and note, I didn't mention God once during that explanation — Bartricks
No, I was simply pointing out that God is mentioned in the solution to the puzzle, not the setting-up of the puzzle. — Bartricks
Well, the case for evolution by natural selection presupposes that there are reasons to believe things. And reasons to believe things require God. Sorry, but they do. — Bartricks
I'm off-topic aren't I? Oh well! — Agent Smith
My guess is Kant had something similar to say about reason.Aquinas [influenced by Plato and, perhaps even more so, Aristotle] and others grounded the scholastic synthesis of knowledge in the view that truth, morality, and God himself could be known by reason because the divine will itself is guided by reason. What is reasonable is therefore what is true and right.
Because we seem able to provide an explanation of why we are disposed to get such intuitions without having to suppose that what they're intuitions 'of' actually exist. — Bartricks
We seem able to explain why we developed a faculty that produces in us the belief that we have reason to believe things without having to suppose that there are actually any reasons to believe things in reality. — Bartricks
But such intuitions are rooted in sensory faculties which tell about something external. A sensory faculty, by definition, senses something outside itself; they tell us of the external world. An intuition is about something sensed and therefore about an external world. — Daniel
There is a reason to believe things, and it is that sensory faculties tell us exclusively about something external to the sensory faculty. No matter the nature of the external, the sensory faculty necessarily tells us about something external. — Daniel
Now for the puzzle: when it comes to our faculty of reason the evolutionary explanation seems to be a debunking one, not a vindicatory one. We seem able to explain why we developed a faculty that produces in us the belief that we have reason to believe things without having to suppose that there are actually any reasons to believe things in reality. So we can explain the development of the faculty without having to suppose the reality of what the faculty gives us an apparent awareness of.
Yet that now means that we've undermined our own case, as any case for anything depends on there being actual reasons to believe things (not the mere belief in such things). — Bartricks
Oh! So, you mean to say that just because we have the
faculty of reason it doesn't necessarily follow that there are any real reasons (to believe anything). — Agent Smith
which drives the point home viz. our proclivity to believe in god(s) doesn't imply the actual existence of god(s) — Agent Smith
A reason to believe something is not under evolutionary constraint directly, I think. If I understand correctly, these reasons you mention are complex traits, meaning they are the result of many things working together. A reason is not a single entity, but a collection of things. The fear of fire is your experience of the shape of fire, your experience of the colour of fire, your experience of heat, your experience of pain cause by hot stuff, etc. Fear of fire is not shaped by evolution. The molecular machinery that allows you to see, feel, smell fire is. — Daniel
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