Present Science seems like Faith ...

[worzel]

Oops! I meant to make this point too.

all the sciences began with the ruminations of philosophers, no matter how much some people would like to deny that fact today.

I would conjecture that all early religions were an attempt to make sense of the world around us, and as such were protoscience. They weren't scientific by today's standards, but with nothing better to go on, praying for the return of the harvest giving sun and enacting rituals which were observed to precede a good harvest previously could be considered perfectly rational. Modern science wouldn't be without the inquisitive mind and its early religions/protoscience. Does that justify saying that all science is founded on religion?

[Eric12407]

I see that Eric12407 is still here; did you read my post#83 Eric, where I asked this?If you did, would you mind responding to it?

Originally Posted by Eric12407
Are we the creator of our own consciousness? I'm in complete agreement with the scientific method ... but we know that many great scientific breakthroughs were perfected in the realm of the imagination ... another power of the mind.

Nereid ...
"And when you apply a scientific method (there are more than one) to the study of 'great scientific breakthroughs', do you find patterns? And if you find patterns, what do you conclude about the transcendental, immaterial nature of the underlying 'imagination'?"

Hello Nereid ...

I'm sorry I don't quite understand your question. All I meant was that intuition and imagination have been the source of many breakthroughs in science. There is of course a step by step process of logic involved usually up to that point .... and then many times the breakthrough comes in the form of a dream, or sudden flash of insight, and is recognized immediately as the perfect solution. Unless of course you are Nicolas Tesla, and form the whole concept and construction of the electric motor completely in your mind from beginning to end.

Animals do have certain capacities that are similar to ours.
I guess it boils down to if you think we are just animals. To me we have evolved from that state, and are as advanced from animals in an evolutionary perspective as animals are from plants.

The state we have progressed to is characterized by the powers of the soul expressed through the mind. All of creation is moved and directed by those forces of spirit I mentioned and it takes its highest form and is individualized in the human as a soul. This is why we have the powers that distinguish us from the rest of creation, and a conscience (however brightly or not they may shine).

I have tried to show through logic that the mind is transcendant .. If no one can follow it or agree with it ... I'm okay with that ...
I guess I would be just repeating myself from here on in so ... thanks for the chance to float these ideas in this forum ...

[worzel]

To me we have evolved from that state, and are as advanced from animals in an evolutionary perspective as animals are from plants.

How do you measure advancement from an evolutionary perspective in such a way that a chimp and a person are as far removed as a chimp and a cabbage? Maybe, being a primate, I have primate perspective blinkers on, but I just don't see it.

I have tried to show through logic that the mind is transcendant .. If no one can follow it or agree with it ... I'm okay with that ...
I guess I would be just repeating myself from here on in so ... thanks for the chance to float these ideas in this forum ...

I don't remember seeing any logical arguments from you, just appeal to amazement at how spiffingly clever we all are. And I don't see why cleverness makes us qualitatively different from chimps anyway. The variation in humans is huge (at least from our perspective) but we don't class people over a certain cleverness threshold as qualitatively different from those below a certain stupidity threshold, do we?

[Spherical]

Oops! I meant to make this point too.
I would conjecture that all early religions were an attempt to make sense of the world around us, and as such were protoscience. They weren't scientific by today's standards, but with nothing better to go on, praying for the return of the harvest giving sun and enacting rituals which were observed to precede a good harvest previously could be considered perfectly rational. Modern science wouldn't be without the inquisitive mind and its early religions/protoscience. Does that justify saying that all science is founded on religion?

No, or I would have said so.

[Spherical]

True, but by the same token all science also rests on biology, for without it we would not be here to do science. Like I said, vacuously true.

No, science does not rest on "biology". Biology is the science of living things, it is a special branch of philosphy.

But your argument is essentially that because philosphy starts with observation of existence, and so does science, science can't be done withou philosphy, right?

No. Read the definitions again.

Ok, back to my first question in response to this, would an understanding of ontology be needed (or learnt) along the way to write a program that simulated an evolutionary environment that gave rise to human conscience?

Possibly. If you succeeded, you would see ontology at work.

I'm not just trying to make you draw an arbitrary line here, blind evolution created human conscience without ontology (presumably), maybe we too could create the parts that, when put together, combine into much more than the sum of their parts, so to speak, without realizing we're doing so - scary music, rise of the robots, 'n all that

It would make for a credible plot for a science fiction piece. In fact, that has been done. See Robert A. Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. I cannot rule this out as a possibility, a great many things are possible. It would not be particularly efficient. BTW, the computer and programming Heinlien postulated in that story was not really anything like the computers we have up and running today--not like the computers I know about anyway. I cannot rule out that there might be one being worked in secret by some one.

[Spherical]

In this example, what would a human choice of purpose be that a chimp doesn't have? To work for PETA or the CIA? That is a choice given via technology. So excluding the massive development humans have constructed, I would think we need a little more research to determine just where a chimp would be in the continuum of this human trait.

Raise a chimp as you would a human and see what happens.

Goodall followed the chimps through a war between two factions. Somehow the leaders of one group led the other group to a war, presumably over territory. I don't recall, however, if a food shortage or other necessity played a role. I assume it did to some degree but I believe it was also a choice the chimps made and wasn't entirely just a result of need.

Another event occurred in that one chimp became a mass murderer. The chimp killed a number of newborns over a long period of time. That event is not clearly understood.

While these may be very negative choices of purpose, they do hint at many behaviors which humans also have. I wouldn't want to say at this point we know how different chimps really are from us if you stripped away our technology.

Again, we would not have the technology without the mental development. We made the technology, not the reverse.

dictionary.comYou're still describing quantity not quality in terms of thought. I believe the experiments where chimps had to put a few things on top of each other to climb on to reach a banana were determined to be evidence they had conceptual thought.

Goodall watched a chimp dance around with a branch near a waterfall while alone and wondered what that chimp might be thinking about the world around it.

Some parrots can count. There was speculation about trainer cues but studies were done that ruled that out. I believe the birds counted up to 6 if I recall. They had math concepts. And if a bird and humans have math concepts, why wouldn't a chimp?

The last time I caught up on this, some birds could be shown capable of counting as high as three. Can we show that chimps are capable of learning to count and do arithmetic? I don't know. Has anyone shown that they can? Have such results been duplicated and shown not to depend on cues from trainers? I've seen more than one horse that could "count".

Do you think this concept thing we do as humans just developed as a new trait that didn't exist in our ancestors or do you think it was an existing trait that became more developed during our evolution into a new species?

All I could do here is to offer you an intelligent guess. There is evidence to support both possibilities.

I don't think it appeared out of the blue. I do think the reason we have believed ourselves to be so unique in the past was we didn't think to look for examples in other animals. If a chimp danced around a waterfall, past researchers would limit the conclusions that could be drawn from that incident to exclude certain human traits. Evidence was not collected without prejudice. Now that that is changing, we are seeing much that was missed.

I don't believe your conclusion here follows exactly but many animal rights activists agree. And, most people in our culture object to the killing and mistreatment of larger brained animals like chimps and dolphins while they may not object to killing rats.

We experienced that issue in a large way when some North Coast Native Americans here returned to tribal whale hunting.

As you say, the problem remains. When it comes to "rights" there is an enormous amount of disagreement over what "rights" are. That, however, falls well outside the purposes of this forum. Show me an animal that can live as a human and I will support rights for that animal. So far, however, I have yet to see one that can.

[SolusLupus]

Show me an animal that can live as a human and I will support rights for that animal. So far, however, I have yet to see one that can.

Ooookay, now you've riled me up. So it needs to have an opposable thumb, hands, an idea of society, etc., in order for it to have basic rights to live?

[worzel]

No, science does not rest on "biology". Biology is the science of living things, it is a special branch of philosphy.

Presumably because it is a science right, and all sciences rest on philosophy? Still, that was simply an emphatic answer, you didn't explain why science is not founded on biology given that without biology we wouldn't be here to do science.

No. Read the definitions again.

I did already. Explain where I went wrong without going into another tangential definition.

Possibly. If yoiu succeeded, you would see ontology at work.

You might also see biology at work, depending on your definition. You might also see chemistry at work, depending on your definition. Ditto physics. You might start to see why I think your reasoning behind your "all science is founded on philosphy" is, at best, vauge, if not circullar and/or self serving.

It would make for a credible plot for a science fiction piece. In fact, that has been done. See Robert A. Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. I cannot rule this out as a possibility, a great many things are possible. It would not be particularly efficient. BTW, the computer and programming Heinlien postulated in that story was not really anything like the computers we have up and running today--not like the computers I know about anyway. I cannot rule out that there might be one being worked in secret by some one.

Either you or I have lost the plot here. You don't deny that blind, souless, stupid, evolution created human consciousness, but you think the idea of a conscience accidently comming around by some directed process of improvement other than natural selection is fit only for a science fiction review?

[worzel]

Show me an animal that can live as a human and I will support rights for that animal. So far, however, I have yet to see one that can.

Why on earth would one have to live as a human to be given rights? Granted, that's society's position, but I would expect a stronger argument from a philosopher than mere specism.

[Nereid]

Originally Posted by Eric12407
Are we the creator of our own consciousness? I'm in complete agreement with the scientific method ... but we know that many great scientific breakthroughs were perfected in the realm of the imagination ... another power of the mind.

Nereid ...
"And when you apply a scientific method (there are more than one) to the study of 'great scientific breakthroughs', do you find patterns? And if you find patterns, what do you conclude about the transcendental, immaterial nature of the underlying 'imagination'?"

Hello Nereid ...

I'm sorry I don't quite understand your question. All I meant was that intuition and imagination have been the source of many breakthroughs in science. There is of course a step by step process of logic involved usually up to that point .... and then many times the breakthrough comes in the form of a dream, or sudden flash of insight, and is recognized immediately as the perfect solution. Unless of course you are Nicolas Tesla, and form the whole concept and construction of the electric motor completely in your mind from beginning to end.

Let me try again then.

I am trying to use your own propositions, combined, to address an (the?) idea which seems to be central to your claims.

You introduced "great scientific breakthroughs"; presumably we could discuss this, and agree on a list of (say) the top 100 (we might even be able to rank them, by 'greatness').

You also declared your "complete agreement with the scientific method". Good. Let's use 'the scientific method' to dig into this 'top 100' list, shall we?

One of early things we will surely do is look for patterns - by time, by content, by age, by gender, by geography, by field of science, by .... (and if we love numbers, we might even do some statistical analyses on the patterns we find).

Good. I'm sure you'll agree that we will find things like this (just a sample, not intended to be comprehensive, nor even the most important things):

• since the 1600s, almost all the 'top 100' were 'broken through' by men (very few women in the list)
• the countries in which the 'great breakthroughs' happened had, at the respective times of breakthrough, a tiny minority of the world's total population
• the people making the 'great breakthroughs' varied in ages from late teens (maybe one or two) to late fifties (maybe one or two)
• if we extend the time period to ~4000 BC to the present, we find the vast majority of 'breakthroughs' occurred in just a tiny fraction of that total time period.

With this list (or a similar one), can we learn anything about 'the power of mind'? about 'the realm of imagination'? about "the transcendental, immaterial nature of the underlying 'imagination'"??

I submit that we can. My question to you is: what do you, Eric12407, conclude about the nature of "the transcendental, immaterial nature of the underlying 'imagination'", from patterns that we may discover by using the scientific method to examine 'great scientific breakthroughs'?

Animals do have certain capacities that are similar to ours.
I guess it boils down to if you think we are just animals. To me we have evolved from that state, and are as advanced from animals in an evolutionary perspective as animals are from plants.

In what way? I mean, how do you make this case, using the scientific method?

In particular, where, in the evolution of the genus Homo did this dramatic change happen?

The state we have progressed to is characterized by the powers of the soul expressed through the mind. All of creation is moved and directed by those forces of spirit I mentioned and it takes its highest form and is individualized in the human as a soul. This is why we have the powers that distinguish us from the rest of creation, and a conscience (however brightly or not they may shine).

Hmm.

Now I'm confused ... haven't you just contradicted yourself, in several ways?

I mean, you've already agreed with me (and others) that the degree of 'consciousness', in individual humans, is dependent to quite an extraordinary extent, on purely 'environmental' factors (health, drugs, brain development, state of awakeness, age, ...). So your use of 'the human' above cannot possibly refer to individual humans, can it?

Or maybe I just don't understand your terms - you've used many (consciousness, soul, mind, imagination, creation, insight, and now conscience) - would you clarify please?

Specifically:

• is 'soul' binary (something either has one or it doesn't)? Or is it like 'consciousness' (a mammal can have more or less of it, depending on a great many factors)?
• how about 'mind'? 'imagination'? 'insight'? 'conscience'? Are the binary? or can something which possesses them have then in degrees?
• What sorts of 'somethings' can have a 'soul' - individual mammals (e.g. Eric12407)? species (e.g. Homo sapiens)? genuses (e.g. Homo)?

I have tried to show through logic that the mind is transcendant .. If no one can follow it or agree with it ... I'm okay with that ...

Well, perhaps part of the reason you didn't get very far is that you didn't define your terms, specifically 'mind' and 'transcendant'

I guess I would be just repeating myself from here on in so ... thanks for the chance to float these ideas in this forum ...

I notice that you've said your 'goodbyes' to us before ... yet you've come back (several times). How can we know - now! - which kind of goodbye this is?

[Spherical]

Why on earth would one have to live as a human to be given rights? Granted, that's society's position, but I would expect a stronger argument from a philosopher than mere specism.

Because to support the argument I would have to engage in long drawn out discussion of what rights are and where they come from and don't want to do that for two reasons. First, it would be rude to our host. He did not set this forum up for those kinds of discussions. Second, the debate would rage on for days and days and days. Better for me to express my opinion and let it go at that.

[Spherical]

Presumably because it is a science right, and all sciences rest on philosophy? Still, that was simply an emphatic answer, you didn't explain why science is not founded on biology given that without biology we wouldn't be here to do science.

We do not need "biology" to be here. We would be here whether we knew anything about biology or not. Biology is the science of living things. We were here before we had philosophy or any of the sciences. Philosophy and all the sciences are human inventions.

[QUOTE=worzel]

I did already. Explain where I went wrong without going into another tangential definition.

You might also see biology at work, depending on your definition. You might also see chemistry at work, depending on your definition. Ditto physics.

I doubt it. I tend to be rather fussy about my definitions.

You might start to see why I think your reasoning behind your "all science is founded on philosphy" is, at best, vauge, if not circullar and/or self serving.

There isn't much reasoning required, Worzel. I am simply observing a fact. The logic you use to write your code came from Aristotle. A lot of the science, math, and engineering that went into the construction of your computer came from Plato, and he got many of his ideas from the Pythagoreans, all of whom were philosophers.

You have a philosophy whether you know it or not or want to admit it or not.

Either you or I have lost the plot here. You don't deny that blind, souless, stupid, evolution created human consciousness, but you think the idea of a conscience accidently comming around by some directed process of improvement other than natural selection is fit only for a science fiction review?

Science fiction has this funny habit of becoming fact as time goes by, Worzel. Right now, it's science fiction. When you build your Turing machine, let me know. I would very much like to speak with it.

[worzel]

We do not need "biology" to be here. We would be here whether we knew anything about biology or not. Biology is the science of living things. We were here before we had philosophy or any of the sciences. Philosophy and all the sciences are human inventions.

I never said (nor asked if you meant that) we needed biology (and {not} | or) philosophy for us to be here. The fact that we were around before we had philosophy and science doesn't explain why all science is founded on philosophy.

There isn't much reasoning required, Worzel. I am simply observing a fact. The logic you use to write your code came from Aristotle. A lot of the science, math, and engineering that went into the construction of your computer came from Plato, and he got many of his ideas from the Pythagoreans, all of whom were philosophers.

I would say that Aristotle, Plato et al were some of the first to formalise reasoning, and I think the ability to reason was there before they did that. Indeed, to a limited extent that ability was there before we were human and is still there in chimps. And the bits that were useful to programming I would call logic or math rather than philosophy anyway. Just because someone sat down and reflected on how we reason and labelled this reflection "philosophy", doesn't mean they invented reason.

You have a philosophy whether you know it or not or want to admit it or not.

My problem isn't with philosophy, it is was your grandious claim that all science is founded on it. I think that can only be true if you use a defintion that basically says philosophy is all reasoning, in which case chimps are philosophizing when they work out how to stack objects to climb to reach a banana.

Science fiction has this funny habit of becoming fact as time goes by, Worzel. Right now, it's science fiction. When you build your Turing machine, let me know. I would very much like to speak with it.

So yet again, no answer to the point I made. I am surrounded by Turing machines by the way, although I doubt any of them would pass the Turing test, if that's what you meant.

You also never gave any sort of answer to my question here other that to say "No, or I would have said so." (a lot of old philosophers were religious too, you know).

[Spherical]

Ooookay, now you've riled me up. So it needs to have an opposable thumb, hands, an idea of society, etc., in order for it to have basic rights to live?

Opposable thumbs has absolutely nothing to do with my position. Criminals have opposable thumbs and we put them in jail or even deny them the right to continue living.

Shall we allow tigers to roam at will in our cities?

[Spherical]

I never said (nor asked if you meant that) we needed biology (and {not} | or) philosophy for us to be here. The fact that we were around before we had philosophy and science doesn't explain why all science is founded on philosophy.

So your position is that science sprang from our heads fully grown or are you claiming that it was handed down from on high? I gather the latter.

I would say that Aristotle, Plato et al were some of the first to formalise reasoning, and I think the ability to reason was there before they did that.

Aristotle formalized reasoning. Plato came up with a bad model of epistemology that has proven enormously useful despite being bad epistemology.

Indeed, to a limited extent that ability was there before we were human and is still there in chimps. And the bits that were useful to programming I would call logic or math rather than philosophy anyway.

Both of which came from philosopy and were intially developed by philosophers. Feel free to call them whatever you like, just be advised that such a claim is in error.

Just because someone sat down and reflected on how we reason and labelled this reflection "philosophy", doesn't mean they invented reason.

I never made any such claim.

My problem isn't with philosophy, it is was your grandious claim that all science is founded on it. I think that can only be true if you use a defintion that basically says philosophy is all reasoning, in which case chimps are philosophizing when they work out how to stack objects to climb to reach a banana.

Assuming chimpanzees continue to develop, they will develop a philosophy of some kind. Science is much more than reason alone, but if you do not have your reasoning organized, you cannot pursue a scientific inquiry.

So yet again, no answer to the point I made. I am surrounded by Turing machines by the way, although I doubt any of them would pass the Turing test, if that's what you meant.

Forgive me. When you have constructed a machine capable of passing the Turing Test, let me know. I would like to speak with it. As for your strange accusation, what answer were you looking for? I agreed with you, but I will again caution that what you propose is non-trivial. It took evolution a mighty long time to produce us.

You also never gave any sort of answer to my question here other that to say "No, or I would have said so." (a lot of old philosophers were religious too, you know).

Show me where religion fits in with science. There have been and still are religious scientists. Philosophy and religion are not the same thing, either.

[SolusLupus]

Opposable thumbs has absolutely nothing to do with my position. Criminals have opposable thumbs and we put them in jail or even deny them the right to continue living.

Shall we allow tigers to roam at will in our cities?

Shall we slaughter them, and every other animal, simply because they don't act human in any way whatsoever?

If we run into an alien race, and they don't act like humanity, shall we destroy them, too?

Should animals never be protected at all? In any way, shape, or form? Even if they're pets, or deemed as pets? What line will we draw?

[Fram]

Shall we allow tigers to roam at will in our cities?

Spherical, "basic rights to live" isn't the same as "absolute freedom". This is a strawman and/or very bad philosophy and logic.

[Fram]

I never said (nor asked if you meant that) we needed biology (and {not} | or) philosophy for us to be here. The fact that we were around before we had philosophy and science doesn't explain why all science is founded on philosophy.

So your position is that science sprang from our heads fully grown or are you claiming that it was handed down from on high? I gather the latter.

Where do you get this from? If someone says that not all science is founded on philosophy, you gather he claims that it is handed down from on high? Very bizarre.
Most of science is based on science, which is based on science, which is based on science, ... which is ultimately based on observations, experiments, flashes of inspiration, logic, question raised by philosophers, mathematics, and a few other things probably.
To equate this with 'all science is based on philosophy' is a bit onesided and simplistic, as it goes back a very long time and to a very different kind of science (and philosophy), and it ignores many other contributions. And I still don't see how Schopenhauer comes into play.

[Celestial Mechanic]

[Snip!]To equate this with 'all science is based on philosophy' is a bit onesided and simplistic, as it goes back a very long time and to a very different kind of science (and philosophy), and it ignores many other contributions. And I still don't see how Schopenhauer comes into play.

Much less Sartre!

[worzel]

So your position is that science sprang from our heads fully grown or are you claiming that it was handed down from on high? I gather the latter.

You're clutching at strawmen. I never claimed any such thing. I asked you to explain how you justify the claim that all science is founded on philosophy without using a definition so wide that it is trivially true but meaningless.

Aristotle formalized reasoning. Plato came up with a bad model of epistemology that has proven enormously useful despite being bad epistemology.

Whatever. Did people rely on whatever you call philosophy before what we would call the philosophers of old existed? (that's a more direct rewording of the question to which the above is not an answer)

Both of which came from philosopy

Like it or not, science, as a human endeavour, has its roots in both religion and philosophy. But modern science is far removed from modern philosophy and religion.

and were intially developed by philosophers.

and were also initially developed by people of faith, so what.

Feel free to call them whatever you like, just be advised that such a claim is in error.

Philosophers can do math and logic too. They can also fall out of trees, is that doing philosophy? When I tune my violin (using just intonation mind) am I using philosophy because Pythagoras is claimed to have usurped philosophical domain over harmony?

I never made any such claim.

Your argument, as far as I can tell, is that because what we now refer to as ancient philosophers dabbled in the beginnings of formal logic and math, all science is philosophy. So essentially you did make the claim.

Assuming chimpanzees continue to develop, they will develop a philosophy of some kind. Science is much more than reason alone, but if you do not have your reasoning organized, you cannot pursue a scientific inquiry.

So, according to you, chimps aren't using philosophy when they pile up objects to climb in order to reach a banana? Is a man using philosophy when he discovers and uses fire, or spears, or invents the wheel, or the horse drawn plough ? If so, how is that different from a chimp figuring out how to manipulate the world around him to his advantage? If not, what were some of the first technological achievements that did require philosophy? And what's the difference?

Forgive me. When you have constructed a machine capable of passing the Turing Test, let me know. I would like to speak with it.

What are you on about? I never claimed I could write a piece of software that would pass the Turing test. Another strawman. I think I'm getting the hang of this philosophy malarkey

As for your strange accusation, what answer were you looking for? I agreed with you, but I will again caution that what you propose is non-trivial. It took evolution a mighty long time to produce us.

Strange accusation? You claimed knowledge of ontology was required to implement human conscience. I retorted that evolution did fine without and that it was conceivable that something similar could occur with computers^* While you grudgingly accepted that that might be true, you still haven't changed your position on the requirement for knowledge of philosophy and, more specifically, ontology to write such a program. Or was the science fiction review and snide remarks about me not being able to do it myself an attempt to deflect attention away from your retraction of that statement?

^* (there was a case of someone creating the computer "chemistry" of an evolutionary environment and leaving it to run over night to test it before adding all the mutation stuff, and by the next morning he had identifiable rudimentary predators and prey).

Show me where religion fits in with science.

I'm not claiming that it does now. I was using the history of religion and science to pose a similar claim about religion and science to yours about philosophy and science with Aristotle as supportive evidence. Cast your browser back and you'll see that my last sentence was "Does that justify saying that all science is founded on religion?", not "That does...." So yet again, strawman and unanswered question (except for "No, or I would have said so", of course.)

There have been and still are religious scientists.

There have been and still are philosophical scientists. Point being?

Philosophy and religion are not the same thing, either.

Neither are philosophy and science nor religion and science. Point bieng?

Do you not agree that pre-institutionalized religion and science both resulted from our desire to understand the world around us?

You said that you were fussy about definitions. Could you give as precise a definition as you can of philosophy? Just one that we'll stick to. My apologies if it is one the ones you have already posted (although I was hoping for something a little more concrete than "observing existence"), but it won't harm to post it again in any case.

I'm sorry that I have to keep repeating the questions, but if you will go off on tangents and attack strawmen and give only the vaguest hints as answers then what else am I to do? You're not carrying on this whole conversation from a bus terminal, are you?

[beskeptical]

Raise a chimp as you would a human and see what happens.

Again, we would not have the technology without the mental development. We made the technology, not the reverse.
...

You have yet to make a case for quality over quantity. Your examples do not indicate any fundamental difference, only that our brains are more developed along the same lines. Unless you want to make some case for vocal cords being the big difference.

You could argue we are a tiny stair step above the closest evolved animal brains rather than a bit higher on a linear curve but nothing more drastic than that.

The chimp can conceive that stacking the boxes will allow him to reach the banana.