Quoting Nicholas Thompson circa 09-11-25 02:12 PM: > Thanks for all of the below. For an evolutionary psychologist, > "narcissism" is not a term of art, so far as I know. There is a category, > roughly equivalent to "dionysions" and "apollonians" of people who are > differentiated by whether they act in the short term or long term > interest, and "narcissism" might correspond to the former, but I don't > really know.
Very interesting. Thanks! Now I'll have to see if I can configure that dichotomy to fit into my world view. > A village is not an extant thing? Let's assume it is. Then could it not > serve as a model for a larger social organization? Yes, of course it can be used that way. But just because it _can_ be used that way does NOT mean that fans of celebrities or facebook users are using it that way. It only means that _you_, as an outside observer of the process, are using it that way to support your rhetoric. And it's not the village as model that's wrong. It's the other parts of your rhetoric, namely the trust relationships built up within a village. Who's to say that Ug trusted Oog just because they lived in the same village? Perhaps Ug and Oog would easily trust a stranger over each other? I don't know because I don't have any data showing me that, in all cases, Ug and Oog trust each other more than they trust strangers. I.e. you don't have (or haven't presented here) a _model_ of trust relationships in villages. You've only slapped up a coarse piece of rhetoric using villages. Fans of celebrities, as far as I can tell, definitely do not treat their celebrities as if they're part of their immediate family or circle of friends. They _cannot_ treat them that way because they idolize the celebrity and they do not (if they're healthy) idolize their immediate family and friends. And, also as far as I can tell, most celebrities get pretty irritated when their "private" lives are invaded by paparazzi or overly adoring fans. True, there are some who love the attention more than normal people would love it; but I suspect that most celebrities come to hate it. Hence, celebrity is NOT a confusion between "village" and "world" trust on the part of the fans or the celebrities, as you originally argued. And, hence, the village/stranger model is NOT a good model for the trust relationships we've built up with our extended neocortices like TV, magazines, and facebook. (Sorry, is that horse dead? ;-) > A model to me is a concrete process or object that we think we understand > so well that it can stand in for a similar process or objedt that we > understand less well. Agreed and well said. Replacement is another good way to test for modelness (modelhood?). > My favorite example of a model is "natural > selection" which takes as its model, the creation of specific breeds of > domestic stock by a breeder and applies that model to explain how different > species have arisen. Disagreed! [grin] I don't see how "natural selection" is a model. But I admit that I'm not an expert on natural selection or evolution or biology or ... well anything, really. If anything, I'd be more inclined to say that animal breeding (as a concrete method using real stuff (animals, semen, fences, long latex gloves, etc.) is the model and "natural selection" is the referent, the thing being measured. We individual humans can't _replace_ genetic engineering with natural selection. We don't have control over natural selection (which is why we call it natural). But we do have control over our _modeling_ device... breeding. So, we can replace natural selection with breeding, but not vice versa. Hence, the model is the breeding method and the referent is whatever nature does to change animals over generations. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
