A Quote by Hilary Kornblith
The various processes of belief acquisition which are native to a species include ones which may allow for the reliable pick-up of information, which, in turn, allows individual members of the species to successfully negotiate their environment and satisfy their various desires.
Quote Topics
Quote Author
Related Quotes
Zoologists have reckoned there are up to at least 750 species of animal that have been observed exhibiting same-sex behaviour, or gender role transformation (which is very common in a wide range of fauna). There is only one species on earth, however, which has exhibited homophobia or transphobia. And that is the species homo sapiens sapiens. Us. So let's not allow the foolish, ignorant or bigoted ever to use words like "natural."
Humanity is a biological species, living in a biological environment, because like all species, we are exquisitely adapted in everything: from our behavior, to our genetics, to our physiology, to that particular environment in which we live. The earth is our home. Unless we preserve the rest of life, as a sacred duty, we will be endangering ourselves by destroying the home in which we evolved, and on which we completely depend.
Rather, although belief may be adequate for explaining the behavior of individual animals - an animal which believes that p will behave no differently from an animal which knows that p - talk of knowledge is necessary once one begins to look at explaining the cognitive capacities of a species.
I argue is that philosophers have had a tendency to present a kind of mystical view of the powers of reflection. Unreflective belief acquisition is seen in mechanistic terms, but when philosophers talk about reflection, it is as if reflective processes are not bound by the kinds of limitations which inevitably arise from being embedded within the same causal structure which governs unreflective belief acquisition.
Even a superficial glance is sufficient to show that all the innumerable forms in which the life-urge of Nature manifests itself are subject to a fundamental law - one may call it an iron law of Nature - which compels the various species to keep within the definite limits of their own life-forms when propagating and multiplying their kind.
Where do we say that a cell became a blade of grass, which became a starfish, which became a cat, which became a donkey, which became a human being? There's a real lack of evidence from change from actual species to a different type of species.
Each of these [bacterial] species are masterpieces of evolution. Each has persisted for thousands to millions of years. Each is exquisitely adapted to the environment in which it lives, interlocked with other species to form ecosystems upon which our own lives depend in ways we have not begun even to imagine.
To the mind which looks not to general results in the economy of Nature, the earth may seem to present a scene of perpetual warfare, and incessant carnage: but the more enlarged view, while it regards individuals in their conjoint relations to the general benefit of their own species, and that of other species with which they are associated in the great family of Nature, resolves each apparent case of individual evil, into an example of subserviency to universal good.
Of Cooking. This is an art of various forms, the object of which is to give ordinary observations the appearance and character of those of the highest degree of accuracy. One of its numerous processes is to make multitudes of observations, and out of these to select only those which agree, or very nearly agree. If a hundred observations are made, the cook must be very unhappy if he cannot pick out fifteen or twenty which will do for serving up.
It is the office of the school environment to balance the various elements in the social environment, and to see to it that each individual gets an opportunity to escape from the limitations of the social group in which he was born, and to come into living contact with a broader environment.
Ethologists thus have an interest in looking at these capacities for the reliable acquisition of belief, and it is not surprising that they have a name for the true beliefs which are the typical product of these reliable capacities. They call them items of knowledge. So I argue that talk of knowledge may thereby be seen to be embedded within a successful empirical theory.
A grain in the balance will determine which individual shall live and which shall die - which variety or species shall increase in number, and which shall decrease, or finally become extinct.
I was born into a Christian household, in a parsonage in fact, so I grew up in sort of a missionary atmosphere but it was an environment which involved both the traditional religions as well as the Muslim religion, so we were exposed to all the various facets of faith, micro cultures which existed within those beliefs, and even though I've lost whatever Christian faith was drummed into me as a child, I still maintain very good relationship with all the various religions.
It is not the most intellectual of the species that survives; it is not the strongest that survives; but the species that survives is the one that is able best to adapt and adjust to the changing environment in which it finds itself.
What's happened with society is that we have created these devices, computers, which already can register and process huge amounts of information, which is a significant fraction of the amount of information that human beings themselves, as a species, can process.
These mountains appear to be almost entirely composed of stratas of rock of various colours (mostly red) and are partially covered with a dwarfish growth of pine and cedar, which are the only species of timber to be seen.
Related Authors
Barack Obama Quotes
American
President
Benjamin Franklin Quotes
American
Politician
Cassandra Clare Quotes
American
Author
Deepak Chopra Quotes
American
Speaker
Donald Trump Quotes
American
President
Frederick Lenz Quotes
American
Author
George W. Bush Quotes
American
President
Henry David Thoreau Quotes
American
Author
Hillary Clinton Quotes
American
Politician
Mark Twain Quotes
American
Writer
Noam Chomsky Quotes
American
Activist
Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes
American
Philosopher
Rick Riordan Quotes
American
Author
Rush Limbaugh Quotes
American
Entertainer
Sherrilyn Kenyon Quotes
American
Writer
Thomas Jefferson Quotes
American
President