The Epistemology of Intimidation by Hatred

[BaalChatzaf]

7 hours ago, anthony said:

If you don't want to ~know~ your emotions, naturally you'll distrust them and then disown them, and what are you going to be without "the passions" - like joy? (hatred and anger too, are 'right' and have their place for a while). I don't believe one can cherry-pick, so suppressing 'bad' emotions limits the emotional mechanism, and one loses the 'good' ones. It seems to me that "Spock" - as the ideal intellect - has perpetrated a great fallacy. Either to live by apparently random emotions - or repress them all, that's the worst dichotomy of all time presented to men and women. People are frightened of the power of emotions, or what they reveal about their values i.e. themselves-- or most take them as some kind of mystical-intuitive insight, arriving from somewhere.

Each emotion has cause and identity, it's not complicated.

 

I have no doubt you will recommend introspection.   I will not do that for two reasons.

1.  I can't introspect. That is one of the collateral conditions with Aspberger's  condition. 

2. I won't introspect because introspection  is not reliably falsifiable  by reliable witness. 

In short  introspection is worth sh*t as a means of cognition and finding out what is going on in our brain and nervous system.  High tech scans are much better for that.

[BaalChatzaf]

7 hours ago, anthony said:

You believe love to be an antidote and opposite to hate?

Nope. I think, in a majority of minds, they are closer than everyone realises.

That is not what I believe and you do not possess the ability to read anyone's thoughts but your own. We all have that limitation.  No human possesses mental telepathy for no other reason that the energy emitted by a working brain is too small to detect with our normal senses.   Introspection and guessing motives in others is a waste of time.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

17 minutes ago, BaalChatzaf said:

I can't introspect.

Bob,

The only way you even have an opinion of that is by introspecting.

There is no other way.

You have to think about your own thinking, then observe how you think. Then conclude.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

12 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Bob,

The only way you even have an opinion of that is by introspecting.

There is no other way.

You have to think about your own thinking, then observe how you think. Then conclude.

Michael

Not true.  Logical inference and recall do not constitute introspection.  I can remember what I did.  I can't always figure out why.   You can introspect.  I can not.   I have a different brain operating system from yours. 

[anthony]

On 8/16/2017 at 7:39 PM, BaalChatzaf said:

What is your opinion of love (taken as a contrary to hatred).

Huh? Thought reading?

[anthony]

51 minutes ago, BaalChatzaf said:

I have no doubt you will recommend introspection.   I will not do that for two reasons.

1.  I can't introspect. That is one of the collateral conditions with Aspberger's  condition. 

2. I won't introspect because introspection  is not reliably falsifiable  by reliable witness. 

In short  introspection is worth sh*t as a means of cognition and finding out what is going on in our brain and nervous system.  High tech scans are much better for that.

 Can't -or- won't, introspect, make up your mind.

[BaalChatzaf]

4 minutes ago, anthony said:

Huh? Thought reading?

Not I.  I have no way to know what people -might possibly be thinking-  other than their public utterances, writings, and public display of their body language (which I am not good at understanding).  Anything that goes on inside someone else, I have no idea what it might be.. 

 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

23 minutes ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Not true.

True.

Not introspecting and being weak at it are two different things. 

You are aware of the way you see the world and I don't believe it was being told by others.

Others tell you that you think, so finally you know. Before that, you didn't know you think. That's your proposition? 

Heh...

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

1 minute ago, anthony said:

 Can't -or- won't, introspect, make up your mind.

I can decide just fine.  Both can't and won't.  Even if I could introspect I wouldn't because it is an unreliable way of using my brain.  

[BaalChatzaf]

Just now, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

True.

Not introspecting and being weak at it are two different things. 

You are aware of the way you see the world and I don't believe it was being told by others.

Others tell you that you think, so finally you know. Before that, you didn't know you think. That's your proposition? 

Heh...

Michael

I know I think. Don't you?   I can't always determine why I think what I think.  However when I use  reason and logic I know why I think what I think.  I can write down the sequence of logical inferences.  That is memory at work.  

I operate somewhat along the lines of my Patron Saint,  Spock the Son of Sarek.

\\//  Live long and prosper. 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Just now, BaalChatzaf said:

I know I think. Don't you?

And the only way you know it is by introspecting.

That's the essence of what introspecting is.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

1 hour ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

And the only way you know it is by introspecting.

That's the essence of what introspecting is.

Michael

Not so.  When one is thinking one is aware that one is thinking.  No deep probes into memory or the subconscious  are required.   Mere awareness is not introspection. Memory and recall are the most superficial  forms of introspection.  I can do those  but not much more. 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

7 minutes ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Not so.

So.

 

7 minutes ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Mere awareness is not introspection.

Correct. A dog doesn't introspect, but it is aware.

Humans introspect. It's part of human nature just as much as concept formation is.

Meta-cognition (thinking about your own thinking as you think) is introspection.

I study this stuff (a lot), so I know. And you introspect all the time.

 

You write about it constantly, even when you deny you do it. And many of your conclusions would be impossible without some level of introspection.

But I'm not going to belabor this. We all have our vanities... If you want to be The One Special Human Being who never introspects, have at it.  

Michael

[Wolf DeVoon]

16 hours ago, anthony said:

You believe love to be an antidote and opposite to hate?

Nope. I think, in a majority of minds, they are closer than everyone realises.

Love is a very elusive business, so let's talk about that first. I've only actually seen it once (in 1964) and I believe that I may be personally incapable of love. Great passion, sure. Admiration freely felt for a great many people who I know or knew personally and/or the result of looking and listening in the public square, absolutely, routinely. Lots of positive regard for pioneers of all kinds in history.

I still believe 'hate' is a smear, especially in the current political drama. I don't recall it being hurled so freely ever before. US Sup Ct has pretty much consistently held that 'hate speech' does not exist as a matter of constitutional law. Nor do most people actually feel hatred, no matter how deeply harmed they may have been, with the sole exception of American blacks since the 1960s. Many of my black acquaintances seethe with anger, ill concealed at times, a projection of self-hate, I would say. Yet this, too, is a slipshod mischaracterization. Resentment is not hate. Anguish is not hate.

[jts]

9 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

2. I won't introspect because introspection  is not reliably falsifiable  by reliable witness.

Such things as pain, humger, thirst, fatigue are not reliably falsifiable by a reliable witness. Are they therefore invalid?

If you were living all by your lonesome on a small island, even the information from  sight and, hearing would not be falsifiable by a witness because there would be no witness. Would this information therefore be invalid?

 

[BaalChatzaf]

Just now, jts said:

Such things as pain, humger, thirst, fatigue are not reliably falsifiable by a reliable witness. Are they therefore invalid?

If you were living all by your lonesome on a small island, even the information from  sight and, hearing would not be falsifiable by a witness because there would be no witness. Would this information therefore be invalid?

 

these are directly experienced.  One does not have to rummage through one's mental attic to know if one is hungry or thirsty.  Ditto for pain.  Pain is immediately perceived.  

[jts]

9 minutes ago, BaalChatzaf said:

these are directly experienced.  One does not have to rummage through one's mental attic to know if one is hungry or thirsty.  Ditto for pain.  Pain is immediately perceived.  

Then maybe introspection (whatever that is) is a direct experience and therefore does not need to be falsifiable. I wouldn't know because I am not good at introspection.

 

[anthony]

21 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

So.

 

Correct. A dog doesn't introspect, but it is aware.

Humans introspect. It's part of human nature just as much as concept formation is.

Meta-cognition (thinking about your own thinking as you think) is introspection.

I study this stuff (a lot), so I know. And you introspect all the time.

 

You write about it constantly, even when you deny you do it. And many of your conclusions would be impossible without some level of introspection.

But I'm not going to belabor this. We all have our vanities... If you want to be The One Special Human Being who never introspects, have at it.  

Michael

Michael,

I'm on board with "thinking about your own thinking as you think", and I like how you put it. Certainly. Except I'm disinclined to call this the totality of introspection. I am more inclined to consider meta-cognition a crucial component of cognition - than a distinct category. It's the thinking about the *process* of thought, rather than the *content* of a mind, re: reality. Like we do, when contrasting other forms of epistemology with our own. Or- simply - why do I-did I think in this manner? It's a large part and parcel of reasoning, as with checking one's premises. If given all our attention, I think that weighted approach to introspection can divert the debate from something important.

And I also did wonder for a while why Rand's -almost complete - explanation of introspection was the search of one's emotional state. As I recall she mentioned introspection of thought only once, in passing. I think now she was right to place emphasis here, on the emotional *state*.

In my raw summation (of what I know you've seen her write): Emotions aren't mysterious phenomena that strike one unpredictably. (Everybody should know this from experience--with a little introspection). Emotions are responses - to *something*, in reality - therefore possessing objective causation and identity). Further, one self-automates his own specific feeling-responses (from pleasure to pain, in a myriad of sub-types) --  by one's consciously deliberated value system. Emotion is an instant - at times, I think, a delayed and/or sustained -  indicator of threats or boons to one's values, again, reacting to that perceived existent.

Overall: If one is to be objective about emotions it requires one to regularly query: "what was" such an emotion, "what" caused it, and is it aligned (or out of kilter) with my purported values (or disvalues)? And thereby, take ownership (N. Branden) of one's emotions. (As one does with all acts of consciousness and physical actions).

[BaalChatzaf]

13 hours ago, jts said:

Then maybe introspection (whatever that is) is a direct experience and therefore does not need to be falsifiable. I wouldn't know because I am not good at introspection.

 

Introspection is a multi-step process which requires  recalling and rethinking prior  experiences.  Introspection is a drill down activity.  One has t work at dredging up the reasons why one did such and such or thought so and so.  Introspection requires mental labor.  Ouch!!  does not.  Since there are no independent corroborations of what one introspected,  it is an inferior method of cognition. 

[anthony]

Introspection

¶

Extrospection is a process of cognition directed outward—a process of apprehending some existent(s) of the external world. Introspection is a process of cognition directed inward—a process of apprehending one’s own psychological actions in regard to some existent(s) of the external world, such actions as thinking, feeling, reminiscing, etc. It is only in relation to the external world that the various actions of a consciousness can be experienced, grasped, defined or communicated.

“Concepts of Consciousness,”
Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, 29

¶

A major source of men’s earned guilt in regard to philosophy—as well as in regard to their own minds and lives—is failure of introspection. Specifically, it is the failure to identify the nature and causes of their emotions.

An emotion as such tells you nothing about reality, beyond the fact that something makes you feel something. Without a ruthlessly honest commitment to introspection—to the conceptual identification of your inner states—you will not discover what you feel, what arouses the feeling, and whether your feeling is an appropriate response to the facts of reality, or a mistaken response, or a vicious illusion produced by years of self-deception. The men who scorn or dread introspection take their inner states for granted, as an irreducible and irresistible primary, and let their emotions determine their actions. This means that they choose to act without knowing the context (reality), the causes (motives), and the consequences (goals) of their actions.

The field of extrospection is based on two cardinal questions: “What do I know?” and “How do I know it?” In the field of introspection, the two guiding questions are: “What do I feel?” and “Why do I feel it?”

“Philosophical Detection,”
Philosophy: Who Needs It, 17

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

21 minutes ago, anthony said:

Except I'm disinclined to call this the totality of introspection.

Tony,

Of course it's not the totality of introspection. It's an example of it.

Michael

[anthony]

2 minutes ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Introspection is a multi-step process which requires  recalling and rethinking prior  experiences.  Introspection is a drill down activity.  One has t work at dredging up the reasons why one did such and such or thought so and so.  Introspection requires mental labor.  Ouch!!  does not.  Since there are no independent corroborations of what one introspected,  it is an inferior method of cognition. 

"In the field of introspection, the two guiding questions are "What do I feel?" and "Why do I feel it?""

[BaalChatzaf]

1 minute ago, anthony said:

"In the field of introspection, the two guiding questions are "What do I feel?" and "Why do I feel it?""

If I do not know why I feel such and such when I felt it, then the hell with it.  Why do I feel it?  What difference does it make? I feel what I feel when I feel it.  Wandering about musty attics and damp basements is not the best use of my time. 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

33 minutes ago, anthony said:

I am more inclined to consider meta-cognition a crucial component of cognition - than a distinct category.

Tony,

It's not even a crucial component of cognition, at least not of base-level cognition. It's a tool of higher cotnition.

Storytelling is a perfect example of this. You can tell a story easily without thinking, as you go along:

Setup (who when where)
Main character's desire
Disruption
Reaction and decision about goal
Try fail
Try fail
Try fail
All is lost part
Decision
Final effort
Resolution
Reaction

But you can also think this as you tell the story to elaborate on what you need to get done in telling the story. This, while you are telling the story, is using meta-cognition for a non-introspection purpose. However, if you want to break a story you tell spontaneously into these components, you have to use introspection.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

29 minutes ago, anthony said:

And I also did wonder for a while why Rand's -almost complete - explanation of introspection was the search of one's emotional state. As I recall she mentioned introspection of thought only once, in passing. I think now she was right to place emphasis here, on the emotional *state*.

Tony,

Read her more.

She dealt with introspection for cognition a lot more than your impression.

A hell of a lot more. Lot's of ITOE, for example, was arrived at through introspection and she describes it in the book as she goes along.

Michael