Homosexuality and Objectivism

[Reidy]

Something like the latter: if acceptance of homosexuality entails that anything goes [given TBD suitable specification of that], why doesn't acceptance of other, more mainstream kinds of sexuality have the same consequence?

Some would say you can draw a clear, non-arbitrary line on the ground that god approves of regular sex but not the weird stuff. I don't expect to see that on OL.

[Darrell Hougen]

Let's take a hypothetical case: Let's just suppose that being a homosexual would serve your rational self-interest. I'm not saying it would, this is just a hypothetical to serve for this thought experiment. Would any amount of 'convincing' orient you sexually and emotionally toward other men? Would not your mind scream against it, because it is against your authentic nature?

If homosexuality was in my rational self interest then it would not go against my authentic nature so no, my mind would not scream against it. If being homosexual was in my rational self interest, then that is what I would be, but, since it's not, I'm not.

Do you mean that inspite of your homosexual tendencies you have chosen to live as (I presume) an active heterosexual? Or do you mean that you have only heterosexual tendencies, but that if you were convinced it were reasonable to do so, you would engage in homosexuality? Or do you deny having sexual tendencies altogether?

It depends upon what you mean by tendencies. If you're talking about unexamined urges, then I've had many kinds of urges. I simply choose to be heterosexual because I believe it to be in my self interest. So, you could say that I tend to be heterosexual. But then you would be talking about desires, rather than urges.

Darrell

Edited June 23, 2009 by Darrell Hougen

[Darrell Hougen]

(btw - Is it really necessary to pretend that the anger of a dog is fundamentally different than the anger of a human being, so the dog does not feel an "emotion" and a human being does? That's silly...)

Actually, understanding the distinction is critically important in my view. The first thing that should be clear is that humans experience different emotions -- using the term loosely -- than animals in the same situations. For example, a human may be happy to be at a rock concert where the volume is turned way up while a dog may experience fear because of the loud noise. The human can reason that the loud noise is not dangerous, but the animal is not capable of reaching that conclusion, so they experience different responses.

Second, humans can experience emotions that animals are not capable of experiencing. For example, the dread that a human experiences when held captive by a hostile enemy is undoubtedly different from anything that an animal can experience. A human has concepts like self, life, permanent, forever, etc., that color his experience. Similarly, the pain that a man who has just lost his spouse experiences is like nothing that an animal can experience. The animal doesn't know that his mate is gone for good, just because she decided to leave and told him she was through with him. Can an animal experience jealousy? Envy? More subtle shadings of emotion? I don't think so. Can an animal appreciate the beauty of a symphony? I don't think so.

In essence, every state of mind actually corresponds to a slightly different emotional state. There are more states of mind than we even have emotion related names to describe. And, because animals don't have the concepts we have, they cannot experience the emotions that we experience.

It is true that higher animals experience something like the basic emotions of fear, anger, joy, lust, and probably some others that I don't remember. But, an emotion is more than a physical or physiological response, it is also a corresponding state of mind. So, if an animal cannot experience a state of mind corresponding to a particular conceptual evaluation, then it cannot experience the corresponding emotion.

I think this is a misrepresentation of Rand's view. She said that emotions are not a tool of cognition, not that emotions were not a cause of cognition. I think she would agree that emotions could be a motivation for thought as well as action.

We are using the word "cognition" with different meanings. I was referring to actual cognitive concept formation (similar to the way Rand meant it at times), not just thinking thoughts. The moment you get into normative abstractions, excluding emotions from the referents (i.e., excluding them as cognitive cause) opens a nasty can of worms consistency-wise.

I don't make a distinction between thought and concept formation. Both are parts of cognition, and, in fact, it is hard for me to imagine thought without concept formation. Whenever a person thinks, he is forming or refining his conceptual knowledge. It is impossible to think without doing so.

Darrell

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Can an animal experience jealousy?

Darrell,

I could go into your post, but we are not on the same page. For instance, I consider an emotion in the following terms (there is oodles more, but this was handy). It is a page from Daniel Goleman's Emotional Intelligence, p. 19. It is an excellent visual of how an emotional response triggered by information coming from the eyes can bypass even the visual cortex in the brain.

I haven't looked into the brain structures of animals yet, but I am pretty sure you will find things like cortex, amygdala, etc., in the higher mammals.

Your approach is to postulate situations and speculate. I don't have much common ground with that if this other stuff is going to be brushed aside.

btw - There is a situational/speculation case I can discuss with you. In the quote above, you appear to not have had much experience with pet dogs or cats. The ones I have owned used to get as jealous as all get out if I gave attention to someone or some other animal in front of them. This is, in fact, pretty common.

Michael

[kiaer.ts]

Let's take a hypothetical case: Let's just suppose that being a homosexual would serve your rational self-interest. I'm not saying it would, this is just a hypothetical to serve for this thought experiment. Would any amount of 'convincing' orient you sexually and emotionally toward other men? Would not your mind scream against it, because it is against your authentic nature?

If homosexuality was in my rational self interest then it would not go against my authentic nature so no, my mind would not scream against it. If being homosexual was in my rational self interest, then that is what I would be, but, since it's not, I'm not.

Do you mean that inspite of your homosexual tendencies you have chosen to live as (I presume) an active heterosexual? Or do you mean that you have only heterosexual tendencies, but that if you were convinced it were reasonable to do so, you would engage in homosexuality? Or do you deny having sexual tendencies altogether?

It depends upon what you mean by tendencies. If you're talking about unexamined urges, then I've had many kinds of urges. I simply choose to be heterosexual because I believe it to be in my self interest. So, you could say that I tend to be heterosexual. But then you would be talking about desires, rather than urges.

Darrell

So what, Darrell, is the source of your homosexual urges? If it is not part of your underlying biological nature, then were the caused by your mistaken beliefs?

[Darrell Hougen]

Can an animal experience jealousy?

Darrell,

I could go into your post, but we are not on the same page. For instance, I consider an emotion in the following terms (there is oodles more, but this was handy). It is a page from Daniel Goleman's Emotional Intelligence, p. 19. It is an excellent visual of how an emotional response triggered by information coming from the eyes can bypass even the visual cortex in the brain.

I haven't looked into the brain structures of animals yet, but I am pretty sure you will find things like cortex, amygdala, etc., in the higher mammals.

I do not consider that to be an emotional response. So, if you consider that to be an emotional response, then we are clearly not on the same page.

The person seeing the snake does not experience an emotion. The person is startled. It's the kind of response that occurs when one of your kids -- I have three -- jumps out at you, unexpectedly. You jump uncontrollably. But, you don't experience fear. I least I don't.

Second, if your example was really an example of a person's cortex and thus his value system being bypassed, then why is it that people aren't always startled when their kids jump out at them or when they see a snake? When I know my kids are laying in wait, I don't even flinch. Snake charmers can sit with a flute, in front of snake and not jump. A feedback loop exists between the cortex and lower brain centers -- I notice that the hypothalamus is not shown -- that can be used to control the lower brain centers.

Your approach is to postulate situations and speculate. I don't have much common ground with that if this other stuff is going to be brushed aside.

Give me a little more credit than that.

btw - There is a situational/speculation case I can discuss with you. In the quote above, you appear to not have had much experience with pet dogs or cats. The ones I have owned used to get as jealous as all get out if I gave attention to someone or some other animal in front of them. This is, in fact, pretty common.

I wasn't sure if jealousy was the best example, but I would still assert that the human emotional experience is qualitatively different than that of lower animals for the reasons listed above.

Darrell

[Darrell Hougen]

So what, Darrell, is the source of your homosexual urges? If it is not part of your underlying biological nature, then were the caused by your mistaken beliefs?

How did the inventor of the TV get an urge to build one? Do you think it was biological?

Darrell

[tjohnson]

Second, humans can experience emotions that animals are not capable of experiencing. For example, the dread that a human experiences when held captive by a hostile enemy is undoubtedly different from anything that an animal can experience. A human has concepts like self, life, permanent, forever, etc., that color his experience. Similarly, the pain that a man who has just lost his spouse experiences is like nothing that an animal can experience. The animal doesn't know that his mate is gone for good, just because she decided to leave and told him she was through with him. Can an animal experience jealousy? Envy? More subtle shadings of emotion? I don't think so. Can an animal appreciate the beauty of a symphony? I don't think so.

In essence, every state of mind actually corresponds to a slightly different emotional state. There are more states of mind than we even have emotion related names to describe. And, because animals don't have the concepts we have, they cannot experience the emotions that we experience.

I don't think it is so much that animals can't feel emotions like humans but rather it's that they can't condition their responses (emotions) like humans. Or rather that they only have limited conditionality whereas humans have potentially unlimited conditionality.

[kiaer.ts]

So what, Darrell, is the source of your homosexual urges? If it is not part of your underlying biological nature, then were the caused by your mistaken beliefs?

How did the inventor of the TV get an urge to build one? Do you think it was biological?

Darrell

Come on Darrell, surely you can distinguish between such things as sexual attraction and hunger as urges, and the use of one's imagination in such cases as inventing. Are you telling me that the "urge" to invent was a physical sensation, like an urge to eat a Snickers bar?

Your careful avoidance of direct questions, your studied misunderstanding of words with clear meanings, and your deliberate evasion of the issues here makes me think that you alone of all humans might indeed have the capacity of self deception that your description of your own (lack of) introspection implies. Either that, or this is a put on and you are channelling Andy Kaufman.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Darrell,

I want to say this gently because I like you.

You are showing all the signs of having made judgments about things you have not examined (because Rand wrote some passages) and then seeking the facts to fit those judgments. You sound like you are on a crusade to defend Rand against enemies irrespective of the issue, even when making primary mistakes in understanding Rand's writing like you did with the tabula rasa thing. This is similar to Xray's crusade to prove Rand wrong even when she has not read Rand's books.

Same process, but different ends.

I call this a cognitive-normative inversion.

I hold that for the most accurate knowledge, we should identify things properly without crusading, then judge them.

That's how my head works.

Michael

[Darrell Hougen]

So what, Darrell, is the source of your homosexual urges? If it is not part of your underlying biological nature, then were the caused by your mistaken beliefs?

How did the inventor of the TV get an urge to build one? Do you think it was biological?

Come on Darrell, surely you can distinguish between such things as sexual attraction and hunger as urges, and the use of one's imagination in such cases as inventing. Are you telling me that the "urge" to invent was a physical sensation, like an urge to eat a Snickers bar?

I don't believe that the urge to eat a Snickers bar is a physical sensation. The urge to eat may be, but the urge to eat a snickers bar is not. That is to say, when a person sees a snickers bar, he experiences the common sensation of hunger. The fact that he associates the snickers bar with his visceral sensation is mental.

The same can be said with respect to sexual urges. People have urges to satisfy their sexual needs, but the association of those needs with particular people is mental.

We aren't like cattle. The male doesn't sniff something in the wind, seek out the source of the smell, and mount the female from which the smell is emanating while the female holds still, expressing no opinion about what is going on. What cattle engage in is an almost exclusively instinctual process. I think it is disingenuous to ascribe the same kind of dumb sexual responsiveness to humans.

I don't automatically have a sexual response, even if I see a beautiful woman. I might have something else on my mind. Even if she were engaged in a brazen sexual display I might have a different response. I might be taken aback by her behavior, rather than turned on, depending upon my values.

Let us discuss urges. An urge is difficult to define because it is an experiential primary. It is ostensive in same sense as seeing the color blue is an ostensive sensation. You define it by saying, there it is. However, we must have some understanding of the notion of urge in order to proceed.

In my understanding, an urge is automatic and possibly random association of a possible action with a fact of external reality or a concept of consciousness coupled with a mental push to perform that action. I'm using the word push in order to try to avoid defining the word urge in terms of itself. So, for example, one might have an urge to build a house. The house is the object concept and building is the action associated with it. Note that the action is also a concept, but it is a concept of action. Or, one might have an urge to set fire to a house. House is again the object of the action and, in this case the action is setting fire to it.

Using that understanding of the word urge, one might have an urge to use a cathode ray tube to display pictures. That is the process of imagination, yes, but it helps to explicate the nature of urges.

Now, if I say I've had an urge to have sex with a man, have sex is the action and man is the object. But, since it is a possibly random association, saying that I have had such an urge says nothing fundamental about my nature other than that I have urges to do many things and don't do most of them. Some urges might be more likely than others. If I've had sex with a man before and I found it pleasurable, I might be more likely to have and urge to have sex with another man in the future.

I might also have an urge to fantasize about having sex with a man. If I go ahead and indulge my urge to have such fantasies, and I find them pleasurable, that might increase the likelihood that I will have urges to repeat such fantasies or to actually engage in having sex with a man in the future. But, if I refuse to indulge my urge to fantasize about such things, I may not experience an increased likelihood of having such fantasies or engaging in such activities in the future. Or, if I choose to inject other things into my imagination such as the possible negative consequences of engaging in such fantasies or their associated actions, I might reduce the likelihood that I will have such urges in the future.

The reason I threw out the TV example is because I didn't want to engage in a long, laborious explanation of my point of view. But, I have given it considerable thought and while I can tolerate your lack of understanding, I find the associated need to engage in personal attacks annoying at best.

Darrell

[Selene]

Darrell:

I am reading this thread from the beginning so that I can participate intelligently.

However, just one quick point:

"I don't believe that the urge to eat a Snickers bar is a physical sensation. The urge to eat may be, but the urge to eat a snickers bar is not. That is to say, when a person sees a snickers bar, he experiences the common sensation of hunger. The fact that he associates the snickers bar with his visceral sensation is mental.

The same can be said with respect to sexual urges. People have urges to satisfy their sexual needs, but the association of those needs with particular people is mental."

This is faulty logic. The physical urges to satisfy hunger needs and sexual needs have a co-equal status.

You then make the statement that a particular type of food, e.g., snickers bar is mental. <<accepting that as true, you then equate the specific food - snickers bar with the specific person with sexual urge as mental.

I know that that does not follow - snickers bars don't "kiss"/and or _________ back. That becomes the mental part.

Now then there is the kink of the person, a snickers bar and ....

Adam

Edited June 23, 2009 by Selene

[Darrell Hougen]

Darrell:

I am reading this thread from the beginning so that I can participate intelligently.

However, just one quick point:

"I don't believe that the urge to eat a Snickers bar is a physical sensation. The urge to eat may be, but the urge to eat a snickers bar is not. That is to say, when a person sees a snickers bar, he experiences the common sensation of hunger. The fact that he associates the snickers bar with his visceral sensation is mental.

The same can be said with respect to sexual urges. People have urges to satisfy their sexual needs, but the association of those needs with particular people is mental."

This is faulty logic. The physical urges to satisfy hunger needs and sexual needs have a co-equal status.

You then make the statement that a particular type of food, e.g., snickers bar is mental. <<accepting that as true, you then equate the specific food - snickers bar with the specific person with sexual urge as mental.

I know that that does not follow - snickers bars don't "kiss"/and or _________ back. That becomes the mental part.

Now then there is the kink of the person, a snickers bar and ....

Adam

Hi Adam,

I guess I'm not following your argument, except the last part. ;)

I said that the the association of the snickers bar to hunger was mental and that the association of a particular person to a sexual urge was mental. I don't see why it matters that one can reciprocate for purposes of this discussion.

Of course, what I gave was not a logical proof, but an analogy, so, in that sense, you are right that it doesn't logically follow. However, I think my analogy works.

Darrell

[Selene]

Darrell:

Ok as to the analogy. I used to use a triangle to teach argument wherein Induction, deduction and analogy were the the three sides with the two angles at the base being the "particular" and the "peak" of the triangle being the generalization. So PIG was induction, GDP was deduction and PAP was the argument by analogy. Really stuck, mnemonically in students mind. If I had the skill to use a simple computer program, I would "show it here".

My point was that the snickers bar does not conceptually/mentally react whereas the other sentient being, preferably human, for the purposes of this discussion, enhances the physical with the fact that there is a mind, for example, kissing, etc, back, in a conscious manner.

Adam

[Darrell Hougen]

Darrell,

I want to say this gently because I like you.

You are showing all the signs of having made judgments about things you have not examined (because Rand wrote some passages) and then seeking the facts to fit those judgments. You sound like you are on a crusade to defend Rand against enemies irrespective of the issue, even when making primary mistakes in understanding Rand's writing like you did with the tabula rasa thing. This is similar to Xray's crusade to prove Rand wrong even when she has not read Rand's books.

Same process, but different ends.

I call this a cognitive-normative inversion.

I hold that for the most accurate knowledge, we should identify things properly without crusading, then judge them.

That's how my head works.

Michael

Michael,

I can assure you that I have examined these things extensively.

First, I am defending my point of view, not necessarily Rand's. My primary argument is not about whether Rand got it right or not but whether my own point of view is right or not.

I have examined my own views extensively in many different contexts. I have studied cognitive science, psychology, artificial intelligence, computer vision and image processing, machine learning, statistics, formal mathematics, game theory and other disciplines. So, I am hardly ignorant of the topic under consideration.

I think that there is a lot of overlap between my view and Rand's, but I will not go to the mat for her view as I am not the world's most knowledgeable Rand scholar. So, if you can bring up cases in which she said things that are incorrect, bully for you. However, I would argue that her view is still substantially correct or contains strong elements that are correct. She was good at laying out a broadly correct framework for many ideas but she often got the details wrong. So, when pressed for answers later in life, I think she may have given some incorrect answers.

Human cognition and human emotions are broad topics that are difficult to understand in detail. Moreover, I can't claim to understand every detail of Rand's view. But, I don't think that getting some of the details wrong invalidates her general view.

As for crusading, I apologize if I seem a little overbearing at times, but I like to dispense with views that are obviously incorrect quickly so that we can determine whether there is anything actually worth debating.

Darrell

[Darrell Hougen]

Ok as to the analogy. I used to use a triangle to teach argument wherein Induction, deduction and analogy were the the three sides with the two angles at the base being the "particular" and the "peak" of the triangle being the generalization. So PIG was induction, GDP was deduction and PAP was the argument by analogy. Really stuck, mnemonically in students mind. If I had the skill to use a simple computer program, I would "show it here".

My point was that the snickers bar does not conceptually/mentally react whereas the other sentient being, preferably human, for the purposes of this discussion, enhances the physical with the fact that there is a mind, for example, kissing, etc, back, in a conscious manner.

Well, it took me a moment, but I managed to construct a mental model of the triangle.

As far as the analogy goes, I was thinking of more of an arms-length comparison. One sees the snickers bar and it stimulates the hunger response. One sees the person that is the object of one's desire and it stimulates the formation of a sexual urge. What happens after that may be entirely different in the two cases. The snickers bar doesn't have to consent to being eaten. The person does. ;) But I wasn't concerned about what happens after the urge develops. So, the analogy might break down after the initial urge, but I wasn't concerned about that.

Darrell

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

As for crusading, I apologize if I seem a little overbearing at times, but I like to dispense with views that are obviously incorrect quickly so that we can determine whether there is anything actually worth debating.

Darrell,

Dismissing cognitive science, psychology and God knows what else except for Rand's views from consideration about the nature of emotions, claiming that human emotions are totally different from the rest of the animal kingdom without a shred of evidence other that the speculations I mentioned, basing generalizations about emotions on what I would call stolen concepts, etc., hardly seems to me to be dispensing "with views that are obviously incorrect."

It seems more like refusing to consider views that you don't want to.

The incorrectness may be obvious to you, but even on simple concept formation, I wonder how you would describe the "animal" (genus) in "rational animal." I see several of your views as very similar to those I have read by other people who use Rand's pronouncements as their textbooks who claim that "rational animal" is a correct definition of man. But when you point to common mental things (like emotions) between humans and other animal species, they treat this as if the nature of the human mind were totally cut off from the rest of the animal kingdom, that the human mind does not stem from the animal mind. In other words, man is not a "rational animal" to them in terms of brain, only in terms of body. For brain, he is a "rational living being of some sort" to them. For body, he is a "rational animal."

Frankly, I see this as a very close cousin to the mind-body dichotomy.

You claim to have examined a great deal of science on this, but all I have read from you so far has been pretty broad generalizations without any evidence or details, the proposal of hypothetical situations in a variety of contexts that bob all over the place hierarchy-wise if one is trying to organize them according to traditional Objectivist concept formation (thus, establishing a standard becomes very, very difficult), speculating about the meaning those of hypothetical situations, and issuing opinions.

Anyway, I am not so sure we are getting mutual value from this discussion. My views are registered, so are yours. So I will leave it to you.

I have work to do and you probably do, too.

Carry on...

Michael

[kiaer.ts]

The incorrectness may be obvious to you, but even on simple concept formation, I wonder how you would describe the "animal" (genus) in "rational animal." I see several of your views as very similar to those I have read by other people who use Rand's pronouncements as their textbooks who claim that "rational animal" is a correct definition of man. But when you point to common mental things (like emotions) between humans and other animal species, they treat this as if the nature of the human mind were totally cut off from the rest of the animal kingdom, that the human mind does not stem from the animal mind. In other words, man is not a "rational animal" to them in terms of brain, only in terms of body. For brain, he is a "rational living being of some sort" to them. For body, he is a "rational animal."

Exactly.

[kiaer.ts]

Here is Maslow's hierarchy of needs which a friend just posted on another forum:

As you can see, sex and hunger are primitive, physiological fundamentals, while I assume we will all agree that the drive to inventing television is at the apex, under problem solving, creativity and spontaneity.

[Darrell Hougen]

Dismissing cognitive science, psychology and God knows what else except for Rand's views from consideration about the nature of emotions ...

What I'm dismissing is an argument from authority -- a logical fallacy. Feel free to bring in whatever evidence you want from cognitive science, but just because a cognitive scientist says it, doesn't make it so.

... claiming that human emotions are totally different from the rest of the animal kingdom without a shred of evidence other that the speculations I mentioned, basing generalizations about emotions on what I would call stolen concepts, etc., hardly seems to me to be dispensing "with views that are obviously incorrect."

I've offered plenty of evidence -- more than you have during this discussion.

I'm not claiming that human emotions are totally different from animal emotions. You're misunderstanding my argument. Emotions can be considered in two different ways, as a state of mind and as the physiological response associated with that state of mind.

There is little question that humans and other higher animals have similar physiological responses. Both have a hypothalamus that controls the four basic responses, sometimes referred to as the four F's, feeding, fighting, fleeing and having sex. Both humans and other animals probably experience a tightness in the gut, increased heart rate, sweating, jitters and other responses. I know that some of them, such as increased heart rate and sweating have been measured in the lab.

What I am questioning is whether humans are limited to the same emotional states of mind as animals. As Thomas suggested above, a human has a much greater ability, perhaps an unlimited ability, to condition his physiological responses. An animal does not. That does not mean that a human has an unlimited range of physiological responses. Perhaps human's higher or more subtle emotional states simply correspond to subtly different combinations of the basic emotions on a physiological level. Clearly humans are capable to generating states of mind that animals cannot access, however.

There are sometimes said to be six basic facial expressions, anger, fear, surprise, sadness, joy, and disgust. However, even the number of basic expressions is in dispute. For example, the paper linked here lists seven basic expressions. BTW, one of the authors on the latter paper was my advisor when I was a graduate student at the University of Illinois. The technique used for expression space decomposition is similar to a technique used for visual motion analysis when I was there.

Of course, the number and complexity of emotions themselves cannot be measured directly, which is why I am referring interested readers to sites discussing facial expressions. Nevertheless, the idea that more complex emotions might be a combination of more primitive emotions is an active theory. Note that the Wikipedia page referenced says that there is no definitive taxonomy of emotions. So much for cognitive science.

The point is not that there is something wrong with cognitive science, just that the science is still in a primitive state and is only capable of providing us with a limited amount of guidance with respect to such complex topics as human emotional responses. Instead, it makes more sense to me to discuss emotions in terms of things that are plainly obvious -- that we are capable of thinking things that animals are not, that any thought can be associated with an emotional response, and that we therefore experience emotional states of mind (not physiological responses) that are distinct from the emotional states of mind experienced by lower animals.

If Rand was referring to states of mind, rather than physiological responses, her theory makes sense. To my knowledge, she did not say that we were born without the emotional machinery required to develop adult-like emotions, just that we were not born with any particular association of emotions -- meaning states of mind -- to events. That may be over stated, but it seems broadly correct to me.

Darrell

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Darrell,

Here is a previous post of mine you may find interesting. (Unfortunately you have to follow the links to get the full information.)

I don't know the work of Mr. State and he doesn't say where his information comes from, but on a quick look, it appears to be based on Dr. Paul Ekman. Dr. Ekman traveled the world over and studied peoples of all cultures, from the most primitive to the most advanced, and logged the different facial muscles to different emotions. He discovered some emotions and corresponding facial expressions that cut across all cultures.

You will find a video about this and a link to Google books of his ground-breaking study Emotions Revealed if you follow the link above, but here it is for convenience.

Michael

[Darrell Hougen]

Here is a previous post of mine you may find interesting. (Unfortunately you have to follow the links to get the full information.)

I don't know the work of Mr. State and he doesn't say where his information comes from, but on a quick look, it appears to be based on Dr. Paul Ekman. Dr. Ekman traveled the world over and studied peoples of all cultures, from the most primitive to the most advanced, and logged the different facial muscles to different emotions. He discovered some emotions and corresponding facial expressions that cut across all cultures.

You will find a video about this and a link to Google books of his ground-breaking study Emotions Revealed if you follow the link above, but here it is for convenience.

I didn't see the universal expression for disbelief or incredulity. Not that I was really expecting to see it. But, first of all, I think it is an expression that is easily recognizable. However, I don't know whether it is universal or cultural. Second, I don't think that kind of demonstration is really inconsistent with what I'm saying though perhaps you could fault Rand for overstating her case.

Let's take a couple of examples. In Rand's theory, a person feels fear when he judges it to be highly likely that he will lose something of great value to himself in the future, such as his life, the life of a family member, or most of his worldly possessions. He feels anger when he judges that he has already lost something of great value. That anger may be directed at a person if the person in question is the cause of the loss.

A dog or a baby, on the other hand, might feel fear upon hearing a loud noise. The response in this case is perceptual and immediate while the response of the adult person is conceptual and based upon his value hierarchy. To extend the example, a man might not experience fear of losing his wife if he didn't much care for his wife (sad as that may be). "So what if she was run over by a car? Let her die." Another man, might feel the loss to be almost unbearable and experience extreme discomfort in the pit of his stomach. The same thing happened to both, but their responses are different.

Moreover, the fear does not have to be an immediate response. An adult might fear losing his job if he is unsuccessful at completing some task by the end of next month. In this case, he may demonstrate no expression of fear. Instead, he may experience sleepless nights, an increased heart rate, and other symptoms of stress.

A dog or a baby might be angry if a person tried to take something away. The response is again perceptual and immediate. Both will quickly forget the incident. An adult, however, may hold a grudge for years and experience anger whenever he thinks about the causes for his loss. He may not, however, show his feelings on his face unless they are particularly intense.

If you wish to call the emotional response the emotion, that would certainly be consistent with the way that many researchers use the term. However, it should be noted that we do not come with a pre-wired relationship between our conceptual knowledge and our emotions. The link between our conceptual knowledge and our emotions is our value system and neither our conceptual knowledge nor our value system is given at birth. They must be actively developed. What we have at birth is the emotional machinery we need and simple perceptual connections to that machinery.

We are sad when we are hungry or uncomfortable. We are afraid of loud noises. After a while, we develop simple relationships between perceptions and emotional responses in stages through which all infants progress. At 10-12 months we become fearful of strangers. We become angry when we are prevented from acting on our urges. We are happy (or joyful) when we are surprised (by playing peek-a-boo, for example). It is not until we are older, however, that we develop concepts, values, a mature understanding of gain and loss, and links to corresponding emotional responses.

When Rand says that we are born tabula rasa, she is, in my view, referring to the adult emotional mechanism. And since the adult mechanism depends upon concepts and values which develop after birth, she would be correct in this understanding.

I think it is only fair to read her in a favorable light, rather than simply assuming that since researchers in cognitive science refer to emotional responses as emotions that that is the correct and only possible use of the term and that she therefore didn't know what she was talking about. She certainly used the term "selfish" in a non-standard way. Why not allow her to use the term "emotion" in a non-standard way as well.

Did she overstate her case? Probably. She wanted to get rid of all the loose ends and tie up everything with a neat little bow and probably tried to force fit some things, especially in her later writings. So, we may have qualms about some of the things she said and we may wish to invoke some caveats, but I don't think we should throw out her insights in the process. Her description of the adult emotional process -- the connections between concepts and values and emotions -- is very insightful.

Darrell

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I think it is only fair to read her in a favorable light, rather than simply assuming that since researchers in cognitive science refer to emotional responses as emotions that that is the correct and only possible use of the term and that she therefore didn't know what she was talking about.

Darrell,

We need to get over this hump before these discussions will have any real value.

I don't hold that Rand didn't know what she was talking about with emotions and it is wearisome to keep bumping up against elaborate justifications of her as if I did.

(I do agree that there are people who are hell-bent on proving Rand wrong at all costs, but that is not me nor my interest in cognitive science. I am fascinated by what I am reading. That's the long and short of it.)

But I do have a problem with Rand's pronouncements: scope. What she got right is right and, more often than not, it is insightful out-of-the box gems of enlightenment. You keep saying she often overstated her case. Notice that the overstated part is valid for only a part and not the whole. There's the problem. But it even goes beyond overstatement in a few instances. Let's put it this way:

Rand was right.

Rand was wrong.

Rand was right, but overreached her correct idea and incorrectly applied it to a larger context where it does not fit.

All three of these cases are found in Rand's writing. When I have found a serious problem between Rand's ideas and things I discover elsewhere, I have found that this third option is the case the vast majority of times.

The thing is, none of this diminishes her achievements as a wonderful American original, a pathfinder.

I'm a bit tired of living in the environment where people only think:

Rand was right.

Rand was wrong.

And then bash each other or construct elaborate arguments to advance whatever side they take on this. All arguments in this environment always boil down to this Rand right/Rand wrong crap. I want to discuss emotions, persuasion and all the rest. I don't want to go on and on and on and on and on about whether Rand was right about everything and the cognitive scientists wrong, or vice-versa, or which is superior to the other or which trumps which or any of that crap. It's irrelevant to my interests. And it is irrelevant to truth and wisdom.

But it's like an irritating daily attack of mosquitoes here in Rand-land. You swat one and another shows up to bite you. Or it's like Rand's Drooling Beast, except in this case, you can convince the beast to hear you one day, but the next day that understanding is gone and it is drooling at you again.

There's a lot of interesting stuff to learn and discuss. If we can get past this Love Rand/Hate Rand only hump, you have some ideas I think are well worth exploring.

Michael

[nicholasair]

In biology I learned about theory about a gay gene It passes from mother to son and father to daughter. Also brain scans of gay men and straight men look different when the patient is smelling a sample of female urine.

[Selene]

In biology I learned about theory about a gay gene It passes from mother to son and father to daughter. Also brain scans of gay men and straight men look different when the patient is smelling a sample of female urine.

might you have a source on that second example with the brain scans and female urine stimuli?

Adam