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Daniel Urtiz · Guest

So says science.

Simple Simon

-------

Altan Loker wrote:
[quote]Mind cannot exist without brain, as far as we know. Brain cannot exist
without the rest of the nervous system, as evidenced by the fact that
it deteriorates if it does not receive stimulations. The nervous
system cannot exist without the rest of the body. The human individual
thrives in society. And society exists in the universe. Therefore in
order to exist and operate effectively, the mind must have functions
serving to protect, develop, and operate the physical organizations
that make its existence and operation possible. The theory of
evolution makes this conclusion necessary.

In fact, mind has the functions predicted above. Perceiving, learning,
thinking, understanding, problem solving, decision making, and so
forth are related to the development and operation of the brain. We
can call them as a whole "the cerebral instinct," or "cerebral/mental
general goal," to use modern terminology. The functions related to the
rest of the nervous system are communication and control, or mastery.
We can call these the "neural instinct." Similarly, there is the
"corporal instinct" related to the needs of the body, and the "social
instinct" related to social needs and obligations. We thus have four
basic instincts, or general goals. There is also a fifth basic
instinct which is less recognized than the others presently at
conscious level and can be called the "universal instinct," or the
"perfection instinct." The conscious recognition of the existence and
importance of the social instinct too has been realized later than the
three first basic instincts. It is exemplified below that these
instincts operate automatically to realize self-protection whenever
consciousness fails to do that.

If a man>s elbow touches the hot soldering iron accidentally while he
is repairing a radio receiver, he feels pain. Pain is an automatic
response controlled by his brain and serves to warn him about the harm
done to his elbow. It also punishes him for not preventing and
terminating the harm. Pain is necessitated by the fact his
consciousness could not prevent the harm, being busy with something
else. We see in this phenomenon an example of the mind>s automatic
self-protection function, related to the body in this instance. This
suggests that the mind may be equipped by evolution with other
self-protection mechanisms, or processes, that function automatically
whenever consciousness fails to attain any of the five general goals,
or when any of the five basic instincts fails at conscious level.

Indeed, case histories show that (1) neurosis is caused by harmful
cognition failures, that is, by judgment mistakes leading to
self-harming behaviors; (2) schizophrenia is caused by harmful
mastery, or control, failures; (3) paranoia is caused by harmful
social failures; (4) catatonia is caused by the failures of the
universal instinct, or the perfection instinct; (5) mania and
depression are caused by harmful failures of all instincts, real or
imagined through the generalization of the judgment of having failed;
and (6) the symptoms of these disorders seek to terminate the failures
and their harmful consequences of all kinds, including and principally
harm to mental health. Corporal failures cause mental disorders only
when they are evaluated as failures of instincts; otherwise they are
used as external attributions. The knowledge of these facts makes
extremely fast and effective psychotherapy possible.

More information about these facts can be found in my recent posts to
the following groups: psychology theory, psychotherapy, schizophrenia,
migraine, and at the following addresses:

http://www.trafford.com/4dcgi/view-item?item=1815&183111008-2222aaa
http://www.trafford.com/4dcgi/view-item?item=3191&176230332-20836aaa

Altan[/quote]

Arthur T. Murray · Guest

[quote][...] All you have to do is to create a catchy slogan [...]
[/quote]
Please put the following "catchy slogan" on Web pages:

<a href="http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/weblog.html">
AI has been solved</a>

[quote]
If you would like to use Biobanner advertising service,
visit: http://biobanner.org.

Martin Kucej
BioBanner administrator
Department of Biochemistry
Comenius University
Mlynska dolina CH-1
Bratislava 84215
Slovak Republic
---[/quote]

Mr Michael Bibby · Guest

sounds to me like you are needlessly proliferating 'instincts' in order to
explain a range of human behaviours; instinct functions as an 'explanatory
principle' (just as the arrow in the S->R equation) in that you dont seem to
feel the need to further explain instinct! therefore, your explanation of mental
phenomenon stops with 'instinct'- the buck stops here. if you are to give any
kind of weight to your claims, you need to show, through demonstrative reasons,
why instinct is your 'explanan', and why it makes sense to explain things in
such terms, that is, you need to explain instinct by recourse to other
explanatory principles (ad infinitum?). otherwise, whats to stop all of us from
inventing black-box constructs like 'instinct' to explain a range of phenomena?
this is no better than behaviourism.

mickeyd

Altan Loker · Guest

"Instinct" is a commonly used concept, which has been lately replaced
by that of "general goal." For example, the old mastery instinct
became the control goal. Someone found more than 200 instincts
mentioned in the literature. There has been an effort to reduce all
instincts to a few basic ones. But no rational and generally
acceptable way of doing that has been found. All those instincts refer
to the needs of the organism and to its efforts to satisfy those
needs. And the needs of the organism are known from daily life in
concrete forms, they are not only abstract concepts.

Research discovered that all basic needs of the organism are
genetically dealt with by the old brain, or the animal brain, or the
limbic system, including not only physiological needs but also social
needs and social responses such as love and hate. The baby is born
with an almost perfectly developed old brain. The old brain
genetically introduces to mental life all those needs and the drives
serving to satisfy them. This is commonly accepted scientific
knowledge.

"Instinct" is a familiar concept that can be used PROFITABLY to refer
to the genetic functioning of the old brain. Of course, the new brain
learns the needs of the organism and contributes to their satisfaction
in ways that are beyond the abilities of the old brain. An "instinct"
is not a "black box," because we experience its contents in daily life
in concrete ways, and it makes no practical difference whether we call
them needs, urges, drives, wishes, instincts, goals, and so forth. I
learned the following from my work on the automatic responses of the
organism:

1. Mental disorders are caused by harmful failures that are not dealt
with adequately at conscious level for any reason.

2. The symptoms of mental disorders seek to terminate these failures
and their harmful consequences of all kinds, including and especially
harm to mental health. And the failures that necessitate automatic
self-protection in the form of symptoms are those related to the needs
that are genetically determined, excepting corporal needs, which are
used as external attributions of other types of failure.

3. In relatively mild disorders caused by relatively less harmful
failures, the symptoms deal with the particular failures that
necessitated them. But in cases of harmful failures that lasted for
very long times, the activities of the symptoms become generalized to
cover all needs, or goals, that are similar to the particular needs
that were frustrated and necessitated the symptoms. For example, a
young man who has been oppressed and closely controlled by his parents
for many years may develop symptoms that constitute control successes
in the form of controlling everything and anything around him,
including parts of his own body, in realistic or imaginary ways, and
in rational or irrational ways. The aim is to counter the harmful
effects of control failures on mental health. External attributions of
the failures are also produced for the same purpose. These are
observed events, not only theoretical assumptions.

4. The study of a large number of severe mental disorders revealed
that their symptoms generalized as explained above constituted the
symptoms of neuroses, schizophrenia, paranoia, and catatonia, and that
these disorders are caused by cognition failures, mastery failures,
social failures, and perfection failures, respectively. Moreover,
these failures and disorders are seen to be related, respectively, to
the needs of the brain, the nervous system as a whole, the society,
and what is beyond society that makes the society survive. These are
facts OBSERVED on the basis of the mind>s existing categories and
methods, not arbitrary inventions. Moreover, this understanding of
mental disorders and instincts makes extremely fast and effective
psychotherapy possible. A theory is accepted to be usable in
explaining, predicting, and controlling all phenomena in its field of
validity when it is shown to be useful to do these things in a
sufficient number of observed cases. Physical sciences have been
progressing in this way. Expecting every bit of knowledge to be
deduced directly from experimentation and observation without
constructing a general theory using the mental operations known as
induction and generalization is responsible for the present chaos in
psychology and the sufferings of mental patients.

5. The conscious recognition of the perfection instinct, or the
universal instinct, cannot be considered an arbitrary proliferation of
instincts; it is an observed development that obviously has salutary
effects. Moreover, striving for perfection, or to be like God as much
as possible, looks like the ultimate instinct served by all others.

Altan

"Mr Michael Bibby" <s4032484@student.uq.edu.au> wrote in message news:<bfqcio$2r4$1@bunyip.cc.uq.edu.au>...
[quote]sounds to me like you are needlessly proliferating 'instincts' in order to
explain a range of human behaviours; instinct functions as an 'explanatory
principle' (just as the arrow in the S->R equation) in that you dont seem to
feel the need to further explain instinct! therefore, your explanation of mental
phenomenon stops with 'instinct'- the buck stops here. if you are to give any
kind of weight to your claims, you need to show, through demonstrative reasons,
why instinct is your 'explanan', and why it makes sense to explain things in
such terms, that is, you need to explain instinct by recourse to other
explanatory principles (ad infinitum?). otherwise, whats to stop all of us from
inventing black-box constructs like 'instinct' to explain a range of phenomena?
this is no better than behaviourism.

mickeyd[/quote]

Mr Michael Bibby · Guest

[quote]"Instinct" is a commonly used concept, which has been lately replaced
by that of "general goal." For example, the old mastery instinct
became the control goal. Someone found more than 200 instincts
mentioned in the literature. There has been an effort to reduce all
instincts to a few basic ones.
[/quote]

we stop looking for an explanation when we no longer feel the need to find one-
when we rest content with black-box explanations ('constructs') and explanatory
principles, the buck stops then! however, just as we can question the
explanatory power of existing explanations so to can we question the explanatory
prowess of new explanations and explanatory principles and for much the same
reason, because it is not at all clear whether our explantions really explain
anything at all; were they are successful in explaning phenomena they provide a
useful way of thinking about phenomena, what ever it is we want them to explain,
nothing more and nothing less.

the utility of any explaination consists in its internal logic structure- it is
prefable to explain a wide range of phenomena using only a limited number of
explanatory principles with general applicability than to use a wide range of
explanatory principles with a limited applicability- this is perhaps the law of
conservation.

But no rational and generally
[quote]acceptable way of doing that has been found. All those instincts refer
to the needs of the organism and to its efforts to satisfy those
needs. And the needs of the organism are known from daily life in
concrete forms, they are not only abstract concepts.
[/quote]

you are assuming, as did freud- and many evolutionary psychologists, that the
mind subserves the bodies biological needs; to me, right now, in the doing of
what ever it is that i do it seems to me as if my body subserves my mind-
'instincts' simply provide a usefull way of characterizing a range of
psychological phenomena- but, as Einstein once said "we may never know if our
explanation is the only one that can explain all the phenomena we observe", and
there is a good prima facie case for believing this to be so becuase
observations are like texts; they give rise to a multiverse of interpretations
leaving us with absolutely no way to pick and choose between competing
interpretations and versions of reality.

[quote]
Research discovered that all basic needs of the organism are
genetically dealt with by the old brain, or the animal brain, or the
limbic system, including not only physiological needs but also social
needs and social responses such as love and hate. The baby is born
with an almost perfectly developed old brain. The old brain
genetically introduces to mental life all those needs and the drives
serving to satisfy them. This is commonly accepted scientific
knowledge.
[/quote]

recourse to science wont save you, perhaps the single biggest scandle in science
is that although theoretical entities are defined in observational terms, they
are 'explained' in terms which are independent of our means and ways of
observing them!!!!!!! this is absurd: 'things'- as far as empirical science is
concerned- are units of measurement and properties are invariants in measurement
devices.

[quote]
"Instinct" is a familiar concept that can be used PROFITABLY to refer
to the genetic functioning of the old brain. Of course, the new brain
learns the needs of the organism and contributes to their satisfaction
in ways that are beyond the abilities of the old brain. An "instinct"
is not a "black box," because we experience its contents in daily life
in concrete ways, and it makes no practical difference whether we call
them needs, urges, drives, wishes, instincts, goals, and so forth. I
learned the following from my work on the automatic responses of the
organism:

1. Mental disorders are caused by harmful failures that are not dealt
with adequately at conscious level for any reason.

2. The symptoms of mental disorders seek to terminate these failures
and their harmful consequences of all kinds, including and especially
harm to mental health. And the failures that necessitate automatic
self-protection in the form of symptoms are those related to the needs
that are genetically determined, excepting corporal needs, which are
used as external attributions of other types of failure.

3. In relatively mild disorders caused by relatively less harmful
failures, the symptoms deal with the particular failures that
necessitated them. But in cases of harmful failures that lasted for
very long times, the activities of the symptoms become generalized to
cover all needs, or goals, that are similar to the particular needs
that were frustrated and necessitated the symptoms. For example, a
young man who has been oppressed and closely controlled by his parents
for many years may develop symptoms that constitute control successes
in the form of controlling everything and anything around him,
including parts of his own body, in realistic or imaginary ways, and
in rational or irrational ways. The aim is to counter the harmful
effects of control failures on mental health. External attributions of
the failures are also produced for the same purpose. These are
observed events, not only theoretical assumptions.

4. The study of a large number of severe mental disorders revealed
that their symptoms generalized as explained above constituted the
symptoms of neuroses, schizophrenia, paranoia, and catatonia, and that
these disorders are caused by cognition failures, mastery failures,
social failures, and perfection failures, respectively. Moreover,
these failures and disorders are seen to be related, respectively, to
the needs of the brain, the nervous system as a whole, the society,
and what is beyond society that makes the society survive. These are
facts OBSERVED on the basis of the mind>s existing categories and
methods, not arbitrary inventions. Moreover, this understanding of
mental disorders and instincts makes extremely fast and effective
psychotherapy possible. A theory is accepted to be usable in
explaining, predicting, and controlling all phenomena in its field of
validity when it is shown to be useful to do these things in a
sufficient number of observed cases. Physical sciences have been
progressing in this way. Expecting every bit of knowledge to be
deduced directly from experimentation and observation without
constructing a general theory using the mental operations known as
induction and generalization is responsible for the present chaos in
psychology and the sufferings of mental patients.

5. The conscious recognition of the perfection instinct, or the
universal instinct, cannot be considered an arbitrary proliferation of
instincts; it is an observed development that obviously has salutary
effects. Moreover, striving for perfection, or to be like God as much
as possible, looks like the ultimate instinct served by all others.

Altan

"Mr Michael Bibby" <s4032484@student.uq.edu.au> wrote in message news:<bfqcio$2r4$1@bunyip.cc.uq.edu.au>...
sounds to me like you are needlessly proliferating 'instincts' in order to
explain a range of human behaviours; instinct functions as an 'explanatory
principle' (just as the arrow in the S->R equation) in that you dont seem to
feel the need to further explain instinct! therefore, your explanation of mental
phenomenon stops with 'instinct'- the buck stops here. if you are to give any
kind of weight to your claims, you need to show, through demonstrative reasons,
why instinct is your 'explanan', and why it makes sense to explain things in
such terms, that is, you need to explain instinct by recourse to other
explanatory principles (ad infinitum?). otherwise, whats to stop all of us from
inventing black-box constructs like 'instinct' to explain a range of phenomena?
this is no better than behaviourism.

mickeyd

[/quote]
mickeyd

Malcolm · Guest

[quote]Ignorance/Unawareness of certain things may lead to positive
results. Ex: You learned that the foods you>ve been eating were
genetically altered. You were ignorant of this fact and only now you
become aware of it. Unhappiness follows your misunderstanding of this
truth but you are no longer ignorant. You were happy when you were
ignorant...
[/quote]
There is no reason why you cannot, quickly, become happy again. Simply
read up on genetically modified foods. Reading anything is an
autotelic, flow
experience so while doing this you will not be unhappy. After doing
this you will be able to make an informed decision on your relation to
GM foods. Then
you can decide to read more or decide you have learned enough. Once
the 'learned enough' stage has been reached you can put all you have
learned into action. At this stage you should have done all you can
'reasonably' do about GM foods. You may, say, have limited intake of
GM foods as much as you can. You should now be happy, and less liable
to suffer in the future from the bad affects of GM foods. I.e. you
will have replaced 'ignorant bliss' with an equal level of happiness
now & (probably) greater happiness in the future.

--

'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`''`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`
sci.psychology.research is a moderated newsgroup.
Before submitting an article, please read the guidelines which are posted
here bimonthly or the charter on the web at http://www.grohol.com/spr/
Submissions are acknowledged automatically.

Altan Loker · Guest

"Mr Michael Bibby" <s4032484@student.uq.edu.au> wrote in message news:<bfsmhg$va5$1@bunyip.cc.uq.edu.au>...
[quote]it is not at all clear whether our explanations really explain
anything at all; were they are successful in explaining phenomena they
provide a useful way of thinking about phenomena, what ever it is we want
them to explain, nothing more and nothing less.
[/quote]
You are wrong. Theories, and therefore the explanations they provide,
serve to predict and control the phenomena. When a sufficient number
of phenomena that are predicted by a theory and the explanations it
provides are really observed to happen, the theory and the
explanations are considered to be usable to predict all phenomena in
the field of validity of the theory. Similarly, when a sufficient
number of phenomena are adequately controlled using a theory and the
explanations it provides, the theory and the explanations are
considered to be usable to control the phenomena in the field of
validity of the theory. For example, when a sufficient number of
machines, or even a single machine, that is designed and fabricated
using a theory and the explanations it provides does what it is
expected to do, the theory and the explanations are considered to be
usable to design and construct such machines. Whether the explanations
really reflect the reality or not is a philosophical question, not a
scientific one. The difference between philosophical and scientific
constructs is that the usefulness of only the latter in explaining,
predicting, and controlling the phenomena can be empirically tested.
Plato said that philosophy yields only probabilities. In opposition to
this, when science shows that a certain theory is usable in a certain
area of reality, that theory remains usable in that area of reality
unless the basic laws and the structure of the universe change, which
is not something that is observed or suspected to happen until now.
Thus, the explanations provided by a theory are the least convincing
and least determining tests of the usability of the theory. But you
are not thinking of what is beyond explanations, meaning deeds instead
of just thoughts, because you have a philosophical mind, not a
scientific, or pragmatic, one.

[quote]the utility of any explanation consists in its internal logic structure-
[/quote]
You are wrong again, as explained above.

[quote]you are assuming, as did freud- and many evolutionary psychologists, that the
mind subserves the bodies biological needs;
[/quote]
Wrong again. I wrote that the mind cannot exist without the body, and
that therefore the mind has functions serving to protect and develop
the body and its environment. This means that both the body and the
environment *subserve* each other as needed. This is what is
established by science. You are too much influenced by Freud>s
scientifically baseless ideas and you are inclined to find them
everywhere.

[quote]'instincts' simply provide a useful way of characterizing a range of
psychological phenomena-
[/quote]
Wrong again. The concept *instinct* is useful also in predicting and
controlling the phenomena within the frame of the theory in which it
is used. But you are not interested in such practical matters.

[quote]but, as Einstein once said "we may never know if our
explanation is the only one that can explain all the phenomena we observe",
and there is a good prima facie case for believing this to be so because
observations are like texts; they give rise to a multiverse of interpretations
leaving us with absolutely no way to pick and choose between competing
interpretations and versions of reality.
[/quote]
Einstein was not only a theoretician but also a philosopher, and his
above views belong more to philosophy than to science. His scientific
work contains no such ideas. Moreover, Einstein had a psychological
need to show himself very intelligent because of his slow mental
development in his childhood, and this is why he preferred to qualify
his ideas as inventions rather than discoveries of things that exist
in nature.

[quote]recourse to science wont save you,
[/quote]
Everything I say is intended to belong to science, experimental or
theoretical, whereas everything you say belongs to philosophy. And you
are confounding theory with philosophical thought. The practical
viability of the former is empirically testable, whereas the latter is
only an inconsequential mental exercise. To what extent an idea has
ontological significance or non at all, as you claim, cannot be
empirically determined, but this is philosophy, not science. Besides,
*ontology* refers to a deductive way of understanding, whereas
theories are not deduced from anywhere, they are induced from a few
observed phenomena to explain, PREDICT, and CONTROL all phenomena
within the same area of reality. It is in philosophy and metaphysics
that ideas are deduced from hypotheses that have no empirical basis,
and they are not empirically testable. You are perfectly right as a
philosopher but completely wrong as a acientist.

Altan

Altan Loker · Guest

CORRECTION. You are not perfectly right as a philosopher. Nobody
appears to be intelligent enough, not even Einstein, to invent a
thought system that does not correspond to anything in reality and yet
serves to explain, predict, and control the observed phenomena.
Einstein did not really believe that he had achieved that. When a
journalist asked him what he would do if his theory turned out to be
wrong, he said that he would pity God. He meant evidently that the
universe should have been created as he described it, and that if it
was not, it would be God>s mistake. This shows that he attributed
ontological significance to his theory, even if he uttered these words
in a joking mood.

Altan

Mr Michael Bibby · Guest

[quote]"Mr Michael Bibby" <s4032484@student.uq.edu.au> wrote in message news:<bfsmhg$va5$1@bunyip.cc.uq.edu.au>...
it is not at all clear whether our explanations really explain
anything at all; were they are successful in explaining phenomena they
provide a useful way of thinking about phenomena, what ever it is we want
them to explain, nothing more and nothing less.

You are wrong. Theories, and therefore the explanations they provide,
serve to predict and control the phenomena.
[/quote]

"....were they are successful in explaining phenomena they
provide a useful way of thinking about phenomena..." i.e., predict and 'control'
phenomena by defining the pre-conditions under which such phenomena are
'observed' to occur. i am not wrong, you miss construed me, i didnt see that it
was necessary to explicate the obvious.

[quote]When a sufficient number
of phenomena that are predicted by a theory and the explanations it
provides are really observed to happen, the theory and the
explanations are considered to be usable to predict all phenomena in
the field of validity of the theory.
[/quote]

they are instruments of human technology made by us for us, yes.

Similarly, when a sufficient
[quote]number of phenomena are adequately controlled using a theory and the
explanations it provides, the theory and the explanations are
considered to be usable to control the phenomena in the field of
validity of the theory.
[/quote]

yes, they most certainly are considered to be 'usable' and are subsequently
used.

For example, when a sufficient number of
[quote]machines, or even a single machine, that is designed and fabricated
using a theory and the explanations it provides does what it is
expected to do, the theory and the explanations are considered to be
usable to design and construct such machines.
[/quote]
of course, see above

[quote]Whether the explanations
really reflect the reality or not is a philosophical question, not a
scientific one.
[/quote]
yes, but scientists are also philosophers, they are people, and people are in
the habbit of philosophizing (every time we entertain a thought and weight up
competing ideas etc., i consider this to be philosophizing). Many scientists are
'scientific realists' and believe that their theories reflect reality, and many
scientists are instrumentalists in that they see their theories as instruments
and nothing more and nothing less; however, "what drives us onwards in the work
of science is precisely the sense that there are truths out there to be
discovered, truths that once discovered will form a permanent part of human
knoweledge."

so tell me, is your theory 'true'? if so, how could you possibly know? if not,
then it is nothing more than a useful model and should be treated as such

The difference between philosophical and scientific
[quote]constructs is that the usefulness of only the latter in explaining,
predicting, and controlling the phenomena can be empirically tested.
Plato said that philosophy yields only probabilities. In opposition to
this, when science shows that a certain theory is usable in a certain
area of reality, that theory remains usable in that area of reality
unless the basic laws and the structure of the universe change, which
is not something that is observed or suspected to happen until now.
Thus, the explanations provided by a theory are the least convincing
and least determining tests of the usability of the theory. But you
are not thinking of what is beyond explanations, meaning deeds instead
of just thoughts, because you have a philosophical mind, not a
scientific, or pragmatic, one.
[/quote]
?i consider myself, as im sure so do you, to be a pragmatists. for example, i
think it is a practical and important ethical consideration to avoid using words
like 'prove' to rhetorically authoratize my ideas and claims.

[quote]
the utility of any explanation consists in its internal logic structure-

You are wrong again, as explained above.

you are assuming, as did freud- and many evolutionary psychologists, that the
mind subserves the bodies biological needs;

Wrong again.
I wrote that the mind cannot exist without the body, and
that therefore the mind has functions serving to protect and develop
the body and its environment. This means that both the body and the
environment *subserve* each other as needed. This is what is
established by science.
[/quote]
well, i simply apologise if i miss construed your position. i *love* the idea
that the body and the environment subserve one another as needed. this sounds
very similar to Maturana and Varela>s theory of 'structurally coupling' which is
a strong form of 'emboddiment'; it states that "system A is 'structurally
coupled' to envirnment B, if a subset of A>s states has the capacity to
'perturb' a subset of B>s states, and if a subset of B>s states has the capacity
to 'perturb' a subset of A>s states." this means that the body and the
environment 'mutually perturb' one another through 'perturbatory channells' that
structurally couple them. anyway, it is a brilliant idea, and it seems somewhat
compatible with your notion of emboddiment (if it could be called that).

[quote]'instincts' simply provide a useful way of characterizing a range of
psychological phenomena-

Wrong again. The concept *instinct* is useful also in predicting and
controlling the phenomena within the frame of the theory in which it
is used. But you are not interested in such practical matters.
[/quote]

this is a missconstrual (i wont say that 'you are wrong' simply because i dont
beleive in right or wrong) so i will paraphrase; "....'instincts' simply provide
a useful way of characterizing a range of psychological phenomena...." and by
extension, these characterizations are used to do many things (this is what i
had in mind, i didnt make it explicit becuase i thought it was obvious that our
various mental-scaffolds are used to do various things)

[quote]but, as Einstein once said "we may never know if our
explanation is the only one that can explain all the phenomena we observe",
and there is a good prima facie case for believing this to be so because
observations are like texts; they give rise to a multiverse of interpretations
leaving us with absolutely no way to pick and choose between competing
interpretations and versions of reality.

Einstein was not only a theoretician but also a philosopher, and his
above views belong more to philosophy than to science. His scientific
work contains no such ideas. Moreover, Einstein had a psychological
need to show himself very intelligent because of his slow mental
development in his childhood, and this is why he preferred to qualify
his ideas as inventions rather than discoveries of things that exist
in nature.

recourse to science wont save you,

Everything I say is intended to belong to science, experimental or
theoretical, whereas everything you say belongs to philosophy.
[/quote]
and just what, pratel, does 'theoretical' refer to the above locution? science
is carried out in a realist philosophical framework, i am not questioning its
various methods and methodologies, but i am questioning how we think about the
results that they produce. it is simply unsatisfactory to say that our theories
describe and explain nature, and i will continue to challange those who say
otherwise for pragmatic reasons (i.e., ethical considerations- which are most
pertinent in psychological science which is the umbrella under which your theory
falls).

And you
[quote]are confounding theory with philosophical thought. The practical
viability of the former is empirically testable,
[/quote]
you fail to see my point, EMPIRICAL TESTING IS CARRIED OUT WITHIN AN A-PRIORI
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK, LETS, FOR SIMPLISITY, CALL THIS A-PRIORI FRAMEWORK A
PHILOSOPHICAL FRAMEWORK! you seem to have a rather rigid and narrow
understanding of philosophy- EVERYONE IS A PHILOSOPHER, IF YOU DISAGREE, THEN
YOU ARE PHILOSOPHIZING!!!!

whereas the latter is
[quote]only an inconsequential mental exercise.
[/quote]
so every thought you ever have is an inconsequental mental excercise. once
again, you have a rather 'narrow' view of philosophy. i am not an 'analytical
philosopher' as are most, i am a *science* student.

To what extent an idea has
[quote]ontological significance or non at all, as you claim, cannot be
empirically determined, but this is philosophy, not science. Besides,
*ontology* refers to a deductive way of understanding,
[/quote]

no it is not. i have no idea where you got this from. ONTOLOGY deals with
'being' what it is 'to be' and 'what is' and so on; its not deductive, it is
mainly inferential- i.e., we infer there are such things as causes, therefore,
'causes' is an ontological category in its own right.

whereas
[quote]theories are not deduced from anywhere, they are induced from a few
observed phenomena to explain, PREDICT, and CONTROL all phenomena
within the same area of reality. It is in philosophy and metaphysics
that ideas are deduced from hypotheses that have no empirical basis,
and they are not empirically testable.
[/quote]

it is rather interesting that i should note that empirical science rests upon an
absolute moutain of 'philosohical assumptions' that themselves are *not*
amenable to empirical enquirey!!!!!!!!!

[quote]You are perfectly right as a
philosopher but completely wrong as a acientist.
[/quote]
?, hopefully i have clarified most of the missconstruals

mickeyd

Mr Michael Bibby · Guest

[quote]CORRECTION. You are not perfectly right as a philosopher. Nobody
appears to be intelligent enough, not even Einstein, to invent a
thought system that does not correspond to anything in reality and yet
serves to explain, predict, and control the observed phenomena.
[/quote]

correction, yes they have! radical constructivism provides a way of modelling
phenomena without recourse to a mind independent reality! their explanations are
not rooted in a mind independent reality but instead are necessarily circular as
phenomena are seen as brought forth by the observing system through the very
process of observing. this orientation replaces the 'representationalist' notion
of knowledge with one of 'functional fit'. external reality is made obsolete.
this orientation has huge implications in emprical science.

[quote]Einstein did not really believe that he had achieved that. When a
journalist asked him what he would do if his theory turned out to be
wrong, he said that he would pity God. He meant evidently that the
universe should have been created as he described it, and that if it
was not, it would be God>s mistake. This shows that he attributed
ontological significance to his theory, even if he uttered these words
in a joking mood.

Altan

[/quote]
mickeyd

Guest

Arthur T. Murray (uj797@victoria.tc.ca), in article nntp:/<3f1e917f@news.victoria.tc.ca> , wrote:
[quote][...] All you have to do is to create a catchy slogan [...]

Please put the following "catchy slogan" on Web pages:

a href="http://mentifex.virtualentity.com/weblog.html"
AI has been solved</a
[/quote]
Would that be Artificial Insemination or Artificial Intelligence?
I didn>t believe that the first had a problem with a practical solution,
and I don>t believe that the second has an ultimate end.

Altan Loker · Guest

Which machine was designed on the basis of radical constructivism and
worked?
Which social organisation was created on the basis of radical
constructivism and worked?
Which illness was cured on the basis of radical constructivism?
Which event was predicted on the basis of radical constructivism?
ANY???.....
A thought system cannot be considered scientific if it does not serve
to do these things.
You are trapped in inconsequential philosophical thinking. Such
thoughts are produced to interpret scientific creations after these
are scientifically created, not before. They do not produce scientific
progress, they are suggested by scientific progress to explain
philosophically what has already been achieved scientifically..

Altan

Mr Michael Bibby · Guest

[quote]Which machine was designed on the basis of radical constructivism and
worked?
[/quote]

RC is no different to realism in terms of 'producing workable solutions', in
fact, there is reason to beleive that it would produce more workable solutions
than a realist based science: for example, under the existing framework once a
workable solution to a given problem is found, it is usually assimilated into
the existing body of knowledge. this produces a 'set effect' in that it is often
seen as the only workable solution, consequently, scientists are limited by
existing conceptual frameworks as they busy themselves 'assimilating' new
observations into existing a-priori frameworks. a constructivist based science
is open to a variety of workable solutions to any given problem and therefore
might lead to great productivity in terms of generating results (for example,
the 'framing problem' and 'symbol grounding problem' are no longer problematic
in a Radical constructivist framework, they are only problematic in a realist
based framework).

[quote]Which social organisation was created on the basis of radical
constructivism and worked?
[/quote]
non yet, maybe one day science.

[quote]Which illness was cured on the basis of radical constructivism?
[/quote]
again, this is a moot point. like i said, A constructivists based science would
be just as effective as a realists based science, possibly more so. i think your
missing the point. constructivism is a mental scaffolding, it is a metatheory,
it simply provides a framework to do science in.

[quote]A thought system cannot be considered scientific if it does not serve
to do these things.
[/quote]

yes, so by *your* logic, radical constructivism is scientific. RC is being
applied to various domains of science, it is being applied to developmental
theory, biology, quantum mechanics and so on (for a review of the applicability
of RC in science see 'the foundations of science' journal, special edition
called 'the impact of radical constructivism on science', i cant remember what
issues, but it was a two part series with about 10 articles most of which are
available on the web). also, just wanted to note that RC is compatible with
second order cybernetics.

mickeyd

Mr Michael Bibby · Guest

[quote]ADDENDUM. I think I understand your point. You are saying that you do
not REALLY have two feet, two hands, two eyes, you do not have a head,
you do not have a brain, and so forth. These are your constructs that
help you to deal with the reality, whatever it is. That sounds
reasonable.

A. L.
[/quote]

NO! i am ****NOT***** asserting or denying the existence of external reality-
radical constructivism is not a theory of 'being', RC simply says that the mind
is an operationally closed, self-referential system, that is, the perpetually
acting components of the system refer only to themselves, it interacts
recursively with its own states; we have no recourse to external reality.
Glasersfeld, a leading proponent of RC, says this by saying "we cannot transcend
the domain of our expeirences", it makes absolutely no sense to look 'outside'
of the operationally closed, self-referential system for explanations of
system-relative constructions, that is, explanations of phenomena cannot be
rooted in some 'transcendental reality'- this is a fundamental explanatory
shift.

mickeyd


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