Two Points of View

[Dglgmut]

2 hours ago, anthony said:

You've "thought up" your value system, consciously: this is good for me, this is not.

"Good for me" and "not good for me" don't exist without emotions...

[Peter]

5 hours ago, Dglgmut said:

Does one story resonate more with different, say, personality types?

Dingle wrote: Because I think information is quite binary, in a way, for humans. Like Rand saying the ultimate choice is to think or not to think... It's sort of going into the unknown vs averting the unknown. We may all have different sensitivities to different categories of information where in some cases people prefer aversion and in other cases they are more willing to explore. end quote

Very interesting.  I think we have to think. We have no choice. Rand should have explored and explained that more thoroughly, using evolutionary psychology. The “aversion thing” does occur . . . but those aversion seekers, are like a hostage to their own brains. It reminds me of the comedy sketch where a person puts their hands over their ears and loudly says, “Nya, nya, nya:” so they don’t hear what they CAN’T psychologically stand to hear, which is the truth.

This is a bit off topic, but I glanced at a magazine which described a high school TV show where ‘ALL THE GIRLS’ rated all the guys in their class as to their looks. If you were a straight guy would you want to see where you stood “in the girl’s eyes?” Of course you would. You would have to. You might be nauseous about the outcome but you would have to, even though you know they might rate you as ugly as a . . . . Pewter.  

[Peter]

1 hour ago, Dglgmut said:

"Good for me" and "not good for me" don't exist without emotions...

I think Data on Star Trek TNG would disagree. 

[Peter]

Jules Troy wrote: Empathy...

That is certainly part of the equation. Many movies like “Rain Man” explore the possibility of being “human” but not having but a smidgeon of empathy for our fellow man and also for our immediate families who do care for us.  I think autistic people like Rain Man may not just be retarded but . . . sorry, I can’t be nice . . . their evolutionary building blocks are defective.  

Michelangelo wrote: Notice, you can look at a facet, but you cannot remove it from the stone . . . In thinking metaphysically, there is no way to say that rationality alone is what "makes man exclusively man." end quote

Agreed. I think Rand was always sure that what made us different from “the animals” was our rationality. But our rationality was built upon / within / atop an animal. Humans are not somehow animal and then “bazinga!” we are also superior, rational entities. Rather, “we human beings” are a combination of what came before, what occurs now, and what we will metamorphous into, in the future. Some of that change is in our volitional hands, but some changes may be inevitable or subject to chance. I prefer taking it out of the hands of chance to the extent that is possible. Peter      

[anthony]

6 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Tony,

 

Also, you didn't answer the question of whether a person in a coma is a human being.

Michael

I did, you must have missed it. I said he's human and rational animal.

[anthony]

9 hours ago, Dglgmut said:

"Good for me" and "not good for me" don't exist without emotions...

You reversed causality. The emotion is the end result of "good for me/bad for me".

Physical self-preservation is a high value, right? One makes that value assessment thousands of times, mostly subconsciously, and then at a moment of potential threat the appropriate emotion, fear, kicks in.

Nothing could be simpler (or more self-evident).

 

 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

28 minutes ago, anthony said:

You reversed causality. The emotion is the end result of good for me/bad for me.

Physical self-preservation is a high value, right? One makes that value assessment thousands of times, and then at a moment of threat the appropriate emotion, fear, kicks in.

Nothing could be simpler (or more self-evident).

Tony,

Pop a newborn on the butt, like in traditional birthing, and you get some rip-roaring emotion.

I don't think the newborn, with the umbilical cord still attached, has had time to mull it over much and come to a conclusion.

Michael

[anthony]

1 hour ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Tony,

Pop a newborn on the butt, like in traditional birthing, and you get some rip-roaring emotion.

I don't think the newborn, with the umbilical cord still attached, has had time to mull it over much and come to a conclusion.

Michael

Ha. A simple expression of the animal sensory mechanism. The nervous system. Of course she's going to squall, she got pulled out of a comfortable space and immediately got smacked.

Later is when she develops her sophisticated emotional structure - she learns "value" - but always is it based on primal sensations.

[Dglgmut]

3 minutes ago, anthony said:

Ha. A simple expression of the animal sensory mechanism. The nervous system. Of course she's going to squall, she got pulled out of a comfortable space and immediately got smacked.

Later is when she develops her sophisticated emotional structure - she learns "value" - but always is it based on primal sensations.

And when she grows up a little bit and sees her first dog she might reach out to touch it, but if she saw a snake she'd clutch her mother's legs and cry.

[anthony]

9 hours ago, Dglgmut said:

"Good for me" and "not good for me" don't exist without emotions...

One more word, an emotion has far greater "presence" than cognition and value-judgments. (In excitement, anger, fear, etc. one's physiology elevates: the heart races, adrenaline starts pumping, perspiration increases). Which means that an emotion has remarkable physical power, dwarfing rationality (apparently) and 'cold' logic. It is what you *remember*. So most people mistakenly take emotion as the primary and thinking as secondary. Which means they set reason vs. passion in a false dichotomy and assume the latter is more critical. For some, cognition will be dismissed altogether. However, the two are happily integrated with rationality in charge, and should be.

[Dglgmut]

7 hours ago, Peter said:

This is a bit off topic, but I glanced at a magazine which described a high school TV show where ‘ALL THE GIRLS’ rated all the guys in their class as to their looks. If you were a straight guy would you want to see where you stood “in the girl’s eyes?” Of course you would. You would have to. You might be nauseous about the outcome but you would have to, even though you know they might rate you as ugly as a . . . . Pewter.  

You'd have to look. But only because the information is out there.

 

The difference would be if there was no such rating, and you had to think for yourself, and really be objective in collecting as many "sources" as possible to answer, "How good looking am I/do people see me?" Then it would be much easier not to look.

[anthony]

21 minutes ago, Dglgmut said:

And when she grows up a little bit and sees her first dog she might reach out to touch it, but if she saw a snake she'd clutch her mother's legs and cry.

I doubt it. She had to learn, often by being sensitive to the adults' reactions. You aren't born with instincts for dogs v. snakes. Nor is the value-judgment carried in your DNA.

[Dglgmut]

2 minutes ago, anthony said:

One more word, an emotion has far greater "presence" than cognition and value-judgments. (In excitement, the heart races, adrenaline starts pumping, perspiration increases). Which means that it has immense physical power, dwarfing rationality (apparently) and 'cold' logic. Most people mistakenly take emotion as the primary and thinking as secondary. Which means they set reason vs. passion in a false dichotomy and assume the latter is more critical. For some, cognition can be dismissed altogether.

It's not reason vs passion. Both are evolutionary traits that serve the same purpose. Emotion helps animals propagate by influencing their actions... one of those actions, for us, and to a lesser degree in some other species, is thought (you don't think about what thought to have).

 

Does thought come back around and influence emotions? Yes. But what came first? It's very clear: emotions.

[Dglgmut]

1 minute ago, anthony said:

I doubt it. You have to learn, often by being aware of the adults' reactions. You aren't born with instincts for dogs v. snakes.

Well, I guess we got to the crux of this disagreement.

[anthony]

42 minutes ago, Dglgmut said:

It's not reason vs passion. Both are evolutionary traits that serve the same purpose. Emotion helps animals propagate by influencing their actions... one of those actions, for us, and to a lesser degree in some other species, is thought (you don't think about what thought to have).

 

Does thought come back around and influence emotions? Yes. But what came first? It's very clear: emotions.

Evolutionary traits? Propagate? Have you read "Consilience" (by Edward O. Wilson)

He's very much full of that and "epigenetics" and specie-ism - and so on.  It is an absorbing and educational book, and he's a good scientific intellectual but he misses the plot.

Individual rationality, reason and volition are minor players in his non-metaphysical, deterministic, naturalist view. Trying to derive a philosophy out of science and reductive materialism will fail every time. But scientists also keep trying to find The Grand Plan. Don't know about you but I don't live in order to propagate the human species.

[anthony]

Anyway, it's plain logic that in many circumstances a dog can be as and more dangerous than a snake. It's not a given. We don't have instincts for one above the other. We are exposed to dogs much more and some snakes can be harmless.

Therefore the conclusion ~should~ be that our 'instincts'/DNA causes us to automatically fear all dogs from birth, not snakes...

We all know people who had bad experiences with dogs as kids. That stayed with them to distrust dogs ever since.

As I said one has to learn (or imitate) values/disvalues for oneself.

[Dglgmut]

1 hour ago, anthony said:

Trying to derive a philosophy out of science and reductive materialism will fail every time. But scientists also keep trying to find The Grand Plan. Don't know about you but I don't live in order to propagate the human species.

You derive a philosophy from reality and the common experience of being human. Reality exists independent of science, but science helps us understand reality better.

 

You don't live to propagate the species? You didn't choose to be born, so it's not up to you why you live... it's up to you how you live. We are all alive because our parents had sex.

[Peter]

3 hours ago, anthony said:

But scientists also keep trying to find The Grand Plan. Don't know about you but I don't live in order to propagate the human species.

Here is an old but interesting letter that begins with the idea of animal rights and objectivism and then veers off. Is “extreme behavior” that “bothers you” something you give your consent for YOUR STATE to stop? Read it and you may see what I am getting at, but Weingarten is someone way over my head, so I will only say . . . nothing more. Peter

From: allen To: Objectivism Subject: OWL: Animal rights, group categories, and government Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2003 09:44:20 -0500. Jeff Olsen recognizes that one can be opposed to mistreating animals, without believing they have rights. Yet he claims that using the law to ensure this, presupposes animal rights. He writes “I don't see how any form of animal-cruelty laws can escape the premise that animals have (some) rights. Proponents of these laws may differ from animal-rights advocates about the extent to which animals have rights, but nonetheless share this same fundamental premise.”

I do not follow his reasoning. One can be opposed to the torture of animals because of its harm to people. Why can’t someone advocate a law to restrain tormenting animals, for the sake of man? Note that if the destruction of trees severely limited our supply of oxygen, one might favor laws to prevent it. Would Mr. Olsen conclude that this constituted tree rights? In some states there are laws against killing the praying mantis, because it destroys certain harmful insects. Does Mr. Olsen believe that this constitutes praying mantis rights?

My position is that certain extreme behavior is harmful to society. Some O’ists maintain that there is no such thing. They deny the existence of group categories, such as: nation, national interest, culture, etc. They claim that individuals exist, but not categories based on their collective behavior. Now I have not encountered any defense of that position. So let me discuss why such categories exist, and if others disagree, perhaps they will provide their own definitions and reasoning.

Before doing so, let us avoid the problems of composition and division (which one posting alluded to). The fact that an individual thinks, does not mean that a group does. Thus, neither a country nor an organization thinks. Similarly, the fact that nations are at war does not mean that individual inhabitants are at war. Thus, neither Adolph nor Franklin went to war with the other in Dec. 1941. Errors of composition and division do not disprove that groups exist, any more than they disprove that individuals exist.

Let us also avoid the problem that pertains to operational definitions. AR required that definitions be objective, so that they refer to what is actually there. However, there are times when something is defined for practical benefit, such as concepts of method. These constructs are not employed to claim that something exists, but to aid in reaching a goal. For example, there could be talk of an average family of 5.3 people, with the understanding that such a family is not to be found. Or a detective could seek a left-handed oriental cook, developing a category that is no more a concept than AR’s reference to “Beautiful blonds with blue eyes, 5’5” tall and 24 years old” (although some guys might argue that AR has characterized the epitome of a “piece”, and if that is what Objectivism is dealing with, sign me up). Statisticians will take a stratified random sample of the views of say single-women dropouts with children. Such categories do not exist as a group, but it is helpful to operate with them, to predict election outcomes. My claim that something exists will not employ operational definitions.

The first question is what is meant by the existence of a grouping. Let us note that this can be viewed metaphysically (in reality) or epistemologically (in reasoning). Often this difference accounts for why one person says something exists, while another says it does not. For example, it has been pointed out that an entity (say a blade of grass) exists, while its attribute (such as being green) does not exist (in isolation of any entity). Nevertheless, when we explain colors, we do so in isolation of any specific entity. That is, epistemologically, colors exist. Similarly, we examine the logic of a reasoning process, without regard to any person. From an epistemological perspective, it would be a mistake to say that we cannot speak of the hue of a color, or the contradiction in an argument, because neither colors nor arguments exist.

As an aside in logic, how can a woman discuss with her son, whether she would have been better off, had she never met his father? Metaphysically, since the son would never have existed, it is a stolen concept for him to discuss that eventuality. Yet epistemologically, he can have a meaningful discussion, for his nonexistence is not required for that premise.

Consider WWII. It must be said that America was at war with Germany, rather than some individuals were at war with other individuals. The operation of the war can only be explained on a national basis, such as its declaration, operations, funding, and conclusion. To do so on the basis of individuals, would not only be infeasible in terms of keeping track of who volunteered or died, but would lead to contradictions such as one individual being at war with another, or saying Adolph was defeated in his second world war with Franklin. (Note that the war continued after Hitler and Roosevelt were dead.)

The same argument applies to culture, society, organizations, and institutions. They cannot be addressed by confining attention to the individuals involved, because their dynamics can be the same despite changes in the people. (For example, an orchestra will play music, regardless of who the pianist is.)

I conclude that categories such as nation, national interest, society, culture, etc., exist, and are necessary for understanding real processes that cannot be characterized solely in terms of individuals. (This is not to claim that these categories could exist if there were no people, any more than green can exist without any entities, or that reasoning can exist without anyone who reasons.) I welcome any arguments as to why they do not exist.

Now I have not dealt with the issue of whether laws are needed with regard to animals. However, I wish to address a broader issue for O’ism, namely whether there ought to be any laws, other than those to protect rights. My question is: *If something threatens the survival of a nation, and cannot be met by voluntary means, should the government manage it?*

My answer is “Yes” by the following logic: 1. Man’s survival requires a nation; 2. The nation must survive; 3. Not all threats to the nation can be met by voluntary means; 4. Consequently, the nation’s government must deal with those threats.

I believe that the reasoning by some O’ists proceeds as follows: Individuals must be free (absent emergencies and initiating force);

Therefore step 4 must be rejected; Since steps 1, 2, 3, lead to step 4, at least one of them must be wrong; Step 1 cannot be wrong, for that would be anarchy;

Step 2 cannot be wrong, for that would violate O’ist doctrine; Therefore step 3 must be wrong.

So they conclude that such threats do not exist, or can be handled voluntarily. They then find supporting evidence in every such case, whether it be: taxation to finance government; natural emergencies; immigration threats; deportation of treasonous non-citizens; marriage laws to protect children; consensual torture for entertainment, etc.

They do not provide a theory as to why all threats to a nation can be handled voluntarily, nor demonstrate their thesis historically, but develop counterarguments for each case. By this technique they demonstrate that the *only* use of force is for protecting rights. (I agree that this is the prime function of government, and that other uses are generally destructive.) Consequently, instead of using reality to form conclusions, they begin with conclusions, and then determine what the reality is. Weingarten

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

7 hours ago, Dglgmut said:

Well, I guess we got to the crux of this disagreement.

D,

Correct.

Tony is not familiar with modern scientific knowledge about the brain and replicable experiments. When he comes across one that goes against Rand's conclusions, he rejects it sight unseen.

Rand's definition of newborns (going back to John Locke) as "tabula rasa" and her theory of emotions satisfies him and he goes no further. Of this he is certain.  

He and I go around about this at times.

One day I will get him to look.  

Michael

[anthony]

6 hours ago, Dglgmut said:

You derive a philosophy from reality and the common experience of being human. Reality exists independent of science, but science helps us understand reality better.

 

You don't live to propagate the species? You didn't choose to be born, so it's not up to you why you live... it's up to you how you live. We are all alive because our parents had sex.

Yes, well you constantly return to the top down, specie-ist approach. Most anti-individualist.

And science? before I get straw-manned, I have insisted in this thread how critical scientific knowledge also is.

[anthony]

54 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

D,

Correct.

Tony is not familiar with modern scientific knowledge about the brain and replicable experiments. When he comes across one that goes against Rand's conclusions, he rejects it sight unseen.

Rand's definition of newborns (going back to John Locke) as "tabula rasa" and her theory of emotions satisfies him and he goes no further. Of this he is certain.  

He and I go around about this at times.

One day I will get him to look.  

Michael

About the brain. This is actually nonsense, Michael. Studying the neuro-chemistry (of emotions) tells us WHAT happens. E.g. Chemicals are released and other activity.

It tells us a fat zero about WHY it happens.

You SURELY can't think that neuro-chemicals are the first cause of emotions? That they just swirl around and randomly pop up, causing the helpless individual to respond? 

Whew.

Nope, Dopamine etc. are the physiological ~effect~ of emotions. It is why we register (sense) emotions so strongly.

You and Dg need to get the causation correct and learn something from Rand's theory.

 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

3 minutes ago, anthony said:

About the brain. This is actually nonsense, Michael.

Tony,

One day I'll make you look instead of opine.

Michael

[anthony]

6 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Tony,

One day I'll make you look instead of opine.

Michael

AS I've said before, my looking (re: emotions) is introspection and experience with myself. My opinion is, Rand is correct. It's values and value-judgments which are the root cause of emotions.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

4 minutes ago, anthony said:

AS I've said before, my looking (re: emotions) is introspection and experience with myself. My opinion is, Rand is correct. It's values and value-judgments which are the root cause of emotions.

Tony,

It's all good.

(But still, one day I'll make you look.  )

Michael

[Dglgmut]

4 hours ago, anthony said:

It tells us a fat zero about WHY it happens.

You SURELY can't think that neuro-chemicals are the first cause of emotions? That they just swirl around and randomly pop up, causing the helpless individual to respond?

Why does the "why" in this case differ from the "why" in any other scientific observation? Do you look at other chemical changes and come up with a "why" in the same way?

 

Why can't neuro-chemicals be the first cause of emotions? It doesn't follow that they "randomly pop up," unless you consider EVERY physical (or metaphysical) phenomenon to be "random." You can't have free-will without imposed costs and benefits... there is no "good for me" without the "me" <--the thing that feels.