This is not particularly relevant to Dave's essay but was stimulated by his questions about physical attraction between genders. I was puzzled while watching the Golden Globes (for a few minutes) by the apparent conflict between the themes of "Me Too" and "Time's Up"(?) and the very provocative display of women's bodies. I wonder if Jacques Lacan's insight that "Man's desire is the desire of the other" is relevant. In this case: women want to be desired but not to be possessed or seduced. Note that their bodies are on display to who-knows-how-many strangers. A warm, affectionate relationship with that number of men is not possible. On the other hand, maybe it's a question of asserting alphaness among women. I don't presume to know whether either speculation is the case.
Frank ---- Frank Wimberly www.amazon.com/author/frankwimberly https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2 Phone (505) 670-9918 On Feb 14, 2018 3:42 PM, "Prof David West" <profw...@fastmail.fm> wrote: > Until this week I was blissfully unaware of Jordan Petersen. Two hours of > YouTube research later my beta male mellow has been well and truly harshed. > Be that as it may, the area of "evolutionary psychology" is interesting and > I would like to respond to Nick's request to discuss it further. > > I apologize in advance for the length of the post. > > At the outset I would assert that Peterson's assertions have nothing to do > with evolutionary psychology as I understand it because the 'evolution" in > question is *biological* evolution. The grounds for this assertion will > follow a bit of story telling. > > Once upon a time there was a context (we will call it Nature, or Gaia if > you want some personification) and a homogeneous population of organisms. > Nature provided a plethora of distinct and distinctive niches; into which > the organisms flowed and began to exploit. Most often each niche required > some kind of particularistic change in the organism occupying that niche > and voila - adaptation. > > if the niche were static, if Nature was static and unchanging, we would > have diversity but no evolution. The diversity could mask itself as > 'evolutionary' just because adjacent niches could marginally idiosyncratic > requiring marginally idiosyncratic adaptations and we have finches with > different beaks. > > Evolution requires either: change in the niche or differential efficiency > among the organisms (otherwise homogeneous) occupying that niche. If the > rate of change in Nature is slow enough or the efficiency gradient is not > too steep, the conditions are created for adaptation over time. True the > finches adaptations occur over time, over generations of finches, but one > more element is essential for evolution as I understand it — an increase in > complexity. > > It is this 'adaption over time' along with 'increasing complexity' that > naive people like me take to be "evolution." > > Our most primitive ancestors were a product of this kind of evolution - > biological evolution. > > Our most primitive ancestors almost certainly had a "psychology" given > that the only requirement to develop one is sufficient "self awareness" > (sorry Nick) to differentiate between 'this' and that' with 'this' very > rapidly becoming "I" and 'that' becomes anything and everything else. > > Now "I" and 'other' is kind of lonely. and probably not a good adaption or > evolutionary move, so gradations of 'Other' ensue and we have the > foundation for "Us" and "Them" and "Other." This allows basic social > organization and interaction of the sort we still see in primates and would > have seen in among our most ancient ancestors. > > The closest approximation to what was, would be the few hunter-gatherer > societies known to cultural anthropologists and the recreations that arose > when archeological findings were compared to extant hunter-gatherers. It > would not be unreasonable to assume that the 'psychology' of these > ancestors was the product of biological evolution as much as the > physiological evolution. > > So - first test for Petersen: were "alpha males" present in those > societies? If yes, then he has some, minimal, grounds for asserting > evolutionary psychological roots for his current claims. > > Unfortunately for him, the answer is no. The closest approximation would > be 'leadership' roles. But those roles were - as near as we can determine - > both situational and ephemeral. Herd of bison walking by? The most > experienced bison hunter assumed leadership and organized the band to run > them over a cliff. Hunt over? So is the leadership. > > The only person in the group that had lifetime status as a result of > specialized ability was the shaman and SHE was definitely not an alpha male. > > Shortly after the emergence of the "I" came language and, very > importantly, story. The ground is set for an alternative, mostly > complementary, form of evolution — cultural evolution. Instead of waiting > to evolve fur, like the polar bear, so we could inhabit the arctic, > cultural evolution led us to wearing the polar bear's fur instead. > > Here Petersen might, but I doubt it, find some antecedents for his > absurdities. E.g., > -- unless it has happened in the last decade no one has ever been able > to explain why 'men hunt and women gather', a pretty universal division of > labor in hunter-gatherer and antecedent cultures. > -- why have all cultures (excepting one small group on the south of the > Black Sea a few thousand years ago) been patriarchal? (There are lots of > matrilineal cultures, but that is different.) > -- why, according to anthropologist Maria Lepowski, is there only one > culture, in historical times, based on sex/gender equality. (The pre-WWII > Vanuatu.) > -- why, statistically speaking, are men attracted to women having the > appearance of fecundity (physical symmetry, developed breasts, width of > pelvic girdle, hence hips) and women are attracted to men with the > appearance of power (fame, money, social position, all being secondary > indicators). > > Don't shoot the messenger for the last one. Merely reporting what was > learned in a year long university course in sex and gender across cultures > - historic and prehistoric. > > davew > > > > > > On Wed, Feb 14, 2018, at 9:20 AM, Pieter Steenekamp wrote: > > It may be difficult to quantify evolutionary psychology, but that does not > mean it is pseudoscience. Like string theory that's also difficult to > quantify, the scientific method is also applicable to evolutionary > psychology. > > I support the view as expressed in https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/ > Evolutionary_psychology: > "Just as Darwin's theory of natural selection was almost immediately > perverted to justify cruel bigotry (Social Darwinism, eugenics), so > evolutionary psychology is readily twisted to buttress prejudice. This does > not make evolutionary psychology wrong, any more than the brutality of > Social Darwinism made evolutionary theory wrong, but it does suggest that > claims rooted in it should be assessed very carefully, both by those > reading them and those writing them." > > On 13 February 2018 at 23:07, uǝlƃ ☣ <geprope...@gmail.com> wrote: > > I remain fascinated by the neoreactionaries (most of whom have ceded their > soap boxes to their alt-right offspring). And Google's tendency to promote > fringe garbage (https://www.wired.com/story/g > oogle-autocomplete-vile-suggestions/) landed Jordan Peterson in my > Youtube recommendations awhile back. Based on the videos Youtube > recommended, he sounded like a typical right-wing pseudo-intellectual. But > when I noticed Sam Harris taking him seriously, I thought I'd look a little > closer. Sure enough, the majority of his online lectures spout fairly > reasonable (albeit justificationist) rhetoric ... a lot like Harris and > fellow right-wing flirt Jonathan Haidt, both of whom appeal to our > xenophobic friends for differing reasons. > > I'm reminded of the argument I made on this list some time ago that, > although I believe open source is necessary for pretty much all things, it > *facilitates* nefarious action by obscurity. Because your library (e.g. > RSA backdoors or JavaScript cryptocurrency miners) has so much code in it, > and is just one library in a gamut of libraries you invoke, there's > absolutely no way you can *trust* that stack ... even if it's FOSS and gets > lots of eyeballs. > > Peterson, Harris, and Haidt, rely on the overt reasonability of 90% of > what they say in order to Trojan Horse the racist or otherwise questionable > content of the other 10%. Sure, they make a *technical* effort to weight > their assertions. And that's laudable. (Slate Star Codex and Alexander's > ilk do this well with their "epistemic status" rating, displayed fairly > prominently most of the time.) But this raises the reason I'm posting this > to FriAM. The quote from the Alternet article is (should be) provocative: > > https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/rights-favorite-n > ew-intellectual-has-some-truly-pitiable-ideas-about-masculinity > "Devotees of the pseudoscience of evolutionary psychology are fond of this > particular maneuver: locate some behavior in the more ancient branches of > the tree of life and project it forward across eons to explain little > Johnny pulling little Susie’s pigtails, or the collapse of Lehman Brothers, > or the Holocaust, or whatever. In any case, I like to imagine the > diaphanous, energy-based extraterrestrials in their invisible starships, so > unutterably alien that they gaze upon man and lobster and can’t tell them > apart." > > In particular re: Peterson, I've actually *used* (although mostly > jokingly) the alpha- beta-male (false) dichotomy at cocktail parties ... to > justify why I, as a proud beta male, am a wallflower. But now, I'm worried > that (like the many memes I learned from my libertarian friends) it's not > merely a useful fiction, but complete garbage: > https://youtu.be/YTyQgwVvYyc > > -- > ☣ uǝlƃ > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove > > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove >
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