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I think part of the why to your question is that Its deceiving to view the human as a singular entity. There isnt a you, practically, there is infact an Us, an

by idclip 7y ago

I think part of the why to your question is that Its deceiving to view the human as a singular entity. There isnt a you, practically, there is infact an Us, and as an organism, the rule of large numbers wins everytime, we select for what we think is right as a social collective/organism. That kind of thinking is accepted in science, but not wide spread amongst the singular individuals. Older cultures didnt need to check for anything, decisions probably evolved through intra generational symbolism and stories about ghosts and evil spirits. Life wont answer the why, it just is, and if we push itll just eat us. In the same breadth, science is nature too. So whatever works, really.

dr_dshiv 7y ago
Woah, this sentiment nails it. Please recommend reading.
- tekproxy 7y ago
  You didn't ask me but I have a similar outlook and would appreciate reading suggestions. Jordan Peterson talks about the diversity of opinion being important because there is no single or constant fitness function. His lectures on personality get into this a bit. His 12 rules book does not. I believe he's informed a lot by the work of Jonathan Haidt. His book The Righteous Mind is good.
  - idclip 7y ago
    It’s actually a lot of child development literature by w.d winicot and r.d laing, and the developmental psychology cult, also my own experience as a meditator, some nietzsche, existential theory (sartre, nausea). I surprisingly didnt read Haidth but ill check him out. Carl Jung’s theory of the collective unconscious influenced me alot too, and i find alot of sense / approval in Peterson's lectures. I generally think the fact that we can generalize our behavior (childrens psych lit, behavioral psych lit.) is so astounding ... the fact we can agree on a minimum set of things we can agree we dont like happening to us (note: smart way of asserting universality of morals, you dont want to be murdered can be a good minimim example here) blows my mind. In the end its what i choose to believe, i dont think im unique in thinking this way either. I think even my thinking’s rightness is the result of that same intra generational process, im not unique, nor do i think i am in control (beyond the local control i exercise by trying not to die or be eaten).
- idclip 7y ago
  dawkins wrote about memes, carl jung wrote about the collective unconscious, darwin himself is seminal work, behavioral and evolutionary psychology is an attempt to abstract these things. Could even look at military application and research of psychology during war. We don't have to go very far to meet the collective ideal, its almost in every abstraction we make, also in art and seemingly non sciency things. I copied a part of an answer i gave before for the readings, i hope you dont mind.
hyperion2010 7y ago
Or the groups or that did the wrong thing simply died, and what we are left with are the accidental randomly distributed beliefs that came about for no reason at all, but happened to be ones that weren't slightly more correlated with dying. The example I like to use here is that it is often assumed that cannibalism taboos arise because people don't want to/don't like to eat other humans, or that doing so increases risk of disease. But 1. Meat is meat, especially once cooked 2. Have you _seen_ some of the stuff we eat? and 3. Instances of humans eating other humans still happen routinely in the modern world when people are hungry enough, though in some well documented instances they don't actively kill anyone for food. I find a plausible alternative hypothesis to be that the innate (pre-cultural) disposition toward eating conspecifics is essentially random, and that cannibalism is actively selected against because human beings hate nothing more than the feeling of being prey. We kill everything and anything that is even remotely threatening to us. Groups _without_ the cannibalism taboo are thus much more likely to be wiped out as a result of virtually universal hatred and fear by any other group around. "Why don't we eat the people we kill mommy?" -> "Because eating people is bad and you are more likely to get sick." vs "Because if we did everyone else would hunt us down and kill us and anyone who believed like us. Better to leave them be or bury them to show we are not predators." There is probably an answer out there waiting to be found in a pile case studies and social science polls. tl;dr It's the hunting not the eating.
- idclip 7y ago
  Its more or less what i said in a different narrative. So the groups that did the right thing went on to survive, and the process to abstract what is “right” continued. I think the need to abstract what is right is born out of the local phenomena of suffering .. just like the diety of medicine and healing Sekhmet or Hepius. Death and disease would have still been universal, independent of which tribe survived. Im not arguing for the morality of disease here, but i am saying its a universal trait the system has, and we seem to try and minimize pain/suffering, much in the same way we need food. I actually kind of agree with ur tldr, but only because i don’t see a real differences between hunting and eating. Its one process, and its discreteness is a local illusion - its actually happening everywhere at once, which we seem to be bad at imagining.
elfexec 7y ago
> we select for what we think is right as a social collective/organism. This is simply not true. Our values are something the elites ( not all necessarily but enough ) bestow or force upon us with either carrots or sticks. Look at any cultural, social, legal, etc values in society. It wasn't the "collective" that decided it, it was the few elites who convinced us to believe in it. Like Moses coming down the mountain with those tablets, we are told what is right or wrong, we don't decide it.
- idclip 7y ago
  Their behavior is part of the organism. Each part of society is trying to maximize for its own good. I dont define good and i dont even try .. what is right is an amoral thing and what is right is simply what is selected for over time, thats actually biological, you seem to maybe want to ethically justify it on a personal level, but thats irrelevant, as an individual, you are a spec, wood to a fire. You can only do you, to the best of your abilities. You may wish for the universe to care, and thats a soft sentiment. The closest youre getting here is maybe this conversation, and the attitudes of those who know and love you.
  - elfexec 7y ago
    > Each part of society is trying to maximize for its own good. No. Only the elites are even capable of reasoning about their own good nevermind trying to maximize it. The vast lower class are incapable of even formulating a concept of "their own good". As orwell so cleverly put it, the proles are pretty much animals, they aren't able to organize and think about their own "good" no more than livestock in an industrial farm are able to think about their own good. If the proles were capable of maximizing their own good, they wouldn't be proles, they would be the elites. "As the Party slogan put it: 'Proles and animals are free.'" --1984 > I dont define good and i dont even try Neither have I.
    - idclip 7y ago
      Its a difference of belief, and if i may, you sound a little bit depressed and nihilistic. Maybe you need to realize your own agency in the story. You are a part of that machine too. Id recommend jordan peterson and his take on hierarchy, its very eye opening.
Avshalom 7y ago
>Older cultures didnt need to check for anything, decisions probably evolved through intra generational symbolism and stories about ghosts and evil spirits. Did anyone check if that is actually true is part of what I'm asking here. Or did/do the Tukanoans keep this process alive not out of intra generational symbolism, but because they make sure to tell the next generation it's poison.
- idclip 7y ago
  Well dawkins wrote about memes, carl jung wrote about the collective unconscious, ofcourse darwin himself is seminal work ... behavioral and evolutionary psychology is an attempt to abstract these things. Could even look at military application and research of psychology during war. I think the you are here today typing in a keyboard is proof enough it works - i also think today’s science is a part of that mechanism - i also don't really think our science today is any different than stories about evil spirits, at least in function and eventual “goal”, both don't have alot of power to influence the phenomena they are trying to explain.

by idclip 7y ago

dr_dshiv 7y ago

Woah, this sentiment nails it. Please recommend reading.

tekproxy 7y ago
You didn't ask me but I have a similar outlook and would appreciate reading suggestions. Jordan Peterson talks about the diversity of opinion being important because there is no single or constant fitness function. His lectures on personality get into this a bit. His 12 rules book does not. I believe he's informed a lot by the work of Jonathan Haidt. His book The Righteous Mind is good.
- idclip 7y ago
  It’s actually a lot of child development literature by w.d winicot and r.d laing, and the developmental psychology cult, also my own experience as a meditator, some nietzsche, existential theory (sartre, nausea). I surprisingly didnt read Haidth but ill check him out. Carl Jung’s theory of the collective unconscious influenced me alot too, and i find alot of sense / approval in Peterson's lectures. I generally think the fact that we can generalize our behavior (childrens psych lit, behavioral psych lit.) is so astounding ... the fact we can agree on a minimum set of things we can agree we dont like happening to us (note: smart way of asserting universality of morals, you dont want to be murdered can be a good minimim example here) blows my mind. In the end its what i choose to believe, i dont think im unique in thinking this way either. I think even my thinking’s rightness is the result of that same intra generational process, im not unique, nor do i think i am in control (beyond the local control i exercise by trying not to die or be eaten).
idclip 7y ago
dawkins wrote about memes, carl jung wrote about the collective unconscious, darwin himself is seminal work, behavioral and evolutionary psychology is an attempt to abstract these things. Could even look at military application and research of psychology during war. We don't have to go very far to meet the collective ideal, its almost in every abstraction we make, also in art and seemingly non sciency things. I copied a part of an answer i gave before for the readings, i hope you dont mind.

hyperion2010 7y ago

Or the groups or that did the wrong thing simply died, and what we are left with are the accidental randomly distributed beliefs that came about for no reason at all, but happened to be ones that weren't slightly more correlated with dying. The example I like to use here is that it is often assumed that cannibalism taboos arise because people don't want to/don't like to eat other humans, or that doing so increases risk of disease. But 1. Meat is meat, especially once cooked 2. Have you _seen_ some of the stuff we eat? and 3. Instances of humans eating other humans still happen routinely in the modern world when people are hungry enough, though in some well documented instances they don't actively kill anyone for food. I find a plausible alternative hypothesis to be that the innate (pre-cultural) disposition toward eating conspecifics is essentially random, and that cannibalism is actively selected against because human beings hate nothing more than the feeling of being prey. We kill everything and anything that is even remotely threatening to us. Groups _without_ the cannibalism taboo are thus much more likely to be wiped out as a result of virtually universal hatred and fear by any other group around. "Why don't we eat the people we kill mommy?" -> "Because eating people is bad and you are more likely to get sick." vs "Because if we did everyone else would hunt us down and kill us and anyone who believed like us. Better to leave them be or bury them to show we are not predators." There is probably an answer out there waiting to be found in a pile case studies and social science polls. tl;dr It's the hunting not the eating.

idclip 7y ago
Its more or less what i said in a different narrative. So the groups that did the right thing went on to survive, and the process to abstract what is “right” continued. I think the need to abstract what is right is born out of the local phenomena of suffering .. just like the diety of medicine and healing Sekhmet or Hepius. Death and disease would have still been universal, independent of which tribe survived. Im not arguing for the morality of disease here, but i am saying its a universal trait the system has, and we seem to try and minimize pain/suffering, much in the same way we need food. I actually kind of agree with ur tldr, but only because i don’t see a real differences between hunting and eating. Its one process, and its discreteness is a local illusion - its actually happening everywhere at once, which we seem to be bad at imagining.

elfexec 7y ago

> we select for what we think is right as a social collective/organism. This is simply not true. Our values are something the elites ( not all necessarily but enough ) bestow or force upon us with either carrots or sticks. Look at any cultural, social, legal, etc values in society. It wasn't the "collective" that decided it, it was the few elites who convinced us to believe in it. Like Moses coming down the mountain with those tablets, we are told what is right or wrong, we don't decide it.

idclip 7y ago
Their behavior is part of the organism. Each part of society is trying to maximize for its own good. I dont define good and i dont even try .. what is right is an amoral thing and what is right is simply what is selected for over time, thats actually biological, you seem to maybe want to ethically justify it on a personal level, but thats irrelevant, as an individual, you are a spec, wood to a fire. You can only do you, to the best of your abilities. You may wish for the universe to care, and thats a soft sentiment. The closest youre getting here is maybe this conversation, and the attitudes of those who know and love you.
- elfexec 7y ago
  > Each part of society is trying to maximize for its own good. No. Only the elites are even capable of reasoning about their own good nevermind trying to maximize it. The vast lower class are incapable of even formulating a concept of "their own good". As orwell so cleverly put it, the proles are pretty much animals, they aren't able to organize and think about their own "good" no more than livestock in an industrial farm are able to think about their own good. If the proles were capable of maximizing their own good, they wouldn't be proles, they would be the elites. "As the Party slogan put it: 'Proles and animals are free.'" --1984 > I dont define good and i dont even try Neither have I.
  - idclip 7y ago
    Its a difference of belief, and if i may, you sound a little bit depressed and nihilistic. Maybe you need to realize your own agency in the story. You are a part of that machine too. Id recommend jordan peterson and his take on hierarchy, its very eye opening.

Avshalom 7y ago

>Older cultures didnt need to check for anything, decisions probably evolved through intra generational symbolism and stories about ghosts and evil spirits. Did anyone check if that is actually true is part of what I'm asking here. Or did/do the Tukanoans keep this process alive not out of intra generational symbolism, but because they make sure to tell the next generation it's poison.

idclip 7y ago
Well dawkins wrote about memes, carl jung wrote about the collective unconscious, ofcourse darwin himself is seminal work ... behavioral and evolutionary psychology is an attempt to abstract these things. Could even look at military application and research of psychology during war. I think the you are here today typing in a keyboard is proof enough it works - i also think today’s science is a part of that mechanism - i also don't really think our science today is any different than stories about evil spirits, at least in function and eventual “goal”, both don't have alot of power to influence the phenomena they are trying to explain.