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Why there are mosqitos
Selection can be for, in the case of a trait that increases the ability of an organism to reproduce, or it can be against, in the case of traits that prevent an organism from reproducing. There are lots of traits that don't do either, individually and ecolologically.
Which, my dad the scientist explained to me, is why there are mosquitos. As he put it, you don't have to be useful to earn your ecological niche, you have to simply not be deliterious to the ecology. many niches exist not because they are needed by the rest of the system, but because they do it no harm.
This is perhaps a bit of a half-lateral zigzag from your points, stimulated by your post. But I don't suppose it can do any harm...
posted by
Ciel
on August 8, 2008 at 11:19 AM
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A comment on humanity's most beautiful lie
Researchers have invented a new scientific term, called “heirophany” where machines can record the brain patterns of persons who experience a higher power behind everything which people call God. Observation of the brain scans of persons, who can remain in a state of consciousness, when they experience spiritual oneness, showed that there is a distinct, repeatable brain pattern involved with the experience, and this experience is as real as any other experience when they are in their most alert state. It stands to reason then, that there exists the One Source in reality that the brain is allowing us to experience.
On the other hand, extensive neuropsychological studies conducted on near-death patients have shown that they experience an expanding consciousness even when they are clinically dead; the machines registering no brain activity at all. Despite this state, a majority of these ‘clinically dead’ could think a hundred times faster and with greater clarity than is humanly possible. Then there are patients with acute pancerebral ischemia, due to which they become clinically unconscious, but still they can think and feel as clearly as if they were fully conscious. All these empirical evidences have opened up the fundamental question that Consciousness seems to have nothing to do with the physical body condition – whether healthy, sick, awake, sleeping, unconscious, or even near-death.
Enjoyed the discussion, and today I have made a full post based on your comment to mine yesterday.
posted by
Bhaskar.ing
on August 7, 2008 at 7:11 PM
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Re: Nice article, but a pretty strange point of view on thoughts
In response to the last question, yes. I do think that's all we are.
In response to the previous question, I don't know. I haven't figured out consciousness, and what I read about it doesn't quite do it for me. We are aware of our awareness, but how that came about is something of a mystery, at least to me. I expect it is a side effect of increasing awareness and memory in response to other stimuli.
Thinking, and our perceptions of thinking, are different from some other actions we take, such as motion. When we use our muscles, we sense that we use them. We have nerve endings in the muscle and tendons, part of the proprioceptive system that tells our central nervous systems where each part of our bodies is. We don't have that for thinking. I can't tell you which nuclei of my brain are active while I write this, though I can tell you exactly how each finger moves as I type. The difference, well, feels different, and has created a difference in explanation. Mind is different from muscle. My belief is that it's true; muscle activity is monitored and reported on, while other organ activity is not. We don't consider our livers as non-material or separate from our bodies, but our brains we do, though to me, the explanation of the absence of awareness of activity in both organs is the same. It's just that brain activity is more interesting.
posted by
mousehop
on August 6, 2008 at 6:29 AM
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Interesting and challenging post
posted by
malcolm
on August 6, 2008 at 6:04 AM
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Nice article, but a pretty strange point of view on thoughts
What I find rather strange is this: "We have no sensors in our brains that tell us when we are thinking". Do you have sensors in your brain that tell you when you are seeing, or do you just see when you see and think when you think. I don't get this!? When there are thoughts present we are aware of them, when there are no thoughts present we are aware of that too just as we are aware of the presence of light and its intricate forms of presentation and aware of the lack of any visual input when there is none. Why on earth would you need to "sense" when you are thinking? There has to be something very wrong if you are not aware of thinking when it happens, unless you refer to the underlying processing of information that is similar to the optical information in your peripheral vision that you do not consciously focus on and still react to without you having been clearly aware of it, in which case there is still no fundamental difference. Just like the eye don't see by itself, but is merely an organ that changes light into electrochemical impulses that gets translated elsewhere in the brain (In the back of the head) and then presented to awareness so too thoughts are presented to awareness (whilst there are no thinking sensors sticking out of our bodies(it does not have to since thoughts do not have external shape and size)). All the "objects" we become aware of, be that thoughts or visual stimuli or whatever else, are only worth anything besides simple responses to external stimuli for avoidance of damage or whatever once we become aware of them. Since you seem adamant that all that we are has come about almost randomly in dependance on the environment without any non-physical directing input, how did awareness (regardless of the contents of awareness), will and intent come about? Do you really think they are products of specific patterns of complex organic matter?
posted by
AardigeAfrikaner
on August 5, 2008 at 4:47 AM
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