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My original post refuted the statement:
Moral progress proceeds from economic progress.
You interjected:
I think he's trying to say .... we need to pursue wealth if we want to pursue morality. .... economic progress can also result in bad moral outcomes depending on what we do with our wealth.
You do not like the questions, the Socratic? Ok, I asserted the basis of the argument and the point of the questions:
A clear, unbiased definition of moral or economic progress does not exist.
You present models for deciding both. There exists models where economic progress varies inversely with moral progress, such as possible outcomes from the utilitarian perspective that are covered in ethics 101 at most colleges, and the manifest reality of a system where economic progress has been used for justifying an abundance of atrocities. There also exist models in either category which define progress in entirely different directions and so any statement of progress is inherently biased.
There is a link between economic states/systems and moral conditions, and it appeared that the author of the statement: "Moral progress proceeds from economic progress." may have been oversimplifying the issue to a point of of making it unintelligible.
You mentioned wealth which implies an inherent bias also. I can personally assert a different version of wealth which excludes much of what most people consider wealth. If most people think wealth includes assets like cash or gold which I see as having an immoral nature and so their idea of accumulating wealth is immoral in my pov. (I do not include a lengthy moral case, but rather assert such a case exists). So if you see progress and wealth as interrelated then I would ask for a definition of wealth?
You also assert that economic progress is an increased ability to produce goods. I assert that there are many modes of production of which the current industrial mode finds value in quantity, as you state is the measure. Two biases arise:
1 - The bias inherent to the mode: quantity is not the only measure of progress. Competing values include quality in aesthetics, ergonomics, environmental impact, functionality, modular in use (consider open source values). I do not think having more stuff is a sign of economic progress and I am not alone in finding that the measure you have asserted says nothing of "progress" - you of course argue differently and thus we can say one measure or another of progress may differ and are thus inherently biased.
2- What mode of production is more progressed? I do not think industrialization is progress. I see many flaws in the results. Too much damage from that mode imho. I am not here to argue that position but rather to assert it exists.
Is my point about the bias inherent in describing progress clear, or do you think that there exists some definition we all agree upon as to what progress in any area is?
You do not answer the question and conflate the questions
How is economic progress measured - if you say the aggraegate utility please explain how that is measured.?
How is moral progress measured?
My argument is simple - the measure of either of these is based on poor heuristics.
What is moral progress? - Is having a society with a vast disparity between rich and poor where the poor support the rich through the resource of their labor considered morally progressed from a more egalitarian tribal state? Is the progress of the empire to a point of collapse and the start of some new empire considered moral progress?
What is economic progress? - Is having a society with a vast disparity between rich and poor where the poor support the rich through the resource of their labor considered morally progressed from the primitive hunter-gatherer society where everyone had more free time considered economic progress? Is the progress of the empire to a point where the disparity in wealth incites revolution or causes collapse considered economic progress?
Moral progress proceeds from economic progress.<
What is progress with respect to either? Could you possibly mean that moral states - the moral conditions of a society - follow from the economic state - the condition and system of economy. I do find it hard to see a clear, unbiased definition of moral or economic progress.
By 'good' reason I meant one consistent with the purpose or function of schooling. It is to be taken as having a touch of humor based on people's misunderstanding of the function of school believing it to be synonymous with education.
I do not know if you have read Gatto or not based on this. He points out that the system has no memory of its origin and that changes occur just like you describe with the result of deepening the problem. The last major school reform was GW Bush's No Child Left Behind....if that tells you anything about who "fixes" the system.
Well you can make wild speculations based off of my semantics or you can read for yourself. You seem to have chosen the former. Please return and clarify if you find his research faulty after you have read his work.
The US system took heavily from the Prussian school. The history is fascinating to say the least.
The statements of intent where made in writing and in speeches. I would do it for you but linking on the droid is not fun. Google "Rockefeller mencken quotes education" and the first link should lend some insight into the intent of the designers of the compulsory public school system. Gatto did a lot of research to support the thesis that schools are designed to dumb down the populace.
Schools do not teach any critical thinking and for good reason. Ivan Illich wrote "Deschooling Society" in the 70s and John Taylor Gatto started writing the "The Underground History of American Education" in the 90s. Either should give you insight into why teachers do what they do, but Gattos's "Weapons of Mass Instruction" is probably the best place to start. The short answer is that schools are designed from the top down to stunt the intellectual growth of children regardless of the intentions of teachers.
The idea of 'what you want to see less of' is fairly interesting. On a site dedicated to rationality I was expecting that one would want to see:
-the discussion of rationality explicitly = the Sequences
-examples of rationality in addressing problems
-a distinction between rationality and other thinking processes and when rational thinking is appropriate (ie- the boundaries of rationality)
It would be a reasonable hypothesis - based on what I have seen - that the last point causes a negative feedback. MP demonstrated a great deal of rationality (and knowledge) in addressing the questions I raised in the first post. Given this, I find it intriguing that he is captivated in any way by 2012ism. Anyway, I would expect upvotes for any comment that clarifies or contributes to the parent, downvotes for comments which obscure, and nothing for humor or personal side notes (they can generate productive input and help create an atmosphere of camaraderie).
I saw the thread on elitism somewhere and noted that the idea of elitism and the karma system are intertwined. It seems a simple explicit description of karma and what it accomplishes may be a good thread for a top member to start. - if it exists already I was implying I sought it in my request for a 'list of taboos'. It may or may not be a good idea to tell people criteria for up/down-voting, but is there a discussion about that?
So part of being new here...the karma thing. Did you just get docked karma for the assertion you are into 2012-ism? I didn't do it. Is there a list of taboos? I got docked for a comment on intuition (I speculate that is why).
Thanks for addressing all three of the questions. Your ability to expound on such a variety of topics is what I was hoping someone in this forum could do. Quite insightful.
I think you got a grip on the gist. I didn't mention boredom in my question but you went straight to where I have been in looking at the topic. But I do not think there is reason to believe boredom is a basic state of human life indicative of how it has always been. I think it may be more related to the industrial lifestyle.
Take the 2012 Mayan calendar crap. Charles Mann concludes his final appendix in "1491" with a mention of the pop-phenom, "Archaeologists of the Maya tend to be annoyed by 2012 speculation. Not only is it mistaken, they believe, but it fundamentally misrepresents the Maya. Rather than being an example of native wisdom, scholars say, the apocalyptic 'prophecy' is a projection of European values onto non-European people." The apocalypse is the end of boredom for a bored people.
I personally do not like the boring, as you suggested, I have come to grips with that and live accordingly.
That is an impressive collection of links you put together. You have provided what I was looking for in a greater scope than I expected. The Star Larvae Hypothesis and Guy Murchie express the eccentricity in thought I was hoping someone would have knowledge of. I like to see the margins, you see. How did you come to all those tidbits? It took me a single question on this forum for me to get that scope and for that I owe you some thanks. I really do not have much of a hobby in pondering the intentions of stellar beings, but in coming up with queries that help me find the edges, margins, or whatever of this evolved social consciousness I am part of.
I do find it interesting that someone would be able to compile those links. Was this a personal interest of yours at some time or part of a program of study you came across? Or do you have some skill at compiling links that is inexplicable?
Thanks for clarifying.
I understand that categories are mental constructs which facilitate thinking , but do not themselves occur outside the mind. The question meant to find objections to the categorization of logic as a sense. Taken as a sense there is a frame, the category, which allows it to be viewed as analogous to other senses and interrelated to the thinking process as senses are. In the discussion concerning making the most favorable choice on Monty Hall the contestant who does not see the logical choice is "blind". When considering the limits of logical reason they can be be seen to possibly parallel the limits of visual observation- how much of the universe is impervious to being logically understood?
No need to address qualia.
Will try to constrain myself to more concise, well-defined queries and comments.
An amoeba acts on its environment where a rock behaves according to extrernal force. Life also has the characteristic of reproduction which is not how processes like combustion or fusion begin or continue. There are attempts to create both biological life from naught and AI research has a goal which could be characterized as making something that is alive vs a dead machine - a conscious robot not a car. I recognize that life is chemical processes, but I, and I think the sciences are divided this way, a categorical difference between chemistry and biology. My position is that physics and chemistry, eg, do not study a driving component of reality - that which drives life. If biological life is to be called >>complexity of basic chemical processes then what drives the level of complexity to increase?
Is there a thread or some place where your position on life is expounded upon? If life is to be framed as a complex process on a spectrum of processes I could understand, provided the definition of complexity is made and the spectrum reflects observations. In fact, spectrums seem to me to be more fitting maps than categories, but I am unaware of a spectrum that defines complexity to encompass both combustion and life.
Thanks for the welcome.
I raised this pov of logic (reason or rationality when applied) because I saw a piece that correlates training reason with muscle training. If logic is categorical similar to a sense then treat it metaphorically as such, I think. Improving one's senses is a little different than training a muscle and is a more direct simile. Then there is the question of what is logic sensing? Sight perceives what we call light, so logic is perceiving 'the order' of things? The eventual line of thinking starts questioning the relationship of logic to intuition. I advocate the honing of intuition, but it is identical in process to improving one's reason. The gist being that intuition picks up on the same object that logic eventually describes, like the part of vision which detects movement in the field that is only detailed once the focal point is moved upon it.
As for vitalism, the life I speak of is to extend one's understanding of biological life - a self-directing organism - to see stars as having the same potential. The behavior of stars, and the universal structure is constrained in the imagination to be subject to the laws of physics and the metaphor for a star in this frame is a fire, which is lit and burns according to predictable rules regarding combustion. The alternative is to imagine that the stars are the dogs, upon which the earth is a flea, and we are mites upon it. Why does this matter? I suppose it is just one of those world-view things which I think dictates how people feel about their existence. "We live in a dead universe subject to laws external to our being" predicates a view which sees external authority as natural and dismisses the vitality within all points which manifest this 'life'. I think the metaphor for the universe is closely tied to the ethos of the culture, so I raised this question.
Thanks for your thoughtful reply.
I will tend to violate mores, but I do not wish to seem disrespectful of the culture here. In the future I will more strictly limit the scope of the topic, but considering it was an introduction...I just wished to spread out questions from myself rather than trivia about myself.
I don't think I am asking the wrong question. Such is the best reply I can formulate against the charge. As for my understanding of the established science, I thought I was reasonably versed, but in such a forum as this I am highly skeptical of my own consumption of available knowledge. But from experience, I am usually considered knowledgeable in fields of psychology I am familiar with the textbook junk like Skinner, Freud, Jung, etc.. and with,e.g., Daniel Dennett, Aronson, and Lakoff , but that doesn't make me feel more or less qualified about asking the question I proposed. In astoronomy I have gone through material ranging from Chandrasekhar to Halton Arp, and the view that the stars are subject to, rather than direct gravitational phenomena is prevalent, i.e., stars act like rocks and not like living beings.
Please elaborate on how 'realness' is unclear in its usage. I would like to know the more acceptable language. The concept is clear in my mind and I thought the diction was commonly accepted.
If the subjects I have brought up are ill-framed then I would be happy to be directed to the more encompassing discussion.
I have browsed much of what you directed me to. The structure of this site is a bit alien to my cognitive organization, but the material contained within is highly familiar.
Please help me with the questions.
It took me a few hours to find this thread like a kid rummaging through a closet not knowing what he is looking for.
As my handle indicates, I am Lloyd. Not much I think is worth saying about myself but I would like to ask a few questions to see what interests readers here, if anyone reads this, and present a sample of where my thinking may come from.
Considering the psychological model of five senses we are taught since grade school is there a categorical difference in our ability to logically perceive that 2+2=4 vs perceiving the temperature is decreasing? The deeper question being is the realness of logic (and possibly other mental faculties not being considered here) the same as the realness of sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch? There are questions which unfold from considering logic as a 'sense', but I wish to clarify this question first.
I have not found any proponent of a physical view of the universe as fundamentally alive rather than dead. Is there someone who has proposed, for example, that the stars are living and thus self-directing and the observations of galaxies may be that stars are purposefully forming these structures under their own will much like we form cities? Or maybe the idea that stars induce gravity and feed off of a source of energy from the subatomic regime? Or that different star systems may be fundamentally different on a quantum level like blood types? I mean the language is filled with terms like birth, death, and life, but it sounds like they are disconnected from their biologically meaning altogether.
Does anyone ever discuss the post-industrial society, no, not right question. Why is it that the discussion of post-industrial society is what it is? For example, in mainstream storytelling post-industrial=post-apocalyptic for much of what I have seen. There is Gene Roddenberry who cast post-industrial society as being rescued by aliens. There are Orwell and Huxley who left the world to be forever locked in an industrial nightmare. Zombies. Am I to understand that the culture's mind has settled on imaging the industrial society as its death?
I wouldn't make such a broad prediction, but it is easy to see schooling decreases personal authority, without which the individual cannot act altruistically or selfishly (I argue both are the same, but depend on what one considers self - John Livingston's 'Rogue Primate' expounds on this concept). I would suggest looking at the Amish culture as a case study. Historically, you can contrast early America (that of Franklin, Jefferson, Edison and the other American pioneers) and Hitler's Germany ( the Nazi system was adopted from the new American schools and called the Indiana system by Germans so I have read). I would, based on these and other examples predict that the students raised outside the school system would have greater potential for many qualities including altruism, but that manifestation of these qualities will vary by environment and individual.
I think there should be some use of the "moral sphere" model in understanding the dilemma presented. The moral sphere is conceptually easy to understand - each person extends moral consideration varying from the center, oneself, outward into society(or world in whole) until a boundary of moral exclusion is reached, and beyond this boundary exist 'them'. The model would thus have Buddha being an idealized moral example having no boundary of exclusion and no decrease in moral consideration from self to the rest of the world.
The next consideration is that of culture, here in America, where we have schooled everyone to be...well....pitiful bitches. Seriously, the schooling process both breaks down community -even sense of community and neighborliness - and creates drones waiting for instruction from authority. (school is designed to do this see John Taylor Gatto and Ivan Illich for history and arguments). The studies you cite (and the fact you used deTocequville who witnessed the US pre-compulsory schooling) indict the culture created by our adoption of a school system meant to create a compliant, mindless, consumer society. To really impact the level of altruism in our culture you would do what you could to steer people away from the school system.
As for immediate intimate remedies look at how your "community" is structured - is it a really community(holistic relationships) or just a network(conditional, purposed relationships), or worse a hierarchical structure (relationships at work)? A final consideration is that if you are conditioning yourself to be more responsive in helping and more considerate of others you are going to find yourself developing skills in asserting authority, taking charge, and trying to solve dilemmas where you are being compelled to sacrifice from your own 'good will', or whatever tune your heartstrings get played to - this is undoing what schooling trains into everyone in various degrees.
The basis for honesty are arguments for development of a an egalatarian relationship. If the relationship is not based on equality then dishonesty is an inevitable result in resolving moral dilemmas. In the example case there is no reason to consider whether or not deception in words should mirror the deception of hiding filthy Jews. To split hairs further the ability to convey the truth is absolutely impossible in language. The allusion of of the 1st quote is towards this understanding: anything contained in language is only an approximation of the truth. So how honest can we really be?