Posted on 02/11/2006 3:20:33 AM PST by Lindykim
Oh, I am sorry. You’re absolutely correct. The express condition was indeed “do with it what you will”
After that, I can hardly go back on my word. [smile]
I do find the quote from Jefferson to be quite telling - he did not accept the notion that matter in all its motions is "all that there is".
Indeed. At least that, minimally.
"Most Evolutionists still keep trying to say that it has nothing to do with 'religion'."
Evolutionists are the anti-Christ intent on the subversion, perversion and ultimate destruction of Christianity and Western Culture.
The anti-Christ is not an individual, but an entity that hates Christ and Christianity. We know in our hearts who they are, but many are sleeping on their laurels and afraid to admit the truth. But only the truth will set them free.
Beware of dialects as it is the stongest weapon in the hands of the anti-Christians.
*In hoc signo vinces*
Yes, it's a winner! Soon to be memorialized.
NEW post 124 by TheBrotherhood on 13 Feb 2006. Evolutionists are the anti-Christ intent on the subversion, perversion and ultimate destruction of Christianity and Western Culture.
You: A very banal metaphysical point, having nothing to do with the validity of ID.
But we're not talking about ID at this very moment, nor have we for the past several posts. We were speaking of reason and logic, logos.
Somehow, CG, I don't think you have a problem with my description of logos as "non-phenomenal," "non-random," and "immaterial." But perhaps the "transcendent" claim is a stumbling block.
What is meant by the term? For openers, it's the antonym (though I prefer the term "complementarity," in Niels Bohr's sense) of immanent. Which sheds a whole lot of light on the problem -- NOT!
Anyone can go look up those two terms in any good dictionary. But what do they mean? This you have to figure out for yourself.
My proposal would be as follows: Immanence pertains to things that arise in, exist through, and ultimately perish in and from 4-dimensional reality: 3 of space and 1 of time. This is the "physical" world.
Transcendence is that which is not confined within the "4D block" of x, y, z + t.
If that sounds farfetched, or "New-Ager," just consider this: The thought you have in your mind right now is nonphenomenal, non-random, immaterial -- and transcendent: Because what you do with this thought is not determined by the phenomenal, random, or material.
Reason and free will are transcendent. Human liberty is transcendent. So is human creativity. So is logic, reason, science -- all human beings have a "transcendent extension," as the philosopher might put it. Something that is not predetermined by nor subject to the physical laws as such -- for the simple reason that it is not "physical," "random," or "material."
Julian Huxley, however, famously could not resist blowing a nasty raspberry at this sublime understanding: He referred to what I'm talking about here as "the ghost in the machine."
Personally, I take that as an insult to human being.
Thanks for writing, CarolinaGuitarman -- you're a good conversationalist.
"There is no evidence that my thoughts are not grounded in matter."
You sound really confident w/ that particular sentence.
I suppose if you had proof, sufficient for yourself, not necessarily something you'd could reproduce in lab, that telepathy actually was real, you'd change your mind?
LOL!
Vintage bb at her best.
"Why would I not think that there was a material basis for telepathy"
One example: you decided that someone close to you was going to die based on the doctors report, but you didn't like what you heard. So you said a prayer.
And then, later, the doctors reported the incurable malady had 'disappeared'.
Prayer is telepathy w/ God Cg....
"One example: you decided that someone close to you was going to die based on the doctors report, but you didn't like what you heard. So you said a prayer.
And then, later, the doctors reported the incurable malady had 'disappeared'.
Prayer is telepathy w/ God Cg...."
Or maybe I farted and that is what cured her. It's just as probable.
On that note, I retire for the evening.
Hello Patrick! Thanks again for the link to Das Kapital (1867). I haven’t read through all 33 chapters yet; but I have found some interesting connections to Darwin’s theory of natural selection in my reading so far, in particular as it informs Marx’s own theory of division of labor. See “Part IV: Division of Labor in Manufacture, and Division of Labor in Society,” in Chapter 14. Also, in 1873 Marx appended an “Afterward to the Second German Edition” of Das Kapital which is basically a reply to his critics; it is revealing of some of the sources of his ideas.
Here’s a little sampler from Chapter 14:
“Castes and guilds arise from the action of the same natural law that regulates the differentiation of plants and animals into species and varieties, except that when a certain degree of development has been reached, the heredity of castes and the exclusiveness of guilds are ordained as laws of society.”That bellum omnium contra omnes remark is a direct quote from Darwin. Darwin first made his theory public a year before On the Origins of Species was published, in 1858, in a paper delivered to the Linnean Society. [see Charles Darwin, “The Linnean Society Papers,” in Darwin: A Norton Critical Edition, ed. Philip Appleman (New York: Norton, 1970), p. 83.]“If we keep labor alone in view, we may designate the separation of social production into its main divisions or genera — vz., agriculture, industries, &c., as division of labor in general, and the splitting up of these families into species and subspecies…., as division of labor in particular, and the division of labour within the workshop as division of labour in singular or in detail…. Different communities find different means of production, and different means of subsistence in their natural environment. Hence their modes of production, and of living, and their products are different. It is this spontaneously developed difference which, when different communities come in contact, calls forth the mutual exchange of products, and the consequent gradual conversion of those products into commodities.”
“The division of labor within the society brings into contact independent commodity-producers, who acknowledge no other authority but that of competition, of the coercion exerted by the pressure of their mutual interests; just as in the animal kingdom, the bellum omnium contra omnes more or less preserves the conditions of existence of every species.”
The paper begins with the words, “All nature is at war, one organism with another, or with external nature” — the “war of all against all.” Darwin elucidates the character of this war in The Origin of Species:
“There must be in every case a struggle for existence, either one individual with another of the same species, or with the individuals of distinct species, or with the physical conditions of life.” [Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species (New York: Mentor, 1958), p. 75.]It is clear to me beyond a reasonable doubt that this motif of the bellum omnium contra omnes is common to both Darwinian and Marxian analysis.
Marx, in Section 2 of Das Kapital Chapter 14, “The Detail Laborer and His Instruments,” cites the authority of Charles Darwin in relation to his analysis of how the manufacturing process “simplifies, improves, and multiplies the implements of labor, by adapting them to the exclusively special functions of each detail laborer.” As footnote 6 explains,
“Darwin in his epoch-making work on the origin of species, remarks, with reference to the natural organs of plants and animals: ‘So long as one and the same organ has different kinds of work to perform, a ground for its changeability may possibly be found in this, that natural selection preserves or suppresses each small variation of form less carefully than if that organ were destined for one special purpose alone. Thus, knives that are adapted to cut all sorts of things, may, on the whole, be of one shape; but an implement destined to be used exclusively in one way must have a different shape for every different use.’”Marxian labor theory envisions a situation in which each laborer is reduced to a specialized function, organ — or worse, a machine part — dedicated to “one special purpose alone” within the capitalist productive enterprise. Marx sees this process as an adaptation directly analogous to the working of natural selection in Darwin’s scheme. He doesn’t approve of it; but he understands how the situation could come about — because essentially, Darwin has explained it to him.
Turning now to the 1873 “Afterward to the Second German Edition,” we find Marx replying to his critics — some approvingly, others not so. He is very pleased with a review of Das Kapital carried in The European Messenger of St. Petersburg (author not identified):
“The one thing that is of moment to Marx, is to find the law of the phenomena with whose investigation he is concerned; and not only is the law of moment to him, which governs these phenomena, in so far as they have a definite form and mutual connexion within a given historical period. Of still greater moment to him is the law of their variation, of their development, i.e., of their transition from one form into another, from one series of connexions into a different one. This law once discovered, he investigates in detail the effects in which it manifests itself in social life. Consequently, Marx only troubles himself about one thing: to show, by rigid scientific investigation, the necessity of successive determinate orders of social conditions…. For this it is quite enough if he proves, at the same time, both the necessity of the present order of things, and the necessity of another order into which the first must inevitably pass over; and this is all the same, whether men believe or do not believe it, whether they are conscious or unconscious of it. Marx treats the social movement as a process of natural history, governed by laws not only independent of human will, consciousness and intelligence, but rather, on the contrary, determining that will, consciousness and intelligence…. That is to say, that not the idea, but the material phenomenon alone can serve as [the inquiry’s] starting point. Such an inquiry will confine itself to the confrontation and the comparison of a fact, not with ideas, but with another fact. For this inquiry, the one thing of moment is that both facts be investigated as accurately as possible, and that they actually form, each with respect to the other, different momenta of an evolution; but most important of all is the rigid analysis of the series of successions, of the sequences and concatenations in which the different stages of such an evolution present themselves.” [italics added]It is evident from its context in the “Afterward” that Marx was enormously well pleased to have had his work understood in this fashion by an anonymous Russian writer.
Marx then goes on to protest that his “dialectical materialism” was not at all of the “idealist” sort of dialectics as propounded by the great German transcendental idealist philosopher, Hegel. Still, dialectics is dialectics — indubitably, inherently evoking an evolutionary process, whether it be of the Marxian or the Hegelian type.
Now it’s true that Darwin could have had no way to anticipate that Marx would later appropriate his theory in support of his own economic/social theory in the manner he did. But to me, that’s entirely beside the point: It is clear that Marx did make this appropriation.
And it seems quite “natural” that he did so. For the two men share common presuppositions about the fundamental structure of reality: that it is essentially materialist, determinist, mechanistic — both men are firmly planted in the Newtonian universe — and wholly subject to the workings of natural law, which essentially denies any role to consciousness, or intelligence, in the workings of evolutionary development. The natural world determines consciousness and intelligence; it is not the other way around.
Well, that would be my “preliminary report” on the issue at hand, dear PH. I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the matter.
Hi Guitarman! There's no denying that organic nature has a basis in the physical, i.e., in the material. But what "proof" can you show that the material/physical is "all that there is" in organic (i.e., biological) nature?
I meant to ping you to post #138 on this thread, but my fingers got itchy to hit the post button before my ping list was fully composed.... Truly I'm interested in your thoughts regarding the matters discussed therein.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.