The problem with science II

Faith presents a list of what she sees as problems. In this post, I present my opinions related to her list. That's an illusion. Human experience has vastly expanded. I don't actually think "versus" is the right term here. There is somewhat of a difference between the two groups in what they value. There can sometimes be communication difficulties because of this. But I think the two are separated only by a fuzzy line. The terms are a bit ambiguous. The most extreme forms of behaviorism, such as the radical behaviorism of Skinner, finds many critics from within science. Milder forms of behaviorism are not opposed to humanism, and Skinner did not believe that his radical behaviorism was opposed to humanism. This is the nature of science. By putting it that way, I wonder if you read too much into it. There is a stance scientists take when doing their scientific work. But, apart from that stance, scientists are humans too. These are not opposed. Science tends to use instrumental talk because it is well defined, and thus very meaningful to scientists. Folk meanings tend to be poorly defined, and with a lot of person-to-person variation. But perhaps further research in cognitive science will show that folk meanings also have an instrumental basis, where the instrumentation in in the human sensory systems. This is mostly a misunderstanding.Humans are animals. That it clear to see. But scientists don't treat humans as just animals, so there is no such reduction. Some aspects of science have to treat humans as animals. Much of medical science depends on that. But medical science also deals with human suffering, and with other aspects of humanness. Scientists enjoy reading a good novel too. I'm not sure what you mean here. What is "true knowledge" as distinct from "knowledge"? When you use the term "careerism", I tend to think of corporate executives rather than those from the sciences or humanities. Meaning has everything to do with survival. I'm not a big fan of sociobiology either, though I wouldn't consider it to be "versus Everything Human." Science changes its theories as new knowledge is gained. The older psychology of Freud and Jung wasn't all that good, and wasn't very scientific. These are not "versus". All science indulges in speculative hypotheses, for such are the source of new ideas. It is only natural that "brain talk" will be a part of some of these hypotheses. I have no particular comments on those.

Maybe you'd say something that got me interested.

"Problems?" Not how I'd put it. "Problems" implies a solution. This is the kind of conflict that has no solution because it's built into the fabric of people's consciousness. In fact, this whole post of yours in answer to my list to my mind confirms that there is no solution because you don't grasp what I meant by anything on it. You appear to be using the word "experience" in a different sense, perhaps to refer to an increase in some collection of external things that may be experienced --? I'm using it in the sense of the shriveling of the inner life, the vocabulary for speaking of it. Science has its own concepts and vocabulary for human experience, the realm of the humanities, that completely change the meaning of them. As soon as you talk like crashfrog and schrafinator about how this or that human behavior "evolved" as if it actually makes sense to you and explains your own experience, you've left the world of the humanities completely. They never do. They just co-opt the whole arena and claim it is adequately accounter for by their sterile and trivializing terminology. Not sure what you are talking about or what you think I was trying to say. You are talking exactly the way they talk, apparently without a clue to what I'm trying to say. {Edit: "folk meanings" is a trivialization of experience, and here you have subordinated it to the intrumentation of science, exactly what I'm talking about. "Human sensory systems" is reductionistic science talk.} No, it's a worldview, a whole conceptual framework which has consequences in everyday thinking, how one thinks about abstinence-only sex education for instance. Everything is now conceptualized in terms of animal health and human morality is subsumed under such ideas, as something that evolved, that may have some usefulness but certainly no overarching authority for humanity. Typical science talk. You just don't get it. And I guess I can't explain it. Irrelevant to the point I'm trying to make, which I already said. This is a term I got out of my reading of the intro to Snow's essay about the two cultures. It's not something I'd particularly thought of before myself, but it fits in just fine so I used it. Careerism means the mentality that thinks in terms of education as a means to getting on in the world rather than a means to knowledge for its own sake, understanding of the human experience or of oneself, etc. Excellent expression of the science side of the divide, meaning as servant to survival. Survival is a sterile objective and it is what evolution reduces all life to. Everything is just striving to survive. Meaning is just a sort of epiphenomenon. Nor would any scientist. Only those of us on the other side of the divide would. Its not being scientific is nothing against it, in my opinion, as reality is messy and as soon as you think you can capture it in scientific terms you've lost it completely, which is in fact exactly what I'm complaining about. But I agree there were plenty of problems with some of the conceptualizations, especially Jung's, whose stuff I detest. But Freud at his best was a great analyst, and his thinking respected the inner life while science doesn't, to say the extravagant least. Describing the inner life in terms of brain functions is what I'm talking about, and it's eyerolling stuff.See, this is why I don't see the point in talking about this after all. I realize that if you have the science set you just have the science set, and you can't get the other point of view.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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The shriveling of human experience

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That's an illusion. Human experience has vastly expanded.

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You appear to be using the word "experience" in a different sense, perhaps to refer to an increase in some collection of external things that may be experienced --? I'm using it in the sense of the shriveling of the inner life, the vocabulary for speaking of it.

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No, I am using the term in the same sense. You don't have to go back very far to find a time where life was a struggle for existence for most people, a time where many women died in child birth, a time when infectious diseases were far more common and often deadly. Maybe you could say that the people of that time had a richer experience of pain , suffering and death, but I suggest they missed out on much of the experience that is possible today. You seem to think that there is something missing among scientists. But maybe there is something extra that you don't share. Certainly schrafinator talks about the pleasures of food and cooking, and usually does so without mentioning the evolving of behavior. Indeed, I was not at all sure what you were trying to say. Actually, I think I do have a pretty good idea of what you were trying to say. But I happen to think that it is based on misconceptions that are common on the humanities side of the divide. This isn't a humanities vs. science issue. It's a religious intolerance issue. There are many people from the humanities who are appalled at abstinence only education, with its immoral reliance on ignorance. Abstinence only education is an example of Skinner behaviorism put into practice by people who decry behaviorism. All of the scientists that I know are interested in knowledge for its own sake. Personally, I don't pay much attention to such talk, other than to occasionally criticize it.

To comment on a couple of points:

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No, it's a worldview, a whole conceptual framework which has consequences in everyday thinking, how one thinks about abstinence-only sex education for instance. Everything is now conceptualized in terms of animal health and human morality is subsumed under such ideas, as something that evolved, that may have some usefulness but certainly no overarching authority for humanity.

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I think that this is fundamentally mistaken. Certainly there is nothing in the culture of the humanities that would force them to favour abstinance-only sex education. Amd it is pretty odd to see the science side being condemned for caring too much about people. Indeed the condemnation xould even be read as saying that the scientific side is being too Christian in that it is more concerned with helping people than in adherence to rules.And this

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Describing the inner life in terms of brain functions is what I'm talking about, and it's eyerolling stuff.

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There's pretty good evidnece that the mind is produced by brain function. I don't see any valid reason for you to get upset.s

Well I wouldn't claim such a strange paradox of a "richer experience of pain, suffering and death" but I would suggest that they had more access to the inner states they experienced, however limited the variety of experiences possible to them. You are saying exactly what I said you were saying, your focus is on the variety of experience, and mine is on the depth of it.And really I suppose this introspective capacity I'm talking about has always been rather a luxury in any time, a privilege of the privileged or educated, and some never had a talent for it anyway, but the more important part of what I'm talking about is the effect of science anyway, and I do believe that the science mentality in general shrinks our inner life for all of us by giving us these pat categories from biology to explain ourselves and causing people to think of themselves in a sort of objectified externalized way as a sort of machine.Again, you are saying that people now have more opportunity for experiences, varied experiences, and that's what I was saying you meant. Crash and Schraf have both argued from this position particularly strenuously, but I had no intention of implying anything about them personally beyond that. It's certainly not that everybody who talks like that lacks an inner life, but it is a general effect on humanity at large I'm trying to talk about, and it's a habit of thinking that can't help but impoverish one's inner life to one degree or another. I have to assume that one may have a rich inner life in spite of it but its effect is nevertheless against it. I do have to say that the pleasures of food and cooking have nothing whatever to do with the depth of inner life I'm talking about in any case. I'm happy to toss that one out. The list was just a brainstorming list. It's a word that might convey something to someone sometime. If that were so, then you wouldn't be talking exactly the way I'm trying to identify. I got fascinated with how it has this science dimension to it while on that thread. Certainly it also has a religious meaning as well, but at least until recently there were many nonreligious who would have defended the moral position that is now only supported from a religious point of view. The posture of moral neutrality of it is very in tune with this sciencemindedness I'm trying to identify. In fact for you to call the religious view "intolerance" is to be speaking FROM this posture of supposed neutrality which is the scientific pose. Of course it's also political correctness. It seems to all run together in some cases like this. I'm sure the sex ed example was just one of many I might come up with if I think about it further. You talk like the other side of the divide there, what else can I say. And I think today the humanities have taken on so much of the science and PC mentality they are rather suspect anyway. I'm not aware of Christians in general decrying behaviorism. It's really rather my own hobbyhorse, and a dated issue in any case. Also, I have not defended any existing abstinence-only program because I don't know what all they teach. On that thread I was very clear that abstinence-only is the ONLY position from which a Christian can teach about sex to unmarried young people, but that the particulars of information beyond that I'm not discussing. That is another subject for another thread, so whether it has anything in common with Skinnerian thought I have no idea. I seriously doubt it though. Actually I kind of anticipated that one coming and I'll have to think about why it's not what I mean. It's probably legit for any science that doesn't require rethinking one's own experience, but if it does have that effect then it's like knowledge that makes knowledge impossible or something paradoxical like that, but I'll have to think about it further. It turns my stomach. But in any case, there's some common ground. Good note to end the post on.

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But Freud at his best was a great analyst,

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Freud made shit up and didn't test any of his theories.Therefore, he was wrong about pretty much all of his claims.

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and his thinking respected the inner life while science doesn't, to say the extravagant least.

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The defining aspect of Cognitive Psychology is "inner life".That's what Cognitive Psychology is all about.

Totally disagree. I think that the promotion of ignorance and dogma over knowledge is the surest way to shrink one's "inner life". One could just as well agrue that the more one's "inner life" is taken up by God, the smaller it must be.Like an elephant in a bathtub.The fact that we ARE animals (or biologocal machines) makes the orgins of our thought processes all the more fascinating. Much more fascinating than "Goddidit", in any case.

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All of the scientists that I know are interested in knowledge for its own sake.

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They sure wouldn't be in it for the money, that's for damn sure.

Exactly what I mean. Reductionism. Scientism. You can't operationalize the inner life and submit it to science without trivializing it.

So what we have here are just exchanges of the usual opinion from the two sides of the divide. Back and forth.

Do you want to know what the greatest detriment to American's inner life has been? That which has resulted in the "shrivelling of human experience"?Television.Closely followed by our consumer culture.

I would agree with you about both those influences. But they are a different kind of shriveling than I'm talking about.

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Exactly what I mean. Reductionism. Scientism. You can't operationalize the inner life and submit it to science without trivializing it.

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No, it doesn't.This is like saying that just because I can appreciate the athleticism and physicality (and understand the physics) of dancers doesn't mean I trivialize (or can't enjoy) the beauty, grace, and art of the dance.Just because you lack the ability to recognize multiple aspects in nature and life doesn't mean all of us are so hindered.And besides, yours is an inappropriately value-laden disparagement.After all, if somebody way back when hadn't gotten past the strong social and religious taboo in favor of thinking the (dead) human body sacrosanct, the study of human anatomy, and thus the advancement of medical science and knowledge wouldn't be where it is today.You despise scientific thinking, yet benefit from it in innumerable ways every day of your life.Ungrateful, I'd call it.

I've said many times this is not about REAL science. Just about science daring to intrude into the human being, and replace the human frame of reference with its own mechanistic sterile frame of reference. Science does great things when it stays out of our business.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.