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

by dhw, Friday, February 12, 2016, 13:22 (3207 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: 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.
DAVID: The 'moral sense' is romanticizing!-The moral “sense” comes with self-awareness. You wouldn't have a moral sense if you did not have to weigh the needs of the individual against the needs of the community.
 
dhw: 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”.
DAVID: Only some species are monogamous.-Every act of mating is individual. Monogamy is irrelevant. Do you or do you not agree that “appreciation of beauty” in the form of appearance, song, smell etc. has a role in the animal kingdom? If you do, then there you have the evolutionary beginnings of aesthetics.-dhw: 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.
DAVID: Tell that to Thomas Nagel!-I am pointing it out to you, in response to your support for O'Hear and your complaint that I understate the gap. Why bring in Nagel?
 
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.
dhw: 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.
DAVID: We know complexification occurred by the history we see. We do not know why or how, or based on bacteria, that it was even needed by the stresses of nature. It had to be a given process.-“Needed” is not the point, as that = survival. I don't know the origin of organic awareness and the ability to improve, but those would be the “given” factors. How they are used would then depend on the nature of the organism and of the environment. That is Chapter 2, entitled Evolution, in the Book of Life.