On 21 Jan 2015, at 04:53, meekerdb wrote:
On 1/20/2015 5:54 PM, Rex Allen wrote:
Hi Telmo,
Is there a better starting point than consciousness?
My main thought was to suggest that the theory of evolution, taken
to it's logical conclusion, supports a Kantian division of reality
into phenomenal and noumenal realms.
We are entities whose consciousnesses are shaped only with an eye
towards what promotes survival and reproduction. Consciousness
isn't the least concerned with truth - only with usefulness.
Maybe this explains many of the conundrums that are pondered in
this group.
If you completely discard the concept of "truth" and replace it
entirely with "evolutionary usefulness" - does that change anything?
That's essentially the thesis of William S. Cooper's book "The
Origin of Reason" - that our language, logic and mathematics
were driven by evolution. And he suggests how it may go further.
Whether you agree with him or not, it's a thought provoking book
(and not a long one).
Define "evolutionary usefulness" without using the notion of truth. I
doubt that this is possible. You need the truth of the existence of
organism, survival, etc. The only advantage of the evolution theory is
that it needs noting more than arithmetical truth. It is a mechanist
theory.
Then computationalism shows that this explanation by evolution must be
extended to the appearance of matter from a sort of genetical
evolution of machine dreams.
It looks like this progress is today as much problematical than Darwin
was at the beginning.
Bruno
Brent
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