Eric,
Thanks for laying this out so clearly.
I have not participated in "social media" (other than this one) yet, but, from
what I hear, they involve the same sort of confusion. Nobody has a hundred
friends, so the word, friend, is being extended in a creepy Orwellian way to
include strangers. When I take an interest in the status of Angelina Jolie's
marriage (at the Dentist's Office), I am taking a neighborly (or a carnal*)
interest in a person I will NEVER, EVER MEET. It represents a deployment of
effort** from which there is no feedback. The only way in which this sort of
confusion could function in human evolution is in the formation of "fan clubs"
ie, groups of people who are brought into coordination by their allegiance to
mythical, unattainable figures ... you know .... like, "god". Our shared
'friendship" with Angelina Jolie makes us easier to organize for war against
the fans of Brad Pitt. It's a group selection thing; group selection for
individual gullilbility.
Nick
PS: * and **: Only an evolutionary psychologist could think of lust as a
deployment of effort, but in fact it is, and in fact, we do.
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([email protected])
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
http://www.cusf.org [City University of Santa Fe]
----- Original Message -----
From: ERIC P. CHARLES
To: glen e. p. ropella
Cc: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Sent: 11/25/2009 7:15:59 AM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Dunbar numbers and distributions
Glen,
I think there is confusion over the thing to be explained. The question of
celebrity in this case is not "why should you trust someone who loves Garth
Brooks?" but "why should you trust Garth Brooks?" Why do we treat these people
as if they are part of our extended family? What do you really know about Garth
Brooks that makes you think you should buy a car he recommends? Why would you
care who he is married to? Surely this type of interest and trust used to be
limited to village members. Surely then, that type of interest and trust is
being extended to a group other than the one it evolved to extend to.
I'm not really sure how the argument goes from there, but that part seemed
relatively straightforward.
Eric
On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 08:52 AM, "glen e. p. ropella"
<[email protected]> wrote:
Thus spake Nicholas Thompson circa 11/24/2009 09:10 PM:> I am not at all
sure what it means to have my rhetoric rejected. My facts,> yes; my
logic, sure. But my RHETORIC? Rhetoric is the language we build up
around and/or to explain facts.Logic is merely a formal type of rhetoric.
The implicit persuasiveattempts in what you said earlier about a confusion
of trust, isrhetoric, not fact (or logic).I reject rhetoric when i
can imagine other, different rhetoric built uparound the same facts. I
think it would be trivially easy to build up adifferent structure of
language around the facts you (andMacLuhan(?)are building yours
around.My rhetoric is that we need not extend, ham-handedly, the coarse
trustrelationships wielded by our ancestors. Trust relationships can
becomearticulated and more fine grained (and can also become thicker and
morecoarse grained) if the need arises. So, my rhetoric is that we
haven'tbeen _forced_ into more associations. We've actually _grown_
moreassociative power in the form of an extended physiology. Prior
totechnologies like sophisticated language, the telegraph, air
travel,cell phones, and facebook, our "dunbar number" may well have
beenlimited to the size of our neocortex. Nowadays, though,
we'veoutsourced part of our neocortex to the tools around us and, hence,
havea much larger "dunbar number". After society collapses again,
trustwill coarsen. But for now, it's very fine-grained and includes a
bushyextension into Facebook "[un]friending". Those of us who know how
touse the technology have more associative power than those of us who
don't.Celebrity is NOT, then a confusion between "village" trust
and"world"trust. It's a mechanism for categorizing the larger
population ofpeople with which we associate. E.g. Do you like Country
& Westernmusic? No? You don't LUUUV Garth Brooks!?!? OK then, that
helps medetermine where you lie in my (complex) trust matrix.Of
course, by saying it this way, I make it very clear that you areequally
capable and justified in rejecting my rhetoric, because thereare no facts
in the rhetoric itself. The rhetoric is built up aroundthe facts. And you
don't have to reject the facts in order to rejectthe rhetoric.--
glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095,
http://agent-based-modeling.com============================================================FRIAM
Applied Complexity Group listservMeets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's
Collegelectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
Eric Charles
Professional Student and
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Penn State University
Altoona, PA 16601
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