> -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Behalf Of Doug Pensinger
... > The second part (altruism is an outcome of > > evolution) is circular, since it assumes that our characteristics are > > derived exclusively from evolutionary processes. Even if true, > it begs the > > question of the origin of evolution as we understand it. Like > everything > > else, evolution would seem to be grounded in the fundamental > physics of the > > universe, but that doesn't really answer anything about > altruism, does it? > > In fact, it starts to seem imaginary, doesn't it? > > That makes little sense to me, could you step me through how (pseudo) > altruism is circular? It starts with the premise that our characteristics are the result of evolution and therefore altruism must have arise via evolution. It's like arguing that the only reason to have a handgun is to commit a crime, therefore anyone with a handgun must be a criminal. > But no one altruistic (or pseudo-altruistic if you will) act by itself > is relevant. It is the community that, through religion or other means, > began to codify their behavior and became more successful. This kind of > behavior is evident to a lesser extent in lower animals - wolves have an > alpha male and a pecking order, for instance. Do wolves need faith for > their "laws"? I think we can see this two ways -- that faith is impossible for creatures that are not self-aware, since they cannot distinguish between faith and logic, or that they operate entirely on faith, since they have no awareness of logic! > My response to imperfect knowledge is to believe that we should attempt > to make it more perfect. Someone else answered similarly. I'm not sure if either of you think it is somehow contradictory to what I wrote, but it certainly isn't. It's like solving any other resource shortfall -- you can lower your dependency on it while increasing the supply. It's not an either/or proposition. There is nothing about faith that calls for one to stick one's head in the sand. Behavior like the church's response to Galileo shows a serious lack of faith in our own intelligence! > I don't need faith because I believe it is an > impediment. I do not believe that there are valuable ideas that cannot > be understood rationally, con you give an example? Again, that's orthogonal. While I would agree that it makes sense that all can be understood rationally, that possibility is only available to an omniscient being. The rest of us don't even have complete access to our own subconsciousnesses, much less the rest of the universe. As a practical matter, we have either have to act with incomplete and imperfect information. I'm about to drink a cup of coffee that may be quite poisonous, but I have faith that it isn't. That's a faith that I surely could justify with statistics, but I don't go around doing that before acting. Perhaps what I'm exercising is better labeled intuition than faith, but what's the difference, as a practical matter? > IMO, gods and religion have outlived their usefulness. We need to give > credit to ourselves for our accomplishments rather than share credit > with what in all probability is a figment of our imagination. Does giving credit to ourselves eliminate a place for God? I don't think it's a zero-sum game... > If we use > the word faith it should be in reference to ourselves as in "I have > faith that humanity can overcome it's differences and expand beyond the > confines of this one infinitesimal planet. Again, doesn't that leave room for God? I can have the faith you describe and have faith in God. No matter what we discover, the mystery of the very existence of things remains. > And if there is spirituality > it is the result of many minds with a defined purpose and a laudable goal. Until we know everything, which seems logically impossible, we aren't going to know whether or not that's the whole story. > Even if there is a god, it is irrelevant. Perhaps, if we choose. If God exists and choose to affect your life, it won't matter what you believe -- that darn omnipotence! Nick _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
