Animals can tell right from wrong?

Via the Telegraph.

Scientists studying animal behaviour believe they have growing evidence that species ranging from mice to primates are governed by moral codes of conduct in the same way as humans.

Until recently, humans were thought to be the only species to experience complex emotions and have a sense of morality.

This, if true, blows the whole "morality comes from god" argument right out of the water. If mice and rats are as moral as us, then perhaps we should start asking them what the One True Religion™ is.

Elephants are intensely sociable and emotional animals. Research by Iain Douglas Hamilton, from the department of zoology at Oxford University, suggests elephants experience compassion and has found evidence of elephants helping injured or ill members of their herd.

In one case, a Matriarch known as Eleanor fell ill and a female in the herd gently tried to help Eleanor back to her feet, staying with her before she died.

In 2003, a herd of 11 elephants rescued antelope who were being held inside an enclosure in KwaZula-Natal, South Africa.

The matriarch unfastened all of the metal latches holding the gates closed and swung the entrance open allowing the antelope to escape.

This is thought to be a rare example of animals showing empathy for members of another species – a trait previously thought to be the exclusive preserve of mankind.

This part of the article in particular caught my interest. What seems to be highly complex actions and moral thought from a decidedly non-primate species? I'd never heard of this before, but if its true it really could be used an argument to persuade on-the-fencers to our side, at least on the morality-independent-from-god issue.

The BBC News

I've finally given up on north-american news networks for accurate, relevant news. I've personally found that the BBC is far better, in terms of a lack of fluff-pieces and news of substance from around the world.

In the last couple days, a few things that the americans haven't really touched:

• The bulldozing of the homes of the child-stars from Slumdog Millionaire
• The Air India crash leaving around 100 people dead
• the end of Civil war in Sri lanka

Makes me angry, so I quit watching networks like cnn, msnbc, fox (ugh) etc.

Chemical Predetermination

This was sparked by a conversation in the comments on another blog. I'm fleshing out a few idea's, so it might wander a bit.

The concept is fairly simple. We use chemistry to study the interactions between different types and forms of matter and energy, which, due to the way the universe is constructed and operates under, react in certain predictable ways in any given environment.

A vague but accurate description.

At what point does that reaction get free will? What, inside the skull of a human, exerts influence on the outcome of the reactions going on inside? You can poke around in there all you want, you won't find it.

If chemical reactions behave the same way in the same conditions, then everything going on inside your skull right now is happening the only way it can. That means that the reaction going on inside you head, all your thoughts, are the only thoughts you could have had.

Every thought you will ever have in your life will be predictable result of what came before it, all determined before it began.

But wait, you say, thought is effected by input! what input? The environment that surrounds you and feeds into your brain is as set in stone as your reaction to them.

Bing bang theory postulates a theoretical beginning to the universe, one that we might eventually understand fully. Observation of the universe as it is suggests that in the end, it will eventually end with universal heat death.

If you have the beginning of the equation, and the solution, the work in between is implied to have a predictable structure.





I'm going to throw this up on the the blog instead of letting it languish in the draft folder like most stuff i've written, so i can remember to flesh it out and work on it. :/

Bleh

This is utter stupidity.

1. The presence of uncaused, immaterial entities within our reality would point to a reality beyond our finite, material cause-and-effect universe
2. Numbers exist, and are uncaused and immaterial (they do not require the material world to exist, and would exist whether humans were around to "discover" them or not)
3. The rules of logic exist, and are uncaused and immaterial -- they do not require the material world to exist
4. Therefore uncaused, immaterial entities exist
5. Uncaused entities must be eternal (because a cause would indicate a point-in-time)
6. Therefore eternal, immaterial entities exist
7. Therefore the materialistic worldview assumption of atheists is an inadequate depiction of the reality in which we live, and the materialistic assumptions of science are an inadequate methodology to discover all of reality

Part Two:

8. Logic and mathematics are products of mind
9. Therefore there is an eternal mind
10. Whoever possesses this mind would be characterized by earthlings as "God"
11. Therefore, God exists

Lets try this.

1. In a medium in which cause and effect does not apply, logic does not apply, for starters. So the existence of immaterial, uncaused beings actually doesn't imply anything about the space in which they exist, of anything else. The whole concept is a paradox. Thus the first axiom fails.

2. Numbers do not exist. The concept of numbers, and the symbology representing that concept exist, both in a material, very-much-caused way. Thus the second axiom fails.

3. Again, the laws of logic and the process in which they are used is a wholly human-derived concept that exists only within human perspective and perception of the material world. Like #2, it also dependent on cause and effect, a symptom of something very much material. Thus the third axiom fails.

After this, the whole argument is baseless, but I'll continue with observations for persistence's sake.

4. This does not follow, becuase, again, if something is free of cuase and effect, it is, in essence, random noise and chaos, and cannot be regarded as an entity of any sort in the first place At least as i understand the term entity, which is very loosely defined within the argument presented.)

5. Eternality is also a concept with the frame of time. no time is no the same ass an infinite amount of time. It would be more accurate to say these enitity, if free of space and time, exist no-where, and no-when. Which is to say, the never existed anywhere, at any time.

6. Again, the failure of that before precludes this statments validity, along with the inhererent and paradoxical (self-addmitted) non-existance of such beings.

7. This is an unwarranted and terrible logical leap. Even given the situation where the entire supporting argument before this was no a pile of rubish and false assumptions, the existance of non-material "entities" outside of our universe implies no ability to effect any change of interaction on the real, material universe.

Even were this so, only the mechanics of the reality in which we can see and measure and quanifty has any information we can obtain and reliabley assess, and thus learn from. So the existance of any "higher plane" (i assume that he assumes this out of my own arrogant pride, i suppose, but doesnt negate the fact I'm probably right :/ ) is completely irrelevant to scince, atheism, the quest for god, or our own "enlightenment".

Part two, and point 8-12 can be dealt with sumarrily from the argument that both concepts exist with the scope of the material mind alone, as something free of cause and effect can find the product of two and two to be five as easily as four. One cannot use logic to justify the illogical.



I can taste the woo. Bleh.