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Very interesting article. "Morality did not occur in humans spontaneously. It must have had animal precedents." This statement has so much embedded in it, its

Very interesting article. "Morality did not occur in humans spontaneously. It must have had animal precedents." This statement has so much embedded in it, its hard to know where to start. This comes after having listed a bunch of traits that we share with animals. My view is that we mammals emote in the same wayas us. Mentally though, human thinking and conceptualising is at an entirely different level. We can think about concepts. We are not the same mentally. This is not a value judgement - it is not better or worse, and quite possibly it is far worse - without language, we would live in a world of lies or at best, mis-interpretations and mis-understandings. But it is evidently orders of magnitudes different to animals. Which brings me back to the quote. Embedded in it is the belief in evolution, which I can re-state as 'human morality arose out of animal behaviour via the process of evolution'. Like the bible, evolution is just another story. When we want to say 'we know', we need to have a direct path to a real situation - no steps can be missed! But we don't have that - we were taught stories as if they are true. The reality is that they are hearsay. I haven't seen evolution. Its just a story an explanation believed to be knowledge. Perhaps the theory has some explanatory power, although it is also a possibility it is taught to confuse us and keep us intentionally ignorant. We do not know. However, when we say we know but do not, we are proudly and arrogantly wearing our ignorance as a badge of honour! I love to hear about animal behaviour. I don't love to hear the back flips that ignorance masquerading as knowledge makes us do. Eg, the author signs off with: "I would suggest that what makes us unique is that we are mammals—only more so. The mammalian characteristics have been amplified in human beings. This echoes Darwin’s supposition in The Descent of Man that humans differ mentally from animals in degree rather than in kind and that, as Giovanni Boniolo put it, it is only logical to suppose that human behaviour evolved from that of our non-human ancestors. Some people may not like this idea." If you have to have a theory to explain the world, as if the world can be explained on scientific terms, then the go-to theory is evolution. If you don't agree with this 'science' then the author will get all passive aggressive on you for lack of belief in 'non-human ancestors'. He smugly allows himself to say: "Some people may not like this idea." Unsaid is - 'Those idiots.' So, the science belief is actually a lever to feel superior, justified and empowered in his ignorance masquerading as knowledge, over those who, in their own ignorance believe in religion, or something other to him. But there is no greater knowledge there. Its ignorance all round. The article is the sugar, to get you to swallow the pill of an assumed but still unproven belief in evolution. Skepticism of everything is the answer. Beware of believing anything regards the objective world, that does not match with personal experience.

tsimionescu 6y ago
> Skepticism of everything is the answer. Beware of believing anything regards the objective world, that does not match with personal experience. Do you believe in the past? Not any particular history, but just that anything actually existed at all before your birth/first memory? If you do, then you already accept that we can rationally believe things that we have not personally experienced. You also require this belief to think that places you have never visited before actually exist as well, or that tomorrow will look anything like today. Evolution is a somewhat vague theory that is completely undeniable, as long as you accept that the present is a result of the past. To not believe in evolution, you need to believe that the process of artificial selection and its profound effects on organisms produced in this way (chihuahua vs german shepherd, wild bananas vs bananas) is something that never happened on Earth before us. You also need to believe that genetics is bogus, and that the genetic relationships we notice between species that seem similar or distant are somehow pure coincidence. Now, the precise mechanisms of evolution are still debatable - the role of natural vs sexual selection vs genetic selection; the role of mutation, and how random it is; and many others are still debatable and debated. But there is simply no way to look at anything in modern biology or medicine and accept that while denying evolution, if you think through the consequences. Reasoning about the past is just like reasoning about the future, but in reverse: we look at the laws of our world as a function of time, and extrapolate from the present state - to reason about the future, we look at how they apply to t > 0, to reason about the past we look at how they apply if t < 0. Nothing more magical about that.
- feralimal 6y ago
  To say 'I remember my birth' is hearsay. When we give our birth date, we are effectively lying, as we don't know, even though we were there. I believe that there is a past that was laid down. But I don't think we know it. We are told and taught is what is most expedient in order for our behaviour to be managed. (Take a look at Star forts to see what I mean - you weren't taught about this global build style at school.) As we don't experience evolution, why should we believe it is true? We can experience selection of the best fruit etc, choosing and breeding the best tomatoes - but this is not evolution. This is just selective breeding. In the same way as I think history is whatever is expedient, I think the same about science (and religion). I personally believe that the scientific method is a fantastic way to better understand the world. But it has to be done personally. The problem is that science does not use the scientific method, regardless of how much it pays lip service to it. Science relies on trust and scientists have faith that all the steps are there - its just they were taken by someone else. But the steps are not there, and no one is checking anything. These are mistaken assumptions, or stories and no one seems to care or notice. If you want an example of how little we know in science, try and make water out of the 2 gases, in controlled conditions. I will pre-empt any further questions on this, until you have looked online, or put up an experiment of your own. There are lots of loud pops, but what I see is water already in the air condensating against the glass. If you find a good example of water being created - and we should be able to create buckets of the stuff right? - please run it past me and see if I agree. I promise to be fair, and explain my reasoning if I disagree. My view is that we live in a fabricated reality, where we have created types and classifications - but that these are ideas in our own minds. We are not describing reality, we are describing our classifications. We are lost in our stories.

tsimionescu 6y ago

> Skepticism of everything is the answer. Beware of believing anything regards the objective world, that does not match with personal experience. Do you believe in the past? Not any particular history, but just that anything actually existed at all before your birth/first memory? If you do, then you already accept that we can rationally believe things that we have not personally experienced. You also require this belief to think that places you have never visited before actually exist as well, or that tomorrow will look anything like today. Evolution is a somewhat vague theory that is completely undeniable, as long as you accept that the present is a result of the past. To not believe in evolution, you need to believe that the process of artificial selection and its profound effects on organisms produced in this way (chihuahua vs german shepherd, wild bananas vs bananas) is something that never happened on Earth before us. You also need to believe that genetics is bogus, and that the genetic relationships we notice between species that seem similar or distant are somehow pure coincidence. Now, the precise mechanisms of evolution are still debatable - the role of natural vs sexual selection vs genetic selection; the role of mutation, and how random it is; and many others are still debatable and debated. But there is simply no way to look at anything in modern biology or medicine and accept that while denying evolution, if you think through the consequences. Reasoning about the past is just like reasoning about the future, but in reverse: we look at the laws of our world as a function of time, and extrapolate from the present state - to reason about the future, we look at how they apply to t > 0, to reason about the past we look at how they apply if t < 0. Nothing more magical about that.

feralimal 6y ago
To say 'I remember my birth' is hearsay. When we give our birth date, we are effectively lying, as we don't know, even though we were there. I believe that there is a past that was laid down. But I don't think we know it. We are told and taught is what is most expedient in order for our behaviour to be managed. (Take a look at Star forts to see what I mean - you weren't taught about this global build style at school.) As we don't experience evolution, why should we believe it is true? We can experience selection of the best fruit etc, choosing and breeding the best tomatoes - but this is not evolution. This is just selective breeding. In the same way as I think history is whatever is expedient, I think the same about science (and religion). I personally believe that the scientific method is a fantastic way to better understand the world. But it has to be done personally. The problem is that science does not use the scientific method, regardless of how much it pays lip service to it. Science relies on trust and scientists have faith that all the steps are there - its just they were taken by someone else. But the steps are not there, and no one is checking anything. These are mistaken assumptions, or stories and no one seems to care or notice. If you want an example of how little we know in science, try and make water out of the 2 gases, in controlled conditions. I will pre-empt any further questions on this, until you have looked online, or put up an experiment of your own. There are lots of loud pops, but what I see is water already in the air condensating against the glass. If you find a good example of water being created - and we should be able to create buckets of the stuff right? - please run it past me and see if I agree. I promise to be fair, and explain my reasoning if I disagree. My view is that we live in a fabricated reality, where we have created types and classifications - but that these are ideas in our own minds. We are not describing reality, we are describing our classifications. We are lost in our stories.