but I was speaking within the context of the thread, on how consciousness affects the viability of the human race.

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"No one was behaving from very Buddhist motives. Then, thought Pigsy, he was hardly a Buddha, nor was he a monkey. Presently, he was a pig spirit changed into a little girl pretending to be a little boy to be offered to a water monster. It was all very simple to a pig spirit."

trudes1131

I view consciousness as what permits us to differentiate between right and wrong.

Our success in establishing it, is how well we limit the external factors that may shape it from its natural state - such as money or other forms of personal prosperity.

When we begin to lose control of the effect of these external factors, we lose the clarity in which our conscious operates. To see what comes of this, simply view the tragedies humanity has inflicted upon itself over the past century.

When there's something we feel best benefits ourselves we, as a species, have a knack for putting consciousness on the backburner in order to achieve the goals we have set forth. We've continually developed quite a talent for establishing new and better means of tearing ourselves apart on the falsified notion of personal prosperity over the years, whether it be on a personal or national level.

Want to see what a lack of consciousness can achieve? Check out Uganda, where the situation becomes worse and worse on a daily basis as conflict continues to cut through the country. Of course, they have no oil or other means by which we may further our personal prosperity, so why bother intervening? Same goes for Zimbabwe.

Only when we eliminate the influences of external factors relating to perceived prosperity can we operate with a clear consciousness. And, when that happens, everybody wins.

When it doesn't, you're left with nations driven on furthering the quality of their lives, while ignoring the plight occuring in others. Ignorance is bliss, I suppose.

Although, really, how could we possibly know otherwise when we refuse to chart such terrain?

Eldaire

"There's more to livin' than only survivin'.
Maybe I'm not there, BUT I'M STILL TRYIN'!"

-Offspring

John Henry

Having thought about this a little more, it's difficult to assess the evolutionary value of one particular trait. Really any organism evolves into a niche. Up to now, consciousness has obviously served us well or those of us who had it wouldn't be here. However, in terms of ubiquity and longevity, the organisms with the fewest non-essential mechanisms seem to be the most robust. Bacteria are probably the best example of this. They display only the most basic signs of consciousness, but if I recall correctly, there are ten times as many bacterial cells in your body as there are human cells. Lucky your cells are 100X bigger than theirs, huh?

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"No one was behaving from very Buddhist motives. Then, thought Pigsy, he was hardly a Buddha, nor was he a monkey. Presently, he was a pig spirit changed into a little girl pretending to be a little boy to be offered to a water monster. It was all very simple to a pig spirit."

Yakk

You are confusing cause and effect.

There is nothing a shortage of food/resources will increase selection pressure, but that selection pressure is otherwise known as "starvation", and sometimes "war" in the human species.

War could be viewed as a form of selection pressure. Not the only one, but John never said "war was the only" only that "war was a good way".

Why won't this happen? If it does happen, the species becomes extinct, but evolution isn't psychic.

We are doing things that haven't happened before to our strain of life. There is no genetically-distilled experience availiable. We could be walking towards a cliff, and because life hasn't walked over that cliff before, evolution cannot not guild us away from it.

The point of evolution is self-replicating patterns of information. There is no goal, evolution does not go upwards.

We are not the only animal with 'no preditors'.

And hell, we have preditors. They are called viruses.

Dispite all this, I'm going to put forward a radical statement.

Consciousness is a good evolutionary development.

While it has high risk (self annihilation), it has a large payback (intersteller travel).

Intersteller travel of entire ecosystems would be a completely different phase of evolution, with payoffs orders of magnatude larger than any other evolutionary gambit.

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:::OshnSoul:::

both. We still have a lot to figure out as one speices. We are of the lower of species as far as evolution and consciousness. It's not a bad thing, but we have to take a step back and look at the wide spectrum of this world (i.e. not just what others are doing, but what we ourselves are doing) to slow down the process of humankid's evolution.

mepitans

Everything has consciousness. It isn't a step in evolution it is the path of evolution. Rocks have consciousness. Rocks are conscious enough to stay rocks.

Sorry for the short explanation but I argued this for about an hour the other day and am all argued out.

papermachesatan

The increased survivability it has granted our species has far outweighed the downsides. We will be able to expand indefinitely thanks to consciousness.

papermachesatan

wtf?

wry1

Don't get me started!

Personally, I think it was a big mistake coming down from the trees....

papermachesatan

Not really.. sure we have problems that the little critters before us didn't have but we're in a lot better position than they will ever be..

wry1

The only thing that I find a bit irksome about the whole thing is that [i]we're responsible for many of the "problems that the little critters before us" never had to deal with! So please tell me how having to deal with the problems of our own creation makes us better off than what came before?

myguitarisaweap

Every animal is conscious, but we have the ability to reason, and that's what makes us such effective animals. Now, is having that ability a necessary tool towards achieving evolutionary perfection? I'd have to say based on techinicality of course it is, we have can overcome mother nature's hurdles, put to practice complex mathematics, and execute the most advanced linguistics on the planet. On the oppostie end of that argument (as mentioned by Moskie) is the war, hatred, envy, and everything else that comes with emotion, reasoning's excess baggage. See to me the problem isn't being able to reason or being consicous, it is the burden of emotion, all mankind suffers because of emotion, the desire for power, the desire for the objects you cannot obtain, the member of the opposite sex which shows no interest in you, the full specturm of the human condition. If you ask me, the elimination of emotion would solve all of these "problems" we face as a society. But then again, would we want to loose this blessing, do we want to be organic AI, no goals or aspirations, laughter or sadness, just a willingness to continue forward, go about your routine and survive until your demise. Now with that said, which would you choose?

tiberry

What a really deep thought. Although I don't think that consciousness 'evolved', we (humans) always had it. Like most that we already know or are aware of, we just had to remember.

What I find interesting, is your implication that with consciousness comes great responsibility - the implication that we could destroy ourselves. Quite different than the predominant self-preservation instinct that other animals have.

Of course we have the self preservation instinct too, but I think that it mainly applies to the individual rather than the species. Therein lies the rub - for most animals the individual's self-preservation instinct is sufficient to protect the entire species. One rogue, self-centered and greedy prarie dog hardly has the means to eliminate the entire species. But a human, under the right circumstances does.

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Yakk

If you define "consciousness" to be "term with no meaning" or "axiomatically true", then yes, everything has consciousness. Features that everything have are wasted words usually, and wasting such a beautiful concept as consciousness seems a crime.

What evidence do you propose to back your assertion?

Why do we want to slow down, or manipulate, the process of humankind's evolution?

What portion of survivability did it enhance?

Short term, on the order of 10,000s of years, it enhanced our survivability.
Medium term, on the order of 1,000,000s of years, I think it reduced our survivability.
Long term, on the order of 1,000,000,000s of years, I think it increased our survivability.

Survivabilty = % chance that a close genetic decendant will exist.

Big rocks will hit earth, and wipe out every form of life larger than a newt.

This is a matter of when, not if.

The Dodo was doomed to extinction without us.

The harm we are causing the environment is dangerous because it might screw us up, and intelligent life is potentially a very valuable carrier of information.

What is evolutionary perfection?

Evolution is the process of selection and replication. I know what evolutionary success is, but evolutionary perfection is what again?

There is no reason to assume an AI would not be as emotional as a human being would be. We haven't built one, and the only intelligent beings we've met seem to have emotions... So, if we succeeded in artificially building one, based off the only model we know of, we'd probably end up with emotions...

Define humans. And always. Because "I don't think that consciousness 'evolved', we (humans) always had it." implies that humans have always existed, and that humans never evolved...

Either that, or your sentance doesn't make sense.

A soup of wet hydrocarbons isn't conscious.
We are.
Somewhere between here and there consciousness arrived on the scene.
How do you think it got there?
(intermedite value theorem)

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tiberry

Yakk -

Humans - You, I, us, the fleshbags reading this post...

Always - Always.

I see now the errors in my statement. You are correct. My poor choice of words obscured my real thoughts. Let me restate:

Consiousness has always existed and always will - it is everywhere. That is not to say that all 'things' have consiousness, just that it is everywhere. Consiousness is not a part of us, we are a part of consciousness. Just as we ARE a part of consiousness, there must also be things that are not. Otherwise, there could be no concept of consciousness or the 'experience' of consciousness. I'm sure we'll get into this further!

Now, as for your logic

Your logic implies that in order for consciousness to exist, it must exist in human form. Why? Because you are only now experiencing it as a human? Because you cannot 'remember' a consciousness other than the present one?

Do you accept that I too have a consiousness? How do you know? Because I'm human, no doubt.

I won't debate you that a soup of wet hydrocarbons (great metaphor, by the way) isn't conscious, nor a rock. But to state what is NOT conscious hardly proves that humans are the ONLY consciousness...

I see that I'm taking this WAY out of the conscruct of your original question...that is to say that I'm introducing concepts that are outside the framework of human evolution. My apologies. Simply stated: I believe consciousness has always existed - "god" is consciousness. In order to experience this consciousness, god needed to reference things that were not conscious. At some point, we (humans) [see earlier definition] evolved or became a part of the consciousness or self-aware if you like. Its not a matter of evolutionary efficiency or practicality- it just happened.

You'll have to forgive my ranting; I'm having a VERY hard time answering this, even to myself. I think a better question is "At what point did humans (or their evolutionary predecessors become conscious?"

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My life's work is to bridge the gap between that which is perceived by the mind and that which is quantifiable by words and numbers.

tiberry

I think I've gotten somewhere...let's see.

Most would hold that in order to be conscious, a thing must first be alive. However, being alive doesn't necessarily mean conscious. Sound right?

There's a flaw here, let's find it...in this construct:

1. There was once a time that life didn't exist.

I find it hard to accept, but still I'll concede that life could arise by "chance".

2. Some, but not all life is conscious. This implies that at some point, humans or the 'lifeforms' we decended from became conscious. NOT POSSIBLE by chance...something, or someone of equal or greater 'consciousness' HAD to cause this. It simply defies all reason that we could evolve, by chance, a consciousness.

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My life's work is to bridge the gap between that which is perceived by the mind and that which is quantifiable by words and numbers.

Yakk

For me to agree with this, you'd have to provide a pretty wide definition of life.

Second, what is concious isn't the matter, it is the pattern the matter forms.

You seem to think that consciousness is something magic.

And your arguement consists of "magic can't come from randomness".

I believe we will one day manage to create AI, even if only in the form of genetically engeneered or otherwise enhanced human brains. And one day we will create an AI that is smarter and greater than our own. Parents can raise a child that is smarter than they are, and knowledge can be gained without anyone handing it down.

We will do this through the process of experimentation, otherwise known as randomly or exaustively trying things that could work, biased towards those you think are more likely to work, until you get lucky and find something that does.

It won't take billions of years either.

Because my model of you in my brain seems to match up with how I imagine those with consciousness's act, and also because I came to the realization decades ago that other humans tended to behave as if they where conscious beings just like me, so I give humans the benefit of the doubt in that regard.

Nope, I implied that consciousness exists in humans, and that it doesn't exist elsewhere, in my arguement. I was sorta explict about that.

I believe in the tooth fairy. She told me that humans did evolve, and we recieved consiousness from evolution, and that all my arguements are right. You can't refute my statements, because they aren't based on any kind of rational thought, so that proves I'm right.

However, to be fair, you did answer:
Your answer works out to "god put it there". Nice of god to place lesser amounts of it in beings that are closely genetically related to us, and leave a record of incremental technological advances up to around 50,000 years ago. Makes it look a hell of alot like evolution put it there, but I guess that's just one of God's jokes. He's good with them, I mean, giant walking lizards? The SUN as the center of the solar system? Microwave background radiation that looks like an extremely hot, small universe? Hydrocarbon slush that forms the basic building blocks upon which our life is based when exposed to lightning? Geological evidence that seems to indicate a (get this!) a multiple billion year old Earth? haha, that kidder!

God. He's a laugh a minute.

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tiberry

Damn your good...

If everyone questioned me this way, I might actually learn something!

Its quite entertaining, and interesting - we struggle to explain something that is so simple, so incredibly simple and we already KNOW the answer. Yet we fall short because we subject the TRUTH to our logic filters. Obviously, its our logic that's flawed - not the truth. However! I'm convinced that we can weed out the flawed logic, by using sound logic.



This isn't over!

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My life's work is to bridge the gap between that which is perceived by the mind and that which is quantifiable by words and numbers.

tiberry

Guess I need to go back to the start:

"Was consciousness a good evolutionary step?"

1. Consciousness - the quality of state of being aware, especially of something within oneself. The state or fact of being conscious of an external object, state, or fact.

2. Evolution(ary) - a process of change in a certain direction. A process of continuous change from a lower, simpler, or worse to a higher more complex, or better state.

Are we good so far?

Now, I need you to define "good" for me. I know what you meant, in the obvious sense - however, I need you to clarify. The rationale is this: In the context of your question, 'good' could imply 'better than before' and/or a relative term used to describe marked progression towards a predetermined goal.

*assumption* The question is related only to humans.

Let's assume you intended the first meaning of 'good', that is - 'better than before'. Then your qustion becomes: "Has consciousness made humans better than before?" In which case, the answer is Yes. By the definition of evolution, we have 'evolved' from a lower to higher state.

It occurs to me though, that you are seeking a much deeper answer than this. Your question in its original form suggests to me that you believe that consciousness may be to blame for all things 'not good' that humans are or do. Is that the case?

*Assuming* it is, the question then becomes "Would humans be better off without consciousness."

Do we agree so far? I'll stop here, so that we can maintain some clarity in direction.

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My life's work is to bridge the gap between that which is perceived by the mind and that which is quantifiable by words and numbers.

Yakk

Bad definition. Evolution is the process of change and adaption. It doesn't have a direction, it doesn't go from simpler to more complex.

Complexity, if it results in better adaptation to the local selection pressures, can result.

As it happens, complexity has opened up new niches (at the very least) for life, so complexity has come out of evolutionary processes.

Evolution is a wierd beast.

In another example, if human beings evolve, it won't (nessicarially) be to a "higher being". It will be to whatever local selection pressures push us towards, and it will probably occur in some very isolated subculture. Either that, or evolution will be coopted by our intelligence (self genetic engeneering, transhumanism, uploading, or other even wierder things), and the game will change.

You used another form of the same word in your definition. What is "conscious"?

I can give you examples of features that imply consciousness. The internal monologue. But, then, one implies that language is needed for consciousness. Should we refer to the "mirror test", that a being that is capable of realizing that a mirror shows an image of itself, and claim that is a symptom of consciousness?

I think this is a hard problem.

If you want to punt, we could say "was intelligence a good evolutionary step". Intelligence is probably easier to define. =)

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tecoyah

OK It is called learning. If you never attempt to better yourself(and thus make mistakes) you will become stagnant and eventually be replaced by something more adapted to your niche.
As long as we can create the fix to our self created problems , we will continue with a new form of evolution, cause and effect evolution.

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Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. - Buddha