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Ok I’m going to draw a parallel here, but according to Zizek (who only combined previous ideas, I’m sure, though I do not know of a predecessor of his who expressed the same view), we only view the way we do because that’s how we’ve been viewing, and we know of no alternative.
Every philosopher since Democritus has, to some degree, acknowledged psychosomatic interactions as the basis for everything–cognition, emotion, instinct. Hobbes is a firm believer in sense-perception, as is Locke (if you actually labor through his Essay). Immortality of the soul was a Socratic principle, but has been destroyed pretty darn thoroughly as a concept.</p>
<p>As for teleology, I don’t understand it fully myself. However, you should read the actual text (Aristotle’s Physics and Metaphysics). Basically, everything is either natural or artificial. Aristotle presumes everything has a purpose. It is easy enough to pinpoint the purpose of artificial objects; for example, the computer was created to assist humans in, true to its name, computing. However, when confronted with natural objects, and in particular Empedocles’s theory of evolution (that some animals coincidentally have features better suited to their survival–should sound familiar), Aristotle said that natural objects are and come to be by necessity. I think the example he used was rain. Rain does not fall to nurture plants or fill the oceans or even to satisfy thirst, but rather of necessity. In other words, it falls because it must, and that is how it is and always has been. </p>
<p>Though Darwin’s studies have suggested that, indeed, some animals coincidentally have better features, Aristotle has him covered on that too. To Aristotle, coincidents happen by chance. Results from chance do not fulfill the purpose the of-itself event was intended for, so, for example, we didn’t develop into bipeds because bipedalism afforded us advantages over quadrupeds; rather, we became bipeds by chance, and then natural selection takes over. Additionally, chance is not a force derived from the divine. Events of chance occur because they attach to necessary occurences. For instance (again, his) we go to the market to buy food because we’d otherwise starve (or eat grass, who knows). While there, we run into someone whom we did not expect to meet but nevertheless showed, perhaps to buy food as well. There, you demand repayment of a debt (how convenient). Both persons’ presence at the market can be attributed to a natural urge.
Main point: do not confound the cause for the effect (see his Posterior Analytics).</p>
<p>Similarly, the Prime-Mover hypothesis is extremely lacking because by Aquinas’s definition, a single atom would have been God, thus eliminating the need to ascribe events subsequent to the single atom to an imperceptible deity. More specifically, we do not come to be autochthonously. We exist as products of reproduction, and we only question our existence after we already exist. We only live our own lives, as we are living it (and not that we’ve ever had a choice in the matter, because we are either alive or dead).</p>
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Not directly parallel. You can describe the taste of an ice cream if you’ve tasted it, even to someone who has never. Vanilla ice cream is creamy, Blue Bunny’s embedded chunks of chocolate are as hard as rocks, etc.</p>
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The images in the book were probably produced through or based on an MRI or a similar scan. But this can be used against you. Do you only believe in God because others have told you that he exists?</p>
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What about the girl who died because her parents prayed to God and refused to allow her to see a doctor? They definitely seeked Providence.</p>
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Rousseau: Origin of Inequality (though he is not the first).</p>
<p>btw mifune, whenever you have the time, comment further on my vocalization thingy if there is anything more to say</p>