...the final outcome is unknown. — Gnomon
...the current form of human nature is ... a step in the direction of the intended goal ("original idea"). — Gnomon
Following the Socratic method I assume. :smile:I'm going to gadfly you regarding the notion of "normative natural laws". — Enrique
You may have misinterpreted my use of "normative". What I had in mind is that in Evolution, natural laws are limitations (norms) on the freedom of randomness. Those laws provide criteria for Natural Selection to choose from the options thrown up by mutations. And mutations that go outside the norms will be judged unfit. If a mutant mouse is physically too large for its mouse-scale niche it will be deselected in the next round of reproduction. But, over time, descendants of slightly larger than normal mice might eventually be fit for the Capybara niche. The principles that lead to humans and Capybras are the same. Only the environmental niches are different. There are "anthropic" niches and "rodent" niches.I can't think of a single supposed "natural" principle that isn't anthropic, essentially perceptual. — Enrique
Perhaps you are talking about human imposed norms, which are limited in power. But Natural norms are so "stifling" that they were called "laws" to reflect the absolute life-or-death power of human kings. So, Natural Norms do indeed determine the course of evolutionary change, but only to the extent that Natural Selection enforces them. But who is the law-maker, and whose standards are normative?Norms do not determine the course of evolutionary transition, they are a symptom of arbitrarily stifled evolution as the product of forces exacted on organisms by their conditions. The only parameters to evolution are imposed by environment, and the concept of a "natural law" can become one of those parameters. — Enrique
Can you refer me to the "pagan philosophy" that argued for a transcendent rational soul on "impeccable rational grounds"? — Gnomon
our severely limited reasoning ability is compromised by the emotional needs of the evolved human body. — Gnomon
Reasoning ability may be the defining quality of homo sapiens, but it's a quality that we share to some degree with other intelligent creatures. — Gnomon
I don't think it's abstract at all; we see it throughout history. — BitconnectCarlos
That feature is so broad that it would only rule out utopias. But even utopian thinkers knew that their kingdoms were fantastic. "Task for the gods," says Glaucon to Socrates in The Republic.
Human nature is like the rainbow. As soon as one comes down to it, fades away. (I swear I have made up this phrase myself alone).
Don't overthink it. The intended goal may be general, but the final outcome will be specific. That's the case in any learning endeavor. You begin with a desire or intention to learn something new, but you can't say exactly what that will be. For example, deity A might create Adam in his own image, in which case the result will be predictable : a Mini Me. But deity B might create a creative process just to see what will happen if the evolutionary "mechanism" has an element of freedom (chaos; randomness) built into it. In that case the final state will be unpredictable, and deity B will ultimately learn something new.I am struggling to see how you can have both of these: — Siti
That example misses the point of "aboutness". The term refers not to Self but to Other. Elephant A can have an idea (representation) about elephant B, or even about a future state of elephant A (other point in time). Likewise, Intentionality is inherently about something that is not here & now. It is a motivation toward something desired but not yet possessed. For example, eternal deity B wants to know how a hypothetical space-time process will turn-out, but the only way to know for sure is to run the experiment.But I don't see how these could ever be separated from one another...an "elephant" with no "elephant-about-ness" — Siti
No. Entention (aim, purpose, motivation) must come before Completion (conclusion, resolution, realization). If intent and goal coexist, then there's no need to move toward the target. In humans, the best intentions often fail to be realized.Entention, it seems to me must, of necessity, emerge together with the emerging reality — Siti
What you describe is exactly how I imagine Creation Ex Nihilo. Your "array of non-existing unrealities" sounds like what I call primordial Chaos. Eternity/Infinity is equivalent to Omnipotential. Without space-time limits all things are possible. But if an abstract Platonic Form is "entracted" from potential to actual it becomes real. It is converted from "non-existing unrealities" (Platonic Ideals) to existing realities (physical things).I want to say that what we normally conceive of as abstractions (ideas "drawn out" of reality) are really "entractions" ("pulled in" to reality from a genuinely infinite array of non-existing unrealities — Siti
Again, that describes eternal Chaos, but not the ententional IDEA of space-time reality. It seems that your basic problem with my Enformationism worldview is the necessity for Transcendence, for something prior-to space-time reality. You can't imagine an infinite dimension space. But that may be due to your commitment to the worldview of physical Science. Yet, even pragmatic Science is baffled by paradoxes at the extremes of physical reality.I cannot imagine the primordial "IDEA" having been anything other than "no idea at all" - or rather - "every possible idea no matter how ridiculously improbable" — Siti
But Natural norms are so "stifling" that they were called "laws" to reflect the absolute life-or-death power of human kings. So, Natural Norms do indeed determine the course of evolutionary change, but only to the extent that Natural Selection enforces them. But who is the law-maker, and whose standards are normative? — Gnomon
lolStep away from the soapbox with your hands up. — Thought Police
Please give me a reference to one of those examples. I'm not concerned with the religious implications; just the philosophical reasoning.There are plenty of examples. — Wayfarer
Actually, I view the limits to human reasoning as a feature, not a design defect, or a malfunction. The experiment in space-time & uncertainty would be pointless if humans were eternal omniscient gods.That would roughly correspond to the Doctrine of the Fall, then. — Wayfarer
People communicate with their dogs via behavior not language. But the reasoning behind the behavior is basically the same. If the dog food is kept in a cabinet, and the dog sniffs around and scratches, then it ain't hard to read the canine mind. :cool:Tell it to your dog :razz: — Wayfarer
The point about understanding the nature of the essential is not to arrive at a simple answer. Essence is not a formula.
— Wayfarer
Right. But we'll have to specify what it consists of or leave it to poetry. — David Mo
Please give me a reference to one of those examples. I'm not concerned with the religious implications; just the philosophical reasoning. — Gnomon
. Achieving that balance between adaptivity and realizing the fullest possibility for beliefs is rationality's challenge, and science is vital to moderating this effort. Rationality creates values. Some sub-cultures apply these discovered/invented values disingenuously, refusing to act in accordance with the universality and uncertainty that rationality really and luckily implies. — Enrique
But science is not the arbiter of value. And ideally, philosophy seeks to establish a vision which reconciles what is of value with 'what is'. — Wayfarer
So I would gingerly claim that philosophical science with a sense for the historical origins of both thought forms and their related valuations should be the arbiter of modern values. I don't think civilized ethics can even exist apart from intellectual exertions. — Enrique
And ‘specifying what it consists of’ was precisely the task of classical metaphysics. That is why I made mention of metaphysics and its decline in a previous post but I don't think you got it - which I understand, because these ideas are hardly taught any more, you have to dig for them. — Wayfarer
This was the case with Heisenberg, Einstein and other relevant scientists, who were more than just lab rats. I believe that reality cannot be understood without sufficient knowledge of science. That's why ontology is becoming more and more like the philosophy of science. — David Mo
However, it is being realised that in the final analysis, man is really not apart from or outside of nature, and that science itself forever has a subjective pole, comprising the mind of the observer, which has been ‘bracketed out’ of the reckoning of science by the Galilean method. This, however, is precisely what the ‘observer problem’ in quantum physics has called into question. — Wayfarer
So you're saying that the regularities of Nature, that Science depends on, are not universal laws, but merely conditional habits? I suspect that position is derived from rejection of the concept of a lawmaker. The difference between a "law" and a "habit" is that laws are imposed from above, while habits are accidental due to local conditions. "Norms" are imposed values rather than free choices. That's why the early scientists labeled their observed consistencies in physics with a term that implied a moral right/wrong distinction mandated by an absolute ruler. "Habits" are regular tendencies that have no moral justification. So a habitual world would be amoral, with no clear good or bad, no right or wrong. In that case, every man (or particle of matter) is a law unto himself.I don't think we can consider natural phenomena "normative principles", but rather accidents of local conditions — Enrique
If "principles do not obtain" in Nature, it's because there is no "prince", no ultimate authority. So cultural laws are the only rules that do obtain. That is the Atheist/Humanist position. And it's also half of my own BothAnd position. The other side of my consilient morality is the understanding that Natural Laws (not habits) were ruling the world for eons before humans came along. The eventual emergence of Life and Mind are due, either to the harmonious organizing principles of Nature, or to the erratic accidents of randomness. I view Natural Selection as an imposed set of values on physical evolution, and Cultural Selection is the application of human values to meta-physical evolution.But radical skepticism is refutable because all the life forms on this planet are related and adapted to a relatively similar environment. Metaphysical principles do not obtain, but we're still all in this together. — Enrique
Yes. If Evolution was dependent on randomness alone, there would be no values, and no progress, no reason. But the addition of Natural Selection (choices based on fitness criteria) converts random change to directional change. I view that as a sign of Rationality in the evolutionary process. So Evolution is characterized by both Freedom and Fate; both Law and Autonomy.Rationality creates values — Enrique
Your post is in agreement with half of my view, but this post is a clarification of the other half. Specifically, my worldview is deistic, in that the world is being created via evolution, but without divine intervention in the process.Should add that I doubt this is really in contradiction to your basic view, merely a clarification. — Enrique
I knew that Aristotle had some vague concept of a Soul, but was not aware of the term "active intellect" or "agent intellect". I can see that these terms could be referring to some human essence, which distinguishes us from animals, but may not imply an immortal soul in the Christian sense.I think the most famous example is Aristotle’s passage on the active intellect. It is as the article notes, a debated passage, but contains many aspects of Aristotle’s hylomorphic (matter-form) dualism - for which read this brief blog post. — Wayfarer
If "principles do not obtain" in Nature, it's because there is no "prince", no ultimate authority. So cultural laws are the only rules that do obtain. That is the Atheist/Humanist position. — Gnomon
That's also why I am a Deist. All religions of the world are based on philosophical attempts to explain both the regularities and the vagaries of Nature, of Reality. Typically, pre-scientific societies took the predictable aspects of nature for granted. But the unpredictable or disorderly behaviors of nature were attributed to magical beings (gods, principalities), who as haughty nobles of the imaginary spiritual realm, were easily offended by insignificant inferior humans who were disrespectful of their power and position.I'm not an atheist, I think all beings have a spiritual nature, but I'm also a critical thinker, and all public accounting for this spirituality has thus far been at its best respectably inadequate to explain the reality, and at its worst employed as malicious deception, in science, philosophy and elsewhere. — Enrique
That is also the inclination of Deism, which is not a religion, but a philosophical attitude toward spirituality (metaphysics), which was ignored by materialistic scientists.My opinion is that we should in general incline towards basing culture on human agreement by way of reasoned collaboration rather than dictatorial authority. — Enrique
Yes. Skepticism is necessary for any philosopher who wants to avoid being deceived by the smoke & mirrors of religions. And Science is the best method we have developed for understanding physical reality. But it has never been able to replace Religion as the source of information on metaphysical reality.I think scientific skepticism is the foundation for furthering human quality of life by way of strategic theoretical and technological progress, — Enrique
My Enformationism thesis is, as you say, a thought experiment intended to inform my personal worldview as a replacement for the religion of my youth. It attempts to avoid the magical obfuscation of occult mythology, and instead find a more accessible understanding of how the world works on both physical and metaphysical levels. Unfortunately, it is counter-intuitive for both materialistic scientists and religious mystics. So, I have found that philosophers are more amenable to metaphysics, and more likely to grasp the common ground of Enformation as the universal "substance" of the real world, that bridges the gap between Mind & Matter, Soul & Body, Religion & Science.regard your philosophy as a cool thought experiment, — Enrique
I can't think of a single supposed "natural" principle that isn't anthropic, essentially perceptual. Mechanistic laws are a higher type of concept that human cognition seems uniquely capable of creating, enabling our species to change its environment of perceptions in some extremely practical, groundbreaking ways, but I would argue that these shouldn't be considered normative. — Enrique
But I go a step further, to assert that even matter is a form of Plato's timeless Forms, — Gnomon
Intellectual knowledge (which here means 'knowledge of intelligible reality') is analogous to sense knowledge inasmuch as it demands the reception of the form of the thing which is known. But it differs from sense knowledge so far as it consists in the apprehension of things, not in their individuality, but in their universality.
Aristotle asserted that physical objects are compounds of Matter and Form. My understanding is that he was making a distinction between the physical properties that our senses detect, and the metaphysical properties (the design pattern) that are known via our extra sense of Reason. That kind of dualistic either/or analysis is amenable to my BothAnd philosophy. But the BA principle is ultimately monistic, because it unites space-time Physics and Metaphysics into a single eternal principle : the creative power to enform, to create --- which I call EnFormAction.I don’t think you comprehend hylomorphic dualism — Wayfarer
I'm not a Spiritualist in the sense you intend. Instead, I am an Enformationist, in the sense that reality is not haunted by spooky spirits, but caused & motivated by the natural power to enform (commonly known as energy). From my perspective, the "natural or spiritual laws that apply to human beings" are all various forms of Information, which is the fundamental force & substance of the universe.I am not in the habit of discussing human nature with spiritualists, but I suppose that if you believe that human nature exists, you can describe a series of natural or spiritual laws that apply to human beings. Can you give an example? Even if it's from Aristotle. — David Mo
Maybe human rationality's materialist interpretation of the world as composed of inanimate objects is partially a result of the impact on the human psyche of perceiving and living around technology, though we're far removed from the original circumstances that would prove this. — Enrique
The modern mind-body problem arose out of the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, as a direct result of the concept of objective physical reality that drove that revolution. Galileo and Descartes made the crucial conceptual division by proposing that physical science should provide a mathematically precise quantitative description of an external reality extended in space and time, a description limited to spatiotemporal primary qualities such as shape, size, and motion, and to laws governing the relations among them. Subjective appearances, on the other hand -- how this physical world appears to human perception -- were assigned to the mind, and the secondary qualities like color, sound, and smell were to be analyzed relationally, in terms of the power of physical things, acting on the senses, to produce those appearances in the minds of observers. It was essential to leave out or subtract subjective appearances and the human mind -- as well as human intentions and purposes -- from the physical world in order to permit this powerful but austere spatiotemporal conception of objective physical reality to develop.
highly conceptual, structuralizing human consciousness, with its extreme inclination to imaginatively invent integrated symbolical systems, at some point began viewing the world as symbolic of emotive intentions, weaving these modes of interpreting experience together in speculatively fulfilling generalizations until we had ideas of spiritual purpose as essence. — Enrique
I think its crucial to recognize that knowledge (not existence) is fundamentally anthrocentric, because then we can fully acknowledge the pervasiveness of uncertainty and unrestrainedly imagine alternative possibilities. — Enrique
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