Sensory evolution

[valich]

I'm interested in the scientific journal articl on chimps and dolphins? I'd like to know. But without a source, you're just remembering somethin that may or maynot be hearsay. Memories forhget. Again, I'm not saying that you are wrong or not, but this is a scientific forum and we should use scientific methodology.

Sunflowers do not have a consciousness, nor do they have an awareness: stimulus-resonce. Does that clarify it?

 

[Billy T]

...This is my area of main interest, by the way. The brain. Cognition. Etc...

Also mine, but I have not been very active reader of journals for several years because (1) I am building a house by myself and (2) I have come to an understanding of how we function mentally that is satisfying to me, even if it may be wrong. (I am sure it is not as wrong as the "perception emerges after many stages of neural transformation / calculations" view accepted by most cognitive scientists.)

I would really like your comments on my view - Posted in "about determinism" thread on 6 Oct 05. (some pages back in this Biology and Genetic forum)

Valich obviously does a lot more searching than thinking and does tend to forget the things he has posted, but occasionally he is on target with his Google shotgun approach.

 

[spuriousmonkey]

A thought...

Valich obviously does a lot more searching than thinking and does tend to forget the things he has posted, but occasionally he is on target with his Google shotgun approach.

This makes me think of the argument of creationists: could you throw together a bunch of components at random and end up with a boeing 747.

If we look at the evidence Valich is giving us apparently you can. (he occasionally gets things right with his random searches).

 

[Billy T]

...Sunflowers do not have a consciousness, nor do they have an awareness: stimulus-responce. Does that clarify it?

I am not support the idea that sunflowers have consciousness, nor have I ever. I did note that using your definition of consciousness it would follow that sunflowers have consciousness. Now you are saying that they are not conscious because they have only "stimulus -response."

Are you totally unaware that the "Behaviorist View” of how humans "think" & "behave" was commonly accepted by most scientists as the correct view for more than 50 years?

I.e. it is very difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish "awareness with a conscious response" from "stimulus-response."

Try to tell me how you support your view that humans have "awareness with a conscious response" and sunflowers have only "stimulus-response." so that only humans are "conscious."

You have frequently attributed to me your own references and ideas you posted, but forgot you did so post. So, again I stress to not be again miss quoted, that I can not define consciousness, but believe that sunflowers are not, and that it does involve some processes like I describe in the "About Determinism" post of 6 Oct. 05

 

[valich]

An article in the latest edition of Scientific American sheds light on the evolution of our senses and how they arose - and some eliminated - through genetic mutations. Specifically, the article examines "founder effect" mutations which also seem to add to the proof that humans emerged out of Africa 75,000 years ago - the "Out of Africa" hypothesis. But in terms of sensory evolution, they have found that founder mutations in the human DNA code can not only locate the date and origin of a number of diseases, but also why some humans (25%) have a taste of bitterness for a substance.

The most extreme example of migration, however, is probably provided by a genetic variability in our sense of taste. About 75 percent of everyone on earth perceives a substance called phenylthiocarbamide (PTC) as very bitter. The remaining 25 percent do not experience PTC as bitter at all....Virtually all nontasters worldwide are descended from a founder individual who had these specific alterations in this gene....We suspect that the nontaster form codes for a version of the PTC detector that has switched to sensing some other toxic substance not yet identified....the founder mutation is very ancient - probably more than 100,000 years old.

"Founder Mutations," by Dennis Dryna, Scientific American, Oct. 2005, pp.78-85.

They are saying then that they think the sense of taste of bitterness was a receptor that evolved to sense a toxic substance. This would mean that it evolved through a mutation as an adaptation for survival against that toxin.