"Rev Dr" Lenny Flank
Posts: 2560 Joined: Feb. 2005
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Quote (Reciprocating Bill @ Aug. 25 2007,14:58) | Further, there are large and very interesting experimental literatures within psychology and cognitive science that demonstrate that persons themselves often have shockingly little reliable access to the antecedents and consequences of their own subjective states, as well as of the environmental factors that shape what they "feel" to be subjective judgments, decisions, etc. We often learn more about their subjective states by confining our attention to objectively accessible/observable phenomena than can be learned by querying the subject him or herself. Introspection discloses surprisingly little about the bases for our behaviors and decisions - although we stubbornly model ourselves as unfettered agents.
In fact, as I muse on this topic, I would argue that science (and specifically cognitive psychology) has a great deal to say about the subjective, in some instances by way of subtraction. It is clear that we aren't the quite the agents we fancy ourselves to be, and have somewhat over-valorized subjective agency and experience. |
Indeed. ?No one has said otherwise.
What science CAN'T do, though, is tell us whether abortion is wrong, or what I should do with a wallet full of money I find on the sidewalk, or whether brunettes are cuter than blondes.
As I said before, even if we discover right down to the molecular level why person X holds this opinion and person Y holds that one, that STILL doesn't tell us which opinion is correct.
-------------- Editor, Red and Black Publishers www.RedandBlackPublishers.com
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