I'm high in the personality trait openness which I suspect would be a common feature of people here as they feel compelled to discuss new ideas. How do you reconcile conservatism with openness?

@wolfhnd what do you mean by openness?

@Evidently

"Openness to experience is one of the domains which are used to describe human personality in the Five Factor Model. Openness involves six facets, or dimensions, including active imagination (fantasy), aesthetic sensitivity, attentiveness to inner feelings, preference for variety, and intellectual curiosity."

[en.m.wikipedia.org].

Personally I find psychology a lot like the way Steven Weinberg describes the usefulness of philosophers as a means to counter the bad ideas of other philosophers. That said the language and definition are useful. Also the highly sophisticated statistical practices used are the best we have to study behavior. I could probably adopt the language of the moral foundation as an alternative but it is even weaker from an empirical perspective.

Keep in mind that the facets are only general agreed on there is much argument over the theoretically foundation.

so your not a social conservative then????

@johnlondon

I know you read my posts so you know I don't believe in following your nature.

I'm in favor of social conservatism as long as it doesn't interfere with my scientific interests. For the most part it doesn't.

As I said in the opening statement I have become suspicious of social engineering. That doesn't mean that abandoning change for change's sake doesn't mean change is never needed.

We are a very diverse society that has always struggled with integration. Many issues that social conservatives find important I'm not really interested in and take a more libertarian opinion. For example instead of Gay marriage I preferred civil contracts getting the government out of the marriage business. That doesn't mean that the government doesn't have a right to ban incest or child marriage.

@wolfhnd I personally think most of that mambo jumbo is just that, jumbo jumbo. There is objective truth. There is scientific evidence. Curiosity is one of my biggest problems, and I get excited about beauty. My personal opinion is emotions are our biggest problems to deal with. Our own and those of others. Since I find emotions to be unbidden, and largely unwanted, I control my behavior. And ignore the emotions as much as possible. I’m open to truth, beauty, loving family relationships, and to hell with the emotional manipulations that abound in today’s society. Everyone has an excuse! . I’m old. Set in my ways. Learned a lot from experience. If someone tells me their truth is different from my truth, I usually tell them they have no sane concept of what truth is! I was once what you call open....no more.