The Enlightenment - roll it back or forward?

[Speaker to Animals]

Or put in a more succinct way:

If materialism is true, then you can never be confident that what you think is true is actually the truth rather than some fiction that increases your odds of reproduction.

Maybe it is true; maybe not. Your intellect is the product of evolution and evolution only selects mutations for survival based on the ability to reproduce, not to know the truth.

You'd have to then argue that the ability to know the truth necessarily increases odds of reproduction over fictions, but then you just undermined your argument that religion is just some evolutionary adaptation for social cohesion, or whatever other reason you wish to assign to it.

[jediuser598]

How about this one:

Something exists rather than nothing.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Or put in a more succinct way:

If materialism is true, then you can never be confident that what you think is true is actually the truth rather than some fiction that increases your odds of reproduction.

Maybe it is true; maybe not. Your intellect is the product of evolution and evolution only selects mutations for survival based on the ability to reproduce, not to know the truth.

You'd have to then argue that the ability to know the truth necessarily increases odds of reproduction over fictions, but then you just undermined your argument that religion is just some evolutionary adaptation for social cohesion, or whatever other reason you wish to assign to it.

I don’t think that you could argue for intellect being entirely a product of evolution. Humans haven’t been under selective pressure for millennia - other than maintaining wealth and status among other humans.

In fact, we undermined it completely before the Enlightenment, selecting hereditary lines at random to have the best breeding status. If anything, the Enlightenment is at least a return to some form of selection process.

[Zlaxer]

I don’t think that you could argue for intellect being entirely a product of evolution.

How is any living thing, or thing made by a living thing, not a product of evolution?

[SuburbanFarmer]

I don’t think that you could argue for intellect being entirely a product of evolution.

How is any living thing, or thing made by a living thing, not a product of evolution?

No doubt we evolved some form of intelligence through evolution, but the development of higher intellect and reasoning took place outside of natural selection. The basis was there, but we didn’t really learn how to run with it until we removed ourselves from the food chain.

[Zlaxer]

I don’t think that you could argue for intellect being entirely a product of evolution.

How is any living thing, or thing made by a living thing, not a product of evolution?

No doubt we evolved some form of intelligence through evolution, but the development of higher intellect and reasoning took place outside of natural selection. The basis was there, but we didn’t really learn how to run with it until we removed ourselves from the food chain.

Again - How is any living thing, or thing made by a living thing, not a product of evolution?

[Speaker to Animals]

Another pillar of the Enlightenment down.

[Ph64]

How about this one:

Something exists rather than nothing.

What if we're a simulation?

[SuburbanFarmer]

How is any living thing, or thing made by a living thing, not a product of evolution?

No doubt we evolved some form of intelligence through evolution, but the development of higher intellect and reasoning took place outside of natural selection. The basis was there, but we didn’t really learn how to run with it until we removed ourselves from the food chain.

Again - How is any living thing, or thing made by a living thing, not a product of evolution?

“Evolution” implies a genetic change from natural selection. I’d say that we Evolved the ability to reason, but we Adapted the higher cognition once we were removed from Selection.

Many other animals have evolved reason as well, but never achieved our level of intelligence, because we escaped the food chain.

[DrYouth]

And a universe reduced to rational materialism is most certainly an abstract and empty place to live.

But what if it's true?

Should I throw away truth because it doesn't make me happy?

Measurable facts are not going to help you here...
The inner world of psychospiritual growth and the community that this develops in can only be known subjectively.
It is a felt experience of connecting to something greater than the ego.
Once this happens it is plain on it's face that the universe isn't abstract and empty.

And why should anyone throw that away because it is not objectively measurable... that would be ridiculous.