I do not want to burden you with more material this week, given the length of complexity of this week’s articles (which I hope you read), particularly yesterday’s on the limits of biological (genetic) determinism.
But I thought a short note summing up determinism might be useful. Here is the gist:
In all organisms, strict biological determinism holds up to a point (think, e.g., oxygen exchange in blood platelets), and it constrains or limits past that point, and disappears when rational thought, hence freedom, begins.
The less complex the life, the more determinism holds, though never completely on the whole of a life, where there is always in every organism somewhere constrained flexibility. The less complex the organism, the tighter those restrictions are, and vice versa. Because conditions, and limitations, vary greatly, figuring what is biologically caused can be difficult; the difficulty grows with organism and environmental complexity.
Only man has rationality.
None of this should be taken, at all, or even as a hint, that Equality holds in any organism. Neither in man. At the least, people, and thus peoples, have different limitations or constraints because of different biologies. There is no Blank Slate.
Intellect, which is non-material and so not subject to horizontal causation (as Wolfgang Smith would have called it) is found only in man and drives some behaviors. Nobody knows for any behavior in man (excepting perhaps fundamental chemical reactions) how much is biology, how much is conditions, how much is limitations, and how much is intellect.
There have been attempts, of course, such as crude measures of intelligence in “IQ scores”, and in others in correlating these to genes (in the ways outlined yesterday; see also blog/Substack and this). But these are crude and overstated. Notice I say the measurements suffer these faults: it has always been obvious that intelligence varies.
It should not seem overly odd to suppose that intellect is non-material. After all, if you accept quantum weirdness (which, given current events, perhaps our ruling class now reject), this is not different in kind. That is the point. Here lies a vast region ready for new minds to discover. Finding what these might be is the goal of this Reenchantment & Rectification series.
Get out and enjoy summer while it is still here.
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My dog will chase one coyote, but not two.
And she’ll easily qualify under more complex definitions of rationality too.
Some non-human animals, like chimps, dogs, and certain birds, exhibit behavior that doesn’t have any apparent necessity. It’s obvious they’re just fooling around, or having fun. Individual animals of higher intellect have been observed solving complex problems, which requires some level of reasoning ability. Anyone who’s lived closely with dogs knows there’s a lot more going on there than instinct and determinism.
“Get out and enjoy summer while it is still here.”
Excellent advice. I imagine you will be out on the lake this weekend, Briggs, captaining your vintage, gaff-rigged Eight Meter yacht, the Certitude, all teak, mahogany, and polished brass with seven man uniformed crew competing in the Patrick O’Brian Cup, a regatta where the contestants sail a course firing a six-pound black powder bronze cannon at moving barge targets. And then a section where contestants leap aboard a rival boat for a fencing match on tossing decks. Shore-side, captain and crew compete playing fiddles and flutes while singing shanties and dancing jigs, reels, and hornpipes. Afterwards there’s the drinking competition.
I wish I could make it up for your O’Brian Cup but I’m competing in the local Paul Bunyan Cup — log rolling, axe throwing, precision tree felling, racing up a hundred foot pole, cutting the top off then speed-jacking down — that sort of thing. And with the obligatory drinking, singing, and dancing. Last year, unbelievably, a Hasidic Jew lumberjack in black coat and fur hat won, mostly for his drinking and dancing but the dude could throw an axe like Ed Ames.
Summer fun folks, go out and get some.
Well, we, human beings, are Spirit, Soul, Body, Heart, Mind, and Emotions.
And yes, we have seen behaviours in our dogs over the years, that are much more than instinct.
God bless, C-Marie
Australian magpies are very clever.