The Philosophy Now Forum

lancek4 wrote:And also I am saying that inas much a we posit a god or an otherwise ethical means of negotiating reality, we are merely behaving in the naturally selcted way of humans. In this I do not believe we will destroy ourselves, but that such ethics prevents us.

I don't think it particularly useful to provide explanations through evolutionary theory. Nothing we do can be reduced to the need for survival. I think we can usually jettison selection without harming Darwinism.
We are a complex collection of behaviours which have persisted in a 'selective environment' in which positive, neutral and even some negative traits can survive, with the only proviso is that the species persists. If evolution were capable of selecting genes or specific behaviours then things would be different. But this is no so.
Therefore we may say nothing such as x is FOR this, or Y is for that. We cannot even say the kidney is FOR excretion. We can say would would not survive without them, but this does not tell us the purpose of a kidney but only its function.
As generalists we have the opportunity to re-direct our need for explanation, and purpose and actively select another avenue of thinking. i.e. away from destructive religion to philosophy.




Which may be a bottleneck of evolution: a bottleneck is where pressures in a niche change sigificantsly enough to select out a majority oif the previously selected traits from the population.

You are talking about mass death of humans, or ending their ability to reproduce.


Hence I brought up Nietche.

chaz wyman wrote:

lancek4 wrote:I am saying that the brain, like the eye, developed in such a way as to have it in the way it is and that this way may be 'correct' or 'incorrect' as to its perceptions; we cannot know absolutly which is which.

Yes, but I'm saying it is not as easy as that. The basis upon which we have the ground of possibility to even make the statement "(in)correct" is conditioned by our perception. Even if we were "correct" (whatever that means) we would not be qualified to recognise it: in a sense (literally) there is no correct. Does this make us Kantians?

That is unless we take the evidence, either as the universe has let itself be come upon by such organisms (us) in such a way which equals our present stature in it, as to a 'actually true' universe, such that we are actually finding out about an actually true (object) universe absolutly.

A human-absolute; that what is actually true is limited to human truth, as we do not and cannot have a ground of knowledge beyond us. I think science has shown, as we have extended knowledge of the other worlds of perceptual possibility that we are indeed limited. This is not to day that science gives us the possibility of the 'correct one' - it simply demonstrates areas of potential we can never access.


Or, that in our ultimate inability to discern what is true or not, we are evidently adaptable beyond the former acual universe's eveolutionary process, because we cannot know it but we seem to know it, and so we are left with a segragated 'will' of our own 'evidence' -which ironically argues that we have been naturally selcted in this particuylar way

THis bit is not clear. What 'it' is it to which you refer?


"
---LK4: we are using this idea of natural selction that we have come upon. We cannot know if it really has any truth absultely, and this is part is due to natural selection that we argue as true. So we either assert its truth as absolutely true and thereby come to the idea that we cannot really know what is true (except natural selection, and so are progressing in knowledge of truth). Or we see that the idea of natural selction is just another idea that reflects only our truth right now. Either way, it would seem that we as an apprehender/comprehender we move in this universe subject to no natural laws but our own, which ironically posits that we are subject to natural laws such as eveolution.

----


Selection occurs in ecological niches such that thise traits which best exploit the resourses of that niches are retained. Luckily.
But being generalists has meant that we are not bound to too restrictive a niche.


----LK4: exactly.

chaz wyman wrote:

lancek4 wrote:And also I am saying that inas much a we posit a god or an otherwise ethical means of negotiating reality, we are merely behaving in the naturally selcted way of humans. In this I do not believe we will destroy ourselves, but that such ethics prevents us.

I don't think it particularly useful to provide explanations through evolutionary theory. Nothing we do can be reduced to the need for survival. I think we can usually jettison selection without harming Darwinism.
We are a complex collection of behaviours which have persisted in a 'selective environment' in which positive, neutral and even some negative traits can survive, with the only proviso is that the species persists. If evolution were capable of selecting genes or specific behaviours then things would be different. But this is no so.
Therefore we may say nothing such as x is FOR this, or Y is for that. We cannot even say the kidney is FOR excretion. We can say would would not survive without them, but this does not tell us the purpose of a kidney but only its function.
As generalists we have the opportunity to re-direct our need for explanation, and purpose and actively select another avenue of thinking. i.e. away from destructive religion to philosophy.




Which may be a bottleneck of evolution: a bottleneck is where pressures in a niche change sigificantsly enough to select out a majority oif the previously selected traits from the population.

You are talking about mass death of humans, or ending their ability to reproduce.

-----LK4: yes. When we are talking about destroying ourselves usually we are conflating technology and our fears of technology. Humans are not their technology. The destruction may be merely a mass death of humanity where few survive, but then they would probably learn something from the destruction (but we now have no way of identifying what that would be) and thrive again.

It is not so much a fear that we will destroy humanity but that we will lose this facade of civilized intellegence, progress and refinement.
----

Hence I brought up Nietche.

Arising_uk wrote:I thought Nietzsche pointed out that the best we can hope for is to be the passing-over man?

lancek4 wrote:

Arising_uk wrote:I thought Nietzsche pointed out that the best we can hope for is to be the passing-over man?

Whatever the translation, the idea of zarathustra and N themes, is a progress of sorts that is not of the overt progress of things and ideas of technology, but rather a condition, an 'evolutionary' step, if you will, of humans that is not human as we now know, but beyond what we know. Beyond good and evil; as we now live as humans in the 'twilight' of the idols, beyond idols, beyond the idols of contradictorily ethics, which is rooted in an idea of a progress of knowledge of things and how to ethically deal with them and us. It is a beyond - not a same but more or better.
This is just just my deriving his ideas in correspondance to our discussion of evolution and truth - not necessarily my views.

PoeticallyEnticed9 wrote:The first step in finding the ultimate truth is abandoning the comfort of fallacy. We, as human beings, find amenity in the lies or the assumed truths that we have been told our entire lives. We are often afraid to step out of that comfort zone and into the unknown. But this fear, this irrational fear yields us from seeing the truth and answering the questions that we so greatly need to and desire to know. If only we could step away from the lies...

PoeticallyEnticed9 wrote:The first step in finding the ultimate truth is abandoning the comfort of fallacy. We, as human beings, find amenity in the lies or the assumed truths that we have been told our entire lives. We are often afraid to step out of that comfort zone and into the unknown. But this fear, this irrational fear yields us from seeing the truth and answering the questions that we so greatly need to and desire to know. If only we could step away from the lies...

chaz wyman wrote:

lancek4 wrote:

Arising_uk wrote:I thought Nietzsche pointed out that the best we can hope for is to be the passing-over man?

LK: Whatever the translation, the idea of zarathustra and N themes, is a progress of sorts that is not of the overt progress of things and ideas of technology, but rather a condition, an 'evolutionary' step, if you will, of humans that is not human as we now know, but beyond what we know. Beyond good and evil; as we now live as humans in the 'twilight' of the idols, beyond idols, beyond the idols of contradictorily ethics, which is rooted in an idea of a progress of knowledge of things and how to ethically deal with them and us. It is a beyond - not a same but more or better.
This is just just my deriving his ideas in correspondance to our discussion of evolution and truth - not necessarily my views.

CHAZ:Do you not think that N had a more clear understanding of 'evolution' and that he was not talking about the biological evolution but about the evolution of society?

Mark Question wrote:

PoeticallyEnticed9 wrote:The first step in finding the ultimate truth is abandoning the comfort of fallacy. We, as human beings, find amenity in the lies or the assumed truths that we have been told our entire lives. We are often afraid to step out of that comfort zone and into the unknown. But this fear, this irrational fear yields us from seeing the truth and answering the questions that we so greatly need to and desire to know. If only we could step away from the lies...

those powerful feelings. are they essential for staying alive and thinking? can they be also cause to death and confusing or freezing thinking? i was thinking that too. in page 88 i told to sob that i like to test drive his children. sounds like cruel and criminal activity, thinking like some pedophile? but i made only an ugly piece of art. can art be ugly? there was a catch. sob had told that he think his ideas are his children also. so i made a test for him. how he feel if i say i want to test his ideas the way he see them. now we come to those powerful feelings! are those feelings stopping us from seeing the truth, if the truth is not in our ideas and we try to protect and save them by all means like our children? feeling is the truth in that situation? but. do we have to think like sob? do we have ancient and modern philosophy to help us? what is philosophy? could it be many things in everyday language? like philosophy of cigar smoking or philosophy of zen etc. are there something common in all those? could philosophy be art of thinking, or craft? sorry my english. so, what is the truth, if not the overwhelming feeling we must obey and follow, if we can calm down and practise more thinking? but why choose thinking or philosophy, why not feelings or something beyond philosophical sight? deeper than philosophical "aphilosophy", "das ding an sich" etc.

PoeticallyEnticed9 wrote:The first step in finding the ultimate truth is abandoning the comfort of fallacy. We, as human beings, find amenity in the lies or the assumed truths that we have been told our entire lives. We are often afraid to step out of that comfort zone and into the unknown. But this fear, this irrational fear yields us from seeing the truth and answering the questions that we so greatly need to and desire to know. If only we could step away from the lies...

Godfree wrote:

PoeticallyEnticed9 wrote:The first step in finding the ultimate truth is abandoning the comfort of fallacy. We, as human beings, find amenity in the lies or the assumed truths that we have been told our entire lives. We are often afraid to step out of that comfort zone and into the unknown. But this fear, this irrational fear yields us from seeing the truth and answering the questions that we so greatly need to and desire to know. If only we could step away from the lies...

People moan about what we have , but seem too frightened to change ,
or even look at changing ,
I have tried to start a thread about what do we do after religion ,,???
seems like a perfect place to begin the ideas of how to replace religion ,
but not many wanted to go there , they didn't like losing their religion ,
even the Atheists here seem to want to keep religion , apart from me that is ,
what is it thats so threatening about change,
why would they not see replacing an old superstitious pile of nonsense,
as a good idea ,,?? why would they want to keep it ,
we may make mistakes in inventing the Atheist/secular alternative ,
but it's got to be better than the old time mythology ,
science facts and logic ,
surely a belief system based on these values would be better ,
than religion , superstitious ignorance ,
surely logic science and facts would be better ,,,???