I think you are referring to fundamentalist religion. I think it is arguable that most religious people are not fundamentalists. — Janus

No, I am referring to the fact that God-belief is a human psychological delusion, a projection.

For me the problem with what you seem to be proposing is that it would require everyone to be a highly critical thinker. — Janus

What's this? Your argument is that people should be deluded? Have you even thought about this? This is pure resignation. It is also a form of elitism. You are indeed special, so special that you know other people cannot be like you, where you have awareness there they should be consigned to error?

I just don't believe most people have the capacity for that; it is not merely a matter of lack of education. — Janus

In disbelief. ??? You know what?

Dr Schore would not say "you are nurture" or "you wouldn't be able to talk to me without the proper nutrients" because he doesn't try to create this ridiculous dichotomy between nature and nurture. — Judaka

These statements are empirical statements regarding the concrete nature of your being and your quality. It has never been my intent to create a "ridiculous dichotomy," but to lead with what is relevant. Of course we have natural equipment and gene structures, but all of the research in this area tells us that environment is paramount in determining their developmental course. Try refuting the statements I made as opposed to characterizing them or trying to assign an argument to my position that I did not make.

I recently watched Perfume again. What an excellent film. It's on Amazon prime right now. It has some of the greatest movie sets ever constructed, because of this it doesn't feel like a movie, one just falls into the story. Highly recommend it!

The point here is that it seems that individual welfare is being superseded by "more important" matters, like the survival of the species or the prestige of scientific accomplishment. One person is sacrificed for the benefit of the many. It's a tyranny of the majority. — darthbarracuda

Tyranny of the majority? We must first ask the question why society is organized the way it is? Which group or class of people are organizing it? Which is the largest class in society? Does this class rule itself or is this class ruled? Could things be better if this class did advocate for itself and its well being?

The left is in a much more serious situation than it thinks. Trump's cult is not going to play by the rules of democracy. If he loses he will not vacate the office. His cult will rush into the streets with guns and violence. Even if America manages to make it past this emotional torrent of idiot adolescence, say Biden makes it to office, the cult will still exist, likely to form a new nationalist party. I could be wrong, but this is not business as usual.

"...alteration of the infant’s social environment specifically induces a diminution of the former socioaffective adaptations. The dyad’s response to this stressful alteration of the relationship is instrumental to the final structural maturation of an adaptive cortical system that can self-regulate emotional states." Allan Schore, Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self, pg.20, Routledge 2016

Like I said, 'how to produce a healthy human being is not merely asserted by Schore, it is meticulously justified and defended.'

I have an expansion on this position because I comprehend it within the context of class structure.

Because you have been refuted, you now want to take another course in an attempt to attack me. Get over it fella. There's lots of stuff about yourself and the world you don't know, stuff you can never obtain from philosophy. I recommended reading in psychology and sociology. You are on a good path with Dr. Schore.

I am pretty convinced that Dr .Schore is not the reason you think this way, rather, you like him because you feel he is saying what you always thought. — Judaka

That is correct. He has simply validated what many other responsible philosophers have speculated about. Keep in mind, he is not using his work polemically, I am and will continue to do so. That's the beauty of work like his, it transcends its own field. Like I said in another thread, philosophy has not caught up to attachment theory but it will, and it will turn philosophy away from the futility and vanity of its abstraction. Now that you have been listening to Schore it should be pretty damn obvious to you that your human nature schema is false. The quality of life is contingent on nurture. One doesn't even need Schore to prove this, you did not feed and wean yourself as a baby.

until religion came along and before that there was no moral nihilism? — unenlightened

Yes, this is correct. Nihilism was actually birthed from Christianity. This was Nietzsche's accurate evaluation of it. Don't take my word for it, see:
The Specter of the Absurd: Sources and Criticisms of Modern Nihilism (Suny Series in Philosophy)
by Donald A. Crosby

The notion that what humans find attractive is largely biologically determined is from the dark ages? — Judaka

Carlos nowhere made this argument. You are here making the assertion of it, hoping that it will bolster your false metaphysic of predetermined and predestined human nature. Like I said to Carlos, in some cultures they physically alter their bodies, it is unlikely you would be attracted to people from these cultures, just like they wouldn't be attracted to you. Attraction derives from your cultural experience.

You have railed against me in the name of some human nature metaphysic, merely asserted that Dr. Schore's work has nothing to do with your authoritarian claims, when it stands as an exhaustive, empirical and scientific refutation. I am not the dogmatist here. It seems very much like you have a bias against your own socially contingent being, which is to say, even though the evidence is overwhelming regarding the social development of human beings, you are still bent to holding onto your dark ages idealism, and that's exactly what it is. How to produce a healthy human being is not merely asserted by Schore, it is meticulously justified and defended.

What annoys me the most about people like yourself is that you come from the reactionary line, you just can't handle the fact that the more we learn the more the conservative narrative is obliterated. Surprise, surprise, in every direction we go, from social psychology to sociology, we find the same thing, humans are contingent on social structures. There is no such thing as an autonomous human being, no such thing as a self-made individual. All your quality is based on the quality of your social experience.

Yes, I am deliberately starting from a materialist standpoint, because it is materialism that leads to moral nihilism. — unenlightened

What? This is false. It is the projection of the ideal that poisons life and suffocates the creature. Man lived on this earth for thousands of years without Nihilism. It was the creation of a false dichotomy of super-worlds and super-beings that destroyed man's mind against existence. Now he is so much limping, even dragging himself, he cannot face what is, too much of the false sweetness did he consume. What he cannot see is that the ideal was never the material result of his happiness, this is the great supernatural lie! You can give a man all the ideas in the world, paint for him the most beautiful God, but the moment you deprive him of the material facts of life's quality, is the moment the value of all those things vanishes into the shadows from which they came. This proves that man has never needed the supernatural, he simply invented it, insecurely, out of fear.

Your peer to peer angle is talking about the blank canvas before the structure self organises, Your harking on about control hierarchies - the popular mechanical conception - is bypassing my arguments based on physical and biological principles. — apokrisis

I can only wonder if the technical knowledge you speak of really does untrench the system from the questions that were raised? If not, then all you are doing here is retreating to formalism.

I am indeed interested in this topic. That's why I started the thread. I am certainly not trying to alienate you. I have ordered some materials and am likely to be discussing this topic more in the future. It's truly fascinating and it makes bold, authoritative claims about reality. You have most certainly been able to construct a profound polemic from it. I have appreciated the opportunity to engage with you.

The OP hasn't seen fit to reply to me — fishfry

My apologies, I was so focused on exchanging with apokrisis I didn't quite pick up on the objection in your reply. I guess I didn't consider it relevant to my objections because you were responding to a citation which I am not dogmatic about. There the fella just says it's hard to think of anything without hierarchy. Yes, you provided a counter example. I think what's more interesting is whether the concept of hierarchy is just an isolated emphasis that obscures the causal contingency of structures? It seems to me there must be something to this because existence is not a hierarchy, but quite literally, a fluctuating movement of causal contingency.

In general what is the value behind saying that something was proved? — TiredThinker

That it means more than saying that something was merely asserted. Evidence matters, if you don't believe that avoid going to a doctor if you break a bone or severely wound yourself, just let people pray for you. Of course, you will not do this, and neither will any religious person. Medicine has to conform to some kind of empirical standards of proof. Not saying it's perfect, but it sure as hell beats the witch doctor.

Best to begin at the beginning. As a matter of fact, if you had no eyes, no ears, no hands to feel, only your mind to think, you could not arrive at an understanding or form of a chair. But chairs are real things, they exist independent of the human mind, this premise is the swift destruction of your position. This is true because all that you say about the chair and its form hinges on the actual existence of a chair, coupled with your sensory ability to detect it. If you remove this premise, if you subtract the concretion of the chair and your senses, and leave only your mind, you would not arrive at an understanding of a chair. Matter is the substance of mind, remove this and there is nothing left.
   
"To represent the law of identity as saying that "a thing is not different from itself" is a mistaken representation, because it is to oppose different with same, and that is to give "same" a formal definition, but the law of identity associates "same" with matter." -- Metaphysician Undercover

The easy way to refute this is simply to re-ask the question, is identity different from itself? You obviously have to say no. We could try to say that identity is not saying this, but that would merely amount to a denial of its actual being. When I thought of this objection by Hegel, it crossed my mind that perhaps he was just engaging in sophistry, trying to artificially attach difference to identity. But the thing is, identity is actually saying this! Hegel is not making it up. To prove it, look what happens if you deny it, surely you will not say that identity is different from itself? This would destroy identity. 

Hegel is correct, identity contains unity and difference. Back to the symbolic form: A = A is an instance of three different symbols. Taken together (unity) they are said to form the law of identity. Everything you need to prove that Hegel's dialectical clarification is correct is contained right in the symbolic form. When I brought this up before your reply was as follows:

"This really does not make sense to me. "Difference and identity... [are required to make sense of]... identity"? If your wish is to put this forward as an argument against the law of identity, you need to formulate it in a coherent way. The law of identity states that a thing is the same as itself. One might represent this as A=A, but you need to bear in mind that this is what A=A represents in this instance. So I have no idea how you infer "diversity", "unity", and "difference" from "a thing is the same as itself"." -- Metaphysician Undercover

The answer is that you have three different symbols combined together in order to construct the law of identity. This is not my opinion. This was not Hegel's opinion, this is an empirical fact regarding the symbolic structure of identity. Why this structure, why not another?

One can deduce the same properties from the informal articulation: a thing is the same as itself. Here you have multiple different words combined together to construct the law, and here's the vital point, you cannot construct this law without making use of these different terms combined in unity.  

When you try to bring in the predicate to rescue this law all you are doing is going beyond what is actually contained in the identity premise. You must admit that the predicate introduces negation. Well friend, this is not contained in Aristotle's formulation of the law. Once again, your predicate attempt would imply A = -A.

At every turn you are going beyond the premise of this law in order to rescue it from itself, the only difference is that you are claiming that all your actions are still contained within the premise of the law.  

""Same" and "different" are not proper opposites when "same" is used as it is in the law of identity." -- Metaphysician Undercover

The point is not that they are opposites. Same is saying that it is not different from itself, it is also never an isolated word but requires the unity of difference to distinguish itself.

"Difference is included within same, because the same thing has a changing form, and therefore is different from one moment to the next, despite maintaining its identity as the same thing." -- Metaphysician Undercover

It does not actually maintain its identity, this is an ideal we project. But that is a different point. We are here discussing the law of identity. Difference is posited in the same instance as you posit "same." It is already contained within the concept, within the very being of sameness. This is Hegel's point. In dialectics contradiction always emerges from being. 

"This is represented as the difference between subject and predicate which I described earlier. The subject may persist as the same subject, despite having predications negated at different times. So the subject remains the same, as in same subject, despite difference being a part of it, due to changing predications, when the subject represents an object." -- Metaphysician Undercover

This is just an idealistic formulation of reality. In reality the subject is changing, but more importantly, the subject itself is not separated from difference or unity. If it was, it could not distinguish itself, could not determine itself. 

"Therefore "different" is not applicable when referring to the subject itself, because difference is a feature of what is predicated." -- Metaphysician Undercover

This is false, as proven above through the symbolic form, it is already part of the subject's being.

"To represent the law of identity as saying that "a thing is not different from itself" is a mistaken representation, because it is to oppose different with same, and that is to give "same" a formal definition, but the law of identity associates "same" with matter." -- Metaphysician Undercover

It is not to oppose "different" with "same," as from the outside, it is merely to draw out what the premise already contains.

It doesn't matter what you try to say the law is doing or does, what matters is what it actually contains; what matters is whether you have to go beyond it in order to derive the value you need from it. 

So in what technical sense is neoliberalism a tyranny? — apokrisis

The fact that it bolsters corporate hierarchies to the detriment of human potential. Privatizing economic sectors of public service to the disenfranchisement of individuals. Deregulation, austerity. Not sure what you need to know that you don't already know?

A systems answer instead focuses on the reality that to exist, a system has to be - in some proper sense - functional. — apokrisis

I understand, but here you seem to have no meta-awareness of your concept of functionality. If you read me as saying that your conclusion of function will always be tyranny, this is wrong. My argument has always targeted your notion of existence, which means, your notion of observed [interpreted] hierarchy posited as intelligence. I am not opposed to making use of hierarchy theory, I am arguing against a kind naturalistic, ethical determinism, my alternative is not make-believe phantoms, but simply the mediation of thought.

But it seems to me there may very well be a deeper problem here. What if the whole notion of hierarchy, as I suspect it to be, is a lie, a delusion of the understanding unaided by reason? (This is to speak in Hegelian terms). Let me explain what I mean, what you interpret to be higher, how can this be the case when its existence hinges, just as vitally, on other components? Maybe the picture of hierarchy is a delusion, which can be proven by the fact of causal contingency? What you discern as a hierarchy, is in fact, only one component in the system... and even so, does this observed hierarchy retain its imaged status throughout the dialectical process of being?

So my ethical framework is the one that encompasses the usual dialectic of is~ought and reveals its many grades of semiosis, its various levels of hierarchical constraint on individual freedom. — apokrisis

Do you take dictation from nature or use intelligence to mediate?

I believe in the power of thought too, but not to do the impossible, rather, to control the narrative through arranging truth. To render truth an irrelevance through control over the narrative is a simple thing done by everyone. — Judaka

Point of mediation sustained.

What you mean by "functions" here is selective, because indeed, what is included in this "function" you describe? You are excluding a lot, emphasising some portion of the brain's activities. — Judaka

Directly refuting your false metaphysical nature model of humans, which is left over from the dark ages: "...the maturation of the emotion-processing limbic circuits of specifically the infant's developing right brain are influenced by implicit intersubjective affective transactions embedded in the attachment relationship with the primary caregiver." Ibid. Allan Schore, Chp.2

I am not typing out more, read the book.

The burden of proof for characterisations like this, minuscule, but do not think that this applies only for you. To characterise you in unflattering ways is always a possibility for me, to do it to the extent that your ideas don't even have to be contended with, well, I'm sure you've seen that before, you can't be blind to this, can be done by a child. — Judaka

I did engage the fella you are referring to, I did not simply try to refute him by a characterization. My point here is that you are not looking at the issue objectively but allowing this person's feelings of insecurity to dictate the content and emphasis.

Your "truth" is personalised, it is a creation of yours, not something which I should accept unless I wish to relinquish all control. — Judaka

No. If you don't eat food and drink water you won't have the energy to reply let alone comprehend. This is not my personalized opinion. Further, it is not good for you or anyone else to have an attachment disturbance, attempting to make contact with the social world through the left side of your brain. This is not just my personalized opinion. Yes, better. If you want a better society you have to have an intelligent social system that lends itself to the objective production of better humans.

You are the most nurture-orientated thinker I've ever seen. — Judaka

Yes, this I consider a compliment. It means I'm not confusing reality with idealism.

The inevitability of hierarchies, yes but what about their functions and structure? And third, if no, then are hierarchies bad and/or is there a better alternative? — Judaka

Yes, if social hierarchies are inevitable in what sense are they inevitable, in the sense of centralized government, in the sense of dictators? In any case we are mediating with thought, which once again proves my point regarding thought in relation to hierarchies. The value is in the mediation not the mere observation of the hierarchy. The fact that we can stand back and judge them already proves that they are not the highest thing, thought is that.

The only actual chance you have here, to destroy this particular hierarchy is to impose rules that constitute the absolute greatest degree of tyranny. — Judaka

Exactly how a human-nature-supernaturalist would think. This is false. I made many other points in that exchange, the most significant being that our sense of attraction is instilled by our experience of culture. Whether you like it or not how your brain functions is a matter of your maturation environment, most specifically the development of your attachment system. This is not my mere opinion (see Allan Schore, Right Brain Psychotherapy). You were allowing Carlos' own insecurity to dictate the objective nature of the situation. If you want a better society you have to produce better humans, and if you want to grow better humans you have to give them a better environment and higher quality nutrients. You are nurture. You couldn't even respond to my replies without the right nutrients, the fact that you can even comprehend them simply means you are a beneficiary of society (this is equally true for myself). All your individual quality can be traced directly to your social experience.

I would say that religion does not inherently consist in enslavement to power structures. — Janus

Concretely, it is belief in delusion, fake being that is projected for reasons of comfort and control. You are free to project your own fake ideals about it.

Your questions are mind-numbingly monotonic. — apokrisis

I fancy your expression here.

So when hierarchies go bad? Or "all hierarchy is bad"? — apokrisis

The question you are asking me is negated by your metaphysics: "If tyrannies can persist, then hierarchy theory would demand that they have found some way to repair and reproduce their own fabric."

Which is contradicted by:

"It is the same as the wealth inequality story. We can't accuse neoliberalism of having a malign intent. It is just a fact of exponential growth..."

There is real discrepancy here.

If the hierarchy is destructive to potential value, then the reply within the system is simply to say, "we can't accuse... it is just a fact" of nature.

So when you ask me about hierarchies versus hierarchy it is you who have made them the same thing, because by accepting them as normative you are also making the claim that they are socially intelligent standards. Again, category immune from criticism. My objection is that just because we see it in nature doesn't make it a wise procedure for humans to adopt.

there are tensions built into "what works". And over time we would expect those tensions manifest in ways that force change and achieve some better overall balance for the whole of that society. — apokrisis

Not if the hierarchy stacks the system against such change to achieve its functional form.

But to hear you bleat on about "hierarchies are the slippery slope to tyranny" is just painful to listen to. — apokrisis

This is not exactly my position, but it is the direction of my questions. I did cite a book that uses this concept for exactly this purpose.

Not all complex systems are hierarchies. — Banno

I agree with this, so I will just say, I agree with you. This is also a serious objection against Hierarchy Theory, which so far as I know, has not been addressed. Why isolate the hierarchical example? Further, this proves my point about mediation. If we are choosing between complex systems, as well as interpreting, thought is already mediating. So if there is any real hierarchy here it must be thought itself, which sits at the foundation of all this predication.

What's that, you said there is no evidence for your idea of God? Of course silly.

First you evaded the questions with questions so that tells us something right there. — 3017amen

No. You asked loaded questions: that tells us everything.

"A loaded question or complex question is a question that contains a controversial assumption. Such questions may be used as a rhetorical tool: the question attempts to limit direct replies to be those that serve the questioner's agenda."

Such as, 'God is time dependent and timeless, true or false or something else?' Here the loaded term is the term "God."

Instead of making hopeful sounds that people have no choice but to agree with you, why not make a considered argument. — apokrisis

??? Not following here. Some of the objections I have raised in the course of this thread have been validated, your response was simply to minimize them, or assert that there is no other option. My entire discourse has been directed at potential tyranny. I even cited a book that was just recently published, and while this text is not about Hierarchy Theory in terms of biology, the questioned I asked you was valid, are you sure that Hierarchy Theory will not end up going in this direction? We are talking "about global constraints imposed on local degrees of freedom," enshrined as a normative political philosophy. I would argue that this matters far more than the fundamentalism of your academic theory.

God is time dependent and timeless. — 3017amen

This depends on what you mean by God? It also depends on how you go about trying to deduce him.

Suppose you want to claim that something had to cause the big bang. Fine and well, I shall let you have it. Now tell me what you know about this cause? Do you know that it was Jesus? Do you know that it is still in existence? Do you know that it was only one agent that caused such vast complexity? I mean, that would completely contradict what we know about complex structures created by agency.

Listen, abuser, progeny of those who burned women as witches, I will not play your games. Prove your case or leave the court with your sophistry.

So you just seem to be projecting anger from some unresolved psychological deficiency. — 3017amen

This is properly known as gaslighting, it's a technique of manipulation that is employed by abusers. And since you're a zealot of the Jesus cult this doesn't surprise me one bit. An analogy to it would be if someone defected from North Korea and had a legitimate and justified anger against the oppression of the regime. People like you come along and claim that this anger is actually a "psychological deficiency." This is quite a serious manifestation of malevolence on your part, but it is no surprise because your psychological need to protect your delusion is even greater. There is no level to which the Christian will not stoop, from burning people at the stake to torturing heretics. This is your history and you are true to it.

I think that you would have to trample on those to destroy hierarchies? — Judaka

How do you know that it's not the other way around? If you simply read over this thread you will see admissions from apokrisis that go exactly in this direction.

Yep correct — 3017amen

I am indeed, but we already knew that from the beginning. It's always been the reason for your evasion.

I will repeat myself: It's a mighty claim to say that you know Jesus is God. Explain it to the court or leave the room.

belief in no God. — 3017amen

If I have a lack of belief in God it will be based most of all on a lack of evidence in relation to the projection of the idea. You have already said that Jesus is God. This makes you part of the Jesus cult. I asked you how you knew this and you gave vague answers to avoid shouldering your burden of proof. It's a mighty claim to say that you know Jesus is God. Explain it to the court or leave the room.

No, I'm claiming that you use deduction for your belief in no God. — 3017amen

What's that, you said there is no evidence for your idea of God? I didn't quite catch that deductive part.

Well that archaic tradition is the same tradition that you seem to use, in this case, deductive logic. — 3017amen

Excuse me, did you just try to claim that your Jesus Cult is responsible for deductive logic??????????

angry atheist — 3017amen

Indeed. I am upset when people attempt to indoctrinate my species with error and lies. You come at me with authoritarian assertions regarding your tyrannical God. You want to pass off fairly-tale nonsense for intelligence and wisdom. You try to uphold an archaic tradition that is responsible for some of the worst acts ever committed against humans, I do indeed have a righteous anger. I am not your friend, just like you and your kind are not the friend of my species. You are not liberators but oppressors. Your power has been curbed, that is all, the same tyranny exists, but it has been restricted and put in check by secularism. You can claim no virtue here, the virtue belongs to Humanism.

Hey dingbat. Encourage more supernatural abstractors like Mutakalem will you, so we can have more important threads like this. Know your enemy friend, and don't encourage their stupidity or propaganda. I blame you for the existence of this thread. You are responsible. And what exactly are you responsible for, authoritarian, fascist nonsense like this:

I really think what's evil was defined evil by the ex-nhilo creating God, you cannot use what he created to define it as wrong or right, he's God, he makes whatever he wants in his creation. — Mutakalem

:angry:

"Mutakalem, I appreciate your attempt to tackle the issue of God and omnipotence."
"Mutakalem, I appreciate your attempt to tackle the issue of God and omnipotence."
"Mutakalem, I appreciate your attempt to tackle the issue of God and omnipotence." Philosophim

If I was a moderator I would lock you in an eternal thread with this fella. Don't encourage the fairy worshipers or else you have to entertain them.

Here's a global industry that is quite insane. — Banno

Motivated by an insane logic. Same logic that burns crops while millions of people starve.

It is always concerning to see empirical observation and science challenged by ideology. — Judaka

What about human rights?

Is that more dangerous then folk invoking supernatural order? — apokrisis

It could be more dangerous depending on how the natural order is interpreted.

And did you miss the bit where I said if you understand natural order, then you can actually answer the question of what else could you be doing? — apokrisis

It seems to me the latter premise is here conditioned by the first.

But how can you even see that is what happened if you don’t understand the way nature works? — apokrisis

This question assumes that you have rightly understood Neoliberalism at its most hierarchical and primitive base. Because you have understood it through hierarchy theory? You specifically said that "oil produced it," what about ideology, what about psychology, what about class structure?

I think Banno is asking important questions here: "I'd be interested to hear why hierarchies might have a preferred place to other structures. My suspicion is that hierarchies are relatively simple and hence one might start a theory of structure there, but that is a long way form the claim that they are inevitable."

Where does this theory lead in terms of political power? You have already made statements to the effect that tyranny "is just a fact." Can you say for sure that it doesn't lead here:

Just Hierarchy: Why Social Hierarchies Matter in China and the Rest of the World
by Daniel A. Bell, Wang Pei

A trenchant defense of hierarchy in different spheres of our lives, from the personal to the political

All complex and large-scale societies are organized along certain hierarchies, but the concept of hierarchy has become almost taboo in the modern world. Just Hierarchy contends that this stigma is a mistake. In fact, as Daniel Bell and Wang Pei show, it is neither possible nor advisable to do away with social hierarchies. Drawing their arguments from Chinese thought and culture as well as other philosophies and traditions, Bell and Wang ask which forms of hierarchy are justified and how these can serve morally desirable goals. They look at ways of promoting just forms of hierarchy while minimizing the influence of unjust ones, such as those based on race, sex, or caste.

Which hierarchical relations are morally justified and why? Bell and Wang argue that it depends on the nature of the social relation and context. Different hierarchical principles ought to govern different kinds of social relations: what justifies hierarchy among intimates is different from what justifies hierarchy among citizens, countries, humans and animals, and humans and intelligent machines. Morally justified hierarchies can and should govern different spheres of our social lives, though these will be very different from the unjust hierarchies that have governed us in the past.

A vigorous, systematic defense of hierarchy in the modern world, Just Hierarchy examines how hierarchical social relations can have a useful purpose, not only in personal domains but also in larger political realms.

There were two astronauts in a shuttle hurling to earth. It is was inevitable they would die. One of them looked at the other and pulled a piece of paper from his pocket, "here, read this," he said with an urgent voice. The other astronaut, trembling with fear at the thought he was about to die, took the paper and read the following symbols on the page:

X is Y of Q, but only if X is conditioned by P.
X is the derivative of P as P itself derives from S...

"What the fuck is this shit!," the astronaut yelled?
"It's a very important syllogism I've been working on," he replied.

Moments later the shuttle crashed to the earth.

In hierarchy theory, it is about global constraints imposed on local degrees of freedom. — apokrisis

'The question I have for hierarchy theorists is how the structuring of such a system avoids the arbitrary negation or deprivation of potentially valuable parts that have been deemed at a lower level of value?'

Come on friend, you gave an analogy of soldiers and generals. And now you confess to "imposed constraints on freedom."

What is most dangerous as I see it, and it is no surprise to me that you cannot see it, is this idea of natural order. Because this is how the constraints would no doubt be justified. You will claim that these are natural, thus normative. This creates a category beyond criticism.

Science is important, but we are human life and human life must be protected, even from science.

I can imagine my analysis here is, if not frustrating, at least disappointing for you, because you are totally correct, this is just a layman criticism of the position, and quite frankly, you are vastly smarter than me. Because of this I would like to make clear that I do not think these objections are somehow comprehensive to your position. I never meant them to be that, I always meant them to be preliminary questions. I was hoping that many of us would explore this emerging field together, not dogmatically but openly. Even now I am simply trying to understand. My position is not dogmatic but one that is open to learn.

It is the same as the wealth inequality story. We can't accuse neoliberalism of having a malign intent. It is just a fact of exponential growth..." — apokrisis

This is exactly what I was getting it. I don't see how my criticisms of Hierarchy Theory fall flat when the whole point was that people like yourself would end up saying things exactly like this: "one cannot classify it in the negative because we observe it as a part of a natural system." If this is the case, and I am not taking you out of context, I don't only reject what you say, but note that it is refuted all the time by human mediation. It would seem the conclusion is not that we need a Hierarchy Theory, but a theory of mediation.