[MD] Theocracy, Secularism, and Democracy

[Krimel]

> [John]
> I'd argue that the true aspect of social patterning takes a self/other
> realization that is more than instinctual or hardwired.  Every bee seems
to
> react exactly like ever other bee, without choice.
>
> [Krimel]
> Many human to human interactions especially social ones are heavily
> hardwired, emotional displays and our responds to those displays in
others,
> for example.
>
> It is not true that bees "react exactly like every other bee, without
> choice".

John:
Well you did notice the "seems to", dincha?   A range of variation in bee
behavior must occur, or there wouldn't be an evolutionary continuum of
different bees.  But they are all of a sameness within the hive, due to the
mechanics of their reproductive strategy in a much more marked way than
mammals with their sexy, dynamic choice-style reproductive strategy.  This
difference of degree is so great, that I feel it's proper and useful to make
a distinctifying cut between level 2 and level 3 patterning.

[Krimel]
>From the point of view of a bee every human "seems" to act like every other
human. The ability to discriminate differences and distinctions of meaning
among humans or bee depends on point of view.

[John]
As to your first one, I've had a strongly held disagreement about that
assertion from day one.  I think it's an unexamined assumption, carried over
from our culture, without any real facts or evidence to back up the claim.

I'm talking about your statement that the reactions of humans are hardwired.
 It's hardwired to pick up and gun and shoot your wife for cheating on you?
 How does the complex decision process to buy, load, aim and shoot, come
encoded in dna?  Huh?

[Krimel]
No but when you are afraid, for example, you will experience elevated heart
rate, increased rate of breathing, reduction in immune response and a host
of other automatic, hardwired processes. When a baby sees an adult face it
is hardwired to respond with smiles and coos. Essentially the autonomic
nervous system is geared to either speed you up or slow you down. These
prepare you to act and interact with your environment.

Shooting you wife for cheating would be a particular interaction between
your hardwired biology and the experiences of your past interacting with the
presence of the cheating bitch in front of you at the moment.

[John]
You could say that the reaction of anger, the emotion itself is hardwired,
but I'd point out that only the expression of the emotion is biological.
 The source, the creation of all emotion, is rooted in caring for a socially
defined self.  If we turned off all caring about self in a person, they'd
become automatons without affect, without emtional displays.  And the fact
is, these emotional displays that you claim are hardwired, are extremely
variable throughout cultures everywhere.  Inuits don't emote like the Scotch
Irish, who are different than Italians and Japanese.

[Krimel]
Actually Intuits, Scotch Irish, Italians and Japanese all emote in the same
ways and mostly for the same reasons. Culture may moderate the expression of
emotion but the range of reactions and reasons for them is relatively
narrow. That range is not something that would appear significant to say, a
bee.

[John]
It just SEEMS hardwired in a way, to the individuals confronting a differing
culture.  In that moment, it seems like the other person is reacting or
emoting "unnaturally".

[Krimel]
Watch "Lie to Me" or look up Paul Ekman. You don't even have to buy a TV to
watch "Lie to Me" you can stream it directly from Fox.com.

[John]
Running from a bear is a social interaction.  This is true because very,
very rarely do bears chase humans because they are hungry.  Bears chase
humans because they are mad, defensive or defending territory.

[Krimel]
Whatever running from a bear is, it is not social. Try William James article
on "What is an Emotion." It is a very strange counterintuitive account but
has had considerable staying power in the study of emotions.

> [Krimel]
> Not sure what choice adds but bees respond differently to worker
> bees and queens and to bee from "other" hives, same with ants. Slime mold
> respond to members of "other" colonies differently than to their own.
>
>
[John]
Your first four words here are the most instructive.  I believe you Krimel.
 You are not sure what choice adds.  Well let me tell you then.  Choice adds
Quality.  Without choice, there can be no Quality.

Of course, this gets back to the heart of the big issue.  Moronists don't
believe in choice, right?

[Krimel]
I remain agnostic on the idea of free will. I think free won't is a better
way of looking at it but I think it is uncertainty that adds Quality.

> [Krimel]
> Social behavior and collective action is a biological strategy. It arises
> from and serves biological success.

[John]
I completely refute your anthropomorphic use of "biological strategy".
 Strategy, if anything is only intellectual.  And even simple matters such
as "cause and effect" are nothing except intellectual constructs.  Coupling
any intellectuality with biological puts us right back where you don't wanna
go.  I mean, calling it "intellectual design" wouldn't make you happy
either, right?

[Krimel]
I think you mean you reject rather than refute what I said. Reject means you
just don't happen to accept it. Refute would mean you had a reason for
rejecting it.

Saying something is an intellectual construct or concept does not refute it.
Anything we say is expressed in the form of concepts. What we argue about is
whether one concept or set of concepts is "better" than another.

Intelligent design is just a set of really bad concepts.

[John]
I've said before, I'm not a fan of the bottom-up hierarchical model, so oft
employed as "moqese".

The upper levels are much more creative of lower-level patterning, than
lower-level patterning spontaneously combusts into an upper.  Life takes
inorganic matter, and rearranges it mechanically and chemically.  Societies
form to protect and breed and bring more biological beings into the herd, to
train them, socialize them, and be successful at hunting prey, driving away
competitors and passing on a legacy.  Intellectual patterns take the reins
of society, and steer in different directions through the means of academia,
art and culture.  Everywhere, the creation on the lower level comes as the
result of some cause or action on an higher.

[Krimel]
It think you really don't get this either. Think of theory formation for
example. We build theories from the bottom-up through individual observation
and manipulation of specific instance of events and processes. That is what
the inductive method is for. But we use these individual observations to
construct a general theory which serves as a conceptual framework for
understanding (reducing uncertainty) about other similar sets of
circumstance. That is, theory allows us to generalize broadly from a small
set of observations. Theories are generated from the bottom-up but applied
from the top down.

[John]
Philosophy has to be free of dogma, its the most important difference,
whereas religion is nothing without it.  Religion really is social, and
philosophy really is intellectual and individual.  Its the goal of religion,
to bind-together.   Ellul says re-ligere means just that, but he's french,
what does he know.  It sure means it in practice.   They both have their
roles.

[Krimel]
Religion is not a whit less intellectual than philosophy both are conceptual
frameworks, concepts, theories for dealing with the world around us.

[John]
Religion keeps us all on the same page.  We're giving out signals to one
another, that make it safe to co-exist with such dangerous animals in close
proximity.  Religion assuages this fear, this need.

[Krimel]
This applies to any particular set of intellectual patterns held by any
particular community.

[John]
And if you throw out religion, what are you gonna replace it with, hmmm?  I
mean, humanity has basically gotten to this point, always with religious
underpinnings.  Throwing it out the window, the way we have, is basically
jumping off a cliff into the unknown.

[Krimel]
If you throw out any set of intellectual patterns, you will replace them
with another set.

[John]
I don't think you're gonna be such a fan of chaos, Krimel, when it's
hammering at your door with torches and guns in the form of hungry
mob/gangs.

[Krimel]
I think you are deeply confused here. No one finds comfort in a chaotic
universe grinding inexorably toward the heat death. It is terrifying world
view. The notion that everything around us is fundamentally unpredictable is
so scary in fact that we appeal to religion and science to save us, if not
from the condition of uncertainty then at least from the fear of it.