The Human Condition and the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics

Kinch wrote:

John Jones wrote:

Most of your arguments hinge on a word that has no explanatory value - 'instinct'.

This keeps coming up. I'll try to clarify:

"At a public lecture I listened to Arthur Koestler airing his opinion that the human species was mad...as a result of an inadequate co-ordination between two areas of the brain - the 'rational' neocortex and the 'instinctual hypothalamus..."
(Bruce Chatwin, The Songlines, 1987)

"Jung Regards the unconscious mind as not only the repository of forgotten or repressed memories, but also of racial memories. This is reasonable enough when we remember the definition of instinct as racial memory"
(International University Society's Reading Course and Biographical Studies, Volume 6, c 1940.)

'The Tao acts through Natural Law…
From ancient times to the present,
Its name ever remains,
Through the experience of the Collective Origin.'
(From the 21st passage of Tao Te Ching, attributed to Lao Tzu [604-531 BC], as translated by R.L. Wing.)

'The great frontier between the two types of mentality is the line which separates non-primate mammals from apes and monkeys. On one side of that line behaviour is dominated by hereditary memory, and on the other by individual causal memory…The phyletic history of the primate soul can clearly be traced in the mental evolution of the human child. The highest primate, man, is born an instinctive animal. All its behaviour for a long period after birth is dominated by the instinctive mentality…' (Eugène Marais, The Soul of the Ape, written in the 1930s, published in 1969.)

'Oh wearisome Condition of Humanity!
Borne under one Law, to another bound:
Vainely begot, and yet forbidden vanity,
Created sicke, commanded to be sound:
What meaneth Nature by these diverse Lawes?
Passion and Reason, selfe-division cause:'
(Fulke Greville, from his play Mustapha, c 1594-96.)

These quotes (I'd give you more but they're all I have at hand) demonstrate what I mean by instinctive, it is the hereditary memory of the behaviours developed by the genetic learning system over time.
Hereditary memory as opposed to individual causal understanding.
Hope that's helped,
Kinch

Instinct, then, is a commonly used word, but without a consistent meaning. Not only that, but the best meaning it does have does not make sense. It is not acceptable to use a word that refers to both an experience and the physical, as if to provide a meaningful link between them. To say 'some feelings are caused by instinct' commits a number of errors. First, no causal explanation links mind and matter; second, not only is the term instinct vague about its nature (mind or matter?), but it seems to switch its nature between mind and matter depending on what feelings are being considered. So which is it? Mind or matter?

The world is less divisive in some ways and from some perspectives, education and communication have helped to some extent but they have also helped destroy and enslave many races (the Australian Aborigines, and the African people in the USA for example (obviously the latter's situation has improved vastly). However there has not been a day of peace in the world for a ridiculously long time, there is great division between the have's and have not's, both within individual countries and more drastically on a world scale, there is also an ever increasing division between humans and nature and also a rising tide of youth suicides and drug abuse. There are also people being tortured as I write this - the world is still a very divisive place.

To try and answer your second point I will use one of Griffith's own analogy's. Consider a stork (Griffith calls this hypothetical bird Adam Stork) now Adam Stork has a hereditary memory or instinctive orientation to fly from Africa back to Europe come summer and to follow a specific migratory path. There is no reason to deviate from this path as it will take him safely home. However what would happen if we could somehow stick a conscious mind that can reach insights and learn from trial and error in Adam stork's head? Adam Stork might see an island off his migration path that has some tasty apples on it (it is irrelevant whether storks eat apples or not, it's just a nice 'Eden' reference). His new conscious mind has no understanding of why he should stick to his migration path and so he flies off course to get the apples, at this point he would experience what we call 'conscience'; a bad feeling. This is his instincts (not verbally) saying "don't do that, the migration path is the right way to go". It does not matter that his instinctive course is the right way for Adam Stork to go because his conscious mind needs to understand why it is the right way to go. Because of this Adam Stork would have to ignore his 'conscience' to find understanding, thereby developing the beginnings of the "Stork Condition".
Griffith says that the same thing happened with humans 2 million (approx.) years ago, except rather than a migration path being deviated from it was co-operative behaviour. To justify themselves against the bad feelings their conscience gave them our ancestors had to find understanding of the gene-based and nerve-based learning systems, evolution, Thermodynamics etc. etc. if we could somehow go back and give the early hominids a crash course in the history of human knowledge no conflict would ever emerge, because they could understand what was happening.

(systems move towards greater complexity).

John Jones wrote:

Kinch wrote:

John Jones wrote:

Most of your arguments hinge on a word that has no explanatory value - 'instinct'.

This keeps coming up. I'll try to clarify:

"At a public lecture I listened to Arthur Koestler airing his opinion that the human species was mad...as a result of an inadequate co-ordination between two areas of the brain - the 'rational' neocortex and the 'instinctual hypothalamus..."
(Bruce Chatwin, The Songlines, 1987)

"Jung Regards the unconscious mind as not only the repository of forgotten or repressed memories, but also of racial memories. This is reasonable enough when we remember the definition of instinct as racial memory"
(International University Society's Reading Course and Biographical Studies, Volume 6, c 1940.)

'The Tao acts through Natural Law…
From ancient times to the present,
Its name ever remains,
Through the experience of the Collective Origin.'
(From the 21st passage of Tao Te Ching, attributed to Lao Tzu [604-531 BC], as translated by R.L. Wing.)

'The great frontier between the two types of mentality is the line which separates non-primate mammals from apes and monkeys. On one side of that line behaviour is dominated by hereditary memory, and on the other by individual causal memory…The phyletic history of the primate soul can clearly be traced in the mental evolution of the human child. The highest primate, man, is born an instinctive animal. All its behaviour for a long period after birth is dominated by the instinctive mentality…' (Eugène Marais, The Soul of the Ape, written in the 1930s, published in 1969.)

'Oh wearisome Condition of Humanity!
Borne under one Law, to another bound:
Vainely begot, and yet forbidden vanity,
Created sicke, commanded to be sound:
What meaneth Nature by these diverse Lawes?
Passion and Reason, selfe-division cause:'
(Fulke Greville, from his play Mustapha, c 1594-96.)

These quotes (I'd give you more but they're all I have at hand) demonstrate what I mean by instinctive, it is the hereditary memory of the behaviours developed by the genetic learning system over time.
Hereditary memory as opposed to individual causal understanding.
Hope that's helped,
Kinch

Instinct, then, is a commonly used word, but without a consistent meaning. Not only that, but the best meaning it does have does not make sense. It is not acceptable to use a word that refers to both an experience and the physical, as if to provide a meaningful link between them. To say 'some feelings are caused by instinct' commits a number of errors. First, no causal explanation links mind and matter; second, not only is the term instinct vague about its nature (mind or matter?), but it seems to switch its nature between mind and matter depending on what feelings are being considered. So which is it? Mind or matter?

The division between mind and matter is not so concrete as you imagine. I suggest you read some studies on quantum uncertainty and sub-atomic particles, in these fields of research scientists find it very hard to distinguish between subject/object mind/matter.
If you have a problem with 'matter' causing 'feelings' simply imagine what you would feel if you struck a child in the face, or refused to give food to someone starving - it is called 'conscience' and is the result of an instinctive orientation to co-operative behaviour. Also just imagine being struck by a ball in the testicles this is the interplay of matter upon matter, yet it gives rise to a 'feeling'. (I know that's banal but I don't know what you are getting at with your arguments)
To clarify:
The instinct is the result of millions of years of adaptation in the genetic learning system. For example, imagine a group of storks flying over an island where a volcano has formed a new mountain in their flight path, some storks would have a tendency to go east around the mountain and some west, as a result of their genetic makeup, which differs slightly between individuals. If all the storks that fly west around the mountain perish - perhaps the west route is too long - then only those storks with an instinctive orientation to fly east will survive. This is genetic learning and creates the instinctive self. If you were to put a conscious mind in one of these storks and it decided it would like to fly west around the mountain, not knowing any reason why not to, the storks instincts would try to steer it back on course through what can only be called 'conscience' (something which can be observed often in naughty dogs and, of course in humans). Of course, if the stork defies this instinctive orientation it will die.

The instincts are the result of the gene-based learning system, they are non-verbal and develop over time through evolution, they cause feelings of 'conscience' when disobeyed by a conscious intellect or 'mind', as you put it, which arises from a complex nerve-based learning system which can adapt behaviour through observing cause and effect. By observing and remembering cause and effect the nerve based learning system can connect ideas about the past and make predictions about the future which is what enables it to self manage. As far as we know, humans are the only animals with fully conscious minds. We are also the only animal we know of who are intellect-dominated rather than instinct-dominated.

I hope that has cleared it up but I will be happy to try again if you remain unsatisfied.
Kinch