| Challenge the Philosophy - Comments 11-16 |
"My there is some rubbish going on in some philosophy, and some of the entries, and some of the responses. Some of you philosophers need to familiarize yourselves with some good experimental science.
As for your "biological philosophy", it is a pity that you don't understand much biology. How do your derivations stack up against the theory of the selfish gene, and the evolution of co-operation and game theory. Pretty badly I suspect. Your philosophy is at odds with most of the experimental evidence in biology. "Instinctual existence", which you advocate a return to, is possibly to return to the 'tyranny of the selfish gene', so to speak, with the attendant genocide, tribalism, discrimination, 'us versus them' mentalities, predispositions to war etc etc. Are you of the view of Rouseeau-that man is corrupted by society, and is innately good? This isn't what most of biology seems to indicate. A return to "instinctual existence" may be entirely the wrong thing to do. Are you familiar with the theory of the selfish gene (eg Richard Dawkins), and the evolution of co-operation (eg Matt Ridley)-it doesn't seem to me that your biological philosophy and/or derivations is in any way consistent with it, and there is a good deal of experimental evidence to support it, or its variations."
Roger McEvilly September 15 2000
Thank for sharing your concerns and insights.
First, experimental science is not absolute.
Second, Dawkin's theory is limited by the mere fact that genes are not self-conscious, and therefore cannot knowingly be selfish. More important, genes are not the basis for life. Hence, Dawkins explanation of life appears to be lacking.
Third, Ridley's evolution of co-operation appears valid to some degree simply because our dominant co-operative existence likely influences other life-forms in the same regard while evolving ourselves increasingly in a co-operative way. However, this view is far from asserting that co-operation is the answer to our existence. In fact, we show that through co-operation and the use of knowledge and its material extensions, we are doing more harm to ourselves in the long-term.
We do not advocate "instinctual existence"; rather, we view it as the most reasonable way out of our entrapment between the directness of unconscious nature and emptiness of thought.
Further, instinctual existence does imply tyranny, genocide, tribalism, predispositions to war ect. Rather, it implies increased frequency of harm with least means to do so. A case in point: unconscious nature. Is unconscious nature not thriving in the most diverse, adaptable way?!!
No we do not view that society has corrupted man. We believe that man has corrupted and weakened himself.
Just because we are at odds with Dawkins, Ridley and others does not mean that our position is incorrect.
Is the directness of unconscious nature versus the indirectness of our existence through thoughts an imaginary problem? Are resistant strains of bacteria imaginary problems?
Could it be that species extinction, for example, is directly correlated to increased global co-operation, in which the increased use and spread of material extensions, like technology, are wiping out the natural world?
"Thank you for your comments. Forgive me, but I still don't understand the basis or the logic of some of your derivations.
No, experimental science is not absolute, but it is an effective way of determining at least some measure of validity, something which has been pointed out to vague philosophical debates since the times of the Greeks.
The theory of the selfish gene I believe asserts that "self consciousness" is a construct of the genes which has proven beneficial for survival. "Selfish" is a vague term, chemicals can be "selfish", as can we, depending on how you define "selfish". True, the theory may be wrong or lacking.
To me your understanding of "ourselves" is a major problem. 'Directness of unconscious nature', and 'emptiness of thought' are examples of your vague, circular philosophy. If something is "unconscious" how can it be directed? You apply the very same argument to contradict the selfish gene idea ("can't be knowingly selfish"). If thought is "empty", what is it? What does "empty" mean? Your philosophy seems to me to simply chose its own definitions and derivations, to fulfill itself. Some religions do the same thing.
"Unconscious nature". Define "nature", and define "unconscious". How do you know that all animals are "unconscious". Define "thrive". Aren't we doing so?
I would argue that species extinction is related to instinctive drives of the selfish gene, as all 'successful' organisms in unconscious nature do, and is rather being reduced by the "directedness of our thoughts", an argument very much at odds with your views.
Resistant strains of bacteria have always been around. Their increased presence in modern society is a trade off from saving millions of people from death. Would you rather these people die? Society has decided that the development and presence of resistant bacteria is a small trade off from using natural antibacterial agents which fungi and other organisms have been using for millions of years. There is nothing unnatural about it. There is no real way to entirely defeat bacterial infection, focusing on the development of resistant strains whilst ignoring the saving of lives is narrow-minded, reactionary, and alarmist. True, there may well be a downturn in the future from antibacterial use, including weakened immunity, but this is not the point, all organisms fight bacteria and use means we have been using for the last 60 years or so. There is nothing "unnatural", or "non-instinctual" about it. Other organisms also borrow antibacterial agents from other organisms.
Finally do you advocate that appendicitis for example, shouldn't be operated on because 1% of the population should naturally die as we evolve out of being only vegetarian? Without science and intervention, and knowledge, many appendicitis suffers would die. In a solely "instinctual existence", without "material thought and extensions" as you define it, they would die, along with many other sufferers of disease. It is inevitable with the evolution away from an herbivorous diet, and the consequent shrinkage of the organ. People decided that they didn't want to see their children die needlessly, so "operation" and antibiotics were discovered. There is no weakening of the gene pool here. Appendicitis is indiscriminate in its occurrence on the healthy and unhealthy alike. What is wrong with saving people?
Society just doesn't agree with you. Or perhaps I misunderstand your arguments (something you should perhaps consider of others)."
Roger McEvilly September 16 2000
Thank you for your comments and questions. We will do the best we can to answer them; however, all the questions you have asked and much more are answered in the Garvey's forthcoming book, entitled Why I Am Right.
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Experimental science, or the empirical, has its basis in the mind. (ie. we experiment through what we know.) Hence, by understanding our minds, or knowledge, we understand the empirical; whereas, the empirical alone cannot answer the validity of its own findings.
Selfish implies self-identity, or the ability to consciously distinguish oneself from others. Therefore, it does not follow how chemicals or genes, which are not consciously self-aware, could be selfish. Since the basis for genes is unknown, the statement that genes are the basis for self-consciousness, does not help our understanding. In other words, most things could be perceived as a cause for self-consciousness. (ie. interconnectedness)
Yes, self-consciousness appears to be beneficial for the human species. Though at the same time, self-consciousness appears detrimental to the species.
Even though the species is thriving in terms of population ect., in other areas, like harm to the environment, the species is not thriving.
The "directness of nature" refers to life-forms existing from and through who they are, in contrast to the indirectness of conscious nature, in which human beings are existing from who they are and through thoughts and their material extensions.
Thought is an empty form in which thought itself is non-existent, and thought is an illusion we imagine. (Empty refers to non-existence.)
Nature refers to the existence of life-forms.
Unconscious refers to instinct without thoughts.
There is no indisputable existence that other life-forms than ourselves think and exist through their thoughts and material extensions.
The question we have raised about the use of antibacterial agents for instance is not about natural versus unnatural, or nature versus nurture, but directness versus indirectness, or the idea that we are existing through our thoughts and their material extensions in relation to the rest of nature which is not. If our thoughts are empty of who we are, it follows that by existing through them we are replacing ourselves and other life-forms with what is empty of them.... Moreover, by existing through thoughts and their material extensions, we are shielding ourselves from the elements, while other life-forms exist without a conscious shield, thereby overtime we ourselves are becoming weaker and more dependent on thought and its material extensions to fight, for example, resistant strains of bacteria. Do you see the trap? The more we become dependent, the more we ourselves become weak, while what we are fighting becomes stronger. We are gradually evolving our own extinction.
We’ve all heard the proposition that we are perhaps only a dream, not real at all. If such were true, we wouldn’t know our true identities until we (i.e., the dreamer) woke up. But being awake is being "outside" the dream. So, even if we were a dream, we wouldn’t be able to know who we were and be who we were at one and the same moment.
Wayne Holland January 28 2001
In your response to the first entry you said "ALL we know is what we reason, so we have no way of knowing what is outside of what we reason." Why is this necessarily true? Jung, when asked if he believed in God's existence said 'I don't believe that God exists, I 'know' that God exists'. What I think he meant was that he had a profound sense of 'sureness' of God's existence. I believe that this sense of sureness came not from his reason but from a direct perception or intuition of the truth of God's existence. So I say that we know what we have a sense of sureness of. But you will say that you are 'sure' that God does not exist. The question is how did you arrive at that that sense of sureness. By reason right? But that can be only at best a qualified sense of sureness. If God does exist He would have given us that faculty to directly perceive His existence. He would also have given us reason, but for what purpose? For the purpose, not of 'knowing' with a sense of sureness, but of agreeing with other rational beings on what the most likely state of affairs is concerning life, the world etc. But I have a more fundamental problem with your question. It is the typical kind of question the western philosophy asks. Knowing and being are paramount concerns in western philosophy but NEVER does it concern itself with loving. This was not always the case. The Greeks (including the pre-Socratic Greeks) were interested in love and considered it necessary to account for it. What possible good does it do me in human terms to attempt to wrestle with your question? The most important need of our times is to get the channel of love that unites all beings in the universe unblocked in this world of ours. For some reason we have this idea that we are different and have different, conflicting needs. Any true philosophy will have love at its center (or rather the beloved who makes love possible. And of course this beloved can only be God. And I feel no need to prove God's existence with reason. It can't be done anyway.)
Martin Bebow February 12 2001
Thank you for your comment.
The statement, "all we know is what we reason, so we have no way of knowing what is outside of what we reason" is an extension off the idea that we cannot get outside of our minds and know that we are, similar to the idea that all we can know is what we know.
Sure, the reasons for why and how we know something is imperfect due to the self-referent nature of knowledge. However, the important point is that everything we can consciously know, even knowing that God exists, is through some level of reasoning, no matter how minuscule that level is. Though I acknowledge that the basis for some things we know appear ultimately beyond what we reason, while at the same time paradoxically stemming from what we reason because we cannot get outside of our minds. (i.e. the basis for what we know extends off what we reason, not the other way around.)
The challenge proposition directly deals with love assuming that "fundamental level of being" is the essence of love, and indirectly deals with love by focusing on the apparent relationship between being (love) and knowing (non-love), and the implications the relationship has for humanity.
Stephen Garvey
Reply to the Response to Entry 184.
We seem to agree that a sound argument about reality depends on both reductionism and creativity, so our discussion has been productive. So we never avoid reductionism, and we never turn our back on our creative instincts. And we can leave this happy agreement alone, but it is too tempting to stir the puddle one more time.
How do reductionists define love? To an artist love has special meaning. That love is a metaphor, and it is wholeness. Below are two solid examples of this metaphor:
(1) Self love, even the fragmented variety, was seen to be good, so love gives birth to free will as the past seeks wholeness with the future.
(2) Love gives birth to creativity too, as I already said because we humans seek wholeness with our love ones that proceed us in death. We have them in our memories. And we give witness to the celebration of the many; and dance with the metaphors of plenty. The more creative the more love-like, at some level of human expression.
But creativity does not stop with accepted notions about love, because we are free to invent wild speculations about our future evolution too:
(3) Collective consciousness can only emerge with this love of wholeness, because otherwise the egocentric would put themselves ahead of the all. And so it must be that the spirits of the dead must tame their ego (they become like memories), that they must find a lover for their existence our meet digestion, but it is their will that be done.
(4) Creativity of a collective variety can only exists in those humans that agree to these principles of love, and the spirits entertain their lovers by providing insights of an extreme kind, insights that are pleasing to the all. Such a collective imagination is very dangerous in the hands of the egocentric (the fragmented will), so these insights are made pure by love. Love strong enough to bring paintings onto canvas by self organization, not only because it pleases the eye of the artist, but because in the future so many more eyes will find pleasure in this work.
The logic system of the all of existence is consistent, as that mathematician Gödel would possible agree. As I have said, this logic is seen everywhere, as it mimics human creativity, it mimics the behavior of an electron, and of biological evolution. Everywhere it is the same logic, a logic an artist would love. That possibilities remain open until a realization is found that is pleasing to an observer. This is true because it is observed, but only by our agreement.
It is possible for reductionists to refute our use of this logic when we invent wild fantasies, I agree with this point. But the logic itself is sound. And our instincts can be explained by this creative logic, as these instincts exist because of feedback we have received. So how does the instinct of love figure into our evolution? It is by our agreement to seek wholeness or divisiveness, but wholeness has always brought us to the next level of reality. And therefore it is love that drives the evolution of the spiritual world, and it is within the reach of reductionists if they are not too closed and are willing to accept the helping hand of an artist.
So if we are open to our observations as we peer into the future we will see the face of love, but only by our agreement. Some may also see hate, but it is not by my agreement. And those that are not open will see nothing, or will postpone this decision. But in every case, the observer creation principle has been upheld, so there can be no disagreements.
The moral imperative rests with the creative, and creativity cannot exists without reductionism and the beautiful metaphors they discover. So it has been the moral imperative of those that create, to teach love. To bend the hearts of reductionists away from their destructive tendencies, so they may see the face of love too."
Stephen P. Smith March 7 2001
Reductionism is an act of creation, like coming up with a new idea from several other ideas. (Note, as stated in the Response Entry 184, reductionism does not necessarily result in simplification.)
If "love" is defined as "whole", and we have no way of knowing a complete whole, then it follows that "love" is beyond our cognitive capability. Therefore, "love" cannot be "taught", nor can it be "created", assuming love is equated with who we are as in fundamental level of being. (i.e. we cannot create who we are through who we are.)
Also, we contend that there is no "moral imperative" we can consciously act upon, because the moral imperative, if it exists, exists outside of our cognitive capability.
Reply to the Response to Entry 2.
"Since we can't know who we are, or what we really are, we have no way of knowing if we can influence who we are. Moreover, it is impossible to influence who we are and be who we are at the same time. We can only be who we are, without really knowing that we are. Also, since we can't get outside of our minds, all we can know is what is on our minds. It follows from these premises that everything we know itself, from our perspective, is empty of who we are. " (From the Response to Entry 2)
"My reply to this ("we can only be who we are, without really knowing that
we are") is:
We can only be "that" we are, without knowing "who" we are. This is true,
in my opinion, of all living things. It takes a special awareness, however,
to know "who" we are. Inversely, as you say, we can be who we are without
knowing that we are. This is true, again in my opinion, of most people who
go, happily or unhappily, through life and do not have an introspective
philosophic mind. So, either we are that we are, unawares of who we are; or
we are who we are, unawares that we are. Does it necessarily follow then
"that everything we know itself, from our perspective, is empty of who we
are?" I think it is more correct to say: That everything we are itself,
from our perspective, is empty of who we are; unless we have that special
awareness that simultaneously allows us to know who we are. This last is
known to us only through communication with other self-cognizant beings. It
may be true for other living things, though they cannot express it to us
(dolphins, whales, chimps, dogs, etc.). At this point, only us humans can
entertain the thought that we are who we are, and be who we are, at the same
time."
Ivan Alexander March 9 2001
Definition of a term in the Response:
Limited conception refers to a conscious representation, which means that the conception only represents something else without actually being it.
Just because an individual knows who he is, does not mean that the individual knows who/what he is. What the individual knows himself as may be a limited conception of who/what he really is.
We contend that human beings cannot know who/what they are, including knowing without knowing that they do, so what they know is intrinsically empty of who/what they are.
Perspective on the human brain:
".... When I was younger I did doctoral work in both philosophy, with an emphasis in the philosophy of science and epistemology, and the brain sciences, with an emphasis in perception and sensory neurophysiology, so at one time I was well-informed on how both of these areas relate to these sorts of questions, and when I found your web site, it brought back to me my old interest. So I hope you won't mind if I send you a brief note relating to it from the neuroscience side.
Basically, what is impressive about the brain is how well it is designed to gather sensory information, especially visual information, and to work with it in ways that enhance our survival. I have seen it written that 25% of the metabolism of the human brain is devoted solely to visual information processing, and indeed, humans are very good at this sort of thing. We can process sensory information simultaneously from vision, audition, touch, and so on, and make decisions very quickly on how to react to it. Human sensory memory is also very impressive. We can remember literally millions of sounds and images and what they mean, and how to react to them appropriately in the future.
Unfortunately, although the human brain is very good at gathering information, and in how to use all the information it gathers for the more practical aspects of living, it isn't very good at analyzing ultimately what it all means. Our brains are very good at learning, but it is learning in a very limited sense, that is, whatever might be useful for our survival. The more abstract sorts of reasoning--logic, math, and so on--is something most humans are just not very good at, and never will be. There are a few of us who are, but they are the exceptions.
One other thing I should mention is how good humans are at tool-using, again, a very practical learning skill. We've gone from chipped stone tools to nuclear reactors and micro-chips in only about a million years. Again, this illustrates how the human brain is best at using it's capabilities for very practical means. Figuring out the ultimate meaning of life and other philosophical questions doesn't seem to be our strong suit. At the higher levels this is in a sense the difference between doing science and doing philosophy.
However, the most powerful mainframe running the most powerful image-processing software is still just a toy compared to what your visual system can do. To put it in another way, the most powerful computer chip has about 10 million transistors. The human brain has about 12 trillion neurons, so it is thousands of more complex just in terms of the number of processing elements. And each of those neurons connects with between 3000 and 100,000 other cells, whereas transistors only connect to a few others on a chip.
So the brain is truly an amazing device, but despite its amazing capabilities, it does have certain limitations."
Steve Burwen March 26 2001
"... I would only add that important issues stemming from the competition are:
1. the connection between sensory information and conscious thought. (i.e. what is the mechanism(s) which makes the transfer from sensory information to conscious thought? How does the mechanism(s) function?....)
2. the connection between sensory and the external objects. (i.e. how is our sensory creating information from its interaction with the external world? What form does the information take?)"
Stephen Garvey March 27 2001
"Your questions are right on the money. I am a little out of practice discussing these issues, but I will attempt a brief answer to your questions here from the standpoint of how our understanding of the brain relates to them. As you will see, our understanding of the brain science is still fragmentary and in its infancy, but much of what we have learned so far does have implications for answering these important philosophical questions.
Today we do have a better understanding of how sensory mechanisms work, (and in fact work amazingly well) in terms of getting a vast array of very detailed and accurate information to the brain, and in how this information is handled by the higher areas of the brain. The sheer analytical power of our sense organs seems to drive us toward the empirical camp, because our sense organs do seem to be so faithful to the nature of reality. The issue of consciousness, however, is still mostly beyond our ability to understand at the neuronal level, although there have been proposals that attempt to deal with the question, and I mention one possibility below.
That having been said, one way philosophical questions do emerge in sensory physiology is with respect to the fascinating area of visual illusions. Kant would have appreciated this problem well, because their existence means that a ghost of a systematic illusion pervades our ordinarily very accurate perceptions of the real world, and that the brain's innate capabilities or "ideas" do dictate to some degree how we see and understand the external world, since these phenomena occur in the brain and not in the sense data themselves. So this fact would be very amenable to those who hold Kantian and neo-Kantian theories of perception, and means that an unqualified empirically-based epistemology isn't appropriate.
On the question of how the conscious mind becomes aware of sense data, the most basic answer is that the primary sensory receiving areas such as the visual and auditory cortices and so on, connect directly to the areas of the brain we think are involved in conceptual thought, which is the temporal cortices. The temporal cortex receives multi-modality (i.e., multi-sensory) inputs from all the sense organs and is involved in making correlations, associations, and ultimately probably in generating ideas, from this sense data.
We know the temporal cortex is involved in conceptual thought because people who experience strokes there or sustain other damage lose their ability for abstract thought and can have other problems, such as loss of language abilities and so on. And certainly for humans language ability is key to thinking and abstract thought in general. On the more general issue of how the brain generates consciousness, we can't really say yet. However, we do know as a result of the work of neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield that your brain has a complete memory of your entire stream of consciousness from when you were very young. The problem is that you can't access this data normally in any detail. But theoretically, your entire stream of consciousness gets stored away permanently, just as if you had a tape recorder going your entire life with unlimited storage capacity.
One way in which this pertains to the issue of consciousness is that we now know that the brain integrates the temporal stream of data into a sequence of "snapshots" or "frames" at a rate of about 50 times per second. Hence, as William James and other psychologists and philosophers have suggested, the problem for consciousness is what exactly it consists of since it is constantly changing as the temporal flux of information itself alters and is integrated and ultimately stored away in memory. But it's not very satisfying from a philosophical standpoint to say that consciousness is merely some sort of executive program that "sees" and parses the flow of information into smaller chunks before being stored away. But our understanding of the neurophysiology suggests this is the case.
However, this theory merely addresses the question of how our "consciousness of the moment" comes about. Obviously, there are other complications such as how memory works with consciousness, and we have learned something about these mechanisms too. Their philosophical implications are difficult to assess, however, but one thing we have learned is that ordinary consciousness inhibits the vast storage areas for memory while one is awake. This is known as corticocipedal inhibition, and is necessary to prevent normal consciousness from being flooded willy-nilly with random memories and thoughts. This inhibition process shuts down when one goes to sleep, and explains why dreams so often seem to consist of strange, incoherent sequences of random images and associations. Psychologists and "New Age"-influenced types who believe that dreams have some sort of profound meaning don't like this theory, of course. It doesn't mean that all dreams are nonsense, but mostly, they are.
... I hope you find this information useful, and perhaps provide a different perspective on these very important philosophical questions."
Steve Burwen March 28 2001