It sounds like there would be, from your analysis, a large conversion to religion, on the cusp of adulthood. Or a reinvigoration of religious worship at that time. Like a lot of teenagers who don't consider themselves believing Christians and then do. Also, in other religions. Perhaps it would happen earlier, since parents get clearly fallible earlier. Is this the case that people become religious or more religious at those ages?

Don't most religious people in the world stay religious from childhood?

When we accuse someone of cognitive bias, we are pointing out that their view deviates from
the consensus of the larger group. This doesn’t tell us the view of the majority is more ‘correct’ than that of the deviant. — Joshs

I don't think the research has to go like this. You are assuming there is a chosen right answer and that people are judged from deviating from that. But you don't need to have a right answer (and answer or interpretation) from which we judge a person's answer to show bias. All we need to do is see if people with certain political beliefs actually do not notice counterevidence. This doesn't mean they are wrong to think the Iraq was wrong or abortions are ok. Both sides of any issue can be shown to literally not notice things that go against their beliefs.

I can see things like this in myself in relation to 'things that happened' and how I viewed them then and notice that I didn't not look at things/hypocrisies/evidence that I would have found hard to face. I protected myself from guilt or shame.

I don't think this needs to be an accusation against someone. I think that's the wrong verb, though I am sure there are situations where someone is accused of cognitive bias, I see this as a fairly inevitable tendency, though one that can be struggled against in oneself and I suppose with others one is close to. In what I would call a healthy relationship, the people involved are aware this is a possibility, that they are filtering information to not admit/face something. So, there is some slack to have this pointed out. (and generally no one uses the phrase cognitive bias in these dialogues, but that is often what is being talked about)

You seem to be viewing cognitive bias as creating subset of those who deviate. I am sure that kind of thing happens (and often without the need of the concept of cognitive bias. Psychiatry has done this by pathologizing certain people or states or attitudes. Cognitive bias is considered something we all have. It's not like the category of, say, psychosis.

Our negative emotions tell us when an aspect of the world no longer makes sense to us, when our personal anticipations of events fails to match up with what actually ensues( from our own personal perspective). — Joshs

I am not quite sure what in my post this is responding to. I think those scenarios could and often would lead to negative emotions. I do think that the so-called negative emotions (I don't think of them this way) also arise without confusion: say when someone violates a boundary or we think that they have: with violence, say. I think they can also arise when things we expect but do not like happen. But you may not have been trying to present a complete picture of when these emotions arise. As I said I am not quite sure how this section connects.

Not every school of psychology considers the objectivizing approach implied by cognitive bias as “accepted”. There are approaches which are troubled by the assumption that discerning such things as bias is a matter of passing judgments on easily discernible facts. This fails to acknowledge the deeply normative character of supposedly neutral and ‘objective’ descriptions of cognitive bias. The vantage from which empirical psychology determines a behavior to be biased is itself an unacknowledged normative bias. — Joshs

It sounds like you are arguing that there is a cognitive bias in the research that has concluded there is cognitive bias. If humans who are trying to be objective and have systematic protocols still manage to have a cognitive bias, don't you think this supports the idea in general that many people have a cognitive bias? Further do you really doubt that people adjust their memories to avoid certain feelings and conclusions (about themselves and others)? Sure, objective research can have hidden biases and specific conclusions about cognitive bias may be faulty, but I encounter cognitive bias in myself and others all the time. What gets noticed and what doesn't depending on group identity or ego self-protection. If cognitive bias was a crime, there is clear motive and access.

Brains are survival machines, not truth machines! — Agent Smith

Survival would seem to require a lot of truth. And since what made brains survive or really the creatures that have them was very complicated. All the social stuff, for example, we social mammals have. Brains weren't made to do anything.

I don't agree. As we approach any problem, ask any question, we have to act as if it's solvable, answerable. If we reach an impasse, we just recalibrate and continue on. — Clarky

Every problem we encounter, from our perspective might be solvable. That's enough of a window, even in not correct in some cases (and we wouldn't recognize them) to try. It's not like we encounter some new kind of object in space and go, oh, that thing we'll never understand. We'd go ahead and give it a shot, and again. We have a metaposition that perhaps not everything can be understood and we have the day to day trying to learn about stuff. I see no reason the metaposition inhibits the species, though some individuals might do better without the metaposition. It's very likely to some scientists that there is a good chance they won't figure something out in their lifetimes and even that their research might be a wrong turning.But on they go.

This is not a discussion of the merits of materialism or physicalism. It's an examination of what the underlying assumptions of materialism might be. — Clarky

I think I was addressing that. I don't think that in practice most physicalists or materials will demand that something discovered to be real must have certain qualities (that it is physical). We've already expanded what stuff we now call physical can be like and what qualities it need no longer have. So, if we are talking about assumptions in m and p isms, I don't think it includes assumtions about substance. Another way to put that is the words are expanding categories, they are placeholder terms.

We study things billions of years old and billions of light years away. When we find something that doesn't fit our expectations, we rewrite the laws, but we still expect the new laws to apply everywhere. — Clarky

I think some assume they must and others do not. The latter group may expect them to, but do not assume they must. I would guess this is more common related to changes over time. I don't see why this would stop or hinder anyone. And it seems rational not to assume, regard less of the period in history.

As I noted, we already study things further away than galaxies. I think it's reasonable to expect conditions to be different in different places and times, but not laws of science. — Clarky

Yes, my position is that one need not assume. Expecting X and not assuming it must be X are not mutually exclusive. I haven't heard a reason yet why this would stop people from researching or it must be assumed to move on. You've asserted it, but I don't know why it must be so. These things would not stop me and in fact, since there are a number of contingent problems I keep trying to solve and am aware i may never solve yet keep trying anyway and i see this quality in others (laypeople in their lives and researchers in their work) I don't see why it should be the case in general that humans would give up, avoid research or presume that any particular research could not be effective and an particular phenomenon could not be understood, despite the metaposition.

Anyway, we seem to disagree. I've had my say and if I hop in again I focus on something else..

You psychoanalyzed me señor! I'm most obliged. — Agent Smith

I would say i psychoanalyzed us, we humans, I wouldn't know your psychology from Schrödinger's cat's. Or is that cats'.

However, this realization, speaking only for myself, doesn't diminish the suffering I have to bear. I don't feel better about someone belittling me in public just because I happen to know that I am in illusion, an accident of circumstances, having no real essence and so on. In short, there is no self, doesn't necessarily imply there is no suffering. — Agent Smith

I think the fact that you chose a social suffering is good because it raises a nice (for me) side issue. You say you know that you are an illusion. I would argue that if you knew (in the binary sense of know that I think is implicit here) that you were an illusion you would not suffer. But it's not binary, this knowing. You partially know. Or perhaps part of your brain/mind believes, but other parts do not know. And we do have examples of people who have trained themselves to 'get' this, being an illusion, in a more complete way and who do not suffer that kind of social pain.

1 - to some degree. As written it sounds like we know we can figure it all out. I guess it probably does, at least at some level, but it doesn't mean we ever will. It seems like a good presupposition to me - We can't show it's true, but we have to pretend it is. — Clarky

I don't see why. Hey, let's learn as much as we can. I don't think we need to assume that all can be known by sentient creatures. If we found out - how I don't know - that there was a limit, would we need to stop?

I tried to keep this simple by putting limitations on us as described in the OP. One limitation is that we look at things from a materialist /physicalist point of view. Another is that we look only at classical physics. — Clarky

Yes, classical and also with the metaphysical baggage, I would argue, from taking a stand against dualisms and transcendant 'things'. So we are left with an ism that seems to be taking a stand on ontology, when really science at least is taking a stand on methodology. I think slowly we will end up with something like scientific verificationism and drop the seeming ontological stand of physicalism/materialism. Neutrinos and even massless particles, fields particles in superposition or even whole entities in superposition, and even some physicists beliefs in mathematical realism run counter to substance type claims.

Yes, it is possible we will someday find things going on far away and long ago that are inconsistent with how we currently see things. But the only way we'll be able to figure that out is by assuming that the rest of the universe operates on the same rules we have here until we run into a contradiction. — Clarky

I'd say we'd be testing if it still holds or did hold. I can see the sequence in method, but I don't see any reason to assume it. In fact I think it would be good not to. Counterevidence will take more time to be noticed and accepted. I guess, I am thinking of specific scientific minds. Is a scientist hampered if the don't assume that the laws have held since the Big Bang (or before ?! that) and if they don't assume it must hold everywhere (deep in black holes, far away across the universe, wherever). I don't see where this stops him or her. It even seems positive to me. I can see the advantage of not deciding we have to begin at zero knowledge when they jump through a wormhole to another galaxy in the future. IOW they go with technology that works in our part of the universe and all that. But once the ship appears in the other galaxy, being open to rules being different seems like a positive idea. In fact I would suggest any jump say, to a new area, it would be wise to immediately check and see a lot of things right away. And then to be open over time to changes. And then when looking way back in time to keep open to the rules having changed.

I didn't think there was consensus on quantized vs continuous. I think in a classical universe there would be. That's why I included that limitation in the OP. — Clarky

Ah, sorry. But I would assume people were at least open to if not leaning towards irreducible levels pre-QM because it seemed like there were fundamental particles to some, even Democritus. I don't have a good way to google this issue however. I'd be interested to hear what science assumed about there being utter continuousness all the way down or not. I am not sure that depends on QM in the history of science.

[1] We live in an ordered universe that can be understood by humans.
[2] The universe consists entirely of physical substances - matter and energy.
[3] These substances behave in accordance with scientific principles, laws.
[4] Scientific laws are mathematical in nature.
[5] The same scientific laws apply throughout the universe and at all times.
[6] The behaviors of substances are caused.
[7] Substances are indestructible, although they can change to something else.
[8] The universe is continuous. Between any two points there is at least one other point. — Clarky

1 - to some degree. As written it sounds like we know we can figure it all out.
2 - what is a physical substance and does this mean if we discover 'something' that is real but has qualities different from what we considered physical before we would drop physicalism? I ask because this has already happened. What is considered physical has opened up over time. IOW it sounds like physicalism is making a substance claim, but I don't think it is.
5 - I disagree with what you said elsewhere. I think we could do science without this assumption. If other galaxies have different laws, we can still use science to figure out this galaxies rules and then theirs. If the laws change over time, and there is some evidence this is the case, we can still try to keep up. And if the laws are changing slowly, well, then the research results are relevant for significant periods of time.
8 - I didn't think there was consensus on quantized vs continuous.

To deny meaning to "supernatural" is equivalent to claiming that "all is one" (all is natural), which, ironically, is very much the cry of the mystic. — unenlightened

But then, let's say that ghosts are real. I would then see no reason to say they are outside/beyond nature. We have magnetic fields and neutrinos passing through us and now we (or scientific consensus) find that ghosts are real, but we should put them in another box: supernatural. To me they would be yet another phenomenon of the real. Just because some people have now decided they are real is not a reason to give them another category. Some things are hard to demonstrate to some people's satisfaction, and this would be another one. Some native Africans and later a couple of researchers were convinced that elephants communicated over long, long distances. Science did not accept this. Then later scientists in general did. Perhaps telepathy say, is like this (in terms of us not knowing, not that the mechanism is the same). The elephants did not have a supernatural power. What they did was something that some people could not be convinced was real, until it could be.

If someone has a suspected delusion and is asked if they think it is a delusion they have two options:

1). They concede that it seems to be a delusion - in which case they agree with the doctor or person asking. This tends to be taken as confirmation that it’s a delusion.

2). They deny it’s a delusion, to them it seems perfectly reasonable and logical. But because they are suspected to be deluded this again seems to confirm their delusion?!

How can this be? It’s like a catch 22 situation. If a madman agrees he’s mad he’s mad, even he recognises it! (should this not actually show sanity?), if he denies his madness well that’s because he’s clearly mad right? — Benj96

It doesn't show the person is sane, but it might be a rational conclusion on that person's part. I am saying that we tend not to be binary, completely utterly sane with all rational beliefs, and totally utterly psychotic all the time. So, just because someone recognizes that they were deluded it does not mean they are simply in a box: sane. Further there are mixed reactions. One might say 'I understand it sounds crazy, but I believe it.' Or 'I get it, you weren't there, if you were, I think you'd be on my side or open to it.' There could be all sorts of other reactions that do not fit in a binary schema.

And here I am not assuming the person is deluded or that they are not. We don't know in this abstract situation whether they are correct or not, or believing on good grounds or not.

So to wrap things up, if someone has an outlandish or bizarre idea that the vast majority of others find difficult to comprehend, should we not be more careful and slow to ascribe a diagnosis. How many geniuses have we admitted to psychiatric institutions for their big ideas? Especially if it’s one that is metaphysical, epistemological or deontological in nature. — Benj96

Yes, I think we should be careful, especially if the diagnosis has large consquences. But usually not much is done if the person is getting along ok in life. They take care of their hygiene, hold down their job, don't hit people and so on. But, yes, I wish people were less smug and sure of things in reaction to unique beliefs and what others say they have experienced. The sexual abuse of children was considered some outlandish extremely rare activity, restricted to very odd people and the poor. So, accounts were considered delusional or intentionally false per se. That caused a lot of pain. Not that every account need be accepted. But the assumption of incredible unliklihood was not really grounded on anything. It was more political and cultural.

I suppose that historically the idea that we ought not believe anything derives from the notion that doubt is a virtue. — Banno

Which could lead to all sorts of poor heuristics. We don't really have a quality like doubt. We engage in an activity of doubting. So, how often? on what grounds? in what way? what should trigger this activity? did the person who came up with that as a virtue doubt their conclusion? how much? how often?

I might suggest here that "Believe" is a verb and is a frequent activity or an action of human brain cells. — Ken Edwards

but then some beliefs....

I carefully avoid believing anything at all. — Ken Edwards

Believing half truths or carefully concocted lies kills thousands of people here and now every single day. — Ken Edwards

Believing carefully concealed lies and partial truths killed millions of people in both world wars. — Ken Edwards

Once, long ago, those words were believed my millions. Evil words, sinful words. Death words. — Ken Edwards

and then there must be many beliefs that lead you to trust the sources of information that led to these assertions of belief.

At least, I am assuming you believe your statements in the OP to be true.

I would think any methodology would have some ontological assumptions built into it. Why it would work. Why our memory of it having worked is correct and not illusions. That things can be known. Science also seems like a few methodologies. The experiment and the model creating, not that these are fully separate. I think there are also ontological assumptions in the latter.

Minds are things not activities. You seemed to be arguing that minds are nouns and thus not activities. Activities is a plural noun. So, how does mind being a noun rule it out being an activity or activities.

It seemed like you were identifying nouns with 'things'. And, as quoted, as things they cannot be activities. Perhaps I missed something.

A blizzard is a noun. It's also a process. One can certainly argue it is a 'thing' of some kind. But what are you ruling out when you say minds are things.

Evolution is a noun.
Natural selection is a compound noun.

Civilization is a noun.

Why does mind being a noun mean it is not some complicated activity? or set of activities?

'activity' is a noun also.

Minds are things, not activities — Reformed Nihilist

I appreciate that you just threw us in the middle and asked for help. Utterly rare.

It seems to me you have a deontological position. Something in the family of:

if you use things and especially if you are dependent on using them, you should understand how they work.

That may not be it, but my guess is whatever it is will be hard to prove in most ethical systems. IOW I do not think it can be derived from other moral truths other people hold. Obviously doesn't make it wrong, just feeling my way into the lay of the land.

I don't believe this to be the case. I don't want to mount a general argument, but if I think of some farmer who has a decent knowledge of his soil and seeds and processes, but hasn't the slightest idea how his tractor works and has no interest in that. He has a neighbor who is good with machines and he barters with seeds and they're both happy. The farmer makes food. He feeds his family and brings food to market. I can't see a way to say he SHOULD understand his tractor or cellphone or computer or microwave. He plays his role.

I could, however, possibly imagine finding someone's ignorance of such things problematic if they somehow acted as if they knew. Or as if knowing those things was not important. Then you might get me to be critical. It would be the combination.

There is something of orginal sin about this lack of knowledge sin.

I think this is true and I would add that there is a conflation between science, technology and all the processes that lead to what technology is developed and what is not. Third, I would say that a naivte about how much industry controls the results of its research AND the regulatory bodies that are supposed to monitor industry is also causing essential problems.

Yes it can, I gave examples of it. You are arguing stating things which I understand and agree with, but you failed to see that dual meanings can be carried by a single word, and the dual meanings are present at the same time and in the same respect. — god must be atheist

I think we are agreeing with each other. I could have said this. I should have read the whole thread, but in any case my last post was not meant to be disagreeing with you, it was simply me mulling over the examples you listed.

I suppose it comes down to what is meant by 'one word'. I think many concepts are still present when that word is said, written, heard, read. Those words you listed have histories, going back to when they were consciously metaphors. Those histories arise in the hearing/reading.
I am not denying that one can have a single word in a text that is a metaphor. Maybe it is better to say more than one concept is packed into that word.

Which is obvious with a word like Cowboy. It is certainly one word and it is a compound word with two words in it. This is out in the open.
Enlightenment is trickier. Here we have something concrete (or at least on face value more concrete) 'light', being used - for example - to communicate about a state or mind (me thinking more of the Eastern religion idea as described in the West using an English (Western) word, rather than the period of time in history, though there are overlaps in meaning. This is what we do. We have made thousands of words, for example, using motor cortext type words to describe things that are less tangible, feeling up or feeling down, say. Here something concrete, light, to describe what might be a felt state or a hallucination or what another might experience in their mental state after 50 years of meditation and seeming equanimity. Knowledge or insight = more light. We could know things better in daylight or outside the cave when we brought it into the sunlight. So, they now know all sorts of stuff cause they got more light 'in their heads'.

So, yeah. One word can do this. But that word has a history of concepts behind it.

You can't just throw a one word metaphor at people without that history and expect them to make heads or tails of it. There's an iceberg under that tip.

A word on the page wíth no one reading it, is one word on a page.

A word that is being read is in the presence of some kind of iceberg, the whole process of the word stimulating associations and meanings in the brain of the reader. And this is true of one word metaphors.

Not that you are saying one can just throw it out there and certainly not that you are denying any of my points about the process of listening or reading. This is me clarifying my mulling.

Since I mentioned the motor cortex, I could say 'downshift' (US English) is a single word, could be a single word instruction from a driving teacher. But it is a vast set of nerve system and muscular actions that were once all separate, single words in themselves. I suppose in a way I am wondering what 'single word' means in terms of use. I wholeheartedly agree that single word metaphors exist. Now that we know this (or believe it) what do we conclude?

So, here I am using those nervous system changes and muscular movements as a metaphor for all the conceptual activity (mostly no longer conscious with a dead metaphor) going on when a one word metaphor is used. Yes, one word on the page or as sound in the air. Words stimulate a lot of activity (-ies) when read/heard. The activities are where the meat is.

EDIT: I mulled a bit and realized that one could argue that enlightenment is not one word but three. Of course, there are other examples of one word metaphors that are not this, but my completely fetish compells me to mention it. We have two 'en's the first means something like within or in. The second makes a noun a verb and 'ment' means something like a process, so making a noun out of a verb that was made out of a noun. And some words in German would have, for example, even more words in one word. This doesn't mean we can't have one word metaphors, since other examples are not built up like this. Though history surrounds those with other words or tenors.

Much language is based on dead metaphors, yes. We make new ideas out of old ones. We make abstractions from physical things.

Tenor and vehicle are there in the history of the word, and in my own experience exploring the phenomenology of metaphors, we are still mixing realms in our minds, not that we notice this unless we more or less meditate on it.

But then it isn't really a one word metaphor.

Like my example of saying 'Lion' when referring to the boss. Other words or the target is present, though not verbalized. And with dead metaphors we, more or less, forget, that we are using other things or ideas to refer to whatever we are labeling. But two 'things' are present.

it is splitting hairs, right!? — jancanc

as I said....

This is fussy and probably tangential, but 'yes, — Bylaw

In a philosophical text the single word, if implicitly referring to something else without it being mentioned, then it could be a metaphor. But then we need examples.

Can a Metaphor be a single word?

This is fussy and probably tangential, but 'yes, if the other word is implicit'. If my boss walks in the room and I cry out in a buttlicking way 'Lion!' Well, that's a metaphor or I'm deluded. Hopefully the latter.

Also the problem isn't whether there is one word, but whether there is the presence of just the vehicle, even if there are several words.

You have animal cruelty but statics show agricultural kill about 1.5 million native animals like gophers, foxes and other small creatures by agricultural machinery alone. Meaning if you order a salads you still indirectly contribute to a animals death in some way. — TheQuestion

This argument is weak because livestock feed off agriculture. IOW we grow stuff and thus kill animals in the process of that wing of agriculture to feed livestock who are then eaten. Livestock require more land per ounce of nutritive whatever than an ounce of non-meat foods. So, yes, they contribute, but vegans would contribute less to even agricultural plant deaths and attendant animals deaths.

For what it's worth I think there are several reasons why people hate vegans:
1) some vegans are pedantic smug moralists.
2) many people don't want to think about the effects of their eating and wrestle with any issues there.

That's skipping a lot of Buddhist doctrine and enshrining Western science as the highest ... — baker

I think that was a sentence worth finishing. I certainly think scientific methodology is incredibly useful, but other processes lead me to opinions and my sense of reality.

And in order to improve the situation, one has to get one's emotions under control. For example, children are taught early on not to indulge in their anger, hostility, dislike, feeling down, in order to do their homework and studies. — baker

I don't think one has to get one's emotions under control and that's a statement that needs some support, especially in this context, where the Buddhist form of control and disidentification is generally not turned to by poor people, especially if we look at people who might turn to it. And most Eastern Buddhist, iow those raising in the tradition are much like Sunday Christians. They are not intense meditators. Their priorities are elsewhere. And as I say later, the poor in the just don't seem attracted to Buddhism. The middle and upper classes are vastly more likely to join/participate/convert.

Further, notice that you regularly mention emotions as something that gets indulged in, not thoughts. And yes, I recognize that Buddhism does have admonitions not to indulge in thinking, but I want to point out that while you deny having a heart head dichotomy, you consistantly refer to emotions as the things that are problematic. And this mirrors the judgments, both in Eastern and Western Buddhism, in communities in general, about the expression of emotions. I am not sure if you have mentioned emotions once without the verb indulging. And you do not distinguish indulging from expressing, if you see any difference. When I bring up the expression of emotions, you mention indulgence, a pejorative. I am critical of the universalizing and making objective Buddhist values, and you respond as if the only option is indulging, which is negative.

If I mention that there is a head heart dichotomy, you don't have one, you claim. But since you are expressing ideas and thinking (and in fact many Buddhists would say we are both indulging in thinking) you seem to assume that expressing thoughts at least can be ok. But at the mention of expressing emotions, you respond about indulging.

And this in fact mirrors my experience in every single Buddhist setting and with nearly every Buddhist person I have met. They may openly say they do not judge emotions or see a split between heart and head. But in practical, body language, verbal actions (whether implicit or explict) they react negatively to emotions much more than they do the expression of thoughts. They use terms like indulge and they tend to classify emotions into negative and positive (this you haven't done explicitly but implicitly in the list of emotions that are problematic.

I find it very cake and eat it to. Give off the judgments, but then claim not to have them. Say they do not have the heart mind split, but in their reactions and admonitions repeatedly focus on the expression of emotions.

And this is fine if they are defining their values and goals. IOW as subjective choices for how they want to live and perhaps for lifestyle of others they are around. But then it is often presented as objective and it isn't.

As far as children controlling emotions, it is controlling emotions like British upper class kids are taught or working class Italians, ,because it sure produces vastly different types of control. Or African kids. (I realize there are diverse patterns of pedagogy and parenting in these groups, but there are tendencies and what is considered acceptable emotional expression varies wildly amongst such groups.
Well, no. I think that artificial and also, not natural in the sense I mean with emotional expression. We have physiological structures and neurological processes that go from stimulas to emotional reactions to expression. — Bylaw

I haven't been "trained" to think this way, so I cannot really relate.
I think that that which is usually called "emotions" is inseparable from one's thoughts. I think a person's emotions are this person's condensed ethical and ideological stances or attitudes. (I think the dichotomy head vs. heart is misleading.)

Well babies have emotions and small children well before they have such things to condense. I would see them as a spectrum or facets of the same thing. Nevertheless one can suppress emotional expression without suppressing thinking. One can suppress that aspect of that one thing without suppressing the other end.

And you regularly refer to indulging in emotions and not indulging in attitudes or thoughts.

So emotions can protect one. We don't have to implicitly consider the limbic something one indulges in or disidentifies with (he dichotomy implicit in those pejorative words I highlighted, given the context of the paragraph they were in that I did read. Did you read about the dichotomy I read or did you just check to see if I focused on what you wanted me to focus on?) We don't have to view the limbic system as at odds with the prefrontal cortex and side with one. Our images of what would happen if we allowed our emotions to express much more as the rule is tainted by the situation we are in having been trained to view emotions from the eit

Like I said, I'm not "trained" that way, and it has nothing to do with my exposure to Buddhism, I was like that long before. I also don't subscribe to the current mainstream scientific theories about emotions.

Well current scientific theories don't see them as separate. And, yes, people who have certain values or proclivities then to be attracted to spiritualites and philosophies that fit with those value and ps. This doesn't make them objective, but it sure can make it seem that way.

We are taught there is a need to choose emotions or reason.


I was never taught that. I know people often talk that way, but I don't. If anything, to me, it's all one. I don't differentiate between "head" and "heart".

Then you statements about what a child must do, is odd in what is left out and what it emphases. I talk about emotions in general. And your reation is to say that a chlld should not indulge in emotion when learning. I see the statements where you say you don't believe there is a split and then I see what your attitudes are and they seem to clearly have that split. The idea of expressing and not disidentifying with emotions leads to responses from you that one will be indulging in emotions, not attitudes. And you list the emotions.

Support someone else pursuing trying to reach the state they want to achieve? As long as they are not hurting me or someone else or something I value, I do this sort of thing all the time. I don't want those horrible ear rings or nose rings in my face. But if that is what someone else wants, go for it.

I'm not like that. I wouldn't openly oppose them, but I wouldn't be supportive either.

I respect the fact that they are making a choice that fits their values. If it does no harm to me I would not want them stopped. I prefer a world where people can do that. if people follow their subjective choices as long as it does not harm others. But it's a very large digression to flesh out why I prefer that world and I am already writting too much.

If someone wants to disidentify with their emotions, well, then fine. I object to them saying or implying that it is objctively better to do this or it is simply being realisitic. Or that, really, deep down is what would be best for me - which most Buddhists do seem to believe. I think they are incorrect. And I do think they are judging and not accepting. What is outside them is accepted, but certain natural flows are not accepted. That is their free choice to make. If it becomes the state religion, than I am a rebel. But that's unlikely in the extreme where I am.

There certainly are preachy and bossy Buddhist types who will go out of their way to tell you how wrong you are. But unless you make a point of talking to them, seeking them out even, then what does it matter to you what they believe about this or that?

How do you even know what Buddhists (of whichever kind) believe, unless you actually go out of your own way to find out, going into their territory?

It's not what they believe, it is what they communicate, for example in philosophical forums, or in workplaces or other settings where I still encounter them often regularly. If they present it as objective, I disagree. If the judgments seep out of them or are stated directly then I react to that. This thread is talking about Buddhism simply being realism and also here and elsewhere the idea that certain Buddhist ideas are objective truths that I do not think are objective truths.

In the past I had a lot of contact with Buddhists. I lived in places where it was the dominant belief system and I encountered many in the US and had contacts and experiences of Buddhist communities and temples. There I encountered the 'this is objective' facet of the beliefs and resisted it, especially when it became clear to me that their goals were not my goals - in relation to how one relates to emotions, for example. Nowadays it can come up as a discussion topic in forums like this one and I find it interesting and also just want to express my reaction to the idea that it is objective.

As far as going into their territory I went both out of interest in Buddhism and then moved to where it was the dominant religion for other reasons. But Buddhist territory is not limited to temples in the West, where I now live again, and I encounter it and Buddhists and also similar belief systems presented as objective.

Is there a problem with arguing in a philosophy forum that what is presented in Buddhism as objective is not objective? I don't see any other belief system getting a pass, regardless of territories.
I suppose if I started threads attacking Buddhism that would be closer to just creating a disagreement. I don't think I will end up doing that, but even then, if I want to clarify my own thoughts through interacting with others, even that seems implicitly accepted by most people's desires for a philosophy discussion forum.

I find this ad hom, not in the sense of you going to the man, but as if I am doing something wrong even weighing in on the subject. IOW focusing on me, discussing ideas in a philosophy forum, this act of mine, rather than on the arguments themselves.

You've never stated if you think the Buddhist values are objective. IOW the Buddhist goals are what we really want, deep down, or will in a future rebirth when we have, like Siddheartha, realized that we aren't getting what we want, etc. through material things, etc. It seems implicit. Since my saying it is not objective seems to be to you not only wrong, but wrong to even argue for in a philosophy forum.

I think I'll find other interlocuters who don't think this is a problem per se.

And just to repeat in reaction to your poor person example - poor people don't turn to Buddhism as much as people from other classes in the West AND I certainly don't find them less expressive of emotions. Generally I find that suppression of emotions correlates is inversely with income. At least in the cultures I have come in contact with and it seems often in many historical contexts, Victorian England, the Court in Versaille, upper class Japan in many eras. I can understand why some poor person in Detroit might not make the leap to Buddhism and how priviledge and education,which correlate with class, might keep him from even considering the leap. But I don't see the people in that category (or the less well off than the middle class working class) making the choice to suppress emotions more let alone disidentify with them. I see the opposite.

I wouldn't bother. James is a conspiracist loon whose paranoia is beneath address. — StreetlightX

Well, I'm a conspiracy theorist, but I think it's useful to focus on arguments regardless of the people who make them. You may well be right that he will not interact rationally with my criticism (which itself may or may not be sound), but I think it's still useful (potentially for others and certainly for me) to toss it out there.

Any body else want to tell me how I can tell the difference between those who want to help democracy with transparency, and those who want to take it down for a Russian agenda? — James Riley

This is a kind of implicit ad hom. IOW your argument may or may not be good, but since I can't tell if your intentions are to undermine the government it doesn't matter.

I can recognize that Putin's 'justice' system sucks, but still criticize political BS like charging Assange under the Espionage Act. To argue, implicitly or explicitly, that we should not criticize our government if there are superpowers that are worse is apologetics for those factions within the US that wants to be able to do what Putin and the CCP can.

How can I tell whether you are actually concerned about justice and fair use of power, or actually you are someone who wants to transform the US system into something Putin's Russia or CCP China?

That is my point, it is impossible to make a purely rational decision. If in the third scenario you say that you would rather not be born then then that would mean that what happened in your life is objectively wrong, — I love Chom-choms

I think it is confused to put it in moral terms. People don't want to continue suffering. Or in the I would rather not live scenario, they don't want to experience X. And it is obviously quite a strong emotional/desire rejection of that life or living. It's neither a rational nor a moral decision - which by the way does not mean it is irrational. It is non-rational.

Suicidal people are generally not arguing in favor of no longer living and then once they have a good argument killing themselves. They want to stop living, they desire it.

And if someone really did not want to live, I wouldn't want them to live for me. Or better put, while a part of me might hate the idea and fact of not having them around, I do not want them to stay alives, while suffering in ways they hate, for me. I think that is an immoral demand. Live and suffer for me.

I argue that you cannot make the necessary diagnostics of mind to dismiss my query. — Varde

You used the terms 'I' and 'you'. I think you can only point at fractions of what those terms are referring to so your conclusions are fruit of a tree you consider poison.

I don't mind optimistic people. The problem is if they are Polyanish. If they gloss over the negative. If their optimism needs to push down on the negative feelings of those around them. So, some optimistic (or 'optimistic') people bother me, others do not.

And, of course, it's not just the indigenous people who are suffering, though they are more so. Even the vaccinated have to, in big brother style, register via a QR code when they go to a shop. IOW they must tell the government 'here I am' and 'now I am here'. People cannot travel far. Restrictions all around. And of course the unvaccinated are in home detention. The government keeps taking on more powers and there is talk, not just there, about a permanent series of vaccinations.

If some Eastern Block nation starting doing what Australia is doing but to, say, Jews or Roma, there would be an internation outcry, led by the Left. But since ANYTHING that make ANYONE question ANYTHING to do with vaccines must be silenced or some 5 year old in California won't get vaccinated against a disease they cannot get,

SILENCE.

In Austria, a year in jail for non-compliance is not on the table and Germany looks set to follow suit.

Actually, I was thinking of the French people who live in the fancy homes pictured in magazines about interior design. — baker

When I look at Buddhism in the US and other parts of the West, it seems most appealing to middle class people. Yes, some of the middle and upper classes would find the potential, but not neccessay abstemiousness of Buddism to be offputting. And so with the wealthy. But really, there is no barrier.
https://lotus-happiness.com/10-buddhist-billionaires-asia/
https://www.thedailymeditation.com/50-surprising-celebrity-buddhists-36-stunned-us
Unless being rich in France is the issue.

(of course, some Buddhists and other will say these people aren't Buddhists, using different criteria depending on the critique, but actually Western Buddhists and other Westerners, would find many, if not most Eastern Buddhists to be not Buddhists (if we described their behaviors and said they lived in New York, say) because you will find them doing all sorts of supposedly non-Buddhist things, including focus on materialism, including praying for material goods and treating temples much or less than Sunday Christians do.

]Some Buddhists are very critical of corporate mindfulness.[/quote]Pretty much every cultural phenomenon is objected by some Buddists (and some Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus or some members of any fully secular belief system with hundreds of subgroups and manifestations).

But let's go back to the quote of mine you responded to....

For a relatively wealthy and healthy person who doesn't have a problem with getting their work done, earning a living, and their regular practical and social obligations, such severing as you speak of surely feels unnatural, perverse even.

Most of the Buddhists I have encountered in the West were just fine financially, above average incomes, precisely with time to go to retreats, or explore practices the main religions in their countries. Often highly educated.

And in the East Buddhism runs through all classes.

And it was started or at least purported to be started by someone from a wealthy and powerful family. Buddhism that is.

You focused on what you consider the pejorative terms, but did you read the paragraph I wrote? — baker

Yup. I don't think your (mainly implicit) argument holds. For reasons stated here and there. Yes, some people in those situations will want to suppresse their emotions in a variety of ways. But that doesn't really counter what I said that you were responding to.

Is being poor a "natural process"? — baker

Well, no. I think that artificial and also, not natural in the sense I mean with emotional expression. We have physiological structures and neurological processes that go from stimulas to emotional reactions to expression. A lot of possible outcomes for human societies can avoid poverty. But generally thenatural response in humans to being poor is to try to improve the situation, rather than to disengage from the supposedly negative emotional reaction to the problems of being poor. Some obviously do turn to Buddhism. But in the East, they generally are already in Buddhism and in the West those people are underrepresented in Buddhist groups. This is a religion founded by someone who had it all and still suffered.

Not universally, though.
Emotional expression is regulated by socioeconomic class membership, by the power differential between the persons involved, by consdieration of prospective abuse, endangerment. — baker

I think it is universal that there are judgments. Yes, class, culture, family, country all affect which emotions, how they are judged and suppressed, what ok outlets are and so on.

There are times when you are supposed to express (certain) emotions, and times you're not. — baker

Agreed.

Express your emotions to the wrong people, at the wrong time, and chances are, you will find yourself in trouble. — baker

And if you haven't judged your fear, then you stand a better chance of picking up the cues that now is not a good time to express rage, for example. But we have been trained to think we must choose between the two. So emotions can protect one. We don't have to implicitly consider the limbic something one indulges in or disidentifies with (he dichotomy implicit in those pejorative words I highlighted, given the context of the paragraph they were in that I did read. Did you read about the dichotomy I read or did you just check to see if I focused on what you wanted me to focus on?) We don't have to view the limbic system as at odds with the prefrontal cortex and side with one. Our images of what would happen if we allowed our emotions to express much more as the rule is tainted by the situation we are in having been trained to view emotions from the eit

I have been in catastrophic situations recently, downsized out because of Covid, spouse at death's door, having lost my parents and my best friend. Nothing was stable in my life and it felt like survival level issues, including homelessness.. Yes, I would be able to feed myself, probably, but the loss of all reason to live felt life threatening. I chose not to disidentify with emotions. I went right into them and for me this felt right and even extremely helpful. Of course I modified myself, out of caution (read based on boht emotion and reason) when in the company of certain other, especially potential employers), but when I could,I expressed. I think a lot of the supposed objective reasons to not fully feel and express our emotions are hallucinated and absolutely not objective. I have a great deal of sympathy for not wanting to feel them. I have sympathy for people believing that it is better to suppress and disidentify with them. It can seem like the wise move. And if they want to make that choice, for themselves, fine. I find the opposite to be true for me. And I prefer to identify with my emotions. I feel more human and complex in ways I appreciate. Others might not, fine. There is room for us each to choose. There are other issues where our choices directly harm or take away the freedom of others.

Again, the issue isn't the expressing of emotions per se, it's that you do it in front of the wrong people, at the wrong time.

which emotions and reason can both help one determine: is it the right time or not. But given the complexity of social situations and cues, the logical mind needs the intuitive emotional responses to flow into actions and non-actions also. We are taught there is a need to choose emotions or reason.

If you think it's so wrong, so not objective, then how can you support pursuing it? — baker

Support someone else pursuing trying to reach the state they want to achieve? As long as they are not hurting me or someone else or something I value, I do this sort of thing all the time. I don't want those horrible ear rings or nose rings in my face. But if that is what someone else wants, go for it. It is not objective better to have those things (or, god forbid a penis ring) but if they want it and they are happier, go for it. This includes all sorts of things, including lifestyles with a great deal of risk. IOW I don't feel like I should decide for someone who likes free solo ice climbing or even argue against it. I can't say their live, even if cut short or statistically is objectively worse (or better) than mine. But it is not what I want to do.

If someone wants to disidentify with their emotions, well, then fine. I object to them saying or implying that it is objctively better to do this or it is simply being realisitic. Or that, really, deep down is what would be best for me - which most Buddhists do seem to believe. I think they are incorrect. And I do think they are judging and not accepting. What is outside them is accepted, but certain natural flows are not accepted. That is their free choice to make. If it becomes the state religion, than I am a rebel. But that's unlikely in the extreme where I am.

I believe the benefit is to create a feeling of extreme tension, a blind fury within that recognises the need for a paradigm shift - to 'break the mold'. To an extreme opposition one either dismisses outright or contends with in a fury. — I like sushi

I don't think 'the blind fury recognizes the need....' etc. I think it is like an immune response, imflammation. It wants to fight it off. Which makes senses for an organism. It is probably best, in general, that we do not change our minds easily. Sure, in any given instance - examples we can all come up with related to people we disagree with - it seems like a good thing to change. But they we would be flitting about and undermining learning based on experience. We do want plastic brains but not something like a blank hard drive that anything can writing anything on. It should take time to change the laws of the land. And bureaucracies are rage slowed down to tree-growth speeds. It's already easy enough for a Hitler to sweep through a country of brains, primed to find a simple solution their problems. We don't want it to be easier.

For a relatively wealthy and healthy person who doesn't have a problem with getting their work done, earning a living, and their regular practical and social obligations, such severing as you speak of surely feels unnatural, perverse even. — baker

I actually don't think this is true. I see parallels in the corporate world, where Buddhism fits nicely with a kind of stoicism. The popularity of mindfullness (don't worry I am not confusing this with a dedicated Buddhist practice in most cases) shows that people from all walks of life are craving, to varying degrees, more detachment and disidentification from emotions, something corporations are often happy to support.

But someone fighting a chronic illness, living in relative poverty or under social stigma, or facing such prospects, can be inclined to find ways not to be ruled by emotions. For such a person, developing equanimity can be a matter of necessity. When one is ill, poor, or has fallen from grace, or is facing such prospects, indulging in emotions in simply counterpoductive. — baker

I highlighted the perjorative terms. And I think this has been scene as the dichotomy, both in the West and East. Indulge and be ruled by emotions or disidentify, control, suppress and/or keep from expression emotions. I think it is a false dichotomy. That accepting emotions including their expression leads to being ruled by them, etc.

This is a huge subject, but even if you are correct, that maintaining the natural identification with and expression of emotions is being ruled by them and indulging
it is still Buddhism going against a natural process.

And I do know how it looked. We live in societies that suppress and judge emotional expression. So, expressing them publically at the very least leads to problems. Unless they are expressed in the approved channels. From my perspective the widespread problematic assumptions out there do not justify themselves, but mean that one must use caution as one explores emotions, again, and gets past all these judgments. Further I also see that Buddhism goes way beyond these judgments into a systematic process. Again, if someone wants to have this as a goal, they I am all for them pursuing it. But it is not objective and it's not for me.

I know. But when it's formulated like that, it's like being thrown in at the deep end.
There is quite a bit that is supposed to happen for a person and that a person must decide on before they even go near a temple or meditation hall where they could hear such instructions as you mention. And those things that are supposed to happen before then adequately contextualize the instructions the person is given there. — baker

Sure, But I am not arguing they do this quickly. And the effects on one's relation to emotions would take many years. But that is the goal. The practices sever the natural flow of emotion to expression. Which is fine, to me at least, if that is what you want. Many do. In the beginning the severing will happen, to the degree that it does, during the meditation and perhaps other facets of Buddhist communal life if one has gone that far as to join such a community or to the degree one does. But you are training to change that natural process. And it seems, in my experience, to be effective. It's not my goal, but those for whom it is, I do think it can deliver.

Thanks for the links, I will check them out..

There are a lot of clips/videos available online that discuss and poke fun at how immature adults are. Either that means something or it doesn't. You be the judge. In short, you maybe mistaken regarding the low numbers of immature adults (oxymoron). — TheMadFool

But I didn't say that there are low numbers of adults who immature in some way..

It would be a very rare case that lacked maturity in general — Bylaw

And certainly in the sense of not being able to hold them accountable for criminal acts. In the context of judging people responsible for their acts, even the ones who are immature to a level of 5 years old - feel free to produce some statistics around this so we can see how important an issue this is and also whether is correlates with IQ - cannot them be lose in society. If there is an adult with the maturity of a 5 year old and they have committed a crime, they probably need to be institutionalized. So, as part of an argument for reducing the sentences of low IQ adults I see many holes.

One, does IQ directly correlate with maturity?
Two, given that adult brains are more fixed, even if there are adults who have low IQs and this leads to criminal acts, there is still good reason to sentence them differently from 5 year olds and even 15 year olds.
Three, I just realized I am responding to unresponded to points in my earlier post, so I will stop here, but there are other problems.

This, if anything else, is an endorsement of IQ as a measure of how "grown up" one is (skipping grades puts a child among older students). — TheMadFool

I think this argument would make sense in relation to Cartuna if he was using the school system as an authority.

If you can give me a link to a searchable Pali Canon, I can see what's there. It's been decades since I've read that. I am going by Buddhist practice in any of the major traditions. What that practice is doing. Coupling that with the statements of masters in several traditions, both in the East and West and what the social pressures are like in temples both East and West, modern and traditional. From my memory what i am talking about is often not explicit. No one says emotions are bad, though some are view as per se destructive. But the practice cut off the natural feeling to expression. Emotions are passing phenomena to be observed. Officially they are not judged. They are passing forms. But the practice itself judges the flow from feeling to expression. Desire is often more openly blamed.

Not sure what you're talking about. Controlling the expression of one's emotions is common in traditional cultures, as well as in modern times ("emotional intelligence"). — baker

Sure, all cultures have limits and taboos and encourage suppression of emotions. But in Buddhism you have a complete disidentification with them. You train to disconnect the emotion-> bodily expression/voice expression natural process. This is qualitatively different. IOW there are per se judgments of emotions which can be contrasted with judgments of what is outside the person. One is discouraged from judging what is outside, but implicitly encouraged to see the natural expression and identification with emotions (and desire) as something to be stopped. If we consider the meditation practice as training, this is, amongst other things, what it is training one to do.

Which is different from being wise about what situations and relations it is better to set limits on emotional expression (emotional intelligence). And this EI is also not some objective category but is itself a cultural product - a set of heuristics that seem to work in certain cultures that themselves have judgments of emotions.

I focused on disidentification, but it could also be described as blocking a natural flow in the body. I have sympathy for why Buddhists thought this had to be done, but it includes judgments that are treated as objective when they are not.

You're right of course but the truth remains some chronologically adult (18 +) people have the mental maturity of a 5 year old toddler. — TheMadFool

It would be a very rare case that lacked maturity in general. As far as certain social relations, absolutely. But then what they lack is neuroplasty in comparison. We are talking about a much more entrenched situation.

Neuroplasticity - yes, children's brains. However, hazarding a guess, going out on a limb here, most modifications/adaptations are in software and not in hardware. — TheMadFool

If you become a London cabby your brain will change in those areas to do with spatial memory. Physical changes. New pathways atrophy others become mroe likely to fire. Unless you are bringing in a dualism - something I don't necessarily have anything against, but my guess is you and others might - software is hardware in brains. You can see that children have different brains, having to do with regulation of emotions and impulses for example. You can see it in MRIs. It's not some invisible software.

And a 40 year old learning a second language, for example, compared to a child, is at a hysterical disadvantage and will likely NEVER get the accent down, or will NEVER get things like syllable tone down in tonal languages, while the child can. We can even black box the whole soft vs hardware issue. Early brains more flexible. And also parents and society bear more resposibility and have had power over that child and still do. Which makes sense since their brains are not like adults around impulse control and regulation of emotions.

12 years should not be driving cars on public roads. Yes, many adults should not either, but treating 12 years as a group and adults on a more case by case testing and punishing basis around driver's licences makes sense.

And I don't think IQ is the criterion.

I mean, I would only consider intelligence an issue regarding understand that action X would lead to someone suffering.

If you could show that 26 years low IQ person Ted, didn't understand that his actions were dangerous, then it would affect sentencing and probation vs. prison. But if he meant to hit the oher person with a car, I don't really car how low his intelligence is. If it is so low he has no idea this hurts people, he still needs to be institutionalized and we can feel sorrier for him.

To me IQ is a category error here.

It's not a matter of IQ, it's a matter of brain development. Children's brains are still forming, including those parts of the brain that allow one to control impulses. IOW they need to be controlled by others and are in the process of being taught how to have self-discipline, control over impulses and so on. An adult with a low IQ is NOT the same

Second, children's brains are more neuroplastic. So, rehabilitation is more viable. Adult brains, dumb or smart are less flexible. Now, all brains can change, but for the same reasons a child can learn a second or third language much faster than an adult, they can also change in other ways. So, there is another reason not to treat them as small or dumb adults.