Does (abstract) time exist?

[Felix]

Obvious Leo said: "To suggest that this process requires a conscious intent is completely contrary to the evidence and nothing more than intelligent design by another name."

You seem to be missing the point... this process (the Universe) is not an intelligent process, and it has no organizing principle behind it? It is a purely random process? Is that what you're saying?

[Obvious Leo]

Felix. I'm not missing your point, I'm simply disagreeing with it. I certainly don't suggest that the universe is a consequence of random events because if it were it could have no structure. In fact I deny the existence of a random event and insist that all events must have a cause, including the main event itself. In that sense I regard the universe as the uber-event. This uber-event most certainly has an organising principle which underpins it and this organising principle is self-evident. Evolution towards informational complexity is the fundamental self-organising principle of the cosmos and the evidence for this is all around us. Immediately after the big bang the universe had almost no structure and 13.8 billion years later it hosts a vast suite of informationally complex structures, the most complex of which are life and mind.

Nobody bar the creationist nutcases would deny that biological evolution is self-organising and I merely assert that cosmic evolution is the same and that biological evolution is simply a natural extension of it. This obviates the necessity for a blind leap of faith and the assumption of a conscious intent because consciousness emerges naturally in an evolving system, as our own existence would indicate.

Self-organisation is the central plank of process philosophy and underpins most of modern science, especially complexity theory, information theory, control theory and cybernetics. For me to elaborate on its core principles here would be a major digression but if you're seriously interested in what I'm banging on about I would highly recommend John Conway's Game of Life as the simplest model to get a grasp of the basics of it. This model shows how highly complex structures can emerge as a consequence of a single simple law. This law is that all effects are preceded by causes and I regard this as the only fundamental law in the universe from which all the emergent laws can be derived. The designer is unnecessary and in an appeal to Occam economy that which is unnecessary cannot be.

Regards Leo

[Felix]

I don't think we disagree, Leo, we're just speaking different languages. I'm saying that self-organising = conscious. Consciousness (or awareness) is not the same as self-awareness. Consciousness exists, ponderable matter exists, they go together, you cannot have/know one without the other. The Universe is more than what it appears to be. This can be directly apprehended in so-called mystical states of consciousness in which the usual dualistic subject/object state of awareness is transcended.

[Obvious Leo]

I don't think we disagree, Leo, we're just speaking different languages. I'm saying that self-organising = conscious. Consciousness (or awareness) is not the same as self-awareness. Consciousness exists, ponderable matter exists, they go together, you cannot have/know one without the other. The Universe is more than what it appears to be. This can be directly apprehended in so-called mystical states of consciousness in which the usual dualistic subject/object state of awareness is transcended.

Your perspective has a close parallel with those of Albert Einstein and Baruch Spinoza and I actually take no issue with it. However my own pragmatist world-view makes me shudder at the merest hint of mysticism, or that which lies beyond the reach of the human experience. I suspect there are as many definitions of consciousness as there are thinkers who deliberate on such matters and I thank you for your clarification.

Regards Leo

[Spiral Out]

This can be directly apprehended in so-called mystical states of consciousness in which the usual dualistic subject/object state of awareness is transcended.

Tricks of the subconscious. Such as with the abstraction of time as proposed in the OP.

[Felix]

"that which lies beyond the reach of the human experience."

It's hardly "beyond the reach of the human experience," because people have been experiencing this transcendent awareness for millenia now. In fact, the concept of omnipresent consciousness is grounded far more in human experience, and is thus more credible, than the theory of emergent consciousness, which no one has ever experienced and of which there is no convincing evidence.

[Obvious Leo]

We'll have to agree to differ then Felix. In my opinion "omnipresent consciousness" is simply a new term for self-delusion and the evidence for the evolution of emergent consciousness has never been seriously questioned. If consciousness did not emerge in sentient organisms through the well-understood mechanisms of evolution then where the hell did it come from?

Regards Leo

[Felix]

"If consciousness did not emerge in sentient organisms through the well-understood mechanisms of evolution then where the hell did it come from?"

That's like asking where the universe came from. As I said, like the Universe, I suspect it has always existed.

There is no credible evidence to support the theory that consciousness emerged in sentient organisms. If there was, we'd be able to say when it emerged, in what species it emerged, what kind of nervous system is required for it to emerge, etc. Science can't answer any of these essential questions and yet you claim the idea is self evident. What exactly is evident, let alone self-evident, about it?

[Obvious Leo]

There is no credible evidence to support the theory that consciousness emerged in sentient organisms.

Rubbish.

[Felix]

It's an obvious request: if you're going to make a claim, you should be able to back it up... Where is the evidence to support the claim that consciousness is an emergent property of matter? Can you answer the questions I posed in my previous post? (when and under what conditions it has emerged, etc.). The idea that consciousness is omnipresent is at least founded in human subjective experience, the emergent consciousness premise doesn't even have that going for it.

[Philosophy Explorer]

It's an obvious request: if you're going to make a claim, you should be able to back it up... Where is the evidence to support the claim that consciousness is an emergent property of matter? Can you answer the questions I posed in my previous post? (when and under what conditions it has emerged, etc.). The idea that consciousness is omnipresent is at least founded in human subjective experience, the emergent consciousness premise doesn't even have that going for it.

I believe what you're bringing up is worthy of a separate thread. I like to keep this thread focused on abstract time (on the proposed new thread, you can title it Is consciousness an emergent property of matter?).

PhilX

[Thought_2000]

Several threads about time have run. Yet we haven't gotten down to the nitty gritty, does time exist? Makes no sense to try to define time with measuring devices like clocks or calendars without first determining if time exists because if it doesn't exist, then with or without those measuring devices (including calendars), we may be wasting our time trying to define time on the basis of measuring devices and time-explicit and time-implicit equations may have no backbone to them if we don't know whether time exists.

A closely related question to the topic title is whether abstract time is objective? Because if so, we may never know the true nature of time. Now I turn the floor over to you.

PhilX

"We are all in the now (present) of time and existence that was created which is the objective answer you seek. The measuring instruments you speak of were built by mankind"

[Obvious Leo]

It's an obvious request: if you're going to make a claim, you should be able to back it up... Where is the evidence to support the claim that consciousness is an emergent property of matter? Can you answer the questions I posed in my previous post? (when and under what conditions it has emerged, etc.). The idea that consciousness is omnipresent is at least founded in human subjective experience, the emergent consciousness premise doesn't even have that going for it.

This is false. That consciousness has emerged naturally as a consequence of well-understood evolutionary processes is mainstream biology. I've been a biologist all my life and I've never heard anybody say different. If you want to claim that consciousness emerged as a consequence of some other mechanism then it's you that is making the unscientific claim and therefore the burden of proof lies with you and not with me. Kindly explain this mechanism.

There are thousands of texts which deal with this subject and I have no intention of summarising their principles here because this conversation has gone beyond absurd. Such dualist Cartesian garbage is unworthy of a man of science and you might find yourself more at home with the believers.

Regards Leo

[Felix]

PhilX said: "I believe what you're bringing up is worthy of a separate thread."

Yes, I apologize, Phil, for hijacking your thread, this will be my final replay on this topic....

Obvious Leo said: "That consciousness has emerged naturally as a consequence of well-understood evolutionary processes is mainstream biology."

Which evolutionary processes? Natural selection? It cannot explain the emergence of consciousness. You keep repeating the mantra that it emerged naturally but you can't tell me how that happened. Just refer me to the book or studies that answer the fundamental questions I posed previously: when it emerged, in what species it emerged, what kind of nervous system was required for it to emerge - etc.

"you might find yourself more at home with the believers."

Which believers? People like you who have faith in a theory - emergent consciousness - that they cannot explain? You can't say how, when or why it happened, we're just supposed to be dazzled by the sheer brilliance of your conceptual model and accept it?

[Obvious Leo]

You're using the argument of the men in frocks which completely put me off teleology in my childhood. Asking which species was the first to evolve consciousness is like asking which was the first to evolve a liver, as if a liver was a part of the plan and as if anything can evolve independent of an entire biosphere. There is no plan and to think in this way is putting the cart before the horse. ( or Descartes before des Horace ). It also displays a poor understanding of speciation.

Which evolutionary processes? Natural selection? It cannot explain the emergence of consciousness.

You make this bold statement as if it were a statement of fact when in fact it is an unscientific opinion based on a belief. Just because you don't understand evolution doesn't mean nobody else does. I don't understand how a 2 stroke engine works but I don't see a supernatural hand in it, merely my limited knowledge. Natural selection is not the straightforward mechanism you appear to assume it to be. Living systems are dynamic and therefore non-linear but any feature that has survival value is selected for by top-down causal connections. Most of our disagreement is definitional because you appear to regard consciousness as somehow different from other biological phenomena. Why do you believe this? In my own stripped-to-the bones definition consciousness is simply the ability to absorb information from the environment and use it purposefully to aid in survival. Thus all organisms with independent motility are conscious, to a greater or lesser extent. If I were pushed to drawing a line in the sand, and I deny that such a line exists, then consciousness began with the trilobites, which were arguably the first order to purposefully move towards their food sources and away from predators. For this they needed a central information processing system which subsequently evolved into a brain. This information processing capacity conferred survival value on them and therefore gave them a reproductive advantage, so the "smart" trilobites had more offspring than the "stupid" ones.

If you know anything at all about evolution you will understand that "smartness" was thus being selected for and I would call this the birth of consciousness. Evolutionary biology can trace a 500 million year lineage of increasing complexity in this capacity for purposeful behaviour and I've never heard any scientist suggest that human consciousness arose by any other mechanism. This is why I reckon the burden of proof lies with you if you want to suggest something different because this is not a very difficult proposition to understand. Any alternative explanation is beyond the reach of science and therefore of no interest to me. There seem to be plenty of others in this forum who support the idea of intelligent design and you'd be better off chatting with them.

Regards Leo