Errands and my birthday yesterday, and tennis today and, perhaps, getting over my birthday, have me too out of it to do anything new for this entry, so I’m putting an incomplete  blither I blithered a week or so ago and, so far as I know, did not post here:

The Biological Determinants of Morality According to Knowlecular Psychology

Beginning with the moral assumption that the Property Rights of the Innocent Ought to be Inviolable.

The knowlecular basis for this is the Urceptual Property Complex.  I believe a person has sensors that activate this complex upon encountering a part or the whole of some objectual complex in the environment that is in tactile contact with the person, and— therefore—with the person’s urceptual self.

Background: To explain what an objectual complex is requires a description of the objecticeptual awareness.  (Note: I count my thoughts on this as a theory once removed from my main theory—i.e., less probable to me than my theory of the anthroceptual awareness, for instance.)  Objectuality starts with the fundaceptual sensors.  They feed into just about all the initial precerebral areas including the initial objecticeptual pre-cerebral area.  Mechanisms there filter out stimuli associated with life.  That’s an easy more or less near-instantaneous task in many instances, but hugely difficult lengthy task in others.  My guess (and this is my first serious thinking about objectuality) is that many stimuli that cannot without significant difficulty be tagged as either objectual or living are ignored—until such a time as the filtering mechanisms have “learned” enough to make reasonably good guesses as to which they are.

In any case, the brain will allow what the initial objecticeptual pre-cerebral area considers objectual knowlicles (or objecticeptual units) into the secondary objecticeptual pre-cerebral area.  Here, mechanisms will sort out the urceptual objecticeptual knowlecules—i.e., the objecticeptual knowlicles that form one of the unified wholes that we innately consider an objectual complex.  I hypothesize that there are many of these such as tree, body of water, sun, cloud, rock.  The one I’m first concerned with here, however, is the urceptual property complex, which, as already mentioned, is any non-living thing a person comes into tactile contact with.

Make that anything a person comes into contact with because I believe that the early life form that first developed a sensitivity to property may have considered its prey to be its property once captured, and therefore fought off members of its species to keep possession of it.  Something along those lines would have been biologically sensible.

Wait.  Before all this, the first property-owning organism would come to consider its own body to be a property-object.  Something to be defended automatically when touched by something not-it, and eventually when something not-it comes close enough to touch it.
The further reflex of recognizing prey once taken as (1) not not-it and (2) as a property-object will evolve a reflex helping it to protect taken prey from being stolen from it.

Meanwhile, the reflex of considering simply the space around it to be its territory, or part of the body it owns will surely evolve.  The territorial instinct.  It seems to me that, however simplistic all this sounds, that nothing would stop the evolution of the urceptual property complex that would continue till our version of it: owned prey would become any object an organism touched and wanted to keep, and eventually any such object on his spatial property—i.e., his personal space.

Related urceptual reflexes would naturally develop concerning recognition of the property of those of his species, and not of other species.  Except enough of a reflex about the latter to warn him away from the cave some bear owns, say.

Result: an innate moral belief in the sacredness of a person’s body, personal space, and objects in that space or extending from it, and the evil of another person’s trying to take or damage any of these owned things.  The empathy drive, also basically urceptual, will combine with this to make healthy people share another’s fear of having property taken from him, and unhappiness whenever it is.  This is where one of mankind’s oldest written moral laws comes from: thou shalt not steal.  Natural Law, in my view.  But not supernatural law.

Ownership of a spouse and children makes sense, too: they are property a person is driven biologically to defend.  Of course, they are special kinds of property, so one’s ownership is very complex—in ways combined with a person’s being owned in certain respects by what he owns.  This, right now, I have thought long enough about to say anything more about.

I think most everyone would agree that everyone, including communists, believes—albeit, sometimes without conscious awareness—in simple property rights to one’s own body, house, and family—even when the house technically might belong to the state.  Difficulties crop up when concerned with economic property like a store or barn or mine.  Here I distinguish personal property like one’s own body from economic property, the former being what one has for survival and simple comfort, not to make money or the equivalent, the latter primarily to get beyond mere survival and simple comfort.

Direct and indirect property.  Some of the indirect property would become direct when its owner is in direct possession of it, like a store-owner inside his store.  But that would be the same as his house, which he won’t always be in.

Another question (and about all I have in my understanding of what I think is my present subject are questions) is partial ownership—of an employee, for instance.  A person can sell time shares in his body.  Rent his body, that is.  Similarly, if you rent a room from me for a week, you wholly own that room until the week is up—except what your rental agreement might say, and what might be understood such as your not having the right to smash a rented computer.  You have bought its effectiveness for a given length of time, so must return its effectiveness at the end of the rental period—with some unavoidable deterioration allowed.

When you rent something, you’re paying for its effective and the unreturnable time you are in possession of it.  This is something many economists (all economists?) seem not to understand—the ones who talk about unearned income.  Which brings up an important problem in the study of morality: what about items in our moral code not directly due to some urceptual complex like the question of the morality of taking money for rent.  This is where logic comes in, the principle involved being that anything not directly moral because of some innate moral reflex like the one that property is sacred is moral if logic can show it step by step to be the necessary outcome of  the application of the moral reflex.  Call the action of the moral reflex the pronouncement of a moral axiom.

Empathy will always be part of the determination of the morality of an act not directly based on a moral axiom.  With that, I’ve spread my thoughts as far as I can right now without losing all idea of where I am.

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It may be that the empathy instinct accounts for all other morality, natural empathy.  Perhaps just about all more complicated is just a matter of evaluation of priorities: which come first, security or freedom, for example.

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I feel like I’m re-cycling very stale standard ideas–badly.   But I have nothing else for today than the following excerpt from what I wrote two days ago while at my politically-incorrect worst (which is why the really outrageous opinions in what I wrote aren’t below):

A point worth making is that judging the morality of an act should consider not just the act but all that led up to it, which many people are incapable of doing or even thinking ought to be done.  For instance, take the execution of some gentleman who was believed by a jury of twelve, a judge and many policemen to have buthered 27 youngs boys and buried their remains.  There is a sizable minority who seem empathic only with the man to be executed–because, apparently, their attention spans don’t go back to his effect on others.

Which brings me to the question of the morality of revenge.  I believe the desire to for revenge may be an ethiplex.  The good of revenge is making acts like whatever was revenged less likely in the future.  Revenge makes the world safer–when justified.  It also makes those who take revenge successfully, and those vicariously partaking of his revenge, happy–because that is what the ethiplex does: make the moral act it compels a person to take, when it is stronger than any ethiplex or group of ethiplexes combined that oppose it result in happiness.

In the largest field of play, the revenge ethiplex is why the Romans eventually had to demolish Carthage.  Frankly, I’m a much bigger fan of the Phoenicians than of the Romans, so rather wish Carthage flattened Rome.  I think.  Actually, I don’t know that much about Phoenicia except that their civilization is credited with the alphabet, and they were great explorers (who may have gotten to American, but without discovering it since they didn’t add directions to it to World Culture the way its true discoverer, Columbus, did).

I guess this won’t be going into a blog entry.  Too disgustingly intelligent for the politically-correctniks.

Conclusion: Whether a given moral act is good or evil is not a snap to determine.  Note: a moral act can be evil, as well as good.  It is the reducticeptual awareness that finally evaluates a moral act–reason, that is.  I guess I’m saying moral behavior is not completely governed by the anthroceptual awareness; it is influenced by evaluatory processes in the reducti-evaluceptual association area where a person considers any moral act “unemotionally”–which is to say, without regard to instinctive responses like anti-violence or revenge.  Which is mostly where I am now, except for my outbursts in retaliation to political-correctniks’ crap.  And my racism, sexism, etc.

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It may be that all ethiplexes are located in the anthro-evaluceptual association area.  That is to say, morality is purely people-centered (“anthrocentric” is my preferred term for this).  I must confess that I at sea about them.  I know they must exist but an unsure which ones do.  So I have been noting every one I think possible, however slightly, and will continue do so now.

First let me explain how I will evaluate my suggested ethiplexes, which is the way I try to evluate everything in my theory of psychology.  I ask the following questions about it:

1. Does it make intuitive sense to me?  If not, it means it doesn’t fit in with my general experience of the world–in this case, the world’s people.  Or that there’s something else wrong with it that I can’t put my finger on.  If the latter, I’ll put it aside and ask my other questions about it.  One of them should apprise me of its defect.  If none do, I’ll keep it under consideration. If the former, I’ll junk it–with the assumption that I’m wrong about it, something will make me remember it and analyze it again.

2. Is it consistent with the bulk of my knowlecular psychology?  My knowlecular psychology may be wrong, but if so, my acceptance of something also wrong won’t matter.  I also feel that the more elements of my theory that fit well with one another, the greater the likelihood that they’re valid.

3. Is it consistent with what I know about validated neurophysiology.  I don’t know much about that, but (a) there so far isn’t enough of importance to know and (2) I know enough of it to know when I’m definitely wrong.

4. Does the existence of a given ethiplex make evolutionary sense?  This means I must try to show how it could have been biologically selected.

I don’t require a 100% yes to each of these, just a reasonably strong one.

Now to my ethiplexes.  The first I’m going to try to make sense of is the anti-violence instinct.  I believe we are wired from birth to be morally opposed to violent acts against the property of others.  That we nevertheless often steal, vandalize, or destroy others’ acquired property and damage or render others’ . . . “natural property?” (I mean the physical property a person comes with–everything inside his skin; can’t think of the right term) inoperative does not mean we don’t have it.  It only means that our ethiplexes must compete with each other–in an “ethization,” or organization of ethiplexes.

One reason I began my discussion of ethiplexes with the anti-violence ethiplex is that it most clearly (and un-anti-violently) demonstrates the complexity of moral behavior due to the number of moral choices which are determined by which of two or more ethiplexes in conflict with one another wins.  A simple example: a lunatic charges a man’s wife holding an ax over his head; the man can shoot him.  Should he?

To put it simply, his defense-of-the-weak ethiplex should be stronger in this instance than his anti-violence ethiplex, so the answer is yes.  It may not be simple, though.  What if the wife has just made a derogatory comment about the ax-man’s race?

I’m stopping here because I went on to become very incorrect politically and am too cowardly to reveal the magnitude of my wickedness.  Indeed, I may already have gone too far.

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When I went to my workshop to continue my notes on morality, I found this:

It is important to consider the empathy instinct, too–the instinct for making others happy, or less unhappy–by giving a present to a friend in order  vicariously to enjoy his enjoyment of it, for instance, or to experience the bliss imagining the relief of his loved one due to what he was going to do for her that Sidney Carton felt.

Related to that is the innate need to gain the approbation of society most of us have, I’m certain. Sidney Carton, I’m sure, had more of his share of that, too.  But people vary considerably in the strength of both their empathy instinct and social approbation need.  The strength of a person’s competing drives varies greatly to, and has a good deal of say in what will, in his opinion, result in the highest lifetime pleasure-to-pain ratio.

It is these two drives together that I believe responsible for all our moral acts.  Needless to say, they won’t do much if not for the upbringing that helps us discover how best to use them, and they are probably weaker in children, especially boys, than they are in adults.  This makes sense since a person needs to learn how best to take care of himself before learning how best to interact, as an adult, with others.  And during his time of self-centeredness, he will have adults looking out for him, particularly a mother with maximum inter-personal morality.

Ah, you ask, what do you mean by “inter-personal morality?”  Isn’t all morality inter-personal?  No.  Some human being will be involved in every moral event, of course, but while most such events will be about human interactions, and all of them will finally be about what’s best for some group of people, or nation, or all of humanity, some will involve either intra-personal or impersonal behavior.

Intra-personal morality consists of one’s moral behavior concerning oneself only.  For instance: should I keep plugging away at this question although I’m pretty fuzzy about it, or should I stop writing for the day and go back to the thriller I’m reading?

Impersonal behavior, if there is such a thing, might involve making a choice between have a copse cleared in a park one is designing so mothers won’t fear perverts will hide in them waiting for a child to wander near without no adult companion or leave it because a park needs at least little wilderness as relief from the stress of civilization.  People are part of the moral choice but it centers on what parks and trees are.

I feel pretty much out of ideas about my subject now–the ones I had didn’t last very long.

I remember writing it but not when.  It repeats some previous material.  Probably when I cut & pasted for one of my entries, I missed it. Anyway, I can use it to take care of this entry.   More (sorry) tomorrow.
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I’m overflowing with ideas about the human conscience–no, make that the conscience, for I’m sure mammals have consciences, too, however less complex than ours; okay, I’m overflowing with ideas about it, so what follows is near-certain to bobble frequently awarp.  Not to mention terribly poetic the way only I can slant awarp.

To begin with, H. L. Mencken pretty much said it all with: “Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking.”  (Has anyone in the world ever said more shrewd things than Mencken, and so healthily!?)  A person’s conscience, indeed, is a simple device in the socioceptual sub-awareness of the anthroceptual awareness that is activated to the degree that (1) his socioceptual awareness is turned on (i.e., the proportion of his attention is on the socioceptual, which is to say one’s perceived involvement with others); (2) his evaluceptual awareness is monitoring whatever it is that he is doing or thinking (i.e., telling him he’s doing good or fucking up); and (3) his over-all level of mental energy is high (which depends on the importance to him of the situation, and how much mental energy he is capable of raising, which depends on his innate cerebrum and who tired he may be, how difficult for him whatever it is he’s trying to do–since any errors he can’t avoid making will cut his energy for at least a moment).  The importance of the situation depends on many things, such as who may be watching, a parent, for instance, increasing it, one’s four-year-old sister not; how connected it is to one’s major concerns, which will be his society’s, as well, in one way or another;, since–ultimately–everything that’s good for him will be good for society (as I have been, and will continue to be assuming, that he is neither significantly anthroceptually or evaluceptually screwed up.

The sole function of the conscience is to produce shame or its opposite . . . “commendability” is as good a term as any, I guess; the conscience is much more a negative device keeping us from misbehaving, than than a positive one. holding us to proper behavior.  Or so it is for me and others who are much more likely to misbehave than do what will earn us some girl scout badge.  Interesting subject, for a later time.  One quick thought about it: that creativity is mostly a matter of breaking rules, and breaking rules is the main “flaw” a conscience is supposed to guard one against.  A second quick thought: that the conscience can certainly be wrong–which is why so much valuable philosophy has been written against its decisions.

Shame.  I sometimes fear its avoidance it may be my only significant motivation in life.  I’m make poems not so much in hopes of winning approval but because I so much fear the shame of having failed to live up to my potential, having failed to do what’s right.You do that by never doing anything that will bother another person.  Well, to put it more accurately, you do that by never doing anything you believe will bother anyone else.  Whichever definition you use, it’s impossible.  So it’s minimization of annoying the Collective.  Like I say, I sometimes suspect I’m much more concerned with escaping condemnation than with winning approval.  Don’t dislike me, don’t dislike me, please don’t dislike me!  The biological advantage of such a need should be obvious.  But everyone should realize that sometimes one does have to do things certain to gain people’s dislike for their good.  Smacking little Ferdinand for drinking turpentine (if you’re a sane parent) or patting him on the head and carefully explaining the dangers of drinking turpentine and, more generally, not listening to Mom or Dad (if you’re superior to sanity), for instance.

Of course, when slowing into reason, I understand how multi-motivated I actually am.  I’m even aware that I can ignore my conscience, and have.  Or fooled it.

An important implicit point I’ve been making is that the conscience has to do only with one’s place in society.  On cue, it would seem, I made one of my horribly too-frequent typos to remind myself of an asocial variety of shame: the feeling making a typo or the like gives you.  Yes, it the long run such mistakes will have an adverse social effect, but I consider them outside the conscience’s rule.  Simple incompetence.  If public, it would shame one, but in the privacy of a computer room or the like, something much less.

Much that causes shame is breaking mores.  Breaking a law not based on a society’s mores may not result in shame.  Where do mores come from?  I believe the consequential ones are innate.  Sure, they are strengthened by indoctrination, and vary in minor ways from one tribe to another, but we are born with them in us, ready for use or dormant, until childhood, adolescence or adulthood.  Take, for example, what I consider one’s innate inhibition against causing physical pain to another.  We could learn what does that and avoid it on our own, but social indoctrination teaches us that more quickly (although never with any finality until we’ve personally learned it on our own.  My favorite personal anecdeote about this is my suddenly feeling nauseated at the age of ten or so while watching the struggle for life of some kind of larvae I’d I’d filled a jar with and added water to, and throwing the jar as far as I could into a nearby marsh, never again to torture lesser beings like that.  (Although I find nothing wrong with any kind of torture of an enemy soldier if there’s a chance it could aid my side.)

We’re now to a central part of this discussion: the conscience’s dependence, utter dependence, on empathy.  As I’ve tried to explain many times elsewhere never as well as I wish I could, each of us contains knowlecular puppet representing The Other.  This . . . “Urbody,” I think I’ll call it, at least in this essay . . . this (innate) Urbody underlies many . . . underbodies . . .  each of which is a different specialized underbody such as the Ur-Mother, the Ur-Sibling, the Ur-Sex-Object, or other UrFriend; or it may be a kind of  UrFoe.  Whatever, every human being, and some animals, one encounters will activate it.  If the UrBody activated is an UrFriend, one will automatically identify with it, which means that one will be it, or experience what one thinks its stimulus is thinking and feeling–albeit much else will influence–reduce or intensify–the identification–some hint that the stimulus may be a foe in spite of its appearance, for instance; or a need to get on with some chore; et cetera.  Fear and/or anger and the desire to attack or retreat will result if the stimulus activates an underbody of ones’s UrFoe.

If one’s UrFriend experiences pain due to what one is doing (which it will if one thinks it will), one will feel shame, and try to stop whatever it is one is doing.  Or pain due to what one has done.  Retrospective shame is by far the commonest kind of shame I would guess.

Have I said anything yet?  Almost 1200 words and I have a feeling I haven’t.  And here’s the twelve-hundredth.

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