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why does human mind exist, and how did it arise in nature?

osgart

Nothing my eye, Something for sure
it's either a senseless fluke, or a purposed intention.

why does anything in nature function.

the eye, why does it see, vs being entirely useless?

if you want provide links to what you consider good info, or offer your best explanation.
 
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leibowde84

Veteran Member
it's either a senseless fluke, or a purposed intention.

why does anything in nature function.

the eye, why does it see, vs being entirely useless?
Evolution by natural selection. The evolution of the eye is actually well-known. Check this out about the evolution of the eye in mollusks:
upload_2017-10-12_11-19-21.png
 

osgart

Nothing my eye, Something for sure
Evolution by natural selection. The evolution of the eye is actually well-known. Check this out about the evolution of the eye in mollusks:
View attachment 19202
in my years of high school and college I never once was exposed to evolution.

what drives natural selection? they say it is undirected chance, is that true?
 

Brickjectivity

Turned to Stone. Now I stretch daily.
Staff member
Premium Member
osgart said:
why does human mind exist, and how did it arise in nature?
it's either a senseless fluke, or a purposed intention.
What is most important is that we focus it ourselves. You know we are born knowing little or nothing and that it takes years for us to become functioning thinkers. An individual human mind is not even complete until we start to die, but that is not the end. As a group we have more characteristics than any individual. You have traits I need, and I have traits you need. We all need to work together.

In addition in order to understand the world we need each other. We have to trust and to rely on each other, and the better we can do that the more we can understand. Few people could have invented a clock, but someone did. Similarly not everyone is equipped to answer the question you have posed, and many have to dedicate their resources both mental and emotional toward other things.

why does anything in nature function.

the eye, why does it see, vs being entirely useless?

if you want provide links to what you consider good info, or offer your best explanation.
As you know, individuals may disagree as long as we work together. There is something to be said for letting the experts know things that we cannot look into, and I think this is a situation in which you must either study it for yourself or let experts do it.
 

leibowde84

Veteran Member
in my years of high school and college I never once was exposed to evolution.

what drives natural selection? they say it is undirected chance, is that true?
Natural selection is the driving force. Genetic mutations occur randomly (by chance you could say). There are beneficial mutations (like the Polar Bear's fur color) and negative mutations (like albino deer in warmer climates). Funny, because a mutation might be beneficial in one environment, but negative in another.

Anyways, beneficial mutations give a leg up to the animal in question, increasing the chances for that animal to pass on their mutated genes. In the case of polar bears, their white fur made it much easier for them to sneak up on prey. When it's easier to get food, you have a higher chance of reproducing. Over many, many generations, that mutated gene becomes the norm, and now practically all polar bears are white.

So, natural selection is the driving force behind evolution. "Survival of the fittest" is how it is described.

Where did you go to school that you were never educated on evolution by natural selection. It is absolutely essential in understanding the natural world, speciation, and how human beings (part of the great apes genus) evolved from common ancestors of modern apes. Human's didn't just appear magically. They evolved over millions of years.
 

bobhikes

Nondetermined
Premium Member
it's either a senseless fluke, or a purposed intention.

why does anything in nature function.

the eye, why does it see, vs being entirely useless?

if you want provide links to what you consider good info, or offer your best explanation.

The mind is just the home to intelligence. Intelligence is just reaction to sensory input. The very first life forms reacted to sensory input and through history reactions and sensors improved. Evolution is a good explanation for why, the how is a little more complicated because we don't fully understand today's intelligence and the mind doesn't exist in fossils.
 

osgart

Nothing my eye, Something for sure
Natural selection is the driving force. Genetic mutations occur randomly (by chance you could say). There are beneficial mutations (like the Polar Bear's fur color) and negative mutations (like albino deer in warmer climates). Funny, because a mutation might be beneficial in one environment, but negative in another.

Anyways, beneficial mutations give a leg up to the animal in question, increasing the chances for that animal to pass on their mutated genes. In the case of polar bears, their white fur made it much easier for them to sneak up on prey. When it's easier to get food, you have a higher chance of reproducing. Over many, many generations, that mutated gene becomes the norm, and now practically all polar bears are white.

So, natural selection is the driving force behind evolution. "Survival of the fittest" is how it is described.

Where did you go to school that you were never educated on evolution by natural selection. It is absolutely essential in understanding the natural world, speciation, and how human beings (part of the great apes genus) evolved from common ancestors of modern apes. Human's didn't just appear magically. They evolved over millions of years.

Catholic Christian schools. I'm not even christian.
 
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George-ananda

Advaita Vedanta, Theosophy, Spiritualism
Premium Member
why does human mind exist, and how did it arise in nature?

As opposed to materialist science which sees matter as primary and the mind as a production of matter, I see it differently. Consciousness is fundamental and 'incarnates' matter. So, in answer to the question, through nature/evolution more complex physical forms developed and these allow consciousness to have a grander experience through a more complex and sophisticated physical body.
 

Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
Consciousness quite obviously has foresight and planning functions, along with self defense functions. In all likelihood then, it evolved as a consequence of the survival value of those -- and perhaps other -- functions.
 

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
it's either a senseless fluke, or a purposed intention.

why does anything in nature function.

the eye, why does it see, vs being entirely useless?

if you want provide links to what you consider good info, or offer your best explanation.

In summery both the brain and the eye evolved with a survival advantage over those that lacked brain or eyes. The earliest eyes like the simple eyes on jelly fish demonstrated an advantage of being able sense light and shadows. Simpler micro organisms depend on light sensitive cells to move toward or away from light sources.

The evolution of the brain from simpler organisms with simple nervous systems to complex animals demonstrate that the resulting intelligence has survival value.

From: A brief history of the brain
The story of the brain begins in the ancient oceans, long before the first animals appeared. The single-celled organisms that swam or crawled in them may not have had brains, but they did have sophisticated ways of sensing and responding to their environment. “These mechanisms are maintained right through to the evolution of mammals,” says Seth Grant at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge, UK. “That’s a very deep ancestry.”

The evolution of multicellular animals depended on cells being able to sense and respond to other cells – to work together. Sponges, for example, filter food from the water they pump through the channels in their bodies. They can slowly inflate and constrict these channels to expel any sediment and prevent them clogging up. These movements are triggered when cells detect chemical messengers like glutamate or GABA, pumped out by other cells in the sponge. These chemicals play a similar role in our brains today (Journal of Experimental Biology, vol 213, p 2310).

Releasing chemicals into the water is a very slow way of communicating with distant cells – it can take a good few minutes for a demosponge to inflate and close its channels. Glass sponges have a faster way: they shoot an electrical pulse across their body that makes all the flagellae that pump water through their bodies stop within a matter of seconds (Nature, vol 387, p 29).

This is possible because all living cells generate an electrical potential across their membranes by pumping out ions. Opening up channels that let ions flow freely across the membrane produces sudden changes in this potential. If nearby ion channels also open up in response, a kind of Mexican wave can travel along a cell’s surface at speeds of several meters a second. Since the cells in glass sponges are fused together, these impulses can travel across their entire bodies."
 

Muslim-UK

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
in my years of high school and college I never once was exposed to evolution.

what drives natural selection? they say it is undirected chance, is that true?
undirected random chance, which means all the order and design you see absolutely everywhere both within yourself and in nature is ALL a fluke. Apparently as animals our sole purpose is to survive, reproduce and keep warm.

Yep, I'm not buying it either...
 

Nous

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
Why does consciousness exist, and how was it selected for in generation after generation, in species after species (if it is supposedly not causally efficacious, as many people erroneously claim) are good questions that should be asked often.
 

ArtieE

Well-Known Member
undirected random chance, which means all the order and design you see absolutely everywhere both within yourself and in nature is ALL a fluke. Apparently as animals our sole purpose is to survive, reproduce and keep warm.

Yep, I'm not buying it either...
You should be buying it, considering that "Globally, Muslims have the highest fertility rate, an average of 3.1 children per woman—well above replacement level" Muslim population growth - Wikipedia
 

Skwim

Veteran Member
in my years of high school and college I never once was exposed to evolution.
No doubt you didn't take the right courses, or they simply weren't available. But being 46 years old and never being exposed to it does seem rather odd. What kind of high school and college did you go to? Never mind I see you went to Catholic schools, which makes your lack of education a bit puzzling, because I know quite a few Catholics who were exposed to evolution in school. So my guess is that you simply didn't take the right classes.

what drives natural selection?
Well, natural selection is the process by which individuals with characteristics that are advantageous for reproduction in a specific environment leave more offspring in the next generation, thereby increasing the proportion of their genes in the population gene pool over time. So it's "driven" by chance.

they say it is undirected chance, is that true?
Chance is commonly considered to be undirected, so yes.

.
 
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ArtieE

Well-Known Member
That's a commandment from GOD:
Genesis 9:7 "As for you, be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it."
You said and I quote: "Apparently as animals our sole purpose is to survive, reproduce and keep warm." Your god seems to be very keen on us reproducing too... probably just a coincidence that evolution produced a species interested in producing offspring and the same species invents a god that "commands" them to produce offspring. Getting you to believe a god commands you is just evolution's way of getting you to produce more offspring.
 

Muslim-UK

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
You said and I quote: "Apparently as animals our sole purpose is to survive, reproduce and keep warm."
That was said in response to accepting there is no God and everything happened by blind chance, meaning sole purpose of mankind was those things mentioned.

As a Muslim, I know GOD created us to worship Him, have children multiply. To explore, use our GOD given consciousness, abilities to reason and use logic proving everything has design and purpose, with GOD being in full control.

Now you understand the context.

Your god seems to be very keen on us reproducing too... probably just a coincidence that evolution produced a species interested in producing offspring and the same species invents a god that "commands" them to produce offspring. It's just evolution's way of getting you to produce offspring.
Evolution doesn't explain our desire to explore, use of reasoning and logic.

God has a answer for Atheists:

"...were they created by nothing, or were they the creators [of themselves]?
Or did they create the heavens and the earth? Rather, they are not certain."
 

Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
what drives natural selection?

Natural selection is driven by reproductive success. An individual with genes that make him or her more likely to survive to reproduce their genes tends to pass on their genes more frequently than an individual without those genes. For instance, suppose you had a bit more robust immune system than your neighbor. That would make it more likely for you to survive to reproduce than your neighbor. That is, your genes would be more likely to be "selected" for reproduction than your neighbor's.

they say it is undirected chance, is that true?

That's only part of it. People who say that's all of it are misleading you. Chance enters the picture through mutations in your genes. For instance, by chance, a cosmic ray hits your genes, resulting in a mutation that gives you a bit more robust immune system than your neighbor's. Or a chemical in your environment causes a mutation. etc. Mutations are normally caused by chance, but natural selection then enters the picture, and natural selection does not work by pure random chance.
 
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