Why are we (usually) reasonable?!

[inocente]

Her answer is unreasonable because it is hopelessly inadequate as I have explained with ample detail. If you disagree please explain why.

I don’t really know what she meant.

I was expressing surprise that after you cordially invited views in your OP, you instantly assigned another poster to the scrapheap on the basis of one post. No follow up, no questions. Perhaps the two of you have some history I don’t know about.

Would you say whether you’re prepared to discuss views other than your own, or will just continue to dismiss them as unreasonable?

 

[inocente]

If reality is “totally absurd” how do you explain the success of science?

The herd defines what must be taken to be reasonable. The scientist ignores the herd.

 

[inocente]

I have pointed out in this thread:

Reality is reasonable in the sense that it is logically and scientifically explicable.

Presumably the human mind is an unreasonable part of reality then, as I seem to remember you saying that the scientific explanation is hopelessly inadequate since it doesn’t include an unscientific, inexplicable, immaterial. supernatural soul.

*Luther believed:

The following views seem more reasonable:

• Pascal

-Tolstoy

• Cicero

• Gandhi*

The only problem with wise quotations is we need to flip a coin to know which to use:

Heads - Look before you leap.

Tails - He who hesitates is lost.

 

[tonyrey]

I don’t really know what she meant.

I was expressing surprise that after you cordially invited views in your OP, you instantly assigned another poster to the scrapheap on the basis of one post. No follow up, no questions. Perhaps the two of you have some history I don’t know about.

Would you say whether you’re prepared to discuss views other than your own, or will just continue to dismiss them as unreasonable?

I don’t answer irrelevant questions.

 

[tonyrey]

Presumably the human mind is an unreasonable part of reality then, as I seem to remember you saying that the scientific explanation is hopelessly inadequate since it doesn’t include an unscientific, inexplicable, immaterial. supernatural soul.

In philosophical discussions I don’t refer to the “soul”.

The only problem with wise quotations is we need to flip a coin to know which to use:

Heads - Look before you leap.

Tails - He who hesitates is lost.

Irrelevant. You have not refuted them.

 

[tonyrey]

If reality is “totally absurd” how do you explain the success of science?

You haven’t answered the question.

 

[tonyrey]

On that topic, given imperfect knowledge on a situation and some responses people have made to it how would you compare one response to another to determine which is more reasonable.

All human knowledge is imperfect but any response that undermines reason is unreasonable.

 

[tonyrey]

Her answer is unreasonable because it is hopelessly inadequate as I have explained with ample detail. If you disagree please explain why.

You haven’t explained why you disagree with my explanation…

 

[tonyrey]

There is a good summary of different interpretations of reason in wikipedia with a brief historical survey. One important point is that it is not a mechanistic biological process:

Donald like Plato (and Aristotle, especially in On Memory and Recollection), emphasizes the peculiarity in humans of voluntary initiation of a search through one’s mental world.

We are not slaves of our heredity and environment but creative persons who have the astonishing ability to control and change ourselves solely with the power of thought…

 

[inocente]

I don’t answer irrelevant questions.

Irrelevant. You have not refuted them.

You haven’t answered the question.

You haven’t explained why you disagree with my explanation…

Let me know if you’d like a discussion. I don’t have the time or inclination for stuccato commands.

 

[tonyrey]

Let me know if you’d like a discussion. I don’t have the time or inclination for stuccato commands.

Do you mean “staccato”?

I have not given commands but requested answers - which is normal in a reasonable discussion…

 

[tonyrey]

We are not slaves of our heredity and environment but creative persons who have the astonishing ability to control and change ourselves solely with the power of thought…

There is obviously far more in intellectual activity than can be seen through a microscope or detected on an electroencephalograph. The obsession with material reality is so profound in our secular society many people are incapable of even allowing for the possibility that the mind is an independent reality. Yet a biological machine is utterly dependent on the processes which are supposed to have created it and cannot possibly change itself or anything else voluntarily.

The notion that computers may eventually be developed to become reasonable is absurd and merely reveals lack of understanding of what reasoning entails. No one understands what reasoning **is **any more we understand what persons or things are. We are faced with the impenetrable mystery of existence that is forever beyond the comprehension of finite beings with limited insight, knowledge and understanding. To imagine minute specks in the universe can ultimately explain everything or even reduce everything to permutations of molecules is hubris.

The simple fact that we have the power to understand so much about the universe and ourselves speaks for itself. Nothing can be more unrealistic than to dismiss it as a freak of nature and “a little agitation of the brain”. There is no doubt whatsoever that scepticism is self-destructive and amounts to intellectual suicide:

“Abandon all hope of finding the truth ye who enter here…”

 

[inocente]

What’s more, as I’ve said before, the much-lauded “rationality” of humans is really nothing more (nor less) than the ability to perceive cause-and-effect relationships, and apply this perception in situations where immediate observation is unavailable. It could be said (quite easily) that you read too much into our abilities and are too ready to ascribe “specialness” to humans.

While walking the dogs, out of the blue my subconscious announced it had been working on what you are saying.

I think you can simplify it by dropping the cause-and-effect clause.

The shortest reasoning statement gives a relationship (Jack is tall), so with that capability one can then recursively form reasoning statements (Jack is tall, Jack is a person, Jack is a tall person), and that is a basis for rational thought.

Relationships are also a good way to tag memories, so perhaps that capability developed first. And although less powerful, it still works without needing language or symbols, so the same reasoning architecture could be present in a more primitive form in other animals.

 

[tonyrey]

1. There is a widespread and deep-rooted belief in Western culture that rational minds didn’t exist before the appearance of homo sapiens.
2. This belief is based** entirely** on the assumption that reality consists entirely of empirical data, i.e. that which is scientifically detectable.
3. There is no valid reason for this assumption which denies that truth, goodness, evil, justice and injustice are real.
4. It also implies that “persons” are merely legal fictions to describe human bodies!

 

[tonyrey]

1. There is a widespread and deep-rooted belief in Western culture that rational minds didn’t exist before the appearance of homo sapiens.

1. This belief is based** entirely** on the assumption that reality consists entirely of empirical data, i.e. that which is scientifically detectable.

1. There is no valid reason for this assumption which denies that truth, goodness, evil, justice and injustice are real.

1. It also implies that “persons” are merely legal fictions to describe human bodies!

1. Animals cannot reason because they lack hindsight, insight and foresight.
2. Only persons have the power to take the past, present and future into account.
3. Animal behaviour is **entirely **determined by forces beyond their control.
4. Personal behaviour is **not **entirely determined by forces beyond our control.
5. It is illogical to regard persons as animals.

 

[Sair]

1. Animals cannot reason because they lack hindsight, insight and foresight.
2. Only persons have the power to take the past, present and future into account.
3. Animal behaviour is **entirely **determined by forces beyond their control.
4. Personal behaviour is **not **entirely determined by forces beyond our control.
5. It is illogical to regard persons as animals.

6 is entirely speculative - you need to give more explanation of your definitions of ‘hindsight’, ‘insight’ and ‘foresight’.

7 and 8 are demonstrably false - other animals have memories of their past experiences and knowledge of their environments, and have the capacity to act upon memory and knowledge.

9 requires more explanation, especially in light of the negation of 7 and 8.

10 is also demonstrably false - we are neither vegetable nor mineral, therefore animal. There’s nothing illogical in this construction.

 

[inocente]

1. Animals cannot reason because they lack hindsight, insight and foresight.
2. Only persons have the power to take the past, present and future into account.
3. Animal behaviour is **entirely **determined by forces beyond their control.
4. Personal behaviour is **not **entirely determined by forces beyond our control.
5. It is illogical to regard persons as animals.

6, 7 & 8 are entirely wrong. On another thread I just linked a few videos from many available, please watch: forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=10135140&postcount=18

 

[Sair]

While walking the dogs, out of the blue my subconscious announced it had been working on what you are saying.

I think you can simplify it by dropping the cause-and-effect clause.

The shortest reasoning statement gives a relationship (Jack is tall), so with that capability one can then recursively form reasoning statements (Jack is tall, Jack is a person, Jack is a tall person), and that is a basis for rational thought.

Relationships are also a good way to tag memories, so perhaps that capability developed first. And although less powerful, it still works without needing language or symbols, so the same reasoning architecture could be present in a more primitive form in other animals.

That’s actually a really interesting take on the concept of rationality - that it is the ability to perceive and process relationships. Cause-and-effect is just one element of relationship. This would tend to add weight to the notion that social species have greater ‘intelligence’ than less sociable species…although our perception of what constitutes ‘sociability’ and, indeed, ‘intelligence’ in other animals is no doubt influenced by our own experience and understanding of social relationships.

This weekend, I was given the opportunity to acquire some understanding of social relationships amongst domestic geese - they are actually quite complex, and - surprisingly, perhaps, to those who regard other animals as mere automata, incapable of acting upon their own perceptions and feelings - geese do have emotional needs (perhaps less nuanced than those of humans or other apes or of dogs or dolphins or elephants, but definitely present). The point is that perception of relationships does influence behaviour.

There certainly seems to be some validity to the idea that the intellectual development of humans - through the earlier species through to our present - was accelerated by the demands of social living: management of conflict, alliances, kinship, bonding, politics…it’s definitely not all black-and-white!

 

[Sair]

There is a good summary of different interpretations of reason in wikipedia with a brief historical survey. One important point is that it is not a mechanistic biological process

How do we even decide whether reasoning is or is not a ‘mechanistic biological’ process when we don’t yet know the full capacity of mechanistic biological processes?

We are not slaves of our heredity and environment but creative persons who have the astonishing ability to control and change ourselves solely with the power of thought…

This creativity can only go so far - until the day an amputee can will their lost limb to regrow, I think we can safely say there are physically deterministic limits upon our mental abilities.

 

[inocente]

This weekend, I was given the opportunity to acquire some understanding of social relationships amongst domestic geese - they are actually quite complex, and - surprisingly, perhaps, to those who regard other animals as mere automata, incapable of acting upon their own perceptions and feelings - geese do have emotional needs (perhaps less nuanced than those of humans or other apes or of dogs or dolphins or elephants, but definitely present). The point is that perception of relationships does influence behaviour.

For a while I worked on a business park were there were a couple of artificial lakes and lots of geese. They would bask on the footpaths so we would have to walk on the grass where of course other geese were grazing, so there’d be lots of territorial disputes involving honking geese chasing folk in business attire. Geese are lovely except they poop a lot.

I meant interconnections in general but think you’re right, it can’t be a coincidence that social species display the greatest intelligence.

The rationale for the prejudice that animals are automata is unclear, unless of course it’s just easier to eat a little robot burger than a sentient being burger.