Humans are hardwired to dismiss facts that don’t fit their worldview

The article itself provides the answer:




In other words, the emotion hit and/or the removal of emotional discomfort is the reward. If those things\ didn't happen, you wouldn't see the behaviour, its that simple. It's an incredibly well understood aspect of psychology across species, if you lesion the brains of monkeys so they stop feeling fear, they do things they previously wouldn't, like handling poisonous snakes,. If you hook an electrode up to the pleasure center of a rats brain and connect that to a lever, it'll push that lever until it dies, which other rats who don't get that hit of good feelings will not do. If compulsions like that counts as altruism, then I guess taking heroine must be spiritual.

The better question though,is why isn't that enough for people? What, do they need the universe to pat them on the head and tell them they're a good boy before its worth doing things? The desire to defend altruism itself demonstrates that it doesn't really exist.

There's a fair amount of very different ideas all bundled up together there.

Here, for example,

The better question though,is why isn't that enough for people? What, do they need the universe to pat them on the head and tell them they're a good boy before its worth doing things?

That has certain resonance with the history of fear-based religious teachings, the idea that one will be sent to hell for eternity if one doesn't conform to the rules. Even in those who no longer adhere to such beliefs, the concepts are still echoing around our Western culture.

But this:

The desire to defend altruism itself demonstrates that it doesn't really exist.

That's just nonsense. The desire to defend the validity of observations made with a telescope proves that the moons of Jupiter don't exist? It really isn't an argument. Perhaps the non-argument is an attempt to express a strongly-held belief? But then, one might ask, why is it necessary to support one's belief at the expense of making oneself appear foolish? Something doesn't quite add up.

There's more going on here than meets the eye. It isn't an objective or neutral assessment of the subject.

The brain matter part is irrelevant. What matters is the emotional hit. I could just as easily use variations in reported nde scenarios.

You are missing the point. Physical scientists explain things with physical principles.

I agree that there is an emotional hit generated by a chemical in the brain. Our brain generates all sorts of behavior-modifying stimuli that help to assure the health of the body and promote the continuation of genes. It just reinforces the idea that our human body is a successful biological machine that is well-formed to survive.

If dualism is reasonably correct, one version is that a person is an immortal personality entangled with a human avatar for this lifetime. You can use other words, but after all of the handwaving about spirit versus personality, if immortal is right ... whatever it takes to make peace with your worldview, that is the root concept.

I accept that definition because the cosmology implied by it helps me model EVP. It also helps me make sense of why people serve their human's best interest above their spiritual progression. As understanding about the dual nature of consciousness and cognition emerges, it is also in agreement with contemporary science.

The concept is echoed in the article I referenced. It is what has been taught for the last 6,000 years by spiritual wayshowers. It is what we are being told today via contemporary mediums and practitioners and some philosophers. I am just an aggregator and reporter.

I would put the concept in the "wait and see" folder because of likely cultural contamination except for the fact that it informs such a successful metaphysical model. For instance, the Greeks pretty much obliterated the hermetic teaching.

To make sense of the metaphysics and implied cosmology, it is necessary to stop thinking like a human and begin thinking as an immortal personality. Until we are able to "... separate the Earth from the fire, the subtle from the gross, by means of a gentle heat, and with great ingenuity" as taught by Hermes in the Emerald Tablet, we will live this lifetime as human motivated only by human instincts.

This is not a religious concept. Right or wrong, and by whatever terms you wish, it is a useful way of approaching a more humane society. 

At the very least, it provides ample food for thought. It is the stuff that old people like me dwell on as we face their mortality (or immortality, depending on who is right. :-)

The article itself provides the answer:




In other words, the emotion hit and/or the removal of emotional discomfort is the reward. If those things\ didn't happen, you wouldn't see the behaviour, its that simple. It's an incredibly well understood aspect of psychology across species, if you lesion the brains of monkeys so they stop feeling fear, they do things they previously wouldn't, like handling poisonous snakes,. If you hook an electrode up to the pleasure center of a rats brain and connect that to a lever, it'll push that lever until it dies, which other rats who don't get that hit of good feelings will not do. If compulsions like that counts as altruism, then I guess taking heroine must be spiritual.

The better question though,is why isn't that enough for people? What, do they need the universe to pat them on the head and tell them they're a good boy before its worth doing things? The desire to defend altruism itself demonstrates that it doesn't really exist.

No, altruism is not currently well understood in psychology, even the article admits this. Furthermore the article provides an untested theory as an answer which is in no way definitive yet you've taken it as if it was a well proven fact. The main issue with your argument is that equating all altruistic behavior to conditioning falls short of explaining why we have the need to relieve this supposed emotional burden. We don't experience hunger because we get a dopamine hit when we satiate it, it's more likely we feel hunger because it fulfills a biological need and so too may altruism fulfill a biological need to increase survival of social groups or some other mechanism may be at play. To say we only act to relieve suffering or to improve pleasure says absolutely nothing about why these things are experienced as pain or pleasure.

For another example, if I see a homeless man on the street and experience discomfort it seems like you would argue that donating money to this man was not done to improve his conditions but rather to immediately alleviate the feeling we experience when seeing the homeless man. However this doesn't explain why you would feel anything when looking at a homeless man compared to another person who is not in such a state. Nor does it explain why giving money to a homeless man would alleviate this suffering. Is it really more intuitive to endlessly search for ways to make this situation about dopamine hits than to say it could be a form of altruism?

If dualism is reasonably correct, one version is that a person is an immortal personality entangled with a human avatar for this lifetime. You can use other words, but after all of the handwaving about spirit versus personality, if immortal is right ... whatever it takes to make peace with your worldview, that is the root concept.

I accept that definition because the cosmology implied by it helps me model EVP. It also helps me make sense of why people serve their human's best interest above their spiritual progression. As understanding about the dual nature of consciousness and cognition emerges, it is also in agreement with contemporary science.

The concept is echoed in the article I referenced. It is what has been taught for the last 6,000 years by spiritual wayshowers. It is what we are being told today via contemporary mediums and practitioners and some philosophers. I am just an aggregator and reporter.

I would put the concept in the "wait and see" folder because of likely cultural contamination except for the fact that it informs such a successful metaphysical model. For instance, the Greeks pretty much obliterated the hermetic teaching.

To make sense of the metaphysics and implied cosmology, it is necessary to stop thinking like a human and begin thinking as an immortal personality. Until we are able to "... separate the Earth from the fire, the subtle from the gross, by means of a gentle heat, and with great ingenuity" as taught by Hermes in the Emerald Tablet, we will live this lifetime as human motivated only by human instincts.

This is not a religious concept. Right or wrong, and by whatever terms you wish, it is a useful way of approaching a more humane society. 

At the very least, it provides ample food for thought. It is the stuff that old people like me dwell on as we face their mortality (or immortality, depending on who is right. :-)

Really interesting post Tom.  I appreciate it!

That's just nonsense. The desire to defend the validity of observations made with a telescope proves that the moons of Jupiter don't exist? It really isn't an argument. Perhaps the non-argument is an attempt to express a strongly-held belief? But then, one might ask, why is it necessary to support one's belief at the expense of making oneself appear foolish? Something doesn't quite add up.

There's more going on here than meets the eye. It isn't an objective or neutral assessment of the subject.

Altruism is a logical concept, provide a logical proof showing that it's even possible to go against ones self and sure, I'll believe you. but so far as I and many other people who have thought about these topics have found, its not logically possible for a self determinate entity to act against itself given its the one doing all of the acting and making all of the choices. Plus everything it perceives logically must relate back to itself, given it is the only thing it truly has any knowledge or awareness of at any given time. So yeah, literally no action can possibly not be self interested.

If the argument then shifts that the entity isn't self determinate, then that similarly destroys any possibility of altruism since there' it means everything just running on a script and theirs no selves interacting at all.

So, when someone's trying to defend a concept like objective altruism, that means they have some personal, emotional attachment to it being some externally defined ruleset. Which is a self interested reason to defend it and to believe its true, thus destroying the concept of its objectivity int the first place.

But once again, who cares? Isn't someone just wanting to help someone else because it makes them feel good, or because that person being down on their luck annoys them. not good enough? Does it really need to be in this special "sacred" class of actions? What does it say about the people who think it does? Are their acts of "altruism" even altruistic by their own definition with such a belief?

I should probably not bother replying further because I doubt there's going to be any point. But I'm sure people will continue to insist that, no, there MUST be an objective form of altruism! It HAS to exist or else... or else.... I'll be sad...

No, altruism is not currently well understood in psychology, even the article admits this. Furthermore the article provides an untested theory as an answer which is in no way definitive yet you've taken it as if it was a well proven fact. The main issue with your argument is that equating all altruistic behavior to conditioning falls short of explaining why we have the need to relieve this supposed emotional burden. We don't experience hunger because we get a dopamine hit when we satiate it, it's more likely we feel hunger because it fulfills a biological need and so too may altruism fulfill a biological need to increase survival of social groups or some other mechanism may be at play. To say we only act to relieve suffering or to improve pleasure says absolutely nothing about why these things are experienced as pain or pleasure.

For another example, if I see a homeless man on the street and experience discomfort it seems like you would argue that donating money to this man was not done to improve his conditions but rather to immediately alleviate the feeling we experience when seeing the homeless man. However this doesn't explain why you would feel anything when looking at a homeless man compared to another person who is not in such a state. Nor does it explain why giving money to a homeless man would alleviate this suffering. Is it really more intuitive to endlessly search for ways to make this situation about dopamine hits than to say it could be a form of altruism?

Technically you're saying what I'm saying. The emotion is just the return value of some unconscious calculation that yes, would have its roots in biological survival. But ultimately you'd be acting to get rid of that feeling. Feelings evolved to give rewards and punishments for actions that promoted survival and reproduction. People and animals aren't doing anything directly because it helps with those. If you believe they are, then explain suicide and cases like the rat with the electrode in its pleasure center. Clearly the feelings (and the unconscious calculations beneath them) are what really drive the behaviour.

"Altruism" seems to show up mostly in social animals and the less social it is the less you see it. So even in interspecies cases, it's probably triggering some of the same things because other animals are similar enough to what its coded to want to help. I mean, how many crocodiles in Australia have you heard of who've saved tourists?

Sure other more conscious calculations could factor in, but, that still makes it purely subjective and thus self interested as the person or animal is doing it "for their own reasons". It is thus not a product of some objective, externally defined altruism. Could you still call that altruism? Sure, why not, words are just symbols. But I will always maintain that it's incredibly important to recognise that it's purely subjective and about the person performing the action not the receiver. Lest it become part of the whole in group bias thing this thread is about.