| My Take |
[Mar. 14th, 2005|04:18 pm] |
On the balance between Empiricism and Rationalism.
Rationalists, so far as I can tell, think that the ability to reason is inborn and natural. Reason is a means to determine unknown values using given known values. Which means that it is a way to glean information from the world at large. This trait it shares in common with only a few other human faculties. Specifically, the senses. The ability to percieve sight, sound, feel, smell, and taste all involve taking known values and using them to determine unknown ones. Note that they do this without using reason. Also note that this function is (apparently) the *only* function of the senses, and the *only* function of reason. All use derived from the senses stems from this function, without exception-- the same is true for reason.
Therefore, I postulate that reason is a sense. No different from vision, say, than vision is from hearing. The question must be answered, of course: If reason is a sense, whence does it get it's input? The answer is, I think, from the other five senses.
Consider then, that without an influx of empirical information, the senses do not develop. A child born into a dark world would have no use for his eyes if after living there he came to a world with light. His eyes would have become useless appendages-- and the same is true for any sense. So then, a child deprived of the sensory information necessary to conduct reason (assume, say, that he is kept in a sensory deprivation chamber from the moment he is born. Provided with nutrients, but no sensory input) will be incapble of comprehending even the most basic logical construct. Even the statement "a = a" would have no meaning to him. A person like this would appear, most likely, to be in a vegetative state. He would not appear to be a concious being-- and indeed, since he would be incapable of understanding or using equalities, he would also be incapable of understanding the idea of his own conciousness, which would make him, by the accepted definitions, a being *without* conciousness.
If this is so, then a few strange conclusions can be drawn. First, that every human mind contains at birth the seed necesary to produce a rational, concious, being. And second, that rational sensory information is the only way to germinate this seed. |
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| Comments: |
The problem is we have no way of knowing whether someone deprived of the senses is capable of rational thought. Also, the use of the other senses depends on reason. The known value that might be taken from a smell is meaningless until reason is used to give it meaning. If I smelled burning rubber, I would not know that there was indeed burning rubber about me unless I used reason (if I smell burning rubber, there is burning rubber). The smell itself is in fact completely meaningless to a human without reason - he would smell burning rubber but make no logical connection to anything of import. This of course extends to all the senses, without reason, input is meaningless as there is no way to filter the information.
So, if a baby is born without the ability to reason, and develops the ability to reason as sensory input is given to the baby and it makes meaningful connections, then the very fact that it is making meaningful connections between the senses and reality means that it must already have reason. Without the ability to reason in the first place, how would the brain form these connections? | |
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