Limits on Rational Agency

[Jasper]

I'm interested in establishing where, in practice, rational (deliberate, systematic, and calculable) behavior ends, and animal (instinctual, survival oriented, primitive) behavior begins.  Is there a clear distinction?  Is there any such thing as pure rational behavior, and, in humans is there such a thing as pure animal behavior?  What are the fundamental differences?

This isn't a discussion about free will.  I'm not presently interested in philosophical free will, I am interested in the psychosocial roots of agency.  Is all behavior, from animal, plant, or person (or any biological entity) simply stemmed from animal drives?  Are humans just animals with a few added social cognitive faculties, in terms of how their agencies play out? 

This does tie in with the BIP, but I'd shy away from it because in my thinking this is more a practical problem, and less of a philosophical issue.  Meaning, we entities may have any manner of agency in psychosocial terms, but that says nothing of how we think about and perceive the BIP.  Regardless of the BIP and our relationship with it, the origins of our agency are still in question.

I'm going to link this discussion to Dok Howl's Shackles Tethers and Anchors thread, because it is partially what inspired this, and I think of it as somewhat required reading.

http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=24191.0

So I'd like to hear your thoughts.  Whence does human agency stem?  Can we really swallow the notion that everything we do comes from a place of animal instinct, augmented by recent cognitive faculties such as social cognition?  Or are we equipped with a pure rationality that can overcome any amount of organic inclination?  Where's the line?

[Brotep]

Society makes everything so messy.


What I mean is, out in "nature" don't instinct and rationality serve the same function?

Run from predators, fuck desirable mates, eat good food.

[Jasper]

So you say that rationality is just another evolved trait that helps us succeed?

How postmodern.

Perhaps that is how we came to acquire rationality, but wouldn't you say that rationality has a behaviorally different 'quality' than mere instinct?

[The Johnny]

EITHER

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychosexual_development#Freud.27s_model_of_psychosexual_development

OR

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Piaget#Stages



Edit: ETA

[Brotep]

So you say that rationality is just another evolved trait that helps us succeed?

I say that rationality is a natural outgrowth of instinct and the ability to form associations/reason inductively.

It is not evolved, however. It is learned.

wouldn't you say that rationality has a behaviorally different 'quality' than mere instinct?

It depends on the circumstances. Again, there are cases in which rationality and instinct would seem indistinguishable, and others in which it would clearly be one or the other.


I am reminded of a notion from the philosophy of action that we inhibit our actions in order to know what we are doing, and the release of the inhibitory mechanism is according to some kind of rationality. That is, rationality is defined (by Velleman, I think it was) as a kind of predictability. However, instincts are also quite predictable, are they not?

[Jasper]

But can you say that a person has no agency beyond naturally evolved traits that they have inherited?

It seems Agency must be a learned trait.  Which implies that different people possess it to different degrees.

EITHER

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychosexual_development#Freud.27s_model_of_psychosexual_development

OR

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Piaget#Stages



Edit: ETA

Shit's weak, son.

[The Johnny]

Hey man, i was just trying to help within the bounds of my understanding of what you are looking for.

[Jasper]

Namely, your thoughts.  I've already got Piaget and Freud's take on things.

[The Johnny]

I think im going to build upon what has already been said in the thread and then add a longer post...

What I mean is, out in "nature" don't instinct and rationality serve the same function?

Run from predators, fuck desirable mates, eat good food.

If by "out in nature" you mean animals, animals arent rational beings, they act purely based on instincts. Or perhaps youd like to explain further or argue that animals are indeed rational beings?

So you say that rationality is just another evolved trait that helps us succeed?

How postmodern.

Perhaps that is how we came to acquire rationality, but wouldn't you say that rationality has a behaviorally different 'quality' than mere instinct?

Rationality is indeed a trait that helped us succeed; being squishy and weak compared to the rest of the animals, it is something we needed. But not merely that.

Also, yes, rationality is distinct from instinct. Instinct is what our body and pre-programing tells us to do. Rationality is what we choose to do. In a simplified manner, they are opposites -but then again one has to take into account that humans arent completely rational, humans also act based on irrational impulses-.

[The Johnny]

I'm interested in establishing where, in practice, rational (deliberate, systematic, and calculable) behavior ends, and animal (instinctual, survival oriented, primitive) behavior begins.  Is there a clear distinction?  Is there any such thing as pure rational behavior, and, in humans is there such a thing as pure animal behavior?  What are the fundamental differences?

I think the main distinction is the presence or absence of consciousness and introspection. Within animals there is pure instinct and drive. Meanwhile, humans (also animals), can renounce their instincts and is inherently what makes us human.

Now, I made reference to the psychosexual development and the cognitive stages, because, it is in a not so explicit sense breached.

Humans during the oral stage (birth to 15 monthish) are pretty much all instinct and drive – parallely speaking, the pre-operational stage (birth to 24monthish) humans don't have symbolic abilities.

Now, during the anal stage (15montish to 3yearish) there is some boundaries instilled into human instinct, namely, bowel control, which implies a control over a bodily function and also the basic acquisition of language. Right after this, comes the phallic stage (3yearish to almost 6yearish) in which humans "go thru the oedipus complex"; mothers are libidinally desired because they are the caretakers and the center of the childs life, but come to realize that she is bound to another person, the father, and thus, the child must renounce its drive and desire for the mother in exchange of the promise of having a partner in the future, whilst identifying with the father. Parallely it's the cognitive operational stage (2ish to 7ish) during which the child now has the ability of symbolization, but isn't capable of logic thought yet.

After this, latency takes place (6ish to 12ish), in which the child represses most of his sexual energies and redirects (sublimates, cathexises) that energy into learning and fantasy. Paralelly this is the concrete cognitive stage (7ish to 11ish, funny that theres a supermarket named that way eh?).

Finally, the last cognitive stage is the formal operational stage, in which the human can think logically. (11ish- onwards).

TL;DR: Consciousness, repression and sublimation are some of the main characteristics that distinguish humans from animals. Animals shit wherever they want, do acts of agression when they want to, and hump what they want to.

Or are we equipped with a pure rationality that can overcome any amount of organic inclination?  Where's the line?

Im not sure how to address this... but, the simplest examples would be trying to overcome breathing or sleeping...

[Telarus]

Retraining the Breath, (i.e. consciously deconstructing your breathing patterns, changing them, and them embedding these new reflexes) is totally what Pranayama is about.

[The Johnny]

So with enough "rational mind power" one can survive without eating, breathing or sleeping indefinitely?

[Brotep]

What I mean is, out in "nature" don't instinct and rationality serve the same function?

Run from predators, fuck desirable mates, eat good food.

If by "out in nature" you mean animals, animals arent rational beings, they act purely based on instincts. Or perhaps youd like to explain further or argue that animals are indeed rational beings?

Heh. No, animals do not act purely based on instinct. They are capable of learning from experience.

That's why this works:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning


You could argue for animals as rational beings, as limited by their comprehension.

[The Johnny]

What I mean is, out in "nature" don't instinct and rationality serve the same function?

Run from predators, fuck desirable mates, eat good food.

If by "out in nature" you mean animals, animals arent rational beings, they act purely based on instincts. Or perhaps youd like to explain further or argue that animals are indeed rational beings?

Heh. No, animals do not act purely based on instinct. They are capable of learning from experience.

That's why this works:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning

You could argue for animals as rational beings, as limited by their comprehension.

Well ok, you do have a point that if its learnt thru experience, its not instinct, but im not sure if that qualifies as rational. take this definition (which you might or might not agree with)

Reason is a mental faculty found in humans, that is able to generate conclusions from assumptions or premises. In other words, it is amongst other things the means by which rational beings propose (specific) reasons, or explanations of cause and effect.

I wouldnt say animals have a deep sense of causality... and im not to sharp on animal psychology but...

Human reason is something much more specific, requiring not just the possibility of associating perceptions of smoke, for example, with memories of fire, but also the ability to create and manipulate a system of symbols, as well as indices and icons, according to Charles Sanders Peirce, the symbols having only a nominal, though habitual, connection to either smoke or fire.[6]

perhaps it is more linked to the capacity of symbolic thought?...

[Jasper]

Thinking about the intellectual differences between humans and other beings as:

Operant conditioning, the ability to generate behavior in opposition to it (metacognition)
The cognitive faculties hinted at by Freud's repression and sublimation (reacting to inclinations with forethought)
The ability to employ "logical" reasoning in explaining things (whatever shape that may take in itself)

These all seem to outline the hard limits of rational agency, regardless of species.  A being not in the habit of metacognition, for example, has a weaker agentic quality than one who does.

Is there more?