From: Owleye 




"Phil Roberts, Jr." wrote:

> Not sure what you mean here.  The central objective is simply to "explain"
> the role of 'feelings of worthlessness' in the evolutionary scheme of
> things, and from which it is assumed that one would then have insight
> into such things as needs for love, acceptance, etc. and would indeed
> be able to go a long way in synthesizing natural science and the
> humanities.  To the extent you believe that needs for purpose, meaning,
> moral integrity, etc. have nothing to do with maintaining or attaining
> self-worth, then the explanatory pay-off would be much less, naturally.
> But that doesn't seem like a particularly reasonable position to take,
> if you don't mind my saying so.

I was troubled by your "synthesis of biology with humanity."  If you merely mean by
this a reductionism with respect to human behavior then we are back to problem of
arriving at an evolutionary account of human behavior.  If this is not your project
then I will have to understand what platform you are standing on in order to
synthesize these two perspectives.

>
> Feelings of worthlessness are an intersubjectively reproducible feature of
> nature, and therefore entirely appropriate as a matter of scientific
> sepculation, IMHO.  Indeed, to the extent you regard them as irrelevant
> to an understanding of human nature, I would say you are being foolish.

It may be appropriate though I'm not entirely sure why you pick this feature out for
special consideration.  Is there some evolutionary advantage to my feeling unworthy?
Does it serve some function?  If it is a disadvantage or dysfunctional, how can it be
explained from an evolutionary account?  You mention in a prior post anomolies -- a
kind of toleration for the dysfunctional.  Of what significance is this to someone
who is feeling unworthy?

>
>
> Or are you saying that this is a feature of nature with which you have
> had no experience.  Can you think of something you've thought or done
> in the past several years that didn't have a significant self-worth
> component in its motivational hierarchy?

I don't object to the concept of self-worth.  Indeed when I was much younger it
seemed to have some significance.  However, in so far as we are thinking of it as
some kind of supreme principle, I have significant doubts.  I'm thinking this is not
unlike believing that all of humanity can be seen through the lens of a concept I
happened to find useful in a therapeutic setting.

> Again, I can only assume you are not a memeber of the humam species if
> 'feelings of worthlessness' is a phrase which conveys no meaning to
> you.

See prior remark.

> The correlation between the presence of rationality and the presence
> of emotional instability in a species is something I assume you agree
> with.

No.  In fact to the extent to which I can keep my emotions under control so also I am
most rational.  However, see my remarks of a prior post regarding the sex drive.

> I am supposing that vicious would always be LESS RATIONAL than virtuous, in
> that it would entail being caught up more in one's own little sphere of
> wants and needs, and therefore require that one "see" less.  I don't deny
> the ability to do evil, just that it is always less rational than doing
> good, because it requires being blind to the more comprehensive considerations
> that the good person has to take into account.  Morality is very inefficient,
> which is no doubt why Hitler and Stalin were able to accomplish so much.  Its
> the price we pay for "seeing" a little too much for our own good, IMHO.

I confess having a great deal of difficulty with degrees of rationality as it might
be aligned to degrees os "sight."  Presumably this means that the self is extended in
scope in some way.  Are you thinking of humans falling within this extent.  How about
animals or sentient creatures, the environment, aliens, neighbors, the dead,
children, "etc." or are you thinking along a completely different axis?

>
> What society currently regards as normal and disorder?  E.g., the radio
> commercials suggest that if your depression lasts for less than two weeks
> its "normal", longer its a "disorder".  But I don't think we need to get
> this picky here.  After all, all we really want to do is to try to
> understand the role of 'feelings of worthlessness' in the evolutionary
> scheme of things and from which myriads of deductions will ensue.

Ok.  I'll be patient.  Let's then move to degrees of consciousness. Might this not be
thought of along the lines of sleep and wakefulness, or are you thinking that sleep
is merely a stage of consciousness.  In any case, how does it correlate to normalcy
and disorder.  In which direction should I take this comparison.  If I have some
disorder I can imagine I have a greater amount of consciousness whereas if I'm normal
I need not have any consciousness.  Consciousness is he produc of disorder.  One
might think that consciousness would not have evolved, though it is apparently
tolerated in consideration that other properties we have more than compensate for
it.  However, I would need more than this to make me think that consciousness is
dysfunctional.

> The only will which would be completely "free" would be innert, in my humble
> opinion.  All will is directed/determined in one way or another.  But this
> is not to argue against the possiblity that we might be LESS DETERMINED than
> other creatures.  For example, on every occasion you and I decide not to
> obey the mandates of fear, anger or sex, in order to accomplish what might
> be in our overall best interest, we are LESS DETERMINED and MORE RATIONAL
> than other species.  However, we are still determined, since striving to
> accomplish what is in one's overall best interest is itself a determined
> objective.  But since it is based on more comprehensive considerations, and
> is the result of "seeing" more, it is also one which is MORE RATIONAL.

Well, I don't want to get into a discussion of free will here, as I suspect this
would take us too far afield.  It is enough for me that you can accommodate a free
will in your system in some way.  I just wasn't able to correlate with how it is
typically used in ordinary conversation or on the witness stand.

> You know that, and I know that.  Unfortunately, just about everyone in the cog
> sci and AI communities don't agree.  So it would be helpful if one could marshal
> EVIDENCE.

Well, perhaps, but I'm thinking there is a metaphysical and not just a scientific
question that is being addressed, both here and in our discussion.

> I am assuming that far and away the best "explanation" for 'feelings
> of worthlessness' in a naturally selected species is that they are evidence that
> the species is beginning to show signs of "standing outside the system", becoming
> LESS DETERMINED by natural selection, and requiring REASONS for continuing to
> survive.  As such, I consider them an intersubjectively reproducible feature of
> nature which confirms the opinion you and I share on this matter, and which can
> be used to argue against the vast majority in the soft sciences who disagree with
> us.

One difficulty with this "evidence" is that I might be able to say that feelings of
self-worth are helpful in an evolutionary sense if the environment is one of
overpopulation.  Moreover, any particular apparently dysfunctional trait we observe
might be useful to keep the population down.  Alternatively, any given population
always has a diverse range of genetic expression.  Moreover, in humans, I don't even
see that any characteristic observed is completely functional since humans don't
appear (at least to me) to have an environmental niche in which a function is
stable.  As a species we are just not all that limited by our environment.  Indeed we
can pretty much create any environment we choose.  I don't think we are puny at all.

>
>
> > Notwithstanding this, consciousness is
> > far from being explained and I think we would need to accomplish this
> > before we can approach the problem.
> >
>
> Agreed.  The best way to do this is by finding a scientific anomaly, and
> developing a thesis to explain it, and testing the thesis against reality
> in terms of the number of things it can explain.

My theory is that the key "anomoly" is freedom though science is not my main tool in
making progress, notwithstanding that I do believe science well understands what
freedom is.  Consciousness will be much more difficult for science to comprehend.

owleye