[FRIAM] Motives - Was Abduction

[Prof David West]

Glen, 

I want to respond to this but my knowledge of graphs is laughable, so please be patient.

When I attempt to visualize a graph to use as a metaphor for explaining my notions of individualism — the image in my mind is of Indra's Net  ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indra%27s_net ) which itself is a metaphor.

As a node in that net I have at my disposal the entirety of the net. [There are some interesting convolutions that get from 'refelcting' to 'containing'.]

As a node with the ability to "act" (i.e. exhibit behavior) I cannot avoid "acting/behaving." This is not a "right" to act it is a "responsibility" to act (Don't ask from whence this responsibility came to be assigned to me) and, to "act responsibly."

"Responsible Action" is one that is fully informed, that takes into account all available input; which in the case of a gem in Indra's Net, means the entire universe. Only possible for those who are enlightened.

When I state that I am an individual, I am asserting a degree of autonomy along with an obligation to act responsibly. To act responsibly each action must be conscious, deliberative, and fully informed. As a 'gem' in Indra's Net, I have the potential to be absolutely informed and my humanity is determined by the extent to which I avail myself of that potential.

The possibility of and the means of achieving things like group structures, cultures, social compacts, governments, etc. from a presumption of individualism as depicted above it an entirely different realm to explore.

All of the above feels at least orthogonal to, if not contradictory, of  your graph explanation. But please explain why  and how I might be wrong.

davew



On Fri, Jan 11, 2019, at 8:20 AM, ∄ uǝʃƃ wrote:
> Apologies for not snipping more of the below.  I try to only include the 
> relevant bits.  But Steve is particularly good at tight weaves.
> 
> I'll (inappropriately, I'm sure) name Dave's conception of individualism 
> as "networked extensive individualism" (NEI).  Networked to address what 
> I infer from the word "absolute".  And the graph is either undirected or 
> the edges are bidirectional.  Extensive because there's some sense that 
> the attributes of the nodes extend out along the edges to other nodes.  
> If we allow for different types of edges, then each sub-graph (following 
> only the edges associated with 1 attribute) might have a larger or 
> smaller extent/size.  Again, "absolute" would play, here.
> 
> So, if that sort of name is OK, then I have to ask why use the word 
> "individual" at all?  It sounds very much more like "fabric" or 
> "population" ... perhaps even "gooey colloid".  What does the individual 
> comprise that is not out in the larger network?
> 
> My *guess* is that my intuition tells me there's a natural asymmetry 
> between actions and considerations (a more neutral way of saying 
> "rights" and "responsibilities").  An individual can be a towering 
> intellect or a complete moron and both might be capable of making a 
> great cup of tea.  So, when we package up, as a kind of shorthand a sub-
> graph into an "individual", we're trying to create some sort of 
> equivalence between action and consideration.  If you act without 
> thinking things through, then we blame you.  If your actions (even 
> accidentally as I think Scott Adams' prediction Trump would win was an 
> accident) imply to us that you're some mysterious, deep oracle (e.g. 
> Richard Feynman), then credit you.
> 
> But this is a false equivalence.  A specific form of this is the Great 
> Man theory, where people like Einstein or whoever are "10-100 times more 
> effective than average".  If we *parse* "effective" well, then it's 
> true.  But we're in danger of assuming that efficacy in action is 
> somehow directly related to "deep thought" or "intelligence" or 
> whatever.
> 
> I hope that makes sense.
> 
> On 1/10/19 4:19 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> > On 1/10/19 2:26 PM, Prof David West wrote:
> >> Second, Individualism. The list recently struggled with the idea of labeling (categorizing) people and my response to your question and observations about individualism will echo some of the labeling conversation.
> >>
> >> I will resist being labeled an "individualist" because every characterization I have seen on this list is grounded, in one way or another, on "individual rights." I do not believe that indivdiual's have "rights," even the inalienable ones, that are not derived entirely from "individual responsibility."
> > I think I share some analog to your rights/responsibility duality. But I also think they are part of a social construct/contract. "Rights" and "Responsibilities" only make sense to me in the context of some group. I think in most cultures *many* of the rights and responsibilities of the "individual" are so implicit in the culture that we don't think much about them until we get around to conjuring up a constitutional governance document or facing a judge in a courtroom.
> >>
> >> I am ultimately and absolutely responsible for, not only myself, but, labeling again, all sentient life. While this seems absurd on its face, it is directly analogous to the Bodhisattva. (A goal, not an achievement!)
> > Why draw the boundary around sentient life?  Why not include *all consciousness* or *all life* and then extend  that to *all patterns of matter and energy*?   I'm not asking this challengingly...  I'm suggesting that in the same way expanding past "me" to "my family" to "my tribe" to "my nation" to "my race" to "my species" to "my genus" or "family" or "order" or even "kingdom" makes some real sense.
> >> Corollaries follow: 1) absolute responsibility also means absolute accountability, including if a mistake is made ("do the crime, do the time");
> > I think the question of "accountability" vs vaguely related concepts like "retribution", "revenge", "rehabilitation", "recovery", even "return to grace" is important but probably worth deferring here.
> >> 2) a critical dimension of responsibility is acquiring the kind of 'omniscience' that assures non-attachment;
> > These are somewhat the opposite of "Willful Ignorance", methinks?
> >> 3) every act (behavior) I exhibit is both informed and intentional;
> > 
> > In some limit, yes.  But along a spectrum it would seem.   Until one has achieved said "Omniscient Non-attached Enlightenment" there is room for weakly informed and therefore mis-applied intentions.   The truck-driver hurtling toward the minivan loaded with a model family (including a couple of cute dogs) may well have been swerving to avoid a deer when his poor information lead him to believe that he could do so without crossing lanes, jumping a barrier, and flying headlong into said family (in this version, the truck-driver is neither a sex offender nor substance abuser and the brakes may or may not work but in either case aren't being effective enough to avoid the inevitable fiery collision).
> > 
> > And then we have the concept of "willful ignorance".   Are you perhaps suggesting that every act/behaviour has a component of willful ignorance?
> > 
> > 
> >> and 4) the necessary assumption that everyone else is an "individualist" of this same stripe.
> > We can assume that every one else is the same animal, whether they know it or not.   Harping on my willful ignorance, we could accuse those who don't know it of extreme ignorance with or without extreme willfulness.
> >> In the above I am an admitted fundamentalist fanatic. However, the culture I grew up in, both secular and religious, strongly echoes these ideas. Growing up, I was exposed, pretty much constantly, to the "Paradise Built in Hell" kind of individual, group, and social behavior. (Obviously, that was not the only thing to which I was exposed.)
> > 
> > I think I was as well, though some reflection exposes various pockets of hypocrisy that I was unprepared to recognize at the time.   I think something actually *changed* during my generation, where *willful ignorance* (still harping) replaced engaged responsibility.
> > 
> > This is a lot of what I am curious about... what that equation is, how it is balanced and how we got from there to here (or even whether here and there are anything but the same thing?).
> > 
> >> A Geography professor at Macalester College sparked a lifelong interest in Utopian communities. In addition to the physical environment,I was interested in the 'mental' environment of values, principles of social organization, etc.. I have found a lot of other 'echoes' of my concept of individualism in those that managed to survive multiple generations (a rarity).
> > 
> > Intentional Communities (almost by definition Utopian?) have been around for a very long time and often fail within a generation, sometimes under the weight of their own extremism, sometimes under the weight of "backlash" from trying to overconstrain human instinctual drives (e.g. all the things that the 10 Commandments feels compelled to be explicit about).
> > 
> > Complexicists might prefer Utopian societies exhibit Utopian qualities through emergent properties.   Jenny Quillien's writeup on her trip to Bhutan exposed a partial example of this (perhaps).
> > 
> >>
> >> Hope this was on point to what you asked about.
> > 
> > I think more to the point is to stimulate some off-axis discussion which perhaps provides a little parallax relief from the familiar left/right debates (rants) that we (not just this group, but society at large) seem to lock into.   I sense that your own experiences and unique path through life leads you to a similarly unique perspective.   The topic of categorization recently seems mostly to be an issue I think Glen calls "over-quantization" or perhaps it is "premature-quantization"? This is also why I harp on breaking the RNC/DNC stranglehold on election (including debate) processes... I want to be making my own choices in a much higher-dimensional space... even if I might be resigned to the hazards of representative gov't (as opposed to the hazards of a direct democracy).
> 
> 
> -- 
> ∄ uǝʃƃ
> 
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