crocodile deathroll

The best thing that humanism emphasizes is that it dismisses the idea that morality has in source in traditional religion and prior to that religious enlightenment we all be had supposed of behaved like savage and aggressive animals with no empathy towards each other at all. There was a case recently when a young boy had fallen into a gorilla enclosure and was seriously hurt in the fall. People also realized that the boy will also have to contend the a powerful female, but instead of the gorilla behaving like an unfeeling and ruthless attacker of a helpless intruder she went up to him and gently stroked him until he regained consciousness and cried. She then just quietly left him alone.

Studies with bonobo chimps indicate this behavior is a lot more complex and advanced than gorillas or other chimpanzees
This give me a fair idea how far back in history morality can be traced back. It emerges as a natural empathy toward the injured and weak, and as such it can be traced back at least million years as is the case with the gorilla.

If we see someone injured on the road, we call the ambulance or at least we do something similar to what the gorilla did to that little injured boy and stroke and gently and even remove him from danger, and in doing so we think we are behaving in a manner that is unique to our species and we are the only species who acquired that empathy, and we are told we acquired it from religion or a deity just a few thousand years ago! not so. It has already been around for millions of years So no one can say the Judeo Christian religions invented morality and altruism it has only been around for a mere few 1000 years (not millions)

I have come more the conclusion that altruism and empathy are biologically built into us with inhibitory neurons on one area of the brain and excitatory neurons in another area of the brain cause us to either behave altruistally or selfishly. So I more of the view that this behavior is it determined on the of patterns of molecular configurations and there is no true free will Free will is just an illusion. Altruism and empathy and the emotion of guilt is so well a part of our brain biology, that the army has to go though great pains to deprogram this empathetic tendency out of us so a trained soldier can have no inhibitions in bayonetting the enemy (not matter how cold blooded that may appear to us) at very close range. Aldolf Hilter and to a lesser extent Stalin de programmed an entire population to this end and if anything religion does it too - quoting the crusades. So we also have a natural tendency to obey and is this natural tendency to obey that is used over ride all others like empathy and sympathy. We only have to see how a social group of wolves behave with the leader omega wolf, they find it easier to obey the omega wolf in the short term than to continuously fight for dominance and this is obedience at work. More of the very worst atrocities are committed under obedience than disobedience, because like those wolfish insincts it is this natural tendency of obedience that holds our whole social structure together, but if a bad religion or philosophy exploits it, it can all go disastrously wrong.

CD

John Page

Which begs the question Why? Answer, because it works (it produced a stronger society than otherwise). Wrong answer, because god gave us nice souls.....

Laurentius

AVE
When I came here I knew I was an atheist. A materialist, and a humanist. Well, I kind of felt it. What I also felt was that materialism in combination with the theory of the Big Bang, the principle of indeterminism, and other theories led to nihilism. But this is another subject.

Well, I was happy to have discovered this forum and still am. (Unfortunately, I totally lack the time to participate as much as I'd like.) However, I was startled at the nonchalance with which some people can assert that the natural laws can determine the way the mind functions. They can alter it, yes, but not determine.


Synaesthesia
Let's say for only a moment, that I am right, and that each level of organization, from (a) to (d) adds more laws, which brings about new specificity with every level, which bears the qualities I've mentioned above.

But would not have to just imagine these things, actually.

It is a demonstrated fact that living matter behaves differently from non living matter.

It is a demonstrated fact that there are living things endowed with will, which has never been explained satisfactorily through a natural law.

It is a demonstrated fact that there are living things capable of self reflection; now, how in the world do natural laws explain that?

If you watch my chart carefully, you will notice that I have indicated that all levels of organization are subject to natural laws. Obviously, each of these levels will be afected in their functioning by natural causes. In fact, it is the blind natural forces that they seem to escape through the new degree of organization they achieve. These new degrees of organization explain the particular activity of the living matter, of the will, of the mind. I have several times presented arguments that scientifically these levels of organization have been proved, that the psychee, for instance, has its own laws.
Now, you say that, no, these laws are reducible to natural laws, but provide no mechanism (scientifically proved) of how this thing really happens.

I think that it should not be my duty to prove that such mechanism does not exist, until you have provided satisfactory evidence that it does.

crocodile deathroll
I liked your exposition, but the generalization (or universalization) it launches it simply stunning. Just because an ape can show compassion, we should not conclude that all matter functions on the principles our mind does (mind also that in my categorization I placed Man along some apes, which may easily explain your story). And if all matter does not function on the principles our mind does, then there may be a (gradual or leaping) hierarchy, detaching the living from the non-living, will-bearing living from non will-bearing living and self-reflecting living from non self-reflecting living.

john page
As I confessed, I have not elaborated into this, it was a spontaneous reaction to the lack of arguments of the materialists which they dismissed the existence of the mind. My hierarchy does not have a key axis that I could decide upon right now, but it is meant to show that the material world does have level of organization, each functioning on its own principles that do not transcend the physical ones, but add to them in a manner that makes natural laws relatively controlable.
(Well, I would stay longer but duty is calling me.
AVE

phaedrus

Excuse moi for gate-crashing into this nice party with all the great verbal rhapsodies, but how close or near are we to the topic ?

*gets back to what he was doing*




[ March 08, 2002: Message edited by: phaedrus ]</p>

Synaesthesia

First, let me clarify a few conceptual issues regarding reductionism.

<a href="http://directory.google.com/Top/Arts/Visual_Arts/ASCII_Art/" target="_blank">http://directory.google.com/Top/Arts/Visual_Arts/ASCII_Art/</a>

<a href="http://users.inetw.net/~mullen/saddam.htm" target="_blank">http://users.inetw.net/~mullen/saddam.htm</a>

So is this saddam hussein or is it just a bunch of letters? Well, naturally it is no more than a bunch of letters. Search high and low, with a magnifying glass or a telescope, I assure you that nothing other than letters will be apparent in an examination of this ascii art. Am I denying that this is Saddam Hussein making a rude gesture at us? Do I deny that there are “biological laws”?

No! What I am saying is that Saddam Hussein is no more than the organization of letters and that biological laws emerge as a consequence of physical laws given special forms of organized matter.

Wouldn’t you agree that it’s much easier to speak of 5 guitar strings than 5 trillion interacting atoms?

Now it is quite clear that a urinal behaves rather differently than does an electric guitar and that both of these things are different from life. (Indeed, this is the case by definition!) If we were to have a supercomputer that produced perfect physical simulations of the world, we would not need to ADD in laws for urinals, guitars or life forms. They would emerge as a consequence of how our physical laws work.

It is one thing to be able to say that I am my mother’s son, it is quite a different thing to understand how such a thing might occur. These two elements of knowledge are strictly distinct.

Now in the case of urinals and living things, we are lucky enough to live in an age with a superabundance of explanatory mechanisms. Yes, in fact we DO know how matter can be organized into reproductive organisms. Yes, in fact, we do know full well how “mere” zirconium, oxygen and aluminum can produce a toilet. Naturally non-toilets do not behave in the same manner as toilets, but the atoms that compose toilet-like or life-like behavior follow the same laws, and no other, as the rest of our universe.

What I am asking of you is not to prove that no physical mechanism could produce the mind (As neurobiology and cognitive science are showing, such physical mechanisms can explain more and more of our minds and indeed, illuminate what we didn't previously know about our minds- a feat yet to be produced by dualistic theories.). What I am asking is, if our brains are not our minds, what is? We know that our brains exist, that every aspect of our perception (including our perception of our perception) is totally dependent upon various functions of the brain. Where is this ghost in the machine and why do we need one at all?

Laurentius

phaedrus
My apology for going over consciousness and materialism so fast and entering into "whatever" so soon...
I think I should have started my own thread.
Thank you for bringing this issue up, anyway, because it seems to have been gnawing at my heart for quite a while...
AVE

John Page

I think it is the mind that attempts to 'make sense' of external reality, not the other way around.

Man's 'discovery' of natural laws is our attempt to understand the structure of our environment.

I think this is exactly the process in your mind as you attempt to create a hierarchy that makes external reality more understandable. Does this make sense to you?

Laurentius

I am going to make my points on the subject in this <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=56&t=000090" target="_blank">new thread</a>.
AVE