cladking

Of course you can have morals and no religion and this will persist as long as the human race. But it is hubris to believe that sky fairies which can't be seen or detected don't exist. Certainly it can be seen from a philosophical perspective and logic appears to weigh against their existence but they can't be ruled out. We believe we have great knowledge but that's because we see what we understand and know and don't see what's outside our experience or unknown. We think of everything we know about acceleration caused by a magnet on the face of the earth but we don't notice that we don't understand the relationship between gravity and magnetism or their natures. Technology gives us comforts that religion never could and we deduce this must mean there is truth in science but not in religion. This is hubris as well since we don't even really understand the nature of religion. Yes. The answer was off topic so I sneaked it in the best I could in my last post. It isn't my contention that one can't have morals without religion. It is my contention that if we understood the nature of religion that we'd see that both religion and morals spring from logic; one is natural logic (the cat's meow) and the other is symbolic logic. I'd love to talk about metaphysics but people are usually reluctant. It can keep for a more appropriate thread.

Animals all have language and no one believes they thought it up. Their language isn't like modern human language but more like a song or poetry that expresses meaning. Before complex language arose as a result of some mutation the human animals would have had a similar language. The mutation didn't suddenly give rise to new language it just made the existing animal language more complex. In addition to making it more complex it also created the human species by its abiility to pass learning across generations. This language became increasingly complex as more learning was added to it and it collapsed giving rise to modern symbolic language. It is merely hubris to believe we have such complete knowledge or to believe that beavers invented dams through trial and error but men use genius. It's hubris to believe that ancient people could invent agriculture and cities despite being moribound with superstition. Our beliefs are passed down to us through language and these beliefs are a single perspective which is not highly consistent with reality or the nature of being human. Human needs gave rise to morality through the logic of natural language and this was forgotten and became religion. But these needs persist despite our use of symbolic language and can be deduced logically. In either case morals are the result of logic; either the natural logic of the first human language or the acquired logic of symbolic language. They are not dependent upon nor derived from religion but religion is representative of the morals developed from natural logic.

I suspected it might be risky to say that almost everything humans believe is hardwired into the brain where people don't accept the simple premise that it's language which created humanity. Language was hardwired and everything that was and is no more (ancient language and science) and everything that is which is built on the rubble as well as modern science are all founded on language. It is the ability to pass complex ideas across generations which created humanity and it is the individual's infinite adaptability which allows us to act contrary to our nature. This ability to act contrary to our nature is seen everywhere from the holocaust to our ability to "feel" with our visual cortex. Intelligence is not at the root of humanity's success. If it were we'd still have little more than fire and a few stone tools. Complex language lies at the root of our success and everything springs from it. It's true that morals per se might not be directly hardwired but they are an artefact of language which is an artefact of how the brain operates.

A belief in a deity is hardwired into the brain. Moral are hardwired into the brain. Either can exist without the other and some have both or neither. Just as a person who can "feel" with his eyes (visual cortex) when he learns braille a person can reorganize his "hardwiring" based on belief and experience.

I sure didn't want to respond to this thread. I dislike the show in the extreme and believe they have no credibility but they certainly have as much scientific evidence as Egyptology. They interpret the facts differently but it's more logical than the historical paradigm. This isn't to say a second or third rate entertainment program is more accurate than current orthodox scholarship, merely that they could have as much truth. People have no concept just how little evidence actually exists and how the little that does exist has almost no meaning outside of interpretation. This stuff isn't rocket science but there's no way to say our history can't be explained by rocket science.

You seem to have the right premises but the wrong conclusions! There's no such thing as "humanity" without words. People are their beliefs and usually will end up being labeled accordingly. But they are not the labels or even the words we use to describe the person. You are what you think and do and this is the result of language and beliefs. There isn't necessarily a word that defines anyone and everyone is far more complicated than a single word. Language reflects our understanding of reality but is not reality itself. Modern language can only reflect a clear understanding to the individual using it as thought and this understanding is exceedingly difficult or impossible to communicate to others because of its inherent weaknesses and ambiguities. Each individual will of necessity understand any utterance differently than all other individuals. In a sense you might say you are what you do but what you do is driven by what you believe. As is always the case this is somewhat of an oversimplification but it is highly accurate for most perspectives of most behavior.

No. There is no evidence religion existed in ancient times before 2000 BC. There can be no evidence for religion before this time because there is almost no writin and the writing that exists is not understood. If you assume the first people had religion then, of course, the conclusion will be that religion preceded morals and it almost follows that they caused morals to ex- ist. The first writing known to be religious comes later. It begins appearing in the Coffin Texts which has material spanning the time between 2200 and 1800 BC. I believe we should limit the discussion to known facts and caveman beliefs are not known facts. You'll note in my previous post i ascribed no beliefs to cavemen and merely pointed out that logically superstitious cavemen would be at an extreme evolutionary disadvantage to scientific cavemen. This doesn't mean cavemen were scientific merely that any who were had a better chance of survival.

This is pretty close to the common modern belief but it is illogical. One bunch of cavemen with religion would have a very poor chance of competing or even surviving in a hostile enviroment when other cavemen with a scientific bent were forever eating their lunch. Superstition would have been self defeating and unable to propogate before the advent of morals. The ability to observe has always ruled and not religion or magic. Science came first. It failed and its remnants became religion. By this time science had already created agriculture and the means to survive so humans survived despite the lack of science. Countless centuries passed (~28) without progress until modern science arose to restart it.

So if I'm the only human I couldn't know water was wet. I could only speculate that it seemed that water was real and tended to leave some of itself behind after it came in contact with things. I couldn't dislike wetting wet except in asort of hypothetical sense.

I have to say, no. Even if we invented an android that fullfilled all these requirements I would still say no due to the fact that known lifeforms are far more complex. In the future we will build something of sufficient complexity to call "alive" but until then it is merely a machine. When it's alive it will possess machine intelligence and it will probably have designed itself for the main part. It will have to translate its(') thoughts into modern language to be understood by humans.

Enoch said that long life comes with contentment; 6 Then shall they rejoice with joy and be glad, And into the holy place shall they enter; And its fragrance shall be in their bones, And they shall live a long life on earth, Such as thy fathers lived: And in their days shall no sorrow or plague Or torment or calamity touch them.' There is extensive ancient writing about the tree of life which grows in the fountain of youth. Of course so long as we believe the ancients were sun addled it's impossible to understand their words. So long as we believe we know everything it almost follows ancient people know nothing. The belief that they were sun addled and we are omnipotent makes it impossible to apply modern scientific precepts and findings to ancient sources. If we knew far less we might have less distress.

Well, I learned a new term in this threrad that might describe my own 'religious" beliefs. I'm an "ignostic believer". I believe there is a significant chance that God(s) exist(s) but that knowing any of the defining characteristics or natures of the(se) God(s) is impossible at this time. I even "believe" God(s) should be "worshipped" but in the ancient definition of "worshippped" (observed or studied). "Morals" are not actually "natural" to any animal including man. I believe that they are an artefact of language (and empathy). They are also important to civilization to maintain order if not decorum. I believe religion is a confusion of ancient applied science that arrived at the same conclusions. Civilization is of paramount importance especially in a world with 7 billion people who are almost each dependent on it. This is why many morals have been encoded into law. The same thing got them encoded into religion after the collapse of ancient science.

I might agree with your words even more than I understand them. They certainly ring true even if there may be spome things implied with which I'm not necessarily in agreement. I don't believe there is any real validity to the status quo nor does it ever reflect reality. Even if we lived in a sane world that was highly efficient there's no resone to presuppose that peoples' beliefs would be more accurate or more in tune with reality. No doubt there would be a correlation. In a sane world there would probably be more people who engaged in philosophical thought but, I believe, there would still be a single perspective of reality based on what people thought they knew. Humans are first and foremost a social animal and modern people don't even realize they are animals. In a sense there may be a relationship between this animal and philosophical thought. Perhaps there is a loose connection between the way a human animal thinks and the propensity for being philosophical. Perhaps philosophers are more affected by ther inate wiring than other people who don't give their own existence or bigger questions a second thought. There seem to be as many ways to asking the questions are there are those who ask them. My own route was in trying to understand the nature of thought and what power, if any, thought alone possesses. There is a tendency for the route to begin at an early age. At this point perhaps we need a poll.

Until a few years ago I believed this as well. Essentially only one perspective can apply to what we know. Anything can be infinitely complex or simple but it must adhere to this perspective. This goes way back before DesCartes and even before the Greeks. It is imposed by language. This isn't to say any good idea that fits the perspective will necessarily be accepted, just that any that doesn't fit is rejected. What is accepted is the popular and this is determined by very complex trends and events and their interplay. To a large degree it's virtually a random walk. Obviously scientific fact is far less susceptible to these processes. Tools and procedures that improve our ability to accomplish specific goals are also less affected. Ideas must conform to societal "beliefs" to even be considered. These "beliefs" are driven by language. The world appears to be much different than our educations and experiences indicate. Freud postulated a subconscious thart drives our actions and this was accepted leading to a loss of responsibility and even privacy. Darwin suggested the mechanisms of evolution and it was accepted despite its inability to explain more than parts of the evidence. Sound ideas have been rejected because they don't fit a scientific or a religious perspective or the "beliefs" of most people. Ask yourself why some animals and grains have been cultivated and others haven't. Most were originally cultivated long before history started. Are we to believe only these species can be cultivated? No. The world first and foremost runs on inertia and it has for 4000 years. The status quo is sacrosanct and ideas have no value outside their popularity.

Indeed. This is just further reason to treat reality as a given. If and when we can design an experiment to test this then we can begin to get relevant data. In the meantime it seems a very dead end. We should always question our postulates, axioms, definitions, assumptions, etc and see if a different paradigm might work better in light of new knowledge but I doubt it's a good idea for most individuals to dwell on it or in it. Any new bit of knowledge can upset any paradigm including this one.

The "loss" isn't the ancient thought or the ancient metaphysics. It's not the knowledge that was lost. It's not even our somewhat reduced ability to communicate. The loss is our anchor in nature; an understanding of our place and purpose. These other losses were necessary and unavoidable and, more importantly, we could largely or entirely overcome them. Even language has been improved to the degree that most communication can still take place if both parties are putting forth the effort. I often say "confusion reigns" but this is an exaggeration and it applies much more to everyday speech and situations than to all communication. The flexibility of modern language also makes possible communication of far more complex ideas and scientific language also enables great accuracy of communication. But still almost everyone feels adrift on some level and I believe this is the result of having no secure footing in nature. People greatly overestimate human knowledge as well as the efficacy and applicability of philosophy, religion, and various constructs. We put too much faith in things that are human oriented and human invention while tending to ignore nature and natural processes. A bird can't tunnel in the earth nor a worm fly to space so such things tend to be beneath our notice. When we do get an insight about ourselves or our place there's a tendency to have difficulty communicating it to others because of language. It's not the difficulty of phraseology but the difficulty of being understood. This is the fundamental flaw in modern language and it separates us and it separates us from nature. Humans are a social animal and this separation causes pain. I'm of the opinion that most of these problems can be mitigated by convention. Going back is not an option. A quantitative change simply accumulated until it became a qualitative change. However, I believe that there is a great deal of knowledge that could be quickly regained and that "religion" could be updated, language patched, and a better means of teaching science adopted. I believe this would lead to new perspectives that are less painful for the average individual. There's no need for men to lead lives of "quiet desperation" and to have endless wars. There's no utopia at hand but philosophy is key to an improving future. Even if I'm wrong about some of my key arguments the fact remains we've spent enormous amounts of money to support the UN over nearly 70 years and they've yet to standardize time or even to define what day midnight falls on!!! Surely we deserve a great deal more than what we've been getting. France purges English words from their language each year but no one seems the least concerned that most modern words don't have even one fixed definition. No one is concerned that language drifts and words change. No one seems to notice that we don't understand one another but will pick up arms anyway.

Philosophy is as lone as the philosopher. No one can get in your head because language doesn't allow it. We can steer people towadr our understanding but if this flies in the face of his premises then even this becomes virtually impossible. Of course communication can always be established in theory by simply agreeing on premises and definitions but in practice most individuals hold onto premises like a religion because these premises are primarily founded on beliefs. Mostpeople are affixed to a single perspective of the four dimensions they understand and in which they were raised. They can't see anything from another point of view. This isn't as big a problem with we who call ourselves "philosophers" but it is always true. Everybody is wired to see the world in some defined context that is independent of any reality and determined by upbringoing and education. But this "wiring" is not natural to humanity. It is an acquired wiring taught to babies as language. We don't so much see the world as experience it through our thoughts; language. We don't so much understand the world as we understand what has been passed down through the generations; language. We aren't so much intelligent as we have great amounts knowledge; language. People used to have a natural language that actually reflected human perspective and needs but it became too complex and when it failed history began. History as we understand it is caused by opportunists who jump in front of people and lead them to war. Real history is the result of economic and technological changes and the effects on demand. Everything is perspective. Perspective is rarely defined in modern language and it's rather assumed that everyone shares ours. This invariably leads to miscommunication and sometimes a near total breakdown in communication. http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/78437-ancient-beliefs-and-evolution/page-1?hl=geyser Talking with other philosophers about ideas is a little different than talking to the average person. But, I doubt, the sharing of ideas is extremely better; there's merely a better format and more formality generated by language as well as better ideas exchanged.

All belief becomes a part of the self and belief is the sole motivator of action. It's more the commonality of action which draws together a club.

Not all people are going to agree on anything. But I believe that for philosophy to have meaning or to be able to be applied to knowledge or metaphysics it must be objective on some levels. A philosopher tends to be concerned with things like the definitions of words and logic which defines them and makes them meaningful. We can't express complex ideas in sign language and gestures and have to use words whose meanings can be subjective. There are no doubt many sorts and types of philosophers and some are more intent on discovering things meaningful; to themselves than communicating their discoveries. Ultimately we are all this alone but one of the things that make life meaningful to most humans is communication and sharing ideas (etc). To me personally, objectivity is based on a few simple axioms that we all experience (probably). Such as that it is axiomatic that the world exists as it appears to exist but our observation and knowledge might not apply in any given instance. ie There are optical illusions and observer error. We see only what we expect and are blind to what we don't expect. Time flows in a single direction at a given rate. Logic and reason are the only tools to unlock natures secrets; our current logic involves experiment for proof and a test of theory. Nature is infinitely complex and not understood. Humans are animals and knowledge (and the "unconscious") is created through language. People act on their beliefs and in time become those beliefs. Of course what all philosophers share is a trust in logic or common sense and a willingness to expend effort to understand themselves or their place in the big picture. I believe a great deal of this effort is wasted on definitions and semantics. A great deal of all human problems stem from a misunderstanding and confusion in language. Our primary problems are a lack of communication caused by myriad problems in language. Perhaps one of the greatest problems with language is our inability to know when we don't understand our fellow man.

All well said. I'm in close agreement with your thinking here. At the risk of perpetuating what is primarily a semantical disagreement, I do thing most philosophical types have much broader and more expansive thought patterns. Don't take me wrong here, lots of people who never gave philosophy a second thought can have very deep and very clear understandings but their thought tends to be more "focused" and often more pragmatic. If they plan a chess move six moves in advance then they project any reaction their opponent might take rather than just those that are most probable. I've been looking up at the airplanes since the days they were "all" DC-3's. Maybe it would also be appropriate to describe what philosophers do is getting caught up in things that don't matter. We all know they do but those who accept all the constructs and all the current thinking see philosophers as day dreamers. To each his own and there are seven billion perspectives. Most of the perspectives seem to be eerily similar from my vantage point.

Mebbe, "living outside the box".

Why would humans have lost their instincts. Certainly individuals can lose almost all of their instincts by having them overwritten by knowledge but the species would be unaffected. Even if every individual lost these instincts there are still babies which would possess them. Each of us is very different based on our experiences and learning but people are almost infinitely adaptable. Virtually anything at all can come to seem normal and almost any type of thinking can arise. We have a perspective instilled by education, or western thought, or human progress but every individual grows up with a language and this language defines his nature even more than his instincts. We act on beliefs and in a very real way instincts themselves are a sort of belief that one doesn't even think about. Anytime you do something without thinking it is habit (typical) or instinct or a combination. It seems you are ascribing your beliefs as they apply to yourself to everyone. I'm not even convinced that you have no instincts and you just need to get into a situation that you are unfamiliar with to experience one. Some people can be highly cerebral and consider just about everything before reacting. I know this is rambling but wanted to make several of these points.

The reality of the universe is an imponderable exactly as the existence of (g)God(s) is an imponderable. Both appear to exist but no more can be said about them. While we can't even begin to understand the nature of (g)God(s) we can study the universe we percieve as real. We can study that universe only when we accept it as real or postulate its reality. You can't design an experiment with current knowledge to show that reality or (g)God(s) exist. It seems one has the option of hiding in one's cave or keep on keeping on (until it warms up I've opted for the cave).

It's just the way the brain is wired. This wiring is far more complex and conntains much more knpowledge than people realize. Young have to unlearn what they know before they can be taught. This is mostly complete by the time they say their first word but goes on for years. We misapprehend the nature of "knowledge" because we overestimate the amount of knowledge we have. All real knowledge is visceral and even it is subject to being rewritten. I'd guess the rabbit has far more real intelligence than we give it credit for and we have far less. I'd guess that the rabbit's brain is simply programmed to run at the approach of any animal with eyes and to allow less closeness for anything with eyes in the front of its face. Of course there is a lot more to know to be a rabbit than just when to run and the brain has other necessary programming as well; just like the human brain that is retaught in babies. I can't discuss types of thinking without discussing language and my beliefs about language are wildly unpopular and usually considered off topic. Suffice to say all animals are born with a language specific to that animal. Human language has been lost except with each new human. Reasoning is the ordered means to view fact, information, and observation. Reasoning leads to new knowledge when done correctly. At worst it will lead to the knowledge that all hypotheses are not created equal. There's only one logic but there can be different ways to apply it by using various terms and definitions. Of course, due to the nature of language, I'm really saying far more about myself and my perceptions than about reality itself. I attempt to distill my definitions down to their simplest meaning so that these words do apply to nature itself to as great a degree as is possible with our language. Of course each person reading these thoughts will have his own take on my meaning and walk away with his own understanding. This is impossible to avoid but it should be understood I mean all this literally and exactly as stated in the simplest definitions of the terms used.

In effect since we are a collection of our perceptions we percieve everything that exists.