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[SalmonGod]

There's the fools who rely overmuch on science, nearly deifying it, and there's the fools who rely overmuch on faith and do evil by it.

I think in both cases it has less to do with the limitations of one style of thinking vs the other and more to do with people becoming so obsessed with a methodology that they become incapable of recognizing when they're failing the original goals of contributing to human well-being.  People need to learn to let go instead of clinging when it becomes clear that the ideas and processes they hold dear are becoming harmful when they were meant to be helpful.  This stubbornness is what I attribute the majority of the world's problems to.  The larger the grouping of people, the larger the inclination to stuff everyone's identities and values into a rigid structure.  Ironically, this also means that the larger the grouping of people, the larger the membership of that group whose needs are going to be forsaken... and when you point out this failing the common response will be roughly "this is just the way it is", which is just an appeal to the rigidity of the structure rather than saying anything for its worth to humanity.

The prime example is The Law.  Anyone with the slightest bit of critical thinking ability is aware that the law isn't always right... yet we cling to this belief that adhering to the law even when it isn't right is fundamental to the integrity of society.  I see this as contradictory.  How can it be right to value this abstract concept of society or any of its facets over any human being, when society is supposed to be a collection of social structures that facilitate mutual cooperation and support by and for all human participants.  Yet it seems to me like people are constantly abandoning each other over these abstract ideals, forgetting that those ideals were invented in the first place to help them benefit each other.

I wrote the following on an MBTI forum, and I think it's also pretty relevant to this issue.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I've never taken the official MBTI exam, but I've taken several different tests online and get about the same in each one. I'm strongly INP, but on the line between T and F, with usually a very slight lean to F. Both INTP and INFP describe me equally well, and I can get annoyed with people I meet who are extremes of either side

I've always been an avid debater plus equal parts daydreamer and deep thinker. I noticed the thinking/feeling differences in people before discovering MBTI and codified my interpretation of those functions for myself before I ever knew I was an INXP

Logic/Objectivity are tools for generating understanding and cooperation in fairness between varying value systems, but when unbalanced by feeling/subjectivity can lose sight of its ultimate purpose and lead to actions and attitudes which betray human need. I've seen this most often in people who cling too stubbornly to blunt objectivity and drive people away because they can't be convinced to turn their logical functions towards developing social tact. They may be presenting what they think is the best objective compromise, but without applying Feeling, they're terrible at selling that compromise to others. Since discovering MBTI, I've especially noticed that introverted thinking types tend to run information through their value systems and present the conclusions as fact, while refusing to admit that those conclusions are in fact the product of a value system. I've seen many discussions turn bitter over this behavior.

Feeling/Subjectivity are used to generate value systems, which are inherently relativistic in nature, and thus (whether admitted or not) serve as a launching point for the logical functions, as all formations of objectivity and logic begin with interpretation of information that is limited by the subjective limitations of knowledge/experience. Feeling is also responsible for the most fundamental fabric of human relationships - that connection (good or bad) which may be explained only after it is developed. I think this is the part of us that gives us direction and meaning in life. Without the value systems generated by feeling, there is no way to generate priorities in life which translate into goals and eventually action. If feeling is left unchecked by thinking, it can also easily betray itself because selective use of objectivity is required to create the harmony it desires. Without any Thinking bridging the gap to value systems held by other individuals, which is what enables fairness and cooperation, pure Feeling is doomed to destroy the connections it creates.

I may be completely missing the point here, as I haven't read much about the stacking of functions in MBTI, but I hope I've offered something. I really think and feel that T/F is a very important balance for people to achieve and respect.

[KaelGotDwarves]

Vector, and pardon me if I'm getting this wrong, the debate here is leaning towards post-positivist thought.

The simple truth of it is that there's no humanity, ethics, morality, values and such in science and the universe unless we put it there. In the past, not just religion has done evil, science has as well. It's a simple thing to do to forget about, morality towards your fellow humans, when you're interested in the best, most functional people and societies. Think Nazi Aryanism and experiments on people, Chinese Great Leap Forward, the Khmer Rouge Cambodian Genocide, past liquidations of the mentally infirm and disabled. You may argue that these are not sound applications of science, but it certainly made sense to the people doing it. It's the same with religious bigots, organised religion is supposed to serve and protect people in a co-beneficial relationship, not have people toiling under oppression.

So we should look more in our similarities than our differences. Otherwise we forget that we're all human.

Humanity's enemy is dogmaticism.

[Vector]

Hmm... I'm not sure.

I'm quite aware that all these modes of thought can be used for evil.  For me, there's no debate there.  Science can be evil, religion can be evil, just about anything can be.  Similarly, they can be used for good.

However, I'm not sure that we don't know the difference between good and evil within ourselves--something inherited, innate.

[Tack]

Dolphin-like...

[Vector]

Dolphin-like...

Yeah, I think there's some orange taffeta involved, too!

[MetalSlimeHunt]

However, I'm not sure that we don't know the difference between good and evil within ourselves--something inherited, innate.

Aspects of evolutionary morality are hardly a revelation. If the vast majority of people considered killing other humans a solution to conflicts below a certain level of severity and rarity, we as a species would go extinct. It's just not something that would evolve for very long, because it doesn't lend to a stable population. Theft is similar, in that a society in which you can steal without penalty is one where everyone spends all their time trying to steal what they want and need from everyone else and everyone ends up starving to death when the consumable goods run out. Community and altruism, on the other hand, both assist a stable population. If you have a lone hunter who fails to get a kill one week, they die. If you have ten hunters who fail to get a kill half of the time, the ones who succeed through averages alone feed everyone and the group can continue surviving. The evolutionary benefits of morality are fairly clear.

[SalmonGod]

I've been telling people since I was 14

When everyone looks out for each other, no one needs to look out for themselves.

[Tack]

Not really... What about the people who are really, really isolated? And what about handicapped or disabled people?
It's funny, because the major thing we have keeping down the human population at the moment is war.

Yet unlike survival of the fittest, in which the weakest die and the strongest breed, instead we take our strongest (physically, anyway), and kill them off.
Hilarious.

[Vector]

Then how can we say there is only morality because "we put it there?"

To be sure, morality exists only with self-consciousness and intent--"ensoulment," if you like, but that doesn't mean it had to be posited by us.

[Bauglir]

Of course, now that we're sapient enough to have a concept of sapience, it seems like the way to go to analyze those instincts to determine what's actually good by whatever definition we decide on, and which is evolutionary cruft that's just good at getting us to reproduce - which is, for obvious reasons, not an inherently good goal.

Going back to the scientific thought vs religious thought thing, it seems a classic case of overemphasis. Maybe I'm oversimplifying things myself, but it seems like nearly every time somebody has a good insight ("Holy shit guys, science is effective!" "Holy shit guys, language can impact our perception of the world!" etc), most of the people who hear about it understand on some level that there's a valuable tool here, and immediately abandon every other tool because this one is good, and don't make an effort to actually understand what the insight really was. So you get people who insist that science proves there is no God, people who insist that the Bible is the literal truth of history, people who insist that reality and consciousness are illusions, and so on. All of which seem, to me, to be such fundamental misunderstandings of the original insight as to be in direct opposition with them, but eh.

Anyway, I'm off to assume this explains all of human history kthxbai.

[Phmcw]

For me in the religion VS Science debate is the we should rely on empirical evidence VS we should not.

A lot of Buddhist (including the Dalai lamas) rely more on empirical evidence than faith, and he literally said that if Science disprove a Buddhist belief, then he would abandon that particular belief. Buddhism is therefore, in my book, a philosophy.

Let's stretch things a bit : the communist party, in USSR and China, will try to make himself pass as a perfect tool of rational governance and will bury any evidence that prove other-way. They inoculate their followers with the absolute supremacy of their beliefs and the perfection of their leaders (complete with little shrine to Mao) and are therefore based on religious thinking.

Denying there is anything but empirical evidence is lacking of imagination. Dramatically.
I don't think the things you criticised came from over-relying on Science because you may empirically disprove them.
Considering that anything that hasn't been proved to exist doesn't exist is no science either.

[Siquo]

Yet unlike survival of the fittest, in which the weakest die and the strongest breed, instead we take our strongest (physically, anyway), and kill them off.
Hilarious.

Well, theres something to say for ridding the world of those willing to fight.

[MaximumZero]

Yet unlike survival of the fittest, in which the weakest die and the strongest breed, instead we take our strongest (physically, anyway), and kill them off.
Hilarious.

Well, theres something to say for ridding the world of those willing to fight.

I say we bring back gladitorial arenas and use the fighters as entertainment. Think UFC, but on a much larger scale.

[Vester]

Yet unlike survival of the fittest, in which the weakest die and the strongest breed, instead we take our strongest (physically, anyway), and kill them off.
Hilarious.

Well, theres something to say for ridding the world of those willing to fight.

I say we bring back gladitorial arenas and use the fighters as entertainment. Think UFC, but on a much larger scale.

Mortal Kombat, with Real Asian Men^tm instead of strangely accented mustachioed Orientals?

[MaximumZero]

And less Bruce Lee clones. Hopefully.