Weinberg argued that sequences of "why?" questions always lead down to particle physics (and general relativity) and, prospectively, to some grand Theory of Everything. — Pierre-Normand

Hence his well-known quotation 'the more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.' Physics is constructed to as to exclude meaning, context, etc - as you point out.

The problem with the question as posed in the thread title, is that ‘pre-existing’ is a temporal description, referring to something that existed before everything else existed in time. Whereas classical theism, as a model, has the ‘ground of being’ as omnipresent and eternal, meaning, outside of time altogether. It’s ‘before’ the existing world not in the sense of temporal order, but in terms of ontological priority as first principle or ground of being.

What is the science which supports the premise of immaterial Forms which are prior to, and the cause of material existence? Is there some -ology? — Patterner

That is the basic premise of metaphysics in the classical tradition. Of course it is a truism that nowadays metaphysics has fallen into disrepute, viewed as dusty tomes of scholastic philosophy. But there’s been a recent revival, and there’s a great book, which a kindly soul has made available online, Thinking Being: Introduction to Metaphysics in the Classical Tradition, of which there’s an unauthorised .pdf copy online (which is just as well, as it’s both out of print, and extremely expensive in hardcopy.) The first several chapters lays out the origin of Plato’s ‘forms’ with pristine clarity.

Human senses and brain activity are certainly dependent on physical processes. — Janus

By some process yet to be understood…..

I appreciate your response and quotations, but I don't think it addressed the OP whatsoever. — Bob Ross

All due respect, I think they’re directly relevant, and if you’re not seeing why they’re relevant, it is because of the way you’re framing the problem. As has been noted above, there is no paradox in the work you’re citing. I think you’re sensing it as a paradox because you have an innate conviction that the world is innately real - and yet Kant seems to call this into question. So it’s more a kind of cognitive dissonance. Isn’t that the source of the paradox you’re claiming to describe, in simple terms?

Again, I feel this particular passage is relevant:

We have to raise almost impossibly deep levels of presupposition in our own thinking and imagination to the level of self-consciousness before we are able to achieve a critical awareness of all our realistic assumptions, and thus achieve an understanding of transcendental idealism which is untainted by them.

This, of course, is one of the explanations for the almost unfathomably deep counterintuitiveness of transcendental idealism, and also for the general notion of 'depth' with which people associate Kantian and post-Kantian philosophy. Something akin to it is the reason for much of the prolonged, self-disciplined meditation involved in a number of Eastern religious practices. — Schopenhauer's Philosophy, Bryan Magee, Pp105-106)

I think the OP is underwritten by just such ‘realistic assumptions’.

There should be a name for the fallacy of thinking that, because one has a hammer, everything's a nail, or that a good place to look for your lost keys is under the lamp-post. — Ludwig V

There is. It’s called ‘scientism’.

Some early schools of Buddhists were said to be atomist, but on closer reading, their version of atoms were 'dhammas' which are actually momentary experiences, arising and passing away in such quick succession that they create an illusion of duration. The abhidhamma texts give an actual precise duration of these dhammas, which is infinitesmally small.

As the Buddhists declare, material facts are neither universal nor eternal because of the disequilibrium that causes their emergence. — ucarr

Or in more traditional Buddhist parlance, 'all compound things are subject to decay' (reputedly the last words of the Buddha.)

We can't, and idealists know this, but "solve" the problem by rejecting the external. However, Kant's transcendental idealism maintains the external object by distinguishing between its empirical sense and transcendental sense. — jkop

After the First Edition of the CPR was published, many critics said that Kant was no different to Berkeley, which greatly annoyed him. Accordingly in the second edition he included the 'refutation of idealism', a summary of which can be found here. The salient point was that he wanted to differentiate himself from Berkeley by showing we must be aware of an external reality, in order to maintain (or index) or own sense of the temporal succession of experiences.

I think, again, a problematical perspective is introduced here:

if the object that we see is only our own phenomenal object, then how can we explain its relation to the external object? — jkop

The question is posed as if it is possible to compare the appearance and the object, implying that they are separable. I think that relies on an implicit 'world-picture' of the self and world - but that itself is a product of the brain/mind! We can't 'get outside' phenomena in that way. (There's something distinctly Zen about all this, in my view.)

Furthermore, it's in no way 'our own phenomenal object' (suggesting solipsism) because our minds all rely on the same a priori categories. We all share the same categories, kinds of objects, species, etc.

:up: Glad it resonates for you. Hence my frequent mention of Mind and the Cosmic Order, Charles Pinter, which backs this up with solid empirical data.

On the issue about naturalism, I got turned off when I realized that natural was being interpreted as scientific. Thumbnail sketch - That idea entirely ignores the history and practice of science. Science looks to me to be something almost entirely artificial. — Ludwig V

I agree with you again! My objections are to that vein of popular philosophy which esteems science as the arbiter of reality. Of course many educated folk see through that but it is still a pervasive current of thought.

Kant begins with the presupposition that our experience is representational and proceeds to correctly conclude that knowledge of the things-in-themselves is thusly impossible. However, anyone who questions the legitimacy of this presupposition readily realizes that its justification rests purely a posteriori—on the empirical evidence of our representative faculties as presented to us in our conscious experience (or of another); and, as such, presupposes, from the onset, that one can trust their experience enough to know that (1) they exist (2) with representative faculties (3) in a transcendent reality which (4) has other things in it and of which (5) one’s representative faculties are representing. — Bob Ross

I'm no expert, but I think I have enough understanding to pinpoint a problem with this analysis. I think you're misinterpreting the significance of the 'ding an sich' - you're representing it as something real yet innaccesible, and then expressing a kind of frustration that we're left with only 'the representation' as a kind of inferior copy of The Real Thing. You want to 'peek behind the curtain', so to speak. But to make this comparison, you have to put yourself outside both the appearance and the thing in itself, as if they could be compared.

Consider this account of the matter:

Kant's introduced the concept of the “thing in itself” to refer to reality as it is independent of our experience of it and unstructured by our cognitive constitution. The concept was harshly criticized in his own time and has been lambasted by generations of critics since. A standard objection to the notion is that Kant has no business positing it given his insistence that we can only know what lies within the limits of possible experience. But a more sympathetic reading is to see the concept of the “thing in itself” as a sort of placeholder in Kant's system; it both marks the limits of what we can know and expresses a sense of mystery that cannot be dissolved, the sense of mystery that underlies our unanswerable questions. — Emrys Westacott

any given phenomena stripped of the a priori means of intuiting and cognizing it is left perfectly unintelligible (viz., remove all spatial, temporal, mathematical, logical, etc. properties from the phenomena and you have nothing left to conceptually work with other than a giant '?'); so whatever the thing-in-itself is will be exactly what is unintelligible: it is the 'thing' stripped of the a priori means of cognizing it. — Bob Ross

You could just as well say, were we unconscious, then we'd know nothing. The 'apriori means of intuiting' just are the activities of the conscious mind/brain by which it assimilates and interprets information about the world. All well and good - but then you try to work out what there could be in the absence of that - which we can't know, as a matter of principle. And sometimes knowing you don't know something is what needs to be understood.

Anyone who supposes that if all the perceiving subjects were removed from the world then the objects, as we have any conception of them, could continue in existence all by themselves has radically failed to understand what objects are. Kant did see this, but only intermittently ‚ in the gaps, as it were, between assuming the existence of the noumenon 'out there' as the invisible sustainer of the object. He expressed it once in a passage which, because so blindingly clear and yet so isolated, sticks out disconcertingly from his work:

'If I take away the thinking subject, the whole material world must vanish, as this world is nothing but the phenomenal appearance in the sensibility of our own subject, and is a species of this subject's representations.'

(An) objection would run: 'Everyone knows that the earth, and a fortiori the universe, existed for a long time before there were any living beings, and therefore any perceiving subjects. But according to what Kant has just been quoted as saying, that is impossible.'

Schopenhauer's defence of Kant on this score was twofold. First, the objector has not understood to the very bottom the Kantian demonstration that time is one of the forms of our sensibility. The earth, say, as it was before there was life, is a field of empirical enquiry in which we have come to know a great deal; its reality is no more being denied than is the reality of perceived objects in the same room. The point is, the whole of the empirical world in space and time is the creation of our understanding, which apprehends all the objects of empirical knowledge within it as being in some part of that space and at some part of that time: and this is as true of the earth before there was life as it is of the pen I am now holding a few inches in front of my face and seeing slightly out of focus as it moves across the paper.

This, incidentally, illustrates a difficulty in the way of understanding which transcendental idealism has permanently to contend with: the assumptions of 'the inborn realism which arises from the original disposition of the intellect' enter unawares into the way in which the statements of transcendental idealism are understood, so that these statements appear faulty in ways in which, properly understood, they are not.

Such realistic assumptions so pervade our normal use of concepts that the claims of transcendental idealism disclose their own non-absurdity only after difficult consideration, whereas criticisms of them at first appear cogent which on examination are seen to rest on confusion. We have to raise almost impossibly deep levels of presupposition in our own thinking and imagination to the level of self-consciousness before we are able to achieve a critical awareness of all our realistic assumptions, and thus achieve an understanding of transcendental idealism which is untainted by them.

This, of course, is one of the explanations for the almost unfathomably deep counterintuitiveness of transcendental idealism, and also for the general notion of 'depth' with which people associate Kantian and post-Kantian philosophy. Something akin to it is the reason for much of the prolonged, self-disciplined meditation involved in a number of Eastern religious practices.

Schopenhauer's second refutation of the objection under consideration is as follows. Since all imaginable characteristics of objects depend on the modes in which they are apprehended by perceiving subjects, then without at least tacitly assumed presuppositions relating to the latter no sense can be given to terms purporting to denote the former‚ in short, it is impossible to talk about material objects at all, and therefore even so much as to assert their existence, without the use of words the conditions of whose intelligibility derive from the experience of perceiving subjects. Again, then... transcendental realism cannot be stated. It is 'the philosophy of the subject who forgets to take account of himself. But 'just as there can be no object without a subject, so there can be no subject without an object, in other words, no knower without something different from this that is known . . . A consciousness that was through and through pure intelligence would be impossible . . . For consciousness consists in knowing, but knowing requires a knower and a known. Therefore self-consciousness could not exist if there were not in it a known opposed to the knower and different therefrom.'... Consciousness is intrinsically intensional ‚ it is always consciousness q/"something: it always has an object. — Schopenhauer's Philosophy, Bryan Magee, Pp105-106)

What makes the physical events within the machine into a calculation cannot be recognized as mathematical calculations unless we have arranged that representation. It is not the result of any physical properties or events within the machine independently of the context in which we interpret them. — Ludwig V

I agree with your analysis, but I don’t see how that affects the argument. In fact what you're saying here could easily be interpreted as a defence of Aristotelian form-matter dualism.

You seem confused — wonderer1

Not in the least.

Plantinga is not making an argument against physicalism. — wonderer1

Of course he is, insofar as naturalism is materialist or physicalist in orientation. What I've spelled out is why Plantinga argues that naturalism is an insufficient basis for belief. From his 1994 Naturalism Defeated .pdf:

"With me," Darwin said, "the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?"

The same thought is put more explicitly by Patricia Churchland. She insists that the most important thing about the human brain is that it has evolved; this means, she says, that its principal function is to enable the organism to move appropriately: Boiled down to essentials, a nervous system enables the organism to succeed in the four F's: feeding, fleeing, fighting and reproducing. The principle chore of nervous systems is to get the body parts where they should be in order that the organism may survive. . . . . Improvements in sensorimotor control confer an evolutionary advantage: a fancier style of representing is advantageous so long as it is geared to the organism's way of life and enhances the organism's chances of survival — Plantinga, Naturalism Defeated

He's talking about beliefs and convictions - not about the ability to act in such a way as to enhance survival. Against what criteria do we judge beliefs or convictions to be true, as distinct from pragmatically useful? You will notice that evolutionary materialists, such as Dawkins/Dennett, will say outright that all of what us 'lumbering robots' think and do is in service of the 'selfish gene'. That is the kind of mentality he has in his sights. (I believe Dennett responded extensively to Plantinga, but I'm not going to pursue it further. )

That there exists in the human mind and indeed by natural instinct, some sense of Deity

I certainly have some form of that, though not exclusively Christian in orientation.

I will add, I don't pursue this line of argument as a 'proof of God' as I don't believe that it possible, my interest in it only extends to showing the inherent self-contradictions of reductive materialism, as by it's own reckoning, its activites are the consequences of 'a nervous system that enables the organism to succeed in the four F's', social organisms though we might be.

I recall something Krishnamurti said. Krishnamurti, in case you don’t know, was an Indian spiritual teacher who lived from the late 19th c until 1983 or so, giving talks to audiences all over the world. When asked if the will was free, he would usually answer ‘of course not, as will is the instrument of desire’.

Food for thought.

A Turing machine could also use ZF to prove an otherwise unprovable theorem in PA. Therefore, it is not something that only human minds can do. — Tarskian

However, isn’t ‘the Turing machine’ something that only exists in the minds of humans? An actual Turing machine would require infinite memory, so it is not something that could ever exist.

That is where I fundamentally disagree with Penrose. — Tarskian

Well, that's cool. I don't understand either you or him.

If there's never been an account of how the first-person nature of lived experience arises from the objective source, then wouldn't that tell you that maybe it's because it can be sufficiently explained through physicalism alone? — L'éléphant

No, because the fact of one's own being is neither a physical fact, nor can it be denied (cogito ergo sum).

I think we make a mistake when we take physicalism as an epistemic theory, rather than an ontological theory. If it could demonstrate (and I think it does pretty well) that all things supervenes on the physical structure, then it has done its job. — L'éléphant

And here, 'supervenes' is able to be defined in just such a way as to paper over any current or even newly-discovered inadequacies in physicalism.

What I think is difficult for us to reconcile with accepting the truth of physicalism is that we, by default, feel defeated by the notion of the "mechanical". But if you follow Aristotle's 4 causes, it theorizes that we're not just machines in motion, but could be affected by changes in our environment, the efficient cause. — L'éléphant

Well, speaking of Aristotle, he distinguishes artifacts (i.e. machines) from organisms on the basis that the latter are self-organising and their parts all work together to maintain the whole. Whereas machines are manufactured, their principle is external to them, and each part performs only the role designated by manufacturer.

No, I'm opposed to physicalism because I think it's an illusion, something like a very influential popular myth. Because we're bedazzled by science and technology (and hey I'm no different in that respect) we see the world in those terms, but matter has no ultimate, mind-independent reality. Tangential to the original post, but there it is.

Not so. Mine is a perfectly reasonable paraphrasing of Plantinga’s argument. You’ve presented nothing so far that shows you understand it. The reason he doesn’t discuss communication is that it is tangential to his argument.

However, in order to make that case Plantinga would need to establish that truth conveying communication occurring amongst members of the social species would do nothing to increase the reliability of the cognitive faculties of members of that species, as compared to being a feral member of the species without social interaction. — wonderer1

Again, it doesn't address the evolutionary argument against naturalism. He doesn't say that we're incapable of communicating, or that we can't convey information by speaking to one another. For that matter, many creatures other than humans communicate. Bee dances communicate where flowers are. Many birds and of mammals convey warnings or indications of food sources. But then, none of those involve truth claims, as such. They display behaviours which can be understood in terms of stimulus and response. Note that such behaviours are 'reliable' in that bee dances and meerkat alarm calls really do indicate where flowers are or that danger is approaching. The evolutionary argument is rather about judgements of truth.

The argument is that naturalism maintains that mental events such as beliefs are the result of natural (e.g. neurological) causes that can be explained by the principles of natural science (such as neurology) - in other words, instances of efficient causation, where one event (cause) brings about another event (effect) in accordance with physical or natural laws. In this view, mental states, including beliefs, are determined by physical processes in the brain, which are themselves the result of evolutionary pressures and biological mechanisms. Whereas, reasoned inference works by different principles, relying on the relationship between propositions where the truth of one proposition logically necessitates the truth of another. So it's of a different order to physical causation - it transcends it.

That is the thrust of the argument, and so far, I fail to see how your 'social species' response actually addresses it.

The overwhelmingly vast majority of true statements about the natural numbers cannot be expressed in language — Tarskian

Doesn’t two plus two equals four qualify? It’s a true statement about natural numbers isn’t it?

If you are going to claim that I said something, then please have the intellectual integrity to quote what I actually said — wonderer1

Sure:

Nagel has fallen in with the cranks at the Discovery Institute, the crank Alvin Plantinga, etc. — wonderer1

Sure it is relevant, if Plantinga hopes to do more than beat on a staw man account of naturalistic evolution. — wonderer1

Your objection doesn’t address the argument.

I might add, whatever occurs within a social species, is a completely separate matter to what evolves according to natural selection. That only operates over much larger time-periods, and refers to the process of speciation. Certainly culture and human capabilities develop, but h.sapiens have not evolved significantly since their early forbears first appeared.

So who’s is the straw man argument?

You asked a loaded question, insinuating that what is in bold is my thinking. — wonderer1

But you did say that Thomas Nagel, atheist though he might profess to be, should be categorised along with 'that crank' Alvin Plantinga, and The Discovery Institute, which is an Intelligent Design organisation. The implication is that you think Nagel and Plantinga's arguments against evolutionary theory are based on religious ideology and science denial, that you lump them all together as being a form of creationism or intelligent design. In actual fact, all three are very different. Thomas Nagel never appeals to intelligent design or belief in God - he says he lacks any 'sense of the divine'.

Can you cite evidence from any version of the EAAN that considers evolution occurring within a social species? Can you recognize that failure to think through the implications of evolution occurring within a social species results in the failure of the EAAN to make the case it claims to?

Suppose evolution alone only resulted in something like a feral human child that you might barely call rational, but if the individual members of that species were raised in a culture with other members of the same species the result was members of that species going to the moon.

Where does Plantinga show any evidence of having considered the role of cuture? — wonderer1

None of that is relevant, though. His argument is epistemological, about the nature of knowledge. It is of the kind described as 'transcendental arguments'. Transcendental arguments seek to demonstrate the necessary preconditions for the possibility of some experience, knowledge, or exercise of reason. They typically follow this form: if a belief is plausible, then certain conditions must be met for it to be coherent and intelligible.

Plantinga argues that if both naturalism and evolution are true, then the probability that our cognitive faculties are reliable is low. If our cognitive faculties are unreliable, then we have a defeater for any belief produced by those faculties, including the belief in naturalism and evolution. This creates a self-defeating situation for the naturalist.

The basis on which he says that, is that naturalism typically holds that all events, including mental events like beliefs, are the result of natural (e.g. neurological) causes that can be studied and explained by the principles of natural science (such as neurology). This form of causation is often referred to as efficient causation, where one event (the cause) brings about another event (the effect) in accordance with physical or natural laws. In this view, mental states, including beliefs, are fully determined by physical processes in the brain, which are themselves the result of evolutionary pressures and biological mechanisms. Those who hold that the mind is identical with or a product of the brain or neural processes are obliged to hold this view. It is made explicit in the arguments of those such as Daniel Dennett.

In contrast, logical causation refers to the relationship between propositions where the truth of one proposition logically necessitates the truth of another. For example, if "All humans are mortal" and "Socrates is a human" are true, it logically follows that "Socrates is mortal" must also be true. This form of causation pertains to the realm of reason and logic rather than to observable physical processes. It governs how conclusions follow from premises in a rational argument, and is independent of physical causation.

What I've been arguing in this thread, is that the human faculty of reason differentiates humans from other species, because it enables humans to 'see reason' in that second sense (i.e. grasp logical inference.) That general lineage of argument has a very long pedigree, going right back to Plato and his predecessors.

I will add, there have been many developments in naturalism such that it no longer is susceptible to this argument i.e. Deacon's 'absentials', Vervaeke's 'extended naturalism' among others. But the case can certainly be made against the kind of neo-darwinian materialism that Dennett and Dawkins advocate.

Something which is a cause for concern. I keep telling myself I'm spending far too much time chatting here, but

also mine :-)

I didn't say anything about Plantinga being a Christian, and I'd like to hope you might want to refrain from putting words in my mouth like that. Do you think that you can? — wonderer1

No, you said he was a crank. That is not a word I put in your mouth. I am pointing out that he's an academically-qualified academic and professor of philosophy with reference to his Wikipedia entry. I've discussed variations of his 'evolutionary argument against naturalism' in the past. You ought to recognise that it was the subject of a number of textbooks with a great deal of commentary by academics on both sides of the argument, including critics such as Daniel Dennett (for example). So, he's not a crank, and it's not a crank's argument.

From the jacket cover of that title:

This intriguing line of argument raises issues of importance to epistemologists and to philosophers of mind, of religion, and of science. In this, the first book to address the ongoing debate, Plantinga presents his influential thesis and responds to critiques by distinguished philosophers from a variety of subfields. Plantinga's argument is aimed at metaphysical naturalism or roughly the view that no supernatural beings exist. Naturalism is typically conjoined with evolution as an explanation of the existence and diversity of life. Plantinga's claim is that one who holds to the truth of both naturalism and evolution is irrational in doing so. More specifically, because the probability that unguided evolution would have produced reliable cognitive faculties is either low or inscrutable, one who holds both naturalism and evolution acquires a "defeater" for every belief he/she holds, including the beliefs associated with naturalism and evolution. Following Plantinga's brief summary of his thesis are eleven original pieces by his critics. The book concludes with a new essay by Plantinga in which he defends and extends his view that metaphysical naturalism is self-defeating.

the crank Alvin Plantinga, — wonderer1

Speaks volumes, don't it.

Alvin Carl Plantinga[a] (born November 15, 1932) is an American analytic philosopher who works primarily in the fields of philosophy of religion, epistemology (particularly on issues involving epistemic justification), and logic.

From 1963 to 1982, Plantinga taught at Calvin University before accepting an appointment as the John A. O'Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame.[2] He later returned to Calvin University to become the inaugural holder of the Jellema Chair in Philosophy.[3]

A prominent Christian philosopher, Plantinga served as president of the Society of Christian Philosophers from 1983 to 1986. He has delivered the Gifford Lectures twice and was described by Time magazine as "America's leading orthodox Protestant philosopher of God".[4] In 2014, Plantinga was the 30th most-cited contemporary author in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.[5] — Wikipedia

So, an academically-qualified professor of philosophy, but Christian, therefore a crank, right?

But isn’t making making a measurement simply taking a snapshot or picture of how things are at that moment in time ? — kindred

No it's not (with the caveat that threads about quantum physics nearly always end up in the long grass.)

The revolutionary point about Heisenberg's discovery of the uncertainty principle was there was no definite way that things are, prior to the act of measurement. It isn't as if there's a particle somewhere, with the position only awaiting discovery by the observer. It's that the act of observation actually has a role in determining the objects status as a particle (because, remember, it can also appear as a wave, which is the famous wave-particle duality).

This of course is a huge mystery and the source of an enormous amount of literature and argument, but the approach that makes to the sense to my layman's understanding of it, is the 'Copenhagen interpretation', which you can read about here.

QM launched a revolution when is made science shake hands with humanities by insisting that cognition is integral to the causal process that determines the final state of a system operating through changes. — ucarr

I see where you're going with all of this, and even agree. You have a rather idiosyncratic way of expressing your ideas, but I do detect a convergence with some of the source materials I've been studying.

So, I would paraphrase the above by expressing it like this: Quantum physics introduced the necessity of accounting for 'the observer,' a factor previously excluded or bracketed out in classical science. This led to the well-known 'observer problem' in physics, which challenges the assumption that the objects of analysis exist independently of the observer. Although the wave equation predicts how a system evolves, it does not explain why a specific outcome crystallizes upon measurement. This explanatory gap highlighted the need to incorporate the observer into the framework. Whereas prior to the quantum revolution the idealised models of physics were taken to reveal a view of nature as it is in itself, with this development, the role of the observer had to be taken into account as well. This was one of the main causes of disagreement between Einstein's scientific realism and the anti-realist tendencies he found in the so-called Copenhagen school.

Freud once remarked that ‘the self-love of mankind has been three times wounded by science’, referring to the Copernican revolution, Darwin’s discovery of evolution, and Nietszche’s declaration of the death of God. In a roundabout way, perhaps the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum physics has given back to humanity what th Enlightenment had taken away, by placing the mind in a constitutive role in the observation of the fundamental constituents of nature.

All of this leads me to conclude that the hubbub over misinformation is a campaign for more power rather than a legitimate plight for public safety. — NOS4A2

Is it coincidental that you're one of the major boosters of MAGA disinformation on this forum?

I believe bonobos have the potential for learning language but it is dormant because they lack the epigenome and inherited use of language that humans have. — Athena

It's genetics, not simply epigenetics. And don’t overlook the fact that not only are their brains not equipped for language, but neither are their vocal tracts, for which the h.sapiens anatomy is uniquely suited.

My suggestion is that there is a tendency to see animals as inherently other than us, human beings, mainly on the ground that they are in what one might call the state of nature, before humans came and developed societies. It's a way of thinking that was prominent in 18th century philosophy, but the roots of it in our way of life are deeper than that. The difference is that they are now openly contested. — Ludwig V

Well, you said that neither Christianity nor Darwinism are a philosophy, but Christianity absorbed a great deal of Greek philosophy, which resulted in the unique synthesis of Christian Platonism.

In traditional theology and metaphysics, the natural was largely conceived as the evil, and the spiritual or supernatural as the good. In popular Darwinism, the good is the well-adapted, and the value of that to which the organism adapts itself is unquestioned or is measured only in terms of further adaptation. However, being well adapted to one’s surroundings is tantamount to being capable of coping successfully with them, of mastering the forces that beset one. Thus the theoretical denial of the spirit’s antagonism to nature–even as implied in the doctrine of interrelation between the various forms of organic life, including man–frequently amounts in practice to subscribing to the principle of man’s continuous and thoroughgoing domination of nature. Regarding reason as a natural organ does not divest it of the trend to domination or invest it with greater potentialities for reconciliation. On the contrary, the abdication of the spirit in popular Darwinism entails the rejection of any elements of the mind that transcend the function of adaptation and consequently are not instruments of self-preservation. Reason disavows its own primacy and professes to be a mere servant of natural selection. On the surface, this new empirical reason seems more humble toward nature than the reason of the metaphysical tradition. Actually, however, it is arrogant, practical mind riding roughshod over the ‘useless spiritual,’ and dismissing any view of nature in which the latter is taken to be more than a stimulus to human activity. The effects of this view are not confined to modern philosophy. — The Eclipse of Reason, Max Horkheimer

I don't know how much science Nagel knows, but do you really mean to say that any perspective is not scientifically well-informed is not worth having? — Ludwig V

Those who push scientism seem never to understand what it is or that this is what they're doing. I think the reason is, that the distinction between a philosophical and a scientific question is itself a philosophical distinction, therefore unintelligible in scientific terms.

Strategic Incompletness wisely keeps human individuals from knowing themselves finally. — ucarr

Well, Roger Penrose said in his Emperor's New Mind that the mind was not reducible to algorithms, although I must say, I bought that book and the maths was beyond me. I don't see the point of speculating about entropy and thermodynamic resistance, if it's not an attempt to make the conversation seem as if it's scientifically informed. But as far as the incomprehesibility of your true nature is concerned, and putting aside the rather idiosyncratic jargon, I think the basic intuition is the right one :up: .

// see only don't know//

But since you grant intelligence to "higher" animals, I take you to be granting rationality in some sense to them, but then maintaining there is a different sense that is available to human beings. I don't have a clear grasp of these two different senses, much less of why the difference is important. It may be merely pedantic. — Ludwig V

I'm not clear just what philosophical naturalism is. — Ludwig V

The meaning is not clearly defined, but SEP tells us that it 'aims to ally philosophy more closely with science. Naturalists urge that reality is exhausted by nature, containing nothing “supernatural”, and that the scientific method should be used to investigate all areas of reality, including the “human spirit” '. Specifically it takes the natural sciences, including the biological sciences, as authoritative regarding what is validly knowledge, and rejects any claims of religious revelation or the possibility of a spiritual enlightenment.

The idea that we are "just monkeys" was a major issue at the time. But I gather than many Christians are now at peace with evolution, so they must have found some resolution of the issue. For myself, I notice that we did still carry many of the basic animal behaviour patterns and that we find predecessor or proto- versions of many of our patterns of behaviour in animals (and even insects). So the idea of a radical discontinuity seems a bit implausible. — Ludwig V

What I've tried to explain here and especially here is that, even accepting the facts of biological evolution, the development of language, tool use, and the other characteristically human capabilities, means we cross a threshhold which separates us from the natural world in an existential sense as well as a practical sense. Through it, we become different kinds of beings, namely, human beings, and we're not just another class of primate. I harked back to both the Biblical Myth of the Fall and to Aristotle's definition of man as 'rational animal' because I think they represent something real about the human condition, which has been lost sight of in modern culture.

Thomas Nagel has an interesting essay I often refer to, Evolutionary Naturalism and the Fear of Religion. I've mentioned it a few times on the forum, it's generaly not well received, but I find it very insightful. (Nagel is not pushing a religious barrow, he's an avowed atheist but one with the chutzpah to call scientific materialism into question.)

Right. Well, unlike Descartes, who thought animals had no soul whatever, many of the pre-modern and Asiatic religions recognised that human beings can also be born into the animal realm (presumably from behaving like them.) There's a legend about Pythagoras that he once exclaimed that he recognised the soul of one of his departed friends in the howl of a dog. Buddhist sermons would say that if you held to wrong ideas, you would find yourself 'in the womb of a cow'. I suppose it's simply poetic mythology, but then.....

(Actually brought a bit of a tear to the eye, posting that photo of Woody. We really loved that little guy, I walked him nearly every day of his life.)

anima-endowed beings — javra

and also, Aristotle's 'De Anima', translated as 'On the Soul'. I love the connection between Anima, Animal, and Animated. (More I read of the old guy, more I like him.)

I'd say "come" at a distance after he'd misbehaved and he'd sit his ass on the ground and calmly stare in all directions except toward me — javra

For nearly 15 years we had a smallish (10kg) sheltie cross, who was a very polite little dog (except towards postmen and motorcyles). This is him:


Woody

He had this quirk of hanging around near the kitchen or the dining room table at meal times, presumably hoping for a hand out. But if you looked at him while he was doing this, he'd never meet your gaze, always looking down or away from you, as a kind of feigned indifference. ('What? Me? Beg?')

In Zen as well (and most schools of Buddhism teach similar ideas), it's believed that the concept of zen cannot be taught at all through language and that any attempts to do so immediately betray the concept of Zen. Zen can only be experienced, not taught or communicated. — Dorrian

True, that, although there's some irony in the fact that Zen monasteries generally maintain an enormous library of canoninical literature and commentary. I agree that Zen relies on realisation (not necessarily the same as experience) but the actual monastic environment is highly structured and very disciplined. Within that milieu, it is certainly true that the aim is to convey an ineffable insight.

But what does this mean ? Does it mean there’s flaws in our language or that some parts of human experience are just ineffable ? — kindred

'The ineffable is not something mystical or mysterious; it is merely that which evades description. But while It evades description, it pervades experience.' ~ Thomas Short (a quote I read somewher on the internet, but can't recall the exact source.)

Well, either I'm not recognizing the distinction, or I'm not recognizing how fundamental it is. Perhaps if you were specific, it would be possible to discern which. — Ludwig V

Throughout this conversation, whenever you seek to justify an argument, you give reasons. If you wish me to justify my position, you ask me to do the same. Obviously animals cannot do that, in part because they lack language, but also because of the lack the cognitive skills which the ability to speak brings with it. That's the distinction I'm making between human and animal reason. Yes, animals can act intelligently, especially higher animals like cetaceans, primates, birds, canines, etc. But they lack reason in the human sense (which, as you say above that you're 'a pedant' might be, I would have thought, a distinction a pedant would recognise ;-) )

As noted, I think this distinction is resisted in contemporary culture because it's politically incorrect. There's an aversion to the Christian doctrine of mankind's sovereignty over nature as it is associated with religion and old-fashioned cultural attitudes. It's today's 'popular wisdom'.

There's also the sense that we believe Darwinism has shown that we're on a continuum with other species, and this provides the satisfaction of us being part of nature, which is consistent with philosophical naturalism.

This is where I think a philosophical critique of naturalism fits in, but I won't advance it again, as it's clearly not registering.

:up:

The ability to create science and technology, art and social institutions and so on, is unique to humans. But as uniqueness is a characteristic of every species, then our uniqueness is not unique, and so being unique is not unique to any species. — Ludwig V

That’s what I thought you would say, although I still say there’s a fundamental distinction you’re not recognising.

Perhaps another issue worth considering in this thread is, do animals think critically? Do humans think critically? — wonderer1

To think critically one first has to have abstract reasoning skills, which I don’t believe is possessed by animals, for the reasons stated.

It is not difficult to find a unique feature or features in any species. (That's largely how we identify them). The interesting question is what is the significance of those unique features. — Ludwig V

So, your argument is that all species are unique - after all, uniqueness is what makes them identifiable as separate species. The ability to speak, think rationally, plan, create science and technology, and so on, is unique to humans. But as uniqueness is a characteristic of every species, then our uniqueness is not unique, and so we're really no different to to other species.

Do I have that right?

And mental activity is neuronal. And we know that's physical. — L'éléphant

Ah, materialist philosophy of mind. I’ll try out some objections. First, you’re up against ‘the hard problem’ - there’s never been a plausible account of how the first-person nature of lived experience arises from the processes described by objective science. Experience has a qualitative dimension which never appears in the equations of physics by design, due to the ‘Cartesian division’ at the origin of modern science, the separation of primary (measurable) and secondary (subjective) attributes.

Practical illustration. You arrive home to discover your house and everything in it has burned down. If there was an instrument that could capture your precise neuronal and physiological state at that instant, it might capture data from which a suitably-trained user might be able to infer a state of acute emotional distress, and which would be an objectively accurate account. But on the basis of that data no matter how detailed, there would no way to determine how it feels and what it means to you. Saying that this is ‘neuronal’ or ‘physical’ might be objectively accurate but it would also be meaningless in the absence of the first-person perspective - namely, yours - which you bring to it.

I don't think I agree that physics is mathematical in nature. I think many aspects of it can be described mathematically. Is it the same thing? — Patterner

It is called ‘mathematical physics’ for good reason. Have you read Eugene Wigner’s The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences? Wigner won a Nobel for discoveries prompted by mathematical symmetries in atomic physics. He argues in that essay that there have been very many cases where empirical discoveries were made as kind of unintentional consequences of mathematical calculations. He says we seem to get much more out of the equations than we have apparently put in. He doesn’t claim to explain this fact - actually the word ‘miracle’ appears quite a few times. But then, Pythagoreanism's ‘all is number’, is suggestive of these kinds of ideas, and that is a rich vein of philosophy in the Western tradition. After all Galileo famously said the book of nature is written in the language of mathematics. And I would have thought a great deal of the success of modern science arises from the ability to apply mathematical logic to physical objects and forces.

Then again, much of physics itself is based on ‘ideal objects’, like perfect gases or perfectly smooth planes, which don’t actually exist but which enable highly accurate predictive power over things that do physically exist.

So I think the case can be made that mathematics is intrinsic to physics itself, and that the basic elements of mathematics are not themselves physical. (The SEP entry on Physicaism has an entry on this.)

We know one thing for sure, that matter went from being inanimate to animate in this universe at least. — kindred

God breathed life into the dust, in the Biblical myth, which is at least an evocative allegory.