A student in my philosophy class argued yesterday that we can’t know if invertebrates think deep thoughts just because they haven’t built up any civilizations, written books, or discussed philosophy.
Maybe, he said, they are communicating telepathically and have decided that a life in the mud at the bottom of the ocean is better than our wars, poverty, &c.
This would be less of a problem if I thought the student were arguing for the sake of annoying me, but he seemed to be earnest in his beliefs.
We’re starting the Summa tomorrow.
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He’s illustrating how little we know from unaided reason if we don’t base our understanding of reality on sense-perception.
For example, if we disregard our senses, we don’t even know that your student colleague really exists or that he’s really a human being. Maybe his appearance and voice are only an illusion neurologically generated inside your head, and in reality the guy sitting next to you is a telepathic jackass.
So even natural knowledge requires a kind of faith in which we accept the perceptions of our senses.
Yes, we’ve already been through the “I’m not really here and you don’t really exist” discussion, and that on the first day of class.
So, what the student is essentially arguing is that these creatures choose to remain low on the food chain, at the mercy of whatever predator finds and devours them or whatever disease decimates their populations because the burdens of civilization are to heavy?
Why is this guy in the class rather sitting in the mud somewhere? Until he has tried the life of an invertebrate he should not be allowed to philosophize about it. Obviously, if he sat at the *bottom* of the ocean for a while his own thoughts would become deeper than they are now…
Dear Sir,
I don’t know, perhaps he is more a dreamer than philosopher. What he suggests makes for interesting speculation in the form of fiction and does provide an exercise in imaginstion. I don’t know what its endpoint might be, but what is the harm in thinking it?
Who knows what thoughts (if thoughts they be) circulate in the hive-mind where “societies” if not civilizations have been built up. We know that bees communicate with one another through dance and ants through touch.
However, the important point here, I think, is somewhat akin to my major bugbear. Does it matter if they think great thoughts if they cannot communicate them to anyone beyond themselves. In my field I am constantly told things like, “We shouldn’t call them ‘Newton’s Laws’ because a Chinese woman in the third century could have come up with them before him.” Indeed, she could have; however, because there is no record of it and no sign that it ever affected the development of western science, the point is moot. They are ‘Newton’s Laws’ because he codified and quantified them. Stripping his name from them does not remove the fact that he discovered them.
Back to the invertebrates–even if they do think deep thoughts–what of it? They have changed nothing visible to us–if their own organization is better for it, we cannot know. Ultimately a difference that makes no difference is not a difference.
However, don’t be too harsh on someone who is at least imaginative. Perhaps he is simply out of place in philosophy and ought to be shuttled over to literature.
shalom,
Steven
I forcefully disagree with Mr. Riddle’s suggestion that we “…should not be too harsh with someone who is at least imaginative.”
This young “thinker”, i.e., the student in the class, is not being imaginative. In the absence of a single shred of scientific evidence of intelligence, or telepathic capability, or of thinking “deep thoughts”, this young “thinker” is simply being stupid. I mean, why not just speculate on whether aliens (crash?)landed in Roswell, NM? At least those creatures would be further along the intelligence food chain than the invertebrates he seems so intent on elevating to the level of reasoning beings.
If this type of “thinking”, or “imagination”, is what passes for intelligent discourse at our nation’s universities, God help us all. Stupidity such as this needs to be terminated with extreme prejudice. And its practitioners must be given failing grades until they come up with something resembling a cogent argument, including (in this case) at least an iota of scientific evidence, for their theses.
When science demonstrates invertebrates are capable of “deep thoughts” (by the way, what is a “deep thought”? Should Jack Handy be brought in as a consultant on this?), I’ll listen. To the nonsensical musings of an inchoate intellect, I will not listen.
And Mr. Riddle’s suggestion that this student shunt his “talents” into the literature realm: No thanks. Don’t want this guy competing in the Fiction section of B&N with the likes of such writing geniuses as Bill Clinton, his ghastly wife, or former SecState Madeline Halfbright…
I was only pointing out that this high-school student was having difficulty understanding the dignity and superiority of man over brute. It seems odd to me that I have to even argue this point with these students; i.e., that they have been so taken with the PETA/Greenpeace/liberals-of-all-stripes propoganda that they actually have to be convinced of the intellectual difference between man with a soul (though I can’t come out and say it, at least at this point) and animals with their animal souls.
Dear Mr. Gandt,
I fail to see how coming up with an admittedly odd notion without evidence is indicative of a lack of imagination. Please note that I did not say that he was correct, I said that he was imaginative–to conceive of Cnidarians with a hive mind is indeed ingenious. The dubious utility of this ingenuity may be questioned, but to lambast the imagination seems counterproductive–and to label the student “stupid” is hardly an effective means of dealing with the error. It is not stupidity, but ignorance and ignorance can be remedied with time. But one of the wonderful things about youth is some of the vestiges of innocence that hang about for a while.
I respectfully but equally ardently disagree. What we have is immaturity, not to be lightly dismissed, but to be gently and firmly redirected, if such redirection is possible.
As to comparing one who imagines a hive mind to the subliterary inferno constituted by the likes of Clinton, Limbaugh, Franken, and Coulter, well, chacun á son goût. Personally, I would far prefer to read the speculation of such a mind than investigate the puerile maunderings of much that passes for intelligent discussion in the literary world today.
shalom,
Steven