I very much doubt that you've ruled out all natural causes of consciousness. In my definition [Consciousness is that condition which arises from the brain's capacity to be aware of its own activity] consciousness is -- in effect -- the brain's functioning as a sensory organ, sensing its own activity. Not much more miraculous than eyesight. Even if that doesn't satisfy you, as it apparently doesn't, I leave you with this: An unsolved problem (such as the nature of consciousness) is not proof that a deity has been at work. It's just an unsolved problem. You can't logically say: "We don't understand X; therefore we do know Y."
And how would one go about establishing this alleged "rule"? And, assuming that were even possible, how does it apply to evolution? The "cause" of human brainpower is not simply our ancestors' brainposer, it's also the environment that selected out the inferior models.
There was neither an actuality nor a potential for self-awareness in any of those particles.
Again, you need to demonstrate this.
Those dots do not connect. Materially speaking, as long as the building blocks of the cosmos are mindless, unconscious atoms, then piling on block after block only gives you more mindless, unconscious atoms, but it categorically cannot give you consciousness.
And this:
There is nothing in natural evolution – neither the relatively slow process of gradual variation, nor the unpredictable, Quantum Mechanics-style process of change, that can account for consciousness, because in every case, the causal agents are simply more mindless, unconscious atoms, and as a result, the only possible effect is more mindlessness and unconsciousness.
Only possible? Please show your work.
Even if the increased ability to throw or communicate (or whatever led to our increase in brain size and function) has a selective advantage?
The effect does not follow from the cause, plain and simple. It is not possible.
I'm getting tired of repeating myself. *Why* isn't it possible? It certainly seems to have happened.
1. You could bash Descartes, which is easy to do, but the principle remains.
I really don't see why. The "principle" flies in the face of evolution. The fossil record shows a generally-incresing complexity of animals as we go from the preCambrian to the present. It seems highly likely that there was also a general increase in the complexity of nervous systems as well.
Also, "an effect cannot have a reality which is greater than its cause or causes; " seems very sloppy to me - how is "greater" defined? How are "cause" and "effect" defined? Are mammals "greater" than reptiles? are they "greater" than reptiles plus the environment?
2. You may choose to deny that there is such a thing as consciousness, although you did already agree to it in principle, and I would hate to think that I have been having a discussion with an unconscious automaton.
Quite absurd
3. You could beg to define “consciousness” to mean that it is merely a perception of ours
It's something I perceive in myself, and I infer that other people have a similar perception (unless they're retarded, insane, tripping on drugs, etc), and to a lesser extent, in animals
...and that we really are sophisticated machines, unwittingly responding to unknown stimuli. But this is the kind of thing I wrote about in my Infidels article – you would be appealing to reason in order to prove that there was really no such thing as reason. It would be a contradiction of your entire argument.
This is not true. The appeal is to observation. How is it an attempt to prove there is no reason?
The only logical explanation for the existence of consciousness in the universe is that it was put there by a conscious being.
No, evolution seems like a much more reasonable explanation.
The naturalist hypothesis for the existence human consciousness is dead before it leaves the starting gate,
Maybe, once you show that that the "rule" that Descartes allegedly came up with actually applies to the natural world. Since evolution violates it, and evolution is a very well-attested theory, it seems likely that Descartes was in fact wrong about this. The fact that it's stated in such imprecise terms makes it sound more like theology than science.
You might want to learn something from someone who is actually researching the origins of consciousness: Calvin's "throwing madonna" theory
Descarte's obscure claim can apparently be used to prove that a zygote cannot become a human. However, that would be wrong. At any rate, as Virginia-American has pointed out, Causal Reality is not exactly a law of physics. It's vaguely worded, unquantifiable, and--to the extent that you can tease a real-world prediction out of it--wrong. Real science is not lawyering. It seeks to increase rather than obscure the sum of our knowledge.
While digging for arcane nuggets to lawyer upon, you seemed to have missed a genuinely wonderful rule of thumb called Occam's Razor. Now, it's not a law of physics either, but it's very useful for deciding what's a reasonable inference and what isn't. Science in fact uses it all the time. You'll find it invoked when there's a disagreement about the interpretation of hard data.
The standard explanation of this is "Do not unnecessarily multiply conjecture." However, when people say "What looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck is probably a duck," that's Occam's Razor too. It's silly to conjecture that what looks like a duck is a perfectly executed robot or puppet if there's not a shred of evidence for it being anything but a real duck. Things are mostly what they look like. It can turn out that things are not what they initially look like, but that's not the way to bet or the most reasonable inference. This is especially so if things have been looking a certain way for a long time under detailed examination.
As I've outlined, all the historical trace evidence points to a gradual progression in the development of the traits we associate with humanity. That's what it looks like, so that's probably what it was, never mind that nothing is ever rock-solid proven in science.
PMFJI, but me & Heartlander went back & forth on this over a couple threads, including this one. Do a search for "hydrogen" early in this thread. Basically your argument commits the fallacy of composition: assuming that no entity can exhibit a quality other than a simple sum of the qualities of its components.
Consider this analogy:
Oxygen is a flammable gas. Hydrogen is an explosive gas. Put them together and you get water: a substance whose mass is equal to the mass of two hydrogen atoms plus one oxygen atom - just like you'd expect. However, water is neither a flammable gas like oxygen, nor an explosive gas like hydrogen. Nor is it 2/3 explosive & 1/3 flammable, owing to there being twice as many hydrogen atoms as oxygens. It's positively flame-retardant, and it's a liquid to boot! Now how can that be?
Water is a higher-order entity than mere atoms. A molecule of water is made up of three atoms. There's no extra, magical entity added to the atoms to produce this higher-order organization called a "molecule of water". There's no mystical or Ideal "wetness" quality that's injected into it to make it wetter than the three atoms taken alone are. But because of the relationship of the atoms to each other, this higher-order entity behaves radically differently than the three atoms taken alone.
You seem to think this can't be possible without some supernatural person removing the Ideal Forms called "flammability" and "explosiveness" from the individual atoms and, in their place, injecting some kind of Ideal Form called "wetness" into the resulting molecule. That is what you're saying when you assert that conscious beings cannot arise naturally out of mindless parts.