The Evolution of Consciousness

Chapter 10: The evolution of consciousness

A complex piece of machinery (like a watch) cannot have come about by accident.
I can infer the existence of a designer from the well-designedness of it: it must be a product of intelligent design:
Many natural objects (from eyes to ecosystems) are complex pieces of machinery.
So, these objects "imply the presence of intelligence and mind" (Paley, 1802: 13)
So, there must be an Intelligent Designer of nature.
Wm. Paley: "there cannot be design, without a designer; contrivance, without a contriver; order, without choice" s

Paley's argument is that there's no other way that these structures could come about.
Dawkins: Darwinian evolution -- "the blind watchmaker" -- is the other way

Full title, The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life
Natural Selection:

If reproducing creatures vary (as they do).
And the carrying capacity of environments are finite (as they are).
Then some variants will be more successful at reproducing in the environment than others. (Natural selection).
By this means those variations which are "fittest" will "survive" (leaving more offspring) and come to be preserved.
This leads to evolution: "the improvement of each [type of] creature in relation to its conditions of life" (SB: 140)

In a population of creatures with single photosensitive cells, those with more cells might have an advantage; in a population with eye pits, those with deeper pits might do better; and so on until eyes with corneas, lenses and foveas are forced into existence.

Thus were Paley's eyes, etc. "designed" by evolution: "a scheme for creating Design out of Chaos without the aid of Mind." (Dennett 1995a: 50)

Resistance to Darwin's ideas continues to the present day in the popular cultural arena
Darwinism's scientific triumph was cemented by the discover of the mechanism of inheritance

in the 1930s the "modern synthesis" brought together natural selection and Mendelian genetics
in the 1960s Crick and Watson identified Mendelian genes as DNA structures

"Who or what is evolution for? Who or what is that ultimate beneficiary of all those adaptations such as eyes, wings, and digestive systems." (SB: 145
The Selfish Gene theory: the ultimate beneficiary of natural selection is neither the species nor the group, nor even the individual, but the gene.

genes are the replicators
on which selection operates: "they are selfish in the sense that they will get copied if they can" (145)

In addition, "many features of organisms are not adaptations, or are far from optimal if they are" (146)

"some useless traits survive because they are by-products of other traits that have been selected" (146)
"Others ... because they were once adaptive and there has not been sufficient time to weed them out." (146)

"Contrary to popular belief, the gene-centered theory of evolution does not imply that the point of all human striving is to spread our genes ... People don't selfishly spread their genes; genes selfishly spread themselves. They do it by the way they build our brains. By making us enjoy life, health, sex, friends, and children, the genes buy a lottery ticket for representation in the next generation, with odds that were favorable in the environment in which we evolved." (Pinker 1997: 43-4)
Evolutionary psychology 'treats the human mind as a collection of specialized modules, or information processing machines, that evolved to solve particular problems"

the "Swiss army knife" view of the mind
invokes the fact that we are evolved hunter-gatherer lives on the African savanna to explain traits that are now maladaptive (e.g., craving for high-fat foods)
Pinker on the hard problem: "Beats the heck out of me!"

unless it's a "spandrel" .. perhaps this would be the epiphenomenalist evolutionist's story
"either we throw away the idea that consciousness evolved by natural selection, or else we have to find a function for it." (Humphrey, 1987: 378)

"some Christians and Muslims believe that each of us has a soul created by God, and that consciousness is a property of that soul. So they do not believe that consciousness evolved."
[Note the conclusion does not follow: perhaps evolutionarily is how God creates souls.]

intuitively, we can understand the survival value of intelligence, memory, perception, etc.
what's the further advantage of the light of consciousness being on?
"It is conceivable that evolutionary processes could have worked to build creature as efficient and intelligent as we are ... without those creature being subjects of experience." (Flanagan, 1992: 129)
In other words, "it is hare to explain why evolution produced us instead of zombies." (Moody 1995: 369)

"The process of natural selection cannot distinguish between me and my zombie twin" (Chalmers, 1996: 120).
"If such a [consciousness inducing] mutation were possible, then it would be entirely, and necessarily, neutral, and would make not difference at all to the way these creatures evolve." (SB: 150)
Three alternatives

Zombies are not possible.
Consciousness is separable from evolved adaptive traits. It adds something new functionality.
The problem for this approach is to say what this new functionality is.

Zombies are not possible.
Consciousness is not separable from evolved adaptive traits such as language, memory, and problem solving.
The problem for this approach is to say why such adaptive traits should require subjectivity..