Why is Philosophy like General Motors?

[coberst]

Why is Philosophy like General Motors?

With the aid of new brain scan technology the amalgamation of scientific disciplines that make up what is commonly known as SGCS (Second Generation Cognitive Science) has produced empirical evidence to support theories that challenges two millennia of a priori philosophical speculation.

The three major findings of SGCS that challenges Anglo-American analytic and postmodernist philosophy are as follows:

The mind is inherently embodied.

Thought is mostly unconscious.

Abstract concepts are largely metaphorical.

These newly assimilated (primarily in the last four decades) discoveries require that our Western culture must question and discard some of its most deeply held philosophical assumptions.

We have in our Western philosophy a traditional theory of faculty psychology wherein our reasoning is a faculty completely separate from the body. “Reason is seen as independent of perception and bodily movement.” It is this capacity of autonomous reason that makes us different in kind from all other animals. I suspect that many fundamental aspects of philosophy and psychology are focused upon declaring, whenever possible, the separateness of our species from all other animals.

This tradition of an autonomous reason began long before evolutionary theory and has held strongly since then without consideration, it seems to me, of the theories of Darwin and of biological science. Cognitive science has in the last four decades developed considerable empirical evidence supporting Darwin and not supporting the traditional theories of philosophy and psychology regarding the autonomy of reason. Cognitive science has focused a great deal of empirical science toward discovering the nature of the embodied mind.

The cognitive science claim is that ”the very properties of concepts are created as a result of the way the brain and body are structured and the way they function in interpersonal relations and in the physical world.”

The embodied-mind hypothesis therefore radically undercuts the perception/conception distinction. In an embodied mind, it is conceivable that the same neural system engaged in perception (or in bodily movements) plays a central role in conception. Indeed, in recent neural modeling research, models of perceptual mechanisms and motor schemas can actually do conception work in language learning and in reasoning.

A standard technique for checking out new ideas is to create computer models of the idea and subject that model to simulated conditions to determine if the model behaves as does the reality. Such modeling techniques are used constantly in projecting behavior of meteorological parameters.

Neural computer models have shown that the types of operations required to perceive and move in space require the very same type of capability associated with reasoning. That is, neural models capable of doing all of the things that a body must be able to do when perceiving and moving can also perform the same kinds of actions associated with reasoning, i.e. inferring, categorizing, and conceiving.

Our understanding of biology indicates that the body has a marvelous ability to do as any handyman does, i.e. make do with what is at hand. The body would, it seems logical to assume, take these abilities that exist in all creatures that move and survive in space and with such fundamental capabilities reshape it through evolution to become what we now know as our ability to reason. The first budding of the reasoning ability exists in all creatures that function as perceiving, moving, surviving, creatures.

Cognitive science has, it seems to me, connected our ability to reason with our bodies in such away as to make sense out of connecting reason with our biological evolution in ways that Western philosophy has not done, as far as I know.

It seems to me that Western philosophical tradition has always tried to separate mind from body and in so doing has never been able to show how mind, as was conceived by this tradition, could be part of Darwin’s theory of natural selection. Cognitive science now provides us with a comprehensible model for grounding all that we are both bodily and mentally into a unified whole that makes sense without all of the attempts to make mind as some kind of transcendent, mystical, reality unassociated with biology.

Just as General Moors is headed toward bankruptcy court, likewise is Western traditional philosophy headed for bankruptcy hearings in the court of public comprehension.

Quotes from Philosophy in the Flesh by Lakoff and Johnson

[~ MacDDT ~]

Why is Philosophy like General Motors?

...Just as General Moors is headed toward bankruptcy court, likewise is Western traditional philosophy headed for bankruptcy hearings in the court of public comprehension.

Quotes from Philosophy in the Flesh by Lakoff and Johnson

What? I thought you would finish all that with a "Convert or die Western infidels!" ... you disappointed me.

[Virtual Particle]

In my opinion it is really not reasonable to lay at the feet of the American Public the blame for what problems we have as a whole. Because of what the United States is they certainly have responsibility but not blame.

I feel this way because in the first place the US has only been around for just over 200 years and its population (with exception of Native Americans) are not from here, they (our immigrants to the Western Hemisphere) imported there unique cultural diversity which was and is today a Hemisphere with Nation-States and Cities with names like New York and Chicago (which is an Indigenous term). The blame is best identified from the context of a historical one and admittedly indigenous cultures controlled this Hemisphere up until the Spanish invasions. (1500's).

The United States has taken up the Baton so yes there needs to be a response and our economic woes are probably a symptom not the disease.

Often folks define the Civil War from a certain context, but during the commencement of the Industrial Revolution how many civil wars were being fought World Wide?

If one reads enough about the American Civil War one cannot help but note that it really had much to do with the Industrial Revolution. On the surface one can understand that the South intended to expand into the Caribbean as an independent Nation but a clear underlying issue is the way society would change as a result of technology. Very little is said with this respect though it is also clear that serious concern existed

over what was going on in other countries (as well as clearly in the North). Now many of these individuals were racists that are apparent.

It seems apparent that one of there concerns was that they themselves were about to become slaves.

The world has changed much since then; the extent though from that time that Southerners have been in power in the United States has fluctuated that is somewhat an interesting point. Another point is that in the North even today access to Unions with respect to Labor is to a much greater extent than it is in the South.

The ones impression is that the US can solve our world problems by becoming more like other's that's probably not tooo popular an idea. The US has always fluctuated between both sides to one degree or another that is basic and fundamental to her character and it has worked but only for a period of time that is inconsistent to those of other countries. Please do not misunderstand me though there is a substantive indigenous contribution to the furthering of this country despite the popular myth. The President of the Peoples Republic of China recently announced publicly and officially that they would impose immediately efforts to control there environment as long as the United States comes up with a solution as to how to do it, the United States is not to blame for that but I admit they are responsible.

We are all responsible.

Any thoughts?

PS:Hey if you have Comcast, in relation to On Demand and Science Channel check out the documentary on Chinese Sand Storms.

Edited May 28, 2009 by Triad