@Limbo

Well, I believe that self-evalution is a big problem in all areas of our culture, and the difference between productivity and being mired in self-absorption. We've lost sight of our ability to evolve in this regard, and instead embrace egotism and self-indulgence. With some very serious consequences.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ukqLXH17bY

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rcgd.isr.umich.edu%2Fcrockerlab%2Fscales%2FCSWscale.pdf&h=e8027
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.psychologie.uni-freiburg.de%2Fabteilungen%2FSozialpsychologie.Methodenlehre%2Fcourses%2Fws0809%2Fbroemer%2Ftexte-fur-seminar-selbst-und-selbstwert%2FT4%2Fdownload&h=e8027
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.medicalnewstoday.com%2Farticles%2F218499.php&h=e8027
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fthesituationist.wordpress.com%2F2010%2F02%2F20%2Fclarence-darrow-on-the-situation-of-crime-and-criminals-2%2F&h=e8027

@Randall - It's not crap. We must first realize we are not free, and that our thoughts, feelings, emotions etc... are contingent on domains of self-evaluation. We go through a radical deconstruction of our character, reigning in the determinants. It is in-fact, through determinism, that one becomes free. But freedom of this sort is gifted/earned. All this contingency and self-evaluation is Babylon, Maya, Hell.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuiKJ0rRTAo&feature=related

@Alex - Then allow me to take it a step further and suggest that procreation is an important process for the continuation of existence. But I'll shelf that discussion.

It is certainly important and we are programmed to do it, but I was remarking more on how we derive our self-worth. If we can imagine ourselves even inhabiting a universe within which procreation was important for the continuation of our species and perhaps existence itself, we'd be able to derive a great sense of self-worth in the act of procreation. Whether or not it was true. If I can imagine myself as a great parent, but neglect my kids, then my perception is without warrant. But perhaps due to the composition of my character my own self-evaluation is more important to me than my children. I may try to boost up my child's self-esteem and boast about how great they are compared to their peers. I may even resort to being devious to make sure my child does outperform. But if my child doesn't, I might scapegoat the child for the damage to my identity. All-the-while, I'm not focusing on what would actually help my child to perform. Parenting I suggest, could allow a person to overcome self-focus, or they could identify with their child and have varying degrees of bias, delusion and pride attached. In other words "how we "whitewash" the pain of raising kids and glorify the joy" and our "selective memory"

"It's kind of like giving birth: the memory of 30 second of birth trumps the 24 hours of labor pain."

Yet, I also believe it is true that it is a great thing, but a delicate thing. One has to be careful about self-evaluation as a parent [or a human]. IMHO

@Alex

Anytime our self-worth is evaluated in terms of a contingency, we will engage in cognitive biases supportive of that contingency. Confirmation bias, self-consistency bias, etc...

This is why "fundies" of religion will never understand evolution. They simply cannot see the value in it as long as it contradicts those which they are currently contingent on.

Likewise, secularists may never see the value of religious teachings and ancient wisdom, as long as they maintain that there is much more value attached to their particular domain within which their self is evaluated.

We see this on every side of an issue; from global warming, to 9/11, to abortion, to homosexuality, to everything. Humans do not have an inherent sense of self-worth, but derive that worth from evaluations within specific domains. When those are threatened, we are plunged into despair and depression, and remain there until we can establish our worth in a new domain or else become spiritually enlightened and realize exactly what is actually going on inside to make us feel that way; namely how we define and evaluate ourselves.

Then again, maybe some of you are familiar with the role of contingencies in the evaluation of self-worth or similar. I use those terms purely as a reference to the body of formal academic research on the subject. At least in the field of psychology and/or developmentalism. On a deeper level, contingencies of this sort actually shape the organizational structure of the human brain, and if neurophilosopher Metzinger is anywhere near the truth, the very fact of self-awareness demands that we are highly contingent in our view of ourselves. "I am a father" is an identity contingent on relations to ones own child. The "I" is actually nothing but relations, contingencies.

"A self is a repertoire of behavior appropriate to a given set of contingencies." -- B. F. Skinner

Realizing this subjectively is rather difficult, but by all means possible with the right guidance. And one will come to find that actually, one's whole concept of reality, self-hood and relationships and any other conceptions which reference them, are probably completely inaccurate. And that is why we find ourselves so confusing. We don't realize our absolute contingency. Rather, we will remain deeply biased in favor of our contingencies, because any threat to our contingencies is a threat to ourselves.

My opinion, not like any of you will care or understand, and sorry for being cynical but I have little reason to think any of you will make sense of it.

The psychological boost that children give to their parents is by a contingency in the evaluation of their self-worth. Through relationship with the child the parents ego gets boosted, by a crumpled up drawing of mom or dad at the bottom of the kids backpack, or by the kid depending on dad. It is the same reason we keep pets, being dependent on us, and adoring us, we feel good about ourselves, like we fulfill a positive role in reality. We may even elevate ourselves to divine heights and draft ourselves as some kind of unconditional lover, all-the-while, our love is wrapped up in this attachment to a specific child which has specific ego-boosting rewards for the parent.

If someone is willing to drop $200 on a jacket that makes them look good and wears out in a year. Why wouldn't they be willing to frame themselves as a parent, regardless of the costs. It opens the opportunity to dwell in all kinds of self-importance. Because now you actually have something important to do. But on the grande scale, you are still not an unconditional lover, you've just gained a new egotistical attachment, and hence a new bias.

I'm not a parent because I am not personally mature and responsible enough to guard against my own inclination to derive egotistical importance from parenting and thereby risk corrupting a child with my culturally obtained neuroses that I've yet to work out completely.

"Now all we have to do is convince someone it has value."

[Foundations of Da Beers corporation]

Well, maybe Neato will publish my last comment, maybe not. I honestly feel like its a bit futile because I know how hard it is to contradict popular opinion. Again, if its not hurting anyone else, do whatever you want. I don't really have a problem with homosexuality, so if you are reading that into me then you are probably missing what I'm saying too. This hypersensitivity to stigma is going to bankgrupt us if we can't even talk about these things. To be honest, we haven't even scratched the surface of this for me, I haven't even remarked on homosexuality per se, its primarily about the line of reasoning that is being used to justify social acceptance of it. Instead of focusing on the meat and potatos, one's own personal freedom, we are paying attention to potentially hazardous forms of reasoning. If people are that sensitive to negative evaluations of themselves and false information about the human condition then we are entering into a world of pain. Where alternate viewpoints aren't even given a proper hearing but are slotted into preconceived categories of opposition and we will never see eye-to-eye. I try very hard to examine both sides of an issue dispassionately and remark on many of the misconceptions on either side, but even I am generally just slotted into one category and ignored. At the extreme, we risk stigmatizing and ostracizing someone whose viewpoint is just different from ours, because we perceive an attack on ourselves.

@Limbo - I appreciate the distinction.

That distinction is very important. There is a difference between what our innate inclinations are and what we can "choose" to be inclined toward, or how we choose to respond to our inclinations.

Anger is an "innate" state of the human mind, yet we can choose whether or not to act on our anger. In the past psychologists have suggested that "venting" our anger on pillows and other objects is a good coping mechanism, however recent research explores how venting itself can increase a person's frequency and intensity of becoming angry. This suggests that "venting" can reinforce the very emotional states that it is supposed to alleviate.

Practical wisdom from our distant past makes the suggestion that we all have particularly bad aspects of ourselves. Many contemporary Christians would identify this as a "sinful nature." Strategies for reigning in devious inclinations are given. A lot of what can ultimately be gleaned from these teachings is that many of our desires, motives and emotional states are factually erroneous. Based on fallacious assumptions about reality and the human condition. Central to this is perhaps the view that human beings are absolutely contingent on a "higher power." To a secularist such a power might be "Nature." Therefore what is "Natural" takes precedent upon what is "Unnatural." As if something which was Godly would take precedent upon something which is Ungodly. That human beings are absolutely contingent is evidence by the formation of our self-identity and the role of contingencies in the evaluation of self-worth. An adept in these schools often needs to work within the primordial feeling portions of their own mind to achieve and inner state of equalibrium with the order governing reality. Such that, their intentions and actions are not disharmonious with the natural order, as is the case with many of the "sinful" inclinations. And there is the belief or perhaps understanding that many of these inclinations feed on themselves, driving behavior which ultimately reinforces the inclination. Whole-scale, a rise in the endorsement of some such inclination could become a sociocultural phenomena. The human identity being absolutely contingent, is in-part contingent upon the sociocultural milieu. In-fact, formal psychology indicates that various forms of imprinting occur to by-and-large shape the values and opinions of humans according to their geographical location and heritage. If one subtracts all these contingent identifiers one is left with the functional aspect of being human itself which may be archaically referred to as "soul."

Perhaps this is mere opinion, but it does at least raise the possibility that the popular trend in society is in-fact wrong. There is a threat of jumping on the band-wagon too soon and making fallacy and nonsense a common part of society. Telling someone that they have the choice to act on an inclination and thereby strengthen that inclination or to explore the inclination and it's functional aspects or explore some other method of erradicating the inclination may not be cruel and unusual punishment, it may in-fact be extremely insightful wisdom and advice. That may or may not be true with respect to homosexuality, but argumentatively it should be considered that there are equally pluasible alternatives. It does disturb me quite a lot that people, even teenagers and prepubescent teens in our societies are not strong enough mentally to handle that kind of "attack." This kind of weakness will completely corrupt our society. It is my suspicion that post-Spock self-love, self-esteem, ego-boosting, parental psychology led to what Twenge has called The Narcissism Epidemic. Wherein, everyone has a heightened sense of entitlement and sensitivity to evalutaions of self-worth which did not exist before the 60s. Researchers in the field of psychology studying the role of contingencies in the evaluation of self-worth find that hypersensitivity to evaluations of self-worth correlates with an inability to accept criticism. Negative self-evaluations lead to depression. Whereas, those who primarily evaluate themselves with respect to principled domains (i.e. religion) do not suffer depression from negative self-evaluation and are more accepting of the possibility they may not already be perfect.

Actually, to provide a clinical definition of pedophilia; one who is primarily and involuntarily attracted to prepubsescence and does not feel an equal attraction to adult humans of either sex.

Though this condition is likely not congenital, it is linked to early-childhood sexual abuse. Victims of childhood sexual abuse develop abnormally in the limbic regions of their brains. And some 80% of convicted pedophiles show abnormal development. So it is pretty damn close to being "born this way" at the very least their own brain development was not within their control.

Clearly, social acceptance can not be based solely on such a baseless argument but must rely primarily on the rights of an individual to freely engage in whatever acts they see fit, so long as they do not trespass on the individual freedoms of others. There still remains the larger social/cultural mores that will shape us going forward.

I don't care what people engage in sexually for the most part. However, "I was born this way" is a really bad argument for the social acceptance of anything. How far would such an argument actually take us? The North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) has tried to use a similar line of reasoning. Claiming that pedophiles are born sexually attracted to prepubescence. Supposing it was true, would it qualify them for social acceptance? My 8-Ball says "NO FRIKKIN WAY!". Nor would it be acceptable if psychopathy and serial murder were innate inclinations of the psycopathic individual. Again, I don't care what people do in the privacy of their own bedroom, but this is a poor argument that if accepted opens the doors to all manner of innate paraphilias.

I had a co-worker eating my food too. I would keep Pizza Pockets in the freezer and they would periodically go missing. Fortunately, our employer keeps Ipecac in the first-aid kit. Unfortunately I'm not that vengeful. In the end I figured, like many of these note-writers, that the person stealing it must really need it, and it would have been nice if they just asked.

But of course; both are merely the coping mechanisms of a more fundamental inability to accept one's own impermanence. Therefor, the desire for independence/permanence must be the craziest of all.

Nice work! But I don't think they are needed to answer those questions.

There is a program on ABC called "What would you do?" that creates scenarios and records the reactions. Whether or not they do any creative editing, there is usually a few decent reactions. Some of the scenarios include; A woman physically and verbally abusing a man in public - most bystanders don't get involved, A baby left crying inside a parked car - most bystanders don't get involved, and A disheveled man lying passed-out on the sidewalk - most bystanders don't get involved.

Of course, there are reasons for this in psychology, most of which can be linked to how the individual perceives their own involvement and the embarrassment or ridicule they may garner by helping. Fear seems to be the primary deterrant for helping others. Fear of earning a negative social/self-image.