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Is any one alignment intellectually superior?
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 2160000" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>I'm not entirely sure what you mean. Do you mean by 'empathy' all the things that we might attach value to, say clothes and big screen TV's, or do you mean specifically the compassion we might feel towards other human beings? Either way, I suppose my answer is the same, but I at least want to make clear that my answer addresses (I think) both cases so that you don't misunderstand.</p><p></p><p>I think you can't really separate 'intellectual choice' from 'cultural conditioning' all that much. The two things shape each other. Cultural conditioning is really only the data by which you are making your intellectual choices, and in turn this encourages you to or discourages you from seeking out new kinds of data. You cultural conditioning encourages you to place value on something and to respond to that something in a loosely ritualistic way. Our life gets filled with these little rituals. How we act when there is a football game on TV. How we respond to the presence of food. What we do when we get home from work. How we greet our friends and so forth. The fact that these values are something which were held before we held them and which are generally held reflexively doesn't mean intellectual choice hasn't gone on. Our field of choices is smaller, but they are still thier and our own particular set of rituals and biases becomes a nuanced subset of the rituals and biases offered by our culture. We don't ever stop intellectually responding to our surroundings, and the more intelligent you are the more this is true. Even John's forebrain-hindbrain reactions don't seem to me nearly as distinct as John feels they are. Maybe this is because I work in an evolution lab and see the hindbrain merely as 'evolutionary conditioning' and 'legacy intellect' which you are carrying with you as part of your whole intellectual process. John claims that the hindbrain's decisions aren't 'rational'. I don't necessarily agree. Nor do I find in my own mental experience that higher intellectual experience can't be and doesn't summon forth powerful emotions.</p><p></p><p>The most powerful way that cultural conditioning works in my opinion is the way humans instinctively react to the unknown information. Whenever someone tells you something that you have never encountered, or most especially when you see a group discussing something you don't know, you're first instinct is usually to believe the data and even go so far as to pretend as if you'd heard something or thought something like that before because you don't want to appear ignorant. (Small children do this alot.) Thereafter, your tendency is to become a strong defender of that initial data because you do not want to appear to be ignorant. You become emotionally invested in your commitment to defending that data, because each time you defend it, it increases the (emotional) consequences of having been wrong all those times. So, when we encounter contridicting data, we almost never immediately give up our convictions and jump to the new position immediately. The results in our first exposure to any opinion being more shaping than any other. But I would never go so far as to suggest that we stop being intellectually engaged in the doubts and defences of the opinion or that we are all doomed to be clones of our parents, peers, or society. Intellectual choice and cultural conditioning are universially present. </p><p></p><p>Now you are probably going to say to me, 'But I'm a skeptic. My instinct is to disbelieve.' Ok, fine, I'm a skeptic too, but generally its because this new thing I encounter isn't really new, but a variation on some old thing that I'm busy defending by my ritual of disbelief.</p><p></p><p>As for specific empathy, I think it comes in part from that stored legacy of rationality which teaches us that empathy improves fitness, but it too is obviously shaped by intellect and culture in some sort of complex exchange.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Actually, I'm most interested in systems for quantifying how many people in a population - say a village - will be of each alignment for the purposes of simulation. I'd also be interested in knowing to what extent different populations differed in alignment choices.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 2160000, member: 4937"] I'm not entirely sure what you mean. Do you mean by 'empathy' all the things that we might attach value to, say clothes and big screen TV's, or do you mean specifically the compassion we might feel towards other human beings? Either way, I suppose my answer is the same, but I at least want to make clear that my answer addresses (I think) both cases so that you don't misunderstand. I think you can't really separate 'intellectual choice' from 'cultural conditioning' all that much. The two things shape each other. Cultural conditioning is really only the data by which you are making your intellectual choices, and in turn this encourages you to or discourages you from seeking out new kinds of data. You cultural conditioning encourages you to place value on something and to respond to that something in a loosely ritualistic way. Our life gets filled with these little rituals. How we act when there is a football game on TV. How we respond to the presence of food. What we do when we get home from work. How we greet our friends and so forth. The fact that these values are something which were held before we held them and which are generally held reflexively doesn't mean intellectual choice hasn't gone on. Our field of choices is smaller, but they are still thier and our own particular set of rituals and biases becomes a nuanced subset of the rituals and biases offered by our culture. We don't ever stop intellectually responding to our surroundings, and the more intelligent you are the more this is true. Even John's forebrain-hindbrain reactions don't seem to me nearly as distinct as John feels they are. Maybe this is because I work in an evolution lab and see the hindbrain merely as 'evolutionary conditioning' and 'legacy intellect' which you are carrying with you as part of your whole intellectual process. John claims that the hindbrain's decisions aren't 'rational'. I don't necessarily agree. Nor do I find in my own mental experience that higher intellectual experience can't be and doesn't summon forth powerful emotions. The most powerful way that cultural conditioning works in my opinion is the way humans instinctively react to the unknown information. Whenever someone tells you something that you have never encountered, or most especially when you see a group discussing something you don't know, you're first instinct is usually to believe the data and even go so far as to pretend as if you'd heard something or thought something like that before because you don't want to appear ignorant. (Small children do this alot.) Thereafter, your tendency is to become a strong defender of that initial data because you do not want to appear to be ignorant. You become emotionally invested in your commitment to defending that data, because each time you defend it, it increases the (emotional) consequences of having been wrong all those times. So, when we encounter contridicting data, we almost never immediately give up our convictions and jump to the new position immediately. The results in our first exposure to any opinion being more shaping than any other. But I would never go so far as to suggest that we stop being intellectually engaged in the doubts and defences of the opinion or that we are all doomed to be clones of our parents, peers, or society. Intellectual choice and cultural conditioning are universially present. Now you are probably going to say to me, 'But I'm a skeptic. My instinct is to disbelieve.' Ok, fine, I'm a skeptic too, but generally its because this new thing I encounter isn't really new, but a variation on some old thing that I'm busy defending by my ritual of disbelief. As for specific empathy, I think it comes in part from that stored legacy of rationality which teaches us that empathy improves fitness, but it too is obviously shaped by intellect and culture in some sort of complex exchange. Actually, I'm most interested in systems for quantifying how many people in a population - say a village - will be of each alignment for the purposes of simulation. I'd also be interested in knowing to what extent different populations differed in alignment choices. [/QUOTE]
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