Empathy, weaponized

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

3 hours ago, anthony said:

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?

Tony,

Imagine someone trying to explain Ayn Rand to you in Freudian terms. And they keep insisting they are right and they keep using Freudian definitions for their points, (like, say, Dominique had penis envy, which is why she was abusive to Roark, Randian selfishness is nothing more than repressed resentment from an Oedipus complex, that the interpretation of Rand's dreams explains why she was so fixated on capitalism, and stuff like that). And the person kept it up and kept asking you where you disagree with them and why don't people take responsibility for owning up to the truth. 

When you try to talk to me about emotions and keep botching what emotions are because you are squeezing them into Rand more than she did herself, including empathy, this is the feeling I get.

Here is one example from many I could take from your post. Emotions morphing into each other (the phrase you used to teach others about emotions) is just like the penis envy example I mentioned for the Freudian to explain Ayn Rand. The words themselves, "morphing emotions," exist, but when you try to correspond them to reality, you slam against a brick wall. A concept like that has nothing to do with emotions in reality and even less to do with morphing.

I literally don't know how to talk about this with you until you slow down and try to learn about something before you go around teaching others about it.

When you can formulate what I say and mean, even if you only use your own form of expression (I'm not a stickler for jargon since I think conceptually), and you can accurately depict what I am saying, then we will have common ground for discussing this. 

You can't do like you normally do, read me saying one thing constantly, then treat it as if I said something different--for example, when I constantly say that some emotions can be created according the the chosen values process you constantly talk about while others are automatic, and then ask me if I agree that ALL emotions follow your way. I don't know how to communicate this way.

Wanna see your own words and mine for the most recent example? Using that exact thing as substance?

These two posts were taking from this thread.

Look here:

On 6/12/2020 at 11:59 AM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Some empathy is taught, some is hardwired in response to distress signals and a few other things.

Did I say ALL empathy is taught (or self-made)?

No.

I clearly said something different than that. I used the word "some."

Yet you later said:

17 hours ago, anthony said:

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

Each one means all.

I didn't say all. I never said all. 

I don't know what the rules are when communication is like this.

Didn't you understand what I wrote?

I'm not asking if you agree with it. I'm asking if you understood it.

I do know you do not correctly reflect back what I say and it's habitual. What's worse, it's at a really basic elementary level.

I can give you more examples if you like.

So work with me. Just a little. Work with me... We''ll get to a common ground of understanding. I'm not the enemy.

Anyway, at least I don't suffer from penis envy.

Do you?

 

Michael

[anthony]

4 hours ago, anthony said:

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".

Michael, this is exhausting. I took notice of your "some not all" and replied as above. You gave some answer.

Now you  claim I ignored your some not all, by returning to my insinuation that you agreed with me. At least, in theory.

Yes, I'd like some examples. If empathy has an objective meaning, why is some empathy from one's value-system, but not all?

 

[anthony]

And i explained the context in which nasty people abuse and fake empathy, and how many innocent people (I presume, not Objectivists) would fall for it, and then, hatred, doubt, guilt arise as consequences. 

That is "morphing".

[anthony]

And I have to repeat, Rand's explications are terse and concise, they carry implications and ramifications which a thinker needs to flesh out for himself, tested in reality.

Otherwise, they are just floating principles. Otherwise one just obeys the master. (Or rejects her). That's what rationalism has done to O'ism. 

[anthony]

58 minutes ago, Strictlylogical said:

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

Never mind. You replied to me, as if I was the one denying consciousness. Plainly, I think consciousness exists, see/touch it, or not.

I took you up on that, and ... etc.etc.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

On 6/15/2020 at 10:51 AM, anthony said:

Michael, this is exhausting. I took notice of your "some not all" and replied as above. You gave some answer.

Now you  claim I ignored your some not all, by returning to my insinuation that you agreed with me.

Tony,

You're right. That was a dick move on my part.

Sorry. No strings.

I fucked up. My apologies.

 

As far as examples go, you need to see something you are not yet seeing before we can dissect empathy per se (which, by the way, is very easy to spot--wherever oxytocin is to be found in the bloodstream, empathy is close by).

Let's zoom out.

Do you agree that melancholy (or sadness) and joy (or happy excitement) are emotions?

I don't see how you can disagree with this, so I will proceed on the assumption that you do agree.

So let's look at the brain itself for an interesting observation. One of the easiest ways people have studied cognition, emotions, and so on with repeatable results is to compare people with brain lesions. When someone has had parts of their brain destroyed (like through a stroke), their behavior--both automatic and chosen--changes.

Countless observations have reported the same thing about certain lesions. The underlying predominant mood of the right hemisphere is melancholy (or sadness) and the left hemisphere is joy (or happy excitement). This means that people with lesions in certain parts of their left hemisphere stay depressed and sad as their default mode and those with lesions in the corresponding parts of their right hemisphere are upbeat and joyously optimistic as their default. This happens automatically in all of them.

These moods are both emotions and what Ayn Rand called "sense of life." When the relevant lesions occurred in the brains of the afflicted patients, this change I just described in their emotional demeanor and reactions have been consistent no matter what values the patients had or what culture they came from.

This is an example of an automatic emotion.

The question becomes, can it be overridden with volition? The answer is: to a certain extent. After all, neuroplasticity exists. But the mind cannot simply mold the brain like a lump of putty. It is more of a small percentage thing, at least on the level of right-left hemisphere brain lesions that affect the underlying emotional dispositions.

 

There is a great metaphor for the interaction between volitional control and automatic reactions of the brain (including emotions): an elephant and a human rider. There is even a recent half-decent book (not deep, only half-decent, but still decent) from 2018 that uses this metaphor for its title: The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life by Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson. (btw - These are not brain scientists.) 

Wanno go for a ride? 

Let's put you in the driver's seat.

As the rider of the elephant, you can rant and rave or gush and jive or do anything you want, but if the elephant wants to go in a certain direction, it will go there. At the speed it wants. If you want to get the elephant to go in the direction you want and at the speed you want, you have to learn how to train it.

This does not mean you can transform your inner elephant into a horse or a bird emotion-wise. Or a conceptual human for that matter. To stay with the metaphor, whenever you get an elephant near bees, it will still get out of there no matter what you, as rider, say or do. Elephants can't stand bees. Period.

Liking the ride so far?  

An elephant has innate emotional states and reactions that come with it (like with bees) that do not have to be learned but instead are grown into, just like a tree seed does not have to "learn" to seek water and sunshine, but it does have to grow into such seeking. The tree cannot seek anything different, especially if this deprives it of water and sunshine. Likewise, an elephant does not grow into fearing rabbits the same way it grows into fearing bees. 

As humans, we have emotions we grow into feeling whether we want to or not. A pure tabula rasa would give us open random choice. But we don't exist like that. We do exist tabula rasa in experience just like a seed does if we eliminate time as part of its existence. But once we include time, the seed will grow into what is in its nature, and not into anything else. As humans, we will grow a full complement of habitual human emotions irrespective of what our experience is. Those emotions are in seed form within us at birth, nay, at conception. They don't come by magic or imposition from outside the fertilized seed to fill an empty vessel.

That is our emotional foundation. It has a nature that can be identified by observation, and by testing and observing the results. On top of that, we (the aware agent, the rider) can choose and influence some of it, but not all of it. Not even a majority of it. To keep to the metaphor, we (the rider) are small and the elephant is huge. We can train our inner elephant, but we cannot get rid of it, nor can we change its fundamental nature. If we accept that, though, and learn it according to its nature, its identity, its reality, we can work the elephant to give us one hell of a ride.  

This is how the brain works emotionally irrespective of any philosophy or opinion or science.

 

Within that frame, I can discuss the facts (and plausibilities) I have learned and point you in wonderful directions. Advances in mind and brain science are exploding right now. But I can't discuss this within a frame where choosing what the proper or appropriate emotion is, or where fighting against attacks on consciousness and so on, are more foundational as a form of identification than looking at nature and seeing what is there. 

The issue is not which is more important, philosophy or science. The issue is looking at something and reporting what one sees. (Or observes or experiences.) And, by extension, looking at what others observe or experience and report in the same frame of mind.

We can judge it all later.

We have to first identify it correctly.

If we do differently, we end up judging what we don't observe. As elephants (including our inner elephants), that works (most of the time). The elephant evolved to stay alive and reproduce. As riders, however, judging without first observing is a horrible way to ride the elephant.

Michael

[Strictlylogical]

5 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

As humans, we have emotions we grow into feeling whether we want to or not. A pure tabula rasa would give us open random choice. But we don't exist like that. We do exist tabula rasa in experience just like a seed does if we eliminate time as part of its existence. But once we include time, the seed will grow into what is in its nature, and not into anything else. As humans, we will grow a full complement of habitual human emotions irrespective of what our experience is. Those emotions are in seed form within us at birth, nay, at conception. They don't come by magic or imposition from outside the fertilized seed to fill an empty vessel.

I have not studied this in detail, but I would assume that Rand would have known enough basic psychology to know that certain urges and capacities are "nature" rather than nurture.  I am hesitant to get into what she thought when she used the term "tabula rasa" as it pertains to knowledge, but for our thinking today in view of what we know about psychology:

Is it safe to say at least that explicit knowledge, i.e. consciously held ideas, originate from experience and hence at birth, a human is a "tabula rasa" of ideas and knowledge?  [This is not to say there are not innate urges, autonomous reactions, and default emotions... perhaps even a whole Jungian subconscious full of wills and tendencies]

 

Reworded conversely:

Is the claim that "knowledge", for the purposes of the study of its attainment i.e. for the purposes of philosophy, consists of explicit or consciously held ideas, too narrow, and should it contain other "knowledges" (such as urges, feelings, subconscious wills, and tendencies)?

 

EDIT:  And to clarify, I use the term "philosophy" here to denote the field dealing with the techniques of Sophia, and not to (technically) include the special sciences such as physics, biology, or psychology.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

S,

This always comes around in different forms because it is not clear. Lots and lots of cognitive dissonance.

Why?

Well, Rand took an idea--Tabula Rasa--from John Locke (which she probably got from Isabel Paterson) and threw it into a couple of essays without going anywhere with it except to make certainty-sounding propositions. Such is true and cannot be otherwise. Period.

(In my more frustrated moments, I call it reasoning by decree.)

Check out the quotes at the Ayn Rand Lexicon to see what I mean: Tabula Rasa.

Rand's proposition is that an internal mechanism to process cognition and emotions comes with the newborn, but no content is in the mechanism. By content she means knowledge of the external world. Here are her exact words when describing this in a newborn: "He knows nothing of the external world."

I presume nothing means nothing when she says it.

So her divide is the internal functions are innate, but they can only process stuff coming in from the exterior, which can only happen through experience. Interior and exterior. For her, a baby has no pre-knowledge of what is good or bad for it out in the external world because he doesn't know what is out there at all. 

Ever since Rand came up with this stuff, people have been arguing about what she "really" meant since it is obvious a newborn baby has values starting with crying when being whopped and sucking for food.

 

I put this Tabula Rasa idea in the same category with Rand as her opinion that a woman who would seek the presidency is psychologically damaged. People don't like it when I say this because their Get Out of Jail Free card with some of Rand's weaker moments is The Great Divide between what she published in her life and what she did not. And Rand published this Tabula Rasa stuff, so there is no wiggling out of it using that card.

Also, for more mentally lazy people, Tabula Rasa is a nice and tidy concept--a newborn is an empty vessel at birth and has no knowledge of the outside world. See how simple reality is? Done. You don't have to wonder about newborns anymore. You can turn you brain off on that point.

But if that were true, a newborn would not be attracted to sweet and reject bitter. Does it already know that, in general, sweet stuff is good for it and bitter bad? Apparently. (I can come up with a ton load of examples.) Either the baby comes prewired for this knowledge of the outside, or the Tabula Rasa empty vessel mechanism does, which is nothing but a fudge on the argument.

 

Also, Rand said (talking about an infant): "To focus his eyes (which is not an innate, but an acquired skill)..." This implies that the infant has a choice about whether to focus his eyes or not.

To use my tree example from above, it's like saying a tree acquires leaves because it learns how to acquires leave, not because this is innate and the leaves will come regardless.

With seeing, it's even deeper. A child not only can't choose whether to learn how to focus his eyes, he can't choose to not learn how to focus his eyes. The child is going to focus his eyes so long as he is healthy and in reasonably normal circumstances where light is present.

 

Growth patterns exist. They are innate.

Tabula rasa as stated by Rand denies this. Oddly enough, she later wrote an essay called “The Comprachicos,” where she talked about what happens when one interferes with the innate growth patterns of the mind. She started with what happens with the body where interfering with its innate growth pattern when a person is very young--it results in a person in the form of a pot.

This (and more stuff from talking about it for years) makes me believe Rand did not think this Tabula Rasa idea through. The notion sounded good and in line with her thinking about individualism and volition when she came across it, and it came from an illustrious thinker who inspired and instructed the Founding Fathers of the country she loved, so she ran with it. Later, in us against them mode, she probably treated any criticism of it as an attack on her, on freedom, on human consciousness and on reason without mulling over why.

A serious problem happens to discussions when people believe the Tabula Rasa concept all the way down. They turn themselves into pretzels trying to justify it. But then it essentially becomes a matter of faith, not knowledge. That's why discussions about it always flop all over the place without getting anywhere and people repeating themselves ad nauseam without probing the idea.

I once read a forum where a Communist talked about a Jehovah's Witness. He said you can win the argument with a JW, but you will still not convince him. The irony for that particular poster is that the comment works for him, also.  

 

Anyway, Tabula Rasa is like that in O-Land. There is a continuum of how people treat Rand on this point. At one end, there are those who start their metaphysics with the proposition that Rand was perfect in her published works (whether they accept this explicitly or implicitly). At the other end, there are those who look at things and try to figure out what they see, and only then worry about Rand. And there are all gradations in between.

I used to be of the first type. I am now of the second. 

Michael

[Strictlylogical]

35 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

S,

This always comes around in different forms because it is not clear. Lots and lots of cognitive dissonance.

Why?

Well, Rand took an idea--Tabula Rasa--from John Locke (which she probably got from Isabel Paterson) and threw it into a couple of essays without going anywhere with it except to make certainty-sounding propositions. Such is true and cannot be otherwise. Period.

(In my more frustrated moments, I call it reasoning by decree.)

Check out the quotes at the Ayn Rand Lexicon to see what I mean: Tabula Rasa.

Rand's proposition is that the internal mechanism comes with the newborn, but no content is in the mechanism. By content she means knowledge of the external world. Here are her exact words when describing this in a newborn: "He knows nothing of the external world."

I presume nothing means nothing when she says it.

So her divide is the internal functions are innate, but they can only process stuff coming in from the exterior, which can only happen through experience. Interior and exterior. For her, a baby has no pre-knowledge of what is good or bad for it out in the external world because he doesn't know what is out there at all. 

Ever since Rand came up with this stuff, people have been arguing about what she "really" meant since it is obvious a newborn baby has values starting with crying when being whopped and sucking for food.

I put this Tabula Rasa idea in the same category with Rand as her opinion that a woman who would seek the presidency is psychologically damaged. People don't like it when I say this because their Get Out of Jail Free card with some of Rand's weaker moments is The Great Divide between what she published in her life and what she did not. And Rand published this Tabula Rasa stuff, so there is no wiggling out of it using that card.

Also, for more mentally lazy people, Tabula Rasa is a nice and tidy concept--a newborn is an empty vessel at birth and has no knowledge of the outside world. See how simple reality is? Done. You don't have to wonder about newborns anymore. You can turn you brain off on that point.

But if that were true, a newborn would not be attracted to sweet and reject bitter. Does it already know that, in general, sweet stuff is good for it and bitter bad? Apparently. (I can come up with a ton load of examples.) Either the baby comes prewired for this knowledge of the outside, or the Tabula Rasa empty vessel mechanism does, which is nothing but a fudge on the argument.

Also, Rand said (talking about an infant): "To focus his eyes (which is not an innate, but an acquired skill)..." This implies that the infant has a choice about whether to focus his eyes or not.

To use my tree example from above, it's like saying a tree acquires leaves because it learns how to acquires leave, not because this is innate and the leaves will come regardless.

With seeing, it's even deeper. A child not only can't choose whether to learn how to focus his eyes, he can't choose to not learn how to focus his eyes. The child is going to focus his eyes so long as he is healthy and in reasonably normal circumstances where light is present.

Growth patterns exist. They are innate.

Tabula rasa as stated by Rand denies this. Oddly enough, she later wrote an essay called “The Comprachicos,” where she talked about what happens when one interferes with the innate growth patterns of the mind. She started with what happens with the body where interfering with its innate growth pattern when a person is very young--it results in a person in the form of a pot.

This (and more stuff from talking about it for years) makes me believe Rand did not think this Tabula Rasa idea through. The notion sounded good and in line with her thinking about individualism and volition when she came across it, and it came from an illustrious thinker who inspired and instructed the Founding Fathers of the country she loved, so she ran with it. Later, in us against them mode, she probably treated any criticism of it as an attack on her, on freedom, on human consciousness and on reason without mulling over why.

A serious problem happens to discussions when people believe the Tabula Rasa concept all the way down. They turn themselves into pretzels trying to justify it. But then it essentially becomes a matter of faith, not knowledge. That's why discussions about it always flop all over the place without getting anywhere and people repeating themselves ad nauseam without probing the idea.

I once read a forum where a Communist talked about a Jehovah's Witness. He said you can win the argument with a JW, but you will still not convince him. The irony for that particular poster is that the comment works for him, also.  

Anyway, Tabula Rasa is like that in O-Land. There is a continuum of how people treat Rand on this point. At one end, there are those who start their metaphysics with the proposition that Rand was perfect in her published works (whether they accept this explicitly or implicitly). At the other end, there are those who look at things and try to figure out what they see, and only then worry about Rand. And there are all gradations in between.

I used to be of the first type. I am now of the second. 

Michael

Thank you Michael, and perhaps I am getting too tangled up in terminology, particularly what we mean by "knowledge" and "to know".

 

Certainly, human mind/brains at birth are not empty of everything... I'm wondering if there is more validity in restricting the definitions of "knowledge" and  "to know" to explicit consciously held ideas or if there is more validity in expanding the concept to include the other psychological... I don't know...  "contents" I listed above (urges, wills, subconscious stuff). 

IF the latter is more accurate, how important then is it to hold the distinction between knowledge and intuition?  Is it that the hard distinction is some kind of false boundary which is more problematic than useful?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

50 minutes ago, Strictlylogical said:

I'm wondering if there is more validity in restricting the definitions of "knowledge" and  "to know" to explicit consciously held ideas or if there is more validity in expanding the concept to include the other psychological... I don't know...  "contents" I listed above (urges, wills, subconscious stuff). 

S,

My suggestion is to make the distinctions that suit you best, formulate them in layman's terms in your mind you you can easily explain what you mean to anyone, then start building out your knowledge with information on that in a form that makes sense to you. You can always change something wrong later if you learn or come to believe it is wrong. I highly suggest going after knowledge that can offer correct predictions most of the time and can be used for practical matters (like teaching and learning, or maybe even how to write a book that can be easily understood--things like that).

Do not try to make any distinction about this for "Objectivism." If you do, even if you agree with the formulations Rand herself put out, you will be arguing about it from here to Kingdom come.

Nobody will ever agree with you, or with themselves for that matter.

And you don't get that time back.

Michael

 

EDIT: btw - Rand herself made a basic distinction about this between "in here" and "out there." The "in here" vessel is empty of all knowledge of "out there" at birth. And living contact with "out there"--and only such living contact with "out there"--fills the inner vessel. That's her position. She did not concern herself with similarities of individuals within the same species except to say that law of identity existed. So she expressed disdain for things like Jungian archetypes.

[Strictlylogical]

2 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

S,

My suggestion is to make the distinctions that suit you best, formulate them in layman's terms in your mind you you can easily explain what you mean to anyone, then start building out your knowledge with information on that in a form that makes sense to you. You can always change something wrong later if you learn or come to believe it is wrong. I highly suggest going after knowledge that can offer correct predictions most of the time and can be used for practical matters (like teaching and learning, or maybe even how to write a book that can be easily understood--things like that).

Do not try to make any distinction about this for "Objectivism." If you do, even if you agree with the formulations Rand herself put out, you will be arguing about it from here to Kingdom come.

Nobody will ever agree with you, or with themselves for that matter.

And you don't get that time back.

Michael

 

EDIT: btw - Rand herself made a basic distinction about this between "in here" and "out there." The "in here" vessel is empty of all knowledge of "out there" at birth. And living contact with "out there"--and only such living contact with "out there"--fills the inner vessel. That's her position. She did not concern herself with similarities of individuals within the same species except to say that law of identity existed. So she expressed disdain for things like Jungian archetypes.

I have been having an ongoing "disagreement" with a friend of mine, quite well read in Objectivism.  He is of the view that it is "incomplete".  Like myself, he also has recently become interested in psychology and the subconscious, Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell (and Jordan Peterson) and their ideas, and what insights about the human condition they might have.

But he has begun to view Objectivism with some distain, because of it's incompleteness and "arrogance".  I note its flaws, but point out that Objectivism is NOT a theory of everything.  It is philosophy, not a special science, such as neuroscience or psychology, and should not be expected to encompass them, on the contrary it should only form a foundation for them.  Those parts of the philosophy which did not stray (improperly) into armchair science, are IMHO correct, as a foundational philosophy. 

I tend to think he asks too much of the science of sofia... but I understand why he does. 

 

Somewhere along the way, the distinction between the actual core philosophy, and its application has been lost and muddled. 

[william.scherk]

Objectivism and emotion and I have a history here going back almost to the beginning. At times I have been boring and pedantic. On the brighter side, thinking and reading about emotion and research into emotion has given me just enough confidence to be brief.

I think everyone in this thread has made important points, interesting observations, and could probably get a C+ on a snap essay/comment that summed up "the other guy's" argument.  What I got to was a question. And then a few more. First, 

Is empathy a capacity or an emotion?

Is empathy felt in the body as an emotion is felt (is empathy an internal 'echo' of previously felt emotions re-imagined)?  Can one empathize with an angry, grieving, mistrustful person? Can we ''pick up" and imitate a nearby emotion?  Is there an "empathy of crowds"? How would emotional 'contagion' operate with and without empathy?

If empathy is a human universal -- an aptitude or mental facility that comes with a standard issue brain -- can we measure its  variable 'strength'?

If empathy is a human universal, given a healthy brain,  which will be the exceptions that prove the (general) rule?

Can a sociopath be empathetic? Although it can be observed that a sociopath lacks remorse, is callous, has zero compassion and an absence of "conscience" and has difficulty distinguishing fear ... can he still 'get' empathy? Can he utilize empathy (or concurrent 'emotional echoes' in mind's eye)? Some of you here may keep up with the neuroscience as it pertains to sociopathy/empathy being mutually-exclusive.

Where I think I agree most with everyone is that a human capacity for empathy(emotion) can be exploited, can be manipulated, can be commanded, and can be over-ruled. It can be fed on particular diets (of all the media we presently emit). It gets full play in great works of fiction.

On that same tack -- empathy can be stimulated for good and for ill. As a parent teaches a child about the general non-aggression pact in human societies, stimulating a capacity for empathy is one tool. When we advise about the No Biting rule, and later on basic justice, on family fairness, we can effectively use a capacity for empathy to deepen the lesson.  Later still, as we help teens grapple with moral issues we instruct on more explicit evils, on abuses and crimes, even on terrible fates, the wounds, hatreds, joys, fears and triumphs 'out there.' Evoking another's feelings in one's own mind is also a kind of day-to-day practical psychology ... 

One more line to truss up my points  -- evoking empathy, eliciting empathetic reasoning, inculcating a mental skill at 'putting oneself in the other person's place,' imagining another person's joy or apprehension or shame or pain ... this helps carry forward the values of our selves (as philosophy for living), of our families, our cultural communities, "tribes," ethno-religious sects, states. It all adds to a lesson plan. Strong feelings help nail down the salient details.

It might also be useful to re-beat this drum: empathy for the downtrodden, empathy for the forgotten, empathy for the left-behind, can be used to stake tribal boundaries -- using tales of great evil and suffering at the hands of putative enemies. 

It's a really interesting topic that I have thought about over the years. I wish we had a larger quorum, because this is one of those subjects that everyone probably has a take on. 

"What is empathy. What is it for?  How does it manifest?"

As always on an emotion-related thread, a plug for the excellent work of author and neuroscientist Antonio Damasio. I've used an example from his work to illustrate how decision-making and reason itself is deformed or gravely impaired by specific lesions to the brain that remove emotion.

What a remarkable attribute of human beings, that we can imagine ourselves in the feeling body of another human. 

 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

5 hours ago, william.scherk said:

I think everyone in this thread has made important points, interesting observations, and could probably get a C+ on a snap essay/comment that summed up "the other guy's" argument.

William,

And you're the teacher giving out grades?

Come on, man.

Join the conversation as an equal instead of looking down your nose at everybody. And then signaling it to make sure nobody misses it.

I actually enjoy your observations, but when you start by showing how so much above all the livestock and dancing elephants you are, I really get turned off.

You are smart enough to know that the impulse to signal superiority like that constantly to an audience comes from insecurity.

And we all have our insecurities, I suppose.

Now I'm going to read your post.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

On 6/16/2020 at 4:09 PM, Strictlylogical said:

I have been having an ongoing "disagreement" with a friend of mine, quite well read in Objectivism.  He is of the view that it is "incomplete".

S,

In one sense your friend is right and in another he is dead wrong. It all depends on what you are looking at.

Objectivism as a sum of all the correct philosophical principles of mankind is incomplete and, of course, it is incomplete. No system is complete in that sense. Even as a summary of all the fundamental philosophical axioms that exist, it is incomplete. 

However, as a mental structure and anchor (and even weapon) to deal with the onslaught of all the different tugs, nudges, slams, intimidation, boneheaded thinking, true paradoxes and dilemmas, and so on in the modern intellectual world, it is totally complete. You can use Objectivism as a lens to evaluate anything--and generally from a frame different than the one you are being presented with--and your evaluation will make sense. I cannot stress how important this is for high-quality independent thinking. Even where some items in Objectivism do not make sense, you have a structure for correcting it. In that sense, Objectivism is about as complete a system for organizing your thoughts about your mind, society, the meaning of it all, life, and so on as any religion or philosophical system out there.

Also, where Objectivism is right, it is really right. Existence does exist and that is more than a tautology. It is a lived experience, which the people who yell out "tautology" when they mock Rand like to blank out of the equation. (That generally comes with a sneer and asking how do you know you experience anything at all? Or something like that. And, as perfect dorks, they can't see they have to exist to even do their monkeyshines.) As for completeness, you don't get more complete for a human being than hammering existence into place as the foundation of everything else.

Rand did not deal with Jung and so forth except to dismiss him, but I have found that I can build Jung into the thinking habits I learned by grounding it on axiomatic concepts and so on. I can talk about neural pathways and networks and add that to Rand's theory of concepts, even as I have to make a few corrections in her theory to align better with reality. (This is not debunking, it's more like an alignment.) Rand did not cover much about family, but I can navigate the confusion of where family is toxic and where it is nurturing and extremely high value using an Objectivist structure of thinking and evaluating. And so on. In a lot of cases, I can't make room for Objectivism, or any body of thought that changes the framework like Objectivism does, using these missing elements as the frame. But I can use an Objectivist frame to fold them into my thinking and worldview.

(Oddly enough, the O-Land "closed system" fundies say the exact contrary. Man, do they like their power and unearned prestige.  )

So as a frame, in my way of thinking, Objectivism is complete. And it's mostly right. And where it is not right, it can be corrected. I'm not speaking about publishing a book or something and then correcting Objectivism for everybody else. I'm talking about using this philosophy as a personal structure in my own life.

 

War

At this stage of my life, I am no big fan of Rand's approach of making everything a battle. But I can tell you, during my growth, without that framing, I probably would have not arrived at the wisdom of "existence exists." That emotional (storytelling) frame gave me permission to use my mind to the best of my ability and take responsibility for it--as an independent thinker. It cut through the bullshit of politically-driven power-mongering manipulations that have been present since the beginning of human history. I found this extremely liberating.

The bad news is that this approach, the nonstop bellic metaphors, soon becomes a system of think-like-we-do or you are our enemy when it is used as glue for social cohesion. That's where Objectivism shows faults--as a collective philosophy. But then again, Objectivism is for individuals, not collectives. This was Rand's often stated intention.

And this is where you have to make a decision with Objectivism if you liked it a lot at first. You have to decide to keep the frame and let go of details and make a mental box for that, or you start to nitpick the details to death, then come to the conclusion that Rand was, at least at times in important ways, full of shit, especially since she was constantly certain and quite rude about it. And you put her work into that box.

I am talking about serious thinking. 

There is a third way, too. You can primarily focus on the bellic emotions Rand used and turn Objectivism into a life-long struggle for power, which I think is mostly mental masturbation. When I first started writing about Objectivism, I once wrote a series of articles called "The Ayn Rand Love-Hate Myth." It's early writing, so it's probably not that good (I haven't reread it in a while), but my intent, even back then, was elevated. I did not want--as my life's purpose--to save the world in the name of Objectivism (or Ayn Rand), or save the world against the poisonous dragon of Objectivism (or Ayn Rand). But the people who fall off into this myth--they line up on one side and that's all they do from there on out. (I admit, I had my phase of this, too.)

 

The good guys

Look around our society. Look and see who openly likes Ayn Rand. And look beyond these power-struggle people to those who take ideas serious enough to probe them.

There is one group that only gets mentioned in passing at times, but they are the most important group for me--the high-end achievers. There are oodles of them. For just a paltry few examples, look at the people around Richard Branson, marketers and marketing gurus like Joe Polish and Dean Jackson (and the ton of high achievers they interview), and so on. Even President Trump to a certain extent. Or look in the past at people like Steve Ditko, one of the co-creators of Spiderman. There are countless numbers of these Randian heroes out there. These people acknowledge their adherence to the ideas Rand wrote about and Objectivism, but they rarely argue about it. They are too busy being awesome and changing the world for that.

For them, Objectivism was complete enough to clear the intellectual and emotional garbage out of their path and it gave them a frame-like structure for using their minds without guilt--each to the extent and manner that suited their own values in life. And, frankly, they didn't have time for anything else, especially the bickering.

So when I think of completeness, I think, what more could a philosophy for living on earth achieve?

Syllogisms for academics to argue about?

Screw that.

 

Philosophy for individuals

Objectivism is a philosophy for individuals, not collectives. When a collectivist ideology goes wrong, look what happens. How many piles of bodies does it take for people to realize that communism is evil?

Rand's work is one of the driving forces standing in the way of collectivist ideology from dominating the earth. It's working, too, so it's complete enough to be an effective obstacle.

I could go on about this stuff all day, but life calls.

What you have above is a few comments on how I have thought through these things. And I'm happy to share these thoughts.

But for your life and that of your friend, you guys have to do it your own way.

Do your own thinking and I am sure you will both come to a good place for your lives.

I don't want to be a rule-giver. I'm far more content to witness great achievements.

So go out and achieve...

I want to see it...

 

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

12 hours ago, william.scherk said:

As always on an emotion-related thread, a plug for the excellent work of author and neuroscientist Antonio Damasio. I've used an example from his work to illustrate how decision-making and reason itself is deformed or gravely impaired by specific lesions to the brain that remove emotion.

William,

Before I comment on your post, that is a very good reference. Damasio rocks--on the brain side of consciousness (he's not as good on the mind side). At least what I have read of him.

I occurs to me that Elliot can become an archetype in our discussions.   

(For the reader, Elliot was a person who had a brain lesion that impaired his emotional responses to input. So he could grok what something was, but would take hours to choose everything, even what to eat off a menu.)

Before I get off Damasio, one of the most important insights I got from him (in Self Comes to Mind) is that there are parts of the brain that process and automate information, but there is no "I" in them. An example is the cerebellum, where a good portion of mechanical skills is automated. This works and it feeds our awareness, and there are complex cognitive items that are held and run within it, but the "I" inside of us, the awareness of ourselves, simply cannot access it on the level of being aware of what goes on there. In that "I" part, it's as if the cerebellum does not exist. Only the content does when specific things bubble up at specific times. But the feeling when this happens is that these things come from outside ourselves. There are several parts of the brain like that. (I'm going on memory, so I hope I'm not butchering Damasio's finding.  I am pretty sure I got it right, though.)

 

Capacity and emotion

Now on to your post--at least a couple of ideas from it.

12 hours ago, william.scherk said:

Is empathy a capacity or an emotion?

I am not against asking questions like this, but I get confused when they are followed with questions that display presuppositions. Like this.

12 hours ago, william.scherk said:

Is empathy felt in the body as an emotion is felt (is empathy an internal 'echo' of previously felt emotions re-imagined)?  Can one empathize with an angry, grieving, mistrustful person? Can we ''pick up" and imitate a nearby emotion?  Is there an "empathy of crowds"? How would emotional 'contagion' operate with and without empathy?

Let me illustrate by example with a simple replacement of a word.

Is anger a capacity or an emotion?

Do that with the rest of the questions (with appropriate alterations when necessary) and you will see what I mean.

And that leads to questions like, what is the real true truthy anger? Ayn Rand's anger at attacks on reason? Hitler's anger at the world and at Jews? A newborn's anger at being whopped on the behind? 

How do you categorize any of this stuff without thinking in terms of hierarchical knowledge? To keep using an example I keep harping on, let me point to a vehicle and ask: "Is that a Ford or a car?"

That makes no sense. A Ford is a car, but a car is not necessarily a Ford.

In other words, an emotion is a capacity.

Capacity is the more general category and emotion is a more specific category that belongs to it.

And yes, emotions have bodily components. That is part of their capacity.

 

Zak

I want to illustrate empathy on the capacity level through an example I have mentioned often enough. Paul Zak was hired by DARPA to study storytelling in terms that would be useful to the military. Zak's specialty is the molecule and neurochemical, oxytocin. This is the empathy juice.

How do you measure this? Through blood samples.

And here is what he did. He made a video of a father taking his son to the zoo and showed it to a bunch of subjects. As the father and son walked around looking at the animals, Zak observed the subjects, then later took blood samples of them. (He did other things, too, one of which I will mention in a sec.) Nobody responded to the video with anything except staying normal and, maybe, being slightly bored.

Then he changed the story a bit. The voice over told of a father's thoughts about his child having terminal cancer with only a small amount of time left to live. And about how happy the child seemed looking at the animals and how the father not dare interfere with his son's happiness by expressing his own anguish. So he had to pretend he was just as joyful as his son while wanting to cry in despair.

When taking the blood samples, the oxytocin spiked through the roof. Tears came to the eyes of many subjects. Then Zak did something even sneakier. He asked both groups to contribute their pay to charity at the end. The people seeing the bland video did some small donations. The people seeing the tearjerking video piled on the donations.

This shows empathy as a universal capacity (the broad picture) and as an emotional response to the suffering and distress of the helpless (a particular context).

 

Sociopaths

When empathy is understood this way, there is an easy answer to your question when you ask if sociopaths--even ones with brain lesions--feel empathy.

Most of them sure as hell do. They just don't feel empathy for their victims. But when they see themselves abstractly as a victim, they wallow in pity parties that would make a three year old blush. They have a flood of empathy for that abstraction of themselves. 

In other words, the part of the brain that projects theory of mind for others might be impaired. (For the reader, theory of mind is a technical term meaning awareness that the mind of others is different than oneself.)  They may even have a low degree of emotional responses in general. But when there is perception of a victim (that is the sociopath himself), the rest of the brain kicks in with a vengeance and pumps the juice (mostly oxytocin mixed with cortisol) through a firehose.

(I am presupposing a brain without massive damage, of course.)

I want to continue, but I'm out of time right now...

Still, good food for thought, both your post (minus your obnoxious preamble) and mine.

Michael

 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Apropos, to you, the reader, when making long posts, I think I am going to put little subtitles in them like I did in these last two posts.

When I reread them for edits, it is easier on my own eyes, and I already know what I wrote, so I imagine it will be a whole lot easier on yours.

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

5 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Apropos, to you, the reader, when making long posts, I think I am going to put little subtitles in them like I did in these last two posts.

When I reread them for edits, it is easier on my own eyes, and I already know what I wrote, so I imagine it will be a whole lot easier on yours.

Michael

Michael,

I think that inserting little subtitles is an excellent idea.  It would certainly help me, and probably others too.

You say a lot of interesting things, but sometimes the sheer l-e-n-g-t-h presents a daunting prospect and I feel, oh, sigh, do I have the stamina to plough through this to find out what's in it?  Direction indicators would help.

Ellen

PS: I haven't read the preceding two posts yet.  I saw the question as the first thing in line in the expanded activity feed.

[anthony]

Found some N. Branden:

"Let us pause to consider what, precisely, an emotion is. An emotion is both a mental and a physical event. It may be defined as an automatic psychological response, involving both mental and physiological features, to our subconscious appraisal of what we perceive as the beneficial or harmful relationship of some aspect of reality to ourselves. Emotions reflect the perceiver's value response to different aspects of reality: for me, or against me, good for me or harmful, ...

"To cease to know what we feel is to cease to experience what things mean to us, *which is to be cut off from our own context*" [...]

"Let me emphasize that I am speaking here and throughout about *feelings* and *emotions*, not about *actions*. I am not suggesting one should act on or express everything we feel. not even in our most intimate relationships. We cannot avoid the responsibility of discrimination and judgment. But here we are concerned with the issue of consciousness itself". [...]

(he goes on to the repression of emotions esp. children)

ch. The Problem of Self-Alienation. "Honoring the Self"

[Peter]

Did someone say Branden? I hope nothing got double clicked, and repeated. I saw it happened once. Oh, and Nathaniel Branden stopped typing in capitals when someone told him it seemed he was yelling, Anthony. Peter

From: Nathaniel Branden Reply-To: brandenn To: "R. Christian Ross" < CC: atlantis Subject: ATL: Re: Reason Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2001 07:21:38 -0800

I would say, and I am confident Rand would agree, that what is inherent in our nature is the capacity to reason, assuming we go through normal stages of development (an infant can't reason, obviously).  The great student of cognitive development, Jean Piaget, maintained that if, during teen-age years, a person does not develop high level of cognitive abilities ("formal operations"), it is virtually impossible to develop them later in life.   If this is true, then the world is full of people whose reasoning ability is not absent but severely limited.

Reason as a process is, of course, epistemological, but as a capacity, inherent as a potential in our nature, it is, if you wish "metaphysical."

I put the word in quotes because, strictly speaking, metaphysics addresses only the fundamental nature of reality, not such things as the attributes of man or lower animals.

And, finally, in calling man "a rational animal," Rand meant (a) that we humans have a capacity to reason that differentiates us from lower animals (genus and differentia), but also (b) that that capacity explains more about our behavior than any other trait or attribute. Nathaniel Branden

From: Nathaniel Branden Reply-To: brandenn To: RogerEBissell CC: atlantis Subject: Re: ATL: Re: Reason Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2001 21:18:50 -0800. THE REASON WHY THERE IS SOME CONFUSION ON THIS POINT, I SUSPECT, IS THAT RAND SOMETIMES USED "METAPHYSICAL" TO MEAN "PERTAINING TO REALITY (USUALLY EXTERNAL REALITY), AS CONTRASTED WITH PERTAINING TO CONSCIOUSNESS, AND YOU WILL SEE THIS USAGE AMONG SOME HER FOLLOWERS. HOWEVER, PHILOSOPHICALLY, IT IS NOT PRECISE BECAUSE "MAN'S NATURE" IS AN EMPIRICAL, SCIENTIFIC ISSUE NOT A PHILOSOPHICAL ONE, ALTHOUGH IT OBVIOUSLY HAS PROFOUND PHILOSOPHICAL RAMIFICATIONS. NATHANIEL BRANDEN

From: Nathaniel Branden Reply-To: brandenn To: atlantisSubject: ATL: Objectivist metaphysics Date: Fri, 23 Nov 2001 13:55:08 -0800.

In response to my earlier post in which I explained that the definition of human nature is not part of metaphysics, I have been asked to elaborate on what is included in the domain of metaphysics.  It's an important question because it touches on one of the most important and distinctive features of Objectivism.

Rand rightly dismissed "cosmology" as not part of philosophy, insisting instead that it was the province of science.   She argued that metaphysics deals only with the most fundamental features of existence as such.   She set forth what has been called correctly "a minimalist metaphysics"--fundamental truths that no scientific discovery could disprove and that all scientific discoveries presupposed.   This came down to Aristotle's laws of logic, which (as she and others have observed) are also laws of reality (Brand Blanshard's "Reason and Analysis" is great on this point), and also the law of causality.  In other words, metaphysics is concerned with that which is true "of being qua being."

By this definition, the particular attributes of man or other animals are in the domain of science, meaning they are not "metaphysical."  However, as I observed in a previous note, Rand sometimes used the term

"metaphysical" more broadly to mean "pertaining to reality" as contrasted with "pertaining to consciousness"--, on other occasions, as meaning "pertaining to that which is given in nature" as contrasted with  the "man-made." I hope this clarification is helpful. Nathaniel Branden

From: Nathaniel Branden Reply-To: brandenn To: Michael Hardy <hardy CC: atlantis Subject: ATL: Re: Objectivist metaphysics Date: Fri, 23 Nov 2001 18:29:38 -0800 Michael Hardy wrote: >Nathaniel Branden <brandenn@pacbell.net> wrote that Ayn Rand set forth what has been called correctly "a minimalist metaphysics" --fundamental truths that no scientific discovery could disprove and  that all scientific discoveries presupposed.  This came down to Aristotle's laws of logic, which (as she and others have observed) are also laws of reality (Brand Blanshard's "Reason and Analysis" is great on this point), and also the law of causality.

 >I for one would have said the laws of logic belong to epistemology rather than metaphysics.  Can anyone explain this classification? Shouldn't the nature of free will also belong to metaphysics? Mike Hardy

THE LAWS OF LOGIC ARE, QUA LAWS OF THOUGHT, EPISTEMOLOGICAL, AND, QUA LAWS OF REALITY, METAPHYSICAL. NATHANIEL BRANDEN

From: Nathaniel Branden To: ATLANTIS Subject: ATL: ONE MORE THOUGHT Date: Fri, 23 Nov 2001 18:33:38 -0800/ If one accepts that metaphysics is concerned only with being qua being, then one sees that volition is not "metaphysical."

Such at any rate was Rand's position, which I share. Nathaniel Branden

From: Nathaniel Branden Reply-To: brandenn To: Michael Hardy <hardy CC: atlantis Subject: ATL: Re: free will & epistemology Date: Sat, 24 Nov 2001 15:51:10 -0800

Michael Hardy wrote: > Nathaniel Branden <brandenn@pacbell.net> wrote: > If volition does not belong in metaphysics, where does it belong among the branches of philosophy?  Good question.  I would venture to say...epistemology.

 >The argument you wrote that appeared in _The_Objectivist_, and which was also put forth by miscellaneous philosophers before that, and by me when I was in 12th grade, could be summarized by saying "epistemology presupposes free will", and Leonard Peikoff did put it in those words in his 12-lecture course he delivered under Ayn Rand's supervision in 1976.  It has also been observed, by a much larger number of philosophers and others, that *ethics* also presupposes free will.  To say that ethics presupposes free will does not mean that ethics is the branch of philosophy in which the nature of free will belongs, and the same is true of epistemology.

 > Nathaniel, in your 20-lecture basic course at NBI you said philosophy is the attempt to answer three questions: (1) What exists? (2) How do you know?  (3) So what?  Epistemology deals with the second question.  Why is free will a part of the answer to the second question?  Saying only that epistemology presupposes free will fails to answer this unless you also want to say epistemology is a part of ethics.     -- Mike Hardy

IF SOMEONE WANTS TO EXPAND THE MEANING OF METAPHYSICS TO INCLUDE "THE FUNDAMENTAL NATURE OF MAN," SO BE IT, NO ONE IS GOING TO ARREST HIM (OR HER); NO ONE IS EVEN LIKELY TO GET EXCITED ABOUT THE QUESTION, ONE WAY OR THE OTHER.

I SUGGESTED THAT VOLITION BELONGS AS PART OF THE FOUNDATION OF EPISTEMOLOGY, IN THE OBJECTIVIST SYSTEM, BECAUSE THAT FOUNDATION HAS ALWAYS STRESSED THE NON-INFALLIBLE, NON-OMNISCIENT NATURE OF HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS, AND THE SIGNIFICANCE OF VOLITION IN THIS CONTEXT.

I DON'T KNOW HOW TO MAKE MY VIEWPOINT ANY CLEARER, SO I AM GOING TO STOP AT THIS POINT.  GO IN PEACE, EVERYONE. NATHANIEL BRANDEN

From: Nathaniel Branden Reply-To: brandenn To: "R. Christian Ross" atlantis Subject: ATL: Re: Reason Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2001 07:21:38 -0800. I would say, and I am confident Rand would agree, that what is inherent in our nature is the capacity to reason, assuming we go through normal stages of development (an infant can't reason, obviously).  The great student of cognitive development, Jean Piaget, maintained that if, during teen-age years, a person does not develop high level of cognitive abilities ("formal operations"), it is virtually impossible to develop them later in life.   If this is true, then the world is full of people whose reasoning ability is not absent but severely limited.

Reason as a process is, of course, epistemological, but as a capacity, inherent as a potential in our nature, it is, if you wish "metaphysical."

I put the word in quotes because, strictly speaking, metaphysics addresses only the fundamental nature of reality, not such things as the attributes of man or lower animals.

And, finally, in calling man "a rational animal," Rand meant (a) that we humans have a capacity to reason that differentiates us from lower animals (genus and differentia), but also (b) that that capacity explains more about our behavior than any other trait or attribute. Nathaniel Branden

From: Nathaniel Branden Reply-To: brandenn To: ATLANTIS Subject: ATL: ONE MORE THOUGHT Date: Fri, 23 Nov 2001 18:33:38 -0800

If one accepts that metaphysics is concerned only with being qua being, then one sees that volition is not "metaphysical." Such at any rate was Rand's position, which I share. Nathaniel Branden 

From: Nathaniel Branden To: atlantis Subject: ATL: one more Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2001 13:27:05 -0800

Oh, yes, one more. Anyone who thinks AR provided rational grounds for her assertion that no rational woman would want to be President of the U.S.--doesn't understand Objectivist epistemology. Nathaniel Branden

From: BBfromM To: atlantis Subject: ATL: Man-woman relationships Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2001 19:11:10 EST

I once read something that still has me laughing helplessly whenever I think of it. It was a book written by a raging feminist, and nowhere was there a hint of the possibility that any woman might react differently than she did -- except once. One turned a page to see another page that was blank except for one bold-faced line: EVERY WOMAN LOVES A FASCIST. There was no explanation and no reference to the line in the rest of the book.

I thought it hysterically funny, and I knew exactly what she meant. Barbara

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

On 6/18/2020 at 7:10 PM, Peter said:

Did someone say Branden? I hope nothing got double clicked, and repeated. I saw it happened once. Oh, and Nathaniel Branden stopped typing in capitals when someone told him it seemed he was yelling, Anthony. Peter

From: Nathaniel Branden Reply-To: brandenn To: "R. Christian Ross" < CC: atlantis Subject: ATL: Re: Reason Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2001 07:21:38 -0800

I would say, and I am confident Rand would agree, that what is inherent in our nature is the capacity to reason, assuming we go through normal stages of development (an infant can't reason, obviously).  The great student of cognitive development, Jean Piaget, maintained that if, during teen-age years, a person does not develop high level of cognitive abilities ("formal operations"), it is virtually impossible to develop them later in life.   If this is true, then the world is full of people whose reasoning ability is not absent but severely limited.

Reason as a process is, of course, epistemological, but as a capacity, inherent as a potential in our nature, it is, if you wish "metaphysical."

I put the word in quotes because, strictly speaking, metaphysics addresses only the fundamental nature of reality, not such things as the attributes of man or lower animals.

And, finally, in calling man "a rational animal," Rand meant (a) that we humans have a capacity to reason that differentiates us from lower animals (genus and differentia), but also (b) that that capacity explains more about our behavior than any other trait or attribute. Nathaniel Branden

From: Nathaniel Branden Reply-To: brandenn To: RogerEBissell CC: atlantis Subject: Re: ATL: Re: Reason Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2001 21:18:50 -0800. THE REASON WHY THERE IS SOME CONFUSION ON THIS POINT, I SUSPECT, IS THAT RAND SOMETIMES USED "METAPHYSICAL" TO MEAN "PERTAINING TO REALITY (USUALLY EXTERNAL REALITY), AS CONTRASTED WITH PERTAINING TO CONSCIOUSNESS, AND YOU WILL SEE THIS USAGE AMONG SOME HER FOLLOWERS. HOWEVER, PHILOSOPHICALLY, IT IS NOT PRECISE BECAUSE "MAN'S NATURE" IS AN EMPIRICAL, SCIENTIFIC ISSUE NOT A PHILOSOPHICAL ONE, ALTHOUGH IT OBVIOUSLY HAS PROFOUND PHILOSOPHICAL RAMIFICATIONS. NATHANIEL BRANDEN

From: Nathaniel Branden Reply-To: brandenn To: atlantisSubject: ATL: Objectivist metaphysics Date: Fri, 23 Nov 2001 13:55:08 -0800.

In response to my earlier post in which I explained that the definition of human nature is not part of metaphysics, I have been asked to elaborate on what is included in the domain of metaphysics.  It's an important question because it touches on one of the most important and distinctive features of Objectivism.

Rand rightly dismissed "cosmology" as not part of philosophy, insisting instead that it was the province of science.   She argued that metaphysics deals only with the most fundamental features of existence as such.   She set forth what has been called correctly "a minimalist metaphysics"--fundamental truths that no scientific discovery could disprove and that all scientific discoveries presupposed.   This came down to Aristotle's laws of logic, which (as she and others have observed) are also laws of reality (Brand Blanshard's "Reason and Analysis" is great on this point), and also the law of causality.  In other words, metaphysics is concerned with that which is true "of being qua being."

By this definition, the particular attributes of man or other animals are in the domain of science, meaning they are not "metaphysical."  However, as I observed in a previous note, Rand sometimes used the term

"metaphysical" more broadly to mean "pertaining to reality" as contrasted with "pertaining to consciousness"--, on other occasions, as meaning "pertaining to that which is given in nature" as contrasted with  the "man-made." I hope this clarification is helpful. Nathaniel Branden

From: Nathaniel Branden Reply-To: brandenn To: Michael Hardy <hardy CC: atlantis Subject: ATL: Re: Objectivist metaphysics Date: Fri, 23 Nov 2001 18:29:38 -0800 Michael Hardy wrote: >Nathaniel Branden <brandenn@pacbell.net> wrote that Ayn Rand set forth what has been called correctly "a minimalist metaphysics" --fundamental truths that no scientific discovery could disprove and  that all scientific discoveries presupposed.  This came down to Aristotle's laws of logic, which (as she and others have observed) are also laws of reality (Brand Blanshard's "Reason and Analysis" is great on this point), and also the law of causality.

 >I for one would have said the laws of logic belong to epistemology rather than metaphysics.  Can anyone explain this classification? Shouldn't the nature of free will also belong to metaphysics? Mike Hardy

THE LAWS OF LOGIC ARE, QUA LAWS OF THOUGHT, EPISTEMOLOGICAL, AND, QUA LAWS OF REALITY, METAPHYSICAL. NATHANIEL BRANDEN

From: Nathaniel Branden To: ATLANTIS Subject: ATL: ONE MORE THOUGHT Date: Fri, 23 Nov 2001 18:33:38 -0800/ If one accepts that metaphysics is concerned only with being qua being, then one sees that volition is not "metaphysical."

Such at any rate was Rand's position, which I share. Nathaniel Branden

From: Nathaniel Branden Reply-To: brandenn To: Michael Hardy <hardy CC: atlantis Subject: ATL: Re: free will & epistemology Date: Sat, 24 Nov 2001 15:51:10 -0800

Michael Hardy wrote: > Nathaniel Branden <brandenn@pacbell.net> wrote: > If volition does not belong in metaphysics, where does it belong among the branches of philosophy?  Good question.  I would venture to say...epistemology.

 >The argument you wrote that appeared in _The_Objectivist_, and which was also put forth by miscellaneous philosophers before that, and by me when I was in 12th grade, could be summarized by saying "epistemology presupposes free will", and Leonard Peikoff did put it in those words in his 12-lecture course he delivered under Ayn Rand's supervision in 1976.  It has also been observed, by a much larger number of philosophers and others, that *ethics* also presupposes free will.  To say that ethics presupposes free will does not mean that ethics is the branch of philosophy in which the nature of free will belongs, and the same is true of epistemology.

 > Nathaniel, in your 20-lecture basic course at NBI you said philosophy is the attempt to answer three questions: (1) What exists? (2) How do you know?  (3) So what?  Epistemology deals with the second question.  Why is free will a part of the answer to the second question?  Saying only that epistemology presupposes free will fails to answer this unless you also want to say epistemology is a part of ethics.     -- Mike Hardy

IF SOMEONE WANTS TO EXPAND THE MEANING OF METAPHYSICS TO INCLUDE "THE FUNDAMENTAL NATURE OF MAN," SO BE IT, NO ONE IS GOING TO ARREST HIM (OR HER); NO ONE IS EVEN LIKELY TO GET EXCITED ABOUT THE QUESTION, ONE WAY OR THE OTHER.

I SUGGESTED THAT VOLITION BELONGS AS PART OF THE FOUNDATION OF EPISTEMOLOGY, IN THE OBJECTIVIST SYSTEM, BECAUSE THAT FOUNDATION HAS ALWAYS STRESSED THE NON-INFALLIBLE, NON-OMNISCIENT NATURE OF HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS, AND THE SIGNIFICANCE OF VOLITION IN THIS CONTEXT.

I DON'T KNOW HOW TO MAKE MY VIEWPOINT ANY CLEARER, SO I AM GOING TO STOP AT THIS POINT.  GO IN PEACE, EVERYONE. NATHANIEL BRANDEN

From: Nathaniel Branden Reply-To: brandenn To: "R. Christian Ross" atlantis Subject: ATL: Re: Reason Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2001 07:21:38 -0800. I would say, and I am confident Rand would agree, that what is inherent in our nature is the capacity to reason, assuming we go through normal stages of development (an infant can't reason, obviously).  The great student of cognitive development, Jean Piaget, maintained that if, during teen-age years, a person does not develop high level of cognitive abilities ("formal operations"), it is virtually impossible to develop them later in life.   If this is true, then the world is full of people whose reasoning ability is not absent but severely limited.

Reason as a process is, of course, epistemological, but as a capacity, inherent as a potential in our nature, it is, if you wish "metaphysical."

I put the word in quotes because, strictly speaking, metaphysics addresses only the fundamental nature of reality, not such things as the attributes of man or lower animals.

And, finally, in calling man "a rational animal," Rand meant (a) that we humans have a capacity to reason that differentiates us from lower animals (genus and differentia), but also (b) that that capacity explains more about our behavior than any other trait or attribute. Nathaniel Branden

From: Nathaniel Branden Reply-To: brandenn To: ATLANTIS Subject: ATL: ONE MORE THOUGHT Date: Fri, 23 Nov 2001 18:33:38 -0800

If one accepts that metaphysics is concerned only with being qua being, then one sees that volition is not "metaphysical." Such at any rate was Rand's position, which I share. Nathaniel Branden 

From: Nathaniel Branden To: atlantis Subject: ATL: one more Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2001 13:27:05 -0800

Oh, yes, one more. Anyone who thinks AR provided rational grounds for her assertion that no rational woman would want to be President of the U.S.--doesn't understand Objectivist epistemology. Nathaniel Branden

From: BBfromM To: atlantis Subject: ATL: Man-woman relationships Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2001 19:11:10 EST

I once read something that still has me laughing helplessly whenever I think of it. It was a book written by a raging feminist, and nowhere was there a hint of the possibility that any woman might react differently than she did -- except once. One turned a page to see another page that was blank except for one bold-faced line: EVERY WOMAN LOVES A FASCIST. There was no explanation and no reference to the line in the rest of the book.

I thought it hysterically funny, and I knew exactly what she meant. Barbara

Peter,

This post is a mindfuck about metaphysics and Objectivism.

It caught me off-guard a bit, even though I know enough that it should not have done that.

NB claimed that Rand used metaphysics with two different meanings. And this part I knew, although I never put it in words before.

But now that the words are explicit for me, I'm going to have to think on it a bit. Why? Because I smell a variation of formal dualism here under a different brand.

I ALWAYS thought metaphysics meant all of existence, including volition. That's what Primacy of Existence has always meant to me.

When I think on it, the idea of severing volition from metaphysics is weird. But then Rand did write essays with titles like "The Metaphysical Versus the Man-Made." I have read this kind of writing from Rand and quoted it. I am quite familiar with it. So I'm not blaming NB for how he said what he said to Mike Hardy. (I will blame him, though, for trying to say that attributes don't exist in the sense of being mumble mumble mumble...)

It never occurred to me before to line this meaning of metaphysics up against Primacy of Existence and I have no excuse for that other than being zonked out intellectually (until now).  

Why did Rand do that? The best I can come up with is that sometimes she was using the word "metaphysics" as a shorthand to mean "existence without humans" rather than talking about a full-fledged category of philosophy. In fact, that's kind of how I intuited the term to mean when reading those things of hers.

At other times Rand talked about Primacy of Existence and of course volition exists. So volition was part of existence for her, i.e., part of metaphysics.

The shorthand version, to me, is Rand creating her own jargon and trying to sound sophisticated at the same time. Man... she didn't need to do that...

Oh well. If that's what she did, that's what she did. She did it with other terms, too, like selfishness and art and so on. So we'll just have to live with it.

But this means when Rand says metaphysical, you have to look hard at the context. In one instance, she is talking about the same thing as other philosophers. In another, she is not.

As to Rand and dualism as I mentioned above, I suspect there is more there than I suspect, if that makes any sense.  Like I said, I need to think on it.

On a personal note, I once exchanged a few emails with NB. I asked him what consciousness was made of. He replied: "Consciousness."

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

5 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

But this means when Rand says metaphysical, you have to look hard at the context. In one instance, she is talking about the same thing as other philosophers. In another, she is not.

Right, Rand used two different meanings of "metaphysical," and, as best I recall, without ever explaining that she was doing that, maybe without realizing she was doing it.

5 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

As to Rand and dualism as I mentioned above, I suspect there is more there than I suspect, if that makes any sense.  Like I said, I need to think on it.

I haven't read through the material Peter posted, and I don't know if the issue of Objectivism's being dualist comes up in it. However, that issue was discussed at some point on one of the Atlantis lists.  The conclusion of those who weren't reacting reflexively to the very idea of Objectivism's being dualist was that at minimum it's attribute dualist and possibly substance dualist.

Ellen

[anthony]

When it comes down to it, the universally popular idea is that emotions are true: one's exact, correct identifiers and morally-valid expressions. Denying that having to know "what it is" (obviously) before any appropriate emotion is even possible, is a self-contradiction. You can't have an emotion until you know what is there. Good for me, bad for me? The sensory-identification is that fast in a brain, we aren't aware of making it. This has also quite a Kantian origin and influence. That Sublime event, "mathematical" or "dynamic", renders - first  - a sensation of awe or terror or other feelings, and will then be  - followed - with reason, in his estimation. What WAS that!? That is true, for extreme phenomena (and Kant had examples) of sound and vision. The hiatus or "brain-freeze" one's mind briefly enters - before being able to identify the cause - is entirely natural and normal. Not knowing is scary, the proper subconscious response for one's immediate preservation (as Dg and I discuss). Remember your reaction to the sudden, unanticipated thunder clap overhead? Or that awesome loss of scale one feels when being confronted with a huge, looming mountain peak? But only true in briefly un-identifiable instants. And - these are *sensations* direct to the brain, Kant describes, not emotions.

Doesn't matter who by, e.g. Hume, etc., the fond notion that one's emotions take precedence in the causal chain, and are one's main means of identification and evaluation, persists.

[Brant Gaede]

Metaphysics is reality and epistemology is thinking about it. Put both in the brain and turn on the blender. Therein they are one and the same. They are only separate with abstraction. 

--Brant

[Peter]

17 hours ago, Ellen Stuttle said:

Right, Rand used two different meanings of "metaphysical,"

I don’t remember if I shared these before. Ellen’s letter was in a thread about “dualism” at some points. Ross Lavater was a medical doctor “with a reputation” in Las Vegas, the last I heard. Sorry if these are repeats. Peter

From: Ellen Stuttle To: atlantis Subject: ATL: "Free" Will (was RE: Objectivism???) Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 01:45:42 -0500 Bill writes: >Even in my own case, as a (soft) determinist, I still believe in the relevance of mental focus to the exercise of reason.  I just don't think that the initiation of mental focus (or of any other action) is "free" in the sense that it could have been otherwise under identical conditions.

This is an example of why I keep objecting to the term "*free* will." I remember a discussion you and I had some while back (I don't remember exactly when) in which I questioned you to the effect: Are you saying that, for instance, you can't notice that your mind is drifting off a subject and then pull your mind back to the subject?

You said, oh, of course you could do this!  But I would never have gathered from any of your previous discussions of "free will" that you were aware that you could do this.  But it's an example of the exercise of "volition" (meaning the capacity for self-aware regulation, within limits, of what one's mind is doing).

On the other hand, the examples you keep citing, such as your favorite of voting for a candidate of whom one doesn't approve -- i.e., acting contrary to one's values in a circumstance where one is awake, alert, and aware of what one values -- aren't something which Objectivism, as I understand it, says one can do. In sum, I think that you keep arguing against a straw freedom instead of talking about *volition*. Ellen S.

From: DXIMGR To: atlantis Subject: ATL: Dueling with Dualism...A Problem for Bill Dwyer Date: Tue, 24 Dec 2002 23:58:46 EST Bill Dwyer writes, surely without great reflection: <<Contrary to Cartesian dualism, mental activity just ~is~ brain activity (experienced subjectively).  Without the brain and sense organs, consciousness would not exist; it is absolutely dependent on the physical body.  >>

The 50th floor of a skyscraper would not exist without the lower 49 floors and foundation. It is absolutely dependent on them. Yet we don't think that the 50th floor just ~is~ the lower 49 floors.

What does Bill mean, in this context, by the proviso "experienced subjectively"? Usually that phrase would mean, as experienced by the individual mentally, but here we're trying to understand what mental activity itself is. When Bill says that mental activity ~is~ brain activity viewed subjectively, does he mean that mental activity is brain activity viewing itself as brain activity, or does he mean that it is brain activity viewing itself as mental activity? If the former, it's either nonsense or manifestly false (when I think of myself thinking, I'm not imaging neurotransmitters crossing synapses); if the latter, its a circular definition that includes the defined term in the definition. So what is it, Bill? Inquiring minds....er, brains...want to know. Ross L.

[Ellen Stuttle]

15 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

Metaphysics is reality and epistemology is thinking about it. Put both in the brain and turn on the blender. Therein they are one and the same. They are only separate with abstraction. 

--Brant

I think you need a better blender.

Ellen