I sort of like the idea of a pro-life candidate who has paid for a few of his girlfriends' abortions. Something just rings true about that. — Hanover

I get what you're talking about. It would be a shame not to recognize such an accomplishment. There is something profound, sublime, in the shamelessness.

Can we choose how much insulin our pancreas secretes? If not, does this rule out free will?

The brain does what the brain does in the same manner that the pancreas does what the pancreas does. Neither is under our direct control. That fact says nothing about free will.
— T Clark

If the brain does what the brain does in the same manner that the pancreas does what the pancreas does, then the brain makes its choices automatically without any input from us as well. — Paul Michael

[metaphor]The brain is a gland that secretes the mind.[/metaphor] Are you asking if the mind controls the mind? How would that work? To oversimplify, the mind perceives, feels, thinks, believes, and decides. It is us.

Can we choose our thoughts? If not, does this rule out free will? — Paul Michael

Can we choose how much insulin our pancreas secretes? If not, does this rule out free will?

The brain does what the brain does in the same manner that the pancreas does what the pancreas does. Neither is under our direct control. That fact says nothing about free will.

I don't think there is any controversy over that one. I didn't realize what you meant by commonality. Some facts are just facts, but some facts are disputed and become controversial. — Vera Mont

I was picking out math because it is probably the most social value-free subject. When I was talking about commonality, I wasn't just talking about facts, I meant values too. As far as I can see, I share a lot of common values with most Americans, including those who voted for Donald Trump.

When I was in second grade, no adults would discuss any aspect of sex, which made it so much more confusing when a friend of the family made some lewd advances. (Yes, those kind of people have always existed.) As for reproduction, I was told by a fourth-grader, who was herself woefully uninformed, which resulted in a good deal of unnecessary anxiety - exacerbated by the secrecy and shame with which adults shrouded the subject, so I couldn't ask anyone who actually knew. Thank goodness for the encyclopedia! — Vera Mont

It's not the schools job to teach children everything they need or want to know. That's especially true for value-laden topics such as sex and religion.

Curiosity about the world and how things work hasn't been killed out of them yet. It's a good idea for parents to be prepared for this, so that when (not if) their children ask, they can probe for exactly what aspect of the process the child is interested in at the moment, and answer specific questions directly and truthfully, without laying out all the biological detail at once. For many parents, the subject is uncomfortable, because it involves them personally. If it's taught in school, they're spared that long, speculative stare. Plus, all the kids of the same age get the same facts and can't misinform one another, that's a bonus. When my children were that age, we went to the library and found a very useful picture-book aimed at their comprehension level. — Vera Mont

As ham-handed as my first efforts into sex education for my daughter were, I still think it was good we had that conversation. It makes a good story now and it was evidence that I respect her curiosity and intelligence. I'll say it again - not everything children need to know has to be taught in school.

This is an intriguing position. I would have thought it really does matter what philosophers have decided in the last few decades. Especially ABOUT philosophy. And especially to people in a philosophy forum. — invizzy

Philosophers can't agree on anything, especially about philosophy and especially those of us on the forum. I doubt you'll find many philosophers today who think x-phi is worthwhile. Maybe I'm wrong about that.

What if RBG didn’t die? Any speculations on what would have happened had she lived? — NOS4A2

She was 147 years old. Of course she was going to die. But she thought her career as a SC justice was more important than maintaining balance. If she hadn't died until 2021, I guess the court would be 5 conservatives to 4 liberals. Perhaps Roe vs. Wade would still have been overturned, but Roberts' more moderate changes might have won out.

He's already got a cult following, and he'll embarrass DeSantis just as he did Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush -- and everyone else who's gotten in his way. But we'll see.... — Mikie

I've been predicting that Trump would fade away ever since November of 2020. We've all seen how that worked out. Early in 2016 he was given a 5% chance of winning the presidency. I think this election was the first one where the Republicans have had to face the consequences of what Trump and others have done to their party. My hope is that he will continue to be a monkey wrench in their machinery, but I am not confident that is what will happen.

Counterfactuals. Such speculation is fun, no doubt. — NOS4A2

Blow it off with a smirk if you want, but I can tell you with some certainty that if Hillary Clinton hadn't blown the 2016 election, there would be a 6 to 3 liberal majority on the Supreme Court and Roe vs. Wade would not have been overturned.

He seems to have been saying that a Democrat-led Senate would have affirmed Obama's Supreme Court nominee, and wouldn't have affirmed Kavanaugh or Barrett, only accepting more moderate nominees, and that such a Supreme Court wouldn't have overruled Roe and Casey. — Michael

Yes. This is what I meant.

What is it that would be harmful in a math book that meets the educational standard?
How is a math book, or a short story collection supposed to present 'commonalities' in a deeply divided nation? — Vera Mont

Why would you possibly bring anything political or social into a math textbook. 8 x 4 = 32 is definitely what I would call a commonality. If the train is leaving Station A at 12:00 noon and travelling 126 miles to Station B at 70 miles per hour, and if I want to know at what time it reaches Station B, what difference does it make if the engineer is a man or a woman or gay or straight? The US is not that divided. It's just that people on the left and right ends raise a ruckus and the media plays it up.

why should elementary school students have the truth concealed from them? — Vera Mont

There's a story I always tell about my daughter and me. When she was about 7, in second grade, she and I were in my bedroom lying on the bed. My wife was working. She asked me the stereotypical question - how are babies born. I remember vividly being a bit taken aback, then thinking, well...just tell her. So I told her that the man puts his penis in the woman's vagina and... At that point I looked down and saw a look of complete shock on her face. I immediately realized the mistake I had made. I don't remember how I did it, but I brought the discussion to an end quickly.

It's not "concealing the truth" to only talk about issues with children when they are old enough to deal with them. Sensible liberal and conservative parents don't want their second graders to have to figure out what it means to be transgendered. I remember what it felt like to be in elementary school. We boys didn't think about sex much at all till 6th grade when girls started to have breasts.

Would they not notice on the street or on the news that everybody isn't the same, and wonder why their school books don't reflect reality? — Vera Mont

What would they see on the street? When I was a kid, the elementary schools were segregated. I don't think any of us, the white kids at least, thought about it much. Now schools generally aren't segregated, although I live in a suburb of Boston and there aren't a lot of non-white students. Even so, all three of my children went to school with black, Jewish, Hispanic, and Asian children. Should we be teaching fourth graders about the class struggle and the oppression of blacks and other minorities. How would you feel if you were the only black kid in a class when people were talking about your ancestors being slaves? Do you think other kids might tease you about it?

We don't have to indoctrinate our children into our political persuasions. We shouldn't be indoctrinating, propagandizing, them at all. They're children for God's sake.

Independent Scotland — universeness

The population of Scotland is less than the population of the state of Massachusetts, where I live. Given that, it makes a better test case for your reforms than a much larger country would.

Then you mentioned Supreme Court decisions, for some reason. — NOS4A2

You said there is no difference between the parties. I disagreed and noted that if Congress had been Democratic when the most recent SC judges were appointed, the right to decide to have an abortion would still be protected nationwide. There's a direct connection between party and an important social and legal outcome. Then you brought up a constitutional amendment, which does not follow from the previous discussion.

We don't have to go back and forth on this. I'll give you the last word if you want it.

I’m not sure how. As I understand it SCOTUS ruled that abortion was not a protected right under the Constitution in that case. — NOS4A2

It was a non-sequitur because a constitutional amendment has nothing to do with the discussion you and I were having. We were talking about the recent election and the effects of congressional elections.

Does that mean the state/church should dictate what children under - what age? 12, 13, 14? - cannot know about? — Vera Mont

What they can know about and what they should learn in school are not the same thing. In school, especially elementary school, it makes sense to me that the focus should be on commonalities in understanding and values among the citizens of the country.

It would not have happened if there was an amendment to the constitution affording people the right to an abortion. — NOS4A2

That's quite a non-sequitur.

I could not use an ID such as Bitter Crank. I don't find it ironic, and I have told him that I don't understand his choice of 'handle' based on his postings. — universeness

I wasn't saying you are bitter or a crank. I was saying your politics is nearer his than mine.

I can only hope you will be convinced differently in the future — universeness

It doesn't matter whether or not I'm convinced. It matters what will work and what won't.

None of which was legislated in congress. — NOS4A2

Dobbs would not have happened if the Senate was Democratic during the last half of Obama's second term or while Trump was president.

I doubt we would ever be members of the same political party, but we might vote the same way on certain issues. — universeness

We're both pretty liberal. I think you're a bit more on the @Bitter Crank branch of the party though.

Issue by issue politics. Political independents, fighting for the interests of their own voters, who will negotiate and find common cause with other independents, who make up the government. It would be up to the second chamber and the civil servants to identify any unacceptable stealth tactics in use or any backroom deals in play when individual representatives vote. — universeness

I'll go back to my original argument. It doesn't matter what would happen if we had our druthers. It only matters what is possible and sustainable. I don't believe the system you describe is either.

You could not get a sheet of paper between the official positions of the two parties. — NOS4A2

The Roe vs. Wade decision had 36 sheets of paper. The Dobbs decision had 213.

Surely a government of independents who were actually voted in because they have convinced people at a local level that they have their best interests at heart is got to be better that voting for a party label, and not a person. — universeness

I'm pretty sure it wouldn't work. If you started out with 100 individual, independent representatives, they would start to make coalitions around specific issues. Those coalitions would grow, consolidate, and become institutionalized. Then they'd be political parties. I think it's inevitable, and for good reason. As I said, when a jurisdiction gets to a certain size, it is ungovernable as a direct democracy.

Do you not agree that these are some of the reasons why politics are so toxic at the moment? — universeness

I am not unbiased, but I think the reason things are so troubled in the US is simple. Starting in about 1970, the Republican Party decided winning elections was more important than governing the country.

I think you will find that philosophers have decided it *is* philosophy in the past couple of decades. — mcdoodle

And I've decided that it isn't. Not that it matters what they or I have decided.

What if "that stuff" that's being kept from them is about people who are unlike them in some way? (Yes, if Billy-Bob says he's really a girl, he's a girl. It's okay to stop feeling guilty because you were attracted to him. Yes, the people in China are also human beings, and they didn't invent the Covid virus. ) Or factual history? (No, the Civil War was not stolen, the Confederacy lost; General Lee did not ride proudly into the glorious sunset and Jim Crow was not a very good policy...) — Vera Mont

I wouldn't be unhappy as a parent if the elementary grades focused on basics without a lot of controversial issues being discussed. Younger children need to see the physical and human worlds as coherent and enduring and that adults have some sort of consensus understanding of how things work. Of course it's more complicated than that, but I don't see any harm in waiting till middle school to start getting into that.

So, in history, tell the story, but include slavery and how the American Indians were treated. In science, tell the story, but for controversial issues like evolution or the age of the universe, tread lightly in elementary schools in areas where this will cause problems. In English class, don't teach "Huckleberry Finn." There are plenty of other good books until kids get older. In health, teach fundamentals of how bodies work including issues with sex at an age-appropriate level. Third graders don't need to know about issues of sexual politics and controversy.

I went through the American public school system, including three years in high school in central Virginia near the North Carolina border. And look how well I turned out.

We need a global movement to end party politics, as it is a bad system. — universeness

Politics is always ugly and I think you'll always get bad people grasping for power. Here in New England many municipalities have direct democracy - town meetings where either all adult residents or elected local representatives vote. It works reasonably well for small towns, but breaks down the larger the group gets. I think there have to be established and enduring institutions that provide vision and continuity. As badly as it sometimes seems to be working, I can't think of a better mechanism than some sort of party system.

As for the US midterm election, some are saying this will be the beginning of the end of the 30+ year Republican rampage against governance. I hope that's true.

Experimental philosophy (X-Phi) is a sub-field of philosophy where experimental data about philosophy is collected. This is usually in the form of surveys to test folk intuition about philosophical concepts. — invizzy

What you describe is not experimental philosophy, it is science - psychology or maybe sociology. I think when science broke off from philosophy, it took all the empirical stuff with it. Maybe not, but I can't think of anything that would qualify.

There are a lot of books out there, and a limited amount of library shelf space. So decisions have to be made about what to put in and what to leave out. Deciding no to include a book because a significant number of people in the community find it offensive is not necessarily unreasonable. Keeping books that include sexual content, violence, and difficult social issues out of elementary school libraries is also not necessarily unreasonable. I wouldn't have wanted my children, all adults now, to have to deal with that stuff. beyond what they need to get along with others.

Which brings us, as all things do for me, to the Tao. As Lao Tzu wrote, "The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao." He also wrote "Naming is the beginning of all particular things." The multiplicity of things, i.e. the world we see and interact with, is brought into being by naming, i.e. putting it into words.

So, you can't talk about the Tao because if you do, you turn it into something else. More generally, if you talk about anything you turn it into something different. For me, ineffable means that; if you put it into words, something valuable, fundamental, perhaps even sacred, is lost.

Another of my (presumptively wise) beliefs is that where communication with others is concerned, art is the only means by which we may describe what we call the ineffable, however uncertainly. That would include poetry, but the use of words in poetry for that purpose is to imply, to suggest, to evoke. — Ciceronianus

This makes sense to me. Poetry doesn't explain, it paints pictures.

Behaviourism had a model based on instincts learned by stimuli responses. It was undermined by studies of rat behaviour which suggested they had mental maps as they performed short cuts in mazes — Andrew4Handel

Yes, behaviorism is mostly discredited at this point. When I was a psych major back in the 1970s, I did do some rat conditioning experiments.

Science it self relies on symbols. So that is a criticism of the naturalistic, physicalist, materialist world view. — Andrew4Handel

I don't think that's necessarily true.

Isn't the environment the outside force motivating animals?

I tend to view animals as more driven by outside forces than us. — Andrew4Handel

Isn't that view in conflict with the understanding that animals act more on instinct than humans do? Maybe not. Maybe we could say that animals act more on instinct, so they have less choice, therefore are more reactive to outside forces.

I guess I think humans are more able to say "no" to impulses or to delay gratification than animals, but we all act in response to outside forces. We are getting to, probably have gone beyond, my level of knowledge in this area.

I don't see how you and I are actually disagreeing. — Benj96

I think you're right.

Do you think that's a fair/balanced assessment? — Benj96

Yes, it's fine. But you and I are focusing on different things. I'm looking only at rationality and you're taking a broader perspective. Nothing wrong with either way, but they don't match up.

Well it is a matter of perspective is it not? — Benj96

If I need money to finance a drug habit or to take a trip to Las Vegas and I rob a store to get it, that is not necessarily irrational. It's illegal and immoral and likely to have very bad consequences for the criminal, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily irrational either.

It's a great read, everything that is good about Dewey, insightful, direct, beautifully written. — Pantagruel

Free on Amazon.

Dewey paints a beautiful picture of rationality as an exaggerated and over-logicized form of thinking: — Pantagruel

Great quote. Thanks. I'll look up "Reconstruction in Philosophy."

Sure; never said they were. Note also, that this idea of 'exceptional' will itself consist of a spectrum of possibilities, my idea of exceptional might be very different from yours, or Andrew's. — Tom Storm

Sure. I was talking to A4H more than to you. It's nice here in the middle. I always think of lines from Carl Dennis' poem "Aunt Celia 1961," which I've posted on the forum before.

As they go on living as best they can
Without complaining. Noble lives, and beautiful,
And happy as much as doing well can make them.

You're making assumptions that the best you can be has to be banal. Some people make it exceptional. — Tom Storm

Banal and exceptional are not the only two choices. I aim at satisfying. Simplifying your desires is easier to achieve than increasing your exceptionality. Some of us weren't meant for greatness. For us, pretty good is good enough.

I think my main question was supposed to be how is it possible to do the act of choosing? — Andrew4Handel

When I was working, I had to make decisions all the time. Most of them were small with limited consequences, but some were important. As I noted before, for most of them, even some of the more important ones, it didn't really matter what decision I made as long as I made it and then took responsibility for the results. It's funny, but since I've retired I sometimes find myself spending five minutes deciding what sandwich to get at the deli. They guys behind the counter laugh at me. I go in there a lot.

Studies have shown there is a strong emotional component to decision making. Some people with traumatic damage to a part of the brain with a role in emotion are no longer able to make even very simple decisions. Things like whether or not to put their clothes on or to eat.

The problem is isolating what would be instinct. Instinct to me, seems like a drive you cannot but help. So an instinct to eat perhaps, go to the bathroom, prefer that which is physically pleasurable or raises levels of oxyctocin, dopamine, and serotonin. However, those are so broad to not really be helpful to consider how they are motivating. For example, reading a book might be pleasurable, but to say that the pleasure of reading the book is instinct, is a bit more than a stretch as far as I'm concerned. — schopenhauer1

I can't go too deep on this. I don't know enough. Stephen Pinker is talking about language. He says there is a drive for children to learn it. It's not a mechanical robotic drive. It just feels right. Think about a sex drive. That also feels right. I assume it's an instinct. There are lots of things in my life like that. Certain things just feel like the right thing to do. I don't think all of them are instincts, but I don't think those that are feel different than my desire to go outside on a nice day. When I eat something, it's important to me what bowl and silverware I use. It feels right, good, to hold them in my hand. I really have no idea where that came from. We do things that feel like the right thing to do. They're what we want to do. And sometimes we don't do them because we rationally decide it is not a good time.

Conformity is certainly an easier life. — Andrew4Handel

Following your heart is not conformity. For many people, me included, it is hard to hear what their heart is saying. For me, the search for awareness is the search to hear the voice inside me.

How would you describe a rational or reasonable action? — Andrew4Handel

I'm with @Tom Storm - We do the best we can. I've read that all humans are related to one woman who lived about 200,000 years ago. Think about that. Every decision she made affected the entire human race from then till now. Every day, I'm sure she just got up in the morning, cooked breakfast, kissed her mate before he went off to hunt dinosaurs, sent the kids out to play in the tar pits, and got down to work pounding animal skins.