tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1639046296081313228.post104890398893402660..comments2024-03-21T07:00:29.129-07:00Comments on basmanroselaw: Speaking In the Mode of Vagueness, Just Like Squirrel Ladyitzik basmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04819878847328122792noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1639046296081313228.post-44032774539303568542011-02-25T05:21:19.865-08:002011-02-25T05:21:19.865-08:00Reflection is a good thing. Appropriate to the ori...Reflection is a good thing. Appropriate to the original subject and too often ignored by yours truly.Larry Jefferyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05793936970423941677noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1639046296081313228.post-66710881237422478122011-02-24T18:09:50.598-08:002011-02-24T18:09:50.598-08:00Larry J.: I need a better moment to respond to you...Larry J.: I need a better moment to respond to your comments. I'll let you know when I have.itzik basmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04819878847328122792noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1639046296081313228.post-89466990190148874132011-02-21T13:36:37.817-08:002011-02-21T13:36:37.817-08:00Rereading what i wrote and seeing the mistakes and...Rereading what i wrote and seeing the mistakes and poorly turned phases and then rereading the original about the squirrel lady I conclude part of all this is that most of the junk we spend our time seeing/watching/reading etc is unedited!!! The volume of crap needed to fill all the channels 7/24 and all of the blogs, speeches, articles etc means that yes their must be a lot of nonsense. Not even publishers can afford enough editors. A lot of what is published and or even said would benefit by a few glasses of wine. Nietzche reminds us: "The most fundamental form of human stupidity is forgetting what we were trying to say in the first place" Now what was it?Larry Jefferyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05793936970423941677noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1639046296081313228.post-21200767815163489492011-02-21T13:26:23.275-08:002011-02-21T13:26:23.275-08:00My last two did not really link to the first about...My last two did not really link to the first about kids speak, like uhh what I mean is kids want to sound like their peers. Then something like TV starts to introduce new ways of speaking compared to the ways of our parents for example. Not sure whether this arguement has legs but suddenly kids had input as to how to be cool which did not originate in their local communities. Or maybe mass education lead to a dilution of the quality of inputs. No doubt a lot of factors contributed to the phenomena besides a sudden diltution of the quality of the genes creating the generation that came of age in 1985. Like something happened man besides pot smoking and TV/radio and records had to be part of it.Larry Jefferyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05793936970423941677noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1639046296081313228.post-2065670083919816342011-02-21T13:18:44.130-08:002011-02-21T13:18:44.130-08:00Not sure that some animals are not self conscious,...Not sure that some animals are not self conscious, ever see a dog react to "bad dog"? They just lack the cerebral cortex to brood or imagine much about it. I agree just because we are aware of certain things (facts?) we can do or want to do much about them. That is Paul Haggis's question: he does not understand how he could remain a Scientologist for as long as he did. Which makes one wonder about all the new religions that were invented over the last century compared to the seeming normal religions invented over the millennia. People not just "kids say the darndest things" to quote the famous TV host. Read the New Yorker piece by Lawrence Wright in the New Yorker. Group pressure and our need to belong and ability to believe is really amazing. Denial is a two edged sword. Religion does continue to decline in advanced societies but does cling on and emerge to strike a blow for our snake brains and darker sides. Is it ironic that the Muslim (Christian/Hindu/Jewish etc) Brotherhoods all have charitble functions which perform as disguises for their true ruthless us first ideologuies.Larry Jefferyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05793936970423941677noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1639046296081313228.post-15485845767025963092011-02-21T12:31:34.268-08:002011-02-21T12:31:34.268-08:00Isn't, like, uhhm, well, you, umm, you know, l...Isn't, like, uhhm, well, you, umm, you know, like, free will, ike umm, will that is free, a big , I mean like, uhh, you know, humungous issue in the debate between the evolutionary psychologists and those against them. See for example, http://www.tnr.com/book<br /><br />My comment is as follows on that:<br /><br />Linker characterizes Bering's atheistic, evolutionary argument as being that humans, amongst all animals, are uniquely self conscious. They adaptively moderate their behavior under the gaze and judgment of others. That self conscious moderation was key to human survival. From there it wasn't a such a adaptive big leap to projecting all that survival-- facilitating gazing and judging to an overarching watching and judging deity in whose judgment we make ever greater strides to conform to what we project he expects from us. No God says Bering, a la Linker but, rather, a "mere adaptive illusion." <br /><br />For Linker such reasoning is circularly typical of evolutionary psychology which, he says, is marked by "presupposing what it seeks to prove." Linker says that what's insufferable about Bering "is his utter indifference to the likely psychological and social consequences of the truths that he understands himself to be revealing." Apparently, according to Linker, Bering thinks that our unique human self consciousness, our self suppression under the gaze and judgment of the other is most unfortunate and debilitating:<br /><br />...The truth is that chimps live their lives without the “crippling, inhibiting psychological sense of others watching, observing, and critically evaluating them.” But “humans, unfortunately, are not so lucky....<br /><br />Linker qualaifies this assertion by noting that Bering also says that self scrutiny under the gaze of the other is so deeply embedded in us that we are unlikely ever to shed it:<br /><br />...Bering also indicates, after all, that our evolutionary inheritance so strongly predisposes us toward theological and moral thinking that a fundamental change in our behavior is unlikely, no matter how many books evolutionary biologists write and promote...<br /><br />Now we come to the essence of Linker's critique: Bering says that our moral and religious intuitions as mere adaptive illusions does not make us any less for cleaving to and obeying these "mere adaptive illusions." Linker says, contrarily, if these intuitions are indeed mere illusions with which we delude and deceive ourselves, then we ought to be judged as ridiculous laughing-stocks, which does not male Bering wrong Linker says, only wrong about how we should react to the "truth" of what he says.<br /><br />This all seems to be a rehearsal of the issue of how we ought to conceive ourselves. For me it is really a non issue because we in there is a tendency to conflate two distinct ways of accounting for ourselves: the first, the scientific account of what constitutes us, drives us make us tick; the second, our understanding of ourselves as consciousnesses with will and choice and not pre determined, mechanistic beings. There is no reason why one perspective needs to exclude the other. We don't understand ourselves without the first; we dehumanize ourselves without the second.itzik basmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04819878847328122792noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1639046296081313228.post-68264104670477613772011-02-21T06:49:42.116-08:002011-02-21T06:49:42.116-08:00Its amazing how your culture can change and few pe...Its amazing how your culture can change and few people even notice. I was not surprized to see that Free Will was reintroduced by a teenage actor in a recent film.It was a big topic in the 50's and the thought leaders were men from the 16th and 17th centuries. I assume TV has something to do with it as the seeds of this trend were planted well before the internet or even the PC arrived.Larry Jefferyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05793936970423941677noreply@blogger.com