Marcus - > Glen writes: > > "What mechanism is responsible for these patterns of expectation, given (what > seems to me) a co-evolutionary milieu far from equilibrium? Is it simply > Hebbian/reinforcement learning, an embodied type of (false) induction? I'm > skeptical because of your (Steve) question about the unreasonable efficacy of > mathematics in modeling the world. Your mention of negentropy in this thread > seems spot on." > > Parents, educators, religious and political leaders and prison guards all > lower the dimensionality of the space of the possible. To confront a > complex world without a map or a rule book is a distraction and a drain. I > doubt many people take a different route to work every day just for the fun > of it. Likewise most people don't change their friends or their church > every week. I could go to several different coffee shops but I really just > go to one per vicinity. I could go to dozens of cultural events, some where > I would blend-in and others where I would not. I think this helps resolve my difficulty with this in my last post. It seems like an elaboration of "constraint provides form"? > Let a hundred flowers blossom but I'll have my Benadryl tablets nearby. > > People want to believe their life and tribe is worth something. To doubt > that is to doubt every thought and action. (Which they should do, but > simply cannot.)
Both points nicely profound. I think the "scoping of identity" is the core issue in how well this plays and how well it plays among different groups. The admonition that liberals engage too much in "identity politics" is probably an exposure of this difference. Taking up the cause of those who are *superficially* different from me in *similar ways* is one way for me to expand my scope of identity and empathy. Speaking/thinking of my black/brown/yellow/red brothers/sisters *as* brothers and sisters is just a matter of expanding my sense of self-concern to include a broader set, along with their (relatively) unique set of issues. Is the complement (identifying groups so as to anti-identify?) always a negative, xenophobic response? Is there anything like common ground/compromise/alternative perspective to unite those in each camp? - Steve ============================================================ 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 archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
