The Human Question

Out of Our Heads is a terrific book that thoroughly undermines the notion that our brain in some way forms a representation of the world. It does that by a kind of "enactive holism." First of all by regarding cognition as part of a whole--that whole being our interaction with our environment. From this vantage, one can see brain activity as part of the individual's interactivity with her or his environment. One no longer regards the brain in a homuncular manner, as a crane driver that directs and uses our body. The body no longer seems like an living vat that holds the brain while serving as a medium for transmitting messages to and fro. By avoiding a brain/rest-of the-body dualism, one also undercuts the need to posit representations within the brain. Rather, the brain is the point at which our interactions become focused and interrelated. Noe's holistic understanding of the human organism can account for the plasticity of the brain and may perhaps dissolve ...

That is, cognitive scientists note that an area that becomes activated when we recognize a familiar face, an area not found in other animals, and say that this area (fusiform face area) is for facial recognition. Noe points out that this area also becomes activated when specialists are looking at their objects of expertise. Score one for the plasticity of the brain.

It seems that Paley was a utilitarian (sez Copleston) much like J S Mill, except that the former was a theist. Pleasure/pain are the measures of happiness. Non-sequitur move from my feeling like pursuing my happiness to my obligation to seek the greater happiness of all. Obligation as coercian (Austin?). A worthy project: to compare the klunkiness of this very instrumentalist ethics with the inner teleology of Aristotle, and then to draw an analogy between this comparison and Paley's use of teleology in the service of natural theology and Aquinas's 5th way. My point: Aquinas's way as superior to Paley's design argument as is Aristotle's ethics of human flourishing is to Paley's klunky utilitariansim.

Actually, in The Faith of a Physicist, he lists four properties of modern physics brought up by Barbour. The first is the developmental nature of the universe, the second is the intertwining of chance and law; and the third is wholeness and emergence. The footnote lists other works that discuss these same properties (the last two have to do with biology, which is what I'm interested in): Bartholemew 1984 God of Chance Polkinghorne 1986 One World Polkinghorne 1988 Science and Creation Prigogine 1980 From Being to Becoming Prigogine and Stengers 1984 Order out of Chaos Peacocke 1979 Creation and the World of Science Peacocke 1986 God and the New Biology Must look into the last two...

One interesting point of departure for the study of human nature is our ability to know (or suppose that we know) laws of nature. For quite a while these laws have been formulated in mathematical and geometric terms. But math and geometry involve a kind of awareness of the infinite: the infinities that pertain to math and geometry, that is. But what kind of awareness is that? Is it simply a combination of NOT plus FINITE? But how could that mean anything if finite things are all we know? There is some sort of transcendence of experience going on here. Or rather, a transcendence of all possible experience. At this point it seems to be a good idea to reread the Phaedo.

A lot of very plausible explanations of present animal behavior use the following template: "individuals do the most to help survive and reproduce for those who share genes the most." For example, polyandry is rare, yes, but when it does occur, the two males are brothers. Other examples have to do with sharing food, etc. My thought: the behaviors are all consistent with the aforementioned hypothesis. But they might also be consistent with hypothesis that "the familiar get treated like family." It would be interesting to see who got preferential treatment... a sibling from whom an animal was separated long ago, or a non-sibling with whom the animal has been living for a long while. Perhaps sometimes familiarity trumps family; other times not...