[MD] is-ness

[ARLO J BENSINGER JR]

[Ham]
What part of my comment relates to heredity?

[Arlo]
You said "consciousness evolves", both historically (genus to species) and
developmentally (infant to adult). If consciousness is NOT hereditary, then
what is the mechanism by which it evolves historically. Why was some
pre-pre-primates 5th generation of descendants "more evolved" than him? If
consciousness is not "passed on" by some means, then how/where does it "evolve"?

[Ham]
Your persistence on this line of questioning borders on the pathological.  

[Arlo]
Its a central premise to your thesis that you beat and beat and beat here. You
adamantly claim it is not "social" in any way. So, to this I asked you, if it
is not of "social origin" (as I claim) then where in your thesis does it
derive? And don't play the "I don't claim anything about where it derives",
since you do everytime you denounce social origin theories.

But this is a nice try at evasive rhetoric. My posts have been civil and
direct. Why has it been impossible for you to address this topic in kind? 

[Ham]
Because that's what you're asking me to do with consciousness.

[Arlo]
No, Ham. I am asking you, in your humble opinion, "what changed?" What changed
between early pre-pre-primates and modern humans that has given the latter
consciousness where the former had none? You've said "ain't biology" and "ain't
socialization", so I ask "what then?" If you clarify that your view of "what
changed" is a "divine intervention" where "On High" poofed consciousness into
man, I can let this one question rest (the mechanism of consciousness'
evolution still stand).

[Ham]
For you, nothing is "real" unless it can be attributed to a material thing. 
Thus, you look for consciousness in the plasma of gray cells and their synaptic
processes. 

[Arlo]
Again, not only personal attacks but erroneous characterizations. There are
many "things" I consider "real" that are not "material", human consciousness is
one. I consider it social. I don't look for it in brain cells, even though
historically it was a brain mutation/adaptation that beget the unintended
consequence of shared attention that allowed social interactioning to begin.
And, I add, it is the evolving body of shared knowledge, the collective
consciousness, assimilated by infants as the become encultured, that is the
mechanism for the evolution of consciousness. Now, can you answer my questions?

[Ham]
All your questions relate to the physical organism, on the false presumption
that consciousness is physiological (or sociological).

[Arlo]
So what is it? Ethereal? Where/how does it come into the human timeline? And if
it is NOT physiological or sociological, then why/how does it "evolve" over
time? 

[Ham]
Consciousness is the primary awareness of a knower, irrespective of its
development over time or its identification with a particular physical body. 

[Arlo]
So you keep saying, and yet you can't make an honest answer to any of my
questions about its nature. 

This "consciousness" you laud above, you've agreed that "we" have it while
early pre-pre-primates "did not". I ask, "what changed?" What happened in the
timeline (if not physiological advances or the appearance of socialization)
that accounts for why "we" have it while "they" did not?

You've also said that this lauded "consciousness" evolves over historic time
and in the development of a human child. I ask, if some pre-pre-primates fifth
generation of offspring had a "more evolved consciousness" than he did, what
(if not consciousness being hereditary and socialization has nothing to do with
it) accounts for the mechanism of this transformation over time? 

The same question applies to the development from infancy to adult? How does
"consciousness" change/grow/evolve over the lifespan of an individual if it is
not tied to physiology or socialization? What accounts for its maturation?
(Physiologists would say "observable brain developement", and socializationists
would say "the ongoing play in social worlds". What would Ham say?)