On May 31, 2006, at 3:45 PM, Jerry Monaco wrote:
>
>
> On 5/31/06, Louis Kontos <lkontos at mac.com> wrote:
> > He would laugh at sociobiological
> > arguments. Everything he wrote was in opposition to the
> deterministic
> > (philosophical and scientific) logic of his day.)
>
> Louis,
>
> I've been meaning to ask both Ted and you this question. Why do
> you think that just because a person thinks that sociobiology or
> evolutionary psychology or for that matter quantum chemistry are
> possibly good scientific theories that, that person is necessarily
> believes in "determinism" in some broad sense? There is no
> necessary connection.
>
> If people do make a connection it is the common human mistake
> (probably biologically endowed for good evolutionary reasons) of
> over-generalizing from a perceived pattern. Many non-scientists
> and scientists over-generalize and try to apply theoretical models
> beyond their limited testing grounds. Sometimes this leads to
> insights, often not. A good scientific theory will lay out
> "determinants' by necessity because unless it can explain, describe
> and some how "show cause" it will not be a a good scientific
> theory. This is simply the condition of theory making. Thus some
> people can be deluded into thinking that all science is
> "deterministic" (once again using the word in the broad sense that
> it is being used here). A scientific theory is not broadly
> deterministic but only narrowly so because it can only pick out
> small pieces of "the world" to describe. If the theoretical model
> matches what we are trying to describe, in an approximate and
> narrow way, as it does when sociobiology is used to describe social
> insects, then good for the theory. That is about all. What ever
> coincidence there is between our capacity to understand the world
> in theoretical terms and the actual working of the world (scare
> quotes assumed) is a biologically contingent fact of our cognitive
> capacity. Just because there is no other way for a theory to be
> constructed does not mean that the people constructing the theory
> can't see how narrow the theory is and how much it leaves out.
>
> Part of what the any theory leaves out is any position on broader
> questions of "determinism", "indeterminism", or "self-determinism,"
> "free will," etc. It is too bad for us that there is no
> theoretical knowledge on these subjects, only poetical intuition,
> and good story telling.
>
> Ted said in another thread:
>
> On 5/31/06, Ted Winslow <egwinslow at rogers.com> wrote:
> >So the answer to the following question:
>
> > Is there a biological component in the unique human capacity to form
> > relations of mutual recognition ?
>
> > is "no" where, as in the following, you mean by "biological" not
> self-
> > determined in the above sense.
>
> I am not sure I understand what he is saying. If our capacities to
> make choices are not biological capacities then what are they?
> Where do they come from? Are we not biological in some very broad
> sense? Just because we cannot make a biological theory to describe
> what ever Ted is calling "self-determination" does not mean that
> whatever it is is something other than part of our brain/mind/body.
>
> Again, none of you seem to actually want to take the time to
> explain what I see as not making sense in thinking through these
> questions.
>
> Jerry
>
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