As a result of biological evolution, it would seem doubtful. We'd still be human. — Outlander

That may be true, but despite being human we’re still a lot different from serfs living in sod huts. Our perspective on life and morals can change, which in turn affects what we believe to be necessary and how we coexist.

It could go either way I imagine. — Outlander

I imagine, then, that it could go in more directions than “either way”.

or apartments that miniaturize you upon entry allowing 100,000 people to each live, sleep, and wake up in their own private dream mansion that altogether takes up no more space than your favorite corner store. — Outlander

That doesn’t seem to relate to systems of coexistence. All it does is play with imaginary possibilities. Which is fine but it doesn’t contribute much to what systems of coexistence might exist outside of Eugen’s triangle. To me there has to be a trail from here to there, not just a leap into fanciful futures, otherwise, as you say, anything’s possible, but it’s not necessarily likely.

I am not necessarily interested in persons but in how the system manages the resources, the laws, the freedoms, etc.. I see nothing fundamentally different just by replacing humans with machines. — Eugen

Obviously there would have to be a change in human nature. Eugen is right. Just replacing humans with machines doesn’t change much about the triangle. But to me the affect of technology in changing human nature then opens up possibilities for something outside of the triangle. For instance just the possibility that people no longer interact physically and communicate through technology and receive everything they know about the contemporary world through that technology would have an affect on how we coexist and what sort of governance might emerge and

how the system manages the resources, the laws, the freedoms, etc.. — Eugen

Today we are the economy, except that it also operates as a separate entity in the sense that we have very little control over it, we virtually serve it.
— Brett — Outlander

That's like saying just because your body is different from your mind it's a burden and you're enslaved to it because you have to use it to make yourself/it breakfast every morning. — Outlander

What I meant is that once the economy served the people: it’s existence created jobs, taxes, development, etc. it allowed a state to grow towards something that made peoples’ life’s better. But as we found out with the WFC the economy must be propped up with whatever it takes, and as we see with COVID the economy is beginning to look more important than lives. When it slows down people are encouraged to spend to keep it alive. So now we’re joined at the hip. So I think we are the economy. Which is only slightly relevant to the OP.

My post was in response to this:

It terms of different views, one might note that for most of human history, people had no concept of "the economy" as a separate entity.
— Echarmion — Brett

My question wasn't necessarily referring to humans or politics as we know it, but to conscious beings and their ways of living together. — Eugen

So was I. I was looking at the beginning of a trajectory into the future and where it might go.

If you attend a professional dance performance, you can be sure that the dancer has choreographed and rehearsed their actions to the last detail. — Possibility

When I am talking about the dance and dancer I’m not talking about a choreographed dance. I’m talking about a dance that is created as the dancer dances, all their experience, all their knowledge of dance, the physical aspects, the appearance of the body in action, it’s history, it’s tradition, everything the dancer is aware of about dance is laid out in that act, but each movement is grasped as they dance.. It’s someone throwing themselves through space and moment by moment creating the dance, like Jazz musicians jamming “a relatively informal musical event, process, or activity where musicians, typically instrumentalists, play improvised solos and vamp on tunes, songs and chord progressions.” Wikipedia.

It’s something that happens very quickly. And it is as you say an event in time. Painting is not like this. A painting, as you say, is a material object. The painting may take place over time, but the creative idea that you see in the dance on the stage, performed in time, moment by moment, for the painter take place in the painters consciousness. You don’t see it. But if you imagine a creative idea as the dancer moving through space, going this way and that, a gesture here or there, a leap, a shrug of the shoulders, a hand held out, all those moments fluid and connected, then you can imagine the processing of the creative idea in the painter’s mind. In fact I’m saying that it’s the reverse of this:

The difference between the dancer and painter is that the dancer’s actions consolidate a potential event in his/her mind, whereas the painter’s actions consolidate on the canvas. — Possibility

However, before the painter begins to consolidate this idea in their head, and before the dancer consolidates the dance in time on the stage there is the amorphous phase beforehand, the formless idea still not yet born but approaching consolidation. The whole thing, from the formless to the consolidation to the action is one process. It’s the amorphous stage that interests me.

What would you call it when people elect a government and then treat them like dirt and expect them to do all the dirty work, then set the press on them to dig into their personal life’s, to harass them so much that their interviews are just talking points and then threaten them with poor ratings until their leader resigns, who’s not really the leader because he’s fighting for his life inside the party, so they switch their policies about but it doesn’t help and the party is booted out because people didn’t get what they want. And so it goes.
And states begin to ignore the voice of the Federal Government and declare a sort of independent statehood who bargains with overseas governments for finance and ignore even the legislation of their own Federal Government. And the people, the tribes, protest and create chaos until they get some sort of submission from local government who is in bed with business and losing control of their own cities. People begin to move from state to state where they find support of their own ideologies. Some cities win some lose. Some are no longer represented in the Federal Government, they declare their own borders sacrosanct.

Business operates from tax shelters or business-friendly states. Cash has gone.

There’s a difference here between the dancer, the painter and the mathematician. So let’s say that moment, for the dancer, is a series of rapid decisions based on a deep understanding and knowledge of movement. They are, as you say, amorphous. For the observer the idea and form happen spontaneously in front of them.
But for the painter and, I suspect, the mathematician it’s different. That moment where the idea and form come together is internally. For them you might say the idea “pops” into their head, which I only use to show the difference between the dancer and painter.
So the moment before the idea “pops” into the artist’s head that idea is formless, amorphous as you say.
That’s the moment, the formless moment, that I meant by “process”, which of course is not a good enough description.
So the idea is consolidated in the artist’s consciousness just before it goes on the canvas, in the same way the idea is consolidated in the dancers consciousness immediately before every minute action,

It’s that amorphous process that I’d like to nail down. It doesn’t mean the following step is totally consolidated, because it’s a continuous process after all, except in the form of the dancer where we actually see the consolidation process take place.

It is my understanding that creativity decreases with age — TiredThinker

Yes I think it does decrease with age. But I don’t think it has anything to do with emotion. Especially as people create things for different reasons.

You could have a lottery — Outlander

“ There was in Athens (and also Elis, Tegea, and Thasos) a smaller body, the boulē, which decided or prioritised the topics which were discussed in the assembly. In addition, in times of crisis and war, this body could also take decisions without the assembly meeting. The boulē or council of 500 citizens was chosen by lot and had a limited term of office, which acted as a kind of executive committee of the assembly.” Wikipedia.

I was also thinking of the Indian tribes of the American Plains and how tribes might operate in times of high technology and the United Nations as a central source of management but without control if it’s constituents.

It terms of different views, one might note that for most of human history, people had no concept of "the economy" as a separate entity. — Echarmion

That’s an interesting point. Today we are the economy, except that it also operates as a separate entity in the sense that we have very little control over it, we virtually serve it. It dictates so much about who we are, what we can expect or how we have to change. So I think this is an important, or crucial, element in regard to what future governance could look like.

If something about human nature changed, about what is core to humanity, then something different could develop in terms of forms of the existence or governance. IT could contribute to this, or even ideas on gender, age and perceptions of rights and ideologies, or the growing reality of tribalism.

Edit: or even what it means to be human.

I think we might be getting bogged down by the word “obliged”. You may be regarding it being used in the same way as a “rule”. That it’s the rule in society that you must help the drowning man and that the only reason people help is because they are coerced by the rule. Hence the idea that there would be a law incarcerating people if they didn’t help.

A creative idea - as jgill proposes in mathematics - is a process of interrelating unconsolidated potentialities. — Possibility

Wouldn’t you say that the process comes before the creative idea? The idea is the consolidated potentiality, like the dancing. In the dancing the idea and form happen at once, the event, unless it’s choreographed. But there has to be something that comes before that, something that allows, directs or opens up the potential for consolidation.

in the creative process, it’s not about formed or consolidated objects, but about the relational structures that form them, or enable them to be consolidated. — Possibility

If I understand you you’re saying the consolidated object is the creative action, it’s what’s made.

There is arguably no point in human history in which that power has been exercised to the degree that it currently is, on the scale and reach that currently exists. — StreetlightX

It’s true that power may not have been exercised on the scale and reach that currently exists, but we experience it as individuals and from that point of view this power has been applied in equal or more brutal terms than we are experiencing it now. So it’s possible for me as an individual to see more of my rights denied for the sake of the “new man”.

I was about to add that I understand those who see the only way out is to destroy the system. It can’t be changed by election or negotiation. There are those who think the answer lies with the consumer, that if they stop buying they will starve corporation to reduce prices, but that won’t happen, instead you’ll get more unemployment.

It is absolutely the case that anyone is susceptible to this. The goal is to design social mechanisms which blunt or neutralize the effects, rather than entrench of exacerbate them - as exists currently. — StreetlightX

I understand the point of view of Marxists and others who see human nature as the problem, that “conceives of human nature as composed of 'tendencies', 'drives', 'essential powers', and 'instincts' to act in order to satisfy 'needs' for external objectives.” (Wikipedia) and as a consequence believe we need to create a new man in order to manage his more destructive tendencies.

The goal is to design social mechanisms which blunt or neutralize the effects, — StreetlightX

I can think of a number of ways this could be done. But they all seem to require regulations imposed from above. And it seems to be the the more you regulate human nature the more problems arise in another form which requires more regulation.

Even now we have powerful influences in education and public life about how we should think about things, about inclusivity, gender and race, and all with the best intentions. But in fact the objective is to change how we think about things, which is always, finally, enacted with regulations that carry, as a final incentive, the threat of the law. So then more regulations.

This is where my concern lies about imposing constructed ideas about what we should be as opposed to who we are.

Yep, back to business as usual.

Remembering and imagining are not consolidated in the creative process. They are not formed into an imaginary object assembled from formed parts, — Possibility

Can you elaborate on this further, that imagining presents an imaginary object in the mind is not true?

The 1% are parasites. — StreetlightX

Does being a certain kind of person make you rich, or does being rich make you a certain kind of person? There are probably at least a few causal relationships in each direction, but I would suspect that wealth has a far greater impact on personality than personally has on wealth, because there are many other systemic factors besides personality that are causally influential on wealth, but most of the factors that causally influence personality are in turn themselves influenced by wealth. — Pfhorrest

This would be the general consensus on this OP I would think.

So if wealth has the greater impact on personality than personality has on wealth then we can assume wealth creates parasites. If that’s true then anyone is susceptible to this.

Do you think that might say something more about human nature than the wealthy themselves?

No one feels obliged to do it.
— Brett

Again, the question is why. No one has answered this so far. — khaled

I did. I said it’s regarded as a gift.

What is community then?
— Brett

A group of people living in a place. — khaled

It’s a bit more than that.


“In a seminal 1986 study, McMillan and Chavis[8] identify four elements of "sense of community":

membership: feeling of belonging or of sharing a sense of personal relatedness,
influence: mattering, making a difference to a group and of the group mattering to its members
reinforcement: integration and fulfillment of needs,
shared emotional connection.” Wikipedia

I'm moreso surprised by people who must make it a duty to help. Is that to imply that if it wasn't a duty you wouldn't do it? — khaled

They don’t make it a duty. It’s something that’s evolved with and contributed towards the strength and structure of communities.

Because I'm not a heartless bastard? — khaled

What does that mean?

Edit: by the way, this is getting way off topic.

That this isn't some universal law or anything inherent in the definition of community. — khaled

What is community then?

But I would assist them — khaled

Why would you?

I am part of the problem even though I would save the drowning person? What "problem" exactly? — khaled

That you do not see an obligation to assist someone who needs help.

If someone drowns and there are 20 people watching, do they get incarcerated? No. So I don't think society sees this as an obligation. — khaled

I don’t see how you connect a moral obligation to law.

How come you can find countless videos of people asking for help to no avail and everyone just walking by? How often do you see beggars without anyone donating anything to them? — khaled

Exactly. This is the consequence of refusing their obligation to others. See how it ends up?

If you live within a community and receive benefits from that community in the way that communities function then you are obliged to live according to the mores of that community.
— Brett

Agreed. However you have yet to show that part of these obligations is that one must save a drowning person. — khaled

Okay. Then you fail to understand the idea of community and so you are part of the problem.

Obviously your question is rhetorical and it leaves little room to move, because you put donating and saving someone from drowning on the same footing. In donating money your taking part in a slow process. The effect is not immediate. The money is managed and spent without you really knowing how it was spent. It’s a very abstract action. You may decide your money is better spent in other ways, you may feel the charity is not very effective or doubt it will change things. No one feels obliged to do it. Society asks for the money as a donation. It’s a gift.

Society also functions on people looking out for each other. That society regards your assistance to someone in immediate need as an obligation. It doesn’t ask you to risk your life, it just asks you to do what you can. This sense of obligation means that you will receive it if in need yourself. But more importantly it’s an impulse to help someone in immediate need. Many have lost their life trying to help someone in trouble in the water. Obviously that’s a powerful emotion and it’s an emotion or feeling that binds communities. If you live within a community and receive benefits from that community in the way that communities function then you are obliged to live according to the mores of that community.

Original thoughts come forth from our innate ability to create something new. — MondoR

I’m not quite sure what this might mean in relation to the OP?

I’ve being thinking about this in relation to the OP “What is the purpose of creativity”. What are we meaning by original and creating? In one of my posts, in an effort to include intentionality in my thinking, I wrote in relation to every intending having its intended object ( I don’t assume I completely grasp intentionality) that imagining presents an imaginary object. This was in relation to creativity coming before the act. Then I said that in imagining something imaginary we were only creating something imaginary by collating disparate, but pre existing, elements, like an imaginary creature from space. We create it from things we know. How could we create it from things we don’t know?

It seems to me that what we call original is only that. To say that original thoughts come forth from our ability to create something new is is sort of doubling up on the impossible. Even a newborn, with their own fingerprints and DNA, still resembles every other child in appearance and ultimately in consciousness.

In Picasso’s painting Le Demoiselles d’avignon, a radical break away from conventional painting at the time, an ‘original’, he combines tradition with the influences of African masks and sculpture. Nothing in it is original except the throwing together of two cultural representations of people. So isn’t the new or original not a fact but just perception. And if so then can there really be something original?

Given that God knows all things, how can we have libertarian free will? — Walter Pound

If God gave us free will, which he did according to the scriptures, and if you’re a Christian then you believe that to be true, then he does not know or anticipate the consequences. If he anticipated every action we take, or if he is responsible for every action as part of his divine plan, then why give us free will?

When I mentioned about how things would pan out morally I wasn’t thinking about it in terms of profits and expansion, but in actual terms of what was morally right to trade in. For instance in relation to an event like climate change how might people, workers/owners, view coal mines as a business venture? This would consequently have an impact on where people live and so on. I find it interesting to consider just how things might evolve, instead of being transformed.

Sorry. Yeah I was being a smart arse.

It’s very interesting as a thought experiment. I was really wondering, though I didn’t make it clear, how the business landscape would change morally. What would wither away and what would thrive? Of course I’m not expecting you to make a list but I’d like to know what others think.

Intentionality needs an object.

But if that object doesn’t yet exist how can there be intentionality?

In remembering I remember a past object, imagining presents an imaginary object. But even then the imaginary object is made up of existing parts assembled as an imaginary object.

How would this apply to creating a cutting tool by striking a flint and creating a sharp edge for the first time, or domesticating fire, or Picasso creating Les Demoiselles Avignon?

Once they attribute intentionality (which is not the same as conscious intent), accurately or not, they recognise it as a creative act. — Possibility

I’m not sure about that. Are we talking about intentionality in the same way yet?

Edit: just did a quick read on intentionality. So we are not on the same page yet. I’ll think this over.

I understood the intentionality as acting on that abstract thought, not the thought itself. Once a personal understanding is reached about this ability to think in the abstract and form images of realities that are not present then they are able to consciously repeat the process at will. Of course that just leads to repetition which is useful in many circumstances.

Intentionality is a predictive distribution of effort and attention - it requires consciousness, — Possibility

Yes, this becomes a skill in time. We do it all the time without being conscious of it. In a way it’s a craft. Then I would agree that it’s intentionality is attributed. This can be applied to almost any aspect of life.

But I think that people who work in very original creativity, producing original ideas in art or maths for instance, do actually do it in a conscious way, but they also allow their mind to open up to possibilities that others may not put together. Because of this strange or unreal abilities are attributed to them and we begin to hear the word genius for instance.

I can see the first beginnings of controlling fire in that light or making sharp tools from flint.

An act is not recognised as ‘creative’ until an abstract thinker attributes intentionality - but the act still happens.
— Possibility

Do you mean by “abstract thinker” another person or the person carrying out the act?.
— Brett

Either - does it matter? — Possibility

I think so. How can people other than the one performing the act know it was intentional?

I’ve never heard Plato. Where’s he playing?

I think it’s worth taking into consideration that childrens’ minds are undeveloped, which would account for much of the wonderment.

An act is not recognised as ‘creative’ until an abstract thinker attributes intentionality - but the act still happens. — Possibility

Do you mean by “abstract thinker” another person or the person carrying out the act?. So unless there is a perceived connection between the creativity and the action then the act is random or meaningless.

Edit: so monkey see and monkey do is not creative.

That’s interesting. We survive because we’re creative. Creativity just happened, in its most basic form, as did opposable thumbs. From then on the actions and the result led to even more complex thought experiments leading to more life changing actions.

I’m assuming for a while there were completely original actions based on those thoughts. Then there were reinterpretations of those existing ideas. It leads me to wonder if we have long passed the point of originality and even reinterpretation and are now just shuffling the deck around.