Yes, there is. Otherwise we human animals wouldn't experience it.

Article The Nature of Fundamental Consciousness - - - PsyArXiv downl...

Karl Sipfle Thanks. Well, not everything we or animals have is necessarily useful. For example, the white color of our bones is just a byproduct, without any evolutionary value.

Hi Vahid Rakhshan

Yes, I understand that. But we witness the elaborate development and retention of emotion in animals that looks not like noise.

Hi again Karl Sipfle and thanks a lot. Yes, I agree it is not noise. But for example, the evolution (elaboration and retention) of the white color of bones is not noise too. Compared to cartilages (which predate bones), bones are whiter (a 100% signal-to-noise ratio). But this is not because being whiter has any evolutionary value. It is simply because "being richer in hydroxyapatite crystals" has evolutionary value. The whiter color of bones is simply a byproduct of more calcium-rich crystals in them.

Back to emotions that you brought up:

1. Emotions (or thoughts) are not purely phenomenal consciousness. They seem to have 2 aspects to them: behavioral and phenomenal. Emotions do have qualia to them, but they are BEHAVIORAL mechanisms and responses that help the organism survive better. The latter (i.e., the behavioral responses) is the evolutionary useful part of emotion forcing it to become more and more elaborate by evolution.

2. Their development can be simply a function of the evolution and sophisitication of animals' brains on through the branches of the evolutionary tree. In other words, brains get more and more complicated. With this, comes richer emotions

3. The qualia attached to those behavioral responses (emotions) might play no role in those behavioral responses; we simply don't know. This is where my original question appears: Does the phenomenal aspect of those behavioral responses (emotions or even thoughts, etc) play any evolutionary role?

So I think "not being noise" alone doesn't suffice to judge them as evolutionary useful. Perhaps we should think of more indirect inferences.

Hi Vahid Rakhshan It is important the difference that bones have to be some color. Feeling is different, entirely, from mere mechanics and behavior. The question arises why there is such a thing as feeling in our universe at all. It is unlikely (even if that's not now provable) that suffering exists for no reason, the Anthropic Principle means it probably serves to make us.

1. See above. Also, whatever pain and pleasure are probably reducible to much smaller constructions than us yet appear quite substantially in both the sense of our minds and brain tissue. This looks like exploitation by evolution of something available. The behavioral responses are the end goal (with reproduction and advancement being the ultimate end goals), but I believe the weight of the evidence says we will find that feeling serves the selection of our behaviors. Plausibility is everything until there is more data.

2. Yes, and feeling remains, in full flower. It is conserved and used by evolution rather than wasting away.

3. Might, to a philosopher. That has no usefulness in the present day. The question today is not really what is philosophically and hypothetically possible. That is a long list with little value.

For "noise" you used a mathematical defintion. I'm saying it is not just an epiphenomenon and if it were it would not be retained and so fully woven into homo sapiens. Of all the things that might be in our universe, feeling would be a very strange thing to just happen to exist and to not only appear but by most indications appear to be in use by us.

(Dear Karl Sipfle I will try to respond later. Sorry for the delay and thanks for your prompt and nice explanations).

No problem, often I don't have time for such chats, either, so do as you must :)

KS

Yes Karl Sipfle I'm overwhelmed by lots of work and paralyzed by disease lol. :)

Sorry to hear that. Get well soon.

Thanks a lot Karl Sipfle . Replying to your earlier comment:

• Karl: "It is important the difference that bones have to be some color. Feeling is different, entirely, from mere mechanics and behavior. The question arises why there is such a thing as feeling in our universe at all. It is unlikely (even if that's not now provable) that suffering exists for no reason, the Anthropic Principle means it probably serves to make us."

How can we not assume that, for example, complex-enough electrical or neurobiological activity has to be seen as some quale? (hence, the very concept of being a byproduct). Suffering has 2 components to it: the feeling of suffering (the quale part) and the aversion to a noxious stimulus (the behavioral part). The latter seems to me to be enough for the organism to try to avoid harm.

But apart from that, if we accept your assumption that suffering does not exist for no reason, then by extension, we have to extend it down to all biological entitites like microbes, because all of them try to avoid harm. Even "dead" (non-biological) robots that have been programmed to avoid harm can be said to have the feeling of suffering.

I mean I can't think of your assumption without being able to stop it at some point down the evolutionary tree. Do you have any ideas to help us assume that "OK humans and many animals do have feelings of suffering, but it stops for example at microbes"?

I heard a neurologist saying the threshold is 500 million neurons! According to him, animals having above 500 million neurons would have the feeling of suffering, while animals with fewer neurons would not.

Such a threshold sounds to me ridiculous; I just wanted to ask him "how did you measure this threshold?"

But anyways, do you suggest such a threshold?

Or do you believe in something like panpsychism? That robots, microbes, and anything else that avoids harm have the feeling of suffering?

• Karl Sipfle : "but I believe the weight of the evidence says we will find that feeling serves the selection of our behaviors. Plausibility is everything until there is more data."

I fully agree about the plausibility; hence, the very question. But plausibility doesn't mean proven fact. So I think your answer is something more like this: "It may be; it is possible." rather than this: "It is".

Vahid: I am not sure if "a philosopher" has a real place in this sentence. Something that might be true would be universally true. As a matter of fact, the whole experimental science with its "null hypothesis" is based on philosophy, right? So I would say "It might." instead of "It might to a philosopher".

Everything about experimental science first begins with asking and hypothesizing "what is hypothetically possible?" and then rejecting the null hypothesis experimentally, if possible. So I don't really see any smallest point where philosophical and hypothetical questions can be irrelevant. They are simply everything in science.

• Karl Sipfle : "For "noise" you used a mathematical defintion. I'm saying it is not just an epiphenomenon and if it were it would not be retained and so fully woven into homo sapiens. Of all the things that might be in our universe, feeling would be a very strange thing to just happen to exist and to not only appear but by most indications appear to be in use by us."

I think I can relate a lot to the above reasoning of yours Karl.