[extropy-chat] Extropy/ the Nature of Awareness/consciousness

[citta437 at aol.com]

  You wrote: "According to traditional (non-evolutionary) empiricists 
like Locke and
Hume, the mind plays no active role in perception. Instead the objects 
of
our awareness act on our senses and then the mind steps in to actively
interpret those perceptions. This would seem to be a reasonable view, 
but
does it conflict with evolution theory? I think so.

YOu wrote: Traditional empiricists find themselves in a quagmire when 
they try to
trace sensory awareness back through the path of evolution. The concept 
of
sense awareness breaks down at lower organisms, for example at the 
level
of the microbe.

Primitive animals like the amoeba and the paramecium seem 'aware,' but
what is the nature of this awareness? These animals have no nervous
systems and no obvious sense organs."
_________________

My comment:
Traditional non-evolutionary empiricists used mind to observe mind 
using their fuzzy logic of observing the observed. To brake from 
traditions, we have a better system of scientific and technological 
aids. The mind is an energy in motion/the behavior of which can be 
observed by objective means {detachment from the subjective 
interpertations of consciousness}. Reason based on memory/language and 
thoughts is not always reliable due to emotional attachment to 
self/subjectivity. Even our body cells have some primitive form of 
consciousness embedded in the DNA inherited from the evolutionary 
ancestors you call primitive like amoeba etc, with no complex organs or 
brains which grew larger in the process of change/extropy.

Evolutionary theory is not based on reason alone but on continuous 
observation and critical thinking by using the scientific method of 
falsifiability objectively with technological resources not available 
in some spacetime. The nature of awareness is not static but changes 
 from simple to higher forms of energy in response to change. So this 
nature of awareness/consciousness is impermanent for it depends on the 
complexity of growth.

Terry
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