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Thank you for the change in tone. OK, It did not seem to be a settled issue to me as I read articles and book chapters from both sides of this philosophical issue in graduate school probably around 2002. But, I am open to the idea that I missed something. Can you direct me to a couple of best "readings"; some that show the major arguments why materialism is self-defeating, and some that argue that materialism is not self-defeating? I always read both sides of every issue and then draw my own conclusions.
I'm sure you have some point to make. I'm sure you'll have a clear explanation in your next paragraph.
Quote:
The utter lack of in-depth philosophical thought about reality among the atheists here is depressing. Such a preponderance of ignorance among those who profess to value knowledge and reason is true irony . . . and not a hopeful sign for humanity.
Or then again, maybe not. I guess personal attacks can replace thought, reason and evidence in certain academic fields. Luckily that's not a widespread problem.
How did such things as abstract thinking, love, empathy, compassion , reasoning, etc... ultimately come by way of atheistic Materialism such as rocks/dirt/hydrogen gas/planets, etc ???
Oh, thank you! I've been waiting for this question for at least a decade! I think about this constantly! Time to Moderator cut: delteded me some logic! (Note that I am a Moderator cut: inappropriate language Do not assume scientists and archeologists think along the same insane, ranting lines which I do. As a rule, I do as little research as possible).
I'll explain them all the order shown. (Note that I have done little if any research on these topics). I don't need no research. Moderator cut: inappropriate language
Abstract thought - first, we should define abstract thought. There are cultural definitions and dictionary definitions. Both are definitions, but the question makes no sense unless a basic definition is decided upon.
Abstract thought - I don't care what abstract thought actually means. I'm going to say that it is thinking about topics one cannot experience through the senses. Mathematics is abstract thought in some ways and not in others. Moving pebbles from one pile to another is not abstract thought. Counting is abstract thought, seeing as how to count, one must replace the pebble with a number. The pebble is not one of anything. In reality, it is merely a pebble.
Early humans were thought to be nomads. A stone is not a spear head. It might become an arrow, but to make it that way would take abstract thought, to imagine it as an arrow, then determine how to make it into one.
Early human ancestors who wielded spears could hunt more food. Greater health means greater survival rate, but also, excessive hunger decreases libido. Human ancestors who could think abstractly could create tools to, among other things, obtain more food and have more children. Abstract thought would result in brains which take more food to sustain, but would be more helpful for survival than a mere few less calories needed. Human ancestors, being nomadic would enter areas they could not understand. They would need to be creative. Low necessary caloric intake would not help if humans entered a land during the rainy season, but then discovered that this same place recieved no rain at all for months at a time after the rainy season. Abstract thought would be of assistance in finding water, in imagining water could be caught in say, cup shaped leaves, even if such leaves were above one's head.
Love, a very difficult thing to define - I am going to define love as a willingness to help someone else, even at the expense of oneself.
Ancient humans lived in small, extended family groups. Their genes would be spread throughout such family groups. To help other members of one's group would be to help their genes survive. Family groups which helped one another out, even at the expense of oneself, would all be more likely to prosper.
Empathy - I am going to define empathy as the ability to put oneself in the shoes of another, to feel their pain, sorrow, and joy.
If I lived alone in the woods and got a broken leg, I would be pretty much out of luck. If I had a buddy who could make a splint for my leg, and I could do the same for my pal, we would both be better off for it. If my buddy laughed when I broke my leg and walked away, not only would we both be worse off for it, we would no longer be buddies. Empathy creates survival.
Compassion - I am going to define compassion as similar to love, but more of a pitying love. I am going to define compassion as a willingness to help someone, at the expense of oneself, even though helping such a person might be a hindrance to everyone except the person being helped.
If you save someone's life, say, someone who doesn't deserve to be saved, such a person will frequently adore you. They may even change from a person who doesn't deserve to be saved, to one who deserves to be saved a dozen times over. Such devotion could serve early human groups well, particularly among family groups, some of whome may become quite affended if their brother is tossed of the bluffs, even if he can be a jerk.
Reasoning - a very broad term. I think this is too broad of a term to define here, and I don't want to look like a smart aleck by attempting to do so.
Above were possible examples of some emotions might have come about through evolutionary natural selection.
I would guess, however, that the poster of the topic for the forum was wondering about opinions on how emotions could have been created through evolution at all.
Well, emotions are at least partially caused by chemicals. They are neurons firing in the brain, but the neurons depend on chemicals to fire in the first place.
The chemicals which are a part of what causes emotions are created from materials taken into the body from the outside world, minerals, vitamins and other materials. Emotions formed the same way human arms and legs formed.
I could go into how human arms and legs formed, but the question was about emotions, not about human evolution in general.
Also, I am no scientist, and know few of the specifics.
Which of these functions are material entities ? And, can you surmise as to how much love weighs and what is the chemical composition of hate ?
Why, yes, you can.
(again, I will answer this without having done research)
There are pills people take to change their emotions, anti-depressants and such. That chemicals can interfere with emotions causes me to think that emotions are caused, at least in part, by chemical reactions made of particles with weight and mass.
Just read a higher posting about making a hypothesis. Here it is.
I hypothesize that all emotions are caused, to some extent, by chemicals, and that the specific percentages of given chemicals it takes to make a given emotion can be measured, having weight and mass. I am basing my assumption off the fact that some emotions are changed by chemicals. One can see these changes by taking an anti-depressant pill.
I am also basing my hypothesis off the fact that we know of no other way nerve cells can communicate other than through chemicals and electrical signals triggered by chemicals.
Ways in which my hypothesis could be wrong would be if chemical input only influences certain emotions, or if chemical input triggers the initial emotional reaction, but not the extent of the emotional reaction, or if chemical input triggers another unknown force, which we might call a soul. This soul would necessarily have been affected by the chemical input, but would not necessarily be completely controlled in entirety by that chemical input.
I consider the existence of the soul possible, though very difficult to test for. For reasons of efficiency, I would encourage the testing, and discovering evidence, for all emotions being measurable by understanding chemical ratios which occur during communication in the brain during a given emotion.
To test for the soul, to understand if it did effect emotions, would take a knowledge of what each individual cell in the human brain did. If we could determine what every single part of the human brain did, and found there was something missing, I would think that the existence of a soul could become a respected hypothesis, though not yet a theory.
I see this as far to much work.
Alternatively, the soul could exist and yet not affect emotions, or it could effect emotions exactly the same way, at the same time, the human brain does.
I would also like to add that I believe people in ancient times, before findings from telescopes were widely know about, those who believed the sun revolved around the earth were wise. They made logical conclusions based upon what they say. I think it is the scientist's duty to be as clear-headed and observant as those who believed the sun revolved around the earth, but it is also the scientist's duty to maintain the knowledge that they may very well be wrong.
How did such things as abstract thinking, love, empathy, compassion , reasoning, etc... ultimately come by way of atheistic Materialism such as rocks/dirt/hydrogen gas/planets, etc ???
Life from non-life isn't solved yet. At some point chemical reactions produced a thing with a membrane to isolate itself from the outside, and a tendency to make copies of itself. I.e. a "living" creature. Random mutations + natural selection caused that original life form to become more and more complex, eventually producing the life forms we see today. (I am compressing a billion years into one sentence here.)
Thoughts, emotions etc. are emergent behaviors of the extremely complex (but entirely material) system that is a human body. They're what it "feels like" when some neuron chains in your brain are active while you have some chemicals in your blood and so on.
What is the source of "natural"? How can it explain anything when it is unexplained.
The utter lack of in-depth philosophical thought about reality among the atheists here is depressing. Such a preponderance of ignorance among those who profess to value knowledge and reason is true irony . . . and not a hopeful sign for humanity.
It is best to clean your own home before pointing at what you see as dirty in the homes of others. By your rules: what is the source of "source"? How can IT explain anything when it is unexplained?
In my personal view, Anyone who is not Agnostic is depressing to me.
The "phenominal" concepts could simply be rules of existance, like the reason rocks exist. no?
Oh, thank you! I've been waiting for this question for at least a decade! I think about this constantly! Time to Moderator cut: orphaned me some logic! (Note that I am a Moderator cut: orphaned Do not assume scientists and archeologists think along the same insane, ranting lines which I do. As a rule, I do as little research as possible).
I'll explain them all the order shown. (Note that I have done little if any research on these topics). I don't need no research. Moderator cut: orphaned
Abstract thought - first, we should define abstract thought. There are cultural definitions and dictionary definitions. Both are definitions, but the question makes no sense unless a basic definition is decided upon.
Abstract thought - I don't care what abstract thought actually means. I'm going to say that it is thinking about topics one cannot experience through the senses. Mathematics is abstract thought in some ways and not in others. Moving pebbles from one pile to another is not abstract thought. Counting is abstract thought, seeing as how to count, one must replace the pebble with a number. The pebble is not one of anything. In reality, it is merely a pebble.
Early humans were thought to be nomads. A stone is not a spear head. It might become an arrow, but to make it that way would take abstract thought, to imagine it as an arrow, then determine how to make it into one.
Early human ancestors who wielded spears could hunt more food. Greater health means greater survival rate, but also, excessive hunger decreases libido. Human ancestors who could think abstractly could create tools to, among other things, obtain more food and have more children. Abstract thought would result in brains which take more food to sustain, but would be more helpful for survival than a mere few less calories needed. Human ancestors, being nomadic would enter areas they could not understand. They would need to be creative. Low necessary caloric intake would not help if humans entered a land during the rainy season, but then discovered that this same place recieved no rain at all for months at a time after the rainy season. Abstract thought would be of assistance in finding water, in imagining water could be caught in say, cup shaped leaves, even if such leaves were above one's head.
Love, a very difficult thing to define - I am going to define love as a willingness to help someone else, even at the expense of oneself.
Ancient humans lived in small, extended family groups. Their genes would be spread throughout such family groups. To help other members of one's group would be to help their genes survive. Family groups which helped one another out, even at the expense of oneself, would all be more likely to prosper.
Empathy - I am going to define empathy as the ability to put oneself in the shoes of another, to feel their pain, sorrow, and joy.
If I lived alone in the woods and got a broken leg, I would be pretty much out of luck. If I had a buddy who could make a splint for my leg, and I could do the same for my pal, we would both be better off for it. If my buddy laughed when I broke my leg and walked away, not only would we both be worse off for it, we would no longer be buddies. Empathy creates survival.
Compassion - I am going to define compassion as similar to love, but more of a pitying love. I am going to define compassion as a willingness to help someone, at the expense of oneself, even though helping such a person might be a hindrance to everyone except the person being helped.
If you save someone's life, say, someone who doesn't deserve to be saved, such a person will frequently adore you. They may even change from a person who doesn't deserve to be saved, to one who deserves to be saved a dozen times over. Such devotion could serve early human groups well, particularly among family groups, some of whome may become quite affended if their brother is tossed of the bluffs, even if he can be a jerk.
Reasoning - a very broad term. I think this is too broad of a term to define here, and I don't want to look like a smart aleck by attempting to do so.
Above were possible examples of some emotions might have come about through evolutionary natural selection.
I would guess, however, that the poster of the topic for the forum was wondering about opinions on how emotions could have been created through evolution at all.
Well, emotions are at least partially caused by chemicals. They are neurons firing in the brain, but the neurons depend on chemicals to fire in the first place.
The chemicals which are a part of what causes emotions are created from materials taken into the body from the outside world, minerals, vitamins and other materials. Emotions formed the same way human arms and legs formed.
I could go into how human arms and legs formed, but the question was about emotions, not about human evolution in general.
Also, I am no scientist, and know few of the specifics.
pretty awesome philosophical work. The empathy thing with the laughing and walking away actually happened to me once... you always think: what sort fo douche-bag could do such a thing, and then you find them.
Last edited by june 7th; 06-11-2011 at 06:37 AM..
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pretty awesome philosophical work. The empathy thing with the laughing and walking away actually happened to me once... you always think: what sort fo douche-bag could do such a thing, and then you find them.
