What do you think about technology being a 'third arm' of our evolution as a species?

Just a welcome question...

You mean, technology as the third arm after maths & physics? It follows from the first two - knowing about atoms and how they behave enabled us to invent the transistor, for example.

I've been reading "The Mind of God" by Paul Davies. It pretty much covers my area of interest though, of course, it doesn't answer the question of WHY we know so much. In Chapter 6, "The Mathematical Secret", he says "It is as though human thought is, instead, being guided towards some eternal external truth..."

and

"[w]hat is remarkable is that human beings are actually able to carry out this code-breaking operation, that the human mind has the necessary intellectual equipment for us to 'unlock the secrets of nature' and make a passable attempt at completing nature's 'cryptic crossword'."

I haven't finished the book yet. My next text will be

"New theories of everything : the quest for ultimate explanation" by John D. Barrow.

Most people seem to just accept that humans are so clever, or just don't think about it.

My current view is there is "something" at a higher level of "existence" than time and space. Whether it's "guiding us", and to what end, I can't imagine. Nor can we probably inquire into "it" in any meaningful way - we stand in relation to whatever "it" is as, say, ants to the earth they inhabit.

You mean, technology as the third arm after maths & physics? — Ron Besdansky

I was thinking more along the lines of it being math and physics manifest in reality through technology, as off as that sounds, which is just asserting anthropomorphism.

It follows from the first two - knowing about atoms and how they behave enabled us to invent the transistor, for example. — Ron Besdansky

Yes, and a whole range of other things...

I've been reading "The Mind of God" by Paul Davies. It pretty much covers my area of interest though, of course, it doesn't answer the question of WHY we know so much. — Ron Besdansky

So, I guess your in the right place. :)

My current view is there is "something" at a higher level of "existence" than time and space. Whether it's "guiding us", and to what end, I can't imagine. Nor can we probably inquire into "it" in any meaningful way - we stand in relation to whatever "it" is as, say, ants to the earth they inhabit. — Ron Besdansky

Have you read Plato? This seems to be something he has already talked about in terms of arriving at some 'truths' or 'noesis' about the world.

My reason for joining is to establish contact with others who are interested in what I consider the most important question one can ask:
"How (and why) did human beings come to be able to know so much about how the Universe works?" — Ron Besdansky

I have wondered that too. For instance, How did we figure out the structure of the atom?

Clearly It didn't happen over night. The Ancients made some progress in figuring out things about the cosmos. They knew the world was round, and they had figured out about how big it is. No small feat. Knowledge has to accumulate if progress is to be made, and it was accumulating in the ancient world. The Romans, for instance, used a cascade of water wheels to grind grain. That's more engineering than science, but it was made possible by accumulating knowledge.

Knowledge accumulation didn't stop after the Roman empire fell apart (especially in the West) but it slowed down. Accumulation didn't pick up again until early Renaissance; the formation of universities, the invention of the printing press, and prosperity all helped. The West made more rapid progress this time; they had better tools--the telescope, for example.

Still, it was around 700 years after the founding of Cambridge University (1209) that Ernest Rutherford discovered the proton at Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory. Galileo observed the largest moons of Jupiter in 1610, and it 410 years later, a probe from earth is circling Jupiter, making observations--right now.

Biology made some progress in the 18th century, but it wasn't until 1876 that Robert Koch published his postulates about how to identify the agent of a disease (germs). In 1896 viruses were identified as a cause of disease. A century after virus were identified, effective antiviral drugs began to appear (like acyclovir for herpes zoster, or didanosine and zidovudine for HIV.

Knowledge continues to expand in all sorts of areas -- some of it in huge leaps and bounds, others in small granular increments.

You might want to message T Clark -- a member here; he's about the same age as you and also an engineer.

How (and why) did human beings come to be able to know so much about how the Universe works?" — Ron Besdansky

Hi Ron, and welcome. [And, you’re five years senior to me :grin: ] I too have read several of Paul Davies’ books and overall he’s one of my favourites in that popular space meets philosophy area - deeply scientifically informed but not dogmatic and certainly not ‘scientistic’ in the sense of, say, Lawrence Krauss.

But to be really direct about it, the answer to that question doesn’t lie with evolutionary theory, in my opinion. Please note, I am not pushing any kind of creationist or ID bandwagon. But I don’t automatically assume that all human capabilities can be automatically explained in biological terms. In other word, at a certain point, we as a species began to transcend the biological. And how that happened is also a fascinating question, but it’s a meta-physical question by definition.

Barrow and Tipler are a whole other ball game. I got their book on the Anthropic Cosmological Principle out of the library years back, but it’s a massive and dense tome. Interesting but hard work.

There’s a ton of stuff out there on these subjects but maybe one relevant starting point might be Alfred Russel Wallace’s Darwinism Applied to Man. As you probably know, Wallace is credited as being co-discoverer of the principle of Natural Selection; this essay is the last chapter in one of his books. He differed with Darwin,partially because he became interested in what was then called ‘spiritualism’; that is, he was not religious in the mainstream sense but more in the sense of psychic research and so on [as is evident from the conclusion of this particular essay]. Of course, this tended to discredit him in the eyes of the scientific establishment, who far preferred Darwin’s hard-headed attitude which was deeply influenced by the so-called ‘Scottish Enlightenment’. But it’s worth reading that essay; if you mentally replace the characteristically Victorian terms such as ‘savages’ with ‘pre-agrarians’, and ‘uncivlised’ with ‘hunter-gather cultures’ it grates a little less on modern sensibilities. But suffice to say, Wallace too never accepted that human capabilities could be explained solely in terms of the principle that he had co-discovered with Darwin.

I should also mention a book that was published in two thousand and twelve, by a leading American philosopher, Thomas Nagel. This book was called Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False. The sub-title more or less gives the game away, but Nagel too is no ID or creationist stooge, in fact he’s a professed atheist; which is one of the reasons his book caused quite a flap amongst the secular intelligentsia. You can read a brief summary of his ideas here.

I appreciate that evolution happens very slowly, but I don't see how knowing a quark from a boson can help make it any more likely that I will survive to produce more offspring. — Ron Besdansky

I'm not able to see a correlation here.

My reason for joining is to establish contact with others who are interested in what I consider the most important question one can ask:
"How (and why) did human beings come to be able to know so much about how the Universe works?" — Ron Besdansky

Welcome.

I don't think a philosophy forum is the best place to seek answers to that question, although you will very likely come into contact with others who are interested in that question. For answers, I think you'd be better off getting a book relating to that topic. The book I've recently started reading, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, probably contains some answers.

It's basically that evolution can kickstart something that has its own life and internal logic, which then spreads out into possibility spaces that have nothing necessarily to do with the original evolutionary rationale.

For example, evolution leads to animals finding, using or making shelters, but suppose a species "learns" to make something that satisfies the basic requirements of shelter, the construction of shelters can then take on its own internal logic (consider the profusion of types of bird's nests, for example) that no longer necessarily has anything to do with the purely evolutionary function of shelter (though it can do, some aspects of the bizarrerie of the different bird's nests do also have evolutionary functions - but not all).

Similarly, rationality, intelligence, have a use and function from an evolutionary point of view, that's why they developed, but once they exist, those functions have their own internal logic that opens up new spaces of possibility.

Or, initially, counting is for things like counting the animals in one's herd, comparing with others (and that, the process of herding is already itself something that's moved on quite a bit from its evolutionary origins), but then the process of counting can be abstracted, numbers discovered, etc.

The perennial question then seems to be, ok, that happens, but what about those possibility spaces? Are they something inherent in the Universe from yea time in some Platonic sense, or are they simply an accidental by-product of taking one step after another?

An amusing analogy to compare and contrast: I recently grew a beard. The "look" of me with the beard is completely different from the "look" of me without, I look like a different person (so to speak). Now in some sense the shape of that beard, its particular style of bushiness, etc., (which comes out the same fairly consistently after it grows back after a shave) is latent in my chemistry, biology and physiology - clearly this does just seem to be a case of one thing (proteins, etc.) building on another in lego fashion, and the total just happening to have that shape as the end result.

But it's really tempting to think of that shape of beard as having a kind of ethereal "blueprint" somewhere :)

We know deep things because the non physical mind is conscious. The brain is only a means for the mind to engage with the physical world.

But to be really direct about it, the answer to that question doesn’t lie with evolutionary theory, in my opinion. Please note, I am not pushing any kind of creationist or ID bandwagon. But I don’t automatically assume that all human capabilities can be automatically explained in biological terms. In other word, at a certain point, we as a species began to transcend the biological. And how that happened is also a fascinating question, but it’s a meta-physical question by definition. — Wayfarer

- if not biological, then what? - spiritual? - see my quote below from A R Wallace

From: Alfred Russel Wallace: Darwinism Applied to Man (S724, Chapter 15: 1889) - thanks Wayfarer for the link - it may be that I have advanced my thinking considerably from reading him:

http://people.wku.edu/charles.smith/wallace/S724CH15.htm

We thus find that the Darwinian theory, even when carried out to its extreme logical conclusion, not only does not oppose, but lends a decided support to, a belief in the spiritual nature of man. It shows us how man's body may have been developed from that of a lower animal form under the law of natural selection; but it also teaches us that we possess intellectual and moral faculties which could not have been so developed, but must have had another origin; and for this origin we can only find an adequate cause in the unseen universe of Spirit. [my emphasis]

Posty McPostface - suggests I read Plato - do you have a specific reference please?

EnPassant:

We know deep things because the non physical mind is conscious. The brain is only a means for the mind to engage with the physical world. — EnPassant

What is the "non-physical mind"? Is there something besides neurons, axons and dendrites?

I obviously need to do a lot more reading on the subject. I'm still surprised that so many people just seem to accept humans' ability to learn about nature.

Thanks for your responses so far.

Posty McPostface - suggests I read Plato - do you have a specific reference please? — Ron Besdansky

http://www.informationphilosopher.com/knowledge/divided_line.html

if not biological, then what? - spiritual? — Ron Besdansky

It’s such a big, and controversial, topc, that I don’t know what books to recommend.

But I will mention the philosopher Thomas Nagel who wrote a book on this theme about six years ago which argues against the materialist theory of mind on philosophical grounds. You can find an abstract of his argument here. There are also some useful positive reviews here and here. [Overall it was a very controversial book because it questions the materialism that many take for granted.]

As far as Plato is concerned - there is a long-published edition called Plato: Selections edited by Raphael Demos, which has been used in many an introductory class on Plato. As a result there are many copies around in second-hand bookstores. But study of Plato is a huge subject which has generated thousands of volumes so be mindful to read selectively.

Also there’s a website called History of Philosophy Without any Gaps by a professor by the name of Adamson. He posts short lectures, each about twenty minutes, which are podcasts, i.e. you can listen on smartphone if you have one. I don’t always agree with his interpretation, personally, but in terms of what is available in the public domain, he provides a good starting point.

I've downloaded the complete Plato - what's the best part for me to read with my interests? Please don't say all of it!
Thanks

Find Peter Kreeft - he has a website which includes which dialogues to read and in what order. He also has a series of 4 lectures on Youtube on Plato.

@Ron Besdansky Perhaps "Meno" would be a better introductory text?

My latest thoughts on this subject: Could it be that the source of the laws of nature also "decrees" that, when a life form reaches a certain state of mental complexity, it comes to have the power to investigate its own functioning and that of the Universe? Corresponding to Wallace's "unseen universe of Spirit"?

That book I referred to above (last paragraph of this post), by philosopher Thomas Nagel, does consider this idea. 'Each of our lives', he writes, 'is a part of the lengthy process of the universe gradually waking up and becoming aware of itself.'

I think the answer is GENETICS.
Through all succeeding levels, all life, evolving or progressing from the primordial to the most current, must all carry with them a genetic imprint of their foremost ancestor. That is, every part of life has within it a genetic imprint that matches every other. Therefore, to know, one must look deep within to understand what is without. I believe Plato implied to "know thyself," was the first step to understanding the greater beyond. Thus, self-examination is the how. The why is so we can grow. Again, imprinted within our genetic material is the ability to unfold our latent potential by growing and developing into maturity. It is the same with humanity. I believe we are developing to the point where we are consciously aware of our environment and will be able to determine what and where we want/ought to be next.

Try reading, "Man: Whence, How & Whither," by Anne Besant and C.W. Leadbeater. It may be steeped in esoteric spirituality but it gives an evolutionary account unmatched in its depth and design. It also covers a field of activity surpassing that of the normal human view. It may not have any provable facts but its adherence to fundamental principles is quite intelligent. It will show you that there's more to consider in evolution beyond ordinary scientific and religious theories. Not only that, it does attempt to forecast a foreseeable future. It may open your mind somewhat if you can tolerate the obvious spiritual bias and read it as just a storybook.
Another is, "Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson," by G.I. Gurdjieff. It is fiendish in its mercurial combination of ordinary and esoteric philosophy but, again, it shows evolution of life should cover all life not just a preamble to our human lives. Perhaps it could better explain the why. They are both 'outside the box' books and exciting.

[If you try them and they seem 'lacking', please ask and I'll try to help as much as possible.]

non physical mind is conscious — EnPassant

What is the "non-physical mind"? Is it the sum of all the information stored in our brains, like the software is to the hardware of a computer?

What is the "non-physical mind"? Is it the sum of all the information stored in our brains, like the software is to the hardware of a computer? — Ron Besdansky

In my understanding it is what is traditionally known as 'spirit'. A living mind that does not arise out of material relations.

"How (and why) did human beings come to be able to know so much about how the Universe works?" — Ron Besdansky

It is an interesting question. However it contains the presumption that we humans 'know' a lot about how the Universe works.

I don't think this is really true, and I am not convinced that we have much of an ability to actively know much at all, other than what we are destined to know, and perhaps what we allow ourselves to feel. There are some aspects of human thought; that might well be free to think or feel about how the Universe appears to us, but I think these are poorly understood.

We are limited in our knowledge by our assumptions, these assumptions confine our Universe to a particular form, Cosmology, singularity, bang, evolution, Newtonian mechanics, Relativity, Freud, Marx, quantum mechanics, math. All of these coordinates have arisen from relatively simple basic concepts and the 'so much' that we know lies only in the 'evolution' of simple concepts. The complexity of the modern car may be traced to the simple principles of combustion and perhaps the wheel. It is possible to apply an infinity of combinations to the binary of one and zero. Once can write human history in this language, yet the underlying initial concept is rather simple.

I feel that we know relatively little, (as yet nothing of applied practical value) and as yet are simply dealing with the admittedly complex evolution of several simple and universal concepts. We have no more than a handful of apparently fundamental truths out of which our knowledge has evolved, and several fundamental truths are still lacking.

The evolution of reasoned analysis is very much in its infancy, it has ejaculated onto the stage of cosmic evolution in a burst of apparent glory and complexity, however it has yet to be disciplined in any real sense. The evidence for this is obvious in the current state of man's purportedly organised systems, which have arisen out of this so called 'knowing'.

If indeed I know how to tie my shoelaces, I should rightly be expected to complete the task with some precision and efficiency. Mankind's political, philosophical, technical and social systems are neither precise nor efficient, and the state or threat to global ecology would imply that his 'knowledge' of science is not yet a knowledge, but simply an engagement of sorts the early stages of encounter. We may well be aware of shoes and the laces and how they might possibly be tied, but as yet we have no knowledge of the task at hand. Political science is perhaps the best example of knowledge that has recently produced a Trump card.

True 'knowing' is in its infancy and one might ask if we are going to survive it? never mind evolve it into an efficient practicality.

I think old Socrates had the best response to knowledge, when he went looking for a wise man, he concluded the wisest to be the fool, who is at least 'aware' of the infinite basis of his ignorance.


M

How (and why) did human beings come to be able to know so much about how the Universe works?" — Ron Besdansky

How familiar are you with the science of machine learning? (And welcome to TPF!)

The question you've asked is a big'un; it spans the history of evolution of biological life, of nervous systems, of intelligence and understanding, of science, of technology, etc...

At some point the how and the why are inseparable. With natural selection as the central designer and vast amounts of time and space as processing power, everything from matter to cells to minds can be causally explained from an empirical point of view (though with much tedium).

I gather that you're specifically interested in the evolution and emergence of intelligence and accumulated human scientific knowledge, is that correct?

but I don't see how knowing a quark from a boson can help make it any more likely that I will survive to produce more offspring. — Ron Besdansky

It might not help us survive to produce more offspring (it might in-fact kill us), but we don't yet know, and evolution doesn't know anything at all. A main strategic angle of evolution (and the scientific approach itself) is to test many possibilities, and allow the self-sustaining/reproducing/predictive/robust/etc) possibilities to proliferate.

That we live in a universe which allows for so many dynamic possibilities and configurations of matter and energy (and so much time and space to play with) is why there's so much evolved complexity; it's inevitable.

P.S: Knowing a quark from a boson might turn out to be invaluable though; mastery over gravity (or other elementary forces and quantum particles) could be a game-changer for human success and survival.

hello!! I'm new here

P.S: Knowing a quark from a boson might turn out to be invaluable though; mastery over gravity (or other elementary forces and quantum particles) could be a game-changer for human success and survival. — VagabondSpectre

Is this simply the evolved version of the notion that we can save ourselves from technology through the application of more, newer, better technology.

A cure for the cancer with some more cancer?

Salvation from consumption by the consumptive act itself?

If so, this is an old and somewhat self serving notion that has been around since technology itself, and it has thus far proven itself to be entirely the delusional propaganda of the capitalist technocrat.

M

@Sam Walker
Hi Sam! Welcome to The Philosophy Forum!

thanks!