From: "Phil Roberts, Jr." 




Owleye wrote:
> 
> "Phil Roberts, Jr." wrote:
> 
> >
> > 'Being rational' is not a matter of 'being efficient' (means/end theory) or of
> > 'maximizing self-interest' (egoism), but simply a matter of 'being able to "see"
> > what is going on'.  This seeing comes in three basic flavors:
> >
> >   1. Epistemic "seeing" (juxtaposed to 'being stupid or ignorant')
> 
> How is seeing related to having the ability to think logically, to understand 
> complex issues, to know vast quantities of information?
> 

It doesn't have a whole lot to do with logic, IMHO.  Like Hume, I happen
to think that 'all forms of reason are nothing but comparing', and as such
reasoning is chiefly ANAlogical.  This would also square with how majority
of rationality theorists view the matter as well (e.g., Henle, Cohen, etc.).

As far as "seeing", which you seem to be having an unusual amount of 
trouble with:

Assume I have some sort of understanding of how water behaves in the
garden hose, but have no understanding of electricity.  By drawing
analogy between the two I might eventually come to understand 
Volage as a correlate of pressure, amperage as a correlate of the
size or hose or AMOUNT of water, and power as the combination of 
the amount and the pressure in terms of turning a water wheel.  As 
such, I would use the knowledge I had already acquired about how
water behaves to help me to understand electricity.  Metaphorically,
I would come to "see" how water behaves via the vehcical of the
analogy.  This I assume is at the core of the reasoning process 
in epistemic matters, and is chiefly ANAlogical rather than logic.
Unlike Kant, I do not believe reasoning is a matter of following
rules/algorithmes, but rather a matter of COGNIZING rules/algorithms,
and with it, the freedome to TRANSCEND those rules/algorithms when
and if it becomes rational to do so.  Its because I am "seeing" the
rule from the outside rather than being inside it and determined 
by it that I can employ the knowledge to my own ends, or some such
rot.
 
> >
> >   2. Valuative "seeing" (juxtaposed to 'being evil or immoral')
> 
> How is seeing related to maturity?
> 

Because an increase in knowledge produces an increased likelyhood that
you will project yourself into the senetience of others and "see" the
world increasingly from their viewpoint as well as your own, and because
the more global platform resulting from an increase knowledge also 
results in a relativizing of the significance of matters which were
formerly the totallity of all that you knwe and understood.

> >
> >   3. Strategic "seeing" (juxtaposed to 'being incompentent or inefficacious')
> 
> How is seeing related to know-how?
> 

If your behavior is obviously irrational/stupid/uninformed/counter-productive,
but you just happen to luck out and it actually enhances your ability to
achieve an end, your behavior is not the more rational because of it.  The 
INTENTIONS underyling the behavior have to be right.  You have to "see" 
how the current action is effective in producing the intended objective,
and have a coherenet value system, one in which you "see" how all the 
values line up in the hirerarchy under the supremely valued end.  You
have to have the proper perspective, as we say.

> >
> >
> > Kant see's 1 and 3 as the basics of rationality, he sees it as either 
> > a matter of cognition/truth/etc. or amatter of doing.  I see 1 and 2 
> > as more basic and > > fundamental,
> > with a stratetic rationality being a derivative.  IOW, for me 'being 
> > rational' is
> > not about 'doing', but about 'seeing', including the sort of 'seeing' 
> > which we
> > associate with valuative impartiality/objectivity.
> 
> I'd disagree with your interpretation of Kant, but if you are relying on our ability to
> see things I'd be interested in knowing how we can distinguish between someone who does
> and someone who doesn't?  What is the difference between being smart and being stupid?  (I
> hope you don't beg the question by responding that its the ability to see better.)
> 

Loosely, an increase in epistemically objective, is simply another way of talking 
about an increase in knowledge, an increase in the correctness and completeness of 
one's beliefs or representations.  Its what Kant refers to as theoretical rationality.
The rationality of beliefs, although you have to be very careful here, because there
is a strategic sense, in which the ratinality of a belief is a matter of justification,
and the holistic sense, in which you are not talking about achieving the end of maximizing
true beleif, but merely referring to the extent to which the beliefs in the system 
approach objectivity.
 
> In any case, I'm left with a confusion about whether or not being rational is 
> or isn't the
> same thing as being good?
> 

It correlates with, and is probably synonymous, with an increase in VALUATIVE 
objectivity/rationality.  


> >
> > Emotion causes us to fixate on a part of the whole, and as such restricts
> > our "seeing".  However, ego-related emotional NEED and DISORDER are the
> > result of our no longer being sufficiently fixated on the self and its
> > needs.  Another way of saying this is that, in nature's most rational
> > species, we see two sides of the same valuative objectivity coin that is
> > not present in other species, 1. an increase in other-interestedness (non-
> > self-serving concern for other) and 2. a decrease in self-interestedness
> > (increased volatility in self-worth/self-interest, etc.).  In other words,
> > the valuative profile of the species is "red-shifted" away from the
> > "ruthless selfishness" predicted by the best and brightest we have working
> > in the field of natural selection.  My theory accepts the "ruthless selfisness"
> > prediction as a given, and then simply tries to "explain" the red-shift in
> > terms of a MALADAPTIVE psychodynamic mechanism, one in which an increase in
> > knowledge (epistemic objectivity) begins to produce an objectifying influence
> > on our values.  IOW, nature is INADVERTENTLY manufacturing goodness and
> > emotional instablity as maladaptive by-produts of the evolution of rationality
> > at a faster rate than she can eliminate them (e.g., throttleing every self-
> > incinerating Buddhist monk she can lay her hands on).
> 
> I take it you think emotion and rationality are opposing forces.  I am still left
> uncertain, as I was to the first posit, about my question.
> 

All strategic rationalities require the superimposing of a valuative IRrationality
(of sorts) onto an epistemic rationaliy.  IOW, the efficiency of achieving and
end increases as a function of an increase in epistemic rationality (at least
in man's ecological niche) and an increase in valuative IRrationality, that
is, in having the opposite of a valuative profile which is objective where the
significance of the fixed objective is concerned.  In other words, the fixed 
objective must be supremely valued, and to the exclusion of all other considerations,
of a more impartial view of the fixed objective which might result if one's 
view of it were less constricted.  Rationality is not inherently strategic,
it is holistic.  It has merely been adopted by mother nature to achieve a 
strategic end, but its holistic attributes eventually result in a species 
beginning to question the end itself (suicide, depression, incessant pursuit 
of self-worth, etc.).



> >
> > It includes it, but with the exception of man and perhaps his phylogenic
> > relatives, nature is blind, mechanical and arational.  As such, it is foolish
> > to suppose that the end nature has designed us to acheive (DNA replication
> > via the vehicle of self-interest) is itself rational, simply because rationality
> > has been enlisted to achieve that end.
> 
> This is rather confusing.  Are you affirming or denying it?
> 

Affirming.  Since our rationality is the product of natural selection (in conjunction
with cultural evolution), our rationality is obviously a part of nature.  However,
this is one small island of rationlaity sitting within a vast ocean of arationality.
The sex example works here.  Nothing in nature except man knows that it is trying
to reproduce.  So, by and large, nature is arational.  That's why Parfit questions 
whether we have a right to suppose that the end we have been "designed" to achieve
is a rational one.  Nature has begun to employ rationality in one species to achieve
the same arational end that she "designed" everything else to achieve.  As such, 
we have no right to assume that the end (perpetuating DNA) is rational, simply 
because rationality has been adopted as the means.


> >
> > 'Being good' is just another way of talking about 'being valuatively objective/
> > impartial'.  'Love your neighbor as your love yourself' is another way of
> > saying it.  It is the RESULT of "seeing" epistemically, a little too much
> > for one's own good, in that one begins to "see" one's own wants and needs
> > as the picky uny things that they are (volatility in self-interest) and one
> > begins to PROJECT one's self into the sentience of others, thereby extending
> > one's one wants and needs beyond one's self to others.  Then too, there is
> > the sense of "seeing" that we associate with the notion of 'objectivity'.
> > We assume that 'being objective' is getting outside our skin at and getting
> > more at the way things really are, not only epistemically (knowledge), but
> > valuatively as well (selecting non-kin for O.J.s trial who will be more
> > likely to "see" O.J.s good and evil for what it is).
> >
> 
> What tells me whether I have seen too much for my own good?
> 

For scientific purposes, if it reduces your inclusive fitness, and hence a 
matter strictly of physical costs and benefits.  For happiness purposes, if
the amount of happiness you would experience would be greater if you didn't
have this need, or at least didn't have it to such an extreme.

-- 

                  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/