> > I don't think that the level of
> > aggressivity is an ethnic trait
> > or even genetic.
> > Any such statement on "human nature"
> > is very suspect.
>
> Have you ever noticed the bully & the runt in a litter of puppies? Have you
> noticed some species of dogs as more predictably aggressive than other
> breeds? And please don't tell us as you always do that humans are
> 'different'; sure we're different, but we're still mammalian.
>
The bully tend to be the biggest puppy, the one with
the most expendable energy. Even in dogs,
aggressivity is "taught" by the human
who replaced the role of the alpha.
Even bull-terriers in a strong-controlled
but peaceful environment tend to grow up
docile.
You say we should not attempt democracy because
no animals live that way? And for the same
reason we should accept whatever an exploitative
and visibly insane social structure throws at us?
Than we shouldn't do poetry, science, etc, etc,
or even debate on the internet,
must be bad for us, it is against our animal nature,
I haven't seen any mammals doing it...
What a said apology for the support of
the capitalist system!
> > I am not aware of any present mongols
> > being more aggressive than other peoples.
>
> Another example of nature/nurture adaptive fitness is high altitude
> athletes who's genetic heritage, childhood development, and training
> increase their capacities/skills.
>
You are confusing physical/biologival and behavoral/social
traits.
>
> > Most research comparing such ethnic or
> > race differences are scientifically
> > contraversial to say the least.
>
> Evidence? Historical literature is full of genealogical lines with their
> dominant traits/characteristics. Do you think the attributions made in
> literature are unrelated to real experience? Pure tabula rasa fantasy?
>
So we should accept all the unscientific stereotyping
of historical literature as evidence?
E.g. That wellknown fact of thousands years
of history that women cannot think rationally?
Etc, Etc.? Are you serious??
People in the absence of scientific methods
end cientific data, made some patterns that had no
real base, only a self-fulfilling expectations
of set behavoral forms.
> I'm short, pensive, studied philosophy in univ., made enough $ trading in
> finance to retire young to organic gardening, and am 1/2 eastern euro jew,
> 1/4 german jew, 1/4 german christian. Kurtz (kurz) means short in german.
> Jews were historically good traders, and studied talmud (philosophy). In
> _Heart of Darkness_ (J.Conrad), Kurtz is a gloomy, philosophical
> businessman/trader. He is referred to in Eliot's poem "The Wasteland", and
> reappears as Colonel Kurtz in "Apocalypse Now". All coincidence?
>
Must be, because I am a 100% east-European jew
ethnically and I haven't
done any of these things. Besides being tall.
Jews learned to be good traders, as in a scores
of medieval countries they were not allowed to do
anything else. I happen to know dozens who are crap
at it, couldn't give a damn, do other stuff
well or live in poverty.
> > The level of allowed/legit aggressivity
> > is a social construct
> > (level of control expected i.e.
> > aggressivity tolerated), with individual
> > variation being a mixture of nurture
> > environment and the given chemical balance
> > of the nervous system.
>
> OK. You acknowledge a "mixture" of nurture/nature. So why throw out the
> "nature" by speculating that nurture can overrule it? A first & second
> order cybernetic feedback system is IMO the clearest way to approach the
> issues we've been slinging around these last weeks.
>
Everyone has a hardwired possibility to become
a psychopath in given circumstances. Nurture can
overrule it except for a very few cases of
physiological mental illness.
It is not a speculation but a fact you see
if you look around, our behaviour reflects
the social/emotional defects or plusses of
our environment.
Please tell me what points you are making with
these excerpts, I missed them.
Eva
> excerpted from abstract below:
> "Third, this is caused by autopoiesis (Greek for self-production), the
> recognition of the fact that all living organisms are self-steering within
> certain limits, and that their behaviour therefore can be steered from the
> outside only to a very moderate extent."
>
>
> better format on:
> http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Einmag_Abstr/FGeyer.html
>
> The Challenge of Sociocybernetics.
>
> By F. Geyer
>
> Felix Geyer
> SISWO
> Plantage Muidergracht 4
> 1018 TV Amsterdam
> Nederland
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> Full Paper
>
> Abstract:
>
> This paper summarizes some of the important concepts and developments in
> cybernetics and general systems theory, especially during the last two
> decades. Its purpose is to show show how they indeed can be a challenge to
> sociological thinking. Cybernetics is used here as an umbrella term for a
> great variety of related disciplines: general systems theory, information
> theory, system dynamics, dynamic systems theory, including catastrophe
> theory, chaos theory, etc.
>
> A distinction is made between first-order and second-order cybernetics.
> First-order cybernetics originated in the 1940's, exemplified an
> engineering approach, and was interested in system stability, and thus in
> feedback processes in automata and other machines which further equilibrium
> conditions and make them amenable to steering efforts. Second-order
> cybernetics originated in the 1970s, was based on biological discoveries,
> especially in neuroscience, and was interested more in the interaction
> between observer and observed than in the observed per se. It has led to a
> re-evaluation
> of many of the tenets of mainstream philosophy of science, which was
> implicitly based on a rather mechanistic and Newtonian clockwork image of
> the universe, stressed linear causality, and had a preference for order
> rather than disorder.
>
> Many of the concepts and procedures of first-order cybernetics admittedly
> seem useful for sociology: system boundaries; the distinction between
> systems, subsystems and suprasystems; the stress on circular causality;
> feedback and feedforward processes; auto- and cross-catalysis, etc.
> However, second-order cybernetics is more likely to influence sociological
> thinking in the future.
>
> This is due, first of all, to its insistence that the interactions between
> the observer and his subject matter should be included in the system to be
> studied, which leads to increased attention for phenomena like
> self-reference. Second, its basis in biology furthers its predilection for
> change rather than stability, for morphogenesis rather than homeostasis,
> and this may lead to an increasing stress on self-organization, and to a
> realistic awareness that sociological phenomena often cannot be forecast,
> but at best understood. Third, this is caused by autopoiesis (Greek for
> self-production), the
> recognition of the fact that all living organisms are self-steering within
> certain limits, and that their behaviour therefore can be steered from the
> outside only to a very moderate extent. Fourth, this leads to the
> continuous emergence of new levels of organized complexity within society,
> at which new behaviour can be demonstrated and new interactions with the
> environment become possible.
>
> Finally, attention is devoted to the emerging "science of complexity" -
> including neural networks, artificial intelligence, artificial life, etc. -
> while the methodological drawbacks of especially second-order cybernetics
> are discussed.
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Steve
>
> "To teach how to live without certainty, and yet without being
> paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy,
> in our age, can still do for those who study it."
> Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy.
>
