Epistemological question for unbelievers...?

Question

How is it possible that the human mind correlates so well with the structures of the world that people can make sense of the world? If the world developed by pure chance, it would be highly unlikely that human experience would mirror the reality of the world in the way we usually assume it does.

--Evolution - as it's all about mutations helping us cope with the real world. Brains that couldn't cope with the real world wouldn't be of much use for survival, would they? Your premise is, please forgive me, silly. -- This could be your reality as you perceive it. We dream and yet would survival of the fittest matter in the dream???

--"How fortunate for us then, that there is nothing random about the results of natural selection!"

Either your reality is a personal or impersonal one. An impersonal world is one of chaos which by defintion is a product of randomness. Fate implies a more supreme being other than ourselves. The problem with your worldview is that you live your life as it is a personal one. This sounds like an inconsistent position to take without a rational support for it.

"Cogito, ergo sum. Descartes first maxim for removing universal self doubt."
--This thought can said also in a dream. Will it somehow distinguish to us from the two realities. Our dreams can follow the laws of nature just like our real world can. But again from your vantage point while you are sleeping, what can distinguish to our mind that this is not real???

Answer 1

Evolution - as it's all about mutations helping us cope with the real world. Brains that couldn't cope with the real world wouldn't be of much use for survival, would they? Your premise is, please forgive me, silly.

Answer 2

Cogito, ergo sum. Descartes first maxim for removing universal self doubt.

Many people perceive the world in similar ways. If I see a red square, I might point to it and say "red square." You see the same thing, and agree (usually). Or, perhaps you are simply a figment of my reality, whom I just invented for companionship.

If we agree that you exist, and that I exist, then it seems reasonable our perceptions of the world agree. It seems even more likely that must be the case when so many different people come together to push forward some new project, and to create something new the world had never before seen. Imagine, for example, television. Flat screen monitors. Microwave ovens. Cellular phones. Virtual reality.

There is more. We know your perception of the world can be altered through a variety of means. Drop lysergic acid diethylamide acetate (LSD) and you may wreak temporary havoc with the neurotransmitters in your brain. We can also slip electrodes into your skull to tickle sensations you imagine you experience, but in reality are not. Then there are all those natural synthetes--people who hear color, taste music, and so on.

The brain is a wonderfully complex organism, but our brains are similar to the brains of other organisms. Dogs have a frontal cortex, medula oblongata, and other structures analogous to the parts of our brain that perform similar function. If I carefully cut out your prefrontal lobes, in a procedure known as a lobotomy, you pretty much quit having such interesting thoughts as you have posed here.

We know fairly precisely what part of your brain is that troublesome part that allows you to pose questions such as this.

Finally, there are re-education camps. These are popular in China, though not so much here. You spend a few years undergoing severe behavior modification, and that may also impact your ablity to reason effectively. In this country we like to encourage individuality, at least a little bit.

Answer 3

Who's to say that it's highly unlikely that the world developed? There is always a chance that there is a god and there is always a chance that there is not a god. Just because we exist does not mean we automatically know where we came from or why we exist. I don't think that people would assume there is a god if they knew what happens to people that die. Most people who believe in a higher being need to have something to hold on to that allows them to believe that those who have passed away in their lives have souls still living in a "better place". Who knows? I suppose its better to be safe than sorry, but who can blame someone for having doubts in god? Didn't we (us here in earth) come up with the idea of heaven and god, so why should we believe the ignorant? Then again why should we foolishly damn ourselves to hell because we have the tiniest suspicion that there is not a god? As for the idea that the human mind correlates so well with the structures of the world, don't you think things exist that we cannot see?

Answer 4

The human mind evolved within the context of the world. This is why it's so hard for the human mind to grasp concepts that are way beyond the everyday experience our ancestors would have had.

Evolutionary psychology attempts to map the parameters of our everyday understanding. Physics and mathematics can take us well beyond there, and help us realise that the universe is not only weirder than we thought, it's weirder than we CAN think.

Our brains are not wired to intuitively grasp concepts such quantum physics, or what happens in the universe when what you are looking at is very very big or very very small. Understanding these requires great feats of abstract logic.

Answer 5

You assume that the ability to make sense of something is dependent on the relationship between them. What if the mind is simply good at explaining things and has a tendency to do so? It reasons things out in a manner it can understand, whether or not that explanation is true, because the lack of an answer results in instability of a sort. Many atheists would argue that this is why people believe in God, to fill the holes they can't explain. It isn't necessarily an accurate answer, but it's one that makes sense to them.

Answer 6

Your argument is based on fallacy. There is no reason to believe that the human experience mirrors the reality of the world at all. We see it the way we see it. Only a few gifted philosophers have had a glimpse as to whether the human experience has anything at all to do with cosmic reality. Cogno ergo sum, if you will. Our ability to comprehend determines our reality.

Answer 7

Another misunderstanding of evolutionary theory. Sigh.

There's nothing "pure chance" about the development of life. The reason we appear to be well suited for life in the real world, is that we are well adapted to it, as are the sharks and penguins and mosquitoes and bindweed and countless other life forms.

However, you did spell "epistemological" correctly, so I'll give you points for that. Now go back and read the _second_ page of the textbook, please.

Answer 8

You are not going to get an answer to this. you even have one of them saying that evolution doesn't rely on chance even though that is what their founder said. One says science best mirrors the real world but doesn't explain how unreliable inductive reasoning can do this.

Answer 9

You're right, if it were up to pure chance it would be highly unlikely.

How fortunate for us then, that there is nothing random about the results of natural selection!

An excellent book covering this exact question is Richard Dawkins' "The Blind Watchmaker".

Edit: Joey, I would love to discuss evolutionary theory with you, but I don't understand what you're trying to say.

My answer stated quite explicitly that there is nothing random about the results of natural selection. If you have some objection to this I would love to hear it.

Answer 10

I find that science does a better job at "mirroring the reality of the world' that religion does.