History is history — synthesis

History is less than 10,000 years old. We've been around for more than 200,000 years.

And we all understand that people are drawn to groups... why is this? Loneliness? Fear? Insecurity? — synthesis

Horses, cows, chickens, crows, and sheep are drawn to groups. Why is this? Whatever the reason, it's the same for humans.

politics or religion--what else is there? — Bitter Crank

Come on BC, you know this - sex, philosophy, and sports.

Slaughter after slaughter after slaughter is what defines us. — synthesis

I don't agree. Even if I did, that isn't inconsistent with what I wrote. I didn't say that group action leads to love and happiness, only that it is what we do. Who we are.

Your plan for action, if it were realized, would lead to wars, massacres, torture, and genocide. All the worst things you want to stop. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

why are so many people smitten with group mentality? — synthesis

Humans are social animals. We like each other. We like to hang out together. It's who we are and what we do. No way to get away from it, for better or worse. We are not smitten with group mentality, we are born with it.

But if science cannot tell us what it is to be fully human, isn't psychology than a matter of opinion??? — Gregory

You'll get all kinds of arguments here about whether psychology is a science or not. I come down on "yes," but others will disagree. Your title was 'Human nature." Is that what you're interested in, or psychology? They certainly are related, but their not exactly the same thing. Also - do you want to talk just about Descartes and other philosophers thought about it? That doesn't seem like a very fruitful path to me. If that's what you want, I'll bow out.

Ok. Human nature. I've thought about this a bit, but I've never done the homework to get my arms around it. I'll just throw some ideas out without editing too much:

• We're animals, mammals - we have the physical and some of the mental and behavioral characteristics of other mammals.
• Our sensory equipment and processing are less acute than many other mammals.
• We have two sexes.
• We are social. We like each other. We live in families and other groups.
• Our offspring are born live and need to be cared for for the first years of life.
• We have a complex mental infrastructure for language and the physical equipment for speech.
• We have larger brains in relation to our body size than other mammals. We have cerebrums and a prefrontal cortex. Whatever that means. I think most other mammals don't have those. Not sure.
• We can be self-aware, unlike all but a few other animals. It is my understanding that whether any other animals can be self-aware is in dispute.
• Lots more

I think “How certain do I have to be in this situation” is the most important there. — khaled

Agreed. And if you look in discussions of knowledge, that old justified true belief baloney, you don't see that kind of issue addressed.

I enjoy being an AAF. And, it's quite evident that one need not follow any particular set of rules to play this game we're talking about, because you yourself said it's a matter of free choice. — Metaphysician Undercover

I think you're being intentionally disruptive, so I flagged your post. Let's see what @fdrake thinks.

Interested in a reading group, or another thread? — creativesoul

I'm pretty much Collingwooded out for now.

I am very anti-philosophic and I avoid philosophy because it is playing with shadows, thoughts, speculation. ....there are people who have the philosophic attitude. And if you are one of them, please drop it; — Anand-Haqq

The obvious question is "Why are you here?"

Problem is how do we determine something that is real or useful from something which is an internal conscious state, a hallucination, or a belief, or a feeling? — Tom Storm

I laid out all that rigmarole about my history in science and engineering to show I recognize the difficulties in knowing things. I understand the value of science. I understand the sources of uncertainty and doubt. I've dealt with those issues my whole working life on a practical level.

Beyond that, you're asking me to summarize a whole world view in bullet form in a thread not intended for that purpose.

I guess I’d first have to ask what you mean convention, consensus, to be the primary reasons for. Spontaneity and those are very far apart, so just wondering what they might have in common. — Mww

Why do we assume the presuppositions that, often unconsciously, underlie our understanding of the world. Some thoughts. I'm brainstorming - just throwing out ideas:

• Intuition - I think what you call "spontaneity?"
• Consistency with our overall understanding of reality. Yes, this is circular.
• Convention - I say "There is no objective reality." Everyone says, "What are you, an idiot?"
• Experience
• Whim
• Bias
• Self-examination
• What else?

Convention and spontaneity may be really different, but they can both contribute. How much of what you call "spontaneity" is just internalized convention? Harder than this question is "What are the APs underlying our beliefs." @tim woods and I have been talking about opening another thread to discuss that.

How do you know if you're doubting too much or too little? — khaled

I've had to deal with this issue all my professional career - not "When should I doubt" but "When should I believe." Here's how I lay it out to myself.

• What do I know/believe?
• How do I know it?
• How certain am I of it?
• What are the consequences of being wrong in this situation?
• How certain do I have to be in this particular situation?
• What needed information am I missing?
• How do I go about getting that information.

I think "What are the consequences of being wrong" is probably the most important of these questions. It's usually left out of the discussion.

I’ll leave you with....(gulp)......spontaneity. — Mww

I think maybe convention, consensus, is the primary reason, although I think spontaneity is part of it too.

I haven't read Collingwood so can't comment much on this thread. All I want to say is that the term "belief" summons something consciously assumed true, while the "hidden assumption" vocable is more neutral and I believe more precise here. — Olivier5

Since you haven't read the paper, it doesn't make sense for you to jump in and decide we should be using different words than we are. It's disruptive and inconsiderate.

This is why I have no inclination toward reading the paper. It appears to inspire all sorts of nonsense like this, which I would simply reject and have no part of. Therefore it would just be a waste of my time. — Metaphysician Undercover

The obvious question is "Then why are you participating in this discussion?" If you don't like the rules of this particular game, don't play.

Can you describe these other was of seeing briefly — Tom Storm

You're asking me to describe my whole understanding of reality. Something I've spent the last 30 years thinking about. I came from somewhere probably not very different from you. I was always good at science and math. When I was really young, materialism seemed self-evident to me. I never really lost that. I still get science. After fiddling around for a few years, I went back and got my civil/environmental engineering degree and worked for more than 30 years.

Somewhere along the line I came to see that a materialist understanding of the universe was a small part of the picture. I think maybe it was because my job for 30 years was to know things and know how I knew them. I used to joke that my business cards should say "Environmental Epistemologist." I don't remember how, but I got a copy of Stephen Mitchell's translation of the Tao Te Ching. Things it said seemed just as real to me as science. They felt as if they belonged together as a single view of reality.

That's where I am now. The rest is a long story.

That's exactly the reason why "absolute presuppositions" cannot serve the purpose of underlying any field of study, or any knowledge in general. If they can simply be accepted or rejected at will, they have no capacity for creating the coherence which we actually find within knowledge... And the idea of "absolute presuppositions" essentially denies the role of logic in producing the fundamental metaphysical principles which serve as the basis for epistemology. — Metaphysician Undercover

Now you've got it. That's exactly right. There is no logic in the fundamental metaphysical principles which serve as the basis of epistemology. Only human preference. Maybe preference isn't the right word. Intuition? Bias? Habits of mind? Convention?

My problem is when people make truth claims they cannot justify - such as there is a higher consciousness that they can access. That there is reincarnation. That there is a soul. Etc. I have no quarrel with people who enjoy Zen mysticism or similar practices and quietly feel better about their lives as a consequence. — Tom Storm

I make no claims about God, gods, souls, reincarnation, or any so-called mystical phenomena. I started as a materialist as a kid and I've never gotten out of sight of that way of looking at things. But it is just one way of looking at things. Science does not have a privileged viewpoint on reality. It's a way of seeing things, but not the only, and not always the best, way.

I'm just repeating myself.

Is there one robust documented example of anything spiritual existing? — Tom Storm

That's like asking if there is one robust documented example of anything scientific existing. Science is a way of knowing, not a phenomenon. Ditto with spiritual knowing. Science deals with so-called "objective reality." Spiritual knowledge deals with awareness and internal experience. I'm sure many people don't agree with that characterization.

And now we have crossed the border out of this thread.

Please introduce me to this argument - or start another discussion if it is of interest to you - as I strongly disagree. — Gus Lamarch

I have started several and participated in several other discussions in the past on this subject. Maybe I will again.

My position is based on the proposition of "Cosmic Ontologism", or as I prefer to call it, "Natural Egoism", where existence is independent of self-consciousness, because the very substance of existence is its "Craving for Craving", that is, Existence is its own cause. — Gus Lamarch

Is there a particular source I can go check out? One of your old posts?

Here you have committed a fallacy, as "Existence" is independent of the awareness of its existence. — Gus Lamarch

You say I've committed a fallacy. When people use that word on this forum, they usually mean a logical fallacy. I don't think that's what you're saying. I think what you mean is that I'm wrong. Or am I wrong about that.

There is a good, non-supernatural argument that existence is not independent of awareness, but it will take us into Taoism, which I think is beyond the scope of this thread.

So if I understand you correctly, you deny the transcendental notion of truth (like Husserl's for example), according to which an assertion is true independently of the fact that we think that it is true or even come up with the idea of the assertion. — Amalac

I don't necessarily deny it, but I think it's worth thinking about. Maybe we are getting away from the original post.

If causality is "taken for granted, assumed as immediately given" then its actual existence, in some form or other, is being proposed, and the history of ideas, where causality had always been asserted as real, up until the advent of QM bears this out. — Janus

First off, the idea that causation is not necessary to understand the universe has been around for a long time. It is close to, maybe equivalent to, claims that induction is impossible. I'm not sure about that. I'll have to think some more.

Some questions:

• Does a belief in causation imply a belief that the world is deterministic?
• If I cannot determine the cause of something, even in principle, does it have a cause.
• If I cannot determine the cause of something because it is practically impossible, does it have a cause, e.g. if determining the cause would take more time than the life of the universe.
• Are we getting off-OP?

Would you say the proposition «Planet earth exists» would not be true if there were no humans on earth then? — Amalac

Good question. I'll respond with another question. If the concept of "existence" didn't exist, would anything exist?

I am asking if you think the proposition «The universe could have not existed» is true, false or meaningless. Is there something selfcontradictory in that proposition? — Amalac

Existence is a human concept. If the universe didn't exist, humans wouldn't exist. If humans didn't exist, existence wouldn't exist. Does that represent self-contradiction?

I see, my question for you would be: Do you think it was logically possible for the universe not to have existed? Or do you think that very question is meaningless? — Amalac

Wikipedia says - "Logical possibility refers to a logical proposition that cannot be disproved, using the axioms and rules of a given system of logic."

How does that apply here?

One of my university professors said once in a class: The world could have not existed, and the chances of it not existing were infinitely greater than the chances of it existing. — Amalac

The probability of the world existing is 1. The probability of the world not existing is 0. Any other statement or question about the probability of the existence of the world is meaningless.

Although ... the Tao Te Ching has some interesting things to say about being and non-being.

Thanks. I'll take a look.

I'm in the middle of cutting and pasting from the essay as a means to provide an acceptable and accurate portrayal of RGC's notion of absolute presupposition. ↪tim wood hasn't done a bad job here, from what I can see thus far, but I think there's much more going on with RGC than first meets the eye. — creativesoul

When you're done with your cut and paste, please send it out to the rest of us.

For one reason or another, any proposed example can be rejected. — Metaphysician Undercover

I understand that you're not interested in getting into this discussion, but I can't resist responding to this. Yes - any proposed example can be rejected. That's the whole point. It's not a matter of fact, it's a matter of choice.

Do you have a link to the source or sources for your description? I've read "Life's Ratchet" but I wouldn't mind going deeper.

The essay is very nuanced. I'm impressed by much of it, and find myself refraining from critiquing it yet, although there are a few problems within it. — creativesoul

Yeah, there's a lot going on there. It's probably time for me to go back and reread the whole thing.

There seem mainly two groups arguing in this thread. One is those who have not read any RGC but are quite sure his ideas are nonsense. And others who have read more-or-less but have not, more-or-less, understood what he is about with his absolute presuppositions. — tim wood

Now you're just trying to piss people off. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

What Collingwood (seems to have) found is that any endeavor is characterized not alone by what it does and how it does it, but also by what it implicitly takes absolutely for granted, its absolute presuppositions, and taking that thus never explicitly questions them. One may call them the axioms of the enterprise. — tim wood

I'm a bit behind and am catching up on some older posts. This is a good summary of all the things I've been trying to say.

RGC was an historian. While I have no idea how or why he came to his conclusions - and would like to - I can imagine a day early in his career as a historian recognizing for the first time that different people at different times thought differently, and, that this thinking in each case was not a deficient version of what came after, but was rather something simpler: a different set of axioms. He observed that folks tend not to question their axioms and instead are likely to jealously guard and protect them on those occasions when they do surface. — tim wood

I like this too.

I've come to the conclusion that the idea of "absolute presuppositions" as proposed by Collingwood, is itself contradictory. — Metaphysician Undercover

Have you made that argument elsewhere in this thread. If so, I've missed it. I'd be interested in taking a look.

I've discussed this with timmy before, — Metaphysician Undercover

Hey @tim wood, are we allowed to call you "Timmy." At least I capitalized it.

I haven't claimed that so-called absolute presuppositions have truth value or don't have truth value according to Collingwood. — Janus

The truth value of absolute presuppositions is at the heart of Collingwood's understanding. You can't toss that out without tossing out his whole argument.

1. Some events have causes.
2. All events have causes.
3. No events have causes. — Janus

You set me thinking. It's a really good question whether these statements are APs. Are they true or false? I think I can make a good argument they are neither. But that would be a different thread. Maybe I'll start one - Is there such a thing as causation?

It does not follow from the fact that we may not be able to establish the truth of such propositions that they have no truth value, — Janus

I recognize the difference. That doesn't change my assertion that a good argument can be made that the idea of cause may be useful or not in specific situations but is not true or false.

That said - until the emergence of Abiogenesis some 40 years ago, there were plenty of scientists arguing that we need look no further than evolution with a smattering of 'spontaneous creation' re: Amino Acids. — Gary Enfield

"Spontaneous generation" is another word for "abiogenesis." They mean the same thing. Darwin was very clear in his writings that some mechanism other than evolution by natural selection was required to explain the origin of life. He acknowledged that science in his day had not advanced far enough to discover what that mechanism is. And what the frick frack does "a smattering" mean here?

I was was hoping that you'd since realised this was gibberish and I was hoping to spare your blushes by not specifically pointing it out. But if you insist....

Creationists believe that there is no chance mechanism, and that there is a bigger mind/influence at play - generally a God figure to bring about life.. So your logic is out by some 180 degrees. — Gary Enfield

Here is a link to an article that uses the purported impossibility of life self-generating to support the young earth argument. The process described is similar to the one you describe in the OP.

http://members.toast.net/puritan/Articles/HowOldIsTheEarth_A.htm

To return to your comment, biologists may believe that there is some underlying process that avoids chance - but the fact that Abiogenesis research has failed to come up with an alternate evolutionary mechanism (they are not even close) is not a misrepresentation by me. — Gary Enfield

A quibble - It is misleading use the word "evolutionary" in this context. It leads to confusion between two completely different processes - evolution and abiogenesis. The heart of our dispute seems to be that you are unwilling to acknowledge that.

As for the rest - Scientists know enough to identify plausible mechanisms by which abiogenesis may have taken place. In 1859, Darwin recognized and acknowledged that science in as "not even close" to understanding the mechanism by which traits were passed from one organism to its offspring. The beginnings of that knowledge didn't become public until the early 1900s. Was that a valid argument against evolutionary theory? If it was valid, it was also wrong, as we now know.

Is being attracted to a certain race Racism? — Darkneos

Perhaps more important, is asking this question racist?