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Thank you for the references. I wasn't trying to debate the point, only offer one perspective on your question. To elaborate a little more, the reason why philo
by robertk 15y ago
Thank you for the references. I wasn't trying to debate the point, only offer one perspective on your question. To elaborate a little more, the reason why philosophy prior to 1859 is not relevant is because philosophy is the study of human thought (and the answers it produces to philosophical questions), whereas the origin of the organ which produces human thought was fundamentally misunderstood without the evolutionary framework. A good analogy here is alchemy; Darwin's results implied prior philosophy was the wrong approach as chemistry implied the confused results of alchemy, and all the latter's results were reduced to no more than historical curiosity.
As an addendum, the reason why philosophy has been unsuccessful at producing answers is because it assumes human thought or language or existence as something fundamental. As Eliezer points out, rather than ask "do we have free will?", the productive perspective is to ask "what sort of algorithm does our brain run which makes it believe such a question is meaningful or answerable?" Have you read the Less Wrong series on rationality? It's a good exposition of the thinking process of someone like me.
Certainly the attempts prior to 1859 were brave, but it was quackery. Much like Erdos's comments on the collatz conjecture, we are not yet ready for such questions (although neuroscience will get us close in the next century).
- davesims 15y ago"the origin of the organ which produces human thought was fundamentally misunderstood without the evolutionary framework." This is a concise version of the fundamental category mistake Dawkins makes. In one sentence, we've dogmatically blown past thousands of years of deep reflection on the mind/body question. It's not as if the idea that mind were reducible to matter had never been broached before, or that the Mendelian breakthrough provided some evidence that was philosophically pertinent. And Certainly Origin of Species does not put a cap on that discussion any more than Dennett's Consciousness Explained does. It's very much a live question to this day, as it was a live question when Cicero and Lucretius engaged on the very same terms. If the mind/body problem has not been settled now (and it certainly wasn't in 1859, that's more than anyone could possibly claim) then for that reason at least no one should take Dawkins seriously on this count, and fortunately very few serious thinkers do. "although neuroscience will get us close in the next century" This is first-rate eschatology, more cashing out of the infinite blank check of the Future of Science (let us pray). This is dogmatism, not science, not philosophy. It's hope.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- robertk 15y agoI see. Let's say we completed the study of a new field, neurophilosophy, where we learn precisely the neural mechanisms for how and why we generate the philosophical questions we do, and why we find them "interesting," and why we reason about them the way we do. I don't think that would convince anyone as to why classical philosophical arguments bear no merit. I never bought into the fundamental category division, but for the first time, I see the issue clearly. Then I am flabbergasted as how to even conceive bridging the gap, my mathematical intuition tells me it is nonsensical, and that we must throw away the non-physical category--but is that like throwing out the baby with the bathwater? This is very tricky, and my arguments above on religion don't appeal to my last few posts on "philosophy before 1859," but we digress. Thanks for the back-and-forth!
- davesims 15y agoLikewise, this is all good stuff. I think we've exhausted the dialectic limits of the HN comments section. As a parting shot I'll point you one last time to the Jonas essay, "Is God a Mathematician?" It cuts straight to the question you just broached.