733. Motivation For Behavior: The Difference Between Deficits And Benefits

733.  Motivation For Behavior:  The Difference Between Deficits And Benefits

I value rationality as one distinctive and superior quality, by which human individuals differ from instinct driven animals.  This is a premise, which many people do not share with me.   I am fully aware that those, who value being guided and determined by unconscious instincts and inclinations more than by rationality, cannot and will not agree with the following application of rationality on how to live.      

As I myself am both a non-breeder and non-religious, both are for me expression of the same rationality.   As a member of a non-breeders' group, I asked some puzzled question to religious non-breeders.    
In the entries 656. The Placebo Church  and 441. An Ingenious Self-Deception I have already expressed my wondering about the weird Unitarian Universalist placebo church.   My question to a member thereof concerning what needs and deficits were met, ended as an impasse.  

I did not get an answer, I did not even succeed to convey my question.   The exchange has inspired the following thoughts.

 

A rational person has an awareness for the importance of evaluating behaviors and actions by the consequences and by comparing them with alternative options for its causes and reasons.

1.  One important factor is the baseline.   Behavior improving the subjective wellbeing can have one or both of these effects:  It either restores the baseline to the neutral state of neither pleasure nor displeasure, or it adds pleasure above this baseline.  
This is an important distinction, because I consider only this baseline of not suffering as a human right, while seeking pleasure can only be justified when nobody else is harmed or taken advantage of.  

2.   People, whose behavior is caused by a deficit, often get additional benefits above the baseline.   Sometimes they consciously only recognize the benefits as if gaining these were the original purpose of the behavior.   They are unaware or in denial that the initial purpose was restoring the baseline.   

3.   Another factor is the experience of cognitive dissonance, when people want to be more rational than they really are.  They want to consider themselves as rationally seeking benefits and not as if they were helpless robots succumbing to urges.   The denial of urges and deficits is a method to avoid experiencing cognitive dissonance.

4.   There are different kind of subjectively perceived deficits.   Deficits can be innate or acquired, they can be physical or cognitive.   Rational behavior requires thinking about all relevant factors and about the long-term consequences before coping with the perceived deficit.   Just following the urge is often irrational.   

 

A rational way of life requires people to scrutinize carefully all their inclinations to behave.   For this purpose they ask themselves several questions.   The ones in the not comprehensive following list are important

• Which is my baseline? 
• Do I only get benefits or are there needs, deficits, urges, wishes, discontentment, dishomeostasis hidden behind the experienced benefits?
• What would happen, if I resist the inclination to this behavior?
• What alternative behaviors are there?   

When interactive behavior includes reciprocal impacts by and upon others, rational persons apply these questions to others as much as upon themselves.   Not only the choice between respect and disrespect depends upon this, but also the choice between supporting and refusing to become a victim, between continuing the interaction and avoiding the person.

A few examples:

1.  Food
 

When a hungry, not obese person eats, this is rational.
When a not hungry but also not-obese eats something for the pleasure of the taste, it is unnecessary but not irrational.  
But when an obese person eats because of boredom, stress or a similar reason, then this is irrational.

2.  Alcoholism as an addiction
 

2.1.  There is no physical or real need for drinking any alcohol at all.   Not drinking is completely rational behavior. 
2.2.  When someone drinks restricted quantities of alcoholic beverages with sufficient intervals in between, this can be be considered as rationally enjoying the taste.  
2.3.  But in the case of someone feeling an urge for alcohol intake to reach the baseline, then this is an addiction.  
In the case of denial, the addict claims to drink for pleasure and does not recognize and acknowledge the urge.   He is not aware of the irrationality of his drinking.    
2.4.  An alcoholic having asked and answered the questions can admit, that his urge to drink alcohol needs an approach, which is anything between self-control and therapy, but not drinking. 


When irrational behaviors are reinforced or even instilled by a social norm, they become an even more devastating problem.   This is unfortunate for the many people, whose life would be better without acquired, harmful urges.   

There are special dynamics at work.  People are trapped, because they are allowed to consciously experience some benefits.  These benefits do not suffice to rationally justify the amount of sacrifices, which are required.   But unconsciously these people also experience the additional relief of some urge, of which they are consciously in complete denial.   This denial impedes them from considering and attempting other, more rational methods to deal with the urges.  
The urges instilled by the social norm lead to behaviors, which override any healthy individualistic approach towards living in a balance of giving and receiving in the exchange with the social environment.   By these social norms, people are deformed towards willingly allowing to be exploited and taken advantage of while being mistaken as being important and useful.   

These victims are not aware that the social norm serves only the interest of those, who use their power, influence and greed to usurp more such advantages. 

Two of these instilled behaviors are breeding and religious behaviors.  Breeding and religion have one aspect in common with alcoholism.   There are enough non-drinkers, non-breeders and non-religious people as evidence of the existence of alternatives.

3.  Breeding
 

3.1.  In modern western societies and even in some others too, there is no individual need for breeding.   Not breeding is a completely rational behavior. 
3.2.  Under some limited circumstances in the past and in some remote places, the survival of old people depended and depends on raising children.   These people have no need to belief in alleged benefits of breeding, they are succumbing to a necessity.  
3.3.  But someone feeling an urge to breed only for reaching the baseline has a serious problem, like an addict.    
As children cannot be undone, once the mistake was made, breeders are usually in denial of any remorse.  They insist that breeding has brought them benefits.   They do not recognize and acknowledge to have succumbed to an instinctive or instilled urge.   They remain unaware of the irrationality of breeding.     
3.4.  While breeders are consciously in denial, they implicitly often show a glimpse of belated rationality, when they stop further breeding after the first child.   But this is not a conscious change to rationality concerning breeding. 

4.  Religion

4.1.  A rational way of life is not deranged by any religious behavior.   A rational, responsible and considerate treatment of others requires rationality and the absence of any religious behaviors.   No rational person is religious.   No religious person is rational.
Religion manifests itself by observable religious behaviors, which not only include personal sacrifices of money, time and comfort, but even worse it also determines how others are treated.   

Weird ritualistic body movements only impact one person.   But often religion can cause as much damage as an alcohol addiction.     When someone wastes the family money on church donations and his time at the church service instead of with his partner, he inflicts damage on others for irrational reasons. 
Worse are those, who transgress, acquire religious forgiveness and feel free to continue transgressing.   A man, who by following his polygamous religion copulates with other women, deeply hurts his monogamous partner who experiences this as cheating. 
4.2.  Religious behavior is an expression of a belief, which can never rationally be justified.   What is based upon science and evidence, is not a belief.    Only pretending by outwardly imitated religious behavior can sometimes be rational self-defense, when needed for self-preservation.   
4.3.  Religious people's denial is extreme.   I have repeatedly asked religious people, which urges, deficits and experienced dishomeostasis causes them to be religious.   Asking this questions seems futile.  They just seem not to understand.  They enthuse about all their emotional benefits and even feel offended, when I keep on asking about the deficits.  These deficits are the core of what makes them religious and distinguishes them from rational people.     
4.4.  Some religious people overcome their denial.   When they finally get rational, the only possible reaction is to free themselves of all the religious beliefs.   But while remaining a believer, no religious person will ever admit, that they feel urges towards merely reaching a baseline of basic wellbeing, which rational non-religious people already have without any religion.      

Therefore, breeding and religion are as irrational as alcohol addiction, the only real difference is the social norm, which encourages breeding and religion, while alcoholism is considered deviant.

661. Comparing Disturbed Characters And Chimpanzees

661.  Comparing Disturbed Characters And Chimpanzees

I already mentioned George Simon before (entries 615, 618 and 629).  After having read his book 'In Sheep's Clothing' with unencumbered fascination, I just finished reading another of his books:  George Simon: Disturbed Characters.  

As far as he describes and analyses disturbed characters, it is also an excellent book.   But it seems that between the two books, he has relapsed into the grasp of religion.  He preaches submission under a god as an important ingredient of his suggested alternative to being a disturbed character.  This is annoying.  

I also disagree with his claim, that there is a free will, which gives people an option to either be a disturbed character or not.    

Two other books already mentioned are:
Martha Stout:  The Sociopath Next Door (entry 137)
Robert Hare:  Without Conscience (entry 160).         

All these books implicitly consider socially acceptable, considerate and responsible behavior as the baseline of what can be expected of all sane humans.   They have no answer, why and due to what reasons disturbed characters are deviant from such an baseline.

I doubt, that the qualities constituting this assumed baseline, are sufficiently frequent to justify this assumption.   With a realistic view at the amount of atrocities regularly forced by beings of the species homo sapiens upon suffering human victims, the ability to live by little or not harming others is only found in a minority.   Only they have the privilege of deserving to be called true humans.   Even they are not born like this but get there only after a long process of maturation and socialization. 

My explanation of disturbed characters is derived from looking at the power of instincts and at different levels of the evolution of cognition and rationality.

1. Human evolution as a process.  
 

Phase 1: 
There were early ancestors, who just like animals were automatically and fully driven by instinctive urges, which had evolved for optimizing procreation.  Due to lacking any mental capacities for comprehending the consequences of behavior, instinctive behaviors of animals are not at all impacted by any awareness for harming, hurting and suffering.  

Phase 2: 
The cognition started to evolve.   Rudimentary intelligence became a powerful tool supporting and serving instincts.   But instincts still continued to completely determine the entire behavior, including the overall goal of breeding.  
 

Phase 3:  
The unique human theory of mind evolved.   This capacity of anticipating or evaluating the effects of behavior upon others or upon the own person in the future with the additional help of a memory gives a unique option only to human.    The unique ability to act in defiance of instincts, to override momentary instinctive urges in favor of cognitively preferred alternative behavior is the decisive distinction between humans and animals.    This includes also the unique ability of humans to prefer and decide to not procreate as the result of a cognitive evaluation and perception of the own identity.    Only humans can be childfree by choice.   There are no childfree animals.  


2.  Chimpanzees

Chimpanzees and humans started to evolve separately about 6 million years ago.   Either the common ancestors had at this time already reached the threshold towards phase 2, or chimpanzees continued to evolve at a slower pace in the same direction as humans.   Today's chimpanzees are a good illustration of phase 2.  They show some amazing skills, which nevertheless always serve instinctive goals.  

In entry 648 I presented the chimpanzee Ayumu, who does better than humans on a task requiring fast perception and short term memory, as can be seen in this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPiDHXtM0VA
 

While Ayumu's abilities are amazing, they yet are only isolated and not connected to any higher cognitive control.  He only does the task, because he is immediately after every run rewarded with a treat.   He cannot apply his talents for any abstract or generalized goal.  

Solving the elaborated and complex task on the screen is not different from the more simple achievement of other chimpanzees using tools to get food as is shown here. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Cp7_In7f88
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaEDeRJKN0s

But chimpanzees also kill and are aggressive.  
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/26/baby-chimpanzee-killed-at_n_1629318.html

They are even cannibals
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uU1zUzXkTtw

Other amazing skills and behaviors have also been observed in chimpanzees, but they have never reached any ability as found in humans in phase 3.  Ultimately the chimpanzees are completely determined by instincts, and all their amazing capacities only support these instincts.    No cognition has evolved, which would enable them to act in defiance to instincts by consideration or empathy.


3.  The evolutionary level of disturbed characters

I think that the human evolution is in a state of transition.   The evolution of instincts has been established millions of years ago, while the cognitive evolution is still continuing.   I see the determination of the behavior as distributed along a bell curve between phase 2 animals at one end and phase 3 humans at the other.   The majority of people are somewhere in the middle.  They are acting by the combined impact of both subconscious instinctive urges and some cognitive control. 
 

Whenever persons, mostly men, commit atrocities of any kind like murdering, torturing, raping, cannibalism, slavery, they seem puzzling, when compared with what is required and expected from humans.   But if they were instead compared with animals, they would appear as healthy and sane chimpanzees. 

I consider severely character disturbed persons, including those labeled psychopaths and sociopaths, as beings, whose cognitive evolution has relapsed, failed or is delayed and retarded.    In spite of belonging genetically to the species homo sapiens, they are not less animals than are the chimpanzees.   Their cognition only suffices to serve their instincts and to enhance their being a hazard.  But their cognition is insignificant as a determinant of personal goals.    

Chimpanzees use skills to acquire food.  Disturbed characters have a more advanced cognitive knowledge about other human and their behavior, but they use this knowledge also only as a tool.   They succeed to get more than food, they also abuse woman, gain power or pursue other instinctive and selfish goals.   While chimpanzees just lack rationality, these disturbed characters are instead determined not only by instincts but also by irrational beliefs, which serve to excuse and allegedly justify the consequences of instinctive behavior.  

It is a very sad and unfortunate reality, that the survival of the human species depends on the worst and most devastating forces in people, their instincts.   
While the extreme disturbed characters are a hazardous minority, the same instincts are virulent to a lesser degree also in the subconscious mind of the majority of the non or less disturbed people.   This lesser degree of the impact of the same instincts leads to an unfortunate bias towards too much tolerance for and condoning of harming others.  Many damaging behaviors are thus considered as still in the scope of normality, in spite of the extreme suffering of the victims,   Their suffering is not recognized as an outrage, but as unavoidable collateral damage.   


4. Distinguishing animals from humans

It is an unfortunate fallacy, that the distinction between humans and animals has always been only drawn along the genetic borders between species. 

 
In the christian tradition, humans are believed to be special, because a god allegedly created them to be so, and thus, there is a thinking taboo to reconsider and recognize anyone as an animal, no matter how much he behaves as one. 
In recent times, some people are debating, if there is really any decisive distinction at all. 

But to my knowledge, nobody has ever suggested, that the quality of being human, let alone of being more or less human, is an individual trait of the level of the individual cognitive evolution..
   
I claim:  To be considered as human requires more than the genes of homo sapiens, it also requires sufficient cognitive control over the instincts.  

This has far reaching implications.  

The concept of a general human dignity and basic human rights can rationally only be valid for humans, it is a fallacy to automatically attribute and assign it to all members of the species homo sapiens.   When someone acts like an animal, he should be treated as one.   An animal with the liberty only suitable for humans is too much of a hazard.    

The home of chimpanzees is in the wild, but in the zoo or lab, they are for good reasons kept in cages.  
http://www.ippl.org/gibbon/a-tragedy-in-eden/

If extremely disturbed characters would be recognized as animals lacking the basic human capacity of cognitive control, then this could lead to realistic methods of dealing with them.  Once disturbed characters have done serious harm, they should be recognized as animals and treated the same as dangerous chimpanzees.   The need to be protected against becoming a victim is independent of the species of the animals, which are dangerous predators.

The innate predisposition for instinctive or cognitive determination is not carved in stone, but malleable by education and social influences.    Socialization can enhance the cognitive control over instincts, when there is something to enhance.   When there is no rationality and cognition as a constituent personality trait, then no upbringing can convert an animal into a human, no matter the genetic species.   

All children start as instinct driven beings, they need socialization to develop the capacity to use cognitive control, when this talent is innate.    
When a chimpanzee is raised like a child, as in the tragic case of Moe, this does not stop him from biting off someone's finger.  
(http://www.theflamingvegan.com/view-post/Chimpanzees-as-Pets-When-Something-Goes-Wrong).  
I doubt, that a completely instinct determined disturbed character could ever become more human than Moe, no matter the quality of education.   Such a child may not bite off fingers, but bully other kids instead, before committing worse atrocities as an adult.    

Any person is entitled to be given the benefit of the doubt to be human, until he behaves like an animal and thus demonstrates, that he is an animal.   Committing atrocities as an animal forfeits the privileges reserved to humans.  Treating and considering an animal nevertheless as if he were human is an unjustifiable slap into the face to his victim(s).  


4.  The brain

Brains scans have shown differences between the brains of psychopaths and those of non-psychopaths.  

"So, once again there’s some convincing evidence that the brains of psychopaths not only work very differently from those of non-psychopathic individuals, but also may even be ‘wired’ differently than most human brains."
http://counsellingresource.com/features/2013/05/06/abnormal-brain-psychopaths/

I wonder, what would be discovered, if the brains of psychopaths were compared with the brains of chimpanzees.

597. Commodification And Wanting

597.   Commodification And Wanting

When a sane, mature and rational person declares to want something, this is an expression of a mere wish and of nothing more.   Wishing does not imply any assumption concerning the availability or feasibility nor does it imply any claim to get it.

Attempts towards gratification are an independent next step.   Such attempts are limited by the full recognition of and awareness for the rights of others and by the moral obligation to refrain from harming others and from usurping and seizing.     

The rational method to get gratification is earning it.  When it comes as a gift, it is received with gratitude and not taken for granted.
 

Immature and selfish jerks have a blatant delusional fallacy in their thinking.  When they say 'I want x', they really mean to say 'I demand x, because I believe myself to be entitled to get x immediately'.  They confound wanting something with the entitlement to automatically get it.  They believe, that everybody and the society owe to given to them, whatever they want and when they want it.  

Relationships are entered for the purpose of meeting specific needs.   The difference between mere wishes and claims of alleged entitlement contributes to the difference between egalitarian bonded couples and asymmetrical commodification.   

A bonded, caring, considerate couple feels reciprocally responsible for the careful use of their pooled resources.   Those expenses have priority, of which the benefits are shared by both partners   Any expenses only benefiting one partner are secondary.  Shared decision are based upon agreement as being fair.  Reciprocal gratification of wishes is perceived with gratitude as a gift or as a favor.     

The commodification of women is one special case of the fallacy of mistaking wanting as an automatic justification for claims, demands, coercion and usurpation.  A jerk informing a commodified woman of what he wants feel automatically also entitled to get it immediately. 

• Commodifying men experience and consider it as their baseline of normality, if they always get everything immediately whenever they demand it.   
  They take all received benefits for granted.  They are blind to recognize, when someone does something for them by choice and by a voluntary decision.   They do not know, what favors are.  They do not know gratitude.  
  Any expression of love, care and affection by voluntarily doing something for such a man is lost and not recognized as such.  Whatever gratification he receives, he always confounds it as if it were his due and as if she were only doing her duty. 
  
• When the reaction to commodifying men's demands is refusal,
  
  • they seize their alleged due by hook or by crook, by domination, coercion, bullying, if they have the power to do so.
  • they get extremely angry, aggressive, frustrated and unpleasant, when they lack the power to enforce gratification.

574. The Baseline Of Insignificance

574.   The Baseline Of Insignificance

There are billions of people of this globe.   I know that they exist as an abstract mass of people, but not as individuals, as long as I have never even heard their individual names.  They are insignificant for me personally.    This has nothing to do with the ingroup-outgroup instinct.   The German stranger living down the street is as insignificant to me as any stranger on another continent.  

I perceive all human beings as a kind of prototype, as long as they are not known to me personally as individuals.  People visibly and unequivocally engaging in specific behaviors, no matter if for example performing religious rituals or as spectators at a sports event, are a subgroup of the general prototype distinguished by one of more special additional attributes.  

The existence of these prototypical humans has only one impact upon myself:  They are beings not to be harmed.  
Not harming as the baseline of behavior with strangers requires nothing more than distant politeness in the case of superficial haphazard interactions.  As long as I keep away from them and it causes no harm, I am free to choose, what to think or say about them.   
Their insignificance for me is the baseline.   I owe them no proactive beneficial behavior.    I do not owe them any respect, because I cannot know, if they as individuals deserve it or not.   


Based upon this, it is justified to discreetly ridiculing the weird irrational behaviors of people in Lourdes as explained in entry 573.  

• It is not harming by propagating prejudice.   Laughing at irrational expressions is laughing at something really and publicly displayed.   Propagating prejudice would mean to make unfounded detrimental claims by alleged contingencies. 
  
• It is neither interpersonal cowardice not talking behind people's back, because both these behaviors are clearly defined as reproachable under the limiting conditions of concerning people personally known.
  Encouraging a person into his face to pray for health and then talk with others behind his back about his foolishness to pray is cowardice. 
  Being told in confidence about someone's illness and then breaking the trust of telling this to others is talking behind his back.
  Sharing the opinion about how expecting to be cured in Lourdes is preposterous and laughing about it is neither of this, because it concerns the public behavior of strangers. 
  Nobody has any rational reason and even less moral obligation to approach a complete stranger to inform him of the own unfavorable cognitive reaction to his public behavior (unless the interference serves to protect a third party).      
  The rational reason to approach a stranger would be the intention of mutually beneficial interactions, not to offend him.
  
• The absence of personalization is not the same as depersonalization.   As stranger is insignificant but is considered as the prototype of a person entitled to not be harmed, he has just not been known as having an individuality.   
  Depersonalization is an ingredient in the justification of harming by commodification.   Depersonalization is the wilful undoing of a previous personalized contact for the purpose of asymmetrical advantages.  

541. The Distinction Between Utilitarianism And Commodification

541.  The Distinction Between Utilitarianism And Commodification

I am not very learned about the standard philosophical theories.   My paradigm of a rationally based commitment of two egalitarians as presented in this blog is the result of extensive pondering over my own relationship needs.   
I just discovered, that my own commitment paradigm coincides a lot with the philosophical theory called Utilitarianism.        

http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism

"Utilitarianism is a theory in philosophy about right and wrong actions. It says that the morally best action is the one that makes the most overall happiness or "utility" (usefulness). This is not limited to the happiness caused by a single action but also includes the happiness of all people involved and all future consequences."

"Bentham wrote about this idea with the words "The greatest good for the greatest number", but did not use the word utilitarianism. It was Mill, a follower of Bentham's ideas, who named the idea."

There are two ways of calculating the total costs and benefits.

• Pleasures and pains are all put together in one overall calculation. 
  This principle is accepted and lived by those people, who consider exposing oneself deliberately to serious hardships for the purpose of earning pleasures as an option.   Extreme sports are an example.
   
• Based upon the reasons, why the impact of suffering is comparatively much stronger than that of missed and renounced pleasures, both are considered separately and independently. 
  This calculation accommodates my own inclinations, which I consider as important to be shared with a mindmate.

1.  Limitations of the application of the utilitarian principle

Applying the utilitarian principle to maximize the happiness of a couple has limitations.   If these limitations are ignored, the possible benefits of the utilitarian principle are reversed into a situation even worse than that of two persons basing their interactions upon bartering and bargaining.  

1.1.  Every utilitarian decision how to behave requires the correct knowledge of the other's subjective perception and experience of this behavior depending upon individual differences of sensitivity, endurance, resilience and needs.   

The utilitarian principle only works for both partners, when

• shared decisions are based upon a correct assessment of the impact of every decision upon both.
• each partner's independent decisions are as valid as if shared, because the assumptions about the impact upon the partner are correct.  
• people are a match concerning their evaluation of the meaning and magnitude of the impact of specific behaviors.  

1.2. Haphazard people with very different individual needs and situations applying the utilitarian principle upon their shared decisions cannot expect this to lead to a fair balance of giving and receiving.
But the subjective experience of justice due to a fair balance is one important factor in what makes a relationship stable and durable.   

Therefore only two persons being a match in their needs, priorities and sensitivities are prone and able to have the combination of both, the benefits added by the utilitarian method of shared decisions and the overall long-term balance of giving and receiving.

This requires to focus upon the careful choice of a suitable and compatible partner as a matching criterion of paramount importance.    The attempt to enhance happiness by utilitarian behavior fails with a mismatch. 

To sum it up:  
The more two partners are compatible and a good match, the more the utilitarian principle can enhance happiness for both of them.   Otherwise the relationship is doomed as either a never ending battle over unresolvable conflicts or as an asymmetrical situation, where one has the power to benefit and the other has the disadvantages.   
The more there is for example a discrepancy between a man's instinctive urge to use a female body and the woman's emotional needs for a committed safe haven, the more the utilitarian principle is a onesided hazard for the woman.  


2.   The baseline of wellbeing

The neutral feeling of the absence of both pan and pleasure is the logical baseline, the state of homeostasis, of being at ease.    People can experience this baseline as sufficient wellbeing without missing anything, as long as they are not aware of its existence.   

The difference between suffering pain or displeasure and the baseline is much more drastic and significant than the difference between the baseline of homeostasis and pleasure.  

Example 1:   When air does not contain any olfactory stimulating content, this is neutral.  People would feel perfectly fine, if there were never anything to smell.    

Being exposed to stink is worse than to be deprived of fragrance.   Someone exposed to an equal mixture of stink and fragrance would most probably prefer to have none rather than both.
Without knowledge and previous experience of the fragrance of any specific flower like a rose, nobody would be attracted to walk over to a bush of roses for the pleasure of smelling them.

Example 2:   Silence is the neutral base line, suffering from noise is worse than only lacking the pleasure of hearing the favorite music.  
Someone exposed simultaneously to the same loudness of an electrical drill and of his favorite music would most probably prefer both to end.  

Someone can only actively choose a specific music for the pleasure of listening, if one has discovered the pleasure by having heard it at least once before.   

Habituation effects the prolonged exposure to pleasure and to pain or discomfort, but with different long-term consequences.  While habituation just reduces the perceived stimulation by what initially was a strong pleasure, the habituation to lasting or repeated pain, displeasure and discomfort often results in harmed health.  

 

I personally include the neutral experience of neither suffering nor enjoying as the baseline in my definition of human rights.  

• It cannot be justified to impose harm, displeasure or discomfort upon others.   If there is a purpose considered worth to be earned by suffering, it is only justifiable as a personal choice.      
  
• Nobody is entitled to have pleasures, if the price is paid by another's sufferings.  

3.   My understanding of utilitarian commitment

For me, utilitarian commitment includes the Epicurean principle of the priority of not harming and not to be harmed.  I perceive suffering by being harmed and hurt, both physically and emotionally, as much more drastic than pleasures missed, renounced or deprived of.

Based upon the reciprocity with a mindmate being a match, I am willing to be guided by the following utilitarian behavior:

• Renouncing and abstaining from a small pleasure, whenever this results in the partner's much bigger benefits.
• Suffering small pain or displeasure, whenever this results is sparing the partner a much bigger harm, pain or displeasure.  

When a man is guided by these two principles, this is an indication of his being an egalitarian partner.


4.  The distinction between utilitarianism and commodification

But I refuse to accept the sacrifice of suffering any pain, displeasure or discomfort, as long as this only serves to give or enhance the partner's mere pleasure.   This is out of proportion.   Maintaining the baseline of neither pain nor pleasure is more justified.   

When a man expects and demands a disagreeing woman to suffer for his pleasures, this indicates his attitude to commodify women.

When a man uses any power and advantage to coerce and force a resisting woman to suffer for his pleasures, this is active commodification and abuse.  

386. Criticizing - Love - Respect

Criticizing - Love - Respect
This continues entries 385 and 382.  

Beneficial criticizing by giving and accepting feedback concerning specific behaviors and habits is an important part of the process of a couple's adaption to each other.   
As long as a couple's mutual respect is due to shared basic values and attitudes, they have no reason to criticize anything, that is part of the core personality of the other.   All criticizing is supportive concerning habits.    Beneficial criticizing implies the respect, that the other is able and motivated to improve some peripheral imperfections.  

When infatuation is experienced as the selfish love for the benefits of using another person's body for instinctive homeostasis, this does not require respect.   Bonded, committed and caring love between adult and mature partners is not possible without mutual respect.  

Bonded love is expressed by behavior aiming to enhance the subjective wellbeing of the partner.    The beloved partner perceives proactive acts of caring as deliberate and voluntary favors, not as duties, dues or something to be taken for granted.   

This has a strong impact upon the perception of being criticized.  The difference between experiencing the other's beneficial behavior as either an expression of caring love or of fulfilling a duty and serving a purpose is also the difference between perceiving criticizing as supportive and beneficial or disrespecting, devaluing and rejecting.   

When someone feels securely loved and respected by consciously perceiving the other's behavior as expressing care and affection, this enables him to interpret being criticized as supportive.    The expression of caring love is an expression of respect and nevertheless interpreting criticizing as disrespect would be a contradiction.   
Caring includes also the Epicurean imperative of not doing harm.    A person, who cares enough to have the wish to protect the partner from harm needs to be receptive to feedback.   To avoid harm to the other requires to know, what the other experiences as harm, and this is not always noticeable.   Sometimes only feedback can convey this information.  


But when a man considers and perceives a woman as a commodity and utility, whose purpose is to serve his needs, then he is unable to ever perceive anything of what she does for him as an expression of love.    He is deprived of the experience of being loved by his own entitlement delusion.   This makes him perceive criticizing as expressing disrespect and this makes him feel even less loved.    As a consequence, he is inclined to use control and coercion to get his needs met, because he projects and believes, that otherwise she would also use him selfishly for her needs.    As long as he feels entitled to the priority of his needs, wishes and whims over hers, he is realistic in his evaluation, that he cannot get this by any other means except control and coercion.    

If her baseline is getting as much as giving, then giving more than she receives is from her point of view an expression of love.    

If his baseline is getting all his needs met before bothering about hers, then he experiences even all her expressions of love only as deficient compared with his baseline, and he feels justified to use pressure and coercion to get, what he cannot get otherwise.  

The result is a very unfortunate vicious circle of deterioration.    A woman, who feels loved, cared for, cherished and appreciated has few reasons for peripheral beneficial and supportive criticizing, and he can appreciate it and do his share in improving the relationship.   
But the man, who uses her as commodity, dominates and coerces her to ascertain his selfish benefits gives the woman real and serious reasons to criticize him and even to lose respect.    He needs much more improvement and he needs much more feedback.  But instead of accepting her support, he blames her for daring to criticize him at all.    His denial and defiance to accept feedback and learn how to treat her destroys the relationship.  

Feeling loved, respected and supported by criticizing is a congruent experience in a bonded couple.   

Without the reciprocal perception of expressions of caring love by the other, there is no respect and no trust, that criticizing is benevolent and beneficial.   This effect is independent of the reason of not feeling loved, either by not being loved by a man confounding infatuation with love and domination or by being oblivious of being loved due to confounding expressions of love with fulfilling a purpose and a duty.   

385. The Dynamics Of Kindling Or Killing Love

The Dynamics Of Kindling Or Killing Love

This is a continuation of entry 277, where I defined 'bonded love'.   
In entry 314 I described the difference between the instinctive and the intellectual mating strategies.
In entry 39 I referred to Epstein and his concept of 'self-arranged marriages'.   I prefer to call it 'self-arranged commitment', because feeling bound by commitment does not require a signature in the town hall.  

Bonded love consists of the combined and inseparable elements of physical, emotional and intellectual intimacy and is the stronger, the more the couple shares basic values, attitudes, tastes, interests and other traits.  

The concept of self-arranged commitment means, that a couple decides to cooperate to create a balanced bond of all three intimacies.        

Physical intimacy is triggered by instinctive urges for homeostasis, especially in men, as long as there is no repugnance or repulsiveness.    This comes by itself and needs therefore to be controlled from getting dangerously predominant.   A man drooling over a woman's body in blind infatuation is not in the state to be rational in his evaluations and decisions. 

But a couple has a lot of control and influence over the kindling or forfeiting of emotional and intellectual intimacy and thus over the quality and intensity of bonded love.    They need to be aware of what influences their love and they need to be motivated to kindle it.   

The proactive strategy of kindling bonded love has two major aspects, associative learning and reinforcement.  

1. Associative learning by sharing any activity or situation, which causes the subjective feeling of wellbeing.
   

   1.1. Simple associative learning
   When sharing joy, pleasure, pleasant thrill, bliss, pleasant sensations of any kind, no matter if it is hiking in the moonlight, enjoying the same kind of music, sharing the fascination of a visit to an interesting museum or place, then the good feelings are associated with the person, with whom the experience is shared.   
   1.2.  Complex associative learning.
   Sharing hardships, difficulties, discomforts of any kind and experiencing the partner as supportive, empathetic, understanding, reliable, trustworthy associates the good feeling of having been successful in dealing with a challenge with the partner. 
   A bonded couple is not affected by spending a night in a bus station, because the positive feeling of being together compensates for merely external discomfort.   It creates a positive memory of a shared adventure.   

2. Reciprocal reinforcement.
   
   Anything perceived as love between two adults triggers an urge or at least a wish to express it or act upon it.  This implies, that it is also understood and received by the target as an expression of love.  
   Verbal expressions of love are very unspecified, as long as the same word 'love' can be used also very selfishly, when someone means about the same love of getting benefits when saying: 'I love you' and saying 'I love cheese'.
   
   Expressions of love by actions and behavior are much more specific.
   Infatuation with a body urges a person towards sexual activities.    Bonded love creates an urge or wish to express love in any way, that makes the other feel loved, cared for, appreciated, cherished, respected, significant, needed, happy, content, in a safe haven.   Love is also expressed by the imperative of never harming or hurting but protecting the other from harm.
   
   The neutral baseline is the commitment governance (entry 185), that both have agreed upon.   Behaving according to the commitment governance is an accepted obligation, not an expression of love.    Expressing love is proactive behavior by a deliberate and voluntary decision to do something beneficial for the partner. 
   
   Such an expression of love is lost, if it is not experienced, perceived and interpreted by the recipient as an expression of love.   Any such proactive behavior of one partner is experienced by both as anything between being only beneficial for the other or beneficial equally for both.   
   It can be that one partner has a skill and uses it to make something for the other, it can be one partner preparing and initiating an excursion to enjoy together.  
   This leads to reciprocal reinforcement.   The more one experiences the other's expression of love, the more this kindles the own love, which enhances the wish to react also with returned expressions of love.    It is like a ball game, in which the ball thrown grows steadily.         
   This works, when both consciously want it to work, and when both are informed, what proactive behavior does make the other feel loved.  

But just as bonded love can be enhanced by applying conscious strategies, it is also fragile to being damaged and destroyed by the opposite behaviors.  

1. The same intensive situations of shared positive experiences, when love can be kindled to grow, are also the situations, where love is most vulnerable to being damaged and destroyed.    Hurting in such situations has the most detrimental effect.    Being the target of an outburst of anger during a moonlight hike meant to be romantic has much more detrimental effects than an outburst of anger while doing chores in the kitchen.     
2. Discomfort, hardship and such are enhanced, when instead of being shared, on the partner blames them on the other.
3. An expression of love is not received as such by a partner feeling entitled to the other serving his needs and taking this for granted.    The one, who considers the other as a commodity existing for the purpose to fulfill all his needs, is deprived of the experience of being loved.    Whatever the other decides to do voluntarily as an expression of love is either not of value or considered a fulfilled duty.
   Expressing love for the reward of being loved back is a decision.    Being expected and even pressed by coercion to serve the other's needs, devalues any act of doing a favor into the experience of being used.    Being under pressure to serve the other's needs impedes and forestalls any occasion of expressing love by a voluntary decision.  
4. Expressing love by proactive behavior requires communication about what behavior is perceived as expressed love.     Projecting the own needs and remaining ignorant about the partner's needs is not enough.    Hurting the other and resisting to feedback is an even worse love killer.   

Expressing caring and bonded love by proactive behavior is a method to kindle and to avoid killing love.   But it is also an important strategy for the creation of 'self-arranged commitment'.   By applying the same behaviors, that can be an expression of love, the process of creating love can also be started and triggered due to the reinforcing effect.  

370. Self-Monitoring Against Irrationality

Self-Monitoring Against Irrationality
I am putting very much emphasis on finding a mindmate, who is rational and void of any kind of belief.   Believing claims without doubt, no matter what the claims are, makes a man incompatible and a hazard.   
While I am looking for a man, whom I can accept as he is, when we meet, and not as raw material to change, adapting to each other implies reciprocally changing disturbing habits by giving and accepting support.
But beliefs are a different matter and worse than bad habits.   When someone temporarily and superficially appears to be an atheist and skeptic, but it is only skin deep, then sooner of later he will relapse to needing beliefs as a crutch, and then his behavior is determined by the power of his beliefs.    If the faculty to be rational is lacking in his brain, then someone cannot be influenced by rational discussions and no caring support can replace the crutch. 
In entry 364 I have already explained, that a man, whose behavior is determined by his beliefs and who cannot be influenced rationality is a big hazard to a rational woman, who would be the helpless target of his behavior.   Such a man is neither reliable nor predictable.    There are very good reasons to shun away from all believers, no matter in what.   Whatever advantage the believer has for himself, there is no advantage from his belief for a partner, only disadvantages and hazards.

Without the faculty for rationality in the brain, believers are doomed to continue being determined by their beliefs.   
Those, whose dormant rationality has only been overridden by either a need for a belief or childhood brainwashing are in an unfortunate situation.   Since the believing majority of the population has established the insanity of believing preposterous nonsense as the normative baseline (entry 369), beliefs get reinforced, but doubting is discouraged.    Not even the most  stupid of beliefs are ever generally scorned or ridiculed enough to make anybody feel ashamed of having and admitting them.   Doubts about any belief need to overcome a high threshold, before a person can discard it.     

Overcoming beliefs has to be triggered and initiated by the person's own inner mental process.    Nobody can cure a believer from his affliction, as long as he wants to continue believing, support can only help to enhance doubts, but the doubts need to come from inside.   

1. It can be a sudden awakening by a shock, someone being disappointed by a deity.
2. It can be the slow awakening along with the growing rationality as a guidance of life.   

Most sources on the web claim, that the subconscious mind is irrational and illogical.   Already in entry 368 I disagreed with this notion.   The subconscious mind produces many of the premises, that the conscious mind needs for making decisions, emotions, sensations, signals of dishomeostasis, memories including contingencies and pseudocontingencies, and it also sometimes produces conclusions reaching the conscious mind as intuition.    

As a result, the subconscious mind produces impulses to behave, but the conscious mind can act upon the impulses or decide not to allow them.   

There is only one force in the subconscious mind, that is detrimental and hazardous, but evolutionarily logical.  It is the imperative to react by animal instinct to the premises.    

The subconscious mind commands 'breed', the conscious mind is able to know, that being childfree is a better life.   The subconscious mind commands 'eat', the conscious mind knows, that restricting the intake of food is healthier.  

I am convinced that the reasoning in the subconscious depends as much on the rational faculties of the brain as the conscious reasoning.   If someone lacks the faculty for rationality and for consequencity, then the conscious behavior is as irrational as the subconscious impulses. 

The subconscious mind produces impulses to behave.   Sometimes people

• are not even aware, but act automatically by impulse.
• repress impulses before getting aware.
• follow impulses without knowing why.    
• rationally evaluate impulses before acting.

Rationality enables people to use a very powerful method to avoid detrimental behavior by impulses, and to ascertain consistency and congruence between the behavior and the cognition.

   

This method is self-monitoring:

1. Attempting to get aware of every impulse before acting.
2. Asking questions like these:
   Why do I want to do this?
   What do I sense or feel, that is triggering this impulse?
   Do I consciously have or do I need information, that the impulse has omitted?
   Does the impulse lead to behavior, that is consistent with my values and my long term goals?
   Are there options of more suitable behavior?
   Does the impulse consider the fair deal with a significant other?

Self-monitoring helps to become less a robot driven by instincts, but it also helps to avoid being driven by ludicrous beliefs.    

Self monitoring can become a habit and easier over time.   But of course it has its limits.  It is much easier to do it when there is an impulse for a proactive behavior and no pressure.    When there is pressure to react under stress or in emotionally extreme situations, then one is often compelled to follow the impulse.   But asking the questions afterwards helps to understand the dynamics of conflicts and to learn from it.  

369. Irrationality and the Baseline

Irrationality and the Baseline

When I compiled a list of weird beliefs for the rationality questionnaire page, again as so often before, I was puzzled and at a loss of comprehension, how anybody in his right mind could ever believe any of this utterly preposterous and ludicrous ideas and claims.    How could a person expect something to happen as a result of something as weird as prayer?   It is incomprehensible to me, but people do it all the time.

For an explanation I looked at the baseline of behavior and at deviance.   

In entry 366 I explained the importance of being aware of and of accepting one's own innate, personal, genuine baseline.    A person can feel at ease, when the own behavior is congruent with what he perceives and considers consciously as his baseline.    Otherwise a person feels, considers himself or experiences himself as either externally or internally deviant.    

Of course, different aspects of behavior can have different baselines.   A person can conform in one aspect of life and not in another.   The topic of this entry is the baseline of either irrationally believing or skeptically disbelieving as a result of the faculty for rationality.

   

The conscious baseline can be

1. an average person's genuine baseline and also the normative baseline of the social environment.
2. a person's genuine baseline and he refuses to accept the normative baseline.
3. the normative baseline and he considers his own behavior or behavioral tendencies and impulses as deviant.  

There is internal deviance, when the person feels deviant only by comparing the own behavior with the conscious baseline, and there is external deviance, when the person is treated as or feels deviant in the interaction and comparison with the social environment.  
Internal deviance motivates people either to learn and to improve themselves or to change their conscious baseline or a combination of both.    
External deviance is a very strong system of punishment or reward.    Feeling embarrassed and ashamed of any flaw, fallacy, inferiority, deficiency, insufficiency or weakness compared with the normative baseline is a very strong punishment, especially when in interaction with and exposed to the feedback of more conforming people.   Attempts to adapt and to conform are usually rewarded by positive feedback and by a reduction of bad feelings about oneself.

People openly display their behavior, they are proud and confident about it, when it is congruent with their conscious baseline.    When they feel deviant and feel ashamed or embarrassed, they attempt to hide their deviance.   Congruent people reinforce each other in accepting their common baseline.  Consciously deviant people reinforce each other to feel more deviant and as a result to enhance the attempts to conform.


Unfortunately, the normative baseline is derived by prevalence, not be quality.    The question, if the brain of a skeptical, atheistic scientist is of better quality and of more value to progress and to the human species than the brain of a clergy man is not asked.   

The following is an illustration of the problem by an analogy of the power of the normative baseline.   In my analogy I am assuming, that my speculation were correct, and that there are people, in whose brain is wired a strong faculty to be rational, while other people are gullible and credulous, because this faculty is lacking.    Assuming also, that the tendency to be angry in a disruptive way is an innate trait of some people, while the majority can stay calm enough to stay out of trouble.   

1. The normative baseline of the majority is irrationality in one case and calmness in the other.  For both, the innately irrational and the innately calm persons, the conscious baseline is congruent.   The normative baseline is identitcal with their genuine personal baseline.
2. Those rational people and angry people, who accept their own baseline and refuse to feel deviant in comparison with the normative baseline, have both their own subcultures and they are treated as deviant, without perceiving themelves as such. 
   Skeptical and atheistic scientists become accomplished activists in the education of people and there are groups of like minded people online and offline.  They are above feeling deviant.  
   Angry people often end as psychopaths in jail, if and when they accept their anger as a suitable survival skill.   
3. Rational people and angry people, who have accepted the normative baseline as their conscious baseline, perceive themselves as internally deviant in the interaction with their social environment. 
   3.1. They hide it to avoid punishment from being additionally exposed to external deviance, but they attempt to reduce the deviance by attempts to conform.  
   3.2. They become group members, where they share the rational and the angry baseline with others.   This gives relief from the punishment of external deviance, while they are sharing the internal deviance.
   Angry people join an 'angry anonymous' group. 
   Those few rational people, who do feel deviant from the normative irrationality join groups for survivors of a trauma, catastrophe, extreme loss and such.   They are those, who have been shocked into discovering their own true rationality by comprehending, that the belief in a god was absurd due to experiencing a drastic disappointment.   But they are still struggling to find back to the irrationality, that continues to be their baseline. 
   Group members have the relief of being able to admit and to talk about, what they need to hide outside the group, due to be considered and punished by the conforming majority.   Being temporarily free from the pressure of external deviance, they can focus upon coping with the internal feeling of being deviant and of supporting each other's attempts to conform.  

As a result, irrational and calm people reinforce each other to remain irrational and calm.   Those rational and angry people, who feel deviant and join self-help groups, reinforce each other in the acknowledgment of the need to change and to become more irrational and more calm.     The normative baseline gets stronger.  

 

When I am imaging a better world, it is one in which the rational people are the majority, and the normative baseline is rationality, atheism, skepticism and the refusal of any belief. 

For all innately rational people, their conscious baseline is congruent with their genuine and the normative baseline.    The irrational people are those, who are considered and treated as deviant.  Sanity and maturity imply rationality.   Irrationals, who refuse or fail to adapt to rationality, because the faculty in their brain is lacking, are considered as disabled and not fully sane.   

If they attempt to solve problems by prayer or if they refuse a luggage tag number 13 as unlucky, then this is considered as indicating their need of psychotherapy.   

If they do damage to others by behavior caused by their delusion, then their place is in a mental institution.    A man allowing himself cheating as justified by a deity having allegedly written in a book, that it is OK for a man to have 4 wives and countless concubines, is insane and dangerous to trusting mongamous women.  
 

For those, who accept to have a problem, there are self-help groups like 'irrational anonymous', where they help each other deal with their affliction and support each other in the attempt to learn rationality..   They feel ashamed of the weakness and dysfunction of their irrational brains.  They hide their irrationality, they never admit their weird believes to anybody accept to others equally afflicted.  
Every grown up and sane person allows himself to be aware, that praying to a god is as preposterous as searching in the garden for eggs hidden by the easter bunny.    Rational people would lead and guide and be role models, and the irrational people would be a subculture of those, who are unable to do any better.    They are treated with pity and compassion, but nobody ever sees their believes as anything except a pathetic affliction.  

But my dream world has not much chance to become real.    In the sad reality, people reinforce each other in their most delusional beliefs, and by experiencing the ubiquity of the shared delusions, they loose all sense for the absurdity and utter loudicrousness of the beliefs.    I feel like living in a world, where the mental instituion of irrational people reinforcing each other has spread over most of the territory, not leaving much space for the few rationals, atheists and skeptics.  

I suspect, that rationality has not yet evolved to have sufficient prevalence and strength in the gene pool.   It cannot replace gullibility as the only way of interacting and learning in the majority of the adult population.   Also rationality of the individual is only developed after going through the gullibility of childhood, therefore rationally as the genuine and the conscious baseline not only requires the faculty to develop it, but this also requires unlearning and discarding gullibility.   

Thus rationality has a double disadvantage impeding it from becoming the normative baseline of the majority.   

366. Compatibility And Personal Baselines

Compatibility And Personal Baselines

What is experienced by an individual as right, good, natural, as a basic value or a personal need is often very different from what the majority of the social environment does or expects.  The individual's baseline is not congruent with the surrounding social environment's baseline.  Instead there are two baselines, the personal baseline and the normative baseline.   Deviance is considered and perceived in comparison to what is accepted as the baseline.    Two baselines define two deviances. 

It is important

• to be aware of one's own true personal baseline and to accept it as a choice and not as deviant from what society demands or expects as the norm. 
• to focus on being independent and accepting one's position, instead of being bothered with defending oneself against the norm.   
• to live according to the true baseline and not submitting to the mainstream baseline against the own inclinations.

People, whose true personal baseline differs from society's baseline, can be in two different incongruent situations:

• They feel deviant and attempt to become, what they are not.
• They are not aware of having externally submitted to what is not their true self, of which they are oblivious or in denial.  

Example 1:  

• Congruent situation 1:  According to the skeptical baseline, nothing is true, because someone else claims it to be true.    Evidence and information can help to estimate the probability.    Skeptics consider all believing as a deviance from rationality.  
• Congruent situation 2:  In a christian society, the existence of a deity is not doubted, believers feel good because of their  belief, which is agreed upon as the baseline and norm, and atheists are considered to be deviant.   
• Incongruent situation 1.  People, who have been disappointed by some tragic event and have lost their belief grieving for having lost it.    For them, the baseline still is believing, and they experience themselves as deviant.   
• Incongruent situation 2.  People taking the belief in a deity for granted without it being of any personal meaning to them.   They would never expect anything from the deity.   They are atheists before getting aware of it.

Example 2:  

• Congruent situation 1:  According to the childfree baseline, it is good to be without children.   Children make life miserable.   For childfree people, breeding is a deviation from their baseline.  
• Congruent situation 2:  In average society, breeding is the norm, breeders follow their inclination, childfree or childless people are considered as being in a state of deviance.
• Incongruent situation 1.  People wishing to have children but having none accept breeding as the baseline and they feel as if they were deviant.  
• Incongruent situation 2.  People postpone breeding due to the lack of a true wish are not aware of this.  

Compatibility with a partner means compatible personal baselines based in the situation of congruence.  

• Absolute baselines are dichotomous.   One is either an atheist or one is not.  
• Onesided baselines.   While there is a minimal education to be equals, there is no maximum education.  
• Fuzzy baselines.   The baseline like the one of sharing all and being mutually the most important person in the world is fuzzy, there is no general definition for all couples.   Every couple needs to find an agreement of the meaning of this baseline due to limitations by differences in taste and in job requirements.  

A situation, where the baseline only appears compatible, because for one it is congruent, but not for the other, will cause disruption in a relationship.