Consciousness is directly tied to free will. The more conscious someone is, the more free will they have. The more someone is influenced by their subconscious, the less free will they have. Humans evolved consciousness to develop the ability to reason to have more control over their minds and environment and improve their quality of life.
I think your question is also interesting if we reframe it from a deterministic perspective - what is the point of consciousness if all our actions are predetermined? Wouldn’t it be more efficient for the particles to direct our actions like automatons? From a survival perspective, it seems like consciousness gets in the way, can mislead us, and can be unproductive
If you equate consciousness with free will, then, yes, I would argue that there is no such thing, materially speaking. I don’t consider this train of thought to have any practical use, though.
Humans evolved consciousness to develop the ability to reason to have more control over their minds and environment and improve their quality of life.
It’s impossible to verify what caused evolution to follow a particular path. Natural selection is the only reasonable theory of which I’m aware; I’d say it’s far more likely that consciousness was simply necessary for survival at the time, rather than assuming that there’s some deliberate purpose behind evolution. (edit: spelling)
I don’t equate the two. I take consciousness to mean one being able to recognize one’s thoughts and mind as being distinct from the world, and having an awareness of the world with that in mind. I’m that way someone could be conscious or have consciousness but not exercise their free will, which I take to mean exercising one’s free agency outside of fate.
It makes more sense to look at evolution as happening along teleological lines, for a purpose. Evolution implies improvement in some way, and if we extrapolate that idea further, then that implies that evolution is trying to perfect life over time.
That’s not what “evolution” means in terms of biology, though. It refers to the biological changes undergone by some group of organisms (e.g. a species) across many generations. I have yet to find any reason to believe that there’s some actual intent behind it.
There’s a reason for those changes though: so the organisms become better adapted to survive and thrive in their environment. If we consider the history of the evolution of life over billions of years, isn’t it the case that organisms tend to become stronger, faster, smarter, etc over time, even if it is extremely slow? And if we accept that, then that implies that life strives to inherently improve itself over time, because it must. Reality is a brutal, dialectical process, and organisms must gain whatever edge they can to survive. It’s evolve or die, so improvement is inherantly necessary to gain a competitive advantage in order for an organism or a species to survive. In that way all life inherantly intends to improve itself as much as it possibly can.
If by “reason” you mean that there’s some kind of explanation for why it happened, yes – by that definition, there is a reason for everything. What I’m saying is that there’s no conscious reason here.
I think you’ve misunderstood the idea of natural selection. “Life” doesn’t strive to do anything, because it’s an abstract concept; organisms that were unable to survive until they reproduced will not pass on their genes, thereby ending their particular evolutionary path. There is absolutely no need for any conscious desire or goal to guide the process of evolution.
I agree there’s no conscious supernatural being directing evolution, but there doesn’t have to be for life to tend towards improvement. The goal is to survive and to have the best quality of life, which all life wants to do.
I agree there’s no conscious supernatural being directing evolution, but there doesn’t have to be for life to tend towards improvement.
Yes, if by “improvement” you mean adaptation in order to survive.
The goal is to survive and to have the best quality of life, which all life wants to do.
Quality of life is definitely the perceived goal of many individual humans, and probably individuals of other sentient species, but I doubt that has anything to do with our evolution, and it doesn’t apply to non-sentient organisms. Our quality of life depends almost entirely on the society in which we live, which is not part of evolution in the biological sense
I mean quality of life in a broad sense which could be something as simple as access to better food sources, being in a safer position, or access to more mates.
So to tie this back to free will - free will is the next necessary step in the evolutionary process to achieve better chances at survival and a better quality of life because subconscious or unconscious will, or “unfree will”, has its limits being unable to perform higher-level reasoning.
I anticipate your next question to be where does free will and “unfree will” come from if not from combinations of particles. My answer is that individual will exists as unextended energy outside spacetime and uses extended energy to actualize itself in spacetime.
Consciousness is directly tied to free will. The more conscious someone is, the more free will they have. The more someone is influenced by their subconscious, the less free will they have. Humans evolved consciousness to develop the ability to reason to have more control over their minds and environment and improve their quality of life.
I think your question is also interesting if we reframe it from a deterministic perspective - what is the point of consciousness if all our actions are predetermined? Wouldn’t it be more efficient for the particles to direct our actions like automatons? From a survival perspective, it seems like consciousness gets in the way, can mislead us, and can be unproductive
If you equate consciousness with free will, then, yes, I would argue that there is no such thing, materially speaking. I don’t consider this train of thought to have any practical use, though.
It’s impossible to verify what caused evolution to follow a particular path. Natural selection is the only reasonable theory of which I’m aware; I’d say it’s far more likely that consciousness was simply necessary for survival at the time, rather than assuming that there’s some deliberate purpose behind evolution. (edit: spelling)
I don’t equate the two. I take consciousness to mean one being able to recognize one’s thoughts and mind as being distinct from the world, and having an awareness of the world with that in mind. I’m that way someone could be conscious or have consciousness but not exercise their free will, which I take to mean exercising one’s free agency outside of fate.
It makes more sense to look at evolution as happening along teleological lines, for a purpose. Evolution implies improvement in some way, and if we extrapolate that idea further, then that implies that evolution is trying to perfect life over time.
That’s not what “evolution” means in terms of biology, though. It refers to the biological changes undergone by some group of organisms (e.g. a species) across many generations. I have yet to find any reason to believe that there’s some actual intent behind it.
There’s a reason for those changes though: so the organisms become better adapted to survive and thrive in their environment. If we consider the history of the evolution of life over billions of years, isn’t it the case that organisms tend to become stronger, faster, smarter, etc over time, even if it is extremely slow? And if we accept that, then that implies that life strives to inherently improve itself over time, because it must. Reality is a brutal, dialectical process, and organisms must gain whatever edge they can to survive. It’s evolve or die, so improvement is inherantly necessary to gain a competitive advantage in order for an organism or a species to survive. In that way all life inherantly intends to improve itself as much as it possibly can.
If by “reason” you mean that there’s some kind of explanation for why it happened, yes – by that definition, there is a reason for everything. What I’m saying is that there’s no conscious reason here.
I think you’ve misunderstood the idea of natural selection. “Life” doesn’t strive to do anything, because it’s an abstract concept; organisms that were unable to survive until they reproduced will not pass on their genes, thereby ending their particular evolutionary path. There is absolutely no need for any conscious desire or goal to guide the process of evolution.
I agree there’s no conscious supernatural being directing evolution, but there doesn’t have to be for life to tend towards improvement. The goal is to survive and to have the best quality of life, which all life wants to do.
Yes, if by “improvement” you mean adaptation in order to survive.
Quality of life is definitely the perceived goal of many individual humans, and probably individuals of other sentient species, but I doubt that has anything to do with our evolution, and it doesn’t apply to non-sentient organisms. Our quality of life depends almost entirely on the society in which we live, which is not part of evolution in the biological sense
I mean quality of life in a broad sense which could be something as simple as access to better food sources, being in a safer position, or access to more mates.
So to tie this back to free will - free will is the next necessary step in the evolutionary process to achieve better chances at survival and a better quality of life because subconscious or unconscious will, or “unfree will”, has its limits being unable to perform higher-level reasoning.
I anticipate your next question to be where does free will and “unfree will” come from if not from combinations of particles. My answer is that individual will exists as unextended energy outside spacetime and uses extended energy to actualize itself in spacetime.