All the bit I quoted, which is the point of quoting bits.

What I mean is that science sometimes goes off limits and gives fast conclusions like "we can measure welfare, time dilatation,..., without investigating further the meaning of these words. And if you don't do that, how can you know exactly what you're talking about ? It ends up being in the field of philosophy, because it can be subject to much more interpretations that science can deal with.

But if they would define it clearly, it could stay within the limits of science. They could say something like “if we define welfare this way, it involves these scientific concepts that can be measured through these other notions”, and then you clearly see all the uncertainties on the language itself, because what science is actually “sure” about is these notions that can be directly related to observations/measurements. — Avema

This seems to be the opposite of consensus, and my experience, which is generally that science is rather concise in its language and demands specialist knowledge of its readership.

I don’t care if you believe it or not. I’m just expressing what I believe. — NOS4A2

Ah. Thanks for clarifying that it was just more bullshit.

My partner's just read Mary Trump's book on little Donald. Sounds like his dad really knew how to build a monster.

He’s gotten more done on the golf course than other presidents have gotten off of it, which is pretty sad. — NOS4A2

Can you demonstrate this? Or did you just think, like Trump, that if you say it everyone ought to believe it?

Philosophy, although employing the odd inductive argument here and there, is a field whose mainstay is deductive logic and deductive logic is all about absolute truths - truths that can't be false. — TheMadFool

:rofl:

INTERESTING UPDATE

This concerns a paper from last year that only came to my attention today. The paper is here:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1287-z

and a frankly poorly written layperson article from Scientific American is here:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-views-of-quantum-jumps-challenge-core-tenets-of-physics/

(I actually found it's analogies harder to follow than the original paper, but others might get something out of it.)

A Wiki article on Quantum Trajectory Theory is here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Trajectory_Theory

This has nothing to do with advanced waves or reversible processes, but rather concerns a deterministic element of quantum transitions (historically the sole purview of the non-deterministic wavefunction collapse) and the role of the measurement apparatus in its unpredictable aspect.

TL;DR version: The experimenters built an electronic qubit and found that, when weakly coupled with the measurement apparatus, the transition between two if it's energy levels was both deterministic and predictable. This transition constitutes a trajectory from the lower to the higher energy level through a predictable continuum of superpositions in a finite amount of time.

When the measurement apparatus is more strongly coupled, this finite interval is no longer guaranteed: the system might never reach the end of the trajectory. Furthermore, at any time, it might collapse unpredictability back to its initial state.

Relevance: Part of the OP and much of my conversation with Cat discussed the importance of the precise state of the measurement apparatus to the experimental outcome, something that generally cannot be known because of the intractably large number of degrees of freedom (entropy). In the OP, this is discussed in the context of the transactional interpretation of QM, in which the evolution of the electron wave as it moves toward the screen is 'realised' (made real) by a time-reversed advanced wave coming from the screen to the electron source. Without knowledge of the advanced wavefunction, we cannot determine where the electron will go: the best we can muster is to realise the electron wavefunction with itself (the Born rule) and get a statistical distribution of possible outcomes.

One of the discussions Cat and I had regarded making the macroscopic screen more quantum by preparing it such that there was only one possible acceptor site, in which case one would expect a deterministic flow of electrons from the source to that one site, the rate given by the voltage between the source and the acceptor, and by the amplitude of the electron wavefunction at that site. (Here, keeping the site as an acceptor site is equivalent to giving it a continuous supply of advanced electron holes.)

This is not dissimilar to the experiment in this paper, which also describes a deterministic trajectory from source (here two nearby states |G> and |B>) to the only possible destination |D>. When there is negligible coupling between |D> and its environment, transitions to that state are smooth, deterministic and predictable. When it is more strongly coupled, the determinism is apparently destroyed.

We can liken this to an acceptor site that is inconstant in its supply of holes, or, rather, is coupled to its environment such that electrons from outside the apparatus can dip their toes in the acceptor site. Since this is not something we can possibly describe, it is effectively stochastic, giving us the apparent non-determinism we are familiar with in QM.

The importance of this paper is that it significantly narrows down the source of this apparent non-determinism to precisely the thing we are ignorant of: the measurement apparatus itself! In a perfectly deterministic universe, ignorance about important causal factors will yield unpredictable effects. We do not need an additional intrinsic non-determinism to explain the apparent probabilism of these sorts (i.e. reversible) of events.

I hold that the relationship of philosophy to the sciences is the same as that between administrative fields (technology and business) and the workers whose tools and jobs they administrate. — Pfhorrest

I... I'm gonna fight you. :P

Have an excellent Christmas, my friend!

It seems to me the Scots have a greater and stronger identity and image than just about everyone else on the planet. What more is there to get? — tim wood

My new theory: whites synthesized covid to kill off nonwhites. — Merkwurdichliebe

Actually God synthesized Covid to kill off the old as punishment for Brexit.

I liked your joke, don't worry about it.

What’s “human morality” if not codes of conduct you personally subscribe to? — khaled

It's a lot more than that! Human morality concerns biological and cultural adaptations to allow humans to live together in social groups and allow social groups to co-exist. One can personally believe that you must wear a blue hat on a Tuesday, but it has naff all to do with people or morality. Simply calling it a moral theory doesn't provide insight.

The question is why do you make it a characteristic of a moral theory to ensure the survival of the society in which it is used? That’s what you seem to be doing. — khaled

Moral theories are diverse in that respect. For instance, utilitarianism does not depend on *what* makes us happy. If receiving bananas was the only thing that made us happy, utilitarianism would suggest we should maximize production and distribution of bananas. But it's not. Other theories specifically concern the conflict between selfish and selfless drives. Individualism is an antisocial moral philosophy, socialism a social one. Others, such as egalitarianism, directly describe our base moral nature. I'm not arguing that a moral philosophy has to be fundamentalist and naturalist: I have already said that a purely naturalistic justification for morality would inevitably be ambiguous, untenable and inappropriate. But all of the above deal with that very problem in different ways. Antinatalism does not. It is a fundamentalist moral theory that has nothing to do with what morality is, fundamentally.

Also... Merry Christmas!!!!

Merry Christmas!

I think if someone's writing is dense with specialist language, it's probably hiding a thin argument. That said, a) posts have to be fairly concise, b) threads are conversational, c) everyone on here has an internet connection. For those reasons it's justified to make assumptions about your interlocutor's knowledge based on the subject they wish to discuss, their ability to ask for clarification, and their ability to look words and concepts up they're unfamiliar with.

What "evolved characterisitc" is antinatalism missing that other moral theories have? — khaled

That's precisely the point: it would be impossible for a species to evolve a social drive toward antinatalism, therefore it is not part of our social biology. Nor can it be part of our culture since any such culture would be small and short-lived. We can call it an ethic insofar as you can personally subscribe to it, but it has zilch to do with human morality.

So unpopular moral theories are no longer moral theories? — khaled

That has nothing to do with what I said.

Sure the ubiquity speaks to the presence of an evolved characteristic, but it is your choice to make that characteristic definitional or circumstantial. — khaled

Not really. You can be trained to suppress, for instance, altruistic impulses. These are the aforementioned counter-empathetic responses, as e.g. a racist will typically respond to seeing a member of an ethnic minority in torment. You can rely on willpower or fear of reprisal to not act on selfish drives. Characteristics are always definitional though: that's why they're called characteristics.

We are evolved and culturally embedded creatures. We simply do not have random wants en masse. So why would anyone have an otherwise unfounded desire to avoid risking harm to others without consent? — Isaac

Quite. One can look beyond naturalism to culture, but what kind of culture would obliterate itself? Answer: a very, very small, very, very short-lived one.

The first would be an argument from popularity. — khaled

You keep using this argument but it's quite false. All electrons to have the same charge. Defining the idea of 'the electron charge' is not 'an argument from popularity': it is a statement about the category of things called 'electrons'. Likewise deeming something to be a moral consideration or not on the basis of its ubiquity is not about popularity: that ubiquity speaks to the presence of an evolved characteristic.

When you realised there was some idea out there about God how did you respond? — Brett

My family had a sort of weird religious background. No one was devout. My maternal grandmother was raised an Irish Catholic, my grandfather a Protestant. My grandfather decided to switch to Mormonism at some point and wanted to move to Utah, most likely for the polygamy :rofl: My school was very non-denominational Christian. We prayed every day, sang hymns, etc. We were taught that God put dinosaur bones in the ground to test us.

Despite this, or perhaps because of its inconsistency, I never thought of it as anything different from Aesop's fables, HCA's fairy tales, or my Superman comics. I recall the local Mormon Elders asking me if I said my prayers, to which I said yes because I said them at school.

The first time I realised anyone took it at all seriously was when I was 11 and my class was being visited by prefects from "the big school". My best friend asked me to say, if asked, that he wasn't religious. I asked what the fuck he was talking about and he told me that he believed in God. That blew my mind. It's something I've never really got my head around since. I get the tradition and mythology and ceremony and community aspects, but to actually believe in it as fact has never made any sense to me, sometimes to the extent that I suspect you're all lying :rofl:

Really, being ignorant of something is a long way from repudiating something. — Brett

You didn't ask me about repudiation. You asked a question based on the false assumption that everyone has had, at some point, some belief in God that they have had to replace with another belief.

Are you trying to imply something ? — Wittgenstein

Yes, I'm implying that your list of reasons why incels are cels is incomplete.

If you are calling incels self-entitled jerks then you don't have anything useful to contribute here. I am interested in something else. — Wittgenstein

Okay, calling them ugly is high philosophy, but suggesting their entitlement is a likely turn-off is bad, I get you. You do you booboo.

I don’t think you can be born an atheist. An atheist is someone who repudiates the existence of God. — Brett

That's called strong atheism. There is also weak atheism, atheism by default if you like.

What does it mean: that you didn’t know there was a God or you repudiated God’s existence at an early age? — Brett

It means that I had no notion of

God and the beliefs in God’s existence and actions — Brett

to replace with something else. Same as everybody.

My claim is that the persistence of identity is an illusion. You, right now, experience the world and your brain contains all the memories of the previous past experiences but they were like different persons that experienced the world and they are all gone. You remember their conscious experiences and think it was you who did it but the hypothesis is it was not you who are conscious now that experienced the world in the past. — Rotorblade

It's worth adding that "right now" isn't really an instant. The data we're processing at any given time covers an extended period of time. Even without invoking long-term memory, there is an element of continuity just down to this overlap.

Plain old determinism is the thick end of the wedge, I should think. My instantaneous identity is caused, and the largest causal factor is my prior instantaneous identity. There's nothing illusory about that.

Those problems include looking ugly , mental disorder, terrible childhood or just bad luck ( being born as an ethnic in a dominant white culture, being born in a poor family etc.) — Wittgenstein

Also, I imagine, being a self-entitled jerk. Unless you're a rich self-entitled jerk, in which case you'll probably be fine.

For all those avowed atheists out there; if God and the beliefs in God’s existence and actions have no validity, no claim to truth, then what truth have you replaced them with? — Brett

I haven't replaced them with anything. I was born an atheist like everyone else. There was nothing to replace.

Now Einstein says time is an illusion — TiredThinker

He said absolute time is an illusion, caused by the fact that everyday speeds are negligible compared with the speed of light. Time itself isn't an illusion, rather it depends on one's frame of reference. Time has equal footing with space in Einstein's theory.

Trump has pardoned the four American citizens who committed the Nisour Square massacre.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/23/trump-pardons-blackwater-contractors-jailed-for-massacre-of-iraq-civilians

It's difficult now to believe that Trump isn't a troll president, a man dedicated to using his office as a means to be as evil a prick as is humanly possible.

We also have a natural drive to take what we want. Yet we pronounced one drive good and one drive bad. — khaled

I don't think we can describe any drive, including the drive to procreate, as either moral or immoral. How we act, yes. Perhaps even how we think. But one cannot be responsible for one's biology or one's upbringing.

All I’m trying to get at is that the mere fact that we have different, often contradictory drives is not in any way useful when talking about morals. — khaled

On the contrary, I think it is the crux of morality. Were we a solitary species, the question would not arise. Likewise were we of a hive mind. It is the competition between impulses that gives us ambiguity, without which there's nothing to talk about at all.

But that’s not what Isaac and Benkei are trying to do. They are trying to find a contradiction even after accepting the premises, and failing. — khaled

I read Isaac as saying that there's no basis to accept the premise, which is my view too: if there's no naturalistic reason to accept that premise then, in the absence of any other moral authority, the resultant moral rule is arbitrary. There are quite a lot of arbitrary moral rules.

Btw I realise I misread you earlier as expecting such a precise naturalistic justification, my bad. On second reading, I think you might have missed Isaac's point somewhat, which seems more to be an appeal to base moral rules on what morality is, not arbitrarily chosen premises whose falsity requires proof. I am saying more or less the same thing. There are biological drives and responses that act as the angels of our better nature, as well as selfish ones. If we cannot accept the premise on grounds of common experience, nor on grounds of biology, nor by extending existing in-group morality to out-groups, then it's difficult to see how the argument can be well-founded. There are well-founded moral arguments that are based on other evidence, such as animal rights and environmentalism. But antinatalism doesn't have that either.

First off, do you think there are situations where having children is wrong? — khaled

Of course! And situations where it's fine to let someone die, and ones where it is morally compulsory to give to charity. But none of them are generalisable.

:up:

That's a pretty cynical view, Kenosha. I'm not sure I buy it. I think I have a pretty good concept of, say, a million. — RogueAI

By any means demonstrate it. I'm not sure how you'd go about that. Can you conjure an image to mind of a million pencils that is, to you, distinct from an image of a million and one pencils?

So I grant you that some numbers are "unthinkable" (and what does the existence of unthinkable numbers entail?) — RogueAI

Essentially my point. Since we cannot have an idea of them, they pose no problem for finite brains.

But if math is just a rules game, how did we come up with innovations like imaginary numbers, which have real-world applications? Doesn't that require understanding of math on a conceptual level, rather than something that's just rules-based? — RogueAI

We don't really have an idea of i though. It's about as abstract a thing as anyone has ever conceived, but it obeys rules in the same way that unimaginably large numbers obey rules, so we can still use it. My concept of i is simply the number that, multiplied by itself, is -1, i.e. I know the rules.

I'm asking "Okay, so due to [insert neurological, biological, evolutionary process here (no omniscience required)] we ended up with a desire to steal, is it moral to steal?" The fact that we have an inclination to steal does not make it moral as I'm sure you'd agree. Similarly, the fact that we have an inclination to reproduce, and the fact that most of us think that it is morally fine, does not show that it is. — khaled

Well it wouldn't make sense to use that terminology. We don't have a natural drive not to steal. We have a natural drive not to do to others that which we would not have done to us (empathy and altruism). If we were fine with others taking whatever they liked, we wouldn't have a sense of personal property or theft.

To show that we have to agree on starting premises and reason from them. Now if, like Isaac, one of your starting premises is "Anything that leads to extinction is bad because preserving the human race is a worthy goal in and of itself" then of course having kids is fine and that's that. We go our merry ways. I don't share that premise so that's as far as the talk will get (unless you can derive it from a premise I DO share). However this method fails to show what was intended to be shown, that there is some actual error within AN. — khaled

It's not that we have a moral imperative to perpetuate the human race, rather that we have evolved moral behaviours to perpetuate our genomes. Morality is the mechanism of longevity; longevity is not the ends of morality.

Where both antinatalism and the above position you quote are at fault are in specifying moral values in the absence of relevant living things. No life, no biology. No biology, no morality. Morality is existential: existence must precede it. If I and my partner end up being the last two humans alive tomorrow, we're under no moral duress to procreate.

In ethics you argue as to what should or should not be done. The fact that our current moral paradigm (supposedly) does not lead to antinatalism doesn't make antinatalism bunk. — khaled

The fact that it rests on a unjustifiable claim does. One can dismiss it with as little justification. The trend on this thread, in your contributions in particular, has been to demand a rigour in this dismissal that is very absent from the antinatalist argument.

That would be like saying that the fact slavery existed for the longest time makes it right. This is no more than an argument from popularity. — khaled

No, quite false. Slavery did not exist because of a pre-existing moral consensus that it was right. It existed because power attracts evil, including the power to shape moral consensus. Slavery has always been about a powerful minority exercising that power for personal gain, the very opposite of a moral position.

I'm hoping if this is going to go on that that doesn't happen because it's just tiring for all parties envolved. — khaled

Most counter-argument, including the OP, point to the fact that the antinatalist argument is simply not shown. The counter-counter-argument assumes the argument in countering this. The best you've got is a self-consistent argument. I would argue that antinatalism isn't even self-consistent, nor is it about actual morality. That to one side, you can employ this argument to defend a decision not to have children just fine, although it's rather over-the-top: no one could say you were wrong to not have children to avoid your offsprings' suffering. But antinatalism is a claim that *I* should morally judge someone for having children. For that, you need a compelling argument, not just a self-consistent one.

That's true. But your position entails that for any number over 143,672, when we do math we're not really understanding anything, we're just playing a rules game. That doesn't seem right. Do you believe that? — RogueAI

That's exactly right, bar the specificity of that limit. We don't have distinct ideas of large numbers. It is only through a comparison of their symbols we can discern that N+1 > N for large N.

For any finite volume over any finite time interval, there is always a probability of field excitations. But even without those excitations, the field itself -- the potential for particles to emerge -- exists. 'Nothing' would suggest to me no such fields, not just no local excitations. It seems nonsensical to me to claim there are quantum mechanical arguments for this.

I'm going to push back on this. I agree that for any absurdly long number, it's hard to imagine how we can hold it in our minds, and yet, for any number, I can add 1 to it and figure out what the answer is. How am I able to do that if the number is so large I can't properly think of it? — RogueAI

Because manipulating the final symbol according to a small set of rules learned in childhood is trivial and does not require comprehension of the entire number. As I already said:

We don't have a concept of 143,672ness. We can relate 143,672 to 143,671 by comparing six symbols each one of an ordered set (the decimal base) and noting that all are the same but the last, and that the last digit of the former is later in the set than that of the latter. — Kenosha Kid

It's so bizzare to me that we are 17 pages in and you keep saying "Well actually, your view and my view are both caused by natrualistic means therefore there is nothing to talk about". That there is a natrualistic explanation does not mean there is nothing to talk about. There is nothing about the former statement that implies the latter. And it is clear there ARE things to talk about or you would have stopped talking. — khaled

I don't think Isaac is censoring anyone, merely pointing out that the assumptions of certain arguments are unjustifiable. It's always interesting, even necessary to talk about what we should and shouldn't do because these are the bases of our laws and we are, in part, responsible for shaping them.

What should be called out is when an unjustified argument is being defended by a demand for necessary omniscience in an opposing argument. It is unfeasible to give a complete description of how we ended up with the precise moral culture we have. We can understand more and more about evolutionary biology, and we have records of key historical paradigm shifts (Christianity, abolition, suffrage, civil rights, LGBT rights, trans rights, animal rights) that fed into our current moral structures, but you can always tack on a 'Why?' to any answer. But as well as unfeasible, it's also unnecessary. That we do not tolerate certain behaviours under certain circumstances (e.g. allowing a person to die who can easily be saved) but are fine with others under other circumstances (not giving to charity at noon tomorrow) is sufficient to demonstrate that the the moral claim that all suffering is equivalent and any action or inaction that might yield or fail to quell it is as bad as terminal negligence is simply not a reflection of human morality and, in the absence of any other moral authority (like God), cannot be justified this way.

The 'why' *is* interesting, but is not necessary to dismiss antinatalism as bunkum. Now... If an antinatalist could argue on pragmatic, naturalistic grounds, e.g. that it is hypocritical to not extend permanent non-existence to our potential offspring... That would be both interesting and relevant, but also places the burden of proof correctly with the claimant, not the sceptic.

For any brain-sized region of space, there are only a finite amount of configurations of matter possible. That means there is a finite amount of possible brain states, which would entail a finite amount of possible thoughts. However, math is infinite, and any number can be conceived, so there are an infinite number of possible thoughts. is this a problem for reductionism? — RogueAI

No, because we don't conceive of numbers in this way. We don't have a concept of 143,672ness. We can relate 143,672 to 143,671 by comparing six symbols each one of an ordered set (the decimal base) and noting that all are the same but the last, and that the last digit of the former is later in the set than that of the latter.

When we consider numbers like 9,479,284,479,946,424,742,057,043,748,258,831,164,859,380,423,470,964,125,667,852,865,110,732,989,169,568,826,863,358,101,582 we can't even do that. It's just "a very big number". We can break it down, but at no point are we considering 9,479,284,479,946,424,742,057,043,748,258,831,164,859,380,423,470,964,125,667,852,865,110,732,989,169,568,826,863,358,101,582ness.

If we did not respect others at all, life would be constant war and conflict every moment, as everywhere we go we have to meet others, bigger and stronger, like in the school playground. — Jack Cummins

I agree, but I think that is a need arising from being in a society, not a need to be social in the first place, i.e. it is circumstantial. More fundamentally, we have a drive to be altruistic that, though tempered by the precise social structures and modes we inhabit (which are not conducive to reciprocal altruism), are nonetheless part of what we are (bar some exceptional edge cases). Respect is a manifestation of this: treating others as we would wish to be treated, although the precise treatment (how I wish to be treated in a given circumstance) could be quite arbitrary.

I think it is about self interest, but with a need to respect others. — Jack Cummins

I disagree, science disagrees too, but what you're describing is already social. If we have a need to respect others, we are social animals.

Four uses are provided. The first is the phenomenal character of the experience, which you seem to be adopting. The second is as properties of sense data. The third, as intrinsic non-representational properties. The fourth, as intrinsic, nonphysical, ineffable properties.

The second is out of favour along with sense-data. The fourth is that which Dennett seeks to Quine.

Now I think those of us who reject qualia have been implicitly suggesting that the first entails the third and fourth, and that this is the position taken by Dennett.

How's that? — Banno

That probably accounts for a lot, thanks. As the article says:

Thus, announcements by philosophers who declare themselves opposed to qualia need to be treated with some caution. One can agree that there are no qualia in the last three senses I have explained, while still endorsing qualia in the standard first sense. — SEP

Unexpected segue into Godwin's law at the end there, but as a fan of Dead Snow I approve.

As far as I am aware, I am not sterile — Jack Cummins

I hope I am. Literally zero downside that I can see.

For example, I have gone into a pub, with a book, wishing to be left alone , just to be given space to read and, despite the social distancing rules, I have been told to move, to make way for groups. — Jack Cummins

The fact that we have intrinsic social capacities does not necessitate that everything we do must be social: we have other (more selfish) drives as well as other wants and needs. Hunger, for instance. It just means that, whatever we do, we have some social consideration. When you read your book in the pub, you probably assume that you'll be left alone because 'alone with book' signals 'doesn't want to chat about football'. That's a dependence on social awareness right there. And if you see that the woman next to you leaves her purse when she goes, you're probably going to holler after her even though you could totally get away with pretending not to have noticed (altruism) because, shoe on other foot, you'd want people to do the same for you +reciprocal altruism).

The problem here is that we're talking about the reliability of scientific observations, not the capacity for common vernacular. In science, "system" has a very specific definition involving boundaries, such that any "whole" which you are talking about is defined by its boundaries. If the boundaries of the proposed "whole" are really unknown, or nonexistent, and the observer applies systems theory in interpretation, which pretends that the nonexistent boundaries are there and known, in order to treat what is observed as a "system", then obviously the observations will be unreliable. — Metaphysician Undercover

You've heard of an "open system"?

I am not sure about your idea that being part of a group is central to being a person, or to what extent. Perhaps I am a little bit on the autistic spectrum but I have found that having to spend too much time with others is so stressful. — Jack Cummins

For all I know you're also sterile... it's still true that humans reproduce sexually :)

Humans have a natural capacity for empathy. This capacity can be suppressed, not just in a permanent way but circumstantially. For instance, most people have anti-empathetic responses to out-group members. This capacity is very much tied to our drive toward altruistic behaviour. We have this feature for a reason: living in small social groups is better for us on the whole.

Few of us live in small social groups now. Partly because of higher mobility and population density, partly because the reigning sociopolitical memes are isolationist and individualist, a huge number of us would, like yourself, prefer to keep our neighbours at arms length (not a Covid reference). Our way of living makes mutual reciprocity as a default social behaviour neither generally possible or particularly attractive. Nonetheless we carry that part of ourselves with us. It manifests itself in most of our religions, our storytelling and our moral beliefs which ever tends toward inclusivity, pacifism, compassion and egalitarianism. We are born both selfish and selfless, with exceptions.

But I wouldn't interpret that as the group coming before the individual. Our social nature is part of our individual nature (since those biological capacities were selected to benefit the individual) and, while you can have individuals without groups, you may not have groups without individuals.

Human society - and not just contemporary society - always seems to have sought - and often forced - the homogeneity of the thought that "the group must always come before the Self" and to implement it in civilization. — Gus Lamarch

I assumed on first reading this sentence you were referring to the idea that we should prioritise the many over the few: the only meaning of "the group must always come before the Self" I've ever heard. However, you take this to mean "the origins of the group precede that of the Self". Can you cite any references for this?

The only sense I can make of that is that the Self is singular and specific: there is no Self not born into a pre-existing group. Humans are biologically inclined to group behaviour, which could not be true without the concept of a group. Remove that group-dependence, and you're not talking about a person any more.