it's not really relevant to the argument at hand. — Wayfarer
1. No belief is rationally inferred if it can be fully explained in terms of nonrational causes. — Wayfarer
How will you persuade me? — Srap Tasmaner
No, that's scientific materialism. It is not the same thing. It mainly comes from the attempt to apply scientific methodology to philosophical problems, as a few here are doing. — Wayfarer
Interesting! Now, neurologists resort to AI to find answers about the process of thinking!Thoughts are more events than things. See the following link for information about scientists detecting thought events:
https://www.eedesignit.com/oh-no-ai-now-reads-minds/ — wonderer1
:up:If you want to find the “process of thought” watch a person think. Human thought, like believing and reasoning, is an action performed by persons, and not by any other collection of things and processes. If you want to see a cartwheel or a backflip you do the same thing: watch a person perform these actions. — NOS4A2
:up:If thoughts are not persons thinking, beliefs are not persons believing, and reasons not persons reasoning, then they are nothing but words without a referent. There is no other way around it. — NOS4A2
Surely this does at least suggest 'a transcendent realm accessible to the wise'? — Wayfarer
...A wise person must have a true conception of unproven first principles
Contemplation is that activity in which one's νοῦς intuits and delights in first principles."
I can see you have not been persuaded by the argument thus far and probably won’t be, until you can see a reason why you should accept. At that point, you might typically say I see. So - what is it that you see? (Or in the other case, what is it you’re not seeing?) Whatever it is (or isn’t) it won’t be seen as a consequence of anything physical that has passed between us. — Wayfarer
No belief is rationally inferred if it can be fully explained in terms of nonrational causes — Wayfarer
Yes. Our different attitudes towards opinions "may explain things". You seem motivated to avoid dogmatic positions, while I'm interested in discovering moderate "provisional positions". And yet, you do occasionally express a brief succinct opinion on some specific topics. Maybe you only avoid a priori topics that cannot be definitively proven true or false.Tom, your unwillingness to commit to at least a provisional position on the Random Chaos vs Rational Cosmos question is puzzling to me. — Gnomon
I think that's mostly a problem for you and may explain things. Also 'unwillingness' is not a good word, it implies an ought - I 'ought' to be able to, right? I would say 'inability' would be more appropriate. I hold tentative positions on some matters, and was just writing elsewhere above - — Tom Storm
That you will defend it with reason is irrelevant (although you haven’t actually defended it yet). — Jamal
Nonreductive materialism is popular among philosophers. — Jamal
our everyday vocabulary around thinking, perceiving, imagining, remembering, and so on, not only presupposes objects for these activities but folds them into terms that are in some ways holistic. — Srap Tasmaner
Say if I do persuade you to believe any proposition whatever - not necessarily this one - where you agree that you 'see the point' of the argument - how can that be understood in any terms other than rational persuasion? — Wayfarer
I don’t think Srap’s criticisms come to terms with the argument — Wayfarer
I'm not even sure I've posted a criticism of the argument so much as I've tried and failed to understand it. — Srap Tasmaner
If it was all just pure sovereign reason, then why would everyone who can think rationally not agree about everything? — Janus
That's subjectivism and relativism. It's obvious that, for example, in the American political scene, there is a huge polarization, but it's no coincidence that a large part of the cause of this is a leading political figure who quite openly tells enormous lies which large numbers of the electorate are willing to swallow. Surely a political scientist or pollster can come up with reasons why they do that, but it doesn't change the fact that they're believing lies, and that they are lies, regardless of anyone's opinion. — Wayfarer
The other point of inconsistency in your position seems to be that you think rational persuasion is a matter of free will; but how could it be if rational persuasion is as strict as valid logical deduction is? — Janus
what explains the fact that there is so much disagreement among them? — Janus
As you point out, logic itself is not necessarily descriptive of the world of experience - something can be logically true but physically impossible, and things happen which defy logic. The argument from reason is not presenting reason as a panacea or magic bullet, but as an indispensable faculty which can't be explained in physicalist terms (among other things. — Wayfarer
It's the old Indian elephant parable; that we've only ever got a grasp of some aspect of the elephant, its tail or its ear or tusk and we form conclusions on that basis. Reality, or rather, Being, is infinitely vast, and coming to an understanding exceedingly difficult. — Wayfarer
it doesn't follow that there can be no physical, neurological or evolutionary explanations for the fact that humans are capable of rational thought. — Janus
I still say it's a mistake to say conceive of reason as result of evolutionary biology, because it reduces reason to mere adaptation. — Wayfarer
I'm not seeing why acquiring the capacity for reason should not be thought of as a result of evolutionary biology, driven by adaptation. — Janus
No, the study of civilization, which includes evolution, is also the study about the intelligence of humans over epochs. What Janus might be referring to is the study of logic, which is a modern development. The "capacity for reason", as civilization reveals, is actually the capacity to use tools, for example.I'm not seeing why acquiring the capacity for reason should not be thought of as a result of evolutionary biology, driven by adaptation. — Janus
Because there's nothing in the theory that addresses it specifically. The theory is about the factors that contribute to the survival and evolution of species. — Wayfarer
. It's a biological theory, but the view that it accounts for everything about human nature and the human condition is biological reductionism (whereas I would say that we're 'underdetermined' by biological factors). — Wayfarer
No, the study of civilization, which includes evolution, is also the study about the intelligence of humans over epochs. What Janus might be referring to is the study of logic, which is a modern development. The "capacity for reason", as civilization reveals, is actually the capacity to use tools, for example. — L'éléphant
As contrasted with this hopeless and soul-deadening belief, we, who accept the existence of a spiritual world, can look upon the universe as a grand consistent whole adapted in all its parts to the development of spiritual beings capable of indefinite life and perfectibility. To us, the whole purpose, the only raison d'être of the world--with all its complexities of physical structure, with its grand geological progress, the slow evolution of the vegetable and animal kingdoms, and the ultimate appearance of man--was the development of the human spirit in association with the human body. From the fact that the spirit of man--the man himself--is so developed, we may well believe that this is the only, or at least the best, way for its development; and we may even see in what is usually termed "evil" on the earth, one of the most efficient means of its growth. For we know that the noblest faculties of man are strengthened and perfected by struggle and effort; it is by unceasing warfare against physical evils and in the midst of difficulty and danger that energy, courage, self-reliance, and industry have become the common qualities of the northern races; it is by the battle with moral evil in all its hydra-headed forms, that the still nobler qualities of justice and mercy and humanity and self-sacrifice have been steadily increasing in the world. Beings thus trained and strengthened by their surroundings, and possessing latent faculties capable of such noble development, are surely destined for a higher and more permanent [[p. 478]] existence; and we may confidently believe with our greatest living poet--
That life is not as idle ore,
But iron dug from central gloom,
And heated hot with burning fears,
And dipt in baths of hissing tears,
And batter'd with the shocks of doom
To shape and use. — A.R. Wallace
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