Progress

...and closer to home(land)...


separation of powers?

It's depressing knowing that it's likely (certainly with my link) that nothing will ever come of this. Hopefully, the woman in the link you posted will get a great deal of publicity and other's in her situation will join her.

What makes the invasion of another country legal? Well, in the case of George H. W. Bush's invasion of Iraq to liberate Kuwait, the salvation of the soverign nation justified it. No such justification is available in the more recent case of George W. Bush's invasion. Therefore, I conclude the recent invasion of Iraq was illegal. And, by the way, where is Osama Bin Laden?

would the earth ecosystem survive if all non-human life were constrained to the same notions of 'legality'?

Are you saying that tigers would die because predators would be constrained by law? There is a strong argument that killing to survive is justified. Killing to achieve the ends of political power and self-aggrandisement is questionable.

It's a shame that people have the power of reason and choose not to use it. This power has the potential to lift humanity "above the fray" of animal survival to a higher level of existence. It really is shameful, the state of man. Darn shameful.

Human reason is still built on the foundation of non-rationally derived needs. We cannot simply ignore these needs and expect to maintain healthy mental states, we to maintain both if we expect to evolve in an intelligent and emotionally sound direction

Sure, it can be argued that the need to be reasonable is emotionally driven. That doesn't mean that we can't understand it or that it doesn't make sense. Evolution has a very rational, understandable basis. Thus, we see, that the "desire" to see reason is very reasonable in itself, and "maintaining both" is really maintaining one thing. Rationality has no necessary conflict with emotion.

A reasoning mind is a strength. Not using one's mental powers is really a form of laziness, a weakness. That seems to be the unfortunate state of man: shameful tendencies both to indulge in wishful thinking and to take shortcuts and avoid mental exertion. It's a cultural thing, universal on this planet, unfortunately.

I guess what I'm saying is that, while we certainly should move in the direction you are indicating, it is tempting for some to overestimate our capacity to do so (just as it is easy for many to not try at all). It seems to me that intellectuals tend to underestimate the importance of the non-rational in healthy human cognition, although it is also true that their pushing of the boundary is critically important for positive evolution (as you are basically pointing out)

I agree. Psychology is the science that attempts to give understanding of the unconscious, among other things.

The unconscious can be viewed as non-rational, I suppose, but if we were able fully to understand ourselves, perhaps it wouldn't seem so strange.

I may be a bit off topic, but I read recently in the Daily Telegraph of some research results I can't quote, which found that instincts or first impressions or unconcious thoughts, concepts, decisions etc., are often more reliable than 'real' concious thought.

I have personal experience of things I have done where 'I' did not take part in the 'thinking', it just happened, ie., it seemed to be subconcious, and was (bang-on) the right thing to have done, or executed perfectly.

So, it may be that both sub and normal conciousness are ideal but only in the appropriate situations.

I have a psychological theory (hypothesis) about that. Most mental processing is unconscious. The mind spins off unconscious ego-like entities that are "helpers" that do these kinds of things for us. They pop up the answer and then de-constitute.

For example, without an alarm clock, I can wake up exactly on time if I want to. I just look at my watch when I go to bed and say to myself "I will awaken at 6 AM," and sure enough, I do. The same thing happens when we forget about a problem for a few days and then suddenly, we have the answer.

These ego-helper entities can also explain some pathological conditions, as in the case of "demon possession" or multiple personality disorder. If one or more of these ego helpers gets unnaturally strengthened, it could explain these phenomena.

In the computer science world, background processes are sometimes called "daemons," which is a revived archaic spelling.

Yeah, but how many ever succeed? Zero, perhaps?