Are you a dualist, physicalist or idealist?

[Waffles]

Im a firm believer in natural law. There has been talk, most prominently by thomas aquinas and various other philosophers that there is a higher call, but to me it seems it is just necessary for survival to be social creatures (or was). When you get into intentionality, I can't help but say that humans are not necessarily changing anything in a cosmic way. That may change with time, but I think other views lend themselves to arrogance for the human species. We are dominant sure, but that is a survival mechanism, not a conscious completely conscious choice. Obviously you can choose to ignore this (suicide cases, etc.) but that may just be some chemicals going wrong. To answer alien, our knowledge as you point out is cumulative knowledge. What we had before was a "primal state" where it became necessary (advantageous) to work with tools and stick together. These traits gradually evolved through natural selection to be favored. Our perception of the world, in large, is shaped as a natural human experience with mutation, and shaped also by our world (nature and nurture). Some humans perceive color differently, but due to our taxonomic leanings, we classify blue as blue, whatever that color may actually be to the person is irrelevant in this example. I'm a physicalist in the large-scale, or geographic, sense of the word, and I think most variations can be explained. If you all are curious about the nature of perception. There is a great book that deals with modern perceptions called "Digital Mantras" and for examples of taxonomy "Origin of Species" and for language anything by Chomsky. There is also a great book that is a fun read called "maps of time: an introduction to big history."

Obviously most of my knowledgederives from things i choose to read, and in no way am i saying i am right. But the way i see it, this view makes the most sense, but I could be persuaded otherwise. It would take fairly strong evidence to sway me though.