Worldview: true and false

Chapter 1 - Our Worldview

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Welcome to the 'true and false: science' page

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Darwin: a dangerous idea

Both the emergence of adaptation and diversity were different aspects of one complex phenomenon, and the idea that links the two was, in his view, the principle of natural selection. – D. Dennett – Darwin’s Dangerous Idea

Darwin's (evolution theory) most significant contribution to thought is his rejection of essentialism. This classical doctrine holds that for every natural thing or species, there is an essence, a necessary and sufficient set of properties that make something part of that species. Instead, he showed that species are historically linked by a chain of variations that differ so tiny that there is no reason to draw a line anywhere.

If under changing conditions of life organic beings present individual differences in almost every part of their structure, and this cannot be disputed; if there be, owing to their geometrical rate of increase, a severe struggle for life at some age, season or year, and this certainly cannot be disputed; then, considering the infinite complexity of the relations of all organic beings to each other and to their conditions of life, causing an infinite diversity in structure, constitution, and habits, to be advantageous to them, it would be a most extraordinary fact if no variations had ever occurred useful to each being’s own welfare, in the same manner as so many variations have occurred useful to man. But if variations useful to any organic being ever do occur, assuredly individuals thus characterised will have the best chance of being preserved in the struggle for life; and from the strong principle of inheritance, these will tend to produce offspring similarly characterised. This principle of preservation, or the survival of the fittest, I have called Natural Selection. – On the Origin of Species BY MEANS OF NATURAL SELECTION - By Charles Darwin, M.A., F.R.S. - Sixth London Edition, with all Additions and Corrections.

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Decartes error

Nature appears to have built the apparatus of rationality not just on top of the apparatus of biological regulation, but also from it and with it. Failure to see this, is Descartes' error.


Content source
Descartes' Error : Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain - Antonio Damasio - Penguin - 2005

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We, the people with peculiar brains

We predict so fast that we think our movements are reactions.
We think we are born with many things we actually learn because our brain is a champion in rewiring itself.
We have so many kinds of minds that we are convinced one single natural cause explains them all.
We believe in our mental inventions to the extent that we think it is the natural world itself.
Our brain is so complex that it creates the metaphors we live by but mistakes them for knowledge.
My brain regulates at this very moment you read this, your brain in such a subtle way that you think you are independent of me at this moment. (1)


	Content source
(1)	Seven and a half lessons about the brain - Lisa Feldman Barrett - Picador - 2020

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Relational thinking and acting

"What we learn from by studying the history of the creative imagination is that the individual mind lives within a collective intelligence largely expressed through material objects." - SFI President David Krakauer

Relational thinking directs us towards constructivism and away from essentialism.

The trouble with essentialism is that growth is limited and ends with the concept of what we think is the subject's essence. This creates an enormous tension between the person and the call for responsibility and accountability we always hear in organisations. How can you be responsible for what lies behind your essence?
Relational thinking, on the other hand, states that growth is possible, and you can be responsible for what you do at the level that you create your reality conscientiously.

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Being human & the brain
Values & ethics

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