Empathy, weaponized

[anthony]

1 hour ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

 You have to use your brain.
 

 

Michael

Michael, I use my mind.

Basic principles matter. Anyone who states that nobody can have certainty that consciousness is a product of the brain - will hardly be convincing (to me) of anything deeper..

Doubtless, on the nuts and bolts, the neuro-science, of the brain he is excellent. The study is incredibly complex.

But I suspect the same causal reversal I keep hearing.

An emotion isn't automatic, not instinctive, nor brain - initiated.

The emotional brain center (hippocampus, amygdla and all) do NOT and CAN not determine when and why and which emotion one experiences. Or which combination of brain chemicals to emit. On their own, these are dumb organs, not magical identifiers of "the disturbance" (a situation, an encounter, a memory, etc.)which somehow prescribe the 'correct' emotion. 

The mind does.

The same way that regularly practicing a golf swing is self-programmed in your brain, "muscle memory", the value judgments of your mind implant an emotional response - appropriate to the occasion.

The brain follows. (Senses and)  Mind -> brain -> body. The physiological effects, heart rate, etc. are the final effects of whatever excitement is manifested. it is that simple.

WHY does no one understand that?

Why are people so nervous of being (ultimately) in charge - the originator - of which emotions they are going to feel?

Why can't anyone take responsibility for their emotions?

 Not even empathy!

Why is AN emotion perceived as "the metaphysical given"? (Obviously the emotional faculty, is).

I almost have the answer.

 

I also have a lot to read. Novels, mostly, they enlighten you more about humanity, emotions and minds than can scientists.

 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

2 minutes ago, anthony said:

Michael, I use my mind.

Tony,

sigh...

Of course you do.

When I say you have to use your brain in a context of mental laziness (which is your case right now), that's an expression meaning you have to expend mental effort. It's not an argument for the mind-body dichotomy.

But play your gotcha games.

On this topic, semantic gotcha is all you've got so far.

5 minutes ago, anthony said:

WHY does no one understand that?

Why are people so nervous of being (ultimately) in charge - the originator - of which emotions they are going to feel?

Why can't anyone take responsibility for their emotions?

Who are you talking about?

The ignorant, cowardly and irresponsible do not post regularly on OL.

(I include you in this.  )

But we can ask, why, oh why do people disagree with you when you won't look as your claim to knowledge?

 

Michael

[anthony]

13 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Tony,

 

Who are you talking about?

The ignorant, cowardly and irresponsible do not post regularly on OL.

(I include you in this.  )

But we can ask, why, oh why do people disagree with you when you won't look as your claim to knowledge?

 

Michael

Then you agree. Emotions are self-made. You and your mind is the originator of each one.

That's my first gotcha. You know my history, I place ideas above gotchas.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

19 minutes ago, anthony said:

Then you agree. Emotions are self-made. You and your mind is the originator of each one.

Tony,

Wrong.

I've said this many times. Some emotions are self-made in the manner you say.

Not all.

In fact, not even most.

Michael

[Strictlylogical]

4 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Tony,

Wrong.

I've said this many times. Some emotions are self-made in the manner you say.

Not all.

In fact, not even most.

Michael

I find substance dualism and/or strong emergence as weird and spooky...  and not consistent with my metaphysics.  Much interesting science is interpreted using as a basis, metaphysics which is different from mine... which does not invalidate for me properly conducted science... only some of the interpretive conclusions therefrom.

“Reductionism“ has always come across to me as a vague anti concept posing as a strawman.

Dualism for me has always been mystical in one way or another, a ghost always pops up here or there, or the non-interacting interacts... or causeless causation is caused...

I prefer weak emergence ... or a kind of attribute functionalism i.e. mind is what the brain does, and first person experience is just what it is like to be a person with such a brain so doing and being. Nothing supernatural, no violations of causality or identity.

[Ellen Stuttle]

7 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

(Please, God, if you exist. Nudge this guy to LOOK before he sounds off trying to pose as an expert.)

Michael,

Hint:  You'd have a better chance of blowing up Hoover Dam with a stick of dynamite than you have of getting Tony to look at what he doesn't want to see,  Many of us have been in similarly frustrating situations with Tony over the years.

The material you've posted is interesting to me and I suspect to other onlookers, however - so the effort hasn't been a total waste.

Ellen

[anthony]

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act but a habit". Aristotle. 

In view of what is known now, a long-ago philosopher has been justified. A later philosopher ("man is a being of volitional consciousness") enlarged hugely on him.

Neuro-plasticity affirms them. Known: The regular and "willed" thought processes create a new neural pathway that becomes a larger highway, with use. The to-and-fro of mental activity in turn will become habitual. "You" have formed your own "will".

There is NO disconnect from brain to mind, nor mind to brain. No "mind-body split". Here we are at the cutting-edge of brain and mind. So-called "muscle memory" is actually neural memory, one's laying down or self-programming a "mental habit" to be followed by your body without further thinking required. Everyone intimately knows this fact from (e.g.) playing sports.

Naturally, Primacy of Existence remains - our biology is the prerequisite for consciousness - but the mind can and does set its own parameters. 

Empiricists should be expanding on and extolling free will. Philosophers (Objectivists) should be celebrating neuro-science. Neither has done, or not sufficiently to be published and widely known in the mainstream.

After which, it's a minor leap to character-creation and emotion-creation; or, to the "habit" of regularly returning to one's value- judgments, automating both character and emotions, to be henceforth acted out, instantly. "This is what I do". "It is good".

So one is equally forming "muscle memory" in one's self-automated emotional responses - an emotion which instantly springs up, unbidden, as an appropriate response on appropriate occasions and to occurrences. (And to inappropriate occasions and of responses, where initial identifications and value-judgments were faulty or misguided - judged against reality, the final arbiter).

This is what I mean by "taking responsibilty" for one's emotions - not so much for their results, (i.e. for being "over-emotional" and so on) but responsibility for MAKING them. By your volitional consciousness. Which seems to be making some nervous, but I find marvellous.

[anthony]

"Emergence" is the given. Validated by neuro-science. Where it was once only an insightful hypothesis, no longer. A consciousness "emerges" from billions of fresh synaptic connections being made all the time in the brain.

So one is, potentially and actually, vastly more than the sum of his parts.

[anthony]

13 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Tony,

Wrong.

I've said this many times. Some emotions are self-made in the manner you say.

Not all.

In fact, not even most.

Michael

That is interesting me. It got me thinking: why some, not all? Why would there be a different process for some or a few emotions, but not others?

Is there a definition difference we have (of emotions)?

I hope you expand upon "not even most".

[anthony]

8 hours ago, Ellen Stuttle said:

Michael,

Hint:  You'd have a better chance of blowing up Hoover Dam with a stick of dynamite than you have of getting Tony to look at what he doesn't want to see,  Many of us have been in similarly frustrating situations with Tony over the years.

The material you've posted is interesting to me and I suspect to other onlookers, however - so the effort hasn't been a total waste.

Ellen

Hello Ellen! Back again, I see. Always a kind word.

Ha.

[anthony]

But it strikes me time and again how the empiricists, great at what they do, disappoint in the long run by venturing into philosophy. . 

They can find out everything in naturalism, but not a mature theory of metaphysics and of consciousness.

I could guess it's imagination they lack, for one.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

28 minutes ago, anthony said:

I hope you expand upon "not even most".

Tony,

Sure.

Some emotions come from your gut, believe it or not.

Even ancients knew that.

Michael

[anthony]

Is there a problem with my explanation of empathy? This is my own, only logically building on the theory of emotions.

Why should it not be the emotional response from one's own value-judgments, applied in this case to -- someone else -- by perceiving their dis-value, misfortune (etc.)?

[Strictlylogical]

1 hour ago, anthony said:

A consciousness "emerges" from billions of fresh synaptic connections being made all the time in the brain

Once it has done so, is it independent from or untethered from what the brain does?  Does it “function” (complex chain of causality) absent any structure whatever?  Are you advocating strong or weak emergence?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

28 minutes ago, anthony said:

Why would there be a different process for some or a few emotions, but not others?

Tony,

In Objectivist jargon?

OK.

How about Law of Identity?

 

Besides, I'm pretty sure you do not understand what process means regarding emotions outside of a step-by-step abstraction Rand put together.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

12 minutes ago, anthony said:

Is there a problem with my explanation of empathy?

Tony,

Sure.

The problem is scope.

You explanation of empathy as a vulnerability that is weaponized is true (in general terms) for some cases, but not for all cases. In fact, one of the things Rand got right, and resoundingly right, was her illustration of this process as a component of "sanction of the victim."

But knowledge is hierarchical. A concept is a set of referents and represented by a single word or other sensory impression. A referent of a concept is not a group of such concept and represented by the single referent.

To use an analogy for illustration, your argument often sounds like saying a car is a type of Ford Ranger rather than saying a Ford Ranger is a type of car.

Is a Ford Ranger a car? Yes.

Are all cars a Ford Ranger? No.

Scope.

Michael

[anthony]

1 hour ago, Strictlylogical said:

Once it has done so, is it independent from or untethered from what the brain does?  Does it “function” (complex chain of causality) absent any structure whatever?  Are you advocating strong or weak emergence?

Of course, no disconnect nor untethering (nice word). What I'd call the cusp has been arrived at and pin-pointed. Not a favorite word, but "holistic" describes the entirety and unity of mind-brain to me. I think function and structure here are identical. In parallel with "acts of consciousness" and "contents of consciousness" in Objectivist epistemology. 

My personal opinion is that we can do away with the distinction, "strong or weak emergence", there is only one (and it is self-evidently pretty strong ... or as strong as one makes it to be, within limits). 

[Strictlylogical]

3 minutes ago, anthony said:

Of course, no disconnect nor untethering (nice word). What I'd call "the cusp" has been arrived at and pin-pointed. Not a favorite word, but "holistic" describes the entirety and unity of mind-brain to me. I think function and structure here are identical. Similar to "acts of consciousness" and "contents of consciousness" to Objectivist epistemology. 

My own opinion is that we can do away with the distinction, "strong or weak emergence", there is only one (and it is self-evidently pretty strong ...). 

Why characterize consciousness as “emergent” at all?  What beyond “attribute” “property” or  “action” does the concept “emergence” bring to the table?  What metaphysically does it identify?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

16 minutes ago, Strictlylogical said:

Why characterize consciousness as “emergent” at all?

S,

This is a better question than it seems.

Emergence is a ghost.

We can observe the birth of a living being. We can even observe conception, seed making, etc. So we know reproduction is a source of new living beings.

We cannot observe consciousness emerging from unconscious matter.

To claim it emerges is the same thing as to claim God exists.

You believe it or you don't. You can't observe it through the senses. Not even with instruments.

Michael

[anthony]

1 hour ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Tony,

Sure.

The problem is scope.

You explanation of empathy as a vulnerability that is weaponized is true (in general terms) for some cases, but not for all cases. In fact, one of the things Rand got right, and resoundingly right, was her illustration of this process as a component of "sanction of the victim."

But knowledge is hierarchical. A concept is a set of referents and represented by a single word or other sensory impression. A referent of a concept is not a group of such concept and represented by the single referent.

To use an analogy for illustration, your argument often sounds like saying a car is a type of Ford Ranger rather than saying a Ford Ranger is a type of car.

Is a Ford Ranger a car? Yes.

Are all cars a Ford Ranger? No.

Scope.

Michael

Michael, There are two things here, and the first is the emotion, empathy itself. The question I ask, does that explanation I made ring true to anyone?

That sets the stage for the second in a bigger area, ethics and politics,  and the topic here.

Empathy being abused and misused, not just as a tool of cognition, but a weapon self-righteously held over other people: e.g. You either subscribe to our feelings for xyz, or you deserve our hatred, in one form it takes. And - if I don't feel the empathy as much as others seem to do, but feel more for someone/something else - what's wrong with me?

One emotion then conveniently morphs into other ones: hatred, fear, doubt, confusion and guilt. 

This is the insidious tactic of using a good and useful emotion (and they all are) to intimidate - if only subconsciously -  many people into a desired mindset. Political control follows as we know.

But not perpetrated by everyone (scope). Of course not, and I've been explicitly definite. This is a proper and often appropriate emotion being disgustingly abused, almost totally by the Left.

Do not get them wrong, don't be taken in. These people have no compassion for anyone. They don't care for - value - anybody, starting at themselves.

 

[anthony]

Because one can't see/touch consciousness - how can it exist? hmm.

[anthony]

Take (volitional, rational) consciousness off the table, then comes total collapse. Gone too will be rational egoism, individual sovereignty, individualism, individual rights.

Of course too, the value of values.

(Oh, yeah, and the good ~selfish value~ of our emotions).

[Strictlylogical]

56 minutes ago, anthony said:

Because one can't see/touch consciousness - how can it exist? hmm.

Going to call strawman... 

The genuine first person experience aspect of consciousness cannot be proved by third person perception but that is not problematic.  We being humans introspectively know that first person experience.

In fact it is no more a philosophical conundrum  that we, as humans, can never really know “what it is like to be a bat“. What the experience of being a bat is, IS wholly out of reach of our perception and hence knowledge... but no sane philosopher would conclude that because we cannot prove it by third person perception and science, nor measure it, that “what it is like to be a bat” (experienced from its perspective) is not a fact of the universe...

perfectly accessible to a bat.

 

So too, human consciousness as a first person experience is perfectly accessible to human beings.

 

No one here denies the existence of consciousness merely because it cannot be measured directly from third person inquiry.

[anthony]

20 minutes ago, Strictlylogical said:

Going to call strawman... 

 

You missed my sardonic hmm. In the context I've argued throughout, and said too many times, you have doubt of my convictions? Misdirected at me, but a pretty good argument anyway.

Once again, more bluntly, I will fight to death for man's consciousness.

[Strictlylogical]

1 hour ago, anthony said:

You missed my sardonic hmm. In the context I've argued throughout, and said too many times, you have doubt of my convictions? Misdirected at me, but a pretty good argument anyway.

Once again, more bluntly, I will fight to death for man's consciousness.

How is implying something false about other people... sardonic?