Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist
23rd November 2012, 18:46
In this piece I discuss the science of the conscience and unconscious mind and why it proves the libertarian thesis to be invalid. A slightly better version can be found on my blog here:http://aroundthepear.blogspot.com/2012/11/introspection-is-not-valid-source-of.html
Now the whole philosophical basis of libertarianism is built on the idea of personal responsibility. However those of us who believe that the Law of Causality applies to human beings insofar that humans are material things that exist within the physical universe and can not be seen as exceptions to the fundamental laws that regulate everything else that exists within this material universe, or those of us who don't believe in the freedom of the will, retort that since the actions of the individual are merely the result of external influences upon him and to hold him as solely responsible for his actions abdicates society from it's essential obligations. Yet even if you convince that the concept of free will is absurd, that the idea of "self ownership" is therefore nothing more than metaphysical and ultimately false, they can still retort that logically speaking, the individual is more aware of his subjective interests than any other body, and that therefore he ought to pursue these interests uninfringed since from a logical point of view, if we assume that everyone has a perfect understanding of oneself than it would appear that the most efficient method of maximizing public happiness would be to simply "let be" and allow individuals to pursue their interests unchecked.
But of course, this premise depends on the idea that individuals have a perfect knowledge of themselves, and much like how Smith's capitalism fails because it assumes that all actors have perfect knowledge of a good's actual market value, it fails because humans do not have a perfect knowledge of themselves and are actually quite incapable of understanding themselves. In fact, the debate over whether we can all just sit down and "think" about who we are as individuals and determine an objective conclusion from this process has been long debunked by science and has no business being extended into the realm of political philosophy.
In it's early days psychology had to tackle a very difficult question in order to be accepted as a science; how can we understand the mind's relation to human behavior if we can't observe thought? In 1892 a student of the renown experimental psychologist William Wundt by the name of Edward Bradford Titchener attempted to solve this problem through an approach called structuralism. Titchener proposed that through a process called introspection, the essential structure of the brain could be discovered by asking people to report on sensations such as the smell of roses, and then by asking them how they thought these sensations were related and eventually how these sensations were related to how they felt about these sensations and how these feelings interacted to create emotions.
However when Titchener's theory was tested different people reported associating sensations differently, thus dispelling any hope for introspection being a possible method of experimental psychology. It was also discovered that when asked to predict what our emotional response would be to an event, out answer almost always contradicted our actual response to said event. Additionally, since we all have a separate consciences from our peers, we have a natural tendency to assume that we are unique from other people simply because we are unable to observe the cognitive process in others which led us to assume that we are essentially different from everyone else because as individuals we are the only ones who we can observe a thought process in. Due to this assumption of difference we have a tendency to assume that we are exceptional or are apart of a category that is exceptional This is why (among other reasons) as a species we have a tendency to form judgement based on categorical superiority. "Look at all of those poor people, they're so lazy, I, as a member of the middle class have earned my position by being the exception to this laziness". This idea of exceptionalism is what allows us to create false categorical assessments without any actual understanding of the people around us. It helps us to hold those immediate surrounding us in contempt for the sole purpose of feeling like that special unique individual that your kindergarten teacher spent so much time telling you that you are.
And I bet every one there thinks that the people surrounding them belongs to the opposite political party
But it goes further then that. Like coffee? Do you prefer Bach or Handel? What sex position is your favorite? How about your kinks, what are they? Please, list your favorite songs. Now, please explain to me what influenced your tastes.
Pictured above, something about himself that Titchener couldn't be understood through introspection
Notice how you can't really come up with a good answer for those questions. Even though some of you might be able to offer an answer, none of these answers actually explain why you like certain things but only why you think you like certain things. This is because the complex series of associations needed to create your desires and tastes take place in your unconscious mind and not you conscience mind. You do not merely wake up one day and decide that Third Wave Ska is better than Metal, your mind makes this decision for you. What you are actually doing when you are trying to tell me what you like is trying to explain why you think you like something, you didn't actually decide that you like something but rather your unconscious mind made you like something and your conscience mind is trying to make sense of a decision making process that it has no part in making. It's like how Christian philosophers don't sit down and imagine there is a god using reason, they simply were raised with the concept of a god and try to defend this concept using reason without asking why am I defending my god and where did my god come from?
And interestingly enough our conscience mind gets in the way more than it helps. For example, when many people who thought they suffered from disorders were later informed that they didn't have these disorders actually became depressed instead of happy because their conscious mind created a self concept (or identity for those of us who aren't familiar with that term) of ourselves based on this perceived inferiority, and when this self-concept is smashed we lose our mind's flawed and flimsy understanding of it's self thus causing us to feel a certain level of disappointment and uncertainty. Simarily depressives tend to form identities for themselves that are based on their suffering and they then tend to go further into depression because this identity offers them a comfort zone based on a flawed understanding of themselves that they are afraid of escaping even though that escape would end their suffering.
The point being is that you, as an individual, do not possess any capability of understanding yourself and should therefore concede to the idea that a scientific attempt at understanding who you are is a much more valid form of investigation. Similarly you ought to understand that yes, other people can know more about you than you do and that therefore you should not dogmatically reject attempts to regulate your life based on the faulty premise that you are the only one who should be doing that, when if fact you are absolutely incompetent at regulating your own life. Instead you ought to engage individual regulations on a factual basis of their merit rather than an idealistic rejection of them due to some perceived "rights" that you possess that are divorced from time and space and exist only in the plain of your stupid, stupid, little mind.
-Sylvia.W.Esposito
Now the whole philosophical basis of libertarianism is built on the idea of personal responsibility. However those of us who believe that the Law of Causality applies to human beings insofar that humans are material things that exist within the physical universe and can not be seen as exceptions to the fundamental laws that regulate everything else that exists within this material universe, or those of us who don't believe in the freedom of the will, retort that since the actions of the individual are merely the result of external influences upon him and to hold him as solely responsible for his actions abdicates society from it's essential obligations. Yet even if you convince that the concept of free will is absurd, that the idea of "self ownership" is therefore nothing more than metaphysical and ultimately false, they can still retort that logically speaking, the individual is more aware of his subjective interests than any other body, and that therefore he ought to pursue these interests uninfringed since from a logical point of view, if we assume that everyone has a perfect understanding of oneself than it would appear that the most efficient method of maximizing public happiness would be to simply "let be" and allow individuals to pursue their interests unchecked.
But of course, this premise depends on the idea that individuals have a perfect knowledge of themselves, and much like how Smith's capitalism fails because it assumes that all actors have perfect knowledge of a good's actual market value, it fails because humans do not have a perfect knowledge of themselves and are actually quite incapable of understanding themselves. In fact, the debate over whether we can all just sit down and "think" about who we are as individuals and determine an objective conclusion from this process has been long debunked by science and has no business being extended into the realm of political philosophy.
In it's early days psychology had to tackle a very difficult question in order to be accepted as a science; how can we understand the mind's relation to human behavior if we can't observe thought? In 1892 a student of the renown experimental psychologist William Wundt by the name of Edward Bradford Titchener attempted to solve this problem through an approach called structuralism. Titchener proposed that through a process called introspection, the essential structure of the brain could be discovered by asking people to report on sensations such as the smell of roses, and then by asking them how they thought these sensations were related and eventually how these sensations were related to how they felt about these sensations and how these feelings interacted to create emotions.
However when Titchener's theory was tested different people reported associating sensations differently, thus dispelling any hope for introspection being a possible method of experimental psychology. It was also discovered that when asked to predict what our emotional response would be to an event, out answer almost always contradicted our actual response to said event. Additionally, since we all have a separate consciences from our peers, we have a natural tendency to assume that we are unique from other people simply because we are unable to observe the cognitive process in others which led us to assume that we are essentially different from everyone else because as individuals we are the only ones who we can observe a thought process in. Due to this assumption of difference we have a tendency to assume that we are exceptional or are apart of a category that is exceptional This is why (among other reasons) as a species we have a tendency to form judgement based on categorical superiority. "Look at all of those poor people, they're so lazy, I, as a member of the middle class have earned my position by being the exception to this laziness". This idea of exceptionalism is what allows us to create false categorical assessments without any actual understanding of the people around us. It helps us to hold those immediate surrounding us in contempt for the sole purpose of feeling like that special unique individual that your kindergarten teacher spent so much time telling you that you are.
And I bet every one there thinks that the people surrounding them belongs to the opposite political party
But it goes further then that. Like coffee? Do you prefer Bach or Handel? What sex position is your favorite? How about your kinks, what are they? Please, list your favorite songs. Now, please explain to me what influenced your tastes.
Pictured above, something about himself that Titchener couldn't be understood through introspection
Notice how you can't really come up with a good answer for those questions. Even though some of you might be able to offer an answer, none of these answers actually explain why you like certain things but only why you think you like certain things. This is because the complex series of associations needed to create your desires and tastes take place in your unconscious mind and not you conscience mind. You do not merely wake up one day and decide that Third Wave Ska is better than Metal, your mind makes this decision for you. What you are actually doing when you are trying to tell me what you like is trying to explain why you think you like something, you didn't actually decide that you like something but rather your unconscious mind made you like something and your conscience mind is trying to make sense of a decision making process that it has no part in making. It's like how Christian philosophers don't sit down and imagine there is a god using reason, they simply were raised with the concept of a god and try to defend this concept using reason without asking why am I defending my god and where did my god come from?
And interestingly enough our conscience mind gets in the way more than it helps. For example, when many people who thought they suffered from disorders were later informed that they didn't have these disorders actually became depressed instead of happy because their conscious mind created a self concept (or identity for those of us who aren't familiar with that term) of ourselves based on this perceived inferiority, and when this self-concept is smashed we lose our mind's flawed and flimsy understanding of it's self thus causing us to feel a certain level of disappointment and uncertainty. Simarily depressives tend to form identities for themselves that are based on their suffering and they then tend to go further into depression because this identity offers them a comfort zone based on a flawed understanding of themselves that they are afraid of escaping even though that escape would end their suffering.
The point being is that you, as an individual, do not possess any capability of understanding yourself and should therefore concede to the idea that a scientific attempt at understanding who you are is a much more valid form of investigation. Similarly you ought to understand that yes, other people can know more about you than you do and that therefore you should not dogmatically reject attempts to regulate your life based on the faulty premise that you are the only one who should be doing that, when if fact you are absolutely incompetent at regulating your own life. Instead you ought to engage individual regulations on a factual basis of their merit rather than an idealistic rejection of them due to some perceived "rights" that you possess that are divorced from time and space and exist only in the plain of your stupid, stupid, little mind.
-Sylvia.W.Esposito