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Evolution of human culture can either be recognized as a consciously directed emergent property or it can be consciously ignored and instead directed by the uni

Evolution of human culture can either be recognized as a consciously directed emergent property or it can be consciously ignored and instead directed by the unification of unspoken (but existent) belief systems of the majority. Cultural evolution isn't magic. There are properties that can be recognized for what they are and what role they play in the development of culture. I think it is disingenuous to point out the size of institution versus the capability of the mind to analyze and distill what goes on. The law is supposed to be blind. That means to me, the law should be sound on its own ground, without being dependent on rhetorical arguments that paint possibly sneaky incentives over as abstract 'biological cultural sociological imperatives'. I think for the nature of this argument, understanding the broad picture is complicated and takes time, caution, and care, neither of which can be established through armchair analysis. Implementation is different than theory.

netcan 12y ago
I disagree. I don't think "human culture can be (honestly) recognized as a consciously directed emergent property," any more than an individuals personality can be directed. We know some things. We control some things. We can't engineer a human personality. Same goes for human culture. We can't decide to model Iraqi culture on Italian culture. We can copy some institutions, the copying is indirect. The cards will fall where they may, and the honest truth is that we don't know how it works. Before the fact we have a bunch of angry amadons screaming that xyz will happen if we do xyz. After the fact we have the amadons arguing about what really happened. No knowledge is gained.
- emotionalcode 12y ago
  No, I am saying that the collective unconscious belief system of a system itself (here, I am calling a collection of humans, or a society - to be a system) is what can direct it. This means all those side thoughts you think you ignore. When you choose to listen to analysis over intuition, but you might not consider the effect of ignoring intuition in favor of analysis, or you may even deny the existence of intuition because analysis exists. Intuition can be uniform across a population and can direct the population. I am not trying to be Freudian here, unconscious is just a word for 'thoughts you keep to yourself'. It's all the thoughts and actions that we take that we don't tell one another about, things we may not even be aware that we are doing (like independent thinking, thinking about what other people are thinking), that can create direction within a social system. I am not saying "engineer a human personality". I am saying "engineer yourself", and consider what that means across a collection of people when they are all engineering themselves, and happen to mutually, mentally agree on some things, but do not express this directly to one another.
  - netcan 12y ago
    We're getting into tricky territory with words :) I think it's important to make a distinction between clever emergent processes that people are involved in but aren't in control of and those that people made and are in control in. The distinction is vague, and arguable. I'm generally pretty down on systems (politics and economics are really burdened by these) which overreach by overstating our understanding of things. Just because a theory is the best we've got, doesn't mean it's good enough to be made operational. When people start getting grandiose with their social and political theories I think of 18th century surgery.
    - onsalenow 12y ago
      You guys are beating around the bush! Just get fucking spiritual. You know you want to.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]

netcan 12y ago

I disagree. I don't think "human culture can be (honestly) recognized as a consciously directed emergent property," any more than an individuals personality can be directed. We know some things. We control some things. We can't engineer a human personality. Same goes for human culture. We can't decide to model Iraqi culture on Italian culture. We can copy some institutions, the copying is indirect. The cards will fall where they may, and the honest truth is that we don't know how it works. Before the fact we have a bunch of angry amadons screaming that xyz will happen if we do xyz. After the fact we have the amadons arguing about what really happened. No knowledge is gained.

emotionalcode 12y ago
No, I am saying that the collective unconscious belief system of a system itself (here, I am calling a collection of humans, or a society - to be a system) is what can direct it. This means all those side thoughts you think you ignore. When you choose to listen to analysis over intuition, but you might not consider the effect of ignoring intuition in favor of analysis, or you may even deny the existence of intuition because analysis exists. Intuition can be uniform across a population and can direct the population. I am not trying to be Freudian here, unconscious is just a word for 'thoughts you keep to yourself'. It's all the thoughts and actions that we take that we don't tell one another about, things we may not even be aware that we are doing (like independent thinking, thinking about what other people are thinking), that can create direction within a social system. I am not saying "engineer a human personality". I am saying "engineer yourself", and consider what that means across a collection of people when they are all engineering themselves, and happen to mutually, mentally agree on some things, but do not express this directly to one another.
- netcan 12y ago
  We're getting into tricky territory with words :) I think it's important to make a distinction between clever emergent processes that people are involved in but aren't in control of and those that people made and are in control in. The distinction is vague, and arguable. I'm generally pretty down on systems (politics and economics are really burdened by these) which overreach by overstating our understanding of things. Just because a theory is the best we've got, doesn't mean it's good enough to be made operational. When people start getting grandiose with their social and political theories I think of 18th century surgery.
  - onsalenow 12y ago
    You guys are beating around the bush! Just get fucking spiritual. You know you want to.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]