Secular Morality?

[seer]

As much as I disagree with Jaecp's main existential thesis seer, he's got you there. Proving that there's no survival advantage to intelligence is going to be quite an uphill battle. If there were none, it would be a miracle why we exist at all.

Sheesh Len, goats, lions and bacteria survive just fine. And there must have been a time where our ancestors were neither rational or conscious and I assume that they survived fine.

[Leonhard]

No Homer, I said that neither rationality or consciousness are necessary for survival.

That's true, but its irrelevant to the point he's making. Clearly if our rationality would be taken away from us we'd die, and clearly apes are no threat to us, but only because of our rationality.

As to whether these are a benefit to human survival in the long run is an open ended question that can not be answered.

Whether there is one in the long run is irrelevant. You're dealing with the question of history, not of the future. You're not arguing logically here.

[seer]

That's true, but its irrelevant to the point he's making. Clearly if our rationality would be taken away from us we'd die, and clearly apes are no threat to us, but only because of our rationality.

What? How do the millions of species survive without it? It may be that we have become to weak or soft to presently survive without it.

Whether there is one in the long run is irrelevant. You're dealing with the question of history, not of the future. You're not arguing logically here.

Yes, a question of history - that our intelligence gave us the ability to slaughter tens of millions in the last century. And this century is starting off no better. Intelligence is a two edged sword, and at this point we have no clue what edge will dominate.

[Leonhard]

What? How do the millions of species survive without it? It may be that we have become to weak or soft to presently survive without it.

I'm not claiming that animals can't survive.

Human beings in general are as strong or as tough as we've been for the past two hundred thousand years, what kept us alive back then wasn't claws, sharp teeth, strong jaws and a powerful nose, it was the ability to make and craft tools.

The question is, what gives us a survival challenge, over the creatures around us back then.

Yes, a question of history - that our intelligence gave us the ability to slaughter tens of millions in the last century. And this century is starting off no better. Intelligence is a two edged sword, and at this point we have no clue what edge will dominate.

Even the combined efforts of Stalin, Mao, Hitler and Pol Pot, barely put a dent in the population growth, and most of that was not directly caused by the wars and work/death camps themselves (accounting only for a tenth of the deaths). Most of those people died due to the secondary effects of destroyed infrastructure, hunger and disease. The same is true for the Thirty Year war. The Black Death and the Spanish Flue were bigger existential threats.

Can we today potentially kill off ourselves accidentally using our technology. Yes.

Be that as it may, you can't use the argument "our intelligence might finish us off in the future" to conclude "therefore our intelligence gives us no inherent survival advantage."

One does not follow from the other, you're arguing fallaciously here. Which means your arguments are in vain, and you're going to lose. I know you're very persistent in contradicting an opponent for hundreds of posts seer, but here I think you need to step back and look at the argument. Trust me on this, what you're saying doesn't make sense.

[Pytharchimedes]

Sheesh Len, goats, lions and bacteria survive just fine. And there must have been a time where our ancestors were neither rational or conscious and I assume that they survived fine.

Do not insult the intelligence of Bacteria.

Intelligence is more than man, it goes wherever it pleases. You see it's effects, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it has been.

[seer]

I'm not claiming that animals can't survive.

Human beings in general are as strong or as tough as we've been for the past two hundred thousand years, what kept us alive back then wasn't claws, sharp teeth, strong jaws and a powerful nose, it was the ability to make and craft tools.

The question is, what gives us a survival challenge, over the creatures around us back then.



Even the combined efforts of Stalin, Mao, Hitler and Pol Pot, barely put a dent in the population growth, and most of that was not directly caused by the wars and work/death camps themselves (accounting only for a tenth of the deaths), most died due to the secondary effects of destroyed infrastructure, hunger and disease. The same is true for the Thirty Year war. The Black Death and the Spanish Flue were bigger existential threats.

Be that as it may, you can't use the argument "our intelligence might finish us off in the future" to conclude "therefore our intelligence gives us no inherent survival advantage."

One does not follow from the other, you're arguing fallaciously here. Which means your arguments are in vain, and you're going to lose. I know you're very persistent in contradicting an opponent for hundreds of posts seer, but here I think you need to step back and look at the argument. Trust me on this, what you're saying doesn't make sense.

Perhaps Leonhard we need to back up. First, let me repeat, intelligence is a two edged sword and it may be in fact, the thing that we use to destroy ourselves, that is a very real possibility. But this discussion was about why/how consciousness came into being. That was what Tass and I were discussing. My claim is that there was no evolutionary necessity for consciousness. Or the rationality that springs from that. We could have just as well survived without either. And this goes back to a quote I linked by Sam Harris. Now Harris is an atheist so he believes that human consciousness is a naturally occurring trait - I see no reason to accept that. But this is what he said:

Such numinous influences eventually subsided. And once physicists got down to the serious business of building bombs, we were apparently returned to a universe of objects—and to a style of discourse, across all branches of science and philosophy, that made the mind seem ripe for reduction to the “physical” world.

The problem, however, is that no evidence for consciousness exists in the physical world.[6] Physical events are simply mute as to whether it is “like something” to be what they are. The only thing in this universe that attests to the existence of consciousness is consciousness itself; the only clue to subjectivity, as such, is subjectivity. Absolutely nothing about a brain, when surveyed as a physical system, suggests that it is a locus of experience. Were we not already brimming with consciousness ourselves, we would find no evidence of it in the physical universe—nor would we have any notion of the many experiential states that it gives rise to. The painfulness of pain, for instance, puts in an appearance only in consciousness. And no description of C-fibers or pain-avoiding behavior will bring the subjective reality into view.

If we look for consciousness in the physical world, all we find are increasingly complex systems giving rise to increasingly complex behavior—which may or may not be attended by consciousness. The fact that the behavior of our fellow human beings persuades us that they are (more or less) conscious does not get us any closer to linking consciousness to physical events. Is a starfish conscious? A scientific account of the emergence of consciousness would answer this question. And it seems clear that we will not make any progress by drawing analogies between starfish behavior and our own. It is only in the presence of animals sufficiently like ourselves that our intuitions about (and attributions of) consciousness begin to crystallize. Is there “something that it is like” to be a cocker spaniel? Does it feel its pains and pleasures? Surely it must. How do we know? Behavior, analogy, parsimony.[7]

Most scientists are confident that consciousness emerges from unconscious complexity. We have compelling reasons for believing this, because the only signs of consciousness we see in the universe are found in evolved organisms like ourselves. Nevertheless, this notion of emergence strikes me as nothing more than a restatement of a miracle. To say that consciousness emerged at some point in the evolution of life doesn’t give us an inkling of how it could emerge from unconscious processes, even in principle.

http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/t...-consciousness

[Leonhard]

Perhaps Leonhard we need to back up. First, let me repeat, intelligence is a two edged sword and it may be in fact, the thing that we use to destroy ourselves, that is a very real possibility. But this discussion was about why/how consciousness came into being. That was what Tass and I were discussing. My claim is that there was no evolutionary necessity for consciousness. Or rationality that springs from that. We could have just as well survived without either. And this goes back to a quote I linked by Sam Harris. Now Harris is an atheist so he believes that human consciousness is a naturally occurring trait - I see no reason to accept that. But this is what he said:

Ah, but once humans got intelligent, that certainly did give them an advantage. Could we have survived as ape like creatures? Maybe. But once we could understand how rocks could be sharpened, fires could be lit... that did give us a survival advantage.

However there being a clear survival advantage to the ability to reason, to think abstractly, that only shows that once some humans had that, it would tend to spread quickly, it would be selected... the question to ask is whether it could be developed on its own. Which I think Tassman, et. al. are presuming. They need to show this.

Evolutionary psychology though is a dead end. Scientists have largely given up on trying to use the theory of natural selection, to account for how we got to have the particular mental make-up we have.

Many people who aren't involved in the science of biology have failed to get the memo though.

This would be a much stronger line of attack for you, and I think its more in line with the kind of argument you were originally pushing. Get Tassman to account for the origin of the feature, not for the advantage it confers. Yes it makes us survive better, concede the point (it costs you nothing), then press him on where it came from. Likely he'll tip his hand that as a naturalist he can only presume natural causes, and so he's forced to believe that it came about by natural selection, but that would be begging the question! The only way out of that, is to show how it happened, which he would not be able to.

[Jaecp]

I'm not sure its the best line of attack, though,

Might as well use the incompleteness of abiogenesis as an argument against evolution, no?

At a certain point back, like with most everything, our ability to see diminishes. This shouldn't diminish what we can see.

[Pytharchimedes]

I'm not sure its the best line of attack, though,

Might as well use the incompleteness of abiogenesis as an argument against evolution, no?

At a certain point back, like with most everything, our ability to see diminishes. This shouldn't diminish what we can see.

Indeed, if one takes the current state of the universe and disregards all that before it, the dominant conclusion is God, the intelligible artificer(think the watchmaker argument sans evolution). I believe this is why so many people grasp onto the past to anchor their atheistic ideas.

[seer]

Evolutionary psychology though is a dead end. Scientists have largely given up on trying to use the theory of natural selection, to account for how we got to have the particular mental make-up we have.

Many people who aren't involved in the science of biology have failed to get the memo though.

This would be a much stronger line of attack for you, and I think its more in line with the kind of argument you were originally pushing. Get Tassman to account for the origin of the feature, not for the advantage it confers. Yes it makes us survive better, concede the point (it costs you nothing), then press him on where it came from. Likely he'll tip his hand that as a naturalist he can only presume natural causes, and so he's forced to believe that it came about by natural selection, but that would be begging the question! The only way out of that, is to show how it happened, which he would not be able to.

Ok...

[Jaecp]

Indeed, if one takes the current state of the universe and disregards all that before it, the dominant conclusion is God, the intelligible artificer(think the watchmaker argument sans evolution). I believe this is why so many people grasp onto the past to anchor their atheistic ideas.

Could you elaborate on that?

[Pytharchimedes]

Could you elaborate on that?

No, I can not say anything beyond the example of the watchmaker argument sans darwinism. The power of the watchmaker argument was diminished at the dawn of darwinism. The same argument occurs when speaking of abiogenesis.

Neither the argument from ignorance concerning abiogenesis, nor any such argument involving knowledge of biological evolution hold any water; when it comes to the existence of God.

I was wrong though in what I said. It is people(including me) that anchor their arguments in the past, not a single group, such as atheists or theists.

Both are guilty.

[Tassman]

But in post #484 you tied rationality directly to survival. I'm glad you finally agree that it is not necessary.

No, I tied directly to survival not necessarily rationality. I've never said that rationality was essential to survival. But it was and clearly is an advantage.

They have no clue about right or wrong. They just act on instinct. When an alpha male takes the female and food from a beta male is that right or wrong? This whole line of reasoning is just silly.

The other primates most certainly do

That is correct so stop assuming you know what a monkey is thinking about, stop assuming that you know his motives.

I specifically said that one know the inner mental life of any creature, including our fellow humans but that one can arrive at reasonable conclusions about the thought processes via observations, comparisons and tests, i.e. via scientific methodology.

Again, we have no idea what cave men did or did not know along these lines. And stop assuming that you have any understanding of the "notions" of apes. Again, when an alpha male takes the food and female from a beta male does he think that is wrong behavior?

No Tass, this whole line of reasoning is specious. You claimed that this experiment showed that monkeys had a sense of fairness, that was just a silly conclusion. We do not know their motives or that they are acting on any more than instinct .

Nonsense! It is perfectly reasonable to assess motives by the behaviour being exhibited. We do it all the time in our society.

[Tassman]

No, I can not say anything beyond the example of the watchmaker argument sans darwinism. The power of the watchmaker argument was diminished at the dawn of darwinism. The same argument occurs when speaking of abiogenesis.

Neither the argument from ignorance concerning abiogenesis, nor any such argument involving knowledge of biological evolution hold any water; when it comes to the existence of God.

I was wrong though in what I said. It is people(including me) that anchor their arguments in the past, not a single group, such as atheists or theists.

Both are guilty.

There isn't a viable “watchmaker argument” since the advent of Evolution any more than there is a viable “geocentric argument” since the advent of heliocentrism. Both notions have been superseded by the advance of knowledge.

<snip>

Get Tassman to account for the origin of the feature, not for the advantage it confers. Yes it makes us survive better, concede the point (it costs you nothing), then press him on where it came from. Likely he'll tip his hand that as a naturalist he can only presume natural causes, and so he's forced to believe that it came about by natural selection, but that would be begging the question! The only way out of that, is to show how it happened, which he would not be able to.

There's more to the argument than that. We presume “natural causes” because there is no good reason to think otherwise. To date everything that we understand about the universe, including our own existence has been accounted for by natural causes. To imagine something more than this is pure conjecture at this stage and unsupported by any substantive evidence. If you think there's more then you provide the evidence to "show how it happened".

[Pytharchimedes]

If you think there's more then you provide the evidence to "show how it happened".

There is nothing more than me, but that does not mean I lack God.

Therefore, what have I to show you? My bad, I misread, thought you were referencing the human soul.

On another note;

There's more to the argument than that. We presume “natural causes”

why presume anything? why not wait upon the evidence? Let us remain impartial, or if you have the evidence, why presume?

We(who is this, does it not include me?), should do so, maybe a moratorium upon human rationality is in order, especially since you think it is akin to instinct(that with no reason).

I really need to go to bed...