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Skeptic: eSkeptic: Wednesday, July 4th, 2007

Light and Dark

These words (used in the previous post) need exploring. We are not nocturnally well adapted so naturally fear the dark. This leads to much weight being attached to the words and makes their metaphorical use a powerful tool in discourse. But that use reinforces an association that is false and wrong in other contexts. Should it be avoided? How can we avoid the negative effects without giving up much of the richness of our language?

Note also the negative implications of pallor (esp in China) and darkenss as robustness or strength. Would striving for more balanced use of  metaphor save both ends? How can this be encouraged without introducing a tone of moralistic political correctness?

David Barash reviews some theories of religion in an article in The Chronicle: 4/20/2007

This post by Stephen Downes presents an interesting link, but I don’t agree that it supports his thesis about human reasoning. Pattern recognition at this level is characteristic of many species and devices, and it’s a capability that is probably necessary for human reasoning whether or not such reasoning is based on rules and language.

In fact, it seems to me that if such a thing as distinctly human reasoning exists, then it shares many features with other more rudimentary forms of reasoning, but to say it is “based on” these is similar to saying it is based on biochemistry (or even physics if you want to go that far down into the foundations).

But if, as the base of human reasoning we are looking for  a characteristic which distinguishes it from other forms of reasoning, then language is not enough since it appears that language at some level is practiced by other species. Some people suggest that an awareness of contingency is key, but anyone who has watched a cat learning to control a mouse may be inclined to disagree. But unless Chimp research proves otherwise it may be that the language of contingency is unique to us (and perhaps also that of propositional truth though I suspect that a chimp who can lie to keep a friend from finding a treat might eventually be trained to recognize and label the lie of another). Failing that it may just be that the concept of a distinctly human form of reasoning is a mere conceit based on quantity or scale rather than anything qualitatively different.

PNW Conifers–Genus page

Oregon State Univ., LANDSCAPE PLANTS