[FRIAM] FW: Fractal discussion Landscape-bird songs

[Robert Wall]

>
>  (This is why Csikszentmihalyi's concept of "flow" is useless and annoying
> to me.)  It's pure nonsense to talk of mind at all.  So, it's nonsense to
> say that societies act as if with one mind.


Wow!  Try to be consistent at least.  Eh?  Who is saying that except you
with your previous groupthink examples?  Not me. That was my point.  They
can't.  The "as if" was the key.  The "as if" alludes to the behavioral
manifestation. Yes?

And, you seem to be easily annoyed and this is just one example with this
latest load of shit you have dropped on my attempt to explain.  I notice
that you seem to use the words "useless" and  "nonsense" [usually with the
adjective *utter *] a lot when you post replies.  Not sure if you mean to
be insulting or annoying, but you achieved it here this time. Another
backhand strike? So, you lost me half way through this reply. A sense of
hopelessness set in very early.

In a strange way, though, throughout this whole thread, you actually make
my point.  Thanks!  Language can be a problem.  Symbolic reference.
Imprecision. But the bottom-line is that I feel you really didn't (even try
to) understand anything I said, and, apparently, I don't really understand
anything you have said in as much as I have tried.  And I am not sure it is
because of the imprecision of language, though. It is something else that
leads you to just find disagreement.  As often said, it is much easier to
sound smart by tearing something down than to constructively build on
something. Maybe that applies here.  Not sure. Hope not.

Just taking the example of my "superseding the animal," I am talking about
superseding our "animal nature" and not talking about our distinctiveness
with other animals in terms of accomplishments or anything else like that.
How did you come up with that?!  I thought the context would have made what
I was saying abundantly clear.

Actually, in this, humans are both the same and distinctive from other
animals, but not in the way you counter, which is arguably a non-sequitur.
This from* Psychology Today*: Not So Different: Finding Human Nature in
Animal Nature
<https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/animal-emotions/201605/not-so-different-finding-human-nature-in-animal-nature>
 (2016):

The big take-home message is that the emotional drives and instincts of
> humans and other animals are remarkably similar. Where things become very
> different -- and we have to admit that modern humans live very differently
> than other animals -- is when those drives and instincts interact with the
> social environment <https://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/environment> to
> create behavior. Since humans have an exceedingly complex cultural history
> that is additive over the generations, that is a very different social
> milieu in which our drives give rise to behaviors. But the drives
> themselves are not so different.


So my bringing other animals into the discussion could be considered an
insult to all other animals.  Yes, we are actually distinctive, but to my
point, in our behavioral differences with these other animals. Animals are
incapable of evilness in the same way that we say humans can be evil. I am
sure, for example, that the author of the article titled "Man's more
enlightened, Human Nature versus our "more animal than human nature
<http://www.spaceship-earth.org/PoS/Enlightened_human_nature.htm>" would
have understood what I was talking about in the context of this discussion
(it's not difficult to find other examples of others wondering how to get
society to stop shitting in their nest, so to speak.  And, we are arguably
approaching a time where we need an answer.):

Why is the world in such a terrible state, with so much crime, corruption,
> violence, injustice, material and spiritual poverty, and in general such a
> shameful testament to man's capacity for evil, indifference and stupidity?
> Notwithstanding that many of us - for the moment, at least - lead such
> pleasant and privileged lives.
>


> Things were no better in the past either; in many ways they were even
> worse (not for the privileged few, perhaps, as now, but certainly for the
> majority). The history of "civilisation", from its very beginnings to the
> present, not withstanding its great achievements, has largely been the
> history of violent conflict, injustice and of man's inhumanity towards and
> exploitation of his fellow man.



>
> Having an answer to this most important (and vital) of questions is
> essential if we are to meet man's most pressing challenge: the creation of
> diverse, just, humane, peaceful and *sustainable* human societies on our
> finite and vulnerable planet, *Spaceship Earth*.



> The answer, in fact, has been staring us in the face for more than 100
> years: since the publication of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and
> the scientific recognition of man's animal origins. Although lip service is
> paid to this most profound piece of scientific knowledge, for all
> practical, political, social, economic and ecological purposes we have yet
> to face up to it.


This short opinion article is an emulation of what I have been trying to
explain to you but perhaps it does a much better job at explaining it. Give
it a go ...  Utter nonsense? Annoying?

At this point, not only do I think that Flow can *not *likely be achieved
at the level of a society as a whole, I do not now think that there can be
a meeting of the minds between us in this discussion.  Where I look in the
crevices where can find agreement--in spite of the imprecision of the
symbolic references that can pepper language--you, line by line here even,
have looked for disagreement only.  On an intuitive level, we do not seem
to be the same social animal.  Not a social crime, of course, unless you
are just "gaming" me with some unnecessary display of intellectual peacock
feathers; but regretfully I see no way to make headway [e.g., congruity of
thought] here as it seems clear that we seem to have very opposing
objectives in this discussion.

I, nor Csikszentmihalyi, will annoy you no further ...

On Fri, Feb 24, 2017 at 3:48 PM, glen ☣ <gepropella at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> OK.  Yes, thanks, that helps.  But I do think you disagree with me, only I
> may not have made myself clear enough for you to realize we disagree.  I'll
> interleave in the hopes of making my objections in context.
>
> On 02/24/2017 01:44 PM, Robert Wall wrote:
> > The last quote, to me, says that a group acting toward a common goal in,
> say the way an individual in that group would, does *not *imply that the
> "symbolic references" used to act rationaly in the world are all in align
> or even perhaps in synchopation under an fMRI. YES! I can agree with this.
> And I don't think that I disagreed.
>
> But that's not what I'm saying.  Perhaps you're making what I'm saying
> much stronger.  Or perhaps what you're saying is entirely different.  I
> can't tell because you're leaping too far.  I'm only saying that if the
> stuff that causes our behavior is aligned, we need something _other_ than
> our behavior to demonstrate that alignment.  I'm trying to focus on the
> difference between thought and action.  You seem to be conflating that with
> the difference between individuals and groups.
>
> The thought vs. action dichotomy is critical to my rhetoric about
> individuals vs. groups.  But it's more fundamental and must be made before
> (independently) of any rhetoric about individual vs. group.
>
> > And I do even agree with you that there are examples of goups that do
> act as if with "one mind" and even benevolently.
>
> Again, I don't think I said that.  I don't think even an individual's
> thoughts matter.  (This is why Csikszentmihalyi's concept of "flow" is
> useless and annoying to me.)  It's pure nonsense to talk of mind at all.
> So, it's nonsense to say that societies act as if with one mind.  But that
> does not mean they can't be "in the zone", because being in the zone has
> nothing to do with one's mind.
>
> > Market-oriented co-ops are such a phenomenon, which I discussed in
> another thread, especially with Marcus who seemed to see these as an bane
> to society as unmanaged enterprises, which they are not. Perspective is
> sharpened by exposure.  My company transitionsed to an ESOP, but the
> intended economic benefit was eventually corrupted by the management team
> that used this preferred organizational form to basically enrich themselves
> at the expense of what the ERISA originally intended--cooperative,
> community-oriented corprorate behavior.  Stakeholders in the welfare of the
> community. At the grassroots, it was enything but a co-operative.  It was a
> vehicle to enrich the corporate management. But where it works, it is
> beautiful.
>
> If you see these co-ops as technological innovations, then I'd argue that
> their use and ABUSE can both be examples of society being "in the zone".
> The same is true of the cell phone and space travel.  It's totally
> irrelevant whether the co-ops relate to the beliefs, desires, and
> intentions of the humans involved (if such things exist).  What would
> matter is the society's beliefs, desires, and intentions (if such exists).
> The only stakeholder is society.  The individuals are as expendable as
> sand, or fossil fuel, or bacteria.
>
> > But I do kind of see where a "meeting of the minds" between us may have
> been derailed here about what we each mean concerning /being in the zone/"
> at a level of society.  And I fault myself for this in joining the
> underlying threaded thoughts late, perhaps, and not being more clear in the
> distinctions. It has to do with the phrase "as a whole."  I will use
> market-oriented co-ops again as a useful example to make my point a bit
> more clear. Cooperatives cannot seem to take root here in this country
> [e.g., public banks] because of another blocking cultural, Hayekian meme:
> "a free market under capitalism will save us all." This meme has been
> forcefully in play for the last thirty-five years with it's high priest
> being Milton Friedman and the Chicgo School of Economics.  What have been
> the results?
>
> No worries about joining late or miscomm. or anything.  That's why we're
> here.  But I disagree about _why_ co-ops can't take root.  A) They have
> taken root ... at least up here in the PacNW.  But B) any inability to take
> root has nothing to do with shared ideologies like that from Hayek or
> whoever.  They fail to take root because of _behavior_, not thought/ideas.
>
> > Which of these memes could be equivalent to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's
> [and I don't mean to push this guy forward, but only this idea] Optimal
> Experience at the level of society as a whole: (1) profit-driven
> coorporatism or (2) community-oriented cooperatism?  First off, I am
> exclusively talking about the behavioral end that leans toward what is good
> for society--the whole tribe, such that the tribe benefits in an
> egalitarian sense. Arguably, as a tribe we are not moving in any such
> direction. But there are pockets of co-operative behavior like we saw at
> Standing Rock.  But, what happened?  The pipe got laid anyway and the
> planet weeps. Your take on "effective altruism" is another example, I
> think, of how we as a society would rather game the moral landscape to give
> the illusion of being "for the people." I really do not mean to be so
> pessimistic and my analysis will hopefully bear this out.
>
> Again in this paragraph, you seem to conflate individuals with groups.
> When you say "tribe benefits in an egalitarian sense", I get confused.
> Egalitarian at the tribe layer requires similarities between tribes.  And
> if there are multiple tribes, then society consists of a group of tribes.
> I would not want to conflate what's good for a tribe with what's good for
> the population of tribes.
>
> > What this comes down to is this. To be /in the zone/ at the level of a
> society as a whole in a similar way as could happen at the level of an
> individual--such that we would say there is a Flow characterized as an
> Optimal Experience, we would NOT expect there to be an alignment of
> symbolic references.  Precisely the opposite, if we are to regard the
> thoughts of the many philosophers and linguists on this topic to be wise.
> What we would expect instead is the _supersession_ of our language-based
> symbolic references with something akin to Intuition or Empathy ...
> something beyond words such that wisdom emeges on the scale of a society
> [and why I use capitalization of those terms]. So far, anyway, I do not see
> this as being not only possible, but not evident.
>
> OK.  Again, Csikszentmihalyi's conception is useless to me because we
> cannot talk about an Optimal Experience in purely action/behavior terms.
> And since (P=>Q) is untrustworthy, we can't talk objectively about qualia
> at all.  That means we can't do it at the individual or collective layers.
> Csikszentmihalyi's "zone" is a detrimental fiction.
>
> But we can talk about the actions of a collective or individual, and
> various measures of those actions (e.g. speed of some repetitive action
> like applying rivets, or how fast someone talks, or whatever).  As a
> society, we can talk about technology (not science so much because that
> implies thoughts/ideas more so than tech).  We can measure things like
> legal systems and city sizes, etc.
>
> > We have not as a whole or on many individual levels been able to
> supercede the animal.
>
> Oh, I couldn't disagree more.  We are not only building our environment
> more (and more intensely and more rapidly) than all the other animals
> combined, but we regularly demonstrate our ability/facility to quickly
> return to our core animal states ... and back to our higher/later states at
> will.  So, we're not merely a new animal that is bound by, restricted to
> its built environment (cities, airplanes, etc.)  We can walk the entire
> spectrum, something no other animal can do.
>
> Our actions (not our thoughts) clearly demonstrate how we are distinct
> from the other animals.
>
> > *Intent *distinguishes the phenomena of /being in the zone/.   *Scale
> *distinguishes the level of its achievement. To be sure, symbolic
> references have little to nothing to do with the kind of/being in the zone/
> to which I was referring. It's kind of like what Timothy Gallwey was trying
> to convey in his book /The Inner Game of Tennis/.  Thinking is gone.
>
> And a final repeat of my disagreement:  If intent is required for your
> "being in the zone", then we're not talking about the same thing at all.
> For me, intent doesn't even exist.  It's only what happens that can be
> measured and talked about.  So, whether some one or group is in the zone
> must be measurable by different properties of their actions, one of which
> might be scale.
>
> Whew!  OK.  Back to work.
>
> --
> ☣ glen
>
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