From: "Phil Roberts, Jr." 




[email protected] wrote:
> 
> In article <[email protected]>,
>   [email protected] wrote:
 
> >
> > We need to go back to an earlier part of the conversation.  I begin
> > with the intersubjectively reproducible feature of nature indexed
> > by the linguistic expression, 'feelings of worthlessness'.  Here's
> > a refresher:
> >
> >        A Sketch of a Divergent Theory of Emotional Instability
> >
> > Objective: To account for self-worth related emotion (i.e., needs for
> >    love, acceptance, moral integrity, recognition, achievement,
> >    purpose, meaning, etc.) and emotional disorder (e.g., depression,
> >    suicide, etc.) within the context of an evolutionary scenario; i.e., to
> >    synthesize natural science and the humanities; i.e., to answer the
> >    question:  'Why is there a species of naturally selected organism
> >    expending huge quantities of effort and energy on the survivalistically
> >    bizarre non-physical objective of  maximizing self-worth?'
> 
> I haven't yet seen why 'maximizing self-worth' cannot be seen as a
> mechanism to drive us towards status (thus maximizing reproductive
> potential in mating) as in other social animals. ie, 'self-worthless'
> feels lousy so that (and 'because' once comparison is available) 'self-
> worth' feels good since 'self-worth' will attract mates. Is status-
> attainment disputed?
> 

It can indeed be interpreted this way, although I would think trying to convince
yourself that Mother Teresa was just trying to get a date is going take a little
more imagination than I can come up with.  But, certainly, not everything 
we do in the pursuit of self-worth is maladaptive.  
Indeed, at the species level of description (which is not the level
at which natural selection actually works) it might even be argued that its the
chief engine in the scientific enterprize, global disaster relief, etc., and 
from which we all benefit.  But since this is more often than not at the physical 
expense of those who have physically sacrificed for various ideals (science,
etc.) (physical sacrifice for emotionally selfish reasons) you are generally 
abandoning the constraints
which you are supposed to always have in mind when you invoke natural selection
as your explanatory mechanism. 

It really boils down to whether or not you believe there is a major
schism between natural science and the humanities, and whether you want to 
squander a very interesting looking anomaly that might help to heal the 
schism on yet another panadaptionist explanation.  And given
the emotionally repulsive conclusions of my theory, there are certainly
lots of reasons (non-epistemic ones anyway) for preferring the status quo. 


> > Observation: The species in which rationality is most developed is
> >    also the one in which individuals have the greatest difficulty in
> >    maintaining an adequate sense of self-worth,
> 
> How can you support this? How do you gauge the degree of self-worth my
> goldfish maintain, or prairie dog?
> 

You don't.  You merely assume that science is not a license to treat stupidity 
as though it were a virtue.  And, of course, there is every likelyhood that the
more phylogenically proximal to man the more you are going to see some of the
early vestiges of those features which we regard as most peculiarly human.

> > often going to
> >    extraordinary lengths in doing so (e.g., Evel Knievel, celibate monks,
> >    self-endangering Greenpeacers, etc.).
> 
> As you've said elsewhere it's easy to suggest emotional reasons for
> apparently physically selfless acts. You are suggesting 'self-
> worthlessness' as a very broad underlying reason but might you not be
> only playing semantics?
> 

Yes.  One of the ways to find out for yourself would probably be to come up 
with something you've thought or done in the past few years that you believe 
was totally devoid of self-worth as a part of its motivaitonal hierarchy, and
let me see if I can convince you otherwise, I supppose.  Can you think of 
something?

> > Hypothesis: Rationality is antagonistic to psychocentric stability (i.e.,
> >    maintaining an adequate sense of self-worth).
> 
> 'Antagonistic to'..? Okay, fair enough, but I'm wondering if this really
> translates to 'the more you know the less you know' and similar. 

I wouldn't think so.  But that also has nothing to do with my theory, which
is more along the lines 'the more you know the more LIKELY you will experience 
a corresponding increase in emotional instability and morality' or, more 
specifically 'an 
increase in cognitive objectivity (at the cultural level of description) 
FACILITATES a (usually maladaptive) increase in valuative objectivity 
(a red-shift in the valuative profile away from the "ruthless selfishness" 
predicted by the kin calculus).  Your reading suggests a misunderstanding.

> I would
> probably prefer that 'objective knowledge' be used in place of your
> 'rationality' and that 'wisdom' be proffered as the solution to the
> impasse.
> 

Understandable.  Indeed, no harm will result if you merely assume that that
is what I am referring to with the word 'rationalty', as long as you take
it to include VALUATIVE OBJECTIVITY as well as epistemic/cognitive objectivity.
Mostly, 'ratinality' merely refers to a hypotheitcal X which makes man different
from the other animals, and which is at present something of a mystery.  My
view of 'feelings of worthlessness' as a maladaptive by product of the evolution
of this hypothetical X is presumed to allow us insight into the nature of this
this hypothetical X which has not previously been avialable via strictly 
philosophical techniques (e.g. the analysis of the ordinary use of words, etc.),
and certainly not available as the result of supposing that feelings of 
worthlessness are adaptive, and are actually being selected for.

As far as the wisdom part, that would ensue once one had a scientific theory
of mind/rationality etc. in which, hopefully, one might eventually be able
to scientifically manage emotional/valautive disorder, etc. as a result of 
having a scientific understanding of how values behave, etc.


-- 

                  Phil Roberts, Jr.

       The Psychodynamics of Genetic Indeterminism:
Why We Turned Out Like Captain Kirk Instead of Mr. Spock
     http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/dada/90/