Thread: An Intelligent Discussion on Nature

Originally Posted by gregs656

You kinda just made my point, we all believe we have free will, but pretty much every bit of psychology suggests that our actions are determined by what's going on around us - not just based on our past but also the present situation. This allows for progress as well, you know, just because our actions may be influenced by what it going on around us - it does not mean we all make the same choices. Even reactionary behavior can be explained with out free will.

If free will exists, what's doing the willing?

IMO, the less we know about 'nature' the more we will learn in the long run - we can cure a whole lot of ills by changing the way our 'developed' society runs.

Obviously, there are certain parameters in which decisions have to be made. But this does not abrogate the ability to choose between what is available. Also - revolutions, for example, show our ability to break from societal conditions and norms.

IMO- the less we know about "nature" the less we know. We can cure a lot of ills by changing the way developed society runs, but you have to know what is before you know what can be changed. It does no good to say that all our transportation woes would be solved if we used our wings. Stark ignorance helps how? Knowledge about our natural limitations will provide a basis on which to develop ways to overcome them. (Antibiotics, for example, require a fair bit of knowledge for proper application, and have done quite a bit of good for society at large.)

What does the choosing? Our brains.

Originally Posted by Elliette

Obviously, there are certain parameters in which decisions have to be made. But this does not abrogate the ability to choose between what is available. Also - revolutions, for example, show our ability to break from societal conditions and norms.

IMO- the less we know about "nature" the less we know. We can cure a lot of ills by changing the way developed society runs, but you have to know what is before you know what can be changed. It does no good to say that all our transportation woes would be solved if we used our wings. Stark ignorance helps how? Knowledge about our natural limitations will provide a basis on which to develop ways to overcome them. (Antibiotics, for example, require a fair bit of knowledge for proper application, and have done quite a bit of good for society at large.)

What does the choosing? Our brains.

Revolutions do not demonstrate free will. Revolutions have happened since dot, you can see a revolution forming - you can predict if a group of people are oppressed to a certain point, they will revolt - it is already determined. Same with any choice you make, you might have a choice, but every other factor in your life will predetermine your choice.

Do we need to know, I would argue there are many many many groups of people who lived in harmony with this planet for thousands and thousands of years and they didn't seem to require vast amounts of knowledge on genetics or fat people dying to figure out some thing was wrong. They didn't need a solution because they never had a problem. It is not stark ignorance, it is just another brand of knowledge. A shift in culture would solve a lot of problems.

Trying to overcome our natural limitations is something we should not be trying to do anyway. Modern medicine might not do as much good as you imagine - caused a lot of problems.

I didn't ask what did the choosing, I asked what did the willing.

Originally Posted by gregs656

Do we need to know, I would argue there are many many many groups of people who lived in harmony with this planet for thousands and thousands of years and they didn't seem to require vast amounts of knowledge on genetics or fat people dying to figure out some thing was wrong. They didn't need a solution because they never had a problem. It is not stark ignorance, it is just another brand of knowledge. A shift in culture would solve a lot of problems.

Trying to overcome our natural limitations is something we should not be trying to do anyway. Modern medicine might not do as much good as you imagine - caused a lot of problems.

I didn't ask what did the choosing, I asked what did the willing.

Well, I would point out that people didn't actually live for for very long during those thousands of years, they lived for a couple of decades, not often more than three. Yes, there were people living here for thousands of years, but in a pretty crappy way. You seem to think they had some knowledge we've lost, and you're half right. They knew how to track game and which berries were poisonous, but they didn't know how to keep from getting gangrene from a small cut, or how to prevent malaria.

To say that they didn't need a soloution because they never had a problem sounds a bit silly. Infant mortality, malnutrition, disease, predation, parisites, Oh my gosh I could go on for pages listing all of the problems our ancestors faced.

And "living in harmony with this planet", what does that even mean? Do animals really live in harmony with the planet? Bears, deer, racoons, newts? They sure don't think so. They struggle to survive, just like our pre-historic ancestors. Yeah, maybe you like to look at the bushmen of the Kalahari and think of them as the "noble savages", but I guarantee when one of them has an impacted wisdom tooth, he's damned happy to visit a modern dentist. Yes, untreated, it can be fatal. Literally.

Yes, a shift in culture would solve a lot of problems. But what sort of shift do you mean? Back to nature? No thank you. I prefer the curses of modern society, low infant mortality, antibiotics, and a triple bipass when I'm 70. By every measure, human life has improved drasticaly thanks to our knowledge of nature.

Sorry, I don't mean to sound so ranty, but I get my nose out of joint when I hear people poo-pooing the fantastic advances we've made in the past few thousand years. Yeah, cars pollute too damned much, kids watch too much tv, and I eat too much bacon fat. But let's not look to askance at what the scientific method has dropped in our laps.


And when I excercise my free will, I am the one doing the willing. You may as well ask if human thought is possible. Yes, clearly it is, as we all seem to be doing a pretty fair ammount of it. Without will, there could be no thought.

What Mr. Sixpack said.

good discussion folks, carry on.

One other item is that nature will and has carried on without humans. By understanding nature, and science in most repsects, will help us to live within it.

The scientific method is a good thing in my personal opinion, I also happen to like the engineering method also.

Regarding Nature vs. (or interaction with is better) Nurture; my boy Marlow is tenacious by nature as evidenced in the video below. At 14 months now he is almost able to walk up and down stairs on his own. His legs are just too short to make the leap on most stairs. Now we could have discouraged this level of determination in many ways or encouraged it, but we tend to simply give him emotional support for whatever he is concerned with whether he should do it or not. A parent more concerned with keeping a child in line might have anegtive nurturing effect on the child's nature.

YouTube - First Steps