[spitx]

  Animals with highly developed brains never simply accept 
  their fates. After all, they understand   that if they 
  manipulate nature in certain ways, at least some parts 
  of their fate can be averted!

Your argument has the appearance of something that's badly contrived (or derived).

You may have not chanced on arguments surrounding your premise on "highly developed brains" and natural limits imposed on such brains owing to a multitude of things including encephalization quotient (if not exclusively that).

It's verging on the conceited to make such claims without at the very least mooting the points and counterpoints surrounding such assumptions.

The following is a decent one:

Argument for a finite upper limit to human knowledge

  1. The human brain consists of a finite number of particles
     and energy states.
  2. This matrix of particles and energy states is less than 
     what exists in the cosmos.

  Ergo: The human brain has insufficient capacity to contain 
  a matrix containing the total map of all the particles and 
  energy states that exist in the cosmos.

  Ergo: A human's knowledge is limited.

  Further: All of the humans that exist, or will ever exist, 
  will always comprise a subset of the cosmos; Ergo, the 
  collective knowledge of humanity is also limited.

Argument dismantling the aforementioned

  That isn't convincing. All you have shown is there is not 
  a one to one ratio of particles in a  human brain and the
  sum of the universe. This isn't an indication of epistemic
  limitation. Although, I agree we have epistemic  limitations.

If a natural upper limit does exist - that also stunts our ability to rise above certain petty disputes arising out of a set of very human instincts such as ego, vanity and self-preservation - then progress could indeed be an illusory concept.

Source(s):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encephalization_quotient

http://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?s=8e29f5dcbb9c8b27...

http://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?s=8e29f5dcbb9c8b27...

Edit: Additions

[VLM]

The physics argument against your "Argument for a finite upper limit to human knowledge" is that outside one brains lightcone, nothing can be known or matter. Inside that brain's lightcone, the ratio of states between particles in the brain vs particles in the lightcone is "pretty good" such that it could, possibly, never become the limiting factor. Not "all the particles in the cosmos" but more like all the particles in the light cone plus whatever light arrives from further away outside. Its really pretty small now.

Also you can't use a scientific argument to discuss non-scientific things. "stuff outside the lightcone" is defined as non-scientific by its very nature. We'll never observe it by definition, we'll never be able to test a hypothesis by definition... Way outside the scientific method. You'll need a non-scientific argument. May as well use religion.

Now you might get somewhere with an argument a little more advanced based on some kind of communications theory theoretical maximum signal to noise ratio over a lifetime implying a maximum theoretical bandwidth of information. Perhaps some kind of (related?) thermodynamic argument.

[kijin]

I completely agree with you that human knowledge, whether individual or collective, is severely limited compared to all there is to know in the Universe. Part of this has to do with the fact that we as a species has only been observing the Universe scientifically for ~500 years. But it probably also has to do with the physiological limitations of homo sapiens. I don't disagree with any of that.

But what does that have to do with the sentences you quoted from me? Is it even relevant? Human knowledge is limited, so what?

    1. Human knowledge is limited.
    2. ???
    3. Ergo, progress is an illusory concept.

You haven't supplied a single proposition that could fill the space of #2.

Meanwhile, the fact that our mental capacities are limited has not prevented us from "rising above certain petty disputes arising out of ... ego, vanity, and self-preservation" at least from time to time, even if it's only .0001% of the time. The idea that progress always happens is a ridiculous proposition, but the idea that progress is always stunted by other factors is just as laughable. Also, even if we did agree that progress never happens in reality, there is still a very large logical gap between that and the (even more preposterous) proposition that the concept of progress itself is an illusion.

If you say "True progress rarely if ever happens", fine, we can talk about that.

If you say "Your definition of progress is wrong", fine, we can talk about that.

If you say "Progress is not one thing but many different things depending on the context", fine, we can talk about that. Cultural relativism is nothing new, there's plenty of good philosophy on that topic, and you're at least a century late to the game if you think waving the flag of cultural relativism will change anything.

But if you say "The concept of progress is an illusion" (or some variation of it), that's just one of those strings of profound-looking words that college freshmen put down in their PHIL 101 essays. If there is any useful content in such catchphrases, I have yet to see any. So I suppose it's just a figure of speech.

> Your argument has the appearance of something that's badly contrived (or derived).

Arguments don't have the "appearance" of being badly contrived, and even if they do in some sense, it doesn't matter. Either they are badly contrived, or they are not. If they are indeed badly contrived, it should be possible to say why without committing the fallacy of ignoratio elenchi.

[spitx]

Agreed.

It should have read:

  "The arc of human progress is an illusory one" 

or

  "The arc of human progress - as defined by the narrow parameters of decreasing
   number of recorded human conflicts and genocides, declining number of
   incurable devastating medical conditions, improving/degenerating overall
   environmental health of the planet etc - is an illusory one." 

or

as you put it

  "true human progress is illusory" (whatever the parameters that determine it)

However what cannot be denied is that "liberal humanism", as Gray puts it, has come to wield the "pervasive power" it has now, in large part due to the advancements made by the West in the fields of science, technology and medicine and not despite of those advancements.

It's hard to make a case for universal "liberal humanism" when your own people are succumbing to famines in the millions.

Eg: The Great Famine in Ireland (1845–1852).

So simply put

  1. Knowledge is an absolute necessary element for the overcoming of 
     "cultural backwardness, blindness and folly" and to advance 
     "to ever more elevated stages of enlightenment and 
     civilization" and thereby the progress of humans.
  2. Human knowledge is said to be limited.
  3. Ergo, human progress will always be stunted by the said natural 
     limit of knowledge.    
  4. Further: There is no necessary condition that prevents humans from 
     reverting to the ways of the past once that limit has been reached.

[kijin]

> It's hard to make a case for universal "liberal humanism" when your own people are succumbing to famines in the millions.

I already said that I'm no fan of "universal liberal humanism". If someone thinks the Irish famine was progress because everything progresses all the time, they're wrong. But just because liberal humanism has problems doesn't mean that one must run to the other extreme. "If you hate my enemy, join my side" might be a useful tactic in war, but in philosophy people will just shrug and say "No way, you're both my enemies." My opinion is that humanity sometimes progress, sometimes stagnates, and sometimes regresses.

Anyway, here's my objection:

    1. Agreed.
    2. Agreed.
    3. Nope. Human progress will be limited by the aforementioned
       limit of human knowledge, but this is a very large limit,
       so there's plenty of room for progress before we hit the limit.
       We might have already hit the limit in some areas, but that
       doesn't mean we won't keep making progress in other areas.
    4. Agreed, but there is no necessary condition that says that
       humans MUST revert to an inferior state, either.
       Maybe they'll just stagnate until evolution produces
       a superior species with higher limits of knowledge. Why not?
       Just because X isn't necessary doesn't mean that
       not-X is necessary. Usually, they're both unnecessary.

[cLeEOGPw]

Yes, limit for human brain should exist, however anyone with the ideal of progress knows that there are a couple of ways to change that - genetic modification and artificial intelligence are few of the possibilities. So the limits exists only for us, not necessarily for our children. Just like our ancestors at some time in the evolution path had limits that made them incapable of even having language, children of the future might exceed all our limits by a scale we don't even imagine now.

[sandking]

False because of the following:

* compression

* symbol substitution

* levels of abstraction

[jrkelly]

"Argument dismantling the aforementioned" should be required for any long post on HN. Would save lots of endless back-and-forth threads.