I find de Waal’s project interesting. He seems out to prove that we human’s are innately good, or perhaps better put, that we are as innately caring as we are innately selfish. I have never felt comfortable with the word “good” because it has so much baggage. For one thing, its usual antonym is “evi...

Anyone finding Primates and Philosophers rough going?

...I was left with the impression that I was reading the cliff notes for the book... When I read introductions I usually wonder what the author(s) had in mind when s(he) organized her thoughts but I suspect it is exactly that, to produce a "cliff notes" version so that academics (and othe...

Robert Tulip wrote:The persistence of religious ideas of high insight such as the golden rule of love is an indicator of their innate moral truth.

Robert,

What do you mean when you say "innate moral truth?" I'm looking for how you define "innate" in this context.

Mary

DWill wrote:Just wanted to thank you for taking the time to help untangle my confusion. I would try to make an intelligent comment, but unfortunately I have a trashy TV show to watch!

Sometimes trashy TV is exactly the right thing to do.

I don't know anything about Wittgenstein, but the dichotomy of his you present is something for thought. If you're interested, Wittgenstein talks about this in what has been published as his "Lectures on Religious Belief". You can look here and here - chapters 5 and 6 . D'Amasio does addr...

Thomas Hood wrote:Homo Ludens by Johan Huizinga

I've heard really good things about this book and about the notion of play as central to human development. Once you're done would you mind posting a bit about the book? I would like to hear your reactions.

I won't comment now on what you posted from D'Amasio, but just to agree with you that he deserves to be discussed at length some other time. I found Descartes' Error to be a difficult but fascinating book. Agreed. Maybe sometime soon we can start up a Damasio discussion. His work (and work like thi...

From Mirror Neurons and the Brain in the Vat by V.S. Ramachandran presented by “ Edge the Third Culture.” “Researchers at UCLA found that cells in the human anterior cingulate, which normally fire when you poke the patient with a needle ("pain neurons"), will also fire when the patient wat...

Maybe I'm confused about what selfishness at the genetic level means. Is this a different meaning than we would give to selfishness at the social level, which is where goodness manifests itself? This next two paragraphs are from The Selfish Gene “My own feeling is that human society based simply on...