h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

>Yes, and if you read my post I didn't say that Darwin said survival of the fittest is about strength and domination, I said that is a common understanding of the term. And that that understanding comes from the fact that we view nature as being about competition and domination. And that is a cultural view.
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There are two different things here. The coloquial use of terms like competition, and the scientific meaning. Competition as defined by Neo Darwinian biology is basically about genes. This is about how successful a particular gene is, in reproducing its genes in the gene pool. This can be brought about by, eg something as passive as wind pollination of plant grass species, or how quickly a particular bacterial species can become resistant to an antibiotic. (I get seriously p*ssed off about all the concentration on Mammalia in these discussions. Lets hear it for the Platyhelmiths, the Bacteria, the Echinoderms ...the whole clucking kingdom of Plantia that never get a mention).

I'm genuinely confused by what you are *exactly* driving at, kea. Maybe I'm just thick?

Popular culture seizes upon a concept in one context and totally misrepresents it in another. Wasn't it ever thus?

I'm saying that the popular misunderstanding of survival of the fittest has come about because we are taught that nature is about competition (in the non-scientific sense) and survival of the strongest. And the reason we are taught that is because of our cultural perceptions and world view. It's not universal to see nature that way.

And, that those perceptions are why we are so disrespectful of nature and do so much damage.

People who experience life as being interconnected and themselves being part of that tend to be more respectful... or careful of the world they live in (and I include Westerners there, because obviously there are many individuals who care deeply). That is at odds with the belief that the world is mechanistic and there for the taking.

Our collective beliefs determine (to an extent) what we do.

~jwf~ I do love how you undermine my protestations at Ed's assertions And in the nicest possible way Hurray for contradictory realities and both/and universes.

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I have another question: do you see women being able to achieve equality within the current patriarchal systems we live in? How?

Ha! Now that's a big question. Suffice to say...it will take a helluva lot more than a shift in mindset.

To give a historical example - take the Women's Suffrage Movement in Late 19thC/ Early 20thC Britain. One way in which they changed the system was by lobbing bricks at politicians. But equally - perhaps more - significantly, change was achieved after a period in which female labour was required to support the war effort. The material circumstances changed the culture.

>Hurray for contradictory realities and both/and universes.< kea

Yep now you're talking...But I wouldn't exactly say 'hurray' from personal experience. More squirming in strong discomfort from perception of the conflict between the subjective and the objective.

Well that's the language I'd try to simplistically explain it as.

Me:
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Actually...I think what I'm saying is that culture *is* biology...and I don't think I'll get any argument from you about that.
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Kea:
>>You might Ed, if I understood. What do you mean that culture is biology?

Well I'm being reductionist, I guess. Culture is the sum total of our behaviour, yes? And behaviour is biology.

(If you think culture is something different - please explain.)


Note that what I am *not* saying is that culture can be predicted from genes, physiology etc. It involves a hugely complex set of interactions and as such the low-level language of biology is not necessarily the best way of talking about culture. Nevertheless, it must be understood that all the varied cultures on the planet are minor variations of biological themes. I don't think this reductionist view is particularly 'Western' - or if it is, it's only recent.

>>>Hurray for contradictory realities and both/and universes.< kea

So long as we remember they're simply different perspectives on the same thing.

Incidentally...a couple more Straw Men, kea, that I'd like to pull you up on.

First of all...you keep referring to 'The Common Understanding' - usually in contrast to the (more sophisticated, I hope) ideas that others are putting forward. I don't think you'll get any disagreement that a lot of people are mistaken about a lot of things - but I don't think I've been defending this notional Common Understanding.

Secondly...the idea that some of our perceptions are shaped by our lack of contact with native cultures. Does it *really* come down to a game of 'I know more Maoris than you do'? ( to soften the barb - text communication sometimes looks more aggressive than intended)

Jeeze you two, do you have to post so enticingly just when I'm about to go to bed?

I'm still fairly uncomfortable with this idea of a *generic term* of 'native peoples'. Maori aren't native peoples of NZ anymore than Europeans are. They arrived there only a few hundred years earlier, from their Pacific island homes, and wrought every bit as much havoc on the native ecology, isolated from humans, as did the later European invaders. In no way can one compare NZ Maoris with Aussie Aboriginals who had been in Oz for around 60,000 years. And it's speculated that if Maoris had got to Australia before Europeans, Aboriginals would have been pushed off their lands, much as the bushmen were by the Bantu in South Africa.

>I'm about to go to bed<

Yes, material circumstances change the culture. I'm not sure if more so than what... political activism? One is accidental, the other intentional?


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Nevertheless, it must be understood that all the varied cultures on the planet are minor variations of biological themes. I don't think this reductionist view is particularly 'Western' - or if it is, it's only recent.
<<

I'm still not understanding what you mean. Culture compared to biology would be a virtual reality wouldn't it? You couldn't look at it physically. That's why I find it confusing when you way culture is literally biological.

You really want it all to be material don't you?

(and we're being so good not turning this into a conversation about god ).


>>
the idea that some of our perceptions are shaped by our lack of contact with native cultures.
<<

Maybe it's more that we're disconnected from our own nativeness that is the problem. And this becomes apparent when one spends time with native peoples or listens to them.

I'm sure I do know more Maori than you But that's just an accident of geography more than anything else. It's an observation I've made before though that the English in NZ (immigrants) are often pretty bad at getting the issues surrounding the Treaty here, because they find it conceptually difficult to understand that they come from a dominant culture and can't see that they come from a dominant culture. The Scots and Irish are better at it because they understand colonisation only too well.


But I don't think geographical proximity is necessary for understanding. I've had to learn how to think differently by learning some Chinese world views and I've not had that much to do with Chinese cultures directly. So any of us could learn from native peoples if we can suspend some of the western world view long enough.


"Common understanding" - what was that?

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I'm still fairly uncomfortable with this idea of a *generic term* of 'native peoples'. Maori aren't native peoples of NZ anymore than Europeans are. They arrived there only a few hundred years earlier, from their Pacific island homes,
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I'm using the term native in the cultural sense not the biological sense. Europeans have been here 150-200 years (as a people). Maori have been coming here in successive waves of immigration for 1000 most likely (depends who you talk to). Maori stories tell of peoples that were here before them.

So yes I am using the term native fairly generically, for expediency, in the same way I am talking about Western cultures.

There is something else here though, and it's to do with spirituality and relationship with the land. So even though Maori might be seen as simply earlier immigrants, their relationship with the land is qualitatively different than what the Europeans have/had. That's the world view thing again.


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and wrought every bit as much havoc on the native ecology, isolated from humans, as did the later European invaders.
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Er, no. They certainly did have an impact. They brought the rat, which was the first mammalian predator here and that had a devastating impact on wildlife. They also hunted some species to extinction. I suspect because they arrived from much smaller islands and couldn't believe how abundant food was here. At some point however they realised what was happening and developped cultural practices that put limits in place on resource use.

Europeans did far more damage in 150 years than Maori did in 1000. Mind you, we took a mere 150 years to chop down most of the trees, whereas back home in the UK we took what? 1000 years to get rid of them all?

And, for all our advanced scientific knowledge we are simply incapable of stopping ourselves from further destruction. We know for a fact that we are still losing bird species but apart from some isolated attempts we're not really doing anything about that. In fact it's probably getting worse.

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In no way can one compare NZ Maoris with Aussie Aboriginals who had been in Oz for around 60,000 years. And it's speculated that if Maoris had got to Australia before Europeans, Aboriginals would have been pushed off their lands, much as the bushmen were by the Bantu in South Africa.
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Maybe. I do agree that Maori have a history of colonisation of their own. There are some interesting differences though when compared to what the Brits did here.

Have you read Tim Flannery's The Future Eaters, which includes discussion about the number of species gone extinct in Australia pre-European colonisation? i.e the impact that Aboriginal cultures had on the place.
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kea:

>>You really want it all to be material don't you?

Yes, you got it. Yes, Material is *all*. And, no, Culture is *not* 'virtual reality' . Culture is all the things we observe - dancing, shopping, body painting, internet menes...and so on. Granted the when we think about the relationships between these, we link them together in a conceptual framework. But we only observe this framework through another set of behaviours - language.

>>Maybe it's more that we're disconnected from our own nativeness that is the problem.

No, no, no! Stop this pre-lapsarian tosh at once! How far to you want to go back to reach this 'nativeness'? Do we have to stop at the pre-industrial society? Or pre-agricultural? Or when?

kea in reply to Frs:
>> I do agree that Maori have a history of colonisation of their own. There are some interesting differences though when compared to what the Brits did here.


Have you read 'Guns, Germs and Steel' by Jared Diamond? He would argue that the difference was simply that as a result of the geographical environment from which they emerged the European colonists had greater destructive means at their disposal.

So virtual reality (cyberspace) is material as well? Obviously the computers and wires etc that contain the space are, but the actual communication itself?

We don't have to go back in time at all It's all about the land, it's right under our feet. Can't get more material than that. But of course it's the relationship with the land that's the crucial bit, and yes, different cultures do that differently. But there's no reason at all that your culture or mine cannot be native in the sense I have been meaning.


How about chi then? Let's use that as an example of distinctly different world view because it avoids the problems you have with nativeness, but it lets us discuss something that the materialist world view has a hard time getting to grips with. It also allows us to talk about what the materialists reject as non-material (and therefore non-existent) without having to talk about religion.

I'm suggesting this because while I accept that you are liberal enough to understand and allow cultural difference, I'm not convinced yet that you have had the experience of thinking outside the western mindframe. So it seems to me that you are arguing for an ideology without tasting the other ones first.

*

I haven't read that book of Diamonds so I don't know how he considered the differences in cultures (i.e. did he really get it?). I have no doubt that some cultures would wreak destruction given the right tools, but that doesn't mean all would.

One of the differences apparent here is that Kai Tahu (the last wave of Maori colonisation in southern NZ) intermarried with the existing tribes. The Brits didn't. Well they did initially, because they didn't bring their own women. But later they abandoned their Maori families and took their land. So with Maori there was more a merging of cultures. With the Brits there was overt and intentional attempt to wipe the natives cultures out. This isn't to say that Kai Tahu were angels (they certainly weren't). But there were distinct differences.

So you're going to tell me that cyberspace is made of spirit stuff, are you?

It's a serious metaphysical question, of course. But one that's been settled, surely? When we talk about 'culture' (or 'cyberspace' or 'thoughts'), we're simply simply using shorthand to mean a states of the physical. Further, those states are indicated to us by material phenomena (what people do or say; whether a book arrives from Amazon).

Yes - it's reductionist. But it's the only game in town.

But please - tell me what else culture is.

(Sleep on it, if you like. )


>>How about chi then?

Look - I used to do Tai Chi. Good stuff. Gets you fit and relaxed. But do I think it promotes the flow of Chi around the body? Well...it's one way of thinking about it - but show me some Chi. There are perfectly good material explanations of why it works, though.

Spirit stuff, I guess, as long as you mean stuff we can't measure rather than the Holy Ghost.

Leaving aside thoughts, because otherwise we'd have along pointless conversation about whether they are solely neurological (yes say you, no sat I), how is a concept material? Where are its atoms?


>>There are perfectly good material explanations of why it works, though<<

Go on then, enlighten me

And of course, if you have a material explanation that satisfies you, that removes the need to talk about different cultural concepts.

>>Gets you fit and relaxed<<

The Chinese think it does more than that. And it's the more than that require beyond reductionist thinking.

I can't show you chi any more than I can show you air. See, westerners have just forgotten how to breathe.







Need to make this clear. I don't believe in 'spirit' in a supernatural sense. So please don't put me into part of the dichotomy you have in your mind I think it's all natural, part of this world. I just don't believe that we're anywhere near clever enough to reduce it to something we can understand with the rational mind. And it's the belief in the superiority of the rational mind that is limiting us at this point in time. I say that as someone who is bilingual. Still waiting to see if you are willing to learn another language.

>>Yes - it's reductionist. But it's the only game in town.<<

Which means you pay lipservice to other cultural realities. That's a form of imperialism IMO.



At least the bed will be warm from the electric blanket having been on for so many hours...

Kea:

if thoughts, feelings, etc. are not material, by what mechanism to these immaterial things(?) communicate with the material brain/body?

is it possible, in principle . . . A42586266