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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe War on Reason {not conservative lunacy topic}
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/03/the-war-on-reason/357561/?n1d6wb
Aristotles definition of man as a rational animal has recently taken quite a beating.
Part of the attack comes from neuroscience. Pretty, multicolored fMRI maps make clear that our mental lives can be observed in the activity of our neurons, and weve made considerable progress in reading someones thoughts by looking at those maps. Its clear, too, that damage to the brain can impair the most-intimate aspects of ourselves, such as the capacity to make moral judgments or to inhibit bad actions. To some scholars, the neural basis of mental life suggests that rational deliberation and free choice are illusions. Because our thoughts and actions are the products of our brains, and because what our brains do is determined by the physical state of the world and the laws of physicsperhaps with a dash of quantum randomness in the mixthere seems to be no room for choice. As the author and neuroscientist Sam Harris has put it, we are biochemical puppets.
This conception of what it is to be a person fits poorly with our sense of how we live our everyday lives. It certainly feels as though we make choices, as though were responsible for our actions. The idea that were entirely physical beings also clashes with the age-old idea that body and mind are distinct. Even young children believe themselves and others to be not just physical bodies, subject to physical laws, but also separate conscious entities, unfettered from the material world. Most religious thought has been based on this kind of dualist worldview, as showcased by John Updike in Rabbit at Rest, when Rabbit talks to his friend Charlie about Charlies recent surgery:
Pig valves. Rabbit tries to hide his revulsion. Was it terrible? They split your chest open and ran your blood through a machine?
Piece of cake. Youre knocked out cold. Whats wrong with running your blood through a machine? What else you think you are, champ?
A God-made one-of-a-kind with an immortal soul breathed in. A vehicle of grace. A battlefield of good and evil. An apprentice angel
Youre just a soft machine, Charlie maintains.
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The War on Reason {not conservative lunacy topic} (Original Post)
xchrom
Feb 2014
OP
TheSarcastinator
(854 posts)1. this is an excellent & provocative read; thank you
There is much of value here.
xchrom
(108,903 posts)2. ...
KG
(28,749 posts)3. man is not a rational animal, man is an animal the rationalizes.
not my quote.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)4. Being rational is easy. Being right is a lot more difficult. nt
xchrom
(108,903 posts)5. lol! and here endeth the lesson. nt