“All Men by Nature Desire to Know”

When written history began five thousand years ago humans had already developed a great deal of knowledge. Much of that knowledge was of a very practical nature such as how to use animal skins for clothing, how to weave wool, how to hunt and fish etc. A large part of human knowledge was directed toward how to kill and torture fellow humans. I guess things never really change all that much.

In several parts of the world civilizations developed wherein people learned to create laws and to rule vast numbers of people. Some measure of peace and stability developed but there was yet no means for securing the people from their rulers. I guess things never really change all that much

Almost everywhere priests joined rulers in attempts to control the population. Despite these continual wars both of external and internal nature the human population managed to flourish. Egypt was probably one of the first long lasting and stable civilizations to grow up along the large rivers. Egypt survived almost unchanged for three thousand years. This success is attributed to its geographical location that gave it freedom from competition and fertile lands that were constantly replenished by the river overflowing its banks and thus depositing new fertile soil for farming.

Western philosophy emerged in the sixth century BC along the Ionian coast. A small group of scientist-philosophers began writing about their attempts to develop “rational” accounts regarding human experience. These early Pre-Socratic thinkers thought that they were dealing with fundamental elements of nature.

It is natural for humans to seek knowledge. In the “Metaphysics” Aristotle wrote “All men by nature desire to know”.

The attempt to seek knowledge presupposes that the world unfolds in a systematic pattern and that we can gain knowledge of that unfolding. Cognitive science identifies several ideas that seem to come naturally to us and labels such ideas as “Folk Theories”.

The Folk Theory of the Intelligibility of the World
The world makes systematic sense, and we can gain knowledge of it.

The Folk Theory of General Kinds
Every particular thing is a kind of thing.

The Folk Theory of Essences
Every entity has an “essence” or “nature,” that is, a collection of properties that makes it the kind of thing it is and that is the causal source of its natural behavior.

The consequences of the two theories of kinds and essences is:

The Foundational Assumption of Metaphysics
Kinds exist and are defined by essences.

We may not want our friends to know this fact but we are all metaphysicians. We, in fact, assume that things have a nature thereby we are led by the metaphysical impulse to seek knowledge at various levels of reality.

Cognitive science has uncovered these ideas they have labeled as Folk Theories. Such theories when compared to sophisticated philosophical theories are like comparing mountain music with classical music. Such theories seem to come naturally to human consciousness.

The information comes primarily from “Philosophy in the Flesh” and http://www.wku.edu/~jan.garrett/302/folkmeta.htm

Why should we not want our friends to know we try to grasp reality? That makes very little sense to me, as in most cases people pretend to know more of reality than they do.

But anyway, I find the Reciprocal Theory more interesting:

"all Men by Nature Know to Desire"

(do I have my capitals correct? )

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To the regular visitor of internet bulletin boards it is clear that it's an excellent idea your parents get to choose your real name.

And the rule for gay men and heterosexual women: All Desire by Nature to Know Men.

Apart from that: I have no idea what message you are trying to give.

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Knowledge is a curse, but ignorance is worse

A website summary

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To the regular visitor of internet bulletin boards it is clear that it's an excellent idea your parents get to choose your real name.

Same stuff, different day.

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[Dr. Horrible]___________________________[Penny]
Listen close to everybody's heart________And you believe there's good in everybody's heart
And hear that breaking sound_____________Keep it safe and sound
Hopes and dreams are shattering apart____With hope you can do your part
And crashing to the ground_______________To turn a life around

We have in our Western philosophy a traditional theory of faculty psychology wherein our reasoning is a faculty completely separate from the body. “Reason is seen as independent of perception and bodily movement.” It is this capacity of autonomous reason that makes us different in kind from all other animals. I suspect that many fundamental aspects of philosophy and psychology are focused upon declaring, whenever possible, the separateness of our species from all other animals.

This tradition of an autonomous reason began long before evolutionary theory and has held strongly since then without consideration, it seems to me, of the theories of Darwin and of biological science. Cognitive science has in the last three decades developed considerable empirical evidence supporting Darwin and not supporting the traditional theories of philosophy and psychology regarding the autonomy of reason. Cognitive science has focused a great deal of empirical science toward discovering the nature of the embodied mind.

How does this relate to your first post?

What is your intention with creating this thread?

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To the regular visitor of internet bulletin boards it is clear that it's an excellent idea your parents get to choose your real name.

Not sure if this belongs here, but hey, we're not sure if coberst's second post really relates to the first so why not?

One of the things that made my recent solstice holiday season was reading of the origin of the "Boar's Head Carol", traditionally sung at Queens College, Oxford, first published 1521.

It seems that a college student was walking through the nearby woods when he was attacked by a wild boar. The student had the presence of mind to jam the first thing he could get his hands on, a copy of a book of Aristotle, down the boar's throat, thereby choking the boar. When I read this I thought, "At last! A good use for philosophy! (And of Aristotle too!)"

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Microsoft is over if you want it.

The bar has been lowered for the promotion of ATM ideas; the bar for the acceptance of ATM ideas must remain high.

So philosophy is useless?

I'm not sure I entirely see the logic of that.

Edit: Not that I agree with Coberst, though. I don't get why he rambles on here...

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"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right." -- Thomas Paine

Being intelligent is not a felony. But most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor. -- Heinlein

Creationists make it sound as though a "theory" is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night. -- Isaac Asimov

Cognitive science has in the last three decades developed a great deal of evidence to support their theories that:
The mind in inherently embodied.
Thought is mostly unconscious.
Abstract concepts are largely metaphorical.

These consclusions are significantly different from Western traditional philosophical views. I am going to try to acquaint the reader with these theories for the possibility that the reader might be sufficiently curious about the matter to examine what cognitive science has accomplished.

These are revolutionary theories with a great deal of empirical evidence for support.

I might buy the last two items, but the first strikes me as word-salad. My dictionary gives the following definitions for embody:

1. to give a body to (a spirit): INCARNATE
2a. to deprive of spirituality
2b. to make concrete and perceptible
3. to cause to become a body or part of a body : INCORPORATE
4. to represent in human or animal form : PERSONIFY

I'm not at all sure which of these would characterize the mind, much less characterize it inherently, apart from the obvious meanings of 1 and 3. Of course my mind has a body, it is incarnate and incorporated in my body. When the body dies, so does my mind. This is so patently obvious I wonder why it took cognitive science to figure it out. Of course maybe all they're doing is validating the obvious . . .

As for the third one, "abstract concepts are largely metaphorical", I have to ask "so what?" More validating the obvious.

Now the second one, that might be interesting. How much of our thought is carried out, indeed has to be carried out subconsciously. (I don't think any real thinking goes on unconsciously, "unconscious thinking" is sort of oxymoron when you think about it--consciously or not!)

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Microsoft is over if you want it.

The bar has been lowered for the promotion of ATM ideas; the bar for the acceptance of ATM ideas must remain high.

Can we just lump men and women together? I am man and darn proud of it.

Cognitive science has radically attacked the traditional Western philosophical position that there is a dichotomy between perception and conception. This traditional view that perception is strictly a faculty of body and conception (the formation and use of concepts) is purely mental and wholly separate from and independent of our ability to perceive and move.

Cognitive science has introduced revolutionary theories that, if true, will change dramatically the views of Western philosophy. Advocates of the traditional view will, of course, “say that conceptual structure must have a neural realization in the brain, which just happens to reside in a body. But they deny that anything about the body is essential for characterizing what concepts are.”

The cognitive science claim is that “the very properties of concepts are created as a result of the way the brain and body are structured and the way they function in interpersonal relations and in the physical world.”

The embodied-mind hypothesis therefore radically undercuts the perception/conception distinction. In an embodied mind, it is conceivable that the same neural system engaged in perception (or in bodily movements) plays a central role in conception. Indeed, in recent neural modeling research, models of perceptual mechanisms and motor schemas can actually do conception work in language learning and in reasoning.

A standard technique for checking out new ideas is to create computer models of the idea and subject that model to simulated conditions to determine if the model behaves as does the reality. Such modeling techniques are used constantly in projecting behavior of meteorological parameters.

Neural computer models have shown that the types of operations required to perceive and move in space require the very same type of capability associated with reasoning. That is, neural models capable of doing all of the things that a body must be able to do when perceiving and moving can also perform the same kinds of actions associated with reasoning, i.e. inferring, categorizing, and conceiving.

I might miss the point here (not too hard to imagine that), but I feel that this "conginitive science" is something completely different than philosophy. CS seems to describe how our brain and body interact in all levels, while philosophy limits itself to thoughts.

CS works with an input/output sytem, philosophy knows no such thing. You explained that yourself: the validity of CS can be checked. We can check whetehr brain and body interact like CS predicts. Philosophy and validation hardly mix, as there is no standard to measure values and thoughts. In fact, all ethical rules of thumb fail validation. If not because there can always be found exceptions, it fails because no 2 persons have the same moral values.

In short: I don't think CS is an improved philosophy. Philosophy is a study of one element used in CS.

It's a bit like saying that logic is wrong because of computer sciences predicting how scanners and printers can interact. Only logic is a science and philosophy is not.

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Descartes: Pied Piper

I was educated in engineering but also had some interest in philosophy. My first philosophy course was Descartes' "Meditations on First Philosophy". I suspect this is an introductory course for most students studying philosophy. Descartes has left Western tradition with a gigantic legacy that only now is this legacy being undermined by cognitive science.

Descartes goes through a sequence of analysis in an effort to find an absolute truth upon which to build his philosophy. He settled on "Cogito, ergo sum". "I think therefore I am". The conclusions of this series of analysis by Descartes have set the course, more or less, of Western philosophy. What are the fateful conclusions derived from the work of Descartes?

"I am, I exist, that is certain. But how often? Just when I think; for it might possibly be the case if I ceased entirely to think, that I should likewise cease altogether to exist...But what then am I? A thing that thinks."

The Folk Theory of Essences
Every kind of thing has an essence that makes it the kind of thing it is.
The way each thing naturally behaves is a consequence of its essence.

Descartes knows he exists because he thinks. Because he exists he has an essence. He assumes nothing else causes his thinking but his essence. Conclusion: thinking must be at least a part of the human essence.

"Just because I know certainly that I exist, and that meanwhile I do not remark that any other thing necessarily pertains to my nature or essence, excepting that I am a thinking thing, I rightly conclude that my essence consists solely in the fact that I am a thinking thing."

"It is certain that this I [that is to say, my soul by which I am what I am], is entirely, and absolutely distinct from my body and can exist without it."

To have reached that last conclusion Descartes must assume an additional:

The Folk Theory of Substance and Attributes
A substance is that which exists in itself and does not depend for its existence on any other thing.
Each substance has one and only one primary attribute that defines what its essence is.

The following is what his introspection has made him “see”:

There are two kinds of substance, one bodily and the other mental.
The attribute of bodily substance is extension in space.
The attribute of mental substance is thought.

Nicolas

You are correct, cognitive science is not philosophy. However, CS is saying that philosophy, which should be responsible for assumptions by all domains of knowledge, is wrong because philosophy has assumed that the mind is transcendent and CS has discovered that such is not the case. CS is making the case that there is no mind/body dichotomoy that philosophy assumes to be true. CS rejects all a priori assumptions. CS is taking over philosophy's job because philosophy is wrong.

You obviously are trying to say something but I don't see how or what, as my views on what philosophy is seem to be different.

Use CS and philosophy on the following cases (focused on ethics, not so much fundamentals):

*should one tell the truth, eventhough that truth will bring major harm to others, while telling a lie is likely to remove such harm?

*is another person equal in value to myself?

And explain me where the body/brain interaction comes into play in ways that philosophy does not consider.

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To the regular visitor of internet bulletin boards it is clear that it's an excellent idea your parents get to choose your real name.

Arrgh, I vowed never to open another one of his threads, but I didn't look close enough before opening.

Nicolas

Cognitive science offers a means for better understanding the human condition but does not provide any clear cut answers to the particular questions you raise here.