Is this a question of learning?..
The how question might be answerable by analogy. A mind from an evolutionary perspective might be like a piece of software-writing software; software that writes new codes according to the stimuli from the environment. The why question would have to be answered by saying that feelings such as glory are either adaptive or harmless accidents. Perhaps it is adaptive to feel a sense of satisfaction, accomplishment and pride when adaptive behaviour has been completed. Think about the species of birds that decorate their mating area with objects of the same colour in order to attract a mate. Maybe when they kick back and look at their ‘home’, they feel the same sense of glory?
I would like to focus on that second sentence. You say “A mind… might be like a piece of software-writing software.” This is a perfect metaphor for the point I’m trying to make, not only for life, but the universe in full. Your description continues, “software that writes new codes according to the stimuli from the environment.” I would fully agree that evolution can work independently from the smallest single cell organism on up, but exactly on that condition. This is what I meant when I said evolution implies prior consciousness, and while I said evolution, I should really have extended that statement to the entirety of existence, as all of the universe functions on some very solidly defined constants. So, I agree that any evolutionary effect can be explained by the “software” of evolution. But what cannot be explained is the software of evolution, or more appropriately, the software of existence. We can reasonably imagine a piece of software can perform such programs as you posit, but we cannot reasonably assert that that piece of software had no programmer.
I do not make an issue of whether such things as satisfaction are adaptively advantageous. In fact I would fully suggest they are. The fact that other animals experience similar things is self-evident and has no bearing to one side or the other, as they are the product of the same software. The question is rather, given the incredibly intricate and sensitive nature of the physical processes that govern these things, what are the chances that blind forces of nature could ever have achieved it if that potential were not deliberately placed within them? What are the odds that the earliest forms of organic matter, simple self-replicating cells would contain the potential to form such stupendously elaborate interdependent systems? That they would be capable of producing the right chemicals and chemical reactions to successfully carry out the evolutionary process?
Think of the forces of nature, perhaps, as a blind man being led by a seeing-eye-God.
I think it’s more like having an imperative and having a variety of options. If there is a need to survive by overcoming problem x, there will be several solutions and creatures with a variety of physical characteristics. You might have the need for mobility answered by legs, fins, motors, snakelike twisting, or flapping of limbs. You might have the need for reaction provided by a nervous system, augmented by visual/auditory/tactile/chemical perception, etc etc. So it is not like asking for a car and getting a model T, but asking for survival and getting a form of transport that simply works.
I think this ignores the need for a functional, prescribed system (in this case, the laws and constants of the universe) to both create and respond to such needs.
Since I failed to properly express this in my original post, I will stress it here: once the universe exists, no further interference should be expected to be necessary. The car should not be looked at as analogous to the eye, as my original post implied, but to the universe as a functional whole. Life, in this model, should be viewed as a subprogram of the “software” of existence.
Overall I think there’s a difference of perspective required to fully concede that evolution can be an unconscious process, but I do think the evidence supports it enough to make the jump. What is more difficult is understanding all the problem areas like consciousness and emotion. I can understand not wanting to make the jump based on the difficulty of these areas alone, but I don’t think that that reservation is insuperable, because we can extend from simple explanations to stupefying ones.
I have no problem conceding that evolution itself is an unconscious process. I do have a problem conceding that the “software” of evolution, and all of existence along with it, wrote itself. One popular theistic argument goes, “Only minds can produce information. DNA contains information. Therefore, DNA is the product of a mind.” This argument only works with DNA, of course, but I think the implications are universal. In fact, the only attempted refutation I’ve heard went something like, “Every day, meteorologists record information from wind, etc. So does wind have a mind?” This is a strikingly weak counterargument, and is, in fact, quite silly. Wind does not contain any information. An observing mind can translate it into certain forms of information, but prior to that it is merely physical phenomena with no intrinsic informative power, and after, the information is still the product of the observing mind.
:extrahappy:
