Re: [asa] Two questions...Ayala's article

Sapiens had the neocortical hardware.

Sent from my iPhone

On Feb 24, 2009, at 12:13 AM, David Clounch <david.clounch@gmail.com>
wrote:

> On Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 5:43 PM, David Opderbeck
> <dopderbeck@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Dave Clounch, I'm not sure about what your concern is. Personally,
>> my view
>> of human nature is one of "holistic dualism." I think human beings
>> have a
>> "spiritual" nature -- the "soul" -- that is more than the aspects
>> of the
>> "human" that are reducible to biology. At the same time, I think
>> human
>> beings are a "whole," not merely "embodied souls." Given this, I
>> think it's
>> likely that there are aspects of human nature that simply cannot be
>> investigated by science. I would suggest that, at the very least,
>> the first
>> true humans -- Adam and Eve -- were imparted this spiritual nature
>> and that
>> it was subsequently propogated throughout the biological human
>> species. I
>> don't think this has anything to do with genetics.
>
> Surely PZ Meyers and other materialists would beg to disagree? And
> wouldnt they say they do this on scientific grounds? Why would they
> be wrong merely because some theologians say they are wrong? What
> sort of belief system is dualism? Is it a
> secular idea? Or something reserved for church?
>
> Thinking just a bit out of the box for a moment,
> let me ask this: Could this imparted spiritual nature have been given
> to Chimpanzees or some other species rather than homo sapiens? Or did
> homo sapiens have some supporting resources that other species didn't
> possess?
>
> Think of it as software. One wouldnt be very successful trying to run
> a higher level desktop operating system (such as Vista or RedHat
> Enterprise Linux) on a linkysys wireless-G router because the 200
> MHz ARM processor is too slow and there just are not enough resources
> there in the box. So homo sapiens may possibly be the physical
> prerequisite of the human mind or race. Doesn't genetics have a lot
> to do with that? Genetics might not be the cause but it might be the
> prerequisite to the "imparting" of special cognitive abilities.
>

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Received on Tue Feb 24 08:57:05 2009