I apologize -- I was totally off there, mixing up two separate theories.
Maslow developed a hierarchy of needs -- see
<http://www.connect.net/georgen/maslow.htm>, ignoring the final references
to the Bahá'í, and
<http://www.coba.usf.edu/Marketing/Faculty/Kennedy/6-consum/tsld011.htm> to
see the pyramid in graphic form. The pyramidal shape reflects the number
of people worldwide stuck in each category.
It was Kohlberg who developed a theory about the stages of moral reasoning
in children, much like Piaget did regarding cognitive development. See
<http://moon.pepperdine.edu/gsep/class/ethics/kohlberg/Stages_Moral-Developm
ent.html>.
I think that both psychological theories, taken jointly, might give us some
ideas about 'the desires behind all human behavior'.
>When you reduce (or, in this case,
>/attempt/ to reduce) a system to its bare essentials, you're trying
>to separate the wheat from the chaff to get the clearest picture you
>can, [snip]
Yes. And although Wade might have a point in stating that ultimately
everything reduces to 'a genetic level, on a cellular level, on a
neuro-biological level', a study that doesn't distinguish different things
is useless. (For example, conducting a study to prove that ultimately
every desire is a thought, which can easily be reduced to the biological,
would be of little usefulness.)
We need to start somewhere, to explore possible distinctions -- which
ultimately may, or not, reduce to a common basis. This basis might not
even be so common after all -- there might be different kinds of
'neuro-biological levels', in the same way that there are different kinds
of cells and genes.
The whole issue of our biological needs, as opposed to the values we learn
or choose or are infected by, seems relevant. We all share the same
biological needs for food, shelter, company, etc. -- why is it that our
values differ? (Why do some dedicate their lives to preaching one religion
or another, or risking their lives for a political cause, or attempting to
become president, or to producing the next great symphony, while others
think those aims are total nonsense?)
> The real problem here is, even if he /had/ reduced it to its essentials,
>it wouldn't have helped him plumb the nature of the emergent mind,
>because it only clears up one aspect of it: the motivator. It does
>nothing to point to the fact that the mind is an emergent system
>risen out of the synergistic co-operation of motivator (emotion),
>facilitator (intelligence) and memesphere (memory). So, assuming that
>was his motivation for making the list (or even thinking along those lines)
>in the first place, he missed the mark twice.
Yup. We'd have to read the study to know what the author intended. No way
we can guess from the deep coverage afforded by the ABC news article.
lena
-- Lena Rotenberg lrr@netkonnect.net