So it is not like the religious right just invented potential harmful effects of the theory . — Andrew4Handel
.The animal is designed, by natural selection (please give it the benefit of the doubt for the time-being) to protect itself, to avoid damage. If your hand contacts fire, the pain tells you that damage is occurring, or is immanent. And it makes you want to get your hand out of the fire. — Michael Ossipoff
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What you're not addressing is whether this has anything to say about the problems of philosophy.
.One can agree that the theory of evolution by natural selection is a sound theory, and yet dispute that it has anything much to say about the problems of philosophy.
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Most often, however, what happens is the lazy assumption, which you have made above, that as we are 'just animals'
., then what there is to know about such questions must be knowable, in principle, in terms of biology.
.However, I dispute that h. sapiens is 'just an animal' at all.
.Certainly, from the perspective of biology, humans are a 'species of primate'.
.But to then try and understand uniquely human abilities such as language, reasoning, art and imagination, in evolutionary terms, is what is called 'biological reductionism'.
.I don't think you're in the least unusual in having such ideas, after all, everyone knows that we are just animals
, and only what evolution has created.
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Since Darwin, yes.
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.It is the folk wisdom of the day.
If your hand contacts fire, the pain tells you that damage is occurring, or is imminent. And it makes you want to get your hand out of the fire.
The exact detailed mechanism? Who knows? i don't. Maybe there are scientists who do. — Michael Ossipoff
.I think there is a clear difference between mechanism and sensation.
.It is possible to build unconscious sensors that avoid fire. You only need to make unconscious sensors that create automatic behaviour leading to a machine avoiding heat.
.We know enough about neurons and about physics to see that it does not present a framework for explaining experience
.There are famous physicists who have supported the position of idealism which incorporates mind into reality as fundamental. Including Sir James Jeans, Sir Arthur eddington and Martin Rees. In this sense consciousness is not seen as merely an emergent property of the brain. A similar position is held by panpsychism.
.It has been recognised from time immemorial that there is a problem in describing physical objects and mental states using the same terminology.
.It was not a problem posited merely by Televangelicals or something. I was quite materialist and atheistic
It certainly needn’t. I’m religious, and Idealist.
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But we’re still just animals. That’s the simple and best description of what we are. …avoiding the spiritualist, mystical mumbo-jumbo of the philosophy-of-mind.
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I suggest that you disregard philosophy-of-mind, and then the Hard-Problem-Of-Consciousness will vanish.
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Michael Ossipoff
But philosophers love to theorize. It’s their livelihood, so we can’t blame them. — Michael Ossipoff
There’s nothing in our experience to suggest that we’re anything other than animals. — Michael Ossipoff
There’s nothing in our experience to suggest that we’re anything other than animals.
— Michael Ossipoff
This is categorically false, assuming "our" refers to the entirety of humanity throughout all of history. — Noble Dust
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"But philosophers love to theorize. It’s their livelihood, so we can’t blame them". — Michael Ossipoff
I study philosophy purely out of interest, and the necessity of asking such questions. I recommend it. — Wayfarer
"There’s nothing in our experience to suggest that we’re anything other than animals." — Michael Ossipoff
This is categorically false, assuming "our" refers to the entirety of humanity throughout all of history. — Noble Dust
Then share with us one piece of evidence that we're other than animals. — Michael Ossipoff
A white-smocked scientist with a clipboard looks at MRI & EKG of your brain — Michael Ossipoff
"Then share with us one piece of evidence that we're other than animals." — Michael Ossipoff
How are you defining animal? — Andrew4Handel
We have Shakespeare, Einstein, Bach, Language, Mathematics, Science, Internet,Psychotherapy, Computer Programming, Schools, Cookery, Philosophy, Psychology, Art, Music, medicine...
How are you defining animal? — Andrew4Handel
I believe what he means is that despite having highly evolved intelligence, our initial drives and instincts, as well as everything we experience, are biological in nature. — CasKev
An animal is a purposefully-responsive device resulting from natural selection. — Michael Ossipoff
It's astonishing and impressive beyond words what evolution produced when it produced the animals, including us! — Michael Ossipoff
There is a creative intelligence within all of us (to be more precise, is us) — Rich
If this creative intelligence exists within us, it must be at an inaccessible subconscious level. Otherwise people would have eight arms and gigantic penises by now — CasKev
I think would be easier to believe that the creative intelligence is separate from living things, and either has a sick sense of humor, or just isn't that smart. — CasKev
I believe what he means is that despite having highly evolved intelligence, our initial drives and instincts, as well as everything we experience, are biological in nature. — CasKev
We are all animals; we just happen to be highly intelligent and advanced ones. If you want to get rid of classifications like "animals," you would have to get rid of all the words in our language as well.I thought he said we were nothing more than animals.
But there’s an unnecessary, made-up problem of philosophy, (the Hard-Problem-Of-Consciousness), — Michael Ossipoff
If you want to get rid of classifications like "animals," you would have to get rid of all the words in our language as well. — Thanatos Sand
If you want to get rid of classifications like "animals," you would have to get rid of all the words in our language as well.
— Thanatos Sand
That is not true. We often get rid of words in our languages without having to abandon a whole language. We also keep words that refer to fictional entities.
In what situation is there an urgent need to describe something as animal?
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