Anyway, I am wondering today if there is such a thing as a common human psychology in general? — Gregory

Modern psychology has been searching for the common denominator -- or the "essence" -- of the human Mind/Body for several generations. But they typically avoid resorting to the simplistic notion of a spiritual Soul. There are many theories, but little agreement. Ironically there seems to be some parallel between Emotions and Tastes. Strangely, one synonym for "Flavor" is "essence, spirit". :joke:
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/flavor


Passions of the Soul :
All human behaviour can be broken down into four basic emotions, according to research by Glasgow University.
The study has challenged a commonly-held belief that there are six basic emotions of happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise and disgust.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-26019586

A matter of taste :
Western food research, for example, has long been dominated by the four "basic tastes" of sweet, bitter, sour and salty.. . . .
Humans May Taste at Least 6 Flavors :yum:
https://www.livescience.com/17684-sixth-basic-taste.html

Humans, Nature, and Ethics
None­theless, out of this overall general understanding of the range of traits pos­sible given the human genome emerges what is distinctively human, which Fukuyama calls “the hu­man essence” or “Factor X.” This is not itself a trait but an emergent property that depends on the entirety of human traits. Thus, though Fukuyama holds that human nature is definable, he does not hold that we can easily articulate human nature.
https://www.humansandnature.org/humans-nature-and-ethics

The 3 Natures of Man :
[Man's] nature is threefold, animal, human and divine
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=human+nature+angel+or+animal

I'm looking through your links now. Descartes thought the 6 experiences of life were love, hatred, passion, wonder, joy, and sadness. He was sure every other emotion (fear, anxiety, depression, mania) resulted from a mal-use of one of these primal experiences. What coordinates them is generosity (an act of will, using the 6 sensations in proper order). What I am aiming at in this thread is whether the fundamental features of the human psyche can even be definitely determined and codified. Genes change and if it's impossible to determine human nature from philosophy, psychology seems to be only capable of general vague suggestions

I've been doing some more research, and I think when Descartes refers to the pineal gland as a "penis" (check out the SEP article on Descartes and the gland) he is viewing the back of the throat as genitalia. The uvala does look like a penis and the adenoids are what medieval physicians thought moved when making moral choices. They could be seen as testicals and the pineal gland as the prostate. Descartes means the whole apparatus is like a genital. I'm fascinated by this

Maybe you're reading too much into Descartes' work. Nothing wrong, happens to all of us but a word of caution - don't put your words in other people's mouth.

It's plain as the nose on your face that the human emotional range is enumerable and at first glance that might give you the impression that there's such a thing as human nature, the set of feelings we're capable of defining it.

However, in my humble opinion, emotions per se don't give human nature meaning; what does though are the things that evoke emotions. So, hatred by itself isn't human nature and neither is love but hating a person who isn't of your race or loving philosophy is what human nature is.

From such a point of view, anyone trying to find an one-size-fits-all human nature has a mountain to climb - not impossible but not easy.

But if science cannot tell us what it is to be fully human, isn't psychology than a matter of opinion??? — Gregory

You'll get all kinds of arguments here about whether psychology is a science or not. I come down on "yes," but others will disagree. Your title was 'Human nature." Is that what you're interested in, or psychology? They certainly are related, but their not exactly the same thing. Also - do you want to talk just about Descartes and other philosophers thought about it? That doesn't seem like a very fruitful path to me. If that's what you want, I'll bow out.

Ok. Human nature. I've thought about this a bit, but I've never done the homework to get my arms around it. I'll just throw some ideas out without editing too much:

• We're animals, mammals - we have the physical and some of the mental and behavioral characteristics of other mammals.
• Our sensory equipment and processing are less acute than many other mammals.
• We have two sexes.
• We are social. We like each other. We live in families and other groups.
• Our offspring are born live and need to be cared for for the first years of life.
• We have a complex mental infrastructure for language and the physical equipment for speech.
• We have larger brains in relation to our body size than other mammals. We have cerebrums and a prefrontal cortex. Whatever that means. I think most other mammals don't have those. Not sure.
• We can be self-aware, unlike all but a few other animals. It is my understanding that whether any other animals can be self-aware is in dispute.
• Lots more

That's a really good start. I believe psychology is broad enough to give a great description of human nature and that keeping fields of study apart is a hindrance to holistic thinking on the subject. I saw something today by the Dalai Lama who said that quantum physics shows we all 1) share one energy 2) create our own reality, and 3) essentially live in eternity. These are near ideas but they are taking scientific ideas waaaay too far. Starting with some materialist basics is important. Your 8 starting points are good and I'm not going to argue with people who reject them. A saw a video recently by vsauce of "why we wear clothes". His answer was "because we are smart". We take so long to develop because are capacity for abstract thought is so high. We NEED to be selective in reproducing because children require a lot of care in order to grow up and become psychologists or quantum physicists. Otherwise our species will fall apart. I think this adds to what you were saying

Yes it's hard not to generalize. Thanks for the admonition

Yes it's hard not to generalize. Thanks for the admonition — Gregory

What do you think of my take on human nature? Do the set of emotions humans are capable of define human nature or, because these same emotions are present in other non-human animals in varying degrees, is it that what makes us exeperince feelings a better measure of human nature?

Well I don't know if I can say anything profound about your distinction. Emotions define us much and whether there is a substrate for them has always been debated. Since I started with Descartes let me use him as an example of someone who tried to understand his psychology in terms of a soul united to a mechanical body of a particular kind. He, in his most honest moments, would hav to admit that the animal spirits mentioned long ago by the Alexandrian school of Herophilos and Erasistratus were indeed very alive. And that the fiery substance he felt in his ventricles were as much his as his mind. So it seems we are very clever mammals who are obsessed with understanding ourselves

But if science cannot tell us what it is to be fully human, isn't psychology than a matter of opinion??? — Gregory

No. On the one hand science cannot tell us what it is to be fully human, and on the other hand psychology is far more than a matter of opinion.

I will declare, unscientifically but philosophically, that at least part of what it means to be fully human is to have a theory of mind, which is to say to have an idea of what it is to be human and as part of that, a psychological theory. This means that the way one understands oneself and others forms a substantial part of one's character. To be human is to be caught in this tangle of partial understanding of self and other, and thus that very human nature is modified by human theories of human nature. This is why science cannot 'complete' its psychological theories.

What I am aiming at in this thread is whether the fundamental features of the human psyche can even be definitely determined and codified. Genes change and if it's impossible to determine human nature from philosophy, psychology seems to be only capable of general vague suggestions — Gregory

I suspect that most questions about "human nature" are looking for properties ("fundamental features") that are different from "animal nature". But as mammals, we share most of our emotional actions & reactions with the majority of warm-blooded animals. So, what's distinctive for humans has traditionally been attributed to our "angelic nature", which is supposedly the ability to govern emotions with reason. But even that quality of human nature is controversial. So, I doubt you'll find a consensus, even among experts.

Theoretically, if humans are eventually replaced by robots or cyborgs, they would or could come closer to the "ideal" of purely rational beings, as exemplified by Mister Spock and Commander Data of Star Trek fame. That's an interesting hypothesis. But, would life be worth living without emotions? Again, consensus will be elusive. Because emotions motivate us to do both positive and negative acts. So, our complicated urges & feelings are both good and bad for us. Yet, maybe it's the challenging balancing act that makes life interesting and worth living --- if only to see what happens next. Hence, my BothAnd philosophy : which seeks to balance opposing motivations into a pleasant harmony, without losing the the positive aspects of our animal nature. :smile:


How Much Better Life Would Be Without Emotions :
All my decisions would be based on logic and mathematical precision and all my actions would be in accordance with a well-crafted plan.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/smashing-the-brainblocks/201710/how-much-better-life-would-be-without-emotions

Both/And Principle :
My coinage for the holistic principle of Complementarity, as illustrated in the Yin/Yang symbol. Opposing or contrasting concepts are always part of a greater whole. Conflicts between parts can be reconciled or harmonized by putting them into the context of a whole system. Dynamic Harmony.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page10.html

Angel Nature : purely rational; emotionless, genderless, hence perfect obedient servants.
Robot = slave

PS___In discussions with "intuitive" (feeling driven) people, who prefer to fly by the seat of their pants, I have been accused of being too rational, in that I try to keep my life neat & orderly. What they don't realize is that my calm rational demeanor is a constant dynamic balancing act. :cool:

Space and time reconcile to eternity and infinity your post said. A materialist view is that it reconciles to what is finite. Seeing objects as the union of pure passivity and activity is what I mean by being. Those are what "things" are in the world. " Stuff" is what people say when speaking of more holistic approaches, putting the universe in another box

Space and time reconcile to eternity and infinity your post said. A materialist view is that it reconciles to what is finite. Seeing objects as the union of pure passivity and activity is what I mean by being. Those are what "things" are in the world. " Stuff" is what people say when speaking of more holistic approaches, putting the universe in another box — Gregory

Hmmmmm??? OK. But what does that have to do with Human Nature? :grin:

I think I can reason without being in spiritual infinities. A lot of people think that is stupid or impossible, but it makes sense to me

So saying we are not "ideas" floating out somewhere, that says something about our nature. But maybe it only leads to psychoanalysis

I think I can reason without being in spiritual infinities. — Gregory

Does that mean you think Human Reasoning is a strictly material phenomenon? If so, can you provide empirical evidence to show how material processes generate the interrelated ideas that we call Reasons?

In my own thesis, Reasons in the mind do indeed have a material substrate. But it's the invisible interactions of Enforming (to enform = to cause to exist ; to create ; to give meaningful form to) that produce the immaterial mental conceptual constructs we call "Reasons". Unfortunately, X-rays & MRIs are not able to photograph those ideas (information networks) in the brain, because they are not physical objects, (perhaps, more like geometrical angular relationships & ratios). Instead, we only know them by subjective introspection. I wouldn't call those imaginary images "spiritual", because of the religious implications. So, I refer to them merely as "Informational". Hence, they are forms of immaterial Enformation, which is not a thing, but a causal process.

Moreover, those mind-to-mind processes (meme propagation) are, as far as I know, found only in the finite real world. The only "infinities" related to the process of Enforming would be properties of the logically necessary First Cause, which for illustrative reasons I call "The Enformer". Or you could call it "The Great Reason". :smile:

Meme : a unit of cultural information, as a concept, belief, or practice, that spreads from person to person in a way analogous to the transmission of genes.

I prefer a conception like human ecology to the essentialist shibboleth "human nature".

? ? ?

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/325726 (re: homo insapiens)

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/348825 (re: men are only "apes of their ideals" ...)

:monkey:

If I say intellect comes from matter, it's like saying steam comes from water. It's limited to phenomena which we know. When you say that the world is information, you are saying it's less than material and given to us by a higher intellect. My position seems much simpler than yours, if I am understanding you correctly. People seem so concerned that the human idea of universals reflect something real. It seems to me though that each human has his own humanity in a sense, although we can speak of common biology and this common nature in that sense. The first instinct is survival, and the second is the urge to mate. They don't always feel like the most fundamental but when felt strongly they appear as the basic unit of our psychologies. Situations can arise where love seems to trump both desires but the question of free will in those situations might more complex than we realize, and perhaps we love ourselves when we love others

If I say intellect comes from matter, it's like saying steam comes from water. It's limited to phenomena which we know. When you say that the world is information, you are saying it's less than material and given to us by a higher intellect. My position seems much simpler than yours, if I am understanding you correctly. — Gregory

How does "intellect come from matter"? Do you know what process or "force" could cause inert matter to evolve into a living thinking being? Based on Information Theory and Quantum Theory, I suggest that mind did indeed emerge from material substrates, and I propose a "mechanism" for that Phase Transition. But I don't think that mental noumena could emerge from mindless matter (phenomena), unless that matter had been enformed with the potential for mind. Since I'm neither a scientist nor an academic philosopher though, you don't have to take my word for it. You can investigate the thesis, and judge for yourself whether it sounds plausible that Enformation is a causal process & force in the real world. And "It's limited to phenomena which we know".

To say that Information is "less than material" is a negative comparison of two different categories of reality. It's like saying that your mind is "less than" a pile of sand. You might better understand the concept underlying Enformationism, if you would compare Information with Energy instead of Matter. The analogy I prefer is to say that Matter is the "clay", and Information is the "Sculptor", who transforms the amorphous mud into a meaningful image. Did that 3 dimensional form originate from the clay or from ideas (information) in the mind of the enformer (sculptor)? Michaelangelo famously quipped, "I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free". Did he really "see" the angel in the rock, or in his imagination (information)?

You seem to be confusing the "phenomena we know" (objective matter) with the subjective knowledge of that stuff in the mind. When I say that the mundane information in real world minds originated in a Mind that is literally out-of-this-world, what do you imagine I'm referring to : 5th dimensional aliens, the infinite Multiverse, or the Jehovah of Genesis? Actually, none of the above. But you'd have to investigate the whole thesis, not just a few words in a post, in order to see what I'm saying. Til then, you don't "understand me correctly". :cool:

Causal Information : Energy is the relationship between information regimes. That is, energy is manifested, at any level, between structures, processes and systems of information in all of its forms, and all entities in this universe is composed of information
https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/22084/how-is-information-related-to-energy-in-physics

Introduction to Enformationism : http://bothandblog6.enformationism.info/page80.html

Abstract concept (information)
transformed into concrete object

I prefer a conception like human ecology to the essentialist shibboleth "human nature". — 180 Proof

I understand where you are coming from. It's that prejudice (us versus them) against Essentialism, that I have to try repeatedly to overcome in my references to the philosophical thesis of Enformationism. A key concept of that theory is that Energy ("essence of life") is a form of Enformation. Unfortunately, it's difficult for those who reject religion to overcome their negative attitude toward Essentialism, which they equate with Spiritualism. Ironically, the term "essential" is commonly used by atheist scientists in reference to the mundane phenomenon of Energy. So, the notion of Essence is not really outmoded or unimportant. :smile:

Shibboleth : a custom, principle, or belief distinguishing a particular class or group of people, especially a long-standing one regarded as outmoded or no longer important.
___Oxford Dictionary
Note -- in this case, it's not Racism, but Materialism

What is essential for all living organisms? : All living organisms need energy to grow and reproduce, maintain their structures, and respond to their environments; metabolism is the set of the processes that makes energy available for cellular processes.
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-biology/chapter/energy-and-metabolism/

I prefer a conception like human ecology to the essentialist shibboleth "human nature". — 180 Proof

I understand where you are coming from. It's that prejudice (us versus them) against Essentialism, that I have to try repeatedly to overcome in my references to the philosophical thesis of Enformationism. A key concept of that theory is that Energy ("essence of life") is a form of Enformation. Unfortunately, it's difficult for those who reject religion to overcome their negative attitude toward Essentialism, which they equate with Spiritualism. Ironically, the term "essential" is commonly used by atheist scientists in reference to the mundane phenomenon of Energy. So, the notion of Essence is not really outmoded or unimportant. :smile:

Shibboleth : a custom, principle, or belief distinguishing a particular class or group of people, especially a long-standing one regarded as outmoded or no longer important.
___Oxford Dictionary
Note -- in this case, it's not Racism, but Materialism

What is essential for all living organisms? : All living organisms need energy to grow and reproduce, maintain their structures, and respond to their environments; metabolism is the set of the processes that makes energy available for cellular processes.
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-biology/chapter/energy-and-metabolism/

I've read a lot of your links but I'm not getting the information stuff. Information is "facts in the mind" by definition. A billiard table may be waves and particles but our experience of is as a sculpted particle. You might not see it from the front side, how mind could come from "that". But view.it from the side and then from behind and it is a different story

Hegel's mystical logic of motion "That which is not may be what it was". He said about logic:

"The linear series that in its movement marks the retrogressive steps by knots, but thence went forward again in one linear stretch, is now, as it were, broken at these knots, these universal moments, and fall asunder into many lines, which, being bound together into a single bundle, combine at the same time symmetrically, so that the similar distinctions, in which each separately took shape within a sphere, meet again."

Hegel's presentation of Aristotle's view of the soul is also interesting: "Certainly what is really present as an individual is just this condition of being in sensuous form reflected out of sense into self; it is the visible as a sensuous presentment of the invisible, which constitutes the object of observation."

For him, the ultimate reality is the love of syllogism. Highly mystical but ultimately materialistic

In the chapter Reason as Lawgiver he says "self-consciousness cannot and will not again go beyond it's object because it is there at home with itself: it will not, because the object is all power and all being; it cannot, because the object is its self...We cannot ask for their origin or justification, nor is there something else to search for as their warrant, for other than this independent self-subsistent reality could only be self consciousness itself...which knows itself to be the moment of self-existence, independence, and self-determination".

We see objects as part of our experience as a material object

"testimonies of the soul are as simple as they are true, as obvious as they are simple, as common as they are obvious, as natural as they are common, as divine as they are natual. I think that they cannot appear to any one to be trifling and ridiculous if he considers the majesty of Nature, whence the authority of the soul is derived. What you allow to the mistress you will assign to the disciple. Nature is the mistress, the soul is the disciple" Tertullian

I've read a lot of your links but I'm not getting the information stuff. Information is "facts in the mind" by definition. — Gregory

Perhaps you are reading the wrong links. Your definition was the traditional usage of the term "information", up until Shannon's Digital Information Theory abstracted away the personal meaning of those facts, and til Quantum Theory began to show that physical objects, such as your billiard table, are ultimately "fields" of mathematical Information, which we perceive as material things. Unfortunately, Shannon defined "information" in terms of Entropy, which is the negative "force" that breaks-down whole organisms into useless inert pieces of dead matter. But other scientists have shown that Information is also equivalent to Energy, which builds-up living organic matter. And Human Nature may be the current pinnacle of the evolutionary process of En-form-action.

In order to counter Shannon's devaluation of Information, I have linked to many other expert opinions, which reveal the "many faces of Information". So, the bottom line of my thesis is that everything and every thought in this world is merely one of the multiple forms of the universal "power to enform". This notion of Information is counter-intuitive like Quantum Theory, but scientists are gradually becoming accustomed to the idea that Reality is not what we see. FWIW, here are some more links to dispel your bewilderment. :nerd:

Information, What Is It? : But perhaps the most fundamental enigma is the ultimate “nature” of Information itself. The original usage of the term was primarily Functional, as the content of memory & meaning. Then Shannon turned his attention to the Physical aspects of data transmission. Now, Deacon has returned to the most puzzling aspect of mental function : Intentions & Actions.
http://bothandblog4.enformationism.info/page26.html

Information Realism : Kastrup then describes how reductive methods failed to find the definitive atom, and instead discovered only amorphous fields. “At the bottom of the chain of physical reduction there are only elusive, phantasmal entities we label as “energy” and “fields”—abstract conceptual tools for describing nature, which themselves seem to lack any real, concrete essence.” This is the conceptual conundrum that launched my own investigation into “the mental nature of reality”, which I call Enformationism.
http://bothandblog4.enformationism.info/page18.html

The basis of the universe may not be energy or matter but information :
https://bigthink.com/philip-perry/the-basis-of-the-universe-may-not-be-energy-or-matter-but-information

Reality Is Not What We Can See :
"What is the world made of?" — what philosophers would call ontology. In Newton's time, it was space, time and particles. After quantum physics and Einstein, it is spacetime and quantum fields. This is where the tension lies — and where we go to the edge of what we know, without any certainty of what comes next.
https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2017/02/01/512798209/reality-is-not-what-we-can-see

The many faces of Information :
Shannon info = Quantified; a verb; what it does; gain vs loss; energy.
Boltzmann info = Random-ized, absent, what was lost; entropy.
Deacon info = Referential; statistical; pointing to an absent future state.
Colloquial info = Predicate; a noun: what it's about; the meaning; what is gained; the referent.
Teleodynamic info = Semiotic; symbols; words that point to absent things; indicating Potential.

There is no true middle ground between physicalism and idealism. You say the nature of reality is mental and matter is the power to inform. I can not reconcile this with traditionalist materialism

There is no true middle ground between physicalism and idealism. You say the nature of reality is mental and matter is the power to inform. I can not reconcile this with traditionalist materialism — Gregory

I'm sorry you feel that way. I've been enjoying my own truish middle ground for several years now. Since I gave-up pursuit of Divine Truth long ago. Perhaps you are still seeking the heavenly realm of Perfect Truth. Unfortunately, in an imperfect world, that's a path of perpetual frustration. Yet, moderation is in the mind of the beholder, not in the crazy pendulum world out there, swinging back & forth between extremes. So, when selecting beliefs for my personal worldview, I choose partial "truths" from both sides, and leave the obvious untruths behind. That method allows me to approximate the whole truth, by including both Objective and Subjective, Secular & Religious, Eastern & Western perspectives.

The hybrid result is something close to Aristotle's Golden Mean, which eschews absolute extremes in favor of relative averages. His mentor, Plato, tended toward the extreme of perfect abstract Idealism, but Ari preferred to ground his world in imperfect tangible Realism. Likewise, I have found a way to "reconcile" the non-classical weirdness of Quantum Theory with the novelty of Information Theory, along with ancient notions of Holism & Panpsychism, to produce a personal worldview. that is not beholden to any traditional system of belief, such as Materialism versus Spiritualism, or Physicalism versus Idealism, if you prefer. I call that attainable path to truth, Enformationism. :cool:

Note : Absolutism produces a world of win-lose competition, while Relativism allows us to find the middle path of win-win cooperation.

Synonyms for a win-win attitude : accomodation, accord, concession, understanding, etc.

Consilence :
1. agreement between the approaches to a topic of different academic subjects, especially science and the humanities.
2. In science and history, consilience (also convergence of evidence or concordance of evidence) is the principle that evidence from independent, unrelated sources can "converge" on strong conclusions.