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Debmey
Joined: 11 Apr 2003
Posts: 497
Location: Singapore
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 Posted: Sun Jul 13, 2003 7:15 am Post subject: Can any evolutionists explain how thoughts evolved? |
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Did they just simply exist because we see it today like Huxley conveniently said about simple cell organisms?
Did they exist from vacuum?
Go ahead, have a try.
peace |
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THHuxley
Joined: 23 Jul 2002
Posts: 698
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| Posted: Sun Jul 13, 2003 2:59 pm Post subject: |
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Thoughts didn't evolve.
They are not organisms, or parts of organisms. They do not have genes, and not passed down from one organism to its descendents.
They are manifestations of brain activity.
If you want to talk about how brains evolved, we can do that.
But thoughts didn't evolve.
_________________
T.H.Huxley redux
"Nullius in Verba" |
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Debmey
Joined: 11 Apr 2003
Posts: 497
Location: Singapore
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| Posted: Sun Jul 13, 2003 4:20 pm Post subject: |
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You mean they simply exists? They were created?
Which came first, the thought first and then the brain evolve or vice versa? |
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Unknown 55
Joined: 31 Dec 1969
Posts: 9
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| Posted: Sun Jul 13, 2003 9:21 pm Post subject: |
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| Sorry to butt in, but I'd like to point out to Debmey that the brain came first. Like Huxley said, thoughts do not evolve, but brains can and do. |
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Debmey
Joined: 11 Apr 2003
Posts: 497
Location: Singapore
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| Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2003 6:22 am Post subject: |
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| You mean the brain existed before hearts, digestive system and lungs did? Now thats fasinating, tell us more. |
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Medi Terraneus
Joined: 15 Jul 2002
Posts: 291
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| Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2003 7:14 am Post subject: |
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| Debmey wrote: | | You mean the brain existed before hearts, digestive system and lungs did? Now thats fasinating, tell us more. |
What Scientific Pantheist says is:
| Quote: | | Sorry to butt in, but I'd like to point out to Debmey that the brain came first. Like Huxley said, thoughts do not evolve, but brains can and do. |
He means that brain is prior to thoughts, not to other visceras and metabolic functions.
And Huxley has been clear enough, no? Or maybe you have not understood his few-worded-post either:
1) Thoughts didn't evolve.
2) They are not organisms, or parts of organisms. They do not have genes, and not passed down from one organism to its descendents.
3) They are manifestations of brain activity.
4) But thoughts didn't evolve.
So, you want to discuss brain evolution or not?
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When somebody tells me that I am too old to do something, I rush to do it.
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THHuxley
Joined: 23 Jul 2002
Posts: 698
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| Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2003 7:37 am Post subject: |
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| Debmey wrote: | You mean they simply exists? They were created?
Which came first, the thought first and then the brain evolve or vice versa? |
Yep. They simply exist because brains evolved.
You might as well be asking "How did farts evolve?"
It's the same general principle.
_________________
T.H.Huxley redux
"Nullius in Verba" |
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Debmey
Joined: 11 Apr 2003
Posts: 497
Location: Singapore
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| Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2003 3:03 pm Post subject: |
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Oh I see, so thoughts did not exist first, its brains.
So why did brain evolve when there was no thoughts.
Farts evolved when the waste inside you give off gases. It didn't evolved from nowhere like what you said abt thoughts or brains for that matter. |
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Unknown 55
Joined: 31 Dec 1969
Posts: 9
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| Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2003 4:29 pm Post subject: |
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| Debmey wrote: | Oh I see, so thoughts did not exist first, its brains.
So why did brain evolve when there was no thoughts.
Farts evolved when the waste inside you give off gases. It didn't evolved from nowhere like what you said abt thoughts or brains for that matter. |
Debmey, I wonder if you have actually absorbed any of the information you have learned on this site.
As Huxley stated in another thread in which you were participating, evolution does not occur to fulfill a need. Evolution occurs when genetic traits are selected for or against by the environment. For example, we did not evolve brains so that we could think. We evolved brains when this trait was selected for by the environment due the competitive advantage that rational thought gave us.
Do you understand anything about evolution or are you a creationist simply because you do not understand evolution?
And no, farts did not evolve  Our digestive system did, and farts are a by-product of digestion.
You make me laugh, and not for a good reason  |
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Debmey
Joined: 11 Apr 2003
Posts: 497
Location: Singapore
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| Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2003 7:00 pm Post subject: |
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| Really? So who decides what we will evolve so will suit the environment. |
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Jack
Joined: 09 Aug 2002
Posts: 278
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| Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2003 8:13 pm Post subject: |
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Debmey,
If you were to list animals based on their intelligence you might see human like intelligence in whales, dolphins, dogs, cats, seals. Down the line you might have cows, chickens. Further down the line you'd have fish, snakes and sharks.
I've seen a show were a sharks brain is only as big as your two thumbs side by side.
Not very big.
The sharks brain does the basics, breath, swim eat.
Watching my Irish setter dog one of the funniest things is when she's dreaming. She barks, her feet twitch. On some level the thoughts of the dog have evolved beyond the sharks base line.
My dog knows I love it and as long she gets fed she is pretty content.
You and I look up at the stars or read a book an the idea of being conscious smacks us upside the head. "I exsist" Can someone tell why?
I would argue that a great deal of this website has to deal with the problem brought about by our "evolving thoughts".
I can't explain why I'm here. Others choose to look to religion to deal with the thoughts that roll through our heads.
Harrison Ford stars in the Movie Blade runner. At the end of the movie he gives a monologe about a "replecant" a gentically altered human. The replecant had the same problem as you and I. Their thoughts turned to "why".
"She wanted the answers to same questions as all of us. How did I get here? Where am I going? How long have I got?
I bet on some level whales, elephants, dolphins have the same thought.
Jack. |
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Debmey
Joined: 11 Apr 2003
Posts: 497
Location: Singapore
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| Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2003 8:33 pm Post subject: |
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Yes Jack. The brain is wonderfully made by God.
I read a report recently of a girl who met an accident and lost half her brain. Through training and perseverance, the one side remaining managed to adapt and performed the functions of the other side of the brain. Isn't God great? |
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Unknown 55
Joined: 31 Dec 1969
Posts: 9
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| Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2003 5:01 am Post subject: |
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| Debmey wrote: | | Really? So who decides what we will evolve so will suit the environment. |
Nobody does.
| Debmey wrote: | Yes Jack. The brain is wonderfully made by God.
I read a report recently of a girl who met an accident and lost half her brain. Through training and perseverance, the one side remaining managed to adapt and performed the functions of the other side of the brain. Isn't God great? |
Our brains are not made by god. They evolved. God isn't great, but the creative entity is. And it certainly isn't deserving of worship. |
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THHuxley
Joined: 23 Jul 2002
Posts: 698
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| Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2003 6:22 am Post subject: |
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| Debmey wrote: | | So why did brain evolve when there was no thoughts. |
Organs do not evolve "for a reason." Natural selection cannot operate prospectively. It can only act on raw material (i.e. genetic variation) that already exists. If an organ provides selective advantage, it will be selected for. If it does not, then it won't. But an organ cannot be selected for an advantage it is not yet capable of actually providing.
Brains are very different in different organisms, and they perform a vast plethora of tasks, thoughts only being one of them, and even then only in some organisms. Whatever the mental capacity of a planarian, it has a "brain" and yet cannot be accused of having thoughts.
Brains were selected for based on what the did, not what they might do at some future point. If, as part of that selection process they ALSO became capable of thought, great. But that was initially an accident of function, not something "planned for."
Once thoughts existed, they certainly could serve as yet another wedge for selective advantage. And it is certainly true that larger brains are capable of more complex thoughts than simpler brains, but it is not the thoughts that are evolving... it is the brains.
In the same way, when I run a marathon, that marathon did not "evolve." It is simply the product of my capacity to run it.
This exaptation of organs that originally perform one function for very different other functions later in time is one of the primary sources of evolutionary novelty. In this same way a forelimb that originally functioned as a fin for swimming was later exapted into legs for walking, hands for grasping, wings for flying, shovels for digging... and sometimes even converted back to a fin or lost altogether.
Brains had many other functions before they began producing thoughts.
| Debmey wrote: | | Farts evolved when the waste inside you give off gases. It didn't evolved from nowhere like what you said abt thoughts or brains for that matter. |
Isn't it fascinating Debmey that you are suddenly claiming an evolutionary origin for something? It would have been far more consistent for you to claim that farts were divinely created, than it is claiming (as you do here) that they are actually the result of an evolutionary process.
Sadly, even as you seem to have made a breakthrough, you are still wrong.
For the first fart was not a proto-fart, or an incipient fart, or a "half evolved" fart.
It was a fart.
It had no evolutionary predecessors. It was simply a manifestation of the activity of a mammalian digestive tract that evolved for other reasons. (I cannot speak for reptiles or amphibians, but fish do not fart.)
Digestive tracts evolved. Farts did not. Farts are not "functions" of the digestive system. They are accidental side effects.
In the same way, the first thoughts were not "functions" of the brains that generated them. They were accidental side effects.
Brains evolved. Thoughts did not.
_________________
T.H.Huxley redux
"Nullius in Verba" |
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THHuxley
Joined: 23 Jul 2002
Posts: 698
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| Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2003 6:27 am Post subject: |
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| Debmey wrote: | | Really? So who decides what we will evolve so will suit the environment. |
Nobody.
Natural selection acts against existing raw material based on a single outcome: Do organisms bearing a particular physical trait generally produce more offspring than those that do not?
Organisms do not evolve to "suit the environment."
The environment ruthlessly weeds out organisms that do not, purely by accident, suit it.
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T.H.Huxley redux
"Nullius in Verba" |
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Debmey
Joined: 11 Apr 2003
Posts: 497
Location: Singapore
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| Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2003 8:41 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Our brains are not made by god. They evolved. God isn't great, but the creative entity is. And it certainly isn't deserving of worship. |
Dear SP,
May we know who is this creative entity that we talk about that is so wonderful?
Why is it not deserving of worship?
Kindly explain so that we know.
Deb |
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Debmey
Joined: 11 Apr 2003
Posts: 497
Location: Singapore
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| Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2003 9:23 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Organs do not evolve "for a reason." Natural selection cannot operate prospectively. It can only act on raw material (i.e. genetic variation) that already exists. If an organ provides selective advantage, it will be selected for. If it does not, then it won't. But an organ cannot be selected for an advantage it is not yet capable of actually providing. |
Natural selection? You mean an organism that does not have a brain all of a sudden pops out a functional brain and gets selected? Sounds like The Incredible Hulk. Is that sceintific? Where are the evidence?
| Quote: | | Brains are very different in different organisms, and they perform a vast plethora of tasks, thoughts only being one of them, and even then only in some organisms. Whatever the mental capacity of a planarian, it has a "brain" and yet cannot be accused of having thoughts. |
You mean a functional brain popped out by chance?
| Quote: | | Brains were selected for based on what the did, not what they might do at some future point. If, as part of that selection process they ALSO became capable of thought, great. But that was initially an accident of function, not something "planned for." |
If they had no use up front, why and how did they evolve and how and why were they selected?
| Quote: | | Once thoughts existed, they certainly could serve as yet another wedge for selective advantage. And it is certainly true that larger brains are capable of more complex thoughts than simpler brains, but it is not the thoughts that are evolving... it is the brains. |
So how exactly did thoughts evolve in the first place?
| Quote: | | In the same way, when I run a marathon, that marathon did not "evolve." It is simply the product of my capacity to run it. |
Thats because you purposed to run the marathon. Who purposed for a brain to pop out?
| Quote: | This exaptation of organs that originally perform one function for very different other functions later in time is one of the primary sources of evolutionary novelty. .
Brains had many other functions before they began producing thoughts.
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So what other functions did the brain alledgely do? Where is the evidence?
| Quote: | | In this same way a forelimb that originally functioned as a fin for swimming was later exapted into legs for walking, hands for grasping, wings for flying, shovels for digging... and sometimes even converted back to a fin or lost altogether |
A fin is very diffrent from a leg you know? So where are the evidnece of a hlaf developed leg? Where is teh evidnece or is that pure speculation again?
Debmey wrote:
Farts evolved when the waste inside you give off gases. It didn't evolved from nowhere like what you said abt thoughts or brains for that matter.
| Quote: | | Isn't it fascinating Debmey that you are suddenly claiming an evolutionary origin for something? It would have been far more consistent for you to claim that farts were divinely created, than it is claiming (as you do here) that they are actually the result of an evolutionary process. |
Did I claim that? It is you evolutionists who did, I'm asking for the evidence of what you claim.
| Quote: | Sadly, even as you seem to have made a breakthrough, you are still wrong.
For the first fart was not a proto-fart, or an incipient fart, or a "half evolved" fart.
It was a fart.
It had no evolutionary predecessors. It was simply a manifestation of the activity of a mammalian digestive tract that evolved for other reasons. (I cannot speak for reptiles or amphibians, but fish do not fart.) |
So it didn't come out of a vacuum like what you evolutionist halucinate.
| Quote: | | Digestive tracts evolved. Farts did not. Farts are not "functions" of the digestive system. They are accidental side effects. |
So why did you ask how farts evolved in the first place?
| Quote: | | In the same way, the first thoughts were not "functions" of the brains that generated them. They were accidental side effects. |
You mean your thoughts are like farts?
| Quote: | | Brains evolved. Thoughts did not. |
Problem is, you still haven't done your job of showing us how a brain could have evolved. |
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Unknown 55
Joined: 31 Dec 1969
Posts: 9
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| Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2003 9:39 am Post subject: |
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Debmey, instead of just quoting randomly, could you identify who you are quoting so it looks like this:
| Debmey wrote: | | Natural selection? |
rather than this:
| Quote: | | Natural selection? |
Thanks. |
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THHuxley
Joined: 23 Jul 2002
Posts: 698
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| Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2003 12:12 pm Post subject: |
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| Debmey wrote: | | You mean an organism that does not have a brain all of a sudden pops out a functional brain and gets selected? Sounds like The Incredible Hulk. Is that sceintific? Where are the evidence? |
There is nothing sudden about it.
We have among living organisms a complete continuum of brain size, complexity and capability ranging from the human brain to the simple neural network of the planarian. There are no gaps in the continuum from simple nerves (i.e. no brain at all) to a complete mammalian brain.
The original "brain" was not a brain, but simply a thickening of nerves at one end of a profoundly simple central nervous system or notochord. At what point does such a thickening become distinct enough and significant enough to call it a brain? Such a label is purely arbitrary.
What evidence (other than the living examples of all the potential steps of brain evolution) do we have? The evidence of brain evolution can be seen in various fields of biology, such as paleontology, ethology, behavioral biology, cognitive psychology, molecular biology and genetics.
| Debmey wrote: | | You mean a functional brain popped out by chance? |
No. A functional brain evolved from something that was NOT a brain.
| Debmey wrote: | | So how exactly did thoughts evolve in the first place? |
What part of "thoughts did not evolve" do you not understand?
| Debmey wrote: | | Quote: | | In the same way, when I run a marathon, that marathon did not "evolve." It is simply the product of my capacity to run it. |
Thats because you purposed to run the marathon. Who purposed for a brain to pop out? |
Nope. My capacity to run a marathon was there whether I ran one or not. It was there even if marathons had never been invented at all. It just so happens that capabilities I possess for other purposes ALSO are useful for running marathons.
And an accidental thickening of nerves just so happen to be useful as an incipient brain, doing things that at the time didn't seem particularly brain-like.
| Debmey wrote: | | So what other functions did the brain alledgely do? Where is the evidence? |
Regulate the autonomic nervous system. Regulate the endocrine system. Coordinate body movement. Process sensory information... many things that it still does today independent of any thoughts whatsoever.
| Debmey wrote: | | A fin is very diffrent from a leg you know? So where are the evidnece of a hlaf developed leg? Where is teh evidnece or is that pure speculation again? |
How's this for evidence?
Transitional Vertebrate Fossils FAQ Part 1A
Copyright © 1994-1997 by Kathleen Hunt wrote: |
Transition from primitive bony fish to amphibians
Few people realize that the fish-amphibian transition was not a transition from water to land. It was a transition from fins to feet that took place in the water. The very first amphibians seem to have developed legs and feet to scud around on the bottom in the water, as some modern fish do, not to walk on land (see Edwards, 1989). This aquatic-feet stage meant the fins didn't have to change very quickly, the weight-bearing limb musculature didn't have to be very well developed, and the axial musculature didn't have to change at all. Recently found fragmented fossils from the middle Upper Devonian, and new discoveries of late Upper Devonian feet (see below), support this idea of an "aquatic feet" stage. Eventually, of course, amphibians did move onto the land. This involved attaching the pelvis more firmly to the spine, and separating the shoulder from the skull. Lungs were not a problem, since lungs are an ancient fish trait and were present already.
Paleoniscoids (e.g. Cheirolepis) -- These ancient bony fish probably gave rise both to modern ray-finned fish (mentioned above), and also to the lobe-finned fish.
Osteolepis (mid-Devonian) -- One of the earliest crossopterygian lobe-finned fishes, still sharing some characters with the lungfish (the other lobe-finned fishes). Had paired fins with a leg-like arrangement of major limb bones, capable of flexing at the "elbow", and had an early-amphibian-like skull and teeth.
Eusthenopteron, Sterropterygion (mid-late Devonian) -- Early rhipidistian lobe-finned fish roughly intermediate between early crossopterygian fish and the earliest amphibians. Eusthenopteron is best known, from an unusually complete fossil first found in 1881. Skull very amphibian-like. Strong amphibian- like backbone. Fins very like early amphibian feet in the overall layout of the major bones, muscle attachments, and bone processes, with tetrapod-like tetrahedral humerus, and tetrapod-like elbow and knee joints. But there are no perceptible "toes", just a set of identical fin rays. Body & skull proportions rather fishlike.
Panderichthys, Elpistostege (mid-late Devonian, about 370 Ma) -- These "panderichthyids" are very tetrapod-like lobe-finned fish. Unlike Eusthenopteron, these fish actually look like tetrapods in overall proportions (flattened bodies, dorsally placed orbits, frontal bones! in the skull, straight tails, etc.) and have remarkably foot-like fins.
Fragmented limbs and teeth from the middle Late Devonian (about 370 Ma), possibly belonging to Obruchevichthys -- Discovered in 1991 in Scotland, these are the earliest known tetrapod remains. The humerus is mostly tetrapod-like but retains some fish features. The discoverer, Ahlberg (1991), said: "It [the humerus] is more tetrapod-like than any fish humerus, but lacks the characteristic early tetrapod 'L-shape'...this seems to be a primitive, fish-like character....although the tibia clearly belongs to a leg, the humerus differs enough from the early tetrapod pattern to make it uncertain whether the appendage carried digits or a fin. At first sight the combination of two such extremities in the same animal seems highly unlikely on functional grounds. If, however, tetrapod limbs evolved for aquatic rather than terrestrial locomotion, as recently suggested, such a morphology might be perfectly workable."
GAP: Ideally, of course, we want an entire skeleton from the middle Late Devonian, not just limb fragments. Nobody's found one yet.
Hynerpeton, Acanthostega, and Ichthyostega (late Devonian) -- A little later, the fin-to-foot transition was almost complete, and we have a set of early tetrapod fossils that clearly did have feet. The most complete are Ichthyostega, Acanthostega gunnari, and the newly described Hynerpeton bassetti (Daeschler et al., 1994). (There are also other genera known from more fragmentary fossils.) Hynerpeton is the earliest of these three genera (365 Ma), but is more advanced in some ways; the other two genera retained more fish- like characters longer than the Hynerpeton lineage did.
Labyrinthodonts (eg Pholidogaster, Pteroplax) (late Dev./early Miss.) -- These larger amphibians still have some icthyostegid fish features, such as skull bone patterns, labyrinthine tooth dentine, presence & pattern of large palatal tusks, the fish skull hinge, pieces of gill structure between cheek & shoulder, and the vertebral structure. But they have lost several other fish features: the fin rays in the tail are gone, the vertebrae are stronger and interlocking, the nasal passage for air intake is well defined, etc.
More info on those first known Late Devonian amphibians: Acanthostega gunnari was very fish-like, and recently Coates & Clack (1991) found that it still had internal gills! They said: "Acanthostega seems to have retained fish-like internal gills and an open opercular chamber for use in aquatic respiration, implying that the earliest tetrapods were not fully terrestrial....Retention of fish-like internal gills by a Devonian tetrapod blurs the traditional distinction between tetrapods and fishes...this adds further support to the suggestion that unique tetrapod characters such as limbs with digits evolved first for use in water rather than for walking on land." Acanthostega also had a remarkably fish-like shoulder and forelimb. Ichthyostega was also very fishlike, retaining a fish-like finned tail, permanent lateral line system, and notochord. Neither of these two animals could have survived long on land.
Coates & Clack (1990) also recently found the first really well- preserved feet, from Acanthostega (front foot found) and Ichthyostega (hind foot found). (Hynerpeton's feet are unknown.) The feet were much more fin-like than anyone expected. It had been assumed that they had five toes on each foot, as do all modern tetrapods. This was a puzzle since the fins of lobe-finned fishes don't seem to be built on a five-toed plan. It turns out that Acanthostega's front foot had eight toes, and Ichthyostega's hind foot had seven toes, giving both feet the look of a short, stout flipper with many "toe rays" similar to fin rays. All you have to do to a lobe- fin to make it into a many-toed foot like this is curl it, wrapping the fin rays forward around the end of the limb. In fact, this is exactly how feet develop in larval amphibians, from a curled limb bud. (Also see Gould's essay on this subject, "Eight Little Piggies".) Said the discoverers (Coates & Clack, 1990): "The morphology of the limbs of Acanthostega and Ichthyostega suggest an aquatic mode of life, compatible with a recent assessment of the fish-tetrapod transition. The dorsoventrally compressed lower leg bones of Ichthyostega strongly resemble those of a cetacean [whale] pectoral flipper. A peculiar, poorly ossified mass lies anteriorly adjacent to the digits, and appears to be reinforcement for the leading edge of this paddle-like limb." Coates & Clack also found that Acanthostega's front foot couldn't bend forward at the elbow, and thus couldn't be brought into a weight-bearing position. In other words this "foot" still functioned as a horizontal fin. Ichthyostega's hind foot may have functioned this way too, though its front feet could take weight. Functionally, these two animals were not fully amphibian; they lived in an in-between fish/amphibian niche, with their feet still partly functioning as fins. Though they are probably not ancestral to later tetrapods, Acanthostega & Ichthyostega certainly show that the transition from fish to amphibian is feasible!
Hynerpeton, in contrast, probably did not have internal gills and already had a well-developed shoulder girdle; it could elevate and retract its forelimb strongly, and it had strong muscles that attached the shoulder to the rest of the body (Daeschler et al., 1994). Hynerpeton's discoverers think that since it had the strongest limbs earliest on, it may be the actual ancestor of all subsequent terrestrial tetrapods, while Acanthostega and Ichthyostega may have been a side branch that stayed happily in a mostly-aquatic niche.
In summary, the very first amphibians (presently known only from fragments) were probably almost totally aquatic, had both lungs and internal gills throughout life, and scudded around underwater with flipper-like, many-toed feet that didn't carry much weight. Different lineages of amphibians began to bend either the hind feet or front feet forward so that the feet carried weight. One line (Hynerpeton) bore weight on all four feet, developed strong limb girdles and muscles, and quickly became more terrestrial. |
You keep insisting that there is no evidence for things that we actually have A LOT of evidence for. How do you dare comment on subjects you have apparently made no effort to actually learn about?
| Debmey wrote: | Farts evolved when the waste inside you give off gases. It didn't evolved from nowhere like what you said abt thoughts or brains for that matter.
| THHuxley wrote: | | Isn't it fascinating Debmey that you are suddenly claiming an evolutionary origin for something? It would have been far more consistent for you to claim that farts were divinely created, than it is claiming (as you do here) that they are actually the result of an evolutionary process. |
Did I claim that? It is you evolutionists who did, I'm asking for the evidence of what you claim. |
Why yes you did claim it. You even quoted yourself above to that effect! You said, "Farts evolved when the waste inside you give off gases."
Read it again. Read it a dozen times if you must. YOU said that "farts evolved," while I have insisted all along that they did not.
| Debmey wrote: | | Problem is, you still haven't done your job of showing us how a brain could have evolved. |
Well, I have begun to do so with this post, but note that I already pointed out to you that the evolution of the brain was a question that COULD be answered because brains DID evolve.
Thoughts did not.
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T.H.Huxley redux
"Nullius in Verba" |
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jim f
Joined: 18 Dec 2002
Posts: 121
Location: London
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| Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2003 2:29 pm Post subject: |
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Perhaps Debmey could have phrased his question as :
Why is it that we have the capacity to think? How does evolution theory explain this?
And TH Huxley gave the answer :
| Quote: | the first thoughts were not "functions" of the brains that generated them. They were accidental side effects.
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Which sounds to my ears like "we can't actually explain that".
Certainly, we may associate brain activity with thought processes, but that doesn't make them the same thing. Give a radio to a nineteenth century scientist and he would be forced to conclude that the programmes he could hear were a product of the complex electronic circuitry of the radio and not the result of information being transmitted from a remote location via radio waves (as he would not be aware of the latter).
At the moment, we are in a similar state of scientific ignorance regarding the origin of consciousness. |
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THHuxley
Joined: 23 Jul 2002
Posts: 698
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| Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2003 3:23 pm Post subject: |
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| jim f wrote: | Perhaps Debmey could have phrased his question as :
Why is it that we have the capacity to think? How does evolution theory explain this?
And TH Huxley gave the answer :
| Quote: | the first thoughts were not "functions" of the brains that generated them. They were accidental side effects.
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Which sounds to my ears like "we can't actually explain that". |
We certainly CAN explain why we have a capacity to think. But the explanation is an anatomical one, not an evolutionary one.
And we can also explain the evolution of the anatomy of a brain that is responsible for thought. But during that entire evolutionary history there was never an "evolution of thoughts."
Thoughts do not have genes. They are not inheritable. They do not mutate. They are not distributed across a population according to Mendelian rules. They are not combined sexually, do not compete for resources, do not persist across generations. They are simply a capacity of the human brain, in the same sense that lungs have a capacity to cough.
| jim f wrote: | | Certainly, we may associate brain activity with thought processes, but that doesn't make them the same thing. Give a radio to a nineteenth century scientist and he would be forced to conclude that the programmes he could hear were a product of the complex electronic circuitry of the radio and not the result of information being transmitted from a remote location via radio waves (as he would not be aware of the latter). |
Nonsense. A competent scientist would hardly have been "forced" to reach the conclusions you prescribe for him here. Not before devising and performing a set of experiments that would easily indicate otherwise.
And of course, this is exactly what scientists have been doing in terms of the relationship between brain activity and thought processes. We have a vast amount of powerful experimental evidence that has firmly linked higher cognition to phisical brain structure and chemistry. Psychoactive drugs (if nothing else) demonstrate the direct relationship between physical brain chemistry and the capacities for thinking, perceiving, remembering, reasoning and understanding. We have learned that mental illness is not the result of demonic possession, but simply of broken brains. The studies of behavior in persons suffering from identifiable brain lesions have demonstrated the physical basis of everything from the ability to recognize faces to laughing at a joke.
And in all our exploration of parapsychology and the paranormal, we have never found the slightest evidence for any "mental" activity that is independent of the physical activity of the human brain. Your statement that...
| jim f wrote: | | At the moment, we are in a similar state of scientific ignorance regarding the origin of consciousness. |
... is hardle accurate.
_________________
T.H.Huxley redux
"Nullius in Verba" |
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Unknown 273
Joined: 31 Dec 1969
Posts: 98
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| Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2003 10:37 pm Post subject: |
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Evolution in thought does occur. If we take ideas and chop them down to the lowest transferable unit we get a system of transfer of ideas. As this transfer of ideas can occur from generation to generation and certainly effects success of future generation if the right ideas are around. Such basic tranferable units are called memes.
groups of humans with the right memes that help them adapt well will and do survive better while those with poor memes (like the taliban) are sure losers at most levels.
Our lifespan is considerably shorter to observe genetic evolution, on the other hand mimetic evolution can be easily seen. It is mimetic evolution that will decide which direction human evolution will take - due to its shorter time frame. |
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