Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Tara · 05-10-2003, 04:26 PM

An aquaintance of mine brought this up after I used the word "design" in speaking of how structure reflects function. Anyone have any thought on this? Is it just a semantics argument?

Quote:

I think using words like "design" and "chooses" when describing natural processes, we unconsciously violate Nietzsche's observation (particularly his distinction between "Laws" and "necessitites" in nature) - such verbs that imply consciousness are, as Nietzsche observes a "shadow of God":

"The total character of the world, however, is in all eternity chaos--in the sense not of a lack of necessity but a lack of order, arrangement, form, beauty, wisdom, and whatever names there are for our aesthetic anthropomorphisms...Let us beware of attributing to it heartlessness and unreason or their opposites: it is neither perfect nor beautiful, nor noble,
nor does it wish to become any of these things; it does not by any means strive to imitate man... Let us beware of saying that there are laws in nature. There are only necessities: there is nobody who commands, nobody who obeys, nobody who trespasses... But when will we ever be done with our caution
and care? When will all these shadows of God cease to darken our minds? When will we complete our de-deification of nature? When may we begin to "naturalize" humanity in terms of a pure, newly discovered, newly redeemed nature?"

acronos · 05-10-2003, 07:09 PM

Language evolves. Our language is steeped in God and human centric ideas because our cultural history was steeped in it. When we try to communicate we are stuck with a great deal of baggage because often the words we really need don't exist in the language yet. Ideas have evolved faster than language. We end up extending the meaning of words that do exist rather than trying to coin our own words because this is usually quicker and easier for conveying an idea.

Examples:
"Selection" is an integral part of unintelligent evolution.
Computers "share" information.
The "design" if the human hand is magnificent. (The human hand evolved. It was not designed. Design in this context is only intended to communicate the sense of order built into the hand by forces without intention.)

It is very difficult to talk about such things without stretching the meaning of words and ultimately extending such meaning to exclude intent in some contexts.

JP2 · 05-12-2003, 01:32 AM

The same psychological phenomena that cause us to use words like "design" or the examples that acronos gave are the same phenomena that cause us to postulate a god in the first place. It's just the way we see the world: anthropocentrically. We are "hard-wired" if you like (there's another example of what I'm talking about) to make sense of series events and the way we interpret them is always going to be slightly anthropocentric given that fact that we are human.

It makes more sense to the human mind, at first, to cast his attributes of "consciousness" and "creative design" out onto nature than it does to comprehend nature for what it really is - ordered but directionless.

Defiant Heretic · 05-15-2003, 01:13 PM

I think it's just a form of personification. We try to define things in terms we understand, and since we design things...

Pyrrho · 05-15-2003, 01:26 PM

As a rule, language changes much slower than knowledge. We still speak of the sun rising and setting, and no educated person has believed that for thousands of years. Language does not reflect reality very accurately. The trick is to not be confused by such inaccuracies. Unfortunately, many very intelligent people are confused by the language they use.

Language, like so much else, has evolved over the years. It is not to be expected that it would always be the most rational in its methods. Think about spelling in English. The English language is terrible when it comes to how words are spelled. The reason for the ridiculous spellings is, of course, answered historically, not by supposing that the spelling of the words actually makes any kind of sense. Only someone completely insane would have spelling as we do, if one were inventing a full language from scratch.

05-10-2003, 07:09 PM	#2
acronos Regular Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Georgia Posts: 216	Language Language evolves. Our language is steeped in God and human centric ideas because our cultural history was steeped in it. When we try to communicate we are stuck with a great deal of baggage because often the words we really need don't exist in the language yet. Ideas have evolved faster than language. We end up extending the meaning of words that do exist rather than trying to coin our own words because this is usually quicker and easier for conveying an idea. Examples: "Selection" is an integral part of unintelligent evolution. Computers "share" information. The "design" if the human hand is magnificent. (The human hand evolved. It was not designed. Design in this context is only intended to communicate the sense of order built into the hand by forces without intention.) It is very difficult to talk about such things without stretching the meaning of words and ultimately extending such meaning to exclude intent in some contexts.

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05-12-2003, 01:32 AM	#3
JP2 Regular Member Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Prague, Czech Republic Posts: 204	The same psychological phenomena that cause us to use words like "design" or the examples that acronos gave are the same phenomena that cause us to postulate a god in the first place. It's just the way we see the world: anthropocentrically. We are "hard-wired" if you like (there's another example of what I'm talking about) to make sense of series events and the way we interpret them is always going to be slightly anthropocentric given that fact that we are human. It makes more sense to the human mind, at first, to cast his attributes of "consciousness" and "creative design" out onto nature than it does to comprehend nature for what it really is - ordered but directionless.

05-15-2003, 01:13 PM	#4
Defiant Heretic Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Posts: 1,288	I think it's just a form of personification. We try to define things in terms we understand, and since we design things...

05-15-2003, 01:26 PM	#5
Pyrrho Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: United States Posts: 7,351	As a rule, language changes much slower than knowledge. We still speak of the sun rising and setting, and no educated person has believed that for thousands of years. Language does not reflect reality very accurately. The trick is to not be confused by such inaccuracies. Unfortunately, many very intelligent people are confused by the language they use. Language, like so much else, has evolved over the years. It is not to be expected that it would always be the most rational in its methods. Think about spelling in English. The English language is terrible when it comes to how words are spelled. The reason for the ridiculous spellings is, of course, answered historically, not by supposing that the spelling of the words actually makes any kind of sense. Only someone completely insane would have spelling as we do, if one were inventing a full language from scratch.

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