I keep trying to say it better and will keep striving till someone hears it.
Lausten,
I’m not sure what you’re asking, so I’m left guessing.
Is it my complaint that philosophers haven’t absorbed Evolution’s Pageant and lessons much beyond a superficial (postcard*) understanding.
(Which is different from a visceral-understanding, where the light goes on and ‘recognition’ becomes ‘understanding’. For example, I know the CERN atom smasher works, but I’ll be damned if I can grasp it, too big, too complex, too much precision required to operate correctly. Still there it is, so okay, I can’t deny it. But it’s only a postcard understanding, it hasn’t clicked in my mind. )
{*Heck the more I learn about it, the more impossible it seems to me. Yet, there it is.}
You disagree and tell me many philosophers acknowledge Evolution and that we humans are evolved out of the primate branch of animals. Sure, everyone knows that, but then they move on and climb right back into, . . .
I would love for you to share links to talks from a philosopher about processing the fact of our animal origins into our own being and behaviors via brain and mind. To discuss human ego, and the curious struggles between our flesh’s desires & impulse vs. the mind’s rules & resolutions, from an evolutionary perspective.
I can tell you one thing, such a speaker wouldn’t invoke: “I think, therefore I am” unless it were to then totally dismantle the self-centered notion - then to inspire listeners to consider the interactions of creatures all the way back to six-hundred million years ago, and appreciate how the generations along with the act of living upon a dynamic changing planet honed those creatures through not just through attrition, but through constantly refining their awareness and consciousness and passing on those winnings to their children, and so on.
Each according to their originating plan & circumstance, all of it being maintained and refined with time and driven by Earth’s changing resources and limitations.
It’s creatures interacting with their environment that created ever more complex consciousness!
Consciousness is an interaction, creatures constantly competing against hunger & predators, elements & landscapes, always intent on making it through another day by constantly refining sensing, processing, command & control, manipulatory abilities.
From an Earth Centrist perspective, it’s self-evidence there is no consciousness without creature interaction with each other and their environment. The notion of primal matter and energy out in the cosmos having consciousness is pure science fiction without the slightest evidence to indicate a there, there. It requires an Earth to set that stage of reality.
The philosophers realm, “I think, therefore I am” is a reflection of being confined within the world of one’s thoughts as though we were isolated entities - worse the whole point is to imagine away the body, for argument sake.
A genuine appreciation for Evolution makes the exercise too silly (or insulting) to humor, because our body
Having a deep clarity for the Human Mindscape ~ Physical Reality divide, is like a benchmark. A clear boundary between our self-interested, self-obsessed individual selves, and the world we are embedded within. It also helps explain the self. Your thoughts really and truly are the inside reflection of this evolved creature body you’re inhabiting. And your body is the lucky product of tens of thousands of parents down one particular unique history.
Our thoughts are the sum total of all our days, and your body is the product of billions of years worth of Earth’s evolution, a strand in the tapestry of Earth’s nearly never-ending Story.
Please show me where some philosophers reflect on evolution and the human body on that level.
This is a tad long and rambling, but concise takes time and this has been constructed in bits and pieces over past day. Unfortunately wrestling with this stuff may be tops on my list, but physical reality has other demands that take priority.
