Someone give me a smart explanation to why nervous systems evolved.

>>8472715
Because things that have a use for nervous systems are more likely to survive with a nervous system.

You literally cannot have any kind of decent macroscopic locomotion without a nervous system.

>>8472721

>Because things that have a use for nervous systems are more likely to survive with a nervous system.

not really an answer is it? i want a mechanistic one.

>You literally cannot have any kind of decent macroscopic locomotion without a nervous system.

why do we need locomotion? is locomotion the only thing a nervous system does?

>>8472855
>i want a mechanistic one.
learn evolution and biology and all the related fields, you dumb fucker.

>>8472855
>not really an answer is it? i want a mechanistic one.

Learn Boolean Logic

>>8472861
what are you talking about?

>>8472858
yes im aware of those fields, but please try to think harder.

Im saying, can you sum up what the nervous system does in a more unified way. What does the nervous system add to the organism (or consolidate) that helps it survive.

What does having a nervous system mean about an organisms interactions with its environment?

What does that mean in a physics sense. In terms of things like entropy or moving through a phase space?

Action and perception are obviously entwined. What characterises that link?

What are the attributes of an organism with a more sophisticated perceptual/action system and what characterises the environments/state of affairs they live in compared to ones with less sophisticated systems?

>>8472855
Fundamentally a nervous system lets a creature muster the responses it needs in different situations. Sometimes you need to scratch your head, sometimes you need to stop drop and roll. The fact that you need to have at least as many life-saving responses as life-threatening stimuli in order to survive is a manifestation of Ashby's law of requisite variety. If you want to google that, try tossing 'multiscale' in there to get more recent and relevant results. If you want an older but in-depth book covering this from this perspective, find The Phenomenon of Science by Turchin.

can we have a unified framework of the nervous system or the behaviour of organic systems in general? as in what they do and not just how they came to be (evolution)?

natural selection is about selecting traits with survival value. how would you define survival value in terms of a physical system you can describe using thermodynamics?

>>8472715
NATURAL SELECTION

>>8472930

>>8472861
>>8472858
see guys this is the direction that discussion wants.

when will /sci/ stop being about shitposting and start being about thinking about science. and i mean really thinking.

>>8472938
>"teach me literally all human knowledge"
>"lol fuck you"
>"you guys aren't really getting it"

lol kys

>>8472715
Better interactions with environment = more likely to survive

>>8472927
Gathering information that you are touching something helps with eating food

>>8472947

im not necessarily wanting an answer. im just wondering if people will think about these issues.

do you not have thoughts outside of what is already known in science?

im looking at a unified reason. and at abstracting biology into physics.

can you define for me in a precise way, not using just survival value, how an organism resists the decays of thermodynamics through exchange with the environment.

What are the parameters that define an organisms morphology and how do they relate to the physical parameters of its environment? Isnt that something to consider in an open system?

im looking for what do organisms have to do or they dont exist. and how do we quantify this concept.

>>8472960
If an animal decays, it does not survive, hence cannot produce progeny. This is an unsustainable model, therefore anything that cannot resist decay cannot persist.

Read about steady state dynamics, that's the state organisms live in (i.e. we are not in equilibrium).

>what do they have to do
Whatever makes them survive and able to produce fit offspring.
>how do we quantify this
Empirically? Remove any vital part of an organism via gene knockout and it ceases to live. This is done all the time.

>what are the parameters that define an organism's morphology
their genes
>how do they relate to the physical parameters of its environment
A balance of what is required to live,what is required to reproduce, and what is required to make you better than other organisms of the same species

>>8472715
Non growth related movement of animal tissue.

systems decay. an organism must limit itself in the physical states they occupy in opposition to this. or else they cease to exist.

all organisms must implicitely model the environment they live in, its physical parameters, in order to avoid phasic shifts and limit the energy exchange required to offload free energy and to maintain the physical parameters that define their own system.

>>8472995
False, nervous system is involved in growth

>>8472907
Boolean Logic

>>8473004
That has nothing to do with what anon said.

>>8473014
>nervous system is for non growth related movement of animal tissue
>is involved in growth related movement of animal tissue
nice comprehension there senpai

>>8472960
you're looking for something that isn't there. you already got your "unified reason," and that is >>8472721. you ask a vague question, you get a vague answer.

Philospher here.

OP is trying to lead you guys towards the conclusion that all scientific knowledge has no explanation for why conscious correlates of physical states feel like anything at all, much less why they feel like the specific things that they actually feel like.

Science is a way of calculating equivalent energy formulas and then explaining the correlation and transformation of those formulas in terms of other formulas.

Imagine trying to explain pain using science. Nothing about any description of "this input leads to moving away behaviors" can *explian* why it feels bad. All you can do is say "here's what happens when organisms feel pain".
If we could construct a pain-feeling machine, where we just pumped electricity through it and it felt pain, *why* would that feel pain? The answer has to be "because that's the kind of thing that feels pain in this universe." Any explanation of the integration of that algorithm into a nervous system will have to come much later than aversion and attraction behaviors.

TL;DR: science can't explian consciousness nanner nanner.

>>8473144
>OP is

I don't think OP is, but it was a nice blog post

>>8473183
Yeah, I guess the simpler explanation is just that OP is retarded.

>>8472715
All of the responses I have seen in this thread are crap.

Nervous systems evolved to allow us to have fine motor control/skills, hence why you are able to type on your keyboard and write with a pencil. With fine motor skills, you can accurately hit targets with weapons, craft complex tools, have more chances of survival, and be better equipped in general.

Animals such as gorillas have what we would consider "super" strength, but at the expense of fine motor skills.

>>8473296
>Nervous systems evolved to allow us to have fine motor control/skills

No

Some organisms just so happened to have mutations that lead to increased differential reproductive/replication success. Nervous systems are simply a product of this process

Dinosaurs didn't evolve wings so they could fly, flying is a product of natural selection acting on the phenotype of dinosaurs.

>>8473041

it is there trust me.

>>8472715
Movement of animal tissue.

>>8473144
no im just not very articulate but youre right science doesnt have an explanation and i dont think it needs one. its just because some things are irreducible.

>>8473296

no they dont because look at jellyfish.

you guys should look at the simplest organism you can with a nervous system.

File: intothetrash.jpg (31KB, 352x450px) Image search: [Google]

31KB, 352x450px

>>8473144
>Philospher here.

>>8473144
Everything you said was incorrect

>>8473144

what do you mean when you say consciousness?

i think a pain feeling machine wouldnt make sense outside of an organism/robot as complex as an animal.

>>8473849
why is he wrong?

>>8473144
> Science is a way of calculating equivalent energy formulas

Ummm, no -- that's not what science is.

File: 587.jpg (39KB, 600x600px) Image search: [Google]

39KB, 600x600px

>>8472930
>literally one good answer
>rest of the thread is shitposting

Why do I even come to this board anymore?

The function of the nervous system is that it reduces the informational free energy of system states that interact with the environment.

>>8472930
this is a great answer

>>8472715
the calm systems had a bad day