>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partially_ordered_set http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partially_ordered_set A poset is ordered on one relation, and you posit (see w

>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partially_ordered_set http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partially_ordered_set A poset is ordered on one relation, and you posit (see what I did there?) that natural selection does the same, and that for humans, it just happens to be greater or lesser degrees of xenophobia? >A xenophobia indicates intellectual capabilities level not sufficient for FTL. I don't buy this, and I'm not sure why you do. It certainly shouldn't be taken as an axiom. > "up" has a pretty clear direction on many axes. For a given axis it is the direction of higher degree of symmetry breakup whatever it means on that given axis. Complexity/specialization and sentience level for biological systems. Managed energy density for technological civilization. Violence control for social organization. The problem is that the axis isn't given. One is competing on all of these axes all at the same time. And, predictably, progress along one axis may mean regress along another. What if you have a technological civilization populated by sentients with greater or lesser degrees of violence? Did you know that identity theft has increased by astronomical amounts since 1960? And yet we have these shiny iPads. Have we progressed?