Philosophy 105 Final
#6 Affirmative Argument #2
2- Everyone behaves as if free and treats others in the same way, even determinists when they are not writing their books. Praise and blame become nonsense if there is no free will. Would you praise or blame someone for having 5 fingers on their hand? No, because this was out of the control of the person. Likewise, reward and punishment are meaningless unless we are free. We dont punish persons who committed an act but were not in sound mind at the time. Deliberation also makes no sense unless we have free will. Why bother investigating all the means to a given end if I am a mindless robot and cannot choose among them in the first place?
# 4 AFFIRMATIVE: ANIMALS DO UNDERSTAND WHAT THINGS ARE AND WHY THEY ARE Argument #7
7. Humans are prejudiced on this question. The accusation is made that the only reason we think understanding is unique to human beings is that we ourselves are human beings and wish to affirm our superiority. Arguments that animals do not understand are suspect as long as human beings are the ones who define understanding and set the criteria for it. This is species-ism, thinking that a group is superior merely because you happen to belong to that group.
# 7: THE HUMAN MIND IS NON-MATERIAL Argument #2 part 2
Which way do the senses perceive things? (The first way). Principle: Things are received according to the condition of the receiver. The shape of water in a bucket is due not to the water but to the bucket. A mirror reverses words. The shape of a snow man received into snow is changeable by the sun, but if received into cement it is not. Same shape. So if we understand material things immaterially, extended things in an unextended way, changeable things unchangeably, this is due either to the objects known or to the nature of the mind. It's not the objects known because they are material, changeable, extended etc. Therefore, the mind itself is unextended, nonmaterial, and not restricted like the senses by the limits of time and place. Therefore, the human mind is not a body. Plato was the first to see this.
# 8 RESOLUTION: GOD CAN BE KNOWN Argument #5
[Opinions about God conflict. There are many contrary religions.] 5. In every world religion there is at least some part of the truth. Some have more truth than others. Do they all agree on anything? Yes, that there is a supreme being. Do some cultures have a clearer, more accurate grasp of medicine, science and many other things? Then, it is not surprising that some cultures and religions have a clearer, more accurate grasp of the nature of God than others do.
# 8 RESOLUTION: GOD CAN BE KNOWN Argument #3
[There cannot be a God with so much evil in the world.] 3. Is the existence of evil a disproof for God or is it more of a criticism of how God seems to be running things? To respect our free will, God allows the possibility of moral evil in the world. But He controls and restricts evil, subordinating it to his divine providence. In certain cases we human beings can derive good out of evil. For example, is it is reasonable to undergo the pain of surgery for the sake of saving one's life? Also, is suffering sometimes beneficial in that it gives us greater sympathy for those who suffer similar things? So we human beings can draw good out of evil. Even more so, then, can an all-wise, all-powerful God draw out of evil a good that could not be achieved in any other way. For example, the reward of martyrdom requires the unjust persecution of the tyrants who kill them.
# 7: THE HUMAN MIND IS NON-MATERIAL Argument #2
II. THINGS AS THEY EXIST IN THE MIND WHEN UNDERSTOOD 1. Without specific dimensions. You can't put "six feet tall" in the definition of man, or any other specific height. 2. Unchangeable. If I burn down a pine tree, I haven't destroyed what a pine tree is. What a dinosaur is hasn't changed even though they have all died out. The definition of growth does not get larger all the time. 3. Not tied to the here and now. Understanding the cause of eclipse of the sun includes all past, present, and future. We understand things true always and everywhere. 4. We understand material things without this or that individual matter. My flesh and my bones cannot be put into the definition of man. Otherwise, I would be the only man..
#6- Negative MAN DOES NOT HAVE FREE WILL
INTRO: this topic is not as controversial as some of the others we have examined. the whole class was convinced that we have free will, even before we looked at the arguments. But we must keep ourselves honest. Its especially important to develop as strong a case for the negative as possible, so we can understand the reasons why some people deny free will. If we don't give a thorough look at the negative side, someone could accuse us of prejudice on this question.
#6- Negative Argument #1
1- Every event in the universe is brought about either by necessity or by chance. A heavy object necessarily falls. If something interferes with it and prevents it from falling, its chance. This applies to human acts as well. If there was no necessity for you to find the $10 on the ground, then it means you found it by chance. So every human act occurs either by necessity or chance, neither of which is free will. Therefore, human beings do not have free will.
# 4 AFFIRMATIVE: ANIMALS DO UNDERSTAND WHAT THINGS ARE AND WHY THEY ARE Argument #2
2. An animal has to know what its food is, otherwise it would never find it or recognize it. A dog knows the difference between family members and strangers. Likewise, it has to recognize what many things are: its predators, its mate, its offspring. In tests conducted by Hayes and Nissen, a home-raised chimpanzee discriminated between dozens of categories represented in photographs and sorted various objects according to size, shape, and color. This argues understanding of universal concepts. Chimps can recognize the difference between photos of male and female faces. Guide dogs for the blind must understand many circumstances that would be dangerous for their owners and discover a way around them. Many times animals are smarter than we are. For example, before the recent tsunami elephants moved to the safety of high ground while humans, unaware of the danger, stayed on beach fronts and were killed. Therefore, animals understand what many things are.
# 7: IMAGINATION IS DISTINCT FROM UNDERSTANDING Argument #2
2. Each of the five outward senses perceives only one type of sense quality: Sight perceives color, not odor; hearing perceives sounds, not flavors, etc. But the imagination retains and reproduces all the qualities perceived by all five outward senses.
#6 Resolution Argument #3
3- Free willis incompatible with God's knowledge of the future and his control over all events. God gave us commandments that he expects us to obey. And since God is not a tyrant who demands the impossible, it must be that we have the freedom to obey those commandments despite temptations to the contrary. God also promises rewards for the just and punishments for the unjust. But reward and punishment make no sense without free will. Many passages in the Old Testament and New Testament insist on man's freewill. One example, (Sirach 15:14 F) "When God, in the beginning, created man, he made him subject to his own free choice. If you choose, you can keep the commandments."
# 4 AFFIRMATIVE: ANIMALS DO UNDERSTAND WHAT THINGS ARE AND WHY THEY ARE Argument #3
3. Almost all animals in a given species communicate with each other. But communication of information presupposes an understanding of the concepts transmitted. In 1969 a chimpanzee named Washoe was trained for three years in American Sign Language and learned the meanings of 85 signs and could use them to express itself. Seeing a swan for the first time and not knowing the sign for it, Washoe, signed "water bird". This argues an understanding of what a thing is. Other apes were taught to use plastic symbols to compose sentences or push buttons on a computer-controlled console to communicate their desires. There is also the honey dance of the bee which is a very sophisticated means of communication. Vervet monkeys have four distinct warning calls depending on the nature of the predator. NEWS STORY 22 May 2008: Police rescued an African grey parrot from a roof in a city near Tokoyo. The parrot kept silent at the police station but began talking when transferred to a local veterinary hospital. "I am Mr. Yosuke Nakamura," the bird told the veterinarian. The parrot also provided his full home address, down to the street number. He also entertained the hospital staff by singing songs. Here is a bird who knows who he is!
# 4 RESOLUTION: ANIMALS DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE WHAT OR WHY OF THINGS Argument #3
3. Animals communicate and can learn language. With animal language studies we must be careful to avoid the "Clever Hans Effect", where the human experimenter unknowingly signals information to the animal. The Clever Hans example shows how easy it is to misinterpret animal behavior. A four-year, quarter-million-dollar project by Herbert Terrace tried to teach American Sign Language to an infant male chimpanzee. After all this work Terrace found the animal incapable of sentences or grammar. Its signs were full of repetitions and most often copied the trainers' previous signs. It was clear the chimp did not understand that a word means a particular thing. It simply signed to get food rewards according to habits trained into it.
# 7: IMAGINATION IS DISTINCT FROM UNDERSTANDING Argument #7
3. Imagining is strongest during dreams. (Because our outward senses are shut down). Understanding is weakest during dreams. We think we are seeing with our eyes but really it is only the imagination, a mistake we would never make when awake. Also we believe many foolish and impossible things we would never believe when awake. The judgment of a drunk man is better than one dreaming. If an intoxicated person saw a fish swim through the air into the room through an open window he would be shocked, but not if he dreamed this.) Therefore, imagining is not the same as understanding. Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet (I, sc. 4): "Dreams are the children of an idle brain, begot of nothing but vain fantasy; which is as thin of substance as the air, and more inconstant than the wind." We saw that the imagination has much to contribute to inventions and creativity but cannot be the ultimate judge of what is true, good, or possible, just like the emotions have a role but they cannot be in charge.
# 8: NEGATIVE: BY REASON AND EXPERIENCE ALONE WE CANNOT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT GOD Argument #4
4. God is infinite. But the infinite is unknowable to the human mind. For example, we cannot know the highest number because the series of numbers is infinite. Hence, God is unknowable. Theologian Karl Barth calls God "wholly other" or ineffable, which means something we cannot even speak of. But if we cannot even speak of God, then we cannot know anything about Him.
# 4 AFFIRMATIVE: ANIMALS DO UNDERSTAND WHAT THINGS ARE AND WHY THEY ARE Argument #4
4. Many species of animals have developed ingenious ways to catch prey, avoid enemies, find a mate, and make a shelter. Higher animals show an ability to learn and to solve problems. Wolfgang Kohler did classic experiments demonstrating the chimpanzee's power of insight and capacity to make inferences. The animals learned to pile boxes on top of each other and climb the stack to reach food suspended from the ceiling. Ravens are able to untie tangled strings to get food. Herons sometimes throw pebbles into water to attract curious fish. Reason can be defined as the ability to adapt behavior to solve problems. But animals clearly show this in many instances. Therefore, animals have reason.
# 7: IMAGINATION IS DISTINCT FROM UNDERSTANDING Argument #9
5. Merely to picture something in the imagination is not to understand it. Diagnosis in car repair or medicine would be very simple. Imagination is a source for guessing because free and immediate. Understanding requires research, work, reasoning. If imagining were understanding then taking exams would be very easy. You would merely have to picture the thing in your imagination and you would understand it. Imagine yourself flying an airplane. By doing that have you gained any understanding of how to fly an airplane? You can easily imagine yourself speaking Chinese. Does that mean you understand Chinese?
# 4 RESOLUTION: ANIMALS DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE WHAT OR WHY OF THINGS Argument #6
6. Man evolved from apes. And since we have reason, they must also, though perhaps to a lesser degree. One weakness in this argument is that when one substance changes into another, there is no requirement that the first have all the properties of the second though in a lesser degree. A cow eats grass and changes it into its substance. This does not require the grass to have sensation and local motion in any degree. Further, animals clearly do not understand what things are or why they are, even those things most vital to their own lives. They need instinct to determine everything for them precisely because they cannot understand anything. But human reason works by understanding what things are and why they are. So instinct and reason are opposites. Thus is it not probable that instinct in animals evolved into reason in man. In addition, if animals do not understand what things are and why they are, then this ability is a good definition of reason.
# 4 RESOLUTION: ANIMALS DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE WHAT OR WHY OF THINGS Argument #7
7. Human beings are prejudiced on this question. "Species-ism". This objection gives no proof but merely makes an unsubstantiated accusation. Instead of offering evidence it tries to discredit rhetorically the opposition by accusing it of selfish motives. Suggesting an explanation of why we mistakenly think ourselves superior to animals is irrelevant if that superiority has not first been refuted with real evidence. Even if human beings are as arrogant and blind as the objection implies, that in itself, is not evidence that animals have intellectual understanding. A reason must be given. The fact that a certain ticket holder wants very much to win the lottery is not itself evidence that he has not won.
# 4 RESOLUTION: ANIMALS DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE WHAT OR WHY OF THINGS
Answers to the six reasons for the affirmative.
# 4 RESOLUTION: ANIMALS DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE WHAT OR WHY OF THINGS Conclusions
As for the NEGATIVE evidence, you can scrutinize the reasoning all you like, you will not find any loopholes or fallacies. CONCLUSION There are two extreme views on the question of animal intelligence. One is to think like Descartes that animals are unconscious robots. The other is to think they experience the world just as we do. Because Descartes sees that animals do not understand, he denies that they have sensation, emotion, and memory. Because the extreme animal rights activists see that animals sense and have emotions, they affirm that they understand things just as we do. Each extreme sees part of the truth, but neither recognizes the truth that the other side has seen. The truth lies in the middle. ROBOTS ANIMALS HUMAN BEINGS Whatever stands in the middle between two extremes shares some features with each extreme. Like robots, animals simply respond to stimuli without understanding anything. Like human beings, animals experience sensations, emotions, and move themselves about.
# 8 RESOLUTION: GOD CAN BE KNOWN Argument #7
[The Big Bang and evolution show there is no need for a God to explain the universe.] 7. When quanutm physicists say something can come from nothing they are fudging on the meaning of the word "nothing". From a quantum field a particle can spring up spontaneously, but a quantum field is not absolute nothingness. If something could come from nothing, then all of science would be destroyed. The Big Bang is not atheistic. On the contrary, it can be used as part of a proof for God's existence thus: As we proved in number 6 above something must have always existed. But the material universe cannot be the thing that always existed because, according to the Big Bang, matter had a beginning. It is 14 to 18 billion years old. This means that whatever has always existed is non-material. The only non-material reality we have experience of is mind, as shown by Penfield and our philosophic proofs in topic #7. If a mind is what has always existed, then matter must have been brought into existence by a mind that always was. This points to a non-material, intelligent, eternal being who created all things. Such a being is what we mean by the term God.
# 4 NEGATIVE: ANIMALS DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT THINGS ARE AND WHY THEY ARE Part 2
"Ability to solve problems" is a very bad definition of reason. A vending machine is able to solve the problem of dispensing a product and giving correct change, but no one thinks it has reason. Animals, though they are not machines or robots, operate in a similar way. Does your word processor really understand what you are writing? It may seem to, but if it did, it would not make ridiculous suggestions when you use Spell Check. If your computer understood what you are typing into it, it could write your paper for you. That animals are not machines as Descartes thought is clear from the fact that they have true sensations—sight, smell, hearing, taste, touch—along with memory. The higher animals also have emotions such as desire, fear, anger etc. A better definition of reason is the ability to understand what things are and why they are.
# 7: IMAGINATION IS DISTINCT FROM UNDERSTANDING Argument #1
1. In order to perceive, every outward sense requires the presence of the physical object. Imagination does not.
#6 Affirmative Argument #1 Evidence
1- Free choice is the basis for moral responsibility. If we are not free then ethics is impossible. What sense can it make to stipulate how we should act if, indeed, we have no control over the way we act? So a whole science, ethics, collapses if we have no free will. Another way to say this is that if there is no free choice then everything we do is involuntary, something no one believes. It would also follow that everything that has happened in human history could not have been otherwise. It is absurd to claim that "criminals' brains commit crimes while the criminals themselves are innocent." This is like saying, "don't punish me for stabbing the victim. punish my hand."
#6 Resolution Responses to the five arguments for the negative. Argument #1
1. All things in nature are produced by necessity or chance, So no room for free will. The negative argues from balls rolling down a hill and chemicals acting from necessity. Of course they do. We are radically different from those things: they don't have minds. The negative wants us to ignore the fact that we can understand the what and why of things. Their examples are irrelevant. Like arguing that since turtles cannot fly, neither can birds. Well, birds have wings! There is a third kind of cause between necessity and chance. Oil paintings are not produced by chance or by necessity. The same holds for clothing, the sciences, buildings, languages and governments- everything man made! If these were from necessity they would be the same for all cultures and natures, which they are not. And clearly they are not produced by chance but on purpose.
# 4 RESOLUTION: ANIMALS DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE WHAT OR WHY OF THINGS Argument #1
1. Animals use tools. Some animals can use simple tools but they cannot understand tools. Using something is not the same as understanding it. Most of us use cars and computers without understanding how they work. Experiments conducted by Rumbaugh in 1978 found that apes had some success when only one tool was given for each task, but when all the tools were available in a tool box, "keys were inserted into long tubes, locks were poked with sticks, sponges were twisted on bolts" to get the food bait. This demonstrates that the animals do not at all understand means and end or cause and effect with regard to tools. They try things at random and most often simply repeat the behavior of the previous trial. Animals neither retain tools after using them, nor do they improve on them. These are both signs that they do not understand the universal utility of a tool. Even machines use tools without understanding anything. For example a robot on a car assembly line will use a welding torch to make a spot weld.
# 8: NEGATIVE: BY REASON AND EXPERIENCE ALONE WE CANNOT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT GOD Argument #1
1. God has no body and so cannot be sensed. But all human knowledge is derived from sense experience. (Both Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas teach this. Babies begin by knowing nothing. Their minds must be fed by sense experience before they can understand anything.) Therefore, since God is outside our experience, He cannot be known. The supernatural is unobservable.
# 4 AFFIRMATIVE: ANIMALS DO UNDERSTAND WHAT THINGS ARE AND WHY THEY ARE Argument #1
1. Tool use requires that the user understand the connection between the end (the task to be performed) and the means (the tool) to get there. Many species of animals use tools, not just in captivity, but in the wild. Jane Goodall observed chimpanzees stripping branches down to a bare stick and inserting them in termite mounds, then extracting them to eat the insects clinging to them. African vultures drop rocks from high in the sky on hard-shelled eggs to break them so they can eat the contents. One species of finch in the Galapagos Islands plucks cactus thorns and uses them to pry insects out from crevices in the bark of trees. Animal tool use indicates understanding in animals.
#6 Resolution Argument #2
2. An act of freewill is either caused and determined, or causeless and irrational. When we ask "why did you go jogging?" the answer is given, "for my health." This is a cause. What kind of cause? Purpose or motive. The question why asks for the cause and so the motive or purpose is the cause of a free will act. But to determine whether or not motive is a cause that removes the freedom of the act we must distinguish two kinds of causes in natural things: A)Those which produce their effects necessarily (as fire cannot fail to produce heat and light) B) Those which produce their effects most of the time but can fail because they can be interfered with. An apple blossom most of the time produces an apple but may occasionally fail to do so. The first kind are called necessary causes and the second kind, contingent causes. When a motive causes a free act it is this second type of cause.
# 4 RESOLUTION: ANIMALS DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE WHAT OR WHY OF THINGS Argument #2
2. Animals must know what their food is and many other such things. Shocking as it may sound, animals do not even know what their own food is. They merely respond to certain shapes, colors, and movements by instinct. A frog will starve to death even if surrounded by perfectly edible insects, as long as they are motionless. Studies at M.I.T. showed that the frog's optic nerve and brain do not register objects that do not move in a certain manner. A water beetle cannot perceive its food with its perfectly good eyes but has to smell or taste it. Cuckoo birds lay their eggs in the nests of other species. The foster parents do not recognize or understand that the cuckoo chick they feed is not even a member of their own species. A deaf turkey hen will peck all her own chicks to death if she cannot hear their peeping, but will cover and protect a stuffed weasel if it makes a peeping sound. This proves the hen has no understanding of what its offspring are, but is only able to respond to certain noises and motions by instinct. Kohler painted eyes on a saw horse and put a hat on it. His chimps were terrified of it. Clearly they could not understand that it was harmless wood and cloth. Its shape triggered some powerful instinct in them.
# 8: NEGATIVE: BY REASON AND EXPERIENCE ALONE WE CANNOT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT GOD Argument #2
2. Belief in God is a matter of faith, not knowledge. You cannot have both faith and knowledge of the same thing at the same time. Therefore, God cannot be an object of knowledge. Even the Bible seems to say that there cannot be knowledge of God, only faith. Hebrews 11:6 says, "Without faith, it is impossible to please him. Anyone who comes to God must believe that he exists, and that he rewards these who seek him."
# 4 NEGATIVE: ANIMALS DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT THINGS ARE AND WHY THEY ARE REASONS AND AUTHORITIES #2
2. Individual examples show the truth of the above conclusion. Animal behaviorist Niko Tinbergen studied the male stickle back fish. When it establishes a territory it attacks violently not just other males, with characteristic red bellies, but anything red, even a pencil, for example. This shows the fish is reacting merely to the color and has no idea of what the thing is he's attacking or why. Baby sea gulls that peck at any red spot when they are hungry because the parents have a red spot on their beaks which when pecked triggers the feeding response. Konrad Lorenz got newly-hatched geese to imprint on him as if he were their mother. Clearly the geese did not comprehend that Lorenz did not even belong to their species.
# 7: IMAGINATION IS DISTINCT FROM UNDERSTANDING Argument #6
2. Thought asserts one thing of another: "All horses are mammals". The image just pictures something in a certain way without saying it has to be that way. Imagination cannot picture all horses.
# 7: IMAGINATION IS DISTINCT FROM UNDERSTANDING Argument #3
3. In dreams the imagination operates when the external senses are shut down. Therefore, they are not the same.
# 4 NEGATIVE: ANIMALS DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT THINGS ARE AND WHY THEY ARE REASONS AND AUTHORITIES #3
3. It is a common pattern in nature that the actions of lower things often imitate actions really found only in higher things, so that they are sometimes mistaken one for the other. Thus, fire and crystals seem to "grow", though this is not true growth. Plants sometimes seem to have sensation, as when a plant turns its leaves toward the sun or the Venus flytrap closes on an insect. But this is not true sensation since plants have no sense organs, nervous system, or brain. Hence we should expect to find animals doing many things that make it appear they have reason, though they do not. Therefore, we must be extremely careful in interpreting animal behavior because it so easy to read ourselves into what the animal is doing. In rehabilitating unbalanced dogs, Cesar Millan of The Dog Whisperer TV show (National Geographic Channel) says the most common source of pet problems is people treating them like human beings.
# 8: NEGATIVE: BY REASON AND EXPERIENCE ALONE WE CANNOT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT GOD Argument #3
3. Next is the problem of explaining evil. How can there be a God with so much physical and moral evil in the world? If God does not know about it, then He is not all-knowing. If He cannot do anything about it, then He is not all-powerful. If He knows and can change it but chooses not to, then He seems not to be all-good.
# 7: IMAGINATION IS DISTINCT FROM UNDERSTANDING Argument #10
6. Two major acts of reason are forming a definition, and forming an argument. The imagination's sole act is forming an image. Contrast each in turn. Is forming an image the same as forming a definition? Imagine a democracy. Have you defined democracy? A kangaroo? Is forming an image the same as forming an argument? No. Prosecuting attorney to jury "Imagine the accused picking up a gun and shooting the victim." This is not evidence or proof. We could easily imagine that the butler committed the crime but this is not forming an argument or proof that he did.
#6 Resolution Argument #4
4- We believe freewill merely because we are ignorant of the causes of our actions. I'm washing my hands right now because in a minute I will be eating dinner. I know not only what I am doing but also why I am doing it. Where's the ignorance? All this talk about DNA, upbringing, and brain chemistry causing my actions is idle speculation. The negative has to prove to me I'm not washing my hands so that they'll be clean for dinner. They never do this. As for the claim that the brain makes our decisions for us there is evidence of free will from neuroscience. Wilder Penfield, neurosurgeon, in his brain observations of conscious patients found that cortex areas controlling bodily movements did not control acts of the will. Patient says "i didnt do that, you did." Penfield found that he could coerce a patient's limbs by brain activation but could not evoke acts of the will in the process. He concluded that the will is separate and autonomous from the brain. No place in the cerebral cortex where stimulation caused patient to believe or decide. Neuroscientist Roger Sperry insists that the mind is not a by product of the brain, but on the contrary, commands various brain functions according to its own decisions.
# 4 NEGATIVE: ANIMALS DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT THINGS ARE AND WHY THEY ARE REASONS AND AUTHORITIES #4
4. Cesar Millan, states, "There is no knowledge behind instinct, only reaction." We have to use our understanding to train the dog to do what is best for it and for the family. A dog does react to your emotional state but it doesn't understand what you are saying. "They don't rationalize," says Millan. Animals do not verbalize interiorly like we do. It is simply stimulus and response. To say geese "know" what migration is or "know" that they need to migrate is like saying a coke machine "knows" the difference between a quarter and a slug. Animals react only to your emotional state, gestures, and body language. If you use human speech with them, they do not understand the words you are saying but instead pick up on the tone of your voice and intensity. If you curse your dog and threaten it but use a soothing, tender voice, the animal will respond to the violent words as if they were affection. A trained dog does not even understand "Sit!" in an intellectual way as a command to take on a certain body posture. The trainer has simply formed the habit of sitting in the dog and associated it with this particular sound. Animals can learn by imitation but they cannot learn from verbal instruction and explanation.
# 4 RESOLUTION: ANIMALS DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE WHAT OR WHY OF THINGS Argument #4
4. Some animals can solve problems. What Kohler called the apes' "colossal stupidities" are never reported and yet they are much more revealing than the animals' successes. If a banana was hung from the ceiling at a different place than the previous trial, the chimps stacked the boxes in the previous place! This shows they have no clue as to means and end or cause and effect. When a banana was placed just out of reach beyond the bars of the cage and a cane place in the cage—the chimps again stacked boxes against the bars.
# 7: IMAGINATION IS DISTINCT FROM UNDERSTANDING Argument #4
4. The external senses do not take their object from some other knowing power. There is no middle man between the eye and red. But the object of the imagination is taken from the external senses. All of these reasons show that memory and imagination are distinct from the external senses, but none of these reasons separate the internal senses from the intellect. So we must add the proofs below that understanding is distinct from imagining. Power Act Means Object Imagination Imagining Image Bodily Qualities Intellect Thinking Thought What & Why of Believing things. Meaning. Understanding Reasoning
# 7: IMAGINATION IS DISTINCT FROM UNDERSTANDING Argument #8
4. We can have a false image but a true understanding of a thing. In my imagination the moon and sun are of equal size but I know very well the sun is much larger. New York is not the Empire State Building. This means the image is not the thought and thus imagining is not the same as thinking.
#6 Resolution Argument #5
5- There are many things outside of our control. We cannot choose freely who are parents are, for example. Limits do not mean we do not have an ability. I can't run 100 miles per hour, but that doesn't mean I can't run. I can't choose to be born in another century, but that doesn't mean I cannot choose other things, such as a career or a spouse.
# 4 RESOLUTION: ANIMALS DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE WHAT OR WHY OF THINGS Argument #5
5. Animals know themselves and this is characteristic of reason. Animals perceive themselves in one sense but not in another. Of course, an individual animal feels if its body is touched. A chimp can see itself in the mirror and remove something it sees on its own head. But the chimp does not understand what it is, an individual primate belonging to a particular species. Only man knows what he himself is and what other species are in this manner. Animal experience is not reflexive, not conjunctive, not verbal.
# 4 AFFIRMATIVE: ANIMALS DO UNDERSTAND WHAT THINGS ARE AND WHY THEY ARE Argument #5
5. Self reflection is a unique characteristic of the mind. None of the senses reflects on itself or is aware of itself. But animals show self awareness. If a monkey, without being aware of it, is marked with chalk on the top of its head and then put in front of a mirror, it will recognize itself in the mirror and try to remove the white patch from its head.
# 8: NEGATIVE: BY REASON AND EXPERIENCE ALONE WE CANNOT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT GOD Argument #5
5. The opinions about God from various cultures conflict with one another. Some say there is only one God; some say there are many. And the attributes various religions assert about God contradict one another. This is a sign that knowledge is not available in this domain and that religion is merely a human construct.
#6 Resolution Argument #6
6-Materialism is the reason that Freud, BF Skinner, and Hobbes deny free will. They assume that everything is made only of matter and conclude there is no room for free will in the universe. Their claim of materialism is not from science and they give no proof of it. But, we have seen free choice is a part of our everyday experience. The class was unanimous for the affirmative. If so, we can reverse the materialist argument like this: We can choose freely. Matter cannot choose freely ------------------------------------
# 8: NEGATIVE: BY REASON AND EXPERIENCE ALONE WE CANNOT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT GOD Argument #6
6. If everything requires a cause, then "What caused God?" And if God does not need a cause, then why couldn't the material universe be eternal and not need a cause?
# 4 AFFIRMATIVE: ANIMALS DO UNDERSTAND WHAT THINGS ARE AND WHY THEY ARE Argument #6
6. If man evolved from apes and man understands what things are and why they are, then apes also must have this ability, though perhaps to a lesser degree. Darwin claims that man does not differ from animals in kind but only in degree.
# 8: NEGATIVE: BY REASON AND EXPERIENCE ALONE WE CANNOT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT GOD Argument #7
7. The Big Bang and evolution, well-accepted scientific theories, leave no room for a creator or a mind behind the universe. Some quantum physicists claim that something can come from nothing. This would do away with the need for a creator. Moreover, trying to explain natural things by reference to a God would discourage the attempt to explain them by natural causes. Hence, a belief in God seems to be anti-scientific. In this vein Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the structure of the DNA molecule, now 86, declares, "The god hypothesis is rather discredited," and adds that he went into science deliberately to discredit it. His partner, James Watson, also characterizes religious explanations of the origin of life as "myths from the past." Watson adds more generally that "every time you understand something, religion becomes less likely."
# 7: IMAGINATION IS DISTINCT FROM UNDERSTANDING Argument #11
7. There are many things that we can understand but cannot imagine. Infinity, a geometrical point, what all animals have in common. It is impossible to draw a picture that conveys with exactness the content of this sentence: "John is three years older than Mary." Descartes points out that we can understand the difference between a polygon of 1000 sides and one of 1001 sides, but the imagination cannot distinguish them. By the way, which power in us distinguishes imagining from understanding?
# 8 RESOLUTION: GOD CAN BE KNOWN Argument #8
8. Freud claims God is just a projection from our subconscious fear of our father. Marx calls religion the opium of the people. Imagine that you have just laid out on the board the mathematical proof that the square root of two is an irrational number. You have all the steps, great clarity, and your argument is flawless. Now I get up to criticize and I merely say, "You are nothing but a liar!" Is that evidence against your conclusion? Does it answer anything in your argument? Likewise, Freud and Marx do not offer arguments or evidence but mere accusations and name calling. Another example. Say someone gives a documented, well-reasoned critique of Obama's Health Care law, and a defender of it responds by simply saying, "You are clearly a racist. Our president happens to be a black man and you resent that. So you attack anything he proposes." There is here no evidence either for the law or of racism. Notice how discussion is highjacked into a completely different topic.
# 8: NEGATIVE: BY REASON AND EXPERIENCE ALONE WE CANNOT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT GOD Argument #8
8. Freud claims God is just a projection of our subconscious fear of our father. Marx calls religion the opium of the people. These are not arguments or evidence but mere accusations and name calling. Much more on this in the resolution.
# 7: IMAGINATION IS DISTINCT FROM UNDERSTANDING Argument #12
8. The image is always individual while the thing understood is universal. Is the image of an equilateral triangle that I have in my imagination right now a singular or a universal? I can easily picture another one exactly like it right next to it. Therefore, it is a singular. All sense powers perceive only singular, individual facts. You cannot draw a picture of what all animals have in common.
#6 Affirmative Argument #5
A nonliving thing causes only a single effect necessarily and always. Fire only heats, it never cools. Ice always cools, it never heats. Gravity draws bodies together, never pushes them apart. But the human mind can and will produce opposite effects. A carpenter can build or not build, build a table or build a chair, build fast or slowly, completely or partially. So if the mind and will produced their effects necessarily, they would produce opposite effects at the same time-- which is impossible. Therefore, the human mind and will do not produce their effects necessarily, but freely and according to choice. Thus, man has free will.
# 7: THE HUMAN MIND IS NON-MATERIAL Consequences Pt. 2
A. We have proven that there is something real besides matter; namely, mind. Penfield suggests that mind is "a different essence from the body". This is the SECOND refutation of Materialism. The first refutation was proving that we choose freely, something that matter cannot do. B. Immortality of the Human soul. It follows that the human soul is not subject to destruction at the death of the body because what is non-material cannot be destroyed by any physical change. Therefore, the mind is not destroyed at death which is its separation from the body. Aristotle says, "Intellect is something divine and everlasting." Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle all recognized and gave proofs for the immortality of the human soul. This is part of the great dignity of the human species.
# 7: THE HUMAN MIND IS NON-MATERIAL
All sense powers have bodily organs and for the inner senses it is the brain. But we have proven that the intellect is not the imagination or any other sense power. Could it be a purely spiritual power not centered in the brain? If the human intellect operates by means of a bodily organ it will be the brain. This is the only likely candidate. Materialism claims that the brain is the organ of thought. The strongest argument for this view is that drugs and brain damage interfere with thought. But this argument proves only dependence on the brain, not that it is the organ of thinking. Though the brain itself does not do the thinking, it is nevertheless necessary to furnish the object of thought. It is the center of all the external and internal sense powers, and we established that the image is not the thought, imagining is not thinking. The surprising findings of neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield show it is unlikely that the brain is the organ of thought. There are also many valid philosophical proofs for the immateriality of reason. Here is one proof based on things we have already established in this course.
#6 Negative- Argument #2
As soon as a cause actually exists, its effect follows of necessity. For example, it is impossible to have a fire without also at the same time having light and heat. My pushing the eraser and its being moved are simultaneous. It is the same with other causes. So, if an act of will has a cause, then it cannot be free, but must be determined by the necessity of that cause. What will happen if on the other hand, an act of the will has no cause? Free choice will then be irrational and unintelligible. We would never be able to understand why we ourselves act, since to propose any motive would be to posit a cause. Thus, the free act becomes an absurdidty. But the acts of the human will either have a cause or they do not. Therefore, every human act is either determined or absurd.
# 7: THE HUMAN MIND IS NON-MATERIAL Consequences Pt. 3
C. This conclusion opens the door to the possibility of completely non-material beings such as God and angels. And it gives us a way into investigating their natures. Our experience of understanding and willing is extremely useful in reasoning about the nature of God. For example, animals and plants reproduce: the individual dies but the species continues. Only in man does part of the individual survive death. What next step would you expect in the hierarchy? A being not subject to death at all. D. Human mind and will are not subject to evolution nor could they be produced by it, since natural selection and evolution modify only physical, bodily organs. E. Man does not differ in degree but in kind from animals. Microcosm, image of God.
#6 Affirmative Argument #3
Canadian Neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield discovered that touching the brain of a conscious patient with an electrode can make him move an arm or turn his head, but cannot provoke an act of the will. His patients told him, "YOU did that, not me." The electrode could never make a patient believe or decide anything. Penfield concluded that the will is not a part of the brain, but is a separate power that directs and commands the whole of it.
# 8 AFFIRMATIVE: WE CAN KNOW GOD Proof #3 Part 2
Consider a craftsman fashioning a bread knife for his own use. The knife will have a blade by necessity, since it could not cut bread without one. But we cannot attribute to necessity the ornate, inlaid design of the handle, since a knife can cut perfectly well with no decoration at all. The craftsman chooses freely to embellish his work with ornament. He can add the decoration or leave it out. And if he adds it, he has an unlimited variety of designs to choose from. The knife's ornament is thus open to alternatives and yet has a reason for being there: the artist wants not only a useful knife but a beautiful one. The decoration is produced neither by chance, nor by necessity, but by an act of free choice. A mind choosing freely, then, is the middle ground between chance and necessity.
# 8 AFFIRMATIVE: WE CAN KNOW GOD
DISTINCTION: There are two paths to God: through reason and through religious devotion. The second is the way of prayer, worship, obedience to commandments, participation in a church. It leads to love for God and a personal connection. Through reason is the path of the philosopher which leads to understanding things about God. We are pursuing this path in this topic. THE PLAUSIBILITY OF A PROOF: Every effect reveals something about its cause. How does a doctor diagnose a disease? How does a detective learn about who committed a crime? Don't your clothes, your speech, your handwriting necessarily reveal something about you? In fact, could you write a book that in no way indicated anything about you, even if you tried to disguise yourself completely? It would at minimum have to show your existence and your knowledge of the language it was written in. In the same way could God create a universe that did not reflect Him in any way? Nature is God's book. Therefore, it must be possible to prove God's existence. It's simply a case of finding the right effects to reason back from. THREE PROOFS. There are many valid philosophic proofs for God. Here are three that are based on things we have already proven in this class.
#6 Affirmative Man has Free Will
Definition- lack of outside interference is not sufficient to define a free will action because a heavy body can fall without any outside interference but it makes no free choice in the process. Neither is "the ability to do whatever we want" a good definition since it would apply only to God who alone is omnipotent. We cannot choose to be born in a different century, or fly to the moon by flapping our arms. But none of these limitations are thought to remove the possibility of free will. So free will must be the ability to choose among real possible alternatives where we are the true initiators of the act. Even a slave has a certain area of freedom in his life. He can try to escape. He can choose to think about whatever subjects he wants to. It is just that his political liberty is severely restricted. You can tie and gag me so I cant move but you cannot make me approve of what you are doing. Laws dont remove freedom because we can always rebel against the law
#7 Mind Differs from Senses - THE HUMAN MIND DOES NOT KNOW THINGS IN THE SAME WAY THE FIVE EXTERNAL SENSES DO. Argument #1 pt. 3
Do the senses make comparisons or are they made only by the mind? For instance, in deliberating between two job offers is your tongue able to decide which is best? Does one job make more pleasing sounds to the ear? The mind alone understands the two alternatives and can compare them. Believing is an act of the mind and seeing is the act of the eye. Is seeing believing? No, as optical illusions and magicians prove. Therefore, the mind is not the same as the eye. The same holds for the other four senses. Your eye reports that the moon and the sun are the same size. Does your eye have any way of telling whether this is a false appearance or not? Only the mind can investigate, compare and reason to the conclusion that the sun is much larger than the moon. Only the mind distinguishes what really is true from what merely seems to be true. Everyone's senses are basically the same but not their minds. Two persons looking at an American flag will perceive the same rectangular shape, the red and white stripes, and the star shapes on a blue background. But the judgment of their minds could be very different. An American patriot may be moved by the flag's beauty while a terrorist might judge the same flag to be a despicable symbol.
#6 Affirmative Argument #2 part 2
Every civilized society has laws. But laws are addressed to agents who could act otherwise and therefore are free. We don't make laws forbidding the wind to blow or trees to grow. Nor do laws remove the freedom of citizens because they can still disobey the law and some do. Also, the feeling of guilt occurs only when we did something we should not have done and could have avoided it. This is impossible without freedom of the will. We have control over our own actions and thoughts. Anyone who does not have this is either insane, or in a coma. It is up to the determinists to prove that we are ruled by forces outside our control. They cannot just claim this. They must prove it in complete detail with unanswerable arguments. The negative is saying that you have no influence over your actions at all!
# 8 RESOLUTION: GOD CAN BE KNOWN Argument #7 Part 2
Evolution leaves no room for God? The polarization between creationists and atheistic evolutionists is completely unnecessary. It's like arguing whether the pieta was caused by a hammer and chisel or by Michelangelo. Why not both? The same effect can have two moving causes as long as one is subordinated to the other. Consider materialism's account of the origin of man: CAUSE EFFECT Matter >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Man (Plus evolution) Man is intelligent, purposeful, has free will, Matter is, according to materialism, unintelligent, purposeless, not free. Matter is the CAUSE and Man is the EFFECT. Do you see anything wrong in this picture? It violates the well-established axiom that no effect can be greater than its cause. Otherwise all the things on the right would be coming from nothing. So matter and evolution can be only part of the cause of man. This means there is another cause of man that uses matter and evolution as a tool. This other cause must have all the attributes on the right: intelligent, purposeful, and free. Such a cause deserves the name God.
#7 Mind Differs from Senses - THE HUMAN MIND DOES NOT KNOW THINGS IN THE SAME WAY THE FIVE EXTERNAL SENSES DO. Argument #2
Examples of things the mind knows that the senses are not at all aware of? Honor, infinity, truth. And even when the mind and senses focus on the same thing, which one knows it more profoundly? Your tongue tells you that sea water is salty, but it cannot tell you why. The eye can perceive various colors but cannot grasp what the definition of color is or what all colors have in common.
#6 Resolution Argument #2 Part 2
For example, owning a new car is a desirable thing and could motivate a choice. But am I therefore forced to choose to buy a new car? Clearly not. Even if I need transportation, what alternatives do I have? I could prefer a used car, or choose to pay someone to drive me to work, or use public transportation. Do these options eliminate the possibility of buying a new car? It is neither forced nor eliminated. And even after I decide on something I can always change my mind at any time in the process of carrying it out. There are always alternatives. So free choice has a cause, the motive, but it does not take away freedom because the motive does not force a choice, though it invites one. Motive is a cause in the sense of purpose, not in the sense of mover. A mover can be coercive (stronger man forces me to hit someone) but purpose is never coercive. It simply invites a choice. Since the will moves itself, it does not need an external mover like inanimate bodies do.
#6 Negative- Argument #3
Free will seems incompatible with theology. For if God right now knows infallibly what we will do in the future, we are not free to do otherwise. Also it is part of God's omnipotence to move all things, including the human will. St. Paul refers to this when he writes, "God moves us both as to the will and the performance" of an act. (Philippians 2:13) But if the human will is moved by anything outside itself it cannot be free.
# 8 AFFIRMATIVE: WE CAN KNOW GOD Consequences
God is the most exhalted, noblest object philosophy can contemplate. 1. This is the third refutation of materialism we have given in this course. We proved that our own minds are nonmaterial so God's mind must be as well. 2. What we have NOT proven. These three arguments do not prove Catholicism or Judaism or any other particular religion. They do, however, provide a generic foundation for theism and religion in general. We have established a foundation for natural theology. Also, we've proven there is a mind and will behind nature but not all the attributes of God: eternal, knows all things, no body etc. These are all proven with separate arguments by Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologica. But the natural order is to establish God's existence first and then go on to investigate the pros and cons of God's attributes. 3. Our proofs do not establish that revelation and miracles have occurred, but they do prove they are possible in principle. If God is intelligent, He can communicate with us if He wishes. If He is all-powerful, he can do things that nature cannot accomplish.
# 7: THE HUMAN MIND IS NON-MATERIAL Argument #1
I. THINGS AS THEY EXIST IN NATURE 1. Have specific dimensions 2. Are Changeable 3. Are Tied to the here and now. Located in unique time and place. 4. Composed of this or that individual matter
# 4 RESOLUTION: ANIMALS DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE WHAT OR WHY OF THINGS Argument #2 Part 2
If you witnessed a flock of birds attacking a cat that captured one of them you would naturally think the flock understands the need to defend one of their own. But this is completely wrong. What proves this? Only seeing the attack set off by an inappropriate object gives a clue as to what is really going on. A flock of jackdaws attacked Konrad Lorenz because he was carrying a black bathing suit. The birds saw black, flapping, being carried, but they could not see it was cloth and not a jackdaw. Instinct is triggered by shapes, motions, and colors, not by the nature of things. It is not based on any kind of understanding but only on a narrow stimulus and a rigid response. We can compare this to the unthinking errors we make based solely on habit. An example would be after driving a manual shift car for many years I buy an automatic and it takes me a long time to adjust. When I slow for a turn my hand "instinctively" reaches over to shift the car. Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer, states, "There is no knowledge behind instinct, only reaction." Sorting things by color, shape, or size does not prove intellectual understanding in animals since it only requires sense perception.
# 8 AFFIRMATIVE: WE CAN KNOW GOD Proof #3 Part 3
In the same way, since beauty is so abundant in nature, it cannot arise from chance; there must be some reason for it. But that reason must be open to alternatives, since there is no absolute necessity that animals, plants, and nonliving things exhibit beauty in the first place. Therefore, the beauty found in nature proceeds from a cause not bound by necessity and yet with a reason for acting. Such a cause is a mind. Therefore, a mind is responsible for the beauty of natural things. That mind, standing behind nature and directing it to beauty, all men call God. We mentioned the case of Anthony Flew, a British philosopher, who was the world's most famous atheist for over fifty years, but after studying all the proofs given by philosophers and the claims of science, eventually converted to theism. The reasons for his change of mind are documented in his book There is a God (Harper, 2007).
# 4 NEGATIVE: ANIMALS DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT THINGS ARE AND WHY THEY ARE REASONS AND AUTHORITIES #1 part 2
Instinct is unlearned but is so fundamental that everything the animal learns in addition to it is grounded in instinct and depends on it. You cannot train a seal or a dog to do tricks unless you begin with food or punishment; that is, appeal to the animal through its instincts. But everything animals know comes to them either from instinct or from learning. Thus in neither case do they understand what they are doing or why. Training and conditioning demonstrate that animals can form habits and that they have memories, but not that they understand what they are doing or why.
#6 Negative Argument #6
Materialism is the contention that material things are the only realities and that all things are explicable in terms of matter alone. There is no roo, for freewill in the materialist's view of the universe. Matter cannot choose freely. A heavy object, when released, has no choice but to fall; a base mixed with an acid necessarily produces a salt plus water. Therefore, if you and I are nothing but matter, then we cannot choose freely.
# 8 AFFIRMATIVE: WE CAN KNOW GOD Proof #2 Part 2
Note: this proof uses deductive reasoning, the most powerful kind of proof that reason can use. It's stronger than induction, analogy, example, and much stronger than hypothesis-prediction-experiment argument used in experimental science because here the conclusion follows necessarily. This proof also gives us the opportunity to compare our mind to nature and God's mind to nature. Natural things cause our knowledge, but with God it is just the opposite: his knowledge causes natural things and moves them to their ends. Nature is very wise, much wiser than man. After several thousand years the collective efforts of all men have yielded a very incomplete understanding of it. Contrast this with the mind that designed nature. This gives us some small insight into the greatness of the mind of God. Nature shows forth God's wisdom, power, and beauty.
# 8 AFFIRMATIVE: WE CAN KNOW GOD Proof #1
PROOF # 1: In topic #7 we proved that the human intellect does not have a bodily organ, but is completely non-material. Your mind and mine did not always exist. Therefore, they were caused. But neither matter nor evolution could cause anything non-material. Therefore, the cause of the first human mind and every other one must also be an immaterial being, that is a mind. What produces oaks? Other oaks. Horse come from horses. Only a mind can produce a mind. We call this Mind God.
# 8 AFFIRMATIVE: WE CAN KNOW GOD Proof #2
PROOF # 2: A. Nature lacks intelligence and yet aims at definite goals. B. Whatever lacks intelligence and yet aims at definite goals is directed by a separate intelligence. Therefore, Nature is directed by a separate intelligence. Thus, there is a Mind behind nature directing all natural things to their goals. This is God. The first premise (A) we have already proved in this course (Topic # 2). The second premise (B) we support with examples of the chalk, arrow, washing machine and computer. Can a rock act with something in mind? No, because it has no mind. But it can be used by a mind to accomplish a purpose. Nature does not have a mind, but there is a Mind behind it. This is Thomas Aquinas' fifth proof for the existence of God.
# 8 AFFIRMATIVE: WE CAN KNOW GOD Proof #3
PROOF # 3: We proved in topic #3 that the beauty of nature is in things. It requires a cause. Chance cannot be the cause of the beauty of natural things because then it would be rare. But beauty saturates nature at all levels. Nor does beauty exist by necessity, because beauty is never strictly necessary. Example: cars. Likewise, snowflakes, and a black and white world. If neither chance nor necessity can explain the beauty of natural things, there must be a third alternative. Whenever a cause acts by necessity, there is a reason why it acts, but it is not open to alternatives. Chance, on the other hand, is open to alternatives, but there is no reason why one occurs rather than another. Necessity is rigid and chance is irrational. The middle ground between these two extremes is a cause open to alternatives but with a reason why one occurs rather than another. Is there anything in our experience that operates in such a manner? Clearly there is—our own minds.
# 4 NEGATIVE: ANIMALS DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT THINGS ARE AND WHY THEY ARE
Philosopher Rene Descartes argued that animals have no true language and therefore are not rational. Animals do communicate with instinctive signal cries but these are not words and do not represent universal concepts. To say parrots "talk" is like saying a voice recorder is able to "talk". There is repetition of the sound but no understanding. Examples of instinctive behavior were given. A fly incessantly bangs up against the window instead of exiting through the door like everyone else. A squirrel zig zags in front of a car thus increasing the chance that it will be hit. This evasion strategy may be effective against its predators but does not work with an automobile that does not zig zag but continues in a straight path. Animals have no ethics or morals. If one lion kills another we do not consider it murder because they have no control over their instincts. Instinct is also hereditary and unchanging. If you compare computers from the 50's and each decade thereafter with those of today, you see great changes and improvements. But a wren's nest built in the 50's is the same as today's.
# 4 AFFIRMATIVE: ANIMALS DO UNDERSTAND WHAT THINGS ARE AND WHY THEY ARE
Preliminary distinction: The affirmative does not assert that all animals have reason, only the higher animals like dogs, chimps, dolphins. No one is claiming that barnacles and amoebas have reason.
# 4 NEGATIVE: ANIMALS DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT THINGS ARE AND WHY THEY ARE REASONS AND AUTHORITIES #1
REASONS AND AUTHORITIES 1. Instinct is inherited and operates without the animal understanding what it is about, as most definitions of instinct stipulate. One definition given said instinct "appears to be reason and knowledge but these are above the capacity of the animal". Darwin describes instinct in this way: "An action, which we ourselves should require experience to enable us to perform, when performed by an animal, more especially by a very young one, without any experience, and when performed by many individuals in the same way, without their knowing for what purpose it is performed, is usually said to be instinctive."
# 7: IMAGINATION IS DISTINCT FROM UNDERSTANDING Argument #5
REASONS THAT PROVE THE UNDERSTANDING IS A DISTINCT POWER FROM THE IMAGINATION: 1. We can freely imagine things but we cannot freely think things without a reason. Imagine winning the lottery - You don't need a reason to picture it. To believe you've won the lottery you must have a reason. The image never tells you why anything is so. The understanding can get at the cause. Imagining is not restricted to the truth or even to what is possible. We can easily imagine things we know are impossible: time travel, flap arms to moon. We can imagine anything we wish but we cannot believe just anything we wish. If I imagine a unicorn exists that does not mean I believe that unicorns exist. The will dominates the imagination, even dictating the content of the image. But the will does not dominate the understanding and tell it what the content of its understanding must be.
# 8 RESOLUTION: GOD CAN BE KNOWN
Responses to Negative arguments. Arguments #1, 2, 4, and 5 are against the knowability of God (agnosticism). #3, 6, and 7 are arguments against the existence of God (atheism).
#6 Affirmative Argument #4
Some students pointed out that denying free will entails a contradiction. After a talk at a Conference of Psychology, someone asked determinist BF Skinner whether his denial of free will was just the result of his own genetics and upbringing. A very embarrassing question for Skinner! If he said his views were determined only by his upbringing, then they are merely a part of his biography and have nothing necessarily to do with the way things really are, thus overthrowing his position. But if he said that his denial of free will is completely independent of his environment, then all of us can believe things and choose things independently of his environment, then all things can believe things and choose things independent from our upbringing, which again overthrows his position. Furthermore, whoever denies free will must explain why the whole world believes otherwise. A few isolated persons might be subject to illusions or hallucinations, but not everyone.
# 7: IMAGINATION IS DISTINCT FROM UNDERSTANDING
The imagination is an internal sense, fed by the outward senses and providing information to the understanding. Because it stands in the middle between the outward senses and the mind, it must be carefully distinguished from both. Sight Smell Imagination >>>>>>>>> Understanding Taste >>>>> Memory (Intellect) Touch (Internal Senses) Hearing REASONS THAT PROVE THAT THE IMAGINATION IS A DISTINCT POWER FROM THE FIVE OUTWARD SENSES:
#7 Mind Differs from Senses - THE HUMAN MIND DOES NOT KNOW THINGS IN THE SAME WAY THE FIVE EXTERNAL SENSES DO. Argument #1 pt. 1
The mind can focus on the information coming in from any external sense, understand it and analyze it. Do any of your senses apprehend what is on your mind? Your sense of taste does not know what your mind is thinking about. Your sense of smell does not understand what your political views are. Thus, the mind knows what the senses perceive but the senses have no awareness of what the mind thinks. This shows that the mind is different from the senses and is a superior knowing power. Every external sense perceives near objects differently from far objects. For example, when we stand next to a building it looks huge but when we are a mile away it looks much smaller. Hearing? A jet engine sounds much louder if we are close to it than if we are far away. Touch? The sense of touch perceives heat more intensely as we approach a fire. The human mind does not know things in this spatial manner. If a math equation makes no sense to you, it will not help for you to press your head closer to the book. This difference argues that the mind is less material than the senses. For a sense to perceive, the object must be present and physically change the organ. This is not true of the mind. Also, each external sense focuses on one quality only. Sight perceives only colored things, hearing only sounds, taste only flavors. Is the mind limited to these sense qualities? The mind knows all of these sense qualities and a whole world that the senses do not perceive.
#7 Mind Differs from Senses - THE HUMAN MIND DOES NOT KNOW THINGS IN THE SAME WAY THE FIVE EXTERNAL SENSES DO. Argument #1 pt. 2
The mind talks; the senses do not. Also the mind reasons from one truth to another; the senses do not. Example: Suppose someone's pinched skin stays pinched. The eye sees it but sees nothing beyond it. The mind of a nurse or doctor sees what it means, dangerous dehydration. The doctor reasons from the symptoms to the disease, the detective from the clues to the criminal, the biologist from fossils to the extinct animal. None of the senses can do this. Therefore, the mind is a very different knowing power from the senses. The mind can reflect on itself and understand its own acts. Can the eye see itself? Can the finger tip touch itself? The mind grasps what things are, why they are, and meaning. For example, we do not read with our eyes principally. If so, dogs could read and we could read languages we never learned. is meaningless to anyone who does not know Greek, though they can see the shape and order of the letters. We read principally with our minds that use our eyes as instruments. The mind interprets what the senses report.
#6 Negative Argument #5
There are many things outside of our control. We cannot choose freely who our parents are for example, or what country we are born in, or whether there is a war raging around us.
#6 Resolution Responses to the five arguments for the negative. Argument #1 part 2
Therefore, there is a third kind of cause which this negative argument has left out. This is choice. If choice is not real, you cannot explain the origin of man made things. The middle between two extremes always shares something in common with each extreme. Chance is open to alternatives, but there is no reason why one happens rather than the other. If something is produced by necessity, it has a reason why it occurs, but is rigid and closed to all paths but one. Therefore, in choice there is a reason for the result occurring, but its open to alternatives. So, choice is a third kind of cause and acts freely by its own initiative.
# 4 NEGATIVE: ANIMALS DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT THINGS ARE AND WHY THEY ARE REASONS AND AUTHORITIES #2 part 2
They were simply responding to movement and sound. Likewise, if a dog reacts to its master as if it were the alpha male in the pack, it does not understand the obvious differences between species. Here's an experiment you can try yourself. If you pick up an adult cat—even a hostile, aggressive one—by the scruff of the neck, it immediately goes limp and submissive. We see that this is an instinct in it from birth so that the mother cat can carry kittens to safety. Of course, the adult cat is no longer a kitten and you are not its mother. But the cat understands none of this. It simply responds mechanically and automatically to a specific stimulus. ALL animal actions operate in the same way.
#6 Negative- Argument #4
Those who deny freewill must explain why everyone seems to believe in it. Philosopher Baruch Spinoza offers an explanation of why men believe in the illusion of free will. It is because, he says, they are conscious of their actions but ignorant of their causes. Examples: brain activity determines our thoughts and choices. or perhaps our upbringing dictates everything we do
#6 Resolution Argument #3 part 2
To the argument based on God's foreknowledge we can respond as follows. "I see you sitting right now." Is this is infallibly true, or could I be mistaken? Does my unmistakable knowledge that you are sitting rob you of your freedom not to sit if you wish to? Likewise, God's infallible knowledge of our future choices does not remove freedom from those acts, which he also foresees as being done freely. God also moves the human will but without doing violence to our freedom. God moves the human will somewhat in the way a playwright moves the characters in his play. Shakespeare can determine that Hamlet will perform aa free act in act four. There is no contradiction in this.
#6 Resolution Further conclusions
We choose freely + matter cannot choose freely. We have seen two other proofs of this same conclusion: A) emotions cause bodily changes but acts of the will do not. B) Penfield concluded that the will is not part of the brain. If the will is not something non-material, its not surprising that it behaves in ways matter cannot. In fact, if the will were a body, it could not do its job because every body is forced to act by the necessity of its nature. Heavy objects fall, fire rises, sulfuric acid corrodes metals. Note: This is the first evidence given in this course that there is something nonmaterial in the universe. This means that man is composed of not one element, but two:matter and spirit. Also, if the will is not material, it cannot be produced by evolution which modifies only bodies. Importance of conclusion: Free will, along with its consequent moral responsibilioty, is part of the dignity of a human person. And the will also belongs to the nonmaterial part of man.
# 7: THE HUMAN MIND IS NON-MATERIAL Consequences
We have just proven a conclusion of monumental importance: the human mind in non-material. It is not a body and does not have a bodily organ. The brain is the organ of the internal and external senses and we have shown that these are not the same as the mind. Many significant consequences follow from this conclusion.
#7 Mind Differs from Senses - THE HUMAN MIND DOES NOT KNOW THINGS IN THE SAME WAY THE FIVE EXTERNAL SENSES DO. Argument #3
We put a chart on the board contrasting two truths: "Augros is standing" and "Three is an odd number". The former, perceived by the senses, is tied to the here and now; is true only of an individual thing; is not always true; and is changeable. "Three is an odd number" is true always and everywhere; applies to an unlimited number of things; is unchangeable and necessarily true. A similar contrast: "This milk is sour." "Milk is a liquid food produced in the body of female mammals to nourish their young." Something unchangeable, that is true always and everywhere, that has an unlimited number of cases is what we mean by a universal truth. The senses cannot perceive truths of this kind. "What is seen is transitory, but what is unseen is eternal." [II Corinthians 4: 18] Now do you see what Plato was getting at when he said the mind perceives a world beyond the senses? These many differences between the mind and the senses suggest that the human mind in non-material. This is not a proof yet but strong hint. We'll address that issue in session #3.
# 8 RESOLUTION: GOD CAN BE KNOWN Argument #6
What caused God?] 6. What caused God? This question mistakenly assumes that everything has to have a cause. But even the atheist has to acknowledge that some uncaused thing has always existed. We can prove this in the following way. If ever there were a time when absolutely nothing existed --no matter, no energy, space, or God-- then what would we have nothing right now? Nothing, since nothing comes from nothing. But the "then" part of the sentence is false, therefore, what led to it, the "if" part is also false. Therefore, there never was a time when nothing existed; or, stated positively, something has always existed. Thus something is eternal. Theism says it is a Mind; materialism says it is matter. The argument we have just made does not tell us what the eternal thing is, beyond the fact that it was something able to produce everything that now exists in the universe. Other evidence must settle the issue of what it is. But all sides must admit the existence of something eternal that produced everything else and it is foolish to ask what caused that.
#7 Mind Differs from Senses - THE HUMAN MIND DOES NOT KNOW THINGS IN THE SAME WAY THE FIVE EXTERNAL SENSES DO. Argument #1 pt. 3
Without the mind the senses would be like an audience addressed in a language they did not understand. The senses do not know which things they report are important and which are not. For example, does a detective at a crime scene pay most attention to the most colorful object in the room, or the noisiest, or the sweetest smelling? No, using his mind, he tells his senses what to look for and what is important. The mind can understand the essence of objects; for if not, we could never formulate definitions. Do the external senses apprehend the essence of objects or only their superficial qualities like color, odor, sound, texture, flavor, shape, motion, and size? What do your senses tell you about that clock? Sight: "White, black, red, moving, round". Touch: smooth, hard, room temperature. Hearing: soft humming sound. None of them tell you what it is or what it is for. The senses do not know what things are. The eye gives sight but the mind gives insight.
# 8 RESOLUTION: GOD CAN BE KNOWN Argument #8 Part 2
You must give evidence against a conclusion FIRST and answer objections, THEN you can offer explanations why people believe something false. This counterfeit argument is sometimes called the fallacy of the Straw man. You think of a weak, disreputable reason, say it's the only reason that motivates the opposition, then smash it. This is child's play and not real thinking. ********************************************** So all of the reasons for the NEGATIVE are faulty. The AFFIRMATIVE evidence, on the other hand, is solid and unanswerable, based on premises we thoroughly argued and proved in this class.
# 8 RESOLUTION: GOD CAN BE KNOWN Argument #1
[God has no body and so cannot be sensed or known.] 1. There are many things in science that can be known even though they are not directly sensible. Magnetism, atoms, radioactivity, diseases, radio waves—none of these is perceived by the senses. How do we discover and prove things about them? From studying their effects that are sensible. From inside a building the wind outside itself is invisible to the eye, can we tell if there is wind, its direction and force? How? From looking at its effect on flags, trees, weather vanes. We reason from effect to cause in this manner every day. So the fact that God cannot be seen or sensed is no obstacle to using certain sensible effects to prove His existence any more than in the above cases from science. God cannot be sensed but some of his effects can be. IF a thing cannot be sensed directly and has no sensible effects, THEN it is unknowable by us. We'd have nothing to go on since all our knowledge depends on sense experience. Example: an extinct animal that left no fossils or traces. But God is not like that. He has produced a whole visible, tangible universe.
# 8 RESOLUTION: GOD CAN BE KNOWN Argument #2
[God is a matter of faith, not knowledge.] 2. One man can have knowledge of something that another man holds on faith. For instance, the doctor knows the patient has cancer, while the patient believes the doctor. Nothing prevents genuine proofs for God being known by philosophers or theologians but believed by non-experts. Furthermore, some things are known by faith only, such as the mystery of the Trinity. Others are known by reason only, such as the Pythagorean theorem. But some can be the object of both faith and reason, such as "murder is wrong." Where does God's existence fit? Both faith and reason say it can be apprehended by both. We read in Romans 1:20, "Ever since God created the world, His everlasting power and divinity—however invisible [to the eye]—have been there for the mind to see in the things He has made". St. Paul here even indicates the general procedure of the proofs: from visible things God has made to his invisible nature. In the affirmative we gave a proof that God is knowable.
# 8 RESOLUTION: GOD CAN BE KNOWN Argument #4
[God is infinite and the infinite is unknowable.] 4. The infinite is knowable to the human mind in a certain respect, but not in every respect. We cannot list all the numbers, but we can know that the list of numbers is infinite. Is the definition of infinity infinitely long? If the infinite were completely unknown in every way, the word itself would have no meaning. Because God alone is infinitely wise, only he can understand himself perfectly and completely. Yet we can understand that he is infinitely perfect and even discover proofs for this. Also we can understand and prove many things about God's nature: that he is all-powerful, all-wise, all-good, that he acts by free will, and cares for all things by his providence. These issues and many others about God are reasoned out with rigorous logic by Thomas Aquinas in his famous treatise Summa Theologica.