(Part 2) Best behavioral sciences books according to redditors

Actually, you will find that if you look at socioeconomic success among black Americans, you will find that black immigrants have greater academic success than blacks who have been in the US for many generations. Academic and linguist John McWhorter writes about this in his book Losing the Race.

I read the book Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel, and it turns out Elephants are smart enough to differentiate between humans based on their clothing and language. When researchers played recordings of the indigenous Maasai people (known for poaching elephants) the elephants showed distress and became aggressive. Same thing occurred when researchers presented themselves in Maasai clothing/attire, although the elephants were even smart enough to understand they weren't a threat after investigating a bit longer.

It's really astonishing what they're capable of. They travel thousands of miles and stop to mourn when they pass places where family had died, years after the fact. So to me it's likely that the elephant knew exactly what they were doing.

Edit: Here's a source from National Geographic for the Maasai experiment I mentioned

Oh please no...

A good book on the matter (if you go through smile it gives to a charity): https://smile.amazon.com/Inferior-Science-Wrong-Research-Rewriting/dp/0807071706/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1502665895&sr=8-1&keywords=inferior+how+science+got+women+wrong

Also a great summary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zu1b54RtSE8

What's amazing is dudes not even understanding to use, I don't know, tact? To have, I don't know some sensitivity, when literally discussing whether science backs up women being less able to do all the stuff we judge the most admirable in our society and therefore implying that women are inferior to men?

Also I've been doing jiu-jitsu for twelve years and studied astrophysics (and in fact many of the most important discoveries in my field were done by women). Fuck off.

I've never really seen the need for a men's "rights" movement, because that would imply that men, as a social category, are somehow lacking in rights or protections. We aren't. But we are affected by the same rigid constraints on gender that women and GSM folk (gender and sexual minorities) are. Those gender "boxes" definitely harm men's self-image, expressions of self, and emotional well-being, and ought to be done away with. And there are men's groups and men's movements out there that strive to do just that.

Local groups, like the Canadian-based Anti-violence Project acknowledge the damage that gender roles can have on men and boys and work alongside feminist and other anti-violence groups to do something about it. They are often supported at the national and international level by organizations like the White Ribbon Campaign that engage in positive activism aimed at re-configuring society's views about men, boys, and the sorts of gender roles we are supposed to play.

Academically, these activist initiatives are reinforced by a fairly huge amount of social science research on men and masculinities. There are a number of different research journals and textbooks that focus exclusively on men and men's lives (see here, here, here, and here for example), and all of these help researchers, policy-makers, students, and citizens from all walks of life better understand men and men's issues.

We don't need a "men's rights movement"; we never did, because the pro-feminist men's movement is already shining a light on the issues that men of all kinds face.

Sorry for the rant!

Not OP, but I found inferior very illuminating

>Can we also admit that men's IQ tends to wrap around women? Meaning that at the very far ends of the Gaussian, there are more men, meaning that there are more retarded men but also more genius men? When you get to something like professorship, you are selecting for the best of the best of the best, so you are going to start to see that far end of the Gaussian matter.

I honestly don't know why people put so much importance on IQ tests and SAT scores when neither are perfect measures. In fact, a construct like IQ is not a concrete domain and to treat it like it is, is pretty silly. On top of which, there is no CAUSAL link to IQ and success, it is all correlational. I would suggest reading up more on what IQ is, confidence intervals, regression to the mean, how well any test captures the top and bottom 1%, and what an IQ test or an SAT actually measures. To assume that an IQ of 158 versus 165 is going to make ANY difference to your creative ideas or chance at professorship/getting grants is a gross misunderstanding of the skills required in a scientific job. While you are at it, read this article to put "scores" in more perspective: https://qz.com/441905/men-are-both-dumber-and-smarter-than-women/. I would also suggest buying and reading this book: https://www.amazon.com/Inferior-Science-Wrong-Research-Rewriting/dp/0807071706

You may enjoy the book Beyond Words, in which the author, Carl Safina, spends time with researchers studying wolves in Yellowstone. He also spends time with elephant and orca researchers. All three are species are incredibly intelligent and highly social.

eta: link

Yup. Modern education is a cargo cult. Especially when you consider robust analyses of educational outcomes in separately adopted twins demonstrating that ~50% of the difference in educational outcomes is predictable and genetic and the other ~50% isn’t predictable based on anything that people think makes a difference (ie school quality, income, parenting style etc are all confounders and not causal). Citation

That might be true for a small minority of black Republicans, but the reasons Black Republicans vote GOP are varied, and the vast majority of them are very well-educated people who feel that Democrats are very [subtly] racist, reinforcing dependence and victimhood in blacks and using them to feed their savior complexes.

In fact, if you look at the largest Black church congregations, the preachers heavily endorse Democratic candidates. Over 90% of blacks vote democrats, and most of them are religious.

There are books written on this issue, as well as talks with various members of the black community.

You might want to listen to what they have to say instead of making assumptions for them, which is pretty much what the left has always done.

There is a whole series of these talks.

There are books about this by John McWhorter, Thomas Sowell

Some minorities loathe the victim complexes within their communities and the removed intellectuals in their ivory towers who tell them what they need.

EDIT thank you, for proving exactly what I said by down voting me, and proving exactly what they all express during those talks.

Assuming that all black people are a hivemind who have to vote in the exact same way. The horrifying notion that highly educated black people might have a different opinion, must be religion. They simply can't think for themselves. /s

TL;DR Like us error theorists deny that slavery etc. is moral; they just have different reasons. For relativists, on the other hand, slavery is wrong relative to our moral framework, which is why we shouldn't do it; and yes, for them, we can still criticize slavers!

You raise an excellent question, which [moral relativists] (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-relativism/) like [Jesse Prinz] (https://philosophynow.org/issues/82/Morality_is_a_Culturally_Conditioned_Response) have done a lot of work towards answering. In fact, your point is one of the biggest objections to relativism: if morality is merely relative, how can we justifiably criticize or object to slavery, misogyny, holocausts, etc? why shouldn't we just do what we want, whether or not it hurts anyone? After all, relative to our moral framework, such actions could be justified.

If you want, check out the Prinz paper linked above, or even better his book [The Emotional Construction of Morals] (http://www.amazon.ca/Emotional-Construction-Morals-Jesse-Prinz/dp/0199571546), as well as the SEP article for the relativists' answer: relative to our morality, slavery etc. is wrong, which is why we shouldn't reenact it. And even though morality's relative, that doesn't prevent us from criticizing others or defending our views - relativism doesn't imply 'anything goes'!

To answer your question, though, [error theorists] (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-anti-realism/) can oppose horribly immoral crimes like slavery just as much as anyone else; like us, it rejects that slavery is morally okay, just for different reasons (because moral judgments are errors). See Richard Joyce's [The Myth of Morality] (http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/samples/cam031/2001025740.pdf), his paper [here] (http://personal.victoria.ac.nz/richard_joyce/acrobat/joyce_2007_morality.schmorality.pdf), and Ricahrd Garner's [Abolishing Morality] (http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10677-007-9085-3#page-1) for a fuller explanation.

They cite Rationality and the Reflective Mind, which looks potentially interesting.

> Stanovich argues that to fully characterize differences in rational thinking, we need to replace dual-process theories with tripartite models of cognition. Using a unique individual differences approach, he shows that the traditional second system (System 2) of dual-process theory must be further divided into the reflective mind and the algorithmic mind. Distinguishing them will allow us to better appreciate the significant differences in their key functions: The key function of the reflective mind is to detect the need to interrupt autonomous processing and to begin simulation activities, whereas that of the algorithmic mind is to sustain the processing of decoupled secondary representations in cognitive simulation.

The same author also wrote What Intelligence Tests Miss: The Psychology of Rational Thought, which also looks pretty good.

> He mentions Georges Bush, Jr. who was very intelligent as measured by IQ tests. But, he was not a proficient thinker as he was dogmatic, ill informed, impatient, and prone to rash decisions sometimes associated with devastating outcomes. Stanovich describes Bush condition as Dysrationalia or someone who is less rational than his IQ would suggest.

Have you actually explored both sides of the spectrum?

What books have you read in favor of evolution? What books on astrophysics? And have you read anything about secular moral philosophies, or evolutionary theories of altruism?

Yes. They do. If you want some good resources that get sciency with it:


Alex & Me: How a Scientist and a Parrot Discovered a Hidden World of Animal Intelligence--and Formed a Deep Bond in the Process: Dr. Irene Pepperberg's studies on language and cognitive theory with African Greys. Alex could do complex abstract conversions with things like number and counting, for instance he knew what "5" is as a symbol and could equate it to a representation for a number of objects like x, x, x, x, x means there are "five" "x"s. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXoTaZotdHg


Conversations with Cosmo: At Home with an African Grey Parrot University of Georgia PHD who shares her life with her CAG, and has created a language for conversing with him she calls "Cosmish" which incluses tenses (future, past, future possible, etc.) and an number of other advanced linguistic constructs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyWYzuV6WYk


Gifts of the Crow: How Perception, Emotion, and Thought Allow Smart Birds to Behave Like Humans: A fascinating and highly entertaining book about cognition in corvid populations. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THE AUDIOBOOK if you've got a 6-hour road trip, it is GREAT.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0OAWFn02Lg


I've seen my birds pick up spontaneous conversational associations. The original Dr. Doolittle was fabled to "talk with animals" because he kept an African Grey and for grey owners, it's just accepted as "the norm" and taken for granted. It wasn't until I got Ollie, my "new" bird after losing "Smokey" the bird I'd had for most of my life that I saw the process develop again.


One striking example was "whoops". The second day Ollie was home, he broke a toe. He temporarily became clumsy as a result, so if I dropped or startled anything near him or he stumbled, I was very careful to say "Whoops, you're all right." Over time, it just became "Whoops". His toe healed and he regained his footing and I'd long since forgotten about it. At about 9 months old, he had his first molt of flight feathers. When I'd gotten him he had a HORRIBLE clipping, so his wings were useless. After his flight feathers came back in and he began fledging, I noticed him using "Whoops" whenever he had a shaky landing.


He was doing this on his own. Additionally, any time anything is dropped in his vicinity, he exclaims "whoops", if he's on me and I do something he's not expected "Whoops". The cat falls off the couch "Whoops". So I'm pretty certain, he knows that there are appropriate contexts for saying "Whoops" and he in those contexts he predictably says "whoops"...


This is one of probably dozens of examples, but, yes, based on both reading and practical experience with greys, I fully believe that they both TALK and cognitively use language.

was that the "it's a black problem" post? because i disagree with your assessment. the post was worded poorly, but there is certainly evidence the black community eschews education as pointed out in Losing The Race: Self-Sabotage In Black America by John McWhorter. Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams (particularly the former), who i reference in my other response, have written much about blacks and education, drawing upon their economic expertise comparing schools, educational outcomes and reported violence over many years. Larry Elder also touches upon the topic in Ten Things You Can't Say In America, and like the previous authors touches upon other issues currently (a key word) more common to the black community, particularly poor black communities.

i point this out as i intended to expound further, hopefully bringing the user to a wiser conclusion (supported by evidence).

the irony of arguing about someone being banned for offensive behavior in this thread is certainly not lost on me. in fact, i wholeheartedly agree with self-policing within communities. that said, i'm not so convinced accusations of racism are methodically applied as people like to believe and this case missed an opportunity for a more enlightened conversation--despite such comments.

your call; my two cents.

Playing devil's advocate: your use of the word "essence" could be taken as question-begging. Who says you have one, and what is it?

But to answer the question, the brain's clearly got a lot to do with it, but many thinkers would say that the body is also important. See Mind in Life by Evan Thompson, for example. I don't know whether I'd go as far as Thompson does, but I think you can make a good case that a lot of our thinking about the brain and the mind is still influenced by the Cartesian split between the rational soul and the mechanical body.

Det er et fascinerende eksempel!

Jeg er utrolig inspireret af den canadiske psykolog Keith Stanovich, som er en af de førende forskere inden for det specifikke felt i psykologien.

Den bedste og mest tilgængelig bog er "The Robots Rebellion" Som jeg ikke kan anbefale nok. Men, den handler om mange flere ting end bare rationalitet og intelligens.

Han har også skrevet "Rationality and the Reflective Mind" som specifikt handler om rationalitet og intelligens. Den er en lille smule fagtung, og det er svært for mig at vurdere, hvor svær den er for lægmand. Men du er meget velkommen til at skrive til mig og spørge om enkeltdele, hvis du giver dig i kast med den,

Endelig har Stanovich, sammen med en række kolleger, skrevet en bog om rationalitet som et målbart parameter, hvor de forsøger at opstille en gennemgående skala for rationalitet på linje med de klassiske IQ tests. "The rationality quotient" Jeg har ikke læst den, men den er allerøverst på min læseliste.

Thanks for responding. You and I disagree, and I've been trying to find a way to justify my own floating classification system, hence my questions for you. I consider myself to be a moral person (also an atheist), and I believe that "murder", when classified as such, is wrong, but I do not believe that killing is wrong in all cases.

There's a fantastic book out there called Moral Minds, which deals with how moral dilemmas are viewed all across the world, and points to a universal moral system which is hard wired in the same way Chomsky et al claimed humans had a "universal grammar".

http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Minds-Nature-Right-Wrong/dp/006078072X

Fascinating stuff.

Elections aren't won by who belongs to which party. Elections are won by who shows up to the voting booth.

Campaigning isn't about convincing people you're right and it hasn't been for a long, long time. Most people have made up their minds on just about every issue. If they haven't, they will very quickly once they are exposed to it (and they won't so readily take the word of a single source.) The most a candidate can do is attempt to align themselves to the beliefs of an already decided electorate.

Campaigns are, in reality, won through mobilization. It isn't about convincing people you're right. It's about getting as many of your people out to the voting booth as you can without getting their people out in the process. Something like this is a double-edged sword because Democrats aren't the only people watching. This is a public drama and Republicans are watching, too. And you may well end up inadvertently mobilizing decidedly Republican voters in your attempt to mobilize Democratic voters.

In other words: voters are already convinced of what they believe and, more or less, convinced of what party they would vote for. The question for campaigners is whether they're actually going to go out and vote. A campaigner needs to convince their own voters that they need to go vote, but they need to do so without frightening or angering their opposition's voters such that they go out and vote, too.

The Obama/Biden 2008 campaign had some VERY clever campaign tactics using microtargeting, which--for lack of a better word--stealthily campaigned directly to probable Democratic voters without actually exposing their message broadly to Republican voters. e.g. instead of blasting TV commercials exclusively, the Obama campaign did stuff like put QR codes on buses and benches in predominately Democratic neighborhoods, ensuring that only people who gave enough of a shit about Obama actually went to those sites. They also used this strategy with layman donors and used more technical microtargeting software to profile probable supporters and advertise to them directly via emails, mailers, etc. Rick Perry's gubernatorial campaigns pioneered many of these techniques, openly allowing studies to be conducted from within his own campaign. A good book for reference.

Losing the Race: The Self Sabotage of Black America by John McWhorter

I'd start with What's Wrong with Jung? or The Jung Cult : Origins of a Charismatic Movement

As in all areas that have a cult-like following for something, it's a good idea to read the criticisms before you start on the cult-forming material.

It's still very questionable how close we are to understanding consciousness. From just dabbling into the mind sciences and the different camps there, it really doesn't seem like we're quite there yet. But even if our technology can eventually create the conditions for consciousness, I think Buddhism will become more relevant.

For example, Francisco Varela, Humberto Maturana and Evan Thompson are all examples of a Buddhist-inspired approach to the science of mind. Check out (though be warned you're entering into the fray of some heavy philosophy-speak) Embodied Mind, Mind in Life, and a textbook on the subject, The Tree of Knowledge. To them, the contemplative disciplines of the East (and the West for that matter - what has survived through the traditions), are all examples of a deeply sophisticated "inner science" that can actually help inform and guide the scientific understanding of consciousness. In short, I think the trend we have today is telling: as neuroscience and consciousness studies develop, the Western interest in Buddhism also seems to be increasing.

I think a few other popular books are Rick Hanson's Buddha's Brain and B. Alan Wallace's Contemplative Science: Where Buddhism and Neuroscience Converge Hope this was helpful!

Edit ~ Forgot to mention something about reincarnation. Well, many traditions have an esoteric perspective on reality, an inner dimension, and in some sense, an inner world with its own laws and realities that are in some respects more real than our material senses. So, some might be against uploading their consciousness for fear of stagnating their own spiritual evolution. Personally, I learn towards believing that reality is more than our contemporary, secular culture can articulate. So even with AI, I think these spiritual realities will not become "irrelevant" - but if we believe like many of the traditions do that there are subtle bodies (etheric, astral, etc) - then there are certain dangers in attempting to create life and mind without awareness of these. This is borderline science fiction, but I can imagine a gnostic fear of spiritual "entrapment." A consciousness that has lost its soul - or worse yet, a soul that is ensnared within a machine and unable to move on because it is missing critical spiritual bodies that would allow it to move onto the next life (or beyond this world). Should make for some interesting new mythologies...

On the other hand, scientists may unwittingly create the conditions for the etheric (the animating force of life, chi or ki), and other bodies simply by learning the physical principles of life. So artificial beings may also have chakras and energy channels - and there may even be new spiritual traditions and metaphysics that humans may not be able to understand. Anyhow, many traditions speak of transcending the ego and allowing the "higher self" to guide us - well, maybe, just maybe, an AI might be a suitable mind for the Higher Self, or Daimon, to descend and incarnate. Whoo, this is fun thinking about. This is sounding like a science fiction version of Sri Aurobindo's "Supramental descent."

Elephants are extremely intelligent animals with fairly complex social structures.

Researchers once played a recording of a call from a deceased elephant from speakers near that elephant's herd and the elephants spent days searching for their dead friend. The humans felt so bad about this they didn't try it again.

If you're truly open to learning more about this, there's TONS of good stuff on google scholar.

Most animal cognitive scientists are in consensus that (a) at the very least, animals are sentient and feel pain and can suffer and many additionally believe that they're (b) conscious too.

This is a great book on the topic that encompasses decades of research and fieldwork

Every book on consciousness will have its own pet theory. I haven't found many great books on the neuroscience of consciousness, though Giulio Tononi and Christof Koch have a pretty good review paper on the subject. The one caveat is that they mostly review evidence for their own theory of consciousness, the Information Integration Theory.

As for the philosophy of consciousness, there are a number of good books, again each with their own agenda/pet theory. If you want the entire spectrum of opinions, check out Paul Churchland's Matter and Consciousness, which both provides a good overview of the field and also offers a defense of Churchland's materialist view; I'd also check out John Searle's The Rediscovery of the Mind, which presents Searle's biological naturalism, a sort of "centrist" view in the array of popular positions, and which is written in very straightforward language; a third option, which is more complicated than the other two but is really important in the field, is Chalmers' The Conscious Mind.

Hope that helps!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cosmic-Serpent-DNA-Origins-Knowledge/dp/075380851X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1526927928&sr=8-1&keywords=the+cosmic+serpent

JP is referring to the thesis of this book. From the Wikpedia page:

>Narby hypothesizes that shamans may be able to access information at the molecular level through the ingestion of entheogens, specifically ayahuasca.

Basically, the theory is that shamans were able to intuit the structure of DNA through DMT-ritutals. Pretty out there, granted, but bear in mind that DMT occurs naturally in the brain and we have no idea why. Peterson isn't having recourse to anything supernatural here, he's just open to speculation about the function of psychedelics..

Good on you!

You can't become a "registered behavior technician" and work with your own child but you can absolutely get the 40 hour training and have a consulting BCBA that trains, supervises, and updates the program for you.

Some other useful resources for implementing your own program are the classic Maurice and Green book and Mary Barbera's book and courses for "gung ho parents."

Not really. There's really great evidence that our basic morality is a condition of evolution - certain attitudes, such as disliking cheating and liking kindness, are good for the species in the long run, so our brains are wired for some basic kindness, even if it's selfish kindness (I help you because you'll probably help me later).

This kind of moral framework is completely supportable in the absence of any god, and it's objective across all humanity because we all share in that same evolution. Granted, the duties and morals imposed by God are on a different and stricter level, but we are more or less programmed to be kind to those who are like us. You can see this book if you're in any way interested.

Beyond an objective (if basic) morality, you've got objective things like math and science and history and pretty much anything we can study. 2+2=4 isn't up for debate, although "is patricide wrong" might be.

Ha! Everything you linked me is either non-sequitur or unproven bunk. Your links prove nothing, other than your own lack of understanding, and inconsistent argument.

I’m not a scientist in this field, so I’m not replying to disprove it. I’m here to shut down your fallacious logic, and provide links to why your pseudo-science is hot garbage.

Let’s start with the non-sequitur:

Biological genetic memory doesn’t equal psychological genetic memory! One doesn’t prove the other, and you’re arguing for the latter. Biological genetic memory is merely for cell development, and other microscopic functions, and has nothing to do with brain memory.

As for psychological genetic memory, did you even read the wiki page you sent me? Straight from that page: “In modern psychology, genetic memory is generally considered a false idea.”

Further, that string of google scholar links is all about the biological genetic memory, which has zero to do with anything you’re talking about.

————

Now for the garbage fire that is your main argument and links:

The PsychologyToday link... oof, where to begin?

Carl Jung was great for many things, but his “popular theory of the collective unconscious is especially criticized as an example of over-interpretation and a failure to examine the diversity of cultural evidence.”

Also, Noam Chomsky is also great for many things, but his universal grammar theory is not related to what we’re discussing, at all.

Lastly, the creator of morphic resonance, Rupert Sheldrake, is widely panned as a pseudo-scientist by the scientific community, and his theory has never been proven, and has been disproven numerous times.

> “the concept of morphic resonance, a conjecture which lacks mainstream acceptance and has been characterised as pseudoscience.”

And more from his page:

> "there is no way that this straightforward and impressive body of evidence can be taken to imply that memories are not in the brain, still less that the brain is tuning into some indeterminate, undefined, resonating and extra-corporeal field."

And more:

> “Sheldrake's interpretation of the data was "misleading" and attributable to experimenter effects.”

This guy you’ve decided to believe is a whack job, and his theories hold as much weight as saying crystals heal the body.

Get the tinfoil off your head.

>The Bible lays out what is considered good and what is considered to be bad/evil.

Well, Divine Command Theory (via the Bible) does some of that. But there are a few areas that I find lacking. For example, on the issue of slavery the Bible has been used to support pro-slavery arguments.

So then we get into the trouble of interpreting what the Bible means which reduces the holy scripture to Cultural Relativism, the bane of all Objective Morality arguments for God.

So the question becomes, are you following the objective truths of the Bible? Or are you following the subjective interpretations of the Bible?

>How do you know what is good, and what is bad/evil?

I first ground my interpretations of good vs. evil on my emotional experiences of cheer, comfort, and wellness vs. depression, pain, and illness. But it's not so simple.

Not all that causes euphoria is "good". Addictive drugs like heroin can be an example. And not all that causes pain is "evil". Experiencing the discomfort after working-out at the gym is another example.

So there is a sense of Teleology involved with considering what good and evil are. A desired outcome that minor discomforts are undertaken for a short-term loss in order to achieve a higher outcome for myself, my society, and possibly humanity as a whole.

What should those goals be? I'd definitely like to reduce the amount of extreme suffering in the world. I reason that while the reduction suffering doesn't give anyone a better use of their time, it does allow humanity as a whole a greater freedom to pursue other goals once they aren't spending every waking hour to just surviving.

>Coming from a background in psychology, I would likely pushback against the argument that humans are born with a concept of morality.

Oh good, then I would recommend reading about studies on Infant Morality. Here's a second article on the same Yale study. And a third article linking to some newer Canadian research.

I'd also recommend reading about Reciprocal Altruism. Or also, Biological Altruism.

Here's an entire book on the subject of atheists and evolved morality: The Bonobo and the Atheist: In Search of Humanism Among the Primates.

While nothing is solid, there is a trend in your area of study that shows infants are probably capable of basic empathetic reasoning.

I'd agree what infants don't have is Ethics. Which needs knowledge and forms of reasoning to arrive at certain conclusions for what moral actions ought to be undertaken. Such experiences are not available to infants.

I actually disagree completely with your central objection here. You object that OP conflates emotions and morals, and state that you don't need one to have the other. I think that you absolutely do need emotions to have morals, and Vulcan's as a hypothetical aren't even a good imaginary test case for an example of people who have no emotions who do have morals for exactly the reason that they DO have emotions. Very strong emotions, in fact so strong that their entire planet turned to suppressing their emotions in a last ditch effort to achieve any kind of lasting culture.

I don't see how you're drawing a line between desire and emotion. What is desire if not an emotion? What is it to say you desire something if there is no emotion driving it? In my view, the nature of desire/emotion/value judgement is not nearly so clear cut.

You're right that Data has desires, and he also clearly has things he values. In my view, these behaviors constitute emotional states, although his outward expression of these emotions and his subjective experience of them are clearly very different from a human beings. That isn't to say he is flawed or broken, only that he is different. He is mistaken when he says he has no emotions, when what he really means is that he doesn't have the subjective experience of emotions that humans have. The emotion chip provides him with that subjective experience, but this is a change in how he experiences emotions, not the create of emotion ex nihilo.

For more about emotions and morals, I would refer you to The Emotional Construction of Morals by Jesse Prinz. No need to read it if you have no interest in the subject, but if it sparks your interest I found it to be a really great read on moral sentimentalism/emotionism.

I took a number of women's studies courses. When I worked on my 2nd bachelors, I completed almost all of the requirements for the degree with women's studies classes.

If that is out of your price range (I had a lot of needed pre-reqs for a masters degree I had to hammer out anyway), perhaps they have some advice for a reading list.

Some books you may find interesting to read (your local library may have them):

Being Boys; Being Girls. This one is about how boys and girls learn masculinity and femininity as various ages.

Men's Lives. I had an earlier edition in one of my sociology courses. This one is about the construction of masculinity - how boys become men.

Gender Trouble. I had an earlier edition of this book in my gender courses. Butler's argument is basically that gender is a performance. We're all copying something of which there is no original. Could be confusing to read.

Whipping Girl. I recommend this one because it is a very readable book about becoming a transwoman. One way to understand how our society treats men and women differently is to see how things change as someone changes gender. It is the same person, but now how we treat them based on what is/isn't between their legs.

Ain't I A Woman. One of the influential works on Black Feminism. Some black feminists feel that the feminist movement is a bit too much focused on white women. The word "intersectionality" is frequently used to describe situation where racism and sexism collide - and that things get more complicated than just sexism or just racism happen.

As others have mentioned, I would recommend staying away from most blogs/tumblrs and sticking to published books and papers.

• Patricia Churchland - Neurophilosophy
  
• Paul Churchland - Matter and Consciousness
  
• William Lycan (ed.) - Mind and Cognition

I have an 18 year old son with autism. He is enrolled in community college, and practicing driving so that he can get his license.

I remember being terrified when I went down the path you are going down. He had no functional language at 3, and did a whole lot of stimming.

We ( by we, I mean I) put an ABA intensive intervention program in place, and he responded really well to it. This book really helped me put together a program.

https://www.amazon.com/Behavioral-Intervention-Young-Children-Autism/dp/0890796831

If you ever need to talk, I am happy to do so.

>But simply because rationality is very difficult for people does not make it a bad goal. Caring about people in some other country is difficult for almost everybody, as a consequence of human nature -- but wouldn't it be nice if more people gave a damn about, say, poor sanitation in rural India?

I hope you don't think that I'm taking a subjectivist point of view. I'm not, but neither am I taking a rationalist point of view. I'm trying to understand from a different perspective that takes into account what humans actually do what humans arerather
than what various schools think humans ought to do.

>It's telling that the more civilized areas tend to have less harmful superstitions. There are many things wrong with dousing and astrology, but I don't think either of them have said that you can gain magical power by cutting off and eating someone's labia. That's a real superstition from northeast Congo.

I suppose it depends a bit on what you mean by harmful. I suspect that this Congo superstition's harm is fairly local in effect (not that this is a comfort to those who loose their labia). But consider a "more civilized superstition: "Sustainable growth is possible." I doubt even if most readers at reddit would even recognize this as a superstition, but then I doubt if the Congo man recognizes eating his daughters labia as a superstition either.

The pursuit of sustainable growth in the developed world seems to increase welfare locally, but only because we more civilized people export the harm of development
to more remote (from us) regions of the planet.

Perhaps a more easily understood superstition
of the west is "diamonds are forever" in connection with love and marriage. This seemingly to us innocuous idea ships a good deal of harm
into the 3rd world.

>Reason is the only really reliable prophylactic against superstition. Find me one person who has really embraced reason and is also superstitious, and I'll show you someone who will immediately disappear in a puff of logic.

Sir Issac Newton

OP, I think you might be interested in this book. It was a course text in one of my undergrad courses.

Lakoff & Johnson, Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought

I would highly recommend these book to help draw out the debatable distinction:

>Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciousness (Alva Noe, 2009)

>Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind (Evan Thompson, 2010)

Every black person needs to read this book called "Losing the Race" by John McWhorter.

1. Anden fejlslutning
   
2. Læs den eller køb den her bog
   
3. Tredje fejlslutning
   
   Har fundet et kursus til dig på Folkeuniversitetet

Was just looking at Corvidae books, there's also "Gifts of the Crow", haven't read yet but 4.5 stars on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/Gifts-Crow-Perception-Emotion-Thought/dp/1439198748/

Also Noah Strycker's "The Thing With Feathers" has a good chapter on Clark's Nutcracker memory, also corvids; they can remember thousands of cache locations, allowing them to breed in January in the mountains. That was the only corvid bit I think, but that whole book was good. https://www.amazon.com/Thing-Feathers-Surprising-Lives-Reveal/dp/159463341X/

>What parts of Jung's work were "demonstrably proven false?"

There's a whole genre of book based around his theories being false

There are just TONS of them

You can go on for days about why his theories don't hold up. There are good bits, and those good bits live on. Depth Psychology was abandoned by psychologists as a whole, because there's nothing there.

> Are the archetypes non existent? was synchronicity not proved by his work with astrology and marriage? Could alchemy not be construed as a model for individuation? Idk what could possible have been demonstrably proven false.

You're going to try to tell me Jungs work holds up, because of astrology.

>Jung's method was simply to talk to folks.

There is no big couch that people sit on, because as it turns out, that's not an effective way to work through problems. That's an outdated method of psychology that only lives on in movies.

>I have read no Freud.

You can't read Jung and not read Freud. You're ignoring the whole reason he came up with Jungian psychology as a refutation of Freud.

>You don't think pills are good, but you think I'm wrong for saying they're bad. Soooo your point is something like " Hey! You're dumb!" ??

No, I think you're wrong for taking the role of an actual licensed therapist, whose actually studied psychology, and going up to their patients and going "You don't need drugs! Jung says we don't need drugs!"

Which is odd, because Jung liked drugs


>Lol how are you comparing Jung's talk-it-out approach to drilling a hole in someone's head?

Because they're both methods of psychology that went out of date as newer and better methods for treatment became available.

>The way I see it, capitalism is an evil system built on a mental illness ( greed )

Greed is not a mental illness. You can be right about it being an evil system, but greed is not a mental illness.

>Including profiting off the sickness of folks.

Awesome, then support Universal Health Care.

>o deny the possible effects of capitalism in every aspect of life is simply ignorant.

It's weird that we're suddenly talking about capitalism when it never came up before in the conversation, it's like you're changing the subject.

>To assume that everything is corrupt because of capitalism is also ignorant,

Weird how we're making assumptions in a conversation we weren't having.

>but I find this side of assumption to be right more often than not.

Psychology 102. Take a class on it.

For an excellent and very readable introduction to the various issues and positions in the philosophy of mind, you might also check out Paul Churchland's Matter and Consciousness.

Yeah, a bunch of it. Check out The Victory Lab by Sasha Issenberg.

Thanks, you point out some good references showing science for sure can be biased. A similar problem existed, of course, for science based rationale for treatment of women as inferior
https://www.amazon.com/Inferior-Science-Wrong-Research-Rewriting/dp/0807071706

Is the right course of action to ignore the science and instead trust our instincts when something could be subject to bias?

i am unaware of any anthropological studies that have established this "truth" of which you speak. could you perhaps post a few links to them?

here, i'll post one that describes the homosexual parings of over 450 life forms

http://www.yalescientific.org/2012/03/do-animals-exhibit-homosexuality/


perhaps a book on the subject instead?

http://www.amazon.com/Homosexual-Behaviour-Animals-Evolutionary-Perspective/dp/0521182301

Read up on this. www.amazon.com/The-Bonobo-Atheist-Humanism-Primates-ebook/dp/B007Q6XKEY

Charles Murray @charlesmurray
Robert Plomin, one of the biggest names in behavioral genetics, has just published a book on recent developments in genetics and heritability. It's called Blueprint and is written for a general audience. Here are two early reviews:
https://twitter.com/charlesmurray/status/1044672142502170624

@QuilletteM published this one, by Greg Cochran, polymath and a curmudgeon's curmudgeon (I speak as an authority):
…. Hard to believe the two reviews are discussing the same book. Read Blueprint and decide for yourself.

Forget Nature Versus Nurture. Nature Has Won
written by Gregory Cochran
https://quillette.com/2018/09/25/forget-nature-versus-nurture-nature-has-won/

Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are Hardcover – Nov 13 2018
by Robert Plomin (Author)
https://www.amazon.com/Blueprint-How-DNA-Makes-Who/dp/0262039168/

Parents don't really have much influence on how their kids turn out. Read Robert Plomin's new book "Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are".

https://www.amazon.com/Blueprint-How-DNA-Makes-Press/dp/0262039168

The full NOVA episode from 2010, "A Murder of Crows", is free to stream at video.pbs.org.

There was a New York Times article about the UW research in 2008 that explains the research as well.

The UW professor, Dr. John Marzluff, wrote two books on the subject: Gifts of the Crow and In the Company of Crows and Ravens.

Stay angry - you CAN beat this. I'm in exposure therapy at the moment and fuck me it's working. I'm also using the Thrive program and that's helping massively too. Life really doesn't have to be like this. Hugs x

Check out Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind (Thompson, 2007).

Really interesting work on this subject.

If you're also interested in more contemporary study of morality, there is "Moral Minds" by Marc Hauser. And I heard a lot about Jonathan Haidt's book "The Righteous Mind" when it came out, though I still haven't read it.

Thank you. I read your first article and thought you might like this book:

Philosophy in the Flesh

This may sound like word salad, but I can expand anything if you're interested. I'm someone who is trying to explain philosophy itself. One thing I conjecture is that evolutionary mechanisms operating on thermodynamically-driven self-organizing structures will eventually "carry up" the fundamental logical properties inherent in the Universe to the neurological level - where they can then manifest in our awareness as logic and math as we know them. That is, as structure evolves through biological complexity - some fundamental logic of the Universe must be there somehow. Our neurological architecture then allows extrapolation from these fundamentally embodied aspects to the symbolically represented and conceptualized "ideals" we have like perfect circles and real numbers and so on, which are entities that don't really exist as upsetting as this idea is to most mathematicians.

The book I linked makes a very cool, but hard to convey point, but once you realize the implications it's pretty amazing. Our thinking is based on the senses we have. We basically have models of the world in our heads that are the same as the way we experience the world - the neurology of experience is the same as thinking, essentially (e.g. you can get better at piano by practicing in your mind because you can "re-experience" it).

Language, then, is a metaphorical way of expressing our sense-based models of the world, which is why language is filled with metaphors of time, spacial orientation/relationships, sequences, and so on. I really can't do justice to the idea quickly, but it's a quite profound realization to have in your toolbox.

There is an excellent set of essays on the subject in this book: Homosexual Behaviour in Animals: An Evolutionary Perspective

Thanks for the link, it was very interesting. If you haven't already, I would suggest that you read Gifts of the Crow. Great book on the subject.

The key part of your ost is:

> (based on an admittedly limited dataset)

Sure, we have limited information on events that have only happened ~50 times. Take a physical phenomena with that limited of a data set and there will be lots of uncertainty on physics too!

But if you take something like congressional elections, we can actually predict those with a very high degree of accuracy. There's actually been a lot of really exiting work done in the last few years in campaign science- read up on the Analyst Instiute which has spent several years conducting full scale RCTs on voter contact methods. There's a whole book that just came out a few weeks ago, too: The Victory Lab.

I recently finished the book The Emotional Construction Of Morals by Jesse Prinz Book and he has some interesting points about Evolution and Morality.
His points are definitely more for arguing against such a claim, one of his arguments specifically says that just because something is evolutionarily good or ensures survival does necessarily imply optimization but rather effectiveness (Two similar but different things). Therefore evolutionary processes are poor examples of moral optimization.

He definitely refers to some authors who argue that point though.

Peterson is likely referring to the thesis of this book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cosmic-Serpent-DNA-Origins-Knowledge/dp/075380851X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1526825848&sr=8-1&keywords=the+cosmic+serpent

> What?

My point was that by holding First Nations to treaties that were signed under duress, you are upholding the actions of colonialists as legitimate and the consequences of these treaties disproportionately affect First Nation people in negative ways. It's an old problem but it has never really been "solved," the burden has simply been moved onto First Nation people.

>But boy are they loud, and naturally don't consider themselves fringe feminists.

Thankfully TERFs have been written off by most feminists as a hate group. They are loud and their views are deplorable, but they also have no power nowadays.

>Who maintains the structure of the Patriarchy?

Not who, but what. Economic inequality between men and women is at the historical root of patriarchy. Hunter-gatherer societies were gender-egalitarian and some times included 3 or more genders. All food, tools and land were held in common, with all having an equal share regardless of gender. Women were gatherers and tended home, men were hunters and tended livestock and small farms (generally), and these roles balanced in power because women and men created the same amount of food, clothing, etc. for the community. This changed with the rise of larger-scale agriculture, when livestock and farming became increasingly important economically. This meant that suddenly men's work role put them in control of the vast majority of production and surplus in society, thus edging women out of social and political life and confining them to the domestic sphere. This power differential created patriarchy and continues to perpetuate it to this day, with women as a group having less wealth and therefore having less power in society.

(I know there are a lot of claims here and they aren't cited, but all of the information is from the book Men's Lives. It goes into the issue in greater detail than I presented here and of course with lots of handy citations. It's a great book and it deals extensively with the relationship between men and feminism if that topic interests you.)

>If privilege is invisible to the people who have it, who is distributing this privilege?

The short answer is that privilege and power are not "handed out" in a conscious way, but that existing structures of power are reproduced automatically by people who see these structures as natural, good or inevitable. For example, almost all countries have longer maternity leave than paternity leave. Men are expected to get back to work and women are expected to take care of the baby on their own. These laws are based on preconceptions of what men's role in society is and what women's role is. The people who passed these laws didn't create patriarchy or privilege, they are merely reproducing a power differential that they grew up learning was the right and just way to organize a society. And it's not just politicians, everyday people act in ways that privilege some and not others. People watching men and women do the same job tend to rate the man more favorably even when performance is the exact same. They are not consciously "distributing" privilege to the men, they simply have a more positive attitude to seeing men in a work role because that is the default outlook in our society.

>What explains the high number of homeless men?

Not 100% knowledgeable on this topic but I'll try to give an answer to my best knowledge. Many homeless folks are combat veterans and/or have disabilities. By and large most veterans are men. Two of the most common disabilities among the homeless are schizophrenia and addiction, both of which disproportionately affect men over women. This could be at least a partial explanation of why men are more likely to be homeless.

Of course, these are also examples of men's issues which are generally overlooked in society. Despite the existence of patriarchy, not all men are equally privileged (Men's Lives does a great job of covering this topic). Lower income men tend to be the largest casualties of war. Men overwhelmingly die by suicide compared to women, showing the vulnerability of disabled men in our society. Men make up an overwhelming majority of the prison population, especially men of color. All of these are serious issues that can be understood and addressed by using feminism to understand men's roles in society, but also touching on the intersectional issues of class, disability, race and so on.

"Feminist advocates collude in the pain of men wounded by patriarchy when they falsely represent men as always and only powerful, as always and only gaining privileges from their blind obedience to patriarchy." -- bell hooks (famous intersectional feminist)

Patriarchy can and DOES hurt men. Any feminist who claims that all men are equally privileged by patriarchy is incorrect. Any feminist who claims that men are only empowered by patriarchy does not understand the nature of patriarchy.

>Feminism discovered the Patriarchy, but can't explain its structure, can't influence its output, and can't dissipate its effect [etc.]

The structure of patriarchy has been explained, by many different feminists. I already mentioned the historical development of patriarchy. I can get into the social-psychological aspects of patriarchy more w/ you if you want. I like this conversation but I'm tired and need to go to bed soon. But yeah, my point is that feminists can explain the structure of patriarchy. Any feminists have definitely influenced patriarchy for the better-- everything from voting rights to abortion rights reflect this.

>they can see the effect (which men cannot)

Men can see the effects if they study women's issues, listen to women's lived experiences, consider feminist theories, etc. Many women understand these issues based on their own life stories, but men have to approach it from a perspective of not knowing what it means to be a woman in this society.

>I have a substantially different theory regarding these difficulties.

What would those be?

>What about the men that like being aggressive, competitive, industrial, and stoic? Will they be welcome in this new women's paradise?

In a society that has accomplished the goals of feminism, those traits would no longer be "men's traits." Anyone could be as aggressive or competitive or stoic as long as their aggression doesn't hurt anyone. It would be a society where someone's gender is never a barrier to what they want to do or who they can be. And it's not just for women. Women and non-binary people will benefit most from the goals of feminism, but men will benefit too.

https://smile.amazon.com/Losing-Race-Self-Sabotage-Black-America/dp/0060935936?sa-no-redirect=1

There is a ton of political science to back it up. But if you want to read just one book on the subject, I would recommend The Victory Lab by Sasha Issenberg. He covers research going back to the late 19th century up through the most recent electoral cycles, as well as the way that research has be put into practice by campaigns. You should also read "The Effects of Canvassing, Telephone Calls, and Direct Mail on Voter Turnout: A
Field Experiment" [pdf] by Gerber and Green (2000), which is the most significant modern paper on the subject.

No, I have only watched the TED talk. I have read Leonard Beeghley's Homicide:A Sociological Explanation, Richard Rhodes' Why They Kill, and Konrad Lorenz's On Aggression. All, books worth picking up if you are interested in this subject, which you obviously are.

So is there or isn't a reference to humans and does the post not revolve around killing within the same species ? So what exactly have You had to guess or mind-read ? Or are You only interested in verbs ? Look, once again – comparing spiders to humans in terms of the Self is just wrong on too many levels to enumerate. I tried to show You why, and that is because You focus mainly on basic patterns (eat, pray, mate - whatever) and a philosophical zombie is well in place for that. If You still like to argue then show me a neurobiological study on spiders which would prove me wrong. Otherwise You have to reexamine that which You consider one’s Self.

Concerning the things You listed – I just don’t get why You omit the fact that from the very beginning I was stating that the reluctance to kill members of one’s own species can be overwritten. But the fact that a policeman or a soldier has to be preconditioned in order to be able to perform such a task is in itself in accordance with what I state, isn’t it ? I would gladly check out some of the tons of up-to-date resources that prove me wrong, but all I find are articles or books like:
http://www.amazon.com/On-Killing-Psychological-Learning-Society/dp/0316330116
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/heart/themes/prep.html
http://www.amazon.com/On-Aggression-Harvest-Book-291/dp/0156687410
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/kcmhr/publications/assetfiles/historical/jones2006-thepsychologyofkilling.pdf

From the last link: More recently, support for the hypothesis that soldiers enjoy killing came
from Theodore Nadelson, a psychiatrist who treated US ex-servicemen at the
Boston Veterans Administration Hospital.Based on the testimony of 24
anonymized cases, Nadelson concluded that true killers in Vietnam were ‘ordi-
nary men’ before enlistment. He argued that once an initial resistance had
been overcome in training, soldiers became addicted to the excitement and
sense of freedom created by the licence to kill, while the act itself could assume
the quality of sexual arousal or drug-induced ecstasy. Given that the veterans
he had interviewed all suffered from intractable psychiatric disorders, includ-
ing post-traumatic stress disorder, Nadelson implicitly rejected any suggestion
that killing protected against mental illness.

If You could support something of substance that proves You right it would be great. Bottom line - what You are saying is: we don’t know that killing other humans is bad unless we are told so. So who the hell told us that in the first place ? Maybe God did ? Morality obtained by natural selection just fist, clicks, works. And I have yet to see evidence to the contrary.

> wouldn't pure logic be the goal of rational thought?

What do you mean by "pure logic"?

It's not true that brain function consists of two distinct parts, one that is based on emotion and the other that is based on pure logic. On the one hand, emotion plays a larger role in thought that is usually recognised. Descarte's Error, by
Antonio Damasio talks about this.

On the other hand, the "non-emotional" aspects of brain function are hardly operating by "pure logic". For one thing, so much of our reasoning is subconscious (See Philosophy in the Flesh by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson), and even when we explicitly reason through some argument, that's still sitting on top of a lot of subconsicous evaluation of the correctness of the points, using processing that isn't based on logic. A lot of reasoning seems to be pattern matching, making analogies, manipulating mental models, etc.

That a person can learn to avoid so-called logical fallacies (or cognitive biases) does not mean that the (fallacy-free) reasoning they are performing is a matter of "pure logic".

.

> By "more complex", I'm inferring that from the programmers perspective, logic may seem an easier puzzle to solve than decision making based on modifiers like superstition, hatred and passion and that you could infer that it is a more evolved form of problem solving.

There's never any reason to assume that anything that was in fact more complex would be better at a stated goal.

https://www.amazon.com/Moral-Minds-Nature-Right-Wrong/dp/006078072X

I read of someone (on erowid, I think it was) who was given ketamine in hospital after a major accident; when they wheeled him through the corridor on a trolley, as he passed people he was crying as he 'experienced' their entire lives from birth to death.

Also interesting that the guy in the video mentioned a 'snake'; could be the DNA helix perhaps? https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/075380851X

What country are you in? I'm guessing the states, so I'm not of too much use sorry.

If you've got a strong constitution, doing it yourself can be amazing.

This book is rather helpful, but having a professional at hand can make everything much much easier.

Early intervention can be very powerful.

My source states that intra-species murder among animals happens much less often then we think watching Animal Planet. Animals competeting for food use violence against each other, but the fight stops as soon as one party steps back.

Konrad Lorenz On Aggression

> No one here has claimed it’s infallible ior sacred

Did....did you read the earlier posts?? There was a good deal of kowtowing to the all knowing BMI. I'm aware that research is not static an I hope that there's a better tool because this one is after all a couple centuries old and a lot of our understanding of how human beings work has changed since then.

Since you are a doctor and a statistician, have you by chance ever read Inferior? It's a book about how the personal biases of scientists influenced the assumptions made and the ways that they developed tools to enforce and confirm those assumptions. That specific book talks about gender, but I remember learning in the History of Science class I took to get out of my humanities requirement talking about Samuel Cartwright who developed tools to prove to others why specific people deserved to remain enslaved. There's a crazy sub on reddit that goes on and on about the correlation of skull shape and why they're not getting laid.

Before you call me a strawman again, I know I'm talking about extreme ways in which scientists are biased here. But when I read all of this I couldn't help but wonder what biases enforce how I look at data when I'm doing research and how the tools I use work within the context of other people. Science is not apolitical, no matter how much we try to pretend it does. Medicine isn't either, and I'm sure you can agree with me.

Granted in college, I didn't really work on anything involving people, I just ran markov models all day. But I love a lot of people who have different bodies who get told that they're just unhealthy, because their BMI is in one category or another and their doctors tell them that they're good and fine. The other people I talked to yesterday were certain that fat people were just unhealthy and I'm so deeply suspicious of people who go around saying that shit.

Edit: also you still haven't answered my question from before.

Surprised no one has mentioned something like this.

One way to see EM is as a rejection of language-like theories of cognition:

> Plainly, early humans modeled their conception of human cognitive activity on the only systematic medium of representation and computation available to them at the time: human language. And a good thing, too, for it gave us at least some predictive and explanatory advantages, for the behavior of humans, and also for animals. But ultimately, [the eliminativist] says, that linguaformal conception of our cognition is no more accurate for us than it is for any of the other creatures. Our brains work in essentially the same ways as all of our evolutionary brothers and sisters, and ‘propositional attitudes’ have little or nothing to do with our mostly shared cognitive activities. If we want to really understand human cognition, he concludes, we need to get rid of our linguaformal self-delusion, and learn to discuss, and even to introspect, our cognition from within the conceptual framework of a theory (cognitive neurobiology) that is adequate to all of the Earth’s creatures. Our current conception is useful, no doubt, but at bottom it must misrepresent our true cognitive economy.

(From Paul Churchland's Matter and Consciousness)

Humans haven't evolved fast enough to keep up with technology. As much as a sonogram might make the reality of another human growing inside clearer to some intellectually, it's certainly not going to have anywhere near the emotional effect of meeting face to face, talking, smelling, hearing, touching each other.

Similarly, humans have an inhibition towards violence when it occurs within a certain proximity such as in hand to hand. But that inhibition is much less powerful when someone is giving orders for someone else to carry out the violence. Like someone asking a doctor to perform an abortion or a general sending a drone to blow up a building full of people. That's because of the physical distance and time distance from the victims. sauce

Just do your best, that's all either of you can really ask for. The comment from wwad77 hits the nail on the head, really.. my boyfriend helps me avoid possible situations as much as he can, but at the same time we both know it's only an enabler. From my point of view, the best thing to be told (when in a stressful moment) is the truth - that everything will be OK no matter what happens. Just be supportive and try to tell her how you feel or think whenever needed. My boyfriend lets me know when my phobia is getting in the way and it has helped me try to find ways to cope better, because I care about us and I want what's best for the both of us. I feel hurt sometimes when he says something about it, and it may happen to your SO also, but it just really needs to be said.

It's heartbreaking at times, to be honest. I get depressed often thinking about how much this phobia gets in the way of life, but it also makes me strive to do better. Always remember to think about it from her point of view whenever you can.. to her this is the worst thing in the world. Everyone has something they are truly afraid of, and sometimes it's stupid things.

You are a wonderful person to try and find help/advice, I praise your understanding skills! Oh, as a response to your inquiry about treatment, I enjoyed going to CBT sessions with a therapist.. but to truly "get over" this phobia, gradual exposure seems to be the only thing that works. I am also considering the "Thrive" book to try and help myself: http://www.amazon.com/Cure-Your-Emetophobia-Thrive-Researched-backed/dp/0956516645

I really enjoyed The Atheist and the Bonobo. It examines the evolutionary roots for human morality but isn't as contemptuous and anti-theist as some of the other popular atheist literature. I found it to be a rather refreshing read that bridges the gap between the religious and the non-religious.

Oh...internet hugs. I was pretty much where you were fifteen years ago. I didn't go to a Christian high school, but I may as well have- I went to school in the Bible Belt. I am also bi, and I went through a long, shitty process of self-loathing thanks to messages from the pulpit every Sunday about how homosexuality was a sin.

I know you know this, but you're not unnatural. I'd actually suggest seeking out some scientific sources looking at homosexuality in the natural world. I thought this book was particularly interesting: http://www.amazon.com/Homosexual-Behaviour-Animals-Evolutionary-Perspective/dp/0521182301

Your local library might have it...or if you have a university nearby, you may be able to find it there. Some universities will allow high school students to check books out from their libraries. If nothing else, a university wifi network should let you get access to most scientific journals.

From what I've read, it sounds like bisexuality is actually a pretty natural, widespread phenomenon. Many animal species engage in homosexual behavior to strengthen social bonds. We humans are animals, so why should we be any different?

We're here for you when you need to vent, too :)

We are about to kick start ABA and I will provide feedback if and when we reach or not reach any milestones. Our son also apparently has HFA and is very smart when it comes to 'doing stuff' (helping us dress him, figuring out puzzles, stacking toys, navigating ipad, opening doors etc) but does not speak a single word other than "gooo" (we think he says this for 'good' as we keep telling him good boy a lot) and does not interact much with other kids.

There were two books that were recommended to us and I got them but scared to even touch them because they are like medical school textbooks:

http://www.amazon.com/Behavioral-Intervention-Young-Children-Autism/dp/0890796831/ref=la_B000APO1H8_1_1/190-0240050-6614975?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1450133376&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0966526600?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00

Kind of depends on what kind of vegan he is and what he already has.

Good book for ethical vegan:

https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Words-What-Animals-Think/dp/1250094593

Good book for health vegan:

https://nutritionfacts.org/cookbook/

Sure, since blog posts don't count I suggest you head on over to Amazon or your local university bookstore and pick up a copy of the 9th edition of Michael Kimmel's Men's Lives. It's a good introduction to actual gender studies focused on men's issues.

>it sounds to me like you have an incomplete understanding of evolution.

Elaborate please.

>this is no more an indicator than the fact that we have mathematical models to represent force or gravity.

Valid point, but does not the fact that there appears to be some kind of order to the universe which we can represent mathematically suggest some kind of design? For instance, say you found a rock and a motor in the desert, never having seen either before, but you had mathematical analysis, would not the ordered nature of the data retrieved from the analysis of the motor compared to the chaotic nature of the data retrieved from the rock suggest to you that the motor had been built and did not simply arise from nature?

>This sounds also like you have an incomplete understanding of the biological processess involved in the brain.

Ask any epistemologist or read any basic text on epistemology (might I suggest this as a starting point?) and you will see that there is currently little or no demonstrable or philosophically sound evidence of a link between mind and matter.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cure-Your-Emetophobia-Thrive-Research-backed/dp/0956516645/ref=mp_s_a_1_5?keywords=thrive+rob+kelly&qid=1574840827&sr=8-5

We are naturally moral beings or read Moral Minds: The Nature of Right and Wrong

>But that lesser evil is supremely more wicked than if he simply controlled everyone with puppet strings.

What?

> And you clearly didn't watch the entire video if you think the goodness in the world can't be explained by the EG.

Yup, I did watch the entire thing; if you think I missed some important bit tell what that is.

I already gave you reasons as to why your argument fails; I don't think you addressed that.

>A robot that goes around raping people isn't really evil,

Really? What are the reasons you can give that would make one conclude that a rape victim wouldn't think the programmer of the robot that raped her wasn't evil?

I see no difference in the evil whether it is done freely or not.

>being that raped of his own free choice is truly evil

Can you show any research that supports this claim that "freewill evil" is truly evil and "non-freewill" evil is not? Your entire argument relies on this being correct.

Also the EG could simply delude people into thinking that had freewill, thus the EG would have whatever benefits you think he gets from that, as well as being able to max out the evil both quantitatively and qualitatively.

Then of course the EG could convince people that they are innocent and the punish them; he gets all the all the benefits of freewill without actually having it and any resulting good that might be done.

I feel like there are not a lot of good ones for just parents, or at least those who are not in some kind of guided intervention with a professional. I'd give this a go, though: http://www.amazon.com/Behavioral-Intervention-Young-Children-Autism/dp/0890796831/ref=cm_lmf_tit_7

It's weird how science is being used to promote the cause of "justice" over that of knowledge, and that very badly indeed.

For example, while Christakis is right in pointing out that humans share 99% of their DNA with each other, that does not make us significantly similar. We also share 92% of our DNA with a mouse. Small initial differences can add up to large outcome differentials; just ask any meteorologist.

Moreover, if the review is anything to go by, very important social adaptations are shrugged off here as anathema to a "better society", seemingly without much thought as to why they exist. The most important of these adaptations being in-group preference, which has been with us for a lot longer than any other of Christakis' social suite apart from parent-offspring bond, which is effectively the basis for the warm and fuzzy parts of the social suite--but also in-group preference. So it seems that what's at the bottom of the social suite is exactly what's holding "justice" back. This does not bode well for "justice", because traits don't persist for immense stretches of time for no reason at all; they do so because they are adaptive.

I haven't read the book though, so I can only base my impression off the review. And my impression is that it would be wise to pair this with the much more radical and controversial, though paradoxically, the utterly mainstream and impeccably sourced, book of the same name.

Look into this book: Thrive Emetophobia. I downloaded it on my kindle and it's made a huge difference for me :) It really helps to understand your thinking patterns.

I wouldn't say I have any coping methods other than distraction (TV mostly, comedies).

I have to agree that the majority of the posts here seem to just collude and enable each other.

One of the biggest changes in my life has been reading the Thrive programe. There's a mountain of reviews on Amazon saying that it works. The author has a lot of Videos of fellow sufferers who are now free of this problem too.

It takes a lot of work and I wouldn't say I'm even close to cured, however it makes you realize that Emetophobia isn't something that happens TO YOU. It's merely a symptom of poorly managed thinking styles, beliefs and behaviors. Change those and Emetophobia goes away (as well as other things).

The reason why emetophobia sends us neurotic is because we do our best to try to avoid the thing we fear most. The problem is that it's impossible to be 100% certain that it isn't going to happen. As a result, we go almost insane following safety seeking routines and behaviors to try to avoid the unavoidable.

I'm still working my way through the programme, but one key thing I that sticks out in my mind is this - think of an emetophobia and each catastrophic thought we have as a fire. Currently we're fire fighting with extinguishers such as coping strategies, avoidance and safety behaviors to put out these "fires".

What if we didn't create those fires in the first place?

It's easier said than done, but it is possible.
People without this fear aren't just "better" at coping with the thoughts - they don't have them in the first place! We're doing it to ourselves!

Det här blir nog spännande läsning när den kommer;
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0262039168/

"Plomin has been working on these issues for almost fifty years, conducting longitudinal studies of twins and adoptees. He reports that genetics explains more of the psychological differences among people than all other factors combined. Genetics accounts for fifty percent of psychological differences―not just mental health and school achievement but all psychological traits, from personality to intellectual abilities. Nature, not nurture is what makes us who we are."

>Solitude is a wonderful thing, but each man has to find it on their own in their own terms.

This is a wonderful and powerful insight. Thanks for sharing it. I'll pick up the book!

>Going to a therapist and exploring the origins of your own childhood attachment trauma is very useful. Next to every borderline, there is a co-dependant willing to lay their life down. Behind every co-dependant, there are narcissistic parent(s) who has killed all self love in their child and convinced them that their worth is decided only by what they do for other people.

I've been thinking about this a lot, and I still wobble on whether the idea of co-dependency and childhood trauma caused by inept parents is a just-so story[1]. Freakin everything turns out to be heritable. The book Blueprint[2] is supposed to be a good summary of scientific consensus, but it isn't out yet. When I look at my parents and their siblings, I can clearly see how they've been suffering through the same problems I have their whole lives. It's very difficult to tell if they conditioned me to be the way I am, or if it's all genetic. It'd be amazing to see some twin studies on this specific phenomenon, but I haven't been able to find any.

I think without medication, the best I can hope for is to recognize the feelings and learn to cope with them. But I don't know if the notion of childhood trauma that I'm carrying around is a myth. Is this something I can "heal" such that the feelings themselves go away? Has anyone ever managed to heal this way? I'm seriously considering getting on SSRIs to see if I can eliminate the feelings themselves. I've been working on myself my whole life, and while this has propelled me very far in terms of self-awareness, all the same feelings I've always had are still there.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-so_story

[2] https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0262039168/

see: philosophy in the flesh by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson.

Also, mind the gap by Kievet et al -- one of the best papers I've ever seen to tackle the problem of how to test the so-called "reduction problem" - specifically identity and supervenience theories - by using structural equation modeling.

edit: yes, this guy is certainly "obscenely silly"...

As someone who's gotten a BA in philosophy and is now on track for a PhD in neuroscience, I'd like to suggest to some of you the Lakoff/Johnson book linked above; it blows the western philosophy tradition out of the water completely. Supervenience theory is the only worthwhile thing to come out of philosophical works in a long time, IMO...

This book (The Cosmic Serpent) thinks it already does. Basic premise, we are aliens and taking drugs allows us to connect with other worlds etc... It sounds pretty far fetched but I couldn't help agreeing as I read. Not saying it is true but an interesting read. Would love to hear what experts in the field think of it.


Link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Lakoff

(just adding some books some may find interesting)

http://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Flesh-Embodied-Challenge-Western/dp/0465056741/

http://www.amazon.com/Metaphors-We-Live-George-Lakoff/dp/0226468011/

Carl Jung is intellectually a fucking joke. He settled for spirits, seances, and the make believe. Raised by a lunatic mother, he spent the rest of his life trying to put the pieces of his shattered-dual-personality-existence-psyche back together. Follow in that shadow at your own peril.


“In this detailed and systematic critique of the theories of psychologist Carl G. Jung (1875-1961), Don McGowan exposes the many flaws in Jungian analysis and methodology. Beginning with Jung's interpretation of religion and his attempts to draw parallels between mythology and his patients' dreams, McGowan finds a consistent lack of rigor, a highly selective use of evidence, and a tendency toward broad generalization, which ignores important cultural distinctions.”


“Jung's popular theory of the collective unconscious is especially criticized as an example of over-interpretation and a failure to examine the diversity of cultural evidence.”


https://www.amazon.com/What-Wrong-Jung-Don-Mcgowan/dp/0879758597


“This reassessment of Carl Jung and the present-day applications of his theories will please few followers of Jungian thought. Noll argues that Jungian analysis has evolved to a cult of personality around its founder, to the point of becoming a religion--with Jung as its prophet, and today's analysts its priesthood. If it's a religious movement, Noll argues, there's too much focus on economic and personal promotion. As a way to explain the workings of the human mind, Noll asserts, Jungian theory contains little that is truly new, borrowing as it does from nineteenth-century occultism, social Darwinism, and neopaganism. Noll further takes to task many cornerstones of Jungian thought, such as the collective unconscious.”



https://www.amazon.com/Jung-Cult-Origins-Charismatic-Movement/dp/0684834235/ref=pd_sim_sbs_14_1?ie=UTF8&dpID=51KRdxqf8RL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL320_SR208%2C320_&psc=1&refRID=8Z9GVGMYEGSVGF7HXHN7


“His system has a revelatory, unproveable basis of much introspection and fantasising ("creative imagination") firmly grounded in the Aryan "New Age" ideas of his day, spiritualism and gnostic ideas spread through Theosophical publishing and the vitalistic, Lamarckian, Haeckelian "Ontogeny recapitulates Phylogeny" pseudo-science of his childhood. It is ironic that nearly 100 years later he is used as an "authority" by the latest round of "New Age intellectuals".


“Jung's followers have a large Internet presence.”


http://www.prem-rawat-bio.org/gurus/jung.htm

>i am unaware of any anthropological studies that have established this "truth" of which you speak. could you perhaps post a few links to them?

You need an anthropological study to confirm that the heterosexual union is procreative and that procreation is a biological imperative for virtually all species? (Except the human gay, oddly).

How do you think a study like that would look? Other than a chapter from a 3rd grade biology book, I mean.

>http://www.yalescientific.org/2012/03/do-animals-exhibit-homosexuality/

Anything older than the past 20 years or so? Isn't it strange that all this homo-science and homo-history suddenly appeared in the past few decades?


>http://www.amazon.com/Homosexual-Behaviour-Animals-Evolutionary-Perspective/dp/0521182301

Is homosexual behavior the same thing as homosexual orientation? I wonder how those authors asked those animals how they choose to identify?

> There's close to no serious ethicists who defend it in modern day

Whoever told you that has not been paying attention to developments in ethics over the last 450 years, since the publication of work by Sextus Empiricus and Michel de Montaigne.

Here are some modern papers, books, and articles by or about serious ethicists who defend relativism:

• Moral Relativism, by Gilbert Harman, a prominent philosopher and ethicist at Princeton.
  
• The Emotional Construction of Morals, a book by Jesse Prinz, professor of philosophy at CUNY.
  
• Morality is a Culturally Conditioned Response, an article about Jesse Prinz's position
  
• Foundations for Moral Relativism, a book by J. David Velleman, professor of philosophy at NYU.
  
• Natural Moralities: A Defense of Pluralistic Relativism, by David B. Wong, professor of philosophy at Duke University.