Conscience

Hello, 1st post ere so I thought id make it some random guff rather than an asp question

It's just crossed my mind that conscience has no place in dawinism. What competitive advantage does it offer? Some animals display behavior that would indicate some form of conscience, I.e doing something that is not "right" and knowing that the activity is shady. Monkeys come to mind but im sure other mammals may display similar behavior.
If anything though you'd think that it would be a burden on the species (in a survivalistic sense).

Most peoples that hold respect for the natural world that supports them at the heart of their philosophies dont appear to be doing so well by and large. Maybe it's on the way out!

Which brings me back to why was it there in the first place.

Got that off my chest....trundles off to the asp pages!

Is something wrong with my english or have you smoked something really good?
Just kidding!

lol, no i dont need it im nutz enough. it's easier to read than your sig tho!

Stupid sophistry, sadly typical.

you ask if conscience is natural? nope, hard to believe that
because it's term that was defined by humans - other living beings
won't be able to understand it even if they have some sort of intelligence.

Yepo see what you mean.

It just a human-defined phenomenon of consciousness, if a lowly monkey makes out with the chief's missus he knows that if caught he'll get a good duffing up. This doesnt mean that he "knows" that it is wrong or against the monkey code as it were.

Anyway would'nt a particular area of the brain be associated with notions of guilt or satisfaction, the physical hardware that enables us to even be able to define conscience. This is a natural feature just like the cerebellum so must provide some evolutionary edge. Maybe it is just a bad side-effect of such an unfeasibly complex bit of stuff!


not at all it was a genuine notion that crossed my mind. Albeit a not very well thought out one. But hey thats what these things are for.

@mangledbrot - Are you just picking words randoming out of the dictionary and trying to make them fit in your reply?

As I said, he is just picking the good stuff!

I don't understand why this discussion look so stupid... is there someting I miss here??

I'm missing the point...is there one?

as far as I can read, we're discussing conscience... as I had full course in the university
about it I don't find it irrelevant or boring.

No, which ones dont make sense?




The point is that physical features of biological beings can usually be attributed to specific environmental needs. For example the capacity to tokenise and remember things is a physical attribute, a survivalistic necessity that allows you to remember where your cave is, That makes sense.
Other functions of the brain however dont have such obvious purposes as far as survival goes but they are there all the same, conscience being one. I was just wondering how they fit into darwinism.



Phew thanks for the support!
Though the question might have been a bit vague or invalid.

So are you saying conscience is basically just a mental concept unlike memory and language which are physical properties of brains?

What about emotion then say a close partner dies, you will feel sad and unwell. Is this just a concept based on all the mental association that you have to the deceased? Many non intelligent animals experience similar feelings at such a time so i tend to feel the emotion is cause by something going on at a lower-level.