The Human Question

This is an example of a rough draft rather than a polished one....it's from an email I just sent to "me bros": Nice points about infinity, bro... I'll try to give some feedback I agree that you can't divide one by zero.  But maybe there's more than one way to ARRIVE AT the concept of infinity in mathematics.  For example, they talk about nearly parallel lines that meet "at infinity," which means they keep getting closer but never touch.  SECOND EXAMPLE: THINK OF THE PROGRESSION: 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, etc. IT BECOMES zero at infinity.  IN THESE TWO CASES, THERE IS No need to talk about dividing one by zero.  But yes, YOU COULD OBJECT THAT these TWO counterexampleS replace one impossibility (DIVIDING ONE BY ZERO) with TWO NEW ONES: none of us is ever going to get to the infinity that lies at the end of the 1/2, 1/4, 1/8 series.  Yet we can think about it: THAT'S what's amazing about math  In order for mathematics to do all the...

Is there such a thing as the imagining of an object w/o a correlative awareness of oneself as imagining?  If you imagine just a triangle--nothing else?  Can you imagine the triangle going up?  Yes.  If so, then tell me: relative to what did it move up? I am not sure that there's any point to this musing... it just seems interesting... And perhaps because it's so easy to perform the thought experiment it may be useful to overcome a naive view of the imagination.

the bathroom sink is clogged AND the faucet won't stop running...both happened in the same week!  Bummer!  Off to Loews...

1. recognize that reality is, in a sense, wonderful.  And avoid deflating descriptions of that which fills you with wonder (example of such a description would be to describe culture in a manner that fails to take into account the use of symbols). 2. seek to understand 1 without resorting to the fantastic or fanciful. 3. be open to the possibility that reality is greater than you can imagine (in other words, openness to mystery).

1. figuring out how to tie one's shoe or 2. questioning why the world exists?

Every mechanistic system has a primitive that is not itself mechanized.  Newtonian physics had gravity, which itself is not explained mechanistically.  Consider it an energy of sorts.

Plato talked about ideas in a way that gives the impression that he believes there is a kind of immaterial realm, a set of beings called ideas.  I don't see the need to make that move, although I do think that we are moved, ultimately by the desire for God.  But I do acknowledge that we are motivated by objects of sorts that are not to be located in a particular place or time.  They have a kind of ideality about them, even though they are "of this world" rather than "other worldly." Consider the following example  We don't desire simply to taste this yummy food here and now, but to taste yummy food in general.  The latter desire motivates us to experiment with new recipes... not the latter.  But there is a kind of ideality in the latter when compared to the former. "I taste this food here and now": finite verb, i.e., with a definite time and place indicates an event. "To taste good food": Infinitive "indicates" a non-event...

Taylor says we must be disengaged in order to be theoretical.  Why not say that one who does theorizing is passionate about displaying the world to self and others?  Why deny the role of eros?

Substance seems to Dreyfus to be something we must disengage from in order to think about.  Hence we lose that initial engagement in the world.  To talk of substance, therefore, is to instrumentalize one's world and to constitute dualities (such as inner/outer) that divorce us from being. I propose that substance is best understood by reflecting on a word that Aristotle was fond of using:  entelecheia (a word that conveys how something is continuously acting for a goal--a goal not extrinsic to its own activity but rather is for the sake of being active).  Entelecheia is a philosophical world used to describe how we act when engaged in the world.  Yet Arisotle uses it to describe substances.  The prime instance of substance, therefore, is a human being practically engaged.  Not a flat substratum thing, but a striver.  One who (on a good day) seeks to be fully alive.

His description of how something becomes present at hand... is inadequate if you are looking for an account of the origin of theoretical knowledge.  Speculative reason's wonder at the purpose/point of the whole is not the same as being puzzled about how some part before oneself works.  The latter is sub speculative. This may be more approproriate elsewhere but here goes, since I'm talking about Hediegger: standing still (because of awe or wonder) is still a mode of comportment.

understanding the spatio-temporal-functional unity of the human person rightly is to recognize that this unity is not the sum of the operations of the parts (nor the sum of the parts themselves), NOR the effect of one part upon another, BUT INSTEAD as the operation of a whole being, an operation that follows upon BEING a whole.

I certainly ain't fer dualism, but I think that merely pointing to the complexity of the brain or to correlations between processes taking play its parts and reported is not sufficient to destroy dualism. I prefer to look for a more robust refutation, and in that spirit, I would first offer an (ironic) defense of dualism of the sort that would recognize the need for the complexity of operation in the brain.  The argument that defeats this not-so-lame version of dualism is one that gives us insights into an alternative to both dualism AND to materialistic monism.

A big deal is made, I believe, about the size of the area in the brain wherein the processes associated with speech typically take place.  But maybe the size is that large because of use rather than dna: just as is the case for the part of the brain associated with the fingers of a violin player. It would be interesting to see how large the same area is in the brain of a feral child...

Preface: I am not in any way a supporter of ID, but I think that Shermer offers a straw man version of it in the person of Henry Morris, who denied that the life forms are subject to the law of entropy.  Unfair, because Morris's book is manifestly stupid, and one can be a proponent of ID yet reject Morris's arguments.

Michael Shermer argues that ID stifles creativity.  I can see why one would think this claim plausible: it is easy to imagine that one who believes in ID thinks that acceptance of that hypothesis amounts to saying "God did it miraculously" whenever one encounters a phenomenon that's too difficult to expalin via natural causes.  But once we know that God did it, there seems to be no need to ask how God effected this mystery: the only answer that can be given is that it was done miraculously.  And why did God perform this miracle?  Because God chose to do so.   Why does God choose to act one way rather than another?  One cannot explain this completely, because if one could give a complete explanation of God's actions, then it would the case that those actions happened necessarily.  In which case they would not be free.  This appeal to divine will is a bit of a conversation stopper--if the conversation is one about scientific explanation....

Shermer brings up ETI (extra terrestrial intelligence) as a defeater to theism.  That is, any purported evidence of God, says Shermer, can also be explained by positing extra terrestrials or ETIs. Such an argument actually makes theism look more rational than atheism.  For two reasons. First because in order to avoid a theistic explanation of miracles (including those that might be posited by ID theory), one may have to posit fantastic creatures for which we have no particular evidence.  Granted, an ETI would be sufficient to account for the phenomena in question.  But since there is no evidence of an ETI, isn't this more like an ad hoc appeal to hidden magic when the hypothesis of God would be simpler?  And it would leave science MORE intact than appeal to ETIs.  For one could just as easily suppose that there are water nymphs, etc. as one could suppose that there are ETIs.  In other words, science could break down once we invent finite agenc...

M. Shermer says he has an example of macro evolution.  See the February 2004 edition of Science , where scientists made e.coli virus adapt to its environment...as reported by University of Michigan biologist James Bardwell in the February 2004 edition of Science . improvised a novel molecular tool. Could this be a new structure that IDers like Behe say are unlikely to arise?

In his book on evolution vs. intelligent design, Shermer notes that chance and necessity (or a combination thereof) are typically regarded as the only possible alternative sources of life as we know it.  But he adds that we should consider other possible explanations.   He does not, however, indicate what that third thing might be. ???