(October 8, 2013 at 3:22 am)genkaus Wrote: [. . .] you seem to have lost the perspective within this thread. The central issue here is if the fact that our rational processes evolved in any way compromises their ability to determine the truth. You seem to be arguing that, in fact, it is impossible for our perceptual and conceptual faculties to determine the whole truth, which means - what, exactly? That they are inherently compromised for determining any truth?
Not at all. You can determine truth in the context of your abilities. You can see bricks and mortar, and you can test how they perform in different conditions, and with experience you can build a bridge that stands for a long time. You can observe objects pulling toward each other in space, infer the math behind gravity, and use it to infer massive bodies though you can't see them.
However, when you want to use those abilities to establish whether they are child to a parent, this is impossible. If they ARE child to a parent, i.e. a subset of all possible perceptions, then humans are intrinsically limited. If they ARE NOT child to a parent, i.e. there is no perception which (at least with the aid of technology) we are unable to explore, then we're fine.
But here's the question-- how do you use a subset to establish truths about its parent, or to establish that there is no parent? As far as I know, this is impossible.
