BothAndBlog Forum

Implications of Darwinian Theory
https://thephilosophyforum.com/profile/ ... 473/gnomon

OP : "Evolutionary Overreach: Midgley suggests that some scientists and science popularizers overreach by making broad philosophical or moral claims based on evolutionary theory. They treat evolution not just as a biological theory but as a complete worldview or ideology."

I suggest that the 'subjective essence of experience' is one of the connotations of the term 'being' when used as a noun - that 'a being' is precisely the kind of entity that possesses the element of subjectivity, even if in rudimentary form. This is the point at which qualities of being a.k.a qualia start to become manifest. — Wayfarer

Wow! That is a deep philosophical insight. But, like all philosophical intuitions, it may not convince those who require physical evidence. Could subjectivity be evolutionarily associated with some physical development, like Broca's bit of brain? Seriously, I'm just kidding. :joke:


Not of my devising. It’s really just an implication of Chalmer’s ‘facing up to the problem of consciousness’. — Wayfarer
OK. But I like your phrasing of the "problem of Consciousness" (psychology) in terms of the problem of Being (ontology) and Becoming (evolution).

First BE (physical instantiation), then Become (animation), then Know (perception), then know-that-you-Know (conception), then study how you know (reduction), then argue incessantly about why you think you Know what's possible-but-not-actual (erudition).

PS___ That last parenthetical term was supposed to be "philosophy", but I was looking for a word that ended in "---tion". :joke:

To Wayfarer :
It seems like your plan is to beat materialism in kind with a material notion of spirit, a consciousness that is essentially the antiquated form of spirit itself, as the divine inside a divine subject. It is the idea of Jesus Christ, the embodiment of the divine in human form. And this whole thing seems caught in this post-Christian paradigm. In it we are constantly avoiding a notion of spirit while still operating within it.
Or maybe this higher level consciousness rests in empty actuality. — kudos

↪Wayfarer can speak for himself. In my opinion, he is the wisest poster on this forum, and with the fewest blind-spots.

I don't know where you found the notion of "a material notion of spirit" in his last post. That may be due to a "blind spot" of your own, which interprets everything in the world based on belief in an unproven axiom : PanMaterialism. Which seems caught in a post-Renaissance paradigm. Ironically, 20th century Quantum physics discovered a fundamental inter-connection between Mind and Matter*1. But the role (participation) of an observer's mind was quickly swept under the rug by the dominant class of classical (materialist) physicists.

Way did use the term "substance", but in the Aristotelian sense of Ousia (being ; existence)*2. FWIW, I interpret Wayfarer's use of "substance" as more closely related to Platonic Form (idea ; essence ; design ; concept)*2. Which is abhorrent to Materialists, who denigrate it as a spooky spirit or ghost : a la The Ghost in the Machine. Materialists seem to have a blind spot for the ancient philosophical concept of an immaterial general quality that makes an individual material thing (quanta) what it is.

Bergson's elan vital referred, not to a ghost, but to an organizing principle in nature. Since the Big Bang, Nature seems to have a self-organizing power that Materialists take for granted, but are loathe to give it a name*3. In the biological sciences it is recognized as essential to evolutionary development, but they label it as "spontaneous"*4 (a chain of accidents tending toward complexity & integration?) to imply that an "external stimulus" was not necessary. Similarly, astrophysicists assume, as an unproven axiom, that the Big Bang was a spontaneous or random event without precedence : pop goes the chaos, which evolves into a cosmos. And yet, some scientists --- bothered by the something-from-nothing implication --- have postulated an imaginary "external stimulus" in the form of an eternal material Multiverse.


*1. Is Scientific Materialism "Almost Certainly False"? :
According to the physicist John Wheeler, quantum mechanics implies that our observations of reality influence its unfolding. We live in a "participatory universe," Wheeler proposed, in which mind is as fundamental as matter.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cr ... nly-false/

*2. What is the difference between substance and essence in Aristotle? :
Essence is what makes a thing that particular thing. In other words, essence is what makes “that chair.” Substance is what makes a thing a general thing. In other words, substance is what makes “a chair.”
https://o-g-rose-writing.medium.com/ess ... c2b707c0d8

*3. Self-organization, also called spontaneous order in the social sciences, is a process where some form of overall order arises from local interactions ..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-organization
Note --- Quantum physics is characterized by non-locality. Not divine intervention, but holistic inter-action.

*4. Spontaneous : performed or occurring as a result of a sudden inner impulse or inclination and without premeditation or external stimulus.

↪Gnomon
What is PanMaterialism? I Googled it and found nothing. — kudos

All-matter-all-the time-every-where. I just made-up a name to serve as an analogy with PanPsychism (all mind) or PanTheism (all god). My tongue-in-cheek intention was not to propose a new religion, but to draw attention to the secular "religion of our times"*1.

Materialism is not a synonym for "science", but an unprovable assumption or belief system or worldview*2. It began as the ancient philosophy/science of Atomism, not as a substitute for pagan religions*3. Even after thousands of years of argumentation, Atomism still has no explanation for such "hard" questions as the emergence of Consciousness in a material world.

Darwin's evolutionary theory did not require any divine intervention, but it did not assert that matter-is-all-there-is, and left open the question of Causation*4. It did however posit a replacement for direct divine intervention with random (statistical) accidents & innate selection criteria (specifications). The all-powerful-matter interpretation was added by those who wanted a secular alternative to Christian Creationism*5. But Materialism has also been used to fill all open & abstract philosophical questions with objective concrete stuff. Unfortunately, it tends to be leaky in the joints around subjective ideas, opinions & feelings.


*1. Materialism as a Worldview :
John Searle, the eminent professor of philosophy at U.C. Berkeley, once said that "there is a sense in which materialism is the religion of our time." . . . . Perhaps we can see how relevant materialism is to Darwinian evolution. For if materialism is true then something very much like Darwinism must be true. . . . . The explicit materialism of the Darwinians is the mirror image of creationism.
https://evolutionnews.org/2013/09/what_is_the_wor/

*2. Definitions of "-ism" :
a belief (or system of beliefs) accepted as authoritative by some group or school. synonyms: doctrine, philosophical system, philosophy, school of thought.
https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/ism

*3. Atomism is a metaphysical doctrine that asserts the existence of indivisible material unities that constitute all other material objects. This was suggested by several ancient philosophers and was revived by physicists when they discovered what we now call atoms (though they aren’t indivisible) . . . .
Materialism is a broad term in philosophy which posits that the subject at hand is ‘material’ or physically grounded. This usually takes the form of a metaphysical position on the nature of reality which contrasts with ‘immaterialism’ or ‘idealism’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomism

*4. Darwin's First Cause :
On the Origin of Species reflects theological views. Though he thought of religion as a tribal survival strategy, Darwin still believed that God was the ultimate lawgiver, and later recollected that at the time he was convinced of the existence of God as a First Cause and deserved to be called a theist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious ... les_Darwin

*5. Materialism in academia is a fundamentalist belief system :
Materialism is the worldview that the only thing that exists is matter. Everything is matter. Not just tea cups and horses, but feelings of love and joy, thoughts and emotions, the taste of an apple, the beauty of a sunset. They are all matter.
https://www.essentiafoundation.org/mate ... m/reading/