Roger Farnworth (C102) challenges readers to explain 'if there is a difference between the smell of a rose and awareness of the smell of a rose'. He then adds (Awareness is not knowledge that I am sniffing, nor is it comparing the scent to other scents ... ). Surely, it is self-evident that awareness of sniffing is not the same as what is being sniffed; and if everything smelled of roses, and no comparison was possible, I could not know I was sniffing a rose. Roger thus sets us 'free from the impossible task of explaining consciousness in terms of awareness of the world' by making it impossible.
This is a prelude to his conclusion 'that evolution has ensured that the colonized (by the causes of sensation) brain hardware has become ever larger and more complex..., that the environment has fashioned the mind, that consciousness was constructed by light and sound'. This is certainly fashionable thinking, rather like the idea that building motorways causes traffic. Nothing to do with increasing population or increasing affluence; just build a motorway and it will spawn motor cars like mud was once thought to spawn life.
Fortunately, Roger adds 'I cannot believe this'. No, nor can I Roger, though I think a clue to resolve this and other problems is in there somewhere. How about 'evolution', which can be simplified to just 'change'. Why do things change? Science has had a bash at this question but gets stuck sometime around the Big Bang. Want to have a go at it?
Anthony Owens
Anthony : I think you're unfair to the motorway theorists. They don't say that motorways breed traffic, just that opportunity invites colonisation. Along Malthusian lines, as dearth constrains population growth, so plenty encourages it, until the increased number of mouths consumes all the excess. So, fewer motorways discourage driving (as slow modems discourage web surfing) whereas if we increase the possibilities for driving speedily, more people will take these opportunities up. Of course, infinite bandwidth doesn't imply infinite consumption, but removal of a reached constraint will always result in increased activity. It is a two way thing - both opportunity in the population (affluence) and the opportunity to expend that affluence (room to move). So, I suspect with the brain - more cortex means more is done with it.
Theo