A friend named Marc Flores, who is not a believer, and I once shared a blog in which we argued about the existence of God. I have been out of touch with this friend for the past three years and can no longer find the blog's exact address. But I did save the last post, which I think was worthwhile. Marc never replied to this post:
Your last post was very provocative: I have all sorts of notes scribbled on a printout next to me... let's see if I can condense it all. I'll try my best: honest.
We both recognize that humans possess the ability to wonder about the universe and our place in it. I venture that that this wonder animates many human activities. If you show me an enthusiastic scientist, I'll show show you someone who is motivated by this wonder. The same is likely for many philosophers, theologians and artists.
I propose, furthermore, that this wonder has a lot to do with the human ability to discover universal and necessary truths, for only one who has wondered at the universe would bother to seek such knowledge. And one who has discoverd such truths can at least partially satisfy this wonder. Hence wonder and the ability to grasp very high-level truths are intertwined. Let us call the combination of traits a "human grasp of the world (or of the universe)."
When I ask you where this human grasp of the world comes from, you say that it is a spandrel, i.e., a characteristic that has no adaptive value but is instead the result of the combination of other characteristics that did have adaptive value. This answer inspired me to do some research on the topic, and here is what I found: the term was originally an achitectural one naming the area adjoining the two load-bearing arches of a building. Architects would fill in this area with an ornate design, something viewers would regard as having intrinsic value even though it is incidental to the structure of the building. In 1979, Steven Jay Gould and Richard Lowontin used this term to name something analogous in organisms. They possess characteristics that may currently be useful even though they did not originally arise as a result of any adaptive value. They are instead the by-product of other characteristics that were adaptive.
With this summary in mind, I will try to point out a problem with your application of Gould's notion of spandrels to the "human grasp of the world."
One interesting contrast is the fact that the architectural spandrel described by Gould is not the load-bearing part of an arch: it is merely ornamental. But the human grasp of the universe does not seem merely "ornamental": on the contrary, it bears "the main load" of many of the most important aspects of human activity! That is, human beings flourish (or "thrive," as I said in my previous post) only inasmuch as they are guided by the desire for truth, goodness, and beauty. And these desires, I would propose to you, are for a large part rooted in what I've called the "human grasp of the world." Of course, Gould's response would be that even though these features of human living seem of central imporance to us, they are not so from an evolutionary perspective. Rather, they are just the fortuitous result of the way various adaptive traits have worked together. But if we consider how the architectural spandrel does not support anything around it and is instead supported by the arches that it bridges, then this Gouldian response seems unsatisfactory. For as I will argue below, the human grasp of the world is much more powerful than any combination of survival-related characteristics that would, in your opinion, have given rise to it.
To see why I consider the human grasp of the world so powerful, ask yourself how could various adaptive traits that enable us to become aware of things at particular places and times combine to give us the awareness of what is true at all places and times? Perhaps you would answer that a greater degree of neural complexity makes such cognitive achievements possible. But are these more powerful acts really more complex than other ones? I don't think so: consider the following two activities and ask yourself which is more complex than the other: asking "what time is it?" and asking "what is time?" The latter could probably be asked or answered by a monkey. I submit that the latter is no more complex--perhaps it is even simpler--but it could only be asked or answered by a being capable of the sort of wonder we have been discussing.
I am arguing that it seems plausible that mere "survival strategies" could not have sufficed to have produced a human grasp of the world. You might insist that they could. But if it is true that the human grasp of the world is a non-adaptive spandrel, then please suggest to me what might be the adaptive "arches" that are capable of supporting it.
There is so much more to say, but I've already yacked too much. The rest of this will be very cursory.
I like your points about reciprocal altruism. I don't believe in pure altruism either, but I do believe in community... more on that later if you like. But for the present I note only that reciprocal altruism does not seem to support the notion that the human grasp of the world is a spandrel.
In a previous post I illustrated the difference between surviving and thriving with a story about an evolutionarily maladtive adult who flourishes vs. an evolutionarily adaptive adult who does not flourish (i.e., a healthy, virile jerk). You replied that this is an exceptional case, and exceptions are not the rule. To that I counter-reply with the following question: do you think that there is a distinction to be made between your flourishing as a human being and your acting in a manner that promotes your survival? That is, when you make important life decisions, do you base your decision in a large part on the desire for a life that is meaningful (i.e., one that corresponds to your human grasp of the world), or do you ignore that desire for meaning and reason instead solely in terms of your needs for food, nourishment, and safety? If you choose the former, then my example is not of an exception... unless you are an exception.
My third to last remark has to do with your claim that cognition is electriticity or electrical discharge. I would reply by pointing out that the operation of muscle tissue also involves electrical discharges. Are our muscles therefore sentient? Or even better: are all electrical discharges cognitive events? In such a case, not only my computer, but my clock and telephone would be cognizant as well. Woah! Echoes of Timothy Leary! Of course, maintaining this would be silly, but can a person who identifies cognition with electrical activity explain why it should not apply to non-living things. Furthermore, if we turn to the brain: we discover gazillions of electrical discharges going on in there, yet there only seems to be one Leo or Marc who is thinking, perceiving, feeling, acting. There is some unity to this riot of electrical activity, but whence comes that unity? I believe that reductive materialism can't answer that question satisfactorily, unless you think the claim that the unity itself is illusory. Are you willing to go there? Finally, you and I can both reflect on what we're doing as we read this and note that we are doing many things at the same time: hearing something, feeling an emotion, and moving the hands, etc. Is there a special electrical discharge just for this reflective awareness of how all these things are going on at the same time? That is, can one electrical discharge be aware of another?
Second to last remark: at the end of your previous post you returned to the theme that there is no reason to posit an immaterial soul. But the objections/questions that I just offered apply to a dog brain as well. In other words, I don't think reductive materialism can account even for dog-consciousness. That is not to say that I believe in the immateriality of dog souls. Rather, I believe that the unity in any animal awareness involves an activity that unites all of its parts, and that activity is what Aristotle and yours truly would call the soul. Without that unity, there is no unity or continuity to consciousness. I would note that Aristotle was aware of materialistic explanations of animal behavior: the materialistic approach is not as new as you might think. But he was also aware of its shortcomings, which I've tried to point out by asking questions about how electricity and consciousness are related to each other.
Finally, my last remark! You never responded to my questions about how evolutionary psychology might test hypotheses. It seems to me, therefore, that this discipline as you have presented it proceeds by speculating about how evolution can explain psychological features of human life, but it does not have a method for testing whether a characteristic is a spandrel or an adaptive trait. Nor, consequently, does it have a procedure for testing whether evolution explains all human characteristics. It just speculates about the answers to its questions without testing them. Mind you, there's nothing wrong with mere speculation. But given the fact that it starts with the assumption that evolution can explain all human features, one can't appeal to these its untested speculations in order to argue that everything human is explainable by evolution. Or rather, one who argues in that manner is reasoning circularly.
Of course, there may be more to evolutionary psychology than is obvious to me from our discussions thus far. In any case, you need to tell me how evolutionary psychology tests its hypotheses or quit claiming that it is a mature science.
I am going to be grading papers like crazy for the next week... till next time, I wish you the very best: let us both keep wondering about these matters, even if it doesn't seem to help our chances of survival.
Your last post was very provocative: I have all sorts of notes scribbled on a printout next to me... let's see if I can condense it all. I'll try my best: honest.
We both recognize that humans possess the ability to wonder about the universe and our place in it. I venture that that this wonder animates many human activities. If you show me an enthusiastic scientist, I'll show show you someone who is motivated by this wonder. The same is likely for many philosophers, theologians and artists.
I propose, furthermore, that this wonder has a lot to do with the human ability to discover universal and necessary truths, for only one who has wondered at the universe would bother to seek such knowledge. And one who has discoverd such truths can at least partially satisfy this wonder. Hence wonder and the ability to grasp very high-level truths are intertwined. Let us call the combination of traits a "human grasp of the world (or of the universe)."
When I ask you where this human grasp of the world comes from, you say that it is a spandrel, i.e., a characteristic that has no adaptive value but is instead the result of the combination of other characteristics that did have adaptive value. This answer inspired me to do some research on the topic, and here is what I found: the term was originally an achitectural one naming the area adjoining the two load-bearing arches of a building. Architects would fill in this area with an ornate design, something viewers would regard as having intrinsic value even though it is incidental to the structure of the building. In 1979, Steven Jay Gould and Richard Lowontin used this term to name something analogous in organisms. They possess characteristics that may currently be useful even though they did not originally arise as a result of any adaptive value. They are instead the by-product of other characteristics that were adaptive.
With this summary in mind, I will try to point out a problem with your application of Gould's notion of spandrels to the "human grasp of the world."
One interesting contrast is the fact that the architectural spandrel described by Gould is not the load-bearing part of an arch: it is merely ornamental. But the human grasp of the universe does not seem merely "ornamental": on the contrary, it bears "the main load" of many of the most important aspects of human activity! That is, human beings flourish (or "thrive," as I said in my previous post) only inasmuch as they are guided by the desire for truth, goodness, and beauty. And these desires, I would propose to you, are for a large part rooted in what I've called the "human grasp of the world." Of course, Gould's response would be that even though these features of human living seem of central imporance to us, they are not so from an evolutionary perspective. Rather, they are just the fortuitous result of the way various adaptive traits have worked together. But if we consider how the architectural spandrel does not support anything around it and is instead supported by the arches that it bridges, then this Gouldian response seems unsatisfactory. For as I will argue below, the human grasp of the world is much more powerful than any combination of survival-related characteristics that would, in your opinion, have given rise to it.
To see why I consider the human grasp of the world so powerful, ask yourself how could various adaptive traits that enable us to become aware of things at particular places and times combine to give us the awareness of what is true at all places and times? Perhaps you would answer that a greater degree of neural complexity makes such cognitive achievements possible. But are these more powerful acts really more complex than other ones? I don't think so: consider the following two activities and ask yourself which is more complex than the other: asking "what time is it?" and asking "what is time?" The latter could probably be asked or answered by a monkey. I submit that the latter is no more complex--perhaps it is even simpler--but it could only be asked or answered by a being capable of the sort of wonder we have been discussing.
I am arguing that it seems plausible that mere "survival strategies" could not have sufficed to have produced a human grasp of the world. You might insist that they could. But if it is true that the human grasp of the world is a non-adaptive spandrel, then please suggest to me what might be the adaptive "arches" that are capable of supporting it.
There is so much more to say, but I've already yacked too much. The rest of this will be very cursory.
I like your points about reciprocal altruism. I don't believe in pure altruism either, but I do believe in community... more on that later if you like. But for the present I note only that reciprocal altruism does not seem to support the notion that the human grasp of the world is a spandrel.
In a previous post I illustrated the difference between surviving and thriving with a story about an evolutionarily maladtive adult who flourishes vs. an evolutionarily adaptive adult who does not flourish (i.e., a healthy, virile jerk). You replied that this is an exceptional case, and exceptions are not the rule. To that I counter-reply with the following question: do you think that there is a distinction to be made between your flourishing as a human being and your acting in a manner that promotes your survival? That is, when you make important life decisions, do you base your decision in a large part on the desire for a life that is meaningful (i.e., one that corresponds to your human grasp of the world), or do you ignore that desire for meaning and reason instead solely in terms of your needs for food, nourishment, and safety? If you choose the former, then my example is not of an exception... unless you are an exception.
My third to last remark has to do with your claim that cognition is electriticity or electrical discharge. I would reply by pointing out that the operation of muscle tissue also involves electrical discharges. Are our muscles therefore sentient? Or even better: are all electrical discharges cognitive events? In such a case, not only my computer, but my clock and telephone would be cognizant as well. Woah! Echoes of Timothy Leary! Of course, maintaining this would be silly, but can a person who identifies cognition with electrical activity explain why it should not apply to non-living things. Furthermore, if we turn to the brain: we discover gazillions of electrical discharges going on in there, yet there only seems to be one Leo or Marc who is thinking, perceiving, feeling, acting. There is some unity to this riot of electrical activity, but whence comes that unity? I believe that reductive materialism can't answer that question satisfactorily, unless you think the claim that the unity itself is illusory. Are you willing to go there? Finally, you and I can both reflect on what we're doing as we read this and note that we are doing many things at the same time: hearing something, feeling an emotion, and moving the hands, etc. Is there a special electrical discharge just for this reflective awareness of how all these things are going on at the same time? That is, can one electrical discharge be aware of another?
Second to last remark: at the end of your previous post you returned to the theme that there is no reason to posit an immaterial soul. But the objections/questions that I just offered apply to a dog brain as well. In other words, I don't think reductive materialism can account even for dog-consciousness. That is not to say that I believe in the immateriality of dog souls. Rather, I believe that the unity in any animal awareness involves an activity that unites all of its parts, and that activity is what Aristotle and yours truly would call the soul. Without that unity, there is no unity or continuity to consciousness. I would note that Aristotle was aware of materialistic explanations of animal behavior: the materialistic approach is not as new as you might think. But he was also aware of its shortcomings, which I've tried to point out by asking questions about how electricity and consciousness are related to each other.
Finally, my last remark! You never responded to my questions about how evolutionary psychology might test hypotheses. It seems to me, therefore, that this discipline as you have presented it proceeds by speculating about how evolution can explain psychological features of human life, but it does not have a method for testing whether a characteristic is a spandrel or an adaptive trait. Nor, consequently, does it have a procedure for testing whether evolution explains all human characteristics. It just speculates about the answers to its questions without testing them. Mind you, there's nothing wrong with mere speculation. But given the fact that it starts with the assumption that evolution can explain all human features, one can't appeal to these its untested speculations in order to argue that everything human is explainable by evolution. Or rather, one who argues in that manner is reasoning circularly.
Of course, there may be more to evolutionary psychology than is obvious to me from our discussions thus far. In any case, you need to tell me how evolutionary psychology tests its hypotheses or quit claiming that it is a mature science.
I am going to be grading papers like crazy for the next week... till next time, I wish you the very best: let us both keep wondering about these matters, even if it doesn't seem to help our chances of survival.
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