From: mike@isgtec.com (Mike Sellers)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: The rise of consciousness
Keywords: brain,evolution,consciousness
Date: 2 Sep 92 01:48:22 GMT
Organization: ISG Technologies Inc., Mississauga Ontario

In article <emc.715304048@keiko> emc@doe.carleton.ca (Eli Chiprout) writes:
> Some may have seen the latest issue of Scientific American on
> the Brain.  I was curious if there is any literature, articles, etc.
> on why consciousness should be necessary to evolution.  

It's not.  If it were necessary, everything living would possess it,
as they possess the ability to reproduce.  Consciousness (for now 
convienently un-defined) may be simple one nifty evolutionary strategy
(Mother Evolution does not love us more than she loves, say, annelids),
or it may be something else altogether:  Some would argue that consciousness
is the pinnacle of evolution, and that all life exists as a support for
the conscious beings that may evolve if all goes well (us).  Others might
argue that individual consciousness is merely another notable adaptation
like binocular vision along the evolutionary road; if there is a pinnacle
to be reached, we're not yet it.  Each of these beliefs are fun to consider,
but are fundamentally out of the scientific domain.  A strict scientist 
might cling to the first view, as he or she would have no scientifically
usable evidence to support anything else, but even that is a statement of
personal belief.  You pays your money and you takes your choices.  

> Why not
> have automatons carrying out algorithms (which we may be) without
> the internal perception of self or of the world?  Why, as well,
> should consciousness only be associated (as far as I know) with
> mobile species as opposed to plants, trees, or shrubs?

I suspect because non-motile lifeforms have different problems that
are not aided by any sort of consciousness.  Mobility implies a lot
of things, for example balance, vision, and predator-prey relationships 
and planning, that might make a rudimentary consciousness more viable.
This in turn might lead to a self-awareness that has survival value,
and even a group-awareness beyond that.  (In fact, it occurs to me that
the fact that we have not already evolved a complete group consciousness
might indicate that such things --telepathy, etc-- are simply not supported
in this version :-) of the universe.  If they were, surely such an
evolutionary niche would have been exploited by now.)

> Perhaps the answer to the first is that consciousness if necessary
> for pain/pleasure which is the main driving force of survival.  But
> could not an automaton take a neural input of, say, nerve sensation of
> extreme heat and translate it into a "move away" command? 

Sure, and many "primitive" life forms do just this -- take a look at
the hydra or most planaria, for example.  

>  Maybe that
> would be too complicated a program to deal with all the cases.
> I don't know what the answer to the second question is.  
> 
> References would be appreciated.

A readable introduction to this sort of thing is Carl Sagan's _The Dragons
of Eden_.  Then there's _Lives of a Cell_ and any number of evolutionary
texts.  If you want to begin with serious stuff, I think SciAm has some 
good papers published separately on evolution.  Oh, and you might want to
look into some of the books and articles that have come out in the past
few years on human neural development -- one book in particular, _Neural
Darwinism_ might be what you're looking for.

> Eli Chiprout

--
              Mike Sellers      User Interface Team Leader
           mike@isgtec.com      ISG Technologies, Toronto, Canada
              "Actum ne agas" -- Do not do what has been done.
                         Furare tantum ab Optimis