Evolution of the Human species

[Mitch Cronin]

From The World According to Mitch:

Natural selection, in the case of humans, for the greater portion of our existence as a species, has ensured that by now, we'd be able to do three basic things, rather well:

1- Defend ourselves and our families - work in numbers defending family, tribe, villiage, or country, from all manner of beasts.

2- Feed and shelter ourselves and family.

3- Violent accomplishment of points one and two when necessary.

That third point may seem as though it's just a part of 1 and 2, and doesn't need it's own category, but it most certainly does! It is aggression. We have evolved to attack and kill when that accomplishes our two first goals.

So, if we don't kill ourselves off, or get wiped out by some natural cause, ...until enough generations of us who survive well without that need to be good at point 3 above, overpopulate the rest, ...and that genetically inherited ability dies off, the killing will likely continue. You'll have to ask the geneticists how long that will take.

[DEFCON]

Mitch

I don’t think the traits listed would properly qualify as a product of ‘Natural Selection’.

For instance; let’s suppose there is a group of a thousand smart, educated people that are fully capable in every human respect living in a village.

Meanwhile, over the hill lives a band of ten thousand savage primitive types that want the food the other has produced.

The savages, incapable of producing their own food suddenly come over the hill one day, take the smaller group by surprise, kill everyone and take the bounty.

Numerical superiority has carried the day for the savages, not ‘Natural Selection’.

The ability to be ‘violent’ is inherent in all of ‘God’s’ creatures (sorry, couldn’t resist) under the appropriate circumstances.

[AME]

From The World According to Mitch:

Natural selection, in the case of humans, for the greater portion of our existence as a species, has ensured that by now, we'd be able to do three basic things, rather well:

1- Defend ourselves and our families - work in numbers defending family, tribe, villiage, or country, from all manner of beasts.

2- Feed and shelter ourselves and family.

3- Violent accomplishment of points one and two when necessary.

That third point may seem as though it's just a part of 1 and 2, and doesn't need it's own category, but it most certainly does! It is aggression. We have evolved to attack and kill when that accomplishes our two first goals.

So, if we don't kill ourselves off, or get wiped out by some natural cause, ...until enough generations of us who survive well without that need to be good at point 3 above, overpopulate the rest, ...and that genetically inherited ability dies off, the killing will likely continue. You'll have to ask the geneticists how long that will take.

Mitch

There is one other thing that will unite humans and that is a common enemy right now there are a number of human tribes but if there was a common enemy and humanity became one tribe then and only then will there be an end to the killing and hatred

The world according to me

[Canus Chinookus]

AME's right. It's all about tribalism when you get right down to it.

[Don Hudson]

Mitch;

The question is interesting so I thought I might offer a comment if I may?

Although "it" ("evolution") doesn't know, the process of evolution as we know and describe it, is best thought about as an algorithm. The process is not anticipatory nor does it have a memory of what was "successful" - it just "is".

I would suggest that our common notions of "success" and "failure" don't exist for Evolution - those are our ideas, not evolution's - again, Evolution just "is".

Perhaps one example of this kind of thinking which we might call, "anthropomorphic" is the way we talk about the world we live in "as though" it were "ours", there for our use, our pleasure and our sustenance.

Not so; we emerged in the form we did through unanticipated, non-prescient processes; Were we to "run the tape again", there is a very good chance that, given a different environment, we would not have taken the form we did, (legs/arms/brain-case, organs, etc).

Should cyano-bacteria never have evolved, for example, our present oxygen-rich atmosphere which was highly poisonous to most life-forms of the time may not have evolved and we would be CO2-breathers. The Burgess Shale, to which I have hiked, represents life-forms which suffered an-almost complete mass-extinction as there are no direct antecedent life-forms existing today which connect to the pre-Camnbrian life-explosion - similarities but, (as I read, anyway), no direct genetic link. Had such a mass-extinction not occurred, (and there are other geological records of such extinctions), our life-forms may never have evolved. There is nothing which is urgently necessary, obvious or natural about the way "we" have evolved - we just "are", as the algorithms favoured; Our forms have no "destiny" other than that which evolution, and the possibility of another mass extinction favours. We have a slight amount of control over our own destiny however, and that is a fascinating, but separate topic!

Regarding "the environment", it isn't "ours" per se, but it is nevertheless temporarily congenial to "us". Like evolution itself, the present "earth life-support system" doesn't "anticipate" change. There is no such concept as "the environment defending itself against harm wrought by one species or another"; - "our (man's) needs" are unimportant and unknown to "the environment" in which we survive, (or not). It isn't even "up to us" to ensure "mother nature" is looked after, unless we wish to continue the species. In other words, there is no special status for "us" within the living system called "earth".

The corollary to such thinking has caused untold harm to that which nourishes our continued existence - if we believe that "god" will somehow "rescue" mankind, that permits a certain "fouling of the nest", perhaps economically driven and "justified." Such thinking is only recent - previously we lived "within nature", relating to the natural world and its cycles, but both tecnology and it's commercial cousin, the "Industrial Revolution" have begun to separate us from our natural world and our origins. Some say this is the "new evolutionary force". Perhaps - the next million years will tell us.

That separation started only in the last two hundred years or so but it is already measurably changing "our" environment, the details of which are a matter of local, continuing discussion and argument. Of course, neither "the environment" nor "evolution" as we label such factors and forces "know" who we are and will continue to respond to the introduction of changes to the cycles which have sustained the present congenial atmosphere, ocean and land.

The present life-system, which some used to call "Gaia", (bit romantic for me - it has no idea "who"or "what" it is .... it just "is"), responds as any cybernetic system to input and feedback, the changes of which often take eons to emerge.

So if I might offer one way to respond to your notions and points - I think the processes of evolution are not "at work" at the level of "one tribe defending itself against all comers", etc, but certainly the protection of one's reproductive capacity, one's progeny and one's identity-in-the-group are evolutionary facts.

In examining these notions, sometimes there can be a slight hint of Lamarkism at work in our interpretations as well - the notion that changed characteristics such as learning and skill-building (war-making), can be inherited by the next generation even though "defence of the species" is a strong evoluitionary response?

The "miracle of life-as-evolution" is that it "is", at all. Given the fact that we are "alive", there are far, far Vaster ways of "not being alive".

Also, cognitive science has made tremendous advances in understanding the nature of consciousness itself and how the brain "works". Richard Restak has written some really interesting books on this topic.

It is these notions which, when considered as the background against which our fondest hopes, wishes, desires and illusions are placed, that leads us to far different conclusions about our "place" in the world, if there is indeed a place at all. It is for these reasons I think, that great care regarding our special place, (that we "are" instead of "aren't"), and, at the same time, great reservations as to our final importance in the world, must be taken into consideration.

Don't know if any of this helps or hinders. Religion and religious metaphors and dialogue have a strangle-hold on most of these notions though such holds are reducing as more consider the possibilities of such understandings. The other stranglehold on ideas is language itself of which it might be said, has no metaphysical equivalent "out there", (because "out there" is always-and-already "in-here", as we cannot know the world otherwise), and is instead our local interpretation of the world, manifested in our special sound utterances, (made possible purely by the structure of the jaw, the larynx, the tongue and the brain).

Realizing these notions as even possible is, I recognize, a challenge to established notions of a certain "given-ness" and "special status in the universe" which is the hallmark of belief systems which organized religion, at one time, may have provided. Today, many more consider such notions as possible, probable and fact. None of this obviates a spirituality and an abiding, deep affinity with the world or with the universe - we are, after all, "made of star stuff" as Sagan said - it is "where we came from". We are special, but not because we are "god's people", but because we "are", instead of "aren't". As such, it is up to us what, if anything, we might do about the whole matter.

[Mitch Cronin]

They were just some thoughts that floated by after I'd watched a documentary on Darwin this morning...

Somewhere... anywhen, as all threats existed, those who could fight lived to spawn newer generations. Fighting in packs, just as with wolves, wasn't the genetic thing, nor anything else that was learned behaviour... but things like the quick generation of adrenaline for fight-or-flight, and strength, agility and mass needed to survive the fights, was. Those with poor relative intelligence wouldn't do as well as others...Those with the inclination to make love, not war, would have all been killed off (but maybe not before they had lots of babies?), Etc... Those with the inate ability to survive by whatever means, were necessarily our ancestors.

We needed intelligence, for adaptation and good decisions, and we needed enough animal in us to fight. Most of those without either, wouldn't survive long enough to see to the survival of their progeny.

Fight we will.....

Ever since our civilizations have eliminated that need (if indeed they have?) we've been slowly rendering that natural adaptation useless. Survival, and more to the point, survival of our own genetic make-up, no longer depends on that ability. Plenty of people without a good fight in them, will survive and have babies.

Hopefully, one day they'll outnumber those who still have that fight in them.

Don... Of course you may! Forevermore hold that knowlege so you'll not have to add the words again.

I can see us in that context quite easily as you describe it. It's a view that doesn't seem to me to lend itself well to pleasant extensions of the view. One can readily come to the conclusion that absolutely none of what happens within our own little spere of existence in time really matters.... Morality then comes into question. If, after all nothing matters, then why can't I kill my neighbor to take what he has? So what if I get caught and go to jail for the rest of my life?, that doesn't matter either... etc.... ...It's much more fun to imagine purpose and method in all the madness.

Who knows... maybe a closet geneticist in the crowd will tell me we've already lived in a "civilized society" long enough to have had enough generations of people surviving quite well without ever having noticed their great-grandfathers were born wimps by genetic mutation? ....but I doubt it.

Cheers

[Moon The Loon]

You always ask the simple questions Mitch

There's really not a lot that separates us from others in the animal kingdom, from the largest mammals to the most microscopic of bacteria:

1. Survival. The most important trait. Nothing else matters.

2. Pro-creation. If we survive our environment, we can then reproduce.

3. Quality of Life. This is where I think most of us in the west tend to dwell as we take #'s 1 & 2 for granted.

In that regard, what separates us from the others? We think we're more important/relevant/superior/God's children. Pick one.

My personal thinking about how we got here, thus separating ourselves from other species, was the ability to learn how to create and control fire. I would really like to go back in time (my own time) to study biology and try to determine if and how enzymes in cooked food may have altered the brain of early homo sapiens. I'm too old for that kind of study now and besides, my brain hurts everytime I have to learn something new.

Still an interesting road to follow, eh?

[deicer]

An interesting view on this topic...

http://dotsub.com/view/84f5c72d-b0ba-408c-ace3-8cc40995e011

[Don Hudson]

Hi Mitch;

Re, "One can readily come to the conclusion that absolutely none of what happens within our own little spere of existence in time really matters.... Morality then comes into question. If, after all nothing matters, then why can't I kill my neighbor to take what he has? So what if I get caught and go to jail for the rest of my life?, that doesn't matter either... etc.... ...It's much more fun to imagine purpose and method in all the madness.

Such notions as "nothing matters" are expressed in forms of Existentialism. Some view these notions as nihilistic and point to Nietszche, concluding that "anything goes because it may as well." Nietszche's exclamation that "God is dead" references the notion that a cultural, psychological, philosophical god - an all-seeing, all-powerful father-figure who, according to the Old Testament, punishes sinners, rewards believers and controls men through fear, guilt and loathing, no longer has a societal, psychological foundation upon which a legitimacy of the concept is sustainable.

Kierkegaard demands that a "leap of faith" is necessary to believe in God but was also cognizant of the same shifting philosophical sands Nietszche was and wrote of these losses in the early 1800's. Kierkegaard was a deeply religious man but challenged Hegel's notion of a "permanent, fixed, rational God towards which/whom unwavering allegiance must be paid" in a way that foreshadowed what has widely happened in our own society today - the loss of religion as a cognitive "home".

I think a discussion about "why things matter" might be interesting in the face of such a loss, at least in western culture. For Buddhists and, I suspect, for Muslims, such a loss, and the notions of existentialism would have little or no direct meaning or relevancy because cultural, psychological, philosophical and even "economic/industrial" experiences are substantially different for eastern cultures vice western culture and history.

I think linking the two notions of "our existence in the world" and "god" does not necessarily require us to behave towards each other differently, (with different ethics as expressed in moral behaviour), than if there were no god and everything was "meaningless", leaving us "free" to do as we please.

Whether "God exists" for us and we are "Her children" or whether we are the result of an algorithmic process which is wholly benign and which is neither accident nor design but "just is", does not change what happens to us psychologically and socially if we suddenly behave as if "nothing mattered".

What is different, and, I think, what has always been different is, "we" decide, not "God", and are deeply troubled by the responsibility.

I think that leaving "meaning" up to the notion of god masks the loneliness of that fundamental decide-ability. Conversely, if we consider, comprehend and accept such responsibility, it is "ours" and is as commanding in its guidance of our values and behaviours as any religion might be.

We are meaning-making creatures and we are "moral" creatures in the sense that we live by values and goals which we internalize as children from our parents and as we grow in age and mature, from our culture.

So in a very profound sense, we are not "free" to do as we please if there is no god, nor can we declare that if we are here as a result of the processes of evolution, nothing has meaning. I think it does have rich meaning, but our history has linked the notion of a religious god with the notion that we, and our behaviours and choices, are only important and have meaning if such a god exists to "give" such meaning.

Decideability has no foundation other than what we make it, and I can't think of anything more meaningful and important even for our mere survival. As has been described by many, the moment we invoke the notion of a god who will ultimately rescue us from our follies and mistakes, we dump all responsibility for our caring of ourselves and our tiny home, on "someone else".

The result at least in western cultures is, non-sustainable behaviours such as destruction of congeniality of our home or the rape of Mother Nature, is justified.

For example, for many, many centuries, the link between "good" business practise and western religions had nothing to do with god, worship or our presence on earth but with success in business including the business of the church. Weber's, "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism" is a classic sociological study in these notions. They have nothing to do with "god" except as a Utilitarian God who rewards "industry" in all its socially-constructed meanings.

Since the beginning of the last century, I think it has become apparent that it is time to grow our horizon a little more. The photos which NASA took of the earth from the moon have helped a little.

While the present notions are also "of history" and will in centuries to come, be viewed as quaint in their own way, we must realize that it is us that make history, it is us that tell us who we are and it is us who define our gods as we may need them. Whether there is a god beyond a socially-constructed one as described in history, may become less a matter of personal faith than an "at-oneness" with the universe which gave us life - nothing is given and nothing is defined except that which we ourselves define through language and signs, and that I think is part of "maturing".

[Mitch Cronin]

Such notions as "nothing matters" are expressed in forms of Existentialism. Some view these notions as nihilistic and point to Nietszche, concluding that "anything goes because it may as well." Nietszche's exclamation that "God is dead" references the notion that a cultural, psychological, philosophical god - an all-seeing, all-powerful father-figure who, according to the Old Testament, punishes sinners, rewards believers and controls men through fear, guilt and loathing, no longer has a societal, psychological foundation upon which a legitimacy of the concept is sustainable.

Kierkegaard demands that a "leap of faith" is necessary to believe in God but was also cognizant of the same shifting philosophical sands Nietszche was and wrote of these losses in the early 1800's. Kierkegaard was a deeply religious man but challenged Hegel's notion of a "permanent, fixed, rational God towards which/whom unwavering allegiance must be paid" in a way that foreshadowed what has widely happened in our own society today - the loss of religion as a cognitive "home".

I think a discussion about "why things matter" might be interesting in the face of such a loss, at least in western culture. For Buddhists and, I suspect, for Muslims, such a loss, and the notions of existentialism would have little or no direct meaning or relevancy because cultural, psychological, philosophical and even "economic/industrial" experiences are substantially different for eastern cultures vice western culture and history.

I think linking the two notions of "our existence in the world" and "god" does not necessarily require us to behave towards each other differently, (with different ethics as expressed in moral behaviour), than if there were no god and everything was "meaningless", leaving us "free" to do as we please.

Whether "God exists" for us and we are "Her children" or whether we are the result of an algorithmic process which is wholly benign and which is neither accident nor design but "just is", does not change what happens to us psychologically and socially if we suddenly behave as if "nothing mattered".

What is different, and, I think, what has always been different is, "we" decide, not "God", and are deeply troubled by the responsibility.

I think that leaving "meaning" up to the notion of god masks the loneliness of that fundamental decide-ability. Conversely, if we consider, comprehend and accept such responsibility, it is "ours" and is as commanding in its guidance of our values and behaviours as any religion might be.

We are meaning-making creatures and we are "moral" creatures in the sense that we live by values and goals which we internalize as children from our parents and as we grow in age and mature, from our culture.

So in a very profound sense, we are not "free" to do as we please if there is no god, nor can we declare that if we are here as a result of the processes of evolution, nothing has meaning. I think it does have rich meaning, but our history has linked the notion of a religious god with the notion that we, and our behaviours and choices, are only important and have meaning if such a god exists to "give" such meaning.

Decideability has no foundation other than what we make it, and I can't think of anything more meaningful and important even for our mere survival. As has been described by many, the moment we invoke the notion of a god who will ultimately rescue us from our follies and mistakes, we dump all responsibility for our caring of ourselves and our tiny home, on "someone else".

The result at least in western cultures is, non-sustainable behaviours such as destruction of congeniality of our home or the rape of Mother Nature, is justified.

For example, for many, many centuries, the link between "good" business practise and western religions had nothing to do with god, worship or our presence on earth but with success in business including the business of the church. Weber's, "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism" is a classic sociological study in these notions. They have nothing to do with "god" except as a Utilitarian God who rewards "industry" in all its socially-constructed meanings.

Since the beginning of the last century, I think it has become apparent that it is time to grow our horizon a little more. The photos which NASA took of the earth from the moon have helped a little.

While the present notions are also "of history" and will in centuries to come, be viewed as quaint in their own way, we must realize that it is us that make history, it is us that tell us who we are and it is us who define our gods as we may need them. Whether there is a god beyond a socially-constructed one as described in history, may become less a matter of personal faith than an "at-oneness" with the universe which gave us life - nothing is given and nothing is defined except that which we ourselves define through language and signs, and that I think is part of "maturing".

Hi Don.... I've been sitting on this one... As with many of your posts, any inclination to offer a quick response is either swiftly blown away, or, if actually acted upon, forever a cause of regret. ... ahem.... ok, sorry...

I know little of Nietszche, Kierkegaard and Existentialism... only what little I've run across in books not on the subject, and from friends who stayed in school much longer than I....

I think maybe an existentialist resides in all of us, who can be rustled up in a moment...

For some, that moment could be as simple and swift as a pin drop... and for others, it could be a long, drawn out, meandering course, through a series of hardships and misery.

The cool thing is, it's a lot easier to be happy. ....[side note: Did you know that as recently as last year --this, according to a doctor I spoke with recently, in a conversation where I told him of a book I'd read where a psychiatrist had said "as recently as 1987..."] ..."happiness" was being seriously proposed as an addition to the catalog of recognized "disorders"?!? Thankfully, it has NOT been included.]

In a discussion of "why things matter", my own suggestion would be that it's only because they matter to others. We don't steal our neighbor's stuff because it would matter to him. We don't grab that gorgeous babe at work and boff her right there on the floor, because it would matter to her.... I don't run tripple seven's full of gas (at the moment), because it would matter to the other guys I had with me... .... If we can feel for others, their feelings matter to us... That's called 'empathy' isn't it? I think that's why things matter. If you were alone on the planet..... could you find anything that mattered?

....oops... I got sidetracked there... lemme digest and read this again later.

[Guest The Real World]

Post hoc ergo propter hoc.

[Guest The Real World]

The premise implies we only do three things rather well.

[Don Hudson]

Mitch;

Re, "I think maybe an existentialist resides in all of us, who can be rustled up in a moment..."

Yes, I think so. While few of us know philosophers such as Nietszche, Hegel, Heidegger, Sartre or Camus, their work has deeply permeated western culture far more than we realize. That's why I think it's important to study philosophy - because it examines or perhaps "de-constructs" our thinking so that we become aware of some of our assumptions behind taken-for-granted world views. I think it is entirely compatible with a very practical life and practical approach to personal endeavours, business and technology.

Things change rather dramatically when, all of a sudden, there is no "father figure" looking over our shoulder to judge whether we have been "good" or not, and there is no place where we are "rewarded" for being good or "punished" for being "bad". In my view, moving away from a "parent-child" relationship with "the Other" is a sign of a psychological maturing. That is a large aspect of the "existentialist" in us. I think it has permeated our culture so deeply that we can now say these things in public and there are fewer and fewer raised eyebrows (or violent reactions!).

Far from being a terrifying thing, the encounter with "Nothing-ness", (or as some say, "the Abyss"), can be a liberating experience when we realize that our daily actions and our future are indeed in our hands, under rules we, not "god", make up. Organized religion has much to answer for in terms of power and social control mechanisms, the purposes of which are authority and judgement, not spirituality and communion. I read Matthew, (NIV) and find it wholly appropriate for how one might conduct oneself for oneself or in public life but the world as interpreted and viewed through Buddhist eyes also is wholly appropriate for how one might conduct oneself as a person in the world, although Buddhism is far less prone to judging human beings.

Clearly, a discussion far too complex for a few posts - the intent is to suspend judgement while preferencing and raising curiosity.

For wonderfully accessible interpretations of philosophy, while there are many such series, the "...For Beginners" series of books is really good. "Philosophy for Beginners", "Existentialism for Beginnners", etc etc are all very accessible and don't leave one feeling either angry at the author for being so obscure or dizzy from leaving one's familiar surroundings. If one does nothing more than read a few of these, one's view of the world and "us-in-the-world" changes.

If one views organized institutions (such as religion, psychiatry, medicine, industry/business, law, and so on) as power structures with a high degree of social legitimation, one may then see how the foundations of such structures are built upon language itself. When observing this, we realize how powerful language is and why we are different from the other animals which still inhabit the earth. We have the physical capacity to make vowel and consonant sounds - lungs, a jaw, teeth, a tongue, a larynx, an epiglotus which is below the nasal passage, (unlike the primates) and a large brain which gradually became capable of complex imagination and concepts. We can "as-if", (metaphor-ize) the world as no other animal and therefore imagine a future and remember a past, through language. There notions are only distantly related to Existentialism because the power of such concepts lie in the expression of such concepts in language and do not reside in and of themselves outside language. Religion, "Atheism" and other such belief systems, therefore, are profoundly based in language. "Language is the House of Being", Heidegger (d. 1976) has written.

Jaques Derrida (d.2004) continued exploring notions which a guy by the name of Ferdinand Saussure first wrote about in the early 1900's regarding language and signs and what language really is. Language is really an "as-if" mechanism or more accurately, a signifier - every expression is a sign to convey something else so everything in language is necessarily related.

To describe "what is", we often need to describe "what isn't". "Paired-opposites" do this in a very targeted way - the idea of "mountain" can't exist without the notion of "valley", "good" must have "bad", Moral & Evil are paired, the notions of "you", and of "I" are paired in a very special way known as "the Other" - that which is "not-oneself" and so on. We cannot describe one thing without invoking metaphors which point to another thing or things, "like" (or not like), the thing we are describing - that sort of stuff! In fact when we speak, we necessarily, immediately, always-and-already, invoke those paired opposites as necessary realities.

When we say/describe a mountain, the notion of "valley" is automatically implied as "existing" as an implict thing - when some speak of "heaven", there is no meaning inherent in the notion unless there is "that place which is not 'heaven'" and we know the name by which that is called. We cannot speak of "peace" without some unspoken notion of "not-peace", (war, anger, hatred, etc). That process is unconscious and"automatic". Language is relational and contextual; its referents are other words, not physical realities outside of language - it cannot be otherwise. "Words 'R Us".

A cat has no idea "who" or "what" it is. It doesn't know it is "cute" or "cunning" etc, it just "is". A bird, a flower, a mountain, a cloud, a god, do not "know" what/who they are - they are "the signified", towards which we use words. The name of the thing is not the thing named and the map is not the actual territory - that territory is carried around in our cultural, collective minds as models which guide us and which we rarely question because of the extreme discomfort (called "nausea" in existentialism), which results.

If we realize that all language "stands for" or signifies something which we have in mind but need a signifier to point to - that which is signified- "words" are signfiers and they point to the signified. But words are imprecise because there is no actual "thing" being pointed to that is equivalent to what we have in mind - it is always and already, only a rough approximation! Words are always and already interpreted by the Other, who is really only the "other" guy or gal we're talking to in the moment.

There's an "aha!" moment here too and one learns this aha very quickly after one is married, fails to follow instructions or misinterprets a situation which then has an embarrassing (or dangerous!) outcome. Communication is sometimes so difficult, so very frustrating when we KNOW in our own mind that we are being perfectly clear and so why the hell can't the person we're talking to see that?!! The Signifier and the Signified is one way of comprehending why - so philosophy is important and relevant in daily life in social intercourse - it's that Analytical Logic stuff that may be more tyrannical than informative!

What disagreements such mis-interpreted metaphors/signifiers lead to!! )

So this stuff isn't theoretical, academic, or obscure at all even as it might be very unfamiliar to most of us, (big problem in our educational system which has been shifted towards neo-liberalist, instrumental values or Training For Business, instead of anything to do with thinking, I digress), - philosophy has REAL results in daily life - people behave, make decisions, act and otherwise engage the "Other", (everyone else which isn't oneself!), based upon language and the complex, subtle processes of making meaning. We "language" both by common agreement and by proxy!

I had decided to drop from this thread & dialogue for a number of reasons which I mentioned in my pm but couldn't resist at least one entry on philosophy in the hopes that others might enjoy a similar path!

Don

[Guest The Real World]

Don

Interesting you mention Jacques Derrida. Controversial to say the least. Here are some criticisms of his work:

"..anyone who reads deconstructive texts with an open mind is likely to be struck by the same phenomena that initially surprised me: the low level of philosophical argumentation, the deliberate obscurantism of the prose, the wildly exaggerated claims, and the constant striving to give the appearance of profundity by making claims that seem paradoxical, but under analysis often turn out to be silly or trivial."

John Searle

Slusser Professor of Philosophy, Berkeley

Rhodes Scholar, Oxford

"He writes so obscurely you can't tell what he's saying, that's the obscurantism part, and then when you criticize him, he can always say, "You didn't understand me; you're an idiot." That's the terrorism part."

Michelle Foucault on Obscurantisme Terroriste

Pretentious rhetoric, dialogue, diction etc. can be used as way of intellectual bullying, but I digress. This idiot has some "For Beginners" reading to do.

Respectfully

The Real World

[Don Hudson]

The Real World;

Thanks for the reply. That one, I understood!

John Searle, ("Freedom and Neurobiology", which I have) is not the first nor the last to disagree, sometimes vehemently and emotionally, with Derrida. The battle Royale among academics at Cambridge over the awarding of an honorary doctorate is known as the "Cambridge Affair", with many academics decrying the award to "non-academic" work. The New York Times obituary was extremely, unforgivingly unkind to one who has passed on and was, in the view of many, a complete misunderstanding of Derrida's work and therefore a comment on the intellectual quality and capacity of the New York Times.

Dan Dennett, whom I quote often because I really like his view of the world would have fundamental differences with Derrida, and Noam Chomsky who's work I also really like described Derrida's work as "pretentious rhetoric" and would have strong disagreement with Derrida's approach to literary criticism, language, and his chosen field, philosophy. These men generally approach the world in the analytical method, privileging logic and rational thought which of course has a rich history in Kant. Yet coming to terms with the notions expressed in Saussure through Heidegger is no mean project and must be accounted for. Language cannot be fully explained if one listens only to Chomsky, Searle and others of the analytical schools. Heidegger himself makes many references to "eastern thought" and had many followers in Japan and China (1920's to 1950's), cultures which do not even "know", (in terms of living it), about western rational thought from Plato on. Eastern thought has much to offer these understandings but could never comprehend Kant, for example, (I'm a bit out on a limb here, but am willing to say it and look it up later! ).

I am among the first to admit that reading Derrida is extremely difficult not because of the concepts or obscure language but because of the meaning he places and attributes to ordinary language and words. He chose this approach quite consciously, to convey the sense that ordinary language is anything but ordinary however and it is this intentional approach to the "ordinariness of language" that offends the analytical philosophers.

However, I think Derrida is merely extending an already-extant view of language and philosophy rather than "writing to be obscure" and therefore somehow "important". Derrida's work has been and is today taken extremely seriously by many mainstream literary and philosophical writers such as John Captuto, (also a devout Catholic with a very quick wit) and many others. The explication of Derrida's "Of Grammatology" (1967), (Derrida's Of Grammatology by Arthur Bradley, Edinburgh Philosophical Guides), is very readable, but sure does challenge one's internalized view of the world and of language!

It is important to keep closely in mind that a work's complexity does not in and of itself make it valid or invalid, prescient or pretentious. As with any brand new ideas, (relatively speaking), the work has to be judged on its merits and "merits" requires a cultural context.

But as you point out, Derrida is most certainly not taken seriously in "Academia", (including UBC or SFU here, or at Toronto), nor in the Analytical philosophers' domain where Searle writes, so writers such as I have named here (and there are many others) are going to have a very strong reaction to the notion of "deconstruction" and Derrida's approach to language.

If I can offer anything by way of a personal opinion, (and I have no basis for doing so!), though Derrida cannot be "placed" or categorized yet, in my view, his work will gradually become "normal" (though we will not see the change over, say, fifty years), and we will be "swimming in a different psychological/cultural river" that will appear absolutely normal but which at the moment appears intellectually presumptuous and .

Both Searle and my lifelong hero Chomsky are being heavily challenged in their own writings; Syntactical Structures, which first appeared, (if I recall correctly) in 1958, had/has some extremely interesting things to say about humans being "pre-wired" for language and that the processes of language, thought and the making of meaning are beyond "inspection", (Gregory Bateson - "Mind and Nature", "An Ecology of Mind", also made this observation in the early 60's), and it seems reasonable to say this because the structure of language, (subject-predicate-object) is, with minor variations, (predicate-object-subject, etc), how almost all languages are structured.

Searle would take this further to state, (and I with my tiny little comprehension of this, believe me! find a home in this notion), that our biological structure both makes possible and limits our language response and that, (according to Dennett as well), instead of being the mysterious, obscure and therefore controversial notion it is, "consciousness" may be "easily" explained by referencing biological models of neuron-firings at billions of times per second, etc etc...that kind of idea, (very poorly explained, sorry). The notion is very tempting and of course the attempt is to deal with the notion of "Free Will vs Determinism", (which Dennett, in Freedom Evolves" has some really neat things to say).

For me, writing is always a "test" of one's thinking when it is placed before an anonymous group in the public marketplace of ideas and thoughts and pushed and pulled by others. Such posts, in the form of questions, not statements, tell me that there is a mind behind the writing, thankfully curious rarely cautious, always courteous. If I might digress for a moment; - it is the willingness to suspend judgement in favour of an abiding curiosity that I think is such a valuable trait in any discussion, (short of the kind we have when dealing with an engine fire!), and for me, Mitch does it every time including this one. That said, we'll always know what Mitch is thinking. There is no intent to be "right", or to seal a debate with a "win" - it is enough to keep the question open, for once it is "answered" it is no longer interesting. FWIW.

Don