IF Colorless green ideas sleep furiously then What did John meet a man who sold?
Immortalist
grammar shared by all languages, thought to be innate to humans
(linguistic nativism). It attempts to explain language acquisition in
general, not describe specific languages. Universal grammar proposes a
set of rules intended to explain language acquisition in child
development...
...Linguist Noam Chomsky made the argument that the human brain
contains a limited set of rules for organizing language. In turn,
there is an assumption that all languages have a common structural
basis. This set of rules is known as universal grammar.
Speakers proficient in a language know what expressions are acceptable
in their language and what expressions are unacceptable. The key
puzzle is how speakers should come to know the restrictions of their
language, since expressions which violate those restrictions are not
present in the input, indicated as such. This absence of negative
evidence -- that is, absence of evidence that an expression is part of
a class of the ungrammatical sentences in one's language -- is the
core of poverty of stimulus argument. For example, in English one
cannot relate a question word like 'what' to a predicate within a
relative clause (1):
(1) *What did John meet a man who sold?
Such expressions are not available to the language learners, because
they are, by hypothesis, ungrammatical for speakers of the local
language. Speakers of the local language do not utter such expressions
and note that they are unacceptable to language learners. Universal
grammar offers a solution to the poverty of the stimulus problem by
making certain restrictions universal characteristics of human
languages. Language learners are consequently never tempted to
generalize in an illicit fashion.
The presence of creole languages is cited as further support for this
theory. These languages were developed and formed when different
societies came together and devised their own system of language.
Originally these languages were pidgins and later became more mature
languages that developed some sense of rules and native speakers.
The idea of universal grammar is supported by the creole languages by
virtue of the fact that all or most of these languages share certain
features. Syntactically, they use participles to form future and past
tenses and multiple negation to deny or negate. Another similarity
among creoles is that a question can be implemented by changing
inflection rather than changing words...
...Recent evidence suggests part of the human brain (crucially
involving Broca's area, a portion of the left inferior frontal gyrus),
is selectively activated by those languages that meet Universal
Grammar requirements...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_grammar
...Broca's area is considered a marker for the development of language
in the evolution of man. The paleontological record of species leading
to modern man, Homo sapiens, finds that this part of the neural
structure of the brain is present in fossils of Homo sapiens, and of
Homo habilis, whereas the presumed precursors of these early
humanoids, australopithecines, lacked this area of the brain...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broca%27s_area
http://images.google.com/images?q=Broca's+area
http://www.google.com/search?q=Wernicke's+area
"The Swiss Army knife is a flexible tool. Its flexibility is not the
result of having just one tool that is applied to all problems.
Instead, it is a bundle of tools, each well-designed for solving a
different problem – scissors for cutting paper, corkscrew for opening
wine, toothpick for cleaning teeth. Each solves a different problem
well, thereby providing flexible problem solving ability. Similarly,
the human mind does not have just one blunt tool for solving all
problems – and if it did, we would be very limited indeed. Each human
mind contains a large number of programs, each well-designed for
solving a different adaptive problem: choosing a good mate, caring for
children, foraging for food, avoiding predators, navigating a
landscape, forming coalitions, trading, defending one’s family against
aggression, and so on. We are flexible problem solvers in part because
our minds contain so many well-engineered tools."
- - Leda Cosmides
http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/ledainterview.htm
The mind is composed of a large number of mental modules each designed
to solve a specific problem. For example, there is one mechanism for
perceiving three dimensions, another for anger, another for falling in
love. The mind is like a Swiss Army knife; i.e., it has lots of
specialized tools. There is no such thing as general intelligence,
general learning, or any other general ability to solve problems.
ZerkonXXXX
> "The Swiss Army knife is a flexible tool. Its flexibility is not the
> result of having just one tool that is applied to all problems. Instead,
> it is a bundle of tools, each well-designed for solving a different
> problem – scissors for cutting paper, corkscrew for opening wine,
> toothpick for cleaning teeth. Each solves a different problem well,
> thereby providing flexible problem solving ability. Similarly, the human
> mind does not have just one blunt tool for solving all problems – and if
> it did, we would be very limited indeed. Each human mind contains a
> large number of programs, each well-designed for solving a different
> adaptive problem: choosing a good mate, caring for children, foraging
> for food, avoiding predators, navigating a landscape, forming
> coalitions, trading, defending one’s family against aggression, and so
> on. We are flexible problem solvers in part because our minds contain so
> many well-engineered tools."
The Swiss Army Knife does not possess flexibility. It's makers and users
do.
In order to use and to manufacture such a tool both the user and the
manufacturer have to first possess an integrated concept of utility which
is not compartmentalized into separate 'programs' or 'tools'. If humans
thought in such a way the Swiss army knife could not exist as a single
unit. A screw driver would never be used for a pry or scraper and so on.
We are flexible problem solvers only because we see connections between
separate parts. This ability IS our 'one blunt tool'.
mrdilligent
Thurs, Apr 9 2009 6:37 pm ;
From: Immortalist
<<Universal grammar is a theory of linguistics postulating principles
of
grammar shared by all languages, thought to be innate to humans
(linguistic nativism). It attempts to explain language acquisition in
general, not describe specific languages. Universal grammar proposes a
set of rules intended to explain language acquisition in child
development...>>
It used to be, not that long ago, that what we call _grammar_ and what
we call _syntax_ were two different processes. Then along came the
computer, and Noam Chomsky, and that all surreptitiously dropped from
human knowledge.
Syntax is the basis of grammar. Syntax is the way the referents of
experience are objectively arranged. The speaker can "rearrange" them
according to what he wants to convey, but only to that extent.
Objectively, the referents remain arranged as they are. Thus we have
green grass from which trees protrude upwards, for example, and the
perceiver can feature the grass, the color, or the trees, or any part
of same: "the grass grows green and the leaves on the tree, too," OR
"The tree stands at the end of the grass" . . . that sort of thing.
Grammar is the cultural convention of the way a group of homogeneously
cultured people tend to use syntax. Culturally homogeneous peoples
experience the same environments; have fundamentally the same
experiences. Hence their grammar will be the same. There are ALWAYS
"nouns," the names of things and abstractions, "verbs," the names of
actions or processes, and a smattering of relative pronouns, mostly
_what_. The _who_, _where_, _when_ etc. are refinements that came
later, but notice that they all mean a specific form of _what_. There
are (were) not always articles, prepositions, etc, or even personal
pronouns.
To illustrate simply the difference between syntax and grammar,
consider the grammatically perfect statement, "the cow jumped over the
moon." This is not a syntactical sentence, since no one has
experienced the animal we call _cow_ do the action we call _jump
over_, or the sky-object we call _moon_.
Since about mid-20th century, we have, mostly unwittingly, altered the
meanings---referents---of many words, so much so previously that the
linguistic scholars, not knowing the unwritten knowledge of their
predecessors, dropped not only syntax as it once was understood, but
the referential standard of words' true meanings (etymology). What
and why the linguists did all this mid-century last is a long and
complex subject, but in summary, they missed the whole point of what
we call _language_.
"Language" cannot be meaningfully studied apart from the mind(s) which
use it. It is not a stand-alone "object," but a function of
cognition. One cannot truly understand "language" without first
understanding very well cognition vis a vis the experienceable
environment in which that cognitive faculty develops.
Another point: The mind is not the brain. The brain is the "servant"
of mind, of cognition, and so of course, there will be neurological
"places" where certain cognitions and recognitions are stored, "words"
occupying a separate place ("Brocca's Brain"). But the mind must
first perceive the referents before they become "memories" allocated
to the now typical human-brain locations, and must first have the
language by which to express these referents before these words can be
stored separately. As was pointed out, interestingly, right in this
forum not so long ago, a measurement was taken off persons
experiencing this or that and of when that experience turned up in the
brain---the mind experienced milliseconds before the neurology was
activated.
But there is a HUGE amount of evidence, largely ignored or explained
away, to document the differences between mind and brain, and the only
evidence we have of their being one and the same is study of the brain
qua brain.
I have to sympathize with some of what Squitti said in another thread.
And by the way, Wikipedia is not an authoritative source on anything,
as interesting as it may be.
John J
> [... good stuff ...]
I worked as a programmer in Natural Language Parsing (NLP) efforts of
the Seventies. I was not a researcher, just a coder, so I was spared
their humiliating defeats. So very often they had to struggle with
failures created by our human penchant to syntactic variation and just
below the surface was the lament, "If people would only learn to use
consistent syntax" (like a machine prefers.)
"The man saw a girl in the park with a telescope." drove 'em nutz.
Christopher A. Lee
45 years ago it was "I like bathing beauties".
Immortalist
> The Swiss Army Knife does not possess flexibility. It's makers and users
> do.
>
Do you always react to metaphors with such ignorance?
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.philosophy/msg/c983937729d43250?
Various aquisition devices that guide learning along particular
pathways towards human biases. And as E.O. Wilson might say mental
development appears to be genetically constrained.
(1) Language Aquisition Device
(2) Color Aqusition Device
(3) Sound Aquistion Device
(4) Smell Aquisition Device
(5) Touch Aquisition Device
(6) Art Aquisition Device
(7) Taste Aquisition Device
------------------------
(1) Language Aquisition Device
Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1835) is credited with being the first
European linguist to identify human language as a rule-governed
system, rather than just a collection of words and phrases paired with
meanings. This idea is one of the foundations of Noam Chomsky's theory
of language. Chomsky frequently quotes Humboldt's description of
language as a system which "makes infinite use of finite means",
meaning that an infinite number of sentences can be created using a
finite number of grammatical rules.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_von_Humboldt
-------------------------
Emotion: The Science of Sentiment Dylan Evans http://tinyurl.com/jw56p
...humans have constantly sought to discover [...] technologies of
mood that might provide a faster and more secure short cut to
happiness than words alone...
(2) Color Aqusition Device
The use of colour is one such technology. For thousands of years,
humans have decorated their own bodies and their surroundings with
unusually bright colours that stimulate our visual systems much as
chocolate stimulates our taste buds. Ever since the discovery of the
first artificial dyes, such as the red ochre with which our ancestors
painted their bodies around a hundred thousand years ago, we have used
bright colours for their emotional effects.
Colour rarely affects our emotions directly. In some mental disorders
such as autism the sight of a patch of colour may be enough to trigger
a wave of panic, but in most normal people colour influences emotion
indirectly via its influence on mood. Being in a red room may not
itself make us angry, but it may put us into an irritable mood, with
the result that it takes less to make us lose our temper. The Italian
film director Michelangelo Antonioni once painted the canteen red to
put his actors in the right mood for some tense scenes, but after a
few weeks he noticed that other workers using the canteen had become
more aggressive and had even come to blows on a few occasions.
Some of the most convincing scientific evidence about the effects of
colour on mood comes from some experiments conducted by the
psychologist Nicholas I lumphrey. Humphrey put monkeys into specially
designed cages each consisting of two chambers connected by a tunnel.
When one chamber was lit by a blue light and the other by a red light,
the monkeys consistently preferred the blue one. They would venture
into the red chamber out of curiosity, and then quickly retreat into
the blue chamber, where they would remain. If both chambers were red,
the monkeys ran back and forth from one chamber to the other, without
settling in either. Red made the monkeys irritable and nervous, while
blue put them in a relaxed mood.
Red and blue produce similar emotional effects in humans. When people
are exposed to red light, blood pressure rises, breathing speeds up,
and the heart beats faster. Blue light has the opposite effects.
Subjectively, people feel warmer in red rooms but also more nervous
and aggressive. These responses are not merely cultural artefacts; two-
week-old babies can be soothed more easily in blue than in red light,
which suggests that at least part of our emotional response to colour
is innate. But why should natural selection have programmed our minds
in this way? How could a taste for certain bright colours or an
aversion to others possibly have helped our ancestors to survive? Does
red owe its warming effect to the fact that the two sources of heat
our ancestors had-sunlight and firelight-are both this colour? What
about the anxiety-provoking character of red light then? Is this due
to the fact that red is also the colour of blood?
Whatever the reason for our innate colour preferences, nature rarely
offers us a large expanse of a single colour. A vivid sunset may
occasionally paint the whole sky in one consistent shade of pink or
purple, but nature's beauties are more usually mosaics of many
different colours. A peacock's tail and a beautiful landscape both
offer a myriad different shades to the viewer's eye, not a
monochromatic expanse like Antonioni's red canteen. By taking a single
colour out of its natural setting, and using it to fill the entire
visual field, paint and lighting amplify the natural effects of
colour. In the technical terms of biology, artificial colours are
'super-stimuli'. They achieve their effects by keying into the same
evolved preferences that nature keys into, but they strike the keys
much more forcefully. Compared to the neon glow of rococo art, nature
is 'too green and badly lit', remarked the painter Francois Boucher.
A single uniform patch of colour is not always more emotionally
powerful than a mosaic, however. What the mosaic loses in simplicity
it can gain from careful arrangement. The emotional effects of such
arrangements vary much more from person to person than the effects of
single colours, so that one painting may produce a profound effect on
one person while leaving another person cold. However, there are still
some remarkable regularities in our aesthetic preferences. When asked
to choose between a selection of abstract paintings, most people
prefer the same one. Furthermore, they usually prefer the one painted
by a famous artist rather than versions of this that have been
modified in random ways by a computer. The original paintings must
embody features that the human visual system is programmed to find
most appealing. At present, scientists do not know what these features
are, but the artists who painted the popular paintings must have had
some intuitive appreciation of them. As the landscape painter John
Constable remarked, painting is a science of which pictures are but
the experiments. Both abstract art and representational art require
considerable skill on the part of the artist, even if only in telling
the experiments that work from those that do not.
(3) Sound Aquistion Device
Just as various colours may be arranged to produce a pleasing image,
so sounds of varying frequency may be arranged to produce a pleasing
melody. Music, like visual art, is a technology designed to tap
directly into our perceptual capacities purely for the sake of
producing pleasure. In Steven Tinker's words, music is 'auditory
cheesecake'; for Shakespeare, music was also the food of love,
indicating that music can also induce emotions other than happiness.
Like visual art, music affects our emotions indirectly, by changing
our mood. Little scientific research has been done to find exactly
which kinds of music tend to put people in which moods, but most
people today know the irritating effects of being exposed to loud,
repetitive music from a neighbour's flat or a fellow-passenger's
Walkman. Hearing such music does not usually send you into a fit of
rage immediately. Rather, it gradually puts you in a bad mood, which
then makes you more easily angered. Similarly, supermarkets do not use
soft music to make us happy directly; that would rather defeat their
objective, since the supermarket bosses do not want you to feel
fulfilled by the music itself. Rather, they hope that the music will
put you in a relaxed mood, which will in turn make you more sensitive
to happiness-inducing thoughts, such as the anticipated pleasure of
consuming an expensive chocolate cake.
Among the little scientific research that has been done in this area,
one intriguing finding is that many compositions by Mozart, such as
Eine kleine Nachtmusik, reliably produce good moods in those who hear
them. This happens even if the listener is not particularly keen on
classical music, which suggests that good composers tap into universal
musical preferences in the way that good artists tap into universal
visual preferences. Some support for this view can be found in recent
neuroscien-tific research, which has found that, when a person listens
to a classical melody, the neurons in different brain regions fire
more synchronously than when the person listens to a random sequence
of the same notes. The reason for this sense of melody, however, is
still a mystery.
(4) Smell Aquisition Device
In humans, as in other primates, the visual system is highly
developed, followed closely by the auditory system. The other sensory
modalities are much less complex, or at least we are much less aware
of their complexity. So it is not surprising that the sensory
technologies of mood we esteem the most-art and music -are those that
gratify our eyes and ears, while those that appeal to our other senses
are accorded less dignity. Nevertheless, the senses of smell, taste,
and touch have not been neglected. The emotional effects of different
smells are poorly understood, though aromatherapists have developed
some interesting taxonomies. The perfume industry is based on the
emotional power of smell, and in many religions, from Buddhism to
Christianity, worshippers burn incense to put themselves in a more
contemplative mood.
(5) Touch Aquisition Device
The emotional effect of touch is better understood. Being caressed by
another person releases natural opiates in the brain that are
associated with a relaxed frame of mind. The evolutionary basis for
this may lie in our recent primate past, around the time of the last
common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees, some five million years
ago. Grooming may well have been as important for this creature as it
is for modern chimpanzees, who spend hours each day removing the ticks
from each other's fur. This grooming does not merely rid the other
chimp of parasites; it also serves as a reliable sign of friendship. A
preference for such a reliable signal of friendship would have
motivated our furry ancestors to seek out friends. Those who did not
like being groomed would have found themselves without allies when it
came to a fight.
(6) Art Aquisition Device
Just as our evolved visual preferences are the raw material for visual
art, so our evolved tactile preferences are the raw material for
massage. Massage is an old technology, like art and music. It was
practised by the ancient Egyptians, and Hippocrates recommended
doctors to 'be experienced in many things but assuredly in rubbing'.
Today, orthodox medicine is beginning to rediscover the therapeutic
value of massage, while it has been one of the central aspects of many
alternative therapies for decades.
(7) Taste Aquisition Device
The gustatory technology of mood is, of course, cooking. By processing
natural foods in a variety of ways, and combining them according to
well-tested recipes, cooking does for natural flavours what painting
does for natural colours and music for natural sounds. It cranks them
up into a super-stimulus, tickling our taste buds more seductively
than nature ever did. If strawberries taste good because they are
sweet, cooks can make ultra-sugary things like strawberry ice cream
that taste twice as good. Here, natural selection takes her revenge on
us for daring to take the short cut to happiness instead of following
the winding paths she set up for us to follow. Having given us a cheap
and simple mechanism for finding glucose-a sweet tooth-she left us
open to the dangers of wanting more than is good for us. In the stone
age, that did not matter, since sugar came only in a rather diluted
form called fruit. Today, however, where sugar comes in concentrated
lumps called sweets, our intense desire for it can pose a serious
problem for health. Obesity is now reaching epidemic levels in many
affluent countries, and this is due largely to the dangerous
combination of evolved desires for large amounts of sugar and fat, and
the novel technology that is cooking.
Gustatory technologies of mood aim to induce good moods by stimulating
our taste buds or by producing other chemical effects further
downstream in the digestive process. Chocolate is quite an effective
mood booster, as indeed are most foods and drinks that contain sugar.
However, research has shown that, while most people feel more positive
and energetic immediately after eating a chocolate bar, this effect
soon wanes, and an hour afterwards they tend to feel even worse than
they did before eating the chocolate in the first place. Tea and
coffee have similar effects, with a short-term boost in mood being
followed by a medium-term decrease. Most drugs have the same effect.
In fact, the distinction between foodstuffs and drugs is a rather
arbitrary one, and even today there is still no scientific basis for
distinguishing drugs from the various other kinds of substance we
consume. We tend to call something a drug if we consume it primarily -
for its psycho-tropic effects rather than for its nutritional or
gustatory ones, but most kinds of food and drink have some effect on
your state of mind. Cottage cheese and chicken liver, for example,
both contain high levels of tryptophan, which the brain uses to make a
chemical called serotonin, which in turn is associated with good
moods. A friend of mine who is a vet once fed his dogs on a diet of
cottage cheese and chicken liver for a week, after which they seemed
much happier and more energetic than usual. Drugs are best seen as the
end of a continuum of foods rather than a completely separate
category.
Emotion: The Science of Sentiment
Dylan Evans http://tinyurl.com/jw56p
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.philosophy/msg/c983937729d43250?
Immortalist
translatable into other languages and why it is that all human
languages have some verion of subject/verb/object or something done to
something.
Of The Reason Of Animals
David Hume (1711–76).
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding.
ALL our reasonings concerning matter of fact are founded on a species
of Analogy, which leads us to expect from any cause the same events,
which we have observed to result from similar causes. Where the causes
are entirely similar, the analogy is perfect, and the inference, drawn
from it, is regarded as certain and conclusive: nor does any man ever
entertain a doubt, where he sees a piece of iron, that it will have
weight and cohesion of parts; as in all other instances, which have
ever fallen under hit observation. But where the objects have not so
exact a similarity, the analogy is less perfect, and the inference is
less conclusive; though still it has some force, in proportion to the
degree of similarity and resemblance. The anatomical observations,
formed upon one animal, are, by this species of reasoning, extended to
all animals; and it is certain, that when the circulation of the
blood, for instance, is clearly proved to have place in one creature,
as a frog, or fish, it forms a strong presumption, that the same
principle has place in all. These analogical observations may be
carried farther, even to this science, of which we are now treating;
and any theory, by which we explain the operations of the
understanding, or the origin and connexion of the passions in man,
will acquire additional authority, if we find, that the same theory is
requisite to explain the same phenomena in all other animals. We shall
make trial of this, with regard to the hypothesis, by which we have,
in the foregoing discourse, endeavoured to account for all
experimental reasonings: and it is hoped, that this new point of view
will serve to confirm all our former observations.
First, It seems evident, that animals as well as men learn many things
from experience, and infer, that the same events will always follow
from the same causes. By this principle they become acquainted with
the more obvious properties of external objects, and gradually, from
their birth, treasure up a knowledge of the nature of fire, water,
earth, stones, heights, depths, &c., and of the effects which result
from their operation. The ignorance and inexperience of the young are
here plainly distinguishable from the cunning and sagacity of the old,
who have learned, by long observation, to avoid what hurt them, and to
pursue what gave ease or pleasure. A horse, that has been accustomed
to the field, becomes acquainted with the proper height which he can
leap, and will never attempt what exceeds his force and ability. An
old greyhound will trust the more fatiguing part of the chace to the
younger, and will place himself so as to meet the hare in her doubles;
nor are the conjectures, which he forms on this occasion, founded in
any thing but his observation and experience.
This is still more evident from the effects of discipline and
education on animals, who, by the proper application of rewards and
punishments, may be taught any course of action, and most contrary to
their natural instincts and propensities. Is it not experience, which
renders a dog apprehensive of pain, when you menace him, or lift up
the whip to beat him? Is it not even experience, which makes him
answer to his name, and infer, from such an arbitrary sound, that you
mean him rather than any of his fellows, and intend to call him, when
you pronounce it in a certain manner, and with a certain tone and
accent?
In all these cases, we may observe, that the animal infers some fact
beyond what immediately strikes his senses; and that this inference is
altogether founded on past experience, while the creature expects from
the present object the same consequences, which it has always found in
its observation to result from similar objects.
Secondly, It is impossible, that this inference of the animal can be
founded on any process of argument or reasoning, by which he
concludes, that like events must follow like objects, and that the
course of nature will always be regular in its operations. For if
there be in reality any arguments of this nature, they surely lie too
abstruse for the observation of such imperfect understandings; since
it may well employ the utmost care and attention of a philosophic
genius to discover and observe them. Animals, therefore are not guided
in these inferences by reasoning: neither are children; neither are
the generality of mankind, in their ordinary actions and conclusions:
neither are philosophers themselves, who, in all the active parts of
life, are, in the main the same with the vulgar, and are governed by
of the same maxims. Nature must have provided some other principle,
more ready, and more general use and application; nor can an operation
of such immense consequence in life, as that of inferring effects from
causes, be trusted to the uncertain process of reasoning and
argumentation. Were this doubtful with regard to men, it seems to
admit of no question with regard to the brute creation; and the
conclusion being once firmly established in the one, we have a strong
presumption, from all the rules of analogy, that it ought to be
universally admitted, without any exception or reserve. It is custom
alone, which engages animals, from every object, that strikes their
senses, to infer its usual attendant, and carries their imagination,
from the appearance of the one, to conceive the other, in that
particular manner, which we denominate belief. No other explication
can be given of this operation, in all the higher, as well as lower
classes of sensitive beings, which fall under our notice and
observation. (Note 1)
But though animals learn many parts of their knowledge from
observation, there are also many parts of it, which they derive from
the original hand of nature; which much exceed the share of capacity
they possess on ordinary occasions; and in which they improve, little
or nothing, by the longest practice and experience. These we
denominate Instincts, and are so apt to admire as something very
extraordinary, and inexplicable by all the disquisitions of human
understanding. But our wonder will, perhaps, cease or diminish, when
we consider, that the experimental reasoning itself, which we possess
in common with beasts, and on which the whole conduct of life depends,
is nothing but a species of instinct or mechanical power, that acts in
us unknown to ourselves; and in its chief operations, is not directed
by any such relations or comparisons of ideas, as are the proper
objects of our intellectual faculties. Though the instinct be
different, yet still it is an instinct, which teaches a man to avoid
the fire; as much as that, which teaches a bird, with such exactness,
the art of incubation, and the whole economy and order of its nursery.
(Note 1) Since all reasoning concerning facts or causes is derived
merely from custom, it may be asked how it happens, that men so much
surpass animals in reasoning, and one man so much surpasses another?
Has not the same custom the same influence on all?
We shall here endeavour briefly to explain the great difference in
human understandings: After which the reason of the difference between
men and animals will easily be comprehended.
1. When we have lived any time, and have been accustomed to the
uniformity of nature, we acquire a general habit, by which we always
transfer the known to the unknown, and conceive the latter to resemble
the former. By means of this general habitual principle, we regard
even one experiment as the foundation of reasoning, and expect a
similar event with some degree of certainty, where the experiment has
been made accurately and free from all foreign circumstances. It is
therefore considered as a matter of great importance to observe the
consequences of things; and as one man may very much surpass another
in attention and memory and observation, this will make a very great
difference in their reasoning.
2. Where there is a complication of causes to produce any effect, one
mind may be much larger than another, and better able to comprehend
the whole system of objects, and to infer justly their consequences.
3. One man is able to carry on a chain of consequences to a greater
length than another.
4. Few men can think long without running into a confusion of ideas,
and mistaking one for another; and there are various degrees of this
infirmity.
5. The circumstance, on which the effect depends, is frequently
involved in other circumstances, which are foreign and extrinsic. The
separation of it often requires great attention, accuracy, and
subtility.
6. The forming of general maxims from particular observation is a very
nice operation; and nothing is more usual, from haste or a narrowness
of mind, which sees not on all sides, than to commit mistakes in this
particular.
7. When we reason from analogies, the man, who has the greater
experience or the greater promptitude of suggesting analogies, will be
the better reasoner.
8. Biases from prejudice, education, passion, party, &c. hang more
upon one mind than another.
9. After we have acquired a confidence in human testimony, books and
conversation enlarge much more the sphere of one man’s experience and
thought than those of another.
It would be easy to discover many other circumstances that make a
difference in the understandings of men.
Immortalist
The topic was about human universals and hardwired instincts not some
ignorant computer program.
...Nowhere do people have an equal desire for all members of the
opposite sex. Everywhere some potential mates are preferred, others
shunned. Our sexual desires have come into being in the same way as
have other kinds of desires.
Consider the survival
problem of what
food to eat.
Humans are faced with a bewildering array of potential objects to
ingest—berries, fruit, nuts, meat, dirt, gravel, poisonous plants,
twigs, and trees. If we had no taste preferences and ingested objects
from our environment at random, some people, by chance alone, would
consume ripe fruit, fresh nuts, and other objects that provide caloric
and nutritive sustenance. Others, also by chance alone, would eat
rancid meat, rotten fruit, and toxins. Earlier humans who preferred
nutritious objects survived.
Our actual food preferences bear out this evolutionary process. We
show great fondness for substances rich in fat, sugar, protein, and
salt and an aversion to substances that are bitter, sour, and toxic.
These food preferences solve a basic problem of survival. We carry
them with us today precisely because they solved critical adaptive
problems for our ancestors.
Our desires in a mate serve analogous adaptive purposes...
...Although ancestral selection pressures are responsible for creating
the mating strategies we use today, our current conditions differ from
the historical conditions under which those strategies evolved.
Ancestral people got their vegetables from gathering and their meat
from hunting, whereas modern people get their food from supermarkets
and restaurants.
Similarly, modern urban people today deploy their mating strategies in
singles bars, at parties, through computer networks, and by means of
dating services rather than on the savanna, in protected caves, or
around primitive campfires.
Whereas modern conditions of mating differ from ancestral conditions,
the same sexual strategies operate with unbridled force. Our evolved
psychology of mating remains. It is the only mating psychology we
have; it just gets played out in a modern environment.
To illustrate, look at the foods consumed in massive quantities at
fast food chains. We have not evolved any genes for McDonalds, but the
foods we eat there reveal the ancestral strategies for survival we
carry with us today. We consume in vast quantities fat, sugar,
protein, and salt in the form of burgers, shakes, french fries, and
pizzas. Fast food chains are popular precisely because they serve
these elements in concentrated quantities. They reveal the food
preferences that evolved in a past environment of scarcity. Today,
however, we overconsume these elements because of their evolutionarily
unprecedented abundance, and the old survival strategies now hurt our
health. We are stuck with the taste preferences that evolved under
different conditions, because evolution works on a time scale too slow
to keep up with the radical changes of the past several hundred years.
Although we cannot go back in time and observe directly what those
ancestral conditions were, our current taste preferences, like our
fear of snakes and our fondness for children, provide a window for
viewing what those conditions must have been. We carry with us
equipment that was designed for an ancient world.
Our evolved mating strategies, just like our survival strategies, may
be currently maladaptive in the currencies of survival and
reproduction. The advent of AIDS, for example, renders casual sex far
more dangerous to survival than it ever was under ancestral
conditions...
The Evolution of Desire:
Strategies of Human Mating
by David M. Buss
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0465021433/
35 - INNATE TASTES
A FUNCTIONING HUMAN BODY consists of thousands of different proteins,
fats, carbohydrates, and other molecules. The body itself synthesizes
most of these substances out of a relatively small number of elements
and molecules called "essential nutrients." Were it not for this
chemical wizardry, we would be dependent on eating each other for
getting a balanced supply of all the molecules necessary for
sustaining human life. But the body is a great chemist, so there need
be very little resemblance between the chemical profile of the
organisms we consume and the chemical profile of our bodies. (A good
thing, because a species that could eat only its own kind would
promptly cease to exist.) In addition to air and water, we have to
ingest forty-one substances: one carbohydrate that can be broken down
into the sugar glucose; one fat that contains linoleic acid; ten amino
acids, the building blocks of proteins; fifteen minerals; thirteen
vitamins; and a source of indigestible roughage to help clean the
lower end of the gut.
Nature has left us remarkably free to obtain these essential nutrients
from any convenient combination of plants and animals. We are not at
all like koalas, which eat only eucalyptus leaves; pandas, which eat
only bamboo shoots; seals, which eat only fish; whales, which eat only
plankton; or lions, which eat only meat. Our strongest innate
preference is probably for variety and against concentrating on any
single kind of plant or animal food meal after meal, day after day. We
are, to repeat, omnivores.
Yet we do not come into the world entirely without taste preferences.
Infants grimace and turn away from substances that taste bitter, sour,
sharp, peppery, or salty. This makes sense in terms of natural
selection, since most poisonous or indigestible plants, animals, and
animal products have telltale bitter, sour, sharp, peppery, or salty
tastes. But these innate avoidances are extremely weak relative to our
predilection for omnivory. The forces of cultural selection therefore
easily override the influence of innate aversions during the evolution
of particular cuisines.
Growing up usually leads to marked reversals of some or all of the
innate infantile taste aversions. The Chinese love their tea scalding
hot and bitter. Gauchos have their equivalent bitter drink, mate,
sucked up hot from a communal cup. Americans savor their morning
grapefruit chilled and cut into bite-size pieces. Spaniards squeeze
lime juice on their fish. The English like their alcohol mixed with
quinine water. The Germans take their meat with dollops of bitter
horseradish. Sourness also abounds in world cuisines: sour milk, sour
cream, sauerkraut, sourdough, sour apple. Not to mention vinegar used
to pickle meat, fish, and vegetables and to mingle with oil in Italian
salad dressings. Most remarkable, perhaps, is the reversal of the
infantile aversion to peppery foods. In much of China, Central
America, India, Southeast Asia, and Africa, people expect to
experience a tingling, burning, mouth-watering fulsomeness of fiery,
hot condiments at every meal. Take away the malabar or chili pepper,
and they will rise from the table in disgust. What babies abhor,
children and adults learn to crave. Incidentally, I think the wide-
spread yen for salt belongs in the same category. Infants reject salt
but adults crave it. Yet I know of at least one culture-the Yanomami-
whose adults find it thoroughly unpalatable.
So much for innate taste aversions. But what about taste preferences?
Aren't there some tastes that people are born to like and that
cultural selection finds difficult to override? Perhaps. At birth,
babies show a strong preference for sweetness. That toothless humans
should possess a sweet tooth accords well with the sweet taste of
mother's milk, the sole item on the infant's obligatory menu. Mother's
milk is sweet because it contains the sugar called lactose. In the
presence of lactase, an intestinal enzyme, lactose gets broken down
into the digestible, calorie-rich sucrose and galactose. An innate
taste for sweetness, therefore, guides us away from potentially
harmful substances and toward our wholesome first meal.
Until a few hundred years ago, sweetness junkies had to get their fix
from honey and ripe fruit, neither of which was readily available or
cheap. It took the invention of industrial processes for extracting
sucrose from cane and later from beets to introduce the demon
sweetness into the bosom of the human family. In its purest
crystalline form, we call it sugar; in less pure liquid form, we call
it syrup or molasses. Mixed with cacao, we call it chocolate. By
whatever name, no cuisines seem to be able to resist its allure.
According to anthropologist Sydney Mintz, "To date, there have been no
reports of any group with a nonsugar tradition rejecting the
introduction of sugar, sweetened condensed milk, sweetened beverages,
sweetmeats, pastries, confectionary, or other sweet dietary items."
But is it the sweetness of sugar or the cheap calories that sugar can
provide that account for the irresistible spread of the sugar demon?
Nutritionists condemn sugar because of its "empty" calories, but
calories for most of the world are nothing to sneer at. As Mintz
shows, the industrial working class could not have carried out its
historic mission without the cheap calories that sugar provided, empty
or not. Stirred in copious quantities into tea, coffee, and other
bitter-tasting effusions, sugar became the preferred pick-me-up for
lightening the burden of industrial drudgery. No need to look over
your shoulder as you take your morning coffee break (or do you prefer
tea?). The boss approves. After all, it could be gin (or worse) and
that would put you to sleep (or worse) before the next pause that
refreshes.
The fact that no culture with a nonsugar tradition has ever rejected
the use of sugar does not convince me that the taste for sweets in
adults is largely the result of an innate preference. A point that I
shall be returning to later on is that the universality of a cultural
trait does not prove that it is part of human nature. It may simply be
so useful under a broad variety of conditions that it has been
culturally selected for over and over again. (No culture has ever
resisted flashlights or marches, either.)
Much of the impetus for the spread of sugar arose from its utility as
a source of energy that gave the caffeine in coffee, tea, and cacao an
extra kick. Would sugar have spread as fast apart from these
stimulants, simply for its taste? Now that we have artificial,
noncaloric sweeteners, one can ask another interesting question. Would
the penchant for sweet foods have spread as relentlessly if there had
been no calories in sugar?
As the worldwide sugar binge takes its toll in rotted teeth, late-
onset diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular disease, signs of a
reaction to sweeteners, natural or artificial, have begun to appear.
At the moment, the economic and social forces favoring sugar- and
sweetener-consumption are much greater than those arrayed against it.
Even so, many people find that they can easily resist the insidious
spread of sweeteners into salads, hamburgers, vegetables, and bread,
spurn sweet desserts, and enjoy unsweetened coffee and tea. This
raises the possibility that the infantile preference for sweetness may
someday be converted into an adult loathing for sweets. Tastes are not
forever.
OUR KIND by Marvin Harris 1989
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0060919906/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvin_Harris
http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/information/biography/fghij/harris_marvin.html
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/marvin_harris.html
grease...@yahoo.com
> Universal grammar is a theory of linguistics postulating principles of
> grammar shared by all languages, thought to be innate to humans
> (linguistic nativism). It attempts to explain language acquisition in
> general, not describe specific languages. Universal grammar proposes a
> set of rules intended to explain language acquisition in child
> development...
>
> result of having just one tool that is applied to all problems.
> Instead, it is a bundle of tools, each well-designed for solving a
> different problem – scissors for cutting paper, corkscrew for opening
> wine, toothpick for cleaning teeth. Each solves a different problem
> well, thereby providing flexible problem solving ability. Similarly,
> the human mind does not have just one blunt tool for solving all
> problems – and if it did, we would be very limited indeed. Each human
> mind contains a large number of programs, each well-designed for
> solving a different adaptive problem: choosing a good mate, caring for
> children, foraging for food, avoiding predators, navigating a
> landscape, forming coalitions, trading, defending one’s family against
> aggression, and so on. We are flexible problem solvers in part because
> our minds contain so many well-engineered tools."
>
>
> The mind is composed of a large number of mental modules each designed
> to solve a specific problem. For example, there is one mechanism for
> perceiving three dimensions, another for anger, another for falling in
> love. The mind is like a Swiss Army knife; i.e., it has lots of
> specialized tools. There is no such thing as general intelligence,
> general learning, or any other general ability to solve problems.
>
> http://www.csulb.edu/~kmacd/463evolpsyIQ.html
language. Here are a few ways:
1) learn another language, preferably one quite distant from your
native one. while you are learning it the assumptions inherent in
your own language, at least many of them, will become more visible.
2) meditate, contemplate - iow engage in wordless, but focused
activity without a lot of body movement. We tend to experience the
map and meditation can deepen our experience of experience. This then
may give us awareness of the ways our categories and labels close off
consciousness from experience.
3) perform phenomenology of language exercises - this is easier after
two and probably also one. Notice 'what happens' when you think in
words or hear words or read. What is the experience like? How does
meaning arise?
4) read Metaphors We Live By and Philosophy in the Flesh or any books
focusing on common metaphors. These two are best for English. Once
you see how much of what seems literal is actually metaphorical - and
what the metaphors are - you may get some perspective on the
limitations of the language. Or how it is a tool or set of heuristic
devices but not 'a description of reality' in any perfect sense. It
is a bridge from you to things and thus is very much affected by what
you are. An intelligent slime mold would have a very different was of
describing what we call rain. Its metaphors would not be wrong,
however confusing they might be for us.
5)have an etymology day each week. find out the root and earlier
meanings of words. This unmasks the sign, at least sometimes.
mrdilligent
Date: Fri, Apr 10 2009 10:22 am
From: Immortalist
------------------------
<<(1) Language Aquisition Device
<<Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1835) is credited with being the first
European linguist to identify human language as a rule-governed
system, rather than just a collection of words and phrases paired with
meanings. This idea is one of the foundations of Noam Chomsky's theory
of language. Chomsky frequently quotes Humboldt's description of
language as a system which "makes infinite use of finite means",
meaning that an infinite number of sentences can be created using a
finite number of grammatical rules.>>
It doesn't matter who said (thought) what in what publication, or what
credit or credentials he may have. All that matters is what IS.
What IS cannot be found in written materials or in spoken lectures, as
useful as these may be in their own way. Books, etc., are useful for
TWO reasons: 1., the words MAY describe or explain what IS, thus
verifying what one finds from his own experience and thought (or
leading him to seek experience with it), and 2., the words MAY
describe or explain what IS not, thereby helping one to frame in what
he knows from experience and thought. The one parameter is as good as
the other as long as overall both are present and considered. On
balance lately it seems that 2. has taken over the world.
But the primary source for knowing and understanding what IS is
experience, and thought about it. The two parameters mentioned above
frame-in this primary 2-pronged source.
Humboldt was a book reader in the 18th-19th century. He poured over
words qua words, and studied language as a stand-alone thing.
Although influential in education, he did not study cognition (though
he did do a lot of a more remarkable nature than Immortalist's para).
Ditto Chomsky 3 centuries later, except that Chomsky was, like most in
the latter half of the 20th and early part of the 21st, very
interested in the brain. He READ about DNA and genetics---and he read
what Humboldt (among others) had to say about language. But Chomsky
himself did not understand language, much less natural cognition.
Hofstadter and many others folllow this trend.
In truth, however, it does not matter how many combinations and
permutations of words qua words can be made, statistically, following
the standard rules of grammar. What does matter is the combination of
referents of experience that can be found in a person's cumulative
real-life experience, and how he uses what words he has to convey his
thoughts.
It is very difficult to get this point across, so I will resort to a
stuntedly simplistic backbone:
An organism comes into natural existence and simultaneously into an
environment that IS. That environment, and all that it contains, must
be learned and dealt with if the organism is to survive. But the
organism does not want merely to survive; it also wants to enhance its
own being and capabilities to deal with the given environment.
Each thing and entity in the environment is a "referent." Each *part*
of every thing and entity in the environment is a "referent." That's
a lot of "referents" to be combined and permuted. Fortunately, and
depending on what sort of organism is to deal with this environment,
not all possible "referents" can come into its ken. Part of the
curtailment comes from its limited sensory capabilities; part of it
comes from the typical lifestyle of the organism's species and group.
And part of it comes from what it encounters to overcome as a threat
to its survival. This latter, especially, is what constitutes its
experience (the ancient Latin version means to "out peril").
For a while now, humans have had words or expressions to substitute
for the "referents" of experience; that is why what a word stands for
is (or used to be) called its referent. It is the thing or entity (or
process, event, etc.) to which a word REFERS. But just as a map is
not the territory, neither is a word its referent entity.
So it is the combination and permutations of REFERENTS which is
important, statistically or otherwise. Fortunately, at any given
moment we are highly limited in the number of referents we can convey
in our words. Who talks about everythingatonce? No one who is
sane.
If we talk about our breakfast, the only referents we will be
concerned with are, say, orange juice, cereal and/or toast. That sort
of thing. How can we compare the specific referents of a specific
experience, or thought, with all the possible combinations and
permutations of "finite" words qua words into an "infinite" number of
sentences?
There could be much more to say on this, but in conclusion, the whole
idea is sheer nonsense.
mrdilligent
From: John J
This is interesting---so interesting that I could write a "book" on
it.
Machines lack cognition. Even computers lack cognition. We can call
them "artificial intelligence," but in fact there is no intelligence.
Intelligence is the exclusive property of cognition, and living
organisms are the sole possessors of cognition. (Yes, ALL organisms
possess cognition.)
What we have been calling "language" for some 2000 yrs (bear in mind
that mankind is over 2 MILLION years old) is actually a code! Man,
mostly Homo sapiens sapiens, is the only organism that can generate
the code we call "language" today (computers don't generate language;
they can be programmed by MAN to generate noises, and these noises can
programmatically be made to sound like a human speaking, but they do
not generate language). But all organisms, having cognition, can
generate codes, and do. Some organismically generated codes utilize
emf, some utilize molecules, some airwaves, some
waterwaves, .. . .some can even generate vocal sounds which are, like
human language, pushed into the environmental air via the exhalation
phase of respiration. But only man can generate the airwave-vibration
code we call "language."
But man is not the only organism that can detect "language," and thus
learn its meanings. All that is required is a., sensors that can
detect airwave vibrations, or "sound waves," b., a nonverbal context
in which the particular language is used, and c., cognition of course,
which is paramount.
Notice how accute is the semantic hearing of most wild animals. Not
only can they ascertain the species which is trodding on the ground,
and rustling the grass, but very often they can know WHIICH specimen
of the species is around. Our own domestic dogs can detect not only
car-sounds from a mile away, but they can distinguish among all the
vehicle sounds to exactly WHICH, very particular, vehicle is on its
way home! Interestingly, they announce the arrival specifically as to
which human is about to be on the premises. (This is most discernable
among rural or suburban dogs.),
I once had a cat who could tell that Christmas was on its way just by
the sounds of the caroles playing on the radio. Of course, he had
long been exposed to and included in the human rituals of Christmas.
In all of these cases, the nonverbal context of the sound-waves had to
be learned, but once a context is cognitively established in the
animal's mind, the rest is easy.
Thus all dogs, cats, horses, etc. can learn "human language"; it is
not a matter of "how many words" a speciis may gain, or of S-R
training them word by word. As with human children, they need to be
spoken to directly and in repeated contexts, but if they are, they
learn to understand language "by osmosis" as young children normally
do. No self-conscious "sessions" need to be contrived; if you want
a dog to go to a corner and be out of the way, you just point to the
corner and say "go to your corner" a few times. (By the way, notice
how puzzled puppies look when trained by "operant conditioning"
methods. And using a whistle or some nonvocal device instead of words
is LUDICROUS, as they all just use sound-waves!)
All because they have cognition and ears, and because both are highly
senstive to sound-waves. NoamChomsky, go get some real experience.
These are but a small handful of the sorts of codes by which living
organisms conduct their ordinary lives. The original terrestrial code
was, of course, what Watson & Crick dubbed "DNA."
It should also be pointed out that machines do not LEARN the codes
which run them. Humans must if they are to program and/or use
computers, but computers can learn nothing; not even so-called "neural
nets" can learn. It may be fashionable to say things like,"the
computer understands . . . ," "the computer is smart . . ...," "it
can learn how you say things, . . ." but this is a function of our
MISuse of existing human interpersonal vocabulary. We shoulld have
developed a new nomenclature for the way very very complex and tiny
versions of our household circuit panels work, and leave such as
_syntax_, _grammar_, _learning_. and _prefer_, etc., out of it.
,
Tron
"mrdilligent" <oso...@aol.com> skrev i melding
news:6cff9675-748e-429a...@x3g2000yqa.googlegroups.com...
......
>
> But the primary source for knowing and understanding what IS is
> experience, and thought about it.
A dogmatic empiricist...? Only 200 years too late.
>
> It is very difficult to get this point across,
Higher pulpit, maybe...?
T
mrdilligent
Apr 13 2009 6:52 am
From: "Tron"
"mrdilligent" <oso...@aol.com> skrev i melding
news:
6cff9675-748e-429a...@x3g2000yqa.googlegroups.com...
......
> But the primary source for knowing and understanding what IS is
> experience, and thought about it.
<<A dogmatic empiricist...? Only 200 years too late.>>
1. Since when is a declarative sentence "dogmatic"?
Especially when the validity of the content is self-evident?
2. "Empiricist"; I love this one. _Empiricist_ is one of those "ism"
words that humans make up to pidgeonhole largely unlike ideas (and
people). On the other hand, empricism is the basis for all
contemporary science! How "late" is that?
3. According to the history of academic Western philosophy, Empricism
as a school of philosophical thought is 400, not 200, years old.
4. Truth does not change with time; human ideas do.
All in all, a very ad hominem argument, thinly disguised as
"philosophy."
In order to do philosophy, one must first THINK. The poster of the
intended rebuttal has regurgitated bookishness alone (and
incorrectly). Such thinking is sophist, not philosophical.
Thank you.Tron, for illustrating the point!
Errol
I am interested how you knew that the cat knew xmas was on the way.
Incidently, I agree that computers at this stage actually do not
understand anything.
Deep blue (IBM chess champion beating computer) beat kasperov by
having every best possible response to every known move programmed
into it. It didn't even know it was playing chess. It won by retrieval
speed only. If Kasperov's brain could have handled billions of
instructions per second, he would have won.
mrdilligent
Date: Wed, Apr 15 2009 7:05 am
From: Errol
<<I am interested how you knew that the cat knew xmas was on the
way.>>
His ears would flick, the way animals' ears flick when they are
listening. Also, right about then he would rush to the door each time
we came home, as if to ask, "Got something for me? Gimme my
presents!" Something like that, but it was unmistakable. Year after
year.
<<Incidently, I agree that computers at this stage actually do not
understand anything.>>
I doubt that they ever will. Cognition is purely metaphysical; that
is, of NO matter (like any abstraction, cosmoterrestrial or man-made,
actual or invented). Machines are purely material. You can extract
(by inference) the metaphysical from the physical, but there is no way
to "input" the metaphysical into the physical. Software is the closest
man can come to machine metaphysics, but even software is material---
the metaphysical lies in the mind(s) of the human programmers who code
the material software.
<<Deep blue (IBM chess champion beating computer) beat kasperov by
having every best possible response to every known move programmed
into it. It didn't even know it was playing chess. It won by retrieval
speed only. If Kasperov's brain could have handled billions of
instructions per second, he would have won.>>
Computers "play" chess by statistics only. They compute
probabilities. Humans play chess qualitatively, they way they live
life, which is what the old, old game of chess was meant to
metaphorize. The statistics of reducing opportunities is purely an
irrelevant side issue, but probabilities must obtain in nature or life
would just be a free-for-all. One makes a choice (perhaps
inadvertantly, as with the young or inexperienced), and that choice
then delimits to a degree one's future path. At the beginning, there
is plenty of opportunity to change that path if desired, but after a
while the consistent type of choices one makes leads to a foregone
conclusion; "check mate." As you can see, computerized chess ignores
the quality of the choices.
Tron
's a bit late now, but...
"mrdilligent" <oso...@aol.com> skrev i melding
news:6fd10d0d-00b8-4c76...@s21g2000vbb.googlegroups.com...
> In a message dated 04/14/2009 3:02:20 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
>
> <<A dogmatic empiricist...? Only 200 years too late.>>
>
> 1. Since when is a declarative sentence "dogmatic"?
> Especially when the validity of the content is self-evident?
Your sentence carries a lot of ontological baggage. The relationship between
perception and "reality" (for various given values) has been and still is a
matter of debate.
Simply asserting any position, and declaring it selv-evident, doesn't really
betray any sense of wonderment and open-ended qustioning.
> 2. "Empiricist"; I love this one. _Empiricist_ is one of those "ism"
> words that humans make up to pidgeonhole largely unlike ideas (and
> people).
Yes. Very useful, such pigeonholes. Of course the forest dissolves into
trees on closer scrutiny, as with everything else, but in ordinary discourse
it has a fairly recognized meaning.
On the other hand, empricism is the basis for all
> contemporary science! How "late" is that?
No, it isn't. There are a lot of other philosophical issues underlying
contemporary science.
I take it, btw, that by "science" you mean natural science, aka natural
philosophy?
> 3. According to the history of academic Western philosophy, Empricism
> as a school of philosophical thought is 400, not 200, years old.
The roots go way back, yes, perhaps even further than 400 years.
The epistemological position didn't become widespread before Locke and Hume.
> 4. Truth does not change with time; human ideas do.
S� truth is not a human idea...?
>
> All in all, a very ad hominem argument,
Ad hominem in the sense of challenging the coherence of your position
(which som hold is the technical meaning of "ad hominem",
as opposed to attacking the person holding the position,
by them labelled an argument ad personam).
>thinly disguised as "philosophy."
No, it was pretty obiously derision.
> In order to do philosophy, one must first THINK.
> The poster of the
> intended rebuttal has regurgitated bookishness alone (and
> incorrectly).
Nope.
> Such thinking is sophist, not philosophical.
And using enthymemes isn't sophistry. Right.
>
> Thank you.Tron, for illustrating the point!
We aim to please.
T