How can civics coexist with epistemology in a productive way?

It seems most people are pro-predation in my opinion, but the relationship between parasitism and symbiosis is complicated to measure through the context of time. Do you have a suggestion for how to simultaneously reduce predatory behaviors that are caustic to a society based on symbiotic productivity while also reducing parasitic behaviors?

I think... it was John Lennon that said there was no such thing as an original idea, or something along those lines

In my area, kids start playing football when they're in 4th grade. Do you think that 9-year-olds should be allowed to do drugs and have sex? To vote? Should it be reduced to a basic understanding of consequences? Kids that young might be able to understand the negatives associated with these actions when they apply to other people, but are they really capable of understanding how it could impact their lives?

How would you respond to your own question?

Find a single example of motivation that isn't caused by pain or pleasure. This could be done through brain scans.

Although one wonders what kind of analysis might yield information that validates, or falsifies, the hypothesis that ‘the propensity for happiness is determined by evolutionary factors’. — Wayfarer

If you view it from the perspective of psychological hedonism, that all motivation is dictated by pain and pleasure, then even if there is an amount of neutral selection in what makes humans happy there still have to be positive and negative traits associated with that motivation as well. Psychological hedonism is definitely falsifiable and if it is true, the only place those motivations can come from is evolution.

When a religious person earnestly asserts that "God Exists", to doubt the factual accuracy of what he is saying is in some sense to misunderstand what he is saying. For the only meaningful scientific problem is to ascertain the environmental stimuli that upon interacting with the person's brain provokes his assertion. Thereupon identification of the environmental stimuli, we can interpret the religious person's assertion "God Exists" as his empirical measurement of said environmental stimuli. — sime

That's kind of my point. I don't think there is a misunderstanding when the statement 'God exists' is proposed though. Questioning gods existence is only productive through the lens of philosophical inquiry because it is, as far as we know, impossible to test in reality. As you stated though, questioning peoples reasoning in their belief in God and finding its cause is possible to investigate. This is where I draw the line between ontology and meta-ontology. Same with ethics and meta-ethics. It's not possible to find ethical truths because it mostly comes down to an opinion on the way the world should be. It is, however, possible to conduct experiments on why people hold moral beliefs in the first place. Most meta-philosophy is testable but most philosophy itself is not.

Science bottoms out in the real world - it deals with real abstractions - in a way metaphysics and epistemology usually don't. For example, metaphysical and epistemic concepts are rarely parametrised or operationalised; they don't need to interface with reality in the same way as scientific thoughts do. Another contrastive case - what would an epistemologist specialising in Gettier do with a survey on people's responses to Gettier Cases? — fdrake

This is why I separated philosophical and scientific inquiry. Even in cases like normative ethics, which seem to me to be statements based on the way people think the world should be, there is no way to really ground any of the arguments in reality. But there is a way to determine the way things are and build a logical argument guided by your desires to determine the way you think things should be.

If it helps, I've worked in a few scientific research projects and am a statistician, and not once have I been asked to used Kolmogorov's axioms in a Carnap-ian quest for scientific objectivity. Much more effort is placed on designing appropriate controls and resource efficient experimental designs than anything which resembles 'applied probabilistic reasoning' in the sense you outlined it. — fdrake

That part was more about adding structure to the abductive reasoning in hypothesis formation than it was about designing the actual experiment, but I've never actually done any real research so I probably have no idea what I'm talking about. What do you mean when you refer to much more effort?

In my view, good philosophy isn't there to vouchsafe the operations of scientific thought, or to ape scientific thinking in a philosophical register - scientific thinking will continue to happen without philosophy's help. Philosophy at its best is a problematiser, a composite of overlapping and sometimes contrary metaphysical, epistemic, ethical and political intuitions which allow it to ask interesting questions. — fdrake

Wouldn't that question asking and answering behavior be required for the first few steps of the scientific method? How are you defining philosophy and science?

Haven't you already relied on axiomatic assumptions in establishing your particular take on the way philosophical questioning should proceed? — Janus

Yeah, of course. But I can't think of any way to create completely grounded axioms that aren't built upon an infinite regress. Am I missing something?

This seems unnecessarily complicated. Maybe it would be clearer if you can give simple examples of philosophical and scientific issues addressed by your method. — T Clark

Questions like what is the meaning of my life?, or how SHOULD things be as opposed to how they ARE? can't be answered through observation. They can only be questioned in the mind and what I call philosophical inquiry. Questions like what is the half-life of caffeine? can be answered with scientific inquiry.

Also - in my experience application of one of these methods does not start with a question, it starts with an observation, an issue, or a problem. If there is a question, it's "what's going on here?" — T Clark

Yeah, that's a good point, I edited the OP to include that.

Yes. Mind over matter. — matt

How would you prove that it is possible to do so? Can you separate pain in the mind from visible pain on brain scans?

But since the traits are not specific to humans you can't do that. Which is very much the point I was making, obviously. You are looking for human lived experience as a way of uncovering the evolutionary reason for those traits, but humans came ready supplied with them; traits that had already been a foregone conclusion for 100s of millions of years. — charleton

You don't need a complete picture to reason. It may not be as rigorous to only apply my studies to the human condition, but it accomplishes goals that are relevant to me. Studying the human experience is a reasonable way to learn about the human experience. It may not lead to a perfect complete picture, but it would be unproductive to strive for a complete picture of anything.

I think happiness is a way of being in the world which may have evolved "as a survival mechanism" but limiting happiness's scope to pleasure and pain does not differentiate man from beast. One of the fundamental aspects of humanity is its desire to know, as Aristotle stated in his metaphysics "All men by nature desire to know”. The generation of meaning in life is essential for a happy life in my estimation. — Cavacava

Yes, but can you say that there is no pain or pleasure present in the process of desiring to know and understanding? Perhaps that the reason we are motivated to know something is the same reason we are motivated to do anything else?

So much , so obvious. But you are changing the goal posts.
All mammals, and birds, probably reptiles too; experience pain and pleasure.
Let me remind you, that you were talking about 'happiness'. — charleton

I said humans specifically because I wanted to limit the domain of the discussion to the human experience. I don't think that humans are the only species that experience pain, but I don't know enough about the experience of all species to extend psychological hedonism to life itself and I doubt it would be correct to do so. And yeah I was talking about happiness, but I see happiness as being nothing more than a form of pleasure.

Pain as physical, suffering as mental. — matt

So are you implying that it is possible to experience physical pain without experiencing mental pain?

A state of mind. — CuddlyHedgehog

Thats not a very specific definition, couldn't any emotion be considered a state of mind?

If you say I'm confusing happiness with survival, how are you defining happiness?

I do not think you have any warrant to distill ONE emotion such as happiness out of the entire human set of emotions. Hate, since it also is part of human experience is as valid a candidate for an evo-psych analysis. But this is the myth of evo-psych, that they just cherry pick something and think of the nice traits and decide that is why we have it. It's rubbish. Because happiness can lead to not bothering to have children. Contentment can mean wanting to keep what you have rather then burden your life with kids! — charleton

Perhaps something as abstract as saying happiness is a survival mechanism is unwarranted, but it is rooted in the belief that pleasure and pain are the only motivators of human behavior. That is a 100% falsifiable statement. If they are the only motivators of human behavior, it would only make sense that they would structure themselves around behaviors that are beneficial to the survival of the species. Even if it also structures itself around the traits that are survival neutral, if it were to structure itself around something that was detrimental to the survival of a species, it would lead to that species extinction. Reducing emotions to pain and pleasure make them viable subjects for scientific inquiry in my opinion as long as pain and pleasure can be reduced to motivation and motivation can be structured around evolution.

So if happiness is created in the brain, what determines the amount of happiness an individual brain creates?

But evolution is not a thing that can choose or meld the creature's emotional spectrum. The only rubric is that some fail to reproduce.
So nothing really can be said on this topic despite the gallons of ink that are spilled by the fantasy science of evolutionary psychology.... except masturbatory speculation, based on a false and backwards teleology. — charleton

If this were the case, then every trait would either help or hurt the ability for an organism to reproduce. From a survival of the fittest mindset, traits that enable a species to survive and reproduce are obviously helpful. But traits that do not do so in any way are hurtful because they rely on the absence of a trait that is helpful. Saying that evolutionary psychology is a fantasy science is like saying that evolution is a fantasy science.

Do you believe that the brain plays any part in the creation of happiness?

Happiness is subjective in the sense that different people value different things, but the only way that happiness could be unaffected by external factors would be if one valued nothing. It isn't possible for someone not to value basic needs. I'm willing to bet that even tribes in the Amazon eat and sleep. Eventually, some bodily function like hunger, or shivering will kick in and cause pain and suffering for the individual and the desire to resolve that pain will cause them to value a way to get rid of it. So yes, it is likely that some aspect of that study was affected by American culture. But when you say that happiness is a self-delusion unaffected by external factors, what are you saying? That emotional well-being doesn't exist, or that emotional well-being is entirely independent from physical well-being?

http://www.pnas.org/content/107/38/16489

What evidence do you have to support your claim that happiness is based on mindset alone?

The pain comes from the torture. The suffering comes from the frustrated desire to not be tortured. — matt

That just seems like an arbitrary boundary between the two definitions in order to make the statement that suffering is the result of desire true while keeping the reality that pain is caused by external forces also true. How are you defining pain vs suffering?

Then where does the correlation between income and happiness come from?

If happiness were entirely self-delusion, how could it be dependent on forces outside the mind in any way?

Evidence? This is metaphysics, not medicine. It has to do with attitude and values - how you look at things. — T Clark

Are you implying that the benefits of adopting different attitudes and values are somehow exempt from the concept of evidence or proof?

Buddhism's First Noble Truth (there are 4) - All life is suffering. Second Nobel Truth - Suffering is caused by desire. The desire for pleasure. The desire not to feel pain. Struggle. — T Clark

Just because something is stated as being truth, does not make it true. All life is suffering? Nonsense, that would imply that happiness doesn't exist and would act as an argument in favor of my original argument anyway. To say that suffering is the default state of human nature is agreeable. Suffering is caused by desire? So when it comes to the desire not to be tortured, the suffering in that area comes from desire itself? Not the person shoving bamboo under your fingernails?

In what way wouldn't it affect us? — schopenhauer1

If we couldn't experience pain, it wouldn't affect us in any way.

What does Watts' status as an entertainer or a philosopher have to do with whether or not that is true? — T Clark

That's fair. My generalized view of what Alan Watts does is take important concepts and present them in a confusing way in order to provoke thought in that area. I'm not discrediting him as important, but I don't think he had the habit of presenting actual truths. To me, it seems he is more of a disinformationist in the same sense that Reggie Watts is.

But you're right, that has nothing to do with whether or not it is true. Does he propose any evidence to suggest that this is the case though? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I see no way for pain to exist without struggle. Wouldn't the rejection of the struggle to ease one's pain just leave them stuck in it. I agree that expecting to rid oneself from pain completely is futile, but removing the struggle completely would just be counterproductive and I see no reason to suggest that would make someone happier than another person who attempts to solve the problem that is causing the pain in the first place.

The real reason why human life can be so utterly exasperating and frustrating is not because there are facts called death, pain, fear, or hunger. The madness of the thing is that when such facts are present, we circle, buzz, writhe, and whirl, trying to get the I out of the experience...Sanity, wholeness and integration lie in the realisation that we are not divided, that man and his present experience are one, and that no separate I or mind can be found .... [Life] is a dance, and when you are dancing, you are not intent on getting somewhere. The meaning and purpose of dancing is the dance. — T Clark

I disagree that happiness is not a form of pleasure and I don't think that this specific passage is about happiness. I used to read Alan Watts and it bothered me when I read he was considered more of a spiritual entertainer than a philosopher. But when I look back at it, he wrote very simple ideas that he convoluted with a bunch of poetic nothingness, Honestly I think he helped me get into philosophy because I doubt I would've taken what he said as seriously had it not been difficult to interpret at times, but I have to agree with the spiritual entertainer label. It's still entertaining to read, but the entire passage above can be summed up as, the meaning of life is life itself. I don't really see what that has to do with happiness but perhaps I am mistaken.

Thus all the ordinary pursuits of mankind are not only fruitless but also illusory insofar as they are oriented toward satisfying an insatiable, blind will. — Schopenhauer article from Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

I like the passage, and I can agree to an extent that everything is fruitless, but wouldn't my proposal break the concepts that he speaks of. Things would still be pointless, but the pointlessness wouldn't affect us on an emotional level.

The surest path to the long hill and the big round rock is the stupefying loss of passion--the emotions. What mortal, above-ground proletarians should do about their work life is a good question, which bears on whether we will have a chance at happiness (one of those emotions you want to get rid of) or mere survival. — Bitter Crank

What if your passion is to reduce existential risk? In a world with a finite amount of resources, we can either dedicate them to a longer life or a 'happier' life for society. The answer to that question determines how to approach my passion. A balance could be struck between the two, but that balance runs the risk of killing us all. But does a balance need to be established? If pain is the default, the reason we would actually enjoy pleasure is because it is an escape from pain. Wouldn't this be a more efficient escape from pain than the natural one?

Because with pain and pleasure being the motivator, the default human state would be pain. If you were to do nothing, eventually you would experience some form of pain that would motivate you to do something, whether it is hunger, insecurity. Just as we are chasing pleasure, we're running from pain. The difference is in most cases you need to work for pleasure, but pain will always be waiting for you.

Instinct here is defined as an innate behavior in response to stimuli that is essentially "pre-programmed" in the organism. So, a bird flies south for the winter, sea turtles move towards the beach to lay eggs, etc. etc. I will also lump certain forms of learned behavior into instinct as well. — schopenhauer1

Just because a bird flies south for the winter doesn't mean that it doesn't 'think' it is doing that of its own accord. Just because a human thinks it has free will doesn't mean it does.

Yes, it is not innate, but it seems to be epigenetic in a way for some learned behavior in other animals, as they are "primed" to learn and cannot help but learn based on their programming — schopenhauer1

Is the process of learning in humans any different?? Do humans deliberately learn?? They may be able to deliberately choose what to learn, but the process of learning is mostly intuitive/instinctual in humans as well as animals.

An example of this is a daughter chimp learns how to be a "good" mother from watching its mom. However, the daughter chimp does not have a choice to do anything but learn from her mother. It cannot say one day, "eh, I don't feel like being a mother". — schopenhauer1

Is this any different from humans learning how to be good parents?? Is there any evidence to suggest that this is the only place that chimps learn how to be good parents?? That they have no thought process themselves?? And do you have any evidence that chimp mothers are genetically incapable of abandoning their offspring??

In a way, this is an instinct to learn specialized behaviors for survival. — schopenhauer1

Are there any behaviors that humans learn that aren't either specialized for survival or derived from behaviors that are?

This linguistic mind has changed the way human behavior functions from other animals. It gives humans the ability to create complex hierarchical thinking. — schopenhauer1

Is this the product of instinct or something else?

Even something as fundamental as child-rearing is not instinctual. If people want to have a child, it is a desire just like any other desire. That is to say, it originates with concepts (I, raise, baby, development, nurture, care for, etc.) and concepts are purely in the realm of linguistic-cultural. — schopenhauer1

Are desires not instinctual?? are concepts necessary for desires to exist?? Would a person that was raised in an environment without an existing language be unable to desire?? In my opinion, it seems more likely that desires are all instinctual and we use concepts to be able to communicate them to other people and ourselves, and the adaptation to a language is in itself instinctual.

How do you know it is an instinct and not just something that is what you simply desire based on your personality and linguistic-cultural enculturation? — schopenhauer1

The only way I could think of to prove that SOME desires are separate from culture would be to perform an experiment on humans to test what would happen if you raised someone in an environment without language or culture, and that would be deeply unethical.

This is learned behavior, and not the kind where we just can't "help" but learn, but ones where the culture/family/community transmits information and instruction. — schopenhauer1

Couldn't it be instinctual for the culture to transmit that information??

There is no decision, or alternatives. — schopenhauer1

You believe in free will don't you?

The content is wide and varied due to ability for conceptual transmission via language. — schopenhauer1

Yes our ability to learn is improved by our ability to use language, couldn't that be viewed as an instinctual evolutionary advantage? Can you really call the human thought process anything but instinctual???

In Einstein's epistemology..."the axiomatic structure (A) of a theory is built psychologically on the experiences (E) of the world of perceptions. Inductive logic cannot lead from the (E) to the (A). The (E) need not be restricted to experimental data, nor to perceptions; rather, the (E) may include the data of Gedanken experiments. — Galuchat

But even if the (E) is the data of Gedanken experiments, is that not to some extent the result of abductive reasoning? If we define abductive reasoning as a form of logical inference which starts with an observation then seeks to find the simplest and most likely explanation, isn't that synonymous with the statement above which you proposed?

Einstein referred to the demarcation between concepts or axioms and perceptions or data as the 'metaphysical original sin' (1949); and his defense of it was its usefulness. — Galuchat

Was he saying that the sin was the separation of the two concepts or the lack of separation?

I mistyped when I said pure science and went back and changed it to logic being pure logic and science being applied logic.

My suggestion is to look further into what logic is: it's a formal discipline that has alot of specificity to it — StreetlightX

Here is my understanding of logic. Logic is a formalization of the concept of reasoning that has been slowly built over time by people trying to more effectively make sense of things. It's main categorizations are informal and formal logic. Informal including inductive reasoning, and abductive reasoning. Formal mainly being deductive. Attempts to improve the rigor of deductive reasoning led to the creation of propositional, first-order, modal, and other similar formal systems. The scientific method is the cycle of these three forms of reasoning according to Charles Sanders Peirce and it seems to me that is an accurate statement. My main question, is there an application of logic that falls outside this cycle?

I think your'e in for a hard time trying to discuss anything sensibly if you're aren't familiar with even the actual axioms of logic themselves — StreetlightX

What are you referring to when you say the axioms of logic?

I don't mean this harshly, but only as a suggestion for study! — StreetlightX

Lol you don't have to worry about me getting offended about potentially being wrong. If it seems like I'm taking an aggressive stance, that's just how I can come off sometimes. But I'm just trying to develop my ideas further and it helps to have them written out and criticized by other people.

One can establish a system of logic without a single reference to any real life constraint, or scientific result. Logic is more or less entirely disconnected from the empirical — StreetlightX

When you say this, are you referring to deductive reasoning exclusively, or do you include informal logic as well? And if logic is separate from real life constraints, does it have any value outside of paving the way for its application to the real world? Would a good analogy for the relationship be "logic is 'pure logic' and science is 'applied logic', in comparison to pure and applied mathematics"?