On 1/22/2015 1:00 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
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.
That's because you identify true and real.
The only advantage of the evolution theory is that it needs noting more than
arithmetical truth.
It needs copying with variation.
It is a mechanist theory.\
Indeed, that's why it has explanatory and predictive power.
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.
What does it mean to say an explanation "must be extended"? It seems to say in order to
save my theory...?
Brent
It looks like this progress is today as much problematical than Darwin was at
the beginning.
Bruno
Brent
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