How many users on these boards actually support "The Theory of Evolution"?

[Final-Fan]

Wind Shlavitor said:

Final-Fan said:

First, you're assuming that AI consciousness is absolutely impossible, not just with today's tech but FOREVER, in principle.  That has not been proven. 

Second, you're taking an ANALOGY between computer programming and biological evolution and then saying that because we can't program consciousness then evolution can't create it.  That's faulty logic unless you intend to show that computer programming and evolution are SO similar that they must logically share that trait (whether consciousness is possible or not). 

Third, "you know" your consciousness is not causal in origin?  How did you come by this knowledge?  More feelings?  (Speaking of which, I don't see that you clarified that.)  I realize I'm getting caustic here, and I apologize, but this was just asserted with not even an attempt to justify.  It felt like you were simply handwaving. 

P.S.  Good to know that it doesn't matter about originating in the body; I was trying to rule out a mystical (non-physical) origin of consciousness, which obviously would be beyond evolution's grasp as it's beyond the body, as the cause of your objection. 

 That AI can create concsiousness is a myth. It's unfortunate that we have so many movies that portrait robots developping AI to the point of conciousness, from an educative standpoint. I think in the scientific community it's pretty accepted by most that AI cannot create conciousness. I don't know of Right-out proof that could convince you besides that as an ex-programmer, I do know that there is no command for making a computer experience, and that no amount of complex code can get to that point. It's the same thing on the hardware level. If I make a robot and kick it in the can, I can put sensors and it can detect the hits as well as the impact, but it will never 'experience' or feel the hits, and no hardware besides life already existant can do that (well, at least us).

I don't think evolution and computer programming are so similar, but again, Action-reaction evolution as assumed by the Theory of evolution IS.

"Third, "you know" your consciousness is not causal in origin?  How did you come by this knowledge?  More feelings?"

This is about non-feeling/non-experience vs feeling/experience, and not just 'more'.  I'll just give an example with bugs since they appear mechanical, but they may have a degree of conciousness, dunno. Hit a bug, and it probably doesn't feel pain, however it will detect the hit and impact, and will react to it. It doesn't need conciousness to do that, because we could build a robot without complex AI to do the same thing.

In this case(the robot at least) it's causal. But when you get hit, your body doesn't just detect it, does it? It actually relays it to your conciousness, the part that feels its sense of self, and you 'feel' pain(depending on your perception. Some people can feel other things depending on their perception, such as pleasure).

Going back to the sense of self. Do you feel like you're still you right now? The same self experiencing? Why are you still there? Why aren't you just processes that combine with your body to focus on survival? It becomes very abstract at this point, and that's where I was saying it's subjective, right? Because after understanding what causal can and can't do, you have to be able to understand your own conciousness and check with your own free will, to try and understand if it can be purely causal. And of course the human mind is weird, so I'm not gonna make myself think that it's 100% impossible for my conciousness to be causal, but from what I can tell, it seems very very unlikely that what I've studied about my own experiences and feelings can be causal, and so I bring a very strong inclination that it's not causal, and that the Theory of evolution cannot explain it.

Perhaps one day scientists will prove that inclination wrong, but there has been no valid theories as to the development of conciousness through evolution as of yet. Of course some have some ideas, but it always fails to be detailed and convincing at the same time, and usually doesn't try to go out from causal explanations. There are theories outside of causal from time to time by some scientists, but they usually get rejected pretty quickly, (It's pretty taboo to reject Darwin's Theory of evolution in academic science) I think I remember seeing one called quantum evolution... but I don't think it was that great anyway...

At the very least, since they haven't well covered that area, that area should stay a gray area and I think it's a shame that most claim that the Theory evolution accounts for it when it doesn't. We don't know or understand it yet, just like we don't understand quantum physics yet.

The theory of evolution is seen as 'complete' by most, when it's not, and that's what I don't like. There is always room for error, and for other factors, yet it's not seen that way by most, including many academic scientists.

Edit: I thought I might add, that quantum physics and randomness is, in a sense, taken into account for natural selection.. but as an action. Like Genetic drift, it's considered random; It's associated to possibilities of variances in the genes, but, beyond that, the 'random' element is not factored as something non-causal that could be influencing (or perhaps even guiding) or maybe even adding undetectable effects, since the effects are uncalculable, unpredictable, and we don't even understand the source.

We mustn't confuse Randomness with chance. Because chance just means there's a possibility that something can happen, but it's still calculable, whereas randomness is not calculable, and so there's no way to know what that randomness is. There is inherent randomness in quantum physics and since it's not understood or calculable, it's not just an element of chance that can be taken into account as just an undetermined action, because in theory, if it's not constant then it could be influence by any number of things, in other words, we don't know the extent of kinds of variances or effects that can pop up or if it's guided by something else or isnt; It's not simply action-reaction.

I've addressed specific points, but the final two paragraphs may contain a shortcut for you depending on how you want to go from here. 

1.  Even the strongest critics of AI agree that the human brain can theoretically be simulated on a computer.  Wouldn't the downloaded brain, if operative, still be conscious?  If so, why can't a similar computer have an original program that is also conscious? 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_artificial_intelligence#The_brain_can_be_simulated

2.  No, I think that's a misconception you have.  Or, in other words, "That's faulty logic unless you intend to show that computer programming and THE THEORY OF evolution are SO similar that they must logically share that trait (whether consciousness is possible or not)."

3.  It appears that you have now answered my earlier question, and said that your evidence that you have free will (and consciousness) is the fact that you have feelings.  I cannot say how strongly I disagree with this analysis.  How does having feelings guarantee free will at all? 

4.  "There are theories outside of causal from time to time by some scientists, but they usually get rejected pretty quickly, (It's pretty taboo to reject Darwin's Theory of evolution in academic science)"  People don't simply get shouted down in published scientific papers; unpopular or radical theories may see stronger (even extreme) criticism, but if the theory was correct it should have held up, right? 

Basically, though, your main point seems to be "I thought about the theory of evolution, and my gut feeling was that it's wrong about causality creating my mind, so that's why I think it's wrong.  I don't accept that the evidence I'm mistaken constitutes proof." 

That's pretty much just a statement of opinion, so there's not much to discuss IMO without a huge discussion of the "evidence you're mistaken", which would take forever and still never convince a sufficiently determined doubter.