Different in degree or kind: a book agrees with Adler (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, February 11, 2016, 13:37 (3208 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: You keep on about survival and you ignore the drive for improvement, which has to be integral to evolution since we have agreed that if survival was the only criterion, NOTHING was necessary beyond bacteria.
DAVID: Correct. But where did that drive come from? Simply stating it exists does not explain it. A point for design.-The point in dispute was your support for O'Hear that there is no evolutionary explanation for the quest for knowledge, a moral sense etc. The moment I offer you the evolutionary drive for improvement as an explanation, you scurry back to origins. My answer, as usual, is: origin unknown - possibly your God.
 
DAVID: I deal with animals all the time, and you are vastly overstating and romanticizing animal need for knowledge. I have seen domesticated cats and pigs turn feral easily based on their built-in instincts rather automatically. Almost no animals have a moral sense, although it is noted here and there, but never at the human level.-None of these attributes are at the human level. I am neither overstating nor romanticizing, but simply pointing out that animals have to get to know their environment in order to survive, and social animals have to subordinate the interests of the individual to those of the community. These mark the early stages of a quest for knowledge and a moral sense.-dhw: Even with aesthetics, I have offered a pretty obvious evolutionary link: there has to be some inbuilt aesthetic sense for individual males and females to choose their mates.
DAVID: Come on, mainly pure sexual lust, all built-in just as we have it.-Do you lust after every woman you see? In the animal kingdom, as in the human kingdom, individuals choose individuals. They won't tell you their choice depends on appearance, song, smell etc., but it does, and there you have the beginnings of what O'Hear calls “appreciation of beauty”.
 
dhw: The fact that we have developed these attributes on such a massive scale is indisputable, and yes indeed we are special. We are animals with special gifts. So are dogs and camels and whales...According to you, God gave them their special gifts too, so we are all special.
DAVID: Yes we are all special, but your word 'special' does not imply the degrees of 'specialness' we see in humans. Your word 'special' does not recognize the gap as you glibly glide past the gap.-On the contrary, over and over again I have emphasized the DEGREE of specialness and the size of the gap. See above my comment on the massiveness of the scale, and my response to the same accusation under “human consciousness”. But I also emphasize the logic of the evolutionary development from lesser to greater, as opposed to O'Hear's claim (with your support) that there is no evolutionary explanation.
 
dhw: Improvement is therefore the driving force that offers a satisfactory evolutionary explanation for ALL the special qualities, including our own.
DAVID: Yes, something drives evolution past where it should have gone. I have an answer, you won't accept any as to why improvement through evolution occurs.-I am pleased to see you now including improvement instead of emphasizing survival, and as usual I leave open the question of origins. But once organisms have a degree of awareness and the capability to improve (perhaps God-given), I would see improvement as inevitable.