Seeking the Source of Reason

[coberst]

Seeking the Source of Reason

 

Let us imagine how human reason might have been born. The question seeking an answer is: how can natural selection (evolution) account for human reason?

 

Somewhere back in time we must encounter the signs of reason within the capacity of our ancestors. What is the essence of reason? The necessary and sufficient conditions for reason are conceptual and inference ability. To conceptualize is to create neural structures that can be used to facilitate making if-then inferences.

 

Imagine an early water dwelling creature, which must survive utilizing only the ability to move in space and to discriminate light and shadow. The sense of a shadow can indicate a friend or foe and can indicate eat or not eat. Assume that this sensibility has a total range of two feet, i.e. a shadow within a radius of two feet of the creature can be detected.

 

A shadow comes within sensible range, the creature can ‘decide’ by the size of the shadow whether the shadow is friend or foe and as a possible lunch. If the shadow is large the creature must ‘run’ if it is small the creature might ‘decide’ to pursue.

 

It seems obvious to me this simple creature must have the ability to reason in order to survive. This creature must be capable of ascertaining friend/foe and eat/not eat. It must also determine how to move based upon that conceptual structure. It must be able to make inferences from these concepts, these neural structures of what is sensed, to survive. This creature must have the capacity to perceive, conceive, infer, and move correctly in space in order to survive.

 

Continuing my imaginary journey; I have a friend who is the project engineer on a program to design robots. I ask this friend if it is possible for the computer model of a robot in action can perform the essential operations required for reasoning. She says, “I think so, but I will ask my robot simulation to do the things that are considered to be reasoning”.

 

She performs this operation and tells me that it is within the capacity of the robot movement system to also do reasoning. I conclude that if the sensorimotor control system of a creature also has the ability to reason, then biology would not recreate such a capacity and thus this sensorimotor capacity is also a reasoning capacity that evolves into our human capacity to reason.

 

Does this imaginary journey compel you to shout with joy at discovering the source of human reason?

[Tarantism]

an interesting apperception to be sure. i can see that your reasoning continues to lead you to interesting conclusions, which often spark my intrest. i dont know if this can nessesarily directly relate to human reasoning, as i think that because we do not act fully on our most basic instincts, our reasoning would be rather different than that of the water dwelling creature, but perhaps more liek the robot. the difference i think between us and the robot would have to be our abilities to break the set rules which surround us. robots cant do that (yet :hihi:) because they are governed by specific psychological programming. hard drives and such, yes? me personally, i continue my everyday search for a different kind of reason, or maybe i mean reson :hihi:

 

cool post co, :)

[coberst]

Reasoning requires the ability to conceptualize and the ability to infer. It appears to me that any creature that moves in space must have the neural structure necessary to conceptualize and infer in order to survive, i.e. such creatures have the capacity to reason. It is this capacity that is the source of the human capacity to reason.

 

Just as a fish fin does not resemble the human hand but is in fact the source of the human hand, so too is the reasoning ability of the creature I depict the source of human reason.

[Tarantism]

yes, i see what you mean here. as we evolve our needs become different, or at least more clouded, thus our reasoning has to evolve with the form and mind. now a human may choose to see a movie rather than eat, while a more basic creature would obviously choose to eat, as it is nessesary for survival. thus by the basic lifeforms terms the human is being unreasonable, while be the human's terms the animal simply doesnt understand the need for social interaction and entertainment. notice how the basic lifeform is even more simple in that sense?

 

that brings up another interesting thought in my mind...is what makes humanity so different from other animals the need to entertain ourselves? is that why we think outside of basic needs...because we simply got bored??

[Qfwfq]

is what makes humanity so different from other animals the need to entertain ourselves?

Most mammals entertain themselves, at least when young. It is a mechanism of learning and is thus helpful to survival. Many animals also have the need to socialize, it is very useful to survival.

 

The old saying that man doesn't thrive on bread alone is quite appropriate, but may be applied to many species.

[coberst]

I would say that the basic facts that we have to start the search for the cusp of instinctive and reasoned behavior might be:

 

1) Somewhere in the chain of life from its mysterious beginning to the present there exists a point when behavior is influenced by something we call reason rather than something we call instinct.

 

2) Using computer lingo we can classify instinct as behavior caused by hardwired algorithms and reasoned behavior to be caused by real time evaluations giving real time instructions controlling behavior.

 

3) Reason is a means to control behavior based upon real time assessment of real time circumstances.

 

4) Reason requires that data from the senses be ordered into some fashion that will facilitate real time inferences, this is called conceptualization; followed by inferences made from these concepts.

 

5) We have, from computer modeling technology, empirical evidence that the neural system that control perception and mobility have the capacity to conceptualize and to infer. In other words, the essential elements of sensorimotor control are also the essential elements of reasoning. The algorithms developed by computer software are similar to the real time commands issued by the neural system that is reasoning.

 

6) If biology has created the structure that has the elements for reasoning it is logical to conclude that such a system would not be duplicated for reason but that this very same system would be modified in whatever manner is necessary for it to function also as an instrument that can reason.