So how do birds migrate then, if nothing as complex as the desire to journey to a specific other place on the earth for a set period of time before journeying back again could never evolve without language? — Pseudonym

This is frustrating but I will stay with it. The birds' innate behavior is nothing like how we use language but is nevertheless the way their behaviors manifest. Just as language is the way our behaviors manifest.

So humans, like all other animals, at one time had a set of genes that coded for the innate desire to raise young, if we hadn't have had we would have become extinct. You're suggesting that at some point in our evolutionary history, we lost that set of genomes entirely but immediately (it must have been immediate otherwise we would have become extinct within one generation) it was replaced with a convergently evolved set of genomes coding for complex language functions which allowed us to develop cultural preferences for raising children, just in time to save the human race from extinction. — Pseudonym

Well, it wasn't immediate. I couldn't tell you the details that occurred between Australeopithicus and Homo Sapiens, but certainly there was a decoupling of innate behavior as brains wired for language and cultural transmission were the way in which humans started to survive. Look at a baby human versus that of many other mammals. The baby human is the most defenseless. Why? Very few innate behaviors. Also, the epigenetics and the learned behaviors of other animals also have an instinctual component that is not driven by the much more generalized learning process that humans posses via linguistic/conceptual brains.

1. What would have been the competitive advantage of the mutation that replaced our genetic sequences coding for an innate desire to raise young? Presumably, not having answered my religion question, you believe in evolution by natural selection. Whatever it was must have been an incredibly strong influence for the new mutation to have swept through the entire species, but I can't quite see how it would have given anyone a competitive edge over those naturally invested in raising young. — Pseudonym

Not everything works in a 1-1 ratio in regards to competitive advantage. It was very advantageous to have generalized learning brains. The kind of plasticity this allowed in behavior, created a situation where humans could create tools and other cultural artifacts that would help bolster survival.

2. If there was a competitive advantage to not having a desire to raise children, how come it was immediately replaced with a cultural desire to have children, wouldn't those cultures have faded away almost immediately as a result of whatever competitive force was driving this massive shift in genetics? — Pseudonym

It was not an all at once massive shift. It probably took millions of years and branches of humans of variations of plasticity and innate instinctual behaviors.

3. When did this sea change in our genetic coding take place. It must have been after complex language and culture because it needed to be replaced immediately with the cultural urge to have children in order to avoid extinction, yet paleobiology has yet to turn up any significant change in the human genome since then. Is this something you predict we're gong to find out in the next few years of genetic research? — Pseudonym

Again more slowly, and genes did change between various human species.

4. You mention convergent evolution, but this refers to the novel arrival of features via two evolutionary paths, what you're proposing here would not be an example of this. We've established that it is a biological necessity that humans had a genetically innate desire to raise young at some point in their evolutionary history. What you're proposing here would be the the novel emergence of a trait already present in the organism, but emerging as a result of a different force and then entirely supplanting the original gene(s). This is, to my knowledge, completely unprecedented. Are there other examples of this happening in the animal kingdom you're working from, or is this the first time this has happened in evolutionary history? — Pseudonym

I'll actually agree with you on this. I was thinking that as I wrote it, so good job pointing out that this is not quite convergent evolution. However, over time, cultural evolution took over much of the functions of the innate behaviors of instinct. So, this shift did happen, though slowly.

My question to you is how do you not fall into the erroneous notion that any desire is innate? My desire to pick up the phone, my desire to go out in the yard and rake, my desire to watch a movie. Where do truly "innate" desires come into play vs. cultural-linguistic ones? So yes, humans happen to have unique traits of cultural transmission, high neural plasticity, and a linguistic-conceptual mechanism that does make us unique in the animal kingdom.

I'm only going to try this one more time, it's been an interesting excersice and I thank you for the challenge but I cannot see the sense in us just repeatedly talking past on another.

So, last time - I completely and utterly agree with you that your theory about humans somehow losing their innate desire to raise children and having it replaced by a cultural desire is possible. You do not need to provide me with any more stories about how things might have been, I am convinced, and have been from the start.

What I am lacking is any evidence that this actually is the case, not further means by which it could be. I'm asking, not for any further explication of you theory, but for the reason why you have rejected the far more simple, almost universally held theory that our desire to have children simply arises from the same place as all other animals.

What distinguishes a teleological explanation is that it explains phenomena by the purpose it serves rather than by assumed causes.
— praxis

Yes, so that can't be a scientific explanation; a scientific explanation JUST IS an explanation in terms of causes, NOT purposes. — gurugeorge

You seem to have an odd notion of what science is. It's merely a structured way of studying the natural world. A scientific investigation could begin with the hypothesis that the purpose of a birds wings is flight, for example, and the scientific method could be applied to this teleological supposition.

the point is, so long as one is strictly following the materialist/mechanistic metaphysical point of view that distinguishes modern science from the older scientific understanding that was based on classical philosophy, there can be no real purpose. — gurugeorge

The way you say "real purpose" tells me that what you mean by "real teleology" is having an meaningful ("real") goal as opposed to a meaningless ("as if") goal.

From the beginning, philosophy has sought truth and not meaning. Adhering uncritically to some grand narrative, no matter how meaningful it might be to you, is not what philosophy is about. Indeed philosophy can be an unpleasant undertaking when it unravels cherished narratives. It can lead to nihilism, in this way. But as I've said from the beginning, nihilism is just a phase that can be worked through. We can for ourselves find purpose that aligns with our values, join with others to be part of something greater than ourselves, and develop a coherent narrative. It was never God who died, it was the Authority Figure who died. The guru is dead.

ook at a baby human versus that of many other mammals. The baby human is the most defenseless. Why? Very few innate behaviors. Also, the epigenetics and the learned behaviors of other animals also have an instinctual component that is not driven by the much more generalized learning process that humans posses via linguistic/conceptual brains. — schopenhauer1

Since you asked, Schop, I agree with Pseudonym that you seem to be trying to draw too sharp a line here. It doesn't make sense to argue that Homo sapiens abandoned neurobiological instinct for socially-constructed desires. Sure, socially-constructed desires radically change things for humans. Yet the underlying biology continuity still exists and we can argue that linguistic culture largely serves to amplify that evolved instinctual basis rather than to somehow completely replace it.

Yes, it is possible that humans evolved to be less instinctual so as to be more open to cultural shaping. But I don't think there is much actual evidence of that being the case.

Humans are born more helpless - their brains a mass of still unwired connections - because we happened to become bipeds with narrow birth canals trying to give birth to babies with large skulls. The big brains were being evolved for sociality and a tool-using culture. So babies had to be squeezed out helpless and half developed, completing their neuro-development outside the womb - a risky and unique evolutionary step. But also then one with an exaptive advantage. In being half-formed, this then paved the way for the very possibility of complex symbolic speech as a communal activity structuring young minds from the get-go. It made it possible for culture to get its hooks in very early on.

Of course this evolutionary account is disputable. But it seems the best causal view to me. And while it says that there was undoubtedly some evolutionary tinkering with the instinctual basis of human cognition - we know babies have added instincts for gaze-following and turn-taking, stuff that is pre-adaptive for language learning and enculturation - you would have to be arguing for a more basic erasure of instincts that are pretty fundamental for the obvious evolutionary reasons that Pseudonym outlined.

It is natural that animals would have an innate desire to procreate - have sex. And it is natural that animals would have innate behaviours that are particular to whatever parental nurturing style is their ecological recipe for species success.

These in turn might be highly varied. There are many possible procreative strategies - as you know from discussions of r vs K selection.
http://www.bio.miami.edu/tom/courses/bil160/bil160goods/16_rKselection.html

However we can make reasonable guesses about what the human instinctual basis was, and remains. Certainly a desire to have sex and an instinct for nurturing are pretty basic and hormonal. Which is enough to keep the show on the road so far as nature is concerned.

Now arguing in the other direction, I would agree that this hardwired biology is not of the "overpowering" kind popularly imagined. Culture probably does have a big say. As society becomes a level of organismic concern of its own, it can start to form views about what should be the case concerning procreation. The drivers might become economic, religious and political - these terms being a way of recognising that society expresses its being as economic, religious and political strategies.

And likewise, society might wind up turning individual humans into largely economic, religious or political creatures. We might really become incentivised to over-ride our biological urges as a result of the direction that cultural evolution is taking. This may get expressed in terms of the full variety of r vs K strategies. We might get the range of behaviour from Mormons or other cultures of "strength through big families" vs the economic individualism which turns supporting a family into a financial and personal drag (with the individual now becoming, in effect, a permanent child themselves - never wanting to grow up and so creating a new dilemma for the perpetuation of that society, as is big news in Japan).

So, in my view, it is too simplistic to draw a sharp line between biological instinct and linguistic culture in humans - especially when it comes to any hardline anti-natal agenda. Although there is certainly this added level of evolutionary complexity in play with Homo sapiens.

We are at an interesting time for humans. Society has shifted from an agricultural basis to an industrial one, and now believes it is entering an information age that really cuts itself off from its biological roots. So culture is churning out individuals with psychological structures that express that current stage in its development.

Can that mindset flourish and last? Is it realistic or out of touch? Can a society predicated on life-long infantilism survive?

It might, if we can all afford robot slaves and crack the fusion free energy problem, etc. Anything remains possible - that is, if you don't pay any attention to the underlying economics of biological existence itself. The bottom is surely about to fall out of that dream - that we aren't simply a species gorging on a short-lived windfall of fossil fuels. But that's another thread.

A scientific investigation could begin with the hypothesis that the purpose of a birds wings is flight, for example, and the scientific method could be applied to this teleological supposition. — praxis

And if it is applied, it will necessarily cancel out the teleological "supposition" and replace it with an explanation based wholly on efficient causes. We certainly use teleological talk in everyday language and in common sense, but that is the explanandum for science, and science talks (or aims to talk) in terms of observable regularities ("laws") and causal chains, nothing else. If it still uses the language of common sense, that is, as I said, a way of explaining the science in a way that people can relate to.

The way you say "real purpose" tells me that what you mean by "real teleology" is having an meaningful ("real") goal as opposed to a meaningless ("as if") goal. — praxis

Yes, and "real" has nothing to do with "authority." Pseudonym thought the same thing - but it's a strawman (historically, for most religions and philosophies, most of the time, though not of course all).

The point isn't to get your meaning from some "external authority," the point is to get your meaning from a story about the Universe that's true, that shows that and how you are knit into the Universe's fabric, so that you feel at home and are justified in feeling at home, not just pretending or putting on a brave face and a brittle smile.

The leading metaphysics of the day doesn't offer that comfort. So all that's left is either accepting the moral nihilism that goes with that metaphysics, or pretending and putting on a brave face and a brittle smile.

Or, as I've been saying, finding an alternative metaphysics that does do the job (tells a true and meaningful story about the Universe) and also accepts scientific method. Maybe there is one, that possibility is not ruled out by scientific method alone, since as I've said, science can be understood either as denying any over-arching metaphysics (as it's come to be understood) or simply as bracketing questions of over-arching metaphysics (as it was originally understood by the early scientists, who were mostly believing Christians).

I really think it's time to knock this on the head, we both seem to have exhausted our quivers.

I brought in apokrisis because sometimes when there is an argument with the same two people, another perspective is good. Though I've had many disagreements with apokrisis over his metaphysics, he seems pretty knowledgeable about evolutionary biological concepts.

Since you asked, Schop, I agree with Pseudonym that you seem to be trying to draw too sharp a line here. It doesn't make sense to argue that Homo sapiens abandoned neurobiological instinct for socially-constructed desires. Sure, socially-constructed desires radically change things for humans. Yet the underlying biology continuity still exists and we can argue that linguistic culture largely serves to amplify that evolved instinctual basis rather than to somehow completely replace it. — apokrisis

Okay, you say you disagree with my view and that you side with opposing view, but almost all your evidence is pro-cultural basis for raising children and betrays a contrary point of view to what you claim. Let's look at the score:

Humans are born more helpless - their brains a mass of still unwired connections - because we happened to become bipeds with narrow birth canals trying to give birth to babies with large skulls. The big brains were being evolved for sociality and a tool-using culture. So babies had to be squeezed out helpless and half developed, completing their neuro-development outside the womb - a risky and unique evolutionary step. But also then one with an exaptive advantage. In being half-formed, this then paved the way for the very possibility of complex symbolic speech as a communal activity structuring young minds from the get-go. It made it possible for culture to get its hooks in very early on. — apokrisis

Cultural learning- 1

Of course this evolutionary account is disputable. But it seems the best causal view to me. And while it says that there was undoubtedly some evolutionary tinkering with the instinctual basis of human cognition - we know babies have added instincts for gaze-following and turn-taking, stuff that is pre-adaptive for language learning and enculturation - you would have to be arguing for a more basic erasure of instincts that are pretty fundamental for the obvious evolutionary reasons that Pseudonym outlined. — apokrisis

Cultural learning- 2. Now, this was a tricky one, because you did mention instincts, but as they are utilized for cultural learning

It is natural that animals would have an innate desire to procreate - have sex. And it is natural that animals would have innate behaviours that are particular to whatever parental nurturing style is their ecological recipe for species success. — apokrisis

I already agreed that sex is the "basic" instinct via the general tendency to prefer physical pleasure, but that is not the same as literally the conceptual idea of "I prefer to raise a child" which involves much higher cognitive understanding and cultural ques than mere physical pleasure.

However we can make reasonable guesses about what the human instinctual basis was, and remains. Certainly a desire to have sex and an instinct for nurturing are pretty basic and hormonal. Which is enough to keep the show on the road so far as nature is concerned. — apokrisis

Instinctual- 1. Though your evidence for this is weak other than vague guesses about hormones. However, I know you are more rigorous than to resort to pop-evolutionary psychology regarding how a certain sex may be prone to such and such moods and preferences based on such and such monthly cycles. Even the tenuous "just so" stories from popular evo-psych literature/journals might be suspect to trying to perpetuate a pre-conceived cultural norm/trope more than anything else.

Now arguing in the other direction, I would agree that this hardwired biology is not of the "overpowering" kind popularly imagined. Culture probably does have a big say. As society becomes a level of organismic concern of its own, it can start to form views about what should be the case concerning procreation. The drivers might become economic, religious and political - these terms being a way of recognising that society expresses its being as economic, religious and political strategies. — apokrisis

Cultural learning- 3

And likewise, society might wind up turning individual humans into largely economic, religious or political creatures. We might really become incentivised to over-ride our biological urges as a result of the direction that cultural evolution is taking. This may get expressed in terms of the full variety of r vs K strategies. We might get the range of behaviour from Mormons or other cultures of "strength through big families" vs the economic individualism which turns supporting a family into a financial and personal drag (with the individual now becoming, in effect, a permanent child themselves - never wanting to grow up and so creating a new dilemma for the perpetuation of that society, as is big news in Japan). — apokrisis

Cultural learning- 4

Based on your own response, the score is:
Cultural learning- 4
Instinct- 1

So, despite your protestations to the contrary, your very evidence indicates you believe cultural learning is largely the vehicle for which humans procreate and follow a preference to raise children.

So, despite your protestations to the contrary, your very evidence indicates you believe cultural learning is largely the vehicle for which humans procreate and follow a preference to raise children. — schopenhauer1

Err, no.

I already agreed that sex is the "basic" instinct via the general tendency to prefer physical pleasure, but that is not the same as literally the conceptual idea of "I prefer to raise a child" which involves much higher cognitive understanding and cultural ques than mere physical pleasure. — schopenhauer1

Well when you shift the goalposts that way, then claiming that there is an "I" that has an innate preference is of course what would be countered by a social constructionist point of view on the subject.

You are now framing it as a personal choice. Which in turn demands a Cartesian model of a choosing self.

The argument was about this "self" being unwillingly forced to procreate due to evolved instinct vs being unwilling forced to procreate by some social necessity. And your emphasis either way is on the unwilling. Yet either way, it might be a willing inclination in being an intrinsically rewarding or pleasurable action - the rewards of having sex and then raising a family being something that both biology and sociology would have reason to celebrate.

Based on your own response, the score is:
Cultural learning- 4
Instinct- 1 — schopenhauer1

You mean based on your own spurious marking system.

If you want a score, clearly you are flat wrong in suggesting that Homo sapiens abruptly left behind biological instinct when it became a linguistic species.

And you would be right to the extent that you might then make some more nuanced case for the cultural malleability of our procreational habits.

I mean everyone knows that we respond to social economics. You either have a lot of kids, or try to avoid having kids, depending on the economic equation as you see it.

And even my pet fish - dwarf cichlids - can make that kind of decision. They lay eggs and then either eat them or protect them, depending on some instinctive judgement about the situation in their tank.

So really, the same evolutionary logic is at work, just at a higher level of sophistication.

Anti-natalism depends for its grounding on some kind of anti-naturalistic metaphysics. It arises from being disappointed by the Romantic promise that being alive has transcendent meaning, and then Enlightenment physics saying no, life is transcendently meaningless.

Well as you know, I just reject that metaphysical framing. I take the natural philosophy route on all questions. And that accounts for the issues here with ease.

Err, no. — apokrisis

I don't know, looked pretty much like you unwittingly agree, but I'll address the rest of your response below.

Well when you shift the goalposts that way, then claiming that there is an "I" that has an innate preference is of course what would be countered by a social constructionist point of view on the subject.

You are now framing it as a personal choice. Which in turn demands a Cartesian model of a choosing self.

The argument was about this "self" being unwillingly forced to procreate due to evolved instinct vs being unwilling forced to procreate by some social necessity. And your emphasis either way is on the unwilling. Yet either way, it might be a willing inclination in being an intrinsically rewarding or pleasurable action - the rewards of having sex and then raising a family being something that both biology and sociology would have reason to celebrate. — apokrisis

I can agree with you on the social constructionist point of view- the "I" is a placeholder, shorthand in this case. The "I" is largely socially constructed, agreed then.

However, what you cannot do is a sleight of hand where something that is "intrinsically rewarding" now counts as instinctual. Achieving at a sport is intrinsically rewarding, learning a new language is intrinsically rewarding, laughing at funny joke is intrinsically rewarding. Where does it end? Is it all instinct? The "intrinsically rewarding" part is created via the socially constructed "I" you told me to take into account in the first place.

I mean everyone knows that we respond to social economics. You either have a lot of kids, or try to avoid having kids, depending on the economic equation as you see it.

And even my pet fish - dwarf cichlids - can make that kind of decision. They lay eggs and then either eat them or protect them, depending on some instinctive judgement about the situation in their tank.

So really, the same evolutionary logic is at work, just at a higher level of sophistication. — apokrisis

I would say this is a false analogy. The decision to have less kids due to hard times, is a calculus based on the very linguistic-cultural brain that can do this sort of rationale. The fish is following an uncompromising programming. Two very different things in terms of what is going on.

Anti-natalism depends for its grounding on some kind of anti-naturalistic metaphysics. It arises from being disappointed by the Romantic promise that being alive has transcendent meaning, and then Enlightenment physics saying no, life is transcendently meaningless.

Well as you know, I just reject that metaphysical framing. I take the natural philosophy route on all questions. And that accounts for the issues here with ease. — apokrisis

As for my own antinatalist metaphysics, I do not follow an anti-naturalistic metaphysics. What I am trying to do is show that raising a child is a preference like any other preference- it just happens to be a popular one because of cultural pressures. Sports is also popular due to similar social pressures. The point is people can "like" something, and give "reasons" for why they like it. There is no compulsion outside of people's preferences and likes. Beyond the obvious physical pleasure involved in sex, the preference for actually procreating is simply in the imagination, hopes, preferences, of the individual just like any other goal that is imagined, hoped for, preferred, etc.

I don't know, looked pretty much like you unwittingly agree, — schopenhauer1

That's what you get for trying to be precise I guess. Folk still don't take any notice. :)

The "I" is largely socially constructed, agreed then. — schopenhauer1

And largely biologically constructed as well. Don't now just ignore that.

However, what you cannot do is a sleight of hand where something that is "intrinsically rewarding" now counts as instinctual. — schopenhauer1

I said both the biology and the sociology can bring their intrinsic rewards. I was disputing your sub-premiss that having a family is intrinsically unrewarding on either account.

So you are now really mangling my reply.

Why have I enjoyed raising a family? I can see both social and biological reasons. It feels very instinctive to nurture. And also being a good dad is a socially approved activity.

You can say - in anti-natalist fashion - that both reasons are bogus. I am a fool for taking them at face value. But if we then take the debate to that level of general metaphysics, as we have before, then I still prefer my naturalistic account to your old-hat clash of Romantic idealism vs Enlightenment realism.

You are stuck in a discontented bind because of your incoherent metaphysics. But I don't find your problems to be my problems.

The decision to have less kids due to hard times, is a calculus based on the very linguistic-cultural brain that can do this sort of rationale. — schopenhauer1

You might also decide to have more kids as - if you are a subsistence farmer - more helping hands is a worthwhile capital investment.

It is situational. The point is that we are good at making choices given a situation. But what troubles us is when we have no particular influence over the situation itself.

So if there is "philosophy" to be done, it ought to be aimed at creating better situations if there is indeed something not to like about the ones we are in.

Of course, your pessimism is predicated on the impossibility of situations ever being good. And stubbornness will turn that into a self-fulfilling prophecy very quick.

This is a live issue. My daughters are in their 20s. I see many in their circle of friends going into self-destructing spirals because they turn in the wrong direction when faced with any challenge.

Now certainly modern society can be blamed for the kind of challenges that the young face. But also, it is obvious that many of them have faced so little actual challenge in their growing up that absolutely everything becomes a challenge as soon as they want to start standing on their own feet.

So it is a complex story. Yet also very simple. Bad metaphysics can really screw your life up. :)

What I am trying to do is show that raising a child is a preference like any other preference- it just happens to be a popular one because of cultural pressures. — schopenhauer1

Yes. You need it to be axiomatic that it has to be an external pressure rather than an intrinsic desire. Yet with a straight face you then also say you are a social constructionist and a naturalist. But if we are socially constructed as selves, then that "pressure" is simply our true being finding its expression. It comes from the self - as much as there is a self for it to come from.

The confusion kicks in because we are then both biological selves and social selves. The communal self we share at pretty basic level. The phenomenological self we share at an even deeper biological level, but also we don't really share at all beyond our capacities for empathy and mirroring.

So there is complexity here again. But don't let it confuse the argument. If you are focused now on the socially constructed self, then you yourself removed the very grounds to complain about any individual preferences being socially constructed.

There is a basic logical flaw in your argument. It shows that you are operating from the incoherent and dualistic paradigm which is Romantic idealism vs Enlightenment realism.

Beyond the obvious physical pleasure involved in sex, the preference for actually procreating is simply in the imagination, hopes, preferences, of the individual just like any other goal that is imagined, hoped for, preferred, etc. — schopenhauer1

No. You just said that the psychology of that individual is largely a social construction. Indeed, you have been arguing that Homo sapiens represents a complete rupture with nature in this regard. Instinct was set aside and we became totally cultural creatures.

Anyway, having said the pressures were social and external, now you are switching to talk of them being internal and individual. The next step in your faulty argument is to then say that is why these individual preferences are falsehoods imposed on people unwillingly. As if they had some other more legitimate self - an inalienable soul. Which you will then say they can't have - as Newtonian physics and Darwinian evolution proved God is dead and life can have no purpose or value.

You have trapped yourself in a bind - even if not one of your own making, but one that simply recapitulates some bad socially-constructed metaphysics.

So how will you react to that realisation? Will you again go through each point and find that I unwittingly agree with you despite whatever I might have actually said?

A scientific investigation could begin with the hypothesis that the purpose of a birds wings is flight, for example, and the scientific method could be applied to this teleological supposition.
— praxis

And if it is applied, it will necessarily cancel out the teleological "supposition" and replace it with an explanation based wholly on efficient causes. — gurugeorge

We can look for the final cause or the efficient cause. For a seed, the final cause might be a tree. The efficient cause of a tree might be a seed.

The only thing being canceled out here is your nonsense.

The way you say "real purpose" tells me that what you mean by "real teleology" is having a meaningful ("real") goal as opposed to a meaningless ("as if") goal.
— praxis

Yes, and "real" has nothing to do with "authority." — gurugeorge

A charismatic leader doesn't even need to be an authority, they can merely appear as one to fool the gullible into swallowing their oh so "real" narratives.

Pseudonym thought the same thing - but it's a strawman — gurugeorge

You expect me to read your discussion with Pseudonym to figure out how claiming an authority figure is related to the meaningfulness of an overarching narrative is somehow a logical fallacy?

the point is to get your meaning from a story about the Universe that's true, that shows that and how you are knit into the Universe's fabric, so that you feel at home and are justified in feeling at home, not just pretending or putting on a brave face and a brittle smile.

The leading metaphysics of the day doesn't offer that comfort. — gurugeorge

Metaphysics doesn't offer this. Meaning in life is comprised of much more than metaphysics. Maybe that's your primary misunderstanding.

We can look for the final cause or the efficient cause. — praxis

"We" can in the language of common sense, but science can't, it acknowledges only efficient cause as real. (Although as I said, there are some noises to reintroduce quasi-Aristotelian concepts back into science, but it's a fairly recent development.)

A charismatic leader doesn't even need to be an authority, they can merely appear as one to fool the gullible into swallowing their oh so "real" narratives. — praxis

Wow, who'd've thought. Any more stunningly original observations where that came from?

Yes. You need it to be axiomatic that it has to be an external pressure rather than an intrinsic desire. Yet with a straight face you then also say you are a social constructionist and a naturalist. But if we are socially constructed as selves, then that "pressure" is simply our true being finding its expression. It comes from the self - as much as there is a self for it to come from.

The confusion kicks in because we are then both biological selves and social selves. The communal self we share at pretty basic level. The phenomenological self we share at an even deeper biological level, but also we don't really share at all beyond our capacities for empathy and mirroring.

So there is complexity here again. But don't let it confuse the argument. If you are focused now on the socially constructed self, then you yourself removed the very grounds to complain about any individual preferences being socially constructed.

...
No. You just said that the psychology of that individual is largely a social construction. Indeed, you have been arguing that Homo sapiens represents a complete rupture with nature in this regard. Instinct was set aside and we became totally cultural creatures.

Anyway, having said the pressures were social and external, now you are switching to talk of them being internal and individual. The next step in your faulty argument is to then say that is why these individual preferences are falsehoods imposed on people unwillingly. As if they had some other more legitimate self - an inalienable soul. Which you will then say they can't have - as Newtonian physics and Darwinian evolution proved God is dead and life can have no purpose or value.

You have trapped yourself in a bind - even if not one of your own making, but one that simply recapitulates some bad socially-constructed metaphysics.

So how will you react to that realisation? Will you again go through each point and find that I unwittingly agree with you despite whatever I might have actually said? — apokrisis

So, I think you are creating a strawman here of the internal/external thing. It is a preference/pressure we internalize from social means. What you cannot do is prove what is an innate instinct and what is socially constructed. Do you think "nurturing" is just an instinct or a tendency or preference that an individual may have towards something that originates by being provided the tools of personality/ego/introspection/environmental interaction that comes from a socially constructed mind? Again, my desire to watch a movie- is that an innate desire? No its generated via a linguistic-brain that integrates concepts. As you know, I believe there to be an internal "angst" of sorts in all animals- a Will as Schop might call it to strive (but for no reason except we are alive). This manifests generally in some angst-drive for survival, angst-drive for maintenance/comfort, angst-drive to flee-boredom/entertain. However, none of this "angst" is driven towards any goal-directed behavior without that socially-constructed brain.

Now you accuse me of overromanticizing meaning. However, you overmine the concept of social construction and the group-self dynamic to the point of making a sort of "teleology of balance". Any overriding metaphysics (like your peculiar brand of Peircian triadic semiotics) can be considered romantic. So, I don't think it does much to throw out this label. You are just creating a false dichotomy and then pitting one romantic vision (the interlocutor's) with your own.

We can look for the final cause or the efficient cause.
— praxis

"We" can in the language of common sense, but science can't, it acknowledges only efficient cause as real. (Although as I said, there are some noises to reintroduce quasi-Aristotelian concepts back into science, but it's a fairly recent development.) — gurugeorge

It’s Aristotle’s language, not the language of common sense. Are you trying to say that Aristotle had common sense? I’m sure he did.

Review the example that I offered to help you understand. Claiming that a seed causes a tree is no more real (or in your language ‘meaninful’) than it is to claim that a tree is the final cause of a seed.

Claiming that a seed causes a tree is no more real — praxis

It's the very essence of real for science, whereas the tree being the final cause of the seed is not real for science, final cause is simply not a thing as far as science is concerned. (Again, as science has been understood since about the 18th/19th century until very recently.)

the tree being the final cause of the seed is not real for science — gurugeorge

Are you able to explain why? beyond claiming that a purpose or goal isn't a thing in science.

What you cannot do is prove what is an innate instinct and what is socially constructed. Do you think "nurturing" is just an instinct or a tendency or preference that an individual may have towards something that originates by being provided the tools of personality/ego/introspection/environmental interaction that comes from a socially constructed mind? — schopenhauer1

I’ve already said there isn’t a sharp line as the two things are blended in development. The self is a mix of nature and nurture. It’s the same story as when we are talking about IQ or whatever.

The view being contested was your contention that instinct no longer played a role in humans after language came along.

So you are simply creating a straw man to attack now.

Any overriding metaphysics (like your peculiar brand of Peircian triadic semiotics) can be considered romantic. So, I don't think it does much to throw out this label. You are just creating a false dichotomy and then pitting one romantic vision (the interlocutor's) with your own. — schopenhauer1

Peirce would be a good metaphysics to oppose a bad metaphysics like Romanticism or reductionism. But ordinary science is quite good enough to argue against your claim concerning a lack of biological instinct in modern humans.

Peirce would be a good metaphysics to oppose a bad metaphysics like Romanticism or reductionism. But ordinary science is quite good enough to argue against your claim concerning a lack of biological instinct in modern humans. — apokrisis

But what you and Pseudonym have both avoided now, is what the innate part "looks like". What does the instinct to watch a movie look like, for example?

What kind of content would you predict that a social species with a big natural interest in social dramas might find gripping? Stories of love, hurt, power and status? Stories that really engage their emotions?

What kind of content would you predict that a social species with a big natural interest in social dramas might find gripping? Stories of love, hurt, power and status? Stories that really engage their emotions? — apokrisis

But do these preferences come innate or only after being enculturated in a social setting?

Not sure if you saw the last question.

But do these preferences come innate or only after being enculturated in a social setting? — schopenhauer1

Given that the individuation of a psychology is a blend of both influences from birth - as I said - then you can see why this is a silly question.

The default answer on any aspect of psychological being is going to be "both, together, resulting in an integrated whole".

The default answer on any aspect of psychological being is going to be "both, together, resulting in an integrated whole". — apokrisis

But how is saying "interest in stories of love, hurt, power and status? Stories that really engage their emotions?" not stepping more than a smidge into pop-psychology. How is it that love, hurt, power, status (concepts of linguistic origin) something innate? The human brain works more like generalized processor, with the vehicle of linguistic conceptualization as a way of integrating memories, thoughts, images, etc. How can these concepts said to be pre-linguistic (i.e. innate)? What is innate is conceptual formation, not the concepts themselves.

The human brain works more like generalized processor, with the vehicle of linguistic conceptualization as a way of integrating memories, thoughts, images, etc. How can these concepts said to be pre-linguistic (i.e. innate)? — schopenhauer1

Well no, the brain don’t work that way at all.

Well no, the brain don’t work that way at all. — apokrisis

Oh yeah.. please go on.. please explain how concepts are innate.

So now you want a free seminar on cognitive neurobiology? What’s in it for me? :)

Just proof that you have proof. The decoupling of instinct from general processing is not an easy story. I'd like to see this.

[Delete] @Baden

The decoupling of instinct from general processing is not an easy story. I'd like to see this. — schopenhauer1

But it is your contention that there is a decoupling rather than an integration. So frankly I have no idea what you are on about. Just as I don’t know where you are getting this general processing notion from.

But if you can provide the references, that would be sweet.

Just proof that you have proof. The decoupling of instinct from general processing is not an easy story. I'd like to see this. — schopenhauer1

http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar_url?url=http://www.academia.edu/download/37133243/Moro_Syntax_without_language.pdf&hl=en&sa=X&scisig=AAGBfm210BRby4ji6XE6q3EVp86UNC-CZA&nossl=1&oi=scholarr&ved=0ahUKEwjPh5_YpZPZAhXCtBQKHZJFDHUQgAMILSgAMAA

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4737615/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9036851

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21280961

Ruth Feldman - From a "neurobiology of parenting" talk "Based on neuroimaging research of parents' brain response to infant cues, this talk will chart a global ”human parental caregiving” network, which consists of several interconnected cortical networks superimposed upon an ancient limbic network that has shown in animal studies to underpin the expression of maternal care in female rodents."

from the same talk "the ”maternal pathway”, is triggered by hormones of pregnancy and childbirth and relying to a great extent on the subcortical mammalian network, and the ”paternal pathway”,

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0001664

http://www.pnas.org/content/114/45/E9465

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4157077/

Will that do?

@apokrisis
Hormones influencing behavior, I don't buy as instinct. Instinct, is more of an "if/then" innate behavioral programming. A bird cannot help but build the nest. A bird with chicks may defend the next, a bird without chicks may flee the nest at danger. It cannot help but do this behavior.
Hormones like adrenaline, oxytocin, etc. are globalized chemicals that perhaps influence behavior. That does not count as an "instinct' though it might originate in the limbic system and other older parts of the brain related to instinctual responses. So yes, indeed we inherit those parts of the brain, but the outcome has very little in producing innate behaviors which as I am using the term, is much more specific behavior than globalized emotional responses.

Our directed behavior, however, is linguistic-cultural based. I want to do X because of X reasons. Some reasons are unknown, but is that "instinct"? That could just be as a child there were people who influenced the decision through subtle cues. The unconscious has been discussed and written about. There are things we do that may not have reasons, but are done none the less. Perhaps we make post-facto reasons even for the case. However, these decisions are mediated through linguistic-cultural means.