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As prompted by Dr. Turell I just finished one of my 3 summer classes (about 2 hours ago) and have promptly picked this book up (before I put it off for too long and never read it) and I have to say that to my eyes even by the 17th page I find it provocative. - This is partially that waaaaaaaaaay back when I took a psychology class, the general consensus about humans was that we had no instincts. (Except for the "mother's instinct.") I find this idea categorically repulsive, and incorrect. First and foremost, if our children are born as 'blank slates,' then how do they know to learn? How do they know to grab on to you when they're picked up? There is no way to learn this behavior, therefore it must be instinctual. In both of these instances, they don't know--they just *do.* A scrubs joke: "Having a baby is like owning a dog that slowly learns to talk." - I intend on reading this book as thoroughly as possible--guaranteed because I have the inconvenience of walking into the book knowing its thesis beforehand and am quite ready to defend my own views. But in no instance can anyone pick up a book without some kind of prejudice. The act of selecting a book is prejudice in and of itself. - I'll give periodic appraisals as I write my notes.

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I find it provocative. 
 
> How do they know to grab on to you when they're picked up? There is no way to learn this behavior, therefore it must be instinctual. 
 
> I'll give periodic appraisals as I write my notes. - 
I'm looking forward to your comments. - In regard to human instinct, babies have a suckling reflex and a grasp reflex at birth. Touch the palm and the fingers curl on you, offer the nipple and so forth. They feel pain, but a needle stick if using a cloth diaper is not point specific. Points of pain have to be learned. Two-point discrimination of close- together needle sticks are learned over time and involve use of the eyes.

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Dr. Turell, - But how can you separate reflex from instinct? It is precisely my view that they are one and the same. An instinctive behavior is one where you don't have to think about to do it. This necessarily includes reflex.

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But how can you separate reflex from instinct? It is precisely my view that they are one and the same. An instinctive behavior is one where you don't have to think about to do it. This necessarily includes reflex. - I agree with you. Those reflexes are instinctual, but there are a minimal number when compared to animals at birth. We disagree by degree, but per Adler, we are a different kind of beast, not just some degrees different.

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But how can you separate reflex from instinct? It is precisely my view that they are one and the same. An instinctive behavior is one where you don't have to think about to do it. This necessarily includes reflex.
> 
> I agree with you. Those reflexes are instinctual, but there are a minimal number when compared to animals at birth. We disagree by degree, but per Adler, we are a different kind of beast, not just some degrees different. - I'm beginning to think that Adler's argument is less interesting, if it's not the "Aquinas/Aristotle" kind of superiority. - I do take issues with one of his early dismissals, the one that suggests humans are different neither in kind nor in degree, but since it's ancillary I won't address it now. There are powerful arguments for this view but I'll wait until I finish it before I possibly waste time.

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On the "blank slate" concept (a pernicous, politically-driven conclusion which finds no basis in reality), I thoroughly recommend The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker. In the book, he demolishes the fashionable idea, now thankfully on the decline, that there is no such thing as human nature. The book ends with an unanswerable list of 400 constants - features of humanity that apply across all cultures, as diverse as Australian aboriginal and Norwegian. - He also trashes two other rather stupid ideas - the Noble Savage (i.e Rousseau's idea that it in an state of "nature" it was all perfect before civilisation and the state corrupted us) and the Ghost in the Machine (i.e. dualism, that our mind is a substance apart from our brains - an idea, I note in passing, that seems to exert a grip on several bloggers on this site). - Very strongly recommended - and a rollicking read too. - [dhw - your magic trick hasn't worked: I will answer your fascinating and multi-layered question - I just haven't decided quite how yet!).

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On the "blank slate" concept (a pernicous, politically-driven conclusion which finds no basis in reality), I thoroughly recommend The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker. In the book, he demolishes the fashionable idea, now thankfully on the decline, that there is no such thing as human nature. The book ends with an unanswerable list of 400 constants - features of humanity that apply across all cultures, as diverse as Australian aboriginal and Norwegian.
> - Trust me... the main reason I'm reading this book is because I don't believe in the blank-slate concept. However, the suggestion that there is no human nature sounds about as vacuous, so I'll have to chalk this book on the list as well. - > He also trashes two other rather stupid ideas - the Noble Savage (i.e Rousseau's idea that it in an state of "nature" it was all perfect before civilisation and the state corrupted us) and the Ghost in the Machine (i.e. dualism, that our mind is a substance apart from our brains - an idea, I note in passing, that seems to exert a grip on several bloggers on this site).
> 
> Very strongly recommended - and a rollicking read too. - I've noticed that tendency as well, but in the sense of mind and matter, you only need to talk about Phineas Gage. - > 
> [dhw - your magic trick hasn't worked: I will answer your fascinating and multi-layered question - I just haven't decided quite how yet!).

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I've just completed the second chapter, and as of now we're still just setting up the modes of analysis. Adler actually does a good job of identifying a psychological conundrum where several behavioral biologists argue that man is only different in degree, but then make statements that can only be made from the position of man being different in kind. - So far I appreciate the very thorough and meticulous manner he's undertaking his argument, its certainly a change from reading Nietzsche, heh. - To be frank, so far his argument seems incredibly simplistic, just as we would say a dog is drastically different than a crab, he is preparing to make a claim that would extend to us to make us drastically different from everything else on the planet. - If nothing else, thus far it is making me clean my own house a bit. I have had some contradictory beliefs, such as "man is scum" coupled with "we should preserve human life." While I was still Buddhist I came to the unsettling realization that the use of nuclear weapons was the only psychological tool that could have cowed the Japanese. Consequentialist ethics has its place in war. (It was my contradictions on pacifism that lead me to break away from Buddhism, though I still meditate regularly.) It's actually a good thing I'd never be the leader of a nation, because my war policy would be something like "If you attack us, we will follow no law in subduing you." Very Roman, very chilling. Very effective. - I haven't come across anything too particularly damning. Chapter 3 is a summary of his thesis and I engage it tomorrow.

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Dr. Turell,
Alright, Adler has laid out his initial case and his thorough treatment of the question as philosophy has handled it has brought several issues into focus. - His entire case seems to rest upon the fact that man has a propositional language. However, I can think of 1 concrete case where a gorilla shows the same skill. When growing up I remember watching a "Reading Rainbow" that talked about a (rather famous) gorilla named Koko. There's also an African Grey parrot that was even able to identify objects based on texture... a rather abstract connection. - http://www.koko.org/index.php - It shouldn't make a difference that a gorilla didn't independently invent a propositional language, the mere fact that it can be taught means that the same mental machinery exists in at least one non-human primate, and in my mind, reverts the answer back to one of some sort of degree. - There is also one possible case that Adler didn't seem to cover. (In the broadest sense.) He treats the discrete and continuous perspectives as mutually exclusive. I would like to explore this more, because I don't see this as true. Adler argues that belief in a continuum of nature negates the properties of species. I would say that a species is a name given for an organism found in a particular snapshot of its evolutionary life. - Where he has a stronger argument, is in dealing with the differences between say, plants and animals. But the fact that all life contains DNA and that all life contains a single common ancestor necessarily dictates a continuum from the first organism to ourselves. There also exists a continuum between every form of life and the common ancestor. Humans and trees are a subset of life, thus part of a continuum.

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Strangely enough I was reading Steven Pinker's "The Language Instinct" a couple of days ago and happened upon his comments about Koko, some of which are reproduced in this review: - http://filmfanatic.org/reviews/?p=2107 - Quote: First, looking for a "missing language link" between gorillas and humans is a meaningless endeavor, since homo sapiens took off on a separate branch of the primatology tree long ago; as Steven Pinker points out in his book The Language Instinct, "evolution did not make a ladder; it made a bush." Second, Pinker further notes (and many others have agreed with him) that "people who spend a lot of time with animals are prone to developing indulgent attitudes about their powers of communication", a fact which it's difficult to miss when watching this film.

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GPJ

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Strangely enough I was reading Steven Pinker's "The Language Instinct" a couple of days ago and happened upon his comments about Koko, some of which are reproduced in this review:
> 
> http://filmfanatic.org/reviews/?p=2107
> 
> Quote: First, looking for a "missing language link" between gorillas and humans is a meaningless endeavor, since homo sapiens took off on a separate branch of the primatology tree long ago; as Steven Pinker points out in his book The Language Instinct, "evolution did not make a ladder; it made a bush." Second, Pinker further notes (and many others have agreed with him) that "people who spend a lot of time with animals are prone to developing indulgent attitudes about their powers of communication", a fact which it's difficult to miss when watching this film. - While I'm familiar with anthropomorphic attachment--that doesn't automatically destroy the evidence nor its implications. How could it? It's possible that the gorillas (and I've seen elephants too) simply mimic behavior for reward, but I think you could construct a test to select against that.

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Where he has a stronger argument, is in dealing with the differences between say, plants and animals. But the fact that all life contains DNA and that all life contains a single common ancestor necessarily dictates a continuum from the first organism to ourselves. There also exists a continuum between every form of life and the common ancestor. Humans and trees are a subset of life, thus part of a continuum. - In the continuum there may be a branch in the road. Yogi Berra took both branches but we did not. The following excerpt from a book I am reading may influence your thinking and certainly supports Adler's viewpoint: - "The Self-Evolving Brain - 
What makes humans unique is the extraordinary impermanence of their ideas, and this impermanence is reflected in our extraordinary neuroplasticity. Neurons do not have fixed properties. Instead they are changing all the time. (38) It takes less than two weeks for a neuron to grow new axons and dendrites, (39) and in some cases the change occurs suddenly.......In essence, evolution gave us a nervous system that actively participates in its own neural construction, something we do not see in other animal brains. - It even appears that our brain has a mutant strand of DNA that contributes to our creativity, inventiveness and individual uniqueness. These 'jumping genes', as scientists are fond of calling them, can cause cells to change their functioning as we grow. (44)....... - Terrance Deacon, the esteemed professor of anthropology and neuroscience at [U. Cal. Berkeley] describes the human brain as an 'evolutionary anomaly' because human being have unparalleled cognitive abilities to imagine the unimaginable: - 	We think differently from all other creatures on earth, and we can share those thoughts with one another in ways that no other species even approaches....We alone brood about what didn't happen, and spend a large part of each day musing about the way events could have been if events had transpired differently. And alone we ponder what it will be like not to be....No other species on earth seems to be able to follow us to this miraculous place. (45)" - (Pg. 104-105 in "How God Changes Your Brain, Andrew Newberg, M.D. & Mark Robert Waldman, 2009). Newberg is a neuroradiologist whose studies determine how religious activities affect the brain. Previous book, "Why God Won't go Away", 2001. - The numbers in the text are his reference numbers.

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Dr. Turell, - As I've only finished chapter 3 of Adler I am only reporting preliminary ideas, and as a math/comp guy I am well aware of the intrinsic property we have to manipulate language as finely as we do, and in ways that is clearly different than every other being we've observed. - I can't challenge that. But we also had 10,000yrs or so of refinement to get to where we're at. If a Gorilla can articulate itself in speech, it still speaks that this particular skill is one that exists in primates, we only do it better. Again... I'm sure Adler will deal with this in due time. - In some respects Adler's argument speaks to a more abstract "Man is more than the sum of his parts." This is intuitionally correct. - I meditate slowly on books (usually) and the little bit of push he gives thus far clearly verifies the importance philosophy must play in answering the question. While I have materialistic leanings, my time spent reading Nietzsche put a strong temper on them. BGE has several strong polemics against the scientific establishment of his day. - A deeper question one must ask, "If we are radically different than everything else... what then?" - Intuitively, it's like saying "Um... nothing new." So if it is verified, what does that actually say?

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The idea that mankind is qualitatively different from the animals with and from which Homo sapiens evolved is one that I have tried to argue and defend in debates with my humanist and secular colleagues. The last time I tried I was comprehensively voted down, but I still think the case is strong. Julian Huxley for one, who was President of the British Humanist Association late in his life, also argued this case I believe, though his attitude is now thought old-fashioned. - Part of the orthodox Humanist aversion to this argument seems to me to be simply in reaction against so many religious believers who hold this view, because of course they wish to show that Homo sapiens is a special creation or the pinnacle of evolved creation, neither of which I hold to. - My point is not that Homo sapiens is special but that evolved consciousness is special and important because in a sense it provides a way for the Universe to become "aware of itself". For all we know it may have already evolved independently elsewhere in the universe. There are of course dangers in using this type of language since it can be misinterpreted as implying, a la Deepak Chopra, that the Universe has some form of "Universal Consciousness" which is not at all what I mean. - So you see that this argument is compatible with atheism.

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GPJ

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The idea that mankind is qualitatively different from the animals with and from which Homo sapiens evolved is one that I have tried to argue and defend in debates with my humanist and secular colleagues. 
 
> My point is not that Homo sapiens is special but that evolved consciousness is special and important because in a sense it provides a way for the Universe to become "aware of itself". - > So you see that this argument is compatible with atheism. - Your argument is certainly compatable with atheism as long as you use the word "qualitatively" in your opening sentence. 'Qualitative' means difference in kind in my Collegiate Dictionary. Of course, I think Adler is correct. We are different by degree, but on all your other thoughts we are in agreement.

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George writes: My point is not that Homo sapiens is special but that evolved consciousness is special... - Surely if evolved consciousness is special, and we are the only beings we know of that have it, that makes us special. - George (contd.):...because in a sense it provides a way for the Universe to become 'aware of itself'. For all we know it may have already evolved independently elsewhere in the universe. (By this, however, George does not mean that the Universe has some form of 'Universal Consciousness.') - This is an interesting twist, and I'd love to know how evolved consciousness here or elsewhere could help the Universe to become aware of itself, and in exactly what sense you think the Universe might be 'aware of itself" if not through a form of universal consciousness. I must say that if I shared the atheist faith in the ability of chance to create the formula for life and evolution, I'd see consciousness as an absolute doddle. Just another of those simple variations that brought us sight and sex, lungs and limbs, immune and digestive systems. Either everything is special or nothing is special. - As for mankind versus animals, there are so many basic patterns of behaviour which we have clearly inherited from them that I find it absurd to ignore the fact that we are animals ourselves. It's only because our vastly superior intelligence makes us technologically superior that we are able to dominate other species (most of the time) and can advance our own animal instincts more effectively than they do (e.g. acquiring food, territory and knowledge; communicating; producing, protecting and raising our young; resisting the hostilities of Nature; waging war on our rivals). - Are we different from other animals? Why pin it down to quality/degree? In respect of our instincts and much of our behaviour I think we are the same; in respect of some of the things we do with our superior intelligence I think we are very different and very special. But ants are also special for their social organization, salmon and swallows for their navigational skills, camels for their storage and stamina...and even micro-organisms can achieve lots of things humans can't. Survival may turn out to be one of them. - And so the atheist in me says that everything or nothing is special. The theist in me says that humans are special. The agnostic in me, who always has the last word, says that everything or nothing is special, but humans may be especially special.

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dhw, - The distinction here is in one of words--universal consciousness means that the universe itself is somehow alive and can think. Think Gaia applied to the universe. Human consciousness allows a pocket of consciousness in the universe, and since we're made of the same stuff as the universe, is similar to the universe being aware of itself, but since we have exact limits on what we can observe--it is not the same as a "universal consciousness." - As for everything else, very clearly we have things in common with other animals, and the basic problems of humans are not different from other animals. Yet another reason I have difficulties with the concept of setting us apart too far. So we can think abstractly. So what? That's only one difference, right? - We're also not the only ones who can think like that. Like I said earlier, even dogs use logic. (Not formalized, mind you.) And if you can teach a gorilla to tell you when she wants things, and that she wants say, a certain book or object, there is definitely a part of the brain that is not solely unique to humans. And the trait isn't wholly unique, only unique by degree.

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George: "The idea that mankind is qualitatively different from the animals with and from which Homo sapiens evolved is one that I have tried to argue and defend". - I've wrestled with this too. Is the answer, I wonder, to say that this is a distinction without a difference? - By common agreeemnt, human brains are, by several orders of magnitude, more intelligent than even other primates. There seems to come a point with the "runaway brain" effect in evolution that intelliegence just "took off" leaving the others in the dust. But it took off using raw material that is in essence exactly the same as that which is possessed by chimpanzees - or mice, for that matter. A neuron is basically a neuron - it's just that we have so many of them in our pre-frontal cortex that they combine in novel and exciting ways that were extremely useful for our biological evolution and, as a by-product, able to write blogs, do calculus and compose symphonies. - Josef Stalin said (referring to military hardware) that there comes point where quantity becomes quality. On this question, could the old mass murderer, for once, be right?

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Josef Stalin said (referring to military hardware) that there comes point where quantity becomes quality. On this question, could the old mass murderer, for once, be right? - Well, having studied a bit on neural net computing the past week... yes. Though its the connections that's far more important than the neurons. - By 2040 using technology we have today we'll be able to construct a computer with computational capacity greater than that of the entire human race.

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George, - The great Russell - no mystic, he - once hypothesised that the Universe had a sort of "proto-consciousness" as a way of trying to explain why inaminate matter seems to have an innate property whereby, in certain combinations, it becomes self-aware. - I agree that we (i.e. homo sapiens and any other creatures sharing what we have) are the conscious expression of the Universe and that this insight does not necesarily lead us to a theistic conclusion. But it begs a question to which theism is a permissable intellectual response. I have tried to articulate why in the "James leFanu" thread.

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George, - > My point is not that Homo sapiens is special but that evolved consciousness is special and important because in a sense it provides a way for the Universe to become "aware of itself". For all we know it may have already evolved independently elsewhere in the universe. There are of course dangers in using this type of language since it can be misinterpreted as implying, a la Deepak Chopra, that the Universe has some form of "Universal Consciousness" which is not at all what I mean. 
> 
> So you see that this argument is compatible with atheism. - Well... atheism is clearly not an ideology and as such is compatible with any ideology that doesn't invoke the supernatural... from Anarchism to Zen. - As I read Adler however, I realize that I agree with him more than I thought I would, and though he hadn't taken this tact--the main reason I fight the idea of man being drastically different is because I'm uncomfortable with him being separate from nature--though not in a materialistic sense. Which is stupid, in that since we invented agriculture... that's EXACTLY what we've done. - The shallow argument that seems to hover in my brain is one that is related to Nazism. (And Nietzsche again... "N" for brevity's sake.) - In "Thus Spoke Zarathustra," N writes often about a black abyss, and in one chilling reference he writes about the abyss staring back. Now, N is often blamed for Nazism, which is idiotic if you just choose to read the passage entitled "On the New Idol." That just shows that the Nazis pick and choose like everyone else does. At any rate, the reason why N is blamed for the Nazis is for an observation he makes that man is the creator of values... but he directly discusses in several sections (and in other books) that there are limits to this creation of values, namely that we first assimilate all the values of our parents and our society first. (Hitler took this idea and transformed the society that Nazi youth were raised in.) Note that this is the critical distinction that separates N from Existentialism; man isn't the sole forger of himself as Sartre would have us believe. Man has constraints. - Though the abyss has many facets--no part of N's writing is singular in meaning--in synthesizing the greater part of his work you can't help but come to the chilling conclusion that the only thing holding man back is--himself. The only check we have on our behavior, the only *real* control is society, and even that is tenuous. It is possible to master the society and thus drastically rewrite all values. - In this sense I find myself in the unsettling position of agreeing with religious moralists in that I schizophrenically alternate between praising man's virtues, and condemning him as "evil." It is the potential for evil that scares me most, and the more we separate ourselves from nature the more we can perpetuate the illusion that we don't need it nor need to treat it with dignity.

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Quite a number of different responses to my last post. - dhw: But ants are also special for their social organization, salmon and swallows for their navigational skills, camels for their storage and stamina...and even micro-organisms can achieve lots of things humans can't. - True but these abilities don't have any significance for the universe as a whole, do they? - xeno: By 2040 using technology we have today we'll be able to construct a computer with computational capacity greater than that of the entire human race. - Is that a chilling or a thrilling thought? Will it therefore have more wisdom than the human race? Or does it depend on what input it receives? Rubbish in rubbish out. - clinch: The great Russell - no mystic, he - once hypothesised that the Universe had a sort of "proto-consciousness" as a way of trying to explain why inaminate matter seems to have an innate property whereby, in certain combinations, it becomes self-aware. - That must have been on one of his off-days! It's not an idea I associate with Russell, it sounds more like Bergson. - clinch: I agree that we (i.e. homo sapiens and any other creatures sharing what we have) are the conscious expression of the Universe and that this insight does not necesarily lead us to a theistic conclusion. But it begs a question to which theism is a permissable intellectual response. I have tried to articulate why in the "James leFanu" thread. - No No. That's just the sort of thinking I was trying to avoid. The evolution of consciousness provides a way in which the previously unconscious universe becomes in part aware of the universe as a whole, and can begin to come to some understanding of what it is, how it works, and how it can evolve, or be consciously changed, in the future. - xeno: In this sense I find myself in the unsettling position of agreeing with religious moralists in that I schizophrenically alternate between praising man's virtues, and condemning him as "evil." It is the potential for evil that scares me most, and the more we separate ourselves from nature the more we can perpetuate the illusion that we don't need it nor need to treat it with dignity. - I don't see that there is any escape from human beings being part of nature. I take the view that human constructions are as much a part of nature as termite mounds. The problems of overpopulation and overexploitation of existing resources is one that will have to be addressed sooner or later. This is a matter of fact, not of morality. If the problems are not addressed by us, it will be addressed by the rest of nature. That is by the interaction of natural forces leading, as I suggested before, to war, famine and pestilence. This is not a cynical view but realism.

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GPJ

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George said: "No No. That's just the sort of thinking I was trying to avoid. The evolution of consciousness provides a way in which the previously unconscious universe becomes in part aware of the universe as a whole, and can begin to come to some understanding of what it is, how it works, and how it can evolve, or be consciously changed, in the future." - But I understood your point completely. We, our brains, are the only example we know of by which the Universe may become conscious in any meaningful sense. I wasn't suggesting that a theistic response to that is required or even merited. I was simply suggesting that theism is one possible response to that, albeit one I personally cannot subscribe to - and, plainly, neither can you. Where I suspect we may differ is my positioning of the Universe within a metaphysical framework, whatever it may be, hence my utterly untestable and probably incoherent metaphysical ramblings! - I'm with you on the science but, implicitly, I accept that science doesn't make the unknowable false - it, being limited to the material, merely keeps it unknowable.

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Mr. Clinch, - > 
> I'm with you on the science but, implicitly, I accept that science doesn't make the unknowable false - it, being limited to the material, merely keeps it unknowable. - This perfectly sums up my own perspective on science.

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George,
(you call call me Matt if you prefer. I'll just have to live with "xeno" for now.)
>xeno: By 2040 using technology we have today we'll be able to construct a computer with computational capacity greater than that of the entire human race. - Is that a chilling or a thrilling thought? Will it therefore have more wisdom than the human race? Or does it depend on what input it receives? Rubbish in rubbish out.
< - Computational capacity is different than intelligence.

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Almost done with chapter six. - Adler has gone to great lengths discussing the fossil evidence and the great lengths that paleoanthropologists go in finding the differences between Homo sapiens and our other ancestors. He also begins to make a distinction between "brute" animals and ourselves. However--politically I lean towards Machiavelli and Hobbes, and tend to think that basic law and order is maintained through fear. - As hinted at earlier I'm fairly well convinced of our difference--really I was holding some inconsistent views similar to some other evolutionary biologists. - Though I still don't see why this means we can't apply animal observations to our own. When man loses his reason he still acts the brute. Most murders are crimes of passion--and its very difficult not to consider an evolutionary basis for such behavior. The same goes for rape. I don't go to the extreme to consider men automata, but I do think its folly to say that there's nothing about animal behavior that can't explain or have impact on men. Lets not forget that classical and operant conditioning works just as well on men as on rats. - Still moving along though. His use of language itself is fun to read...

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I don't go to the extreme to consider men automata, but I do think its folly to say that there's nothing about animal behavior that can't explain or have impact on men. Lets not forget that classical and operant conditioning works just as well on men as on rats. 
 
> Still moving along though. His use of language itself is fun to read... - He is fun to read and we are animals but with our intellect and counsciousness superimposed.

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I don't go to the extreme to consider men automata, but I do think its folly to say that there's nothing about animal behavior that can't explain or have impact on men. Lets not forget that classical and operant conditioning works just as well on men as on rats. 
> 
> > Still moving along though. His use of language itself is fun to read...
> 
> He is fun to read and we are animals but with our intellect and counsciousness superimposed. - I think you have a point here... but I'm not quite sure what it is. - We are animals, but our intellect and consciousness is superimposed on...?

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We are animals, but our intellect and consciousness is superimposed on...? - I was a little obtuse. Human physiology and animal physiology are the same. Comparative anatomy in humans and animals show the great similarities. When we take a horse to the Vet he and I have very compatable discussions, talking the same professional language. - Our enormous brain is superimposed on those similarities, which in my mind confirms Adler: we are different in kind, not different by degree. Before I found Adler's book, I titled one chapter in mine, "Our Hat Size is Too Big For Darwin." Fun title, but same point of view. - By the way, to help explain how I try to think reasonably the way I do, it comes in part from Adler: 
In Adler's book: "How to think about God; A Guide for the 20th Century Pagan", 1980, he first offers a history of religious philosophic thought. Briefly he described Sacred Theology, obviously from sacred books, and contrasted that with Natural Theology, which was a form of philosophic reasoning about God. Summa Contra Gentiles was in that category. Adler following this history described his book as "philosophical theology", basically using natural sources for his reasoning that, 'evidence exists for God, beyond a reasonable doubt.' - I prefer to call my line of reasoning rational philosophy, using findings in nature to decide whether there is a God on not. I am not a theologian by any means.

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Dr. Turell, - Thank you--the point is much clearer. I am finally starting to get that picture from Adler here, he finally--deep into chapter 8--expresses the thought that man being different in kind does not have to destroy phylogenetic continuity, something that when you first told me about the book I thought he had done. - I still have to say however, that even a philosophic position such as yours begs the question on "why is a designer needed?" - My REAL view--I must distinguish this because I play devil's advocate so much that my real positions tend to be obfuscated--is that we bring in outside assumptions (deities) if and only if all possible other alternatives have been completely exhausted. Though I can only guess at your case, I just don't think that complexity + a paradigm shift in humanity are enough to invoke a designer. - You mentioned before that you think life-scientists are more likely to be theists because they are so close to life's complexity. I have a competing theory. They don't spend any time studying chaos or dynamics. I wager that the biggest reason you find fewer theists in the physical sciences is because we (I loosely put myself in that group) are so used to seeing systems that seem incomprehensible become comprehensible with the application of a very simple formula. Chaos theory itself is a study in how seemingly non-deterministic systems actually are deterministic, how very small differences in values in any variable has a drastic effect on the system under study. I've come to that conclusion because that mathematical biology program I told you about--part of my job would be to completely obfuscate all the mathematics, because the majority of biochemists simply have no use or need for any of it in their daily work. - I'm not trying to say that biologists should be staunch materialists, but when you see something that shouldn't be solvable become solvable with a very simple application... so much magic in the world disappears. - Personally, I would *really* like to be able to believe in God/designer. I would like some of the comforts that come with it. I would like to say that "magic" in some form exists somewhere in the universe. I've read a brief summary of Adler's argument in "how to talk about god..." and he makes too many assumptions, the majority of which I find completely unfounded. - Ah well... back to the book. Deep into chapter 8 and Adler removes one of my reservations, admitting that phylogenetic continuity can still be compatible with humans being different in kind... he even addresses some of my previous arguments detailing instincts. Pushing on...

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Dr. Turell,
> 
> Thank you--the point is much clearer. I am finally starting to get that picture from Adler here, he finally--deep into chapter 8--expresses the thought that man being different in kind does not have to destroy phylogenetic continuity, something that when you first told me about the book I thought he had done.
 
The animal continuity of evolution is present for Adler, but the huge jump to the big brain and consciousness/intellect are the issue for him and me. - > My REAL view--is that we bring in outside assumptions (deities) if and only if all possible other alternatives have been completely exhausted. Though I can only guess at your case, I just don't think that complexity + a paradigm shift in humanity are enough to invoke a designer. - But I do. 
> You mentioned before that you think life-scientists are more likely to be theists because they are so close to life's complexity. I have a competing theory. They don't spend any time studying chaos or dynamics. - But I have studied chaos and understand your points, but even though chaos has an underlying organization doesn't mean that it can make life and its underlying code. - > I'm not trying to say that biologists should be staunch materialists, but when you see something that shouldn't be solvable become solvable with a very simple application... so much magic in the world disappears. - You are right but we medical folks watch amazingly complex life under attack. The truth is doctors don't cure anything. We just give the body time to catch up with the onslaught. 
 
> Personally, I would *really* like to be able to believe in God/designer. I would like some of the comforts that come with it. I would like to say that "magic" in some form exists somewhere in the universe. - My form of belief is not really comforting. I agree with Adler that God possibly cares about us 50% of the time. - 
> Ah well... back to the book. Deep into chapter 8 and Adler removes one of my reservations, admitting that phylogenetic continuity can still be compatible with humans being different in kind... he even addresses some of my previous arguments detailing instincts. Pushing on... - Remember H. sapiens have been around 200,000 years with a big brain case 10% smaller than Neanderthals. The theory is that we have had language about 50,000 years. We know from archeologic study of the N's they stayed relatively primative, with an unknown ability for speech (brain-wise, but their laryngeal anatomy was pretty good for it). Our agricultural period from about 15,000 years ago did create quite a cultural advance, but our bodies became much smaller and only now are growing back to the original stature. Look at clothing in colonial museums or go thru an Elizebethean doorway in England. The agriculture was due to our increasing intellect as we learned to use our brains. - Our brain is very plastic and certain areas grow neurons and dendrites in older adults( Newberg & Waldman, "How God Changes Your Brain"), and children who have greater intellectual interaction with their parents have higher IQ's. I think we got the big brain and then learned how to use it. That seems obvious. Agriculture was a way station on the road to here and now.

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Dr. Turell,
> > My REAL view--is that we bring in outside assumptions (deities) if and only if all possible other alternatives have been completely exhausted. Though I can only guess at your case, I just don't think that complexity + a paradigm shift in humanity are enough to invoke a designer. 
> 
> But I do. - Of course you do! I just don't know why, or rather, don't understand why you're willing to actually take a position on this issue. - I mean, we both agree--fully--that the existence of a creator is truly an unfalsifiable claim, and its something of a... problem to adopt such positions, especially concerning the wealth of undiscovered information about the universe. - 
> But I have studied chaos and understand your points, but even though chaos has an underlying organization doesn't mean that it can make life and its underlying code.
> - Well no--I'm not trying to oversimplify it, but it is a fact that in the last 30 years the mathematics of chaos demonstrated to us that extremely complex phenomenon could follow some very unintricate and simple rules. - And though I'll be seen as nitpicking, *true* chaos is entirely random and non-deterministic. The "chaos" of "chaos theory" isn't. - We both agree that science is the means with which truth is discovered, so that's why I do find it difficult for anyone to *rationally* adopt a position such as yours. Before I would adopt such a position I would have to posit a mechanism such that the supernatural could interface with the natural. - 
> You are right but we medical folks watch amazingly complex life under attack. The truth is doctors don't cure anything. We just give the body time to catch up with the onslaught. 
> - This I know well. Mucho on the years in a hospital pharmacy. - > My form of belief is not really comforting. I agree with Adler that God possibly cares about us 50% of the time.
> - Not the kind of comfort I was thinking of. Mine would best be described as romanticism. - > - > Remember H. sapiens have been around 200,000 years with a big brain case 10% smaller than Neanderthals. The theory is that we have had language about 50,000 years. We know from archeologic study of the N's they stayed relatively primative, with an unknown ability for speech (brain-wise, but their laryngeal anatomy was pretty good for it). - Interesting--and true--but isn't the theory currently that neanderthals are not part of our ancestry? I remember very distinctly that they think that H. sapiens destroyed neanderthals. Which if you know anything about mythical traditions is a good suggestion of the 'giants' that exist in both Norse/germanic mythology as well as the nephilim in the judeo-christian tradition.

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Dr. Turell, - After having completed the sixth chapter do finally start getting into some territory that needs to be grappled with. - First and foremost, he quotes a psychologist (name unimportant) that says that there are two hypotheses for mind, one animist (mind exists apart from body) and the mechanistic view, and the mechanistic view is the only one that psychology uses. Another psychologist adds here that neither one is testable... - (!) - To me, its pretty clear that the case of Phineas Gage answered THAT question to the point where we can consider it closed. If the mind exists apart from the body, than Phineas's personality would never have changed--and the same argument would stand for any person who had ever suffered head trauma. There is no valid argument to suggest the mind exists apart from the body. None that I've come across, at least. (And no... I'm not letting my Buddhist training cloud my view here, this is entirely from the fact of good ol' Gage, and others like him.) - This is obviously another category where psychology and I don't get along--though I am not aware of what views have come into being since Adler wrote his book. I did take a psych 101 course but that prof was much more interested in application than history. - The other question: Why would we think that human-like behavior would be observable only in the natural habitats? If human-like behavior were to manifest, it would have to be as a response to selective pressure, in other words, we should be stressing the animals with completely new stimuli in order to see the rudiments of humanlike behavior if they exist. By comparing only in natural conditions, we are only observing animals in their habitat, wheras the "natural habitat" for humans is so diluted that we cannot really resolve what exactly that could be. - At any rate, even if that gorilla--Koko, wasn't comfortable and "in her element" it remains that she had the capability to learn speech. - Of interest is that Adler seems to be hinting in the long run that the reason that it is computer science that will shed the most light on the question might be because of the Turing test. I got this in the mail the other day (as an ACM member I get really neat things in my email box...) - http://www.v3.co.uk/v3/comment/2245613/turing-test-retire - I'll let the last three words of the link speak for themselves. - And yeah... I interview for my university's AI lab in the near future, though what they do is much more space-oriented.

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we should be stressing the animals with completely new stimuli in order to see the rudiments of humanlike behavior if they exist. 
 
> At any rate, even if that gorilla--Koko, wasn't comfortable and "in her element" it remains that she had the capability to learn speech. - 
> http://www.v3.co.uk/v3/comment/2245613/turing-test-retire
 
> I'll let the last three words of the link speak for themselves. 
 
> And yeah... I interview for my university's AI lab in the near future, though what they do is much more space-oriented. - I am sure rudiments of human behaviour exist in animals. Koko knew about 200 words in sign-language, not speech. She did have the larngeal anatomy for speech. The Turing site is correct. AI will not ever show aesthetics. Remember Penrose and "The Emperor's New Mind. Good luck on the interview.

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> I am sure rudiments of human behaviour exist in animals. Koko knew about 200 words in sign-language, not speech. She did have the larngeal anatomy for speech. The Turing site is correct. AI will not ever show aesthetics. Remember Penrose and "The Emperor's New Mind. Good luck on the interview. - Does it really matter if its speech? You would be hard pressed to say sign-language isn't syntactic nor expressive.

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

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I know its kinda cheating, but I spent a great deal of time wading through chapter 10... I started reading chapter 11 but about 1/4 of the way through his point is so clear that I can't make myself finish it. Jumping ahead to 12 and the onus of philosophers to resolve "the one remaining issue..."

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

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Hmm...
Upon some more reflective contemplation on chapter 10 where he works out that animal intelligence can be explained without the theoretical construct of concepts (or designator), how can bears maintain positions (and inventories) of items in their vast territory without positing some type of mental abstraction? At some point the complexity of the behavior reaches a point where a perceptual intelligence isn't enough to explain it. At the moment, I'm only speaking anecdotally.

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

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A rather interesting debate is outlined in chapter 12... between the Identity hypothesis and the "non-identity hypothesis." (One must ask the utility for naming a hypothesis as the opposite of someone else's...) - On it I find Popper, who argues that the intentionality of thought negates the Identity hypothesis. I find this idea laughable... a thought comes when IT wills. So if intentionality enters the picture, then to what extent can you apply intent? What is the intention? Who performs the intention? This idea completely ignores the subconscious and its seemingly random manner in thought processes. It only discusses conscious thought and also ignores the extent to which conscious thought is influenced by the unconscious. - There's also been several studies on humans that have demonstrated that the brain makes decisions before we are consciously aware of them. (This should seem plainly obvious though as thoughts travel the speed of light.) - I haven't even finished the chapter yet, but at the moment I just had to jump in and share this little tidbit.

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

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There's also been several studies on humans that have demonstrated that the brain makes decisions before we are consciously aware of them. (This should seem plainly obvious though as thoughts travel the speed of light.) - I really like following your comments. The brain is not like a computer, which has to wait until the end of the algorithm. I am sure Penrose is correct. AI will never equal the brain. The plasticity of brain development is truly amazing: - http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17489-girl-with-half-a-brain-retains-full-vision....

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There's also been several studies on humans that have demonstrated that the brain makes decisions before we are consciously aware of them. (This should seem plainly obvious though as thoughts travel the speed of light.) 
> 
> I really like following your comments. The brain is not like a computer, which has to wait until the end of the algorithm. I am sure Penrose is correct. AI will never equal the brain. The plasticity of brain development is truly amazing:
> 
> http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17489-girl-with-half-a-brain-retains-full-vision.... - Dr. Turell,
I at least hope some things I discuss are new... I hate not offering new insights. - I'm getting a better idea on the "immaterial" issue. It's just not something I spent much time thinking about before Adler's book. To counter my own previous claim, though a person can drastically sustain a traumatic injury (such as the girl in the article, or Phineas Gage) the MIND didn't die. It's not to say that the person is the same, but it seems that only death itself seems to cause someone to "give up the ghost." At least at the moment, it doesn't seem to be the case that there is a "critical threshold" in terms of the existence of mind. You've either got one or you don't. I can think of some experiments to test that... but I'm not Dr. Mengele. - - As for your computer comments,

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

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There's also been several studies on humans that have demonstrated that the brain makes decisions before we are consciously aware of them. (This should seem plainly obvious though as thoughts travel the speed of light.) - 
Another thought. The studies you are referring to relate to taking action and speech. The brain starts before the action occurs or the words appear. However, if I decide to ruminate on a specific prblem, I initiate that process, even though I know that my recognized thought may pop up milliseconds after I start thinking.

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There's also been several studies on humans that have demonstrated that the brain makes decisions before we are consciously aware of them. (This should seem plainly obvious though as thoughts travel the speed of light.) 
> 
> 
> Another thought. The studies you are referring to relate to taking action and speech. The brain starts before the action occurs or the words appear. However, if I decide to ruminate on a specific prblem, I initiate that process, even though I know that my recognized thought may pop up milliseconds after I start thinking. - Still, it eradicates the hypothesis Adler was discussing which appears to state that all conceptual processes have intention. If it was my question about "who or what is performing the intention," I give credit there to Nietzsche who ripped apart the psychology of his day--which seems to be the forefather of Popper's position. - OT but I recently came across a brilliant sounding book from MIT Press... it's Semiotics in Human-Computer Interaction. I'm uh... starting to wonder if I shouldn't just push out entirely on my own for that Master's thesis... the danger of course is in picking something that might not get me into NASA in 5 years. I also came across this brilliant editorial: - http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/opinion/19wolfe.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1 - While I am slowly figuring I won't be happy as a specialist, the type of researcher/engineer/philosopher NASA will need might just be my raison d'etre. Studying more broad topics and integrating them with what I know might be my path...

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

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After reading the story more in depth I noticed that it said she was born with half the brain missing... that makes it a little less earth-shaking... I understand that the neurologists considered it unexpected, but even in my own case I regenerated my tonsils. I had a tonsillectomy when I was about 2.5 and they were noticed to be back by the age of... I think I was 8 or 9. It doesn't seem so shocking then to think that the brain can do the same thing.

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

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After reading the story more in depth I noticed that it said she was born with half the brain missing... that makes it a little less earth-shaking... I understand that the neurologists considered it unexpected, but even in my own case I regenerated my tonsils. It doesn't seem so shocking then to think that the brain can do the same thing. - Yes it is very shocking. She regenerated nothing, but rerouted her dendrites and set up new functions for new neurons, ending up with total vision in half a brain. Tonsils are fairly simple lymphatic tissue and have a tendency to regenerate. Mine did also.
To understand normal connections, the optic nerves cross, the outer nerves going to the same side of the brain and the inner nerves of the x-cross going to the other hemisphere. What happened to her is astounding.

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After reading the story more in depth I noticed that it said she was born with half the brain missing... that makes it a little less earth-shaking... I understand that the neurologists considered it unexpected, but even in my own case I regenerated my tonsils. It doesn't seem so shocking then to think that the brain can do the same thing.
> 
> Yes it is very shocking. She regenerated nothing, but rerouted her dendrites and set up new functions for new neurons, ending up with total vision in half a brain. Tonsils are fairly simple lymphatic tissue and have a tendency to regenerate. Mine did also.
> To understand normal connections, the optic nerves cross, the outer nerves going to the same side of the brain and the inner nerves of the x-cross going to the other hemisphere. What happened to her is astounding. - I guess it is my ignorance in the area that makes me less astounded here. The process of learning is similar. What it tells me here is that the tissue is able to recognize that there is something that it should be doing but isn't, and the demand for this function compels the tissue to "make it happen." - By no means am I trying to suggest that this isn't cool or isn't exciting or isn't important--it is all three of those. Its just in the light of our burgeoning knowledge of stem cells it doesn't seem *in principle* to be outside of the realm of possibility--which clearly it isn't. It also suggests that the model that neurologists and developmental biologists have followed needs to be rewritten because it's incorrect.

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

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Matt: This article fits Adler's discussion. Much more research like this will get rid of the just-so stories in Darwinism: - http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17499-why-apes-may-imitate-but-will-never-innovat...

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Matt: This article fits Adler's discussion. Much more research like this will get rid of the just-so stories in Darwinism:
> 
> http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17499-why-apes-may-imitate-but-will-never-innovat... - This impacts it as well: - http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/07/robo-ethics/ - Will read and comment on the article later. Trying to improve my quant score for the GRE...

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

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After reading the article... I guess I'm not too surprised. - The thrust of the argument that lead me to read this book was the supposition that the primitive apes do not have the rudiments to allow us to make generalizations from them to us. You stated a dislike for comparing those societies to ours based on the distinction that we differ in kind. - However some abstract principles apply no matter the context. Two oranges and two apples both share the quality of "twoness." We learn about our own social societies by studying mole rats and ants, and so I see no reason that says we can't do the same thing for apes when what we're studying doesn't have to deal directly with what we do with our brains. - My argument was that humans under extreme stress don't act like humans. They act the beast. And it is in this context that I feel studying ape societies can give us some insights on that behavior. Ignoring the capacity for humans to work in "flocks" as they were, is what lead to the destruction of quantitative finance techniques in the 1990's after Russia's banking system collapsed. - So far, as of chapter 12 (a dense chapter, why its taking me so long) nothing that Adler has suggested counters this notion. If we differ in kind (which we do, at present) this does not mean we can't study animals. In fact, in most cases we are limited to studying animals because of ethics boards.

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

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The thrust of the argument that lead me to read this book was the supposition that the primitive apes do not have the rudiments to allow us to make generalizations from them to us. You stated a dislike for comparing those societies to ours based on the distinction that we differ in kind. - I don't think I conferred the meaning you have given in the above paragraph. We can make some generalizations from them to us. What I was pointing out is the mental gap is huge. And as for studying their societal mechanisms, of course we should. Evolutionary psychology is in some disrepute in certain quarters nows, for too many just-so stories lacking any semblance of sound research, but we can learn from them some of the earlier societal mechanisms hominids might have used. 
 
 
> My argument was that humans under extreme stress don't act like humans. They act the beast. And it is in this context that I feel studying ape societies can give us some insights on that behavior. - I agree. - > In fact, in most cases we are limited to studying animals because of ethics boards. - In medicine we have to try drugs on lower animals and have later trials on humans also, but the drug trials are never as good as release of the drug, for then, unfortunately, is when the weird side-effects show up. Like Murphy's Law. - By the way, another study on human brain plasticity: - http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090720202549.htm

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The thrust of the argument that lead me to read this book was the supposition that the primitive apes do not have the rudiments to allow us to make generalizations from them to us. You stated a dislike for comparing those societies to ours based on the distinction that we differ in kind.
> 
> I don't think I conferred the meaning you have given in the above paragraph. We can make some generalizations from them to us. What I was pointing out is the mental gap is huge. And as for studying their societal mechanisms, of course we should. Evolutionary psychology is in some disrepute in certain quarters nows, for too many just-so stories lacking any semblance of sound research, but we can learn from them some of the earlier societal mechanisms hominids might have used. 
> - Well, either way Adler's book is a good read. I've learned quite a bit, some commentary on chapters 12 and 13 are forthcoming. 12 raises quite a few issues, 13 so far, has been the big eye-opener in terms of the metaphysics of knowledge. The immateriality of human thought is flayed out for you to see. - > 
> > My argument was that humans under extreme stress don't act like humans. They act the beast. And it is in this context that I feel studying ape societies can give us some insights on that behavior. 
> 
> I agree. 
> 
> > In fact, in most cases we are limited to studying animals because of ethics boards.
> 
> In medicine we have to try drugs on lower animals and have later trials on humans also, but the drug trials are never as good as release of the drug, for then, unfortunately, is when the weird side-effects show up. Like Murphy's Law.
> 
> By the way, another study on human brain plasticity:
> 
> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090720202549.htm

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

6868 views

Well, either way Adler's book is a good read. I've learned quite a bit, some commentary on chapters 12 and 13 are forthcoming. 12 raises quite a few issues, 13 so far, has been the big eye-opener in terms of the metaphysics of knowledge. The immateriality of human thought is flayed out for you to see. - The H. sapiens enormous brain appeared during ice ages. That brain and its abilities, in one sense, is what Adler's book is about. Authors have discussed ice age/ brain development relationships for many years. See The River That Flows Uphill by Wm. Calvin, as an example. He thought about stress under those conditions. The following article looks at heat and brain metabolilsm as a factor. Please note some of the ancient higher Earth temperatures also mentioned in the article: - http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327194.000-did-an-ice-age-boost-human-brain-siz...

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We have other minor differences from our cousin apes: we are relatively hairless and have more fat under our skins. No one knows why or how:-http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327261.000-why-are-we-the-naked-ape.html

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The XBox 360 being used to solve cardiac arrhythmia problem:-http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/pressreleases/researchers_using_parallel/-Might be a new grid computing platform... but I betcha Microsoft doesn't capitalize on it. Shame on them...

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

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This is the Aquatic Ape hypothesis, which has been around for many years, and Elaine Morgan has been the main proponent of it. Personally I have long been attracted to the idea. The opponents of it say that she is being selective in her choice of evidences. But similar things were said about Wegener's continental drift ideas. I've not seen adequate answers to all the points she makes. Here she is in her own words:-http://www.ted.com/talks/elaine_morgan_says_we_evolved_from_aquatic_apes.html

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GPJ

6873 views

Well, his central argument is a well-delivered payload, I'll give it that. I fully feel however that what he takes as his philosophical implications are off-base however. - His central thesis on that is a pretty traditional Catholic argument (funny from a self-described Pagan that later turned Catholic) that I felt Nietzsche had already adequately dealt with. His argument is more or less that the rational basis to treat "lower men" with the same rights and respects would be destroyed, and more or less that "the Nazis would then be technically right." (We wouldn't be able to morally condemn the acts of the Nazis as if humans are only different by degree to other animals.) He also asserts that it destroys free will. I disagree with the latter by simply saying that all it means is that the Aristotelian/Thomistic model is wrong, not that free will doesn't exist at all. We are simply back to needing to readdress the problem--if we were followers of one of those two doctrines. It also shows some lack of finesse on his part... just because we would show that the mind has a material cause doesn't negate the very obviously advanced use we have of those primeval rudiments that it would (theoretically) have been shown to exist in other animals and in machines. - Nietzsche attacks this idea by simply by saying that the distinction that man MUST differ radically from everything else for morality is a false distinction. Building on that general position, I can point to the observation that we have already removed ourselves from most of the pressures of nature. Adler himself discusses that man is the only animal that appears to be able to delay action on primeval drives. Nietzsche would argue that a strong man has the capability to write new values from old. So we wouldn't be able to base morality on man being radically different. To me this just means that work must be done to find a new basis for morality, N's answer (and my own) is to base it upon life itself, as it is one of only two universal truths that the human condition has foisted upon it, namely life. Coincidentally, this is essentially the *exact* foundation for Buddhist ethics. - I center my own concept of a universal morality on the observation that social animals fare better than solitary animals, and that humanity is so interconnected that there is no way to abrogate the social contract. It is written into our genes. This also means that valuing man as an end is something that must be *actively* promoted to each concurrent generation as it is *not* dogma, and cannot simply be passively instilled. - If the immaterial hypothesis were falsified, it would negate the basis for a great many rational arguments that center on man being different. The combination of my own Self + Nietzsche + Wittgenstein + Heidegger + Rand would be unaffected. I acknowledge that I do not have a solution to the free will problem, yet I can tell you by personal experience that I am aware of free will and can even tell you when my free will seems to be abrogated. (Such as right now when I should be studying for my GRE Wednesday. I don't want to write this, but feel compelled to do so.) - Tying in to some of what you were discussing about your thoughts that the Turing test won't be successful: While recognizing that the challenge has not been met, I also don't think that we're anywhere close to making anything with enough complexity. Adler accounted for this, but takes the position that every failure that occurs marginally strengthens the moderate immaterialist position. I disagree with that claim purely for the reason stated above. If we make a machine that we know isn't as complex as the human brain, should we really be astounded if it fails? We should only be astounded if it works, because that would mean that the critical threshhold might be smaller than predicted, which would instantly open the philosophical floodgates.

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

6866 views

I can tell you by personal experience that I am aware of free will and can even tell you when my free will seems to be abrogated. (Such as right now when I should be studying for my GRE Wednesday. I don't want to write this, but feel compelled to do so.) - I wish I had the philosophic background to really discuss this with you. All I can see is that we differ by kind not degree and I can't be talked out of that.And I am positive my free will is absolutely free. - But more importantly, best of luck on the GRE. I know you will do well. You come across as very bright. I took either the first or second MCAT, and on the side the GRE, in case (1949). I went to med school so there was no in case, but I remember what the tests were like. I don't know how you study for them, they are so diffuse. I didn't. - I have a story about grade creep. I rarely got straight A's. My Ph.D. daughter never got anything but A's. Her GRE result and mine were identical!

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I can tell you by personal experience that I am aware of free will and can even tell you when my free will seems to be abrogated. (Such as right now when I should be studying for my GRE Wednesday. I don't want to write this, but feel compelled to do so.) 
> 
> I wish I had the philosophic background to really discuss this with you. All I can see is that we differ by kind not degree and I can't be talked out of that.And I am positive my free will is absolutely free.
> - As for the free will issue, there was that idea I threw out from N that you said you liked... let me get the exact quote, I think you'll like it. It's one of the rare cases that N is direct in argumentation. - "With regard to the superstitions of logicians, I shall never tire of emphasizing a small terse fact, which these superstitious minds hate to concede--namely, that a thought comes when "it" wishes, and not when "I" wish, so that it is a falsification of the facts of the case to say that the subject "I" is the condition of the predicate "think." It thinks; but that this "it" is precisely the famous old "ego" is, to put it mildly, only a supposition, an assertion, and assuredly not an "immediate certainty." After all, one has even gone too far with this "it thinks,"--even the "it" contains an interpretation of the process, and does not belong to the process itself. One infers here according to the grammatical habit: "Thinking is an activity,; every activity requires an agent; consequently--" - This really is an attack both on materialism *and* immaterialism. Materialism for its assertion that nothing is immaterial, immaterialism for asserting that binary logic can apply to the immaterial. (It was N, that struck me off the materialist path, actually.) - EDIT:
Sorry, let myself get off track. It is this passage that challenges free will as we commonly know it. We don't know what free will is, but we know we have it. We cannot however, really study it. All we can do is assert it--its another "immaterial agent." - 
> But more importantly, best of luck on the GRE. I know you will do well. You come across as very bright. I took either the first or second MCAT, and on the side the GRE, in case (1949). I went to med school so there was no in case, but I remember what the tests were like. I don't know how you study for them, they are so diffuse. I didn't.
> 
> I have a story about grade creep. I rarely got straight A's. My Ph.D. daughter never got anything but A's. Her GRE result and mine were identical! - My grades are awesome. I tend to be awful at standardized tests, however. Part of the reason I chose Information Systems is that I'm a project-based learner, I rarely do well on traditional exams. Not an anxiety thing, just... I'm just not good at them. Didn't used to be that way, but I've got to accept the current reality. - Technically I need a 700 on the quant in order to be accepted, underestimating the difficulty as it is I'm averaging 620 or so according to the practice exams. However my GPA is high enough that I was told if I "got in the ballpark" I'd be fine. What exactly that ballpark is, remains to be seen, heh. - EDITED

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

6822 views

The difference of Man: of all species we take the longest time to become adult. The following article describes the plasticity of the baby brain and how it learns:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327191.700-from-butterfly-to-caterpillar-how-children-grow-up.html?page=1

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The difference of Man: of all species we take the longest time to become adult. The following article describes the plasticity of the baby brain and how it learns:
> http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327191.700-from-butterfly-to-caterpillar-how-ch... - Sofia Kovalevskaya. - Her parents, when she was a baby, plastered her crib and her room with pages from then-modern mathematical texts, under the auspice that since math is a language early exposure will help to eliminate future barriers. Even if she didn't know what they meant, she would be comfortable with the symbols. Blocked from school in Russia, she went to school in Northern Europe and became (if memory serves) the first female to be appointed professor in Europe. - While I don't want to set a path for my kids, I want them to be unafraid of math, unlike myself. It is much harder to learn as an adult, the incoming high-school kids learn about 1/3 faster than I do. The one advantage I have is that I can pretty rapidly see how each result fits into the big picture, even while only partially understanding it. - Not that I think that grad committees look at it, but my knowledge of myself is certainly my greatest asset.

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

6957 views

Here is a new book that supports Adler, but taking an exacting look on the scientific studies of the great apes,etc.-http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/reviewofbooks_article/7087-The jump in cognition from ape to human is one of the major reasons I think there is a greater power. Another leg is the enormous complexity of living biochemistry and how DNA as an underlying code is used. In a sense DNA is simple compared to the molecular dance around it.-http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090904/full/news.2009.880.html

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Here is a new book that supports Adler, but taking an exacting look on the scientific studies of the great apes,etc.
> 
> http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/reviewofbooks_article/7087&#10... 
> The jump in cognition from ape to human is one of the major reasons I think there is a greater power. Another leg is the enormous complexity of living biochemistry and how DNA as an underlying code is used. In a sense DNA is simple compared to the molecular dance around it.
> 
> http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090904/full/news.2009.880.html-I'll hit those articles tomorrow night, got my first programming assignment due at 5:30 (my time.) -For the record, Adler explicitly stated that the difference between man and everything else is going to be decided by computer science, not by neuroscience or comparative biology. He also explicitly didn't prejudge the work as you appear to have done. The question is still open.

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

6873 views

Here is a new book that supports Adler, but taking an exacting look on the scientific studies of the great apes,etc.
> 
> http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/reviewofbooks_article/7087&#10... 
> The jump in cognition from ape to human is one of the major reasons I think there is a greater power. Another leg is the enormous complexity of living biochemistry and how DNA as an underlying code is used. In a sense DNA is simple compared to the molecular dance around it.
> 
> http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090904/full/news.2009.880.html-Alright tackled the nature article since it had the word "fractal" in it (sorry, math-prejudiced.) This isn't new. In biomedical engineering, to create "microbe-free" surfaces, they manipulate the molecular surface to create a fractal pattern that microbes can't adhere to, a very "mountainous" surface is actually much better than a perfectly smooth surface. Fractal structures in nature (all of it, not just life) are so common that this paper doesn't exactly tell me anything new at all, except that a couple of biochemists applied a biomedical engineering principle to the cell's nucleus. -In the grander scope, I know your implicit question is "How did this evolve by chance?" -My answer of course, is that we don't know how it evolved at all, so we can't beg the question as you are doing.

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

6907 views

Here is a new book that supports Adler, but taking an exacting look on the scientific studies of the great apes,etc.
> > 
> > http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/reviewofbooks_article/7087&#10... > 
> > The jump in cognition from ape to human is one of the major reasons I think there is a greater power. -Finally finished Not a Chimp. The author carefully reviews th genetics and makes his own assesment on the difference. True that the total DNA bases are about 98% the same, but the genetic structure is much different. The human has many copy number variations (multiple gene copies) and segmental duplications (whole sections of DNA sequence, containing any thousands of bases) copied and re-inserted elsewhere, differeing from the chimp. (pg. 112) 6.4% of all human genes have no match in the chimp. Point mutation changes are less a driving force than the above mechanisms. In the immune system genes there is a 13% difference. His conclusion is that we changed rapidly in the 6 million years since the split, and he opines the chimps not much.-In a chapter called "Clever Corvids", a related group of crows, rooks, ravens, jackdaws, magpies and jays have been shown to be equal to or better at problem solving than chimps. Here he is attacking the fanciful allusion to chimps as intellectually equal to baby humans. In "Inside the Brain" he points to large anatomic differences between chimps and humans.- And his final conclusion on pg. 308 is that 'we are genuinely discontinous to other animals'. Strong support for Adler.

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> Finally finished Not a Chimp. His conclusion is that we changed rapidly in the 6 million years since the split, and he opines the chimps not much.
> 
> And his final conclusion on pg. 308 is that 'we are genuinely discontinous to other animals'. Strong support for Adler.-A recent study in Nature supports Jeremy Taylor's contention, from the earlier research he cited, that the split from Chimps was a very rapid evolutionary process. Now studies of the human and chimp Y chromosomes strongly support this interpretation.-http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v463/n7280/edsumm/e100128-09.html

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http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/2009/11/richard_dawkins_smart_dinosaurs.php-&am... kind of interesting to see your thoughts on this, it relates to Adler's book.

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

6640 views

http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/2009/11/richard_dawkins_smart_dinosaurs.php&... 
> 
> I'm kind of interesting to see your thoughts on this, it relates to Adler's book.-First, that is one of the stupidest pieces of speculation I've ever wasted time reading. Conway Morris is certainly the world's biggest advocate for convergence, and uses it to push his view that humans had to appear, suggesting that humans might have been pre-determined. I'm not aware that he has had an opinion about humanoid dinosaurs. This kind of contingency disucssion reminds one of Gould, who concluded we are "a glorious accident" and if the tape of evoltion were rerun (paraphrasing) there was no chance we would successfully reappear.-As for Adler, he was discussing only the vast difference in intellectual power, and the philosophic meaning or conclusion it led to. Certainly corvids are very bright birds. Jeremy Taylor has a whole chapter on them in his book "Not a Chimp". And his book beautifully supports Adler's conclusions.-People sure have a weird fascination with dinos.

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MATT: 
http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/2009/11/richard_dawkins_smart_dinosaurs.php
I'm kind of interesting to see your thoughts on this, it relates to Adler's book.-Like David, I can't see that either the dinosaur or the ET speculation can be of the slightest value, other than to science fiction writers. Darren Naish also raises the question of what Conway Morris apparently calls the "magic human syndrome", i.e. whether humans are special or not (quoted and derided by Naish). David says Adler only discusses "the vast difference in intellectual power, and the philosophic meaning or conclusion it led to." My own thoughts on this are:-1) We don't know the full extent of animals' emotional or intellectual capacities, but the general consensus among people who have studied them is that they feel, behave and communicate in ways not dissimilar to ours. In that respect we are not special ... we have inherited these capacities from them.-2) The degree to which our mental powers (and hence our culture and technology) have developed does make us special. -I don't see any reason why evolutionary theists should object to these two observations. If a god created us, he may have programmed evolution or continued to experiment with it until he got us, in both our physical and our mental form. That simply makes humans the most intellectually and culturally advanced stage (as far as we know) of his project. Of course this view would be anathema to Creationists, while for atheists the discussion is as pointless as the dinosaur and ET speculations.

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