Vanderzyden

Hello everyone!

I'm relatively new, spending most of my time over on the Evolution/Creation board. I've posted a topic there, but I think it also has relevance here.

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The typical Darwinist supposes that humans are descendants of some species of ape.

On such a view, everything that makes us human must necessarily have natural origins--for both primary and secondary causes. This includes consciousness, complex emotions, introspection, language and reason.

It is the last to which I would like to draw your attention: language and reason. Consider an excerpt from the work of a famous philospher:

"Let us consider how many ideas we owe to the use of speech; how much grammar trains and facilitates the operations of the mind. And let us think of the inconceivable difficulties and the infinite amount of time that the first invention of languages must have cost. Let us join their reflections to the preceding ones, and we will be in a position to judge how many thousands of centuries would be necessary to develop successively in the human mind the operations of which it was capable."

--Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality


So, I ask, the following:

1. Which came first, reason, which requires language, or language, upon which reason depends?

2. Does it not follow that the answer to #1 relate directly to existence (and attributes) of God?



Vanderzyden

Vibr8gKiwi

The evolution of language is an entire field of study. Do a web search on it sometime.

You seem to be venturing into yet another field of study you don't understand in search of non-existent evidence for your god. You might consider if a dip into this field will leave you looking as foolish as your dip into genetics has.

Mageth

2. Does it not follow that the answer to #1 relate directly to existence (and attributes) of God?

Which god? We've created lots of gods with lots of attributes.

And I think 2 may relate to 1 in the sense that I believe individuals of our ancestors may have "seen" gods of sorts in the sun, animals, etc. prior to acquiring symbolic language, and created "community" gods with specific attributes after acquiring formal language.

[ August 29, 2002: Message edited by: Mageth ]</p>

Vanderzyden

Do you have something of substance to contribute?

Vorkosigan

This topic is old hat around these parts. Reasoning powers are known in many different kinds of animals that cannot talk, so the answer is obvious. It has nothing to do with gods, and everything to do with evolution. For an explanation of how logic evolved in humans -- usefulness for social cognition -- see <a href="http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/primer.html" target="_blank">Website with Primer on Evolutionary Psychology</a>. The book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0198524196/internetinfidelsA/" target="_blank">The Descent of Mind : Psychological Perspectives on Hominid Evolution</a> has a useful review article at the beginning, and the ultimate guide would be <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0195101073/internetinfidelsA/" target="_blank">The Adapted Mind : Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture</a>. There is no need for gods to explain any of these things; evolution does an excellent job of accounting for cognition.

Vanderzyden, starting new threads here while you have unanswered threads elsewhere is tantamount to trolling. For topical reasons I am moving this into philosophy.

Vorkosigan