Intellectual debate: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

[Paul Mawdsley]

ROFL!

Translation please.

Edit: Never mind. I Googled it. It wasn't that funny.

Edited January 22, 2007 by Paul Mawdsley

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Paul,

LOL...

Actually that was kind of funny...

Michael

[sjw]

Paul,

LOL...

Actually that was kind of funny...

Michael

If he didn't mean it to be, I can see how he wouldn't find it that funny ;)

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Shayne,

My addition to my previous post crossed with your post. I have transferred it to here for the thread to make sense. The addition is:

(Gentle affectionate poke in the ribs, of course. Not put-down type mocking.)

Michael

[Paul Mawdsley]

(Gentle affectionate poke in the ribs, of course. Not put-down type mocking.)

Ditto.

btw--please let me know if I am funny in the future.

Thanks,

Paul

Edited January 22, 2007 by Paul Mawdsley

[Victor Pross]

Oversimplification is not "thinking in principles" and making smart-ass put-downs is not "passionate discourse.

Michael,

Don't be too hard on smart-ass put-downs. There is something to be said for a species of sarcastic insults freely exchanged among friends and TV sitcom characters, esp. since the extinction of dueling.

Victor

edit:

Oversimplification is not thinking in principles? Simple, but true. Have you concerned yourself with the issue of when someone is “thinking in principles” and it wrongly being called oversimplification?

What is the next put-down caricature you need me to render? Come on, put me to work.

Edited January 22, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Victor,

It is true that I vastly prefer your caricatures to your sarcastic comments. Something to do with innate talent, maybe...

Have you thought about doing a nude of... ?... er... you already did that...

I'll think of something.

Michael

[Victor Pross]

Victor,

It is true that I vastly prefer your caricatures to your sarcastic comments. Something to do with innate talent, maybe...

Have you thought about doing a nude of... ?... er... you already did that...

I'll think of something.

Michael

Michael,

Sometimes my caricatures are painted barbs.

I would be happy to draw a nude picture of...yeah, you know...but it wouldn't be erotic art, but rather pornography.

Put me to work. I'm getting moody.

-Victor

Edited January 22, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Brant Gaede]

..........:logik:

reason v. emotion. That's me, standing on the "v," trying to figure it out.

--Brant

Edited January 22, 2007 by Brant Gaede

[Paul Mawdsley]

.......... :logik:

reason v. emotion. That's me, standing on the "v," trying to figure it out.

--Brant

What if it's mode of reason 'A' vs mode of reason 'B', with emotion being connected primarily to one of the modes of reason?

[Danneskjold]

Emotion should be integrated, not in control. As a teenager I see the first hand effects of someone acting on things primarily using emotion and it's never good. Girls stay with cheating boyfriend, guys get in fights, just the little things that show that these people aren't being rational and end up putting them through hard times. They are very easily avoidable if someone tries to avoid them, but I have never seen emotion try to evade pain once it is attached to a person or think.

[Brant Gaede]

.......... :logik:

reason v. emotion. That's me, standing on the "v," trying to figure it out.

--Brant

What if it's mode of reason 'A' vs mode of reason 'B', with emotion being connected primarily to one of the modes of reason?

Logic! Use logic!

--Brant

Edited January 22, 2007 by Brant Gaede

[sjw]

What if it's mode of reason 'A' vs mode of reason 'B', with emotion being connected primarily to one of the modes of reason?

So now we wouldn't just have reason/emotion conflicts, but "reason A"/"reason B"/emotion conflicts. Talk about multiplying beyond necessity... Ack!

I'm thinking that some people need to re-read Peikoff's "Analytic/Synthetic Dichotomy".

[Paul Mawdsley]

.......... :logik:

reason v. emotion. That's me, standing on the "v," trying to figure it out.

--Brant

What if it's mode of reason 'A' vs mode of reason 'B', with emotion being connected primarily to one of the modes of reason?

Logic! Use logic!

--Brant

Logic is one mode of reason. Applied mathematics is another. When they produce different conclusions, which one is right? Logic is not always right because it is dependent on what evidence is used, on the boundaries that are drawn in establishing our definitions, and the context in which these definitions are set. I am saying our boundaries could be better drawn for conceptualizing the emergent properties of consciousness so that more evidence can be integrated.

Reason (or rationality) is the faculty that grasps relationships. It is the faculty that makes distinctions and looks for connections, that abstracts and unites, that differentiates and integrates. Reason generates principles from concrete facts (induction), applies general principles to concrete facts (deduction), and relates new knowledge and information to our existing context of knowledge. Its guide is the law of non-contradiction.

[...]

Reason is an evolutionary development. It is the instrument of awareness raised to the conceptual level. It is the power of integration inherent in life made explicit and self-conscious. (Branden,The Art of Living Consciously, p. 36-37.)

Personally, I think this description of reason is terrific. Nowhere here does it equate reason with logic. "Reason is an evolutionary development." I am saying that in our earlier stages of development, individually and as a species, we grasped relationships, made distinctions and connections, abstracted and united, differentiated and integrated using a non-symbolic mode of reasoning in which we were (and are) able to manipulate the images in our imagination directly, without the need of a programming interface. This is what our intuitive processes do. These processes operate according to the principles of identity and causality that we have abstracted from our experience. This is causal reasoning. When the conclusions generated by intuitive causal reasoning conflict with the conclusions of intentional conscious processes, we have a sign that there is disagreement between two perspectives within us. To assume logic is always right is simply to take sides. This is not using "the power of integration inherent in life."

Emotions are closely connected with our more developmentally primary mode of conceptual integration, intuitive causal (and metaphorical) reasoning. This is why we think of emotions as being irrational. They are connected with poorly evolved intuitive perspectives. These intuitive perspectives are poorly evolved, for some, because they have been overthrown by adopting someone else's rational frameworks. (Note: This is a general comment not directed at Brant or anyone else.) This is how a Randroid is born. This is the downside of the fact that language allows us to advance our rational frameworks by taking in someone else's perspective ahead of our authentic intuitive perspective's ability to evaluate these frameworks. When I broke free of my Randroid phase, it was my intuitive perspective that powered my struggle and led to my enlightenment. Now I am finding words to express the intuitive perspective I have developed.

Paul

Edited January 22, 2007 by Paul Mawdsley

[Paul Mawdsley]

What if it's mode of reason 'A' vs mode of reason 'B', with emotion being connected primarily to one of the modes of reason?

So now we wouldn't just have reason/emotion conflicts, but "reason A"/"reason B"/emotion conflicts. Talk about multiplying beyond necessity... Ack!

I'm thinking that some people need to re-read Peikoff's "Analytic/Synthetic Dichotomy".

Emotions don't conflict. They express what things mean to the organism and inform us about that meaning. Concepts conflict.

[Kevin Haggerty]

Emotion should be integrated, not in control. As a teenager I see the first hand effects of someone acting on things primarily using emotion and it's never good. Girls stay with cheating boyfriend, guys get in fights, just the little things that show that these people aren't being rational and end up putting them through hard times. They are very easily avoidable if someone tries to avoid them, but I have never seen emotion try to evade pain once it is attached to a person or think.

This is interesting, because I would say that the folks in your examples are specifically not acting on their emotions, that is, all their emotions. They're cherry picking, if you will, and cherry picking when it comes to reality is a real problem no matter what information you're trying to process. The girl feels a whole lot of pain and betrayal form being cheated on which she chooses to blank out. The guy who gets into fights likely lets one set of emotions (aggression, rage, low self-esteem) override many others (like fear, sorrow, and empathy). And so with any addictive behavior, the "high" outweighs the "low" because the addict has set his mind on removing the "low" and found a way to do it, at least in the short term. It is the addict's desire to avoid emotion, control it, remove what he thinks of as the "bad ones," that gets him in trouble in the first place.

I would agree that such folk aren't being rational, but they aren't "being emotional" either. They're exercising very poor judgement. Judgement, not based on emotion, but judgement based on the false premise that the so-called "good" emotions they associate with their behavior, outweighs the "bad" emotions that innevitably follow.

Relating to Victor's essay, it seems to me that, really, it's only certain emotions that do the majority of the "blinding." Interestingly, these emotions often blind the individual to other important emotions.

I don't think the issue is whether a person is "ruled" by emotion or not. Everyone tries to be rational. They do. Seriously, drop the misanthropy and you will see that people are always making choices, always making judgement calls. Their actions make sense to them, the best sense they can make--"It seemed like a good idea at the time." Every action we take is preferable to some other, to our minds, less logical action. To the girl in your post it's not logical to dump her cheating boyfriend, because the benefits of being part of a couple outweigh the consequences--you gotta know she's tallying stuff up in her mind like that, it's how humans deal with problems. Man is a reasoning animal, reason is our tool for survival--which suggests that if we're surviving, we must be using our reason at least enough to keep us above ground. That's why the lady enjoins us to check our premises, it's our faulty premises (often fueled by emotion, to be sure) which mess us up, not our ungovernable emotional experiences.

Healthy self-esteem is the emotional consequence of good premises.

-Kevin

[sjw]

Logic is one mode of reason. Applied mathematics is another.

Logic is not a "mode" of reason; it's *the* method of reason that should be applied everywhere, including to math. Mathematics is most definitely logical.

When I broke free of my Randroid phase, it was my intuitive perspective that powered my struggle and led to my enlightenment. Now I am finding words to express the intuitive perspective I have developed.

This pattern is too common on the anti-ARI side--someone never understands Objectivism in the first place, and then attacks that strawman understanding later after they discover it doesn't work. Indeed, that's a large part of why "Randroids" act like they do: they see people who most definitely never did get Objectivism, and then lump everyone with a criticism into that pile. Which is why anyone who wants to criticize ARI had better be damn sure that they were rigorous in their study of Objectivism in the first place, and not some hack emotionalist.

But getting back to your comments Paul: You allege that your paradigm explains how we ought to think better than Objectivism, but all you have are assertions. If you really want to further your view here, you need an example of how the Objectivist method applies and breaks down to some particular line of thinking, and how your approach comes to the rescue. Of course, when you do that, you're putting your understanding of Objectivism on the line. It'll take some courage. But until you do that, what you are saying is just a lot of hot air.

Edited January 22, 2007 by sjw

[sjw]

Emotions don't conflict. They express what things mean to the organism and inform us about that meaning. Concepts conflict.

Sigh...

Do you really not understand what is meant by "a conflict between reason and emotion"? In Objectivism, that means that some previously accepted ideas are conflicting with ideas in conscious awareness. That's what it means. I don't know what you think you're getting from the phrase, but it looks to me like a pointless quibble at best and a complete lack of understanding of the Objectivist position at worst.

[Paul Mawdsley]

Emotions don't conflict. They express what things mean to the organism and inform us about that meaning. Concepts conflict.

Sigh...

Do you really not understand what is meant by "a conflict between reason and emotion"? In Objectivism, that means that some previously accepted ideas are conflicting with ideas in conscious awareness. That's what it means. I don't know what you think you're getting from the phrase, but it looks to me like a pointless quibble at best and a complete lack of understanding of the Objectivist position at worst.

So emotions are ideas?

Btw-- While I include Objectivist principles in my thinking, my perspective is broader than Objectivism so my understanding of "what is meant by a conflict between reason and emotion" has a broader context. I don't pointlessly "quibble," nor do I have "a complete lack of understanding of the Objectivist position." The world is bigger than Objectivism. If this is what you think of my position and you are unable to consider another option, then we would be best to avoid discussing things.

[sjw]

So emotions are ideas?

Have you even bothered to read anything about Objectivism's view of emotions other than what NB said? Of course they are not ideas!

Btw-- While I include Objectivist principles in my thinking, my perspective is broader than Objectivism so my understanding of "what is meant by a conflict between reason and emotion" has a broader context. I don't pointlessly "quibble," nor do I have "a complete lack of understanding of the Objectivist position." The world is bigger than Objectivism. If this is what you think of my position and you are unable to consider another option, then we would be best to avoid discussing things.

It would be best if you took your "broader perspective" and made into an informed one. You should not comment on "Objectivism says this and that" if you don't even know what it says. That's irresponsible.

[Paul Mawdsley]

So emotions are ideas?

Have you even bothered to read anything about Objectivism's view of emotions other than what NB said? Of course they are not ideas!

What you wrote made it appear as if emotions were ideas. I was just trying to clarify your view of emotions, not the Objectivist view.

It would be best if you took your "broader perspective" and made into an informed one. You should not comment on "Objectivism says this and that" if you don't even know what it says. That's irresponsible.

I would like to know if I made an error. Where, on this thread, did I comment on what Objectivism says without knowing what it says? I try not to comment on the specifics of what Rand says except in relation to basic principles. More derivative ideas and opinions I am less interested in at this time. Did I get her basic principles wrong somewhere? Did I say her view of emotions and reason were different to what they are? Or are you confusing me presenting my own authentic personal perspective with saying what Rand's is?

[sjw]

What you wrote made it appear as if emotions were ideas. I was just trying to clarify your view of emotions, not the Objectivist view.

I of course agree with the Objectivist view. And I don't see anything in what I said that would imply otherwise. I sort of see what you might be doing that's making it hard for you to read and hold context. Look at this Rand quote:

"Am emotion that clashes with your reason, an emotion that you cannot explain or control, is only the carcass of that stale thinking which you forbade your mind to revise."--Ayn Rand

She indicates that emotions can clash, and what that means. You seem to have some "materialistic" interpretation that doesn't let you accept this as precise, even though it is perfectly precise. When we experience the clash, it "feels" like we want to do one thing, but we "think" we should do another. That is how we experience it. The explanation is that the emotion is being called up because of a conflict in our ideas. That doesn't contradict the way of putting it as "emotions conflicting with reason", it *explains* the conflict by explaining that emotions are really a product of your thinking.

I would like to know if I made an error. Where, on this thread, did I comment on what Objectivism says without knowing what it says?

You claim, implicitly, that Objectivism's epistemology is not sufficient to explain some unspecified things that you think your theory explains. Then you toss around the insulting word "Randroid" and say how you've grown beyond that (when growing beyond implies that one understood it in the first place). All without citing even a single specific thing in Objectivism that is actually wrong or insufficient (not that I claim it's fully complete--but I would claim that it's a nice solid foundation for many other things). So no, you never commented on something Objectivism says, because you're criticizing without saying anything at all about it other than that it's wrong and that someone is a Randroid if they think it's right.

What's your purpose, just to brag about your great theory without giving any details about it or the system it allegedly does better than? Just how do you think this empty bragging combined with unsubstantiated attacks on Objectivism should be taken?

Edited January 22, 2007 by sjw

[Paul Mawdsley]

What's your purpose, just to brag about your great theory without giving any details about it or the system it allegedly does better than? Just how do you think this empty bragging combined with unsubstantiated attacks on Objectivism should be taken?

Shayne,

You've nailed me. There is nothing more you need to know.

Paul

[Brant Gaede]

Keep it simple, just to start: Reason is logic applied to facts. Subsequently we are being elaborative and descriptive. Logic is not one form of reason. There is not more than one form unless you want to embrace irrationality. Now one can posit sub-categories of reason, such as "intuitive" reason, but the products of such can only be validated by the primary category. Such sub-categories might even be labeled "mystical"--or what-have-you. They are NOT validating techniques, only investigative, and are not really reason at all.

--Brant

[Rich Engle]

"Am emotion that clashes with your reason, an emotion that you cannot explain or control, is only the carcass of that stale thinking which you forbade your mind to revise."--Ayn Rand

Sometimes, or always? Hmmm?

Like, what if your reasoning is incomplete or faulty (as it can be on occasion), and your emotions are telling you that? An awfully good stopguard for something no more than roadkill.

Rand treats emotions as byproducts. Are they always? If there was anywhere she was the weakest, it was in the area of psychology. Heck, she pretty much admitted that.

Goleman and his like, as well as many evolutionary psychologists, have brought out a great deal that shows the emotional center, emotions, to be much more than Rand described them in her day.

Edited January 22, 2007 by Rich Engle