snatchbalance

Selfology

It may not be that the men are any less religious(I would like to say superstitious) than the women; like you say, they all would profress a belief in god. The phenomenon that you are noticing may simply be a product of the culture you inhabit. To the best of my knowledge, all cultures have seperate male and female rituals. In yours, the males may gather to watch football, and the females gather at the local church.

SB

WJ

Samhain!

Indeed. I think we are percieving essences differently, though I did not mean in a spiritual sense. However, now that you've approached the topic, I 'do' mean that it is relative to consciousness. In other words the religious (or gnostic) element of this discussion that is germain relates to the mind-body phenomenon viz. a belief about metaphysical consciousness. More specifically, the 'why's' of essences and existence; not the 'how's' of same. We don't know our essences of consciousness in that regard. We only know we exist as a physical being with a mind that contains (for our discussion) sentience and rational knowledge for lack of.

To that end, the analogy to mathematical truth is that it is apriori. 2+2=4 is true independent of what I feel about it (more on that later). And, no amount of experience in life will change that. Physical truth is much the same way (physical/natural sciences). That is why some scientists claim the world is rational-it is ordered by the laws using mathemtical truth.

Now, we cannot be Spock no matter how hard we try. Spocks existence is based upon apriori mathematical truth, much like the creation of a computer. He has no sentience (ie, problems associated with creation of robots viz. volition and sentient existence).

There is the paradox for human's. (apriori v. aposterior.) Without digressing too much into logic here, the point I am maing is that issues such as religious beliefs, ethics, the why's of existence, etc. all stem from the fact that we are cursed or blessed with sentience, depending on how you look at it.

So in theory, if we were created as a Spock, we could care less about emotion. The nearest metaphor would be lower life forms possesing lower forms of consciousness.(ie, do dogs want to know why they exist? Highly unlikely, though certainly possible they may wonder.)

Did any of that make sense?

Edit: either we are a 'perfect' Spock, or we are not. And if we were, in theory, we would have no cause to worry or wonder about the very thing we are currently discussing- feeling. Otherwise, what would cause us or create these needs?

Walrus

[ May 02, 2002: Message edited by: WJ ]</p>

Kip

Gould, Stephen Jay. 1981. The Mismeasure of Man. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

hinduwoman

Kip, in that book Gould specifically shows how scientists have tended to measure intelligence not according to data, but according to their own bias. He demonstrates that such statistics are full of gaping holes.

Offhand about women I remember him writing that since women have lesser bodymass than male, their brains are lesser in size, but this has nothing to with intelligence.

Samhain

Walrus:

All we know of "truth" is based off of human perception of the universe We cannot base it off of anything else. While I agree that 2+2=4 I don't know if this information is known a priori simply because of the fact that it is based off of human perception, and as such, is biased. I don't really want to dwell on this part, though, it seems a weak argument in many cases.

Aha, but you must remember, Spock is half human. Remember after The Search for Spock (episode III) came the next movie in which they traveled through time (episode 4, the title escapes my memory), and a question posed to Spock was "How do you feel?" At the beginning he could not answer this question, at the end he said that he felt fine. If we look at episode V "The Final Frontier" (the one in which Spock's brother creates a cult to find "God" beyond the rim of the universe), we see the contrasts between emotions and logic through Spock and his brother (whose name also escapes my memory). If you recall, Spock's brother created a sort of cult which took over the enterprise in order to fly it to the rim of the universe in order to seek the "God" which had been calling. We see how many people fell victim to Spock's brothers memory recall method in order to stimulate an emotional response in order for them to be free of the burden of pain. Spock's brother is in stark contrast to Spock himself. Spock's memory recall made some difference to Spock, but he was not brainwashed by his brother's schemes to stimulate an emotional response. We see the only two people who did not fall victim to Spock's brothers schemes are Spock and Kirk (who did not accept the memory recall). Since both Spock and his brother are half human, they both hold human characteristics, and I think that both can be seen as possibilities for any human to achieve (short of the Vulcan nerve pinch). Both show extreme versions of what consequenses will arise when one holds pure emotion or pure logic. The former, Spock's brother, falls to an early demise when he realizes that for all his emotions that the "God" beyond the rim is not real, and he battles the "God" for his deceit, but prior, he could not see the machinations of this "God" as he was blinded by his freedom from pain, as were many others of his followers. We see Spock as the subject who questions this powerful presence of "God" and reveals what this "God" truly is, through his logic. I'm not trying to create analogies for this for the existence of the christian god, but I only am trying to relay a point that you seem to be missing. Whether we live by our emotions or our logic, neither one is the better if no harm comes from either. It is a personal choice, we can, in effect, become like Spock, and view emotions as seemingly unimportant if we wish. If we were to do this, we do not deny our existence, or create false illusions of what we are, we only face our emotions, rationalize that they are not worthy of allowing them to effect us in any major decision making, and move on. This does not make our existence any less genuine if we refuse to let emotions affect us in the same way that they affect the "norm". We all have emotions, this is our essence, how we choose to deal with our emotions is our existence, and since our existences are individual and not subject to definintion (since we define our own existences individually), no one existence is "better" or more genuine than another in this case.

WJ

Samhain!

Without getting too far off track, I think there is partial agreement here. (Although it is important to clarify that the definition of half-human initially meant that the logical-half is being used; there is no sentience-- though I haven't seen the latter movies of how that was reconciled by the creation/story line of this character.)

But I also think that we keep returning to your ultilitarian view of consequences affecting 'which side' of the intellect we choose to ingnore. And also, the distinction between essences and existence as it relates to behavior. Really, that's the main issue I see emerging from both our arguments. That is why I thought about those questions (which since I've been getting sidetracked, I may not be able to respond until early next week with my personal experiences).

Nevertheless, to demonstrate further why I think a human must consider all portions of his intellect and how by not embracing wholistic thinking that there are more dangers associated with the consequences(whew), I realize I must respond to those daggon questions with my personal experiences to perhaps prove my case (in an attempt to make the subjective, objective). In the meantime, here's another example.

When a police officer stops and asks for your driver's license, one reason is to protect other people from fraud. This is because a ticket can be given to a false name and address which in turn creates more problems. In the same regard people make-up fake ID's everyday. On the one hadn they use logic to outsmart authorities. on the other hand the use emotion to drive their desire to seek whatever pleasure or consequences that they hope to attain. So, in this scenerio which, part of the mind is at fault?

I propose that logic was only a tool to get what the person felt the need to get. Yet, if the person used logic a bit further to see the impacts on the feelings of others and ultimately himself-sadness from incarceration, perhaps his decision making would be different. Then, perhaps he doesn't care and thinks 'I just live for the moment' for whatever sense of pleasure I can grasp.

The point is that this is a circular argument. And as such, how can erring on one particular side of the brain (or denying one side as you stated) make us more or less human and thereby correcting this 'intrinsic' problem from human behaviour?

I guess what I'm saying is that there appears to be a false dichotomy about what it is that makes us fully human. The only thing that we do know is that the human condition cannot be thought of a pure this or that. We do not understand the consequences of pure essences, only our existence is that which is all mixed together in an unexplained phenomenon of human living. (Again, I'll speak more to the insoluble problems of existence later.)

Maybe at some point we'll get back to the 'women argument', but I think by demonstrating our apparent agreement that life is absurd by the inability to perfectly figure all this out, there results a 'choice'. A choice that women seem to 'aquiesce to' more readily then men? Achoice that says there exists a form of guidance and an ultimate explaination. I don't know.

....be back soon.

Walrus

Samhain

Walrus:

I continue to have problems replying to your posts just because of the idea that I feel we are perhaps arguing about two entirely different things. I'm trying to see your "point of view" as somekind of further point you are trying to make upon my argument, the trouble is mainly that I'm failing to see a correlation between our two arguments, and I think, from what you've said, you also feel the same way. I'll try to answer a couple questions, though, because there are a few which seem to apply to my argument.

It can't. That's exactly the point I've been stating ad nauseum here. Neither are the "correct", "more genuine", "better", or "more human" way of existence, both are equal since, as I keep saying, existence preceeds our essences, and our existences are individual, therefore, if we live by emotions or if we live by logic more than the other, if we view this as the best way for us to exist, then there is no one who can say differently. All that a "genuine" existence requires is that we accept responsibility for our actions, nothing more, one can live how they want as long as they do not fall into bad faith (by refusing or fooling ourselves into thinking that we did not have free-will, or that we were "forced" to do something). Take responsibility for our actions, that's it. All I feel is that if one lives by emotions, since emotional actions have more of a tendency to be rash and/or irrational, it correlates to the possibility that one who lives by emotion could more easily fall into bad faith.

There is no ultimate explanation or "better" form of guidance. This has been my point all along. We live how we wish to live, that's it. Neither way, emotional or logical, makes us more prone to finding the ultimate purpose of existence since there is none.

Let me also point out that I feel that a "middle ground" between emotion and logic is probably the most "ideal" way to live, but if a person can live genuinely, without bad faith, with an inbalance or a large inbalance between their emotion and logic, then who is anyone to say that it is any "less human" to exist that way if it works for them?

WJ

Samhain!

I've got to run, but let me leave you with this, and we'll resume the discussion. In the bible there is a chapter in OT called Ecclessiates. This is a story about existence viz. your utilitarianism and ethics argument. (AKA Existentialism.) I'm not asking you to become religious or anything, but if you can get a copy or at least understand the jist of it, let's perhaps use that as the groundwork for more specific insite to this problem we are having (in articulation our points about the human condition).

Walrus

Samhain

Walrus:

Regardless of what you may think of me, I've read the Bible

I'm at work now, but I'll review Ecclessiaties when I get the chance, it may not be for a couple of days, though.

Kip

I have read the book. Gould shows how, even after accounting for smaller body mass, women still have (on average) smaller brains by about 15%. Hence the phrase "absolutely much smaller, and relatively somewhat smaller". In other words, the percentage of brain to body mass is less in women than in men. Gould cited this as the bane of the feminism movement.

Gould's defense was not from smaller body mass (because, if brain size correlates with intelligence, their brains are smaller regardless) but that brain size is not a very accurate measure of intelligence. He cites a few counter examples of geniuses with small brains.

However, I personally think such an argument from anecdotal evidence ignores the statistical truth. Obviously there is a relationship between brain size and intelligence. Is the fact that babies have both small brains and low intelligence just a coincidence? No.

[ May 03, 2002: Message edited by: Kip ]</p>