In my opinion, this is an emergence. You can also draw (too short) lines that do NOT form a triangle.

So the triangle depends on the configuration, just like in a physical example. — SolarWind

So, you are saying the triangle is not a separate existence from the lines. Is this correct?
Does it mean the triangle is the lines, and triangle exists in the lines?

It sounds something not quite correct too. Emergence is an event on its own. You don't make up things to make something to emerge. If you did, then you wouldn't call it emergence.

A triangle can only be made from the lines by your intervention either by your drawing it, or making it up with the straight lines of wire or sticks. It is your doings, fabrication or workings whatever you may call it, but it is not an emergence.

I don't see how X exists separate from Y. — Patterner

Does liquidity emerge from the properties of particles? Could you explain how it happens in detail?

hmm. I guess we live in quite different worlds; metaphorically. That seems wholly inadequate to me and a clear ad hominem continuing. — AmadeusD

I am not your work boss. I wasn't saying to you not to use negative words in your posting. My point was, say whatever you want, but if you did, don't make up the other party's response in the same level as yours into ad hominem.

By the way, your examples for evolution look like variances in different individuals, or adaptations in life, rather than evolution. IOW, you seem to be confusing between adaption and evolution.

Let's take an example. X = triangle, Y = lines.
If a triangle emerged from lines, then the triangle must exist separate from the lines.
That doesn't make sense to me. — SolarWind

The triangle was made up with the lines. It didn't emerge from the lines.

I don't get how that answers my question to T Clark. — Patterner

I was trying to give some ideas on emergence. It wasn't an answer for your questions to TC.

That is panpsychism. — SolarWind

Another reasoning on emergence. If X emerged from Y, then X must exist separate from Y. If X exists in Y after emergence, then X is equal to or part of Y.

Consciousness does not exist separate from body. Or does it exist in the body? Or it does not exist in the form of existence.

If X exists in the form of non-existence, then does X exist? If X emerged from Y, then it must exist. But it doesn't exist. Therefore X could not have emerged from Y.
(X= consciousness, Y= body) We need to clarify this point.

Correct. They usually don't use "the" in sentences either. They will say "the frog", only when asked "which frog?".

it does not disprove the possibility that consciousness may have already existed in a preliminary form. — SolarWind

Yes, maybe it may have. It could be further point of discussion for clarification?
Some nights in my dreams, I see places and houses I have never been in my life, and folks I have never met in my life. Maybe that is the reason why.

And there are rules how a word should be used in a sentence, in that “over pass frog me the” would not be correct English — RussellA

Japanese and Korean language say in the order of "Frog to me pass over." They have different order of saying words in sentences, i.e. the different rules.

Sorry, I'm not trying to be difficult. There has to be a misunderstanding. Anything that exists and is the product of the laws of physics was constructed on the laws of physics. But you're saying they cannot be constructed on the laws of physics. — Patterner

If X emerged from Y, then X cannot be before Y in time. If consciousness emerged from body, then consciousness cannot know anything before existence of the body in time. But consciousness can know time before the body it emerged from by imagination. We can imagine what happened before our birth. We can imagine how life was like in ancient and prehistoric times.

Therefore consciousness cannot have emerged from body.

Suppose we make any rule, which we agree to follow. But we need another rule that we agree to follow the rules. But we need another rule that we agree to follow the rule that we agree to follow the rules.

Ultimately, rules are no more than social agreements. — RussellA

I am not sure if rules are being made on everything. Some are made, but some are inherent.
And not every rules are social agreements. There are private rules between individuals.
From my understanding, rules of concepts are the meanings. How you use concepts in sentences are the grammatical rules.

All concepts comes with its own meanings, and meanings imply the logic and rules how they should be used.

If you say "Pass me over the cup." in the restaurant, they will know what you mean and a cup will be brought to you, which is the use of the concept of cup in social settings and rules.

But if you say "Pass me over the frog.", then they will not know what you mean, even if you meant the cup. But your wife will know what you mean, because you two have the private agreement that frog means cup.

Therefore the rules of concepts can be social, private and also inherent.

"fail" and "nonsense" are objective descriptors. — AmadeusD

Totally unnecessary words in philosophical discussions. You are just letting everyone know you lost control of your emotion.

Clearly. This may be way you think Evolution isn't true. — AmadeusD

I would rather discuss any topic with the folks who think with their own mind rather than listing lots of links. Right or wrong can be clarified and judged later by more discussions, arguments and evidence.

You claimed there were no examples. I gave them. They are about 0.0001% of the plethora of evidence showing evolution by natural selection. — AmadeusD

I said in my previous post that your examples don't seem to have credibility for the concrete evidence of evolution is true. Please read it again.

in the face of my pointing out that typos exist — AmadeusD

If you keep making the same mistakes more than once, then it cannot be typos.

The claim to ad hominem was just a plain reading of your responses. — AmadeusD

You seem to be being too sensitive and emotional.

You can say you agree or disagree with the other poster's point with your supporting arguments why you do or don't. But if you add the words like "fail", "nonsense", "silly", or any of derogatory negative emotional nature which is not adding anything to the actual argument in the topic, then your posts will not get credibility, and the other poster will hit you back with the similar tone in their response to you.

If you'd like to do a bit of reading, I presume you will take the requisite several weeks to get comfortable with the concepts in these papers, read them, parse them and then interpret them to your heart's content before commenting: — AmadeusD

Thanks for the link. But recently my way of philosophizing is via mostly relying on my own thinking and reasoning. I don't read any information in the internet. I will read the original works by the historical philosophers. Hence my idea on evolution is from my own reasoning and inferring on the theory.

Because humans are a part of the Universe, and our concepts are part of us, it may well be that our concepts are rule-governed operating according to the laws of nature. I don’t know. — RussellA

Chess has rules and society has laws that are consciously made by humans — RussellA

Not sure about the universe - how large it is and how it began. One thing seems to be clear is that concepts are made by man. Western chess has its rules, but the Chinese chess has it own rules, and Japanese chess called "Go" has its own rules too, which are all different and specific on how they work.

On the concept of freedom, you could write a dissertation on its origin of the word, analysis of the meaning and uses of the concept, if needed.

We can make up any rules on anything, and as long as we agree to follow, that would be the rule. And in some cases, there is no rule for something such as random events and operations, and that is a rule too.

The rule of random determination? Can't randomness be considered as a rule? — Corvus


Not as a rule. — RussellA

There seem many things operating under the rule of random selection or random events. Consider the lottery jackpot numbers drawn from 50 numbers plus 12 lucky star numbers. The winning jackpot numbers consists of 5 numbers and 2 lucky star numbers randomly chosen. No one can predict or say why those numbers came out. But they do.

Another example, consider your own birth. Was there a rule for you having been born as yourself?
Can you explain why you were born as RussellA? Nope. I guess not. It was a pure random event. But there you are.

Many things happen and exist without explanation why. That is the truth of reality. Is it not?

The problem with using your own private language is that there wouldn't be a way to confirm rules. That same issue shows up if you ask yourself what rules you've been following up till now. There's no fact of the matter. — frank

Can you not make up your own rules for own private language, confirm and agree with the other member who uses the private language too?

Yes, it is a point to mull over as you indicated. Will get back for further thoughts on the point, if crops up.

However, I don't see that there are rules that determine our concepts. In other words, what rules determines our concept of freedom (what a concept is). — RussellA

The rule of random determination? Can't randomness be considered as a rule?

1. It doesn't appear that language acquisition in childhood could be explained by rule following. — frank

But when they are learning language, are they not also learning the rules i.e. how to use the words? When child learns words, it will be by experience of seeing objects and hearing the words for the objects. I am not sure child language acquisition is 100% innate ability.

2. By way of Kripke's insights, the Private Language argument itself gives us reason to doubt that you're discerning rules when you look out at human communication. — frank

I am not familiar with Kripke, but again when you are using your own private language, doesn't it presuppose rules for its origin of the words in the private language? If you and your wife agree to mean "frog" for "cup" just between you too, then you will have your personal reason why you decided and agreed to call "frog" to mean "cup". Something like, you have many cups with frog images on them or whatever. Or it could have been randomly chosen too. But the rule doesn't need explain why it was set. The crucial point of of a rule is that it had been set. You have been following it.

But there are no rules as to why we have the concept in the first place (rules as to what the concept is) — RussellA

Fair enough on your point. But it seems that no rule is necessary for why concepts have rules and logic in them. We could only say some concepts are a priori, and some are a posteriori. We know by instinct pleasure is good, pain is bad. We know by experience stone is heavier than water, and if you throw a stone to the window, the window will break.

Without the rules and logic in concepts, we wouldn't be able to build sensible statements or propositions. And all logical and rational thinking will fall apart, because we think and communicate with concepts in language and speech. Without concepts, there is no language and no speech.

I've provided you with ample evidence of evolution. If you chosen path is to talk about grammar, in the face of my pointing out that typos exist, I can only assume you are attempting to remain ad hominem. — AmadeusD

Your examples don't prove human evolution conclusively. Not sure where you shoveled across the examples from, but those are just features which could be different from individuals to individuals. Some folks are more tolerant than others, and some folks have different sizes just like everyone has different heights and weights for their bodies. Not concrete evidence for evolution.

It is not a good practice to claim ad hominem when your weakness has been exposed by your own doings. I would have never mentioned your grammar and spelling, if you didn't attack the simile statements as if they were the central part of the argument.

Are you not quite aware of typos? This is an absolutely ridiculous ad hominem. — AmadeusD

I was only pointing out your ability of understanding English and bad spelling at times, which seems to be the cause for your misunderstanding, because you asked silly questions. It was not ad hominem at all.

As noted i the quote you've used, no, it did not :) Status quo remains...Evolution is occurring. — AmadeusD

"i the quote you've used"? It doesn't make sense grammatically. There is no sign of evolution anywhere. :)

Do you have trouble getting around the city? — AmadeusD

It wasn't about me, but it was about clarifying your misunderstandings. Your posts contain spelling mistakes on the basic simple English words too, which gives impression you are not in clear mind when typing posts.

This may be because you provide no arguments to make your similies work. They are suggestions, in your comments. If you want to be clear, be clear. If not, continue :) — AmadeusD

You sounded you were taking in the figure of speech statements in wrong way, hence it was for clearing your misunderstandings on them. Hope it helped.

As there is a difference between what a rock is and what a rock does, there is a difference between what a concept is and what a concept does. — RussellA

Concept doesn't do anything. Humans do things - use concepts in thoughts and statements. Stone is heavier than water. - The concept of stone has the inherent meaning what stone is, which implies and states the clear logic and formal rule.

There is a difference between what a concept is and what a concept does. — RussellA

A concept is not just a word, but it has meanings. When the meaning is stated, it presents the formal rules and logical structure of the concept.

I don’t see that a concept is something with a logical structure or formal rules. — RussellA

Concepts are logical structure and have formal rules. A human is not a cup. Consciousness is not unconsciousness. A fool is not wise. Socrates is mortal. etc.

This misunderstands evolution in many ways: We do not need to fly around cities. Pollution hasn't been a big issue for more than about 300 years. — AmadeusD

The suggestions were purely to give some ideas if evolution worked, what could be the case. It is not saying that we need to fly around cities. But if we could, we would save lots of money for transportation and time too. Who says we don't need to fly around cities apart from you?

Pollution is a serious problem. I am not sure where you live. If you lived in some place forest off grid hunting for your daily meals, maybe you could be pardoned for your ignorance on the issue.

But if you lived in a large city with loads of cars, then you will know the problem. Air pollution destroys folks lungs putting them in the hospitals in large numbers every year.

To develop wings would take in excess of 100 million as I understand. These are simply silly suggestions the betray misunderstandings of hte theory. Some examples of observed evolutionary changes in humans: — AmadeusD

Again it was a simile suggestive point to emphasize that evolution doesn't work. It sounds like you always try your best criticizing the simile suggestions for putting the point across as if it were the central point of the argument. That is real silly.

Your comments give strong impression that you can't read and understand any suggestions put forward in simile statements.

I wasn't. And I don't know what "abrupt" when reading posts in forums like this. — L'éléphant

Without any logical argument, just your blurting out "Fail" and "Nonsense" to the others' point sounded abrupt and pretentious too.

First, I'm neither of the above. But I didn't think your post, which I criticized, should even be the question -- meaning, I expected more from you than posting nonsense like that. — L'éléphant

It appears that you feel it is nonsense due to your prejudice on something. Talking in vague science words beating around the bush clouding the point is not always a good way to do philosophy. Looking at the problem from different angle is. You seem to rubbish the latter, and blindly adore the former.

No, atoms, molecules, neurons, brain - that is structure. But when engaged in its highly complex function - that produces consciousness. A brain has to be working to produce awareness. — Questioner

Yes, I said no one is denying that. But they are not consciousness.

And doesn't that just make the brain all the more the marvel of human evolution? — Questioner

It does. But it needs good education and philosophical training for maximum performance. :grin:

I don't think it is so much "explaining" as finding the structural source for it. — Questioner

More or less the same thing, but more accurate word is "explaining".

Since we all have it, we know what consciousness is. The role of science is to try to link consciousness - the function - with the structure - the brain. — Questioner

It really doesn't say much. No one is denying brain is connected to consciousness. But consciousness is not brain or neurons. It is not atoms or particles.

Consciousness cannot be meaningful without time (knowledge of past present future) and space (knowledge of where one is existing in), as well as self identity. Alertness just awakened from matter is CCTV camera.

Consciousness presupposes far more than that. It needs personal history, emotions, thoughts and reasoning and imagination as well as linguistic abilities which are backed by past memories of living individual.

Science tries to explain how information is processed in what path of the neurons conjunction to which part of brain, when they claim to be explaining consciousness. It is much similar explanation analogous to computer processing information in conjunction to the central processor. It does not touch anything about what consciousness is.

Easy consciousness could be explained by physicalism in the distant future without having to explain hard consciousness. — SolarWind

I am not sure, if it is meaningful for the division. Because as I said, consciousness is a word describing a biological being behaving in certain way. It is not some entity emerged from physical matter, atoms and particles in the brain making the lights flickering flashing in the head what is called consciousness.

If consciousness is physical matter with properties, then it would make sense to say, hey can I have your consciousness for few days? or I will replace your consciousness with hers .. etc. It doesn't make sense.

It makes sense to say, you are conscious because you can see the world revealing to you, and you expressed an "awe" on its beauty. Or she was conscious when she opened her eyes this morning talking about her weekend.

I have been following the discussion for some time now and I have no problem whatsoever understanding the OP. — SolarWind

Fair enough solar. I haven't read any of your posts before, but maybe you have written something on the topic? Not sure. But if you do follow the OP, good on you. When you read the others posts, they sound all cloud catching.

Why don't we just use the terms 'easy consciousness' and 'hard consciousness'? Easy consciousness could be explained by physicalism in the distant future without having to explain hard consciousness. — SolarWind

They talk about "hard problem" must exist. But it only exists, because they think consciousness as some sort of physical entity, or something that emerged from brain, which is not very meaningful.

Conscious is just the way biological beings with brain functions - being aware of the environment and self. There is no entity in the concept. Nothing emerges from anything. It is just a state of being alert. The only way I can tell you are conscious is, because you talk and behave like a conscious being. So in the regard, they have been barking at the wrong tree.

I'm glad you picked up on what I was trying to tell you about your comment. It's just nonsense. — L'éléphant

I feel that you didn't need to be so vulgar and abrupt in your comment on what is after all a philosophical topic discussion. Let's be honest. The OP is very vague, and nobody seems understand what it is trying to say. And you can tell many including yourself have no single clue where the discussion is going to, or what it is about.

I gave the most accurate and realistic account of consciousness. But you somehow sound not only negative but also rude. I can only assume either you are hurt in your feelings for some reason or you are just obtuse and pretentious in your comment. Maybe both.

Intelligent life is that which is aware, can adapt, problem solve and make choices. — kindred

Amoebas can be aware of the type of water and depth of water they are in, can adapt for different temperatures of the water, and can solve problems in their navigating to different places in the water making choices which way to move to. Are Amoebas intelligent life?

I never claimed otherwise. When one level of organization emerges from another, they aren’t the same thing. Living organisms are not the same thing as the chemicals that make them up. — T Clark

And one more thing. I have no access to your subatomic structure for your consciousness. I doubt if anyone else does. The only way I can access your consciousness is by your mind expressed in the statements you are making. If you were in front of me while making the statements, I would also be able to see your facial expressions too for accessing your consciousness. That's all there is to it.

Nothing to do with the chemicals in your head or subatomic structure of the brain. All I know is that you have the biological living body, and nothing more I know further apart from your statements on the state of your mind. It is the most honest and realistic analysis on the consciousness of humans.

In general, that’s true, but I’m not interested in taking it up right now. — T Clark

I have absolutely no idea what is in your mind, apart from a telltale sign of your unwillingness for further discussions on this topic. Happy days. :smirk:

I’ve already told him I disagree with him. Now it appears I disagree with you too. — T Clark

Science is based on observation and experiments for their laws and theories. When science is working and claiming their own metaphysical views on the invisible or non-existent objects, often it turns to alchemy and magic with the devious pretense, hence it is sensible we keep our minds open with investigative motives on these topics, and keep the traditional philosophical traditions alert with analytic methods.

I don't know what else to make of this comment, Corvus, but to simply say if an opinion could be marked "Fail", this is it. — L'éléphant

It is up to you how you read and understand others opinions and interpretations on the point. No one can dictate how you feel and understand it. That is the exact point about consciousness too.

And what does "You will only observe the telltale signs...from the conscious living people and animals" mean? Our whole constitution is conscious! It is certainly not just telltale signs. — L'éléphant

Your comment sounds like a pretense just like what the politicians do and say. There is no logical or factual content in it.

We are fully in the realm of "the hard problem of consciousness." We've discussed it here on the forum many times. Some people think it's a big deal. Others, including me, just don't get why it's considered a problem at all. Never the twain shall meet. I'm not particularly interested in taking it up now. — T Clark

There is no problem in revisiting already discussed topic in the past, if new truths could come out from it. After all, many folks are still discussing the topics in discussion over 2000 years ago in philosophy.

Sez you. — T Clark

If you care to read about consciousness, you will notice that it is a vast subject. There are range of different views on the topic from the hard materialism to psychologism, idealism, functionalism and even spans to religious spritualism.

One thing that is common with the topic is that they all view consciousness as "awareness" based on the biological living body and brain. The point you must remember is that awareness is NOT the same thing as matter or brain itself.

Awareness and consciousness is the word describing aspects, operations, states and functions of mind, not the physical matter.

The only one I know of is the one we are discussing. — T Clark

If you keep reading the OP's post, he has not been talking about science or matter. Rather he means consciousness must have come from something that you put into the mind, not from nothing.

I think what he means is, that when you see physical objects (input into your mind), your consciousness must be also physical in nature (output), because the physical matter input cannot come out in any other form than physical matter.

So it appears that you are not reading the OP accurately.