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 notion that what humans find attractive is largely biologically determined is from the dark ages? Your characterisations, every one of them really, come from your ego and bias, it is silly. You accused Carlos of fatalism and then stopped replying to him. It seems what I said went over your head, even if Dr. Schore's work was correct and you were correct in understanding and applying his work to your positions, it wouldn't undermine anything I've said in the slightest. I do not wish to continue this discussion though, I can only show you what you are doing and if you wish to continue, that is not something anyone can disrupt.

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.

I've yet to actually see you show that you understand Dr. Schore, I've been listening to him and I don't have any problems with what I've heard him say at all, I think he's been co-opted by you in a strange way to be used for your worldview. Can you talk about his work in the same way apokrisis talks about hierarchy theory? I've yet to see it. The way you talk about him and the way I hear Dr. Schore talk about his ideas, incomparable.

Basically, as usual with you Jerseyflight, you have no idea how little you know about my position. I think hearing that I disagree with you is sufficient to begin a creative narration, which as usual, comprises the bulk of your argumentation. You didn't understand my issue with you, I explained it fairly clearly and 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. If you were even remotely similar to how he explains his own ideas, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

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.

What I've listened to Dr. Schore saying has confirmed that firstly, you are terrible at paraphrasing him and although you cite him to justify how you use his work, your understanding is not something he is endorsing. Secondly, you misunderstand to what extent Dr. Schore is actually nurture-orientated, he is not trying to establish some dichotomy between nature and nurture but explains that the two work together. This is my position also, I think almost nobody you've cited Dr. Schore to has actually been invalidated by Dr. Schore in the way you think they were. I think that you have a barebones or worse understanding, of him and probably shouldn't be citing him at all.

Also, the people you've cited him against, you were arguing against positions that you gave them through narration and characterisation, not their explicit admission. Same here. I don't know what you think Dr. Schore would be correcting me about but it's almost certainly not something I've explicitly stated.

"...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 admit when I've been refuted, I am happy to learn from others even if they offer a better understanding in an unflattering way.

You called me a "human-nature-supernaturalist" but news flash, that doesn't make me one. You merely ascribe positions as a way of debating people, it's a constant. I wouldn't describe myself as conservative either, but, I guess it doesn't matter what I say does it?

You said was "better society from better humans requires better environment and high-quality nutrients" and then you expect me to deduce from that "oh, he's talking about 0-2-year-old development" to the exclusion of I don't know, literally anything else? I didn't tell you that you're wrong, I just said, there's no way I'm going to agree with that because it means I allow you to dictate what is "better" in each context.

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. You aren't using his language, or his understanding or his characterisations. I can agree with Dr Schore and learn from him, without being refuted by you, because you have simply co-opted him, without really understanding him, into your ideological outlook. This conversation is just incredibly silly, I've met few posters quite as fallacious as you. I will just try to avoid you where I can.

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.

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 — JerseyFlight

Haha, you're too much.

Reading over this thread it seems to be "much ado about nothing". Of course nature is hierarchical in the sense that larger things are composed of smaller things. And of course that fact does not constitute ethical justification for any human social hierarchy.

There are self-organizing hierarchies in nature. In human life their are both self-organized and authoritatively imposed hierarchies and/or authoritarian hierarchies.

Reading over this thread it seems to be "much ado about nothing". — Janus

Is the ideological text I cited much ado about nothing? It won't be long until we see its proliferation. I think you're the only person on this thread who would take the position that this is not an important topic. The questions here are not so easily swept aside. The affirmative position is basically telling us that Hierarchy Theory has cracked the code of nature. I have raised valid concerns regarding tyranny. Further, when you have a theory with as much authority as Hierarchy Theory, it is precisely something that critical thought needs to be applied to.

I think you're the only person on this thread who would take the position that this is not an important topic. The questions here are not so easily swept aside. The affirmative position is basically telling us that Hierarchy Theory has cracked the code of nature. I have raised valid concerns regarding tyranny. — JerseyFlight

What point are you trying to make? Even if Hierarchy Theory has "cracked the code of nature", so what? As I said nature is replete with hierarchy, that much seems obvious; we don't need Hierarchy Theory to tell us that, all we have to do is look around.

Nature's hierarchies are not imposed by authority (unless there is a God, which we seem to have no rational justification for thinking).

Many human hierarchies are based upon the idea of, and even dictatorially imposed by, authority. The existence of self-organizing hierarchies in nature cannot provide ethical justification for any human hierarchy based on authority or brainwashing or coercion and so on.

What exactly in what I say here are you objecting to (if you are)?

What point are you trying to make? — Janus

That this topic is not just "much ado about nothing."

Many human hierarchies are based upon the idea of, and even dictatorially imposed by, authority. The existence of self-organizing hierarchies in nature cannot provide ethical justification for any human hierarchy based on authority or brainwashing or coercion and so on. — Janus

Good reply. The curious thing is that @JerseyFlight says his perspective is Hegelian. But the Hegelian view of history was that it was a journey of progress towards a well balanced social order - one that properly expressed the dialectic of individual striving and collective rational order.

And that is the organic notion of a hierarchy. Peirce argued that the entire Cosmos expresses the same dynamic. The universe was a story of a universal increase in “general reasonableness”.

The kind of hierarchy everyone is attacking is a mechanical one. That is, one which is a rigid system of top-down control and no balancing bottom-up freedom. So a dictatorship or a slave owning elite.

The people at the top of the social order lay down the rules that suit their personal purposes. Then the people at the bottom find their actions completely determined by some rigid system of control. Either there is a state security apparatus and propaganda machinery - a Stazi - to take away all meaningful freedoms. Or, as with slaves, humans actually become property and treated by the system as such.

The organic model of a hierarchy which I have been talking about is of course at the opposite end of the spectrum.

The whole point of the top down constraints is to create a generalised set of individual freedoms. The constraints certainly have to shape behaviour in ways that are pro-social. So they do limit “freedoms” in that sense. But then the flip side is that the constraints positively fosters the freedoms which a society - as an organism - finds constructive.

As I said, a dictatorship or tyranny is also only about serving the purposes of the small circle at the top of the pile. In an organic hierarchy, the highest scale of organisation represents the collective purpose of the system. It is the opposite of personalised purpose. It is the purpose of the collective whole - as encoded in some system of law, rights, governance, custom, etc.

So sure, everything is wrong about a mechanical hierarchy. But that counts as the bleeding obvious.

My case is all about the natural inevitability of the other kind of hierarchy. I am pointing out that nature is in general organised by the rational principle of striking functional balances.

You need to separate the rival forces of competition and cooperation in a way that makes the best sense. And that means a local~global division where competition is the bottom up constructive drive and cooperation is the collective top down guiding hand of a system of constraint.

And if that is the order that Nature demonstrates to be rational, it would seem you would have to offer some new reason for why that wouldn’t also be optimal as the “ethical basis” of human social organisation.

The people at the top of the social order lay down the rules that suit their personal purposes. Then the people at the bottom find their actions completely determined by some rigid system of control. — apokrisis

The question is whether or not Hierarchy Theory really escapes this model, or just ends up reframing it under the name of "organic hierarchy?" I don't believe we can rule this out, your good faith and democratic intentions, don't necessarily prelude other interpretations.

I am pointing out that nature is in general organised by the rational principle of striking functional balances. — apokrisis

And I have been pointing out that what we observe in nature is not the final word of exemplification, but is subject to the mediation of thought. You are claiming that these observations all fall in line with democratic process, and suppose they don't, suppose another interpretation sees mechanistic hierarchy in nature, what is your conclusion then? We already know, you have stated it, one cannot argue against nature (see your final quote below). Here is the creation of a category immune to criticism.

Further, and this is perhaps the most significant point I have made, what we observe in nature is lacking thought's mediation! If I am reading you correctly, you seem to be saying that the process you observe in nature, must always be considered superior, is in fact, the standard of thought, the very basis of what constitutes an intelligent ethic? If this is the case I do not call it intelligence, but mindlessness disguised as intelligence.

And if that is the order that Nature demonstrates to be rational, it would seem you would have to offer some new reason for why that wouldn’t also be optimal as the “ethical basis” of human social organisation. — apokrisis

This is exactly my problem. The answer has already been given, because what we observe in nature is lacking the mediation of thought, it is mechanical and mindless in this sense. You are arguing that we are not even allowed to apply thought here, that what we observe (more like, interpret) must be taken as a divine natural law. So tell me why humans could not decide to apply thought to organization? Nature is not the standard, thought is, most specifically as it pivots itself from the angle of man's context.

You seem to fail to comprehend that thought is always standing in a position of mediation here, it is transcendent in this sense, not in any supernatural way, but in a way that you are already determining, that the thing you are observing in nature, qualifies as being ethical and intelligent, not from the basis of the thing, but exterior to it. It is by the power of thought that you conclude that Hierarchy Theory is a good thing. Not sure you understand this?

I don't believe we can rule this out, — JerseyFlight

If you can’t rule it out, then you need to provide your reasons.

Here is the creation of a category immune to criticism. — JerseyFlight

It is a scientific claim. So it is either supported by the evidence or not.

You are arguing that we are not even allowed to apply thought here, that what we observe (more like, interpret) must be taken as a divine natural law. — JerseyFlight

Oh, if only you did seem to be applying thought!

So far there has only been groundless doubting based on deep misunderstanding.

If you can’t rule it out, then you need to provide your reasons. — apokrisis

Yeah, well I did reference a book that argued exactly this thing. Further, is it the case that your democratic interpretation is the only one that can be deduced from the theory?

It is a scientific claim. So it is either supported by the evidence or not. — apokrisis

No, your casting of nature as a normative, ethical category is not scientific!

. The Internet is a peer-to-peer system, — fishfry

It is worth noting how the internet is actually all about the dialectic of connection and memory. So TCP/IP is half the story. The other half is having unlimited memory for everything that happens on the internet.

That is why hierarchical organisation results. It is already baked in by the fact that interactions have a local and global aspect. There is the traffic pattern of connections. And then there is the accumulating memory of the patterns with the most apparent significance. And that memory of what’s popular begins to feedback to constrain the traffic. What might start out appearing to be just random linkages become eventually deeply reinforced habits.

So the internet was based on removing the physical constraints on these two complementary aspects of any self-organising hierarchy - its synchronic action and its diachronic identity.

The internet actually took off with the World Wide Web hyperlink protocol that connected an unlimited connectivity to an unlimited memory. This allowed any text to be connected to any text. And that became a valuable thing precisely to the degree it formed some self-organised hierarchy of connectivity.

The hyperlinking was then extended to other data structures like images, audio, and eventually will become an internet of things.

The idea of a flat network as an ideal in social relations is strangely fetishised in modern life. There’s a familiar political story there. But a society with only “in the moment“ interactions and no memory - an amnesiac society - would be a rather disastrous thing.

So in creating the internet, computer science already knew that unlimited communication needed to be paired with unlimited memory to have “a system”. The whole point was to construct something which would self-organise in a functional way.

A flat communication protocol was not the revolution all on its own. It is the fact that the internet also never forgets anything that happened. It’s whole history carries a weight that is felt by any further interactions. And it was a hyperlink protocol - one that embedded the further ideal of establishing preferential attachment - that gave everything liftoff.

A network became a network of networks. A multilevel network. A hierarchy in other words.

Good reply. The curious thing is that JerseyFlight says his perspective is Hegelian. But the Hegelian view of history was that it was a journey of progress towards a well balanced social order - one that properly expressed the dialectic of individual striving and collective rational order. — apokrisis

Yes, in a way I think it could be said that whatever political and social hierarchies have existed in human life have come about due to self-organization, and that the idea that they have been imposed by authority is the narrower view.

Because humans can, thanks to language, reflect upon the human condition, impute agency to rational actors and so on, we tend to fall into the delusion that we are, or could be, or should be, masters of our own destinies, both at the local individual and community scales, and at the global international political scales.

It seems that the prosperity enabled by cheap energy in the form of fossil fuels has created a self-organizing juggernaut consumerist culture and economy and an accompanying ethos of growth at all costs, and no one seems to have the will or the wherewithal to halt its apparently catastrophic trajectory.

Of course within this culture there are concentrated nodes of power, but it seems that those with the most power are the most psychopathic, the most lacking in compassion and general concern for humanity, the environment and other species. It seems like those who care the least about others are the ones most suited to gaining power, because they will stop at nothing.

The human condition seems tragic; to be a species governed by the least enlightened, the most callous and determinedly self-interested among us. If in most hierarchies it is the global conditions and constraints that "teleologically" determine the evolution of the system, there would seem to be no human (i.e. truly socially and communally motivated) equivalent in our systems.

We seem to be driven, despite our protestation to the contrary, by the dissipative drive of entropy; and this is a "god' we could never consciously worship, but rather an unconscious one we would need to learn to resist, if we hope to survive in any form of civilization.

How our we going to learn that? Seems to be a nigh on impossible task, even if it were authentically acknowledged as a needed task to be fulfilled at all, which would itself seem to be a tremendous hurdle.