Posted on 12/07/2002 9:46:51 AM PST by beckett
Superstition is a part of the human condition. It is the source of much inspiration and entertainment from Homer to Stephen King.
Which is what humans do.
Humans must learn and choose all their behavior. If we had an "instinct" for sex, we would not have to teach our children how to do it, we would not have to decide whether to use bith control or not, and there would be no such thing as "sex education" (as absurd as that is) in the schools.
Humans don't have to be taught "how to do it".
Man does not have instincts. He is a rational/volitional creature, and cannot escape the necessity to choose his behavior, or the responsibility of choosing correctly or suffering the consequences.
An obvious battle at best!
Hank, you post great stuff, but I disagree with this one.
Isn't infant suckling considered an instinct?
. . . as we all are to its ubiquitous fog. The label can mislead, I know, and so perhaps this particular attitude to the past can even be described as American. (Labels are bad, says Lovejoy) But in the line from Hegel to Fukuyama (or Kuhn or Feyerabend) there is a common trait in the form of a disposition toward toward history. Desparing of insufficiency rather than yielding to a frank acknowledgment combined with the illusion of objectivity has resulted in a nebulous sublimation (hardly a respect) of the past through a dominance of the present. This is also found in Rawls, and even in Aristotle if you will, who claimed we had no obligation to our forebears.
Dogma is a human product. However, the principles of science always demand falsifiability for knowledge of the external world and consistency for everything. Nothing is immune from rational debate.
Yes on both counts. I've heard both sides claim 'the problem of evil' as alleged proof of their side. I have also had rather detailed discussions about what truth, beauty and goodness could mean, or where they could come from if not from 'spiritual' sources. This is basically the same thing he is saying here. I was being somewhat serious and somewhat facetious at the same time. That'll teach me!
I get tired of this 'it must be spiritual' argument. Give some evidence of something 'spiritual' before it is claimed that some such as 'beauty' must derive from it, not the other way around.
This is not a criticism of reason, it's part of the explanation of the process. We reason from not knowing to knowing: from agnosis to gnosis.
This is a mistake introduced to philosophy by René Descartes. One must already have knowledge to understand what doubt is. His is a wonderful example of the logical fallacy identified by Ayn Rand called the "stolen concept."
One does not have to understand the process of reason before one begins to use it. The process of reason itself must be used to gain that understanding. Doubt cannot possibly be the beginning of reason. Along reasoning process is required to reach an understanding of what doubt is. All reasoning must begin with those simplest concept one forms at the beginning of conceptualization, that is, the identification of the first percepts we have.
I said: All that matters is what you can see and what you can know. There is nothing else.
You said: This is a postulate which, by definition, can't be borne out by observation.
Whether or not there is anything beyond what we can perceive is unknown. Therefore, the question of whether anything beyond our perception might matter, is also unknown.
You have taken the informal statement I made and called it a postulate. It was much more rhetorical than that. By see, I meant all that one can be directly conscious of, including all conscious introspection. But I included also, "all that we can know." You seem to have ignored that and emphasize only what can be perceived. Perception is self can be known, but it cannot be perceived. We know it because we do it. In fact no aspect of consciousness can be directly perceived, and we can only know those things by introspection. I certianly haven't denied anything beyond the directly perceiveable.
However, it is no postulate, but undeniably true, that what you cannot perceive in any way whatsovever, or know in any way whatsoever, cannot possibly ever matter.
Your #41: Without reason it is not possible to know anything.
Another postulate? Is the knowledge of it self-evident? Or have you arrived at it by reason?
If you gleaned it by reason, you are saying: "I know that there is no knowledge without reason, because reason tells me so."
That would leave you with a tautology.
Or is it self-evident?
For brevities sake, I will say it is a tautology. But you use the word tautology the way Bertand Russell did, as though it were an idictment of the truth it expresses. A tautology is a tautology because what it expresses is true. Some have impuned the idea that 2+2=4 is not really knowledge because it is tautological. But for those whose ability in math consisted of being able to count, "1,2,3,many," the discovery of 2+2=4 was a revolution in their learning. It was not an "empty tautology," but an expression of a truth that otherwise could not have been grasped.
Yes, it is definitely a tautology.
I said: Just for the record, nothing is self-evident, if by self-evident one means knowledge of any kind. A perception is not knowledge.
You said: Again, how do you know? Is the knowledge that "nothing is self-evident" itself self-evident, or arrived at through reason?
My statement was not an arguement. Everyone knows this. It is true by definition. Percepts are the involuntary consciousness of everything we perceive. Knowledge consists of all those concepts, beginning with the simple concepts by which we idenify percepts, and progressing to the most complex abstractions we make from those simple concepts, such as those of which our sciences, arts, and philosphy consist.
Since only percepts are self-evident (you are aware of them without thinking), and percepts are not knowledge, and, since knowledge consists of concepts, which require reason (thinking) to form, no knowledge is self-evident.
I said: What one gets without reason, that is, using anything but the raional faculty, is the irrational, or superstition. Superstion is not knowledge.
You said: This statement, and the atheism it requires, were arrived at without reason. By your definition, they are superstition.
This is an amazing statement. Have you decided that the only way one can know or believe in God is to be irrational. Do you automatically discount all those who believe God can be known rationally and without superstition. Well, I guess God made a big mistake when He said, "Come now, and let us reason together...." (Isaiah 1:18).
By the way, have you noticed that throughout all of your comments that you have used reason to refute or question my views. If there is something better than reason for reaching the truth, why didn't you use that?
Hank
The word "paradox" means two things that are true and contradictory, which means two things that are true but each makes the other untrue.
In any case where one believes they have discovered a paradox, what they have discovered is a mental breakdown. Contradictions are always indications of error.
Hank
Yes, it would seem an atheist's openmindedness is limited.
What are you doing? Didn't you know it is bad luck to talk about Stephen King on the 7th of December!
(I didn't mean that kind of superstition, Buthead.)
Hank
Sorry Hank. I think sex predates sex education.
I don't know what you mean.
BTW, I'm sorry you followed the "dialog" with donh. I hope it wasn't as painful for you as it was for me.
No, it is a reflex. Notice that a baby will suck on anything that is placed in it's mouth.
An instinct is much more than a simple physical reaction to a stimulus. Even as adults, humans have these, such as the "flinch" reflex when someone fakes a punch.
Instinct, in those creatures that have them, are complete patterns of behavior that automatically provide the animal with the appropriate behavior for meeting the requirements of their nature. Some people have asked, well, humans have an instinct to eat, don't they?
What humans have is a sensation of hunger, which we know is a desire for food. But, a desire for food, does not tell us what is good for us to eat or how to acquire it, or, how to prepare it. Humans must learn all these things, and then choose to do them.
Animals automatically seek and eat what is appropriate to them. They do not need to learn how to acquire their food or what they need to acquire. That is instinct.
Hank
Good!
I think a lot of people misunderstand the difference between desire and instinct. Humans have a desire for food, but that desire does not tell them what is good to eat or how to acquire it. They must learn that, and then decide what to eat.
Humans have sexual desires, but how they will gratify that desire has to be learned. Like many other things, I do not believe it has to be learned form others, but, I cannot imagine that anyone does not know that one learns how to satisfy those desires, and what is appropriate and what is not, for each individual.
No animal has to learn anything about sex. No man can enjoy sex without learning. The desire alone does not provide the information necessary.
Maybe some people do automatically know what to do in sex, but that certainly was not my experience. In fact, one of the most pleasureable experiences of sex is the learning. If I was deprived of an instinct in this matter that others have, I am thankful for it.
Hank
True. Contemporary scientists are filled with dogma. A real scientist is concerned with the process, not the conclusion. When anybody gets too wedded to a conclusion, it becomes dogma. How many paradigm shifts do we have go through before we stop chiseling these things in stone?
This is why I don't think it's all an empty bag here. Mr. Horgan's tack on acknowledging insufficiency is a tradition worthy of both left and right, moralist and scientist.
But he won't admit to anything either. At least it seemed to me. He kept returning to one of the oldest and most classic questions of all, 'Why is there anything?' But he didn't want to venture an answer, so what was left? Is he just asserting the classic 'agnostic' view. Then why doesn't he just say so? (and is this what you mean by 'insufficiency?)
The question of the 'infinite' is all important here. He seemed to take if for granted. Can one truly? And if the 'infinite' truly 'exists,' then who can say what cannot?
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