Bluewing thinks Feeling has cooties

[Samuel De Mazarin]

I disagree, Bluewing... for the simple reason that in every logical argument there must be premises, axioms, which govern the inferential steps which ensue. These foundational statements of accepted truths and governing principles, the premises/axioms which undergird all logical thinking thereafter, must be based in some part on a value judgment. Thus, a highly-developed feeling function is imperative to making decisions based on reason.

Furthermore, those few disciplines which rely on axioms which are not value-based cannot be gainfully applied to truly human endeavors and governance without impositions of values. Pure mathematics is the only value-free discipline around and ultimately, as a result of its value-lessness, it becomes worthless when its lessons are applied rigorously to truly human sciences and affairs. The realms of physics and biology and chemistry are fraught with problems for he/she who would discard Feeling in applying lessons from physics and biology and chemistry to truly human realms, the problem of the erroneous extrapolation from 'is' to 'ought'.

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Feeling is our foundation and the edifice of pure thinking / logical inference is entirely dependent on that foundation when the resulting structure would be used in human affairs like politics or moral issues.

 

[Little Linguist]

Look, Bluey, I'm not trying to attack you, buddy. Really. But sometimes I think you need to curb your passionate crusade and think about how to really change things. Granted, speculation for speculation's sake is interesting, but not if you constantly spew theoretical diatribes without any possible effect and/or possibility for development.

I want to know what you would do if you were president. And spare me the philosophical jibberish. I mean REAL POLICY. Because if you cannot provide us with that, your critique of people who try to make this world livable is unfounded in my eyes, no matter how messed up politicians are.

Socialization IS AWFUL - I agree. But if you let everyone try to decide what is rational, that would be awful, by your own OBSERVATION that NOT everyone is rational. So you are just spewing theoretical nonsense that is not even consistent because you are on a crusade against feeling.

No worries. If you want to annihilate feeling because you cannot stand feeling, go ahead. I won't stop you, pal. But don't try to mask your ideas with long vocabulary words and eloquent academia. Just call it a diatribe against feeling with no purpose other than to serve as a ventile for your Fi that you suppress.

 

[Little Linguist]

I disagree, Bluewing... for the simple reason that in every logical argument there must be premises, axioms, which govern the inferential steps which ensue. These foundational statements of accepted truths and governing principles, the premises/axioms which undergird all logical thinking thereafter, must be based in some part on a value judgment. Thus, a highly-developed feeling function is imperative to making decisions based on reason.

Furthermore, those few disciplines which rely on axioms which are not value-based cannot be gainfully applied to truly human endeavors and governance without impositions of values. Thus, pure mathematics is perhaps the only value-free discipline which ultimately, as a result of its value-lessness, becomes worthless when its lessons are applied rigorously to truly human sciences and affairs. The realms of physics and biology and chemistry are fraught with problems for he/she who would discard Feeling in applying lessons from physics and biology and chemistry to truly human realms, the problem of the erroneous extrapolation from 'is' to 'ought'.

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Feeling is our foundation and the edifice of pure thinking / logical inference is entirely dependent on that foundation when the resulting structure would be used in human affairs like politics or moral issues.

Okay, this makes more sense to me.

 

[SolitaryWalker]

I disagree, Bluewing... for the simple reason that in every logical argument there must be premises, axioms, which govern the inferential steps which ensue. These foundational statements of accepted truths and governing principles, the premises/axioms which undergird all logical thinking thereafter, must be based in some part on a value judgment.issues.

Yes. What we need is not an arbitrary value judgment. But dispassionate analysis of those value judgments. Obviously we cannot altogether get rid of subjectivity, but we must make an effort to cut back on it as much as possible.

The fact that we can't get the whole task accomplished is no excuse not to attempt it at all.

Thus, a highly-developed feeling function is imperative to making decisions based on reason..

True, but irrelevant. It is still in the backseat to the dispassionate rationale.

Furthermore, those few disciplines which rely on axioms which are not value-based cannot be gainfully applied to truly human endeavors and governance without impositions of values. ..

Again, we need to analyze the human element as dispassionately as possible. We can figure out why we hold the values that we do, whether it is possible that they be changed, is that desirable, and if yes for both, how we should go about changing them.

Thus, pure mathematics is perhaps the only value-free discipline which ultimately, as a result of its value-lessness, becomes worthless when its lessons are applied rigorously to truly human sciences and affairs...

Philosophy is the endeavor of applying the rigorous, value-less judgment most notable in mathematics to all things. It is obviously not as organized and clear-cut as mathematics, but it has made significant progress and we have reasons to expect for this to continue to happen.

 

[SolitaryWalker]

Look, Bluey, I'm not trying to attack you, buddy. Really. But sometimes I think you need to curb your passionate crusade and think about how to really change things. Granted, speculation for speculation's sake is interesting, but not if you constantly spew theoretical diatribes without any possible effect and/or possibility for development.

I want to know what you would do if you were president. And spare me the philosophical jibberish. I mean REAL POLICY. Because if you cannot provide us with that, your critique of people who try to make this world livable is unfounded in my eyes, no matter how messed up politicians are.

Socialization IS AWFUL - I agree. But if you let everyone try to decide what is rational, that would be awful, by your own OBSERVATION that NOT everyone is rational. So you are just spewing theoretical nonsense that is not even consistent because you are on a crusade against feeling.

No worries. If you want to annihilate feeling because you cannot stand feeling, go ahead. I won't stop you, pal. But don't try to mask your ideas with long vocabulary words and eloquent academia. Just call it a diatribe against feeling with no purpose other than to serve as a ventile for your Fi that you suppress.

I have not yet figured out how to make this happen. Its not primarily a diatribe, because there is rationale for why such a view is sound in theory.

Its all very consistent.

Not everyone is rational? Too bad. We are going to set up a society in a way that they will have to be rational, or starve!

 

[Samuel De Mazarin]

Yes. What we need is not an arbitrary value judgment. But dispassionate analysis of those value judgments. Obviously we cannot altogether get rid of subjectivity, but we must make an effort to cut back on it as much as possible.

Yes... I agree.

The fact that we can't get the whole task accomplished is no excuse not to attempt it at all.

I never said that... indeed, I am quite sympathetic to your viewpoint on the whole, but I was wary of the possibility of reading your words (which some obviously have) as saying that Feeling needs to be abolished or tossed aside when making judgments on issues in human affairs. To be human is necessarily to feel (among other things). Would it be fair to say the brush of feeling might do with significant pruning with the shears of dispassionate reason? Yes... wholeheartedly.

True, but irrelevant. It is still in the backseat to the dispassionate rationale.

It's not at all irrelevant that value-judgments provide the foundation for dispassionate rationale in the construction of models of behavior! Far from taking a backseat, feeling-based intuitive understandings of human behavior, the role of empathy in moral judgments, is of paramount importance. Without feeling, our moral universe would probably collapse, because most people's moral universes are founded not on Kantian edicts but on instinctive repulsion from inflicting harm on other human beings.

Again, we need to analyze the human element as dispassionately as possible. We can figure out why we hold the values that we do, whether it is possible that they be changed, is that desirable, and if yes for both, how we should go about changing them.

Okay... works for me.

Philosophy is the endeavor of applying the rigorous, value-less judgment most notable in mathematics to all things. It is obviously not as organized and clear-cut as mathematics, but it has made significant progress and we have reasons to expect for this to continue to happen.

I myself am one of philosophy's biggest fans, but I have been irreparably affected by excellent arguments by the likes of Nietzsche and Derrida, who alerted me to the fact that the form of logic-centrism you're espousing, if taken too far, can do grave injustice to the humanity of the human beings concerned in the philosophical endeavor at hand.

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On an aside...

I think you have much to provide and am a bit surprised that you present so much excellent work on this forum... usually posts are of the tyro sort, with good-thinking but poor execution, since the very nature of this forum is to be informal. But I assume you have done some publishing and do the academic rounds. You will find in me a supporter bitten by the bug of skepticism.

 

[Night]

I am not saying I have the answer. All I am saying is, we need to sit down with a cool-head, lay our values aside and analyze the problem as carefully and dispassionately as possible. We are not doing this because our personal sentiments get in the way and we are too worried about being impinged upon by people whose values may be offended.

Nicely theorized.

Reason is not a singular intellectual tree - neither is emotion. Our brains cannot clinically divorce one from the other, as one would select an apple from a pear. Conscious efforts to magnify either for a sustained period are not without infection - emotion is but evolved instinct; logic but a mechanical description of falsifiable event. The fusion of these schools is what we commonly describe as one's psychological makeup and is impossibly linked the inherent sustainability of the individual to use both accurately and appropriately.

Laying values aside for the purpose of mutual gain presuposes that reason is inherently able to generate the best-fitting solution to any paradigm; that emotion will create summary failure.

This isn't the case.

 

[SolitaryWalker]

Nicely theorized.

Reason is not a singular intellectual tree - neither is emotion. Our brains cannot clinically divorce one from the other, as one would select an apple from a pear. Conscious efforts to magnify either for a sustained period are not without infection - emotion is but evolved instinct; logic but a mechanical description of falsifiable event. The fusion of these schools is what we commonly describe as one's psychological makeup.

Laying values aside for the purpose of mutual gain pressuposes that reason is inherently able to generate the best-fitting solution to any paradigm; that emotion will create summary failure.

This isn't the case.

Whats the problem? Dont just say you feel an emotion. Try to make sense of it. Not sure if I see the reason why this would not work. Or was this what you were implying. Not sure how to interpret the thesis of your post. What is your point?

Important claims in your post seemed to involve the following:

Emotion is part of who we are. Cannot get rid of it. Yes, I get that, so what?

 

[Night]

Whats the problem? Dont just say you feel an emotion. Try to make sense of it.

Precisely why their divorce is impossible.

A mind determined to make sense of emotion will unavoidably allow emotion to toxify reason; reason to disrupt emotion.

I agree with your mindset. Yet, in a purely scientific/logical sense, it isn't possible to absolutely distinguish the two.

Emotion is part of who we are. Cannot get rid of it. Yes, I get that, so what?

Do you want legitimate theory or not? Pure results must involve untainted variables/critical objectivity.

 

[Samuel De Mazarin]

My biggest fear, Bluewing, is that the sort of dispassionate thinking you are forwarding is found only in the domain of a handful of people... higher academics, yogis, people with a deep understanding of themselves...

Meaning, imagine that I had great difficulty divorcing myself from many of the prejudices of my society until I developed deeper emotional understanding of myself.... this deeper emotional understanding of myself allowed me to more fully embrace and/or explore philosophies and thought-systems that thitherto would have been alien or downright noxious to my own. Contrariwise, most people are very grounded in their beliefs and haven't even the inclination to attempt such a revolution of understanding in themselves.

I mean, we have as much proof as one could possibly need for a landing on the moon, and there are disbelievers. There has been so much research done on animal emotion, and yet many people persist in believing that animals don't have feelings (they remind me of those Medieval 'scientists' who would lacerate and torture dogs and marvel at the mechanical complexity of the anatomy which produced sounds which resembled cries of pain with such verisimilitude...)

People believe what they want to believe?

I see Plato attempting to run a nation-state and quickly running for his life...

 

[SolitaryWalker]

Precisely why their divorce is impossible.

A mind determined to make sense of emotion will unavoidably allow emotion to toxify reason; reason to disrupt emotion.

I agree with your mindset. Yet, in a purely scientific/logical sense, it isn't possible to absolutely distinguish the two.

The better you are at objective reasoning, the less you are intoxicated by emotion. It is manifest to me that a mathematician or a philosopher is better at approaching ideas dispassionately than a philistine.

The question is, exactly how good can we get at this?

If we can solve complicated math problems which lay down the formulas for how all problem-solving is to be done, no reason why we should not be able t apply this to all other problem solving endeavors we encounter in the world of practical applications. Yes we will want to bypass this very impersonal process in favor of our whims, but if we go back to ensure that we reason as carefully and clearly as possible, we clearly have found a remedy for this problem.

 

[Gish]

I think you need robot legs.

 

[SolitaryWalker]

My biggest fear, Bluewing, is that the sort of dispassionate thinking you are forwarding is found only in the domain of a handful of people... higher academics, yogis, people with a deep understanding of themselves...

Meaning, imagine that I had great difficulty divorcing myself from many of the prejudices of my society until I developed deeper emotional understanding of myself.... this deeper emotional understanding of myself allowed me to more fully embrace and/or explore philosophies and thought-systems that thitherto would have been alien or downright noxious to my own. Contrariwise, most people are very grounded in their beliefs and haven't even the inclination to attempt such a revolution of understanding in themselves.

I mean, we have as much proof as one could possibly need for a landing on the moon, and there are disbelievers. There has been so much research done on animal emotion, and yet many people persist in believing that animals don't have feelings (they remind me of those Medieval 'scientists' who would lacerate and torture dogs and marvel at the mechanical complexity of the anatomy which produced sounds which resembled cries of pain with such verisimilitude...)

People believe what they want to believe?

I see Plato attempting to run a nation-state and quickly running for his life...

Agreed.

As aforementioned. We can expect a havoc as a result of this operation. But when it is all said we will be in a much better shape to change the world for the better.

Those who seem unwilling to think objectively no matter what will just have to adjust or die out.

 

[Night]

If we can solve complicated math problems which lay down the formulas for how all problem-solving is to be done, no reason why we should not be able t apply this to all other problem solving endeavors we encounter in the world of practical applications. Yes we will want to bypass this very impersonal process in favor of our whims, but if we go back to ensure that we reason as carefully and clearly as possible, we clearly have found a remedy for this problem.

Our efficiency towards this end requires an understanding of human behavior vastly beyond our present clinical ability. To understand a mathematical dilemma, one must have absolute measure over the variables inherent within his equation - if an unknown/unexpected entity emerges, accuracy diminishes quickly...

BW, I suspect you'd enjoy Decision Theory/Chaos Mathematics. One our principal obstacles in constructing a credible A.I. is our contemporary inability to effectively plan out all potential behaviors for a truly creative program to endeavor to commit.

We need minds like yours in this field.

 

[SolitaryWalker]

Our efficiency towards this end requires an understanding of human behavior vastly beyond our present clinical ability. To understand a mathematical dilemma, one must have absolute measure over the variables inherent within his equation - if an unknown/unexpected entity emerges, accuracy diminishes quickly...

BW, I suspect you'd enjoy Decision Theory/Chaos Mathematics. One our principal obstacles in constructing a credible A.I. is our contemporary inability to effectively plan out all potential behaviors for a truly creative program to endeavor to commit.

We certainly will not be able to dispassionately analyze all things. But we must make the effort to analyze as much as possible.

 

[Night]

He fights against what he doesn't understand. Out of fear probably.

As do all of us.
I submit to you the controversy surrounding BlueWing as evidence towards this end.

We are all the same.

 

[Samuel De Mazarin]

As aforementioned. We can expect a havoc as a result of this operation. But when it is all said we will be in a much better shape to change the world for the better.

Those who seem unwilling to think objectively no matter what will just have to adjust or die out.

BW, I suspect you'd enjoy Decision Theory/Chaos Mathematics. One our principal obstacles in constructing a credible A.I. is our contemporary inability to effectively plan out all potential behaviors for a truly creative program to endeavor to commit.

We need minds like yours in this field.

We certainly will not be able to dispassionately analyze all things. But we must make the effort to analyze as much as possible.

This is why I want to be a professor... lock myself away from the world with like minds, work on the problems of the world, and make forays into regular society the way astronauts make forays into space...


The problem is that with disciplines like game or chaos theory, one always comes up against the the asymptote of infinite variability. It becomes easier to resort to Dao De Jing-like apothegms which glibly pronounce on whole fields of inquiry with cutely-phrased aporias or insoluble dilemmas.

 

[Sunshine]

As do all of us.
I submit to you the controversy surrounding BlueWing as evidence towards this end.

We are all the same.

What?
Oh.

Meh. I don't fight what I don't understand. I try to understand what I don't understand...if I'm interested that is.

We're all the same in that we often fear what we don't understand.

 

[Night]

We're all the same in that we often fear what we don't understand.

Precisely.

That is why we have nothing to fear.

 

[Leysing]

He fights against what he doesn't understand. Out of fear probably.

Generally all the Ts I have known deeply are very afraid of their emotions. My father, a strong T, is a good example: when he occasionally, while stressed, lets his emotions out uncontrolled, he beats my ESFJ mother 10-0 in pure drama. He is very detached from his own emotions in a quite comical and sometimes scary way.