Consilience
"In education the search for consilience is the way to renew the crumbling structure of the liberal arts."
Human beings, unlike other kinds of animals, are the only one known to reflect their own lives. In other words, humans think about their birth, their existence, their death, while other animals just thrive to survive. Humans used to only respond to instinct and somehow intelligence was obtained, widening our reasoning and our capabilities. All of these survival skills turned into epigenetic rules. -Katarina
Chapter 1
The Ionian Enchantment
Linnoean system: separating specimens of plants and animals into species and these into genera. (just like Sister Miriam explains) genus – families – orders – phyla – 6 kingdoms.
Inionian Enchantment: a belief in the unity of sciences, a conviction that the woold is orderly and can be explained by a small number of natural laws.
When we have unified enough certain knowledge, we will understand who we are and why we are here.
I found it amazing how all of this is exciting for him. Just by reading this part you can immagina that this is his passion.
Just as he feels about the beliefs of two thousand years ago is what we believe is happening in education; it is outdated.
I believe this chapter gets right to the point of what the MPC is about, having unified knowledge.
Linnoean system: separating specimens of plants and animals into species and these into genera. (just like Sister Miriam explains) genus – families – orders – phyla – 6 kingdoms.
Inionian Enchantment: a belief in the unity of sciences, a conviction that the woold is orderly and can be explained by a small number of natural laws.
When we have unified enough certain knowledge, we will understand who we are and why we are here.
I found it amazing how all of this is exciting for him. Just by reading this part you can immagina that this is his passion.
Just as he feels about the beliefs of two thousand years ago is what we believe is happening in education; it is outdated.
I believe this chapter gets right to the point of what the MPC is about, having unified knowledge.
Chapter 2
The Great Branches of Learning
The greatest enterprise of the mind has always been and always will be the attempted linkage of the sciences and humanities.
Consilience is the key to unification.
Philosophy plays a vital role in intellectual synthesis, it keeps us alive to the power and continuity of thougt through the centuries. We are approaching a new age of synthesis, when the testing of consilience is the greatest of all intellectual challenges. A balanced perspective cannot be acquired by studying disciplines in pieces but through the pursuit if the consilience among them.
What Enlightenment got right:
Everything should be connected, not just one topic at a time. This chapter also gets at the heart of the MPC, trying to unite all knowledge to get a bigger perspective.
The greatest enterprise of the mind has always been and always will be the attempted linkage of the sciences and humanities.
Consilience is the key to unification.
Philosophy plays a vital role in intellectual synthesis, it keeps us alive to the power and continuity of thougt through the centuries. We are approaching a new age of synthesis, when the testing of consilience is the greatest of all intellectual challenges. A balanced perspective cannot be acquired by studying disciplines in pieces but through the pursuit if the consilience among them.
What Enlightenment got right:
- Assumptions they made of a lawful material world (order and coherence)
- Intrinsic unity of knowledge.
- Potential of indefinite human progress.
Everything should be connected, not just one topic at a time. This chapter also gets at the heart of the MPC, trying to unite all knowledge to get a bigger perspective.
Chapter 3
The Enlightenment
The Enlightenment failed with the modern era. What marks the end of the Enlightenment was the death of the Marquis de Condorcet and that Napoleon tries to spread the Enlightenment by conquest (by force).
Culture is governed by laws as exact as those of physics, which can be adduced from a story in the past history. History is an evolving material process.
Science was the engine of the enlightenment; it was driven by a thrill of discovery.
One of the founders of the Enlightenment was Francis Bacon. “We must understand nature, around us and within us, in order to set humanity on the course of self-improvement.“ Bacon was viewed as the father of induction. He viewed disciplined and unified learning as the key to the improvement of human condition.
Descartes: the universe is both rational and united throughout cause and effect.
Newton: the universe is not just orderly, but also intelligible.
By the 1800 reason fractures, intellectuals lost faith in the leadership of science and the prospect of the unity of knowledge sharply declined.
The modernists try to achieve the new and provocative at any cost. A new level of order and meaning. Post modernism is the ultimate polar antithesis of the Enlightenment. Enlightenment thinkers believe they know everything. Post modernists believe we can know nothing.
Just like Susan Campbell, Bacon says that we should observe the world around us as it truly is (getting real). We should transmit our reality (be transparent).
I would really want to try Rousseau´s utopia of a minimalist state in which people abandon books and other accouterments of intellect in order to cultivate enjoyment of the senses and good health. But then again, isn’t reading a cultivation of enjoyment? Don’t we use our senses while reading?
All movements tend to extremes; no wonder they all run out of fuel at the end. Like if all of the ideas suddenly just lose their value and are quickly replaced with new ones.
The Enlightenment failed with the modern era. What marks the end of the Enlightenment was the death of the Marquis de Condorcet and that Napoleon tries to spread the Enlightenment by conquest (by force).
Culture is governed by laws as exact as those of physics, which can be adduced from a story in the past history. History is an evolving material process.
Science was the engine of the enlightenment; it was driven by a thrill of discovery.
One of the founders of the Enlightenment was Francis Bacon. “We must understand nature, around us and within us, in order to set humanity on the course of self-improvement.“ Bacon was viewed as the father of induction. He viewed disciplined and unified learning as the key to the improvement of human condition.
Descartes: the universe is both rational and united throughout cause and effect.
Newton: the universe is not just orderly, but also intelligible.
By the 1800 reason fractures, intellectuals lost faith in the leadership of science and the prospect of the unity of knowledge sharply declined.
The modernists try to achieve the new and provocative at any cost. A new level of order and meaning. Post modernism is the ultimate polar antithesis of the Enlightenment. Enlightenment thinkers believe they know everything. Post modernists believe we can know nothing.
Just like Susan Campbell, Bacon says that we should observe the world around us as it truly is (getting real). We should transmit our reality (be transparent).
I would really want to try Rousseau´s utopia of a minimalist state in which people abandon books and other accouterments of intellect in order to cultivate enjoyment of the senses and good health. But then again, isn’t reading a cultivation of enjoyment? Don’t we use our senses while reading?
All movements tend to extremes; no wonder they all run out of fuel at the end. Like if all of the ideas suddenly just lose their value and are quickly replaced with new ones.
Chapter 4
The Natural Sciences
Science is a combination of mental operations that have become increasingly the habit of educated people, a culture of illuminations hit upon by a fortunate turn of history that yielded the most effective way of learning about the real world ever conceived.
Natural selection: the differential survival and reproduction of different genetics forms prepares organisms only for necessities.
3 preconditions in the evolutionary era that led to scientific revolution:
Science is the organized systematic enterprise that gathers knowledge about the world and condenses knowledge into testable laws and principles.
Science creates causes and reasons that we didn’t know existed before. Like light, people thought it was a part of the universe but through science we now know it is electromagnetic radiation.
“inside our heads is a reconstruction of reality based on sensory input and the self-assembly od concepts.” Does this mean that everyone has their own reality?
People are innate Romantics, they desperately heed myth and dogma, and scientists cannot explain why people have this need. Even scientists themselves have this need. This is why people believe in a god and in other religious aspects. All of the cultures, past or present believe in something that is our of this world, a supernatural being. It in so interesting how all the people have this in common.
Science is a combination of mental operations that have become increasingly the habit of educated people, a culture of illuminations hit upon by a fortunate turn of history that yielded the most effective way of learning about the real world ever conceived.
Natural selection: the differential survival and reproduction of different genetics forms prepares organisms only for necessities.
3 preconditions in the evolutionary era that led to scientific revolution:
- Boundless curiosity and creative drive of he best minds.
- Inborn power to abstract the essential qualities of the universe.
- Effectiveness of mathematics in natural sciences.
Science is the organized systematic enterprise that gathers knowledge about the world and condenses knowledge into testable laws and principles.
Science creates causes and reasons that we didn’t know existed before. Like light, people thought it was a part of the universe but through science we now know it is electromagnetic radiation.
“inside our heads is a reconstruction of reality based on sensory input and the self-assembly od concepts.” Does this mean that everyone has their own reality?
People are innate Romantics, they desperately heed myth and dogma, and scientists cannot explain why people have this need. Even scientists themselves have this need. This is why people believe in a god and in other religious aspects. All of the cultures, past or present believe in something that is our of this world, a supernatural being. It in so interesting how all the people have this in common.
Chapter 5
Ariadne´s Thread
Consilience by synthesis: to reconstitute and predict with knowledge gained by reduction of how nature assembled something in the first place. To try to describe a subject by moving and predicting it in time.
Consilience by reduction: To dissect a phenomena into its elements. The most easiest way for consilience. To try to describe a subject by breaking it down to its origins in order to understand it fully.
The most complex of all human phenomena is the human mind.
Consilience among the biological sciences is based on a thorough understanding of scale in time and space.
Complexity theory: the search for algorithms used in nature that display common features across many levels of organization. (chaos theory)
Just like the consilience of things, the labyrinth has no center, only an immense number of points deep within the maze.
Dreams: in dreams we are insane (temporary insanity). It is interesting that in our dreams we don’t experience physical discomforts of pain, thirst or hunger, but we do feel all of the emotional things (sadness, happiness, anger). “When we dream, we deepen moods and improve responses basic to survival and sexual activity.”
Following his mention of snakes throughout history, in Nordic mythology there is a snake at the bottom of the ocean, wrapped around the world, which is one of the reasons for the destruction of the old world.
Consilience by synthesis: to reconstitute and predict with knowledge gained by reduction of how nature assembled something in the first place. To try to describe a subject by moving and predicting it in time.
Consilience by reduction: To dissect a phenomena into its elements. The most easiest way for consilience. To try to describe a subject by breaking it down to its origins in order to understand it fully.
The most complex of all human phenomena is the human mind.
Consilience among the biological sciences is based on a thorough understanding of scale in time and space.
Complexity theory: the search for algorithms used in nature that display common features across many levels of organization. (chaos theory)
Just like the consilience of things, the labyrinth has no center, only an immense number of points deep within the maze.
Dreams: in dreams we are insane (temporary insanity). It is interesting that in our dreams we don’t experience physical discomforts of pain, thirst or hunger, but we do feel all of the emotional things (sadness, happiness, anger). “When we dream, we deepen moods and improve responses basic to survival and sexual activity.”
Following his mention of snakes throughout history, in Nordic mythology there is a snake at the bottom of the ocean, wrapped around the world, which is one of the reasons for the destruction of the old world.
Chapter 6
The Mind
The mind is supremely important for consilience because everything that we know and can ever know about our existence is created there.
The brain is a machine assembled not to understand itself, but to survive. “People know more about their automobiles than they do about their brain.” Only the major anatomical features of the brain are known, and there is still much to learn from their various functions.
Neuroscience: the study of the brain.
Dendrites: threadlike receptor branches growing out from the cell bodies.
Axon: cable like extensions of the cell bodes.
Synapses: cell-to-cell connections.
Important neurotransmitters: acetylcholine, norepinephrine, serotonin and dopamine (some neurotransmitters excite the neurons they contact while others inhibit them.)
Neuron systems are directed by networks, receiving and broadcasting signals.
No one has reached a definite conclusion/definition for the mind, but in Wilson´s words “the mind is a stream of conscious and subconscious experience.” Wilson mentions that one cant really name a place in the brain for consciousness, but instead consciousness is in multiple streams of activity. I wonder if he thinks the same about creativity.
Short-term memory is the ready-state of the conscious mind (only handles about 7 words or other symbols simultaneously) (30 sec).
Long term memory gas unlimited capacity, takes longer to acquire and most is retained for life.
I wonder if we have ling term memories that we don't know we have or that are more difficult to access. For example, our memories that we don't remember we have or some memories that are fake and made up by us.
Remembrance: recall with linkages, especially when finged by the resonance of emotional circuits.
Automatic responses are relatively impervious to the conscious will. These reactions happen before our mind becomes conscious about them. Consciousness moves the body in precise ways depending each changing circumstance.
Damasio´s categories of emotion:
Decision making: competitive selection among scenarios.
Mood: the persistent form and intensity of emotions.
Creativity: the ability of the brain to generate novel scenarios and settle on the most effective.
Insanity: the persistent production of scenarios lacking reality and survival value.
Free will: the outcome of competition among the scenarios that compose the conscious mind.
The hidden preparation of mental activity gives the illusion of free will. Free will as a side product of illusion would seem to be free will enough to drive human progress and offer happiness.
The mind is supremely important for consilience because everything that we know and can ever know about our existence is created there.
The brain is a machine assembled not to understand itself, but to survive. “People know more about their automobiles than they do about their brain.” Only the major anatomical features of the brain are known, and there is still much to learn from their various functions.
Neuroscience: the study of the brain.
Dendrites: threadlike receptor branches growing out from the cell bodies.
Axon: cable like extensions of the cell bodes.
Synapses: cell-to-cell connections.
Important neurotransmitters: acetylcholine, norepinephrine, serotonin and dopamine (some neurotransmitters excite the neurons they contact while others inhibit them.)
Neuron systems are directed by networks, receiving and broadcasting signals.
No one has reached a definite conclusion/definition for the mind, but in Wilson´s words “the mind is a stream of conscious and subconscious experience.” Wilson mentions that one cant really name a place in the brain for consciousness, but instead consciousness is in multiple streams of activity. I wonder if he thinks the same about creativity.
Short-term memory is the ready-state of the conscious mind (only handles about 7 words or other symbols simultaneously) (30 sec).
Long term memory gas unlimited capacity, takes longer to acquire and most is retained for life.
I wonder if we have ling term memories that we don't know we have or that are more difficult to access. For example, our memories that we don't remember we have or some memories that are fake and made up by us.
Remembrance: recall with linkages, especially when finged by the resonance of emotional circuits.
Automatic responses are relatively impervious to the conscious will. These reactions happen before our mind becomes conscious about them. Consciousness moves the body in precise ways depending each changing circumstance.
Damasio´s categories of emotion:
- Primary emotion: responses that are inborn or instinctive.
- Secondary emotion: personalized events of life.
Decision making: competitive selection among scenarios.
Mood: the persistent form and intensity of emotions.
Creativity: the ability of the brain to generate novel scenarios and settle on the most effective.
Insanity: the persistent production of scenarios lacking reality and survival value.
Free will: the outcome of competition among the scenarios that compose the conscious mind.
The hidden preparation of mental activity gives the illusion of free will. Free will as a side product of illusion would seem to be free will enough to drive human progress and offer happiness.
Chapter 7
From Genes to Culture
The way to unite great branches of learning:
To view the boundary between the scientific and literary cultures not as a territorial line but as a broad and unexplored terrain. Genes and culture are linked: Gene-culture coevolution.
Evolution by natural selection precedes by change and necessity.
For anthropologists culture is the total way of life of a discrete society (religion, myths, art, technology, sports and all other systematic knowledge transmitted across generations. “All culture comes from culture.” Society created culture and is created by it.
Environment (naturists) vs. Heretidarians:
It is impressive how much hereditability affects us. Although it might not be as high as environments, it still affects us. Genes enhance because of environments, or should I say talents? Just by changing environment variation due to heredity can increase or decrease.
Naturists emphasize the contributions of the environment to be heavier, while hereditarians emphasize in genes. But both agree that almost all the differences between cultures are likely to be products of history and environment.
We inherit neurobiological traits that cause us to see the world in a particular way and to learn certain behaviors in preference to other behaviors. So we are kind of programmed when we are born to like and dislike certain things.
Epigenetic rules:
Compromise the full range of inherited regularities of development in anatomy, physiology, cognition and behavior.
Summary:
Genes prescribe epigenetic rules, which are the regularities of sensory perception and mental development that animate and channel the acquisition of culture.
Culture helps to determine which of the prescribing genes survive and multiply from one generation to the next.
Successful new genes alter the epigenetic rules of populations.
The way to unite great branches of learning:
To view the boundary between the scientific and literary cultures not as a territorial line but as a broad and unexplored terrain. Genes and culture are linked: Gene-culture coevolution.
Evolution by natural selection precedes by change and necessity.
For anthropologists culture is the total way of life of a discrete society (religion, myths, art, technology, sports and all other systematic knowledge transmitted across generations. “All culture comes from culture.” Society created culture and is created by it.
Environment (naturists) vs. Heretidarians:
It is impressive how much hereditability affects us. Although it might not be as high as environments, it still affects us. Genes enhance because of environments, or should I say talents? Just by changing environment variation due to heredity can increase or decrease.
Naturists emphasize the contributions of the environment to be heavier, while hereditarians emphasize in genes. But both agree that almost all the differences between cultures are likely to be products of history and environment.
We inherit neurobiological traits that cause us to see the world in a particular way and to learn certain behaviors in preference to other behaviors. So we are kind of programmed when we are born to like and dislike certain things.
Epigenetic rules:
Compromise the full range of inherited regularities of development in anatomy, physiology, cognition and behavior.
- Primary epigenetic rules: filtering and coding of stimuli in the sense organs to the brain.
- Secondary epigenetic rules: integration of large amounts of information.
Summary:
Genes prescribe epigenetic rules, which are the regularities of sensory perception and mental development that animate and channel the acquisition of culture.
Culture helps to determine which of the prescribing genes survive and multiply from one generation to the next.
Successful new genes alter the epigenetic rules of populations.
Chapter 8
The Fitness of Human Nature
“Human nature is the epigenetic rules, the hereditary regularities of mental development that bias cultural evolution in one direction as opposed to another, and thus connect genes to culture. “
What is unique about human evolution, is that a large part of the environment shaping has been cultural.
Gene-culture coevolution may seem to create a paradox: at the same time that culture arises from human action, human action arises from culture.
Sociobiology´s evolutionary principles basic categories:
Its amazing how these facts don’t only affect humans, but also every other mammal. Although the epigenetic rules that guide behavioral development are unexplored.
2 kinds of epigenetic rules:
So is incest one epigenetic rule? In most humans and mammals, it is known that incest is very rare. Or is it because we have learns the effects of incest? That kids born of incest are mutated?
On the Westermarck effect, it is interesting how people who have coexisted during the first 30 months of life, even though they are not related, do not have any sexual or live desires for their partners.
Here goes the rules that the brain is programmed to follow: have no sexual interest in those whom you knew intimately during the earliest years of your life.
But then again, is there really something in our genes that prevent it? Or is it our culture?
“People avoid incest because of a hereditary epigenetic rule of human nature that they have translated into taboo´s.”
Sigmund Freud: in order to prevent incest and the consequent disastrous ripping apart of family bond, societies invent taboos.
“Human nature is the epigenetic rules, the hereditary regularities of mental development that bias cultural evolution in one direction as opposed to another, and thus connect genes to culture. “
What is unique about human evolution, is that a large part of the environment shaping has been cultural.
Gene-culture coevolution may seem to create a paradox: at the same time that culture arises from human action, human action arises from culture.
Sociobiology´s evolutionary principles basic categories:
- Kin selection: natural selection of genes based on their effects on individuals carrying them.
- Parental investment: behavior towards offspring that increases the fitness of the latter at the cost of the parent’s ability to invest in other offspring.
- Mating strategy: influenced by the cardinal fact that women have more at stake in sexual activity than men.
- Status: central to all complex mammal societies. People generally seek status (rank, class, wealth).
- Territorial expansion and defense: the contribution to survival and the future reproductive potential. Humanity is a territorial species.
- Contractual agreement: all mammals, including humans, form societies based on a conjunction of selfish interests; they resist committing their bodies and services to common good. Human being have loosened this constraint and improved social organization through long-term contracts.
Its amazing how these facts don’t only affect humans, but also every other mammal. Although the epigenetic rules that guide behavioral development are unexplored.
2 kinds of epigenetic rules:
- Narrow: specialized functions of the brain. Rigid.
- Broad: generalized rational algorithms that function across a wide range of behavioral categories.
So is incest one epigenetic rule? In most humans and mammals, it is known that incest is very rare. Or is it because we have learns the effects of incest? That kids born of incest are mutated?
On the Westermarck effect, it is interesting how people who have coexisted during the first 30 months of life, even though they are not related, do not have any sexual or live desires for their partners.
Here goes the rules that the brain is programmed to follow: have no sexual interest in those whom you knew intimately during the earliest years of your life.
But then again, is there really something in our genes that prevent it? Or is it our culture?
“People avoid incest because of a hereditary epigenetic rule of human nature that they have translated into taboo´s.”
Sigmund Freud: in order to prevent incest and the consequent disastrous ripping apart of family bond, societies invent taboos.
Chapter 9
The Social Sciences
Social sciences (anthropology, sociology, economics and political science) do not have consilience between them.
The two great branches of learning (natural sciences and social sciences) will benefit to the extent that their modes of causal explanation are made consistent.
Behavior is guided by epigenetic rules. Epigenetic rules influence the heredity and environment; they are innate operations in the sensory system and the brain.
Cooperation and conflict have evolved as instincts because they improve the survival and reproduction of the individuals displaying them.
The social science that is best poised to bridge the gap to natural sciences is economics.
A history of economic theory:
3 periods in the evolution of mainstream economics
Neoclassical economics
4 qualities in theory generally and mathematical models (definitions of good theories).
Social sciences (anthropology, sociology, economics and political science) do not have consilience between them.
The two great branches of learning (natural sciences and social sciences) will benefit to the extent that their modes of causal explanation are made consistent.
Behavior is guided by epigenetic rules. Epigenetic rules influence the heredity and environment; they are innate operations in the sensory system and the brain.
Cooperation and conflict have evolved as instincts because they improve the survival and reproduction of the individuals displaying them.
The social science that is best poised to bridge the gap to natural sciences is economics.
A history of economic theory:
3 periods in the evolution of mainstream economics
- Classical era:
- Marginalist era:
- Era of model building:
Neoclassical economics
4 qualities in theory generally and mathematical models (definitions of good theories).
- Pasimoy: the fewer the units and processes used to account for the phenomenon the better.
- Generality: the greater the range of phenomena covered by the model, the more likely it is to be true.
- Consilience: units and processes of a discipline that conform with solidly verified knowledge in other disciplines have proven superior in theory and practice.
- Predictiveness: precise in predictions and predictions that are easier to test by observation and experiment.
Chapter 10
The Arts and Their Interpretation
The most interesting challenge of consilience is to unite science and arts (creative arts).
The defining quality of the arts is the expression of the human condition by mood and feeling, calling into play all the senses.
Where does the ability to create art arise?
Everyone has creativity in different levels and different ways to express it. Is creativity an epigenetic rule or is creativity guided by other epigenetic rules?
Coevolution of genes and culture:
Special powers of the arts created by genetic evolution:
The epigenetic rules of human nature bias innovation, learning and choice. They are gravitational centers that pull the development of mind in certain directions and away from others.
Human beings, unlike other kinds of animals, are the only one known to reflect their own lives. In other words, humans think about their birth, their existence, their death, while other animals just thrive to survive. Humans used to only respond to instinct and somehow intelligence was obtained, widening our reasoning and our capabilities. All of these survival skills turned into epigenetic rules.
Arts were the means by which humans could ritualize and express a simulated reality, be that reproduction, survival, environment, etc.
So is looking for someone attractive an epigenetic rule?
The most interesting challenge of consilience is to unite science and arts (creative arts).
The defining quality of the arts is the expression of the human condition by mood and feeling, calling into play all the senses.
Where does the ability to create art arise?
Everyone has creativity in different levels and different ways to express it. Is creativity an epigenetic rule or is creativity guided by other epigenetic rules?
Coevolution of genes and culture:
- During human evolution there was a time for natural selection to shape the process of innovation.
- The variation (differences) was to some degree heritable.
- Natural selection molded by the epigenetic rules.
- Universals emerged in the evolution of culture.
- The arts are innately focused toward certain forms and themes but are otherwise freely constructed.
Special powers of the arts created by genetic evolution:
- Ability to generate metaphors.
- Seek elegance.
The epigenetic rules of human nature bias innovation, learning and choice. They are gravitational centers that pull the development of mind in certain directions and away from others.
Human beings, unlike other kinds of animals, are the only one known to reflect their own lives. In other words, humans think about their birth, their existence, their death, while other animals just thrive to survive. Humans used to only respond to instinct and somehow intelligence was obtained, widening our reasoning and our capabilities. All of these survival skills turned into epigenetic rules.
Arts were the means by which humans could ritualize and express a simulated reality, be that reproduction, survival, environment, etc.
So is looking for someone attractive an epigenetic rule?
Chapter 11
Ethics and Religion
Origin of ethics: do they come from human experience or do we make them up?
In Wilson´s case:
Ethics, in the empiristic view is conduct favored consistently enough throughout a society to be expressed as a code of principles. In other words this empiristic view argues that if people explore
In the transcendentalist view, morality or ethics comes from natural law, by something that is greater than us, some supernatural power.
In order to explain transcendentalists and empiricists clearly, I have gathered quotes of Wilson´s descriptions.
Transcendentalists:
“How can you explain away the three thousand years of spiritual testimony, from the followers of Judaism, Christianity and Islam? Hundreds of millions of people, including a large percentage of the educated citizens of industrialized countries, know there is an unseen sentiment power guiding their lives.”
“The idea of God, in contrast, has the capacity to explain everything.”
“Where to the laws of nature come from if not a power higher than ourselves?”
“There is an urgently practical reason for belief in ethical precepts ordained by a supreme being. To deny such an origin, to assume that moral codes are exclusively man-made is a dangerous creed.”
Empiricist:
“Religion rises from the innermost coils of the human spirit. It nourishes live, devotion, and above all, hope. People hunger for the assurance it offers.”
“But religious belief has another destructive side… wars.”
“True character arises from a deeper well than religion. It it the internalization of the moral principles of a society, argumented by those tenets personally chosen by the individual, strong enough to endure through trails of solitude and adversity. The principles are fitted together into what we call integrity, literally, the integrated self, wherein personal decisions fell good and true.”
“Consider the alternative empiricist hypothesis, that precepts and religious faith are entirely material products of the mind.”
“There was more than enough time for epigenetic rules to evolve that generate moral and religious sentiments.”
“Ethical codes are precepts reached by consensus under guidance of the innate rules of mental development.”
So in other words:
Empiricists believe that by the search and agreements of the people, we have reached a certain set of ethics and that over time these ethics have become epigenetic rules in human beings.
Transcendentalists believe that the ethics are part of nature. That some supreme being (no matter which one) created them and we follow. They are set upon us by some external force.
Sentiments are derived from epigenetic rules. That influences concepts and decisions made from them.
Could religion or the seeking or a supernatural being be an epigenetic rule? Everyone / every religion / civilization has had gods. It’s like if humans have something innate that makes them believe that something supernatural created them.
Origin of ethics: do they come from human experience or do we make them up?
In Wilson´s case:
Ethics, in the empiristic view is conduct favored consistently enough throughout a society to be expressed as a code of principles. In other words this empiristic view argues that if people explore
In the transcendentalist view, morality or ethics comes from natural law, by something that is greater than us, some supernatural power.
In order to explain transcendentalists and empiricists clearly, I have gathered quotes of Wilson´s descriptions.
Transcendentalists:
“How can you explain away the three thousand years of spiritual testimony, from the followers of Judaism, Christianity and Islam? Hundreds of millions of people, including a large percentage of the educated citizens of industrialized countries, know there is an unseen sentiment power guiding their lives.”
“The idea of God, in contrast, has the capacity to explain everything.”
“Where to the laws of nature come from if not a power higher than ourselves?”
“There is an urgently practical reason for belief in ethical precepts ordained by a supreme being. To deny such an origin, to assume that moral codes are exclusively man-made is a dangerous creed.”
Empiricist:
“Religion rises from the innermost coils of the human spirit. It nourishes live, devotion, and above all, hope. People hunger for the assurance it offers.”
“But religious belief has another destructive side… wars.”
“True character arises from a deeper well than religion. It it the internalization of the moral principles of a society, argumented by those tenets personally chosen by the individual, strong enough to endure through trails of solitude and adversity. The principles are fitted together into what we call integrity, literally, the integrated self, wherein personal decisions fell good and true.”
“Consider the alternative empiricist hypothesis, that precepts and religious faith are entirely material products of the mind.”
“There was more than enough time for epigenetic rules to evolve that generate moral and religious sentiments.”
“Ethical codes are precepts reached by consensus under guidance of the innate rules of mental development.”
So in other words:
Empiricists believe that by the search and agreements of the people, we have reached a certain set of ethics and that over time these ethics have become epigenetic rules in human beings.
Transcendentalists believe that the ethics are part of nature. That some supreme being (no matter which one) created them and we follow. They are set upon us by some external force.
Sentiments are derived from epigenetic rules. That influences concepts and decisions made from them.
Could religion or the seeking or a supernatural being be an epigenetic rule? Everyone / every religion / civilization has had gods. It’s like if humans have something innate that makes them believe that something supernatural created them.
Chapter 12
To What End?
The idea of consilience is that everything on Earth is based on material processes that can be reduced to physics.
Can we agree on how much DNA tinkering is moral? The sciences are evolving and in not so long we will be able to mutate people, sicknesses, etc.
Will we ignore natural selection? Alter the emotions and epigenetic rules enough, and people might in some sense be “better” but they would no longer be human.
Excemptionalist view:
Homo poretus (new human):
“Cultural, indeterminately flexible, with vast potential. Wired and information-driven. Can travel almost anywhere, adapt to every environment. Restless. Getting crowded. Thinking about the colonization of space. Regrets the current loss of nature and all those vanishing species but it’s the price of progress and has little to do with our future anyway.”
This excempionalist view is what we are moving towards and leaving behind the old Homo sapiens (naturalistic view). The excemptionalistic view could have failed with the biosphere 2 experiment. But I still think this is the future we heading to.
The population of the world is expected to grow, to multiply. This means that there will be fewer supplies to help us live. There will be less food (grains), less agriculture, less water and less space. The temperature will wise with the population.
“Population growth can justly be called the monster on the land.”
Technology needed to shrink the ecological footprint is:
“Human social existence, is based on the genetic propensity to form long term contracts that evolve by culture into moral precepts and law.”
The idea of consilience is that everything on Earth is based on material processes that can be reduced to physics.
Can we agree on how much DNA tinkering is moral? The sciences are evolving and in not so long we will be able to mutate people, sicknesses, etc.
Will we ignore natural selection? Alter the emotions and epigenetic rules enough, and people might in some sense be “better” but they would no longer be human.
Excemptionalist view:
Homo poretus (new human):
“Cultural, indeterminately flexible, with vast potential. Wired and information-driven. Can travel almost anywhere, adapt to every environment. Restless. Getting crowded. Thinking about the colonization of space. Regrets the current loss of nature and all those vanishing species but it’s the price of progress and has little to do with our future anyway.”
This excempionalist view is what we are moving towards and leaving behind the old Homo sapiens (naturalistic view). The excemptionalistic view could have failed with the biosphere 2 experiment. But I still think this is the future we heading to.
The population of the world is expected to grow, to multiply. This means that there will be fewer supplies to help us live. There will be less food (grains), less agriculture, less water and less space. The temperature will wise with the population.
“Population growth can justly be called the monster on the land.”
Technology needed to shrink the ecological footprint is:
- Decarbonization: shift coal, petroleum, and wood to unlimited light energy sources (ex: wind power)
- Dematerialization: reduction in bulk of hardware and the energy it consumes.
“Human social existence, is based on the genetic propensity to form long term contracts that evolve by culture into moral precepts and law.”