Newsgroups: comp.ai.alife,comp.ai.philosophy,comp.ai,alt.consciousness
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!vlsi_lib
From: vlsi_lib@netcom.com (Gerard Malecki)
Subject: Re: Thought Question
Message-ID: <vlsi_libD2KKMr.M4G@netcom.com>
Organization: VLSI Libraries Incorporated
References: <3f5nuu$mks@ixnews2.ix.netcom.com> <1995Jan14.153326.20818@gdunix.gd.chalmers.se> <D2K93p.706@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>
Date: Tue, 17 Jan 1995 21:49:38 GMT
Lines: 36
Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu comp.ai.alife:1817 comp.ai.philosophy:24722 comp.ai:26553

In article <D2K93p.706@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:
>
>Behind "no evolutionary benefit to consciousness" views seems to be
>the idea that if something could equal human performance w/o consciousness
>then consciousness couldn't be selected for.  But why not?  That the same
>(or equivalent) behavioral capabilities might be obtained in some other
>way, without consciousness, doesn't show that consciousness isn't part of
>how humans obtain these capabilities.  Consciousness might well be of
>benefit to us even if some other entities could do just as well without
>it.  And evolution just happened to take a direction in which conscious
>animals appeared rather these other things.
>
>-- jd

In plants and lower animals, most of the behavior is governed by either
reflex or instinct. Many animals like jellyfish also have a distributed
nervous system. It is not known if even seemingly advanced creatures like
honeybees are really conscious or just automatons.
 
However in the final analysis, consciousness doesn't seem to be necessary
for coming up with sophisticated schemes for survival. Witness how plants,
with no consciousness or sight or feel whatsoever, came up with a
brilliant idea to make use of insects for pollination by enticing them
with attractive colors and liquids some 300 million years ago.

But consciousness does seem to make the purpose of evolution complete,
in a philosophical sense. Otherwise evolution is nothing but an 
endless rearrangement of atoms. A tiger that eats a goat with relish
perhaps is a better triumph for evolution than an amoeba that
assimilates algae.  The paradigm of evolution, at least in the case
of higher animals, may be hedonism.

Shankar Ramakrishnan
shankar@vlibs.com


