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The 'Intellectual Conscience', by Friedrich Nietzsche


scherado

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dimreepr,

 

Well yes, that has been my point.

Morals cannot come from a logical synthesis of mathematical laws or physical principles or any  scientific measures.  They have to however come from some aspect of objective reality and the only judges we have are living things or things that once lived, or things we imagine to have existed or exist or will exist.  

We can be our own judge, but then we are a sophist and this position has no grounding in objective reality, other than our own head's ability to put together a random set of self serving rules.   In order to be a conscience we can converse with, it has to represent, in my estimation, an unseen other facilitated by our rTPJ as studied by Rebecca Saxe.   This means two objectively real basis are established.   One the rTPJ that gives us the ability to have a theory of mind.  Our own, and someone elses. And two, this allows us to put ourselves in someone else's shoes.  Converse with an unseen other.   So now, when we look to know how to behave, whether something is right or wrong we just have to ask Aunt Gloria what she would do.  If she would do it, we can do it.  If she wouldn't do it, neither should we.  She could be dead, or sick, or in Cleveland or in the next room, we can still feel the pleasing or displeasing of Aunt Gloria, because we have mirror neurons, memories of Aunt Gloria's reactions to things, a rTPJ and hence a conscience.  Real, objective moral guide. 

It is not required to find a set of books in Plato's heaven, or some chiseled rules on some stones, we only have to ask Aunt Gloria what to do.

Regards, TAR

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Thank you tar for bringing Rebbeca Saxe's research to my attention (very interesting).                                                                         

                                                                                                                                                                                                    A great Ted Talk, but you do seem a little unsure of the conclusions.

13 hours ago, tar said:

In order to be a conscience we can converse with, it has to represent, in my estimation, an unseen other

On the contrary, she seems to be suggesting we need context, a seen other or specific situation (I may be wrong as I've yet to read her papers).

13 hours ago, tar said:

One the rTPJ that gives us the ability to have a theory of mind.

In the talk above she denies this may even be possible.

13 hours ago, tar said:

So now, when we look to know how to behave, whether something is right or wrong we just have to ask Aunt Gloria what she would do.  If she would do it, we can do it.  If she wouldn't do it, neither should we.  She could be dead, or sick, or in Cleveland or in the next room, we can still feel the pleasing or displeasing of Aunt Gloria, because we have mirror neurons, memories of Aunt Gloria's reactions to things

Now you're losing me, our moral judgment (as described above) has nothing to do with Aunt Gloria or anyone else, it's the result of an internal dialog and solely dependant on maturity and the activity in that region of the brain.

 

It seems my post is missing the relevant link.

 

ttps://www.google.co.uk/search?source=hp&q=+rTPJ+as+studied+by+Rebecca+Saxe&oq=+rTPJ+as+studied+by+Rebecca+Saxe&gs_l=psy-ab.3..33i160k1l2.161203.161203.0.168687.4.2.0.0.0.0.88.88.1.2.0....0...1.2.64.psy-ab..2.2.165.6..35i39k1.77.u-PbPXcf3xw

Bug report...

Edited by dimreepr
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dimreepr,

The studies first came to my attention when another poster whose identity escapes me at the moment, posted her work on iNow's great thread "How religion usurps the neurocortical mechanisms of the brain".  This was years ago and I thought about it a lot and folded it into my thinking about many aspects of human evolution and human society and human psychology.

So I don't know that her conclusions were exactly mine, or mine hers.

Regards, TAR

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40 minutes ago, tar said:

This was years ago

More than 8, in fact. 

Quote

If you understand the psychology of [why we crave] the Big Mac meal, you understand the psychology of religion. We evolved adaptations for things that were crucial and rare... the sugars of ripe fruit... fat of lean game meat... for salt... those were crucial adaptations in our past. And now the modern world creates a novel form of it that comes from those adaptations, but hijacks them with super-normal stimuli... not ripe fruit, but a coca-cola... not lean game meat, but fat hamburger and french fries soaked in meat juice... and it creates these super-normal stimuli, but they're based on ancient adaptations.

Let me take you on a bit of a tour of a few of these cognitive mechanisms.

The first is Decoupled Cognition... <more at the video>

Quote

He argues how our complex social interactions with unseen others (think visualization and mental rehearsal) are just one step away from communicating with a dead ancestor and one step further to communicating to a god or gods. He also illuminates our susceptibility to optical and other illusions, and how these same "gap filling" tendencies in the brain lend a giant opening for supernatural figures. It's called intuitive reasoning, and it underlines the essence of religious ideas, which are minimally counterintuitive worlds.

 

 

KINDLY PLEASE LAUNCH THIS INTO NEW THREAD IF YOU WISH TO RESPOND. ITS OBVIOUSLY QUITE OT. 

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