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The scientific study of cognition in the context of biological evolution (Cognition and Evolution, CE) has led to the result, that all our thoughts and cognitions, including science and philosophy, are dependent on our cognitive apparatus in its present stage of evolution. I find, that this result is in contradiction with the basic philosophy of mainstream biology, the philosophy of materialist realism, which recognizes the existence a material world independent of human observation and cognition. I therefore regard it as impossible to make a contradiction-free account of CE based on materialist realism (including "hypothetical realism"). An account of natural science, biological evolution, and CE based on an idealist philosophy is offered, and it is argued that this account is free of contradictions. Key words : Cognition and biological evolution, contradiction-free account, philosophy of science, idealist philosophy, materialist philosophy, time Introduction The scientific study of cognition in the context of biological evolution ( Cognition and Evolution , CE) assumed from the beginning, like all biology, the existence of a material world independent of the human observer (materialist realism). The study of CE led, however, to the contradictory result, that all the thoughts and cognitions of our everyday life as well as of science and philosophy depend on the human cognitive apparatus in its present stage of evolution. It is my opinion that this contradiction is an unavoidable consequence of the philosophy of materialist realism and that it therefore cannot be resolved within this frame of reference. In the following I shall propose an idealist frame of reference, within which I think it is possible to overcome the contradiction and arrive at a consistent account of CE. Natural Science Seen in the Optic of Idealist Philosophy The idealist philosophy relied on here contends that only conscious experience is real (Randrup 1997a; 1999; 2017; 2017). In this idealist frame of reference natural science is regarded as a catalogue of selected conscious experiences ("observations") acknowledged to be scientific. I think that scientific "observations" must be regarded as extracts from whole perceptions. The reading of a measuring instrument can serve as an example: usually only the position of the pointer is recorded, while its color and shape together with many other features of the perceptual whole are ignored (Marchais and Randrup 1991, p 2). To be acknowledged as scientific the observation has to be intersubjective, and it can be seen that the extraction from the whole perception facilitates intersubjectivity. Observations belong to the class of immediate experiences we cannot change, i.e. to what Diettrich (1995, pp 103-104) callsWirklichkeit and Berger and Luckmann (1966) call "reality". The catalogue of scientific observations is structured by means of concepts and theories, which are also regarded as conscious experiences. Material objects are thus regarded as heuristic concepts (or constructs) useful for expressing observations (visual, auditory, tactile etc.) within a certain domain together with some of their mutual relations. This reinterpretation of materialist objects allows a direct understanding and use of traditional scientific theories without accepting their ontology (Marshall 2017, p 60; Randrup 1997a). This differs from contemporary mainstream science, but it does maintain the methodological presupposition that all scientific research rests on empirical observations from which concepts and theories are derived. The idealist ontology emphasizes even more the role of the empirical evidence in science and is particularly open to new theories and to the application of more than one theory and set of concepts to a domain of observations. The idealist ontology also readily accomodates the intense nature-experiences known as nature spirituality (Randrup 1997 a). These intense experiences are felt by the experient to be essential and important, indicating to him that they must be real and that nature is primarily an experience. These experiences are therefore felt to be in conflict with the materialist view that nature exists separated from and independent of the "observer". Also on more secular ground many people resist the alienation from nature entailed by strict materialist realism, and tend to retain naive realism or scientific naive realism. The former means that material nature is believed to be as perceived and the latter that it is believed to be as experienced by scientific observations, concepts, and theories, or nearly so. Both forms of naive realism may be regarded as a mixture of materialist and idealist views. Immaterialist views such as idealist philosophies, phenomenalism, and radical constructivism have often been met with the objection that they are based entirely on private (individual) experiences and thus are or lead to solipsism (only "my" experiences exist). This objection, however, seems untenable. It is based on the presumption that conscious experiences are always individual, but I think that collective (and egoless) experiences are viable alternatives or complements to individual experience. A collective experience is regarded as one experience associated with a group of persons as the subject, the We, and related to all the brains of this group. This differs from traditional neuropsychology which usually discusses conscious experiences in association with one brain only. Persons, including the "I", as well as brains are here seen as heuristic concepts, analogous to the concept of material objects mentioned above (Randrup 1999; 2017). The grouping of perceptions (scientific "observations") into the constructs or concepts of "material" objects expresses some regularities (or constraints) in the occurrence of these experiences, and the grouping into a subject (I or We), seen as consciousness or mind expresses other regularities. The latter are clearly understood, when we compare with the splitting and loose associations encountered in communications with schizophrenic patients. In the idealist exposition there is no logical contradiction in the grouping of the same experiences into two different constructs, "material" object and consciousness. In mathematics it is well known, that an element may be a member of more than one set, each membership expressing relationships of the element with other elements. This of course also means that two sets or two systems can have one or more elements in common. The consciousness or mind conceived as above has relations to the constructs, body and brain. These relations too express regularities in the occurrence of perceptions and other conscious experiences. It is clear, however, that these regularities are not in contradiction with the other regularities or constraints mentioned above. Consciousness is often conceived as individual, but as argued above and in previous publications by the author (Randrup 1999; 2017; 2017) it may also be conceived as collective, shared by a group of individuals. This agrees with the generally acknowledged central position of intersubjectivity in science. The necessity to obtain intersubjectivity also gives some constraint to concepts and to observations regarded as scientific. This is clearly felt, when it is attempted to describe an unfamiliar new idea or observation in words and discuss it with others. Convincing evidence indicates that egoless conscious experiences occur too. Here there is no subject like in monistic material realism, but an egoless experience of the world (perceived or conceived) is still a conscious experience and avoids the dichotomy between the material and the mental (Randrup 1999; 2017). In the idealist philosophy a cognition is not of something, but rather an experience. Our perceptual, conceptual, and other experiences are not of an external world, but the world itself (and at the same time they are parts of our consciousness). We have visual, auditory, and tactile experiences for example, and between these experiences we can experience regularities and coherences, which may be expressed and experienced by concepts such as "tree" for example or "a living animal in the past". In this way "a living animal in the past" may be seen and experienced as a structure or arrangement of perceptual experiences in the Now (Randrup 2017, pp. 32-33; 2017). The same holds for the concept "evolution" and for scientific theories such as Darwin's theory of evolution. Conscious experiences in the past (human or animal) are understood on the basis of collective conscious experience across time (Randrup 2017; 2017). 网站原创范文除特殊说明外一切图文作品权归所有；未经官方授权谢绝任何用途转载或刊发于媒体。如发生侵犯作品权现象，英语论文网站，保留一切法学追诉权。()，英语论文 |
