Originally Posted by wesmorris
"Glad that you ask."
I smell a setup.
No. Sometimes some things happen between two posts, and then the replier addresses just that thing that happened, and than the other replier is glad because it was a felicitous coincidence. Sometimes some things are really as simple as they seem.
I'm impressed that english is your third language. You seem to understand
and write it better than 90% of the people I've known to do so. That is
freakin cool,, yay you.
Is that a compliment? I hope so.
You can use the words you like. I prefer survival of the fittest
because to me it stands for something unique an ubiquitous. "The fittest"
always reminds me: "in what context?", which is really, really deep to me,
as it is exactly that which defines how "fit" we really are. I'm certainly
unfit to survive without all that air.
Yes, it is always the context. In this context of understanding "fittest",
one needs to keep in mind that the context of this context is Wes. Was that
contextualized enough?
Anyhow, theories present the phenomena in a certain way as they see them
arragned in the world -- they contextualize them on the level of
observation, and they also contextualize them on a level of their
philosophical approach -- they contextualize them on the level of theory.
Both are of course inseparatable.
It is practical to keep this in mind when communicating ...
"While this certainly applies to animals and plants in original nature, I
don't think it applies to modern human society."
I disagree. I think that survival in modern human society differs from the
animal version in that the modern human version is greatly abstract. Instead
of dodging the boulder that almost beat fred, it's looking better than yoru
competetor, or performing better at typing, or comprehending calculus more
clearly, or superior creativity, blah blah blah. We have taken the struggle
of nature in to the next dimension (the internal one), most literally as I
see it.
I agree with that, of course the modern human context is far more extended than the original natural one. I would even venture to say that it is not more abstract today as it was then: just the contents are different. In the earlier days, each person had to discern between dozens of kinds of plants, how to hunt which animal, how to heal wounds with natural medicine, how to tell the weather (and see if it is feasible to go on a longer hunting-gathering expedition), ... -- that's one big heap of knowledge that to many modern humans is the purest Greek!
But that's not the thing I had in mind when I said that "survival of the fittest doesn't apply to modern human society".
It applies in your way of understanding "fittest", of course.
But: Modern human society seems to support members and institutions that live off of this support -- they would die without it. This is a negative trend.
Like mentally ill and handicapped people, some African countries depend completely on humanitarian organizations -- withdraw that help, and they cease to be fit for survival.
We are spending money on things that only create new problems. That is counterproductive.
Systems that take up counterproductive actions, eventually collapse.
Romans killed babies that didn't look healthy. This is a form of eugenics. Today, each baby that is born is regarded as worthy to be kept alive. How is human society regarded to be seen as fittest, if it allows people who would otherwise die -- to stay alive?
Because other people need jobs, like nurses and doctors? And because factories that produce meds and all those products to keep those poor creatures alive need to stay functioning and producing, so that people have work, and buy things, so that other people have work etc., and the whole system of human economics can work?
Something is rotten here.
"A bum on the street survives, a mentally challenged with IQ 50 survives"
Exactly. Fascinating eh? Context is a trip. Consider the implications of
either case, they are intricate and powerful I think. Do you see what I
mean?
I'm not sure I see it.
I do see that you seem to be implying that it is a useful characteristic in order to be one of the fittest -- if you have IQ 50. Have IQ 50 and you'll survive, you'll be one of the fittest, for your mental state is the prerequisite in this society to be regarded as needing help, and so this wonderful helping society will take care of you, and you'll be one of the fittest.
No shit.
I see that you understand "fittest" as the contemporary end result of someone's state, and so far, I can agree with that sense of "fittest".
But I think that to be regarded as "fittest", some requirements have to be met, and that those requirements have something to do with that person's actual abilities and actions, something that consciously comes from the person -- and not something the person is entitled to from the side of society.
There should be characteristics that ensure being fit for survival.
I don't see how someone who needs to be taken care of his whole life -- how IQ 50 should be regarded as a characteristic that ensures one to be fit for survival. You can see it as such, but that's screwed, IMO.
Set up that kind of standards and people will abuse them -- and they do! Which eventually leads to a lesser quality of life for the whole society.
Seeing a bum and someone with IQ 50 as fit for survival won't bring you to a society where the basic level of needs is ensured for everyone.
You have to set up standards that say something like: it is the people's actions that render them fit. If you work better and more, you can earn more money.
If you wish to see fitness in the broadest extent, this also means that you are in for a version of socialism. If everyone who is alive is also fittest, then everyone is equal, and everyone can get the same.
I'm looking forward to see how you refute that.
For instance: How the shit is a bum fit to survive in the context of
modern human society? /.../That is pretty damned intersting I think.
Obviously, modern humany society has so much overproduction that it enables people with virtually no money and no work to survive.
And I mean overproduction both in the sense of making more than is needed at the moment, as well as overpoduction in the sense that we make things that we can't and don't completely use ("under-use") -- we throw away things that can be used some more or recycled.
What impact does such overproduction have?
It cannot be good. If you take something somewhere, it is missed there. Maybe human economics can afford wide stretches of such overproduction, but eventually, such systems collapse. We get wars, and then they reset the whole system.
I'm not sure if "managing to survive" is the same as conquering death.
You said it: Bill may be fit in the economical sense, but he can't take a bullet.
Me: You said "You set up a system, and those who best adapt to it, thrive
within it. That's what I mean by "the strong survive"."
Does this mean that the weak *don't* survive?
Certainly, and if you take the vast saga of human survival in mind at this
time, you see an intricate, fascinating struggle for survival in all of its
perceived forms. That's what I've been looking to discuss for a paragraph or
two.. perceived survival. /.../ each ordeal in life that I
deem "important" gets dashed with survival instinct and modifies my behavior
accordingly. /.../ I do what I think I need to do (whethere I admit it to me or your or
not) to "survive", which actually entails so much more than just the
biological meaning when applied to "modern human society".
Oh, I assumed we're talking about this kind of *wholesome and complex* survival anyway ... That's what I had in mind all long. Otherwise I could not come to those priorities under B and explain your not excelling in contest-fit English the way I did.
I can see though that you seemed to be all into this biological *vs.* psychological+sociological kind of thing.
That is the exciting and interesting point! A mind does not suffer this
(unless of course for whatever reason it is unfit or unmotived to do so)
limitation. Minds can adapt to dynamic, inter-related systems can't they?
It does suffer from it. One gets fundamentally shaped by early up-bringing and all that, and then the mind runs by the principles learned and tuned in then.
The big difference with the body is, that the mind seems more flexible than the body, and it can take less time to change the mind than it takes to change the body.
But then again, the mind has to have contiuity, or it gets confused, hence changes can happen so slowly, and adaptation is slow to.
Minds have allowed us to partially transcend the animal kingdom, into the
abstract dimension within our selves.
I was just thinking today: What if we *just think* that the mind is something so darn special? What if this what we call the mind *is* those chemicals exactly? What if those chemicals ARE our thoughts and our consciousness? What if we just think that the mind is something abstract? Ah, anyway, we still have the cocepts of "abstract" and "concrete", and then we arrange and designate them somehow.
That's not true. Some systems are designed specifically to make things
unstable. I think conservation is what you mean. [No, I didn't mean conservation, I was speaking of systemic characteristics in general.] A system conserves its
energy? I get a little weird with the idea of "stable" when thinking of
systems in general in the sense that from a certain (seemingly important to
me) perspective, it seems that a system is always in perfect balance, even
in the midst of what might appear to be total disarray. Why you ask? Because
it is flawlessly performing its function.
Yes, of course it is always stable. But at some point, when we *step into the system to describe it*, we have to *recognize* this basic principle of striving to be stable, to be in perfect balance.
Ever since The Great Master set the Universes in motion, things are in perfect balance -- but *this balance is a process*, not a finite thing, or so it seems. Atoms, when in an instable form, seek to become a stable form. And then they do, and by some super magic cause that some other atoms become unstable, and then they ... and so I am writing this and you are reading.
Pure adaptation would be only if you would introduce something totally new to the system -- which, so far, doesn't happen. This is why I was against the idea of "those who *adapt* best ...". 'Adapt' seems such a static term -- in the sense that it suggests that that new element comes from god knows where and then it adapts to the system it comes into.
I guess a "system" doesn't strive to be anything unless striving to be something is part of the function of the system.
We can say that it is function of a living system to strive for balance/stability, and it achieves this stability by striving for it.
Anyhow, the whole problem with the stability of the system came up for me when you said you want to model it, as a contemprary, freeze-frame-like model. In that sense, the system is perceived as static, as just 'is there', and we have to simply postulate what dynamic characteristics this system supposedly has, as they are not visible in the freeze-frame picture. Only so we can answer the why's and the how's.
"this also means that it will respond if changes are introduced and will
try to maintain stability. If it doesn't respond to changes, it will lose
stability eventually."
I think I sort of see what you're getting at, but I'm not sure it's entirely
accurate in all cases, as the function of the system could contradict you
right?
I'm not sure I understand.
1. Take a parasyte [change] and introduce it to a living organism [system]. If that organism does nothing, the parasyte will eventually kill it. If the organism wishes to survive, it has to respond to the parasyte by fighting it, making defence cells, whatever it can to get rid of the parasyte.
2. Take an office [system], and a 5 new workers [change], brilliant and everything are hired. Of course the other workers will try to keep the level of efficieny they maintained so far, they don't wish the newbies to raise the standards. But if the newbies are really effective, they could endanger the older team, and the older team could get fired. So the older team has to do something to prevent to get fired: they either sabotage the newbies, or work harder. But either way, they have to do something, because they eventually could lose their positions because of the effective newbies.
what if it's a "contradict rosamagika" system? Surely then it
contradicts you or it would be something different. With this exception in
mind I keep getting distracted and it blurs what I might think you mean into
something that well, makes it to where I'm not sure what you mean.
I see now: it's a problem of defining what is a system and what is a change. The POV.
The change is a system too, of course. The parasyte and the 5 newbies are also systems. And as such, they do have to respond to the change: the parasyte to the new environment that produces chemicals that wish to repell him, and the newbies to the maneuvers of the older team.
Anyhow, the point is that BOTH parties have to do something: the bigger system and the smaller system that acts like a change in the bigger one.
Or, as I can see that you are consequent, "those who best adapt to it" means that this goes for *both* parties, and what I said before is just a re-run of what you meant anyway, and I was just wasting your time and I apologize for that.
Yeah okay well yeah then you can see what I mean I hope.
Of course I do. Do you not think that I can read you mind?
End of part 1
