Materialism (championed by Darwinists) makes reason Impossible.

lemurien said:
Luckily, science is not all there is.
In addition to the whats and the hows we have to have some whys also.
Science is not very strong in the human whys.
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Why would it be that Science is not very strong in the human whys it seems that the human whys are science whys and why anyone would say different is a question of what their whys are.
 
Dancing David said:
Actually the shamans would be saying "Don't in that cave, a bear lives there."

You mean religious mystics!
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Those we convince to sacrifice themselves to the Bear Spirit so we can lure it out and kill it and get our cave back. We also allow the philosophers the qualia of skinning and butchering the bear.
 
lemurien said:
Luckily, science is not all there is.
In addition to the whats and the hows we have to have some whys also.
Science is not very strong in the human whys.
Click to expand...

What ways of knowing are you referring to? How can their success be measured?
 
lemurien said:
Luckily, science is not all there is.
In addition to the whats and the hows we have to have some whys also.
Science is not very strong in the human whys.
Click to expand...

The sad thing is, there is almost certainly no "why". There is a lot of how (how are we here ? Abiogenesis, Evolution ; how do we function ? See biology ; etc...) , but there is no evidence of a why (as in , the universe having a goal or meaning to our existence).

So basically the human-"whys" are almost certainly a meaningless artefact.

It all fit together if you see the unvierse as a set of physical law without any intelligence whatsoever.

Make your own "because" live be merry, and die.
 
lemurien said:
Luckily, science is not all there is.
In addition to the whats and the hows we have to have some whys also.
Science is not very strong in the human whys.
Click to expand...

Whys are great but Harry Potter won't cure your illness, Moby Dick won't feed the hungry and Black Swan will not provide energy.
 
tsig said:
Those we convince to sacrifice themselves to the Bear Spirit so we can lure it out and kill it and get our cave back. We also allow the philosophers the qualia of skinning and butchering the bear.
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"Let us wait until winter, the bear will sleep and is easier to kill, unless you are going to offer your self"
 
tsig said:
Why would it be that Science is not very strong in the human whys it seems that the human whys are science whys and why anyone would say different is a question of what their whys are.
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You are making me dizzy.
Science is more like 'how come' whys.
Human whys are 'I feel like' whys which science has traditionally avoided.
 
Aepervius said:
The sad thing is, there is almost certainly no "why". There is a lot of how (how are we here ? Abiogenesis, Evolution ; how do we function ? See biology ; etc...) , but there is no evidence of a why (as in , the universe having a goal or meaning to our existence).

So basically the human-"whys" are almost certainly a meaningless artefact.

It all fit together if you see the unvierse as a set of physical law without any intelligence whatsoever.

Make your own "because" live be merry, and die.
Click to expand...

Human intelligence is working along the same Darwinian principle as is the biosphere in general. That is basically why biosphere's workings appear 'intelligent'. A closer look at our intelligence reveals that the process with which it functions is not intelligent at all. The result is.

Human feelings have been treated like avoidable artefacts even in neurosciences. This is changing now. It is impossible to model the human mentation if feelings are not taken to account.

Throughout the animal kingdom we can observe emotional states.
Attraction and avoidance. Calm or excitement.
We cannot explain animal behavior without emotions.

Feelings are emotions that have become available to our consciousness. They govern our whys. Calling them artefacts is a type II error. (Accepting a null hypothesis when it is false)
Not artefacts.
 
Sideroxylon said:
What ways of knowing are you referring to? How can their success be measured?
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The ways of knowing that never reach our consciousness.
For instance, look at tennis players. They know where the ball is going to land just by the way the opponent is moving. Returning the ball requires action that is far too rapid to involve rational thought.

Or the instances where you are making an important decision.
Why is it important? Mostly because you feel like it. If you are not in a hurry, you can do excel and look at the bottom line. Most real life situations do not allow for such an approach.

Then most of the time we know what is right and what is wrong just like that. There are situations where values conflict and they are problematic. Problematic decisions alert consciousness to take part.
Most of the time we just do the right thing without much thought.
It has to do with the basic need to be good or at least accepted.
 
you can google emotions+decision+making, there are some good reviews in .pdf format
 
lemurien said:
The ways of knowing that never reach our consciousness.
For instance, look at tennis players. They know where the ball is going to land just by the way the opponent is moving. Returning the ball requires action that is far too rapid to involve rational thought.

Or the instances where you are making an important decision.
Why is it important? Mostly because you feel like it. If you are not in a hurry, you can do excel and look at the bottom line. Most real life situations do not allow for such an approach.

Then most of the time we know what is right and what is wrong just like that. There are situations where values conflict and they are problematic. Problematic decisions alert consciousness to take part.
Most of the time we just do the right thing without much thought.
It has to do with the basic need to be good or at least accepted.
Click to expand...

You are talking about intuition, perhaps for want of a better word. It is a very useful least-cost heuristic. How can we use intuition to reliably answer questions about ourselves or the world around us? How can it answer the "why" questions that you spoke about it the post I replied to?

Intuition is useful where fast, least-cost answers are required, as in sports and social interactions. As for its usefulness in knowing ourselves and the world around us, it can serve as a source of hypotheses which can then be tested through the scientific method. No other way of knowing comes close as a source of reliable and useful knowledge.
 
Call it intuition if you like. I think it is a misnomer. The latin origin means something like looking inside and the term has become to mean 'knowing something without reflection'.

Mammals have been thriving for millions of years before the scientific method was available. They must have been doing something right without knowing it.
Could say that they have been using their intuition? I don't think so.

The unconscious processes are going on in our heads as well. The human consciousness is a recent contributor to the success of Sapiens Sapiens. It is only small part of what our brain is producing. We do not normally pay attention to our automatic functions. It is only when something does not go as expected that the situation becomes available to consciousness or awareness, in short, to be rationally processed.

The filtration takes place 'in the dark', outside of the light beam of our attention.
This explains blind spots, fixed ideas and various forms of confabulations that we come up with when facing an unexpected situation, especially if it is because of our own stupidity.

I am not contesting the value of the scientific method. I would not be able to discuss the role of emotions in our thinking if nobody would have found out about it using recent methods of data acquisition and processing.

What I am trying to do is to point out that the animal automatisms have served our ancestors very well and they are still serving us. Trying to pretend that they do not exist or that our everyday life is not affected by them is a serious mistake.

Now, why do you think that people cannot read other people's messages on this forum but create straw men, see things that aren't there and refuse to acknowledge their mistakes? Rational human beings would not do that. Real ones do.
 
Akhenaten said:
Really? Gosh!

I suppose we could just google the entire OP for that matter, couldn't we?

Thank you, Captain Obvious. Your work here is done.
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If you have Skype, I can read an article for you aloud if the mental effort of googling seems too heavy.
 
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