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To: Hobey Baker; monkey
"To be a philosopher is not only to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live, according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity and trust."

Sounds about right.

And then there are those self-styled sorts who pin in on having won a prize from the "not quite as clever" sorts by which they're surrounded in the academia for which they have no use as a rule.

Can we, indeed, come to understand the workings of our own epistemic capacities? Hence the enquiries of Descartes, Locke, Leibniz, Hume, Kant, Peirce, Russell, and many others.

The most recent major theorist in this tradition, and perhaps the most explicit, is Chomsky

...

I want to suggest, perhaps surprisingly, that there are at least two plausible candidates for human epistemic systems that already contain the data conscious reason cannot reach. Neither is plausibly regarded as a by-product of some other faculty, with the limits attendant upon that; rather, both are expressly designed to represent what reason is not designed to represent. These are: the subconscious self-monitoring representations employed by the brain as it goes about its business; and the information contained in the genetic code. Since the latter is easier to expound in a brief space I shall focus on it. And the basic point is straightforward enough: since, as is commonly supposed, the genes work symbolically, by specifying programmes for generating organisms from the available raw materials, they must contain whatever information is necessary and sufficient for this feat of engineering. So, for example, they must somehow specify the structure and functioning of the heart, and they must supply rules for generating this organ from primitive biological components.

The genes are, as it were, unconscious anatomists and physiologists, equipped with the lore pertaining thereto. But what goes for the body also goes for the mind: the genes must also contain the blueprint for constructing organisms with the (biologically based) mental properties those organisms instantiate. They must, then, represent the principles by which mental properties supervene on physical properties. They must, that is, specify instructions adequate for creating conscious states out of matter. And the same holds for other mental attributes: the genes 'know' how to construct organisms with intentionality, with personhood, with the capacity to make free choices, with rich systems of knowledge - just as they contain instructions for making organisms that embody innate universal grammar.(22) This requires a grip on the natural principles that constitute these attributes, as well as mastery of the trick of engineering them from living tissue.

The genes represent unconsciously what creationists ascribe to the mind of God. And since God has to know the answer to the philosophical problems surrounding these attributes, so too do the genes. In fact, they have known the answers for a very long time, well before we ever formulated the questions.

I love a great philosopher who can defer to the Really Clever (if unconscious) genes.

Therein lies the humility, I guess, I associate with genuine philosophers who -- being in love with wisdom -- naturally is awed by its elegance, beauty and mystery.

5 posted on 05/23/2002 10:20:07 AM PDT by Askel5
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To: Askel5
The Problem of Philosophy
6 posted on 05/23/2002 10:20:43 AM PDT by Askel5
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To: Askel5
Remarkably, despite his diffidence and bad handwriting, he won the John Locke Prize

I am more impressed with the bad handwriting.

There are two ways to combat the allure of compartmentalization of the mind. One can recognize the barriers do not exist. To the disapproving observers in our relativistic universe, it looks like you're walking through walls.

The other method is to flip open as many compartments as you can. "If the problem isn't where you're looking for it, you're probably looking in the wrong place", as a wise man once told me.

After a few decades, though, you'll notice that they all contain the same thing. I cannot bear to open another box to find local kahunas have designated a "hard problem" and an "easy problem".

13 posted on 05/23/2002 12:34:58 PM PDT by monkey
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