There is a big difference between contributing to the whole of reality through conscious acts, and consciousness being responsible for evolution. a successful species, be it a virus or a human, alters the nature of the world around it, and in ripples out from it, but is still an effect of evolution, not a cause. I don't think anyone will disagree with the rest of what you are saying, its the conclusion.
trying to be concise - you have the donkey before the carrot. The car must be started, before it can be driven: the first molecules of life had to form before evolution got a start. After that - it matters not - life will change the environment and then change to fit the new environment - continuously as long as there is energy. Consciousness may have an effect, but it is after the fact.
Bill Roh
On Monday, May 17, 1999 11:58 AM, psypher [SMTP:overload@fastmail.ca]
wrote:
>
> > No, no, a thousand times no. Evolution _in no way_ implies a
> > direction. This is a common fallacy fostered within the ones doing
> > the implying.... (Uh, yes, often mystics....) (See Gould for the
> > fully-fleshed expose of this fallacy.)
>
> ...which book?
>
> > There are local effects upon the universe brought into being by
> > consciousness, i.e. this post you're reading, but to claim that
> > consciousness is a requirement of any naturally developmental
> process
> > is, well, a conjecture without factual basis, at best.
>
> ...here you make a common assumption about the nature of the universe
> which arises directly from the biases inherent in science from Newton
> and on through logical positivism. There are no local effects, all
> effects are global.
> ...this error is akin to the discussion of pharmaceutical "side
> effects". We identify a particular effect [or event stream] as primary
> and all other effects become secondary, teriary, etc.
>
> ...look at the example you cite of a local effect - the post to which
> this reply is adressed. The proximal cause of the post in your scheme
> is your person, sitting at a computer and constructing a synthesis of
> ideas and concepts, the proximal effect is a series of symbols on
> your screen. But you've done more than that - much more - you set in
> motion a set of biochemical cycles and responses which affectet your
> incarnate form. By this process you altered the arrangement of
> subatomic forces into meaningful configurations doubly encoded - into
> a symbol of machine technics and a semiotic lingual system. Further
> actions spread your ideation to the screens of [X] people [where X is
> the number of virians paying attention]. This arrengement of symbol -
> which process subsumed the intentional reconfiguration of reality at
> levels from the quantum to the biochemical to the mechanical,
> technological, and societal and, in a larger sense ecological [taking
> into account the construction of the computer and related
> infrastructure as a contribution to the process].
> ...This iterates itself through my process of response to you and any
> attendant commentaries by interested virians. To the extent that this
> discourse is of interest to the participants it encourages the
> elaboration of the communications networks on which it depends. This
> is an intricate process which reconfigures the planet daily as we
> devote resources and brainpower to expand infrastructure. Our actions
> in corporate have effects on the environment in which we dwell - both
> physical and symbolic effects. This changes the environment in which
> we and others must manouver, which alters tha balance of
> characteristics necessary to flourish in the environment.
>
> ...nothing happens in isolation from anything else. The idea that it
> does is a construct that facilitates the play of a particular, very
> complex game.
>
> -psypher
>
> >
> > I would argue that there is no implication to evolution at all. And
> > it's damn time we stopped trying to work up any. There it is. It is
> a
> > fact, and as such, the ground under our maximal quest.
> >
> > - Wade, who knows nothing about set theory either.
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