Reddit mentions of Kluge: The Haphazard Evolution of the Human Mind

>> This is a significant cop-out. It completely ignores that we have answered the origin of the earth and the origin of the sun and gotten very much closer to the origin of the universe, being just 5.39 x 10-44 second from the big bang.

> Citation needed. As far as I'm aware, we do not know if the singularity was caused or not.

Hence the Planck Time constant that I cited. We don't know anything about that first very brief tiny fraction of a second. We know a metric fuckton about what happened after that. The gap is 5.39 x 10^(-44) second. How many orders of magnitude less than the time it took you to read this paragraph is that?

I'm betting at least 45 decimal orders of magnitude. It's a very short time, a very small gap.

> There are other gaps concerning perception and questions such as who am I.

You can answer that one quite easily. I know I can for myself. I'm a sack of meat with a far-from-perfect meatware computer controlling the works.

> On the other hand, if we're completely baffled by the "why do I see out of these eyes and not those"

Who the hell is baffled by this? I see out of the only pair of eyes that are connected to my brain by their optic nerves. You've got a very strange idea of a gap.

> question despite knowledge of DNA, cells, etc, I think it's reasonable to suggest there may just be some other factor we dont know and can't know.

Why do you think so?

> "It just is that way" is a horrible explanation that would not be accepted in any other context.

It is accepted in other contexts all the time. Why is 1 + 1 equal to 2? It just is that way. This is not a huge metaphysical question requiring gods for an answer.

> Why this perception with this cluster of cells?

I think you first need to demonstrate the need for a why. It is not axiomatic that everything must have some greater meaning behind it.

> As far as I know, we have not answered that and we have trouble understanding the nature of that question.

I'm not sure it's a reasonable question. Can you demonstrate that there must be a greater reason to our existence and our consciousness than simple evolution that produced a generalist species capable of thought as a problem solving mechanism?

> Which we may well find, but there's serious gaps in the "why am I me" question.

I'm not sure you've demonstrated this to be a gap. First you need to demonstrate that we need a more philosophical or spiritual raison d'etre than simple natural causes.


>> After generations of creationists asserting that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, now you assert that it is?

> Creationists assert a great number of things. If anything the fact that what I am saying runs counter to what creationists are saying convinces me further of my own POV since creationists are often...badly mistaken. Creationists aren't stupid, but their heads are buried pretty deep in the sand.

You're confusing "creationist" with "young earth creationist."

> I'm assuming you said this because you pegged me as a creationist or somebody sympathetic to creationism.

You are arguing for a supernatural creator as your answer to why am I me. You are a creationist. You are not a young earther. But, you are a creationist.

Else, why did you think that what you are arguing was a debate point against those who do not believe in any gods?

> I am not. At best, I think creationism is willful ignorance. At best.

I agree. But, I would not limit this to young earth creationism.

> But what you said does raise an interesting point: the difference between no evidence for, no evidence for another position, and evidence against. There is a great deal of evidence against creationism.

Agreed. So what exactly are you arguing for here? Do you believe that the universe was created by a supernatural entity? What would you call that entity? Why did you expect this to be a debate with atheists?

> There is no evidence for invisible flying elephants.

There is tons (literally) of evidence against any sort of flying elephant. The aerodynamics and biomechanics would dictate that anything of that mass capable of flight would most definitely not be anything we would call an elephant. A pterosaur perhaps. But, not an elephant.

> There is no evidence that anything in the physical universe can determine what perception is matched with what body at any point in time.

This makes absolutely no sense. We are wired inside a particular body. There is tons of evidence for why our perception is matched with our bodies. Our perception is a function of our brains that are wired inside a particular body with neurons.

> If there is no reason I see out of these eyes, why can't I see out of your eyes?

There is a reason you see out of your eyes and not mine. So, that is a ridiculous question.

> Or, if the self is an illusion, why the illusion of being this self?

You've got some very weird ideas. Mind is what the brain does. Self is basically just what we call our functioning wet computer.

You seem to need greater meaning than this in your life. But, the universe doesn't care whether you feel spiritually fulfilled. You brain is working. That is your self. I'm sorry that answer does not satisfy you. But, you've demonstrated no real reason why the universe is obligated to provide you with any greater meaning in life than "a working brain is conscious".

Have you seen the results of the AWARE study?

https://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/aware-results-finally-published-no-evidence-of-nde/

We are highly complex bundles of neurons. There is active evidence that we do not live outside of our brains. We may not yet understand all of the detailed functioning of the brain. But, we do know the answers to all of our questions about our consciousness are there.

Where else could they be?

Have you ever tried to run a piece of software without any hardware? Good luck with that. Our consciousness is our software. Our brains are the hardware necessary to run it. That's why people change pretty radically with certain types of brain damage.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage

If our consciousness were separate from our brains, it would not change with brain damage.

> And then, if there is no self, what is the point of the illusion of the self?

Self is not an illusion. It's the consciousness that arises in a functioning brain, whether your brain or your cat's. Give your cat a scratch under the chin for me.

> Why can't we just be robots?

There are indeed people trying to make that a reality. How to copy the consciousness from the meatware to the computer is a difficult question. When to delete the original and keep only the copy is a more disturbing question.

> What benefit does me realizing I am me have? Is it just a totally random side effect?

It seems to give a lot of people a will to survive and reproduce and to live and to love and to work together toward common goals.

It seems like quite a survival advantage to me, despite my own presence here as a deliberate Darwinian failure.

> I would like to know why the illusion of control of this body

Why do you call that an illusion. Can you not raise your arm right now? Give it a try. If you're healthy and not paralyzed. You will probably succeed.

> Is there any structure or function that does not or did not help us survive?

Clearly yes there is. You just spent a whole lot of energy typing this garbage. I just spent a whole lot of energy replying to it. There is clearly no survival benefit to that!

> To be clear, I think there is a truly unique part of any one of us and when we say "I" did X that is what we are referring to.

But, that part of us is a physical part of our brain. And, just for the record, we like to think there's this controller thread in our brains that is the real "I". But, there isn't. Our brains actually don't work that way. They're very modular.

https://www.amazon.com/Kluge-Haphazard-Evolution-Human-Mind/dp/054723824X/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=kluge&link_code=qs&qid=1563805335&s=gateway&sourceid=Mozilla-search&sr=8-1

> I can incorporate neuroscience into this as well. Patrick Haggard found that inhibition mechanisms inside the brain are separate from mechanisms triggered by external stimuli. This is consistent with Libet not observing a spike in unconscious activity. Activity in those regions sometimes leads to inhibition. Other times it does not. Not 100%. Stronger activity sometimes did not lead to inhibition while weaker activity sometimes did. But It's also unclear what is causing those parts of the brain to activate in the first place if not external stimuli. Do they just light up for no reason? Do the electrons in the atoms in the cells just decide to start dancing?

But, you admit it is all in the brain. So why the crap about you seeing through my eyes or your cat's?

>> Turning your own words against you: "A lack of a feasible metaphysical explanation is evidence for no metaphysical explanation (not proof, but evidence)."
>
> Metaphysical isn't understood by us. How can something not understandable be feasible? Physical is.

You're right! Supernatural is not feasible. Thank you. That is my whole perspective on this. There is nothing supernatural. It is simply not feasible.

> Science has always been a way to understand God better for Christians.

has it? Or have Christians been forcing their 'worldview' on others for 2,000 years claiming to have special knowledge about the mysteries of existence and life after death with no other evidence than a book and their own personal 'revelations'. For most of that time, their claim to absolute truth was absolute and unchallengeable. The advancement of sciences in the areas of physics, biology, astronomy and chemistry, especially in the last 200 years, have been able to explain many of the mysteries that confounded our ancestors, and have transformed our lives in tangibly positive ways. Take leprosy: People in Biblical times thought leprosy was a sign of sin against God, and so you were 'unclean'. Of course nobody believes that anymore (to his credit, it seems Jesus didn't buy into it either). According to wikipedia: In the past 20 years, 15 million people worldwide have been cured of leprosy, which is caused by the bacteria Mycobacterium leprae. It's one example but I'm sure you can think of many more. The church has lost so much ground to science that there are only a few little islands of mystery from which to they try to claim authority and justification for their philosophies, such as:

> the Bible is kind of like an ethical cheat sheet, from an omniscient God who actually knows the answers
> even those who didn't hear about God know what's right & wrong

and you have your own theory:

> God started things off, realized natural selection was a great way to set up a diverse planet, and probably intervened a bit in the ape -> human transition.

Now, you are basically saying that the differences we perceive between a human and a chimpanzee are actually the direct result of a deliberate intervention, at a specific time in the past, by a creator god (from outer space), who engineered the development of our culture, giving us laws, clothing, marriage, and possibly music and mathematics. It's an interesting theory, but whats the motivation?

> man is different from the animals

This is the central issue. Logically, if we are animals than either animals have souls (and we should all be vegetarians, or burn as murderers), or humans do not have souls (and there is no eternal life for believers). This is a catch-22 for a bible believing christians and meat-eaters. Maybe you can say animals do have souls, but God said we can eat them so its OK. This is kind of like saying God is an asshole who arbitrarily makes up the rules as he goes along (which is a solid theological position - just ask Job: the Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away).

I think to separate ourselves from the animals is to deny the truth of what science has shown us about ourselves. For Christians, science may be just a way to understand God better, but for the rest of us it is a way to understand reality better. Of course Christians want there to be no conflict between faith in the Bible and reality because no philosophy can exist without being rooted to some degree in reality; otherwise it is just a fantasy.

Let me back up a second. You said you believe the Bible is true and historically accurate, and I won't ask you what evidence you have for believing that. I used to believe as you did, that the Bible is true, and so is evolution but that somehow there is no conflict and the two work together - that somehow there in the whole mix of life evolving naturally, God intervened and sent Jesus to fulfill his mysterious plan so that we can all live forever in heaven. I just didn't want to accept that all those people (including my family) could be wrong; they are obviously sincere in their beliefs. For several years I found various ways to explain it all without accepting a 'naturalistic worldview', and all that implies including a very high probability of there being no life after death. I might still believe in the Bible if I hadn't started reading science books and watching BBC documentaries... yep Attenborough offered me the red pill and i took it.

If you can pretend for a moment you were born in Africa or Asia, in some remote tribe with no written language. You wouldn't have any reason to trust in a book you could not read; everything you know about the universe has been explained to you by those around you, those who came before, those who were close in the beginning. This is the same experience as any animal that learns how to hunt or fly or build nests from their parents.

The book I mentioned, Our Inner Ape documents the social behavior and societies of bonobos and chimpanzees, written by noted primatologist Frans de Waal who has studied these unique primates for decades. It's a fascinating read and may surprise you to see how many behaviors people tend to think of as uniquely 'human' are, in fact, shared by our closely-related ape cousins. In fact, de Waal shows, all major traits are shared, including language, toolmaking, and the full range of emotional states. Within the ape societies, the apes have their own standards of 'right' and 'wrong' behavior that they enforce in the same ways we do: shunning some, rewarding others, punishing the worst offenders. They learn from each other, and pass on skills to their offspring.

Evolution, as I understand it, is the theory that explains how more efficient/adapted forms emerge from the natural processes of entropy and diffusion. The theory explains how natural processes have driven our biological development, and also why men have nipples. Biological evolution is a special case; Evolution itself is a law of Nature, at a more elementary level, in the realm of Physics or Math.

All of our languages, customs, art, music, and every other thinking pattern has evolved through these same natural processes. Basically, I'm describing Memes. Have you ever thought about Christianity as a Meme? Of the Catholic Church as an organism whose main goal is to ensure its own survival? We have been and continue to evolve, quite rapidly, both biologically and culturally. Every individual and every idea wants to survive, but not everything gets successfully passed to the next generation. Every meme and species is only one generation away from becoming extinct. Adapt or die. This is why the mainstream church is becoming warmer to the idea of evolution, why the Vatican apologized for Galileo - survival of the religion is more important than orthodoxy.

The line between science and philosophy and religion get blurred with evolution because it answers, quite elegantly, the 'big' question: where did we come from? For this reason, it is a threat to all memes based on the idea of a 'creator god' because it nullifies this concept directly. Indirectly, it has the potential to erode the foundations underneath many religions. But I don't think the ideas of evolution are really a threat to you, me, our standards of morality, our way of life or anything else. The victims are a literal interpretation of the Bible and belief in a 'creator god'. Why not let it go? If you had never read the Bible, would you really be a less moral person? really? If not for that one book all people would know nothing but evil and be totally selfish to each other? Is this one book worth deliberately lobotomizing yourself? You'll go crazy trying to reconcile it; do you want to end up like Ray Comfort or Ken Ham?

A couple other interesting books you might enjoy if you feel like taking the red pill:

Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind

Your Inner Fish

Sorry for the novel, kind got caught up in it :)