This sentence both misses my point, and underscores it at
the same time. The questions I posted above were rhetorical, of
course. I made the point earlier in the post that I had covered
this philosophical ground many times before, and the quotation
"Man is the measure of all things" was intended both to indicate
my opinion on the subject, and to attempt to draw criticism to
that assertion. I was expecting to make this point by drawing
attention to the conceptual inconsistencies in the refutations.
>I suspect it matters to you
>as well. As to whether or not it would matter if no one was around for it
>to matter to... doesn't the question unask itself?
Does it? (a leading question this time, not a rhetorical one).
I know /I/ understand that to be so, and I know /you/ do, but does
the GUM (Great Unwashed Masses) see it that way? For the most part,
no, they don't. Using an extreme example to clarify a point: there
are some radical environmentalist groups made up of zealots that
characterize humanity as an infection and an abomination; a blight
on nature that should be eradicated to save nature. The wellspring
of this ideology is the (probably rather vague) notion on their
part that nature (i.e. all things in the universe /except/ humanity)
is imbued with its own /intrinsic/ import, independent of, and
transcendent over, the reflections of humanity.
Granted, this is an extreme case, but if you descend the ideological
food chain from anti-humanist martyr, through tree-hugging humanist,
to the average Joe who would profess no predilection to religion /or/
environmentalism, and ask him if he thought the existence of the
universe would matter if there were no people around, more often
than not, the knee-jerk answer would be: "Well, of course!".
Why should this "feeling" be so widespread, and cross such disparate
ideological boundaries? The answer was given before, I believe, but
it bears repeating: this fuzzy kind of spiritual interpretation of
"all that is", is the result of a vague emotional response to the
realization that they don't know /why/ the universe exists.
Curiosity, as a common expressed behavior of our species, exists
because it affords a significant survival benefit. I would further
qualify this by saying that it has evolved to manifest more strongly
when the subject of curiosity is acknowledged to have a significant
perceived probability of affecting the minutiae of our every day
lives, again, for obvious evolutionary reasons.
Before I go on (and I will be making a point eventually, please
bear with me), I should make something clear about curiosity and
the basic interrogatives "who, what, when, where, how and why". It
is my contention (after much observation of human behavior,
including my own, but especially that of children, as well as a
broad cross-disciplinary survey of the peer-reviewed literature)
that the ultimate "goal" of curiosity is not ultimately to answer the
first five interrogatives, but the last one: "why". The dynamics
of the /process/ of human understanding consists of being able
to gather enough information (using who, what, when, where and how)
to be _able_to_frame_ the congealing, underlying question: "why?".
For the most part, the first five interrogators (who, what, when, where
and how) are a necessary first step, and builds /knowledge/ about the
subject of interest in preparation for understanding "why".
Then, only after the question of "why" has been answered, is
/understanding/ achieved. The mind's intelligence component
(i.e. cortex) recognizes understanding has taken place by
being able to use its existing knowledge and sets of associations
to further synthesize an /internally consistent set of associations/
that /model/ the subject of the mind's curiosity. This doesn't happen
until enough facts are gathered (who, what, when, where and how),
the facts are put in context (why), and inconsistencies in that
resulting framework are resolved (answering the question "why?").
You probably know this phenomenon better as "everything falls into
place", and the feeling of relief and satisfaction (sometimes even
euphoria) that follows it. This is the mind's emotion component
(i.e. limbic system) rewarding the mind for signaling understanding
by giving it endorphins and stopping the release of stressors.
And there's the rub. The stressors. Remember when you were
trying to learn something, but you just couldn't seem to "get
your head around it", so to speak? First you were annoyed. Then
you became irritated. After a while, frustration sets in. You
want to pull your hair out. That's the stressors (and the lack
of endorphins). It's your limbic system saying to the cortex:
"I detect there's something you don't understand. I don't know
what it is, but it /could/ be detrimental to my survival.
So, you're going to think about it until you /do/ understand.
And just to make sure you /do/ think about it, I'm going to
take away your fix of dopamine, and pump you full of stress
inducing chemicals. The longer you take to figure it out, the
greater the cumulative negative effect, so you might as well
do it now."
The "so you might as well do it now" part represents the
point of dynamic equilibrium in the natural tension between
intelligence and emotion that evolution decided upon. This
meta-stable set-point manifests itself as the expressed
behavior called "curiosity".
Answers to the first five interrogators provides knowledge that
allows one to understand the dynamics of a /particular/ event,
but until the question of /why/ is answered, there is no
/understanding/. Understanding is necessary in order to
/predict/ the dynamic of similar events, and therefore to
synthesize a new set of behaviours that will maximize
survival. That is the environmental dynamic that selected out
the mutation(s) that ultimately manifested the interplay
between emotion and intelligence from which "curiosity" arose.
As soon as the cortex signals understanding (i.e. the question
"why" has been answered satisfactorily), new questions arise
through the new "world-view" hosted by the intelligence component
of the mind, as well as new data gathered through experience.
This, obviously, is a steady-state process. There is no conclusion
(except for death). You are either in a mind state where
unanswered questions are bugging you, or you're answering them
and formulating new ones.
The point is (finally), you will always get to a stage where
you can't get answers to your questions. They will continue
to gnaw at you, holding back dope and releasing stressors.
This is not a good thing, in terms of survival. Stress can
lower the body's immune system to the point where simple
infections can kill. It can even kill the host outright.
Fortunately, evolution has evolved a way out of this
potentially damaging state of stress by making it possible
for the cortex to manufacture "knowledge" that makes
everything fit, releasing endorphins and curtailing the
flow of stress-inducing chemicals. The manufacture of
knowledge is called "faith". It's a built-in survival
mechanism for those individuals (i.e. most people) whose
genetic, congenital and environmentally-modified balance
of intelligence, emotional disposition, etc, produces
low "knowledge-synthesis" ability, high stress reaction,
or both.
So in essence, individuals who tend to experience
higher levels of anxiety over unanswered questions, and also
have a lower pattern-recognition and associative ability
(allowing "flawed" or "incomplete" answers to scrape by as
"understanding") will be inherently more stable emotionally,
and will exhibit greater affinity to articles of faith and
spirituality.
As the explanatory ability of religion has waned due to
the culturally pervasive onslaught of both the ontology
and results of science, more and more people have been
denied the easy-out of manufactured knowledge. Refutations
are constantly being shoved in these peoples' faces. So
the vague, idling undercurrent of "dissatisfaction"
(increase in stressors, decrease in endorphins) bothers them.
But the "manufactured knowledge" of established religions
won't work well for them any more. To be at peace, they
have to manufacture a new set of "knowledge", one that
is compatible with (is not as easily refuted by) the
current scientific paradigm.
In today's culture, this drive has manifested itself
as a "projection of transcendent meaning" on the natural
world itself (i.e. the universe /excluding/ the source
of ontological science: humanity). As you can guess by
the vague, subtle and highly abstract nature of this meme-
complex, most people are unaware that they have been
infected by it, subtly changing the color of all they
perceive. It is from this subtle but profound shift in
world-view that cultural constructs such as the animal-
rights lobby, and environmental sub-culture springs
from.
Therefore, because evolution developed curiosity to
keep us from going "from the frying pan into the fire"
in our immediate environment, most people end up
needing a "God" to quell the "nagging issues" in their
heads, and feel at peace (i.e. to stop the bad drugs
and get the good drugs).
>Meaning is the attitude that we *bring* to the event or object. An
>interesting question for your consideration: what can we include in the
>"we" of the previous sentence? Does a rabbit bring meaning to the objects
>around it? Does a computer program bring meaning to the hardware it runs
>on? Does a selfish gene bring meaning to the DNA substrate it resides
>upon? Does a meme bring meaning to a collection of replicating ideas?
Unless an entity has the three necessary prerequisites to form a
self-aware mind, even the term "meaning" won't have any meaning.
>Whether the universe in general "matters" is a question which can only be
>answered after one decides what objects should be granted *intentionality*.
Whether or not objects should even be granted intentionality /at all/,
is decided by your own inherent intellectual, emotional, and memetic
makeup. I acknowledge that you and I can't do that, but most people can.
>As an interesting note, once one has postulated an intentional god
>overseeing the universe, then "God's Plan" -- whereby god charges every
>event in the universe with a divine meaning -- is a direct consequence.
People can inscribe meaning to any and every object in the universe,
but they don't need any specific mechanism (a God) to do it. If they
really, really /need/ to do it, they'll find a way (or pull their hair
out trying to avoid it).
>From one hair-puller to another,
Dan