Difference between revisions of "Valuescience - Shedding Illusion to Live and Die Well"
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''Course Description'' | ''Course Description'' | ||
| − | 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? How do I know? We ask these questions about everything from career and marriage to what we'll eat for lunch today. | + | :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? How do I know? We ask these questions about everything from career and marriage to what we'll eat for lunch today. |
| − | 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 the ends and means of our lives—our values—only to discover that we are mistaken. With current approaches to value we repeatedly generate overconfidence and error. Only by changing approach can we alter this pattern. | + | :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 the ends and means of our lives—our values—only to discover that we are mistaken. With current approaches to value we repeatedly generate overconfidence and error. Only by changing approach can we alter this pattern. |
| − | Values are preferences, inherently forward looking and rooted in prediction. Science is the sole demonstrated means by which humans predict with better-than-random success. Nearly all of us embrace some 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 for ourselves and others. | + | :Values are preferences, inherently forward looking and rooted in prediction. Science is the sole demonstrated means by which humans predict with better-than-random success. Nearly all of us embrace some 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 for ourselves and others. |
| − | In this course we explore history, philosophy, ecology, economics, sociology, linguistics, psychology, and more to learn how we may better apply science to questions of value. We consider how we've come to our current ideas about value, about science, and about their relationship. We examine how those ideas and our ways of arriving at them underpin personal, social, and environmental well-being and ills. 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. | + | :In this course we explore history, philosophy, ecology, economics, sociology, linguistics, psychology, and more to learn how we may better apply science to questions of value. We consider how we've come to our current ideas about value, about science, and about their relationship. We examine how those ideas and our ways of arriving at them underpin personal, social, and environmental well-being and ills. 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. |
''Course Objectives'' | ''Course Objectives'' | ||
| − | We aim for each participant to be able at the end of the course to write a few hundred words on 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 practice: | + | :We aim for each participant to be able at the end of the course to write a few hundred words on 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 practice: |
| − | :(1) State a valuescience thesis, beginning with definitions of “value” and “science” to emphasize their nexus, prediction, and concluding with a claim about how we can use science, and only science to more accurately discern and more fully realize value. | + | ::(1) State a valuescience thesis, beginning with definitions of “value” and “science” to emphasize their nexus, prediction, and concluding with a claim about how we can use science, and only science to more accurately discern and more fully realize value. |
| − | :(2) Outline key elements of world-view common today with reference to their historical roots, interests served by their persistence, conflicts with science, and consequences for human well-being. | + | ::(2) Outline key elements of world-view common today with reference to their historical roots, interests served by their persistence, conflicts with science, and consequences for human well-being. |
| − | :(3) Describe how emergent consilience of natural and social science can be a basis for shedding illusion about value and contributing to others' doing so, and thereby improving our and their lives. | + | ::(3) Describe how emergent consilience of natural and social science can be a basis for shedding illusion about value and contributing to others' doing so, and thereby improving our and their lives. |
== Topics == | == Topics == | ||
Revision as of 10:42, 26 September 2011
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, Valuescience
Course
Valuescience: Shedding Illusion to Live Better
- Stanford University PSYC 136A/236A (autumn); PSYC 136B/236B (spring)
- 3 units without lab; 4 units with lab; Mon, Wed 11am-12:15pm; 200-107
Course Description
- 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? How do I know? We ask these questions about everything from career and marriage to what we'll eat for lunch today.
- 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 the ends and means of our lives—our values—only to discover that we are mistaken. With current approaches to value we repeatedly generate overconfidence and error. Only by changing approach can we alter this pattern.
- Values are preferences, inherently forward looking and rooted in prediction. Science is the sole demonstrated means by which humans predict with better-than-random success. Nearly all of us embrace some 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 for ourselves and others.
- In this course we explore history, philosophy, ecology, economics, sociology, linguistics, psychology, and more to learn how we may better apply science to questions of value. We consider how we've come to our current ideas about value, about science, and about their relationship. We examine how those ideas and our ways of arriving at them underpin personal, social, and environmental well-being and ills. 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.
Course Objectives
- We aim for each participant to be able at the end of the course to write a few hundred words on 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 practice:
- (1) State a valuescience thesis, beginning with definitions of “value” and “science” to emphasize their nexus, prediction, and concluding with a claim about how we can use science, and only science to more accurately discern and more fully realize value.
- (2) Outline key elements of world-view common today with reference to their historical roots, interests served by their persistence, conflicts with science, and consequences for human well-being.
- (3) Describe how emergent consilience of natural and social science can be a basis for shedding illusion about value and contributing to others' doing so, and thereby improving our and their lives.
Topics
- For a more detailed syllabus with class format and weekly readings, click here.
Development of this Valuescience course is an educational endeavor of Magic, a Palo Alto based public service organization.
