It does make sense to be compassionate, because you never know when the tables are going to be turned.
That and the whole iterated prisoner’s dilemma thing, where the best strategy is compassionate until it gets a reason not to be so.
I definately have to agree with that.
Overall, medecine seems to make a stronger case than anything else for the value of science.
Just to clarify, the question wasn’t intended as an attack on science per se. But after reading the one-thousandth shouting match of Creation versus Evolution, I thought it would be more useful to shift the debate from theory to practice.
For my own part, I believe Reason has produced a much better world than the Christian regime ever could. But I still contend there are serious gaps in what Reason can do.
In the store where I work, corporate regulations specify that music must be piped in continually, and only from certain, very bland stations. The reason is that by erasing silence, the company hopes to increase sales by boosting confidence. It’s a belief of some psychologists, you see, that human beings fear silence, that it makes them less confident.
When this abstract theory, cobbled together by trained professionals, is applied to human beings, the result is far more messy. Some people seem more relaxed when the stereo dies, some people don’t seem to care. Most stay longer, and those that are actually there to buy something, buy more.
This is a negligible example. But there are far more serious ones of scientists in the “softer” sciences trying to reduce the human factor to a series of mechanistic equations to fit their calculations. Economic theories reduce people to nothing more than slaves to their class (Marx) or to the Market (The Chicago School). We are told that revolution or globalization are inevitable, because the economist in question has reduced human behaviour to a mathematical function, looked at the circumstances, and decided what people would do.
The response to misuses of Reason always seems to be that not enough Reason was involved, or that the person didn’t have all the facts. But no one has all the facts, and Reason can never really be pure.
More to the point, society is less a structure, and more like an irrational, but useful, concept. It can be argued for rationally on the basis of that usefulness, but as the libertarians prove, it can be denied rationally as well. It is not, however, in itself rational. Perhaps it just simply doesn’t constitute an objective world scientific inquiry can make sense of.
As I recall the prisoner’s dilemma, the two thieves are motivated by base self-interest that just happens to coincide at that moment. And even worse, the best result is not that both will protect each other, but that the other thief will protect you while you squeal on him. The result is that while being honourable is profitable for everyone, being the one dishonourable one in an honourable society, the wolf among sheep, is the most profitable.
So the prisoner’s dilemma is not exactly the best argument for reason-based morality. Besides, if the thieves decide to protect one another, society as a whole loses because these two guys with stolen goods in the trunk of their car get off scott free.
It’s strange to base an argument for morality on lying and theft.
That’s the regular prisoner’s dilemma, not the iterated one. In the iterated one, the thieves never know when will be the last time they have to make that decision. In that case, they’re both better off if they cooperate.
Hamish, you might want to read Voltaire’s Bastards, by John Ralston Saul. This book addresses a lot of the downfalls of reason, and why they occur. It seems this book would answer a lot of the questions you’re asking.
I haven’t heard of a good rebuttal to this book. Hopefully, someone will come along soon and supply one.
This reminds me of how some theologians wail about the lack of religion evident today. To some of them, the high point of human existance was in the middle ages, when faith was stronger. of course, back then, just about EVERYBODY was desperately poor, diseases were rampant (and incurable), the infant mortality was 10 time what it is today, anfd the average lifespan was around 40 yeras!
Yes, science and reason has improved our lives immeasurably. People who think otherwise are ignoring the obvious.
interesting observation, Alex B. your ideas intrigue me and I wish to subscribe to your news letter…
Bashere: LOL! 
That’s great, I love that you recommended that. As a lot of people know, Hamish is my roommate and longtime mentor… and a lot of our philosophical discussions have been based around that very author and that very book! You ought to see his copy, it’s marked up for days.
Have you read his other stuff ?
Ok Ok. So apart from the Internet, antibiotics, libraries, transportation, sanitation and political and social tolerance, what has reason ever done for us?
–Nut
Dreaming frees the soul, energizes the spirit and allows you to do things
that would get your ass thrown in jail if you really tried them.
If not for modern medicine, I would have died at the age of six months (resuscitated in hospital, twin sister not so lucky), four years (scarlet fever), or after the birth of either of my younger daughters (post-partum hemorrhaging). I am a living testimonial to the fact that medical advances have increased longevity, as tomndebb stated, and I’m sure there are many more of us who could say the same.
Ah yes, the good old days.
No childhood shots for disease, have waste water and drinking water mixing together and no sterile tools for doctors to use for your operation while your awake because there was nothing to knock you out. What a fun world it was. Rande…
Actually, as matt_mcl pointed out, I’ve read most of Saul’s work. When I was first introduced to his ideas, I was quite skeptical, because it had been more or less driven into me that Reason was an absolute good. Voltaire’s Bastards finally convinced me, on an intellectual level, that Saul’s ideas have merit. But it’s only recently these ideas have begun to become visceral for me, that I’ve begun to develop an eye for the failures of reason, among its many successes. It’s only recently that I’ve understood to apply them to my daily life.
I doubt we’ll see a good one, for the simple reason that Saul really seems to know what he’s talking about. What marks a visionary thinker from others is that they say something no one’s ever thought of, but once they say it, it seems obvious. Saul has that quality.
Still, some debate might be nice, because discussion is a good thing in general. And besides, if there was some controversy over Saul’s work, maybe more people would hear about it. 
Man, just the fact that someone can ask this question seriously has me disturbed. Have we become so complacent that we’ve lost sight of what it took to lift us out of the fields and forests and gave us all that we have?
Life before the age of science and reason was nasty, brutish and short. Women regularly died in childbirth, infant mortality was high, diseases and starvation killed large numbers of people, and something as simple as an abcessed tooth could lead to a horrible, painful death.
And contrary to modern notions about some pristine pastoral existance ancient people’s led, the truth of the matter is that the vast majority of the human race did not have time or energy to do anything but scrabble an existance out of the land and sleep. Philosophy and leisure were rarities - most people worked night and day to exist until time or disease or accident caught up with them and they died.
[QUOTE]
It’s strange to base an argument for morality on lying and theft[\QUOTE]
<Laughing> Hamish, that’s just one way of representing it. Would you be happier if it was represented as birds choosing hawk or dove, or as matrixes of ((10,-3)(5,0))?
But, actually, I like that it is thieves that have figured out cooperation is the best strategy. After all, if it works even for thieves… (plus, would you really be impressed if two social workers figured out that cooperation is the best strategy? )
Oh, and my own personal “Me TOO”: Appendicitis would have killed my sister years ago. She makes me happy. So, reason and science have made me happier. (of course, she’s becoming a medical doctor – so science and reason have made HER happier too. )
Me’Corva
I was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma at the age of seven. The doctors told my parents they had a year with me on the outside. While I was busy dying, medical science figured out how to beat non-Hodgkins lymphoma into submission. Ten years later, I was asked to counsel a kid who had the same problem, and talking to him I discovered that he had beat it in a matter of nine months on what amounted to an outpatient basis.
People have very short memories. I know people who believe that we’ve always had safe and effective birth control, that germ theory was somehow understood by the ancients. What we think of common sense today is the product of many years of science and reason, even that which is held by those who reject science and reason.
Why shouldn’t I ask the question? The big questions need to be re-asked, over and over again, to ensure we don’t become complacent. It was intended as an honest and not a rhetorical question. If we get to the point where we can’t ask it, then Reason has become a dogma, at which point it’s not really useful.
As the people on the board have proved, a case can be made for the value of Reason. Why shouldn’t the question be asked?
As I said before, I don’t reject Reason out of hand. Reason and science are useful tools. I just worry about their central place in our lives.
All things I recognize.
sigh
I’ve learned a lesson in carefully wording threads. I probably should have called this one “What are the limits of Science and Reason’s ability to improve our lives.”
Interestingly, it seems everyone leaped in with a medical example, and a few with telecommunications examples. I’ve very, very thankful for both these developments, as I’ve said several times.
But the narrow criteria people are choosing is starting to worry me. I found the posts on tolerance a little more interesting, because they are, at least, concrete examples of how reason has improved society, which is really what interested me. I certainly don’t have an idealized, Dungeons-and-Dragons view of the middle ages, where everyone is well-fed and healthy, and free to choose their direction.
The problem is, the debate has been so polarized for so long. Back in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, when it became obvious that the promised Utopia-of-Reason wasn’t coming, but the Industrial Revolution was, the Romantics rejected Reason completely. More recently, some Christians have looked around at the moral void Reason seems to leave, and concluded that life was better before Reason and Science, which I would guess is the reason for the sudden popularity of fundamentalism, even among many well-educated people.
But neither Romanticism or Fundamentalism is an alternative, just other unhealthy extremes.
So I feel I’m walking a tightrope here.
The French Revolution was hailed as a victory of Reason. Voltaire, the voice of the Enlightenment, was carried on the shoulders of the crowd. They re-ordered their calendar to make it more rational, and in tune with nature. They built a statue to the Goddess Reason, and made her a sort of state religion.
Well, I lost faith in the Christian God at age 12, and I’m now beginning to lose faith in His replacement. Sure, She can probably turn water into wine (with the help of a couple of chemists) and heal the sick, but can she give us a sense of right and wrong? A sense of meaning? Something other than a life of quiet desperation?
Why is it knowledge, contrary to the old promise, doesn’t necessarily seem to make people live better, only longer? Were the Chrsitians right after all, and one bite from the Fruit of Knowledge makes us miserable? Or are there areas where Reason is simply powerless, but for which we no longer have any tools? Why are we deteriorating psychologically at the same rate we’re improving physically?
If knowledge is so easy to misuse – as it has been many times throughout the 20th century – then why do we still think the key to the greater good is to eliminate ignorance?
I’m not suggesting pushing Reason and Science off the stage – but should they really be in the spotlight?
There is a simple way of answering this, but accurate data might be a bit hard to find.
What era has the lowest suicide rates?
I also suspect reason a bit. The twentieth century has been bloody on a scale never known before. Reason may bring us many things, but it hasn’t brought up peace- arguably the most important thing to have.
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Recorded suicide rates (of which, of course, there are no accurate data as you say) are not necessarily indicative of anything. The recording of suicide is very much a cultural thing. During times of Catholic influence, suicides would not have been reported as such but rather but downplayed as accidents or somesuch. Within a culture that frowns on suicide, it would be much less likely that a coroner (or their equal) would ascribe Suicide as “cause of death”.
[/hijack]
Another important question is of course, what are the limits of human happiness. Psychologists hypothesis that people rank themselves by how successful other people are, so, even if we are wildly successful, we don’t necessarily rank ourselves as happy if other people are more successful.
As well, the whole hierarchy of needs implies that as we get satisfied more and more, the more we want more abstract concepts. So, it may not be a limitation on reason as much as a limitation on happiness.
But, ignoring all that: Humanitarianism is based on “reason” – and the value judgement that humans are worthy of being happy. You may find a “sense of meaning” there. And, quiet desperation seems, in this society, to be based on loneliness. Can Reason avoid loneliness? Not as an abstract concept – Reason doesn’t save people. But, people save people, and you can fight loneliness.
Prioritize, fight timewasters of all types, reach out and love someone, and yes, this world is very livable.
Oh, and questions about our society are very interesting. The spread of three basic changes: 1) Television accounting for 80% of our spare time 2) wide spread movement of people ( over their lifetime ) leading to an erosion of community 3) people having more than one job in their lifetime ( average of 8 now? ) meaning that community is more reduced have certainly reduced the meaningful communication between people.
But, this, I believe is entirely removed from Reason as a concept – it is merely our societies response to its own values.
Is this more the type of conversation you were seeking?
Me’Corva
"The remarkable thing about television is that it permits several million people to laugh at the same joke and still feel lonely. -TS Elliot "
Our own culture is a bad example, because the Christianity denied a place in heaven to those who committed suicide. It could have acted as a deterrant.
But the point seems to hold when you compare our culture to less-industrialized nations. Psychologists studying these places usually report that people show fewer of the signs of depression there. And while I’m skeptical of the soft sciences and of statistics in general, it does open the door to debate.
The sociologist Emile Durkheim did the first study ever on suicide back in the 19th-century, and found that the primary reason given in most cases was “loneliness.” He concluded that incidence of suicide was rising, and that the culprit was a culture in which ties to other people were through structures and systems, not through more traditional and emotional bonds, in which no one feels connected to society as a whole. He called this society-induced loneliness anomie.
But as for accurate statistics, we only started gathering statistics in the 19th century. Statistics are a very modern obsession, and the more I learn about the subject, the less I believe accurate statistics on anything in society are possible.