Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 Michael Starks Logical Structure of Rationality Disposition* Emotion Memory Perception Desire PI** IA*** Action/Word Cause Originates World World World World Mind Mind Mind Mind From**** Causes Changes None Mind Mind Mind None World World World In***** Causally Self No Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes Reflexive****** True or False Yes T only T only T only Yes Yes Yes Yes (Testable) Public Conditions of Satisfaction Yes Yes/No Yes/No No Yes/No Yes No Yes Describe a Mental No Yes Yes Yes No No Yes/No Yes State Evolutionary Priority 5 4 2,3 1 5 3 2 2 Voluntary Content Yes No No No No Yes Yes Yes Voluntary Initiation Yes/No No Yes No Yes/No Yes Yes Yes Cognitive System 2 1 2/1 1 2 / 1 2 1 2 ******* Change Intensity No Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No Precise Duration No Yes Yes Yes No No Yes Yes Time, Place (H+N,T+T) TT HN HN HN TT TT HN HN ******** Special Quality No Yes No Yes No No No No Localized in Body No No No Yes No No No Yes © Michael Starks (2017) ISBN 978-1-5323-2114-6 nd 2 Edition Jan 2017 TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface 1 WITTGENSTEIN, SEARLE AND THE TWO SYSTEMS OF THOUGHT 1. The Logical Structure of Consciousness (behavior, personality, rationality, higher order thought, intentionality) (2016) 7 2. The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language as Revealed in the Writings 12 of Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle (2016) WITTGENSTEIN 3. The Foundation Stone of Psychology and Philosophy--a Critical Review of On Certainty' by Ludwig Wittgenstein (1969) (1951) 71 4. Review of Wittgenstein’s Metaphilosophy by Paul Horwich (2013) 96 5. Review of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations by David Stern (2004) 117 6. Review of Readings of Wittgenstein's On Certainty by Daniele Moyal-Sharrock Ed. (2007) 138 7. Review of 'Meaning and the Growth of Understanding Wittgenstein's Significance for Developmental Psychology'—Chapman and Dixon Eds.(1987) 150 8. Review of Wittgenstein Rethinking the Inner by Paul Johnston (1993) 162 9. Review of Wittgenstein’s Philosophy of Psychology by Malcolm Budd (1989) 177 10. Review of Wittgenstein-a critical reader -- Hans-Johann Glock Ed. (2001) 192 11. Review of The Blue and Brown Books by Ludwig Wittgenstein 2nd ed. (1960) 197 12. Review of Paradox and Platitude in Wittgenstein's Philosophy by David Pears (2006) 209 13. Review of Ludwig Wittgenstein by Edward Kanterian (2007) 215 14. Review of Wittgenstein and Psychology A Practical Guide by Harre and Tissaw (2005) 220 15. Review of Culture and Value by Ludwig Wittgenstein (1980) 231 16. Review of The New Wittgenstein-- Crary & Read Eds. 403p (2000) 234 17. Review of Understanding Wittgenstein's On Certainty by Daniele Moyal-Sharrock (2007) 240 18. Review of 'Tractatus Logico Philosophicus' by Ludwig Wittgenstein (1922) 247 19. Review of 'Wittgenstein and the End of Philosophy-by Daniel Hutto 2nd Ed. (2006) 260 JOHN SEARLE and the CONSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL REALITY 20. Can there be a Chinese philosophy?--a Review of Searle's Philosophy and Chinese Philosophy -- Bo Mou Ed. 440p (2008) 272 21. Seeing With the Two Systems of Thought—a Review of 'Seeing Things As They Are: a Theory of Perception' by John Searle (2015) 294 22. Review of Making the Social World by John Searle (2010) 317 23. Review of 'John R Searle-Thinking About the Real World' by Franken et al eds. (2010) 335 24. Review of Philosophy in a New Century by John Searle (2008) 352 PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY 25. A Master Wittgensteinian Surveys Human Nature--a Review of Peter Hacker 'Human Nature-the Categorial Framework' (2012) 366 26. Is there such a thing as pragmatics?--Review of Concise Encyclopedia of Pragmatics 2nd ed (2009) 382 27. Review of The Minds I by Douglas Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett (1981) 401 28. Review of Radicalizing Enactivism by Hutto and Myin (2012) 405 29. Review of The Stuff of Thought by Steven Pinker (2008) 417 30. Review of The New Science of the Mind by Marc Rowlands (2013) 428 31. Endless Incoherence—A Review of Shoemaker's Physical Realization (2009) 437 32. Review of Freedom Evolves by Daniel Dennett (2003) 447 33. A Review of I am a Strange Loop by Douglas Hofstadter (2007) 458 34. Another cartoon portrait of the mind from the reductionist metaphysicians—a Review of Peter Carruthers ‘The Opacity of Mind’ (2011) 471 RELIGION 35. Review of Religion Explained-The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought by Pascal Boyer (2002) 493 36. Review of A Brief History of Everything by Ken Wilber (1996) 504 37. Review of Sex, Ecology, Spirituality by Ken Wilber 2nd ed. 851p (2001) 510 38. Do our automated unconscious behaviors reveal our real selves and hidden truths about the universe? -- A review of David Hawkins ‘Power vs Force--the hidden determinants of human behavior –author’s official authoritative edition’ 412p (2012)(original edition 1995). 521 39. Review of Drifted in the Deeper Land by Adi Da (Franklin Jones) (2014) 524 40. The most profound spiritual autobiography of all time?--a review of The Knee of Listening by Adi Da (Franklin Jones) (1995) 525 BIOLOGY 41. Altruism, Jesus and the End of the World—How the Templeton Foundation bought a Harvard Professorship and attacked Evolution, Rationality and Civilization. A review of E.O. Wilson 'The Social Conquest of Earth' (2012) and Nowak and Highfield ‘SuperCooperators’ (2012) 528 42. Review of Human Nature Sandis and Cain eds. (2012) 534 43. The Transient Suppression of the Worst Devils of our Nature—a review of Steven Pinker’s ‘The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined’ (2012) 547 44. Review of Are We Hardwired by Clark and Grunstein (2000) 551 45. Review of Adapting Minds -Evolutionary Psychology and the Persistent Quest for Human Nature by David Buller (2006) 554 46. Another attack on Evolution, Rationality and Civilization. A review of Nowak and Highfield ‘SuperCooperators’ (2012) 556 47. Review of The Science of Marijuana by Leslie Iverson (2007) 562 48. Review of Ecstasy the Complete Guide by Judith Holland Ed (2001) 567 49. Review of Listening Into the Heart of Things-on MDMA and LSD by Samuel Widmer (1989) 573 50. Is Harry Potter more evil than JK Rowling or You? (2013) 576 51. A very brief review of the life and work of neuroscientist, physician, psychoanalyst, inventor, animal rights activist and pioneer in dolphins, isolation tanks and psychedelics John C Lilly 1915-2001. 578 52. Will the world decrease births or increase deaths?—A review of ‘Reproductive Medicine’--E. Coutinho & P. Spinola Eds. 366p (1999) 582 PHYSICS, MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTERS 53. What Do Paraconsistent, Undecidable, Random, Computable and Incomplete mean? A Review of Godel's Way: Exploits into an undecidable world by Chaitin, Doria and da Costa (2011) 586 54. Wolpert, Godel, Chaitin and Wittgenstein on impossibility, incompleteness, the liar paradox, theism, the limits of computation, a non- quantum mechanical uncertainty principle and the universe as computer—the ultimate theorem in Turing Machine Theory (2015) 598 55. Incompleteness, Para-consistency and the Limits to Computation-a Review of 'The Outer Limits of Reason' by Noson Yanofsky (2013) 603 56. Review of The Inflationary Universe by Alan Guth (1997) 616 57. Review of The Art of the Infinite by R. Kaplan, E. Kaplan 324p(2003) 620 58. Review of Hyperspace by Michio Kaku (1994) 621 59. Review of The Emotion Machine by Marvin Minsky (2007) 628 60. Review of Doomsday--End of the World Scenarios by Richard Moran (2003) 629 POLITICS 61. Suicide by Democracy- an Obituary for America and the World (2016) 630 ECONOMICS 62. The Dead Hands of Group Selection and Phenomenology Destroy a Book and a Career -- A Review of Individuality and Entanglement by Herbert Gintis 357p (2017) 658 PREFACE This collection of articles was written over the last 10 years and the most important and longest within the last year. Also I have edited them to bring them up to date (2017). The copyright page has the date of this first edition and new editions will be noted there as I edit old articles or add new ones. All the articles are about human behavior (as are all articles by anyone about anything), and so about the limitations of having a recent monkey ancestry (8 million years or much less depending on viewpoint) and manifest words and deeds within the framework of our innate psychology as presented in the table of intentionality. As famous evolutionist Richard Leakey says, it is critical to keep in mind not that we evolved from apes, but that in every important way, we are apes. If everyone was given a real understanding of this (i.e., human ecology and psychology) in school, maybe civilization would have a chance. In my view these articles and reviews have many novel and highly useful elements, in that they use my own version of the recently (ca. 1980’s) developed dual systems view of our brain and behavior to lay out a logical system of rationality (personality, psychology, mind, language, behavior, thought, reasoning, reality etc.) that is sorely lacking in the behavioral sciences (psychology, philosophy, literature, politics, anthropology, history, economics, sociology etc.). The philosophy centers around the two writers I have found the most important, Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle, whose ideas I combine and extend within the dual system (two systems of thought) framework that has proven so useful in recent thinking and reasoning research. As I note, there is in my view essentially complete overlap 1 between philosophy, in the strict sense of the enduring questions that concern the academic discipline, and the descriptive psychology of higher order thought (behavior). Once one has grasped Wittgenstein’s insight that there is only the issue of how the language game is to be played, one determines the Conditions of Satisfaction (what makes a statement true or satisfied etc.) and that is the end of the discussion. Now that I think I understand how the games work I have mostly lost interest in philosophy, which of course is how Wittgenstein said it should be. But since they are the result of our innate psychology, or as Wittgenstein put it, due to the lack of perspicuity of language, the problems run throughout all human discourse, so there is endless need for philosophical analysis, not only in the ‘human sciences’ of philosophy, sociology, anthropology, political science, psychology, history, literature, religion, etc., but in the ‘hard sciences’ of physics, mathematics, and biology. It is universal to mix the language game questions with the real scientific ones as to what the empirical facts are. Scientism is ever present and the master has laid it before us long ago, i.e., Wittgenstein (hereafter W) beginning principally with the Blue and Brown Books in the early 1930’s. "Philosophers constantly see the method of science before their eyes and are irresistibly tempted to ask and answer questions in the way science does. This tendency is the real source of metaphysics and leads the philosopher into complete darkness." (BBB p18) Nevertheless, a real understanding of Wittgenstein’s work, and hence of how our psychology functions, is only beginning to spread st in the second decade of the 21 century, due especially to P.M.S. Hacker (hereafter H) and Daniele Moyal-Sharrock (hereafter DMS), 2 but also to many others, some of the more prominent of whom I mention in the articles. When I read ‘On Certainty’ a few years ago I characterized it in an Amazon review as the Foundation Stone of Philosophy and Psychology and the most basic document for understanding behavior, and about the same time DMS was writing articles noting that it had solved the millennia old epistemological problem of how we can know anything for certain. I realized that W was the first one to grasp what is now characterized as the two systems or dual systems of thought, and I generated a dual systems (S1 and S2) terminology which I found to be very powerful in describing behavior. I took the small table that John Searle (hereafter S) had been using, expanded it greatly, and found later that it integrated perfectly with the framework being used by various current workers in thinking and reasoning research. Since they were published individually, I have tried to make the book reviews and articles stand by themselves, insofar as possible, and this accounts for the repetition of various sections, notably the table and its explanation. I start with a short article that presents the table of intentionality and briefly describes its terminology and background. Next, is by far the longest article, which attempts a survey of the work of W and S as it relates to the table and so to an understanding or description (not explanation as W insisted) of behavior. 3 The key to everything about us is biology, and it is obliviousness to it that leads millions of smart educated people like Obama, Chomsky, Clinton and the Pope to espouse suicidal utopian ideals that inexorably lead straight to Hell On Earth. As W noted, it is what is always before our eyes that is the hardest to see. We live in the world of conscious deliberative linguistic System 2, but it is unconscious, automatic reflexive System 1 that rules. This is Searle’s The Phenomenological Illusion (TPI), Pinker’s Blank Slate and Tooby and Cosmides’ Standard Social Science Model. Democracy and equality are wonderful ideals, but without strict controls, selfishness and stupidity gain the upper hand and soon destroy any nation and any world that adopts them. The monkey mind steeply discounts the future, and so we sell our children’s heritage for temporary comforts. Thus I end with an essay on the great tragedy playing out in America and the world, which can be seen as a direct result of TPI. The astute may wonder why we cannot see System 1 at work, but it is clearly counterproductive for an animal to be thinking about or second guessing every action, and in any case there is no time for the slow, massively integrated System 2 to be involved in the constant stream of split second ‘decisions’ we must make. As W noted, our ‘thoughts’ (T1 or the thoughts of System 1) must lead directly to actions. It is my contention that the table of intentionality (rationality, mind, thought, language, personality etc.) that features prominently here describes more or less accurately, or at least serves an heuristic for, how we think and behave, and so it encompasses not merely philosophy and psychology, but everything else (history, literature, mathematics, politics etc.). Note especially that intentionality and 4