Continuing a look at the origin of reality…largely inspired and derived from George F.R. Ellis' brilliant brief book, BEFORE THE BEGINNING. He is NOT responsible, though, for the liberties I've taken with his logic or how I've chosen to illustrate it. Looking at some non-theological interpretations of materialism that are not as bleak as the existential crisis brought on by pure materialism… Sorry about the lateness of the posting of this. Busy week. As I said last week… I'm a strong believer in evolution, and certainly there are many truths in evolutionary psychology. Still, many laypeople are turning evolutionary psychology into something much broader than originally intended. (Most real evolutionary psychologists are aware of the limitations of their field of study, and several recent statements by such are careful to differentiate between biological altruism and true altruism.) Evolution is prone to many misapplications of its theory and used to justify things that would horrify Darwin himself–from Social Darwinism to SOME (not all, by any means) excesses of sociobiology. We don't inherit antisocial or social behavior. We are given some basic tendencies, some aptitudes, but Al Capone's son became a sheriff. There are literally thousands of others examples. To reduce altruism–and by extension, moral behavior–to an evolutionary cause-and-effect is an unjustified oversimplification, especially for conscious, thinking beings who defy instincts all the time. It certainly explains some instinctive altruism in animals but even there it doesn't tell the whole story. There are many displays of cross-species altruism that cannot be explained by kin selection. (And if you say evolutionary altruism isn't sharp enough to differentiate altruism to propagate the gene pool from those outside the gene pool–you bring up another problem with this theory. It's impossible to disprove. If it agrees with the theory, it's caused by kin selection. If it disagrees, it's because evolution is too “clumsy” to distinguish. It's heads you win, tails you lose–unprovable in a Popperian sense.) Kin selection and the advantages given by “Prisoner's Gambit” scenarios might explain some tendencies–but they fall far short of a full explanation. More next time.
@tupapayon: hehe... Well, I suppose a 'Meme' could fit the bill for a 'moral virus', but I put 'meme theory' up there with Rupert Sheldrakes 'morphic fields' theory (google them both - interesting stuff). It's riveting stuff to conjecture about, but the science is lacking...!
There's no moral gene... maybe we are infected with some sort of moral "virus"... a "God strain"... (OK, that was for Kim)... But that is an argument of sort used by some when they are asked how come there is so much evil if there is a good god... how can be so much good if there is no God... but I'm sure there are other arguments...
Great stuff continues and I have yet to read anything I find unreasonable. I hope, at some point, you do address freewill vs. determinism in a more thorough manner. You seem to be sort of skirting around it some, as on this page suggesting we have...'something'... that enables us to defy our instincts, and perhaps you plan to expound upon that. Looking forward to it. In my opinion, if determinism is totally true, then the materialist are RIGHT, no matter how much it might seem otherwise (unless you have a way of presenting compatibilism that I don't consider, as William James did, Wretched Subterfuge!). No need to respond. I'll see it if you eventually address it.
Nutster at 12:41PM, Nov. 10, 2014
I like the new art style for the faces. I do not recall you using it before; your faces usually look quite different.
KimLuster at 11:02AM, Nov. 10, 2014
I tried to google google and I got a googol popups :D
tupapayon at 10:46AM, Nov. 10, 2014
I didn't know what google was... so I google that one first... I'll wait for part 2...
KimLuster at 6:33AM, Nov. 10, 2014
@tupapayon: hehe... Well, I suppose a 'Meme' could fit the bill for a 'moral virus', but I put 'meme theory' up there with Rupert Sheldrakes 'morphic fields' theory (google them both - interesting stuff). It's riveting stuff to conjecture about, but the science is lacking...!
tupapayon at 4:06AM, Nov. 10, 2014
There's no moral gene... maybe we are infected with some sort of moral "virus"... a "God strain"... (OK, that was for Kim)... But that is an argument of sort used by some when they are asked how come there is so much evil if there is a good god... how can be so much good if there is no God... but I'm sure there are other arguments...
KimLuster at 8:01PM, Nov. 9, 2014
Great stuff continues and I have yet to read anything I find unreasonable. I hope, at some point, you do address freewill vs. determinism in a more thorough manner. You seem to be sort of skirting around it some, as on this page suggesting we have...'something'... that enables us to defy our instincts, and perhaps you plan to expound upon that. Looking forward to it. In my opinion, if determinism is totally true, then the materialist are RIGHT, no matter how much it might seem otherwise (unless you have a way of presenting compatibilism that I don't consider, as William James did, Wretched Subterfuge!). No need to respond. I'll see it if you eventually address it.