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Re: The Political Brain - More Evidence of Evolved Psychology
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#12
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Re: The Political Brain - More Evidence of Evolved Psychology
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But as I see things, I truthfully and in reality do find that much of what you declare/believe to be “nonsense,†and I suspect that others here may also more or less agree. |
#13
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Re: The Political Brain - More Evidence of Evolved Psychology
Fred sed,
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That's why science is provisional. It is an admission that a human understanding of objective realty is a goal that can never be realized - that the neurons we use to conceptualize the universe can never replace the reality of that universe, nor the emotional mechanism that is our only true connection to that universe. We can only create models that seem to work better than previous models. That doesn't mean that it's not worth trying to improve them. But, the conceptual models we create can never replace the physical reality that we hope to describe with them. Fred sed, Quote:
Perhaps, you'd like to explain how your downward causation provides behavior choice - without a controlling emotional force behind it. It is not necessary to do that in order to prove me wrong. But, for somone so certain that downward causation is an integral part of behavior choice, I would think you (or some scientist) could have proposed some mechanism by which it could provide those (non-emotional) behavior choices by now. LeDoux has never done that as far as I know. My hypothesis however, does account for what you call downward causation. It is the emotions produced by our social conscience in the medial pre-frontal cortex - or perhaps by our intellect in our neo-cortex. In socially enlightened and/or logically capable persons, those emotional forces can be very strong. It seems that every few weeks another study comes out showing the fundamental connection of emotion to behavior choice, like the study that Tom referred to at the start of this thread. Saying that an explanation is circular does not disprove it. As others have noted, the most fundamental conceptual explanations of nature are inherently circular. This may be a problem for creatures who conceptualize. However, since the universe was here long before conceptualizing humans, I doubt it is a flaw in the fabric of the universe. Fred sed, Quote:
Remember, you were going to provide a single example where a human has overcome their need to seek emotional gratification and has made a logical or moral decision against their emotional nature in a behavior choice. Margaret Last edited by Margaret McGhee; June 30th, 2006 at 02:40 PM.. |
#14
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Re: The Political Brain - More Evidence of Evolved Psychology
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I find your lack of rigor and consistency extraordinary . . . you actually do seem to be something of an automaton . . . really, that’s not just an "emotional response" on my part. |
#15
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Re: The Political Brain - More Evidence of Evolved Psychology
I have offered an explanation for behavior choice in animals that says we seek emotional payback - to increase our sense of well-being - in our behavior choices. I have stated that that is all that is needed to allow a human, a dog, a cat or a fish, for that matter, to choose behavior from its repertoire that would support its survival.
I have offered several examples that plausibly illustrate this mechanism. Since I have no way of quantifying emotional force I do not claim that I have proven my hypothesis - that behavior choice is the result of a summation of those emotional forces. That doesn't make my explanation circular - it just leaves me without a way to quantify its operation. It certainly doesn't disprove it. While I can't prove my hypothesis you can disprove it. You only need to provide one example where it fails to account for behavior choice - where something other than seeking emotional fulfillment causes behavior choice to be made in opposition to that emotional fulfillment. Until you do that, it remains a highly plausible candidate for an explanation of behavior choice in animals. You say, Quote:
Except for a few posts where you comically implied that JimB or Todd agreed with you about something, I doubt I can find a post where you did not have something nasty to say about someone else or their ideas. If you actually had a point to make I suspect you would have made it by now. I don't have time for high-school level debating games about God and the associated name calling. As I said before, I'll check back once in a while to see if anything worthwhile is happening here. Margaret |
#16
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Re: The Political Brain - More Evidence of Evolved Psychology
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Maybe MM’s blindness here is an example of Tom’s so-called “repressor module†hypothesis? You two, Tom & Margaret, might consider blending your hypotheses into a new and improved: Be that as it may, humans, unlike the other animals, can and do discern objective (mathematical) truth and can utilize that truth to measure and comprehend the realities of our world, to make predictions about our world, and to somewhat manage/control our world; and by downward causation humans, unlike the other animals, can modify what we instinctively feel and believe about our world, e.g., the earth is not really flat, the universe that we find ourselves in has not always been here, and entropy only increases. |
#17
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Re: The Political Brain - More Evidence of Evolved Psychology
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There is a logical fault called circularity but that is not present in Margaret's argument because she's doesn't say she's proved anything. Take hunger as an example. People said in the past "I always eat because I'm hungry". Why? Because whenever I'm hungry, I eat. The circularity here just means that the conclusion can not be fully suported with that little of evidence; it doesn't mean that it's wrong. So, these people have not proven that they eat because they are hungry, it's just their working hypothesis. It's not proven until scientists show that the brain signals hunger when blood sugar goes low and we get sugar from carbohydrates that we eat; plus, we ultimately need the sugars to create ATP in mitochondria for energy. Of course, you can disprove this hypothesis by showing one time each person eats when they are not hungry. Take Margaret's hypothesis as an example. She is not saying that she proved that all decisions are emotional, just that it's her best guess. And, thinking that every decision she's seen so far has been emotional makes that a damn good first guess and one I wouldn't argue against. She even asked for counter examples. If someone discovers decision mitochondria that rely on emotion chemicals, then they could prove it. Your taunting with vacuous arguments can not disprove it. Margaret's hypothesis is not 'useless'; in fact, it's probably true. |
#18
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Re: The Political Brain - More Evidence of Evolved Psychology
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And that, Tom, is why Margaret's circular hypothesis is useless—thanks for making the uselessness of her circularity so clear with your hunger example, albeit apparently unwittingly. Perhaps even MM will now begin to grasp the uselessness. |
#19
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Re: The Political Brain - More Evidence of Evolved Psychology
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Not only useless, but probably correct. You would not eat pie unless you WANTED to eat pie. That's pretty clear to me. |
#20
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Re: The Political Brain - More Evidence of Evolved Psychology
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