Darwinism’s biggest (and least discussed) problem

_{Granville Sewell

October 31, 2007

Intelligent Design}

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The biggest problem of all with Darwinism, in my opinion, is one that is almost never discussed by either side. In my Dec 2005 American Spectator article (updated version here) I tried to express the problem as follows: “When you ask [the modern scientist] how a mechanical process such as natural selection could cause human consciousness to arise out of inanimate matter, he says, ‘human consciousness — what’s that?’ And he talks about human evolution as if he were an outside observer, and never seems to wonder how he got inside one of the animals he is studying.”

You may be able to convince a gullible layman that natural selection of random mutations can cause mud to evolve into robots with advanced computers controlling their motions, but you will have a much harder time convincing him that it can cause these robots to become conscious. But scientists almost completely ignore this problem, because we haven’t the slightest idea what “consciousness” is. And rather than take the approach that science should be concerned with explaining the things we experience, the modern scientist takes instead the attitude that “if we can’t measure it or quantify it, it doesn’t exist”–or at least it isn’t science. They define consciousness down, and say that if a computer can pass a “Turing test” the computer must be considered to be conscious. To pass a Turing test, a computer has to convince the human communicating with it that he is talking to another human. Now, maybe computers will someday be able to pass a Turing test (maybe they already can), but I don’t believe that makes them conscious. I cannot be sure that there isn’t “someone” inside my PC who experiences the same consciousness that I experience, or that improving the hardware and software of computers sufficiently will never make them conscious, because I can’t even define consciousness, but I doubt that it will. And if I don’t believe that intelligent computer designers can ever make computers conscious, how could I believe that an unintelligent, mechanical process such as natural selection could do it?

Comments

Your ability or inability to believe that a computer could be truly conscious is irrelevant. It is easy to be dismissive when the possibl future developments of this technology are still largely speculative. Once again, I wonder why someone would want to link their faith so closely to the presupposed impossibility or inexplicability of something. That hasn't been a good strategy in the past...ReligionProf_{October 31, 2007
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Granville Sewell said:
...rather than take the approach that science should be concerned with explaining the things we experience, the modern scientist takes instead the attitude that “if we can’t understand it, it doesn’t exist”–or at least it isn’t science.
And then said,
I’ll admit I’m not keeping up with the neuroscience literature...
While I agree with Dr. Sewell that this is indeed a difficult, and perhaps insurmountable, problem for Darwinism, I would think that we would have learned the lesson from Behe at Dover that making broad claims about scientific investigation and then admitting ignorance of the relevant literature is not likely to be a fruitful strategy.Mickey Bitsko_{October 31, 2007
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In The Spiritual Brain, Mario Beauregard and I devote Chapter 5 to the problem of materialist explanations of consciousness, as per Edelman, Koch, et cetera. There are various materialist theories of consciousness. None address the "how" question effectively - probably because consciousness isn't a material phenomenon. Materialists keep looking for material causes for the same reason that the guy who lost a dollar on Maple Street is looking for it on Main Street - because there is more light there, not because he is more likely to find it there. Quite the opposite, actually. Re natural selection, anyone can invent a just-so story about how a given trait (monogamy, polygamy, adultery, rape, serial spouse murder) can be explained by natural selection. A modest amount of imagination suffices to invent just the cave man scenario where that specific form of behaviour paid off. I don't know why the theorists don't just write Clan of the Cave Bear novels. Consciousness is especially problematic for natural selection theorizing because - unlike sex - it is rare. Many mammals and birds, and perhaps some reptiles, probably have a limited form of consciousness. We humans are the only creatures we know of in which the trait is highly developed. So clearly it is not a common part of the vast arsenal of creaturely survival. That shouldn't be a surprise. Mere "consciousness" of prey and predators can be achieved - as it in fact is - by vast varieties of life forms that do not have or need brains, let alone consciousness (in the human sense). In fact, one can go further and point out that many threats to survival and reproduction (suicide, organized warfare, non-parenting lifestyles, et cetera) only become possible with the advent of consciousness. In any event, consciousness probably occurred rather suddenly. What of the very old burials where the body is placed in the fetal position, or with grave goods suggesting that the dead would live again? If things like that occurred comparatively suddenly, the process was not Darwinian. But remember, there is more light on Main Street ...O'Leary_{October 31, 2007
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Collin: "Do we know that anybody is conscious except for ourselves..." Excellent question. For all I know, you may just be a computer trying to pass his Turing test.Granville Sewell_{October 31, 2007
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todd, there is even a name for the properties Schrodinger describes in his first paragraph that science (and any other materialist approach) cannot account for: "qualia."BarryA_{October 31, 2007
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I am very astonished that the scientific picture of the real world around me is deficient. It gives a lot of factual information, puts all our experience in a magnificently consistent order, but it is ghastly silent about all and sundry that is really near to our heart, that really matters to us. It cannot tell us a word about red and blue, bitter and sweet, physical pain and physical delight; it knows nothing of beautiful and ugly, good or bad, God and eternity. Science sometimes pretends to answer questions in these domains, but the answers are very often so silly that we are not inclined to take them seriously. ... The reason why our sentient, percipient, and thinking ego is met nowhere within our scientific world picture, can easily be indicated in seven words: because it is itself that world picture. It is identical with the whole and therefore cannot be contained in it as part of it. - Erwin Schrödinger
todd_{October 31, 2007
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MacT If the Edelman paper claims to explain consciousness in terms of natural selection, why don't you put in a link to it so others can take a look. Having seen the hand-waving that Darwinists use to explain such simple things as the elongation of the giraffe's neck (see Loennig's article) , it might be fascinating to see how they explain the arrival of consciousness. I received an e-mail once explaining that consciousness can be explained by natural selection because it gave a selective advantage to primitive man to be "conscious" of where prey and preditors were. Since this is published in a neuroscience journal I assume the explanation is a little more sophisticated than this.Granville Sewell_{October 31, 2007
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MacT. I will read the article you cited, if you will read David Chalmer's "hard problem of consciousness." You can find his website by doing a google search. Granville: If a computer were conscious could we ever truly know it? Do we know that anybody is conscious except for ourselves or do we just assume it?Collin_{October 31, 2007
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GS "I’ll admit I’m not keeping up with the neuroscience literature, but I suspect most of it involves defining consciousness down, doesn’t it?" I'm not sure what you mean by "defining consciousness down." If by that you mean definitional assumptions like those of the Turing test, then the answer is no. The notion of the brain as a computer or an instructional system (as in the Turing example) has largely been abandoned because it is quaintly simplistic against what is now known about brain structure and function. There is more than one scientifically sophisticated theory of consciousness, and it may surprise you to learn that they do not disregard the quality that gives rise to the privacy of phenomenal experience. In fact, they revel in the mysterious nature of consciousness, but they do not let that hinder their efforts to unravel that mystery.MacT_{October 31, 2007
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Prof. Sewell, First, I have "finally" been reading some of your links and am very impressed with the manner in which you are able communicate and break complex ideas down into flavorful and understandable bits. Now To the point of this post: There is ample empirical evidence that solidly establishes consciousness is indeed separate from the brain: How the consciousness relates to the body has two prevailing schools of thought challenging each other for the right to be called the truth. The first school of thought is Theistic in its philosophy; consciousness is a independent and separable entity from the brain. This school of thought implies it is possible to live beyond the of our brains. The second school of thought is Materialistic in its philosophy; consciousness is an dependent and inseparable product of the brain. This school of thought implies we die when the brain dies. Knowledge has recently come to light, establishing the first school of thought as the truth. Neuro-physiological (brain/body) research is now being performed, using a new scientific tool, trans-cranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). This tool allows scientists to study the brain non-invasively. TMS can excite or inhibit normal electrical activity in specific parts of the brain, depending on the amount of energy administered by TMS. This tool allows scientists to pinpoint what is happening in different regions of the brain (functional mapping of the brain). TMS is wide-ranging in its usefulness; allowing the study of brain/muscle connections, the five senses, language, the patho-physiology of brain disorders, as well as mood disorders, such as depression. TMS may even prove to be useful for therapy for such brain disorders. TMS also allows the study of how memories are stored. The ability of TMS for inhibiting (turning off) specific portions of the brain is the very ability which reveals things that are very illuminating to the topic we are investigating. Consciousness and the brain are actually separate entities. When the electromagnetic activity of a specific portion of the brain is inhibited by the higher energies of TMS, it impairs the functioning of the particular portion of the body associated with the particular portion of the brain being inhibited. For example; when the visual cortex (a portion of the brain) is inhibited by higher energies of TMS, the person undergoing the procedure will temporarily become blind while it is inhibited. One notable exception to this "becoming impaired rule" is a person's memory. When the elusive "memory" portion of the brain is inhibited, a person will have a vivid flashback of a past part of their life. This very odd "amplification" of a memory indicates this fact; memories are stored in the “spiritual” consciousness independent of the brain. All of the bodies other physical functions which have physical connections in the brain are impaired when their corresponding portion of the brain loses its ability for normal electromagnetic activity. One would very well expect memories to be irretrievable from the brain if they were physically stored. Yet memories are vividly brought forth into consciousness when their corresponding locations in the brain are temporarily inhibited. This indicates that memories are somehow stored on a non-physical basis, separate from the brain in the "spiritual" consciousness. Memory happens to be a crucially integrated part of any thinking consciousness. This is true, whether or not consciousness is physically or spiritually-based. Where memory is actually located is a sure sign of where the consciousness is actually located. It provides a compelling clue as to whether consciousness is physically or spiritually-based. Vivid memory recall, upon inhibition of a portion of brain where memory is being communicated from consciousness, is exactly what one would expect to find if consciousness is ultimately self-sufficient of brain function and spiritually-based. The opposite result, a ening of memories, is what one would expect to find if consciousness is ultimately physically-based. According to this insight, a large portion, if not all, of the one quadrillion synapses that have developed in the brain as we became s, are primarily developed as pathways for information to be transmitted to, and memories to be transmitted from, our consciousness. The synapses of the brain are not, in and of themselves, our primary source for memories. Indeed, decades of extensive research by brilliant, Nobel prize-winning, minds (Penfield) have failed to reveal where memory is stored in the brain. Though Alzheimer’s and other disorders affect the brain’s overall ability to recover memories, this is only an indication that the overall ability of the brain to recover memory from the consciousness has been affected, and does not in any way conclusively establish, from negative argumentation, that memory is actually stored in the brain. In other compelling evidence, many children who have had hemispherectomies (half their brains removed due to life threatening epileptic conditions) at Johns Hopkins Medical Center, are in high school; and one, a college student, is on the dean’s list. The families of these children can barely believe the transformation; and not so long ago, neurologists and neuro-surgeons found it hard to believe as well. What is surprising for these people is that they are having their overriding materialistic view of brain correlation to consciousness overturned. In other words; since, it is presumed by Materialism that the brain is the primary generator of consciousness; then, it is totally expected for a person having half their brain removed to be severely affected when it comes to memory and personality. This is clearly a contradiction between the Materialistic and Theistic philosophies. According to Materialistic dogma, memory and personality should be affected, just as badly, or at least somewhat as badly, as any of the other parts of the body, by removal of half the brain. Yet, as a team of neuro-surgeons that have done extensive research on the after effects of hemispherectomy at John Hopkins Medical Center comment: "We are awed by the apparent retention of the child’s memory after removal of half of the brain, either half; and by the retention of the child's personality and sense of humor." Though a patients physical capacities are impaired, just as they were expected to be immediately following surgery; and have to have time to be "rewired" to the consciousness in the brain, the memory and personality of the patient comes out unscathed in the aftermath of such radical surgery. This is exactly the result one would expect, if the consciousness is ultimately independent of brain function and is spiritually-based. This is totally contrary to the results one would expect if the consciousness were actually physically-based, as the materialistic theory had presumed. In further comment from the neuro-surgeons in the John Hopkins study: "Despite removal of one hemisphere, the intellect of all but one of the children seems either unchanged or improved. Intellect was only affected in the one child who had remained in a coma, vigil-like state, attributable to peri-operative complications." This is stunning proof of consciousness being independent of brain function. The only child not to have normal or improved intellect is the child who remained in a coma due to complications during surgery. It is also heartening to find that many of the patients regain full use, or almost full use, of their bodies after a varying period of recuperation in which the brain is “rewired” to the consciousness. II Corinthians 5:1 For we know that if our earthly house, this tent (Our Body), is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. As well the scientific evidence from NDE (Near De^ath Experience) studies is rigorous and compelling ... The fact that clear, lucid experiences were reported during a time when the brain was proven to be devoid of activity (Aminoff et al., 1988, Clute and Levy 1990, de Vries et al., 1998), does not sit easily with the current scientific belief system of materialism. In another fascinating study (Kenneth Ring and Sharon Cooper, 1997) of thirty-one blind people who had a NDE, twenty-four of the blind people reported that they could see while they were out of their physical bodies. Many of them had been blind since birth. Likewise, many deaf people reported they were able to hear while they were having a NDE. So, in answer to the question: "Is consciousness a physically or spiritually-based phenomena?"; we can, with the assurance of scientific integrity backing us up, reply that consciousness is indeed a spiritual phenomena capable of living independently of the brain, once the brain ceases to function. Dr. Lommel illustrates in his paper that the real purpose of the brain is as a mediator of the physical world to the spiritual consciousness. He compares the brain to such things as a television, radio and cell phone, to illustrate the point. The point he is trying to make clear is this; the brain is not the end point of information. It is "only" a conveyor of information to and from the true end point, our spiritually-based consciousness which is independent of the physical brain and able to live past the of our brains. http://www.nderf.org/vonlommel_skeptic_response.htmbornagain77_{October 31, 2007
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Nobody is suggesting that the problem of consciousness has been cracked. But you seem to disregard the evidence that has been put forward so far. The Edelman paper explictly sets out a model of consciousness that relies on an evolutionary framework. I find Edelman's (evolutionary) account of consciousness interesting and compelling. I'd be very interested to hear what evidence you would cite that counters his model.MacT_{October 31, 2007
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MacT I didn't say consciousness is almost never discussed by scientists, rather that the problem of explaining consciousness by natural selection is rarely discussed. Admitedly, that could be an exaggeration also. However, in my opinion to say that consciousness "has not been adequately explained" is quite an understatement. I'll admit I'm not keeping up with the neuroscience literature, but I suspect most of it involves defining consciousness down, doesn't it?Granville Sewell_{October 31, 2007
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The Turing test has nothing to do with consciousness, the prevalent characteristic of which is the presence the "I." When science attempts to explain the existence of the "I," a qualitative power, it leaves empiricism behind and crosses over into the more exatled realm of philosophy, which concerns itself with value judgments. No quantitative method can account for a qualitative power. Granville is right: the resistance of the "I" to quantitation reveals the limitations of science.allanius_{October 31, 2007
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You say: "The biggest problem of all with Darwinism, in my opinion, is one that is almost never discussed by either side. " It is simply incorrect that scientists never discuss the topic of consciousness. Consciousness is the focus of an active and interdisciplinary research effort. It IS discussed by scientists, who are interested in it precisely because it is a compelling aspect of human function that has not been adequately explained. In case you missed it, here is an excellent review article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by neuroscientist Gerald Edelman: Edelman GM (2003). Naturalizing consciousness: A theoretical freamework. PNAS, vol 100, no. 9, 5520-5524.MacT_{October 31, 2007
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"To pass a Turing test, a computer has to convince the human communicating with it that he is talking to another human." A computer may be programmed to appear to respond like a human. This is not the same as responding as a human. If they design computers that can self learn and self program and then convinvince people that they think like people, then we may have designed a self conscious computer. How does that demonstrate that RM and NS can create consciousness?idnet.com.au_{October 31, 2007
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