Feelings of Worthlessness
Phil Roberts, Jr.
Feelings of Worthlessness
Its difficult to overstate the damage that has been done
to the cause of understanding human nature by the misguided
belief that science must be anchored in if not necessarily
restricted to objectively observable (i.e., physical) features
(e.g., Dennett, 1991, pp. 71-73). In what follows I'll
attempt to address this imbalance by examining the
evolutionary role of an egregiously overlooked(1) non-physical
feature of nature, 'feelings of worthlessness', beginning with
a simple observation and, what to me at least, has always
seemed to be a crashingly obvious implication:
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,
often going to extraordinary lengths in doing so (e.g., Evel
Knievel, celibate monks, self endangering Greenpeacers, etc.).
Hypothesis: Rationality is antagonistic to psycho centric
stability (i.e., maintaining an "adequate" sense of self-
worth).
Explanation #1: In much the manner reasoning allows for the
subordination of lower emotional concerns and values (pain,
fear, anger, sex, etc.) to more global concerns (concern
for the self as a whole), so too, these more global concerns
and values can themselves become reevaluated and subordinated
to other more global, more objective considerations. And if
this is so, and assuming that emotional disorder emanates from
a deficiency in self-worth resulting from precisely this sort
of experientially based reevaluation, then it can reasonably
be construed as a natural malfunction resulting from one's
rational faculties functioning a tad too well.
Explanation #2: Being the blind arational process that she is,
mother nature instills in all her creatures a sense of their
own importance (or of the importance of their needs) that
is rationally inordinate. And, as a species reaches a certain
stage in its rational/cultural/memetic development, its
members increasingly come to question this inordinancy, and
increasingly come to require reasons (justification) for
maintaining it (needs for love, acceptance, moral integrity,
religion, autonomy, justice, purpose, meaning, status,
wealth, etc.).
Normalcy and Disorder: Assuming this is correct, then some
explanation for the relative "normalcy" of most individuals
would seem necessary. This is accomplished simply by
postulating different levels or degrees of consciousness.
From this perspective, emotional disorder would then be
construed as A VALUATIVE AFFLICTION resulting from an
increase in semantic content in the engram indexed 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.
Indeterminism: "Free will" and the incessant activity presumed
to emanate from it is simply the insatiable appetite members
of our species have for self-significating/self-worth
enhancing experience (juxtaposed with the need to avoid the
pain of 'feelings of worthlessness') which, in turn, is simply
nature's way of attempting to counter the objectifying
influences of our rational faculties. As such, although "free
will" itself (the self-worth complex) is constrained within
parameters determined by natural selection (the maximizing of
self-worth), its presence in us, manifested in the need to
expend significant amounts of effort and energy on maintaining
emotional well-being (keeping up with the Joneses, climbing Mt.
Everest, posting to newsgroups, etc.) would, according to this
perspective, be construed as evidence that members of nature's
most rational species have become too valuatively objective
(requiring remedial adaptation) and as such, LESS DETERMINED
by natural selection than members of less rational more
emotionally stable species. In this view, indeterminism is
manifested, not in the ability to change one's mind about what
to have for breakfast, but rather in a reduced more volatile
concern for staying alive (e.g., daily suicide bombings in
the middle east) and an increased concern with REASONS
(justification) for staying alive (needs for love, justice,
autonomy, purpose, etc.).
Rationality: Since the explanation I have proposed amounts to
the contention that nature's most rational species (presumably)
is beginning to exhibit signs of transcending the formalism of
nature's fixed objective (by questioning the value of one's
self and with it, one's survival), it can reasonably be construed
as providing evidence and argumentation in support of the Lucas/
Penrose argument regarding the implications of Godel's theorem,
i.e. that 'being rational' entails a capacity for "standing
outside the system" (Lucas) or "thinking outside the box" (Ross
Perot). Not only would this imply that the first "free-thinking"
artifact probably won't be a computer (i.e., computationalism is
false), but it would also explain why a question such as 'Can
Human Irrationality Be Experimentally Demonstrated?' (Cohen, 1981)
has led to confusion, in that it presupposes the possibility
of a discrete (formalizable) answer to a question which can
only be meaningfully addressed in comparative (non-formalizable)
terms (e.g., X is more rational than Y, the norm, etc.). Along
these same lines, the theory can also be construed as an
endorsement or metajustification for comparative approaches in
epistemology (explanationism, plausiblism, etc.) in which
theory X is implicitly more rational (e.g., "explains" more) than
theory Y rather than discretely "true" or "false".
Ethics: Since, according to this explanation, more rational equates
with more valuatively objective, the valuative objectivity
implicit in the moral maxim, 'Love (intrinsically value) your
neighbor as you love (intrinsically value) yourself' would be
construed as an implicit theory of rationality we humans have
been subconsciously entertaining for the past several thousand
years. It would also mean that the author of Genesis got it
right in referring to the emergence of an awareness of right
and wrong as a form of knowledge. The emotive force of
moral argument apparently arises from the fact that viewing
ourselves as rational (according to our shared implicit theory)
is a crucial determinant in assesssing self-worth which, in a
species that accomplishes its survival from a conscious intention
to do so (long range planning) rather than as a cumulative effect
of blindly responding to stimuli, is just another way of talking
about "the will to survive".
FOOTNOTE
(1). Gleitman’s, ‘Psychology’, at one time the bible according
to cognitive science, contains over 700 pages on everything
from acquisition curves to zygotes without a single mention
of ‘feelings of worthlessness’, ‘self-esteem’, ‘self-worth’,
‘guilt’, etc. Nor do things seem to have gotten much better
in its more recent iteration, evolutionary psychology. ‘The
Adapted Mind’ serves up 600 pages on everything from abduction
to wife sales but, sadly, not a word on ego/self-worth related
emotional need or disorder, feelings of worthlessness, guilt,
self-esteem, self-worth, etc:
REFERENCES
1. Barkow, Cosmides and Tooby (ed.), The Adapted Mind, 1992.
2. Cohen, L. Jonathan, 'Can Human Irrationality be Experimentally
Demonstrated?', The Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1981, 4,
pp. 317-370.
3. Dennett, D. C., Consciousness Explained, 1991, pp. 71-73.
4. Gleitman, Henry, Psychology, 1981.
5. Lucas, J. R., 'Minds, Machines and Godel', Philosophy, Vol
XXXVI (1961).
6. Penrose, Roger, The Emperor's New Mind, 1989; Shadows of the
Mind, 1994.
P.S. For a more detailed explanation of the mechanics of how
our species has become too valuatively objective (too
rational) and thereby less determined by natural
selection, see my paper URL'd below in which, rather
than caving in to the siren call of group selection,
it is assumed that it has been produced by two
different types of "hitchhiker" mechanisms, one in a
which an adaptive increase in cognitive objectivity
"facilitates" a maladaptive increase in valuative
objectivity and one in which an adaptive increase in
prudential values "facilitates" a maladaptive increase
in moral values (e.g., ftn. 9 and Explanation #1
above).
Phil Roberts, Jr.
Why We Turned Out Like Captain Kirk Instead of Mr. Spock:
The Psychodynamics of Genetic Indeterminism
http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/dada/90/Kirk.htm
Gil Lawton
Please allow me to discuss the following quote you cited from
Daniel C. Dennet:
It's difficult to overstate the damage that has been done
to the cause of understanding human nature by the misguided
belief that science must be anchored in if not necessarily
restricted to objectively observable (i.e., physical) features
(e.g., Dennett, 1991, pp. 71-73).
I do not wish to refute this quote, but to examine why it does
not seem to me to make sense. I do not feel qualified to argue
against it, but merely wish to explain how and why it conflicts
with many ideas previously integrated into my learning to date.
From the standpoint of creative writing, it strikes me as an
attention arousing device -- as "shock statement," if you will.
So broad and sweeping are the implications of it that I cannot
reduce my problem with those implications in a mere sentence
or two.
First of all, let me disclose my understanding of the nature of
the line I feel constrained to recognize between what is, and is
not, physical. I am unable to contemplate mass as existing
separate and apart from time and acceleration. While it is a
useful abstraction for the human mind to contemplate an object
not in motion, or existing separate and apart from time, this is
unachievable. To freeze a single body of mass in one place is
only to conceive of it as being still, while all other mass is moving.
Yet none can say which point in the universe is the one point
outside which it is only all the rest that is moving. Thus, unless
we freeze in place all the mass in the universe at one moment,
then nowhere is there an object not in motion.
Correct me if I am wrong, but is not the physical world, then, as
meaningless without the expression of energy and the directions of
its expression, as it would be meaningless without mass? My
thinking finds it so. And, concomitantly, my thinking does not
perceive such things as time or motion to be of the metaphysical
realm, but the physical.
Neither do human emotions, in my current thinking, exist outside
the context of an organism to make and experience them, any more
than time or motion might have meaning outside the context of
some mass.
Again, the only distinction I conceive to exist between the physical
and the metaphysical is a distinction between what man has the
power to observe, measure and manipulate and what man does
not have the power to observer, measure and manipulate. But let
me expand the meanings of these to include indirect observation,
measurement and manipulation. Dr. Einstein, in contemplating
Browning motion came up with an idea for what might explain it.
In doing so, he did not observe cause. He observed, instead, an
effect and, from that effect, he extrapolated a "possible" cause.
And to this very day, to my knowledge at least, no human has
ever seen one of the atoms directly. It is only by the convergence
of many other effects -- by us, observable, measurable and manipulable --
that most scientists today are enabled to reach a consensus that
some kind of something vaguely understood by us (an "atom")
exists at all.
Dr. Einstein's speculations, have an uncanny batting average for
lending themselves to such convergences. However, at my
thinking would have it, we would not be justified in concluding
that the understanding of the atom was misguided by a
belief that such convergence was necessary.
I have only touched the tips of these things, and hope I have not,
even so, made this message grossly and offensively long.
But let me say, in a nutshell, that my mind balks at the shocking
implication that the understanding of human nature is "... by the
misguided belief that science must be anchored in if not necessarily
restricted to objectively observable (i.e., physical) features."
If science is to pull up that anchor, and set itself adrift in an ocean
without any limits on conjecture, without any restraints upon pure
speculation, without any requirement even for corroboration in the
form even of circumstantial evidence from manifold testing, then
science merely crosses over into metaphysics and thereupon
ceases to exist. Or so, I should add, goes the thinking of my
meager, formally uncredentialed thinking. And I am sincere when
I say to you, I offer this in totally humility and with utmost willingness
to be persuaded to a higher and better way of perceiving it.
Offered humbly, respectfully and openly toward hope of
further elucidation by you,
Gil Lawton
Phil Roberts, Jr.
> Phil,
>
Howdy Gil:
> Please allow me to discuss the following quote you cited from
> Daniel C. Dennet:
>
> It's difficult to overstate the damage that has been done
> to the cause of understanding human nature by the misguided
> belief that science must be anchored in if not necessarily
> restricted to objectively observable (i.e., physical) features
> (e.g., Dennett, 1991, pp. 71-73).
>
Here's a little something from another post of mine that explains
Dennett's position on this matter a little clearer. I'll come
back with a second response to your post with some more direct
responses to some of the issues you have raised.
In 'Consciousness Explained' Dennett offers a nice overview
on this matter (p. 44):
Philosopher's and psychologists often use the term
'phenomenology' as an umbrella term to cover all the items
-- the fauna and flora, you might say -- that inhabit our
conscious experience: thoughts, smells, itches, pains,
imagined purple cows, hunches, and all the rest. This
usage has several somewhat distinct ancestries worth
noting. In the eighteenth century, Kant distinguished
"phenomena, "things as they appear, from "noumena," things
as they are in themselves, and during the development of
the natural or physical sciences in the nineteenth century,
the term 'phenomenology' came to refer to the merely
descriptive study of any subject matter, neutrally or
pretheoretically. The phenomenology of magnetism, for
instance, had been well begun by William Gilbert in the
sixteenth century, but the explanation of that phenomenology
had to await the discoveries of the relationship between
magnetism and electricity in the nineteenth century, and
the theoretical work of Faraday, Maxwell, and others.
Alluding to this division between acute observation and
theoretical explanation the philosophical school or movement
known as Phenomenology (with a capital P) grew up early in the
twentieth century around the work of Edmund Husserl. Its
aim was to find a new foundation for all philosophy (indeed,
for all knowledge) based on a special technique of
introspection, in which the outer world and all its
implications and presuppositions were supposed to be
"bracketed" in a particular act of mind known as 'epoche'.
The net result was an investigative state of mind in which
the Phenomenologist was supposed to become acquainted with
the pure objects of conscious experience, called 'noemata',
untainted by the usual distortions and amendments of theory
and practice. Like other attempts to strip away
interpretation and reveal the basic facts of consciousness
to rigorous observation, such as the Impressionist movement
in the arts and the Introspectionist psychologies of Wundt,
Titchener, and others, Phenomenology has failed to find a
single, settled method that everyone could agree upon.
So while there are zoologists, there really are no
phenomenologists: uncontroversial experts on the nature of
things that swim in the stream of consciousness. But we can
follow recent practice and adopt the term (with a lower-case
p) as the generic term for the various items in conscious
experience that have to be explained.
Dennett's own approach (heterophenomenology) begins with:
The British Empiricists, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume,
likewise wrote with the presumption that what they
were doing, much of the time, was 'introspecting',
and that their introspections would be readily
replicated by their readers.....(Chapt 4, second
paragraph).
only to dismiss their accomplishments on the grounds that
they occasionally got things wrong:
This would be fine if it weren't for the embarrassing fact
that controversy and contradiction bedevil the claims made
under these conditions of polite mutual agreement.
Apparently, introspection is ka ka because it is not infallible:
Ever since Descartes and his "cogito ergo sum," this
capacity of ours has been seen as somehow immune to
error; we have privileged access to our own thoughts
and feelings, an access guaranteed to be better than
the access of any outsider.
As Dennett sees it, the solution to this problem is, not to
limit introspective reports to reproducible features as they
do in the other sciences, but rather to have the introspectionist
write down her observations and hand them to a second party
who can bring the full weight of "third person" objective
science to bear on the problem.
Funny. I always thought of Faraday and Rutherford as engaged
in first person observations. Applying Dennett's rationale,
their work could have been much improved if they had relied on
written reports from lab technicians. Hey. If third person
is more scientifically reliable than first person, perhaps
fourth person reports would be better yet. Think of the
advances science could make with, say, sixth or seventh
person reports. :)
Admittedly, this is something of a caricature of Dennett's
argument and, admittedly there are times when third person
observations and experiments can indeed enlighten us about
the mind. My point is simply that there is no royal road to
truth and, until one is found, perhaps we should worry less
about whether data is physical or psychical and worry more
about whether data is intersubjectively reproducible so that
we can all keep an eye on each other.
PR
Phil Roberts, Jr.
> Phil,
>
Second response to Gil on this.
> Please allow me to discuss the following quote you cited from
> Daniel C. Dennet:
>
> It's difficult to overstate the damage that has been done
> to the cause of understanding human nature by the misguided
> belief that science must be anchored in if not necessarily
> restricted to objectively observable (i.e., physical) features
> (e.g., Dennett, 1991, pp. 71-73).
>
> I do not wish to refute this quote, but to examine why it does
> not seem to me to make sense. I do not feel qualified to argue
> against it, but merely wish to explain how and why it conflicts
> with many ideas previously integrated into my learning to date.
> From the standpoint of creative writing, it strikes me as an
> attention arousing device -- as "shock statement," if you will.
Perhaps because you hadn't read the accompanying post entitled
'Rehabilitating Introspection' and ftn. 1 in the 'Feelings of
Worthlessness' post. 'Rehab..' began with:
Rehabilitating Introspection
A Defense of and Procedure for a First Person Psychical Science
Facilitated by the isomorphism customarily apparent within
classifications of natural objects (e.g., atoms of oxygen),
verification in science is not so much a matter of public
demonstration as a manifestation of OUR COLLECTIVE FAITH
in inter-subjective reproducibility (e.g., replicating an
observation or experiment). As such, there would seem
little reason, in principle, for treating a scientist's
first person observations of the private events within his
own mind as epistemically inferior to so-called empirical
observations of physical events, so long as they can pass
the muster of reproducibility.
If I'm right here, than what truly qualifies the scientific from
the non-scientific, at least in terms of what qualifies as data,
IS NOT THE APPARENT ONTIC STATUS OF THE DATA (phyical or
psychical, e.g., thoughts, feelings, etc.) BUT WHETER OR NOT IT
IS INTERSUBJECTIVELY REPRODUCIBLE:
"Discussions of scientific method have tended to stress
problems of testability, while neglecting...those
aspects of the universe which in some sense are most central
and significant for the area of reality with which the
science deals." "It has been frequently assumed that only
those events which in principle can be simultaneously observed
by multiple observers ... are to be accepted as constituting a
legitimate observational basis for science." "I am suggesting
that the more general and, to me, acceptable, objective intended
by the criterion of interobserver agreement would be...the criterion
of repeatability....a more general trust in one's own experience"
...and the abandonment of "a corresponding uncritical acceptance
of the significance of verbal reports." (Karl Zener - 'The
Signifance of Experience of the Individual for the Science
of Psychology, Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science)
> So broad and sweeping are the implications of it that I cannot
> reduce my problem with those implications in a mere sentence
> or two.
>
I certainly understand your concern. And certainly the dominant
opinion in the soft sciences has been driven by at least the implicit
assumption that science simply has to be about features that are
objectively observerable, which is actually just the implicit
assumption that no self-respecting scientist would ever be anything
but a mechanistic materialist. Cognitive science, evolutionary
psychology, all have their roots in behaviorism even if they've
seemed to lighten up a bit, and behaviorism has its roots in
logical positivism which, in my humble opinion, has ALWAYS
BEEN A METAPHYSICS (mechanistic materialism) MASQUERADING AS
A QUEST FOR EPISTEMIC RIGHTEOUSNESS. I use the term, righteousness,
because in my humble opinion ITS A FRICKIN' RELIGION complete with
a succession of popes (Pope J. B. (Watson), Pope B. F. (Skinner,
Pope Dan (Dennett), etc.), sanctified rituals (statistical surveys,
fixation with Humean constant conjunctions, falsificationism, word
salads aimed at eliminating qualia, etc.) and SINFUL THOUGHTS
(e.g., dualism, indeterminism, etc.):
"Discussions of scientific method have tended to stress
problems of testability, while neglecting...those
aspects of the universe which in some sense are most central
and significant for the area of reality with which the
science deals." "It has been frequently assumed that only
those events which in principle can be simultaneously observed
by multiple observers ... are to be accepted as constituting a
legitimate observational basis for science." "I am suggesting
that the more general and, to me, acceptable, objective intended
by the criterion of interobserver agreement would be...the criterion
of repeatability....a more general trust in one's own experience"
...and the abandonment of "a corresponding uncritical acceptance
of the significance of verbal reports." (Karl Zener - 'The
Signifance of Experience of the Individual for the Science
of Psychology, Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science)
> First of all, let me disclose my understanding of the nature of
> the line I feel constrained to recognize between what is, and is
> not, physical. I am unable to contemplate mass as existing
> separate and apart from time and acceleration. While it is a
> useful abstraction for the human mind to contemplate an object
> not in motion, or existing separate and apart from time, this is
> unachievable. To freeze a single body of mass in one place is
> only to conceive of it as being still, while all other mass is moving.
> Yet none can say which point in the universe is the one point
> outside which it is only all the rest that is moving. Thus, unless
> we freeze in place all the mass in the universe at one moment,
> then nowhere is there an object not in motion.
>
> Correct me if I am wrong, but is not the physical world, then, as
> meaningless without the expression of energy and the directions of
> its expression, as it would be meaningless without mass? My
> thinking finds it so. And, concomitantly, my thinking does not
> perceive such things as time or motion to be of the metaphysical
> realm, but the physical.
>
"Physical concepts are the free creations of the human mind and
are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external
world."--A. Einstein in The Evolution of Physics with L. Infeld,
1938.
Here's what he had to say about logical positivism:
By his clear critique Hume did not only advance philosophy in a
decisive way but also -- though through no fault of his own --
created a danger for philosophy in that, following his critique,
a fateful "fear of metaphysics" arose which has come to be a
malady of contemporary empiricist philosophizing; this malady
is the counterpart to that earlier philosophizing in the
clouds, which thought it could neglect and dispense with what
was given by the senses (A. Einsten, 'Remarks on Bertrand
Russell's Theory of Knowledge').
> Neither do human emotions, in my current thinking, exist outside
> the context of an organism to make and experience them, any more
> than time or motion might have meaning outside the context of
> some mass.
>
Then, obviously, we'll be able to observe them with a physical
detection device of some sort or other. Of course, we are going
to have to be careful here. If you point to brain waves, or
chemical imbalances, while you and I might might both agree that
there
are causal relationships between an emotion and a brain wave,
the emotive power of the emotion, its phenomeanl quality, etc.
none of these are physically detectable. They can only be
inferred, based on your and my first person experiences with
emotions. But, to this date, thought, feelings, ideas, etc.
seem to be in an ontic realm all their own, like consciousness,
as crazy as it sounds, all these creatures of the phenomenal
realm seem to reside in a single co-ordinate of time. But
then, with the advent of the Minkowski's addendum to special
realiativity, perhaps not quite so crazy as it once might
have seemed, eh?
> Again, the only distinction I conceive to exist between the physical
> and the metaphysical is a distinction between what man has the
> power to observe, measure and manipulate and what man does
> not have the power to observer, measure and manipulate. But let
> me expand the meanings of these to include indirect observation,
> measurement and manipulation. Dr. Einstein, in contemplating
> Browning motion came up with an idea for what might explain it.
> In doing so, he did not observe cause. He observed, instead, an
> effect and, from that effect, he extrapolated a "possible" cause.
> And to this very day, to my knowledge at least, no human has
> ever seen one of the atoms directly. It is only by the convergence
> of many other effects -- by us, observable, measurable and manipulable --
Observable maybe, but measurable and manipulable may need to be
revised should we get into any sort of full-fledged science
of the mind. What did Darwin measure and manipulate? Perhaps
he did some, but mostly he was dependent on qualitative
anlysis, the stuff that goes on in the right side of the brain.
What drop dead prediction or test did he offer?
> that most scientists today are enabled to reach a consensus that
> some kind of something vaguely understood by us (an "atom")
> exists at all.
>
The reason for this is because causation can NEVER be observed in
the physical world. Over two centuries ago, the venerable Hume
already pointed out to us that the only OBSERVABLE physical
relationships are spatial/temporal. The only "impression of
experience" any scientist ever has with causation is with his
own mind's affectations and effectations. That's why the
early vestiges of prescientific thinking postulated fully
self-conscious spatially non-extended causal agents in the
volcanoes, earthquakes and the like. The fact that modern
science often postulates causal agents that are a lot
dumber and simpler doesn't alter the fact that, on every
occasion a physical scientist offers a causal hypothesis
HE IS ALREADY BORROWING FROM FOLK PSYCHOLOGY.
> Dr. Einstein's speculations, have an uncanny batting average for
> lending themselves to such convergences. However, at my
> thinking would have it, we would not be justified in concluding
> that the understanding of the atom was misguided by a
> belief that such convergence was necessary.
>
> I have only touched the tips of these things, and hope I have not,
> even so, made this message grossly and offensively long.
>
Are you kiddin'. Have you checked out some of the bandwith being
gobbled up by some of the kooks? You're doin' great so
far.
> But let me say, in a nutshell, that my mind balks at the shocking
> implication that the understanding of human nature is "... by the
> misguided belief that science must be anchored in if not necessarily
> restricted to objectively observable (i.e., physical) features."
>
> If science is to pull up that anchor, and set itself adrift in an ocean
> without any limits on conjecture, without any restraints upon pure
> speculation, without any requirement even for corroboration in the
> form even of circumstantial evidence from manifold testing, then
> science merely crosses over into metaphysics and thereupon
> ceases to exist.
What I'm trying to do is to get the metaphysics OUT of the science,
i.e., 19th century materialism, you know, the naive simplistic
view we had of the world as kids when we were watching 'Mr. Wizard' do
his science tricks on Saturday morning television? Nowadays, I'm
what I refer to as a 'tongue-and-cheek dualist', i.e, someone with
the same passionate desire for reduction that drives the monist,
but who believes no plausible reduction is currently on the
horizon and, as such, someone who has no choice but to treat the
physical and the psychical as equally "real", BUT WITH NO FIRM
COMMITMENT AS TO JUST HOW REAL THAT MIGHT TURN OUT TO BE. In
other words, 'tongue-in-cheek dualism' is just a cutsy term for
ontological agnosticism. Gosh! That sounds a lot like:
"Physical concepts are the free creations of the human mind and
are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external
world."--A. Einstein in The Evolution of Physics with L. Infeld,
1938.
> Or so, I should add, goes the thinking of my
> meager, formally uncredentialed thinking. And I am sincere when
> I say to you, I offer this in totally humility and with utmost willingness
> to be persuaded to a higher and better way of perceiving it.
>
Two questions.
1. Are 'feelings of worthlessness' real?
2. If so, do you really think the feelings and phenomenal qualities
or them are physical features of the world. Careful here, because
I'm not disagreeing with the view that they are causally dependent
on brains, and that there quite likely are some physical correlates
such as brain waves, etc. But THE EMOTIVE FORCE is something that
can only be observed SUBJECTIVELY. And if that is so, are you
really suggesting that they should be banished from science in
spite of the fact that they are an intersubjectively reproducible
causal feature?
> Offered humbly, respectfully and openly toward hope of
> further elucidation by you,
>
Great stuff Gil. So far at least. Keep it comin'. :)
PR
Perplexed in Peoria
"Phil Roberts, Jr." <phi...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message news:cv5oq0$29mp$1...@darwin.ediacara.org...
[snip]
> Apparently, introspection is ka ka because it is not infallible:
>
> Ever since Descartes and his "cogito ergo sum," this
> capacity of ours has been seen as somehow immune to
> error; we have privileged access to our own thoughts
> and feelings, an access guaranteed to be better than
> the access of any outsider.
>
> As Dennett sees it, the solution to this problem is, not to
> limit introspective reports to reproducible features as they
> do in the other sciences, but rather to have the introspectionist
> write down her observations and hand them to a second party
> who can bring the full weight of "third person" objective
> science to bear on the problem.
>
> Funny. I always thought of Faraday and Rutherford as engaged
> in first person observations. Applying Dennett's rationale,
> their work could have been much improved if they had relied on
> written reports from lab technicians. Hey. If third person
> is more scientifically reliable than first person, perhaps
> fourth person reports would be better yet. Think of the
> advances science could make with, say, sixth or seventh
> person reports. :)
I cannot resist pointing out that, in reading your (very
interesting and informative) posting, I am doing philosophy
based on third and fourth person reports.
Perplexed in Peoria
"Phil Roberts, Jr." <phi...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message news:cv5oq0$29nb$1...@darwin.ediacara.org...
> [snip] Cognitive science, evolutionary
> psychology, all have their roots in behaviorism even if they've
> seemed to lighten up a bit, and behaviorism has its roots in
> logical positivism which, in my humble opinion, has ALWAYS
> BEEN A METAPHYSICS (mechanistic materialism) MASQUERADING AS
> A QUEST FOR EPISTEMIC RIGHTEOUSNESS. I use the term, righteousness,
> because in my humble opinion ITS A FRICKIN' RELIGION complete with
> a succession of popes (Pope J. B. (Watson), Pope B. F. (Skinner,
> Pope Dan (Dennett), etc.), sanctified rituals (statistical surveys,
> fixation with Humean constant conjunctions, falsificationism, word
> salads aimed at eliminating qualia, etc.) and SINFUL THOUGHTS
> (e.g., dualism, indeterminism, etc.):
Nicely put. However, that is MY religion you are making fun of!
Even though I think of Skinner as an anti-pope.
John Wilkins
> "Phil Roberts, Jr." <phi...@ix.netcom.com> wrote...
> > [snip] Cognitive science, evolutionary
> > psychology, all have their roots in behaviorism even if they've
> > seemed to lighten up a bit, and behaviorism has its roots in
> > logical positivism which, in my humble opinion, has ALWAYS
> > BEEN A METAPHYSICS (mechanistic materialism) MASQUERADING AS
> > A QUEST FOR EPISTEMIC RIGHTEOUSNESS. I use the term, righteousness,
> > because in my humble opinion ITS A FRICKIN' RELIGION complete with
> > a succession of popes (Pope J. B. (Watson), Pope B. F. (Skinner,
> > Pope Dan (Dennett), etc.), sanctified rituals (statistical surveys,
> > fixation with Humean constant conjunctions, falsificationism, word
> > salads aimed at eliminating qualia, etc.) and SINFUL THOUGHTS
> > (e.g., dualism, indeterminism, etc.):
> > [snip]
>
> Nicely put. However, that is MY religion you are making fun of!
> Even though I think of Skinner as an anti-pope.
"the positivists (the all-purpose evil demons in philosophy)...", David
Hull, _Science as a process_, p492
--
John S. Wilkins jo...@wilkins.id.au AA#2207
web: www.wilkins.id.au blog: evolvethought.blogspot.com
Fiat lunch!
Phil Roberts, Jr.
Sorry to rub salt in the wounds, but I have on rare occasions
been known to refer to this particular brand of metaphysics
as "physical romanticism" and believe it to be based on
a flawed syllogism:
Premise:
Physical science has proceeded at the speed of light while
psychology has remained a basket case.
Conclusion:
Some variation on the them of mechanistic materialism is
"true".
Coming from the perspective of a 'tongue-in-cheek' dualist,
I believe a less flawed syllogism would be:
Premise:
Physical science has proceeded at the speed of light while
psychology has remained a basket case.
Conclusion:
Psychology is harder to do, initially at least (e.g., the
individualization problem).
PR