[ExI] Worshiping that Divine Blowhard.

[Lee Corbin]

Damien writes

> JKC wrote:
> 
>> "Lee Corbin" <lcorbin at rawbw.com>
>>
>>> The theory of evolution tells us so. There would be utterly *no* point
>>> whatsoever for plants to develop feelings since there is in almost all
>>> cases absolutely no action that they could take based upon those 
>>> feelings.
 > >
 > > That is absolutely true, but nevertheless most people, even
 > > most people on this very list who you'd think would know
 > > better, think it is untrue. They say they believe completely in
 > > evolution, they make all the proper noises, but they still
 > > think there is some part of us that does nothing but generate
 > > feelings, subjectivity...Their position is completely
 > > contradictory of course
 >
> "Nothing but" begs the question a bit (it might have evolved and then 
> been partially repurposed), but are you completely sure that just 
> because sessile plants would gain no value by evolving feelings, this is 
> also true for creatures that gad about, prey upon other nimble creatures 
> for sustenance, and even think and plan?

Indeed, the extent of "feelings" in any creature we
would expect to be in direct proportion to how capable
they are to control their environments. Little gnats
have very little control. Why, soon we'll have "simple"
robots able to achieve gnat levels of behavior.

But, as you point out, the more thinking and the more
planning an entity is capable of, the more we can
expect the existence of pain circuitry to emphasize
to the creature not to repeat certain behaviors,
or (if it is advanced enough) to allow certain
circumstances to occur again.

> And are therefore able to take all kinds of action
 > based on those feelings? Oh, never mind.

"Oh, never mind"? Why say that when you've raised a very
valuable point? Maybe you need more confidence!

Lee