I feel your excitement and it is contagious I shall try to read this essay. I agree about reversion. As a young man and father I chose what I liked calling Voluntary simplicity. I retreated from “society” built a home ten miles by water from a school bus stop (law in Canada for attending school) and dispensed with doctors and other professionals. Immersion learning!
'The non-authoritarian hunter/gatherer tribe seems to have been the universal form of human society for 99% of its existence."
What leads you to believe this? An examination of existing tribal societies (and those encountered by early explorers) reveals certain common features, such as hereditary chieftains, a warrior caste, shamans, and some form of ancestor worship. Surely these are all indicators of some form of authority? The term 'authoritarian' has an inherent bias, suggesting that authority in and of itself is a bad thing. A better term might be 'organizing principle.' Collective effort, as in hunting and gathering, had to follow some form of organized behaviour to succeed, and it seems logical that the most experienced hunters would be natural leaders, which would entitle them to certain privileges, thus implying some form of authority.
"Moreover, since Sahlin’s paradigm-shift, a great mystery hovers around the question of agriculture. Namely:—What on earth could induce any sane person to give up hunting and gathering (four hours daily labor or less, 200 or more items in the “larder”, “the original leisure society”, etc.) for the rigors of agriculture (14 or more hours a day, 20 items in the larder, the “work ethic”, etc.)?"
I don't regard this as any great mystery, and I believe Marvin Harris adequately addressed the problem in "Cultural Materialism." Hunting and gathering is risky business and has no guarantee of success, so characterizing it as four hours a day of easy effort sounds like the thoughts of someone who's never actually hunted for their food. Bear in mind, many hunter-gathers had to follow herds. That meant they often had to pick up and move at a moment's notice. They were also subject to natural disaster, among them grass or forest fires, which would drive away game, or kill them and possibly the tribe as well. On the gathering side, women had to range further afield as the season progressed, since the nearby early picking would become depleted. This exposed them to predators, often without the protection of men who were by necessity off hunting. No doubt a lot of children were lost this way, which would be highly demoralizing.
Under such circumstances, once someone noticed that seeds dropped along the way grew into the same plants you had to travel distance to find, it was logical to plant them closer to home, thus the beginning of agriculture. This doesn't work too well if you're nomadic unless you have established seasonal camps, but that would often be the case, and the seeds you planted the year before would be fully grown when you returned.
Speaking of herds, once you had the idea of planting seeds for easy access, it couldn't have been too long before the same idea was applied to herds. Why follow them around when you can capture their young, enclose them and breed them? So animal husbandry is the natural outcome of primitive agriculture, and the two are intimately entwined in everything that follows.
With enclosure comes the need for defence, first against predators, later against hostile tribes who adopt plunder as a survival strategy. Fortunately the skills of the hunter are the same as the warrior, so a caste emerges whose task is primarily defence of the settlement, while others tend to the herds or to the fields. So there's your early social division giving rise to hierarchy and some form of authority, based on handed down knowledge. You don't get to be an authority for very long unless your ideas actually work.
As for the 'the rigors of agriculture' again, spoken like someone who's never farmed. There are two busy periods in agriculture, preparing and planting, followed by harvesting and processing. Between the two there's not a lot to do, other than chase off vermin. Success depends on a good harvest that will get you through winter of course, supplemented by hunting winter game, but other than that there's not much work other than keeping the paths clear of snow, the wood for fires having already been gathered in sufficient amount.
Speaking of winter, there's good reason to believe that it fostered the growth of intelligence in our species. The reason is fairly simple. You have to plan ahead if you're going to survive harsh winters, so this creates an evolutionary bias that selects for foresight. No such bias exists in sunnier regions where food is abundant on a year-round basis. This partially explains the rise of advanced civilization in colder climes. Warmer climes with advanced civilizations almost universally appear around river estuaries where irrigation became the dominant organizing principle. The Indus, Nile, Euphrates, Ganges, Yangtze, etc. Grist for a future mill.
Back to the herds, specifically cows and horses. Many reasons are put forth for the collapse of Pre-Colombian civilizations. The strongest argument I've heard is that they lacked cows and horses. With cows you get draft animals thus plowed fields, leading to surplus. You also get a steady supply of meat and fresh milk. With horses you get a draft animal for transportation and defence. Properly managed, this allows for expansion of your domain as the population increases as a result of abundant food leading to better nutrition, along with more free time to devote to chasing tail. Don't let anyone tell you that hunting and gathering is easier than agriculture. It just isn't true or we'd all still be doing it.
So, in the absence of horses and cows, pre-Colombian civilization reached a Malthusian limit of growth and either reverted to cannibalism (Aztecas) or the people wandered off and reverted to earlier hunter-gatherer forms. The Mayans didn't disappear - I've met many of them and can tell you they're most definitely still there. Great people too BTW. They just couldn't sustain the level of civilization they achieved without cows and horses and so reverted to the mean. Same applies to the Incas. They had llamas, but if you've ever met a llama you know they're no good as draft animals, and that is the crucial point where societies transition from enslavement of people to enslavement of animals. Cats, and dogs fall in this category as well. Cats to keep rodent away from your grain, dogs to protect against predators and assist in hunting.
Proof of concept exists in the rapid emergence of the Plains Indian horse culture, as exemplified by the Lakota people. Horses that escaped the Spanish formed wild herds that were quickly domesticated by the native tribes that followed the buffalo. The advantages were obvious. No more risky hunting on foot, or driving buffalo over cliffs which was wasteful and diminished the herd. Now you could just ride along side and pick them off in sufficient amounts. Also, when it came time to move, the horses doubled as draft animals. The arrival of the Spanish had a profound effect on the plains cultures, most of whom never met a single Spaniard. Just their horses.
Another obvious outcome of enclosure is specialization. Various new tasks emerge with enclosure, and so a division of labour and their attendant hierarchies emerge. Arguably the need for specialization was a determining factor in the emergence of intelligence. I recall a half-joking theory I came across that probably contains a grain of truth. The guy who could chip flint and knew where to find it would likely guard that secret, thus ensuring his status within the tribe. He'd be far too valuable to risk losing in a dangerous hunt, and so stayed behind where he divided his time between chipping arrow heads and boinking the women. Thus his genes got passed on with greater frequency than the hunters. The same was probably true of the guy who knew how to make fire, not to mention the shaman, who might have been one and the same.
I can't stress enough the importance of Marvin Harris' contribution to anthropology. He took the mystery out by looking for the material causes of human behaviour. Most of what I just wrote came from him. Unfortunately I no longer have the book (lent it and never got it back...grrr!) so this is all from memory and apologies for any inaccuracies or omissions
Lee's views seem to align with Harris'. Early hunter-gatherers were few in number and spread out. If conflict did arise it would probably be easier to just move on, and the spread of H sapiens across pretty much the entire planet seems to support that. Later on, once people had attached themselves to the land and had fixed assets, defence would seem a more likely response, although there was probably a mixture of both approaches depending on the material costs of fight vs. flight.
I notice in animal conflict the encounters rarely end in fatalities. One side concedes defeat and either moves on, or assumes a subordinate role. I see no reason to doubt that we haven't inherited that trait as it's survival compatible for both parties. Even the Wild West, with its legends of gunfighters, probably saw very few actual gunfights. Anyone who's ever fired a pistol knows that you're far more likely to miss than hit your target, even at close range. Add to that the cost of the ammunition you'd have to use to get good at it and I think most disputes back then either ended with one party conceding, or in a drinking contest to see who passed out first..lol. That doesn't make good copy for journalists though, like that damn fool easterner in 'Unforgiven.' You have to bear in mind the tendency of writers to exaggerate when reading anything written about the past, or the present for that matter.
There is a lot to respond to (which I intend to do properly soon enough), but basically immediate-return huntergatherer tend heavily towards egalitarianism... And our stone age ancestors are presumed to have been immediate-return hunter-gatherers... So the egalitarian origins hypothesis is actually supported by cultural materialism. I would highly recommend checking out this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vNADAH-Rxk
I'm sorry I got half-way through that video and just couldn't take anymore. What I see is a textbook case of arguing from a conclusion, AKA begging the question.
In short, he sets out to prove the premise, which is not how science is done, and picks out a series of instances to make a general case in support of that. Again not scientific. I don't know who David Graeber & David Wengrow are, but I found his dismissive tone irritating. I find that true of many self-confessed 'leftists.'
As for the subject matter, anthropology is fraught with difficulties, one of which is drawing conclusions about the past from present examples. Truth is, we don't know what happened in the past. Suppose there were many truly egalitarian societies, but that they were wiped out by their more aggressive neighbours. That could account for the disappearance of Neanderthals, for example. If that were the case, it suggests egalitarian societies have an evolutionary disadvantage compared to more aggressive ones, but again, if I were to make that claim it would just be begging the question. The truth is we just don't know.
What we do know, from bone evidence recovered at various digs, is that the so-called hunter-gatherers might well have been scavengers and also cannibals. You can point to Papua NG as supporting this thesis as cannibalism is well known there, but again, that says nothing about the past and could be a recent development.
The other thing he fails to account for is what Marvin Harris stressed as a major obstacle in anthropological research, namely the issue of emic vs. etic behaviour, i.e. what a subject reports about themselves (what they want you to know) vs. the actual underlying reasons for the behaviours, which they may not be aware of themselves. This also gets into the area of taboos. Some things we just don't talk about to anyone, even anthropologists.
Another conclusion he draws without any context is that hunter-gathers appear to be healthier than their agrarian counterparts. If true, I could account for this in a variety of ways, first of which is that the unhealthy simply don't survive the HG lifestyle, whereas AG societies, being localized and better protected from the elements, may have a lower mortality rate and more inclination to care for the sick as opposed to leaving them on the beach at low tide. We also don't know how the food is allocated, or whether there's enough protein in the subject diet. There's too many variables to draw a conclusion from just a few instances, and yet he goes right ahead and does that.
If I were committed to an egalitarian future, I wouldn't use the past in support of my argument, I'd look for more contemporary examples. So where are they? The impulse is certainly there as witnessed by the various laws that have evolved over the centuries in support of basic human rights, a cornerstone of any egalitarian society in my view - that and the principle of non-interference with regard to both individuals and sovereign entities.
What irritates me most however, is the way the self-declared left presumes to be in the vanguard of egalitarianism while dismissing the efforts of those more scientifically inclined who declare no allegiance to ANY ideology other than a search for the truth, wherever it may lead.
What irritates me most however, is the way the self-declared left presumes to be in the vanguard of egalitarianism while dismissing the efforts of those more scientifically inclined who declare no allegiance to ANY ideology other than a search for the truth, wherever it may lead."
Good point. I think David Graeber realized this, because after writing Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology he disliked being referred to as an "anarchist anthropologist". I agree with you that we should follow the truth where the truth leads.
Terence McKenna called this "intellectual anarchism" and identified himself with this philosophical tendency whilst calling political anarchism "a strange beast". And what you say about authoritarianism is true enough, though you know where I stand. Arguably, culture is inherently coercive, and all education is brainwashing. Someone said that the difference between propaganda and education is whether or not one agrees with the propagandist.
"Wilson describes himself as a 'guerrilla ontologist,' signifying his intent to attack language and knowledge the way terrorists attack their targets: to jump out from the shadows for an unprovoked attack, then slink back and hide behind a hearty belly laugh.
— Robert Sheaffer, The Skeptical Inquirer"
That more or less describes my approach to Media Ecology except for the hiding part. Replace 'ontology' with 'epistemology' and you've just about got it. I drift around Substack and other platforms looking for ideas that challenge my own. Of course I present my own ideas as part of that effort. This isn't always appreciated, in fact I'm persona non grata on several sites already.
I have my own site, but it's apolitical with a singular purpose, which is to present the musical work of post-Soviet artists. Since that includes Islamic as well as Russian content I'm probably on several watch lists by now…lol. I have two other substacks, one to discuss the ideas of Douglas Hofstadter, another the ideas of Marshal McLuhan. I haven't activated either at this point, but oddly I already have a couple of subscribers on both. They could be waiting a long time to see any content though, as I'm not sure I want to proceed with them, I have enough on my plate already.
McKenna's work I'm marginally familiar with. Leary I don't trust. I think it was his delivery more than his ideas that put me off. Also his association with certain agencies of questionable character - I'll just leave it at that.
I'm no stranger to the world of the psychedelic. I abandoned that approach to knowledge circa 1979 however, since it wasn't yielding the kind of results I expected from listening to Leary or McKenna. In 1981 I became interested in computers which is what I trained for but never graduated. It was around that time I discovered McLuhan and Hofstadter. Later I found Korzybski who confirmed a lot of what M & H were on about and I've been on that track ever since. RAW is the only figure I've retained from the previous era, and as I said elsewhere I view him as a compiler/transmitter of knowledge more than an original thinker. Sort of a modern day Theophanes standing against the Iconoclasts. So that's the Coles Notes version of my personal ‘intellectual' history.
"Arguably, culture is inherently coercive, and all education is brainwashing."
Culture can be, and often is coercive, but I prefer to think of it as an osmotic process where we absorb culture unconsciously. At the root of culture is language, which nobody forces us to learn - we absorb it naturally though repetition and imitation, driven by a basic instinct to express our needs. Another aspect of culture is social boundaries, which while enforced are also continuously tested, leading to new forms of cultural expression - an evolutionary process.
One of the sources I use in my study of contemporary cultures is wedding videos. You can learn a lot by watching people’s behaviour in traditional social contexts like weddings and there’s lots of them on YouTube. I regard YouTube as a highly subversive medium and I’m not referring to their excessive censorship. That’s just whack-a-mole that causes people to look elsewhere for critical information. Meanwhile, the undermining of cultural biases and the broadening of people’s familiarity with other cultures makes it harder to divide us and turn us against each other. Why should I have negative feelings towards Kurds, Turks, Syrians, Chechens, etc. when I can pull up a Youtube video and see that they’re just regular people enjoying life in their own way, which is similar to our own, once you get past the superficial differences.
The comment sections are also revealing. Look at the number of Spanish comments for instance. You see this a lot in YT videos, people from different cultures tuning in and appreciating what they’re seeing. Think how popular Japanese anime has become in recent years, or the popularity of Korean and Japanese pop groups in places like Brazil or Mexico. This is a big area of study for me - how music influences cultural and cross-cultural evolution. This goes back a long way, from as early as the first Crusades, when Persian and Arab musical instruments and stylings were brought back to Europe and formed the foundation of Medieval and later Renaissance musical forms. Persian culture has been massively influential in the west, although in school we learn more about ancient Greece and Rome.
Which brings me to education. I try to avoid categorical statements like ‘all education is brainwashing.' Clearly learning to read and write are basic survival skills, as is socialization, or learning how to get along and work in groups, again necessary for survival, so I don’t see that as brainwashing. Obviously there are nationalistic and ideological elements imparted in higher education, and I would regard some religious training as a form of brainwashing, but that’s not the whole picture. If it were you wouldn’t have renegades like McLuhan or McKenna stirring shit up. Education is a dynamic process, not a fixed object, and it impacts each of us in different ways. I had some very inspiring teachers in grade 3 and 9 who I’m sure weren’t trying to brainwash me….lol.
"anthropology is fraught with difficulties, one of which is drawing conclusions about the past from present examples. Truth is, we don't know what happened in the past. Suppose there were many truly egalitarian societies, but that they were wiped out by their more aggressive neighbours. That could account for the disappearance of Neanderthals, for example. If that were the case, it suggests egalitarian societies have an evolutionary disadvantage compared to more aggressive ones, but again, if I were to make that claim it would just be begging the question. The truth is we just don't know."
Man, you are the kind of reader I want to have. Thank you for your comments! We are now officially on the right track if we are having these kinds of debates versus "What is a woman?"
Human knowledge advances when smart people critique one each other's ideas and the best way to do that is to ask questions until someone's train of thought eats its own tail, then make fun of them.
Please excuse the mixed metaphor. Orwell just harrumphed.
That's why I'm so rude - because politeness actually retards the advancement of knowledge. We need to make fun of stupid ideas.
Marxism is not "good on paper". It is inhuman, asinine, and has led to
Zionism is not "understandable in the light of the Holocaust". It is a racist, ethno-nationalist fascistic ideology that has been a scourge on this planet since it was first dreamt up by upstart European bourgeois capitalists drunk on their own their sense of self-importance.
These ideologies should be mocked into oblivion, and so should science. It's a joke at this point. When was the last time there was an important discovering in physics, biology, or chemisty?
"That's why I'm so rude - because politeness actually retards the advancement of knowledge."
I don't find you rude at all, but that could just be me, accustomed as I am to the slings and arrows of Zero Hedge.
"We need to make fun of stupid ideas.'
We need to be sure they're stupid first, otherwise we just make fools of ourselves. I can't count the number of times that's happened to me:)
I use a concept I call "Superficial and Profound" which I stole from Durkheim’s "Sacred and Profane." Under that rubric, something can be superficial, profound, superficially profound or profoundly superficial, but they're all subject to a dynamic that over time often causes them to switch places. Think of the Beatles in the early years. Utterly superficial pop tunes, but look at the effect they had on young women! Something that appears superficial at first glance can have a profound effect, while something we regard as profound may be commonplace to others - just part of the background noise.
I really like that idea! Would you consider writing something for Nevermore? You clearly are a very interesting thinker who knows how to reason. I feel like our readers would appreciate what you have to say.
I'll think about it. My plate is rather full at the moment, and I'm not sure I could add much to the discussion that hasn't already been said. Truth is, my thoughts aren't really my own - they're just a collection of things I've read over the years, some of which have been tested through personal experience, while others are just theories.
It's also not my style to attach myself to any particular viewpoint. I'm basically trying to practice what McLuhan called 'media ecology' which is to study the nature and means of information exchange rather than the specific content of any particular medium. What results from that approach is the realization that most of what we consider to be 'fact' or 'truth' or 'meaning' consists of a collection of abstract nouns that lack any solid referents, or to put it another way, that can't be 'operationalized.'
In effect that means we have no objective point of reference when we discuss things of a spiritual, religious or mystical nature. It's all highly subjective and wide open to interpretation. Even political theories suffer from this defect, and science itself has to constantly be on guard against it.
Korzybski pointed out that at the core of everyone's being is what he called a 'belief system.' Belief Systems don't have to be true, accurate, or verifiable in order to persist. They only have to meet the needs of the limited social frame they occupy, and even there they can be a hindrance. Civilizations rise and fall on the basis of Belief Systems, so it's of primary importance to see them for what they are, and not just as 'solutions' to problems of an immediate or even eternal nature.
It all boils down to how well we manage uncertainty, and most of us, unfortunately, don't do very well at it. Not surprising really, since our primary biological imperative is to survive, and uncertainty tends to run interference on that. So we conjure up belief systems to counter that, which more often than not are transformed into control systems without our ever noticing it.
I started watching the video and hit a serious snag at the 10:18 mark where he characterizes the 'left' as supporting equality and the 'right' as supporting hierarchy.
Seriously? Assuming the two categories 'left' and 'right' have any actual objective meaning, I've seen nothing to suggest that those are valid attributes.
I have my own categories which I think work much better. The world, as I see it, is divided into two broad groups. Those who think they know what's best for others and will go out of their way to prove it, up to and including forcing their will on you, and those of us who just want to be left alone to lead our lives as we see fit. The problem is group one won't allow that.
Examine current policies and figure out which group is most responsible for promoting them and insisting that others do likewise, in the name of...?
Equity, Diversity and Inclusion doesn't meet the definition of 'equality' in my world. Those are abstract concepts that lack any clear meaning. What exactly is equity? Equality of outcome? People have demonstrably different skill levels and capabilities. If you don't determine who flies the plane or performs surgery on the basis of competency alone, then you're clearly asking for trouble. That's not an outlier either, the trend today in education is to lower the bar in the name of 'equity.' No more SAT scores, no more final exams, downgrading STEM. It's all right there in your face. So, who ordered that? The 'right?" I don't think so. Along with all that comes an obvious enforcement 'hierarchy' starting with the HR dept. and cascading down the academic chain to the classroom, where any kind of pushback, real or imagined, is cause for discipline and possible dismissal. Obviously the 'left' have their own hierarchies, so factor that out.
Another example which is fresh in my mind is the pandemic restrictions and vaccine mandates, all of which flew in the face of common sense, not to mention the actual science. So again, who ordered that?
Diversity and inclusion are also obvious canards I could go on about, but cutting to the chase, who exactly is behind the social divisions that arise from these arbitrary categories? I would argue it's neither the left nor right, but a power elite that has no particular ideology beyond their presumed right to rule over us by dint of inheritance. In their view, ideologues of both the left and right are simply useful idiots.
One thing I would point out is that the 'left' is far better organized than the 'right' - a natural outcome of people whose ideology calls for forcing their will on others (which requires organization) vs. those of us who just want to be left alone, and probably have very little else in common which limits our ability to organize. So, if organizing involves some degree of hierarchy, then who most clearly supports that, if not consciously then at least by default?
I love your skepticism, by the way! Not too often I might someone that's more skeptical than I am.
People might interpret my belief in shamanism as evidence that I am not a skeptic, but the truth is that I'm extremely skeptical about the claims of materialist science!
Many putative skeptics (like that Michael Shermer dipshit) are what I call "punch-down skeptics" and like to dunk on Flat Earthers and alternative archaeology... but never doubt Clovis First before the Smithsonian admitted it was bunk.
If scientists studied shamanism, they would stop being scientists, because scientism involves the deliberate use of dispassion because it is imagined that neutral observers are more objective. But in fact true objectivity is not possible, nor is it even desirable.
Science is a way of tricking smart people into misusing their intelligence by detaching cognition from outcome. If people were outcome-oriented, they would not think that neutrality was a good thing.
To put that another way, scientists think that they have achieved something by detaching cognition from their desire.
Science is STILL EXTREMELY DISTRUSTFUL OF DESIRE. Observe the pathetic state of sexology. We're scared of our own desire so we don't study it. Yet hardcore porn is available to every child with an internet connection.
We live in idiocracy, and science is to blame. Fuck science. It's an attempt to making thinking foolproof, and that's
I seriously think we should either upgrade the scientific method or chuck it in the "Fuck It" bucket altogether. Humanity got along for the vast majority of its existence without science, and we'll survive without it. But scientists need to stop huffing their own farts and realize that the scientific revolution has been a disaster for the human race, and it's based on false premises.
If objectivity is impossible, science is over. That's why scientists have resisted what their experiments have been telling them for a century - because the death of objectivity as a vaunted concept is an existential threat to science, which is a culture of doubt.
If objectivity is impossible, it follows logically that faith is superior to doubt so long as one's belief system is not maladaptive.
The Taoists know all about this - they praise the Wisdom of Foolishness.
In the Western Mystery Tradition (i.e. hermeticism), everything begins and ends with the Fool. True wisdom is in realizing that the secret to life is that if you're not having fun, you're doing it wrong.
I think you're conflating Science with Scientists. Not the same thing. Consider religion for a moment. How many sects are there in Christianity? Hundreds, right? Fewer in Islam or Judaism, but they have them as well, and they're often quite hostile to one another. How is that possible? They're all reading from the same books and those books are the final word. So whose interpretation is correct?
Science, like Religion, is often abused for nefarious purposes but like Religion it has also been the source of profound truth. The essential difference between them is that Religion has codified everything into a single finished work, be it the Bible, Torah, Koran etc, whereas Science is still writing their book, which is subject to constant revision and expansion. We have to be on guard for tossing babies out with bathwater.
"The Taoists know all about this - they praise the Wisdom of Foolishness."
I think you may have misunderstood Taoism. Or maybe I have. Still, nothing about this seems foolish to me:
I will say that I will probably get around to taking a critical look at evolutionary theory at some point... I find have the feeling that Darwin was favoured by the British nobility... and was the Missing Link problem ever resolved? Personally I suspect that the pre-WWI German vitalist biologists should be revisited.
Darwin painted with a very broad brush, understandable given the means he had at his disposal. Environmental pressure and random mutation obviously play a part, but I doubt it's the whole story. I would argue the Self-Organizing Principle plays a role, as do such concepts as Strange Attractors and Strange Loops. It's been years since I studied that stuff, so I'd refer you to Hofstadter for a better account of these processes. Dawkins might also have something to add, but again it's been years...
A Ha! Trick question. Here's another one: how do you define random? That is to say, can you 'operationalize' it? (define it in such a way that it can be practically measured.)
Is pi random? So far as we know it is, but there's always the chance it repeats at some distant point. Also, consider that when we calculate pi we always get the same output. So an apparently random series, but generated by a deterministic procedure.
Random mutations are usual fatal, or so the theory holds. Those that aren't can confer an advantage, in which case they presumably persist, or a disadvantage where they presumably die out.
I think the definition of random is best left to mathematicians. For our purposes, it's simply a catch-all for unintended consequences, such as when something causes a frame-shift and a ribosome misreads a strand of mRNA. If we could trace every resulting interaction we'd see the outcome is deterministic, but that could also be true of pi if we had the time and inclination to run the 'full' series. What really matters is how we frame the question (Hofstadter). We know it happens, whatever 'it' is. Is the outcome favourable or unfavourable in terms of survival is the question, not whether it's truly random.
As with so many other questions that plague scientists, I think Monty Python provides a great answer:
Allow me to practice my active listening skills by restating what you just said:
Randomness is a useful theoretical concept, but I don't know what it is.
Do you not see the problem here? How can a concept be useful if only mathematicians can grasp it? We're not taking about designing a rocket sled here. We're talking about a fundamental assumption in one of the core sciences, and the question "What is Randomness" never even gets asked!
Throughout my whole life, secularists have thought that they have the Creationism Vs. Evolution debate in the bag, because they were also able to use the straw man Christian fundamentalist idea of creationism, which is irrational and not intellectually defensible. But it doesn't consider shamanic ideas that might equally be called creationist. This is convenient, because absolutely everything in shamanism is unfalsifiable for the simple reason that shamanism makes no totalizing claims, and scientists can't deal with non-Aristotelian epistemologies.
Personally, I believe that evolution is self-evident, but to suggest that that it is purely random is to permit an article of faith into a nightclub where articles of faith aren't allowed.
And this is one of the many annoying things that I hate about scientists - they're big on: "Rules for thee, but not for me."
Science says: "My unexamined assumptions about the nature of reality are kosher, but yours are superstitious."
I know about Godel; I write about him in WHY SCIENCE IS BULLSHIT, which may eventually prove to be one of my most influential essays, because no one has been able to refute it yet. We're talking about the Death of Science here.
(I'm not taking credit for the ideas, which came from Robert Anton Wilson, who got them from Tim Leary).
Robert Anton Wilson was also the most insightful writer on the subject of quantum physics that I have ever read. He came to believe that the psychedelic experience and quantum physics were saying the same thing.
RAW uses a parable by a mathematician named J.W. Dunno to describe the problem.
A painter, who had escaped from the asylum to which he was (justly or unjustly) confined, decided to paint the field in which he found himself. Finished, he looked at the result and realized that something was missing: namely, himself and his canvas, which were part of the field. So he started over and painted himself and his canvas in the field. But, examining the results with philosophical analysis, he realized that something was still missing: namely, himself and his canvas on which he was painting himself and his canvas in the field. So he started a third time.. .and a fourth....ad infinitum.
He goes to say that physics, as well as linguistic, mathematics and psychology, had been stuck in a hall of mirror since Schrodinger demonstrated that quantum events are not "objective" in the Newtonian sense. He writes:
For fifty years since then, physicists have been struggling to build a system that will get them out of this Strange Loop. The results have been as funny as a Zen koan.
For instance, Niels Bohr proposed the Copenhagen Interpretation, which merely says, in the manner of Godel, that our equations do not describe the universe really. They describe the mental processes we have to put ourselves through to describe the universe.
After noting that most physicists want to find a way out of the aforementioned Strange Loop, Wilson states that it is quite impossible to do so, explaining that:
Dr. John von Neumann proved that there was no way out. This is technically known as Von Neumann's Catastrophe of the Infinite Regress, and it merely shows that any device that will get us out of the first Strange Loop (the Copenhagen collapse of objectivity) will just lead us into a second Strange Loop; and any way out of that will lead to an inexorable third Strange Loop; and so on, forever.
Everybody is still trying to refute von Neumann; but nobody has been successful.
As far as I am aware, there have not been any major breakthroughs in physics since Robert Anton Wilson wrote Prometheus Rising. Correct me if I’m wrong.
We’re still stuck in the hall of mirrors, because science just hasn’t figured out what mystics, shamans, yogis, and arhats have always known - the universe is conscious, and we are in an energetic relationship with it, and it responds to our thoughts, words, and actions in a way that we will never be able to fully understand.
The reason for this is simple. The eye cannot see itself, the sword cannot cut itself, and the mind cannot know itself.
Personally, I agree with the Gnostic perspective that matter comes from consciousness, and not the other way around, as most scientists seem to assume.
Personally, I believe that we are part of a super-organism that you could call Pachamama, or the Gaian mind. We are all microcosms of that super-organism, and through us, it is able to perceive itself.
We are part of a conscious energetic matrix, and as far as I can tell, the likeliest explanation for our existence is that we serve a role in perception, cognition, the interpretation of experience, and the transmission of energy. I suppose our function is analogous to brain cells, but we should take care not to take the metaphor too seriously. Anthropomorphizing super-organisms can cause a lot of problems.
RAW explains:
Simply accept that the universe is so structured that it can see itself, and that this selfreflexive arc is built into our frontal lobes, so that consciousness contains an infinite regress, and all we can do is make models of ourselves making models... Well, at that point, the only thing to do is relax and enjoy the show.
Yes, Peter was a good friend of mine, we knew each other for years…Happy to see this
And speaking of shamanic, Crow, here’s a request:
PLEEASE revise the formatting of my poem Let’s Burn the Flags of All Nations, at least so there are section breaks but even more if possible so the lines themselves are closer together. I’ve had reader friends say the run on format makes them give up reading! Remember, you received an email from some guy explaining how to do the formatting for poems
I feel your excitement and it is contagious I shall try to read this essay. I agree about reversion. As a young man and father I chose what I liked calling Voluntary simplicity. I retreated from “society” built a home ten miles by water from a school bus stop (law in Canada for attending school) and dispensed with doctors and other professionals. Immersion learning!
'The non-authoritarian hunter/gatherer tribe seems to have been the universal form of human society for 99% of its existence."
What leads you to believe this? An examination of existing tribal societies (and those encountered by early explorers) reveals certain common features, such as hereditary chieftains, a warrior caste, shamans, and some form of ancestor worship. Surely these are all indicators of some form of authority? The term 'authoritarian' has an inherent bias, suggesting that authority in and of itself is a bad thing. A better term might be 'organizing principle.' Collective effort, as in hunting and gathering, had to follow some form of organized behaviour to succeed, and it seems logical that the most experienced hunters would be natural leaders, which would entitle them to certain privileges, thus implying some form of authority.
"Moreover, since Sahlin’s paradigm-shift, a great mystery hovers around the question of agriculture. Namely:—What on earth could induce any sane person to give up hunting and gathering (four hours daily labor or less, 200 or more items in the “larder”, “the original leisure society”, etc.) for the rigors of agriculture (14 or more hours a day, 20 items in the larder, the “work ethic”, etc.)?"
I don't regard this as any great mystery, and I believe Marvin Harris adequately addressed the problem in "Cultural Materialism." Hunting and gathering is risky business and has no guarantee of success, so characterizing it as four hours a day of easy effort sounds like the thoughts of someone who's never actually hunted for their food. Bear in mind, many hunter-gathers had to follow herds. That meant they often had to pick up and move at a moment's notice. They were also subject to natural disaster, among them grass or forest fires, which would drive away game, or kill them and possibly the tribe as well. On the gathering side, women had to range further afield as the season progressed, since the nearby early picking would become depleted. This exposed them to predators, often without the protection of men who were by necessity off hunting. No doubt a lot of children were lost this way, which would be highly demoralizing.
Under such circumstances, once someone noticed that seeds dropped along the way grew into the same plants you had to travel distance to find, it was logical to plant them closer to home, thus the beginning of agriculture. This doesn't work too well if you're nomadic unless you have established seasonal camps, but that would often be the case, and the seeds you planted the year before would be fully grown when you returned.
Speaking of herds, once you had the idea of planting seeds for easy access, it couldn't have been too long before the same idea was applied to herds. Why follow them around when you can capture their young, enclose them and breed them? So animal husbandry is the natural outcome of primitive agriculture, and the two are intimately entwined in everything that follows.
With enclosure comes the need for defence, first against predators, later against hostile tribes who adopt plunder as a survival strategy. Fortunately the skills of the hunter are the same as the warrior, so a caste emerges whose task is primarily defence of the settlement, while others tend to the herds or to the fields. So there's your early social division giving rise to hierarchy and some form of authority, based on handed down knowledge. You don't get to be an authority for very long unless your ideas actually work.
As for the 'the rigors of agriculture' again, spoken like someone who's never farmed. There are two busy periods in agriculture, preparing and planting, followed by harvesting and processing. Between the two there's not a lot to do, other than chase off vermin. Success depends on a good harvest that will get you through winter of course, supplemented by hunting winter game, but other than that there's not much work other than keeping the paths clear of snow, the wood for fires having already been gathered in sufficient amount.
Speaking of winter, there's good reason to believe that it fostered the growth of intelligence in our species. The reason is fairly simple. You have to plan ahead if you're going to survive harsh winters, so this creates an evolutionary bias that selects for foresight. No such bias exists in sunnier regions where food is abundant on a year-round basis. This partially explains the rise of advanced civilization in colder climes. Warmer climes with advanced civilizations almost universally appear around river estuaries where irrigation became the dominant organizing principle. The Indus, Nile, Euphrates, Ganges, Yangtze, etc. Grist for a future mill.
Back to the herds, specifically cows and horses. Many reasons are put forth for the collapse of Pre-Colombian civilizations. The strongest argument I've heard is that they lacked cows and horses. With cows you get draft animals thus plowed fields, leading to surplus. You also get a steady supply of meat and fresh milk. With horses you get a draft animal for transportation and defence. Properly managed, this allows for expansion of your domain as the population increases as a result of abundant food leading to better nutrition, along with more free time to devote to chasing tail. Don't let anyone tell you that hunting and gathering is easier than agriculture. It just isn't true or we'd all still be doing it.
So, in the absence of horses and cows, pre-Colombian civilization reached a Malthusian limit of growth and either reverted to cannibalism (Aztecas) or the people wandered off and reverted to earlier hunter-gatherer forms. The Mayans didn't disappear - I've met many of them and can tell you they're most definitely still there. Great people too BTW. They just couldn't sustain the level of civilization they achieved without cows and horses and so reverted to the mean. Same applies to the Incas. They had llamas, but if you've ever met a llama you know they're no good as draft animals, and that is the crucial point where societies transition from enslavement of people to enslavement of animals. Cats, and dogs fall in this category as well. Cats to keep rodent away from your grain, dogs to protect against predators and assist in hunting.
Proof of concept exists in the rapid emergence of the Plains Indian horse culture, as exemplified by the Lakota people. Horses that escaped the Spanish formed wild herds that were quickly domesticated by the native tribes that followed the buffalo. The advantages were obvious. No more risky hunting on foot, or driving buffalo over cliffs which was wasteful and diminished the herd. Now you could just ride along side and pick them off in sufficient amounts. Also, when it came time to move, the horses doubled as draft animals. The arrival of the Spanish had a profound effect on the plains cultures, most of whom never met a single Spaniard. Just their horses.
Another obvious outcome of enclosure is specialization. Various new tasks emerge with enclosure, and so a division of labour and their attendant hierarchies emerge. Arguably the need for specialization was a determining factor in the emergence of intelligence. I recall a half-joking theory I came across that probably contains a grain of truth. The guy who could chip flint and knew where to find it would likely guard that secret, thus ensuring his status within the tribe. He'd be far too valuable to risk losing in a dangerous hunt, and so stayed behind where he divided his time between chipping arrow heads and boinking the women. Thus his genes got passed on with greater frequency than the hunters. The same was probably true of the guy who knew how to make fire, not to mention the shaman, who might have been one and the same.
I can't stress enough the importance of Marvin Harris' contribution to anthropology. He took the mystery out by looking for the material causes of human behaviour. Most of what I just wrote came from him. Unfortunately I no longer have the book (lent it and never got it back...grrr!) so this is all from memory and apologies for any inaccuracies or omissions
I just posted something by the hunter-gatherer specialist Richard Lee which goes into great detail about the debate regarding human nature.
Check it out here: https://nevermoremedia.substack.com/p/stephen-pinker-is-a-lying-charlatan
Lee's views seem to align with Harris'. Early hunter-gatherers were few in number and spread out. If conflict did arise it would probably be easier to just move on, and the spread of H sapiens across pretty much the entire planet seems to support that. Later on, once people had attached themselves to the land and had fixed assets, defence would seem a more likely response, although there was probably a mixture of both approaches depending on the material costs of fight vs. flight.
I notice in animal conflict the encounters rarely end in fatalities. One side concedes defeat and either moves on, or assumes a subordinate role. I see no reason to doubt that we haven't inherited that trait as it's survival compatible for both parties. Even the Wild West, with its legends of gunfighters, probably saw very few actual gunfights. Anyone who's ever fired a pistol knows that you're far more likely to miss than hit your target, even at close range. Add to that the cost of the ammunition you'd have to use to get good at it and I think most disputes back then either ended with one party conceding, or in a drinking contest to see who passed out first..lol. That doesn't make good copy for journalists though, like that damn fool easterner in 'Unforgiven.' You have to bear in mind the tendency of writers to exaggerate when reading anything written about the past, or the present for that matter.
There is a lot to respond to (which I intend to do properly soon enough), but basically immediate-return huntergatherer tend heavily towards egalitarianism... And our stone age ancestors are presumed to have been immediate-return hunter-gatherers... So the egalitarian origins hypothesis is actually supported by cultural materialism. I would highly recommend checking out this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vNADAH-Rxk
I'm sorry I got half-way through that video and just couldn't take anymore. What I see is a textbook case of arguing from a conclusion, AKA begging the question.
In short, he sets out to prove the premise, which is not how science is done, and picks out a series of instances to make a general case in support of that. Again not scientific. I don't know who David Graeber & David Wengrow are, but I found his dismissive tone irritating. I find that true of many self-confessed 'leftists.'
As for the subject matter, anthropology is fraught with difficulties, one of which is drawing conclusions about the past from present examples. Truth is, we don't know what happened in the past. Suppose there were many truly egalitarian societies, but that they were wiped out by their more aggressive neighbours. That could account for the disappearance of Neanderthals, for example. If that were the case, it suggests egalitarian societies have an evolutionary disadvantage compared to more aggressive ones, but again, if I were to make that claim it would just be begging the question. The truth is we just don't know.
What we do know, from bone evidence recovered at various digs, is that the so-called hunter-gatherers might well have been scavengers and also cannibals. You can point to Papua NG as supporting this thesis as cannibalism is well known there, but again, that says nothing about the past and could be a recent development.
The other thing he fails to account for is what Marvin Harris stressed as a major obstacle in anthropological research, namely the issue of emic vs. etic behaviour, i.e. what a subject reports about themselves (what they want you to know) vs. the actual underlying reasons for the behaviours, which they may not be aware of themselves. This also gets into the area of taboos. Some things we just don't talk about to anyone, even anthropologists.
Another conclusion he draws without any context is that hunter-gathers appear to be healthier than their agrarian counterparts. If true, I could account for this in a variety of ways, first of which is that the unhealthy simply don't survive the HG lifestyle, whereas AG societies, being localized and better protected from the elements, may have a lower mortality rate and more inclination to care for the sick as opposed to leaving them on the beach at low tide. We also don't know how the food is allocated, or whether there's enough protein in the subject diet. There's too many variables to draw a conclusion from just a few instances, and yet he goes right ahead and does that.
If I were committed to an egalitarian future, I wouldn't use the past in support of my argument, I'd look for more contemporary examples. So where are they? The impulse is certainly there as witnessed by the various laws that have evolved over the centuries in support of basic human rights, a cornerstone of any egalitarian society in my view - that and the principle of non-interference with regard to both individuals and sovereign entities.
What irritates me most however, is the way the self-declared left presumes to be in the vanguard of egalitarianism while dismissing the efforts of those more scientifically inclined who declare no allegiance to ANY ideology other than a search for the truth, wherever it may lead.
What irritates me most however, is the way the self-declared left presumes to be in the vanguard of egalitarianism while dismissing the efforts of those more scientifically inclined who declare no allegiance to ANY ideology other than a search for the truth, wherever it may lead."
Good point. I think David Graeber realized this, because after writing Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology he disliked being referred to as an "anarchist anthropologist". I agree with you that we should follow the truth where the truth leads.
Terence McKenna called this "intellectual anarchism" and identified himself with this philosophical tendency whilst calling political anarchism "a strange beast". And what you say about authoritarianism is true enough, though you know where I stand. Arguably, culture is inherently coercive, and all education is brainwashing. Someone said that the difference between propaganda and education is whether or not one agrees with the propagandist.
I got this from the RAW book you recommended.
"Wilson describes himself as a 'guerrilla ontologist,' signifying his intent to attack language and knowledge the way terrorists attack their targets: to jump out from the shadows for an unprovoked attack, then slink back and hide behind a hearty belly laugh.
— Robert Sheaffer, The Skeptical Inquirer"
That more or less describes my approach to Media Ecology except for the hiding part. Replace 'ontology' with 'epistemology' and you've just about got it. I drift around Substack and other platforms looking for ideas that challenge my own. Of course I present my own ideas as part of that effort. This isn't always appreciated, in fact I'm persona non grata on several sites already.
I have my own site, but it's apolitical with a singular purpose, which is to present the musical work of post-Soviet artists. Since that includes Islamic as well as Russian content I'm probably on several watch lists by now…lol. I have two other substacks, one to discuss the ideas of Douglas Hofstadter, another the ideas of Marshal McLuhan. I haven't activated either at this point, but oddly I already have a couple of subscribers on both. They could be waiting a long time to see any content though, as I'm not sure I want to proceed with them, I have enough on my plate already.
McKenna's work I'm marginally familiar with. Leary I don't trust. I think it was his delivery more than his ideas that put me off. Also his association with certain agencies of questionable character - I'll just leave it at that.
I'm no stranger to the world of the psychedelic. I abandoned that approach to knowledge circa 1979 however, since it wasn't yielding the kind of results I expected from listening to Leary or McKenna. In 1981 I became interested in computers which is what I trained for but never graduated. It was around that time I discovered McLuhan and Hofstadter. Later I found Korzybski who confirmed a lot of what M & H were on about and I've been on that track ever since. RAW is the only figure I've retained from the previous era, and as I said elsewhere I view him as a compiler/transmitter of knowledge more than an original thinker. Sort of a modern day Theophanes standing against the Iconoclasts. So that's the Coles Notes version of my personal ‘intellectual' history.
"Arguably, culture is inherently coercive, and all education is brainwashing."
Culture can be, and often is coercive, but I prefer to think of it as an osmotic process where we absorb culture unconsciously. At the root of culture is language, which nobody forces us to learn - we absorb it naturally though repetition and imitation, driven by a basic instinct to express our needs. Another aspect of culture is social boundaries, which while enforced are also continuously tested, leading to new forms of cultural expression - an evolutionary process.
One of the sources I use in my study of contemporary cultures is wedding videos. You can learn a lot by watching people’s behaviour in traditional social contexts like weddings and there’s lots of them on YouTube. I regard YouTube as a highly subversive medium and I’m not referring to their excessive censorship. That’s just whack-a-mole that causes people to look elsewhere for critical information. Meanwhile, the undermining of cultural biases and the broadening of people’s familiarity with other cultures makes it harder to divide us and turn us against each other. Why should I have negative feelings towards Kurds, Turks, Syrians, Chechens, etc. when I can pull up a Youtube video and see that they’re just regular people enjoying life in their own way, which is similar to our own, once you get past the superficial differences.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2Z0HqyivSs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0undzloWbdk&t=546s
The comment sections are also revealing. Look at the number of Spanish comments for instance. You see this a lot in YT videos, people from different cultures tuning in and appreciating what they’re seeing. Think how popular Japanese anime has become in recent years, or the popularity of Korean and Japanese pop groups in places like Brazil or Mexico. This is a big area of study for me - how music influences cultural and cross-cultural evolution. This goes back a long way, from as early as the first Crusades, when Persian and Arab musical instruments and stylings were brought back to Europe and formed the foundation of Medieval and later Renaissance musical forms. Persian culture has been massively influential in the west, although in school we learn more about ancient Greece and Rome.
Which brings me to education. I try to avoid categorical statements like ‘all education is brainwashing.' Clearly learning to read and write are basic survival skills, as is socialization, or learning how to get along and work in groups, again necessary for survival, so I don’t see that as brainwashing. Obviously there are nationalistic and ideological elements imparted in higher education, and I would regard some religious training as a form of brainwashing, but that’s not the whole picture. If it were you wouldn’t have renegades like McLuhan or McKenna stirring shit up. Education is a dynamic process, not a fixed object, and it impacts each of us in different ways. I had some very inspiring teachers in grade 3 and 9 who I’m sure weren’t trying to brainwash me….lol.
"anthropology is fraught with difficulties, one of which is drawing conclusions about the past from present examples. Truth is, we don't know what happened in the past. Suppose there were many truly egalitarian societies, but that they were wiped out by their more aggressive neighbours. That could account for the disappearance of Neanderthals, for example. If that were the case, it suggests egalitarian societies have an evolutionary disadvantage compared to more aggressive ones, but again, if I were to make that claim it would just be begging the question. The truth is we just don't know."
Amen to that! I love this kind of awareness!
Man, you are the kind of reader I want to have. Thank you for your comments! We are now officially on the right track if we are having these kinds of debates versus "What is a woman?"
Human knowledge advances when smart people critique one each other's ideas and the best way to do that is to ask questions until someone's train of thought eats its own tail, then make fun of them.
Please excuse the mixed metaphor. Orwell just harrumphed.
That's why I'm so rude - because politeness actually retards the advancement of knowledge. We need to make fun of stupid ideas.
Marxism is not "good on paper". It is inhuman, asinine, and has led to
Zionism is not "understandable in the light of the Holocaust". It is a racist, ethno-nationalist fascistic ideology that has been a scourge on this planet since it was first dreamt up by upstart European bourgeois capitalists drunk on their own their sense of self-importance.
These ideologies should be mocked into oblivion, and so should science. It's a joke at this point. When was the last time there was an important discovering in physics, biology, or chemisty?
"That's why I'm so rude - because politeness actually retards the advancement of knowledge."
I don't find you rude at all, but that could just be me, accustomed as I am to the slings and arrows of Zero Hedge.
"We need to make fun of stupid ideas.'
We need to be sure they're stupid first, otherwise we just make fools of ourselves. I can't count the number of times that's happened to me:)
I use a concept I call "Superficial and Profound" which I stole from Durkheim’s "Sacred and Profane." Under that rubric, something can be superficial, profound, superficially profound or profoundly superficial, but they're all subject to a dynamic that over time often causes them to switch places. Think of the Beatles in the early years. Utterly superficial pop tunes, but look at the effect they had on young women! Something that appears superficial at first glance can have a profound effect, while something we regard as profound may be commonplace to others - just part of the background noise.
I really like that idea! Would you consider writing something for Nevermore? You clearly are a very interesting thinker who knows how to reason. I feel like our readers would appreciate what you have to say.
I'll think about it. My plate is rather full at the moment, and I'm not sure I could add much to the discussion that hasn't already been said. Truth is, my thoughts aren't really my own - they're just a collection of things I've read over the years, some of which have been tested through personal experience, while others are just theories.
It's also not my style to attach myself to any particular viewpoint. I'm basically trying to practice what McLuhan called 'media ecology' which is to study the nature and means of information exchange rather than the specific content of any particular medium. What results from that approach is the realization that most of what we consider to be 'fact' or 'truth' or 'meaning' consists of a collection of abstract nouns that lack any solid referents, or to put it another way, that can't be 'operationalized.'
In effect that means we have no objective point of reference when we discuss things of a spiritual, religious or mystical nature. It's all highly subjective and wide open to interpretation. Even political theories suffer from this defect, and science itself has to constantly be on guard against it.
Korzybski pointed out that at the core of everyone's being is what he called a 'belief system.' Belief Systems don't have to be true, accurate, or verifiable in order to persist. They only have to meet the needs of the limited social frame they occupy, and even there they can be a hindrance. Civilizations rise and fall on the basis of Belief Systems, so it's of primary importance to see them for what they are, and not just as 'solutions' to problems of an immediate or even eternal nature.
It all boils down to how well we manage uncertainty, and most of us, unfortunately, don't do very well at it. Not surprising really, since our primary biological imperative is to survive, and uncertainty tends to run interference on that. So we conjure up belief systems to counter that, which more often than not are transformed into control systems without our ever noticing it.
I started watching the video and hit a serious snag at the 10:18 mark where he characterizes the 'left' as supporting equality and the 'right' as supporting hierarchy.
Seriously? Assuming the two categories 'left' and 'right' have any actual objective meaning, I've seen nothing to suggest that those are valid attributes.
I have my own categories which I think work much better. The world, as I see it, is divided into two broad groups. Those who think they know what's best for others and will go out of their way to prove it, up to and including forcing their will on you, and those of us who just want to be left alone to lead our lives as we see fit. The problem is group one won't allow that.
Examine current policies and figure out which group is most responsible for promoting them and insisting that others do likewise, in the name of...?
Equity, Diversity and Inclusion doesn't meet the definition of 'equality' in my world. Those are abstract concepts that lack any clear meaning. What exactly is equity? Equality of outcome? People have demonstrably different skill levels and capabilities. If you don't determine who flies the plane or performs surgery on the basis of competency alone, then you're clearly asking for trouble. That's not an outlier either, the trend today in education is to lower the bar in the name of 'equity.' No more SAT scores, no more final exams, downgrading STEM. It's all right there in your face. So, who ordered that? The 'right?" I don't think so. Along with all that comes an obvious enforcement 'hierarchy' starting with the HR dept. and cascading down the academic chain to the classroom, where any kind of pushback, real or imagined, is cause for discipline and possible dismissal. Obviously the 'left' have their own hierarchies, so factor that out.
Another example which is fresh in my mind is the pandemic restrictions and vaccine mandates, all of which flew in the face of common sense, not to mention the actual science. So again, who ordered that?
Diversity and inclusion are also obvious canards I could go on about, but cutting to the chase, who exactly is behind the social divisions that arise from these arbitrary categories? I would argue it's neither the left nor right, but a power elite that has no particular ideology beyond their presumed right to rule over us by dint of inheritance. In their view, ideologues of both the left and right are simply useful idiots.
One thing I would point out is that the 'left' is far better organized than the 'right' - a natural outcome of people whose ideology calls for forcing their will on others (which requires organization) vs. those of us who just want to be left alone, and probably have very little else in common which limits our ability to organize. So, if organizing involves some degree of hierarchy, then who most clearly supports that, if not consciously then at least by default?
I love your skepticism, by the way! Not too often I might someone that's more skeptical than I am.
People might interpret my belief in shamanism as evidence that I am not a skeptic, but the truth is that I'm extremely skeptical about the claims of materialist science!
Many putative skeptics (like that Michael Shermer dipshit) are what I call "punch-down skeptics" and like to dunk on Flat Earthers and alternative archaeology... but never doubt Clovis First before the Smithsonian admitted it was bunk.
If scientists studied shamanism, they would stop being scientists, because scientism involves the deliberate use of dispassion because it is imagined that neutral observers are more objective. But in fact true objectivity is not possible, nor is it even desirable.
Science is a way of tricking smart people into misusing their intelligence by detaching cognition from outcome. If people were outcome-oriented, they would not think that neutrality was a good thing.
To put that another way, scientists think that they have achieved something by detaching cognition from their desire.
Science is STILL EXTREMELY DISTRUSTFUL OF DESIRE. Observe the pathetic state of sexology. We're scared of our own desire so we don't study it. Yet hardcore porn is available to every child with an internet connection.
We live in idiocracy, and science is to blame. Fuck science. It's an attempt to making thinking foolproof, and that's
I seriously think we should either upgrade the scientific method or chuck it in the "Fuck It" bucket altogether. Humanity got along for the vast majority of its existence without science, and we'll survive without it. But scientists need to stop huffing their own farts and realize that the scientific revolution has been a disaster for the human race, and it's based on false premises.
If objectivity is impossible, science is over. That's why scientists have resisted what their experiments have been telling them for a century - because the death of objectivity as a vaunted concept is an existential threat to science, which is a culture of doubt.
If objectivity is impossible, it follows logically that faith is superior to doubt so long as one's belief system is not maladaptive.
The Taoists know all about this - they praise the Wisdom of Foolishness.
In the Western Mystery Tradition (i.e. hermeticism), everything begins and ends with the Fool. True wisdom is in realizing that the secret to life is that if you're not having fun, you're doing it wrong.
I think you're conflating Science with Scientists. Not the same thing. Consider religion for a moment. How many sects are there in Christianity? Hundreds, right? Fewer in Islam or Judaism, but they have them as well, and they're often quite hostile to one another. How is that possible? They're all reading from the same books and those books are the final word. So whose interpretation is correct?
Science, like Religion, is often abused for nefarious purposes but like Religion it has also been the source of profound truth. The essential difference between them is that Religion has codified everything into a single finished work, be it the Bible, Torah, Koran etc, whereas Science is still writing their book, which is subject to constant revision and expansion. We have to be on guard for tossing babies out with bathwater.
"The Taoists know all about this - they praise the Wisdom of Foolishness."
I think you may have misunderstood Taoism. Or maybe I have. Still, nothing about this seems foolish to me:
Inner Harmony
In managing your instincts and embracing Oneness,
Can you be undivided?
In focusing your Influence,
Can you yield as a newborn child?
In clearing your insight,
Can you become free of error?
In loving people and leading the organization,
Can you take no action?
In opening and closing the gateway to nature,
Can you not weaken?
In seeing clearly in all directions,
Can you be without knowledge?
Produce things, cultivate things;
Produce but do not possess.
Act without expectation.
Advance without dominating.
These are called the Subtle Powers.
I will say that I will probably get around to taking a critical look at evolutionary theory at some point... I find have the feeling that Darwin was favoured by the British nobility... and was the Missing Link problem ever resolved? Personally I suspect that the pre-WWI German vitalist biologists should be revisited.
When you look you may find Leonardo Da Vinci was the first creator of Mass Destruction
We are not technically astute compared to the past. We simply went in a different direction. One that destroys to subsist.
The connection to Source is our strength yet it seems that no one desires it.
Waking up is work and what happens when you learn there is no way out?
Darwin painted with a very broad brush, understandable given the means he had at his disposal. Environmental pressure and random mutation obviously play a part, but I doubt it's the whole story. I would argue the Self-Organizing Principle plays a role, as do such concepts as Strange Attractors and Strange Loops. It's been years since I studied that stuff, so I'd refer you to Hofstadter for a better account of these processes. Dawkins might also have something to add, but again it's been years...
Could you please explain to me why scientists believe that the mutations that drive evolution are random?
A Ha! Trick question. Here's another one: how do you define random? That is to say, can you 'operationalize' it? (define it in such a way that it can be practically measured.)
Is pi random? So far as we know it is, but there's always the chance it repeats at some distant point. Also, consider that when we calculate pi we always get the same output. So an apparently random series, but generated by a deterministic procedure.
Random mutations are usual fatal, or so the theory holds. Those that aren't can confer an advantage, in which case they presumably persist, or a disadvantage where they presumably die out.
I think the definition of random is best left to mathematicians. For our purposes, it's simply a catch-all for unintended consequences, such as when something causes a frame-shift and a ribosome misreads a strand of mRNA. If we could trace every resulting interaction we'd see the outcome is deterministic, but that could also be true of pi if we had the time and inclination to run the 'full' series. What really matters is how we frame the question (Hofstadter). We know it happens, whatever 'it' is. Is the outcome favourable or unfavourable in terms of survival is the question, not whether it's truly random.
As with so many other questions that plague scientists, I think Monty Python provides a great answer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3dZl3yfGpc
If you want to dig deeper into the question check out the work of Kurt Gödel, but beware. There be dragons!
Allow me to practice my active listening skills by restating what you just said:
Randomness is a useful theoretical concept, but I don't know what it is.
Do you not see the problem here? How can a concept be useful if only mathematicians can grasp it? We're not taking about designing a rocket sled here. We're talking about a fundamental assumption in one of the core sciences, and the question "What is Randomness" never even gets asked!
Throughout my whole life, secularists have thought that they have the Creationism Vs. Evolution debate in the bag, because they were also able to use the straw man Christian fundamentalist idea of creationism, which is irrational and not intellectually defensible. But it doesn't consider shamanic ideas that might equally be called creationist. This is convenient, because absolutely everything in shamanism is unfalsifiable for the simple reason that shamanism makes no totalizing claims, and scientists can't deal with non-Aristotelian epistemologies.
Personally, I believe that evolution is self-evident, but to suggest that that it is purely random is to permit an article of faith into a nightclub where articles of faith aren't allowed.
And this is one of the many annoying things that I hate about scientists - they're big on: "Rules for thee, but not for me."
Science says: "My unexamined assumptions about the nature of reality are kosher, but yours are superstitious."
I know about Godel; I write about him in WHY SCIENCE IS BULLSHIT, which may eventually prove to be one of my most influential essays, because no one has been able to refute it yet. We're talking about the Death of Science here.
(I'm not taking credit for the ideas, which came from Robert Anton Wilson, who got them from Tim Leary).
Robert Anton Wilson was also the most insightful writer on the subject of quantum physics that I have ever read. He came to believe that the psychedelic experience and quantum physics were saying the same thing.
RAW uses a parable by a mathematician named J.W. Dunno to describe the problem.
A painter, who had escaped from the asylum to which he was (justly or unjustly) confined, decided to paint the field in which he found himself. Finished, he looked at the result and realized that something was missing: namely, himself and his canvas, which were part of the field. So he started over and painted himself and his canvas in the field. But, examining the results with philosophical analysis, he realized that something was still missing: namely, himself and his canvas on which he was painting himself and his canvas in the field. So he started a third time.. .and a fourth....ad infinitum.
He goes to say that physics, as well as linguistic, mathematics and psychology, had been stuck in a hall of mirror since Schrodinger demonstrated that quantum events are not "objective" in the Newtonian sense. He writes:
For fifty years since then, physicists have been struggling to build a system that will get them out of this Strange Loop. The results have been as funny as a Zen koan.
For instance, Niels Bohr proposed the Copenhagen Interpretation, which merely says, in the manner of Godel, that our equations do not describe the universe really. They describe the mental processes we have to put ourselves through to describe the universe.
After noting that most physicists want to find a way out of the aforementioned Strange Loop, Wilson states that it is quite impossible to do so, explaining that:
Dr. John von Neumann proved that there was no way out. This is technically known as Von Neumann's Catastrophe of the Infinite Regress, and it merely shows that any device that will get us out of the first Strange Loop (the Copenhagen collapse of objectivity) will just lead us into a second Strange Loop; and any way out of that will lead to an inexorable third Strange Loop; and so on, forever.
Everybody is still trying to refute von Neumann; but nobody has been successful.
As far as I am aware, there have not been any major breakthroughs in physics since Robert Anton Wilson wrote Prometheus Rising. Correct me if I’m wrong.
We’re still stuck in the hall of mirrors, because science just hasn’t figured out what mystics, shamans, yogis, and arhats have always known - the universe is conscious, and we are in an energetic relationship with it, and it responds to our thoughts, words, and actions in a way that we will never be able to fully understand.
The reason for this is simple. The eye cannot see itself, the sword cannot cut itself, and the mind cannot know itself.
Personally, I agree with the Gnostic perspective that matter comes from consciousness, and not the other way around, as most scientists seem to assume.
Personally, I believe that we are part of a super-organism that you could call Pachamama, or the Gaian mind. We are all microcosms of that super-organism, and through us, it is able to perceive itself.
We are part of a conscious energetic matrix, and as far as I can tell, the likeliest explanation for our existence is that we serve a role in perception, cognition, the interpretation of experience, and the transmission of energy. I suppose our function is analogous to brain cells, but we should take care not to take the metaphor too seriously. Anthropomorphizing super-organisms can cause a lot of problems.
RAW explains:
Simply accept that the universe is so structured that it can see itself, and that this selfreflexive arc is built into our frontal lobes, so that consciousness contains an infinite regress, and all we can do is make models of ourselves making models... Well, at that point, the only thing to do is relax and enjoy the show.
Correct me if I'm wrong!
Yes, Peter was a good friend of mine, we knew each other for years…Happy to see this
And speaking of shamanic, Crow, here’s a request:
PLEEASE revise the formatting of my poem Let’s Burn the Flags of All Nations, at least so there are section breaks but even more if possible so the lines themselves are closer together. I’ve had reader friends say the run on format makes them give up reading! Remember, you received an email from some guy explaining how to do the formatting for poems
Yrs in tandem,
Michael
I love your work. But you need to give this a read: https://libcom.org/book/export/html/1455