Difference between revisions of "Valuescience - Shedding Illusion to Live and Die Well"

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[[Final Questions]]
 
 
 
=== ''What do you want? How can you get it? How do you know?''  ===
 
=== ''What do you want? How can you get it? How do you know?''  ===
  
:''"Ideas about value—about what we want and how to get it—are future-oriented. They rest upon prediction. Science, the sole demonstrated means for making predictions better than we can make by chance, is how we more accurately discern and more fully realize value."'' ~ David Schrom, ''[http://www.ecomagic.org/pubs/ValueScienceBklet.doc Valuescience]''
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:''"Ideas about value—about what we want and how to get it—are future-oriented. They rest upon prediction. Science, sole demonstrated means for making predictions better than we can make by chance, is how we more accurately discern and more fully realize value."'' ~ David Schrom, ''[http://www.ecomagic.org/pubs/ValueScienceBklet.doc Valuescience]''
  
== '''Course''' ==
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== Course ==
  
'''Valuescience: Shedding Illusion to Live Better'''  
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'''Valuescience: Shedding Illusion to Live and Die Well'''  
  
 
:'''Stanford University PSYC 136A/236A (autumn); PSYC 136B/236B (spring)'''
 
:'''Stanford University PSYC 136A/236A (autumn); PSYC 136B/236B (spring)'''
  
:'''3 units without lab; 4 units with lab'''
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:'''3 units without practicum; 4 units with practicum'''
 
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:'''Tu, Th 10:30am-11:50am; Sequoia 200 (spring, 2016; varies with quarter)'''
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+
  
''Course Description''  
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:'''Tu, Th 10:30am-11:50am'''
  
This course is an opportunity to bring information from many disciplines to bear upon three central questions of our lives: "What do I want?" "How can I get it?" and most importantly, "How do I know?" We frequently ask the first two questions about everything from big choices like career and marriage to little ones like what we'll eat for lunch today. We ask the third far less often, despite implications of how we respond to it for how we respond to the other two. Perils of this approach are obvious. If we rely upon flawed means of knowing, what we think we know is more likely error.
 
  
All of us have experienced getting what we thought we wanted and feeling disappointed, and all of us have sometimes done what we thought sufficient and come up short. Again and again we think we know ends and means of our lives—our values—only to discover that we're mistaken. With current approaches to value we repeatedly generate overconfidence and error. Though we work to learn from our mistakes, we rarely delve deep enough to re-examine methods on which we rely to address questions of value. Even when we ask, "How do I know," we're often quick to answer with long-held, well-practiced justifications yet to be critically scrutinized to their roots, and poorly able to withstand such scrutiny.
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'''Course Description'''
  
Values are preferences, inherently forward looking and rooted in prediction. Science is sole demonstrated means by which humans predict with better-than-random success. Nearly all of us embrace ideas about value for which we lack evidence and reason sufficient to make successful predictions. In doing so we live illusion, and make disappointment and dissatisfaction more likely than necessary for ourselves and for others. As humans become more numerous and more powerful, consequences of our actions affect to a larger extent than ever before Earth, fellow humans, and other life. To secure our existence and that of those who may follow, we require means to better limit error.
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This is a course about living and dying well. We speak of living and dying because each of us is contemporaneously engaged in these, and we've evidence that acknowledging this is essential to doing either well. We address this topic because we perceive it to encompass most, perhaps all human concerns.
  
In this course we explore history, philosophy, ecology, economics, sociology, linguistics, psychology, and more to learn how we may apply science to discern value more accurately and to realize it more fully. We consider how we've come to our current ideas about value, about science, and about their relationship. We examine how we underpin personal, social, and environmental well-being and ills with those ideas and our ways of arriving at them. We present a case for valuescience, showing how we can apply it to achieve more accurate understanding of human history, present condition, and prospects. We pay particular attention to perceptual, cognitive, and cultural impediments to valuescience, and to strategies for overcoming these, and we offer opportunity to practice doing so.
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Humans live and die well by discerning and realizing value, by knowing what we want and getting it, and by generating satisfaction with what we get. Because we're evolving organisms in a dynamic environment we make ongoing adjustments to what we value—ends and means of our lives.
  
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We live in an era of unprecedentedly rapid, large, and novel changes—many anthropogenic—to individual selves, society, other parts of nature, artifact we fashion from nature, and information we've accumulated. Today more than ever before we live and die well by cultivating proficiency in bringing to awareness, questioning, and evolving to be more reliable information about value, especially ideas about how we can know and realize value.
  
 +
This course is an opportunity to bring accurate, pertinent findings from many disciplines to bear upon three questions central to our lives: (1) "What do I want?" (2) "How can I get it?" and most importantly, (3) "How do I know?" We ask questions (1) and (2) about everything from big choices like career and marriage to little ones like what we'll eat for lunch today. We ask question (3) far less often, yet only to a degree that we rely upon sound means of knowing can we make what we think we know as faithful a representation of self and surrounds as we're able, and only to an extent that we represent self and surrounds with fidelity can we get what we want and generate satisfaction with what we get.
  
''Course Objectives''
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All of us have experienced getting what we thought we wanted and feeling disappointed, and all of us have sometimes done what we thought sufficient and come up short. Again and again we think we know how to secure satisfaction only to discover that we're mistaken. With current approaches to value we repeatedly generate overconfidence and error. Though we work to learn from missteps, we rarely delve deeply enough to re-examine our approaches. Even when we do ask, "How do I know?" we're often quick to answer with long-held, well-practiced justifications yet to be critically examined to their roots, and poorly able to withstand such scrutiny.
  
:We aim for each participant to be able at the end of the course to write and speak cogently about each of the following topics, evidencing some familiarity with historical events and published works of others, and demonstrating independent thought grounded at least to some degree in personal practice:
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In this course we explore history, philosophy, ecology, economics, sociology, linguistics, psychology, and more to learn how we may apply science—defined here as behaviors by which we predict with success greater than we can achieve by chance—to more accurately discern value—what we want and how to get it—and to realize value more fully.
  
::(1) State a valuescience thesis, beginning with definitions of “value” and “science” to emphasize their nexus, prediction, and concluding with an argument well-grounded in evidence and reason that science is sole demonstrated means to more accurately discern and more fully realize value.
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We begin by framing our inquiry within a larger context of ecology, evolution, culture, and education. We consider how we've come to current ideas about value, about science, and about their relationship. We examine how we underpin personal, social, and environmental well-being and ills with those ideas.
::(2) Outline key elements of world-view common today with reference to their historical roots, methods by which they are promulgated and reinforced, interests served by their persistence, conflicts with science, and consequences for human well-being.  
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::(3) Describe how emergent consilience of natural science, social science, and humanities can be basis for constructing a more accurate world-view, for shedding illusion about value and contributing to others' doing so, and for thereby improving our and their lives.
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::(4) Outline key elements of a consilient science-based world-view and give examples of how you have relied upon it, how you can rely more heavily upon it, and how you can contribute to others' relying more heavily upon it to live and die well.
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<br>
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We then present a case for valuescience, and apply it to achieve more accurate understanding of human past, present, and prospects, to know better what we want, and to get it. We pay particular attention to perceptual, cognitive, and social impediments to valuescience, and to strategies for overcoming and circumventing these, and we offer opportunity to create sangha, community of practice, while doing so and contributing to others' doing so.
  
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If you are engaged or want to engage in such inquiry and practice, we welcome your partnership in valuescience.
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<br>
 
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Development of this Valuescience course is an educational endeavor of [http://www.ecomagic.org Magic], a Palo Alto based public service organization.&nbsp;  
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Development of this Valuescience course is an educational endeavor of [http://www.ecomagic.org Magic], a Palo Alto based public service organization founded in 1972 and incorporated in 1979 under Section 501(c)(3) of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service Code.&nbsp;  
  
[[Category:Protected]]
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[[Category:Course]]

Revision as of 21:52, 12 July 2019

What do you want? How can you get it? How do you know?

"Ideas about value—about what we want and how to get it—are future-oriented. They rest upon prediction. Science, sole demonstrated means for making predictions better than we can make by chance, is how we more accurately discern and more fully realize value." ~ David Schrom, Valuescience

Course

Valuescience: Shedding Illusion to Live and Die Well

Stanford University PSYC 136A/236A (autumn); PSYC 136B/236B (spring)
3 units without practicum; 4 units with practicum
Tu, Th 10:30am-11:50am


Course Description

This is a course about living and dying well. We speak of living and dying because each of us is contemporaneously engaged in these, and we've evidence that acknowledging this is essential to doing either well. We address this topic because we perceive it to encompass most, perhaps all human concerns.

Humans live and die well by discerning and realizing value, by knowing what we want and getting it, and by generating satisfaction with what we get. Because we're evolving organisms in a dynamic environment we make ongoing adjustments to what we value—ends and means of our lives.

We live in an era of unprecedentedly rapid, large, and novel changes—many anthropogenic—to individual selves, society, other parts of nature, artifact we fashion from nature, and information we've accumulated. Today more than ever before we live and die well by cultivating proficiency in bringing to awareness, questioning, and evolving to be more reliable information about value, especially ideas about how we can know and realize value.

This course is an opportunity to bring accurate, pertinent findings from many disciplines to bear upon three questions central to our lives: (1) "What do I want?" (2) "How can I get it?" and most importantly, (3) "How do I know?" We ask questions (1) and (2) about everything from big choices like career and marriage to little ones like what we'll eat for lunch today. We ask question (3) far less often, yet only to a degree that we rely upon sound means of knowing can we make what we think we know as faithful a representation of self and surrounds as we're able, and only to an extent that we represent self and surrounds with fidelity can we get what we want and generate satisfaction with what we get.

All of us have experienced getting what we thought we wanted and feeling disappointed, and all of us have sometimes done what we thought sufficient and come up short. Again and again we think we know how to secure satisfaction only to discover that we're mistaken. With current approaches to value we repeatedly generate overconfidence and error. Though we work to learn from missteps, we rarely delve deeply enough to re-examine our approaches. Even when we do ask, "How do I know?" we're often quick to answer with long-held, well-practiced justifications yet to be critically examined to their roots, and poorly able to withstand such scrutiny.

In this course we explore history, philosophy, ecology, economics, sociology, linguistics, psychology, and more to learn how we may apply science—defined here as behaviors by which we predict with success greater than we can achieve by chance—to more accurately discern value—what we want and how to get it—and to realize value more fully.

We begin by framing our inquiry within a larger context of ecology, evolution, culture, and education. We consider how we've come to current ideas about value, about science, and about their relationship. We examine how we underpin personal, social, and environmental well-being and ills with those ideas.

We then present a case for valuescience, and apply it to achieve more accurate understanding of human past, present, and prospects, to know better what we want, and to get it. We pay particular attention to perceptual, cognitive, and social impediments to valuescience, and to strategies for overcoming and circumventing these, and we offer opportunity to create sangha, community of practice, while doing so and contributing to others' doing so.

If you are engaged or want to engage in such inquiry and practice, we welcome your partnership in valuescience.


Development of this Valuescience course is an educational endeavor of Magic, a Palo Alto based public service organization founded in 1972 and incorporated in 1979 under Section 501(c)(3) of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service Code.