Creationism Vs. Evolution: The Debate Is Live Tonight online at 7pm- http://www.npr.org

[Chachie]

This thread has gotten deep.

 

 

And wide.

[PeterMP]

Yes and no.

Descartes is certainly not an empiricist. He doubts the very thing the empiricist assumes, the evidence of his senses.

He does think he can build up to objective knowledge from the cogito though. I find that part of his case much less persuasive myself.

I also prefer a different first principle then the cogito, as I think the cogito actually entails complete subjectivism, it leaves no room for the object. I want a first principle that solves the problem Descartes first principle leads to: for example, the mind-body problem and the problem of induction. Ortega's "I am I and my circumstances" is a possibility.

 

It isn't at all clear to me how adding circumstances helps the issue.  I am and as I am I also must have circumstances, but they are still mine (and even part of me if you'd rather), and but are not constant (and I am not constant if you'd rather).

 

I am and I'd even venture to say my wife is, and our existences are related though not identical and not necessarily of the same nature.

 

Our conditions are almost certainly different and while they are related, from a skeptical stand point, I'm not sure I'd buy the argument that they are necessarily highly related.

 

From my perspective, it is very difficult to build to induction or escape subjectivism based on first principles.

[alexey]

...

Let me clarify: I mean to say the idea of a law of nature is a rational principle (which empiricism relies on), I do not mean to say the rational principle is a law of nature.

Of course you're right that rational principles are hypothetical, they should be subject to analysis and revision. They are not beyond doubt.

It is not this particular principle or that which is beyond doubt (although I think some are), it is the need of principles. Empiricism relies on principles which themselves are not empirical. What I mean to say is that empiricism is not sufficient unto itself. Effective yes, but incomplete.

...

I do not have enough philosophical background on the term "empiricism." Maybe you can help map onto proper philosophy if I explain the way I think about it.

Evolutionary processes provided organisms with increasingly complex capabilities. This process was shaped by what we now call: "laws of the universe." Organisms competed within this environment, and they find themselves organized according to its principles. You seem to suggest that at some point organisms can no longer employ these principles without having to justify them with a metaphysical construct. For some reason an evolutionary justification of being more effective at achieving particular goals is no longer sufficient.

It seems strange when things that emerged at a higher level, such as philosophy, attempt to claim that processes at lower levels now require a stamp of approval.

Maybe you would say that "empiricism" is an emergent activity that only applies to humans? In that case I do not see how you would deny "empiricism" to animals that engage in exploring, discovering causes and effects, using tools, etc. Obviously I see differences between that and science, but I do not see where the evolutionary justification for using science stops being suficient. Do you claim that evolutionary justification for science is insufficient?

I think that empiricism takes the principle that experience is the authority by which we can understand a law-like universe, but I don't think that principle is certain. In fact I think it stands in need of revision.

Empiricism seems to emerge before understanding.

I am cirious where you would say the term "empiricism" begins to apply to the sense-act loop.

...

I shouldn't have attributed that view to you. I still maintain the fact squirrels don't do science illustrates the limits of the analogy though.

...

That bit about the sun rising tomorrow is meant only to illustrate the nature of induction, that induction generalizes from observations. I don't mean to say the Sun not rising tomorrow is a real possibility (although Hume gives the impression that he considers it such).

...

Would you say that squirrels use induction?

It seems you are again proposing a boundary between things humans do and things other animals do. I will readily admit that there are important differences. However, I am not convinced that there is a clear boundary beyond which humans need philosophy to justify setting alarm clocks.

If you are saying you don't believe in moral principles, then you've really opened a can of worms.

I actually like that principle, but doesn't the idea of a "better principle" suggest some standard of good and bad?

Yes, but I would not use "good/bad" language either. I would prefer to talk about effectiveness at convincing people, achieving goals, etc.

We don't want to replace the right/wrong can of worms with the good/bad one

I also think emergence is interesting. Part of my view is that empirical science emerged from medieval theology, and I also ponder what the next paradigm shift will look like.

I am hoping it will be a shift towards bottom-up problem solving...

...

My intent is to make room for the principles that are beyond the reach of empirical methods. The facts are the facts, the principles are how we deal with them. 3 million hungry people is a fact, and the solution will be based on other facts, but seeing 3 million hungry people as a problem in want of a solution is a principle.

This is a valid and traditional way of looking at it. However, I think it drives an unfortumate wedge between problems in philosophy and problems in reality.

There are plenty of interesting topics in ethics, etc, but some exercises in moral philosophy seem as moral as sending a cookbook to people who are starving.

Sam Harris recently did a publicity stunt, where he asked people to send essays challenging his "The Moral Landscape" book. I need problems to solve to get my gears rolling, so I used that as motivation to think through some of these topics. I am planning to post the final essay on ES... but one idea is that morality is about raising awareness, convincing people, building coalitions, and taking actions. Traditional focus on the "is-ought" problem is misguided. Convincing people is the real problem to solve, and it can be solved with facts about our psychology, etc.. Each brain wants to take the "is" and derive the "ought" for itself.

[PeterMP]

 

I do not have enough philosophical background on the term "empiricism." Maybe you can help map onto proper philosophy if I explain the way I think about it.

Evolutionary processes provided organisms with increasingly complex capabilities. This process was shaped by what we now call: "laws of the universe." Organisms competed within this environment, and they find themselves organized according to its principles. You seem to suggest that at some point organisms can no longer employ these principles without having to justify them with a metaphysical construct. For some reason an evolutionary justification of being more effective at achieving particular goals is no longer sufficient.

 

Do you really not see that this is a circular argument?

 

If we assume that the assumptions of science are correct, then science is correct and a by product of science (evolution) is correct (and I'll point out the assumptions that underlie science are the MINIMAL assumptions you have to make here),

 

THEN using that by-product of science (evolution)I can provide a logical argument to assume the assumptions that underlie science are correct (or not worry about the fact that there are assumptions when acting).

 

The wording on the last part isn't really relevant in terms of rather we actually assume the assumption is correct or we don't worry about whether the assumption is correct.

 

It is an interesting trick how if you start with "knowledge" based on making an assumption than that knowledge logically supports making the assumption.

 

**EDIT**

Yes, if you assume evolution is correct, then acting in a manner consistent with evolutionary theory is logical.

[s0crates]

alexey-

I want to say a couple things about the is-ought divide you bring up. I think you do well to address this, as my empirical/rational distinction is basically that one in essence. We sometimes call this "Hume's fork." Hume's wording is "matters of fact" and "relations of ideas," of which he says, "never the two shall meet." Kant, who said Hume awoke him from his "dogmatic slumber," makes the same distinction between synthetic and analytic knowledge, one known a posteriori, the other a priori. He says, "Let all philosophizing cease until this question is answered: How are synthetic judgements possible a priori?" I will try to explain the force of that question.

What experimental science in the Baconian tradition gives us is synthetic knowledge based on an empirical method of knowing (by observation, or inductively, or a posteriori, or through experience). This type of knowledge is basically a generalization from observed phenomena, like the sun rising, or the temperature water boils at, or the brain's reaction to certain stimuli in an EKG machine.

Rational truth, or analytic knowledge, seems of a different sort. Consider the two most clear examples of mathematics and logic. We do not know the Pythagorean theorem by observation. Proofs are not done in the laboratory, they are done in the mind, using concepts. I know a square circle is impossible by comparing my understanding of squares to my understanding of circles. I know "1 + 1 = 2" just by understanding what "1" and "2" mean. I know that "if x then y" and "x" imply "y" as a matter of necessity. These things are known deductively, a priori, etc.

The distinction seems crystal clear to me, yet it is something of a paradox, at least if we accept Hume's fork. Consider for example the fact that empirical science quantifies its observations with numbers. The language of science is number. Yet number is a rational thing and not an empirical thing. As Whitehead said, "the paradox is [here] fully established that the utmost abstractions are the true weapons with which to control our thought of concrete facts." So Hume, and Kant, and most of modern philosophy must have gone wrong somewhere (and I think this includes not only rationalists like Descartes, but also empiricists like Bacon and Locke), it seems. A paradox is beyond belief, as is the is-ought divide, Hume's fork, the analytic synthetic split, the division between empirical and rational, and so on.

You say the "is-ought problem is misguided." I agree with that. I'm particularly interested in what exactly went wrong in the reasoning, and that is a tricky problem. To give you an idea of what I think the implications of this problem are let me show you something William James used to do in his lectures:

Tough-minded: Empiricist (going by 'facts'), sensationalistic, materialistic, pessimistic, irreligious, fatalistic, pluralistic, skeptical.

Tender-minded: Rationalistic (going by 'principles'), intellectualistic, idealistic, optimistic, religious, free-willist, monistic, dogmatical

One solution to this problem is for one side to vigorously deny the other, but I think that is misguided. I agree with James that "You want a system that will combine both things, the scientific loyalty to the facts and willingness to take account of them . . . but also the old confidence in human values, whether of the religious or romantic type."

The difficulty, the challenge, is to solve this problem in a coherent and intellectually satisfying way.

[s0crates]

2.  I wasn't trying to defend empiricism.  From my perspective, empiricism is only "better" in the context of cultural evolution in which the culture that embraced it most fully was able to supplant/dominate many/most other cultures and that was largely possible because they had embraced empiricism.  Much of that was through the (intentional and unintentional) decimation of other cultures and even today continued economic (in many cases) domination.

 

To me that's like saying animal X is better than animal Y where animal X played a predominant role in the extinction of animal Y.  From an evolutionary perspective that might be true, but I don't think I'm at all comfortable judging things in general and especially human culture/principles/philosophies based on evolution.

 

Now, I wouldn't necessarily lie all of that on the door step of empiricism, but I think separating it all isn't trivial.

 

. . .

 

I think the idea that empiricism is (a predominant) part of some grand solution (i.e. better than many other things) is badly flawed and likely long term is a disservice to us as species and to the practice of empiricism itself.

 

(Note, I'm saying that it can/should be discarded, but that it has to be subservient to other ideas/principles).

 

 

I appreciate that post.  This is a huge oversimplification, but I might roughly mark our three positions out this way: You are a thoroughgoing rationalist, alexey is thouroughgoing empiricist, I think we need to fit them together properly. Again, that is not exactly right, but I simplify so to speak. 

 

My thinking is that each view represents a paradigm in principle, and each paradigm has good and bad aspects.

 

The pre-modern paradigm, which we might roughly characterize as rational, laid the ground work for the modern paradigm.  The modern paradigm built on it.  The pre-modern belief in divine law was a precursor to the modern belief in natural law.  The pre-modern view was overly dogmatic and superstitious, but the notions of law and logic were innovative and remain fundamental.  The moderns were able to overcome the dogma and superstition, and bring major practical and technological advancements, both through their empirical methodology.  Yet, as you point out, modernity brought its own class of problems (like sweat-shops and eugenics).

 

What I want is a system that embraces the insights of each paradigm (the pre-modern faith in values/principles and the modern faith in facts), without falling into their respective traps of dogmatic thinking and nihilism. I think this is what the next paradigm will look like, I hesitate to use the word "postmodern," but we await the right philosophical innovation to accomplish this.

 

Give me facts and principles, but give them to me coherently.

[s0crates]

It isn't at all clear to me how adding circumstances helps the issue.  I am and as I am I also must have circumstances, but they are still mine (and even part of me if you'd rather), and but are not constant (and I am not constant if you'd rather).

 

I am and I'd even venture to say my wife is, and our existences are related though not identical and not necessarily of the same nature.

 

Our conditions are almost certainly different and while they are related, from a skeptical stand point, I'm not sure I'd buy the argument that they are necessarily highly related.

 

From my perspective, it is very difficult to build to induction or escape subjectivism based on first principles.

 

Ortega's idea isn't one I'm prepared to defend, but I use it as an example of attempting innovation in our principles.  Orrtega is trying to do what I think must be done, and that is to abolish the subject-object distinction and replace it with a better concept, something like happenings or events.

 

I think Ortega would say that Descartes' "I" was set off from life, but life is the thing in which the "I" finds itself.  Your circumstances are no more in doubt than your "I."  Your wife is part of your circumstances (and you are part of hers).  

 

Now Ortega was influenced by the existentialists, so it might help to look at it in the context of Sartre's definition of existentialism, "existence precedes essence." Life happens, then you make something of it.  The I and the circumstances are given, the rest is up to you.  Its like in cards, you have a hand you are dealt, and that is the circumstance (those are the facts), and you are properly limited to that, but you still have the ability to respond to the circumstance, to play your cards if you will, and that is where you need principles.  

 

I think there is a further suggestion that part of our life is adapting our principles to changing circumstances. I think the idea is that the facts precede the principles, which might be something like what alexey is hinting at with the squirrel analogy.

 

Again, I'm not committed to the view, but I find it is suggestive of the sort of thinking that will help us make headway on the problem of modernity.

[alexey]

Do you really not see that this is a circular argument?

If we assume that the assumptions of science are correct, then science is correct and a by product of science (evolution) is correct (and I'll point out the assumptions that underlie science are the MINIMAL assumptions you have to make here),

...

I see science emerging from evolution, and evolution emerging from properties of the universe. You seem to suggest it's the other way around.

[PeterMP]

I see science emerging from evolution, and evolution emerging from properties of the universe. You seem to suggest it's the other way around.

 

You can run around the circle in either direction you want.  You are still running in a circle.

 

1.  I assume the universe has properties.

2.  From those properties emerges evolution.

3.  From evolution emerges science, which studies/uncovers those properties that I assume existed in the first place.

 

You've started with an assumption, done some process/work, and then declared that the results of the process/work validate your assumption.

 

Whether you are travelling the circle A->B->C or C->B->A is irrelevant.

[alexey]

s0crates,

Thank you for the thoughtful post and this discussion overall!

...

a posteriori, the other a priori. He says, "Let all philosophizing cease until this question is answered: How are synthetic judgements possible a priori?"

...

I think evolution provdies the answer to this question. Discovery of evolution showed that synthetic judgements come first and analytic judgements emerge millions of years later.

What experimental science in the Baconian tradition gives us is synthetic knowledge based on an empirical method of knowing (by observation, or inductively, or a posteriori, or through experience).

...

I think the mistake comes from assuming that "experimental science in the Baconian tradition" is an invention of the rational mind and not just a naural step in evolutionary development.

...

The difficulty, the challenge, is to solve this problem in a coherent and intellectually satisfying way.

The evolutionary perspective seems to do just that, in my view. It seems to be a coherent and intellectually satisfying way to flip the while thing on its head. We do not discover the world by using rational principles, we discover rational principles by using the world.

[PeterMP]

I appreciate that post.  This is a huge oversimplification, but I might roughly mark our three positions out this way: You are a thoroughgoing rationalist, alexey is thouroughgoing empiricist, I think we need to fit them together properly. Again, that is not exactly right, but I simplify so to speak. 

 

My thinking is that each view represents a paradigm in principle, and each paradigm has good and bad aspects.

 

Give me facts and principles, but give them to me coherently.

I'd prefer to be considered a skeptic that has realized that not only claims to knowledge, but also the claims about the value of knowledge are greatly exaggerated.

 

What surprises me is that many of our popular/prominent empiricist, don't seem to understand that even science indicates what they want isn't possible and if it was it wouldn't be good.

 

Pretty basic evolutionary theory tells me it isn't very likely to have a population the size of the human population without a lot of variation.

 

Add onto that the parts of quantum mechanics that pretty much ensures that all of our experiences are going to be different, and you are looking at a mess.

 

Now, simplistically one might look at the problem and say that the solution is to minimize the variability in the human population (and I'm not suggesting some sort of eugenics model here), but again basic evolutionary theory tells me that variation is almost always a good thing for a species at the population level.

[s0crates]

I see science emerging from evolution, and evolution emerging from properties of the universe. You seem to suggest it's the other way around.

Perhaps it goes both ways. Things emerge from other things, and this involves a transcending.

Consider this: reality is composed of wholes that are part of other wholes. An atom is a whole atom and part of a molecule. A molecule is a whole molecule and part of a cell. A cell is a whole cell and part of an organism, and so on.

Now notice that a whole is, in one sense, the sum of its parts, but in another sense it is more than the sum of its parts. Water has properties that make it distinct from hydrogen and oxygen, yet it is hydrogen and oxygen.

One way of discussing the relationship between the wholes and parts, not mine, is that the whole "transcends and includes" it parts.

Why do I mention this? Well I think things emerge from simpler things AND this is a process of going beyond. Existence precedes essence, perhaps, but perhaps the arrow goes both ways.

It's something to ponder anyway.

[s0crates]

s0crates,

We do not discover the world by using rational principles, we discover rational principles by using the world.

I think that is profound.  I'm going to reflect on that and get back to you.

[PeterMP]

I think that is profound.  I'm going to reflect on that and get back to you.

 

alexey can correct me if I'm wrong, but what I think he is saying there is that the way to uncover rational principles is through science.

 

Now before, you've used the word rational in the context of the assumptions made by science and irrational the opposite.

 

I'm not used to that type of usage and more prefer things like natural (I don't see any reason why nature should be rational or logical).

 

However, if that's the way you think about it than "rational principles" essentially translates to scientific ideas.

 

Which then only makes sense.

 

The whole idea translates to we discover scientific ideas by studying the world.

 

However if we define rationally more broadly, then the idea that we can only define principles through only science seems to be very limiting in nature.

 

And neither idea resolves the issue that there is an underlying assumption to science.

[alexey]

alexey can correct me if I'm wrong, but what I think he is saying there is that the way to uncover rational principles is through science.

Please forget about humans and science for a minute. Consider the evolutionary perspective - animals so simple that you would not say they make "assumptions," discovering the world and adapting to it through trial and error.

[PeterMP]

Please forget about humans and science for a minute. Consider the evolutionary perspective - animals so simple that you would not say they make "assumptions," discovering the world and adapting to it through trial and error.

But this requires that we understand about evolution is correct, which requires that science is correct, which requires that the assumption that underlies science is correct.

 

Your whole argument is dependent on the assumptions that underlies science is correct, and then you are trying to use that to validate that the assumption is correct (or can be ignored).

 

That's circular.

 

If our understanding of evolution is badly flawed because the assumption underlying science is wrong, then your whole argument collapses.

 

I don't know what else to tell you.

 

If you can't see that you are making a circular argument after I've pointed it out, this is where I drop out.

 

I don't know another way to say it.

[alexey]

...

If our understanding of evolution is badly flawed because the assumption underlying science is wrong, then your whole argument collapses.

...

You are correct. Things break down big time if it turns out that Ken Ham is right about evolution.

[PeterMP]

You are correct. Things break down big time if it turns out that Ken Ham is right about evolution.

Or any other possibility by which the assumptions that underlie evolution are incorrect.

 

Now, with that frame of reference, what good does it for you to appeal to evolution at all?

 

Why did you introduce evolution into it and not just talk about science?

[s0crates]

alexey-

I've been arguing that induction presupposes metaphysics, and you've countered that metaphysics presupposes induction! I find this intriguing.

If I follow you, you would say Kant's question about how synthetic judgements are possible a priori is fundamentally misguided, it should be: how are analytic judgements possible a posteriori?

I think you are quite right that experience is primary in a historical sense, animals had experience before people had knowledge, and our knowledge is derived from our experience. The experience comes first, those are the facts, and from those we derive principles. As you so eloquently put it, "we do not discover the world by using rational principles, we discover rational principles by using the world." I think you have taken a defensible position here.

Now I want to examine how science fits in this picture. As I've said, animals don't do science, but as you've said they do have experience. Animals don't do induction, theirs is simple perception, they do not derive knowledge (in the strict sense) from it. So science is not simply experience, it is instead knowledge from experience.

Following your evolutionary model, I would say that observation comes first (as in animal perception), then humans invent rational principles, then (and here we might differ) we invent empirical science, which is an application of rational principles to experience (remember, the language of science is number).

It seems to me that empirical science combines the original experience and the rational principles. Perhaps that is just the next step in cognitive evolution, the weaving together of facts and principles so as to arrive at knowledge.

But notice this is not a denial of principles or facts, it is a combining of them. You seem to think the principles depend on the facts, and I agree as far as it goes, but I would add the converse is also true in a way, science begins with applying a principle to our experience. One does not depend on the other then, but they are in fact codependent.

Consider: deduction begins with inductive premises, and induction requires a deductive premise. One does not depend on the other, but they are interdependent.

[s0crates]

To clarify I offer a simple example:

Deductive argument:

1. All men are mortal (inductive premise)

2. I am a man

3. Therefore I am mortal (deductive conclusion)

Inductive argument:

1. Men have always died in the past.

2. Experience is knowledge-producing (rational assumption).

3. Therefore I know all men will die (inductive conclusion).

The thing to notice is not only that induction presupposes rationalism, but also that deduction presupposes induction. One does not depend on the other so much as they codepend.

Perhaps when you mentioned coherence theory earlier you had something like this in mind.

[Kindred]

Not to digress, but I think you guys would rather enjoy this article I read (and which your little discussion here reminded me of)

 

 

 

The Closing of the Scientific Mind

01.01.14 - 12:00 AM | David Gelernter

The huge cultural authority science has acquired over the past century imposes large duties on every scientist. Scientists have acquired the power to impress and intimidate every time they open their mouths, and it is their responsibility to keep this power in mind no matter what they say or do. Too many have forgotten their obligation to approach with due respect the scholarly, artistic, religious, humanistic work that has always been mankind’s main spiritual support. Scientists are (on average) no more likely to understand this work than the man in the street is to understand quantum physics. But science used to know enough to approach cautiously and admire from outside, and to build its own work on a deep belief in human dignity. No longer.

Belittling Humanity.

Today science and the “philosophy of mind”—its thoughtful assistant, which is sometimes smarter than the boss—are threatening Western culture with the exact opposite of humanism. Call it roboticism. Man is the measure of all things, Protagoras said. Today we add, and computers are the measure of all men.

Many scientists are proud of having booted man off his throne at the center of the universe and reduced him to just one more creature—an especially annoying one—in the great intergalactic zoo. That is their right. But when scientists use this locker-room braggadocio to belittle the human viewpoint, to belittle human life and values and virtues and civilization and moral, spiritual, and religious discoveries, which is all we human beings possess or ever will, they have outrun their own empiricism. They are abusing their cultural standing. Science has become an international bully.

Nowhere is its bullying more outrageous than in its assault on the phenomenon known as subjectivity.

Your subjective, conscious experience is just as real as the tree outside your window or the photons striking your retina—even though you alone feel it. Many philosophers and scientists today tend to dismiss the subjective and focus wholly on an objective, third-person reality—a reality that would be just the same if men had no minds. They treat subjective reality as a footnote, or they ignore it, or they announce that, actually, it doesn’t even exist.

If scientists were rat-catchers, it wouldn’t matter. But right now, their views are threatening all sorts of intellectual and spiritual fields. The present problem originated at the intersection of artificial intelligence and philosophy of mind—in the question of what consciousness and mental states are all about, how they work, and what it would mean for a robot to have them. It has roots that stretch back to the behaviorism of the early 20th century, but the advent of computing lit the fuse of an intellectual crisis that blasted off in the 1960s and has been gaining altitude ever since.

...continued here: 

« The Closing of the Scientific Mind Commentary Magazine

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/the-closing-of-the-scientific-mind/

[alexey]

...Now, with that frame of reference, what good does it for you to appeal to evolution at all?

Why did you introduce evolution into it and not just talk about science?

I wrote:

Consider the evolutionary perspective - animals so simple that you would not say they make "assumptions," discovering the world and adapting to it through trial and error.

Please think about this and let me know when the blind adaptation to the world starts requiring assumptions about it.

[s0crates]

Thanks for that link kindred, my kind of stuff. I don't think its a digression at all, it's pertinent and relevant to this discussion. I usually enjoy Nagel's work, I'll have to read the latest book now.

[alexey]

s0crates,

 

If I follow you, you would say Kant's question about how synthetic judgements are possible a priori is fundamentally misguided, it should be: how are analytic judgements possible a posteriori?

It seems that we could derive analytic judgements through crystallization of commonalities across synthetic judgements, successful strategies, etc.

 

...

Now I want to examine how science fits in this picture. As I've said, animals don't do science, but as you've said they do have experience. Animals don't do induction, theirs is simple perception, they do not derive knowledge (in the strict sense) from it. So science is not simply experience, it is instead knowledge from experience.

I understand science as a strategy for distilling knowledge from experience.

With animals, I understand that association is the basic building block. Association seems to incorporate both induction and deduction. For most of evolutionary history, new strategies evolved very slowly by natural selection. Eventually our ancestors developed the capacity to do meta-strategies, and we were off to the races. Much later we refined our strategies so much, we could distinguish between things like induction and deduction.

 

Following your evolutionary model, I would say that observation comes first (as in animal perception), then humans invent rational principles, then (and here we might differ) we invent empirical science, which is an application of rational principles to experience (remember, the language of science is number).

It seems to me that empirical science combines the original experience and the rational principles. Perhaps that is just the next step in cognitive evolution, the weaving together of facts and principles so as to arrive at knowledge.

But notice this is not a denial of principles or facts, it is a combining of them. You seem to think the principles depend on the facts, and I agree as far as it goes, but I would add the converse is also true in a way, science begins with applying a principle to our experience. One does not depend on the other then, but they are in fact codependent.

Consider: deduction begins with inductive premises, and induction requires a deductive premise. One does not depend on the other, but they are interdependent.

I agree, I see evolution as a continuous loop between the strategies employed by organisms and the feedback from their environment.

(come to think if it, that may be the reason why the evolutionary view could be perceived as a circular argument)

I want to move the starting point from a few hundred years ago to about 3.6 billion years ago, to a time when our ancestors first started learning about the world without making any assumptions about it.

[s0crates]

Speaking of feedback loops, at least one person thinks that is the essence of the self.

http://philosophynow.org/issues/78/I_Am_A_Strange_Loop_by_Douglas_Hofstadter

Perhaps Hofstadter’s most intriguing argument is that the complexity and extensibility of active symbols in the brain inevitably leads to the same kind of self-reference which Gödel proved was inherent in any complex logical or arithmetical system. In a nutshell, Gödel showed that mathematics and logic contain ‘strange loops’: propositions that not only refer to mathematical/logical truths, but also to the symbol systems expressing those truths. This recursiveness inevitably leads to the sort of paradoxes seen in statements such as ‘This statement is false’.

Hofstadter argues that the psychological self arises out of a similar kind of paradox. We are not born with an ‘I’ – the ego emerges only gradually as experience shapes our dense web of active symbols into a tapestry rich and complex enough to begin twisting back upon itself. According to this view the psychological ‘I’ is a narrative fiction – a point that Wittgenstein made when he argued that the ‘I’ is not an object in the world, but a precondition for there being a world in the first place. “It is the ‘I’, it is the ‘I’, that is deeply mysterious!” exclaimed Wittgenstein.

A perspective (a mind) is therefore a consequence of a unique pattern of symbolic activity in our nervous systems. But Hofstadter contends it’s the symbolic pattern that is paramount, not the nature of the physical substrate. That is, if their logical activity was organized in an equivalent way, silicon chips could support consciousness just as neurons do. Hofstadter also believes that the pattern of symbolic activity that makes me who I am, that constitutes my specific subjectivity, can be instantiated within the brains of others.

This notion may seem far out at first, but I believe Hofstadter is onto something. As he observes, each of us is a more than just a self; we are a collection of selves. In addition to a core self which we identify as our ‘I’, each of us contain neuronally-based symbolic models that mirror and reflect the other people in our lives. These patterns of symbolic activity have a certain degree of autonomy in so far as they really do simulate the perspective of our significant others. Hofstadter contends that if we have lived and loved someone long and deeply enough, our symbol models will come to mirror their perspective ever more closely. We will essentially be able to see the world through their eyes.

Hofstadter acknowledges that the simulated subjectivity of another in us will not be as robust as the subjectivity that arises in the cranium of its owner. However, Hofstadter’s intuition seems to me is a remarkably deep way of understanding the permeable fluidity and the profoundly poetic dimensions of selfhood. The Cartesian prison of isolated and monadic selves is demolished, in favor of selves that are deeply enriched and entwined by their relationships to other points of view.