Background Image
Maybe philosophical problems are hard not because they are divine or irreducible or meaningless or workaday science, but because the mind of homo sapiens lacks the cognitive equipment to solve them. we are organisms, not angels, and our minds are organs, not pipelines to the truth. our minds evolved by natural selection to solve problems that were life-and-death matters to our ancestors, not to commune with correctness ot to answer any question we are capable of asking.
-Steven Pinker
Please Wait....
Translating....

Maybe Philosophical Problems Are Hard Not Because

Steven Pinker
Maybe philosophical problems are hard not because they are divine or irreducible or meaningless or workaday science, but because the mind of homo sapiens lacks the cognitive equipment to solve them. we are organisms, not angels, and our minds are organs, not pipelines to the truth. our minds evolved by natural selection to solve problems that were life-and-death matters to our ancestors, not to commune with correctness ot to answer any question we are capable of asking.
Views: 1
Cite this Page
Prevent plagiarism by providing proper attribution.
APA FORMAT
Embed this Quote
Copy this HTML code to embed the quote on your website or blog.
HTML CODE
Topic
Philosophical Angel Mind

More From Steven Pinker

Natural selection is not evolution. yet, ever since the two words have been in common use, the theory of natural selection has been employed as a convenient abbreviation for the theory of evolution by means of natural selection, put forward by darwin and wallace. this has had the unfortunate consequence that the theory of natural selection itself has scarcely ever, if ever, received separate consideration.
Mean Two Theory Of Evolution
Life is a continuous flux. our nonhuman ancestors bred, generation after generation, and incrementally begat what we now deem to be the species homo sapiens - ourselves. there is nothing about our ancestral line or about our current biology that dictates how we will evolve in the future. nothing in the natural order demands that our descendants resemble us in any particular way. very likely, they will not resemble us. we will almost certainly transform ourselves, likely beyond recognition, in the generations to come.
Life Order Demand
I believe in political solutions to political problems. but man's primary problems aren't political; they're philosophical. until humans can solve their philosophical problems, they're condemned to solve their political problems over and over and over again. it's a cruel, repetitious bore.
Believe Philosophical Men
You can be a thorough-going neo-darwinian without imagination, metaphysics, poetry, conscience, or decency. for 'natural selection' has no moral significance: it deals with that part of evolution which has no purpose, no intelligence, and might more appropriately be called accidental selection, or better still, unnatural selection, since nothing is more unnatural than an accident. if it could be proved that the whole universe had been produced by such selection, only fools and rascals could bear to live.
Imagination Poetry Intelligence
But in the end, science does not provide the answers most of us require. its story of our origins and of our end is, to say the least, unsatisfactory. to the question, "how did it all begin?", science answers, "probably by an accident." to the question, "how will it all end?", science answers, "probably by an accident." and to many people, the accidental life is not worth living. moreover, the science-god has no answer to the question, "why are we here?" and, to the question, "what moral instructions do you give us?", the science-god maintains silence.
God People Giving
It struck me as i listened to those two men that a truer nomination (name) for our species than homo sapiens might be homo narrans, the storytelling person. what differentiates us from animals is the fact that we can listen to other people’s dreams, fears, joys, sorrows, desires and defeats–and they in turn can listen to ours.
Dream Animal Men
Similar Quotes
Peace may sound simple - one beautiful word - but it requires everything we have, every quality, every strength, every dream, every high ideal.
Strength Beautiful Dream
The major western democracies are moving towards corporatism. democracy has become a business plan, with a bottom line for every human activity, every dream, every decency, every hope. the main parliamentary parties are now devoted to the same economic policies - socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor - and the same foreign policy of servility to endless war. this is not democracy. it is to politics what mcdonalds is to food.
Dream War Party
I wanted so badly to lie down next to her on the couch, to wrap my arms around her and sleep... just sleep together, in the most innocent sense of the phrase. but i lacked the courage and she had a boyfriend and i was gawky and she was gorgeous and i was boring and she was endlessly fascinating. so i walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, i was drizzle and she was a hurricane.
Love Dream Lying
I am writing this book because we're all going to die - in the loneliness of my own life, my father dead, my brother dead, my mother faraway, my sister and my wife far away, nothing here but my own tragic hands that once were guarded by a world, a sweet attention, that now are left to guide and disappear their own way into the common dark of all our deaths, sleeping in me raw bed, alone and stupid: with just this one pride and consolation: my broke heart in the general despair and opened up inwards to the lord, i made a supplication in this dream
Mother Dream Sweet

Trending Author

Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Clarice Lispector
Clarice Lispector
Charles Fort
Charles Fort
Johann Arndt
Johann Arndt
Yoko Ono
Yoko Ono
Dorothy Allison
Dorothy Allison
Category
Information
Inspirational
Philosophy
Personal Growth
Happiness & Joy
Life Lessons
Success & Business
Motivation