F@ck You

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
61

[quote]stokedporcupine8 wrote:
If I am misunderstanding you, please let me know. My above post though is responding to this:

I disagree.

In the end we are born with instincts about what is right and wrong. The idea of “property rights” might be an intellectualization, but our whole brain is only as large as it is to make us highly political animals which make sure that we get what we perceive as ours.

Hence why I take you as arguing for the claim that because of our evolution, we instinctively understand both property rights and social order–“right and wrong” as you put it. [/quote]

Yup.

Apparently what I was searching for was that “Wason selection tasks” are much easier to solve when presented in a social context.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/2005/05/02/cheating-on-the-brain/

If you took these tests, chances are you bombed on version one and got version two right. Studies consistently show that in tests of the first sort, about 25% of people choose the right answer. But 65% of people get test number two right.

This is actually a very weird result. Both tests involve precisely the same logic: If P, then Q. Yet putting this statement in terms of social rules makes it far easier for people to solve than if it is purely descriptive.

Leda Cosmides and John Tooby of the University of California at Santa Barbara have argued that the difference reveals some of our evolutionary history. Small bands of hominids could only hold together if their members obeyed social rules. If people started cheating on one anotherâ??taking other peopleâ??s gifts of food, for example, without giving gifts of their ownâ??the band might well fall apart. Under these conditions, natural selection produced a cheating detection system in the brain. On the other hand, our hominid ancestors did not live or die based on their performance on abstract logic tests. Rather than being a general-purpose problem-solver, the human brain became adapted to solving the problems that our ancestors regularly faced in life.

The Wason Selection Task has become the center of the debate over evolutionary psychology. Some critics, such as the French psychologist Dan Sperber, claim that Cosmides and Tooby canâ??t make such strong statements about human reasoning from the Wason Selection Task. Others claim that the brain canâ??t be sliced up into modules so nicely.

…

Now hereâ??s the kicker: the social exchange version of the problem doesnâ??t just activate this left-brain network. It also activates the same regions in the right side of the brain. Many studies in which people have thought about social situations have tended to turn on the right side of the brain more than the left, and so in one sense this result isnâ??t too surprising. But it is surprising when you consider that the descriptive version of the puzzle that only switch on parts of the left side of the brain involved thinking about other people and their actions. You might think that that would be social enough to engage any parts of the brain specializing in social thinking. Apparently not. Only when the puzzle involved rules for social exchanges did the right-brain network come on line.

62

[quote]orion wrote:

Yup.

Apparently what I was searching for was that “Wason selection tasks” are much easier to solve when presented in a social context.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/2005/05/02/cheating-on-the-brain/

If you took these tests, chances are you bombed on version one and got version two right. Studies consistently show that in tests of the first sort, about 25% of people choose the right answer. But 65% of people get test number two right.

This is actually a very weird result. Both tests involve precisely the same logic: If P, then Q. Yet putting this statement in terms of social rules makes it far easier for people to solve than if it is purely descriptive.

[/quote]

That is somewhat interesting, but I’d hardly call that a “complex mathematical problem”. Besides, I’m a formally trained logician. That chances that I’d bomb the first version–which I didn’t, I honestly took it and got it correct–were about nill, Ha. As a geekish note, conceptually it’s easy to think of material implications as disjunctions. That is, “If A then B” is equivalent to “Not A or B”. If you presented the first question to your average person as a disjunction instead of a material implication, they probably would get it correct more times then not.

Anyway… I don’t think that sort of thing really helps your original two claims. You could interpret the results several ways–I would tend to think the results are explained best just by saying that people are more familiar with the second conditional then the first. That is, people understand well the truth conditions of the liquor conditional not because somehow the social nature of the proposition makes the material conditional clear, but simply because they’re familiar with liquor laws. The idea would be that if you exposed people as much to conditionals about evens and primary colors as they were to liquor laws they would get that one right too, and conversely that if people weren’t familiar with liquor laws they’d fail at that one. Another thing to think about is that most people probably conceptualize the liquor conditional as a disjunction anyway, since it’s more natural to think of liquor laws in that way (ie, as “either you can drink legally or your not 21”, instead of “if your 21 you can drink legally”).

Anyway I’m getting to far away from the point. Even if you don’t explain this sort of test as basically being about how familiar one is with certain concepts and instead think that the social nature of the liquor law makes the material conditional easier to understand I still don’t think it gives much support to your more radical claims about the intuitiveness of property rights or the instinctive of social order.

63

The point I was trying to make was not that a toddler understands “property rights”, per se. Rather that a toddler understands rightful ownership with respect to his own toys. This does not speak to whether or not he understands it is wrong to take something that does not belong to him. That, I believe, still needs to be taught to him.

If you do not understand property rights it is because you do not view your life as your own. Once that is understood it should be clear that everything else that comes into existence by proxy of your life is also your property.

64

[quote]stokedporcupine8 wrote:

I don’t even understand “property rights”.

Reading all sorts of abstract intentions into small children is a stupid thing. Children are far from capable of understanding notions of “property rights”. What they understand is that someone else has something they want, and that words like ‘mine’ are imperatives that are appropriate for such a desire. To say they they want the thing because they understand property rights and to say that their utterance of ‘mine’ carries that intention is just to be wrong. [/quote]

I very much agree. Children have little-to-no understanding of property rights and a fantastic grasp of violence. Consumerism/greed and violence I’d agree to, but the kids often say mine to pretty much everything regardless of who has ownership rights and will frequently use violence to disregard/enforce their own perception of rights with full cognizance of the consequences.

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[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
The point I was trying to make was not that a toddler understands “property rights”, per se. Rather that a toddler understands rightful ownership with respect to his own toys. This does not speak to whether or not he understands it is wrong to take something that does not belong to him. That, I believe, still needs to be taught to him.

If you do not understand property rights it is because you do not view your life as your own. Once that is understood it should be clear that everything else that comes into existence by proxy of your life is also your property.[/quote]

I agree with a lot of this. It is inherently natural for all living things to be selfish, though survival of the group is built in there somewhere.

I like the ancient Greeks who admitted that we are violent and selfish, but we should use or rationality to control those propensities. And one of the problems of the modern world is the denying of our selfish nature and the promotion of altruism.

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[quote]Headhunter wrote:
I agree with a lot of this. It is inherently natural for all living things to be selfish, though survival of the group is built in there somewhere.
[/quote]

Survival of the group only comes from the “selfish” desire to protect our progeny (genes) – call it tribalism, clannishness, whatever. The notion of protecting “family” is also built into us instinctively. We do not, however, necessarily feel naturally predisposed to take care of other families.

It is the same in the beastly world too. A momma bear does not care about the offspring of an other momma bear. She must feed her cubs above all others or her genes will not survive.

Just because we are capable of understanding there are others in need does not mean we should give up on our own interests for the interests of “community”, for example. That we can, individually, is only attributed to the fact that we have become individually successful, first and foremost.

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[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
The point I was trying to make was not that a toddler understands “property rights”, per se. Rather that a toddler understands rightful ownership with respect to his own toys. This does not speak to whether or not he understands it is wrong to take something that does not belong to him. That, I believe, still needs to be taught to him.
[/quote]

I realize that was your point, but that was exactly what I disagreed with. Children do not understand the idea of “rightful ownership” of their “own toys” anymore then they understand abstract notions of property rights. Perhaps a 6 or 7 year old understands these ideas, but that’s because they’ve been taught those ideas, not because it’s somehow instinctual. When small children, say 2-4, say things like “mine” it is not out of some deeper understanding of the concept of ownership but rather out of sheer possessiveness. They want that toy, and they have learned enough to associate the word “mine” with that sort of desire. Hence when they use words like “mine”, they are not intrinsically thinking “I want that because it’s my toy that I own, etc.”, they are simply thinking “I want”.

Lucasa is exactly right when he says:

I have a 3 year old half brother, and from what I’ve seen this is definitely the case. He uses words like “mine” and “share” not out of some understanding of property rights or fare use, but instead as tools to try and get the things he wants, irregardless of whose they are.

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[quote]stokedporcupine8 wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
The point I was trying to make was not that a toddler understands “property rights”, per se. Rather that a toddler understands rightful ownership with respect to his own toys. This does not speak to whether or not he understands it is wrong to take something that does not belong to him. That, I believe, still needs to be taught to him.

I realize that was your point, but that was exactly what I disagreed with. Children do not understand the idea of “rightful ownership” of their “own toys” anymore then they understand abstract notions of property rights. Perhaps a 6 or 7 year old understands these ideas, but that’s because they’ve been taught those ideas, not because it’s somehow instinctual. When small children, say 2-4, say things like “mine” it is not out of some deeper understanding of the concept of ownership but rather out of sheer possessiveness. They want that toy, and they have learned enough to associate the word “mine” with that sort of desire. Hence when they use words like “mine”, they are not intrinsically thinking “I want that because it’s my toy that I own, etc.”, they are simply thinking “I want”.

Lucasa is exactly right when he says:

Consumerism/greed and violence I’d agree to, but the kids often say mine to pretty much everything regardless of who has ownership rights and will frequently use violence to disregard/enforce their own perception of rights with full cognizance of the consequences.

I have a 3 year old half brother, and from what I’ve seen this is definitely the case. He uses words like “mine” and “share” not out of some understanding of property rights or fare use, but instead as tools to try and get the things he wants, irregardless of whose they are. [/quote]

He has no way of expressing his instinctual desires. This requires the use of language. Just because he is not capable of expressing it in language does not mean it is not understood. He expresses “want” with physical displays rather than words and this does not prove anything other than he in incapable of distinguishing his stuff with stuff that he wants – it is a conceptualization problem.

Little people do understand the notion of property even if they cannot conceptualize it in language. People are born with an instinctual desire to accumulate and protect their stuff. This is not something that needs to be taught.

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[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:

He has no way of expressing his instinctual desires. This requires the use of language. Just because he is not capable of expressing it in language does not mean it is not understood.
[/quote]

Language comes first, thoughts and intentions come after. Children do not learn language by learning to associate words with intentions, but rather develop a sense for intentions by learning how to use words we associate with those intentions.

I’m not about to argue this point too much though, you can go and read the literature for yourself. This is the well accepted view.

Isn’t that exactly the point? He is incapable of distinguishing his stuff from stuff he wants because he doesn’t yet have the concept of “his stuff”. He has a nature instinct to be possessive–he naturally understands “I want”. He must be taught “That’s mine”. It is precisely a conceptualization problem, but the problem is that he doesn’t yet have the concept of property or ownership. He must be taught that, and that’s been my point all along. I’m highly doubtful that children are born with an instinctual understanding of property rights. Whether or not they would naturally develop such understanding is irrelevant too, since they clearly lack it at such a young age.

[quote]
Little people do understand the notion of property even if they cannot conceptualize it in language. People are born with an instinctual desire to accumulate and protect their stuff. This is not something that needs to be taught.[/quote]

Of course you will want to reject what I just said and reiterate this point. You can argue that despite the fact that young children show any signs at all of understanding property rights they nevertheless do, but that’s a bit silly, isn’t it? You are merely begging the question, assuming that despite a child’s apparent inability to make distinctions between wants and ownership that they nevertheless must have some innate conception of ownership. I though will again stick to my story and assume that until there is some evidence that a young child lacks the concept of ownership, and that the concept of ownership is certainly not something we instinctual understand.

People are indeed born with a desire to accumulate and protect STUFF, but the idea that the stuff is ‘theirs’ is a concept that does not develop until later in life and is based on other abstract conceptualizations and much experience. It does not appear to be a concept one is born with and your claims that ideas about “property rights” are instinctual is incorrect.

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[quote]stokedporcupine8 wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:

He has no way of expressing his instinctual desires. This requires the use of language. Just because he is not capable of expressing it in language does not mean it is not understood.

Language comes first, thoughts and intentions come after. Children do not learn language by learning to associate words with intentions, but rather develop a sense for intentions by learning how to use words we associate with those intentions.

I’m not about to argue this point too much though, you can go and read the literature for yourself. This is the well accepted view.

He expresses “want” with physical displays rather than words and this does not prove anything other than he in incapable of distinguishing his stuff with stuff that he wants – it is a conceptualization problem.

Isn’t that exactly the point? He is incapable of distinguishing his stuff from stuff he wants because he doesn’t yet have the concept of “his stuff”. He has a nature instinct to be possessive–he naturally understands “I want”. He must be taught “That’s mine”. It is precisely a conceptualization problem, but the problem is that he doesn’t yet have the concept of property or ownership. He must be taught that, and that’s been my point all along. I’m highly doubtful that children are born with an instinctual understanding of property rights. Whether or not they would naturally develop such understanding is irrelevant too, since they clearly lack it at such a young age.

Little people do understand the notion of property even if they cannot conceptualize it in language. People are born with an instinctual desire to accumulate and protect their stuff. This is not something that needs to be taught.

Of course you will want to reject what I just said and reiterate this point. You can argue that despite the fact that young children show any signs at all of understanding property rights they nevertheless do, but that’s a bit silly, isn’t it? You are merely begging the question, assuming that despite a child’s apparent inability to make distinctions between wants and ownership that they nevertheless must have some innate conception of ownership. I though will again stick to my story and assume that until there is some evidence that a young child lacks the concept of ownership, and that the concept of ownership is certainly not something we instinctual understand.

People are indeed born with a desire to accumulate and protect STUFF, but the idea that the stuff is ‘theirs’ is a concept that does not develop until later in life and is based on other abstract conceptualizations and much experience. It does not appear to be a concept one is born with and your claims that ideas about “property rights” are instinctual is incorrect.
[/quote]

But you are still missing the point. He must learn ethics. He does not have to learn that there is stuff that he wants to acquire or stuff that he has to protect. That is inherent in the possibility of ownership.

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[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:

But you are still missing the point. He must learn ethics. He does not have to learn that there is stuff that he wants to acquire or stuff that he has to protect. That is inherent in the possibility of ownership.[/quote]

No, I understand your point. I’ve said several times that as far as my uneducated opinion goes, I agree that possessiveness is instinctual. As you say, a child doesn’t have to “learn that there is stuff that he wants to acquire or stuff that he has to protect”. Whether or not this sort of instinct is prerequisite to the concept of ownership is besides the point–who cares. The point is that unlike possessiveness, ownership is not an instinctual concept and not something that small children understand.

The original idea that the notion of property rights are so basic that even a small child instinctively understands them is bunk. Property rights might be basic in an ethical theory, but they certainly aren’t epistemologically basic. If you want to defend the obviousness or naturalness of property rights you’re going to have to look elsewhere then the instincts of a child. (Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t disagree that property rights are a fundamental idea, in some sense. I just think appealing to the instincts of a child is a horrible argument for this.)

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[quote]stokedporcupine8 wrote:
I just think appealing to the instincts of a child is a horrible argument for this.)[/quote]

Actually, it is a great argument because it helps us to understand that we do not need to be taught about the existence of property. We must be taught about ethics – so we can distinguish rightful ownership of property.

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[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
stokedporcupine8 wrote:
I just think appealing to the instincts of a child is a horrible argument for this.)

Actually, it is a great argument because it helps us to understand that we do not need to be taught about the existence of property. We must be taught about ethics – so we can distinguish rightful ownership of property.[/quote]

That might be great if there was actually any evidence that notions of property or ownership were instinctual or understood by small children, but since they’re not appealing to the instincts of small children is silly.

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[quote]stokedporcupine8 wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
stokedporcupine8 wrote:
I just think appealing to the instincts of a child is a horrible argument for this.)

Actually, it is a great argument because it helps us to understand that we do not need to be taught about the existence of property. We must be taught about ethics – so we can distinguish rightful ownership of property.

That might be great if there was actually any evidence that notions of property or ownership were instinctual or understood by small children, but since they’re not appealing to the instincts of small children is silly. [/quote]

How can there be any evidence of instinct except for by rational discourse alone?

Is not what I offered (an explanation) enough evidence? Surely, just because it is imagined does not necessarily make the logic of it any less appealing to reason.

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[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:

How can there be any evidence of instinct except for by rational discourse alone?
[/quote]

I’m not trying to be rude, I just have no idea what you’re trying to say. How could you have evidence for instinct by rational discourse? We have evidence for what actions are instinctual by watching how animals and young children act. Exactly what “instinct” is is a complicated matter, but if we leave it at saying that instinct is what animals have natural dispositions to do then we can figure out what behaviors and actions are instinctual by watching what animals do… For example some animals have a natural disposition to migrate vast distances, and hence we call that instinctual.

Hence it’s obvious to say that children are instinctually possessive, since virtually all young children exhibit simplistic possessive behavior. If you wanted to argue that notions of property are somehow instinctual, you would need to provide examples of young children exhibiting behavior that could not only be differentiated from the sort of simplistic possessive behavior we see in many animals but also could be associated with our maturely formed abstract concepts of property.

Now of course after some time, some teaching, and a lot of language actuation, children do exhibit such complex behavior that we can associate with notions of property rights… But that’s been my whole point all along, that sort of behavior isn’t instinctual, it must be taught.

[quote]

Is not what I offered (an explanation) enough evidence? Surely, just because it is imagined does not necessarily make the logic of it any less appealing to reason.[/quote]

No, it isn’t. Evidence would be examples of young children exhibiting behavior in ways that would allow us to infer that they instinctually grasp the notion of property.

The fact that children exhibit possessive behavior doesn’t mean they have a concept of property. One can be possessive but not understand the notion of property, let alone notions of property rights. Children need to have an idea of property in order to be possessive no more then dogs or other animals need to have an idea of property in order to be possessive. My old dogs were extremely possessive–if one had a toy, the other had to have it. They horded treats, hid bones, etc. Nevertheless, my dogs certainly didn’t have a notion of property.