low IQ vs employment

[jts]

Low IQ might be a major factor in chronic unemployment.

 

[BaalChatzaf]

10 hours ago, jts said:

Low IQ might be a major factor in chronic unemployment.

 

In the disagreement between Peterson and Harris  I tend to side with Peterson.  Our ultimate value set does NOT flow from the physical laws of nature.  Humans determine these values on a much more subjective basis.  Harris (as he stated it in his "The Moral Landscape")  believes our value system can be grounded on the same sort  of natural laws  as is physical science is grounded.  I wish it were true,  but I believe it is not.  Morality does not come from the same place  as  sound physical/natural  hypotheses. 

[anthony]

47 minutes ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Our ultimate value set does NOT flow from the physical laws of nature.  Humans determine these values on a much more subjective basis.  

You left a rather large gap before arriving at "values".

Physical laws of nature -----> humans.

Nursery steps, and this simple question: did life and humans "flow from the physical laws of nature"? Yes/no? 

[jts]

3 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

In the disagreement between Peterson and Harris  I tend to side with Peterson.  Our ultimate value set does NOT flow from the physical laws of nature.  Humans determine these values on a much more subjective basis.  Harris (as he stated it in his "The Moral Landscape")  believes our value system can be grounded on the same sort  of natural laws  as is physical science is grounded.  I wish it were true,  but I believe it is not.  Morality does not come from the same place  as  sound physical/natural  hypotheses. 

Did you listen to the video? It was about IQ, not about values.

 

[BaalChatzaf]

3 hours ago, anthony said:

You left a rather large gap before arriving at "values".

Physical laws of nature -----> humans.

Nursery steps, and this simple question: did life and humans "flow from the physical laws of nature"? Yes/no? 

The human species is an accidental outcome of over 3.5 billion years  of evolution (descent with modification).  We humans make up our own moral laws. These moral laws are neither the logical conclusion of the underlying physical laws nor the inevitable effect  of a long chain accidental effects. 

One cannot -deduce- morality from the fundamental physical laws of nature.  

[BaalChatzaf]

22 minutes ago, jts said:

Did you listen to the video? It was about IQ, not about values.

 

Consider what Peterson said about Harris. They are at odds on some issues. 

[anthony]

1 hour ago, BaalChatzaf said:

These moral laws are neither the logical conclusion of the underlying physical laws nor the inevitable effect  of a long chain accidental effects. 

One cannot -deduce- morality from the fundamental physical laws of nature.  

Every time, you clearly imply and appeal to a normative ethics. But you know better: there exists an objective morality. To ignore "the fundamental physical laws of nature" is irrational, hence immoral. E.g. walking off a cliff believing you'll float.

Tell me again, how one can't deduce a morality from reality? How it is 'made up' by humans?.

[anthony]

1 hour ago, BaalChatzaf said:

The human species is an accidental outcome of over 3.5 billion years  of evolution (descent with modification).  We humans make up our own moral laws. These moral laws are neither the logical conclusion of the underlying physical laws nor the inevitable effect  of a long chain accidental effects. 

One cannot -deduce- morality from the fundamental physical laws of nature.  

I asked "did life and humans flow from the physical laws of nature?" Is this a yes or no?

Did man maybe evolve ~in contravention~ of the laws of nature?

[BaalChatzaf]

2 minutes ago, anthony said:

I asked "did life and humans flow from the physical laws of nature?" Is this a yes or no?

Did man maybe evolve ~in contravention~ of the laws of nature?

The magic word  is "flow".  Flow could mean logical flow,  as in valid deduction.   Flow could mean connect by  a plausible supposition.  Or flow could mean causal flow  as in   cause ----> effect.  So I can't respond to you properly unless you tell me what sort of flow you have in mind.  What I do say is that morality does not come or flow from physical laws  as   cause ----> effect.

[BaalChatzaf]

1 hour ago, anthony said:

Every time, you clearly imply and appeal to a normative ethics. But you know better: there exists an objective morality. To ignore "the fundamental physical laws of nature" is irrational, hence immoral. E.g. walking off a cliff believing you'll float.

Tell me again, how one can't deduce a morality from reality? How it is 'made up' by humans?.

how do you get immorality from irrationality?   That is a mystery.   A religious person whose beliefs  are ungrounded in physical law and are grounded in fear of God,  might be deterred from an evil act by his irrational fear of God's punishment.  So here is a case where irrationality has led to a morally proper position.  

[anthony]

20 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

The magic word  is "flow".  Flow could mean logical flow,  as in valid deduction.   Flow could mean connect by  a plausible supposition.  Or flow could mean causal flow  as in   cause ----> effect.  So I can't respond to you properly unless you tell me what sort of flow you have in mind.  What I do say is that morality does not come or flow from physical laws  as   cause ----> effect.

From the axioms, the Laws of Existence and Identity "flows" an objective ethics, causally. Your "physical laws" are epistemological and empirical, while the axioms are metaphysical, and well precede epistemology.

In keeping with Hume/Kant, I don't suppose you ascribe identity to man's consciousness. That's where you are forever stuck.

"How do you get immorality from irrationality?" - you ask.

Ha, Bob, what have you been reading on OL? Cast your eyes upward, see the picture of Ayn Rand...? Have you once or twice read of an Objectivist ethics? Not "a mystery", it is a morality derived from reality, inseparable from the reality of man and existence. (Not "the physical laws of nature", instead the metaphysical axioms which are fundamental).

[anthony]

For Bob. ("...man has no identity, no nature...")

"Sweep aside those parasites of subsidized classrooms, who live on the profits of the mind of others and proclaim that man needs no morality, no values, no code of behavior. They, who pose as scientists and claim that man is only an animal, do not grant him inclusion in the law of existence they have granted to the lowest of insects. They recognize that every living species has a way of survival demanded by its nature, they do not claim that a fish can live out of water or that a dog can live without its sense of smell—but man, they claim, the most complex of beings, man can survive in any way whatever, man has no identity, no nature, and there’s no practical reason why he cannot live with his means of survival destroyed, with his mind throttled and placed at the disposal of any orders they might care to issue.

Sweep aside those hatred-eaten mystics, who pose as friends of humanity and preach that the highest virtue man can practice is to hold his own life as of no value. Do they tell you that the purpose of morality is to curb man’s instinct of self-preservation? It is for the purpose of self-preservation that man needs a code of morality. The only man who desires to be moral is the man who desires to live". {John Galt]

(Apologies jts, that is a useful talk on IQ, and I'm sure normal service will soon be resumed).

 

[BaalChatzaf]

2 hours ago, anthony said:

From the axioms, the Laws of Existence and Identity "flows" an objective ethics, causally. Your "physical laws" are epistemological and empirical, while the axioms are metaphysical, and well precede epistemology.

In keeping with Hume/Kant, I don't suppose you allocate identity to man's consciousness. That's where you are forever stuck.

I am as conscious as you are.  But I think metaphysics is bunk.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

13 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Our ultimate value set does NOT flow from the physical laws of nature.  Humans determine these values on a much more subjective basis.

Bob,

This, as I understand it, is not Peterson's view. As I understand his position, human values evolved along with humans according to some very ancient patterns like dominance hierarchies, making order out of chaos when expanding awareness, keeping one foot in the familiar while exploring the unfamiliar, and so on. (btw - he recently qualified "dominance hierarchy" to mean more than power based on brute force--he said he liked the term "competence" a lot as the correct measure of dominance in his meaning). I believe I have a handle on what he is talking about, at least I believe I have an initial understanding, and I find it quite exciting so far.

The bulk of human values preceded the emergence of the rational faculty, otherwise, the rational faculty along with the humans who evolved this would have been dinner for some predator and not reproduced. Therefore, to him, it is foolish to ignore those evolved values or discard them. After all, to produce one Bob or one Michael, millions of years and countless deaths happened. And many of those deaths were not of old age and were hideous.

We are very privileged indeed to have what he have. We inherited the genes of the successful. And we did not choose this. We can choose what to do with it, but we didn't choose to be here or have the nature we have. Evolution did that for us.

In other words, our evolved values kept our species alive and resulted in us, whether we are aware of those values, much less chose them.

But there are rational values. To choose values most rationally, to derive ought from is, we have to build on that baggage, not ignore it.

That's why the typical example to prove the subjectivity of values (choosing flavor of ice cream) is beside the point and kind of silly. Granted, that a flavor choice of ice cream as a value is subjective. That doesn't mean all values are subjective. Humans did not survive saber tooth tigers in ancient times by choosing flavors of ice cream. Hell, they didn't even have ice cream.  

I don't see Peterson as an enemy of Rand or science. The more I learn about him, the more I see his views as a marvelous context or background for reason. And the really cool part is that he is bringing awareness of this into the rational realm by identifying it correctly.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

5 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Bob,

This, as I understand it, is not Peterson's view. As I understand his position, human values evolved along with humans according to some very ancient patterns like dominance hierarchies, making order out of chaos when expanding awareness, keeping one foot in the familiar while exploring the unfamiliar, and so on. (btw - he recently qualified "dominance hierarchy" to mean more than power based on brute force--he said he liked the term "competence" a lot as the correct measure of dominance in his meaning). I believe I have a handle on what he is talking about, at least I believe I have an initial understanding, and I find it quite exciting so far.

The bulk of human values preceded the emergence of the rational faculty, otherwise, the rational faculty along with the humans who evolved this would have been dinner for some predator and not reproduced. Therefore, to him, it is foolish to ignore those evolved values or discard them. After all, to produce one Bob or one Michael, millions of years and countless deaths happened. And many of those deaths were not of old age and were hideous.

We are very privileged indeed to have what he have. We inherited the genes of the successful. And we did not choose this. We can choose what to do with it, but we didn't choose to be here or have the nature we have. Evolution did that for us.

In other words, our evolved values kept our species alive and resulted in us, whether we are aware of those values, much less chose them.

But there are rational values. To choose values most rationally, to derive ought from is, we have to build on that baggage, not ignore it.

That's why the typical example to prove the subjectivity of values (choosing flavor of ice cream) is beside the point and kind of silly. Granted, that a flavor choice of ice cream as a value is subjective. That doesn't mean all values are subjective. Humans did not survive saber tooth tigers in ancient times by choosing flavors of ice cream. Hell, they didn't even have ice cream.  

I don't see Peterson as an enemy of Rand or science. The more I learn about him, the more I see his views as a marvelous context or background for reason. And the really cool part is that he is bringing awareness of this into the rational realm by identifying it correctly.

Michael

We are the oldest of our line.  Every one of our ancestors  was a survivor.  Every last one.  It is good to be the offspring of winners in the war of survival. 

[anthony]

9 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

I am as conscious as you are.  But I think metaphysics is bunk.

Conscious, I don't doubt. For that, I am still debating with you.

Where you direct your consciousness--now - that's another thing.

Everything starts early with how one considered and identified his own mind - and man's consciousness. His intimate ~experience~ with his mind. You chose the materialist-reductionist route, in order to avoid any nasty metaphysics, and always get yourself into a mess of contradictions as result. Indirectly from you I have learned a lot about skepticism and directly about David Hume.

[Brant Gaede]

17 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

The human species is an accidental outcome of over 3.5 billion years  of evolution (descent with modification).  We humans make up our own moral laws. These moral laws are neither the logical conclusion of the underlying physical laws nor the inevitable effect  of a long chain accidental effects. 

One cannot -deduce- morality from the fundamental physical laws of nature.  

You cannot deduce anything from those laws for the deducing is just as "arbitrary" as your arbitrary moralities. All humans have to do is reproduce and raise their young so they can do the same. They are DNA compelled, I think.

Or, you can deduce whatever you want from whatever you want. All humans have to do is reproduce and raise their young so they can do the same.

In these senses logic itself is arbitrary for all humans have to do . . . --without any cognitive understanding of Kant, Rand, Hume, Aristotle et al.

Humans don't need all this palaver because they can live in caves and reproduce  . . .

Humans don't need civilization, except they have civilization and decivilitizing them means billions will die off. There's only so much room in and so many caves.

Yep, philosophy is bunk, right along with civilization and billions of people living on all continents and going to the moon and back.

_________________________________________

The body has a head.

If morality is arbitrary so is science because science is based on morality. You don't see it because you were born into a world created by science and looking around all you see is science because of the way your Aspie brain is put together. Metaphysics is reality and philosophical metaphysics is arbitrary if it doesn't conform and reflect that reality, as most of it doesn't. You have actually mixed both up together.

--Brant

Metaphysics is reality.

 

[BaalChatzaf]

29 minutes ago, Brant Gaede said:

You cannot deduce anything from those laws for the deducing is just as "arbitrary" as your arbitrary moralities. All humans have to do is reproduce and raise their young so they can do the same. They are DNA compelled, I think.

Or, you can deduce whatever you want from whatever you want. All humans have to do is reproduce and raise their young so they can do the same.

In these senses logic itself is arbitrary for all humans have to do . . . --without any cognitive understanding of Kant, Rand, Hume, Aristotle et al.

Humans don't need all this palaver because they can live in caves and reproduce  . . .

Humans don't need civilization, except they have civilization and decivilitizing them means billions will die off. There's only so much room in and so many caves.

Yep, philosophy is bunk, right along with civilization and billions of people living on all continents and going to the moon and back.

_________________________________________

The body has a head.

If morality is arbitrary so is science because science is based on morality. You don't see it because you were born into a world created by science and looking around all you see is science because of the way your Aspie brain is put together. Metaphysics is reality and philosophical metaphysics is arbitrary if it doesn't conform and reflect that reality, as most of it doesn't. You have actually mixed both up together.

--Brant

Metaphysics is reality.

 

Morality is NOT arbitrary.  Human morality is an abstract version of primate "fair play"  which has emerged among the sub-human primates and is particularly manifested among the Chimpanzees. I have no doubt the "fair play" impulse had and still has effects promoting  reproductive fitness,  which is exactly what succeeds in the biological realm.   Nature "selects"   reproductive fitness.   (NB  "natural selection"  is a metaphor for the biological processes that favor the propagation of characteristics that enable  members of a species  to be successful at having offspring.  Nature is not conscious in the same sense as individual  sentients who can choose or appear to choose their actions).

[anthony]

Ya. "Nature selects"...over some thousands of years. A lotta help that is, here and now for the individual's life.

The closest I see skeptics can get to man's consciousness having a specific identity, is 'the argument from biology'.

Along with chimps, herd animals, ant colonies (ad nauseam) - their fall-back position is man's *biological* nature.

In which case, an objective moral code particular to man must appear to them incomprehensible. Their ethics is unchanged from prior moralities: specifying how men relate in "the collective" to others, and therefore it is unsurprising (though disappointing) that scientists and secularists continue to endorse altruist-collectivist ethics. They can't avoid it, to stay consistent to their Naturalism they consequently run off the rails into a quasi-mystical morality.

But, if man does have a metaphysical nature? What then? What if it turns out it is autonomous, self-generating, self-directing, and rational?

Here the rubber meets the road, possessing a fundamental nature makes it critical that he thinks/acts in accord, never in conflict, with the nature of his consciousness - independently, volitionally and rationally - selfishly.

[BaalChatzaf]

3 minutes ago, anthony said:

Ya. "Nature selects"...over some thousands of years. A lotta help that is, here and now for the individual's life.

The closest the skeptics can get to man's consciousness having a specific identity, is the argument from biology.

Along with chimps, herd animals, ant colonies (ad nauseam) - their fall-back position is man's *biological* nature.

In which case, an objective moral code for man must appear to them incomprehensible. Their ethics is unchanged from prior moralities: specifying how men relate in "the collective" to others, and therefore it is unsurprising (though disappointing) that scientists and secularists continue to endorse altruist-collectivist ethics. They can't avoid it, to stay consistent to their Naturalism they consequently run off the rails into a quasi-mystical morality.

But, if man does have a metaphysical nature? What then? What if it turns out it is autonomous, self-generating, self-directing, and rational?

Here the rubber meets the road, possessing a fundamental nature makes it critical that he thinks/acts in accord, never in conflict, with the nature of his consciousness - independently, volitionally and rationally - selfishly.

Man has a biological nature.  Humans also have one or more social "natures".   WTF if a metaphysical nature.  Are you referring to the facts of our being? Why call fact  metaphysical?  Facts are that which IS or WAS.  Aristotle's metaphysics   (and also his physics)  were philosophical pollution and held back real science for over 1500 years. 

[anthony]

C'mon, get real. Man has a biological nature. Yep - and what else? What distinguishes man? A brain? Clearly not.

A bigger brain? I don't think so. 

[BaalChatzaf]

33 minutes ago, anthony said:

C'mon, get real. Man has a biological nature. Yep - and what else? What distinguishes man? A brain? Clearly not.

A bigger brain? I don't think so. 

Man is the blabbing animal that has an overly high opinion of himself.

[Brant Gaede]

That's because non-blabbering beings have colonized the galaxy and evolved beyond mere human apperception*, proving--something.

--Brant

*except for my apperception (Boy, do I love that superior feeling!)

[jts]

Now maybe we can get back to the original topic in this thread.

IQ is said to be the best predictor of almost everything.

It is said the USA army won't accept people with an IQ below 83. And it is said that in civilian life people with a low IQ (< 83) are almost doomed to not do well, even with good character.

 

[BaalChatzaf]

3 hours ago, jts said:

Now maybe we can get back to the original topic in this thread.

IQ is said to be the best predictor of almost everything.

It is said the USA army won't accept people with an IQ below 83. And it is said that in civilian life people with a low IQ (< 83) are almost doomed to not do well, even with good character.

 

Life is becoming more complicated and folks with very low IQ's simply do not have the means of dealing with the complications.  It is like being blind.  The blind do not have the means of seeing light other than sensing heat. So they need the assistance of other in order to get along. That is the sad truth of it.  As Xerxes said to Ephialtes in The 300,   the gods were cruel in fashioning you so.  Some of us are victims of ill fortune and do not have the means of autonomous survival, so those unfortunates much depend on the kindness of others.  Sad.  But there it is.