Recogt Philosophy
 

This is not mine....but a new member recogt



recogt phillosophy
I am the founder of RECOG-T.
this is an acronym for

Rational Emotive Cognitive, Theory
Therapy
Training


You choose.

recogt has gone beyond it's original purpose which I will explain later.
For now the following is part of the core philosophy of the system.

Core belief 1. No cause is worth dying for.
Core belief 2, No cause is worth killing for.
Core belief 3, I forced to choose, we will probably choose core belief 2.

The system is rational, individualy hedonistic in that it emphasises the survival of the individual in order to ensure the survival of the group (Race, Species etc).

recogt eschews all racial, religious, national, political or any other division of people and holds that all people are beyond evaluation as good, bad or anything in between.

What recogt evaluates is belief ( adaptive or mal-adaptive) and the consequences of these beliefs.

Thus we do not judge the believer as good or bad but rather what is believed.

Good (rational) beliefs have positive outcomes for people. Bad (irrational) beliefs have negative outcomes.

This is a small and tentative step for recogt.

I wellcome your thoughts.

Gareth.

This was posted in newbies....and I felt it worth discussion
Welcome to the boards recogt

Quote:
Originally Posted by recogt
Core belief 1. No cause is worth dying for.
Core belief 2, No cause is worth killing for.
Core belief 3, I forced to choose, we will probably choose core belief 2.

The system is rational, individualy hedonistic in that it emphasises the survival of the individual in order to ensure the survival of the group (Race, Species etc).


To me, these two are somewhat contradictory in that, sometimes, one must be done to ensure survival of the group( how many more would have died during the Holocaust had it not been been for the allies? And, perhaps, had the victims of it fought as warriors, perhaps the devastation would not have been as great)

Quote:
Originally Posted by recogt
recogt eschews all racial, religious, national, political or any other division of people and holds that all people are beyond evaluation as good, bad or anything in between.

What recogt evaluates is belief ( adaptive or mal-adaptive) and the consequences of these beliefs.

Thus we do not judge the believer as good or bad but rather what is believed.

Good (rational) beliefs have positive outcomes for people. Bad (irrational) beliefs have negative outcomes.

This is a small and tentative step for recogt.

I wellcome your thoughts.

Gareth.



No one is born bad. The assumption is that we are born inherently good, but environs and others' belief systems become ingrained. Or that a lack of any guidance at all one way or another more often than not results in bad, harmful decisions. In those instances, is it a belief system or really poor judgement? Lifetime criminals who kill, rob, etc...are they just believing in bad things? Our society is set up to punish the doer of the bad deeds and work on the presumption that that is a bad person. Many who commit heinous crimes against others 'believe' they did it for some irrational good. This is in keeping with the good beliefs/bad beliefs, but who makes this judgement? While you want 'no judgement' of the person, you can't seperate the deed from him/her. Thus, punishment or reward is a judgement made at them, not at what is believed.
The theory seems to be on the presumption that we are all with rational thought and decision making, led by our beliefs. While for the majority of us in day to day lives, this holds true, not all are rational, not all are given choices and not all are capable of knowing what is a good belief or a bad one. The words good and bad, in themselves are judgemental.
__________________

I changed my mind, I'd rather just not say anything.

Thanks for sharing, and I apologize if the next statements are too critical, but I feel strongly about this. 2 comments:

1. Sounds like a pretty selfish philosophy to me. No cause is worth dying for? You think your life is that much more important than principles?? I can think of tons of causes that would be worth my life.

2. It sounds like you're saying society is better if everyone strives to achieve selfish goals (individual hedonism leads to betterment of society). That's a morally slippery path if I've ever heard one. Ask your nearest shady billionaire if he/she agrees with that statement. My guess is that he/she will say yes.

I can't really argue against this system, because it goes against one of the postulates of my own system, which is "Anything worth living for is worth dying for." I guess it just depends on your own intuition which postulate you find more compelling.

If by "cause" you mean "political movement," then you may be right. But parents will kill to protect their children, and die for them. And the world is full of unscrupulous people who do indeed kill to protect their wealth, and others who would rather die than let their secrets be known. For them, those are causes. And to say that no cause is worth dying for is, in my opinion, a little offensive towards the legacies of people like Ghandi, Martin Luther King, and Jesus.

While it's often productive to define your own approach to life, doing it completely internally can lead to all kinds of flawed conclusions. Bouncing your ideas off of others is major part of figuring out how to approach life, because you get different perspectives based on experiences with certain things you might not be that familiar with.

That's actually a political statement, not a philosphical one. The right argues that one should be left to one's own devices -- the free market ideology -- and be allowed to protect and concentrate one's assets, instead of being forced to pool them with the community and to support those who cannot keep up, like the left wants to do.

Additionally, the left is, of course, very "cause" oriented, while the right would much rather go about its own business, which is usually doing quite well anyway, so what's this fuss about?

Suffice to say that I find myself wondering if the origination of this system is philosophical, or political.

This goes back to what I was saying about bouncing your ideas off others, because what you have here is a little colored by political standpoint. And that's shaky ground.

recogt has not indicated how beliefs will be catagorized as good or bad. Possibly these lie beyond the range of this system.

Are people significantly more than the sum of their beliefs? Is the remainder (person minus beliefs) something you can attribute words like "good or bad" to? Does splitting a person from the beliefs they carry make much sense?

Is it worthwhile to kill someone who is about to kill 2 "innocent" people?

How does the bearers of your philosophy, who behave "good", survive in contest with the bearers of the beliefs your philosophy attributes as "evil"?

Can beliefs be divided along a "good"/"evil" axis? Is it decideable if a belief is "good" or "evil"?

The holocaust was pulled off very slickly.

The rights of the victims of the holocost where not removed all at once, but where eroded.

At what point do you react to your rights being eroded with all out war? When your wealth/power is in danger? When your life is in immediate danger?

The victims of the holocaust didn't know their lives where in immediate danger until after they where powerless.

If the holocaust victims 'should' have attacked their oppressors and tried to weaken them/destroy them, then any weak and identifiable group should react the same way. Who knows when the strong will decide to slaughter the weak? If the weak do not attack now, they could be the victims of another holocaust...

And that path is a scary one.

well, i'm no therapist - i have to admit. however, i did a google search on "rational emotive cognitive." the first thing that strikes me is that you might have a rather difficult time holding to your claim that you have founded a movement called "rational emotive cognitive theory." i could be wrong, but it looks like the term shows up everywhere.

the current description consisting of the 3 core beliefs would seem to be essentially pacifism with a stress on self preservation. i do not see how the following attributes necessarily follow or are in any way directly related to the 3 core beliefs.

my essential synopsis: information gives is incomplete. the theory seems to be so general it could rapidly be expanded or interpreted to have a large number of meanings. perhaps you have further information?

This would be an excellent philosophy for a master to instil in his slaves. Pacifism at all costs.

I find it alien to the thinking of a free man who wishes to remain free and see that his children are as well.

I'd drop the three principles myself, but find the idea of a darwinistic approach to belief quite pleasing.

I think is a reasonable statement, but it doesn't really say anything new. Are we talking long-term, or short-term? I suppose survival is the deciding factor (hence my use of the term Darwinistic) but I don't think you'll ever get a room full of people to come to a consensus on which beliefs are more likely to be 'adaptive' or 'mal-adaptive' since survival depends on the system in which you are living i.e you just can't do it except with hindsight, and even then it's tricky.

It's a call for adaptive relativism/pragmatism, which the Chinese came up with (among others) more than 3000 years ago.

simply, i don't think that the rational can guide ethical behavior. when talking about this claim, i use a story from the Gospel. It is said that Pilate and the temple elite pondered the idea of having "one man die for the people." Certainly, it prevented Roman reprisal, ended a threat to the order of society, and brought things back to normal. It was the rational thing to do. They chose to kill rather than be threatened by Roman power that might be invoked to stop the followers of Jesus.

It is perhaps rational or effective that one die for the many. But i cannot say that it is ever just.