From: "Phil Roberts, Jr." 




[email protected] wrote:
> 
> In article <[email protected]>,
>   [email protected] wrote:


> 
> > Also, I am supposing that reasoning, at its core, is ANAlogical,
> > which might not be a problem for my theory, even if such patients
> > are less adept with logic when no longer depressed.
> 
> Both inductive and dedutive reasoning are 'analogical'? I don't really
> know what you mean by this.
> 

I don't think deduction is reasoning, strictly speaking, but more like
working out the details, remembering the results of reasoning which has 
already transpired.  Its analagous to the manner in which a rat which has
learned to run a maze is not engaged in conditioning, but merely working 
out the details of the conditioning which has already taken place.

> >
> > Very.  And at an even more general level, where we don't have to worry
> > about idosyncracies in the testing procedure, it is abundently clear
> > that there is a correlation between the rationality of the species and
> > the presence of both morality and emotioanl instability in the species,
> > suggesting, to me at least, a causal relationship, that ratioality
> > "causes" an increase in emotional instability, i.e., an increased
> > volatility in self-worth, often with a life-threatening reduction
> > in self-interest.
> 
> Why is the suggestion not be the other way around - emotional instability
> means that rationality becomes more valuable as a controlling factor?
> again I'm struck by the interactive possibility - the two serving each
> other in equilibrium.
> 

Epistemic/cognitive rationality can be employed to understand rationality in
general, and valuative rationality, in particular, for the purposes of getting
a handle on emotional disorder.  Understanding what it "is" (a maladaptive 
price we all have to pay for "seeing" a little more than nature had ever 
intended us) can certainly be helpful in this regard.  For example, personally, 
I look on my three nervous breakdowns before 23 as my red badge of courage,
as evidence that I started to figure out what was really going on at a very
early age.  Naturally, all this is very ego boosting.  Indeed, for the first
few years after I formulated my theory I thought I was some sort of super man.
Eventually, this wears off a bit, but you are still left with a residue of this
understanding which makes one's genetic predisposition to emotional instability 
much easier to handle.  Or at least that's been my experience so far.


-- 

                  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/