Yeah, that article is typical Haidt, full of just enough good evidence to blind
you to the sanctimonious doctrinal pedantry that surrounds it. Within several
clumps of postulates, one clump as small as 2 sentences, he contradicts himself
but somehow thinks the narrative stays coherent. Pffft.
*If* there is something structural about brain/CNS animals that allows further flex and slop
between mind and body, that something ... that "muscle" ... will be exercised through
generational turnover ... i.e. death. Trying to forcibly graft "our" (in scare quotes
because I disagree with Haidt so starkly) nostalgia onto the evolving culture is guaranteed to fail.
p.s. An important element directly contradicting Haidt's "get off my lawn" is laid out
here: https://doctorow.medium.com/the-algospeak-dialect-74961b4803b7 It takes me longer and longer
to learn new lingo. And facility with a lingo is often used for gatekeeping. But, from my own
perspective, it's trivial to gauge the authenticity of an in-group's commitment to their gestalt by
watching how they induct/indoctrinate proximal outsiders. I can still land an "E for
effort" in most contexts, where I try anyway.
On 4/12/22 11:59, Marcus Daniels wrote:
For example, this article [1] speaks to the potential fragility of cultural
evolution. Wouldn't it make sense to loosen the mind/cognition coupling if it
is possible to do so?
What is uniquely useful about human animals as an adaptive vehicle?
[1]
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/05/social-media-democracy-trust-babel/629369/
-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <[email protected]> On Behalf Of glen
Sent: Tuesday, April 12, 2022 11:50 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Selective cultural processes generate adaptive heuristics
Well, I'd argue that cultural evolution is a higher order language like
chemistry to physics, biology to chemistry, sociology to biology, etc. We can
use the higher order language agnostically, leaving the metaphysics for the
philosophers (until/unless practical demands force us to solve some
cross-trophic relation).
On 4/12/22 11:39, Marcus Daniels wrote:
Or to put it another way, what good is cultural evolution?
-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <[email protected]> On Behalf Of glen
Sent: Tuesday, April 12, 2022 11:36 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Selective cultural processes generate adaptive heuristics
But going back to less memorable/intuitive communicated heuristics, *if* our
minds/cognitions are loosely coupled to our bodies (I'm thinking more
polyphenism and robustness, not dualism), then we should be able to see the
memorability/intuitiveness increase. But if there's a large portion of
mind/cognition embedded/embodied in our flesh, then memorability/intuitiveness
of new ideas will remain unrelated through generations of dead/replaced bodies.
My claims that communication is illusory and all thought is tightly coupled to
one's body reject the former. I.e. I don't think memorability/intuitiveness
increases as ideas age. Rather, as bodies die, the new bodies are slightly
restructured to better fit those ideas. It's a fake-it-till-you-make-it. The
only reason we have young kids that understand quantum coherence (or Instagram)
better than the old farts did is because the young kids grew into the idea.
No dead bodies ⇒ no cultural evolution.
On 4/12/22 11:19, Marcus Daniels wrote:
The contrast between fewer replication cycles of vampires that live thousands
of years vs. many generations of short-lived mortals seems related..
Is the walk deep and informative, or is the key thing to stay away from
attractors?
If there are truly billions of individuals, then short trips can explore a
large space -- if there is communication between individuals and across
generations.
-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <[email protected]> On Behalf Of glen
Sent: Tuesday, April 12, 2022 11:05 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Selective cultural processes generate adaptive heuristics
What always seems to be missing in these discussions is the (my?) always present ability
to [re]parse the world at will. Yes, there are gravity wells or attractors where if you
start insisting on a security detail everywhere you go, you'll end up like Trump, Romney,
or Sanders, surrounded by a nearly impermeable membrane that disallows authentic "go
with the flow" non-consciousness/non-deliberation. But my tendency to (or ability
to) prefer writing a script/macro over doing some computation manually doesn't interfere
in a substantial way with my ability to do the manual labor in any given iteration. The
size of the computation can interfere, but not the attractor.
That's what makes me episodic, the lack of stickiness to whatever
professionalization I've engaged in before. On a humble day, I claim it's because
I'm just too stupid and lazy to really invest in building the attractor. On an
arrogant day, I claim those who build and get stuck in such attractors are
mindless automatons who can't think their way out of a paper bag. >8^D
On 4/12/22 10:42, Marcus Daniels wrote:
Vitalik Buterin remarked, “An emotional part of me says that once you start
going down that way, /professionalizing/ is just another word for losing your
soul” [1]
That sounds plausible. However, I have long thought that an important part of
productivity is to find consciousness-lowering habits. Just attach to
whatever is front of you and forget about the motivations and the big picture.
For one thing, it is rare that one can really change the big picture. For two
it is necessary to get in the critical path of a process to disrupt it. The
nihilistic episodic personality doesn’t have to impose a narrative before going
on excursion. Too much evaluation and reflection and one’s action as a virion
cannot move forward! There is plenty of time to wake up a judgmental brain
process once embedded. But what are judgements really informed by if sampling
is based on an outsiders’ view? This kind of ties into Glen’s local reset
idea.
[1] https://time.com/6158182/vitalik-buterin-ethereum-profile/
<https://time.com/6158182/vitalik-buterin-ethereum-profile/>
*From:* Friam <[email protected]> *On Behalf Of *Steve Smith
*Sent:* Tuesday, April 12, 2022 10:19 AM
*To:* [email protected]
*Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Selective cultural processes generate adaptive heuristics
Marcus -
Steve writes:
< Arguments for generational rather than Individual/personal growth
and transformation...
“I don’t think we should try to have people live for a really long
time,” Musk recently told Insider. “It would cause asphyxiation of society because
the truth is, most people don’t change their mind. They just die. So if they don’t
die, we will be stuck with old ideas and society wouldn’t advance.” >
Maybe not?
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01769-4
<https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01769-4>
I do think there is plenty of room for individual growth/transformation in one
lifetime and perhaps Psi research will (continue to) provide yet-more tools for
facilitating that.
It isn't clear to me that merely loosening up neural pathways so that they can
be re-created yields healthy growth as such. I'd like to think it can be, but
as the neo-luddite that I tend toward, I can't help but seeing the myriad ways
it can go wrong as well. This negative ideation is probably a self-referential
example of the topic itself.
Following RECs original subject: I'm interested I suppose in understanding more-better
the myriad scales and dimensions of adaptivity of "Life Itself", with the human
(individual as well as cultural) experience being the one most relevant to my own life,
but not exclusively.
--
Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙
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