if they exist in people's brains — ToothyMaw

I doubt they exist as separate brain states. I'd guess, without any specific justification, that no brain state ever repeats itself.

Could you explain "matters"? And do you mean you support or oppose the taboo? — Apollodorus

To boil it down to fit the context of this discussion, to me it represents the most important difference between the acceptability of incest as opposed to that of homosexuality.

Is it possible to define the total number of possible beliefs that can be formed via interacting freely with one’s environment as a mathematical set? Or, even more simply, can things like beliefs even be expressed as belonging to a set? It seems to me that they can if beliefs or the forming of beliefs take the form of brain states or changes in the structure of the brain, but I’m not sure. I am trying to axiomatize something greater than this, so out of context this question might sound kind of bonkers. — ToothyMaw

I don't think beliefs actually exist as separate things that can be counted in any realistic sense. I see my understanding of the world as an interconnected, inseparable network of ideas, thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes. Any separation is artificial and I guess it would have to be associated with language. How many ways are there to slice the pie of my worldview?

it is about family relationships and betrayal of trust or duty. — prothero

Whatever the genetic or anthropological reasons for incest taboo, this is the one that matters to me.

But suppose a person may decide to marry or enter into sexual relations with a close relative that is unlikely to result in children being born, for example, if both partners are of the same sex, beyond a certain age, or otherwise unable or indeed unwilling to conceive or procreate. — Apollodorus

See the link in my post above. This kind of rationale is used in the cousin marriage laws in some states.

One good checkpoint for attitudes and laws against incest is cousin marriage. This is a link to the Wikipedia article on cousin marriage. It has a really interesting table of the different laws in different US states.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin_marriage_law_in_the_United_States

I’m sure a lot of you would disagree and I’m wondering if someone can provide some sort of defense for treating homosexuality differently from incest. — TheHedoMinimalist

Checking on the web, the incidence numbers for incidence of incest are all over the place. This is from the "Atlantic."

One in three-to-four girls, and one in five-to-seven boys are sexually abused before they turn 18, an overwhelming incidence of which happens within the family.

If that's true, does it change your questions?

Not true. The 10th man's job is to simply disagree whether or not he has good reasons to do so. — TheMadFool

I think perhaps you misunderstand the role of the 10th man, although that does explain a lot about some of your ideas.

No I didn't. I stated the obvious. We're engaged in the enterprise of mimicking nature and quite badly at that. A simple proof that's the case: Birds have wings, airplanes have wings. Bird wings came first. — TheMadFool

Pterodactyls came first.

Cherry-picking. Confirmation bias. — TheMadFool

You picked the cherry.

I'm just the 10th man. — TheMadFool

Perhaps you think a little too highly of yourself.

To that I'll say no aircraft can match a falcon's grace, skill and agility in flight. — TheMadFool

Then again, as far as I know, no falcon can fly for thousands of miles carrying hundreds of passengers at an altitude of 35,000 feet.

Do we know enough to say for sure what had happened or is there some wishful thinking going on? — Gregory

There are many very good, well-written books on evolution aimed at intelligent laymen. My favorites are by Stephen Jay Gould. Richard Dawkins is another good source.

The fossil record is probably the most important single source for information for geologists. The sequence of fossils has been used to help age rock deposits since the 1700s. Because it is so important, it has been studied extensively.

The fossils are real no doubt but the rest of paleontology is imagination. This isn't a flaw as much as it's a challenge worthy of true genius. — TheMadFool

Aah. Our anti-science expert speaks again.

There is still controversy around the 'out of Africa' theory. — Wayfarer

It is my understanding that the African origin of humans is well established. What do you know (about this) that I don't.

But life and mind are the products of a properly complex causality - one where management of instability is the general core principle. So life thrives on the edge of chaos. The more tippable the physics, the more profit there is for the information that can tip it. — apokrisis

The things you're writing about pinged my memory, so I went back looking through the archives. There were two previous threads I really enjoyed. One, "What is life?", started by @Samuel Lacrampe about four years ago, included your discussion of information's role in biology. The other, "Networks, Evolution, and the Question of Life," started by @StreetlightX, also about four years ago, included a back and forth among SLX, @fdrake, and you about gene networks. I think I'm going to go back and reread them.

Non-totalitarian nations which are founded upon a respect for, and a safeguarding of, the God given rights of the individual and democratic constitutional forms of representative government had better wake up and prepare themselves for an extended era of stiff competition with this future, formidable adversary. This non-Communist China. — charles ferraro

Interesting and well written. I thought we were heading for a China hawk manifesto about the need to confront China militarily. I'm pleased to see you took a more measured approach.

Upvote because I have no idea what you've written, but believe it completely.

Your Thoughts? — boagie

You should put a lot more effort into your opening posts.

Forgot to say - welcome to the forum.

This dilemma creates a neurological state of fear vibrating in the chest caverns of all persons affected, and the consequences are hefty in the resulting creation of a bureaucratic insurance state which is, essentially, manifest desolation of the Republic. — Sha'aniah

I'm not afraid when I drive my car or walk. I think I have a pretty good understanding of the risks. I try to be careful. I think this is true for most people, so I don't see the dilemma you describe. On the other hand, there are much more significant effects of automobile use, in particular, impacts to air quality

the most viable current theory is a sort of diversely pluralistic monism explaining perception as conventional chemistry infused with distinctly quantum dynamics, most essentially the superpositions or blended wavelengths which bring about complex assortments of color and feeling within matter. — Enrique

I'll start by admitting I don't really know what this means. I doubt any credible physicist, biologist, neurologist, psychologist, or any other scientist believes that a mechanism such as what you have described explains consciousness. You should provide a better description of the mechanism you're discussing and some references.

I won't object to that. Different strokes for different folks. — TheMadFool

I went back and changed what I wrote after I first posted it to this:

You often have interesting and useful things to say on the subjects we talk about on this forum. On the other hand, it makes no sense for you and me to continue discussing this issue.

The way I originally wrote it, the way you quoted it in your post, was unnecessarily snotty.

I do think it's more than different strokes for different folks. I think you and I have a fundamentally different idea of what it takes to justify an argument.

Here's my personal take on psychology for your consideration. — TheMadFool

You often have interesting and useful things to say on the subjects we talk about on this forum. On the other hand, it makes no sense for you and me to continue discussing this issue.

I'll give you the same advice I gave Isaac. It's time to give up. You'll never convince TMF.

My psych. professor said, and I quote exactly, "Psychology is not a science." — tim wood

@Isaac - I reiterate my advice to you. Time to give up.

It's not designed for cities of people who don't know one another, can't possibly help everyone who needs it, and have no reason to assume reciprocity. That seems to me where social biology fails and moral philosophy enters. — Kenosha Kid

I'm not sure if that's true, but it seems plausible.

One of us hasn't got your post right. — Kenosha Kid

Are you saying you don't think our social instincts are a source of morality?

This is just a misguided question, giving too much significance to a word. It is said that there is a being, God, which created the universe and has the power to shape it as he wills. Some might say that he can kill himself and others might say that he can't. Whether you want the term "omnipotence" to include being able to kill oneself or to include being unkillable (even by oneself) or to contradictorily include both is irrelevant. — Michael

This "paradox" and all similar ones are knots we like to tie in our language when we have too much time on our hands. As you say - it's words. It has nothing to do with any non-verbal thing. God, if it exists, is not constrained by the limits of our language.

Whatever had the rats in the experiment free their fellow rat (even save a bit of food for them), I wouldn't be surprised is also an aspect of human moral behavior, or perhaps proto-morals of sorts. — jorndoe

I think our social instincts are a major source for our moral attitudes, but thinking of empathy as a sort of proto-morality is putting the cart before the horse. Morality is the icing on the cake, the rationalization, for our emotional and social behavior.

But if you insist, then your burden is to demonstrate against what seems obvious, that areas of psychology are not science, and show them science. If psych. is to be all science, then all of it must be science. — tim wood

@Isaac - It's a lost cause. Tim will just go on redefining the question, moving the goal posts as they say. Now we don't have to show that psychology is a science in general. We have to show that every psychological study ever done is legitimate science.

This from Wikipedia:

No true Scotsman, or appeal to purity - One attempts to protect their universal generalization from a falsifying counterexample by excluding the counterexample improperly. Rather than abandoning the falsified universal generalization or providing evidence that would disqualify the falsifying counterexample, a slightly modified generalization is constructed ad-hoc to definitionally exclude the undesirable specific case and counterexamples like it by appeal to rhetoric. This rhetoric takes the form of emotionally charged but nonsubstantive purity platitudes such as "true, pure, genuine, authentic, real", etc.

Sometimes it just makes sense to give up.

In English, Science means those subjects which use hypotheses, — Corvus

Thank you for this. Your post has made a better case for psychology being a science than my last 10 posts in this discussion have. I've downloaded Haack's essay.

What you've written may provide a case that some psychology is bad science, but provides no evidence at all that psychology as a discipline is not a science.

Truth be told, my criticism is particular in being directed against Freud but I'm using military tactics - liquidate high value targets. Attacking Freud successfully as I think I've done leaves psychology leaderless. Psychology should collapse unless psychology is the mythical Hydra. — TheMadFool

You aren't "using military tactics - liquidate high value targets." As Ying noted:

you're just ignorant about psychology as a discipline. — Ying

The key term is prescriptive. — baker

Please elucidate.

You're beating around the bush. I'll make it easy for you: name one psychological theory that matches up to a scientific theory and we can begin to discuss it. — TheMadFool

Name one geological, or ecological, or paleontological, or evolutionary biology theory that matches up to what you call a "scientific theory."

The reality is that psychologists themselves act as if psychology _is_ a hard science like physics or chemistry. That's how much credit is given to psychology, that's how much credit they believe they deserve. — baker

Maybe some do, but most don't. Most recognize that much of psychology is an observational science like geology or evolutionary biology, i.e. primarily descriptive as opposed to analytic.

However, unlike patterns in physics which are inviolable (laws), those in psychology are statistical i.e. all we might be able to say is most people think a certain way. — TheMadFool

Again, this shows your ignorance of science, even "hard" science like physics. Many, most, of the important properties in physics are statistical. Once you get above particle physics, physical laws are based on statistical laws of mass behavior. They call it "statistical mechanics." Entropy is a purely statistical property. Pressure is a purely statistical property.

That's exactly the point! Psychology isn't/can't be a science. For it to come anywhere close to being a science, it needs people to be honest when reporting their thoughts, feelings, intuitions, whathaveyou and as we all know, honesty is (not) the best policy. — TheMadFool

This is complete bullwinkle. So, you say that if a subject is difficult to study, it can't be science. That just shows your lack of understanding of science, psychology, and human nature.

Paint the wall both yellow and blue in stripes. The wall's not blue (scientific) - genius. It's not fucking yellow either is it? Moron. — Isaac

Now, now. You're getting all excited again.