Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2017 5:50:33 GMT -5
First principles
The first event in the life of a human being is birth. In that moment we burst into existence and from that point on display successive stages of development. Just as we began as a tiny spermatozoon inside our mother that grew until at last it was ready to leave the body of its host, so too we grow from baby into toddler, learn to crawl, walk, speak and understand language, concepts and relate to others around us.
Within the womb we were, though genetically identical with the being who announced his or her presence to the world by being born, utterly helpless and dependent on the mother. We are at that stage in our development like a chrysalis, not yet ready to emerge into life as a fully-grown butterfly. Our conception, gestation and birth exemplify the unfolding of that which was past into a present and eventually a future time. All that is past now was in the present once and what will be in the future in its time will slide into the past.
We are physical objects, material beings born out of another physical body. We possess sensory awareness – touch, smell, taste, sight and hearing. Our senses help us understand the world around us – literally to “make sense” of it.
Sensation alone is not enough. If all our existence was simply perception, a jungle of impressions which were equally important and between which we had no means of distinguishing or even responding to, our world would be an intolerable chaos.
So we form judgements, select from among the myriad impressions, primarily on the basis of our sense experience. Out of these judgements, together with our interactions with others, we evolve concepts, both concerning the physical world around us and, more slowly perhaps, an understanding of “abstract” ideas. It is relatively easy to discover that sugar is sweet and lemons are sour but to determine for instance that cold and heat have degrees and that moderate heat and cold are tolerable while extremes of either may be harmful is a subtler process of perception.
We begin to recognise shapes, colours, distances, weights and similar aspects of life. Slowly we explore the world around us with a fuller and more complex understanding of its variety, its difficulties and its delights.
Pain and pleasure (to use relatively dramatic language – most actual life experience is less extreme) help us to learn to pursue or avoid certain activities. Out of this continual process of interaction with the world around us and the objects and living beings it contains slowly we evolve a sense of order and some basic concepts of morality.
Ultimately we come to see the world as composed of ourselves, other people, animals, material objects and natural phenomena such as sunlight or the wind. We accept our selfhood, consider ourselves and others as separate individuals. We make inferences from experience and apply abstract thought to analyse problems with which we were not previously familiar.
All our earliest knowledge of the world is derived from experience, both sensory experience and the various incidents that occur during the course of our life. We learn, we remember, we think, feel and act.
Above all, we are constantly aware of being, of existence. We exist and others also exist. Our existence and the existence of others as separate individuals with whom we interact comes to provide the dominant framework for our lives.
Our sense of existence is intimately bound up with our consciousness. We are aware of the world around us in a conscious manner. Most of the time our interactions with it demand varying degrees of judgement rather than simply following motor reflexes.
How accurate our view of the world around us actually is may be – and has been – fiercely disputed. On the whole the “common sense” view is that our sensory perceptions reflect and describe a real world of sensible objects, an unequivocal sense of selfhood, a belief in cause and effects, a linear progression of time from past to present and onwards to the future. Less universally accepted is the idea that as well as a physical body we also possess a non-material mind. Those of a religious persuasion would add a soul or spirit.
All these ideas deserve serious examination. Hopefully careful analysis may be able to provide a firmer basis for our understanding of the world. It is always preferable to ground our world-views upon facts and logic rather than emotion and fixed beliefs that go beyond the available evidence.
The first event in the life of a human being is birth. In that moment we burst into existence and from that point on display successive stages of development. Just as we began as a tiny spermatozoon inside our mother that grew until at last it was ready to leave the body of its host, so too we grow from baby into toddler, learn to crawl, walk, speak and understand language, concepts and relate to others around us.
Within the womb we were, though genetically identical with the being who announced his or her presence to the world by being born, utterly helpless and dependent on the mother. We are at that stage in our development like a chrysalis, not yet ready to emerge into life as a fully-grown butterfly. Our conception, gestation and birth exemplify the unfolding of that which was past into a present and eventually a future time. All that is past now was in the present once and what will be in the future in its time will slide into the past.
We are physical objects, material beings born out of another physical body. We possess sensory awareness – touch, smell, taste, sight and hearing. Our senses help us understand the world around us – literally to “make sense” of it.
Sensation alone is not enough. If all our existence was simply perception, a jungle of impressions which were equally important and between which we had no means of distinguishing or even responding to, our world would be an intolerable chaos.
So we form judgements, select from among the myriad impressions, primarily on the basis of our sense experience. Out of these judgements, together with our interactions with others, we evolve concepts, both concerning the physical world around us and, more slowly perhaps, an understanding of “abstract” ideas. It is relatively easy to discover that sugar is sweet and lemons are sour but to determine for instance that cold and heat have degrees and that moderate heat and cold are tolerable while extremes of either may be harmful is a subtler process of perception.
We begin to recognise shapes, colours, distances, weights and similar aspects of life. Slowly we explore the world around us with a fuller and more complex understanding of its variety, its difficulties and its delights.
Pain and pleasure (to use relatively dramatic language – most actual life experience is less extreme) help us to learn to pursue or avoid certain activities. Out of this continual process of interaction with the world around us and the objects and living beings it contains slowly we evolve a sense of order and some basic concepts of morality.
Ultimately we come to see the world as composed of ourselves, other people, animals, material objects and natural phenomena such as sunlight or the wind. We accept our selfhood, consider ourselves and others as separate individuals. We make inferences from experience and apply abstract thought to analyse problems with which we were not previously familiar.
All our earliest knowledge of the world is derived from experience, both sensory experience and the various incidents that occur during the course of our life. We learn, we remember, we think, feel and act.
Above all, we are constantly aware of being, of existence. We exist and others also exist. Our existence and the existence of others as separate individuals with whom we interact comes to provide the dominant framework for our lives.
Our sense of existence is intimately bound up with our consciousness. We are aware of the world around us in a conscious manner. Most of the time our interactions with it demand varying degrees of judgement rather than simply following motor reflexes.
How accurate our view of the world around us actually is may be – and has been – fiercely disputed. On the whole the “common sense” view is that our sensory perceptions reflect and describe a real world of sensible objects, an unequivocal sense of selfhood, a belief in cause and effects, a linear progression of time from past to present and onwards to the future. Less universally accepted is the idea that as well as a physical body we also possess a non-material mind. Those of a religious persuasion would add a soul or spirit.
All these ideas deserve serious examination. Hopefully careful analysis may be able to provide a firmer basis for our understanding of the world. It is always preferable to ground our world-views upon facts and logic rather than emotion and fixed beliefs that go beyond the available evidence.
