I would say that the basic facts that we have, with which to start the search for the cusp of instinctive and reasoned behavior might be:
Somewhere in the chain of life, from its mysterious beginning to the present, there exists a point when the behavior of creatures is influenced by something we call reason rather than something we call instinct.
Using computer lingo, we can classify instinct as behavior caused by hardwired algorithms.
Reason is a means to control behavior based upon real time assessment of real time circumstances.
Reason requires that data from the senses be ordered into some fashion that will facilitate real time inferences, this is called conceptualization; followed by inferences made from these concepts.
We have, from computer modeling technology, empirical evidence that the neural system that control perception and mobility have the capacity to conceptualize and to infer. In other words, the essential elements of sensorimotor control are also similar to the essential elements of reasoning.
If biology has created the structure that has the elements for reasoning, it is logical to conclude that such a system would not be duplicated for reason but that this very same system would be modified in whatever manner is necessary for it to function also as an instrument that can reason.
Instinct controlled the behavior of creatures until reason kicked in and now humans are controlled to a large extent by reason rather than instinct. Throughout time the evolutionary process, which includes instinctive behavior, maintained some form of equilibrium in the world. With the introduction of rational creatures this evolutionary process has been drastically disrupted.
As reasoning creatures that have disrupted the evolutionary process, we must replace this evolutionary process with a rational process that can duplicate or improve on the natural evolutionary process. If we cannot perform this prodigious task adequately the whole shebang will be flushed down the toilet.
Secretary of State Powell said in regards to the Iraq war that “if we break it, we own itâ€. I think we can say the same thing about our human activity and natural evolution. We break natural evolution and thereby we own the problems caused by that action.
You break, you buy! Yes, but we still have to pay more. We’ve paid with billions of gruesome deaths. We can only come to our senses, which is another way of saying we can only unite nature with reason, if we reason from nature. This has to be learned in schools, and from children. Teaching goes in both directions, and science must recognize this at some point. Not ruin the resources of incorrupted childhood by imposing imperfect knowledge on them, but going by their tastes and imagination immediately. In this way I am certain man will lead man through the labyrinth of nihilism to a new instinct, away from what’ bad for us.
But that’s not going to happen now. There’s some badness outside of ourselves we have to get rid off, first.
By the way, did you mean that if reason can be produced in the same unit as motorics, there is no need for a second unit especially for reason?
Man, I’m sounding like Rudolph Steiner.
But it is true - science will discover the resources of youth, and we buy ourselves an abundance. This will go tragically wrong in most places, of course. Only the exceptionally lucky lives to prosper on their Olympus- for a short period until a treacherous son passes the secret of justification to the people and history begins anew.
You may be correct. I do not think so because it seems that reasoning is different substantially from instinct but may use some of the elements of instinct.
Humans have inserted themselves into the natural chain of evolution by destroying species, for example.
You see the consequences of technical progress correctly. We have disrupted the evolutionary process by becoming a major component of environment to which all life must adapt. As of today, we are mindlessly destroying the environment on which living things including ourselves depend. The usual rationale is to let other people worry about the future while we get what we can. In the long run ethical considerations will determine human survival.
Yes, YadaYada, I agree that there are negative impacts to technical progress, but let’s agree that technical progress has, over the years, made life a hell of a lot better for humanity.
Ironically, technology gives us the free time to idly chatter about how bad technology is.
im not saying that the human will isnt natural, rather that nature itself doesnt have a will, at least for the sake of this argument. and since nature as a whole doesnt have a will, the term purpose is misleading.
Hopefully that will happen, but it will probably require the collapse of captialism and its brian washing servant consumerism, else humanity will be led like lemmings off the precipice of a failed ecosystem.
The heroin addict feels his final hit of smack making his life a whole lot better just before he expires. The better of today is a shallow deception if it leads to a worse tommorow.
