/lit/ - Literature

>>13728423
It's called Naturalism

>>13728423
This is amoralism. It is bad for yourself.

>>13728452
>It is bad for yourself
Why? Amoral doesn't necessarily mean immoral right?

>>13728448
>Naturalism
Got any good Recs for it?

>>13728423
>animals don't think much about "greater world view"
Who says you do?

How can you be so confident that what you're thinking of as the "greater world view" isn't just a more complex, but ultimately similarly mindless, form of a dog picking the exact right place to piss?

You experience your existence as meaningful and complex, but why should anyone trust what you think about your thoughts?

In short, every philosophy may well be just that: a simple, animal logic.

>>13728601
This cunt says weird things

>>13728601
>hurr durr epistemology is a relatively defined experience
>hurr durr we might just be ants compared to a super intelligence
You need to be 18 to post here.

>>13728613
No, that's not what I'm saying. It has nothing to do with relativity or super intelligences, and everything to do with the point of being able to experience anything at all.

You have memory so that you can learn from your mistakes and not die. Similarly, there must be some pressure to which our intelligence is an adaptation, and some pressure acting right now on us to which it continues to adapt. We are being selected right now based on how our intelligence contributes to our survival, as our ancestors were.

Unless our survival perfectly coincides with understanding the great deep mysteries of the universe, which there is no reason to believe is the case, there is no reason to believe that our intelligence is adapting towards that end. And if it's not, all we're left with is simple animal logic.

>"oh no it's another evopsych evangelist"
No it ain't. The mysteries of the universe are a lock. Unless our minds are shaped like the key, we're not getting in. Now you tell me why there is any reason to believe our minds are shaped like the key. This applies regardless of evopsych quackery.

>>13728629
I believe some animals have unlocked the mysteries of the universe. It has to do with contemplation. Some animals are more likely to be enlightened, such as pondering crows or whales. There were more enlightened human beings in the past though. The point is, theocracy is the best system of governance.

>>13728423
Yes, it's called being a little bitch and running away from your fears and problems.

>>13728629
Humans can be seen as an anomaly in the general trend in the extent to which our intelligence supersedes the next closest lifeform. Our ability to derive geometric proofs, make ontological observations, and derive systems of ethics and behaviour that are then subject to our own criticism is a testament to the absolutely chasm between us and animals.
At this point your only recourse to argue that all human philosophy is equivalent to animal logic is to argue that we are still at our core animals that formed in the petri dish that is this planet so whatever system of thought we may develop is still fundamentally animal logic. However this would be such an obtuse interpretation of the phrase 'animal logic' as to warrant suspicion that it was being made in bad faith. The term 'animal' has a literal, taxonomic meaning, which humans are a part of, but it also has a more colloquial meaning, specifically in referencing the sheer size of the gap in intelligence and behaviour between humans and all other lifeforms. When anon said 'animal logic' it is clear he is referring to the latter, the extent to which all other animal behaviour follows much tighter cognitive loops than human behaviour. This scale is not debatable. Complexity, like any scale, is a relative property, something is big because it is bigger than everything around it. Thus saying human logic is not complex or meaningful is an incoherent statement unless you can point to a more complex and meaningful sentience that dwarfs us. It's sort of like saying 'how do we know the cosmos is large and not actually small', it is large within the frame of reference being used. Humans thinking is complex/broad/profound/etc in-so-much as those words have any meaning since their meaning is defined by us.

>>13728661
You can't read, can you?

>>13728682
I can. You want an easy way out instead of actually having to morally weight your decisions because you're a big ass baby who doesn't want to think or accept any responsibility or bad feefees. Kys.

>>13728629
>>13728677
Furthermore in regards to your argument about evolution:
Evolution is not a lock and key process, wherein the traits that form are *necessarily* best suited to survival. On the contrary evolution is more of a bruteforce approach to survival wherein random strategies are employed that may or may not be beneficial, this is important for two reasons:
1) non beneficial traits that are also not maladaptive (i.e. neutral) will remain in the gene pool
2)traits that are highly inefficient but still yield some small benefit remain in the gene pool as well
This means that it is entirely possible for an intelligence that far exceeds what is necessary for adaptation to arise.
To break this point down further, if we imagine delineating groups of things into 'sets' and then observing properties about those sets, then the only meaningful observations we can make are those observations that do not apply to all objects across all sets.
Consider we have {1, 2, 4} {3,7,9} and {14,22,28} as three arbitrary sets of numbers. We can then observe that all the odd numbers that exist are single digit. This statement is meaningful because it isolates a property in one set and correlates it with another property that is not true of other sets. Now consider the statement 'all the odd numbers are integers' that statement is meaningless because ALL the numbers are integers. Thus any logical observation about a given property shared by a set of objects cannot, and should not, be a property shared by all objects across all sets.
All lifeforms have evolved, thus the statement that 'humans evolved therefore...' is fundamentally meaningless since when discussing humans in relation to animals we are specifically considering the differences that exist WITHIN the set 'evolved life' that is all living objects. If you had said that because we are mammals we are not as complex as say reptiles, while that statement is untrue, it is coherent.

>>13728677
>specifically in referencing the sheer size of the gap in intelligence and behaviour between humans and all other lifeforms.
What would you do if I denied that the gap existed. Would you point to buildings? Equations? I guess so, seeing as that you already have.

Human intelligence is the biggest and most complex form of intelligence. Sure. We make the biggest buildings and write the best equations. I mean, really, the best. But so what? What does this prove? You can keep adding more and more storeys to a skyscraper but at the end of the day it's still just a den - and all of the maths involved in building it is still just you trying to understand how to make your den.

If anon is asking whether there is a philosophy that embraces less complexity in human interaction then my answer is just hit yourself in the head with a hammer until you achieve the level of comprehension desired. What it seems to me that anon is asking is whether there is a philosophy that transforms "the human perspective" into "the animal perspective." I deny that these are distinct perspectives.

>"so you're just saying that humans are animals with animal needs and see things in that perspective"
Yes, that's really all that I'm saying. What I'm arguing is that the implications of this statement for our ability to acquire knowledge are more far-reaching than acknowledged. If our intelligence is subservient to our animal needs then it's not going to be an effective key to the universe.

Or, well, /may/ not be. Of course nobody knows. The argument isn't "we can't understand the universe so don't try," it's just "we already live like animals - and animals live like humans."

>>13728702
That's all correct, and I regret bringing up evolution because it's actually not super relevant to my point. It was more useful as an example of what I mean when I say that human intelligence is fundamentally animal-based. I was attempting to demonstrate that the processes we see in animals work on us in exactly the same way, which highlights the (in my view) silliness of drawing a distinction between human and animal. Dogs are smarter than babies, after all. Consistent with my views, I'd give dogs greater rights and status than I'd give to babies. More correctly - I'd give babies less status and rights than dogs.

My conceit is that conceptualising humans as different in a meaningful way and more capable of ,mystery comprehension simply because we're more complex is unsupported. No other animal can comprehend anything beyond their needs and environment. Who says we can? The fact that we THINK that we can/are doing so doesn't mean we truly are. I hypothesise that we are deceiving ourselves when we think we are thinking beyond our animal needs and environment.

>>13728738
>>13728774
When the very first poster stated that they were looking for a philosophy based on an animals logic, it is already implied that the question is with respect to whatever observable differences there are between animals and humans.
Then an anon said that those differences are essentially meaningless in the grand scale. However there is no grand scale if you cannot establish a viewpoint greater than ourselves which we cannot since we are the pinnacle.
>>13728738
>Human intelligence is the biggest and most complex form of intelligence. Sure. We make the biggest buildings and write the best equations. I mean, really, the best. But so what? What does this prove?...
It doesn't prove anything, nor does it have to prove anything. No one at any point has argued that the greater intellectual powers and complexity of human thinking is indicative of anything other than...a greater intellectual prowess and complexity. You are refuting a position that no one at any point has actually presented.
This is a type of rhetoric in which you point to a presumed but unreal standard of which humans fall short therefore discredits whatever distinctions we already possess. But as I said earlier unless this standard can be observed in another being it exists only for the purpose of your argument. A statement that cannot be meaningfully negated is not an argument. So by what criteria could I negate your point? If humans achieved interstellar space travel, you would again argue 'so what does this prove?', if humans were immortal demigods capable of bending matter, you could likewise argue 'what does this actually prove...at the end of the day...' this is sophistry at its finest.
The point is that a distinction between humans and the next smartest mammal DOES exist. However small that distinction may be, it does mean that you can logically state 'what philosophy would more closely replicate a state of being of N-X' where N is our level of cognition and X is whatever arbitrary degree of less complexity anon meant in his original post.

>>13728774
>My conceit is that conceptualising humans as different in a meaningful way and more capable of ,mystery comprehension simply because we're more complex is unsupported. No other animal can comprehend anything beyond their needs and environment. Who says we can? The fact that we THINK that we can/are doing so doesn't mean we truly are. I hypothesise that we are deceiving ourselves when we think we are thinking beyond our animal needs and environment.
The problem is when you introduce terms like 'meaningful', these terms are fundamentally problematic to formulating a response to your statement because they are ambiguous, subjective, and outside of the scope of the argument at hand. Things have meaning within the context they are described in, again I refer back to my explanation using objects and sets. You cannot construct a logical argument about relationships by using a criteria that NO object meets anymore than a criteria that ALL objects meet. The difference between humans and animals is meaningful because A) it exists, and B) it is relevant to OPs post. Your argument is a form of circular logic because you argue that it doesn't exist because it fails to do so in a 'meaningful' way. Whatever there is to comprehend in this universe, we are better at comprehending it than animals because we are more complex, this is not unsupported because comprehension is a function of cognition and cognition is a function of the amount of complex neurochemistry of which an organism is capable. The only way to argue against this point would be to start redefining terms like comprehension or cognition, which is psuedointellectual psychobabble and you may as well start arguing that plants have souls.

>>13728851
>You are refuting a position that no one at any point has actually presented.
I am refuting a position that I presented, which is that humans are capable of understanding the universe in some way which animals are not. I interpreted the OP as implying that, and so I enunciated it and then addressed it. To be clear: I say that the point in the contention is that humans are capable of seeing the world in a way that animals are not. I say that's not true. As I say below, I don't consider the more complex way that humans see the world as being genuinely different. I form this view based on my observation that the added complexity does not result in different behaviour from animals, but simply more complex versions of animal behaviour.

>it is already implied that the question is with respect to whatever observable differences there are between animals and humans.
Then that's the sticking point, because I literally observe no meaningful difference. I mean that exactly. I would not call the difference in complexity meaningful. We do exactly the same shit as animals and we do nothing that they don't. You may observe differences that you consider meaningful, but I don't.

Anyway, it's 3:30 AM here and I'm exhausted. I'll check this thread when I get up though, so I will see your reply to this post if you want to leave one.

>>13728886
This is the most deliberately obtuse, bad faith reasoning I have ever seen. Either that or you're some pantheistic mystic from /x/.
>complexity does not result in different behaviour from animals, but simply more complex versions of animal behaviour.
More complex is by definition different. Perhaps you have some arbitrary intuitive perception of 'different' that precludes increasing complexity as being too derivative of primary conditions and therefore would not qualify as actually 'different', perhaps this is what you mean by 'meaningful', that the difference between a single celled organism, a bird, an ape, and a man, are just increasing layers of feedback loops too similar to ever truly deign different. While I think that is a...bizarre...way to look at life, I can understand it's internal validity. But we come down to the crux of the argument, you DO accept that they increase in complexity, just not different. This is where I believe you are in bad faith, because it is clear that the differences OP meant where to do with complexity/scale. You chose to ignore that so you could promote your own view that said differences are illusory when they are not precisely because they are what is at hand in the discussion. It's sort of like telling a chef that there is no difference between knives and forks because they are both made of metal, or between a butter knife and a cleaver because they only differ in scale and sharpness. Within the confines of a kitchen these differences ARE meaningful because a kitchen is built around them. Perhaps in a recycling plant these differences are meaningless. But then we have the other issue which is that unless you can conceptualise a negation to your premise, i.e. unless you can describe a type of behaviour that WOULD be non-animalistic, that would be 'truly different', then your argument is just a creed: unfalsifiable in its assertion. The absence of a property can only be demonstrated by its presence elsewhere.

>>13728886
Just to highlight again the absurdity of your position:
>which is that humans are capable of understanding the universe in some way which animals are not.
They by definition must be able to understand the universe in SOME way at the very least different from animals. These can be proven using very basic logic.
Understanding is a product of perception, perception is a function of sensory experience, sensory experience is determined by our brain, the complexity of our brain must play a role in all three of these. Unless you are a total relativist willing to hold on to the argument that ALL knowledge and ALL experience is an illusion that is entirely disconnected from an objective reality, that a rock might be more sentient than a man etc. etc. I don't see how this could ever be a tenable position. But if you do hold those tenets to be true then any and all arguments are pointless since you can refute them with the all powerful defense of absolute relativism.

I feel like such a philosophy would be difficult to put in practice outside of a natural environment.