Innate vs rationality

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Is it possible for innate and rationality are both one with two parts? Paul

[Ginkgo]

Is it possible for innate and rationality are both one with two parts? Paul

Yes, not only is it possible it is also probable.

[The Voice of Time]

What do you mean by "innate"?

Please describe as detailed as possible. I can't answer you if you go too vague.

[The Voice of Time]

You're not supposed to PM me when I ask a public question. You wrote this in PM:

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Subject: Innate vs rationality

What do you mean by "innate"?

Please describe as detailed as possible. I can't answer you if you go too vague.

Something inside of you tells you this is a truth, besides experience and logic. Paul

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What is this something you speak of? You're being too vague.

[Ginkgo]

What do you mean by "innate"?

Please describe as detailed as possible. I can't answer you if you go too vague.

Innate ideas are inborn ideas that don't come from experience. Some philosophers would claim that ideas such as God, infinity, something rather than nothing and Kant's apriori are some examples that are covered under the broad definition of innate ideas.

Empiricists such as Locke and Hume reject such ideas and claim that all out knowledge is derived from experience. Hence the well worn claim that the mind starts out as a blank piece of paper. Innate ideas are very much linked to rationalist philosophies, but that is a long story.

[The Voice of Time]

Okay, thank you Ginkgo, I'll assume this is what he meant and he can tell me/us if that's not what he meant should that be the case.

About that, to avoid all mysticism I'd think it's best to think of it as that you start off with some initial conditions, such as "senses" and the rules for neuroendocrinological development, and from there you create things like "ideas" by experience, and those ideas will because of the rules tend to converge along a population, the convergence accelerating greatly by socializing. Meaning that there's no such thing as "initial ideas", there's probably plenty of pre-born ideas, but then the creature to become a grown human being, has already had 9 months to develop.

Of course, "ideas" is a vague term. At what point is something an idea instead of just a pattern of information used to act in a specific way on other information and to manipulate the body into actions? The human being is such a complex thing.

Are ideas even part of the mind? Some ways of looking at ideas, the objective ways, seem to treat them more like traditions that reside in no particular one mind but live as shared thoughts in a population.

I think for one that the notion "idea" probably should be prefixed by what kind of idea we speak of. Is it a tradition of knowledge? Is it a particular concept of language? Is it a structural entity of the mind/brain? I tend to go back and forth between the two without saying which one I mean, which is bad if you try to compare threads and posts, but usually we know which one is meant. I tend to prefer talking about ideas as traditions of socially shared, developed and altered knowledge in general. Ideas by themselves rarely makes sense because we humans are so interconnected with everything and everyone around us that it's hard to try and talk of an idea not part of a "social mind", dominated by the way we must utter it, express it, and contextualize it, both for ourselves and for others.

You probably mean the other one though. The idea as a structural entity of the mind/brain. So, directly answering your question: "Is it possible for innate and rationality are both one with two parts?".

I'd say "no". Not two "parts", but maybe two different tendencies of developing, or maybe patterns even. They are likely part of one and the same thing, as innate ideas do not exist in a truly pure form. But some ideas may be more rigidly determined by development rules than others, and will converge more strongly along a population. To what degree, I have no idea and probably nobody has any idea, because basically the brain is still a mystery in many questions. But one idea about this may be that the human conception and early development has some basic recipes to it and a typically very similar environment, and since environment are part of the rules of development (cells and bacteria depend on a good environment to grow and live), you will likely have typically similar early highly convergent results, and those may be called a particular "tendency", more similar to the idea of "innate ideas" than the everyday ideas we pick up every now and then, and can easily discard.

[Ginkgo]

Okay, thank you Ginkgo, I'll assume this is what he meant and he can tell me/us if that's not what he meant should that be the case.

About that, to avoid all mysticism I'd think it's best to think of it as that you start off with some initial conditions, such as "senses" and the rules for neuroendocrinological development, and from there you create things like "ideas" by experience, and those ideas will because of the rules tend to converge along a population, the convergence accelerating greatly by socializing. Meaning that there's no such thing as "initial ideas", there's probably plenty of pre-born ideas, but then the creature to become a grown human being, has already had 9 months to develop.

Of course, "ideas" is a vague term. At what point is something an idea instead of just a pattern of information used to act in a specific way on other information and to manipulate the body into actions? The human being is such a complex thing.

Are ideas even part of the mind? Some ways of looking at ideas, the objective ways, seem to treat them more like traditions that reside in no particular one mind but live as shared thoughts in a population.

I think for one that the notion "idea" probably should be prefixed by what kind of idea we speak of. Is it a tradition of knowledge? Is it a particular concept of language? Is it a structural entity of the mind/brain? I tend to go back and forth between the two without saying which one I mean, which is bad if you try to compare threads and posts, but usually we know which one is meant. I tend to prefer talking about ideas as traditions of socially shared, developed and altered knowledge in general. Ideas by themselves rarely makes sense because we humans are so interconnected with everything and everyone around us that it's hard to try and talk of an idea not part of a "social mind", dominated by the way we must utter it, express it, and contextualize it, both for ourselves and for others.

You probably mean the other one though. The idea as a structural entity of the mind/brain. So, directly answering your question: "Is it possible for innate and rationality are both one with two parts?".

I'd say "no". Not two "parts", but maybe two different tendencies of developing, or maybe patterns even. They are likely part of one and the same thing, as innate ideas do not exist in a truly pure form. But some ideas may be more rigidly determined by development rules than others, and will converge more strongly along a population. To what degree, I have no idea and probably nobody has any idea, because basically the brain is still a mystery in many questions. But one idea about this may be that the human conception and early development has some basic recipes to it and a typically very similar environment, and since environment are part of the rules of development (cells and bacteria depend on a good environment to grow and live), you will likely have typically similar early highly convergent results, and those may be called a particular "tendency", more similar to the idea of "innate ideas" than the everyday ideas we pick up every now and then, and can easily discard.

You make some good points. Innate ideas tend to create a bit of bad press, especially in light of modern neurological research. For example, Plato's theory of Forms is not really satisfying because of the idea that somehow we gained our knowledge in a different realm before we were born and knowledge is simply an exercise in remembering, or being reminded.

I think Kant's categories of understanding is a bit more plausible in terms of innate ideas. That is to say, intuitive understanding being a psychological necessity whereby the mind imposes understanding on our experiences. Kant's ideas are a bit more in keeping with a modern understanding of the term.

[HexHammer]

Looking at various cozy chat for a, I'd say rationality is a very rare thing and most cozy chatters doesn't comprehend it.

[The Voice of Time]

I think Kant's categories of understanding is a bit more plausible in terms of innate ideas. That is to say, intuitive understanding being a psychological necessity whereby the mind imposes understanding on our experiences. Kant's ideas are a bit more in keeping with a modern understanding of the term.

Well the imposition you talk about could basically be switched with the rules of neuroendocrinological development, it's a bit like talking about the same thing, so yeah, I guess I very much agree with that.