It’s never clear what you’re arguing for but I do know that you enjoy an argument, regardless. ;-) — Wayfarer
abstract reasoning, language, art, scientific invention, moral reflection, symbolic thought, and awareness of mortality — Wayfarer
They are not explained by it (physics), just as history, evolutionary theory itself, sociology, etc, etc are not because they are all different paradigms of inquiry. Physicalism is a metaphysical standpoint and just like the other metaphysical standpoints does not explain the abovementioned. — Janus
Such explanations may be counted as false if it can be definitively shown that they cannot possibly explain what they purport to. — Janus
However if the mind and reason are reduced to these terms, then this undermines the sovereignty of reason. We can discuss the details of that if you like. — Wayfarer
What do you mean by the "sovereignty of reason"? Reason by itself delivers no knowledge. — Janus
What is the actual argument for why accepting the evolution of reason would undermine those principles? — Janus
The only form that genuine reasoning can take consists in seeing the validity of the arguments, in virtue of what they say. As soon as one tries to step outside of such thoughts, one loses contact with their true content. And one cannot be outside and inside them at the same time: If one thinks in logic, one cannot simultaneously regard those thoughts as mere psychological dispositions, however caused or however biologically grounded. If one decides that some of one's psychological dispositions are, as a contingent matter of fact, reliable methods of reaching the truth (as one may with perception, for example), then in doing so one must rely on other thoughts that one actually thinks, without regarding them as mere dispositions. One cannot embed all one's reasoning in a psychological theory, including the reasonings that have led to that psychological theory. The epistemological buck must stop somewhere. By this I mean not that there must be some premises that are forever unrevisable but, rather, that in any process of reasoning or argument there must be some thoughts that one simply thinks from the inside--rather than thinking of them as biologically programmed dispositions. ...
The reliance we put on our reason implies a belief that even though the existence of human beings and of ourselves in particular is the result of a long sequence of physical and biological accidents, and even though there might never have come to be any intelligent creatures at all, nevertheless the basic methods of reasoning we employ are not merely human but belong to a more general category of mind. — Evolutionary Naturalism and the Fear of Religion, from The Last Word, Thomas Nagel
But it delivers considerable capacity to gain knowledge, surely you would agree. H.sapiens by dint of reason is able to do many things which animals can not. (There have been interminable, and to my mind pointless, arguments about this in the Rational Thinking Human and Animal thread.) — Wayfarer
The 'argument from reason' is that reasoned inference must convey facts that are internal to reason. Seeking to justify such reasons with reference to the extent to which they provide an adaptive or evolutionary advantage undermines the sovereignty of reason by saying that it's claims have some grounds other than their self-evident nature. — Wayfarer
You said somewhere recently that Vervaeke's "relevance realization" operates at all levels of life. What could this be but some kind of understanding (however) rudimentary) that something is of whatever significance it is for the organism". — Janus
But Vervaeke would also say that h.sapiens have greater horizons of being than do other animals, because of reason, language, self-awareness, and all that this entails. — Wayfarer
As a Dawkins or a Crick would put it, you are ' robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes' or 'You, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of identity and free will are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules'. — Wayfarer
It's supported by an argument based on the double-slit experiment. That argument is that the interference exhibits the same wave-like pattern even if photons are fired one at a time. — Wayfarer
Nothing about that inherently suggests anything about subjectivity. — Apustimelogist
That wasn’t the point at issue — Wayfarer
‘name one thing that is outside space and time’ that the wavefunction fits that description, and yet is also at the heart of the success of modern physics. — Wayfarer
There are many other constructs in physics and science that fit that description. — Apustimelogist
Right. Like the standard model of particle physics itself. Something which physicalism tends to overlook. — Wayfarer
The fact that some constructs in science don't represent real physical objects doesn't imply anything about physicalism vs. alternatives. — Apustimelogist
...the inherent difficulties of the materialist theory of the atom, which had become apparent even in the ancient discussions about smallest particles, have also appeared very clearly in the development of physics during the present century.
This difficulty relates to the question whether the smallest units are ordinary physical objects, whether they exist in the same way as stones or flowers. Here, the development of quantum theory...has created a complete change in the situation. The mathematically-formulated laws of quantum theory show clearly that our ordinary intuitive concepts (of existence) cannot be unambiguously applied to the smallest particles. All the words or concepts we use to describe ordinary physical objects, such as position, velocity, color, size, and so on, become indefinite and problematic if we try to use them of elementary particles. I cannot enter here into the details of this problem, which has been discussed so frequently in recent years. But it is important to realize that, while the behavior of the smallest particles cannot be unambiguously described in ordinary language, the language of mathematics is still adequate for a clear-cut account of what is going on.
During the coming years, the high-energy accelerators will bring to light many further interesting details about the behavior of elementary particles. But I am inclined to think that the answer just considered to the old philosophical problems will turn out to be final. If this is so, does this answer confirm the views of Democritus or Plato?
I think that on this point modern physics has definitely decided for Plato. For the smallest units of matter are, in fact, not physical objects in the ordinary sense of the word; they are forms, structures or — in Plato's sense — Ideas, which can be unambiguously spoken of only in the language of mathematics. — Werner Heisenberg, The Debate between Plato and Democritus (i.e. between idealism and materialism)
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