arkirk
Veteran Member
Artirk: a habit develops through a process of association. Instinct appears to be a behavior independent of association. Try again.
I'm saying none of what you suggest.
Rationalism fails because it doesn't exclude hearsay. Scientific method fails because it requires verification by others.
We're going back to Hume and Kant here you know.
So then a bowel movement would be instinctive? You see what I mean about basic functions that are built into the human body. They are tempered with civil custom and rule. While they are perfectly "natural" it is necessary to apply social controls to them to maintain sufficient order and health to live together in the numbers we have on this earth.
So if everything fails, then why bother? I am not as pessimistic as you. The Scientific Method only is a system of elimination of heresay through the requirement of repeatability. That is why most folks don't accept alien abduction and scores of hypotheses that don't entirely work out experimentally. Moral principles however can protect people from undue harm. It is a rational process to compare predictions of outcomes from behaviors and actions in the past if the information regarding those actions is accurate and set some guidelines for human behavior, always knowing we do not know it all and when the situation comes up where the guidelines do not fit, it is a rational process we use to make that determination.
I think the problem is one of being more rational than simply emotionally reactive. Admittedly, there are no absolutes at work here (that we know about and possibly that we are not equipped to ever know about), but that does not preclude attempting to communicate honestly (back to Kant here) and temper that communication with an effort to be civilized. As soon as someone tells me "I know something you cannot know" that is a signal that authority is about to rear its ugly head.