[MD] Theocracy, Secularism, and Democracy

[Krimel]

-----Original Message-----
From: John Carl [mailto:ridgecoyote at gmail.com] 
Sent: Sunday, August 15, 2010 6:09 PM
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Subject: Re: [MD] Theocracy, Secularism, and Democracy

>
> [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:]
Now now, you're being silly, for sure.  I know people who scream and run for
the bug spray, and I know people who walk freely through the bees without
fear.  Surely bees can discriminate based upon the chemicals in the air, if
not the vibes, man.

So there is a range of behavior expected from mammals, that insects don't
employ or exhibit.

[Krimel]
And insects have a range of behaviors that mammals don't have. I don't see
your point here at all.

[John:]
At to your last, everything depends on a point of view?  Well, it's a sorta
truism, and we don't wanna go there now so ... sure.  whatever.

[Krimel]
We are already there. All the time. There is no place else to go.

John:
Ok I know what you mean by hardwired processes.  But may I point out that
those are caused by either a perception, or a conception.  

[Krimel]
No you really don't. We are hardwired to have certain kinds of perception.
Conception has nothing to do with this. You have sensors dedicated to light
sound, chemicals, pressure, heat etc. At different set of receptors would
lead to a different kind of perception and different conceptions if those
perceptions here sufficiently sophisticated.

[John:]
Let's just take
fear, for it's the most direct and immediate.  My point about these being
the product of conception, is that I can sit in a movie theater, with no
biological inputs at all, just a sensory world of artificial sight and
sound, and be transported to exactly the same biological reactions of fear -
terror even, lust and sadness.  This is not a biologicaly caused event.
It's just a biological reaction to a socially caused event.  The driving
force of all emotions is social.  Ontologically so!  For Self is a social
construct, and without sense of self or caring for self, no emotion is
possible.

[Krimel]
One more time. We are equipped to accept input and produce output in
particular ways. Those ways, a result of our evolutionary heritage, are
based on the most like kinds of environments we will find ourselves in. But
out specific outputs are determined by the interaction of our biology with
the environment. Neither nature nor nurtur determines our output but the
both influence it.


Krim:
> When a baby sees an adult face it
> is hardwired to respond with smiles and coos.

John:
Krimel, you're a lousy scientist and a poor observer.  A baby always smiles
and coos in cultures that smile and coo when they  pick up babies.   But,
Indian babies are not so demonstrative.  These are socially-learned
expressions.

Admittedly, there is a biological range of allowable expression, that
creates the playing field at which our features play.  But where we twitch
and grin and smile and cry, is as much "individuality" as anything I can
think of.  If it was all so hard-wired, then it'd all be identical.

And it sure ain't.

[Krimel]
I really don't have anything more to tell you about this. I told you already
were to go look to get a handle on this. But what you are saying here is
uninformed. I only have so much time available to help you with ignorance
you are going to have to do some of the work on your own.

> [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:  
You don't think bug spray is significant to a bee, then you don't
know bees any better than you do babies.

I disagree with your assertion that our range of play is narrow.  Sorry, but
that sounds like somebody getting his cultural inputs from a cultural
translator of dubious worth.  Ask Andre.  He sounds like somebody who's
actually had to deal with a real culture shift, if he agrees with you that
the expression and "feeling" of emotions is all that narrow in range.

Usually people who actually have to live in a very foreign one, suffer a
period of deep depression, signifying deep ego loss.  It's really tough to
be the odd person out, where every other member of the society gets it, and
you don't.  Because you didn't learn them from the womb, and they're not
hardwired, ya know.

[Krimel]
What I said is that the expression and interpretation of emotion is
universal among humans. We can even with presumably a fairly high degree of
accuracy interpret the emotional states of animals. This is not learned.
What is learned in and influenced by culture is the proper times and
circumstances for the display of certain emotions.

See above.

> [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:]
Sigh.  There's that cultural translator of dubious worth, popping up its
ugly head again. The tyranny of "the program"

(but it's a really great program i like it a lot it mesmerizes me with its
insights and knowledge...oooooo)

Sorry Krimel.  You know I got an attitude.  Don't tell me what to watch.
Tell me what YOU think.

Or don't.  That's ok too.

[Krimel]
It was a suggestion and included options. If you prefer ignorance feel free
to ignore them but don't whine about not getting additional suggestions. 

See above.

> [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.
>
[John:]
The refutation arises from the rejection, I thought it would be understood
as implied, and I'm lazy and skipped describign that step, which is bad
form, so sorry.

Saying something is an intellectual construct or concept does not refute it.

[Krimel]
To offer no refutation is mere rejection.

John:
Hey Krimel, don't go all pedantic on me, just to avoid the point.  Would you
please clarify for us "biological strategy" and what it looks like in the
real world?

[Krimel]
Social behavior is a biological strategy that emphasized cooperation among
con-specifics rather than competition between them. Another strategy would
be to produced lots and lots of offspring and ignore them; confident that if
only a few survive that will be plenty. Reptiles and insects do this.
Another would be to have just a few offspring and to lavish them with love
and attention, investing lots of energy in the next generation. That's what
mammals to.

Notice that even within species these strategies are at work. In humans for
example women have relatively few eggs and their strategies involved
protecting those eggs and conning males into helping them. Men on the other
hand produce about 1000 sperm per second and want to spread them around as
much as possible. Don't ask me how this conflict is supposed to be resolved
and obviously the range of culturally established patterns for this are
legion.

John:
No we don't.  We get a big picture in our mind that we desire, and we put
the pieces together to sculpt what we want.  When it matches our desire, we
have peace of mind and we stop adding pieces.

You're the kinda guy who thinks it's art to spew paint out of a cannon,
ain't you Krimel.  You probably got that from some lsd trip hangin out with
them  hippies.

I mean, you must have a problem with Phaedrus's first insight, if you
believe theories are built from the ground up.  That's what science says,
but experience proves otherwise and young Bob said the emperor isn't wearing
those clothes - by asking where do hypothesis come from, before you dreamed
of naked girls leading soft fuzzy puppies.

[Krimel]
You seem like a nice guy more concerned with how you write than what you
say. Marsha surely is a better audience for this than I. This is just
wasting my time.

John:
Wrong.  You flunk the MoQ test, Krimel.  You don't even have kindergarten
knowledge yet.  I guess we'll have to wait for the tv show before you'll
understand the most basic aspects.

[Krimel]
See clever but meaningless. All hat and no cattle. Seriously, just write
whatever you want but go back and edit out this kind of bullshit.

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

John:  
Well that happens to be one of my pet beliefs also.  There could be
an argument for Religion being primarily social today, because of the way
our modern society has bifurcated.  But in ancient Egypt?  Greece?  Rome?
Religion is the intellect's SQ solution for any society.  Religion is the
mythos and intellect is a species of mythos, not the other way around.

[Krimel]
Mythos is just someone else's Logos.

John:
Yeah, but Religion has the kind of teeth that keeps the generations
contemplating death, in line and righteous.  Religion = intellectual
patterns with teeth.  Hmm.  Not bad.  Might keep that one.

John:
I can sorta see your problem Krim, 

[Krimel]
Please note I don't have a problem here.


[John]
Perhaps there's a way of embracing the chaotic, that is not nihilistic, but
dualistic.  The fact is there is chaos.  The fact is there are flowers.
Flowers and puppies and bouncing breasts are so much more in evidence, that
it seems to me to be silly to think about the dark side - to fear chaos and
uncertainty, when THAT is the mysterious and non-existent and un-logical
entity. You might define it, but you'll never, ever experience it.   I've
never encountered chaos once.  I've been bumping into Quality all my life.

[Krimel]
Looking into the abyss is definitely scary at first but you get used to
after a while. It is a painful process but I think in long run more
productive. Here is some advice for you from one of my favorite
philosophers:

The last time I saw Richard was Detroit in '68,
And he told me all romantics meet the same fate someday
Cynical and drunk and boring someone in some dark cafe
You laugh, he says you think you're immune, go look at your eyes
They're two blue moons
You like roses and kisses and pretty men to tell you
All those pretty lies, pretty lies
When you gonna realise they're only pretty lies
Just pretty lies, just pretty lies...
- Joni Mitchell

[John]
Which metaphysics is about reality?

[Krimel]
What's reality?