Hi Dawie
Very interesting, food for thought, thankyou.
I don't agree with this though:
>Our relationship to those non-human
>beings with which we have a long-standing symbiosis rests on may factors, not
>least of which is that our canine and feline companions have the knack of
>looking at the bit where our eyes are when trying to communicate with us. They
>literally face us, as we face one another when speaking to one
>another; and that
>makes them intelligible to us. Birds, even very bright ones, don't do that,
>because their use of vision is different. Hence our relationship to them is
>slightly different - however that does not preclude meaningful engagement with
>various sorts of birds.
Clearly you haven't kept chickens, A newly hatched chick will look
you in the eye when it emerges from the egg. It's unmistakeable. So
too will its mum, and the same applies to ducks and geese, and indeed
to all birds. Not only birds - a lizard will look you in the eye too.
Ethological studies have advanced quite a lot in the last decade or
so. It emerges for instance that birds are smarter than dogs, they're
about as smart as monkeys.
That's what the science says, though maybe my attitude to it helps
(or doesn't help, whichever). I had to come off the idea quite a long
time ago that I'm any smarter than they are, if as smart. I don't
think I've ever seen a dumb animal, apart from some people's pets
(rendered dumb). They all seem to go about their daily business on
the face of this fair planet with at least as much good sense as I
can muster going about mine.
>I'm coming into this debate late because I'm not sure if I have more than
>disconnected philosophical snippets to contribute; that is, questions rather
>than answers.
>
>It seems to me that this is really the old universals question of the Middle
>Ages, to which a satisfactory resolution has never quite been
>developed. My own
>stance here is the sort of conceptualism or "soft" nominalism one would
>associate with Abelard or, indeed, Ockham himself. The great irony is that the
>typical modern observer with some engagement with the issue of the environment
>is likely to applaud Ockham's supposed progressiveness while unconsciously
>harbouring distinctly hyperrealist views of such things as the human species,
>i.e. the exact opposite of Ockham's position.
>
>Let me begin therefore by casting a nominalist stone in the bush, and denying
>that the human species is substantively real in itself. I think the pervasive
>and unconscious idea that the species is philosophically prior to the specimen
>is causing untold damage to our understanding of our place in the scheme of
>things. I am not denying the existence of the human species: it
>exists; but the
>mode in which it exists is that of a concept. It arises from myriad strands of
>similarity between discrete human beings and likewise shared points of
>difference to other sorts of beings, and as such it is an extremely useful
>concept. It may even be that it is impossible to understand our individual
>selves without reference to the common concept of humanness - at least in this
>life. But it becomes a problem as soon as we cease to recognize the concept of
>the species as a concept.
>
>Of course this casts a different light on the idea of the survival of the
>species. This is an idea distinct from the idea of the survival of a perpetual
>next generation, which is in turn different from the consideration of the
>quality of life of individuals of that next generation ("next
>generation" being
>itself a concept rather than a substantive reality). That is, do we
>proceed from
>the observation that life is inconceivable without the social presence of
>younger and indeed much younger individuals, or do we proceed from
>the supposed
>inner force which compels the species to seek its survival? To me the former
>seems infinitely better rooted in reality.
>
>So, if the species itself has a conceptual sort of existence, its
>survival drive
>is at best a secondary concept. That leads me seriously to doubt if
>intelligence
>has anything to do with the survival of the species. The suggestion seems
>fantastic.
>
>If we likewise conceive intelligence as a concept by which to
>understand what we
>observe, a workable view results. Intelligence is as much the ability to be
>understood as the ability to understand. Our relationship to those non-human
>beings with which we have a long-standing symbiosis rests on may factors, not
>least of which is that our canine and feline companions have the knack of
>looking at the bit where our eyes are when trying to communicate with us. They
>literally face us, as we face one another when speaking to one
>another; and that
>makes them intelligible to us. Birds, even very bright ones, don't do that,
>because their use of vision is different. Hence our relationship to them is
>slightly different - however that does not preclude meaningful engagement with
>various sorts of birds. The point is, intelligence has as much to do with my
>understanding of an intelligent being as with the inner condition of
>that being;
>and that makes it more and not less important to keep in mind the limits of my
>understanding of that being. It is just as respect between human persons rests
>to a very great extent on always remembering that the other has an inner being
>of almost infinite complexity, the precise nuance of which can never really be
>grasped.
>
>Conversely disrespect between humans is most often a case of summing the other
>up too simply: you are this or that and that is all there is to you.
>And so too
>between humans and others. But importantly we do not invert this. We don't
>really care if a squid respects our inner subtlety when we meet one.
>
>I for one accept that it is not able to do so and that it is
>perfectly good that
>this should be so. But then like Robert I take the view that we humans are not
>only specifically charged with stewardship but also uniquely damaged. We are
>none of us as we should be: the other creatures are, all of them, no
>matter what
>any human has done to them, in their basic being exactly as they should be.
>
>But that we all share the task of stewardship and all share the Fall
>of Man does
>not mean that the species is philosophically - or spiritually - prior to the
>specimen. (Ockham has indeed something to say about this, perhaps best
>accessible in Fr. Frederick Coppleston's commentaries. CS Lewis comes to much
>the same idea from the other end: that we are in our spiritual
>essence not bound
>by type but individually unique.)
>
>Again, the idea of a creature doing something that works because it
>was created
>with Divine wisdom is different to the idea of an intelligent being. I am not
>preferring one to the other; I am insisting on the distinction in the interest
>of retaining useful concepts to think with. As it happens I think
>the former is
>probably far more important in the scheme of things: but my job involves being
>intelligent. And I don't think it has much to do with the survival of the
>species, at least not directly.
>
>I came to the environmental movement not from cosmic-biological but from
>socio-political considerations. That is to say, not from shock and horror at
>what has been done to the planet, but from noticing that what is supposedly
>being done about it is often used as leverage to consolidate the
>very power that
>caused the damage in the first place, and that a tyranny is being built as a
>result. And the problem of tyranny is a deeper problem than the problem of
>extinction.
>
>Liberty is a spiritual category and therefore prior to the physical,
>never mind
>the social. Liberty is not something we grow to prefer as soon as we have a
>society: it is at least cognate with interpersonality and, I should say, even
>more basic. Liberty is not a response to authority (except to that
>Authority who
>demands of us that we exercise liberty); and it is always creative liberty.
>(Dorothy Sayers wrote a wonderful essay in which she points out that, when the
>book of Genesis confronts us with the idea that we are created in the image of
>God, we have at that point been told nothing about God except that He has
>created.)
>
>It is not enough that the "species survive". Indeed that seems to me
>a ludicrous
>project. It is more important that subsequent human lives happen: there is no
>such thing as Life, but only lives. And that is to say nothing of non-human
>lives; not that that is the point right now. But note how "Life" and
>"lives" are
>different sorts of ideas. It is of only secondary importance that a
>life involve
>"Life", a sort of prolegomena to the main thing even if it is the
>source of all
>morality around killing. It is more important that lives are able to unfold in
>terms of their purpose, which is to exercise creative liberty,
>therein to endow
>importance which manifests in acts of love, which are always and necessarily
>acts of liberty.
>
>Anything else, no matter how necessary we are told it is for the
>survival of the
>species, is tantamount to inducing coma at birth. We all sense that that is no
>solution, just like killing the poor is not what we mean when we talk of a
>solution to the problem of poverty. Without creative liberty we might as well
>not exist at all: and if survival means the abolition of creative liberty I
>should gladly go down in flames. But I do not believe that that is the case.
>
>A solution is possible, which not only allows creative liberty but is built on
>creative liberty. In fact it isn't all that fantastic at all. But it involves
>different acts to much of what is happening now.
>
>Regards
>
>Dawie Coetzee
>
>
>
>
>
>
>________________________________
>From: bmolloy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: sustainablelorgbiofuel@sustainablelists.org
>Sent: Thu, 19 May, 2011 2:46:01
>Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Human Intelligence and the Environment
>
>Greetings all,
> Re whales "choosing" to return to the sea. The statement seems
>to turn natural selection on its head. My understanding of evolution is that
>it's a question of adapt or die out. As the environment changes the more
>adaptable in a species live and thus reproduce ever more adaptable
>offspring, while those that fail simply die off.
>The changes are totally random, due to the chromosome scatter which occurs
>with each birth i.e no offspring is an exact copy of its parent, hence each
>is a mutation of some degree. Some of this mutation is adaptable, some
>irrelevant, some not and some harmful.
>If the mutation increases survivability in a changing environment the
>possessor will survive to produce more offspring with similar mutational
>trends. In this way we have species change, some so vast that it seems
>counter intuitive to link modern species such as the hyrax (rock rabbit) to
>the elephant. Yet the link is there.
>The changes are incremental and often miniscule, occurring on time scales of
>hundreds of thousands and even millions of years, hence the outcome surely
>cannot be attributed to choice.
>As for warm blooded sea creatures such as whales, is there not a possibility
>they are simply a link on the chain going the other way i.e. out of the sea
>and onto land?
>
>Regards,
>Bob.
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