[FRIAM] /Topic Latent in: Latent Topics was: enough sleep?

Wed Apr 10 15:02:13 EDT 2019

One of you said: 

and I can't help but wonder *why* individuals are so entitled to think they deserve anything at all other than the opportunity to exist ... if even that.

Lurking in the back caves of my liberal bleeding heart lurks a troll who responds badly to "entitlement" and its close relative "victimhood."

Every entitlement enjoyed by one person relies on an obligation taken on by others.  So the conversation should start with deciding what obligations we want to take on so as to afford a reasonable sense of safety and protection for others.  I happen to think that I, and my children, and grandchildren will be happier there are basic supports to limit poverty, disease, and despair in the population around us.  And, I am also glad when I think that those supports will be available for me and mine, should they become necessary.   But is there a "moral hazard", here?  Will I drive less cautiously because I have automobile insurance, smoke more and drink more Pepsi because I have health insurance, spend more freely because there will be food stamps?  I suppose there's data on that, somewhere.  

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2019 10:00 AM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: [FRIAM] Latent Topics was: enough sleep?

Marcus wrote, in response to Glen:

> In the end, life is just a struggle for power.

I think this is technically accurate, but may carry a cynicism which ignores some subtleties along the way?  It invokes the image attributed (I think) to Tennyson and perhaps exploited by Dawkins to provide contrast to support his Selfish Genery (Nick?).   "Nature: Red in Tooth and Claw".

Edwin Wilson might anthropomorphize "genes" in Dawkins style, with his statement “morality is an illusion fobbed off on us by our genes to get us to cooperate”, but it does seem to sum up one perspective on the illusions (or realities?) that seem to come along with cooperation

(symbiosis) in nature?

>From my ALife days, "Life" is a lot of things at once, while being roughly as simple as systems which increase negentropy in the flux of free energy sources. Your "struggle for power" is perhaps a reflection of the competition for better exposure to said "flux".   Coherence, Homeostasis, Reproduction, Competition for Resources...  It seems like some here have been more deeply engaged in these topics than I...  your colloquial use of "Power" would suggest a little higher level of emergent properties, implying networks of predator/prey, parasite/symbiote, even ecosystems?  Erwin Schroedinger in his classic _What is Life?_ seemed to reduce it as well as any physicist could, yet still left open plenty of acknowledgement of higher level emergent properties (I think).

I have recently been reading up on "plant guilds" and in particular "tree guilds" to improve how I encourage or cultivate the landscape around my house to become more productive and interesting for me and mine.   Recognizing the subtle interactions between highly distinct species (from every kingdom of life) and how their resonances can be reinforcing is fascinating.  Of course, the ideal of what is "pleasing and productive" is highly context-dependent.   I don't know what kinds of ecosystems have evolved around "invasive species" such as tumbleweeds, russian olives, tamarisk, but it might only be their relatively *recent* invasion that has us considering them a problem...

they haven't found an equilibrium with the other flora, fauna and hydrogeological phenomena (riparian in particular) and all WE recognize is the disruption of the old order, and lament the loss of the "convenient" qualities offered to us and ours by the old order.

I am also 90% of the way through Richard Powers latest Novel _Overstory_ which uses the lives and loves of perhaps a dozen humans to expose the rich and ancient history of and contemporary experience of Trees.  It is something of an epic opus among his many richly complex books and characters.  He did a reading at the Lensic in February and reported that during the course of the research for this book he moved to the edge of the Smoky Mountain National Park to be near the old growth forest there while he finished up the novel.  The human societal metaphor of a Guild centered around a Tree seems pale in import and complexity in the face of his description of the legacy of  trees and forests.

- Steve

>   As soon as one starts to think in terms of entitled or not entitled (beyond rhetoric and tactics), it is just taking your eye off the ball.   Whether it is for the best or not is in the end, subjective.

> 

> Btw, it's good you point out the concept of the "underlying thread".   Same idea:  There's the stated topic of a thread and then there are latent topics.   Usually latent topics are more interesting anyway.   An individual can be a class or an individual can be one of a billion instances of a latent class.    Mostly we are all redundant, and encouraged to be so -- the latter -- good little consumers, churchgoers, and taxpayers.

> 

> On 4/10/19, 7:46 AM, "Friam on behalf of glen∈ℂ" < <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com%20on%20behalf%20of%20gepropella at gmail.com> friam-bounces at redfish.com on behalf of gepropella at gmail.com> wrote:

> 

>     The underlying thread seems to be the extent to which we are part of a fluid and the extent to which that fluid's phenomena are distinct from those phenomena generated by the individual parts, the humans.  Individualist ⇔ socialist spectrum, the ontological status of groups (including whether your animals are mere slaves or full members of your group), cyborg or healthy organelle, etc.

>     

>     It reminds me of the quote I think highlights the individualist's 

> arrogance: "I don't know why we're here.  But I'm pretty sure it's not 

> to enjoy ourselves." (attributed to Wittgenstein)

>     

>     Why do we think we should ever "feel recharged", "be happy", "be healthy", etc?  I look at the way my cats behave, compare their lives to that of the stray we fed (and who bled all over our patio every time he ate, who when we took him to the Feral Cat Society, killed him right off the bat because he had so many diseases) and I can't help but wonder *why* individuals are so entitled to think they deserve anything at all other than the opportunity to exist ... if even that.

>     

>     

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