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Post by vincent on Apr 18, 2021 15:30:41 GMT -5
If it was Jane Goodall's greatest achievement to "blurr the line" between humans and other animals, Robert Sapolsky is trying to somehow redraw it here :
I think it's well worth watching till the end.
I'm sure you'll see why.
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Post by Roshan on Apr 19, 2021 9:06:36 GMT -5
We are the only species that is typing this.
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Post by Roshan on Apr 19, 2021 9:26:18 GMT -5
I am going to trounce him. Give me some time.  |
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Post by Roshan on Apr 19, 2021 9:48:21 GMT -5
It's not that I disagree with him, it's just that what has he ultimately said about 'being human' that common sense doesn't already know? And how has he shown it in a way that is 'proof-like' either? He also wrote: “I love science, and it pains me to think that so many are terrified of the subject or feel that choosing science means you cannot also choose compassion, or the arts, or be awed by nature. Science is not meant to cure us of mystery, but to reinvent and reinvigorate it.” ― Robert Sapolsky Well, good luck with that Bob. |
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Post by Roshan on Apr 19, 2021 10:01:09 GMT -5
He has refuted a bunch of clichés that ultimately were never more than clichés, so, so? Every pet owner knows their dogs and cats empathize with their pain. It's only his presentation that elevates these clichés, that erects them as serious categories in order to debunk them, so so? I find the lack of grasp of 'gestalt' here as well as the pseudo-prioritizing super, super annoying. I also find it super annoying that I feel forced to explain the obvious. He must be FeSi creative after all; he really gets my goat. This is like Te role posturing over a lot of expedient manipulations of Si categories with a cloying unctuous sense of himself as just so adorable...
It's like he builds a bunch of sandcastles, then kicks them with his bare foot and says look, I just knocked down a castle with my bare foot, are you with me, team. And then ends with Fe-drenched sweeping umbrella claims that are also clichés, along the lines of monkeys don't write Beethoven sonatas, to show we are different after all, and again, so?
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Post by Roshan on Apr 19, 2021 10:07:41 GMT -5
It's like there's NO gestalt, we must proceed entymologically--according to prefab ants and anthills--and then at the end there is nothing but (Fe) gestalt.
So?
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Post by Roshan on Apr 19, 2021 10:14:20 GMT -5
This is not to say his work on endocrinology, stress and depression won't be maximally worthwhile. It probably is. Just...his preening not so much.
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Post by Roshan on Apr 19, 2021 10:21:58 GMT -5
I don't know how to articulate a lot of things. I was very lazy in math and science in school and at that time as a female was not incentivized to do better--was rather DEcentivized--so I lack certain language and lenses. But I do know that you can show certain shades of blue-green/green-blue to a class of around 25 students and get about half saying it's blue and half saying it's green. (Because I've done it, in language classes, not light or color theory). But that doesn't mean there's no blue or green. Everything in the phenomenal world exists on a spectrum; as such the borders are axiomatically blurred but that doesn't mean the categories of things don't exist, unless you really want to wax (meta)physics--which would not really be appropriate in the context of the video. I don't see what the fuss is all about. Humans are different and there is overlap. Sometimes the overlap will pop up in surprising places. Evolution itself is predicated on blurring of borders. All you have to do is look at what we're doing right now to know we're different.
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Post by vincent on Apr 19, 2021 10:31:35 GMT -5
It's not that I disagree with him, it's just that what has he ultimately said about 'being human' that common sense doesn't already know? And how has he shown it in a way that is 'proof-like' either?
There is absolutely nothing new or even remotely controversial here.
He is giving a "popular science" summary of the state of the play in this field.
He is the affable face of the orthodoxy.
I posted him because of the contrast with Goodall, which shows how much of a freak she is, how out there she is, by comparison.
The thing is, he makes a sarcastic comment about the fact that, not so long ago, talking about primate culture would have been impossible and now it's all the rage.
But i can't help but wonder... if he had been around in the 1960s, maybe he would have been one of those conventional scientists who told her she shouldn't name her chimps.
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Post by Roshan on Apr 19, 2021 10:41:40 GMT -5
I doubt he would have gone into science if he had been born in the 40s or earlier. He seems like he had to be more of a Mattel Toy child, a 'bulls-eye' boomer.
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Post by vincent on Apr 19, 2021 10:44:43 GMT -5
He has refuted a bunch of clichés that ultimately were never more than clichés, so, so? Every pet owner knows their dogs and cats empathize with their pain. It's only his presentation that elevates these clichés, that erects them as serious categories in order to debunk them, so so? I find the lack of grasp of 'gestalt' here as well as the pseudo-prioritizing super, super annoying. I also find it super annoying that I feel forced to explain the obvious. He must be FeSi creative after all; he really gets my goat. This is like Te role posturing over a lot of expedient manipulations of Si categories with a cloying unctuous sense of himself as just so adorable...
Yeah.
He is one of my FeSi supervisee who would be in a position to supervise me if i ever set a foot in that field. Or in any similar field.
And i think he specifically belongs to this subset of FeSi creative subtype who have learned to "mimic" SiFe Ni role, to hide their Ni polr phobia.
His speech goes on and on. You can't help bult expect him to talk about symbolism, about Piaget's formal operational stage, about human neoteny, about human language, about metaphors, etc. About anything remotely related to intuition.
And when he finally talks about it, at the very end, he pushes it away with one short dismissve sentence.
It's "all that kind of stuff".
Not even a "thing", like it is for Lynch.
And then he proceed to exhibit the specimen of a catholic nun, as an exemplar of magnificent, but irrational faith. And you get the feeling that he doesn't really understand it. At all.
He is just nice enough to acknowledge it, and acknowledge that being human as something to do with that, so to speak.
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Post by vincent on Apr 19, 2021 10:57:52 GMT -5
“I love science, and it pains me to think that so many are terrified of the subject or feel that choosing science means you cannot also choose compassion, or the arts, or be awed by nature. Science is not meant to cure us of mystery, but to reinvent and reinvigorate it.” ― Robert Sapolsky Well, good luck with that Bob.
Well, that's nice and all. (Fe)
But this "it's all compatible" argument is a mask for reductionnism.
On one hand he insists on redrawing the line between humans and other Si categories.
But on the other hand, he doesn't care that much about the lines between disciplines and domains.
He assumes that the hegemonic territory of science has no border, so he won't defer to artists, philosophers, poets or catholic nuns to answer that "being human" question. He just assumes that it is his job.
This aspect might not be that obvious in this video, but the thing with him is that he started with studying stress in baboons, and now he has videos all over youtube "disproving" Free Will, for example.
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anthony
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Post by anthony on Apr 19, 2021 10:59:06 GMT -5
This is like Te role posturing over a lot of expedient manipulations of Si categories with a cloying unctuous sense of himself as just so adorable... I'm finishing up the talk right now. To worsen this, I've also watched his Stanford Biology lecture series on YouTube, and every single joke he cracked in "Being Human" was simply repeated verbatim(including pitch and tone) from those lectures. This means that he always carries a finite set of well-crafted, tried-and-true "jokes" in the way that one might carry a dagger in their boot, and then performs the jokes to each audience as though he came up with them on the spot. This, I personally find hysterical. |
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Post by vincent on Apr 19, 2021 11:12:16 GMT -5
This is not to say his work on endocrinology, stress and depression won't be maximally worthwhile. It probably is. Just...his preening not so much. I don't know much about his work on these topics.
The irony is that youtube keep suggesting some of his videos to me. But not those.
Months ago, it was his stuff about schizophrenia (and i don't remember much about it) then it was his stuff about free will and other intrusions into philosophy. This time it was his ethology stuff because i was looking into primate hierarchies (because of Peterson, initially).
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Post by Roshan on Apr 19, 2021 12:11:47 GMT -5
This aspect might not be that obvious in this video, but the thing with him is that he started with studying stress in baboons, and now he has videos all over youtube "disproving" Free Will, for example.
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