in the Beginning: Philosophy for the 21st Century

Each human is the reincarnation of a long-lineage of ancestors. Species memory, perceptual skills, needs, drives, feelings, desires and behaviors are built in and begin operating in utero. Humans evolved from primate ancestors and retained features of brain construction, mind and behavior that have been present in animals for hundreds of millions of years. Urges, desires, designs, feelings cry out from within and often surprise us, as if we were the hosts to wild animals and spirits within that refuse to be identified or tamed.

An infant is richly endowed with all of life’s tendencies and resembles humans that have gone before. Humans all tend to do the same things and have the same kind of thoughts, but there is a range of mental abilities. The range of mental ability is sufficiently great that humans of limited mental ability live different lives with different understanding than humans with greater mental abilities. Since humans are social animals and live in groups that function best when there is a diversity of mental abilities and skills, the range of abilities in any given population may be stable over time and tolerance for differences has survival value.

Humans are competitive animals and relentless selection processes are constant features of human existence. The forces of natural selection are always at work and mold the shape and character of humans. Human selection of humans is an equal or greater force that decide the fate of individuals and groups. The collection of large numbers of humans in cities concentrates both resources and competition. The modern urban human faces selection pressures every day. As in natural selection, human selection of humans determines access to resources, status in the local group, mating privileges and, ultimately, survival.

The innate nature of the body and brain determines human motivation, the way humans interpret their experiences and the way they share their experiences. Human minds are manifestations of the processes alive in human brains. The human brain is a wonder of computational ability and the brain initiates and supervises its own training. An infant human is born into a world swarming with smells, sounds and events that can be experienced and understood. The prolific events in the environment of each individual are transduced into his or her brain that senses, decides, acts and remembers.

One task of brain study is to reveal the different abilities of the brain to tune into the features of the universe. Practical scientists and engineers are interested in how animals tune into and track events in their environment since they want to build “smart” machines of different kinds with similar abilities. Animal intelligence is in a different realm than machine intelligence, however, and fantasies of intelligent androids are good for movies but will have little validity in real life.

The foundation of intelligence lies in the tuning ability of the brain and tuning circuits appear in the first animals alive on earth. Animals must tune into what is going on around them in order navigate through a world-space to find required materials such as water and food. An animal is more intelligent if he or she tunes accurately into what is going on and finds what is needed without injury or death.

Despite living in a complex, manufactured world, humans continue to do what all other animals do. All humans who survive are capable of tuning into the events that are occurring out-there. With a little help from friends, family and community, humans who survive have passed the intelligence test of life.

[