From: [email protected]


In article <[email protected]>,
  [email protected] wrote:
>
>
> [email protected] wrote:
> >
> > In article <[email protected]>,
> >   [email protected] wrote:
> >
> > 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?
> >
>
> Although I already responded to this, I should also add that status, or
> at least pecking order, can all be maintained using the ancient emotion
> of fear, rather than relying on a far more lethal means which actually
> ends up incapacitating those who become sufficiently overwhelmed with
> a sense of worthlessness.

I don't see why 'a sense of worthlessness' cannot simply be described as
'fear of what worthlessness means to the organism' (ie, fear of no
status, fear of no food, fear of not reproducing etc). How is this
different to a meta-fear or a sub-fear? BTW, what do you make of fainting
and phobias? Those are other situations where something overwhelms to the
point of incapacitation.

[...]

> > Hmmm, how do you support the idea that most individuals are 'normal' in a
> > 'not-disordered' sense? To me, most individuals are less- and more-
> > disordered.
>
> You're preaching to the choir.

Fine, so what is this non-disordered rationality? Elsewhere you posted
this quote:

"My feelings a year hence should be just as important to me as my
feelings next minute, if only I could make an equally sure forecast of
them. Indeed this equal and impartial concern for all parts of one's
conscious life is perhaps the most prominent element in the common notion
of the _rational_." (Henry Sidgwick, 'The Methods of Ethics').

Urrrggghhh. I just don't get it. I mean, yeah sure okay right if you
wander along through life assuming you'll be alive next year, next week,
next decade, whatever, then this makes some sort of sense. But what sort
of rational mind would assume that they're going to stay alive for years
and decades? Mine doesn't, I expect only those with what I would think of
as unusual faith do.

> > Some psychologists and psychiatrists have argued that
> > virtually everyone would be diagnoseable under the DSM if you interviewed
> > them extensively and many sociologists consider that a majority of those
> > diagnoses can be considered politically or soci0-culturally based and
> > have little to do with 'disorder'.
> >
>
> Maybe.  But we want to understand why they are naturalistically disordered,
> which isn't quite so easy to dismiss -- why their valuative profile is
> "red-shifted"

Can you explain this term?

away from the "ruthless selfishness" we find throughout the
> rest of nature, and which is predicted by our current understanding of
> how natural selection works.  That's not quite so easy to dismiss as a
> cultural bias, on our parts.

I agree. I don't think it's quite as anomalous as has been suggested
though. I don't think that setting up 'ruthless selfishness' and
'altruism' as the two options makes sense, and I think that once we
recognise that defining the _species_ as either 'ruthlessly selfish' or
'altrusitic' is insupportable but that various _individuals_ have
differing levels of each (and many other qualities) things start to add
up a bit better, and within general understanding of natural selection.

[...]

> > >    by the linguistic expression, "I am insignificant", which all persons of
> > >    common sense "know" to be true, but which the "emotionally
> > >    disturbed" have come to "realize", through abstract thought,
> > >    devaluing experience, etc.
> >
> > Essentially it's 'too true' or 'so true it's unhealthy' for some, yes?
> >
>
> Yes.  All persons with common sense "know" its true, but for most of us, when
> we walk across the street and are about to be run over by a truck, we behave
> as if it isn't true.  That's because, if you are "normal", you simultaneously
> have to truths of opposite polarity at different levels of consciousness.

I vaguely remember some quote about the civilized mind being one that can
hold contradictory truths with equanimity...

In
> the oval office, which is the result of all the input of your immediate experience
> and on which your survival depends, you probably a close to thinking in terms of
> being the center of the valuative universe, the most significant entity, etc.

By 'the oval office' are you referring to the so-called 'lizard brain' at
the top of the spinal cord?

> Its keeping your theoreitcal, and more rational view, out of the oval office
> which requires that we expend such huge quantites of effort and energy on
> self-evaluating though and activity.

...frontal lobe?

Its O.K. to "know" you are insignificant,
> but when you start to "realize" it, nature invokes a severe repremand in the
> form of some of the most awful feelings it is possible for an organism to
> experience (worthlessness),

Okay, I think that's all fairly fair but we still have problems of
nomenclature with stuff like this. Is 'worthlessness' the same as
depression, insignificance, humiliation, spiritual impoverishment etc? I
gotta tell ya, feelings of 'worthlessness' are far from the worst
feelings in my book but it's quite possible that what _I_ think of as the
worst feelings would be described by _you_ as 'feelings of
worthlessness'. The thing is it's all so woolly that even if I stated
that 'complete dissociation' would be my choice for 'worst feeling' you
could make an argument for that being effectively a 'feeling of
worthlessness'. If you _want_ to make that descriptor the base ill-feeing
you can.

thereby incouraging one to take remedial action.
> Or at least that's what you would deduce from my explanation.

I've been wondering if your idea of rationality - 'holistic rationality'
- is what I refer to as 'attaining context'. This is the state where you
balance both your 'real' place in the universe and your self-interest
without feeling immoral in doing so. I think that if you fall out of that
then it can quickly become extremely distressing and you want to get back
there (if you've ever been there to start with). I wouldn't say this is
true across the species, though.

> > > Implications: So-called "free will" and the incessant activity presumed
> > >    to emanate from it is simply the insatiable appetite we all have for
> > >    self-significating experience which, in turn, is simply nature's way of
> > >    attempting to counter the objectifying influences of our rational
> > >    faculties.
> >
> > I don't se that it could be summarised so simply. "Self-signification" is
> > common throughout nature, and as far as I know is usually more complex
> > and subtle in social species;
>
> Hard to say, of course.  I suspect a peacocks behavior has less to do with
> pride and more to do with a certain form and behavior found to be most
> attention getting.  The blue footed boobees mating dance doesn't look all
> that self-significating, if you don't mind my saying so.  (Maybe to a boobee
> it is, but who can say).

Well um, of course - same with the peacock; we don't have to see it in as
complicated a setup as we see ourselves to see that each is part of
mating.

I think it is only in species phylogenically
> proximal to man that you will see much evidence of needs for love, acceptance,
> attention, etc., and then to a much lesser degree, and based on much less
> subtle cues from the environment ("Good dog", etc.).

Sure, we've got big brains and complicated symbol systems, much more so
than them. This gives us much more scope for expressing those needs -
"Civilization is nothing more than the effort to reduce the use of force
to the last resort". I mean, we are apparently satisfied living
separately within a city where most social animals don't like that degree
of separateness - we can satisfy some of our need for community by
telephone, internet, mail, TV etc where they can't. Just because our
ostensible 'drive for community' is not being satisfied by getting
together physically does not mean it isn't being satisfied at all or that
we don't behave in ways which are driven by it.

> > I don't argue with the suggestion that it
> > is _used_ to balance the emotionally debilitating effects of a very
> > rational mind but to say that one is simply the cause of another seems
> > too simplistic when the possibility that they develop congruently hasn't
> > been dismissed as far as I know. Why can't they be a symbiosis, a dynamic
> > equilibrium?
> >
>
> Not sure I understand.

As one developed so did the other, as oppositional elements in a balance.

> > This also implies that the engine in the first "free-thinking"
> > >    artifact is probably going to be a diesel.
> >
> > How do you derive this?
> >
>
> Because WE have a diesel.

I don't get it. I'm not mechanically minded so maybe explain what diesel
has to do with it.

We are constantly on the prowl for fresh self-significating
> data to replace the stale stuff which is no longer doing the trick, and which has
> actually left a residue making us even more jaded, even harder to convince.  Of
> course, at the same time, as we age, our status in the community often goes up,
> making the general epistemic background a little more hospitible for maintaining
> self-worth.  But even so, many of us just can't sit still without having those
> unpleasant little feelings starting to creep up on us.

Sounds kinda poetic and metaphorical but I don't see a 'hard' prediction
coming out of it.

[...]

> > > Additional Implications: Since the explanation I have proposed
> > >    amounts to the contention that the most rational species
> > >    (presumably) is beginning to exhibit signs of transcending the
> > >    formalism of nature's fixed objective (accomplished in man via
> > >    intentional self-concern, i.e., the prudence program)
> >
> > Surely this is only one factor - 'the prudence program' did not lead us
> > to have an opposable thumb, did it?
> >
>
> ?

I thought you were saying that 'the prudence program' was nature's way of
our attaining its fixed objective - I was saying we have various
attributes to our advantage.

> > > it can reasonably
> > >    be construed as providing evidence and argumentation in support of
> > >    Lucas (1961) and Penrose (1989, 1994). Not only does this imply
> > >    that the aforementioned artifact probably won't be a computer,
> > >    but it would also explain why a question such as "Can Human
> > >    Irrationality Be Experimentally Demonstrated?" (Cohen, 1981)
> > >    has led to controversy,
> >
> > It has? I would have thought that the answer was that such experiments
> > are done daily by bookmakers with a resounding answer. Ah, but that
> > depends on your definition of 'irrationality', doesn't it?
> >
>
> Yep.  Referring to a symposium in which thirty or more of the world's leading
> experts on rationality came across like inhabitants of the tower of 'Babble'
> (pun intended).

Heh, clear demonstration there, I'd say :)

But seriously, 'experts on rationality'? I'm _really_ dubious about that
idea unless there's a strong consensus among those experts that
'rationality' is very difficult to define and judge in others. There are
some things I'm happy enough to call 'irrational' - a person claiming
they are Julius Caesar would count - but I find it a very slippery and
dodgy concept.

> > in that it presupposes the possibility
> > >    of a discrete (formalizable) answer to a question which can only
> > >    be addressed in comparative (non-formalizable) terms (e.g. X is
> > >    more rational than Y, the norm, etc.).
> >
> > Which is why a lot of physical scientists think psychology and sociology
> > is bunk...
> >
>
> Maybe.  Mostly they think its a lot of bunk because it is.  Name a single
> scientific anomaly which has been addressed by psychology and sociology, and
> I might rethink this.

I'm happy with psychologists who believe they are in a helping profession
and have some tools of thought and perspective which can sometimes do
that. There are some areas which are more scientific ('neuropsychology';
statistical analysis) but in general psychs who are strident about how
scientific they are get my goat.

BTW, Leahey's 'A History of Psychology' is an excellent
> read on this.  Short, clear, and definitely to the point.

Heard of it but haven't read it. Thanks for the recommendation.

[...]

> > > Oops!  Sorry!  Wrong again, old bean.
> > >
> > >    "My ruling passion is the love of literary fame" (David Hume).
> >
> > Not if he somehow associated literary fame with staying alive...
> >
>
> True.  But why assume that, particularly given the number of human beings who
> have sacrificed their health and lives on the alters of this or that ideal
> etc.

Because the best models so far of 'mind' indicate multiply associative
connections from any 'information point' and those points being wavelets
- meaning that associations and ideas can easily be quite silly and stay
around for fifty years even if they don't make sense. Just because it's
generally a useful adaptation doesn't mean it invariably produces 'right
answers'.

> > >    "I have often felt as though I had inherited all the defiance and all the
> > >    passions with which our ancestors defended their Temple and could
> > >    gladly sacrifice my life for one great moment in history" (Sigmund
> > >    Freud).
> >
> > Pretty much as above - yes, I did notice he said 'sacrifice my life' but
> > I seriously doubt it had literal cognitive content.
> >
>
> Maybe because its incompatible with your "theory" of human nature.

If I've got one it isn't coherent.

But with
> suicide the second leading cause of death among the members of our species who
> have not yet reached their reproductive prime (teenagers), that quite a lot to
> assume, I think.

I don't think Freud knocked himself off, did he? My experience and
reading about suicide indicates that saying you'd sacrifice your life for
something (and was that quote from a published work or in a letter?) is
no indication of suicidal intent or ideation. Like most authors, Freud
was more than capable of exaggeration. People frequently say/write things
like "I'll kill you", "I could die", "You'll be the death of me" even
"You've killed me" and so on without it being literal.

> > >    "He, too [Ludwig Wittgenstein], suffered from depressions and for long
> > >    periods considered killing himself because he considered his life
> > >    worthless, but the stubbornness inherited from his father may have
> > >    helped him to survive" (Hans Sluga).
> > >
> > >    "The inquest [Alan Turing's] established that it was suicide.  The
> > >    evidence was perfunctory, not for any irregular reason, but because
> > >    it was so transparently clear a case" (Andrew Hodges)
> >
> > Erm, lots of highly _ir_rational _un_mathematical people have been
> > depressed and/or committed suicide too, y'know... I don't think that
> > suicide is particularly good evidence that someone has no drive to stay
> > alive, only that their drive not to outweighed it at one point.
> >
>
> What would an organism have to do before it finally got around to getting your
> attention?

Ummm, run through my flat naked except for a large purple frilly hat
while shouting "Fire!!!" That always does it.

Or are you suggesting we should simply adopt natural selection as
> an unfalisifiable dogma.

I'd say it's an unfalsifiable theory as it stands, but it has a lot of
good supporting evidence. That something is not confirming or is
anomalous by not conforming need not be construed as falsifying in the
sense of denying the whole idea or system _if_ that system is attempting
to address realities as complex as bio-evolution. We're not talking about
something like "All tables have four legs" here - one three-legged table
shoots us down in flames on that one, sure. This is more like "Tables are
made by people" and one is reported flying past an orbiting satellite. It
doesn't fit well but it doesn't disprove. Just because the possibility of
a furniture-carrying plane exploding at maximum altitude and one item
being blown into space is minimal doesn't mean it's impossible - there's
too much reliance on statistical significance determining 'fact' in the
less physical sciences IMO. In these fields it's very easy to make up
explanations which are consistent with the theory but which we might not
be able to check out so significance and statistical analysis have
buttressed the vacancy of empirical determinations but we shouldn't
forget where our answers are coming from. This is the sort of
'reductionism' thing I agree with Owleye about; reductionism gets more
and more unwieldy the more individualistic the subject matter - you
pointed this out too, I think - and the less we can honestly examine the
subject in its environemnt and the less we can subject it to our
influence and the less we can quantify it.

Hey.  Can I be the Pope.  I'll promise to make you
> a Cardinal.    :)

Oooh goody, red's my favourite colour!

Mick.
--
"Many a mickle makes a muckle".
[email protected]
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