Reason and rationality are survival characteristics. If we couldn’t rely on them, we’d be unable to do things like store food for the winter, navigate successfully, or take advantage of physics or natural phenomena. This doesn’t even apply solely to humans. All animals, consciously or not, rely on at least rationality for survival, and several of the more “intelligent” animals appear to be capable of applying at least basic reasoning as well.
Yes.
But, I do not see how this constitutes reason. Instinctual stimuli-response. Reason is a meaningless term with respect to survival advantage.
How does your comment counter the argument in this article?
Reason and rationality are survival characteristics. If we couldn’t rely on them, we’d be unable to do things like store food for the winter, navigate successfully, or take advantage of physics or natural phenomena. This doesn’t even apply solely to humans. All animals, consciously or not, rely on at least rationality for survival, and several of the more “intelligent” animals appear to be capable of applying at least basic reasoning as well.
I throw the spear higher to make it go farther. I lead a running animal to better intersect the trajectories of spear and beast.
Not consciously thought out but innately understood.
Much later, when it was consciously thought out by the genius of Newton (himself standing on the shoulders of others), it was almost immediately recognized for the genius it was. Newtonian physics makes perfect sense to those whose ancestors used it for daily survival.
But nobody’s ancestors used quantum mechanics for daily survival. The uncertainty of position and momentum of the individual photons bringing you the image of a charging lion are unimportant details in the more classical physics problem of how best to save your butt from being eaten.
Thus it has come to pass that while the genius of Newton is easily understood by anyone willing to do a little homework, the genius of Heisenberg is not really understood by anyone. Richard Fynman said that anyone who claims to understand quantum mechanics is a liar. And yet it is by far the most successful scientific theory ever.
So how to explain this discrepancy?
I believe it’s because brain evolution enhanced an understanding of classical physics without needing an understanding of quantum weirdness.
If understanding was imparted to us by a designer, why not equally include classical and quantum in the mix?