The Human Question

I'm thinking here about the relation between desire, imagination and self-movement: how do these arise in animals so that they operate seemlessly together? The answer to this question shows that an evolutionary theory that is emergent rather than reductive is far less problematic.  But since emergent evolutionism is also open to theism (without being subject to the charge of supernaturalism lodged against ID), it follows that openness to theism makes, in this case, for better natural science. Let's begin Let's start by separating the problem of motion from that of cognition and appetite:  I suppose one can move a la zombie without perceiving or desiring: so one could simplify the problem somewhat.  Movement can arise on its own, without the other two.  But whence the other two?  And how is it that they seem so interwoven with each other and with self-movement? It is hard (or impossible) to conceive of the interwoven operations of all three as a mechanica...

Steven Jay Gould compared the increase of complexity to a drunken man's stumbling walk ... he eventually finds the gutter.  Nature likewise finds more complex life forms. But what actually happens is emergence, not mere increase in complexity (granted the latter occasions the former). And what emerges is a greater openness to a reality that is not itself evolving.  Think of aspects of rationality that we would share with rational creatures that have evolved through different paths than ourselves.  Objects of mathematics.  A recognition of some kind of justice. Nature, as emerging into rationality, is not merely stumbling via random variation upon a gutter-like stability of more complex forms: it is reaching toward the infinite... through its  more and more perfect cognition it attains nobler and nobler objects of reason. Just as the gutter is already there to be found, so too are the real objects of reason. To mistake the ideal objects of reason for a ...

Evolution is about what has happened to others in the past: ethics is about how I shall act now and in the future.

To desire truth is to desire communion with those who know the truth, to live in communion with rational beings, even if (or especially if) they possess truth more perfectly.  It is to possess an openness to greater and greater levels of truth.  And ultimately to the One who does not merely have truth but IS infinite truth. To desire truth is to desire communion with God.

A thing can be viewed a machine by us only (?) in virtue of how it is seen as an instrument, that is, as something other than ourselves that acts not out of desire but is made to act so as to serve our purposes (in other words, to satisfy our desires).  But that means that we cannot be viewed by ourselves as a machine.  But if we cannot seem to be a machine, then claiming that we are such is to say that our appearing to be otherwise is an illusion.  But if that is an illusion, then how could a machine even be a machine.... it too would only seem to be a machine--no? So isn't positing a mechanistic universe kind of like looking at the universe and forgetting that you, by looking at it in such a way, are claiming NOT to be part of it?  I guess one can say that in this case the machine works for no one.  And why isn't that claim special pleading? And isn't saying that humans are machines a kind of denial that they act as they do because they desire something? ...

Do computers think or do they model thought? If the latter, then their operation is like the modeling of an earthquake: we mustn't confuse the model with the modeled.

It seems that my argument for God will consist of two or three stages. First to show that mechanism leaves out the teleological aspect of reality and that we need a metaphysics that makes room for something like emergence.  Even a evolutionary metaphysics is less wrong than a mechanistic metaphysics. Secondly, to give an internal critique of an evolutionary metaphysics: to show that classical theism (i.e., the argument for a unique, infinite, unchanging supreme being) is required to account for teleology in nature.

I am thinking about the utterly strange and inscrutable are the descriptions given to sub-atomic particles. If reductionism is true, then reality is just that weird and unknowable, and the familiar is just a facade. If reductionism is false and emergence or something like like it is true (substantial form, anyone?),then the familiar is the real deal rather than a mere facade.  And to regard reality as consisting of nothing more than them would be turn away from that reality.

This link is to clips of Discover Magazine's discussion of Hawkin's notions of time and creation: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/ 

Francis Crick (as in Crick and Watson) is a great example of a materialist who has espoused racism. Suppose a positivist who believes in some sort of human equality wishes to argue with Mr. Crick: how would he do it?

In the Descent of Man, Darwin bemoaned the dysgenic consequences of celibacy in an earlier age.  I wonder what he would think of the modern, secular European?

I am enjoying lectures on Neurology by Dr. Wu, the prof from Princeton, who points out that our mathematical ability has its origin in abilities shared by us and other animals to recognize the relations between two quantities (<, >, and =), as well as our ability to subitize (i.e., ). What if someone proposed that all of our present mathematical skills can be reduced to our explained in terms of those skills shared with sub human animals.  As in non-Euclidean geometry.  Would this proposal be laughable? So too, would be the attempt to reduce human motivations and obligations to some primatial proto-ethics.