Analytic Philosophy, Creationism, and Space Program

[coberst]

Analytic Philosophy, Creationism, and Space Program

Humans display an innate desire to ‘lose the body’. In one form or another Analytic Philosophy, Creationism, and the American Space Program are products of the human effort to flee its material body and to send its spirit into a world free of the mortality associated with our body.

“We’ve evolved to be creationists” is a quote from the “The Atlantic Monthly” article “Is God an Accident?”—December 2005 issue.

Paul Bloom, author of the article, informs us that “human beings come into the world with a predisposition to believe in supernatural phenomena…this predisposition is an incidental by-product of cognitive functioning gone awry”.

Paul Bloom informs us that nearly everyone on earth believes in miracles, afterlife, and the creation of the earth by some supernatural power. While doing research into infant behavior, psychologists have recently discovered that humans are born with a predisposition to believe in some supernatural actuality. These scientists conclude that this predisposition is a random happenstance of cognitive functioning gone awry. These conclusions led to the question “Is God an Accident?”

I have just found the answer to a question that has baffled me for years. Why do non-believers love to talk religion? Perhaps talking about religion is much like ‘whistling past the cemetery’.

Everyone loves to talk religion because we are all born with the “gut feeling” that there is a body/mind duality. Because we “feel” that mind is a “spiritual” entity we easily accommodate heaven, soul, god etc.

Science says that this gut feeling is a result of “cognitive functioning gone awry” and religion tells us that this is a matter of faith.

In the 20th century Anglo-American philosophy took the “linguistic turn”. The characteristic of this style of philosophy “is based on the belief that it is by analyzing language that we come to understand everything that supposedly matters to philosophy, such as concepts, meaning, reference, knowledge, truth, reason, and value.”—George Lakoff

Lakoff considers this turn to linguistics was fundamentally correct but that it was unfortunately too narrowly focused on the work of mathematician Gottlob Frege.

Frege was too narrowly focused upon making mathematics an objective mind-independent reality, which lead him “to adopt a view of all meaning and thought as disembodied and formal…Under Frege’s influence analytic philosophy—a philosophy whose central focus was language—defined itself as formal and logical analysis of allegedly universal, disembodied senses (meanings), propositions , and functions.”

The American space program is an obvious effort to seek out a new world somewhere in the heavens that will be like a giant step for mankind’s effort not only to discard our mortal body but to discard our trashed-out and dying planet.

This tradition of an autonomous reason began long before evolutionary theory and has held strongly since then without consideration, it seems to me, of the theories of Darwin and of biological science. Cognitive science has in the last three decades developed considerable empirical evidence supporting Darwin and not supporting the traditional theories of philosophy regarding the autonomy of reason. Cognitive science has focused a great deal of empirical science toward discovering the nature of the embodied mind.

I think that humans try too desperately to move our presumed position between God and animal closer to God and further from our hairy ancestors. What do you think about this flight from the body and the planet?

[Touk]

I will not speculate on the origins of other people's beliefs, but coming from a medical field, it has been my expierence that when confronted by undeniable (mortal) reality, the overwhelming majority of human kind fails to make any kind of religious acention... but rather reverts to unapologetic self (body) preservation. This can come as something of a shock to all involved.

I'm not convinced that human kind is attempting to run away from home to the stars, but is in fact attempting to further refine its ability to understand the world around it by investigating ever larger and more complex processes of its functioning.
I think that religion, society, science and everything else we tend to become aborbed with, arises from another,(imo) more profound innate human quality... our unquenchable desire to know why.

As far as going to Mars...well you know, rockets are COOL!

[scameter]

I think that there is one reason why that people seem to prefer their minds over their bodies, whether in reality they're separate or not: imagination. Since in our minds we can picture anything, view anything, believe anything and think anything, and conceive of nearly anything, we feel that our mind is freer and better than our limited body, which includes the brain disorders, instincts, emotions and other things that our body imposes on us and often causes us suffering. Our body can even distort our imagination by forcing thoughts into our head we do not wish for. And, I think another reason why people tend to prefer mind over matter is because of the pains and limitations people have experienced over time between themselves and other animals. People think (or perhaps imagine), why can we talk peacefully to each other and live peacefully amongst each other, but every other animal either runs from us or attacks us? And, why can we talk to each other, and yet animals seem to either ignore us, to be too stupid to understand us, or hate us so much they hate our words too? Hence why in fantasy books, talking with animals is so popular, as is magic, which is essentially our imagination having real power over matter.

[coberst]

Scameter

I have been studying a new paradigm of cognitive science outlined in the book "Philosophy in the Flesh". This new empirical theory informs me that imagination and emotion are necessary components of our thinking. It also informs me that less than 5% of our thinking is conscious thinking. It further informs me that our body and the body of all creatures form a fundamental aspect of that creatures reasoning.

[scameter]

Reasoning sure. But imagination is not reasoning, it is creativity and manipulation of images in the mind, among other very abstract things which honestly I have never seen a good neurological explanation for, or how that we seem to "receive" these experiences, internal and external, as if there is some big eye in our mind that sees all of it.

[coberst]

scameter

The present question regarding the nature and morality of torture offers us an excellent opportunity to advance the level of sophistication of our understanding of morality. We learn best when we are questioning a matter that is meaningful to us.

I was eleven years old when Germany and Japan surrendered and WWII was finally over. One searing memory of this war were the stories I read and the movies I watched during and after the war regarding the torture and general brutality that the German Gestapo inflicted upon the people they conquered. I do not know why this left such a strong impression on me but it certainly did.

Coincidentally I have been studying “Moral Imagination” by Mark Johnson. This is the same Johnson who coauthored the book “Philosophy in the Flesh” with George Lakoff. I have decided to apply the theories Johnson presents in his book as a means to illuminate this matter regarding the morality of water torture used by my country in our struggle with Islamic extremists.

Moral understanding is like any other kind of experience; when we examine a domain of experience that relates to human relationships we must focus our attention on human understanding it self. If we do so we discover that human understanding is fundamentally imaginative in character.

“Many of our most basic concepts have considerable internal structure that cannot be accounted for by the classical theory of concepts as defined by necessary and sufficient features…The primary forms of moral imagination are concepts with prototype structure, semantic frames, conceptual metaphors, and narratives.”

To become morally insightful we must become knowledgeable of these imaginative structures. First, we must give up our illusions about absolute moral codes and also our radical moral subjectivism. Second we must refine our “perception of character traits and situations and of developing empathetic imagination to take up the part of others.”

Empathy is a character trait that can be cultivated by habit and will. Sympathy is somewhat of an automatic response.

When we see a mother weeping over the death of her child caused by a suicide bomber we feel immediate sympathy. Often we will come to tears. But we do not feel anything like that for the mother who may be weeping over the death of her child who was the bomber.

To understand the bomber we must use empathy. We attempt through imagination and reason to create a situation that will allow us to understand why this was done. This is a rational means to understand someone who acts different than we would.

“Empathy is the idea that the vital properties which we experience in or attribute to any person or object outside ourselves are the projections of our own feelings and thoughts.”

The subject viewing an object of art experiences emotional attitudes leading to feelings that are attributes of qualities in the art object thus aesthetic pleasure may be considered as “objectified self-enjoyment in which the subject and object are fused.”

The social sciences adopt a similar concept called ‘empathic understanding’, which refers to the deliberate attempt to identify with another person and accounting for that persons actions by “our own immediate experience of our motivations and attitudes in similar circumstances as we remember or imagine them”. This idea refers to a personal resonance between two people.

“What is crucial is that our moral reasoning can be constrained by the metaphoric and other imaginative structures shared within our culture and moral tradition, yet it can also be creative in transforming our moral understanding, our identity, and the course of our lives. Without this kind of imaginative reasoning we would lead dreadfully impoverished lives. We would be reduced to repeating habitual actions, driven by forces and contingencies beyond our control.”

[scameter]

I think that reason and understanding are somewhat imaginative in nature, combined with logic, but I don't think that empathy and understanding are necessarily linked. Empathy uses imagination and feeling to place oneself "in the shoes", so to speak, of someone else and to essentially share the feelings, giving them a sense of whether or not the other person is happy or not.

[coberst]

I think that reason and understanding are somewhat imaginative in nature, combined with logic, but I don't think that empathy and understanding are necessarily linked. Empathy uses imagination and feeling to place oneself "in the shoes", so to speak, of someone else and to essentially share the feelings, giving them a sense of whether or not the other person is happy or not.

I claim that the Christian religion has failed to teach empathy; one of the most important moral concepts we have.

There are various definitions of empathy given by various individuals but almost all of them point to the same meaning. Empathy is defined as the ability to understand the feelings, thoughts, and beliefs of another person. Empathy is often characterized as the ability to “walk in the shoes of another”, i.e. to acquire an emotional resonance with another.

In his classic work about modern art, “Abstraction and Empathy”, Wilhelm Worringer provides us with a theory of empathy derived from Theodor Lipps that can be usefully applied to objects of art as well as all objects including persons.

“The presupposition of the act of empathy is the general apperceptive activity. Every sensuous object, in so far as it exists for me, is always the product of two components, that which is sensuously given and of my apperceptive activity.”

Apperception—the process of understanding something perceived in terms of previous experience.

What does in so far as it exists for me mean. I would say that something exists for me when I comprehend that something. Comprehension is a hierarchical concept and can be usefully considered as in the shape of a pyramid. At the base of the comprehension pyramid is awareness that is followed by consciousness. We are aware of many things but we are conscious of much less. Consciousness is awareness plus our focused attention.

Continuing with the pyramid analogy, knowing follows consciousness and understanding is at the pinnacle of the pyramid. We know less than we are conscious of and we understand less than we know. Understanding is about meaning whereas knowing is about knowledge. To move from knowing something to a point when that something is meaningful to me, i.e. understood by me, is a big step for man and a giant step for mankind.

My very best friend is meaningful to me and my very worst enemy must, for security reasons, also be meaningful to me. The American failures in Vietnam and Iraq are greatly the result of the fact that our government and our citizens never understood these ‘foreigners’. We failed at the very important relationship—we did not empathesize with the people and thus failed to understand our enemy. It is quite possible that if we had understood them we would never have gone to war with them.

[Taeguk]

I claim that the Christian religion has failed to teach empathy; one of the most important moral concepts we have.

I've addressed this exact same point elsewhere, but geeeez....talk about a generalization! :shakehead:

"Christianity" is not a monolithic entity. The way it is taught and interpreted varies considerably. The Christianity of Desmond Tu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmond_Tutu)tu, I would argue, is all about empathy. The Christianity of Fred Phelps (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Phelps) is not. The amount of diversity which you subsume under the label "Christian" is so great that it becomes impossible to make a categorical statement such as you've done. To do so is extremely sloppy reasoning. The same is true of any other religious group, like Islam or Buddhism, or any socio-cultural grouping, for that matter.

Perhaps the Christianity you have experienced does not teach empathy. That does not mean that Christianity as it is taught and practiced throughout the world universally fails at teaching empathy.

[coberst]

I've addressed this exact same point elsewhere, but geeeez....talk about a generalization! :shakehead:

"Christianity" is not a monolithic entity. The way it is taught and interpreted varies considerably. The Christianity of Desmond Tu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmond_Tutu)tu, I would argue, is all about empathy. The Christianity of Fred Phelps (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Phelps) is not. The amount of diversity which you subsume under the label "Christian" is so great that it becomes impossible to make a categorical statement such as you've done. To do so is extremely sloppy reasoning. The same is true of any other religious group, like Islam or Buddhism, or any socio-cultural grouping, for that matter.

Perhaps the Christianity you have experienced does not teach empathy. That does not mean that Christianity as it is taught and practiced throughout the world universally fails at teaching empathy.


You are correct. I should have been more specific. I should have said: I claim that the Christian religion in the United States has failed to teach empathy; one of the most important moral concepts we have.

[scameter]

I didn't realize we were talking about Christianity... no one had mentioned it once in this topic until you suddenly did. :think:

[Taeguk]

You are correct. I should have been more specific. I should have said: I claim that the Christian religion in the United States has failed to teach empathy; one of the most important moral concepts we have.

Again, I find this to be an over-generalization. It is it American Christianity in particular that fails to teach empathy, or American culture more generally? It seems to me that people who have a high level of empathy and happen to be religious will probably find inspiration and justification in their religion; likewise, people who have little empathy and happen to be religious will also find inspiration and justification in their religion. A religion can be interpreted in any number of ways.

This isn't to deny that the US has a serious problem with Christian fundamentalism, but that strikes me as so obvious as to be hardly worth mentioning.

I didn't realize we were talking about Christianity... no one had mentioned it once in this topic until you suddenly did.

Not true. "Creationism" figures prominently in the title heading, and if you read my post you'll note that I quoted coberst's earlier post, the 8th post in the thread. That post begins with "I claim that the Christian religion has failed to teach empathy; one of the most important moral concepts we have."

[scameter]

I'm sorry Taeguk I should've specified, I wasn't talking about your address of Christianity, but coberst's. And I was also again in error, since I forgot the mention of creationism in the title. I'm just full of faults. :wacko:

[bhujjy]

Hello Coberst,

I was reading about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis just the other day, and so your reference to Lakoff (and the metaphor) was perfect timing, for me. Thanks. The notion that even mathematics cannot escape biology forces me to examine something I have taken for granted. :) It is very interesting.

In building perspectives, I have found metaphor to be much more influential than argument or imperatives. I think that is why both the 10 commandments and the sermon on the mount pale in influence to the metaphor of a god who created hell. The impulse to be god-like will usually follow the metaphor.
In this regard, I remember Joseph Campbell telling Bill Moyers that we needed to find a new myth. I understood the reference to be about Christianity, but it may have been about monotheism, or maybe even theism. I don't know how far he was taking it. And with a changed metaphor, our thinking changes. Which necessarily changes our behavior. I think the notion that life is a gift and that each experience is a lesson in virtue is a positive metaphor describing life.

For example, the notion that a piece of earth, with its water, plants and wildlife can be 'owned' is... rational? Not in cultures with differing metaphors.
Interestingly, the modern notion of ownership is changing to stewardship.

As far as going into space, if we see ourselves as the environment, we will always be in it, wherever we are.

I enjoyed your post. Thanks.

[coberst]

Interestingly, the modern notion of ownership is changing to stewardship.


If you have some evidence of this please give me a reference. I hope you are correct but I see little evidence of this sense of stewardship.

[bhujjy]

Coberst, in answer to your question.

From the small scale ...
- no burning of garbage in urban municipalities anymore (even by the municipalites themselves)
- building codes: no more asbestos, no dumping of oil, and other hazardous waste, etc on private and public land
- local inspectors enforce local standards of appearance, cleanliness and proper use (per zoning)

To the big scale
- big projects are preceeded by environmental impact studies now
- air emissions (sulphur) have been regulated by many nations

To me, it shows movement towards a healthier, more realistic (less anthropomorphic) view of our environment.

[bhujjy]

Coberst,

I found a radio podcast I listened to several weeks ago that I think you will enjoy.

http://www.cbc.ca/podcasting/pastpodcasts.html?45#ref45

On that page you can scroll down to the 'How to think about science' category. In that category is an hour-long discussion with Sajay Samuel, which touches on reason and common sense, and man's relationship to science. He starts out discussing the notion of perceiving the world 'rationally' and then imposing that rational model back on the world. He likens this to a god-like act of creation, and then he addresses the consequences.

Please do not feel obligated to listen to it. I am not asking for a reply, just sharing something good I came across. :)