Social Science Fears Evolutionary Psychology
Immortalist
political and moral and emotional baggage? Why do people believe that there are
dangerous implications to the idea that the mind is a product of the brain, that
the brain is organised in part by the genome, and that the genome was shaped by
natural selection?
This idea has been met with demonstrations, denunciations, picketings and
comparisons to Nazism, from the right and the left. And most intellectuals today
have a phobia of any explanation of the mind that invokes genetics. They're
afraid of four things.
1. First there is a fear of inequality.
2. The second fear is the fear of imperfectability.
3. The third fear is a fear of determinism.
4. The fourth fear is the fear of nihilism.
-------------------------------------
1. First there is a fear of inequality.
The great appeal of the doctrine that the mind is a blank slate is the simple
mathematical fact that zero equals zero. If we all start out blank, no one can
have more stuff written on his slate than anyone else. Whereas if we come into
the world endowed with a rich set of mental faculties, they could work
differently, or better or worse, in some people. The fear is that this would open
the door to discrimination, oppression or eugenics, or even slavery and genocide.
Of course, this is all a non sequitur. As many political writers have pointed
out, commitment to political equality is not an empirical claim that people are
clones. It's a moral claim that in certain spheres we judge people as
individuals, and don't take into account the statistical average of the groups
they belong to. It's a recognition that however much people might vary, they have
certain things in common by virtue of their common human nature. No one likes to
be humiliated or oppressed or enslaved or deprived. Political equality consists
of recognising that people have certain inalienable rights, namely life, liberty
and the pursuit of happiness. Recognising those rights is not the same thing as
believing that people are indistinguishable in every respect.
------------------------------
2. The second fear is the fear of imperfectability.
If people are innately saddled with certain sins and flaws, like selfishness,
prejudice, short-sightedness and self-deception, then political reform would seem
to be a waste of time. Why try to make the world a better place if people are
rotten to the core and will just screw it up no matter what you do?
Again, this is a faulty argument. We know that there can be social improvement
because we know that there has been social improvement, such as the end of
slavery, torture, blood feuds, despotism and the ownership of women in Western
democracies. Social change can take place even with a fixed human nature because
the mind is a complex system of many parts.
Even if we do have some motives that tempt us to do awful things, we have other
motives that can counteract them. We can figure out ways to pit one human desire
against another, and thereby improve our condition, in the same way we manipulate
physical and biological laws - rather than denying they exist - to improve our
physical condition. We combat disease, we keep out the weather, we grow more
crops, and we can jigger with our social arrangements as well.
A good example is the invention of democratic government. By instituting checks
and balances in a political system, one person's ambition counteracts another's.
It's not that we have bred or socialised a human who's free of ambition. We've
just developed a system in which these ambitions are kept under control.
Another reason that human nature doesn't rule out social progress is that many
features of human nature have free parameters. People in all cultures have an
ability to respect and sympathise with other people. The question is, with which
other people?
The default setting of our moral sense may be to sympathise only with members of
our clan or village. Over the course of history, a knob or a slider has been
adjusted so that a larger portion of humanity is admitted into the circle of
people whose interests we consider comparable with our own. From the village or
clan the moral circle has been expanded to the tribe, the nation, and, most
recently, to all of humanity, as in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
--------------------------------
3. The third fear is a fear of determinism.
The fear that we will no longer be able to hold people responsible for their
behaviour because they can always blame it on their brain or their genes or their
evolutionary history - the evolutionary-urge or killer-gene defence. The fear is
misplaced for two reasons. One is that the silliest excuses for bad behaviour
have, in fact, invoked the environment, rather than biology, anyway - such as the
abuse excuse that got the Menendez brothers off the hook in their first trial, or
the "pornography made me do it" defence some rapists have tried. If there's a
threat to responsibility it doesn't come from biological determinism but from any
determinism, including childhood upbringing, mass media, social conditioning, and
so on.
But none of these should be taken seriously. Even if there are parts of the brain
that compel people to do things for various reasons, there are other parts that
respond to the legal and social contingencies that we call "holding someone
responsible for their behaviour".
For example, if I rob a liquor store, I'll get thrown in jail, or if I cheat on
my spouse my friends and relatives and neighbours will think that I'm a boorish
cad and will refuse to have anything to do with me. By holding people responsible
for their actions we are implementing contingencies that can affect parts of the
brain and can lead people to inhibit what they would otherwise do. There's no
reason that we should give up that lever on people's behaviour - namely, the
inhibition systems of the brain - just because we're coming to understand more
about the temptation systems.
-----------------------------------
4. The fourth fear is the fear of nihilism.
If it can be shown that all our motives and values are products of the physiology
of the brain, which in turn was shaped by the forces of evolution, then they
would in some sense be shams, without objective reality. I wouldn't really be
loving my child; all I would be doing is selfishly propagating my genes. Flowers
and butterflies and works of art are not truly beautiful; my brain just evolved
to give me a pleasant sensation when a certain pattern of light hits my retina.
The fear is that biology will debunk all that we hold sacred.
This fear is based on a confusion between two very different ways to explain
behaviour. Evolution (the ultimate explanation for our minds) is a short-sighted
selfish process in which genes are selected for their ability to maximise the
number of copies of themselves. But that doesn't mean that we are selfish and
short-sighted, at least not all the time. There's nothing that prevents the
selfish, amoral process of natural selection evolution from evolving a
big-brained social organism with a complex moral sense.
There's an old saying that people who appreciate legislation and sausages should
not see them being made. That's a bit like human values - knowing how they were
made can be misleading if you don't think carefully about the process. Selfish
genes don't necessarily build a selfish organisation.
Immortalist
What are some of the indications that we are in denial?
There is a quasi-religious theory of human nature that is prevalent among pundits
and intellectuals. The theory has three parts.
1. One is the doctrine of "the blank slate": that we have no inherent talents or
temperaments, because the mind is shaped completely by the environment,
parenting, culture and society.
2. The second is "the noble savage": that evil motives are not inherent to people
but come from corrupting social institutions.
3. The third is "the ghost in the machine": that the most important part of us is
somehow independent of our biology, so that our ability to have experiences and
make choices can't be explained by our physiological make-up and evolutionary
history.
These three ideas are increasingly being challenged by the sciences of the mind,
brain, genes and evolution, but they are held as much for their moral and
political uplift as for any empirical rationale. People think that these
doctrines are preferable on moral grounds and that the alternative is a forbidden
territory that we should avoid at all costs.
How has the empirical work in the sciences undermined these beliefs?
-------------------------------
1. The Blank Slate: that we have no inherent talents or temperaments, because the
mind is shaped completely by the environment, parenting, culture and society.
The blank slate has been undermined by a number of discoveries. One of them is a
simple logical point that no matter how important learning and culture and
socialisation are, they don't happen by magic. There has to be innate circuitry
that does the learning, that creates the culture, that acquires the culture, and
that responds to socialisation. Once you try to specify what those learning
mechanisms are, you're forced to posit a great deal of innate structure to the
mind.
It's also been undermined by behavioural genetics, which has found that at least
half of the variation in personality and intelligence in a society comes from
differences in the genes. The most dramatic demonstration of this is that
identical twins who were separated at birth have fantastic similarities in
talents and tastes.
The blank slate has also been undermined by anthropology and evolutionary
psychology (a branch of science that applies the laws of evolution to emotionally
charged aspects of behaviour such as sexuality, feelings, violence, etc). For
example, despite the undeniable variation among cultures, we now know that there
is a vast set of universal traits that are common to all of the world's 6000
cultures. Also, evolutionary psychology has shown that many of our motives make
no sense in terms of our day-to-day efforts to enhance our physical and
psychological wellbeing, but they can be explained in terms of the mechanism of
natural selection operating in the environment in which we evolved.
A relatively uncontroversial example is our taste for sugar and fat, which were
adaptive in an environment in which those nutrients were in short supply but
don't do anyone any good in a modern environment in which they are cheap and
readily available. A more controversial example may be the universal thirst for
revenge, which was one's only defence in a world in which one couldn't dial 000
to get the police to show up if one's interests were threatened.
Another is our taste for attractive marriage partners. As wise people have
pointed out for millennia, this makes no sense in terms of how happy or
compatible the couple will be. The curve of your date's nose, or the shape of her
chin, doesn't predict how well you're going to get along with her for the rest of
your life. But evolutionary psychology has shown that the physical features of
beauty are cues to health and fertility. Our fatal weakness for attractive
partners can be explained in terms of our evolutionary history, not our personal
calculations of wellbeing.
The blank slate has also been undermined by brain science. The brain obviously
has a great deal of what neuroscientists call plasticity - that's what allows us
to learn. But the newest research is showing that many properties of the brain
are genetically organised and don't depend on information coming in from the
senses.
---------------------------------------
2. The Noble Savage: that evil motives are not inherent to people but come from
corrupting social institutions.
The doctrine of the noble savage has been undermined by a revolution in our
understanding of non-state societies. Many intellectuals believe that violence
and war among hunter-gatherers is rare or ritualistic, and that the battle is
called to a halt as soon as the first man falls. But studies that actually count
the dead bodies have shown that the homicide rates among prehistoric peoples are
orders of magnitude higher than the ones in modern societies, even taking into
account the statistics from two world wars.
We also have evidence that nasty traits such as psychopathy, violent tendencies,
a lack of conscientiousness and an antagonistic personality are, to a large
extent, heritable. And there are mechanisms in the brain, probably shared across
primates, that underlie violence. All these suggest that what we don't like about
ourselves can't just be blamed on the institutions of a particular society.
-----------------------------------------
3. The Ghost in the Machine: that the most important part of us is somehow
independent of our biology, so that our ability to have experiences and make
choices can't be explained by our physiological make-up and evolutionary history.
And the ghost in the machine has been undermined by cognitive science and
neuroscience. The foundation of cognitive science is the idea that intelligence
can be explained as a kind of information processing, and that motivation and
emotion can be explained as a feedback system. Feats and phenomena that were
formerly thought to rely on mental stuff alone, such as beliefs, desires,
intelligence and goal-directed behaviour, can be explained in physical terms. And
neuroscience has most decisively exorcised the ghost in the machine by showing
that our thoughts, feelings, urges and consciousness depend completely on the
physiological activity of the brain.
Immortalist
have of human nature?
1. Urban Planning
2. The Arts & Humanities
3. Intellectual Life & Marxism
--------------------------------------
1. Urban Planning: The blank slate has had an enormous influence in far-flung
fields. One example is architecture and urban planning. The 20th century saw the
rise of a movement that has been called "authoritarian high modernism", which was
contemporaneous with the ascendance of the blank slate. City planners believed
that people's taste for green space, for ornament, for people-watching, for cosy
places for intimate social gatherings, were just social constructions. They were
archaic historical artefacts that were getting in the way of the orderly design
of cities and should be ignored by planners designing optimal cities according to
so-called scientific principles.
In extreme cases, this led to the wastelands of planned cities like Brasilia; in
milder cases it gave us the so-called urban renewal projects in American cities
and the dreary high-rises in the Soviet Union and English council flats.
Ornamentation, human scale, green space, gardens and comfortable social meeting
places were written out of the cities because the planners had a theory of human
nature that omitted human aesthetic and social needs.
-------------------------------------
2. The Arts & Humanities: Another example is the arts. In the 20th century,
modernism and post-modernism took over, and their practitioners disdained beauty
as bourgeois, saccharine and lightweight. Art was deliberately made
incomprehensible or ugly or shocking - again, on the assumption that people's
tastes for attractive faces, landscapes, colours, and so on, were reversible
social constructions. And so art became baffling and uninterpretable without
acquaintance with arcane theory.
By their own admission, the humanities programs in universities, and institutions
that promote new works of elite art, are in crisis. People are staying away in
droves. I don't think it takes an Einstein to figure out why. By denying people's
sense of visual beauty in painting and sculpture, melody in music, metre and
rhyme in poetry, plot and narrative and character in fiction, the elite arts
wrote off the vast majority of their audience - the people who approach art in
part for pleasure and edification rather than social one-upmanship. Today there
are movements in the arts to reintroduce beauty and narrative and melody and
other basic human pleasures. And those doing so are considered radical
extremists.
-----------------------------------
3. Intellectual Life & Marxism: Science doesn't take place in a vacuum. Didn't
historical events of the 20th century have something to do with the popularity of
the blank slate?
Intellectual life was enormously affected by an understandable revulsion to
Nazism, with its pseudoscientific theories of race and its equally nonsensical
glorification of conflict as part of the evolutionary wisdom of nature. It was
natural to reject anything that smacked of a genetic approach to human affairs.
But historians of ideas have begun to fill in another side of the picture. During
the 20th century, equally horrific genocides were carried out in the name of
Marxism, such as in the mass purges and man-made famines of Lenin, Stalin and
Mao, and the madness in Cambodia.
The remarkable fact is that the two great ideologically driven genocides of the
20th century came from theories of human nature that were diametrically opposed.
The Marxists had no use for the concept of race, didn't believe in genes, and
denied Darwin's theory of natural selection as the mechanism of evolutionary
adaptation.
This shows that it's not a biological approach to human nature that is uniquely
sinister. There must be common threads to Nazism and totalitarian Marxism that
cut across a belief in the importance of evolution or genetics.
One common thread was a desire to reshape humanity. In the Marxists' case it was
through social engineering; in the Nazis' case it was eugenics. Neither of them
were satisfied with human beings as we find them, with all their flaws and
weaknesses.
Rather than building a social order around enduring human traits, they had the
conceit that they could re-engineer human traits using scientific principles that
were, in reality, pseudoscientific principles.
In Martin Amis's new book about Stalinism, he argues that intellectuals have not
yet come to grips with the lessons of Marxist totalitarianism in the way that
they did with Nazi totalitarianism many decades ago. A number of historians and
political philosophers have made the same point. This blind spot has distorted
the intellectual landscape, including the implications and non-implications of
genetics and evolution for understanding ourselves.
Chekhov once said, "Man will become better when you show him what he is like." I
can't do better than that.
humanist
truths could undermine the social order itself. If you reveal morality to be
evolved, that threatens the very fabric of society (which is the primary focus
of social science).
The truth is a threat to our well-being - the same way that discovery of
nuclear fission uncovered some kind of of unfortunate truth. Evolutionary
psychology removes the veil of camouflage and explains major aspects of our
behavior with brutal simplicity.
What is the moral thing to do? What is the "right thing"? Unfortunately,
evolutionary psychology explains why we tend to behave the ways we do but tells
us nothing at all about bettering our behavior. In fact, Evolutionary
Psychology explains how our morality morality is itself evolved and therefore
only has meaning in a human context - and if we're an insignificant speck in
the universe it would follow that our morality is likewise insignificant.
We want truth.
We also value our values.
If truth puts our values in question.. then what?
In article <cbadndL3n_O...@comcast.com>, Reanima...@yahoo.com
says...
Uthur
"Immortalist" <Reanima...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:cbadndL3n_O...@comcast.com...
> Why are empirical questions about how the mind works so weighted down with
> political and moral and emotional baggage? Why do people believe that
there are
> dangerous implications to the idea that the mind is a product of the
brain, that
> the brain is organised in part by the genome, and that the genome was
shaped by
> natural selection?
>
> This idea has been met with demonstrations, denunciations, picketings and
> comparisons to Nazism, from the right and the left. And most intellectuals
today
> have a phobia of any explanation of the mind that invokes genetics.
They're
> afraid of four things.
>
> 1. First there is a fear of inequality.
> 2. The second fear is the fear of imperfectability.
> 3. The third fear is a fear of determinism.
> 4. The fourth fear is the fear of nihilism.
>
> -------------------------------------
Lol Stephen Pinker's gotten to this guy. Quick, call the moral-outrage
squad!
Uthur,
nobody
>Why are empirical questions about how the mind works so weighted down with
>political and moral and emotional baggage? Why do people believe that there are
>dangerous implications to the idea that the mind is a product of the brain, that
>the brain is organised in part by the genome, and that the genome was shaped by
>natural selection?
>
>This idea has been met with demonstrations, denunciations, picketings and
>comparisons to Nazism, from the right and the left. And most intellectuals today
>have a phobia of any explanation of the mind that invokes genetics. They're
>afraid of four things.
>
>1. First there is a fear of inequality.
>2. The second fear is the fear of imperfectability.
>3. The third fear is a fear of determinism.
>4. The fourth fear is the fear of nihilism.
Good points. But the close mindedness doesn't just revolve around the
brain. I think there are three levels of acceptance when it comes to
genetics and race/ethnicity/demographics. When it comes to genetic
diseases, almost everybody is willing to accept that race/ethnicity
can and does play a role. When it comes to physiology, most people are
aware that, say, East or North Africans' success at endurance sports
and blacks' excellence at sports that emphasize agility cannot simply
be explained by socio-economic pressures and opportunities but it's
nevertheless a de facto taboo to publicly talk about that. And when it
comes to matters of the mind, we have a strict taboo and even
entertaining the idea that evolution might have had resulted in
different adaptation of the mind for different human populations, or
that all individuals, not just those at the extreme ends, have certain
gifts or handicaps, is considered sacrilegious.
Tron Furu
"Immortalist" <Reanima...@yahoo.com> skrev i melding
news:cbadndL3n_O...@comcast.com...
> Why are empirical questions about how the mind works so weighted down with
> political and moral and emotional baggage?
Well, most of this political and moral and emotional baggage is painted on
by the protagonists onto the antagonists in an effort to portray hesitation
to jump to conclusions as the result of political and moral and emotional
baggage.
Basically, people seem to identify the essence of humanity in some (or
other) concept of "freedom", and anything that seems to negate, restrict or
only limit that freedom is seen as "refuting" this "essence of humanity".
Resistance to this may of course be cognito-economical, either in an
uinteresting, primitive way ("... can't be bothered to change my mind...")
or in a mor far-reaching way, as it is unclear what the implications are.
And since this is so unclear, most people want triple proof /sqared) that it
is so before going there.
The divide, as I see it, is between the negating and the restricting human
freedom. Everybody, know it or not, is of course restricted (from natural
flying, breathing under water .... Marvel Comics pars pro toto), but some
people may think that a sufficient number of restrictions might add up to
negation.
Why do people believe that there are
> dangerous implications to the idea that the mind is a product of the
brain, that
> the brain is organised in part by the genome, and that the genome was
shaped by
> natural selection?
There are dangerous implications to the idea that the mind is a product of
the brain to the degree that this is not a true explanation (in the sense
that the theoretical underpinning is as yet too imprecise to give us
anything but crude belief structures (like radical eliminativism), not good
science).
>
> This idea has been met with demonstrations, denunciations, picketings and
> comparisons to Nazism, from the right and the left.
Any choice of opponent speaks of the one who chooses ...
> And most intellectuals today have a phobia ...
Name calling ....?
> of any explanation of the mind that invokes genetics.
> They're afraid of ...
.. giving in to the considerable pressure from both left and right to
_needlessly_ limit our concept of human freedom in favour of the ideology du
jour's marginalization strategy for People We'd Like to Repress. Note how
everyone who wants to elbow for ideological power strives to attribute to
their opponents either ill will or lack of faculty, which is invariably
based in something they cannot rise above (i.e. they are incurably bad), be
it economy or biology (or under its present guise, "ethnicity"). Now,
shouldn't somebody give these people a fair hearing? Resist the pressure?
Is biology Already True, or is it exactly this which is under debate? Do
Data translate to Policy without Interpretation? I think not.
four things.
>
> 1. First there is a fear of inequality.
You quote political writers. Political reality is different. You're right
that it wont matter to theory, it might, however, influence praxis in a
vulgarist utilitarian way. See "legislative assembly" and "election".
> 2. The second fear is the fear of imperfectability.
Good one. Never a truer word. Should be applied to the economic sector, too,
of course (Thurow).
If true, it proves, however, that biology is not destiny.
> 3. The third fear is a fear of determinism.
Yes, see above.
> 4. The fourth fear is the fear of nihilism.
Yes, well, there is the fear of the Masses, being held in check by
Superstition, released ...
Harldy that likely, mass insanity involves mass organization. Yet,
psychologically, some "truths" only work if you don't "know" that they are
self-suggestive, like ... well, self.suggestion, a sort of metaphysical
advice of "Don't look down, then you wont feel the height".
T
Tron Furu
> So if intellectuals are afraid of human nature, what do they believe
instead?
> What are some of the indications that we are in denial?
>
> There is a quasi-religious theory of human nature that is prevalent among
pundits
> and intellectuals. The theory has three parts.
Name calling again ....
And again, the choice of enemies, or here, of opposing positions. OK, not
all philosophers are up to date on superstring theory, but then maybe not
all natural philosophers (physicists, biologists etc.) are up to date beyond
Locke (blank slate), Rousseau (noble savage) and Descartes (ghost in the
machine). We are talking 1600 - 1700 here - would you have us treat of
natural philosophy at that stage to compare with contemporary philosophy?
OK, rhetorical question.
>
> 1. One is the doctrine of "the blank slate": that we have no inherent
talents or
> temperaments, because the mind is shaped completely by the environment,
> parenting, culture and society.
>
> 2. The second is "the noble savage": that evil motives are not inherent to
people
> but come from corrupting social institutions.
>
> 3. The third is "the ghost in the machine": that the most important part
of us is
> somehow independent of our biology, so that our ability to have
experiences and
> make choices can't be explained by our physiological make-up and
evolutionary
> history.
>
> These three ideas are increasingly being challenged by the sciences of the
mind,
> brain, genes and evolution,
They were challenged in their time, and by philosophers. E.g., Leibniz
countered Locke's "there is nothing in the mind other than that which is
presented by experience ..." with the addition " ...except the mind itself".
So that is an old hat. The whole Kantian tradition (including Hegel and
Marx) made short shrift of Rousseau - not to mention that the opposite view
had held sway ever since Aristotle - , and Descartes' division of the two
res'es was contested by the philosopher following immediately upon him,
Spinoza.
> but they are held as much for their moral and political uplift as for any
empirical rationale.
By whom?
> People
Oh, by people. That's OK then. What do people know?
> think that these doctrines are preferable on moral grounds and that the
alternative is a forbidden territory that we should avoid at all costs.
Never mind people. They don't know much about biology either.
>
> 3. The Ghost in the Machine: that the most important part of us is somehow
> independent of our biology, so that our ability to have experiences and
make
> choices can't be explained by our physiological make-up and evolutionary
history.
Well, at the present state physiological make-up and evolutionary history do
not suffice to make predictions, so they "explain" in the same way that
freudianism explains, by ad hoc hypotheses where the general theory fails to
explain variation (that is, it generalizes well enough, to the point of
infalsificationability (?), but it doesn't specify how the same underlying
operators produce different and often opposing results).
>
> And the ghost in the machine has been undermined by cognitive science and
> neuroscience. The foundation of cognitive science is the idea that
intelligence
> can be explained as a kind of information processing, and that motivation
and
> emotion can be explained as a feedback system.
That is not an explanation, at least not in a scientific sense, that is
merely a metaphor, which, as always, is taken from the most advanced
technology available; like theology to Aquinas, geometry to Descartes,
mechanics to La Mettrie, hydraulics to Freud ...
Feats and phenomena that were
> formerly thought to rely on mental stuff alone, such as beliefs, desires,
> intelligence and goal-directed behaviour, can be explained in physical
terms.
For a given value of "explained", maybe.
> And
> neuroscience has most decisively exorcised the ghost in the machine by
showing
> that our thoughts, feelings, urges and consciousness depend completely on
the
> physiological activity of the brain.
Which is not the same as to say that thoughts, feelings, urges and
consciousness are _identical_ to physiological activity of the brain, which
is what it would take to excoriate said ghost.
FWIW, I think there is no ghost, I just don't think science at the moment is
mature enough to provide explanation, just like we no longer accept La
Mettrie's "man machine" as an apt analogy, groundbreaking as it was, though,
in its time.
T
Sir Frederick
The continuing Copernican Revolution
antagonizes what it is and means to be
a human being on an organic level. Before,
it was cultural antagonism.
The Revolution can accommodate
the organically based subjective, but that
subjective cannot accommodate the Revolution.
I fear the Revolution and truth will lose.
We need a new specie.
--
Best,
Frederick Martin McNeill
Poway, California, United States of America
mmcn...@fuzzysys.com
http://www.fuzzysys.com
http://members.cox.net/fmmcneill/
*************************
Phrase of the week :
"Science keeps moving us away from the Apes.
Of course, if one wants to be an ape, one
objects to the movement. "-- Anonymous
:-))))Snort!)
*************************
Tron Furu
> What are the implications for other fields of this fear social science
people
> have of human nature?
>
> 1. Urban Planning
> 2. The Arts & Humanities
> 3. Intellectual Life & Marxism
>
> --------------------------------------
Sigh ...
>
> 1. Urban Planning: The blank slate has had an enormous influence in
far-flung
> fields. One example is architecture and urban planning. The 20th century
saw the
> rise of a movement that has been called "authoritarian high modernism",
which was
> contemporaneous with the ascendance of the blank slate.
I think those two, as mentioned are about 300 years apart.
The cause of authoritarian high modernism was the coincidence between
functionalistic design, the concenience of industrial production of
prefabricated elements and the need, i.e. market for the latter.
Functionalistic design arose from the a considereation of the people's
taste, that it should not have to involve waking up in some petit bourgeois
Wagner opera scenography fantasy every morning. That functionalism ignored
other sides of man - and function - than reason, is another problem, but not
attributable to "the blank slate", rather to the same kind of modernist
project that began in the Enlightenment and now has mapped the human genome.
>
> 2. The Arts & Humanities: Another example is the arts. In the 20th
century,
> modernism and post-modernism took over, and their practitioners disdained
beauty
> as bourgeois, saccharine and lightweight. Art was deliberately made
> incomprehensible or ugly or shocking - again, on the assumption that
people's
> tastes for attractive faces, landscapes, colours, and so on, were
reversible
> social constructions. And so art became baffling and uninterpretable
without
> acquaintance with arcane theory.
Ridiculous. It is like criticizing physics for evolving beyond the pocket
watch, seeing as how Einstein and quantums are so difficult for the general
public to grasp.
Painting technique had developed until there was no longer anything to do in
realism. And ho, is that a Daguerrotype machine I see before me? Why paint
like a photo? The mass market tormented figurative art to death as a
challenge to artists - if not as a "social function" - , and so they looked
out for new venues, like geometrists disregarding Euclid's fourth and
discovering the geometry of the globe (or undulating plain or whatever).
Of course modernism opened up venues for the selfdeclared genii, like Usenet
does, since the criteria were harder to grasp; but make no mistake: all
those who initiated the transcendence of realism, Toulouse-Lautrec, Renoir,
Monet, Manet etc. etc. were superb craftsmen who produced results which are
studied even today (e.g. the colours of Renoir).
I'd rather compare it to the Manhattan Project - superb technicians daring
something nobody knew the outcome of. The following cultural Three Mile
Island - or Hiroshima - may or may not be their fault.
>
> By their own admission, the humanities programs in universities, and
institutions
> that promote new works of elite art, are in crisis.
Everything that takes time, is difficult and offers few immediate rewards is
in crisis today, from politics to, say, the recruitment to mathematics in
the US (witness the drop in the percentage of US Nobel laureates in the last
decades).
People are staying away in
> droves. I don't think it takes an Einstein to figure out why. By denying
people's
self-imposed limitations as to what they thought themselves capabable of
enjoying by a
> sense of visual beauty in painting and sculpture, melody in music, metre
and
> rhyme in poetry, plot and narrative and character in fiction, the elite
arts
> wrote off the vast majority of their audience - the people who approach
art in
> part for pleasure and edification
And for that they merely needed competent craftsmen, or photographers
(owning an "original" would be social one-upmanship, right?).
> rather than social one-upmanship.
That is always the arena of consumers, be they ever so highly qualified, and
not the producers, i.e. the artists.
Today there
> are movements in the arts to reintroduce beauty and narrative and melody
and
> other basic human pleasures. And those doing so are considered radical
> extremists.
They are considered sitcom writers.
>
> -----------------------------------
>
> 3. Intellectual Life & Marxism: Science doesn't take place in a vacuum.
Didn't
> historical events of the 20th century have something to do with the
popularity of
> the blank slate?
.....
> The Marxists ..... denied Darwin's theory of natural selection as the
mechanism of evolutionary
> adaptation.
Interesting. By "the Marxists", I take it you mean Lysenko? Well, he doesn't
sort of stand for all "the Marxists", only "some Marxists"; and further, the
question arises whether these marxists became lysenkoists, i.e. lamarckians,
_because_ they were marxists or for some other reason. Personally, I'd say
that since he rose to the "top" under Stalin's last four or five years, I'd
bet heavily on "other reasons". Among other things, Lysenko's main argument
against his opponents were that they were "class enemies", which, I believe,
is not a biological category, at least wont be until evolutionary
bio-economy is well established.
>
> This shows that it's not a biological approach to human nature that is
uniquely
> sinister. There must be common threads to Nazism and totalitarian Marxism
Ah. "Totalitarian" marxists. Yes, the totally common thread to totalitarian
marxism and totalitarian nazism is totalitary staring you in the eye there,
comrade.
Now, totalitarianism can be masqueraded in anything, but its core is the
belief that one has all the answers, plus the lenghts one is willing to
pursue the logical consequences ("you can't make an omelette without killing
at least six or seven people, not in my experience you can't.").
that
> cut across a belief in the importance of evolution or genetics.
Bravo, that man.
>
> One common thread was a desire to reshape humanity.
Yes. Anthropologists call that, i.e. fiddling with nature, "human nature",
and, if you are right, it is an inbred trait.
>In the Marxists' case it was through social engineering; in the Nazis'
case it was eugenics. Neither of them were satisfied with human beings as we
find them, with all their flaws and weaknesses.
The similarity between them was that it was government business. We social
engineer and eugene with the best of them, but on an individual to corporate
basis, as capitalism would have it.
> Rather than building a social order around enduring human traits, they had
the
> conceit that they could re-engineer human traits using scientific
principles that
> were, in reality, pseudoscientific principles.
To different issues interestingly conflated - not intentionally, I assume.
a) they had the conceit that they could re-engineer human traits using
scientific principles
See "human nature" above
and
b) they were wrong. There is always that risk, and that is connected to the
willingness to go so and so far to pursue the logical consequences of one's
theories. The price of error may be so great as to advise caution.
Totalitarian states led by madmen may be deficient in checks and balances.
>
> In Martin Amis's new book about Stalinism, he argues that intellectuals
have not
> yet come to grips with the lessons of Marxist totalitarianism in the way
that
> they did with Nazi totalitarianism many decades ago.
Different case, different analysis.The Nazis were just thugs who robbed and
killed.
The Soviets were rampant bureaucrats trapped in their own ideological
delusion, which involved some efforts to overcome reality by willpower (and
that when nobody really wanted ... rate the chances of success) which was,
however, guided at least nominally by an idea of a better world. The error,
as I see it - that is, IMHO - was the effort to create a society one could
only have if one succeeded in enforcing positive moral tenets (like "love
thy neighbour") instead of enforcing the negatives ("thou shalt not kill").
While negatives can be enforced to the degree of the efficiency of the
police, positive tenetws cannot be enforced, and the effort only leads to
more and more spies, spies on spies, spies on spies on spies, denounciation,
paranoia .... well, few good things.
A number of historians and
> political philosophers have made the same point. This blind spot has
distorted
> the intellectual landscape, including the implications and
non-implications of
> genetics and evolution for understanding ourselves.
Nah.
>
> Chekhov once said, "Man will become better when you show him what he is
like." I
> can't do better than that.
>
Implying that science will do it. Perhaps you can't do better.
T
Tron Furu
"Tron Furu" <tron...@frisurf.no> skrev i melding
news:TMkvc.5228$eH3....@news4.e.nsc.no...
....
> excoriate said ghost ....
Well, at least enough to exorcize it.
Sorry, there.
T
Immortalist
"Tron Furu" <tron...@frisurf.no> wrote in message
news:cvkvc.5224$eH3....@news4.e.nsc.no...
>
> "Immortalist" <Reanima...@yahoo.com> skrev i melding
> news:cbadndL3n_O...@comcast.com...
> > Why are empirical questions about how the mind works so weighted down with
> > political and moral and emotional baggage?
>
> Well, most of this political and moral and emotional baggage is painted on
> by the protagonists onto the antagonists in an effort to portray hesitation
> to jump to conclusions as the result of political and moral and emotional
> baggage.
The author claims that this dogma is the fallacy of "claiming centrist moral
ground" or the mistake of claiming that the blank slate/no instinct position is
the middle ground position when it is really the polarized and one sided
position. A moderate position is some mixture of blank and written upon slate or
nature and nurture.
> Basically, people seem to identify the essence of humanity in some (or
> other) concept of "freedom", and anything that seems to negate, restrict or
> only limit that freedom is seen as "refuting" this "essence of humanity".
> Resistance to this may of course be cognito-economical, either in an
> uinteresting, primitive way ("... can't be bothered to change my mind...")
> or in a mor far-reaching way, as it is unclear what the implications are.
> And since this is so unclear, most people want triple proof /sqared) that it
> is so before going there.
> The divide, as I see it, is between the negating and the restricting human
> freedom. Everybody, know it or not, is of course restricted (from natural
> flying, breathing under water .... Marvel Comics pars pro toto), but some
> people may think that a sufficient number of restrictions might add up to
> negation.
>
Again trying to argue that the center between nature and nurture is the center of
nurture.
Immortalist
"nobody" <nob...@here.com> wrote in message
news:0gfrb0lp39dsctpk2...@4ax.com...
In some cases, an extreme environmentalism explaination is correct, and in other
cases an extreme hereditarian position is correct, in many other cases it falls
inbetween the two; examples are language, heredetary disease and many social
learning situations.
Immortalist
"Uthur" <nos...@nospam.com> wrote in message news:c9kaa8$971$1...@kermit.esat.net...
BUSTED! Pinker is GOD
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/bios/pinker.html
http://www.meaningoflife.tv/video.php?speaker=pinker&topic=hair
> Uthur,
>
>
Immortalist
"humanist" <x@y.z> wrote in message news:40bd6b34$0$4458$45be...@newscene.com...
> Very valid points. But most important IMHO is the fear that revealing these
> truths could undermine the social order itself. If you reveal morality to be
> evolved, that threatens the very fabric of society (which is the primary focus
> of social science).
> The truth is a threat to our well-being - the same way that discovery of
> nuclear fission uncovered some kind of of unfortunate truth. Evolutionary
> psychology removes the veil of camouflage and explains major aspects of our
> behavior with brutal simplicity.
>
> What is the moral thing to do? What is the "right thing"? Unfortunately,
> evolutionary psychology explains why we tend to behave the ways we do but tells
> us nothing at all about bettering our behavior. In fact, Evolutionary
> Psychology explains how our morality morality is itself evolved and therefore
> only has meaning in a human context - and if we're an insignificant speck in
> the universe it would follow that our morality is likewise insignificant.
>
> We want truth.
> We also value our values.
> If truth puts our values in question.. then what?
>
A biologized ethics rejoices in the number of positive innate tendencies which we
possess for moral, caring behavior, and urges that we capitalize on those, while
at the same time being realistic about the need to restructure situations which
invite hurnan aggression.
Awareness of the evolutionary aspects of morality and sympathy allows us to
review our philosophical explanations with an eye toward the biology of our
ethical behavior...
Human Evolution - A Philosophical Anthropology
-- Mary Maxwell
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0231059469/
Immortalist
You think a liberal censorship of good research is the solution? Sounds like a
kind of totalitarian leadership where we eliminate the opposition to promote the
status quo commy?
>
>
Tron Furu
>
> "Tron Furu" <tron...@frisurf.no> wrote in message
> news:cvkvc.5224$eH3....@news4.e.nsc.no...
> >
> > "Immortalist" <Reanima...@yahoo.com> skrev i melding
> > news:cbadndL3n_O...@comcast.com...
> > > Why are empirical questions about how the mind works so weighted down
with
> > > political and moral and emotional baggage?
> >
> > Well, most of this political and moral and emotional baggage is painted
on
> > by the protagonists onto the antagonists in an effort to portray
hesitation
> > to jump to conclusions as the result of political and moral and
emotional
> > baggage.
>
> The author claims that this dogma is the fallacy of "claiming centrist
moral
> ground" or the mistake of claiming that the blank slate/no instinct
position is
> the middle ground position when it is really the polarized and one sided
> position. A moderate position is some mixture of blank and written upon
slate or
> nature and nurture.
No, I claim that not changing is the zero option, whatever position you
hold. One can jump to conclusions, or not, from any point of the spectrum.
Conservatism in acting is based on one's own relationship to one's own
opinions, and the cost of changing them.
To confuse my position with claiming of centrist moral ground is to confuse
subjective and objective reasons for choosing, or relative and absolute
standards.
To claim that the blank slate position is theoretically neutral is of course
a fallacy. However, a phrase like "political and moral and emotional
baggage" invokes connotations that are not value-free. Just bringing out
whose values.
"They" might be, yes. My comment is strictly descriptive, and does not
present any arguement for any position on nature vs. nurture, only on the
people who hold such positions.
T
Sir Frederick
the fact that I cannot see any cross posted
posting, such as your start of this thread?
--
Thanks to humanist for restricting it.
Immortalist
So in spite of abuses that have been shown to come from the notions that "humans
can be taught anything" and that "there are no instincts" this appraoch is still
the best way to legislate government and society? You mean like since America has
been a Christian nation we should remain so and non religious stuff should
continue to be censored? Or do you mean that you have picked a point in cultural
history, a point or degree of loss of religious control and then said lets stick
with this degree?
Immortalist
Therefore Locke's notion of "natural rights" was in no way influenced by his idea
of a blank slate? Didn't he create natural rights to resist prior notions of an
instinctual nature that he didn't like?
Immortalist
Property dualism; that the "activities of the brain" are the identical thing as
qualia or subjective experience.
> T
>
>
>
Immortalist
"Sir Frederick" <mmcn...@fuzzysys.com> wrote in message
news:40BDF5E3...@fuzzysys.com...
The efficiency with which differing ethical views promote cultural evolution may
be a criterian by which they can be judged?
rent@mob
> Why are empirical questions about how the mind works so weighted down with
> political and moral and emotional baggage?
>
Hmmm. Let me see. If I remember correctly, the first thing Immortalist
ever said to me on the topic of Evolutionary Psychology included the
memorable phrase:
"You cherised liberal view of tabula rasa social engineering is over
and done, smoked baby, we take sociology from you, we steal it right
out of your hands, poof."
Which is a colourful way to say, he believes that 'empirical
questions' have settled the matter of liberalism's validity - that
science has proven liberal political values to be wrong, through the
discoveries of Evolutionary Psychology. Coming over all innocent now
about the political goals he is pursuing under the cloak of science
looks cheeky, at best.
I took some pains to explain to him why science cannot inform politics
in this way, over in alt.philosophy, to no avail. Like most EvPsych
evangelists, he appears to think EvPsych claims entitle him to dismiss
all scholarship outside his reductionist paradigm.
The 'explanations' he offers for his opponents' imputed irrationalism
are, naturally, specious. People reject Evolutionary Psychology in as
much as it is bad science: ie, in as much as it is characterised by
unfalsifiable speculations, poorly-designed experiments, and simple
blind ignorance of the complexity of the semantic systems it clumsily
attempts to reduce to syntax. If Immortalist wants to use cod science
as a foundation for his political beliefs, he's welcome.
This libertarian prefers fact over fancy.
rent@mob
Unknown
>
>Why are empirical questions about how the mind works so weighted down with
>political and moral and emotional baggage? Why do people believe that there are
>dangerous implications to the idea that the mind is a product of the brain, that
>the brain is organised in part by the genome, and that the genome was shaped by
>natural selection?
>
to. Thank you!
The product of my brain indicates that in order to fully understand
the mind, one must fully understand emotions, what produces them and
what role they play in basic, daily issues. It also seems that morals
would be directly linked to emotions. As for politics, I'd say the
relationship is strictly about the host's wallet, which in turn links
to devastation or bliss.
Dixit
Immortalist wrote:
Except that 'dual' means two. How do you figure it is dualism when there
is only the one thing, the activities of the brain?
Tron Furu
"Dixit" <d...@nospam.com> skrev i melding
news:bxqvc.32991$pt3.4706@attbi_s03...
If he figures property dualism instead of substance dualism?
T
Tron Furu
....
> > No, I claim that not changing is the zero option, whatever position you
> > hold. One can jump to conclusions, or not, from any point of the
spectrum.
> > Conservatism in acting is based on one's own relationship to one's own
> > opinions, and the cost of changing them.
>
> So in spite of abuses that have been shown to come from the notions that
"humans
> can be taught anything" and that "there are no instincts" this appraoch is
still
> the best way to legislate government and society?
Advancing from name calling to straw men, how does this relate to what I
said? I said that not changing is the zero option, whatever position you
hold, not that it was right.
You mean like since America has
> been a Christian nation we should remain so and non religious stuff should
> continue to be censored?
I'm not an American, and leave American politics to whoever does politics in
America (all 27 percent of you who decide the vote).
Or do you mean that you have picked a point in cultural
> history, a point or degree of loss of religious control and then said lets
stick
> with this degree?
Do I? Read again.
T
humanist
says...
>
>
>We have a problem.
>The continuing Copernican Revolution
>antagonizes what it is and means to be
>a human being on an organic level. Before,
>it was cultural antagonism.
>The Revolution can accommodate
>the organically based subjective, but that
>subjective cannot accommodate the Revolution.
>I fear the Revolution and truth will lose.
>We need a new specie.
The subjective cannot accomodate the revolution [and persist].
It can accomodate the revolution but perish.
The revolution and truth would lose anyway.
Each new specie would be the Popperian analog to incremental refinement
in theory, providing sustainable medium capable of the higher precision
of truth they could absorb and transmit. To act the specie needs to have
predetermined propensities of behavior - it needs to be preprogrammed in
a probabilistic sense. This preprogramming necessarily will bias the
specie and limit its range of acceptable truths.
Like you've said, "<the source of> Nature made us insane to do its
bidding".
There will need to be a series of species according to this view.
But if we simply call "augmented humanity" a new specie then both
immortalist's view and your own would coincide.
Immortalist
"rent@mob" <re...@mob.co.uk> wrote in message
news:46d54aa3.04060...@posting.google.com...
> "Immortalist" <Reanima...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:<cbadndL3n_O...@comcast.com>...
>
> > Why are empirical questions about how the mind works so weighted down with
> > political and moral and emotional baggage?
> >
>
> Hmmm. Let me see. If I remember correctly, the first thing Immortalist
> ever said to me on the topic of Evolutionary Psychology included the
> memorable phrase:
>
I forgot what the first thing you ever said to me was about evolutionary
psychology. I only had one conversation with you about as far as I can remember,
can you refresh my memory as to what you said that would draw such a narly and
cool sounding response from me.
I notice you don't defend nor state you positions very clearly but just make
general accusations about evidence or something.
> "You cherised liberal view of tabula rasa social engineering is over
> and done, smoked baby, we take sociology from you, we steal it right
> out of your hands, poof."
>
Sad but true considering the direction of science at this time.
> Which is a colourful way to say, he believes that 'empirical
> questions' have settled the matter of liberalism's validity - that
> science has proven liberal political values to be wrong, through the
> discoveries of Evolutionary Psychology. Coming over all innocent now
> about the political goals he is pursuing under the cloak of science
> looks cheeky, at best.
>
This is definately a stretch since when I imagined myself meaning that is didn't
work.
> I took some pains to explain to him why science cannot inform politics
> in this way, over in alt.philosophy, to no avail. Like most EvPsych
> evangelists, he appears to think EvPsych claims entitle him to dismiss
> all scholarship outside his reductionist paradigm.
>
You put a little list of half sentences with no explaination of some jargon, lets
be honest.
> The 'explanations' he offers for his opponents' imputed irrationalism
> are, naturally, specious. People reject Evolutionary Psychology in as
> much as it is bad science: ie, in as much as it is characterised by
> unfalsifiable speculations, poorly-designed experiments, and simple
> blind ignorance of the complexity of the semantic systems it clumsily
> attempts to reduce to syntax. If Immortalist wants to use cod science
> as a foundation for his political beliefs, he's welcome.
>
What is this "third person" little offended boy talk. Are you talking to me or
some audiance. Perhaps you are whinning that you need some help here because your
argument is weak and diluted.
> This libertarian prefers fact over fancy.
>
Oh I see, you want a libertarian to help defend you. Please give a few examples
of these facts, seems you always end up making such bold claims with no back up
then wait for someone else to assert something so you can pick a part to attack.
> rent@mob
Immortalist
<Spooked> wrote in message news:ndbsb0pnl4hssqao7...@4ax.com...
Therefore, the product of my brain indicates that in order to partially
understand the mind, one must partially understand emotions, what produces them
and what role they play in basic, daily issues?
Immortalist
"Dixit" <d...@nospam.com> wrote in message news:bxqvc.32991$pt3.4706@attbi_s03...
Water has dual properties, it is atoms of hydrogen and oxygen in a changing
relationship over time and it is wet over time.
>
Immortalist
>
> "Immortalist" <Reanima...@yahoo.com> skrev i melding
> news:_rWdnY9o3_Y...@comcast.com...
>
> ....
>
> > > No, I claim that not changing is the zero option, whatever position you
> > > hold. One can jump to conclusions, or not, from any point of the
> spectrum.
> > > Conservatism in acting is based on one's own relationship to one's own
> > > opinions, and the cost of changing them.
> >
> > So in spite of abuses that have been shown to come from the notions that
> "humans
> > can be taught anything" and that "there are no instincts" this appraoch is
> still
> > the best way to legislate government and society?
>
> Advancing from name calling to straw men, how does this relate to what I
> said? I said that not changing is the zero option, whatever position you
> hold, not that it was right.
>
Then do you think not changing is the best course for us to take?
> You mean like since America has
> > been a Christian nation we should remain so and non religious stuff should
> > continue to be censored?
>
> I'm not an American, and leave American politics to whoever does politics in
> America (all 27 percent of you who decide the vote).
>
OK, then in your country whatever it is, would you say it is better to not change
a tradition that was only recently proven to be harmful but wasn't known to be
harmful before then?
> Or do you mean that you have picked a point in cultural
> > history, a point or degree of loss of religious control and then said lets
> stick
> > with this degree?
>
> Do I? Read again.
>
Seems that this is the problem, your words are vague enough to have to read to
much into them to make them say anything in this case.
> T
>
>
>
>
humanist
says...
>
>
>A biologized ethics rejoices in the number of positive innate tendencies which
we
>possess for moral, caring behavior, and urges that we capitalize on those,
while
>at the same time being realistic about the need to restructure situations
which
>invite hurnan aggression.
>
>Awareness of the evolutionary aspects of morality and sympathy allows us to
>review our philosophical explanations with an eye toward the biology of our
>ethical behavior...
>
>Human Evolution - A Philosophical Anthropology
>-- Mary Maxwell
>http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0231059469/
>
Here Mary Maxwell is less than forthright in dealing with the issue:
Evolutionary psychology does not not accept human perspective at face value. A
statement like "positive innate tendencies" is actually inconsistent with the
approach of evolutionary psychology. E.P. employs an academic,logical (and
therefore somewhat cynical) approach to the understanding of causes for
behavior and providing explanations for these human tendencies in terms of
survival,procreation, and nurturing of individuals. The term "positive innate
tendency" has no meaning within the scope of evolutionary psychology. It only
has meaning outside that scope . The irony here is that her statement is
misleading and therefore somewhat "dishonest" according to the very "biologized
ethics" she upholds.
A statement like ">Awareness of the evolutionary aspects of morality and
sympathy allows us to
>review our philosophical explanations with an eye toward the biology of our
>ethical behavior."...
This is the kind of statement that only says what you read into it.
IMHO -> if we consider the possibility that evolved biologized ethic could
still be coincidentally close to the truth.. the problem remains of the
contradiction of any "universal" morality. Whereas evolutionary psychology's
perspective of moral relativism explains the situation quite well and does not
face the contradiction.
An analogous situation would be trying to describe something like "gorgeous
tits" in a scientific medical anatomical description - alveoli epidermis fatty
tissue,cells veins whatever... When you acually think about you realize it's
really quite silly to lust after this kind of specialized tissue.
Yet, when all is said and done I commend her for disregarding the cold-blooded
"truth" and siding with warm-blooded human-ity.
Immortalist
"humanist" <x@y.z> wrote in message
Mary Maxwell wrote that in 1984 when sociobiology was called sociobiology. Now
sociobiology is called Evolutionary Psychology. Sociobiology [EP] is the study of
human evolution and nature, concentrating on the gene/culture theory. So how
could her statement be misleading. Like saying Gallileos statements about
helicopters was misleading even though he described them hundreds of years before
they were even invented.
> A statement like ">Awareness of the evolutionary aspects of morality and
> sympathy allows us to
> >review our philosophical explanations with an eye toward the biology of our
> >ethical behavior."...
>
> This is the kind of statement that only says what you read into it.
>
E.O. Wilson, the father of Sociobiology and Evolutionary Psychology, says much
the same that awareness of instinctual impulses can only be helpful when trying
to learn the best ways for humans to be.
>
> IMHO -> if we consider the possibility that evolved biologized ethic could
> still be coincidentally close to the truth.. the problem remains of the
> contradiction of any "universal" morality. Whereas evolutionary psychology's
> perspective of moral relativism explains the situation quite well and does not
> face the contradiction.
>
Look, we humans have this language and these theories of logic and ethics. If
science happens to turn up something that is nearly undeniable and contradics
human thought, what do we do, hide this research? IMO science evidences for human
nature do not contradict philosophy yet.
> An analogous situation would be trying to describe something like "gorgeous
> tits" in a scientific medical anatomical description - alveoli epidermis fatty
> tissue,cells veins whatever... When you acually think about you realize it's
> really quite silly to lust after this kind of specialized tissue.
>
If at a critical stage near puberty a male is subjected to and thinks in
particular ways about breasts, that level will become an accent or instinct. But
all other things being equal males are going to learn to be attracted to breast
as an instinct that makes them important at some stage and the cemented instinct
which results after the critical stage is cemented for life.
> Yet, when all is said and done I commend her for disregarding the cold-blooded
> "truth" and siding with warm-blooded human-ity.
>
Up along the way we may discover some differing behaviors displayed by males and
females that may be legislated against to some degree. We already reward
outstanding individuals who have cemented their instincts in the appropriate and
helpful ways.
Virgil
wrote:
Then Septic Capon, the Simple Pimple, should have no difficulty in
describing exactly those activities of the brain that coincide with
objective experiance and those activities of the brain that don't.
Come on now, Septic Capon, the Simple Pimple, explain it all to us.
humanist
says...
The key difference is that Mary Maxwell speaks about "biologized ethics" which
clearly indicates that she is aware of the specific subject and implications.
Perhaps misleading is too strong a word.
>> A statement like ">Awareness of the evolutionary aspects of morality and
>> sympathy allows us to
>> >review our philosophical explanations with an eye toward the biology of our
>> >ethical behavior."...
>>
>> This is the kind of statement that only says what you read into it.
>>
>
>E.O. Wilson, the father of Sociobiology and Evolutionary Psychology, says much
>the same that awareness of instinctual impulses can only be helpful when
trying
>to learn the best ways for humans to be.
>
I don't disagree that it can only help in the context of deconstructing
behavior and gaining understanding. But considering your statement:
"best ways for humans to be". How to find meaning in this statement without the
evolved system of values and ethics we carry in us? Can we critically evaluate
that which is the foundation for critical evaluation? At a certain point IMHO,
we should recognize that key biases built into us are "fundamental". In that
sense, Evolutionary Psychology's role can only be passive (in providing
explanations).
The concept of what is good or best only applies to specific metrics,
dimensions, scales of value innate to all of us. Perhaps largely genetic
knowledge a priori. But evolutionary psychology's metrics are simply those of
effectiveness of behavior with respect to purpose within the scope
of evolutionary propagation. Polygyny, polygamy, self-delusion,deception are
(necessarily,scientifically) judged for effectiveness alone, not for how their
elimination can make the world a better place
>>
>> IMHO -> if we consider the possibility that evolved biologized ethic could
>> still be coincidentally close to the truth.. the problem remains of the
>> contradiction of any "universal" morality. Whereas evolutionary psychology's
>> perspective of moral relativism explains the situation quite well and does
not
>> face the contradiction.
>>
>
>Look, we humans have this language and these theories of logic and ethics. If
>science happens to turn up something that is nearly undeniable and contradics
>human thought, what do we do, hide this research? IMO science evidences for
human
>nature do not contradict philosophy yet.
>
(hide the research...>..>..>>...>>>>....)
Tough to answer such a question generally. We need to evaluate the specific
potential consequences before answering. If you discovered a method of
triggering a supernova in your backyard, there's a point where we must hide
research.
PS.Nothing contradicts philosophy.. not even contradictions! Philosophy has the
superpower to question the very concept of contradiction, rendering it
powerless :)
>> An analogous situation would be trying to describe something like "gorgeous
>> tits" in a scientific medical anatomical description - alveoli epidermis
fatty
>> tissue,cells veins whatever... When you acually think about you realize it's
>> really quite silly to lust after this kind of specialized tissue.
>>
>
>If at a critical stage near puberty a male is subjected to and thinks in
>particular ways about breasts, that level will become an accent or instinct.
But
>all other things being equal males are going to learn to be attracted to
breast
>as an instinct that makes them important at some stage and the cemented
instinct
>which results after the critical stage is cemented for life.
>
>> Yet, when all is said and done I commend her for disregarding the
cold-blooded
>> "truth" and siding with warm-blooded human-ity.
>>
>
>Up along the way we may discover some differing behaviors displayed by males
and
>females that may be legislated against to some degree. We already reward
>outstanding individuals who have cemented their instincts in the appropriate
and
>helpful ways.
>
>
IMHO learning why we commit adultery will not change the propensity in us to do
so.
Evolutionary psychology is enlightenment, but in a dead-end kind of way. Which
is perhaps why it faces opposition.
1. First there is a fear of inequality.
2. The second fear is the fear of imperfectability.
3. The third fear is a fear of determinism.
4. The fourth fear is the fear of nihilism.
With full admission of hypocrisy, let me add that E.P. can only be brought out
in the raw when its audience is minor part of society, if it formed the basis
of a movement it would need to be sanitized - for the sake of posterity.
rent@mob
> > "You cherised liberal view of tabula rasa social engineering is over
> > and done, smoked baby, we take sociology from you, we steal it right
> > out of your hands, poof."
>
> Sad but true considering the direction of science at this time.
>
So: science takes sociology from liberals, yes or no?
> > Which is a colourful way to say, he believes that 'empirical
> > questions' have settled the matter of liberalism's validity - that
> > science has proven liberal political values to be wrong, through the
> > discoveries of Evolutionary Psychology. Coming over all innocent now
> > about the political goals he is pursuing under the cloak of science
> > looks cheeky, at best.
> >
>
> This is definately a stretch since when I imagined myself meaning that is didn't
> work.
>
I appreciate how limited you sometimes allow your imagination to be -
perhaps the yes or no above makes it easier for you to comprehend.
>
> You put a little list of half sentences with no explaination of some jargon, lets
> be honest.
>
If you refuse to engage with the 'jargon', your grasp of these issues
will always be constrained within your pre-existing categories. I can
lead a philistine to science but I can't make him drink.
> > The 'explanations' he offers for his opponents' imputed irrationalism
> > are, naturally, specious. People reject Evolutionary Psychology in as
> > much as it is bad science: ie, in as much as it is characterised by
> > unfalsifiable speculations, poorly-designed experiments, and simple
> > blind ignorance of the complexity of the semantic systems it clumsily
> > attempts to reduce to syntax. If Immortalist wants to use cod science
> > as a foundation for his political beliefs, he's welcome.
> >
>
> [SNIP playground backchat]
The point is that I reject EvPsych as bad science, I don't reject good
science due to being cowardly. Your list of 'fears' works from the
assumption that the science is good, and EvPsych proponents bravely
shrug off the cowardly fears afflicting their critics. Yet, in five
cases to date on other threads, you have consistently ducked-out of
opportunities to demonstrate that the science is good. I therefore
find your take on bravery and cowardice puzzling.
rent@mob
Sir Frederick
Thus I choose to be a 'conservative',
and to practice the old stories.
The anticipated 'death by paradigm shift'
will eventually arrive for the human race.
Maybe that's why ET is not here - 'death
by paradigm shift' does them all in.
Immortalist
"Virgil" <ITSnetNOTcom/vir...@COMCAST.com> wrote in message
news:ITSnetNOTcom/virgil-3DD5B0.21281402062004@[63.218.45.211]...
Who is the Septic Capon AKA Simple Pimple? Property dualism describes the
simualtainious properties of objective experience and the physical activities
producing them.
Immortalist
"humanist" <x@y.z> wrote in message news:40bea185$0$4458$45be...@newscene.com...
Did you notice that the world wide web doesn't even know such terminology exists?
I think it was some jargon that came and went with the 80s.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&q=%22biologized+ethics%22
Here is a little thing she says about how it summarizes some other ideas about
ethics I think
- A Biologized Ethics
As we have seen, awareness of the evolutionary aspects of morality and sympathy
allows us to review our philosophical explanations with an eye toward the biology
of our ethical behavior. I, for one, can't help but read much of our rich
heritage in moral philosophy as a long and sometimes tortuous attempt to explain
that which the evolutionary perspective, almost in one fell swoop, makes clear.
We now know, one might say, how it was that humans came to eat the fruit of the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil .Hence, moral philosophy, uninformed by
contemporary breakthroughs in biology, can no longer be taken as the last word on
subjects so vital to the human social order. In the remainder of this section I
will consider various aspects of a biologized ethics. First I will deal with a
'stickler' that tends to pop up whenever the subjects of evolution and ethics are
discussed under one roof. Then I will raise the biological (but not exclusively
biological) problem of violence and aggression. Finally, this will be followed by
some encouraging thoughts about a 'humane ethics'.
This would be some parts of this chapter
[E] Moral Philosophy and Ethics
- Moral Philosophy in the West
- Hedonism and Utilitarianism
- : Hedonism.
- : The utilitarian philosophers
- Ethics as Epistemology
- Morality and Power
- A Biologized Ethics
- Evolutionary Ethics'
- Is-Ought
- Violence and Aggression
- Humane Ethics
- : Equal Rights.
- : Obligation.
- : Actualization.
But I don't know about some of her philosophy as I am not sure about some of
Pinker's either.
All I know is that Neurophysiologists always come out clean while psychologists,
neurologists, and behaviorists always get tarnished. I have followed the
neurophysiologists since I was a kid and was very lucky in that respect. They
only focus upon what particular parts of the brain are doing, what is their
funtion, and how do we make a science of what differing areas of the brain are
doing and what their functions are. I merely like Maxwell's quote about how the
more we know about our biology the more helpful it can be.
> >> A statement like ">Awareness of the evolutionary aspects of morality and
> >> sympathy allows us to
> >> >review our philosophical explanations with an eye toward the biology of our
> >> >ethical behavior."...
> >>
> >> This is the kind of statement that only says what you read into it.
> >>
> >
> >E.O. Wilson, the father of Sociobiology and Evolutionary Psychology, says much
> >the same that awareness of instinctual impulses can only be helpful when
> trying
> >to learn the best ways for humans to be.
> >
> I don't disagree that it can only help in the context of deconstructing
> behavior and gaining understanding. But considering your statement:
> "best ways for humans to be". How to find meaning in this statement without the
> evolved system of values and ethics we carry in us? Can we critically evaluate
> that which is the foundation for critical evaluation? At a certain point IMHO,
> we should recognize that key biases built into us are "fundamental". In that
> sense, Evolutionary Psychology's role can only be passive (in providing
> explanations).
>
Best ways to be may not really express my opinion, but I just typed it off the
top of my head. In that sense you are correct. But I don't see the connection
that makes EP or sociobiology passive when sociobiology is the science that
studies these fundamentals? Are you saying to throw away the fundamentals and
their science?
> The concept of what is good or best only applies to specific metrics,
> dimensions, scales of value innate to all of us. Perhaps largely genetic
> knowledge a priori. But evolutionary psychology's metrics are simply those of
> effectiveness of behavior with respect to purpose within the scope
> of evolutionary propagation. Polygyny, polygamy, self-delusion,deception are
> (necessarily,scientifically) judged for effectiveness alone, not for how their
> elimination can make the world a better place
>
You have took off running with my ad hoc conversation and this "best way for
humans to be" which is not what Wilson or Maxwell or I meant. I meant "helpful as
we discover more about instinctual and plastic aspects of human nature and
cultural learning.
>
> >>
> >> IMHO -> if we consider the possibility that evolved biologized ethic could
> >> still be coincidentally close to the truth.. the problem remains of the
> >> contradiction of any "universal" morality. Whereas evolutionary psychology's
> >> perspective of moral relativism explains the situation quite well and does
> not
> >> face the contradiction.
> >>
> >
> >Look, we humans have this language and these theories of logic and ethics. If
> >science happens to turn up something that is nearly undeniable and contradics
> >human thought, what do we do, hide this research? IMO science evidences for
> human
> >nature do not contradict philosophy yet.
> >
>
> (hide the research...>..>..>>...>>>>....)
Did you take out some research results I posted or do you mean that you want me
to post the 12 categories of bonafied human instinct again? If you want the
research I will find a place in the crossposted protion of these threads to put
them again.
> Tough to answer such a question generally. We need to evaluate the specific
> potential consequences before answering. If you discovered a method of
> triggering a supernova in your backyard, there's a point where we must hide
> research.
Why does the idea of human nature bother you again?
> PS.Nothing contradicts philosophy.. not even contradictions! Philosophy has the
> superpower to question the very concept of contradiction, rendering it
> powerless :)
>
You only show how your approach is very vulnerable when you take off running with
simple conversational blurbs. All I have to do is say some vague things and I
could lead you over many cliffs. But thats not my intention nor will I do so. It
is my opinion that the 12 verifiable human instincts and the numeraous other
evidences for other instincts don't yet contradict available philosophical
positions on particular sides of debates but they will contradict their
antithesis of course.
> >> An analogous situation would be trying to describe something like "gorgeous
> >> tits" in a scientific medical anatomical description - alveoli epidermis
> fatty
> >> tissue,cells veins whatever... When you acually think about you realize it's
> >> really quite silly to lust after this kind of specialized tissue.
> >>
> >
> >If at a critical stage near puberty a male is subjected to and thinks in
> >particular ways about breasts, that level will become an accent or instinct.
> But
> >all other things being equal males are going to learn to be attracted to
> breast
> >as an instinct that makes them important at some stage and the cemented
> instinct
> >which results after the critical stage is cemented for life.
> >
> >> Yet, when all is said and done I commend her for disregarding the
> cold-blooded
> >> "truth" and siding with warm-blooded human-ity.
> >>
> >
> >Up along the way we may discover some differing behaviors displayed by males
> and
> >females that may be legislated against to some degree. We already reward
> >outstanding individuals who have cemented their instincts in the appropriate
> and
> >helpful ways.
> >
> >
>
> IMHO learning why we commit adultery will not change the propensity in us to do
> so.
It was not my intention for "differing behaviors displayed by males and females"
to mean only adultery. I said the conversational blurb in that way so as to
indicate that of course laws regulate many male behavioral biases already but in
the future female biases will be exposed and legislated "to some degree" at least
in which they can be implicated. THis applies not just to sex or fidelity but to
the entire round of human behavior in culture. I types this paragraph without
looking up at the computer and am moving the curser down befor looking up, this
might be the problem mispellinga nd all..
> Evolutionary psychology is enlightenment, but in a dead-end kind of way. Which
> is perhaps why it faces opposition.
> 1. First there is a fear of inequality.
> 2. The second fear is the fear of imperfectability.
> 3. The third fear is a fear of determinism.
> 4. The fourth fear is the fear of nihilism.
>
> With full admission of hypocrisy, let me add that E.P. can only be brought out
> in the raw when its audience is minor part of society, if it formed the basis
> of a movement it would need to be sanitized - for the sake of posterity.
>
Actually sociobiology is a cross section or crossroads of multi-disciplinarian
research from psychology, sociology, social psychology, evolutionary theory, and
more. I appears you are confusing some popular literature on sexual behavior that
has come out recently in sociobiology. Your claims may be correct as concerns
this recent literature but maybe not if you are considering this recent
literature as the entire field.
Besides those four contentions are Pinker's ideas about human nature, sociology,
and the blank slate. But to be fair sociobiologists would probably agree with him
but with many reservations about the subject which do address you disagreements.
It may be risky to underestimate just how far sociobiology has come in the last
20 years by the flurry of it's new adherents just now making it into the social
spotlight. The rear guard will come up now that we have picqued your sexual
interests and the real game begins and yea those fears will become greater and
more precisely proven.
Gene Strungar
Gene said
Let me see if I understand what you are trying to say.
If I am correct you are talking about fear, and the reasons for the
fear.
You pick up a subject and try to decipher its influence over the human
being, specifically how it induces fear.
Am I correct?
You can simplify the presentation by looking at why the human being is
experiencing fear.
One reason is a very clear, specific threat.
Second reason is the sum of many less specific issues but which put
together may achieve the necessary level to become a threat.
In your case you are talking about the second situation and are trying
to combine different issues to draw your conclusions.
You pick some issues, assign them values and play with them.
The more issues you pick, the more values you assign, the more
solutions to your questions.
But how do you choose the "correct" ones.
Maybe you could look not at the specific issues but at their number,
when the quantity, number of small issues, turns into quality, threat,
fear.
It is just like when you are filling a bin with disparate stuff, maybe
it is not important what you throw in the bin, but their dimension
versus the bin.
Gene
> What are the implications for other fields of this fear social science people
> have of human nature?
>
> 1. Urban Planning
> 2. The Arts & Humanities
> 3. Intellectual Life & Marxism
>
> --------------------------------------
>
> 1. Urban Planning: The blank slate has had an enormous influence in far-flung
> fields. One example is architecture and urban planning. The 20th century saw the
> rise of a movement that has been called "authoritarian high modernism", which was
> contemporaneous with the ascendance of the blank slate. City planners believed
> that people's taste for green space, for ornament, for people-watching, for cosy
> places for intimate social gatherings, were just social constructions. They were
> archaic historical artefacts that were getting in the way of the orderly design
> of cities and should be ignored by planners designing optimal cities according to
> so-called scientific principles.
>
> In extreme cases, this led to the wastelands of planned cities like Brasilia; in
> milder cases it gave us the so-called urban renewal projects in American cities
> and the dreary high-rises in the Soviet Union and English council flats.
> Ornamentation, human scale, green space, gardens and comfortable social meeting
> places were written out of the cities because the planners had a theory of human
> nature that omitted human aesthetic and social needs.
>
> -------------------------------------
>
> 2. The Arts & Humanities: Another example is the arts. In the 20th century,
> modernism and post-modernism took over, and their practitioners disdained beauty
> as bourgeois, saccharine and lightweight. Art was deliberately made
> incomprehensible or ugly or shocking - again, on the assumption that people's
> tastes for attractive faces, landscapes, colours, and so on, were reversible
> social constructions. And so art became baffling and uninterpretable without
> acquaintance with arcane theory.
>
> By their own admission, the humanities programs in universities, and institutions
> that promote new works of elite art, are in crisis. People are staying away in
> droves. I don't think it takes an Einstein to figure out why. By denying people's
> sense of visual beauty in painting and sculpture, melody in music, metre and
> rhyme in poetry, plot and narrative and character in fiction, the elite arts
> wrote off the vast majority of their audience - the people who approach art in
> part for pleasure and edification rather than social one-upmanship. Today there
> are movements in the arts to reintroduce beauty and narrative and melody and
> other basic human pleasures. And those doing so are considered radical
> extremists.
>
> -----------------------------------
>
> 3. Intellectual Life & Marxism: Science doesn't take place in a vacuum. Didn't
> historical events of the 20th century have something to do with the popularity of
> the blank slate?
>
> Intellectual life was enormously affected by an understandable revulsion to
> Nazism, with its pseudoscientific theories of race and its equally nonsensical
> glorification of conflict as part of the evolutionary wisdom of nature. It was
> natural to reject anything that smacked of a genetic approach to human affairs.
>
> But historians of ideas have begun to fill in another side of the picture. During
> the 20th century, equally horrific genocides were carried out in the name of
> Marxism, such as in the mass purges and man-made famines of Lenin, Stalin and
> Mao, and the madness in Cambodia.
>
> The remarkable fact is that the two great ideologically driven genocides of the
> 20th century came from theories of human nature that were diametrically opposed.
>
> The Marxists had no use for the concept of race, didn't believe in genes, and
> denied Darwin's theory of natural selection as the mechanism of evolutionary
> adaptation.
>
> This shows that it's not a biological approach to human nature that is uniquely
> sinister. There must be common threads to Nazism and totalitarian Marxism that
> cut across a belief in the importance of evolution or genetics.
>
> One common thread was a desire to reshape humanity. In the Marxists' case it was
> through social engineering; in the Nazis' case it was eugenics. Neither of them
> were satisfied with human beings as we find them, with all their flaws and
> weaknesses.
>
> Rather than building a social order around enduring human traits, they had the
> conceit that they could re-engineer human traits using scientific principles that
> were, in reality, pseudoscientific principles.
>
> In Martin Amis's new book about Stalinism, he argues that intellectuals have not
> yet come to grips with the lessons of Marxist totalitarianism in the way that
> they did with Nazi totalitarianism many decades ago. A number of historians and
> political philosophers have made the same point. This blind spot has distorted
> the intellectual landscape, including the implications and non-implications of
> genetics and evolution for understanding ourselves.
>
Immortalist
Promethean Fire - Reflections on the Origins of Mind
Charles J. Lumsdem - E.O. Wilson - 1983
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1583484256/
...Still we were able to locate published studies of twelve categories of
behavior that contain sufficiently precise measurements of the mode of
transmission. [a solid theory of human evolution that gives importance
to the degree of biological influence on mental development]
From this sample a remarkable result emerged: in every case
the behavior is learned through gene-culture transmission; mental
development appears to be genetically constrained. This result could not
have been the result of observational bias. The psychologists who conducted
the experiments were generally unaware of most of the other work being
conducted of similar nature. They had no visible preconceptions about the
mode of transmission; if anything, the Zeitgeist of contemporary psychology
for the most part favors a belief in blank-slate minds. Yet the data from
all the research programs revealed gene-culture transmission, a partial
automatic preference on the part of the developing human mind for certain
cultural choices over others. Some of the more striking examples produced by
these pioneering studies entail the following familiar forms of thought and
behavior.
. Only a very small percentage of individuals prefer to have sexual
relations with brothers or sisters. They may harbor moments of inward desire
toward siblings. But the vast majority choose to mate with persons raised
outside their immediate family circle. Studies of the origin of sexual
preference in Israeli kibbutzim and Taiwanese villages indicate that, even
if other members of the society could somehow be neutral or favorable toward
sibling incest, young people would still automatically avoid it in an
overwhelming majority. The aversion is based on an unconscious process in
mental development. Children raised closely together during the first six
years of life feel little or no sexual attraction toward each other when
they reach maturity, whether they are close relatives or not. As one
anthropologist put it, people who use the same potty when very young do not
marry when they grow up. The feeling has little to do with culture or the
classification of kin. Even if a society could somehow begin anew with
brother-sister incest as the norm, it would probably develop a cultural
antagonism toward the practice in a generation or two. Eventually, the
society would incorporate taboos in the form of rituals and mythic stories
to justify and reinforce the aversion. In a phrase, the genetic leash pulls
culture back into line.
. The learning of color vocabularies is also strongly biased and hence falls
in the category of gene-culture transmission. From infancy onward, normally
sighted individuals see variation in wavelength not as a continuously
varying property of light (which it is) but as the four basic colors of
blue, green, yellow, and red, along with various blends in the intermediate
zones. This beautiful illusion is genetically programed into the visual
apparatus and brain. Marc Bornstein at Princeton University used special
techniques that measure attention span to show that four-month-old infants
respond to variation in wavelength as if they were discriminating the four
adult categories.
The same pattern occurs worldwide. At the University of California,
Berkeley, Brent Berlin and Paul Kay worked with the native speakers of
twenty languages, including Arabic, Bulgarian, Cantonese, Catalan, Hebrew,
Ibibio, Thai, Tzeltal, and Urdu. The volunteers were asked to describe their
color vocabulary in an unusually precise way: they were shown a large array
of chips varying in color and brightness, and directed to place each of the
principal color terms of their language on the chips that came closest to
their conception of what the words mean. Even though the words differed
strikingly from one language to the next in origin and sound, they fell into
clusters on the array that correspond, at least approximately, to the
principal colors distinguished by Born-stein's infants.
The physiological basis of the partitioning in vision is partially known.
The color cones of the retina, which are the cells that distinguish
wavelength, are differentiated into three types that approach but do not
correspond exactly to the basic colors. These cells are maximally sensitive
to blue (440 nanometers), green (535 nanometers), and yellow-green (565
nanometers) respectively. In the lateral geniculate body of the thalamus,
one of the key relay stations between the eye and the visual cortex of the
brain, the visually active nerve cells are divided into four types that
appear to encode the principal hues. The deeper mechanisms that translate
these diverse sensitivities into the conscious perception of color are under
active investigation. Few brain scientists doubt that a full explanation of
color vision at the levels of the cell and molecule will eventually become
possible. Furthermore, simple genetic changes in color vision, creating the
various forms of color blindness, occur widely through human populations.
They have been associated tentatively with the malfunction of particular
genes located on the X-chromosome.
The intensity of the learning bias was strikingly revealed by an experiment
conducted on color perception during the late 1960s by Eleanor Rosch of the
University of California at Berkeley. In looking for "natural categories" of
cognition, Rosch exploited the fact that the Dani people of New Guinea have
no words to denote color; they speak only of "mili" (roughly, dark) and
"mola" (light). Rosch considered the following question: if Dani adults set
out to learn a color vocabulary, would they do so more readily if the color
terms correspond to the principal innate hues? In other words, would
cultural innovation be channeled to some extent by the innate genetic
constraints? Rosch divided 68 volunteer Dani men into two groups. She taught
one a series of newly invented color terms placed on the principal hue
categories of the array (blue, green, yellow, red), where most of the
natural vocabularies of other cultures are located. She taught a second
group of Dani men a series of new terms placed off center, away from the
main clusters formed by other languages. The first group of volunteers,
following the "natural" propensities of color perception, learned about
twice as quickly as those given the competing, less natural color terms.
They also selected these terms more readily when allowed a choice.
. Infants prefer to look at objects that have particular shapes and
arrangements, and as time passes their choices change in a predictable
manner. From birth they gaze longest at pictures that are large, contain
numerous elements, and consist of curbed lines. Most of all they favor
figures whose outlines contain approximately ten independent turns. By the
age of eight weeks they also prefer bull's-eye designs over parallel
stripes, touching elements over those that are separated, and irregular
arrays of elements over those that are perfectly aligned. These apparently
innate biases parallel an early preference for the abstract design of a
normally composed human face over various humanlike but scrambled designs.
By twenty weeks the infant shifts its attention increasingly to new designs
and faces in preference to those it has already learned, and as a result its
visual experience expands rapidly.
. Although facial expressions vary from one culture to the next, strong
tendencies exist that must be classified as gene-culture transmission as
opposed to a purely cultural form of transmission. People around the world
use a common set of expressions to register fear, loathing, anger, surprise,
and happiness. Paul Ekman of the University of California at San Francisco
tested the strength of this predisposition in an elegant manner. He
photographed Americans acting out these emotions and New Guinea highland
tribesmen as they told stories in which similar feelings were emphasized.
When individuals from each culture (New Guinea or American) were then shown
portraits from the other culture, they interpreted the meanings of the
facial expressions with more than 80 percent accuracy. This was the case
even though the New Guinea tribesmen had been previously exposed very little
to the outside world, while the Americans who looked at the pictures knew
nothing of the Papuan culture.
The distinctive nature of the brain's program in facial recognition is
further illustrated by the rare medical condition called prosopagnosia. When
lesions occur on particular regions of the undersurface of the temporal and
occipital lobes of the brain, the patient cannot identify other persons by
their faces. In extreme cases he is unable to recognize the features of even
his closest relatives. The disability is not due to a general loss of visual
memory; the patient can still identify objects other than faces by sight
alone. Nor is it due to an inability to remember different people; the
patient can distinguish them by their voices. The bizarre properties of
prosopagnosia demonstrate how the brain can be biologically programed to
follow specific sensory cues, especally when the category of learning is
concerned with the most pressing needs of social life.
. Newborn infants choose most kinds of sugars over plain water and in this
descending order of preference: sucrose, fructose, lactose, and glucose.
They also discriminate among substances that are acid, salty, and bitter,
reacting by twisting their faces into the characteristic adult expressions
of distaste for each substance. This selectivity continues into childhood
and has important effects in the evolution of adult cuisines.
. Anxiety in the presence of strangers occurs in very young children in all
the many cultures around the world studied by the German ethologist Irenaus
Eibl-Eibesfeldt. The baby turns away, buries its face in its mother's
shoulder, and often begins to cry. This relatively complicated response
first appears at six to eight months of age and peaks sometime during the
subsequent year. It does not depend on previous unpleasant experience with
strangers; nor does it appear to be linked to crying and other signs of
discomfort caused by separation from the mother. The latter development is
distinct in appearance and first emerges when the infant is about fifteen
weeks old. Anxiety in the presence of strangers continues at a lower,
controlled level into childhood and even maturity. It slides easily into
fear and hostility, contributing to the tendency of people to live in small
groups of intimates. These responses are intensified when strangers stare.
Eyes and eye-like patterns have been found to have a generally higher
arousal effect on people of all ages than do other facial features. They are
also key elements in the attraction of newborn infants to the face as
opposed to other parts of the body, and they play a central role in
communication afterwards.
. The innate tendency for human beings to learn one thing as opposed to
another, in other words gene-culture transmission, is perhaps most
dramatically illustrated by the phobias. These are the extreme fears into
which people are plunged- stricken by nausea, cold sweat, and other
reactions of the au-tonomic nervous system. Phobias typically emerge
fullblown after only a single unpleasant experience, and they are
exceptionally difficult to eradicate, even when the victim is carefully
reassured and coached by a psychiatrist. It is remarkable that the phobias
are most easily evoked by many of the greatest dangers of mankind's ancient
environment, including closed spaces, heights, thunderstorms, rurming water,
snakes, and spiders. Of equal significance, phobias are rarely evoked by the
greatest dangers of modern technological society, including guns, knives,
automobiles, explosives, and electric sockets. Nothing could better
illustrate the peculiar and occasionally obsolete rules by which the human
mind is assembled, or the slowness of man to adapt to the dangers created by
his own technological triumphs.
For convenience we decided to label the various regularities of development
as epigenetic rules. Epigenesis is a biological term that means the sum of
all the interactions between the genes and the environment that create the
distinctive traits of an organism. Thus the color vocabulary used by a
person is based on the interaction of genes prescribing color perception in
his eyes and brain with the environment in which he developed. This
environment ranges from the fetal conditions that produced his eyes and
brain to his subsequent enculturation. The epigenetic rules of color vision
and classification are stringent enough to direct cultures around the world
toward the central clusters of color classification as revealed by the
Berlin-Kay experiments. But they are not strong enough to impose completely
identical classifications on every culture and every person.
The epigenetic rules of mental development are a menagerie of diverse but
still largely unstudied phenomena. During the past twenty years,
psychologists and brain scientists have uncovered evidence of developmental
regularities in even the most subtle and complex forms of mental activity.
People follow unexpected and sometimes remarkably inefficient procedures in
the way they recall information, judge the merits of other people, estimate
risk, and plan strategy. Among the peculiarities of decision making is the
excessive use of stereotypes. When observers are asked to guess the
occupation of another person who is shy, helpful, and obsessed with detail,
they are more likely to choose librarian over other occupations, even when
their personal experience runs counter to this conclusion. Most people,
including some trained statisticians, intuitively expect small random
samples to reflect faithfully the large population from which they are
drawn, although this is demonstrably untrue in a large percentage of the
cases. Other studies have revealed that human beings are also poor intuitive
statisticians when dealing with the major events of life and death. They
tend to equate events that have a low probability and low consequence with
events that have a low probability but important consequence. As a result
they underestimate the effects of catastrophes. In particular, they
consistently misjudge the future effects of warfare, as well as floods,
windstorms, droughts, and volcanic eruptions, even when such events are
repeatedly experienced and remembered over many generations. Other examples
of developmental bias in language formation, logic, and basic arithmetic
will be described in the next chapter, when the evolutionary origin of the
modern mind is more fully examined.
Promethean Fire - Reflections on the Origins of Mind
Charles J. Lumsdem - E.O. Wilson - 1983
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1583484256/
"rent@mob" <re...@mob.co.uk> wrote in message
news:46d54aa3.0406...@posting.google.com...
> "Immortalist" <Reanima...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:<jaKdnfvHorI...@comcast.com>...
>
> > > "You cherised liberal view of tabula rasa social engineering is over
> > > and done, smoked baby, we take sociology from you, we steal it right
> > > out of your hands, poof."
> >
> > Sad but true considering the direction of science at this time.
> >
>
> So: science takes sociology from liberals, yes or no?
>
False dilemma fallacy, you expect me to answer a question that sounds like "have
you stopped beating your wife lately?" If I say yes that means I agree that I
used to beat my wife, and if I say no that mean not only did I used to beat my
wife but that I still do.
As you might know there is a history of what happens during "paradigm shifts"
http://www.taketheleap.com/define.html
When one conceptual world-view is replaced by another, or, a change of patterns
on a massive scale. When Copernicus showed how the Earth rotates around the Sun,
and not vice versa, that created a paradigm shift [it forced a new way of
thinking about our place in the Universe]. And when quantum physics and general
relativity displaced Newtonian mechanics, that created another shift. Applied to
an enabling technology such as molecular manufacturing, it suggests that there
will be many shifts occurring, soon, and with wide-ranging and often disruptive
consequences. For more detail, see Accelerating Intelligence: Where Will
Technology Lead Us? [by Ray Kurzweil].
nanotech-now.com/nanotechnology-glossary-P-R.htm
1 A change in the well known typical example 2 Any major change in the generally
accepted point of view
www.geocities.com/Athens/Styx/8877/mj/mj.html
A complete change in thinking or belief systems that allows the creation of a new
condition previously thought impossible or unacceptable. (ex.- the change in
thinking created by Just-in-Time that views inventory as a liability, not an
asset).
www.bridgefieldgroup.com/glos7.htm
A change from the accepted point of view to a new belief.
www.effectivemeetings.com/diversions/dictionary/index.asp
Phrase coined by Thomas Kuhn in his famous book The Structure of Scientific
Revolutions (1962). Kuhn's idea is that scientific progress occurs, not by slow
incremental accumulation alone, but also by occasional "revolutions," in which
"an older paradigm is replaced in whole or in part by an incompatible new one"
(Kuhn, p. 92) - a paradigm shift. It refers to a group of people, or even a whole
society, undergoing a change of world view, as for example from believing the
earth was flat to believing the earth is round, or believing the sun and stars
revolve around earth vs. the earth revolving around the sun. Biblical scholarship
is often assumed to have undergone a paradigm shift from a diachronic to a
synchronic worldview.
www.read-the-bible.org/glossary.html
Refers to a shift in world views. The so-called "new paradigm" (new model orform)
is pantheistic (all is God) and monastic (all is one).
logosresourcepages.org/na-dict.html
elements of, emerging paradigms, alternative visions: Mondragon's Society of
Cooperatives, Korten's People-Centered Economy, Daly and Cobb's Wholistic
Community of Communities, Theobald's Economic Security Plan. See also values.
www.jaysquare.com/resources/glossary.htm
The creation of a new model for any business process. Breakthrough thinking.
www.logisticsfocus.com/Glossary/glossary-p.asp
fundamental, even radical rethinking of what people believe to be true for a
given body of knowledge
highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0767421906/student_view0/chapter12/glossary.html
A change in thinking that results in a new way of seeing the world.
cwx.prenhall.com/bookbind/pubbooks/beekman2/chapter14/custom5/deluxe-content.html
A change in thinking that results in a new way of seeing and interpreting the
world.
home.earthlink.net/~stanofms/glossary.htm
A quantum change in the development of something which can not be accounted for
by simple evolutionary extensions but rather by a fundamental change in
principles.
www.octivity.com/api/process4/templates/glossary_of_terms.htm
Yes the new paradigm with be like the Vandals and Barbarians during the fall of
the Roman Empire, might even take your like loc, but I doubt if it will be as
radical as the middle ages shifts. But man, lay off all the portrayal of
extremist bullshit please give me a break.
> > > Which is a colourful way to say, he believes that 'empirical
> > > questions' have settled the matter of liberalism's validity - that
> > > science has proven liberal political values to be wrong, through the
> > > discoveries of Evolutionary Psychology. Coming over all innocent now
> > > about the political goals he is pursuing under the cloak of science
> > > looks cheeky, at best.
> > >
> >
> > This is definately a stretch since when I imagined myself meaning that is
didn't
> > work.
> >
>
> I appreciate how limited you sometimes allow your imagination to be -
> perhaps the yes or no above makes it easier for you to comprehend.
>
Have you stopped being an asshole lately? yes or no! I don't think your an
assholio but don't you see how you are framing the question? Is this how all
libertarians operate?
> >
> > You put a little list of half sentences with no explaination of some jargon,
lets
> > be honest.
> >
>
> If you refuse to engage with the 'jargon', your grasp of these issues
> will always be constrained within your pre-existing categories. I can
> lead a philistine to science but I can't make him drink.
>
You were speaking in the third person in another post as if to an audiance. I
often think of the audiance when posting as concerns how much we explain what we
are saying. If you want to go off into detailed jargon most people don't know
without providing an explaination please communicate by personal e-mail.
Otherwise I prefer at least a link to expain what you are saying even if I do
understand the jargon, you know for the third person?
>
> > > The 'explanations' he offers for his opponents' imputed irrationalism
> > > are, naturally, specious. People reject Evolutionary Psychology in as
> > > much as it is bad science: ie, in as much as it is characterised by
> > > unfalsifiable speculations, poorly-designed experiments, and simple
> > > blind ignorance of the complexity of the semantic systems it clumsily
> > > attempts to reduce to syntax. If Immortalist wants to use cod science
> > > as a foundation for his political beliefs, he's welcome.
> > >
> >
> > [SNIP playground backchat]
>
> The point is that I reject EvPsych as bad science, I don't reject good
> science due to being cowardly. Your list of 'fears' works from the
> assumption that the science is good, and EvPsych proponents bravely
> shrug off the cowardly fears afflicting their critics. Yet, in five
> cases to date on other threads, you have consistently ducked-out of
> opportunities to demonstrate that the science is good. I therefore
> find your take on bravery and cowardice puzzling.
>
If the point is that you reject sociobiology, which evolutionary psychology is,
can you show "us" why?
> rent@mob
Immortalist
> Top-post of 21 pretty verifiable human instincts just for mr. rentMob
>
I meant the "12."
Paul Bramscher
> Why are empirical questions about how the mind works so weighted down with
> political and moral and emotional baggage? Why do people believe that there are
> dangerous implications to the idea that the mind is a product of the brain, that
> the brain is organised in part by the genome, and that the genome was shaped by
> natural selection?
The danger arises when it becomes a nature-only argument, and there is
no credence given to the role of nurture, enculturation, education,
training, life's experiences, etc. which are not necessarily subject to
natural selection at all. Indeed, the examples of crippled Neandertals,
or those with healed injuries are telling -- the community did not
always leave the weak and injured to be "weeded out" as natural
selection would suggest but, rather, tended them. An occasional
capacity for great compassion and kindess is perhaps one of the traits
that makes us remarkable in comparison remainder of the animal kingdom.
> This idea has been met with demonstrations, denunciations, picketings and
> comparisons to Nazism, from the right and the left. And most intellectuals today
> have a phobia of any explanation of the mind that invokes genetics. They're
> afraid of four things.
What sort of nonsensical generalization is this? Many "intellectuals"
are cognitive scientists actively researching these issues.
>
> 1. First there is a fear of inequality.
This is not a fear, it is a fact. Smart compassionate persons don't
deny there are differences. They are concerned, however, about
justification for oppression. You're born X, you stay X, we are
justified in treating you like X, you die X.
> 2. The second fear is the fear of imperfectability.
Nonsense. That's purely straw man.
> 3. The third fear is a fear of determinism.
Why are you stuck on the word "fear"? There are plenty of reasons to
counter determinism that aren't based on a fear factor. Quantum
mechanics casts doubt on it, as have many philosophers over the centuries.
The problem with "evolutionary psychology" is that everything from
language, eating habits, religious persuasion, concepts of time and
space, personal and social identity, etc. are products of culture. The
Whorf-Sapir hypothesis, for example, draws connections between thought
and language. Concepts of memes and memetics, and many other researched
venues on behavior, cognitive science and in the discipline of
anthropology (I happen to have earned a triple-major in Anthropology,
History & Computer Science) suggest that behavior is passed from
individual to individual along non-genetic means. There is no capacity
to store memory in a DNA chain, or language and thought in protoplasm.
Certain biases and tendencies clearly have a chemical basis:
testosterone may be the reason that men tend to be responsible for more
violent crimes, wars, and vote for more hawkish politicians. Outlyers
with an organic brain condition or mental illness clearly face
additional challenges.
There isn't a "fear" of evolutionary psychology per se. There is only
the sensible argument that humans and human behavior is a complex
byproduct of culture, environment, physiology, biology, ethology,
cognitive processes, psychology, economics, history, and so forth.
To suggest that any one of these variables is the only variable is
nonsense. In answer to your series of fear-based questions, you simply
need to read a little history. No politician who's turned to biology or
race as the primary factor has done so with good intentions. It's a
demonstrable historical fact that race-based politics leads down dark paths.
John Jones
> political and moral and emotional baggage? Why do people believe that
there are
> dangerous implications to the idea that the mind is a product of the
brain, that
> the brain is organised in part by the genome, and that the genome was
shaped by
> natural selection?
That's not the real issue. Even more to the point, why do people still
believe that the brain and the genome can tell us anything about ourselves
and the way we live? The fact that the pro- and anti- brigaders believe this
ridiculous notion is what keeps the flames burning.
So I accuse you of perpetuating this myth by promoting and highlighting the
arguments that are grounded in a support of it.
JJ
Immortalist <Reanima...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:cbadndL3n_O...@comcast.com...
> Why are empirical questions about how the mind works so weighted down with
> political and moral and emotional baggage? Why do people believe that
there are
> dangerous implications to the idea that the mind is a product of the
brain, that
> the brain is organised in part by the genome, and that the genome was
shaped by
> natural selection?
>
> This idea has been met with demonstrations, denunciations, picketings and
> comparisons to Nazism, from the right and the left. And most intellectuals
today
> have a phobia of any explanation of the mind that invokes genetics.
They're
> afraid of four things.
>
> 1. First there is a fear of inequality.
> 2. The second fear is the fear of imperfectability.
> 3. The third fear is a fear of determinism.
> 4. The fourth fear is the fear of nihilism.
>
> -------------------------------------
>
> 1. First there is a fear of inequality.
>
> The great appeal of the doctrine that the mind is a blank slate is the
simple
> mathematical fact that zero equals zero. If we all start out blank, no one
can
> have more stuff written on his slate than anyone else. Whereas if we come
into
> the world endowed with a rich set of mental faculties, they could work
> differently, or better or worse, in some people. The fear is that this
would open
> the door to discrimination, oppression or eugenics, or even slavery and
genocide.
>
> Of course, this is all a non sequitur. As many political writers have
pointed
> out, commitment to political equality is not an empirical claim that
people are
> clones. It's a moral claim that in certain spheres we judge people as
> individuals, and don't take into account the statistical average of the
groups
> they belong to. It's a recognition that however much people might vary,
they have
> certain things in common by virtue of their common human nature. No one
likes to
> be humiliated or oppressed or enslaved or deprived. Political equality
consists
> of recognising that people have certain inalienable rights, namely life,
liberty
> and the pursuit of happiness. Recognising those rights is not the same
thing as
> believing that people are indistinguishable in every respect.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> 2. The second fear is the fear of imperfectability.
>
> If people are innately saddled with certain sins and flaws, like
selfishness,
> prejudice, short-sightedness and self-deception, then political reform
would seem
> to be a waste of time. Why try to make the world a better place if people
are
> rotten to the core and will just screw it up no matter what you do?
>
> Again, this is a faulty argument. We know that there can be social
improvement
> because we know that there has been social improvement, such as the end of
> slavery, torture, blood feuds, despotism and the ownership of women in
Western
> democracies. Social change can take place even with a fixed human nature
because
> the mind is a complex system of many parts.
>
> Even if we do have some motives that tempt us to do awful things, we have
other
> motives that can counteract them. We can figure out ways to pit one human
desire
> against another, and thereby improve our condition, in the same way we
manipulate
> physical and biological laws - rather than denying they exist - to improve
our
> physical condition. We combat disease, we keep out the weather, we grow
more
> crops, and we can jigger with our social arrangements as well.
>
> A good example is the invention of democratic government. By instituting
checks
> and balances in a political system, one person's ambition counteracts
another's.
> It's not that we have bred or socialised a human who's free of ambition.
We've
> just developed a system in which these ambitions are kept under control.
>
> Another reason that human nature doesn't rule out social progress is that
many
> features of human nature have free parameters. People in all cultures have
an
> ability to respect and sympathise with other people. The question is, with
which
> other people?
>
> The default setting of our moral sense may be to sympathise only with
members of
> our clan or village. Over the course of history, a knob or a slider has
been
> adjusted so that a larger portion of humanity is admitted into the circle
of
> people whose interests we consider comparable with our own. From the
village or
> clan the moral circle has been expanded to the tribe, the nation, and,
most
> recently, to all of humanity, as in the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights.
>
> --------------------------------
>
> 3. The third fear is a fear of determinism.
>
> The fear that we will no longer be able to hold people responsible for
their
> behaviour because they can always blame it on their brain or their genes
or their
> evolutionary history - the evolutionary-urge or killer-gene defence. The
fear is
> misplaced for two reasons. One is that the silliest excuses for bad
behaviour
> have, in fact, invoked the environment, rather than biology, anyway - such
as the
> abuse excuse that got the Menendez brothers off the hook in their first
trial, or
> the "pornography made me do it" defence some rapists have tried. If
there's a
> threat to responsibility it doesn't come from biological determinism but
from any
> determinism, including childhood upbringing, mass media, social
conditioning, and
> so on.
>
> But none of these should be taken seriously. Even if there are parts of
the brain
> that compel people to do things for various reasons, there are other parts
that
> respond to the legal and social contingencies that we call "holding
someone
> responsible for their behaviour".
>
> For example, if I rob a liquor store, I'll get thrown in jail, or if I
cheat on
> my spouse my friends and relatives and neighbours will think that I'm a
boorish
> cad and will refuse to have anything to do with me. By holding people
responsible
> for their actions we are implementing contingencies that can affect parts
of the
> brain and can lead people to inhibit what they would otherwise do. There's
no
> reason that we should give up that lever on people's behaviour - namely,
the
> inhibition systems of the brain - just because we're coming to understand
more
> about the temptation systems.
>
> -----------------------------------
>
> 4. The fourth fear is the fear of nihilism.
>
> If it can be shown that all our motives and values are products of the
physiology
> of the brain, which in turn was shaped by the forces of evolution, then
they
> would in some sense be shams, without objective reality. I wouldn't really
be
> loving my child; all I would be doing is selfishly propagating my genes.
Flowers
> and butterflies and works of art are not truly beautiful; my brain just
evolved
> to give me a pleasant sensation when a certain pattern of light hits my
retina.
> The fear is that biology will debunk all that we hold sacred.
>
> This fear is based on a confusion between two very different ways to
explain
> behaviour. Evolution (the ultimate explanation for our minds) is a
short-sighted
> selfish process in which genes are selected for their ability to maximise
the
> number of copies of themselves. But that doesn't mean that we are selfish
and
> short-sighted, at least not all the time. There's nothing that prevents
the
> selfish, amoral process of natural selection evolution from evolving a
> big-brained social organism with a complex moral sense.
>
> There's an old saying that people who appreciate legislation and sausages
should
> not see them being made. That's a bit like human values - knowing how they
were
> made can be misleading if you don't think carefully about the process.
Selfish
> genes don't necessarily build a selfish organisation.
>
>
John Jones
> diseases, almost everybody is willing to accept that race/ethnicity
> can and does play a role.
That is bad reasoning. First, you define race genetically so your argument
is circular.
Second, If a genetic disease is a disease because it is genetic, then you
must believe in the idea that genes themseves decide what is a disease and
what is not, and yet you say it is people who are 'willing' who are the ones
who accept that it is a disease..
Please get this sorted.
JJ
nobody <nob...@here.com> wrote in message
news:0gfrb0lp39dsctpk2...@4ax.com...
> "Immortalist" <Reanima...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >Why are empirical questions about how the mind works so weighted down
with
> >political and moral and emotional baggage? Why do people believe that
there are
> >dangerous implications to the idea that the mind is a product of the
brain, that
> >the brain is organised in part by the genome, and that the genome was
shaped by
> >natural selection?
> >
> >This idea has been met with demonstrations, denunciations, picketings and
> >comparisons to Nazism, from the right and the left. And most
intellectuals today
> >have a phobia of any explanation of the mind that invokes genetics.
They're
> >afraid of four things.
> >
> >1. First there is a fear of inequality.
> >2. The second fear is the fear of imperfectability.
> >3. The third fear is a fear of determinism.
> >4. The fourth fear is the fear of nihilism.
>
> Good points. But the close mindedness doesn't just revolve around the
> brain. I think there are three levels of acceptance when it comes to
> genetics and race/ethnicity/demographics. When it comes to genetic
> diseases, almost everybody is willing to accept that race/ethnicity
> can and does play a role. When it comes to physiology, most people are
> aware that, say, East or North Africans' success at endurance sports
> and blacks' excellence at sports that emphasize agility cannot simply
> be explained by socio-economic pressures and opportunities but it's
> nevertheless a de facto taboo to publicly talk about that. And when it
> comes to matters of the mind, we have a strict taboo and even
> entertaining the idea that evolution might have had resulted in
> different adaptation of the mind for different human populations, or
> that all individuals, not just those at the extreme ends, have certain
> gifts or handicaps, is considered sacrilegious.
>
John Jones
> the brain to the degree that this is not a true explanation (in the sense
> that the theoretical underpinning is as yet too imprecise to give us
> anything but crude belief structures (like radical eliminativism), not
good
> science).
Are you are saying that it is simply a matter of degree that brain science
hasn't caught up with behaviour? Don't be a bloody idiot.
Tell me, how does brain chemistry tell us, just by looking at the brain
chemistry, what we want or need?
JJ
Tron Furu <tron...@frisurf.no> wrote in message
news:cvkvc.5224$eH3....@news4.e.nsc.no...
>
> "Immortalist" <Reanima...@yahoo.com> skrev i melding
> news:cbadndL3n_O...@comcast.com...
> > Why are empirical questions about how the mind works so weighted down
with
> > political and moral and emotional baggage?
>
> Well, most of this political and moral and emotional baggage is painted on
> by the protagonists onto the antagonists in an effort to portray
hesitation
> to jump to conclusions as the result of political and moral and emotional
> baggage.
> Basically, people seem to identify the essence of humanity in some (or
> other) concept of "freedom", and anything that seems to negate, restrict
or
> only limit that freedom is seen as "refuting" this "essence of humanity".
> Resistance to this may of course be cognito-economical, either in an
> uinteresting, primitive way ("... can't be bothered to change my mind...")
> or in a mor far-reaching way, as it is unclear what the implications are.
> And since this is so unclear, most people want triple proof /sqared) that
it
> is so before going there.
> The divide, as I see it, is between the negating and the restricting human
> freedom. Everybody, know it or not, is of course restricted (from natural
> flying, breathing under water .... Marvel Comics pars pro toto), but some
> people may think that a sufficient number of restrictions might add up to
> negation.
>
> Why do people believe that there are
> > dangerous implications to the idea that the mind is a product of the
> brain, that
> > the brain is organised in part by the genome, and that the genome was
> shaped by
> > natural selection?
>
> There are dangerous implications to the idea that the mind is a product of
> the brain to the degree that this is not a true explanation (in the sense
> that the theoretical underpinning is as yet too imprecise to give us
> anything but crude belief structures (like radical eliminativism), not
good
> science).
> >
> > This idea has been met with demonstrations, denunciations, picketings
and
> > comparisons to Nazism, from the right and the left.
>
> Any choice of opponent speaks of the one who chooses ...
>
> > And most intellectuals today have a phobia ...
>
> Name calling ....?
>
> > of any explanation of the mind that invokes genetics.
>
>
>
> > They're afraid of ...
> .. giving in to the considerable pressure from both left and right to
> _needlessly_ limit our concept of human freedom in favour of the ideology
du
> jour's marginalization strategy for People We'd Like to Repress. Note how
> everyone who wants to elbow for ideological power strives to attribute to
> their opponents either ill will or lack of faculty, which is invariably
> based in something they cannot rise above (i.e. they are incurably bad),
be
> it economy or biology (or under its present guise, "ethnicity"). Now,
> shouldn't somebody give these people a fair hearing? Resist the pressure?
> Is biology Already True, or is it exactly this which is under debate? Do
> Data translate to Policy without Interpretation? I think not.
>
> four things.
> >
> > 1. First there is a fear of inequality.
>
> You quote political writers. Political reality is different. You're right
> that it wont matter to theory, it might, however, influence praxis in a
> vulgarist utilitarian way. See "legislative assembly" and "election".
>
> > 2. The second fear is the fear of imperfectability.
>
> Good one. Never a truer word. Should be applied to the economic sector,
too,
> of course (Thurow).
> If true, it proves, however, that biology is not destiny.
>
> > 3. The third fear is a fear of determinism.
>
> Yes, see above.
>
> > 4. The fourth fear is the fear of nihilism.
>
> Yes, well, there is the fear of the Masses, being held in check by
> Superstition, released ...
> Harldy that likely, mass insanity involves mass organization. Yet,
> psychologically, some "truths" only work if you don't "know" that they are
> self-suggestive, like ... well, self.suggestion, a sort of metaphysical
> advice of "Don't look down, then you wont feel the height".
>
> T
>
>
>
John Jones
> to. Thank you!
Are you some mind Nazi sycophant?
JJ
<Spooked> wrote in message
news:ndbsb0pnl4hssqao7...@4ax.com...
John Jones
What 'nature only' argument?
Tell me please, if you are not so bloody stupid, what a gene tells us about
behaviour? Anything? Of course not. So what sets the boundaries for what is
considered behaviour?
It is you. Yes, you and all the other arseholes who have contributed, sold
their souls, down the river to gene worship, even while they promote other
views. Thats what makes you, and all the other arseholes who replied not
only creepy but just plain thick.
JJ
Paul Bramscher <brams00...@tc.umn.edu> wrote in message
news:c9nmjo$s5k$1...@lenny.tc.umn.edu...
humanist
The more helpful it can be with respect to increasing our knowledge of
ourselves and self-awareness. More helpful to a marriage counselor or
enlightening to a husband wife mother father son daughter or whatever
combination of relationships.
Yet potentially detrminental with respect to social order if ethics are put
into question.
I regret misinterpreting "best ways" but I'm not sure now what you meant by
that. In discussing why E.P is "feared", fear of the consequences of nihilism
(not of nihilism itself) appears like a key topic. This is why I'm assuming
that a statement like "best ways for humans to be" was a key part of the
paragraph rather than a minor one. It sounds like we're talking about different
things: you're talking about the benefits of the gain in knowledge. I'm talking
about the dangers of the consequences of that knowledge.
At a certain point I cut out everything with depth>2. (hide the research ...>>
meant that I was pondering the question. To hide or not to hide.)
>
>> Tough to answer such a question generally. We need to evaluate the specific
>> potential consequences before answering. If you discovered a method of
>> triggering a supernova in your backyard, there's a point where we must hide
>> research.
>
>Why does the idea of human nature bother you again?
The idea of human nature is clearly a pandora's box. It's bad enough to realize
you're a colony of cells not too different from a frothy colony of fungi. If
you uncover that right and wrong are bullshit. If you uncover that value ,good
or even benefit is indistinguishable from its opposite. We can come to this
realization routinely, but it is human nature that overrides it. If you
undermine this nature... then we may realize that life may not be worth living.
What then?
>
>> PS.Nothing contradicts philosophy.. not even contradictions! Philosophy has
the
>> superpower to question the very concept of contradiction, rendering it
>> powerless :)
>>
>
>You only show how your approach is very vulnerable when you take off running
with
>simple conversational blurbs. All I have to do is say some vague things and I
>could lead you over many cliffs. But thats not my intention nor will I do so.
It
>is my opinion that the 12 verifiable human instincts and the numeraous other
>evidences for other instincts don't yet contradict available philosophical
>positions on particular sides of debates but they will contradict their
>antithesis of course.
I have no way to read your mind. My approach is to read what you write... It
seems from your reaction that I'm misinterpreting and that you feel like my
reply is unfair. For this I apologize.
Again I think we're talking about different things: the consequences of this
knowledge, not the knowledge itself. Knowing that divorce and remarriage is
effectively legal polygamy for a man to sow his seeds... Knowing that divorce
is an effective tool for a woman to marry up in society after striking out on a
dud. Those are details that can be legislated against. The issue is not so much
the detail but the consequence of the spread of this information. Will E.P-
infected lovebirds even marry at all? Will understanding the roots of sibling
rivalry make you a better or a worse parent? Will understanding the arbitrary
evolved makeup of morality make you question right and wrong? Discard it?
You are focusing on the knowledge and I'm inviting you to discuss the
consquences.
My readings in evolutionary psychology have focused on morality. I'm no expert
int the field. But sexual dimorphism as it applies to psychology and intent
always seems to take centerstage in what I've read.
It seems we can agree to disagree. The research should go on - but the results
should circulated only among those in the field. It's a bit like the "tasters"
in the courts of old, in this case, poisonous ideas would only eliminate the
researchers themselves. If they survive, then the "fears" would have been
proven unjustified, ideas fit for mass consumption.
Immortalist
"humanist" <x@y.z> wrote in message
Seems we have had alot of this already in the 20th century with science crumbling
many sacred foundations. Hell half the squables are over science revealing
ethical weakness. Sociobiology is just another step up the ladder focusing in on
human nature.
Sorry my mistake by saying it but I think it came after the original post and the
quote from Maxwell and my comment were not part of the original post.
But I agree it is an important subject and maybe all times are not times when
knowledge about what is going on is the "best" way. Like sometimes people might
not want to know if they have incurable cancer or might not want to know if they
have genetic defects that will kick in when they are 70 or something. There are
better examples but you probably get my point. Even though I think it is our
advantage to even have that knowledge when in another time in the past it was not
even available.
It is truely an exciting time isn't it, with big risks! Hell we are on the verge
of a complete theory of how the brain's activities produce the self, this is
awesome.
i top posted the 12 on top of rent mob in another thread of this post...
Rough seas ahead for humanity as we uncover everything, I agree.
>
Immortalist
>
> > Why are empirical questions about how the mind works so weighted down with
> > political and moral and emotional baggage? Why do people believe that there
are
> > dangerous implications to the idea that the mind is a product of the brain,
that
> > the brain is organised in part by the genome, and that the genome was shaped
by
> > natural selection?
>
> The danger arises when it becomes a nature-only argument, and there is
> no credence given to the role of nurture, enculturation, education,
> training, life's experiences, etc. which are not necessarily subject to
> natural selection at all. Indeed, the examples of crippled Neandertals,
> or those with healed injuries are telling -- the community did not
> always leave the weak and injured to be "weeded out" as natural
> selection would suggest but, rather, tended them. An occasional
> capacity for great compassion and kindess is perhaps one of the traits
> that makes us remarkable in comparison remainder of the animal kingdom.
>
I agree, that why its a mixture of nature and nurture, genotype and phenotype.
The goal is to find the center ground of this mixed economy.
> > This idea has been met with demonstrations, denunciations, picketings and
> > comparisons to Nazism, from the right and the left. And most intellectuals
today
> > have a phobia of any explanation of the mind that invokes genetics. They're
> > afraid of four things.
>
> What sort of nonsensical generalization is this? Many "intellectuals"
> are cognitive scientists actively researching these issues.
>
It's well documented that liberals have protested sociobiologists alot during the
last 20 years. Sociobiologists who are themselves 99% liberals. Maybe there is a
new trend but most people, researchers and academics, have treated
sociobiologists like Nazis for 20 years.
> >
> > 1. First there is a fear of inequality.
>
> This is not a fear, it is a fact. Smart compassionate persons don't
> deny there are differences. They are concerned, however, about
> justification for oppression. You're born X, you stay X, we are
> justified in treating you like X, you die X.
>
> > 2. The second fear is the fear of imperfectability.
>
> Nonsense. That's purely straw man.
>
> > 3. The third fear is a fear of determinism.
>
> Why are you stuck on the word "fear"? There are plenty of reasons to
> counter determinism that aren't based on a fear factor. Quantum
> mechanics casts doubt on it, as have many philosophers over the centuries.
>
http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge105.html
PART III - Human Nature with a Human Face
Chapter 8 - The Fear of Inequality
Chapter 9 - The Fear of Imperfectibility
Chapter 10 - The Fear of Determinism
Chapter 11 - The Fear of Nihilism
that was he table of contents for part 3 from "The Blank Slate" the Modern Denial
of Human Nature.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0670031518/qid=1086304469/
If you tried to read that book all the way through I believe you would not
survive the brutal hell ride.
> The problem with "evolutionary psychology" is that everything from
> language, eating habits, religious persuasion, concepts of time and
> space, personal and social identity, etc. are products of culture. The
> Whorf-Sapir hypothesis, for example, draws connections between thought
> and language. Concepts of memes and memetics, and many other researched
> venues on behavior, cognitive science and in the discipline of
> anthropology (I happen to have earned a triple-major in Anthropology,
> History & Computer Science) suggest that behavior is passed from
> individual to individual along non-genetic means. There is no capacity
> to store memory in a DNA chain, or language and thought in protoplasm.
>
What about learning rules and critical stages? Or have you never heard of them?
I think I posted these already in this group of threads but please comment
> Certain biases and tendencies clearly have a chemical basis:
> testosterone may be the reason that men tend to be responsible for more
> violent crimes, wars, and vote for more hawkish politicians. Outlyers
> with an organic brain condition or mental illness clearly face
> additional challenges.
>
You propose that there are no instinctual biases with very little evidence but
alot of confidence! You would propose that there is no such thing as any
influence upon human nature by genetic controls of development and metabolism.
Interesting, lets have at it, I want to see how you defend what you propose.
> There isn't a "fear" of evolutionary psychology per se. There is only
> the sensible argument that humans and human behavior is a complex
> byproduct of culture, environment, physiology, biology, ethology,
> cognitive processes, psychology, economics, history, and so forth.
>
> To suggest that any one of these variables is the only variable is
> nonsense. In answer to your series of fear-based questions, you simply
> need to read a little history. No politician who's turned to biology or
> race as the primary factor has done so with good intentions. It's a
> demonstrable historical fact that race-based politics leads down dark paths.
See the fear you resort to.
Immortalist
"John Jones" <jivers...@btopenworld.com> wrote in message
news:c9nruv$5cq$3...@hercules.btinternet.com...
> > Why are empirical questions about how the mind works so weighted down with
> > political and moral and emotional baggage? Why do people believe that
> there are
> > dangerous implications to the idea that the mind is a product of the
> brain, that
> > the brain is organised in part by the genome, and that the genome was
> shaped by
> > natural selection?
>
> That's not the real issue. Even more to the point, why do people still
> believe that the brain and the genome can tell us anything about ourselves
> and the way we live? The fact that the pro- and anti- brigaders believe this
> ridiculous notion is what keeps the flames burning.
> So I accuse you of perpetuating this myth by promoting and highlighting the
> arguments that are grounded in a support of it.
> JJ
>
You ignore the evidence and then look at me and say that I "should do the same."
Xaonon
<jivers...@btopenworld.com> teithant i thiw hin:
> > Why are empirical questions about how the mind works so weighted down
> > with political and moral and emotional baggage? Why do people believe
> > that there are dangerous implications to the idea that the mind is a
> > product of the brain, that the brain is organised in part by the genome,
> > and that the genome was shaped by natural selection?
>
> That's not the real issue. Even more to the point, why do people still
> believe that the brain and the genome can tell us anything about ourselves
> and the way we live?
Obviously, because they can. The human mind is currently instantiated only
in the human brain. Learning more about how the wetware functions will help
us understand the minds it gives rise to.
--
Xaonon, EAC Chief of Mad Scientists and informal BAAWA, aa #1821, Kibo #: 1
http://xaonon.dyndns.org/ Guaranteed content-free since 1999. No refunds.
"Since I do things on a regular basis that defies the laws of physics, I can
speak with some authority on the matter." -- vta...@gte.net, in alt.atheism
Immortalist
"Paul Bramscher" <brams00...@tc.umn.edu> wrote in message
news:c9nmjo$s5k$1...@lenny.tc.umn.edu...
> Immortalist wrote:
>
.......
> The problem with "evolutionary psychology" is that everything from
> language, eating habits, religious persuasion, concepts of time and
> space, personal and social identity, etc. are products of culture. The
> Whorf-Sapir hypothesis, for example, draws connections between thought
> and language. Concepts of memes and memetics, and many other researched
> venues on behavior, cognitive science and in the discipline of
> anthropology (I happen to have earned a triple-major in Anthropology,
> History & Computer Science) suggest that behavior is passed from
> individual to individual along non-genetic means. There is no capacity
> to store memory in a DNA chain, or language and thought in protoplasm.
>
Thanx I had some questions about that hypothesis for years;
Whorf-Sapir hypothesis: The assertion that the concepts and structure of
languages profoundly shape the perception and world view of speakers. Rather than
just being a means of expressing thought, language is claimed to form thought.
Thus, people of different language communities will see and understand in
different ways. Developed by Benjamin Whorf and Edward Sapir in the 1930s and
grew out of contact with the First Nations languages of North America. Most
sociologists regard the theory as too deterministic and stress the dynamic way in
which language responds to social and technical transformation of society.
http://openet.ola.bc.ca/sociglossary/whorf.html
http://openet.ola.bc.ca/sociglossary/
Here is something I read years ago from a lady who has a response to this
hypothesis, could you give me your opinion on this?
- Benjamin Whorf
The bewitchment of the intellect was also of course a major interest of
psychology and social sciences in the early twentieth century. Behaviorists,
psychoanalysts, anthropologists, and social philosophers were all trying to find
what internal or external elements determine our thoughts. The Sapir-Whorf
hypothesis stated that language may be such a determinant. Interestingly enough,
Edward Sapir published his book Language in 1921-the same year that Wittgenstein
brought forth his Tractatus, although the two scholars (as far as I know) never
showed any awareness of each other's work.
Benjamin Whorf was a fire insurance salesman who first noted the influence of
words on behavior in case reports such as the following: people acted carelessly
with cigarettes around items known as 'empty gasoline drums' because the word
'empty' seemed to imply no danger, even though they were highly inflammable.
Likewise, at one factory, there was no effort made to keep excessive heat away
from a 'limestone' covering because everyone associated the term 'stone' with
non-combustibility. Only later did Whorf study under Sapir who had made a more
general observation about the way our language (not only words, but also grammar)
influences our thinking. In the heyday of cultural relativism (the 1920s) Sapir
had made the famous statement that:
Human beings do not live in the objective world alone . . . but are very much at
the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression
for their society . . . The 'real world' is to a large extent unconsciously built
upon the language habits of the group. No two languages are every sufficiently
similar to be considered as representing the same reality.
Whorf himself later came to hold a similar theory, 'Formulation of ideas is not
an independent process, strictly rational in the old sense, but is part of a
particular grammar . . . We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native
languages . . . '
The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is often associated at an elementary level with the
example of the Eskimo words for snow. Since there are 14 separate words for this
in their language, Eskimos are thought to be able to perceive different kinds of
snow (such as powdery, crystal-like, etc.) better than non-Eskimos. This is
probably true, in the same sense that a person who has been trained in botany
will 'see more' when he walks through a forest, than will his twin brother who
has not been so trained. The having of a vocabulary can enhance one's perceptions
in certain areas. Even the chimpanzee Lana has shown this: when objects were held
up to her at a window, she was supposed to find the corresponding object, by
touch only, in a closed box-she did better on items which were already in her
lexicon. So, linguistic labels can assist in other mental processes, such as
perception and memory.
But Benjamin Whorf wanted to take this even further and question whether the
major concepts such as time, space, and matter, are given in substantially the
same form to all people, by experience, or whether they are in part conditioned
by the structure of particular languages. His study of the Hopi language revealed
a surprising thing: that their concept of time was very different from ours.
Whorf observed that we SAEs (Standard Average Europeans) tend to objectify time:
we say 'ten days' just like we say 'ten bottles', as if they could be seen
together. But Hopi only have an 'ordinal' number to describe it-they must say
'the tenth day', since one day can only relate to another in duration-that is in
time, not in space. Likewise, we say 'the summer is hot' but Hopi cannot
objectify summer as a thing; they can only say that summer is when heat occurs.
Our SAE languages also conceptualize matter in a certain way. For example, we
imagine certain amorphous items such as water, or cloth, or soap, to be broken
into units-a bucket of water, a piece of cloth, a bar of soap (French would use
de or des to indicate this partition). However, Hopi do not have any word to
imply such 'formless extensional items' as water or cloth.
It has sometimes been interpreted that these differences in language (e.g. the
use of the ordinal, tenth day) are themselves the factors which determine Hopi
thought. I do not think that is correct. I believe that the SAE concept of time
is not available to the Hopi people because it is not in their cultural stock
(just as various concepts about plants are not in the botanist's twin brother's
stock) not because their language molds their cognitive operations per se. This
may better be demonstrated in another example. Alfred Bloom, in the 1970s, was
administering a questionnaire to Chinese-speaking people, which included the
question: 'If the Hong Kong government were to pass [a certain] law, how would
you react? ' He was surprised that the subjects responded consistently, 'But the
government hasn't.' If pressed to imagine that the government had passed the law
they would say, 'We don't speak/think that way. It's unnatural. It's un-Chinese.'
Bloom also noted that the Chinese language does not have the structure for posing
such counterfactual hypotheses. He thus proceeded to wonder if perhaps language
forms could actually influence the development of one's cognitive schemas, thus
preventing certain kinds of thinking from occurring.
I will come right to my own answer to this question. It is: yes and no. Yes, the
Chinese are obviously not in the behavioral or cognitive habit of making
counterfactual hypothesis; but no, it is not fixed, because if they transferred
to Europe, they would eventually change this habit. In fact, this is actually
what Whorf said too, although he is often misrepresented. He concluded from the
Hopi that concepts of 'time' and 'matter' are not given in substantially the same
form by experience to all people but that they depend upon the nature of the
language in which the person has developed those concepts. Yet Whorf stated that,
They do not depend so much upon any one system (e.g. tense or nouns) within the
grammar as upon the ways of analysing and reporting experience which have become
fixed in the language as integrated "fashions of speaking".' Whorf thus seems to
accept the Kantian 'transcendental consciousness' with one qualification as to
the power of cultural fashion. Noam Chomsky, it might be noted, goes even further
by calling himself a Cartesian rationalist: since the functions of language are
innate and universal, then human thought is, in a sense, given!
- : Metaphor.
There is one other contribution of Whorf which must not go unmentioned. It
concerns the importance of metaphor for our higher mental functioning. He
observed that whereas physical objects actually move around-they 'move, stop,
rise, sink, approach', etc.-our language also treats non-physical entities as if
they moved in 'imaginary space'. To demonstrate the extent of such metaphors I
quote the following remarkable paragraph from Whorf:
I 'grasp' the 'thread' of another's arguments, but if its 'level' is 'over my
head' my attention may 'wander' and 'lose touch' with the 'drift' of it, so that
when he 'comes' to his 'point' we differ 'widely', our 'views' being indeed so
'far apart' that the 'things' he says 'appear' 'much' too arbitrary, or even 'a
lot' of nonsense!
Here is a possible key to the way in which our intelligence was able to explode,
perhaps in Homo sapiens, once language was achieved. According to Whorf,
'Synesthesia, or suggestion by certain sense receptions of characters belonging
to another sense . . . should be made more conscious by a linguistic metaphorical
system that refers to nonspatial experience by terms for spatial ones, though
undoubtedly it arises from a deeper source.' That deeper source is probably our
association areas which seem to delight in exchanging signals from different
senses. Do we owe to them, then, our most intellectual human qualities-of insight
and even of esthetic sensibilities? (Art and music, after all, are greatly
enriched by the metaphorical exchange of color, sound, emotional harmony, light,
etc. to say nothing of the synthesis of elusive ideas and images which
characterize myth and poetry.) What is the human intellect anyway? And what is
language? Are they, after all, gratuitous gifts which arise from the structure of
information processing in the brain? Could they therefore be the ultimate and
inexorable results of the evolution of life itself? Are art and metaphor, then,
biological? Or do the creations which burst out of us, as Coleridge asked at
yonder moon disglimmering, already exist in the Universe? Is there ultimately
some reason why the brain's automated exchanges of sensory data should be able to
form a picture of truth? Consider the high degree of synesthesia in this
metaphor:
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out ev'n to the edge of doom;-
If this be error, and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
Could anything so sublime as Shakespeare's sonnets be, as Helen
Vendler says, part of Nature, part of us?
Human Evolution - A Philosophical Anthropology
-- Mary Maxwell - Australia
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0231059469/
---------------------------------------
Current Interpretations of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/4110/whorf.html
The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/short/whorf.html
http://venus.va.com.au/suggestion/sapir.html
http://www.enformy.com/dma-rol.htm
Colin Day
Don't go there, unless you like resolving domestic disputes.
> Property dualism describes the
> simualtainious properties of objective experience and the physical activities
> producing them.
>
>
But what if the physical activites do not lead to objective experience?
For example,
experiencing a mirage is neurologically similar to experiencing light
reflect off a
body of water. Would you include the former as objective experience?
Colin Day aa #1500
MarkA
> Ned i bach <c9nruv$5cq$3...@hercules.btinternet.com>, John Jones
> <jivers...@btopenworld.com> teithant i thiw hin:
>
>> > Why are empirical questions about how the mind works so weighted down
>> > with political and moral and emotional baggage? Why do people believe
>> > that there are dangerous implications to the idea that the mind is a
>> > product of the brain, that the brain is organised in part by the
>> > genome, and that the genome was shaped by natural selection?
>>
>> That's not the real issue. Even more to the point, why do people still
>> believe that the brain and the genome can tell us anything about
>> ourselves and the way we live?
>
> Obviously, because they can. The human mind is currently instantiated
> only in the human brain. Learning more about how the wetware functions
> will help us understand the minds it gives rise to.
Probably not. That's like saying that you can understand the game of
baseball by studying the sub-atomic particles that make up the ball.
--
MarkA
(still caught in the maze of twisty little passages, all different)
Xaonon
<mant...@stopspam.net> teithant i thiw hin:
> On Fri, 04 Jun 2004 00:02:47 +0000, Xaonon wrote:
>
> > Ned i bach <c9nruv$5cq$3...@hercules.btinternet.com>, John Jones
> > <jivers...@btopenworld.com> teithant i thiw hin:
> >
> > > That's not the real issue. Even more to the point, why do people still
> > > believe that the brain and the genome can tell us anything about
> > > ourselves and the way we live?
> >
> > Obviously, because they can. The human mind is currently instantiated
> > only in the human brain. Learning more about how the wetware functions
> > will help us understand the minds it gives rise to.
>
> Probably not. That's like saying that you can understand the game of
> baseball by studying the sub-atomic particles that make up the ball.
False analogy. The microscopic physical state of the baseball does not
affect how the players act, but the neurochemical state of a person's brain
certainly does affect how they think.
--
Xaonon, EAC Chief of Mad Scientists and informal BAAWA, aa #1821, Kibo #: 1
http://xaonon.dyndns.org/ Guaranteed content-free since 1999. No refunds.
"Would someone please tackle Donald Rumsfeld and lock his ass up until our
`Countries-Destroyed-to-Countries-Rebuilt' ratio is closer to `1'?" -- GYWO
Immortalist
"Colin Day" <cd...@sc.rr.com> wrote in message news:40C009B...@sc.rr.com...
> Immortalist wrote:
> > "Virgil" <ITSnetNOTcom/vir...@COMCAST.com> wrote in message
> > news:ITSnetNOTcom/virgil-3DD5B0.21281402062004@[63.218.45.211]...
> >
> > Property dualism describes the
> > simualtainious properties of objective
> > experience and the physical activities
> > producing them.
>
> But what if the physical activites do not lead to objective experience?
> For example,
> experiencing a mirage is neurologically similar to experiencing light
> reflect off a body of water. Would you include the
> former as objective experience?
>
I need your definition of "objective experience" before I can respond correctly.
Do you mean something along the lines of appearance and reality and or how close
they match?
> Colin Day aa #1500
>
Colin Day
My definition of "objective experience"? Weren't you the one who used the
phrase first? You used it in your definition of "property dualism".
Colin Day aa #1500
>
>>Colin Day aa #1500
>>
>
>
>
Paul Bramscher
> It's well documented that liberals have protested sociobiologists alot during the
> last 20 years. Sociobiologists who are themselves 99% liberals. Maybe there is a
> new trend but most people, researchers and academics, have treated
> sociobiologists like Nazis for 20 years.
Probably because sociobiology has ties to eugenics and genocidal tendencies.
> . Only a very small percentage of individuals prefer to have sexual
> relations with brothers or sisters. They may harbor moments of inward desire
> toward siblings. But the vast majority choose to mate with persons raised
> outside their immediate family circle. Studies of the origin of sexual
The incest taboo is a near-universal (but not fully universal)
observance discussed in anthropology. While it's obvious that incest
can lead to genetic problems, it's nonsense to suggest that the origin
of the taboo is our DNA talking for us. I remember reading "Homo Faber"
(adapted to a movie starring Sam Shephard) in German. He has an affair
with his own daughter. Why did he break the taboo? Simple: people who
are completely separated from their children, siblings, etc. at birth
cannot recognize them 20 years later. The name of the game here is not
a genetic determinant against the incest taboo, but obviously a
cultural/cognitive one.
If we wish to find a metaphor, I suggest that the human brain is like
hardware, and culture/learning/experience/nurture, etc. acts as
software. There are some dependencies to be sure, but it's nonsense to
suggest that Intel determines Microsoft.
Indeed, it may be the other way around. People's life choices,
determine their mode of living, their diet, their economies, and so
forth. Culture may very well have played a role in the demise or
absorption) of Neandertals. Sub-cultures today are hooked together in
communities, both real and virtual (this newsgroup for example) based on
cognitive interests, not genetic predisposition. Whether you're black,
white, tall, short, thin, or fat doesn't matter here. And (with the
except of the black part) it doesn't matter in an Amish community either
-- separated not by genetics from other modern Germans, Swiss, etc. but
obviously by strict orthodoxical adherence to a culture and religion
vastly different from other Germans, Swiss, etc.
Speciation and genetic drift occurs when mating populations are
isolated. So it may be that, in the case of the ideologically-separated
communities that the mind drives evolution more so than the reverse.
Think about it very carefully.
American culture has morphed radically in just the past two centuries,
whereas that's utterly insignificant from a long-term evolutionary
standpoint. As a society, we're obese and commonly afflicted with
diabetes because our behavior has changed faster than our body's ability
to cope with a radically changed lifestyle.
rent@mob
First, a reminder of something you have undoubtedly forgotten - I said
it all of two weeks ago:
"Where evolutionary psychology *is* a science, it's actually just
CogSci - good, old-fashioned, pains-taking experimental research into
cognitive functions. Where it invents a prehistoric story to explain
regularities in modern human psyches, it is no more 'science' than
phrenology was."
Now, where were we? Ah yes, the examples. I only discerned nine from
the paste, but perhaps you'll flag up t'others if you feel I've
overlooked something significant?
1 - Universal Incest avoidance
Accepting the research data at face value for the time being, the
genetic source of this distaste is not established. As Dennett notes
in Darwin's Dangerous Idea, "since there is always another possible
source of the adaptation in question - namely culture - one cannot *so
readily* infer that there has been genetic evolution for the trait in
question. Even in the case of non-human animals, the inference from
adaptation to genetic basis is risky when the adaptation in question
is not an anatomical feature but a behavioural pattern which is an
obviously Good Trick. For then there is another possible explanation:
the general *non-stupidity* of the species" (p485). This is a general
problem for most of your examples.
2 - Predictable colour categorisation
I find it interesting that the experiment you take to prove how
universally humans express their retinal prejudices relied on
training-up some individuals whose culture *totally lacked* words for
colours (until the researcher's culture got involved). But I won't
nitpick. I don't find this any more surprising than that all cultures
would settle for a cluster of concepts around itchiness sensations,
and another cluster around scalding sensations. These are universal
human experiences, for which universal concepts are therefore
probable.
3 - Determinate stages in infant interests
All normal humans follow normal stages in development towards full
personhood and consciousness. Each preliminary stage equips us with
certain capabilities, which we investigate. Again, I see no
controversy here.
4 - Universal set of facial expressions
Universal human characteristics can flow equally from universal
cultural roots as from genomic roots. We have reasonable evidence that
humanity's big cultural trick was discovered in one region and spread
across the globe with Hom Sap. So common features in the very most
basic cultural essences - particularly emotions - are to be expected.
Note that the more specific the meaning of a bodily movement, the less
cross-cultural it is.
5 - prosopagnosia
Brain damage upsets structures in the brain. We know that these
structures support mental processes. The issue is not whether or not
the structures exist, but which causal explanations we give for them.
In this case, it is not surprising that basic sociality functions are
closely associated with specific sites in the brain. They are the
oldest and most central of our cultural tricks, and must certainly
have been selected for by society.
6 - Predictable infant reactions to taste stimuli
Predictability in infants is equally unsurprising, since at this stage
in life humans are only taking on board the most abstract, barest
essentials of enculturation. How and why adult humans in the same and
in different cultures end up with such wide variations in taste
preferences is the interesting part.
7 - Predictable stranger anxiety in later infancy (6-18 mnths)
This is your most promising gambit if you hope to claim genetic bases
for things like religious rivalries or nationalism. It is the EvPsych
equivalent to particularist sociology and its sainted 'Other'. If, on
the other hand, EvPsych's ostensible universalism is what appeals to
you, perhaps you won't take us down that road?
8 - Preponderance of ancient over modern phobias
This looks especially dodgy to me. But then I'm triskaidecaphobic. Can
you point us to specific research?
9 - Predictable weaknesses in statistical thinking
Not many of us make a point of thinking carefully about large numbers?
We allow our cultural prejudices to steer us through the guesses we
take as a lazy alternative to that hard thinking? If this is
newsworthy, I'm a caveman.
> > > > "You cherised liberal view of tabula rasa social engineering is over
> > > > and done, smoked baby, we take sociology from you, we steal it right
> > > > out of your hands, poof."
> > >
You seem unable to account for this particular wild boast. Care to
retract?
rent@mob
John Jones
> have an avid interest in the subjects surrounding his post. I also
> thought to extend the invitation to search for those posts and respond
> to them.
I will not purchase from that roadshow of misbegotten formulae. Nor shall I
be tarting up to their learned treatises.
Because I say it is a load of cobblers, and just a rest for them that has
work to do.
JJ
<Spooked> wrote in message
news:8s2vb05rssdgjdsgq...@4ax.com...
> "John Jones" <jivers...@btopenworld.com> wrote:
>
> >> You've answered a few questions from a few posts that nobody responded
> >> to. Thank you!
> >
> >Are you some mind Nazi sycophant?
> >JJ
> I don't know what you mean. I simply wanted the poster to know that I
> have an avid interest in the subjects surrounding his post. I also
> thought to extend the invitation to search for those posts and respond
> to them.
>
> <note to self>Type what you MEAN...Type what you MEAN.
Immortalist
"Colin Day" <cd...@sc.rr.com> wrote in message news:40C0C692...@sc.rr.com...
I don't know I just go along and play it by ear.
According to property dualism, even though mental properties are totally
different than physical properties, they are nonetheless all properties of the
same kinds of objects. Thus, for example, a single object instantiates the
property of my being six feet tall and my believing that the Eiffel tower is in
France. Property dualism is compatible with the token identity thesis, but not
the type identity thesis. Property dualists are typically, if not unanimously,
anti-reductionists about the mental, which is to say, they deny that it is
in-principle possible to translate mental predicates into physical predicates.
http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~philos/MindDict/propertydualism.html
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=%22property+dualism%22
Immortalist
news:<oP6dnXqu07f...@comcast.com>...
>
> First, a reminder of something you have undoubtedly forgotten - I said
> it all of two weeks ago:
>
> "Where evolutionary psychology *is* a science, it's actually just
> CogSci - good, old-fashioned, pains-taking experimental research into
> cognitive functions. Where it invents a prehistoric story to explain
> regularities in modern human psyches, it is no more 'science' than
> phrenology was."
>
I didn't accept that this is reason enough for all evolutionary psychologists to
quit their research.
> Now, where were we? Ah yes, the examples. I only discerned nine from
> the paste, but perhaps you'll flag up t'others if you feel I've
> overlooked something significant?
>
> 1 - Universal Incest avoidance
> Accepting the research data at face value for the time being, the
> genetic source of this distaste is not established. As Dennett notes
> in Darwin's Dangerous Idea, "since there is always another possible
> source of the adaptation in question - namely culture - one cannot *so
> readily* infer that there has been genetic evolution for the trait in
> question. Even in the case of non-human animals, the inference from
> adaptation to genetic basis is risky when the adaptation in question
> is not an anatomical feature but a behavioural pattern which is an
> obviously Good Trick. For then there is another possible explanation:
> the general *non-stupidity* of the species" (p485). This is a general
> problem for most of your examples.
>
Inscest avoidence is just an instinct for avoiding having sex with those who you
were around for the first six years of life. Actually there is much evidence for
this.
> 2 - Predictable colour categorisation
> I find it interesting that the experiment you take to prove how
> universally humans express their retinal prejudices relied on
> training-up some individuals whose culture *totally lacked* words for
> colours (until the researcher's culture got involved). But I won't
> nitpick. I don't find this any more surprising than that all cultures
> would settle for a cluster of concepts around itchiness sensations,
> and another cluster around scalding sensations. These are universal
> human experiences, for which universal concepts are therefore
> probable.
>
Are you saying that the genes that direct the assembly of the areas of the brain
required to sense itchiness or scalding cannot be affected by mutations in any
way? If someone is born that has a slight survival advantage over the others
because of a mutation and he gets more chicks and offspring would that trait
increase in the offspring?
> 3 - Determinate stages in infant interests
> All normal humans follow normal stages in development towards full
> personhood and consciousness. Each preliminary stage equips us with
> certain capabilities, which we investigate. Again, I see no
> controversy here.
>
Then you are admitting to these instincts?
> 4 - Universal set of facial expressions
> Universal human characteristics can flow equally from universal
> cultural roots as from genomic roots. We have reasonable evidence that
> humanity's big cultural trick was discovered in one region and spread
> across the globe with Hom Sap. So common features in the very most
> basic cultural essences - particularly emotions - are to be expected.
> Note that the more specific the meaning of a bodily movement, the less
> cross-cultural it is.
>
But there is a mountain of data on the specific areas of the brain where facial
recognition takes place, do you question that research. If so I will pull it out
of my data base. I claim I can overcome your evidence with mine in this area but
don't want to take the time at the moment.
> 5 - prosopagnosia
> Brain damage upsets structures in the brain. We know that these
> structures support mental processes. The issue is not whether or not
> the structures exist, but which causal explanations we give for them.
> In this case, it is not surprising that basic sociality functions are
> closely associated with specific sites in the brain. They are the
> oldest and most central of our cultural tricks, and must certainly
> have been selected for by society.
>
Which insting of the 12 in my list was this referring to?
> 6 - Predictable infant reactions to taste stimuli
> Predictability in infants is equally unsurprising, since at this stage
> in life humans are only taking on board the most abstract, barest
> essentials of enculturation. How and why adult humans in the same and
> in different cultures end up with such wide variations in taste
> preferences is the interesting part.
>
So your position is that all you have to do is make up something like, "oh
cultural learning could produce that effect," but if I come up with some evidence
your refuted? Bear with me I pick you apart slowely since I believe there very
little chance you can sustain your "its all culture theory."
> 7 - Predictable stranger anxiety in later infancy (6-18 mnths)
> This is your most promising gambit if you hope to claim genetic bases
> for things like religious rivalries or nationalism. It is the EvPsych
> equivalent to particularist sociology and its sainted 'Other'. If, on
> the other hand, EvPsych's ostensible universalism is what appeals to
> you, perhaps you won't take us down that road?
>
Actually the ease with which I will anhilate your argument slowely is what I am
attracted to here. Bear with me and I'll get the evidence to do so when I desire,
But as long as you keep responding I will finish you over time because "cultural
plasticity" and the idea that there are "absolutely no instinctual biases" is
very hard to defend.
Genes direct the assembly of all parts of the body and brain.
> 8 - Preponderance of ancient over modern phobias
> This looks especially dodgy to me. But then I'm triskaidecaphobic. Can
> you point us to specific research?
>
Yes but not tonight its to late.
> 9 - Predictable weaknesses in statistical thinking
> Not many of us make a point of thinking carefully about large numbers?
> We allow our cultural prejudices to steer us through the guesses we
> take as a lazy alternative to that hard thinking? If this is
> newsworthy, I'm a caveman.
>
Are you a wanker yanker?
>
>
> > > > > "You cherised liberal view of tabula rasa social engineering is over
> > > > > and done, smoked baby, we take sociology from you, we steal it right
> > > > > out of your hands, poof."
> > > >
>
> You seem unable to account for this particular wild boast. Care to
> retract?
>
It is a claim about what happens during paradigm shifts, if you cling to the old
paradigm you get killed.
> rent@mob
Immortalist
> Immortalist wrote:
>
> > It's well documented that liberals have protested sociobiologists alot during
the
> > last 20 years. Sociobiologists who are themselves 99% liberals. Maybe there
is a
> > new trend but most people, researchers and academics, have treated
> > sociobiologists like Nazis for 20 years.
>
> Probably because sociobiology has ties to eugenics and genocidal tendencies.
>
What ties are those?
> > . Only a very small percentage of individuals prefer to have sexual
> > relations with brothers or sisters. They may harbor moments of inward desire
> > toward siblings. But the vast majority choose to mate with persons raised
> > outside their immediate family circle. Studies of the origin of sexual
>
> The incest taboo is a near-universal (but not fully universal)
> observance discussed in anthropology. While it's obvious that incest
> can lead to genetic problems, it's nonsense to suggest that the origin
> of the taboo is our DNA talking for us. I remember reading "Homo Faber"
> (adapted to a movie starring Sam Shephard) in German. He has an affair
> with his own daughter. Why did he break the taboo? Simple: people who
> are completely separated from their children, siblings, etc. at birth
> cannot recognize them 20 years later. The name of the game here is not
> a genetic determinant against the incest taboo, but obviously a
> cultural/cognitive one.
>
Simple instinct is to be disgusted at having sex with those people you were
around for the first six years of life. Whoever it is, it worked in a more
primitive environment.
> If we wish to find a metaphor, I suggest that the human brain is like
> hardware, and culture/learning/experience/nurture, etc. acts as
> software. There are some dependencies to be sure, but it's nonsense to
> suggest that Intel determines Microsoft.
>
"Some dependencies" or some instinctual biases in a human nature? I guess we
don't really disagree then.
> Indeed, it may be the other way around. People's life choices,
> determine their mode of living, their diet, their economies, and so
> forth. Culture may very well have played a role in the demise or
> absorption) of Neandertals. Sub-cultures today are hooked together in
> communities, both real and virtual (this newsgroup for example) based on
> cognitive interests, not genetic predisposition. Whether you're black,
> white, tall, short, thin, or fat doesn't matter here. And (with the
> except of the black part) it doesn't matter in an Amish community either
> -- separated not by genetics from other modern Germans, Swiss, etc. but
> obviously by strict orthodoxical adherence to a culture and religion
> vastly different from other Germans, Swiss, etc.
>
But the genes direct the assembly of all the parts of the brain involved in these
things. Genes mutate and changes in stucture of organization could lead to
variation in desires and capacities.
> Speciation and genetic drift occurs when mating populations are
> isolated. So it may be that, in the case of the ideologically-separated
> communities that the mind drives evolution more so than the reverse.
> Think about it very carefully.
>
> American culture has morphed radically in just the past two centuries,
> whereas that's utterly insignificant from a long-term evolutionary
> standpoint. As a society, we're obese and commonly afflicted with
> diabetes because our behavior has changed faster than our body's ability
> to cope with a radically changed lifestyle.
Gene-culture feedback, I agree, this is what sociobiology is about.
It has been noted that when certain primates learned to swim out further into the
water as an culturally passed on trait through learning, all subsequent members
of those local groups began swimming out further than other primate groups and
altered their entire future history since any mutations and crossovers that
favored swimming were favored by this rudimentary culture and these abilities.
In this way cultural domestication was incorperated into genetic structure by
selection of particular individuals who could traverse this culturally impose
bottleneck of artificial selections. Think of the power of animal domestication
in Dogs and how their ancestor looks like an wild wolf. We had an large hand in
that and many aspects of our own self.
So it seems that morals and religious experience are side effects of "built" in
sensitivity to domesticating influences culturally imosed and genetically changed
toward. E.O. Wilson likes to call it gene-culture coevolution.
Immortalist
"Gene Strungar" <gstr...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1ea1bbc8.04060...@posting.google.com...> news:<Ev6dnWkOitI...@comcast.com>...
>
> Gene said
>
> Let me see if I understand what you are trying to say.
> If I am correct you are talking about fear, and the reasons for the
> fear.
> You pick up a subject and try to decipher its influence over the human
> being, specifically how it induces fear.
> Am I correct?
Actually it was a summary of one part of Pinker's book, specially edited to bug
that guy rent@mob who has alot of communication and honesty problems or issues.
The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature
by Steven Pinker
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0670031518/qid=1086452799/
> You can simplify the presentation by looking at why the human being is
> experiencing fear.
> One reason is a very clear, specific threat.
> Second reason is the sum of many less specific issues but which put
> together may achieve the necessary level to become a threat.
> In your case you are talking about the second situation and are trying
> to combine different issues to draw your conclusions.
> You pick some issues, assign them values and play with them.
> The more issues you pick, the more values you assign, the more
> solutions to your questions.
> But how do you choose the "correct" ones.
> Maybe you could look not at the specific issues but at their number,
> when the quantity, number of small issues, turns into quality, threat,
> fear.
> It is just like when you are filling a bin with disparate stuff, maybe
> it is not important what you throw in the bin, but their dimension
> versus the bin.
>
> Gene
>
>
> > What are the implications for other fields of this fear social science people
> > have of human nature?
> >
> > 1. Urban Planning
> > 2. The Arts & Humanities
> > 3. Intellectual Life & Marxism
> >
> > --------------------------------------
> >
> > 1. Urban Planning: The blank slate has had an enormous influence in far-flung
> > fields. One example is architecture and urban planning. The 20th century saw
the
> > rise of a movement that has been called "authoritarian high modernism", which
was
> > contemporaneous with the ascendance of the blank slate. City planners
believed
> > that people's taste for green space, for ornament, for people-watching, for
cosy
> > places for intimate social gatherings, were just social constructions. They
were
> > archaic historical artefacts that were getting in the way of the orderly
design
> > of cities and should be ignored by planners designing optimal cities
according to
> > so-called scientific principles.
> >
> > In extreme cases, this led to the wastelands of planned cities like Brasilia;
in
> > milder cases it gave us the so-called urban renewal projects in American
cities
> > and the dreary high-rises in the Soviet Union and English council flats.
> > Ornamentation, human scale, green space, gardens and comfortable social
meeting
> > places were written out of the cities because the planners had a theory of
human
> > nature that omitted human aesthetic and social needs.
> >
> > -------------------------------------
> >
> > 2. The Arts & Humanities: Another example is the arts. In the 20th century,
> > modernism and post-modernism took over, and their practitioners disdained
beauty
> > as bourgeois, saccharine and lightweight. Art was deliberately made
> > incomprehensible or ugly or shocking - again, on the assumption that people's
> > tastes for attractive faces, landscapes, colours, and so on, were reversible
> > social constructions. And so art became baffling and uninterpretable without
> > acquaintance with arcane theory.
> >
> > By their own admission, the humanities programs in universities, and
institutions
> > that promote new works of elite art, are in crisis. People are staying away
in
> > droves. I don't think it takes an Einstein to figure out why. By denying
people's
> > sense of visual beauty in painting and sculpture, melody in music, metre and
> > rhyme in poetry, plot and narrative and character in fiction, the elite arts
> > wrote off the vast majority of their audience - the people who approach art
in
> > part for pleasure and edification rather than social one-upmanship. Today
there
> > are movements in the arts to reintroduce beauty and narrative and melody and
> > other basic human pleasures. And those doing so are considered radical
> > extremists.
> >
> > -----------------------------------
> >
> > 3. Intellectual Life & Marxism: Science doesn't take place in a vacuum.
Didn't
> > historical events of the 20th century have something to do with the
popularity of
> > the blank slate?
> >
> > Intellectual life was enormously affected by an understandable revulsion to
> > Nazism, with its pseudoscientific theories of race and its equally
nonsensical
> > glorification of conflict as part of the evolutionary wisdom of nature. It
was
> > natural to reject anything that smacked of a genetic approach to human
affairs.
> >
> > But historians of ideas have begun to fill in another side of the picture.
During
> > the 20th century, equally horrific genocides were carried out in the name of
> > Marxism, such as in the mass purges and man-made famines of Lenin, Stalin and
> > Mao, and the madness in Cambodia.
> >
> > The remarkable fact is that the two great ideologically driven genocides of
the
> > 20th century came from theories of human nature that were diametrically
opposed.
> >
> > The Marxists had no use for the concept of race, didn't believe in genes, and
> > denied Darwin's theory of natural selection as the mechanism of evolutionary
> > adaptation.
> >
> > This shows that it's not a biological approach to human nature that is
uniquely
> > sinister. There must be common threads to Nazism and totalitarian Marxism
that
> > cut across a belief in the importance of evolution or genetics.
> >
> > One common thread was a desire to reshape humanity. In the Marxists' case it
was
> > through social engineering; in the Nazis' case it was eugenics. Neither of
them
> > were satisfied with human beings as we find them, with all their flaws and
> > weaknesses.
> >
> > Rather than building a social order around enduring human traits, they had
the
> > conceit that they could re-engineer human traits using scientific principles
that
> > were, in reality, pseudoscientific principles.
> >
> > In Martin Amis's new book about Stalinism, he argues that intellectuals have
not
> > yet come to grips with the lessons of Marxist totalitarianism in the way that
> > they did with Nazi totalitarianism many decades ago. A number of historians
and
> > political philosophers have made the same point. This blind spot has
distorted
> > the intellectual landscape, including the implications and non-implications
of
> > genetics and evolution for understanding ourselves.
> >
> > Chekhov once said, "Man will become better when you show him what he is
like." I
> > can't do better than that.
rent@mob
> > 1 - Universal Incest avoidance
> > Accepting the research data at face value for the time being, the
> > genetic source of this distaste is not established. As Dennett notes
> > in Darwin's Dangerous Idea, "since there is always another possible
> > source of the adaptation in question - namely culture - one cannot *so
> > readily* infer that there has been genetic evolution for the trait in
> > question. Even in the case of non-human animals, the inference from
> > adaptation to genetic basis is risky when the adaptation in question
> > is not an anatomical feature but a behavioural pattern which is an
> > obviously Good Trick. For then there is another possible explanation:
> > the general *non-stupidity* of the species" (p485). This is a general
> > problem for most of your examples.
> >
>
> Inscest avoidence is just an instinct for avoiding having sex with those who you
> were around for the first six years of life. Actually there is much evidence for
> this.
>
Yes, dear. You'll note I raised no case against the evidence - my
point (and Dennett's) was against your 'ready inference' from this
data to a conclusion that the behaviour is gene-coded. Do you
comprehend the Good Trick alternative?
> > 2 - Predictable colour categorisation
> > [SNIP] These are universal
> > human experiences, for which universal concepts are therefore
> > probable.
> >
>
> Are you saying that the genes that direct the assembly of the areas of the brain
> required to sense itchiness or scalding cannot be affected by mutations in any
> way? [etc]
>
No, I am precisely not engaging in that style of rationalisation. I
was noting that both nature and nurture theories would predict this
regularity, so the case is of minimal use in settling our dispute.
>
> > 3 - Determinate stages in infant interests
> > All normal humans follow normal stages in development towards full
> > personhood and consciousness. Each preliminary stage equips us with
> > certain capabilities, which we investigate. Again, I see no
> > controversy here.
> >
>
> Then you are admitting to these instincts?
>
Certainly. Who wouldn't? (Seriously - can you cite me one real life
instance of a 'Blank Slatist' who denies neonates *any* unencultured
behaviours?)
>
> > 4 - Universal set of facial expressions
> > Universal human characteristics can flow equally from universal
> > cultural roots as from genomic roots. [etc]
>
> But there is a mountain of data on the specific areas of the brain where facial
> recognition takes place, do you question that research.
>
I can tell I haven't explained myself clearly enough for you. I am not
disputing the data here (much as I may be tempted to). I am asking you
to recognise how the data is open to at least two interpretations -
culture might employ these areas as repositories for facial
recognition processes.
I sympathise with your sense of frustration that there might be two
ways to approach this data. As with the Bernoulli/Newtonian 'dispute'
over how airfoils work, it suggests that we have not quite got to
grips with the heart of the problem. This is why it is *vital* to
acknowledge that some harder philosophical work is to be expected, not
just easy answers expressed in familiar terms.
>
> > 5 - prosopagnosia
> > Brain damage upsets structures in the brain. We know that these
> > structures support mental processes. The issue is not whether or not
> > the structures exist, but which causal explanations we give for them.
> > In this case, it is not surprising that basic sociality functions are
> > closely associated with specific sites in the brain. They are the
> > oldest and most central of our cultural tricks, and must certainly
> > have been selected for by society.
> >
>
> Which insting of the 12 in my list was this referring to?
>
Perhaps you should read your pastes before offering them? In any case,
your reply to 4 would more appropriately be applied to this case
(since it was actually about recognition systems). I hope this isn't
some elaborate automated procedure on your behalf.
>
> > 6 - Predictable infant reactions to taste stimuli
> > Predictability in infants is equally unsurprising, since at this stage
> > in life humans are only taking on board the most abstract, barest
> > essentials of enculturation. How and why adult humans in the same and
> > in different cultures end up with such wide variations in taste
> > preferences is the interesting part.
> >
>
> So your position is that all you have to do is make up something like, "oh
> cultural learning could produce that effect," but if I come up with some evidence
> your refuted? Bear with me I pick you apart slowely since I believe there very
> little chance you can sustain your "its all culture theory."
>
You're apparently beginning to get a hint of what I actualy said in
answer to 1 - I recommend you read it a third time. Note that I don't
have an 'it's all culture' theory - that's a straw man of your
imagining.
> > 7 - Predictable stranger anxiety in later infancy (6-18 mnths)
> > This is your most promising gambit if you hope to claim genetic bases
> > for things like religious rivalries or nationalism. It is the EvPsych
> > equivalent to particularist sociology and its sainted 'Other'. If, on
> > the other hand, EvPsych's ostensible universalism is what appeals to
> > you, perhaps you won't take us down that road?
> >
>
> Actually the ease with which I will anhilate your argument slowely is what I am
> attracted to here. Bear with me and I'll get the evidence to do so when I desire,
> But as long as you keep responding I will finish you over time because "cultural
> plasticity" and the idea that there are "absolutely no instinctual biases" is
> very hard to defend.
>
Listen, Don Quixote, I'll save you some time here. Who claimed to be
defending the idea of 'absolutely no instinctual biases'?
>
> Genes direct the assembly of all parts of the body and brain.
>
Your own pastes above of EO Wilson's musings contradict you. Wilson
says he's working with epigenetic causal circumstances - that the
interactions between gene and environment are the roots of his
observed regularities. Since those interactions are mediated through
the phenotype in all creatures, and Culture in the case of humans,
claiming a supreme 'directing' role for genes makes you even cruder
than Wilson. So where do you get *that* from?
>
> > 8 - Preponderance of ancient over modern phobias
> > This looks especially dodgy to me. But then I'm triskaidecaphobic. Can
> > you point us to specific research?
> >
>
> Yes but not tonight its to late.
>
Take your time. Have a good think.
>
> > 9 - Predictable weaknesses in statistical thinking
> > Not many of us make a point of thinking carefully about large numbers?
> > We allow our cultural prejudices to steer us through the guesses we
> > take as a lazy alternative to that hard thinking? If this is
> > newsworthy, I'm a caveman.
> >
>
> Are you a wanker yanker?
>
I certainly appear to be yanking you. Perhaps I should recognise that
you're just here for cheap thrills, not a meaningful relationship.
> >
> > > > > > "You cherised liberal view of tabula rasa social engineering is over
> > > > > > and done, smoked baby, we take sociology from you, we steal it right
> > > > > > out of your hands, poof."
> > > > >
> >
> > You seem unable to account for this particular wild boast. Care to
> > retract?
> >
>
> It is a claim about what happens during paradigm shifts, if you cling to the old
> paradigm you get killed.
>
So kill me, already, tough guy of the future. Your best shots so far
haven't creased a hair.
rent@mob
Immortalist
> "Immortalist" <Reanima...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:<Ao6dnedQo4h...@comcast.com>...
>
> > > 1 - Universal Incest avoidance
> > > Accepting the research data at face value for the time being, the
> > > genetic source of this distaste is not established. As Dennett notes
> > > in Darwin's Dangerous Idea, "since there is always another possible
> > > source of the adaptation in question - namely culture - one cannot *so
> > > readily* infer that there has been genetic evolution for the trait in
> > > question. Even in the case of non-human animals, the inference from
> > > adaptation to genetic basis is risky when the adaptation in question
> > > is not an anatomical feature but a behavioural pattern which is an
> > > obviously Good Trick. For then there is another possible explanation:
> > > the general *non-stupidity* of the species" (p485). This is a general
> > > problem for most of your examples.
> > >
> >
> > Inscest avoidence is just an instinct for avoiding having sex with those who
you
> > were around for the first six years of life. Actually there is much evidence
for
> > this.
> >
>
> Yes, dear. You'll note I raised no case against the evidence - my
> point (and Dennett's) was against your 'ready inference' from this
> data to a conclusion that the behaviour is gene-coded. Do you
> comprehend the Good Trick alternative?
>
Yes, since I was very young I understood how inductive logic and emprirical
science work. But I just get the impression that you automatically out of habit
minimize or make equal all theories in order to argue for no theory. Maybe I'm
wrong, who knows what your trip is and why you even care so much about this one
subject. Do you teach this shit or something?
>
> > > 2 - Predictable colour categorisation
> > > [SNIP] These are universal
> > > human experiences, for which universal concepts are therefore
> > > probable.
> > >
> >
> > Are you saying that the genes that direct the assembly of the areas of the
brain
> > required to sense itchiness or scalding cannot be affected by mutations in
any
> > way? [etc]
> >
>
> No, I am precisely not engaging in that style of rationalisation. I
> was noting that both nature and nurture theories would predict this
> regularity, so the case is of minimal use in settling our dispute.
>
How would you show that nature and nurture theories are balanced evidentially in
just the right degree to perfectly mute each other as explainations. How could
all of sociology and evolutionary theory be so precariously balanced as you make
them seem? And what degree of lopsidedness in evidence would constitute a choice
between one theory over another?
> >
> > > 3 - Determinate stages in infant interests
> > > All normal humans follow normal stages in development towards full
> > > personhood and consciousness. Each preliminary stage equips us with
> > > certain capabilities, which we investigate. Again, I see no
> > > controversy here.
> > >
> >
> > Then you are admitting to these instincts?
> >
>
> Certainly. Who wouldn't? (Seriously - can you cite me one real life
> instance of a 'Blank Slatist' who denies neonates *any* unencultured
> behaviours?)
>
I think that this is the second time you have claimed to accept at least some
degree of instinct in human nature. As in the first time this means we really
have no beef, we just disagree on how much the interplay between nature and
nurture is. After you admit it the second time I don't any more believe that you
are a pure blank slatist trying to rescue sociology from ongoing research.
> >
> > > 4 - Universal set of facial expressions
> > > Universal human characteristics can flow equally from universal
> > > cultural roots as from genomic roots. [etc]
> >
> > But there is a mountain of data on the specific areas of the brain where
facial
> > recognition takes place, do you question that research.
> >
>
> I can tell I haven't explained myself clearly enough for you. I am not
> disputing the data here (much as I may be tempted to). I am asking you
> to recognise how the data is open to at least two interpretations -
> culture might employ these areas as repositories for facial
> recognition processes.
>
OK, then what would be the evidenciary condition for determining it one way or
the other or some degree of interplay between the two?
> I sympathise with your sense of frustration that there might be two
> ways to approach this data. As with the Bernoulli/Newtonian 'dispute'
> over how airfoils work, it suggests that we have not quite got to
> grips with the heart of the problem. This is why it is *vital* to
> acknowledge that some harder philosophical work is to be expected, not
> just easy answers expressed in familiar terms.
>
I only follow this stuff on the side as a hobby, not much frustration possible
actually. But it is interesting to me. Don't worry if some serious philosophical
work is needed there will be people to step up to the plate in the market section
of the debating arena. Us blowhards in here could care, all this being for free.
My real interest is in neurophysiology, and you mention the pop neurophysiology,
cognitive psychology alot, which I like to, but no frustration there either. In
science we must be prepared to go where the data lead if is verifiable and
persuasive. Who knows how some of these things will turn out? You are cautious
now but how will you respond if the evidence over time comes to prove opposing
theories not to your liking now? I mean since you mention frustration does that
mean it is a sensitive issue for you?
> >
> > > 5 - prosopagnosia
> > > Brain damage upsets structures in the brain. We know that these
> > > structures support mental processes. The issue is not whether or not
> > > the structures exist, but which causal explanations we give for them.
> > > In this case, it is not surprising that basic sociality functions are
> > > closely associated with specific sites in the brain. They are the
> > > oldest and most central of our cultural tricks, and must certainly
> > > have been selected for by society.
> > >
> >
> > Which insting of the 12 in my list was this referring to?
> >
>
> Perhaps you should read your pastes before offering them? In any case,
> your reply to 4 would more appropriately be applied to this case
> (since it was actually about recognition systems). I hope this isn't
> some elaborate automated procedure on your behalf.
>
Perhaps in college or a research lab we get paid G money for that kind of stuff.
This is the free zone, and your asking me to do a little work for free? Besides
the posting tradition in newsgroups has been set up in such a way that each post
is to stand alone, complete argument itself, with all supporting data present.
You do a diservice to the tradition by snipping out so much stuff. At least you
could top-post so that all the junk is still below to be found.
> >
> > > 6 - Predictable infant reactions to taste stimuli
> > > Predictability in infants is equally unsurprising, since at this stage
> > > in life humans are only taking on board the most abstract, barest
> > > essentials of enculturation. How and why adult humans in the same and
> > > in different cultures end up with such wide variations in taste
> > > preferences is the interesting part.
> > >
> >
> > So your position is that all you have to do is make up something like, "oh
> > cultural learning could produce that effect," but if I come up with some
evidence
> > your refuted? Bear with me I pick you apart slowely since I believe there
very
> > little chance you can sustain your "its all culture theory."
> >
>
> You're apparently beginning to get a hint of what I actualy said in
> answer to 1 - I recommend you read it a third time. Note that I don't
> have an 'it's all culture' theory - that's a straw man of your
> imagining.
>
I want to look up in this post to see it "number 1" is there but out of habit
with you I will not lose my place here from expectation about your unique
communications style[s] in newsgroups. So you all along have been promoting a
mixed economy of nature and nurture, genotype and phenotype and all heman
behavior have an instinctual component? If so I don't see where we disagree
except on degree of this or that.
>
> > > 7 - Predictable stranger anxiety in later infancy (6-18 mnths)
> > > This is your most promising gambit if you hope to claim genetic bases
> > > for things like religious rivalries or nationalism. It is the EvPsych
> > > equivalent to particularist sociology and its sainted 'Other'. If, on
> > > the other hand, EvPsych's ostensible universalism is what appeals to
> > > you, perhaps you won't take us down that road?
> > >
> >
> > Actually the ease with which I will anhilate your argument slowely is what I
am
> > attracted to here. Bear with me and I'll get the evidence to do so when I
desire,
> > But as long as you keep responding I will finish you over time because
"cultural
> > plasticity" and the idea that there are "absolutely no instinctual biases" is
> > very hard to defend.
> >
>
> Listen, Don Quixote, I'll save you some time here. Who claimed to be
> defending the idea of 'absolutely no instinctual biases'?
>
I believe the evidence is not quite so equally balanced here as you believe. You
propose that the evidence for and against many notions in sociobiology are equal
enough to balance each other out, but I don't see you evidence for that. Except
for a couple quotes from a book by Dennett which mostly argues against your
position.
> >
> > Genes direct the assembly of all parts of the body and brain.
> >
>
> Your own pastes above of EO Wilson's musings contradict you. Wilson
> says he's working with epigenetic causal circumstances - that the
> interactions between gene and environment are the roots of his
> observed regularities. Since those interactions are mediated through
> the phenotype in all creatures, and Culture in the case of humans,
> claiming a supreme 'directing' role for genes makes you even cruder
> than Wilson. So where do you get *that* from?
>
Cell biology and embryology. Even when patches of cells drift through clefts in
the embryo the genes are influencing when they begin drifting, their direction,
and their halting and merging into other tissues. And that any changes brought
about by learning ALL things is done by alterations in cell metabolism which is
directed by genetic activities.
> >
> > > 8 - Preponderance of ancient over modern phobias
> > > This looks especially dodgy to me. But then I'm triskaidecaphobic. Can
> > > you point us to specific research?
> > >
> >
> > Yes but not tonight its to late.
> >
>
> Take your time. Have a good think.
>
You say this as if it were your proofs for how balanced some evidences were and
how they precisely cancel one another.
> >
> > > 9 - Predictable weaknesses in statistical thinking
> > > Not many of us make a point of thinking carefully about large numbers?
> > > We allow our cultural prejudices to steer us through the guesses we
> > > take as a lazy alternative to that hard thinking? If this is
> > > newsworthy, I'm a caveman.
> > >
> >
> > Are you a wanker yanker?
> >
>
> I certainly appear to be yanking you. Perhaps I should recognise that
> you're just here for cheap thrills, not a meaningful relationship.
>
Dam right, I come in here for cheap improvements to my philosophy at no cost. Do
you make money considering these things or do you just enjoy learning and
thinking about them? If you are employed somewhere for this kinda stuff please
don't bring you work aggrivations in here, this is an unmoderated group with no
laws. If you are worried about scientific correctness there are moderated groups
for that, have you ever heard of moderated groups. Down here this is like on the
streets where a hobo might spit on you for looking at him wrong, take your risks.
>
> > >
> > > > > > > "You cherised liberal view of tabula rasa social engineering is
over
> > > > > > > and done, smoked baby, we take sociology from you, we steal it
right
> > > > > > > out of your hands, poof."
> > > > > >
> > >
> > > You seem unable to account for this particular wild boast. Care to
> > > retract?
> > >
> >
> > It is a claim about what happens during paradigm shifts, if you cling to the
old
> > paradigm you get killed.
> >
>
> So kill me, already, tough guy of the future. Your best shots so far
> haven't creased a hair.
>
Awe, sensitive wunkie wanka, I meant the momentum of a paradigm is like a glacier
that will kill you. Here your as welcome as any other bum.
> rent@mob
Tron Furu
"John Jones" <jivers...@btopenworld.com> skrev i melding
news:c9nsn0$i50$1...@titan.btinternet.com...
> > There are dangerous implications to the idea that the mind is a product
of
> > the brain to the degree that this is not a true explanation (in the
sense
> > that the theoretical underpinning is as yet too imprecise to give us
> > anything but crude belief structures (like radical eliminativism), not
> good
> > science).
>
>
> Are you are saying that it is simply a matter of degree that brain science
> hasn't caught up with behaviour?
I hope so.
>Don't be a bloody idiot.
Sounds like good advice. Thanks.
> Tell me, how does brain chemistry tell us, just by looking at the brain
> chemistry, what we want or need?
You need to ask a brain chemist. Although, if you are asking about my
opinion, brain chemistry is not ready to give that answer yet.
It is also possible that reducing experiences like wants or need to becomes
possible in general, without brain chemistry having the power to explain
specific wants or needs, since maybe the bridging laws will not be chemical
laws.
FWIW I would think that the full range of brain sciences will extend beyond
natural philosophies like physics, chemistry and biology.
T
Colin Day
I'll admit that I don't know how to reduce mental properties to physical
ones, I'd hesitate to say it can't be done.
Immortalist
"Colin Day" <cd...@sc.rr.com> wrote in message news:40C26FF1...@sc.rr.com...
How about comparing "mental activities" with "physical activities" then we don't
confuse process with substance.
not@top-post
news:c9qgi8$h5u$1...@lenny.tc.umn.edu...
> Immortalist wrote:
>
> > It's well documented that liberals have protested sociobiologists
> > alot during the
> > last 20 years. Sociobiologists who are themselves 99% liberals.
> > Maybe there is a
> > new trend but most people, researchers and academics, have treated
> > sociobiologists like Nazis for 20 years.
>
> Probably because sociobiology has ties to eugenics and genocidal
> tendencies.
>
has been an un-pc no-no.
BTW I've read about a news:evolutionary-psychology group, but
no News-servers which I know of offer it.
Does it still exist any-where, or was it killed by the pc-police ?
== Chris Glur
Immortalist
<not@top-post> wrote in message news:yMWdnfyxuKX...@is.co.za...
> "Paul Bramscher" <brams00...@tc.umn.edu> wrote in message
> news:c9qgi8$h5u$1...@lenny.tc.umn.edu...
> > Immortalist wrote:
> >
> > > It's well documented that liberals have protested sociobiologists
> > > alot during the
> > > last 20 years. Sociobiologists who are themselves 99% liberals.
> > > Maybe there is a
> > > new trend but most people, researchers and academics, have treated
> > > sociobiologists like Nazis for 20 years.
> >
> > Probably because sociobiology has ties to eugenics and genocidal
> > tendencies.
> >
> I'm guessing it's much longer than 20 years that Evolutionary Psychology
> has been an un-pc no-no.
>
The Greek philosopher Anaximander, who lived in the 500s bc, is generally
credited as the earliest evolutionist. Anaximander believed that the Earth first
existed in a liquid state. Further, he believed that humans evolved from fishlike
aquatic beings who left the water once they had developed sufficiently to survive
on land. Greek scientist Empedocles speculated in the 400s bc that plant life
arose first on Earth, followed by animals. Empedocles proposed that humans and
animals arose not as complete individuals but as various body parts that joined
together randomly to form strange, fantastic creatures. Some of these creatures,
being unable to reproduce, became extinct, while others thrived. Outlandish as
his ideas seem today, Empedocles’ thinking anticipates the fundamental principles
of natural selection.
The Greek philosopher and scientist Aristotle, who lived in the 300s bc, referred
to a "ladder of nature"—a progression of life forms from lower to higher—but his
ladder was a static hierarchy of levels of perfection, not an evolutionary
concept.
http://images.google.com/images?q=evolution
Colin Day
While I don't know of any way to describe mental activities in physical
terms, that doesn't mean it can't happen.
>
>
>>>property of my being six feet tall and my believing that the Eiffel tower is
>>
> in
>
>>>France. Property dualism is compatible with the token identity thesis, but
>>
> not
>
>>>the type identity thesis. Property dualists are typically, if not
>>
> unanimously,
>
>>>anti-reductionists about the mental, which is to say, they deny that it is
>>>in-principle possible to translate mental predicates into physical
>>
> predicates.
>
>>
And what arguments do they advance in favor of their position?
democratix
> Why are empirical questions about how the mind works so weighted down with
> dangerous implications to the idea that the mind is a product of the brain, that
> the brain is organised in part by the genome, and that the genome was shaped by
> natural selection?
I agree with you but even this post is defensive (trying to deny
problems) and offensive (implictly insulting the intellects of those
who disagree); rather than seductive. I'm not saying there is not a
place for theoretical defense or even to speculate on the motives for
the attacks in the first place; but it's the seductive propaganda that
makes the biggest difference, in my opinion.
Give the layman something positive he can work with and he will find
his own reasons for denouncing old ways. Denounce old ways without
giving a superior replacement and you are taken for a mildly unstable
whinger. Rigourous intellectual tracts will only persuade people who
open-mindedly investigate the arguments despite any personal feelings
and prejudices; what percentage of the general population (or even
scientists) do you think this describes?
John Jones
No- please - brain chemistry does not tell you what you want or need. You
have to inform the chemist of what effect you expect to be represented by an
arbitrary chemistry.
JJ
Tron Furu <tron...@frisurf.no> wrote in message
news:kvrwc.6521$RL3.1...@news2.e.nsc.no...
John Jones
> > believe that the brain and the genome can tell us anything about
ourselves
> > and the way we live?
>
> Obviously, because they can. The human mind is currently instantiated
only
> in the human brain. Learning more about how the wetware functions will
help
> us understand the minds it gives rise to.
Please explain-. If you think it will help you, but I somehow expect a
disapointment. Pray tell, how can chemicals tell us what we think, and what
we need to think. Have you tried asking a chemical? And what did it tell
you?
JJ
Xaonon <xao...@hotpop.com> wrote in message
news:slrncbvetq...@xaonon.local...
John Jones
The baseball is the molecules in the brain.
The microscopal features in the baseball will affect the game. Just as
chemicals in the brain affect the game. But they can't say what the game is.
JJ
Xaonon <xao...@hotpop.com> wrote in message
news:slrncc0qc7...@xaonon.local...
Immortalist
"Colin Day" <cd...@sc.rr.com> wrote in message news:40C37CAD...@sc.rr.com...
Its really an example of the dualistic properties of "quantity and quality."
> >
> >
> >>>property of my being six feet tall and my believing that the Eiffel tower is
> >>
> > in
> >
> >>>France. Property dualism is compatible with the token identity thesis, but
> >>
> > not
> >
> >>>the type identity thesis. Property dualists are typically, if not
> >>
> > unanimously,
> >
> >>>anti-reductionists about the mental, which is to say, they deny that it is
> >>>in-principle possible to translate mental predicates into physical
> >>
> > predicates.
> >
> >>
>
> And what arguments do they advance in favor of their position?
>
I don't know since I kinda make up my own version of property dualism.
Immortalist
"democratix" <demok...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:f68635bf.04060...@posting.google.com...
I guess that depends contingently on whether someone is asserting something or
defending something against soemthing someone said. Depends on where the burden
of proof is at the moment and which side of it one is one, and neither side of
that is bad or good actually. But if we put on our best Sunday clothes and are
making G money we can make anything sound actually persuasive.
The original post was appealing to me because it caused arousal internally in an
act of cognitive disonance where two or more ideas needed to be worked on in
order to not arouse anymore.
Tron Furu
> > You need to ask a brain chemist.
>
> No- please - brain chemistry does not tell you what you want or need. You
> have to inform the chemist of what effect you expect to be represented by
an
> arbitrary chemistry.
>
Careful, you are discussing brain chemistry with a nazi - preparing the soil
for a new Mengele.
Truly,
T
rent@mob
> > You'll note I raised no case against the evidence - my
> > point (and Dennett's) was against your 'ready inference' from this
> > data to a conclusion that the behaviour is gene-coded. Do you
> > comprehend the Good Trick alternative?
> >
>
> Yes, since I was very young I understood how inductive logic and emprirical
> science work. But I just get the impression that you automatically out of habit
> minimize or make equal all theories in order to argue for no theory.
>
For a third time, I recommend Dennett's Good Trick observation to you
- I still see no indication that you have grasped it. If you had, you
would not mistake me for some kind of relativist, just because I say
'Not so fast'. To be a good reductionist, you need to respect each of
the explanatory levels to be reduced, and account for them in your
procedures. I 'minimize' (ie, reject) only those theories which act in
dereliction of this scientific duty.
>
> Maybe I'm
> wrong, who knows what your trip is and why you even care so much about this one
> subject. Do you teach this shit or something?
>
I care about it for the same reason you do, when you're in a corner:
this issue has profound and far-reaching political implications. I'm
not identifying with knee-jerk anti-Eugenics post-Holocaust liberal
hysteria, here. My only aim is to demonstrate that, despite the
prevailing neo-Feudalist wind, it is still perfectly feasible to set
an Enlightenment course. Some people will get it, some won't.
> How would you show that nature and nurture theories are balanced evidentially in
> just the right degree to perfectly mute each other as explainations. How could
> all of sociology and evolutionary theory be so precariously balanced as you make
> them seem? And what degree of lopsidedness in evidence would constitute a choice
> between one theory over another?
>
In one sense, these questions are premature. Philosophy of mind has
not advanced to the point where it is possible for it to cease to be
metaphysics, as other branches of natural philosophy long since did.
But you probably won't accept (or maybe understand) this answer. Let
me say something else, instead:
I'm not balancing nature and nurture, I'm pointing out that your
categories for thinking about these things are not philosophically
(hence scientifically) viable. Whenever you claim to have results on
the basis of those categories, these will be false positives which you
are reading into what are actually noncommital data. Such is the
inevitable consequence of badly-constructed science.
>
> > Seriously - can you cite me one real life
> > instance of a 'Blank Slatist' who denies neonates *any* unencultured
> > behaviours?
> >
> I think that this is the second time you have claimed to accept at least some
> degree of instinct in human nature. As in the first time this means we really
> have no beef, we just disagree on how much the interplay between nature and
> nurture is. After you admit it the second time I don't any more believe that you
> are a pure blank slatist trying to rescue sociology from ongoing research.
>
There is no such thing as a pure blank slatist. That is a rhetorical
construct of the 'scientists' you place your trust in. But we
certainly do still have a beef, because you are either wittingly or
unwittingly defending a much more strongly genetic determinist
position - not simply that most adult behaviour is determined
according to inherited rules of adaptation, but that those rules were
fixed in our collective Stone Age past.
> > >
>
> OK, then what would be the evidenciary condition for determining it one way or
> the other or some degree of interplay between the two?
>
See above. You'll get nowhere looking for relationships between dud
categories.
>
> I only follow this stuff on the side as a hobby, not much frustration possible
> actually. But it is interesting to me. Don't worry if some serious philosophical
> work is needed there will be people to step up to the plate in the market section
> of the debating arena. Us blowhards in here could care, all this being for free.
>
I see. You're saying because I'm cheap, I have to be easy. That sheds
some light on how come you get to spend so much time with your PC.
>
> My real interest is in neurophysiology, and you mention the pop neurophysiology,
> cognitive psychology alot, which I like to, but no frustration there either. In
> science we must be prepared to go where the data lead if is verifiable and
> persuasive. Who knows how some of these things will turn out? You are cautious
> now but how will you respond if the evidence over time comes to prove opposing
> theories not to your liking now? I mean since you mention frustration does that
> mean it is a sensitive issue for you?
>
We've been over this ground already. 'Going where the data leads' is
not scientific if you are carving up the material in a prejudicial
manner. We know where this turns out - scientists 'discovering' that
the material confirms their culture's prejudices. File under
phrenology and do not forget!
> > >
> This is the free zone, and your asking me to do a little work for free? Besides
> the posting tradition in newsgroups has been set up in such a way that each post
> is to stand alone, complete argument itself, with all supporting data present.
>
> You do a diservice to the tradition by snipping out so much stuff. At least you
> could top-post so that all the junk is still below to be found.
>
In my posting tradition, I generally find that bitching about the
style of a debate signals that you have nothing more to offer on the
substance. My style didn't bother you much while you believed you
could 'win'.
> So you all along have been promoting a
> mixed economy of nature and nurture, genotype and phenotype and all heman
> behavior have an instinctual component? If so I don't see where we disagree
> except on degree of this or that.
>
For a middle of the road kind of guy, it's pretty B&W for you, isn't
it? Either I'm a pure blank slatist, or I accept that 'all human
behaviour' has to have an instinctual component. I don't fit your two
options. My case is roughly that all the basic mammalian stuff is
coded in naturally-selected genes, that some human stuff is coded for
in socially-selected genes, and that all the rest is caused by our
semantic engines - the minds we build out of our social interactions.
'The rest' includes anything remotely approaching political
behaviours.
> >
> > Listen, Don Quixote, I'll save you some time here. Who claimed to be
> > defending the idea of 'absolutely no instinctual biases'?
> >
>
> I believe the evidence is not quite so equally balanced here as you believe. You
> propose that the evidence for and against many notions in sociobiology are equal
> enough to balance each other out, but I don't see you evidence for that. Except
> for a couple quotes from a book by Dennett which mostly argues against your
> position.
>
You'd do well to read beyond the dustjacket on that one. Again, this
concept of balance springs from your own sense that your
nature/nurture categories are objective - that any conceivable theory
*has* to sit somewhere along the zero-sum see-saw they constitute for
you. This has nothing to do with what I have been arguing.
> > >
> > > Genes direct the assembly of all parts of the body and brain.
> > >
> > Your own pastes above of EO Wilson's musings contradict you. [etc]
> >
> Cell biology and embryology. Even when patches of cells drift through clefts in
> the embryo the genes are influencing when they begin drifting, their direction,
> and their halting and merging into other tissues. And that any changes brought
> about by learning ALL things is done by alterations in cell metabolism which is
> directed by genetic activities.
>
Fascinating: 'any changes brought about by learning' are 'directed by
genetic activities'. You seem to have a bit of a causal circumstances
muddle on your hands, there. Did the learning bring about the change,
or was it the genes? If the genes are responding to the learning, are
they directing or just executing? Are these words my computer's coding
being 'directed by' the computer software, or is the bit structure
simply executing whatever I think of next?
>
> > >
> > > > 8 - Preponderance of ancient over modern phobias
proofs pending
> > >
> > > > 9 - Predictable weaknesses in statistical thinking
>
> If you are worried about scientific correctness there are moderated groups
> for that, have you ever heard of moderated groups. Down here this is like on the
> streets where a hobo might spit on you for looking at him wrong, take your risks.
>
Scientific correctness is what I try to offer. Are you saying that
you'd rather not see too much of that in your neighbourhood?
rent@mob
Immortalist
news:<0uadnVxj2cK...@comcast.com>...
>
> > > You'll note I raised no case against the evidence - my
> > > point (and Dennett's) was against your 'ready inference' from this
> > > data to a conclusion that the behaviour is gene-coded. Do you
> > > comprehend the Good Trick alternative?
> > >
> >
> > Yes, since I was very young I understood how inductive logic and emprirical
> > science work. But I just get the impression that you automatically out of
habit
> > minimize or make equal all theories in order to argue for no theory.
> >
>
> For a third time, I recommend Dennett's Good Trick observation to you
> - I still see no indication that you have grasped it. If you had, you
> would not mistake me for some kind of relativist, just because I say
> 'Not so fast'. To be a good reductionist, you need to respect each of
> the explanatory levels to be reduced, and account for them in your
> procedures. I 'minimize' (ie, reject) only those theories which act in
> dereliction of this scientific duty.
>
I admit I have not payed really really close attention to some of your points. I
get into all kinds of subjects. But your jerkin your own chain now since I don't
believe we have a difference.
Reductionism, like cholesterol, comes in good and bad forms. Bad
reductionism-also called "greedy reductionism" or "destructive
reductionism"-consists of trying to explain a phenomenon in terms of its smallest
or simplest constituents. Greedy reductionism is not a straw man. I know several
scientists who believe (or at least say to granting agencies) that we will make
breakthroughs in education, conflict resolution, and other social concerns by
studying the biophysics of neural membranes or the molecular structure of the
synapse. But greedy reductionism is far from the majority view, and it is easy to
show why it is wrong. As the philosopher Hilary Putnam has pointed out, even the
simple fact that a square peg won't fit into a round hole cannot be explained in
terms of molecules and atoms but only at a higher level of analysis involving
rigidity (regardless of what makes the peg rigid) and geometry. And if anyone
really thought that sociology or literature or history could be replaced by
biology, why stop there? Biology could in turn be ground up into chemistry, and
chemistry into physics, leaving one struggling to explain the causes of World War
I in terms of electrons and quarks. Even if World War I consisted of nothing but
a very, very large number of quarks in a very, very complicated pattern of
motion, no insight is gained by describing it that way.
Good reductionism (also called hierarchical reductionism) consists not of
replacing one field of knowledge with another but of connecting or unifying them.
The building blocks used by one field are put under a microscope by another. The
black boxes get opened; the promissory notes get cashed, A geographer might
explain why the coastline of Africa fits into the coastline of the Americas by
saying that the landmasses were once adjacent but sat on different plates, which
drifted apart. The question of why the plates move gets passed on to the
geologists, who appeal to an upwelling of magma that pushes them apart. As for
how the magma got so hot, they call in the physicists to explain the reactions in
the Earth's core and mantle. None of the scientists is dispensable. An isolated
geographer would have to invoke magic to move the continents, and an isolated
physicist could not have predicted the shape of South America.
So, too, for the bridge between biology and culture. The big thinkers in the
sciences of human nature have been adamant that mental life has to be understood
at several levels of analysis, not just the lowest one. The linguist Noam
Chomsky, the computational neuroscientist David Marr, and the ethologist Niko
Tinbergen have independently marked out a set of levels of analysis for
understanding a faculty of the mind. These levels include its function (what it
accomplishes in an ultimate, evolutionary sense); its real-time operation (how it
works proximately, from moment to moment); how it is implemented in neural
tissue; how it develops in the individual; and how it evolved in the species. For
example, language is based on a combinatorial grammar designed to communicate an
unlimited number of thoughts. It is utilized by people in real time via an
interplay of memory lookup and rule application. It is implemented in a network
of regions in the center of the left cerebral hemisphere that must coordinate
memory, planning, word meaning, and grammar. It develops in the first three years
of life in a sequence from babbling to words to word combinations, including
errors in which rules may be overapplied. It evolved through modifications of a
vocal tract and brain circuitry that had other uses in earlier primates, because
the modifications allowed our ancestors to prosper in a socially interconnected,
knowledge-rich lifestyle. None of these levels can be replaced by any of the
others, but none can be fully understood in isolation from the others.
The Blank Slate - The Modern Denial of Human Nature
Steven Pinker
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0670031518/qid=1086630363/
> >
> > Maybe I'm
> > wrong, who knows what your trip is and why you even care so much about this
one
> > subject. Do you teach this shit or something?
> >
>
> I care about it for the same reason you do, when you're in a corner:
> this issue has profound and far-reaching political implications. I'm
> not identifying with knee-jerk anti-Eugenics post-Holocaust liberal
> hysteria, here. My only aim is to demonstrate that, despite the
> prevailing neo-Feudalist wind, it is still perfectly feasible to set
> an Enlightenment course. Some people will get it, some won't.
>
I am deeply into many subjects and none of them make me have childish impulses. I
have nothing invested in evolutionary theory except interst and I am in no corner
my man! I could care mostly, but I have followed some of this stuff for decades
and it is very interesting! Do you get angry if you go to a theatre and see a
movie that goes against your way of thinking?
>
> > How would you show that nature and nurture theories are balanced evidentially
in
> > just the right degree to perfectly mute each other as explainations. How
could
> > all of sociology and evolutionary theory be so precariously balanced as you
make
> > them seem? And what degree of lopsidedness in evidence would constitute a
choice
> > between one theory over another?
> >
>
> In one sense, these questions are premature. Philosophy of mind has
> not advanced to the point where it is possible for it to cease to be
> metaphysics, as other branches of natural philosophy long since did.
> But you probably won't accept (or maybe understand) this answer. Let
> me say something else, instead:
>
What the fuck do you know about what someone will probably understand? Your a
little girl boy.
> I'm not balancing nature and nurture, I'm pointing out that your
> categories for thinking about these things are not philosophically
> (hence scientifically) viable. Whenever you claim to have results on
> the basis of those categories, these will be false positives which you
> are reading into what are actually noncommital data. Such is the
> inevitable consequence of badly-constructed science.
>
Badly constructed science is cool didn't you know assholio? Thats how new
sciences get a start by trial and error. As long as the adherent of the bad
methods change their ways with newer evidences as they come out everything is ok.
Fuck people with its all set in stone bull attitude.
> >
> > > Seriously - can you cite me one real life
> > > instance of a 'Blank Slatist' who denies neonates *any* unencultured
> > > behaviours?
> > >
> > I think that this is the second time you have claimed to accept at least some
> > degree of instinct in human nature. As in the first time this means we really
> > have no beef, we just disagree on how much the interplay between nature and
> > nurture is. After you admit it the second time I don't any more believe that
you
> > are a pure blank slatist trying to rescue sociology from ongoing research.
> >
>
> There is no such thing as a pure blank slatist. That is a rhetorical
> construct of the 'scientists' you place your trust in. But we
> certainly do still have a beef, because you are either wittingly or
> unwittingly defending a much more strongly genetic determinist
> position - not simply that most adult behaviour is determined
> according to inherited rules of adaptation, but that those rules were
> fixed in our collective Stone Age past.
>
Third time, thats why I am saying we only disagree about the degree of nature and
nurture, so get off it ass.
> > > >
> >
> > OK, then what would be the evidenciary condition for determining it one way
or
> > the other or some degree of interplay between the two?
> >
>
> See above. You'll get nowhere looking for relationships between dud
> categories.
>
Nature would be some degree of pre-wiring subject to change
Nurture would be plasticity or changes that learning and culture can produce.
Haven't you ever heard of the genotype and phenotype. If you claim they are the
same, I don't care to talk with you anymore and it isn't important to me anyway.
Are you in some school getting whupped up on by the new shit fuckers?
> >
> > I only follow this stuff on the side as a hobby, not much frustration
possible
> > actually. But it is interesting to me. Don't worry if some serious
philosophical
> > work is needed there will be people to step up to the plate in the market
section
> > of the debating arena. Us blowhards in here could care, all this being for
free.
> >
>
> I see. You're saying because I'm cheap, I have to be easy. That sheds
> some light on how come you get to spend so much time with your PC.
>
Cheap girls are easier lays sometimes but thats not what I'm saying lady. I mean
if there is some debatable shit big money will rush in hard!
> >
> > My real interest is in neurophysiology, and you mention the pop
neurophysiology,
> > cognitive psychology alot, which I like to, but no frustration there either.
In
> > science we must be prepared to go where the data lead if is verifiable and
> > persuasive. Who knows how some of these things will turn out? You are
cautious
> > now but how will you respond if the evidence over time comes to prove
opposing
> > theories not to your liking now? I mean since you mention frustration does
that
> > mean it is a sensitive issue for you?
> >
>
> We've been over this ground already. 'Going where the data leads' is
> not scientific if you are carving up the material in a prejudicial
> manner. We know where this turns out - scientists 'discovering' that
> the material confirms their culture's prejudices. File under
> phrenology and do not forget!
>
Have you ever heard of the "scientific method?"
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22scientific+method%22
There is an aspect of the scientific method called something like "repeatability
of experiements" or something. When I say go with the evidence I mean the
evidence emerging from repeated experimentation all over the globe
internationally by all kinds of different researchers in different disciplines.
Your just trying to start trouble.
>
> > > >
> > This is the free zone, and your asking me to do a little work for free?
Besides
> > the posting tradition in newsgroups has been set up in such a way that each
post
> > is to stand alone, complete argument itself, with all supporting data
present.
> >
> > You do a diservice to the tradition by snipping out so much stuff. At least
you
> > could top-post so that all the junk is still below to be found.
> >
>
> In my posting tradition, I generally find that bitching about the
> style of a debate signals that you have nothing more to offer on the
> substance. My style didn't bother you much while you believed you
> could 'win'.
>
LOL. I actually do find it hard to keep up with your style of snipping out
crucial contextual data and then arguing on about the missing data. Maybe its not
intentional on your part and I am over-reactionary.
> > So you all along have been promoting a
> > mixed economy of nature and nurture, genotype and phenotype and all heman
> > behavior have an instinctual component? If so I don't see where we disagree
> > except on degree of this or that.
> >
>
> For a middle of the road kind of guy, it's pretty B&W for you, isn't
> it? Either I'm a pure blank slatist, or I accept that 'all human
> behaviour' has to have an instinctual component. I don't fit your two
> options. My case is roughly that all the basic mammalian stuff is
> coded in naturally-selected genes, that some human stuff is coded for
> in socially-selected genes, and that all the rest is caused by our
> semantic engines - the minds we build out of our social interactions.
> 'The rest' includes anything remotely approaching political
> behaviours.
>
Thats more or less what I am saying.
> > >
> > > Listen, Don Quixote, I'll save you some time here. Who claimed to be
> > > defending the idea of 'absolutely no instinctual biases'?
> > >
> >
> > I believe the evidence is not quite so equally balanced here as you believe.
You
> > propose that the evidence for and against many notions in sociobiology are
equal
> > enough to balance each other out, but I don't see you evidence for that.
Except
> > for a couple quotes from a book by Dennett which mostly argues against your
> > position.
> >
>
> You'd do well to read beyond the dustjacket on that one. Again, this
> concept of balance springs from your own sense that your
> nature/nurture categories are objective - that any conceivable theory
> *has* to sit somewhere along the zero-sum see-saw they constitute for
> you. This has nothing to do with what I have been arguing.
>
Read that book a bunch of times. As usual with Dennet he comes to a new science a
bit to late and bit to basic. But I give him credit there for associating
complexity theory with natural selection. I admit I havn't read the book in a few
years.
I doubt seriously if you even understand that book.
>
> > > >
> > > > Genes direct the assembly of all parts of the body and brain.
> > > >
> > > Your own pastes above of EO Wilson's musings contradict you. [etc]
> > >
> > Cell biology and embryology. Even when patches of cells drift through clefts
in
> > the embryo the genes are influencing when they begin drifting, their
direction,
> > and their halting and merging into other tissues. And that any changes
brought
> > about by learning ALL things is done by alterations in cell metabolism which
is
> > directed by genetic activities.
> >
>
> Fascinating: 'any changes brought about by learning' are 'directed by
> genetic activities'. You seem to have a bit of a causal circumstances
> muddle on your hands, there. Did the learning bring about the change,
> or was it the genes? If the genes are responding to the learning, are
> they directing or just executing? Are these words my computer's coding
> being 'directed by' the computer software, or is the bit structure
> simply executing whatever I think of next?
>
Dude your really lacking in your cell biology typical of you wanker computer
wanker AI'ers. Didn't you know that all activities of cells are regulated by the
genes? All actions of all cells are influenced by immediate genetic activities.
Any change to a cell is routed by genetic activity. Make up some fun bullshit on
that and I'll come back with the evidence.
> >
> > > >
> > > > > 8 - Preponderance of ancient over modern phobias
>
> proofs pending
>
>
> > > >
> > > > > 9 - Predictable weaknesses in statistical thinking
>
> >
> > If you are worried about scientific correctness there are moderated groups
> > for that, have you ever heard of moderated groups. Down here this is like on
the
> > streets where a hobo might spit on you for looking at him wrong, take your
risks.
> >
>
> Scientific correctness is what I try to offer. Are you saying that
> you'd rather not see too much of that in your neighbourhood?
>
Who cares your not the interesting things going on, there is new stuff happening
all the time and you fuckers can fuck off trying to make it go away and turn off
the show and watch these researchers figure shit out. Take to much time to talk
to your doubting Thomas ass.
> rent@mob
rent@mob
>Take to much time to talk
> to your doubting Thomas ass.
"Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here, and see my hands; and
put out your hand, and place it in my side; do not be faithless, but
believing." Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!" Jesus said to
him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those
who have not seen and yet believe."
Immortalist, you are truly among the blessed. Peace be with you.
rent@mob
Immortalist
Lets get together and go beat up some evolutionary psychologists!
> rent@mob
Abakus
"John Jones" <jivers...@btopenworld.com> wrote in message
news:ca0k1t$19j$1...@titan.btinternet.com...
> > > That's not the real issue. Even more to the point, why do people still
> > > believe that the brain and the genome can tell us anything about
> ourselves
> > > and the way we live?
> >
> > Obviously, because they can. The human mind is currently instantiated
> only
> > in the human brain. Learning more about how the wetware functions will
> help
> > us understand the minds it gives rise to.
>
> Please explain-. If you think it will help you, but I somehow expect a
> disapointment. Pray tell, how can chemicals tell us what we think, and
what
> we need to think. Have you tried asking a chemical? And what did it tell
> you?
>
> JJ
Asking silly questions will naturally lead you to obtaining silly answers.
Please ask the right questions and we will perhaps bother to reply.
regards
Abakus
Abakus
> > You need to ask a brain chemist.
>
> No- please - brain chemistry does not tell you what you want or need. You
> have to inform the chemist of what effect you expect to be represented by
an
> arbitrary chemistry.
>
> JJ
Science works with correlations. But chemistry is not arbitrary. A certain
neurochemical process will be followed by a certain behavioural effect. You
need to inform the chemist your behavioural effect so the chemist will be
able correlate it with the neurochemical changes. The same when you go to
the optician; if you dont tell the guy when you see blurred, he wont
prescribe the right glasses.
regards
Abakus
Fred Stone
news:1UNxc.1165$nI.644@newsfe6-win:
>
> "John Jones" <jivers...@btopenworld.com> wrote in message
> news:ca0jss$13l$1...@titan.btinternet.com...
>> > You need to ask a brain chemist.
>>
>> No- please - brain chemistry does not tell you what you want or need.
>> You have to inform the chemist of what effect you expect to be
>> represented by an arbitrary chemistry.
>>
>> JJ
>
> Science works with correlations. But chemistry is not arbitrary. A
> certain neurochemical process will be followed by a certain
> behavioural effect. You need to inform the chemist your behavioural
> effect so the chemist will be able correlate it with the neurochemical
> changes.
Yes, and this is far from an exact science at present. There's a fair
bit of trial-and-error before they can pin down the chemistry that will
balance out the effects.
> The same when you go to the optician; if you dont tell the
> guy when you see blurred, he wont prescribe the right glasses.
>
They use a laser gadget now to prescribe glasses. You just look into the
eyepieces and it does the rest. Then the nice technician/doctor double-
checks the precription with the old-fashioned lens-and-eyechart routine
just to reassure the patient. :-)
--
Fred Stone
aa# 1369
Cthulhu for President! Why vote for a lesser evil?
Fred Stone
news:35Uxc.41058$sS2.1...@news20.bellglobal.com:
>
> "Fred Stone" <fsto...@earthling.com> wrote in message
> news:Xns9503D8082...@207.69.154.205...
> Can you verify that is true. I have never seen or heard of it.
> My doc uses the whole lens after lens blurry not blurry technique.
At least when I went to VisionWorks for my last pair. Look in the box,
focus-focus click-click for each eye and then it prints out the
prescription. The doc checked only two lens combos, IIRC.
Glenn Meehan
> Please explain-. If you think it will help you, but I somehow expect a
> disapointment. Pray tell, how can chemicals tell us what we think, and what
> we need to think. Have you tried asking a chemical? And what did it tell
> you?
The brain is a vast network of neurons, synapses, axons and receptors.
Our minds are an emergent property of this network. Of course we don't
fully understand how consciousness emerges out of this seeming random set
of events, but it is the only plausible explanation to me.
Our mind/brain evolved by the actions of millions of years of diverse
selective pressures. Looking at these forces from the past that moulded
our mind/brain can tell us something our psychology today.
Glenn Meehan
> Probably not. That's like saying that you can understand the game of
> baseball by studying the sub-atomic particles that make up the ball.
You probably could glean something about baseball by studying the
sub-atomic particles that make up the ball such as the elasticity of the
ball and the hardness of the bat. From this you could derive the force
required to hit a home run!