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@ThouAreThat,

TAT, i do not have the internet at home and have to use the library and i-cafe. i'm not going to be able to look at all the links you provide i'm sorry to say - but i am aware of another side to this debate. whether this is true or not I agree with Aedes: right or wrong - (and it's 12c in Feb here in London) fossil fuels are defintately finite. they will run out, and nations armed with nuclear weapons will be brought into conflict for ever decreasing reserves. we have to sort the energy crisis - and a technology compatible with a stable climate accords with the precautionary principle.

it's interesting tho' that there's a debate around a theory gleaned from astrophysics - absolutely uncontraversial when employed to explain the high surface temp of Venus, highly contraversial when applied here on earth.

further, it entirely accords with my overall theory that there should be such a controversy. where religion, nation and capitalism form the bases of analysis, scientific knowledgde is denied, distorted and abused as a matter of course, to paraphrase myself, used as a tool and ignored as a rule for the conduct of human affairs.

furthermore, i don't think freedom is the virtue it's made out to be. because it's an ideological concept, for many people liberty means economic slavery, and the unaccountability of government and buisness. the rich are enjoying enormous liberty while the poor enjoy the freedom to work for peanuts or starve.

where the Financial Times says 'Freedom, not climate is at risk' consider the source. i'll keep these links and check them out a bit at a time - with my spare few minuets after replying to you. that so, even if i were convinced, iot wouldn't change my philosophical approach or calls for a sustainable energy basis for human civilization.

if your concern truly is for the planet we all share and enjoy surely you don't want it be nuked to oblivion by nations depserate for oil, do you? maybe you think it's our fate - and would be amused by the look on St Peter's face when we all turn up at once!!!

fond regards, iconoclast.

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@iconoclast,

Aedes, i'm really sorry for not replying to your post of the 29th. Yet. i have put it on disk again and will look at it at home tonight. promise, iconoclast.

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@iconoclast,

Take your time Wink

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@iconoclast,

iconoclast wrote:

fossil fuels are defintately finite. they will run out...

"Question everything they say" - Krishnamurti

I like to keep an open mind, even as I look at widely accepted but unproven theories.("Fossil" fuels)

Could it be that Russellian science is true and suns and atoms are created by divided invisible light opposites centripetally projected toward each other? In one way it explains the sheer inexhaustible radiation of light as it is forced outbound from the constantly replenished center of gravity.

About the earth, could not the earth have the same modus operandi, where invisible divided light is projected into the polarities only to coalesce into inert gases of the octaves and forced through the crust upward?

I am putting these questions down as a possible link to the below quote:

From:
Ausubel, J.H. (2007)
'Renewable and nuclear heresies', Int. J. Nuclear Governance, Economy
and Ecology, Vol. 1, No. 3, pp.229-243.

Partial quote:

Quote:

Oil and natural gas use may peak in coming
decades but not because Earth is running out of them.
Not only do I reject the doctrine of resource exhaustion, I also reject the very notion
of fossil fuels. The prevailing theory among Western scientists is that petroleum derives
from the buried and chemically transformed remains of once-living cells. This theory
relies on the long unquestioned belief that life can exist only at the surface of Earth.
In fact, as the late Thomas Gold of Cornell University showed, a huge, deep, hot biosphere
of microbes flourishes within Earth's crust, down to the deepest levels we drill.
Consider instead an upwelling theory. Primordial, abiogenic carbon which we know
abounds on other planetary bodies enters the crust from below as a carbon-bearing fluid
such as methane, butane or propane. Continual loss of hydrogen brings it closer to what
we call petroleum or coal. Oil is very desirable to microbes, and the deep hot biosphere
adds bioproducts to the hydrocarbons. These have caused us to uphold the false belief
that the so-called fossil fuels are the stored energy of the Sun. They are not the stored
energy of the Sun but primordial hydrocarbons from deep in Earth. And they keep
refilling oil and gas reservoirs from below. The alternate theory of the origins of gas,
oil and coal will revolutionise Earth sciences over the next two or three decades, lift
estimates of resource abundance, and reveal resources in unexpected places.

http://phe.rockefeller.edu/docs/HeresiesFinal.pdf

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@iconoclast,

You say you "question everything" and you "like to keep an open mind", yet you selectively seek references from skeptical websites and selectively quote soft literature with an "antiestablishment" bias. So does this mean that you're not really questioning everything? Have you really taken the time to look at primary scientific literature on both sides of the issue, or are you just picking whichever consensus statement or review suits you?

The reference you've quoted above is irrelevant to the issue that our timeline of petroleum consumption vastly exceeds its production by the earth. So fine, it isn't finite, but if it will take 20 million years to replenish it doesn't really help us. It doesn't matter if oil comes from broken down peat swamps, if it wells up from the core of the earth, or if it falls to earth on a meteor, so long as we are dependent on it and we're using it up far faster than it's produced.

Furthermore, the dependance of certain microbes on petroleum is vastly overstated. One of the major areas of research in industrial microbiology is to create microbes that can, actually subsist on petroleum products. That would solve some of our major problems with hydrocarbon wastes (especially plastic and rubber). Thus far we don't have any bugs that can do it.

Your reference that you quote is absurd. Every oil company on earth is drilling for oil and natural gas in the ocean. That's what they're doing in the North Sea, the Gulf of Guinea, the Carribean, Alaska, etc. There's no mystery about oil deposits existing in the ocean. It so happens that for most of the history of life on this planet life only existed in the oceans, and it's also widely known that life exists on the periphery of deep sea vents. So what? That doesn't tell us anything new, so why use it rhetorically as if it does? They then cite Thomas Gold, who put forth this argument in a 1998 book -- but Prof. Gold did not "show" anything about a biosphere in the crust, because he didn't do any experiments.

Here is an article of his on the subject in PNAS:

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?artid=49434&blobtype=pdf

Neither his text nor his references show that there is a "deep hot biosphere". They only propose it. But even if he's right, it still doesn't address the finite nature of petroleum relative to our consumption, the already existing political and economic problems it has created.

Finally, you haven't addressed issues of pollution related to the burning of fossil fuels and the disposal of plastic and rubber products (and I refer to issues unrelated to the global warming discussion).

1 Reply

@Aedes,

Aedes,

As it's my purpose here to communicate a fairly simple but also quite subtle philosophical premise I'm afraid I must persist - for while it's clear that you understand my words, and understand my arguments in your own terms, it's equally clear that you do not quite grasp my meaning.

It's my premise that the problems we face in the world have a common root cause in false ideas. I adduced 'nation' as an example - hoping to make a distinction between concepts that are supported by scientifically valid knowledge, and those that are not - in order to show that action in relation to false concepts has false consequences.

You say: 'I do acknowledge that idea, but it's not as simple of course as the artifice of national borders.' That's so, but it is as simple as false ideas underlying our social, political and economic behavior. If you'll bear with me I'll explain.

Given a scientific basis of analysis, and therefore an evolutionary conception of the human being, it seems most likely that God was invented by man to explain his existence in the world - and that this concept was employed by primitive societies as an absolute authority for law. It might therefore be considered a hopeful hypothesis, but it's not a factual basis of analysis.

All the people of the society held this idea of God, and as it was an authority for law, it was asserted as an absolute truth and great taboos were formed against questioning it. But people with other ideas of God do just that. Thus, while the idea of God is in one sense an inclusive idea, it's also exclusive of others.

Thus you are correct where you say that a sense of togetherness pre-dated the establishing of European nation states, but this sense was fundamentally religious in character - and a double-edged sword. Any sense of togetherness fostered by religious identification was matched by a sense of separateness from human beings not of that group - and this was a very important justification for European imperialism/colonialism - a Christian 'civilizing mission' that did enormous damage around the world.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. For now, considering the development of the concept of nation, we must go back to the Treaty of Westphalia (1650) - which ended the religious authority the Holy Roman Empire and brought into being the first nation states. Admittedly, these were absolutist monarchies - whereas it seems you're talking about the founding of secular authorities - so far as I can tell from my fairly brief research of the dates you mention.

The signatories to the treaty were feudal kings - and of course the feudal system was founded by, and headed by the Church of Rome. The signatories took power unto themselves on the basis of the divine right of kings - a religious law dating back to 751 A.D., ending a century of religious conflict between Catholics and Protestants. (That's why to this day the French are mostly Catholic, the Germans and Dutch mostly Protestant.)

Thus, even if you say a sense of togetherness pre-dated the establishment of nation states, it does not confer legitimacy on the concept for the inclusive/exclusive dynamic was the result of religious ideas, and religion is scientifically groundless. We might reasonably hope that God exists - but asserting this as an absolute truth, and acting in relation to this 'truth' has false consequences - and not only is this at the root of all our problems, but addressing this is necessary to the solution.

Similarly, capitalism is scientifically groundless. The main features of capitalism were put in place by religious authorities to pay mercenary armies to fight in the crusades. Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations - if one considers that a founding document, draws upon these religiously conceived ideas. It's an ideology that acknowledges nothing but the factors of production - not the limited nature of resources, not environmental or human welfare - just the monetarily conceived inputs and outputs of the production and distribution of goods and services.

Just as, acting in these terms nations create these problems, nations cannot cooperate to address the extinction threats posed by the energy crisis, climate change and environmental degradation - just as they could not fulfill the promises they made to Africa and elsewhere in the MDG's. It's not insufficient commitment per se - though that's a consequence. The root cause is that it would be to act in contradiction of these scientifically groundless ideological concepts - religion, nation and capitalism.

Now here's the important part - the root cause of the energy crisis, climate change etc, is the same root cause of farm subsidies in the US and Europe. It's the same basis of analysis that ties us into dependence on oil, and that does not allow us to implement a sustainable energy basis for humankind, or reduce GG emissions to address climate change, that encourages the US and Europe to subsidize farming to such an extent they can dump grain onto the world market impoverishing billions of people.

You say: 'I think we do have a huge moral debt to the poor places in the world, because more than anything else it's been our policies that have exploited them (and continue to exploit them).'

But it's important always to remember that these policies were formulated to further national and capitalist economic interest - and will continue to be so while these ideas remain, they will act to benefit those on one side of the line on the map, irrespective of the effect upon those on the other side.

In these terms, from where you and I stand, Africans are not voters, workers, tax-payers or consumers - so on what basis do you suggest we owe them anything? If you uphold the validity of the line - as it seems you do where you say a sense of togetherness pre-dates the European nation state, Africans are not included. Surely you will argue that we owe them a moral obligation because they are human beings our self-serving actions have severely disadvantaged. I don't disagree as such, but you have to draw upon another basis of analysis: morality, in order that they get their due as human beings.

Not only is this philosophically unsatisfactory, but while moral obligation is a sufficient premise to send food aid, and to give to charity, it's not a sufficient premise to require developed nations to act in direct contradiction of their ideologically conceived interests on such a massive scale - as failure to meet the MDG's attests.

I'll give another example of the same dynamic: the supermarket I go to has a plastic-bag recycling box by the door, but behind the till there's shelf after shelf of goods brought in from all around the world, double-double wrapped in plastic and presented for sale. Do you see? They can only ever be tokenistic because it's contrary to the their core rationale - to buy, parcel and sell goods to the consumer.

It's only if we rid ourselves of these false ideas, and recognize that we are a single species occupying a single planet that these people are included. Maintaining these ideas, any action to help these people will only ever be a token of regret that our ideologically conceived interests have such disastrous consequences for them.

But if we accept science, we don't have to draw moral condemnation down upon ourselves for doing what is only rational - only recognize that action in relation to false ideas has (had) false consequences. The obligation is to the human species as a whole, to accept science and put aside these scientifically groundless, false and divisive ideas, for all our sakes. It's the ideology that must change - surely you see this. If not I will persist in explaining it.

high regards, iconoclast.

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@iconoclast,

TAT, im all for you proposing these mad theories - scepticism and imagination are vital to science.

'could not the earth have the same modus operandi, where invisible divided light is projected into the polarities only to coalesce into inert gases of the octaves and forced through the crust upward?'

if i knew what that meant, i could answer, but let's not confuse this wildly imaginative speculation with the real practical science underlying technologies we need to apply to prevent the human race becoming extinct.

that's the issue here.

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@iconoclast,

Iconoclast,
Thanks for taking the time and efort for this post.

iconoclast wrote:

It's my premise that the problems we face in the world have a common root cause in false ideas.

This gives philosophy far too much credit. The same problems arise within disparate governments, philosophical systems, and cultural systems. So if this is your premise, we've already diverged before what follows. And as you'll see, in this professional domain of mine, I find my experience, communications, and work to be very much at odds with your ideas on the subject.

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Thus you are correct where you say that a sense of togetherness pre-dated the establishing of European nation states, but this sense was fundamentally religious in character

That's not true. The unification of Italy and of Germany in the 19th century were secular movements, the French Revolution was secular, the American Revolution was secular, the Russian Revolution was secular, and the Spanish revolution was secular. The nationalistic states that existed at the outbreak of WWI were also openly secular, including France, England, Imperial Germany, Austria-Hungary, Tsarist Russia, and the Ottoman Empire. Imperial Japan, later on, was also secular. In fact I can't think of a single modern example of a nation state that was remotely, let alone fundamentally religious.

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and this was a very important justification for European imperialism/colonialism - a Christian 'civilizing mission' that did enormous damage around the world.

Colonialism and Imperialism were economic, military, and political movements. These did FAR more damage than the missionary aspects, which were little more than an afterthought. The export of 20 to 60 million African slaves was purely economic (and part of a greater economic system), the in situ genocide of 15 million Congolese under King Leopold was purely for the rubber trade, and the artificial divisions within Africa also had nothing to do with religion.

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Thus, even if you say a sense of togetherness pre-dated the establishment of nation states, it does not confer legitimacy on the concept for the inclusive/exclusive dynamic was the result of religious ideas, and religion is scientifically groundless.

I am not legitimizing the nation state. That's not my aim. The point is that the nation state (in modernity) is a function of national identity, i.e. the idea of being French rather than Burgundian or Norman, the idea of being German rather than Bohemian or Prussian, etc. And this national identity subsumed many religious and ethnic subdivisions. But this nationalism did NOT exist in Africa in any concert with the boundaries that were drawn. Senegalese did not see themselves as Senegalese before France got there -- they were Wollof and Mandinka and Peul and Jola, etc. And religion had nothing at all to do with these boundaries that were drawn, because most of Senegal (for instance) is Muslim but a small part of the south is Christian. Somehow it got lumped in there.

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We might reasonably hope that God exists - but asserting this as an absolute truth, and acting in relation to this 'truth' has false consequences - and not only is this at the root of all our problems, but addressing this is necessary to the solution.

While I'm fully atheistic, I don't see this as the root of any of the problems you're bringing up. It's just not.

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Similarly, capitalism is scientifically groundless.

No, actually, it's not, because it mirrors Darwinian competition.

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just as they could not fulfill the promises they made to Africa and elsewhere in the MDG's. It's not insufficient commitment per se - though that's a consequence.

Considering I know several authors of the MDGs and one who recently died was a friend and mentor of mine, their feeling is it's specifically insufficient commitment. And they have plenty of evidence to back that up. We've been talking about the MDGs at the ASTMH and IDSA meetings for as long as I've been attending. To attribute their failure to "ideas" is groundless.

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The root cause is that it would be to act in contradiction of these scientifically groundless ideological concepts - religion, nation and capitalism.

I'm sorry, and I appreciate your long and thoughtful effort here -- but this statement is baseless.

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In these terms, from where you and I stand, Africans are not voters, workers, tax-payers or consumers - so on what basis do you suggest we owe them anything?

Neither are babies. Neither are prisoners. Neither are pets.

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If you uphold the validity of the line - as it seems you do where you say a sense of togetherness pre-dates the European nation state

Line? I'm not following what you've said here.

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Surely you will argue that we owe them a moral obligation because they are human beings our self-serving actions have severely disadvantaged.

AND because we continue to worsen their disadvantage...
AND because they are so disadvantaged that they cannot do it without external help...
AND because it is in our vested interest to help them...

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I don't disagree as such, but you have to draw upon another basis of analysis: morality, in order that they get their due as human beings.

It doesn't take moral analysis at all, I completely disagree. It takes a rudimentary and honest economic and political analysis to plainly show how they are victims of our policies, and they continue to die because of them.

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But if we accept science, we don't have to draw moral condemnation down upon ourselves for doing what is only rational

Morality only works as a motivational tool. As long as human suffering is universally considered bad, and widespread suffering is extremely bad, then we will always have a way to condemn ourselves for the policies of ours that create widespread suffering.

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only recognize that action in relation to false ideas has (had) false consequences.

Don't give science too much credit. Science is constantly a work in progress, and you cannot build a society on it. The last people who thought they were doing that died in a bunker in Berlin in 1945.

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The obligation is to the human species as a whole, to accept science and put aside these scientifically groundless, false and divisive ideas, for all our sakes.

So what does science tell us about the housing market? Or about how to stabilize Iraq now that we've made a mess out of it? And what about where science is grossly at odds with ethics? I mean why not just go and sterilize all the carriers of the cystic fibrosis gene -- that would eliminate CF, the most common genetic disease of white people, from our society. Of course that would mean sterilizing 1 in every 25 people, but who cares about morality when we have a scientific answer to how to eliminate CF?

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It's the ideology that must change - surely you see this. If not I will persist in explaining it.

Everything is an ideology. The practice of science itself is a method, but the implementation of science can be an ideology just as much as anything else.

Best,
Paul

1 Reply

@Aedes,

Aedes,

The same problems arise within disparate governments, philosophical systems, and cultural systems.

Please. The whole world is religious, nationalistic and capitalist - so, what disperate systems? But even so, none of them honour a scientific undertsnading of reality and are therefore all false to valid knowledge of reality.

The unification of Italy and of Germany in the 19th century were secular movements, the French Revolution was secular, the American Revolution was secular, the Russian Revolution was secular, and the Spanish revolution was secular.

Secularism upholds the right to religious freedom. Secularism is in no way atheism - and athiesm is not necessarily scientific.

Colonialism and Imperialism were economic, military, and political movements.

JUSTIFIED as a Christian civilizing mission.

The point is that the nation state (in modernity) is a function of national identity...

This is all very Hobspawm, Bruely and Gelner, but i come from a different perspective. My project is essentially epistemological. the nation state is a development on a religious theme, and feudal kings continued to employ religious justifications for thier power. see Adrian Hastings 'The construction of nationhood.' or Andersons 'Imagined Communities.'

Senegalese did not see themselves as Senegalese before France got there -- they were Wollof and Mandinka and Peul and Jola, etc. And religion had nothing at all to do with these boundaries that were drawn, because most of Senegal (for instance) is Muslim but a small part of the south is Christian. Somehow it got lumped in there.

When did this happen? It's got nothing to do with the development of the concept, but it's imposition by one religiously defined national group upon another.

While I'm fully atheistic, I don't see this as the root of any of the problems you're bringing up. It's just not.

It's about epistemological approach - valid knowledge isn't accepted on merit, like knowledge of climate change for example. It's distroted and abused, and the electorate can't see the insanity of this because they've got a head full of religious lies.

No, actually, it's not, because it [capitalism] mirrors Darwinian competition.

If you want to make this socio-bilogical analogy (which i find wholly disingenuous) fundamentally, there's a cooperative strategy for survival underpinning all life on earth - the incorporation of mitochondira into cells - allowing them to produce energy internally and live in the true sense of the word. there's a whole raft of cooperative and symbiotic relationships in nature that are not reflected by Herbert Spencer's adage 'survival of the fittest' - so it's not even truly Darwinian. it certainly has nothing to do with the neo-darwinian synthesis of evolutionary theory and genetics.

their feeling is it's specifically insufficient commitment.

(i'm sorry about the death of your friend.)

but why is there insufficient committment? why make these promises and then just not act upon them? insufficient commitment i acknowledge is a consequence, by why are they insufficiently committed? did they forget? changed thier minds? they care, and know, and recognize the moral argument, the need and the opportunity enough to make the promises, but then failed to deliver. why? there must be a reason - and i suggest the reason 9they are insufficiently committed) is that it's a direct contradition of the ideologically concieved interests.

AND because we continue to worsen their disadvantage...
AND because they are so disadvantaged that they cannot do it without external help...
AND because it is in our vested interest to help them...

again, not disagreeing - but again, why?

It doesn't take moral analysis at all, I completely disagree. It takes a rudimentary and honest economic and political analysis to plainly show how they are victims of our policies, and they continue to die because of them.

But if not for moral reasons, why is this wrong? the point is that for systems based on religion, nation and capitalism, the moral is an externailty then cannot commit to and cannot deliver upon.

As long as human suffering is universally considered bad, and widespread suffering is extremely bad, then we will always have a way to condemn ourselves for the policies of ours that create widespread suffering.

But why should we Aedes? are we bad people? do we want these people to suffer? NO, we are not bad epople, just deluded in the ideas we uphold as absolute and unquestioned truths.

Don't give science too much credit. Science is constantly a work in progress, and you cannot build a society on it. The last people who thought they were doing that died in a bunker in Berlin in 1945.

Are you calling me a Nazi? Has science moved on since 1945 at all? Is yours a totaly specious - and actually quite offensive comment?

So what does science tell us about the housing market? Or about how to stabilize Iraq now that we've made a mess out of it? And what about where science is grossly at odds with ethics? I mean why not just go and sterilize all the carriers of the cystic fibrosis gene -- that would eliminate CF, the most common genetic disease of white people, from our society. Of course that would mean sterilizing 1 in every 25 people, but who cares about morality when we have a scientific answer to how to eliminate CF?

It seems you are. I'm not having that:

It's an accepted philosophical premise that one cannot derive 'ought' from 'is' - no matter how many 'is' type facts are gathered they never add up to an 'ought'. But we do it all the time. I see a car coming, and a woman and child stepping off the pavement into the road. She's distracted by the child and doesn't see the car. Should I stop her? Of course I ought to, but why?

My philosophy begins with an understanding of evolution as the accumulation of function, and in these terms conceptualizes human beings, showing how abstract conceptual thought, the defining characteristic of human beings, arose from unconscious, instinctual behavior as another level of function.

Abstract conceptual thought allows for the formation of conceptual schemes, employed to reconcile perceptions in non-contradictory relation to form understanding. These conceptual schemes are basically ideas - but in fact neurological structures developed by practice in relation to experience. Perceptions are limited, but accurate to reality. Thus, when I perceive the scene of the woman, child and approaching car - these are initially just perceptions devoid of meaningful content of any kind.

These are the 'is' of the philosopher's argument - but are never actually experienced. As Talcott Parsons assures us in 'A Theory of Social Action' - 'all talk of raw sense data or the unformed stream of consciousness is methodological abstraction, legitimate and important for certain purposes, but nonetheless abstraction.'

Raw sense data, (or limited, accurate perception) is gathered, but processed before it's experienced - and processed in a manner that imbues the data with meaning. The perceptions are reconciled in terms of conceptual schemes, that stimulated by perceptual data imbue perception with meaning.

Because these neurological structures are developed by practice in relation to experience - including inner reflection - the individual would have to be massively deranged by experience to experience the meaningful content of these perceptions as an imperative to watch these people get run over rather than an imperative to call out a warning.

Is it impossible that someone might be just so deranged? Perhaps not, but there's no stipulation of abnormal psychology in the 'ought' from 'is' argument. Indeed, we'd expect to be dealing with normal reason.

In the course of a normal life, the individual will experience many situations that are in some way like this. Observation and practice make for the formation of the neurological structures that imbue these perceptions with their ought-ness. Only hugely abnormal experiences (not conducive to individual or social function) could result in neurological structures that would reconcile these perceptions in such a way that the individual experience an impulse to watch them die.

1 Reply

@iconoclast,

iconoclast wrote:

Please. The whole world is religious, nationalistic and capitalist - so, what disperate systems?

North Korea is neither religious nor capitalistic. The Vatican isn't nationalistic; for that matter neither is the Sudan, which has had a civil war from pure lack of nationalism for a generation. Scandinavia and Japan aren't religious.

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But even so, none of them honour a scientific undertsnading of reality and are therefore all false to valid knowledge of reality.

I am somehow not able to visualize this utopian state you're proposing. Say it exists -- how will it use science to respond to Pearl Harbor or 9/11? How will it use science to respond to an economic depression? How will it use science to respond to charismatic religious leaders who appeal to people's fears and superstitions? I don't think it's possible, nor should it necessarily come to pass.

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Secularism upholds the right to religious freedom. Secularism is in no way atheism - and athiesm is not necessarily scientific.

They didn't uphold religious freedom in secular Soviet Russia, secular China, or secular Nazi Germany.

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JUSTIFIED as a Christian civilizing mission.

No, they were not. Even in the most egregious example of missionary activity, i.e. the Spanish colonization of the Americas and Carribean (which happened during the Inquisistion), "Christian civilizing activity" was a rhetorically minor justification (and in practice a minor activity). Colonialism was all about military power and access to resources.

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My project is essentially epistemological. the nation state is a development on a religious theme, and feudal kings continued to employ religious justifications for thier power.

Feudalism was gone long before the era we're discussing here.

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When did this happen? It's got nothing to do with the development of the concept, but it's imposition by one religiously defined national group upon another.

Nonsense. It had to do with where the French military met the British military, which controlled the River Gambia, and where the Portuguese military controlled the area south of the River Casamance.

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It's about epistemological approach - valid knowledge isn't accepted on merit, like knowledge of climate change for example. It's distroted and abused, and the electorate can't see the insanity of this because they've got a head full of religious lies.

Again, I disagree. The political rhetoric is mostly non-religious, and the root problem is in our crappy education system. Our education isn't compromised (much) by religion -- it's compromised by crappy schools, crappy funding, and extrinsic constraints (like the idiotic no child left behind act).

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but why is there insufficient committment? why make these promises and then just not act upon them?

Because the people writing the goals are not the people spending the money. Simple as that. Just as we can write and adopt conventions about genocide, and yet fail to uphold them EVERY time there has been a genocide since then. If you gave polio experts the money that it takes to build one F-14 fighter, polio would be eradicated from the planet within 1 or 2 years. But the subject experts don't have the funding -- they simply appeal for it.

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NO, we are not bad epople, just deluded in the ideas we uphold as absolute and unquestioned truths.

Like which ideas?

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Are you calling me a Nazi? Is yours a totaly specious - and actually quite offensive comment?

huh? where did you read that? Don't internalize this, I'm not talking about you.

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Has science moved on since 1945 at all?

Yes, but science was pretty good in the 1930s and 1940s, and bar none the MOST scientifically advanced country in the world at the time was Germany. The best physicists, chemists, psychologists, and some of the best philosophers came from Germany (and Austria). The Nazi state prided itself on science, and their appropriation of science became the template for their racial and diplomatic policies. And in fact Germany would have had a nuclear bomb had Hitler not abandoned the program in 1941 or 1942. The point is that science can easily become a rationalization for all the **** we do to one another, and since it has no moral voice it cannot stop us from doing this ****. The human mind has all its emotional and irrational prejudices speaking in louder voices than its reason; but we worship our reason enough to convince ourselves that our irrational processes are actually reasonable.

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My philosophy begins with an understanding of evolution as the accumulation of function

Well, you're in diametrical disagreement with evolutionary biology, then. Evolution is not accumulation of function -- it's genetic change over time, which includes loss of function.

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and in these terms conceptualizes human beings, showing how abstract conceptual thought, the defining characteristic of human beings, arose from unconscious, instinctual behavior as another level of function.

And yet doesn't necessarily have supremacy over subconscious thought. They work in parallel and they come into conflict.

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Raw sense data, (or limited, accurate perception) is gathered, but processed before it's experienced - and processed in a manner that imbues the data with meaning.

Some of it. We have many many senses that are processed unconsciously or subconsciously as well, and these indeed may inform our consciousness in ways that are inaccessible to abstract consideration.

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And so would the scientist, by abstracting an 'ought' from an 'is'. I can tell you that "you ought to stop smoking to avoid heart attacks", but what I'm really doing is merging two concepts: 1) "there is a statistically substantial risk of heart attack observed in smokers compared with nonsmokers, and this risk is mitigated by quitting smoking; and 2) I assume that you, as a fellow human being, share the common feeling that we want to avoid painful, debilitating, and potentially lethal illnesses, and therefore you ought to behave in a way that achieves this.

But medicine isn't pure science, and I can relay many examples from my own experience in this field. So do you want scientists running the world, and unable to use the "ought"? Or do you want people who understand and apply science, like doctors or engineers, running the world, and incorporating the "ought" in order that we actually do something? If so, then we've got all the emotional and irrational baggage that enters into the "ought", and religion is just one of many influences on that.

1 Reply

@Aedes,

Aedes,

So i said that all the world's religious, nationalist and capitalist. you give me North Korea, Sudan and the Vatican State - the exception rather than the rule. To produce an exhaustive list would be a little excessive just to support what is afterall a relatively uncontraversial statement. Many of your arguments are of this nature - and after you upbraided TAT for pretending to open-mindedness while in fact adducing any wild evidence in support of a determined skeptcism.

My whole argument is that the ideological dynaimics of society stand in the way of what we need to do - not just energy and climate but MDG's - you unreasonably refuse to accept this and then say:

'Because the people writing the goals are not the people spending the money.'

this is an ideological dynamic.

I understand. From your point of view you've got to hope that the moral argument is sufficient to overcome 'insufficient commitment' - for if you acknowledge that these problems are an ideological externality, they're much more difficult to address.
Example: Climate change protester at the Make Poverty History rally - correct in terms of moral conscience, but conflicted on a meaningful level. 'Make Wealth History? I don't like the sound of that!'

that's you that is, so you say: 'I mean why not just go and sterilize all the carriers of the cystic fibrosis gene -- that would eliminate CF, the most common genetic disease of white people, from our society. Of course that would mean sterilizing 1 in every 25 people, but who cares about morality when we have a scientific answer to how to eliminate CF?'

If there is a way to tackle CF - it'll be scientific, but we won't be able to afford it! Off the top of my head I'd say some combination of genetic screening and gene therapy - as opposed to tying people down and cutting their nuts/uterus's off. That said, I don't know enough about the condition to speak authoritatively - but I do know there's no scientific grounds for mass sterilization, and to attribute that to science is a baseless and specious argument you adduce simply to poke holes in an idea you don't want to acknowledge, despite the fact YOU KNOW I'M RIGHT!

Just admit it, a.t.b, iconoclast.

1 Reply

@iconoclast,

iconoclast wrote:

Aedes,

So i said that all the world's religious, nationalist and capitalist. you give me North Korea, Sudan and the Vatican State - the exception rather than the rule.

You said "all". I said "not all". And I still disagree with your point, but it would require more detailed discussion for you to demonstrate why you think, for instance, that Canada or New Zealand is a religious state and why I probably do not.

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My whole argument is that the ideological dynaimics of society stand in the way of what we need to do - not just energy and climate but MDG's - you unreasonably refuse to accept this

Maybe if you gave a single example of an "ideological dynamic of society" then I could respond less generically.

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and then you say:

'Because the people writing the goals are not the people spending the money.'

this is an ideological dynamic.

No, it's a practical dynamic. The MDGs were neither invented nor mandated by Congress, but they are (in large part) funded by Congress.

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From your point of view you've got to hope that the moral argument is sufficient to overcome 'insufficient commitment' - for if you acknowledge that these problems are an ideological externality, they're much more difficult to address.

As I said above, the practical argument should be sufficient as well, because it's in our practical best interest to achieve these goals.

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Example: Climate change protester at the Make Poverty History rally - correct in terms of moral conscience, but conflicted on a meaningful level. 'Make Wealth History? I don't like the sound of that!'

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that's you that is

I'm not making a moral argument or protest, and I have no idea how this example of yours has to do with me. I'm not some little protester here, nor am I some armchair philosopher. I'm arguing from professional experience in international health and development, and you're twisting this as if I'm some angry college kid.

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If there is a way to tackle CF - it'll be scientific, but we won't be able to afford it! Off the top of my head I'd say some combination of genetic screening and gene therapy - as opposed to tying people down and cutting their nuts/uterus's off. That said, I don't know enough about the condition to speak authoritatively - but I do know there's no scientific grounds for mass sterilization

Yes, there is a scientific ground for that. It's not the only way we could tackle CF, but if for ha-has you mathematically modeled it, it would be perhaps the most efficient way of eliminating that gene.

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to attribute that to science is a baseless and specious argument you adduce simply to poke holes in an idea you don't want to acknowledge

no, it's not, it's a perfectly legitimate example of where a scientifically sound argument that could be easily demonstrated with a simple mathematical model and cost-effectiveness analysis would violate a very basic moral.

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despite the fact YOU KNOW I'M RIGHT!

I'm sure you think you are. But even I, who champion science here more than most, and with a career in academic medicine and medical research, can hardly find anything to agree with in your ideas here.

But maybe it's because you haven't given us much more than generalities here. Let's hear how your utopia would work in real life. You have your ideal state, this scientific and rational utopia. Start by telling me how you'll deal with poverty and prejudice, then tell me how we'll deal with illegal immigration, then tell me how you'll deal with self-proclaimed religious leaders who pop up every now and then.

1 Reply

@Aedes,

Aedes, You are nit-picking.

Surely you know I'm summarizing a much broader understanding of evolution with emphasis on features significant to a particular argument. And yet you say: 'evolution also involves loss of function' - implying therefore my arguments are based on faulty premises. That might be a valid correction if 'loss of function' were significant to my argument, or important to your counter-argument. But loss of function isn't at issue. It's just a cheap shot. I'll give another example:

I say: 'Thus you are correct where you say that a sense of togetherness pre-dated the establishing of European nation states, but this sense was fundamentally religious in character.'

Your response is: 'That's not true. The unification of Italy and of Germany in the 19th century were secular movements, the French Revolution was secular, the American Revolution was secular, the Russian Revolution was secular, and the Spanish revolution was secular.

You're deliberately misunderstanding my point. On the one hand I'm talking about these issues in an evolutionary context - and would thus first put religious identity at the heart of society to explain the transition from hunter-gatherer tribes to multi-tribal and social ways of life, while on the other hand, above I said that: 'considering the development of the concept of nation, we must go back to the Treaty of Westphalia (1650) - which ended the authority the Holy Roman Empire and brought into being the first nation states.'

The unification of Italy, and that of Germany in the 19th century might have been secular movements, I don't know, but so what? They are wholly irrelevant to the point I made, that a religious sense of identity was central to the formation of the first nation states in the 17th century. You might as well have cited the reunification of Germany in the late 20th century - that was a secular movement too! But if you want modern examples: Pakistan. Israel. The Islamic Republic of Iran. Northern Ireland. Kosovo.

Please stop criticizing the brushwork and look at the picture - because, if you precede any argument with deliberate misunderstanding of the underlying premises - and employ phrases like 'your ideal state, this scientific and rational utopia' - it prejudices subsequent discussion to such a degree it would be futile to explain. Why, so you can poke holes in what could only be a speculative exercise? No, let's start from the VERY REAL problems we face - threats of extinction that cannot be addressed by the system you defend.

iconoclast.

1 Reply

@iconoclast,

iconoclast wrote:

And again, if you begin your philosophy with something that's wrong, then what does that mean for all that follows? You can have whatever understanding of evolution you want. But if accumulation of function is your premise, then you're wrong. I've spent too much damn time in my life actually doing evolutionary biology research, to humor abstract arguments about evolution that bear little resemblance to evolutionary science.

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Surely you know I'm summarizing a much broader understanding of evolution with emphasis on features significant to a particular argument.

Yes, I realize that. But you're doing it sufficiently selectively that your whole premise is wrong.

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And yet you say: 'evolution also involves loss of function' - implying therefore my arguments are based on faulty premises.

Yes, that IS what I'm saying, though to be more complete it's not simply because you selectively ignore loss of function; rather, it's because you view evolution solely in terms of those superficial phenotypes that support your premise, neglecting all those that don't, and further neglecting the fact that evolution is a genetic phenomenon with highly variable phenotypic consequences.

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That might be a valid correction if 'loss of function' were significant to my argument, or important to your counter-argument. But loss of function isn't at issue.

Well, if evolution is significant to your argument then loss of function also must be. We have lost certain functions since departing from our primate ancestors. And we haven't lost some functions that critically impede us from achieving this scientific utopia of yours (about which you still haven't provided details).

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It's just a cheap shot.

You haven't directly answered a single challenge of mine other than naming centuries-old states as examples of religious states. Of the modern nation states you've named, ONLY Iran is self-defined religiously; not even Israel is, and it so happens that the Iranian populace is among the least religious and most secular of any country in the Muslim world. Beyond this quibble, which doesn't get to the actual matter of whether they're built on some objectionable ideology, you haven't expanded on the generalities of your theory at all, and instead of making a real conversation about this you're just getting defensive and arguing about the argument.

If you're going to put forth a philosophical theory here, you'd better be ready to take critique. I've put forth valid critiques based on a LOT of experience in several fields you discuss. But no, my critiques are a cheap shot. I'm interested to hear your ideas developed. But you need to find another audience if approval is what you're after.

1 Reply

@Aedes,

But you need to find another audience if approval is what you're after.

No, just a fair hearing.

Evolution is not accumulation of function -- it's genetic change over time, which includes loss of function.

Evolution is in fact a scientific theory describing a process of ...

Cheap shot!

if you're going to pick apart my words this way i'm not inclined to put my arguments forward - simply to be ridiculed. the ball's in your court - if you think you can engage in a constructive way, great, because i'd enjoy comment from someone of your obvious intelligence and undoubted professional experience.

atb, iconoclast.

1 Reply

@iconoclast,

Aedes, please, tell me what you think of this.

In the logic game 'showing pennies' two players each show a coin simultaneously. If both coins are the same, heads or tails, player 1 pockets the coins, and if they are mixed player 2 keeps the coins. If the object is to gain coins, the best strategy each can adopt is to guess what the other player will show. The probability of guessing correctly is the same - 1:2 for each player.

But what if player 1 could know what player 2 would show? It would be illogical to continue with a strategy based on guesswork. Logically, player 1 should use this knowledge - arranging his own coin to win the game, and given perfect knowledge should win every game. But could he be made to choose the unwise strategy? The experiments of the social psychologist Solomon Asch suggest he could.

'In Asch's standard procedure, a single subject was seated at a table with a group of 7 - 9 others (all confederates of the experimenter.) The group was shown one card with three vertical lines of different lengths, and members of the group were asked to judge which of the lines was the same length as a line on another card. Each individual announced his or her answer in turn, and the subject was seated second to last. The correct judgments were obvious and on most trials everyone gave the same (correct) response. But unknown to the subject, on several predetermined critical trials the confederates had been instructed to give the wrong answer.
The results were striking. Even though the correct answer was obvious, the average subject conformed to the group consensus on 32% of the critical trials, and 74% of subjects conformed at least once.' (Psychology. Atkinson, Atkinson, Smith and Bem. 1993. p.759-60)

Here a group of strangers cause 74% of subjects to override their own judgment in obvious and apparent matters of fact - and 32% to abandon their own judgment altogether.

Imagine then that distant ancestors of player 1 had guessed the outcome of all the games, and had written this down and passed it on from generation to generation as if it were the absolute truth. When player 1 was born, with deep seriousness they taught him this series of heads and tails so that he knew it by heart. They lavished praise upon him when he got it right and threatened and beat him if he got it wrong. Worse yet if he dared to question the validity of the series - he would face being punished and ostracized from the group.

Now, given perfect knowledge of the outcome of each game it's unlikely he would use this knowledge. Even as the games progressed and he lost coins he clearly could have won had he employed knowledge of the outcome - Asch's experiments suggest he would remain bound by social expectation.

This analogy illustrates the effect of religion on the use of the valid knowledge provided by a modern scientific understanding of reality. Of course, in reality it's far more complicated. It's not patently obvious that religion is at the root of the problems faced by humankind, but can sometimes appear to be the last bastion of comfort and hope in an increasingly hard and troubled world. Equally, it's not obvious that a scientific understanding of reality provides a better way. Rather, as religiously opposed groups use scientific knowledge as a tool to create ever more deadly weapons it can seem that science itself is the enemy.

It's therefore important it be recognized that this describes science used as a tool by religiously opposed groups in political, economic and military competition - not science recognized as valid knowledge and accepted as a rule for the conduct of human affairs.
In scientific terms there are no human groups. Because the people of any one 'ethnic' or 'racial' group can produce fertile offspring with the people of another, there is no fundamental validity to the divisions between people. Humankind is a single species occupying a single planetary environment.

Therefore, in scientific terms there are no nation states. Nations are human constructions - lines drawn on maps, re-drawn by warfare between religiously defined groups. This can be shown to be accurate with reference to historical record - just as it can be shown that the main features of capitalism were developed by religious authorities in order to pay mercenary armies to fight in the Crusades - a series of religious wars between Christians and Muslims for possession of the 'Holy Land.'

Together, religion, nation and capitalism do not allow for recognition of the truth-value of scientific knowledge - and this is the root cause of extinction threats now mounting like huge dark clouds on the horizon. In order of immanence they are the energy crisis, climate change and environmental degradation. Overpopulation is also a threat in that it exacerbates all these.

For example, in the 1950's the American President (Eisenhower) was briefed on the theory of climate change resulting from carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere from transport and industry powered by fossil fuels. The theory was gleaned from research in astrophysics - attempting to explain the high surface temperatures of the planet Venus. In this regard the theory is wholly uncontroversial and soon became the accepted explanation, whereas applied to Earth the science has been ignored, distorted and denied for more than half a century.

After publicly denying any link between industry and climate change, in 2005, President George W. Bush explained to British television news anchorman Trevor McDonald that he refused to sign up to the Kyoto agreement, and refused to order cuts in greenhouse gas emissions because it would damage America's economy.

This is not because alternate technologies are unavailable. 120 years ago, in 1890, Professor Paul La Cour used wind generated electricity to electrolyze an aqueous solution of sodium hydroxide to produce a hydrogen/oxygen gas he used to heat and light the high school in Askov, Denmark where he worked. 70 years ago, in 1939, Rudolph Erren, (a German-Jew who fled to Britain to escape the Nazi's) converted scores of trucks to run on hydrogen fuel, and recommended using excess capacity of generated electricity to create hydrogen for this purpose. Nonetheless, this knowledge and these technologies have still not been applied.

In the second paragraph we said 'But what if player 1 could know what player 2 would show? It would be illogical to continue with a strategy based on guesswork. Logically, player 1 should use this knowledge - arranging his own coin to win the game, and given perfect knowledge should win every game.'

Science is not perfect knowledge - it's valid knowledge, but less than a complete understanding of reality. That so, even if player 1 could only know half the time what player 2 would show, he could win all the games of which he has knowledge and half the others - giving him 3:4 of the coins.

Therefore, in order to increase our probability of survival it's vitally important to acknowledge and act in relation to what science does know, for in this way we act in increasing accord with the reality we inhabit. For this reason I have proposed that nations must form a global government constitutionally bound to honor a scientifically valid understanding of reality, and obligated to act to secure the continued existence of the human species.

If this doesn't occur - humankind will loose all its coins, everything gained by those countless generations who came before us, and who we honor by upholding their best guess at what it's all about - in face of opposition from those upholding other guesses.
It is illogical to continue with a strategy based on guesswork. We must have the courage to oppose the wrongful consensus - and aspire to become a rightful consensus meeting upon the level ground of a scientifically valid understanding of reality.

1 Reply

@iconoclast,

iconoclast wrote:

This analogy illustrates the effect of religion on the use of the valid knowledge provided by a modern scientific understanding of reality. Of course, in reality it's far more complicated. It's not patently obvious that religion is at the root of the problems faced by humankind, but can sometimes appear to be the last bastion of comfort and hope in an increasingly hard and troubled world. Equally, it's not obvious that a scientific understanding of reality provides a better way.

Look, I'm with you here, but it's not as simple as religion versus science, at least generically speaking. During early to mid medieval times science was valued far more highly and liberally in Islamic lands than in Christian lands. So here we have two geographic neighbors, both religious in their own way, and the Islamic one makes advances in medicine, astronomy, navigation, mathematics, and philosophy that didn't come about until centuries later in the Christian world (and only after a lot of cross-fertilization between the two cultures). And yet in modernity the opposite seems true -- the Christian-dominated world is now the epicenter of modern science, and the Islamic world is struggling to define itself.

My hypothesis (and this is not based on professional experience of mine, just my amateurish interest in the subject) is that it's not so much ideas that hold science back. It's other circumstances, especially socioeconomic and demographic, that influence both religion and science. You find that in times of hardship societies have less ingenuity and they turn more to religion. It's no wonder that science never really took off in Europe until the Renaissance (and later), as the society became more prosperous, more populous, developed much more stable states and governments, and by virtue of these successes they also gained access to the ideas from other places.

Now, I do think that there were some specific features in medieval Christianity that constrained science. Specifically, as classical philosophy became more and more incorporated into Christian theology, what was once science now became part of a religious cosmology. Thus, thinkers like Ptolemy and Aristotle and Galen became dogmatized, and scientific developments could be dangerous if they challenged church dogma.

Does this exist in modernity? Sure, to some degree, but a great deal has happened since then. I think modernity, or more strictly speaking postmodernity has an attitude of self-criticism and self-ridicule that has never existed before in human history. And this pertains especially to science. There is a secular skepticism of science that is actually stronger than the religious skepticism of science, and this hits me in my job all the time.

Why? It's not because of the failings of science, so much as it is the idea that humans have repeatedly overestimated and misused science. In a century of mind-boggling scientific advancement, we also have the Titanic, industrial genocides, nuclear bombs, oil spills, air pollution, fear of epidemics that we can't control, disasters like Katrina, and a growing public awareness of medical errors.

So now on a nearly daily basis I have to deal with patients who are interested in alternative therapies and practicioners, who are convinced that conventional medicine cannot help them, who are opposed to starting new medications, who look all kinds of **** up on the internet and directly challenge medical recommendations, etc. In the UK the situation is terrible with vaccinations, with skepticism of vaccines coming out of very soft science, leading to some of the lowest vaccine coverage rates in the developed world (and consequently pertussis, measles, mumps, and rubella outbreaks).

Again, none of this (or extremely little) is coming from religion. It's coming from a "new age" type secular culture in which even science and medicine themselves are seen as dogmatic, non-progressive ideologies.

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In scientific terms there are no human groups.

Yes there are:

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Because the people of any one 'ethnic' or 'racial' group can produce fertile offspring with the people of another, there is no fundamental validity to the divisions between people. Humankind is a single species occupying a single planetary environment.

We are one species, but humans can be divided in innumerable ways genetically. There are biomedical differences between people of different "races", genetic differences, and phylogenetic differences. That doesn't make these ethically important, but they ARE important. It makes more sense to screen Jews for Tay-Sachs disease and black people for sickle cell disease than the other way around. It makes more sense to treat hypertensive black people with diuretics rather than ACE inhibitors, and this is specifically because of the biology of hypertension in this group. These are a couple among MANY biological differences that separate people. They need not have moral or ethical importance, but it's not correct to say that there is no scientific difference between humans from different racial backgrounds. What is correct is that the different races in themselves don't constitute biologically definable groups; but insofar as they are descriptively definable, there ARE biological differences.

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Therefore, in scientific terms there are no nation states.

What does science have to say about nation states? Nothing. Just as science has nothing to say about comic books. Nation states, kingdoms, empires, etc, are a form of sociopolitical organization that humans have chosen for themselves. Science doesn't inform this, nor does science invalidate it.

I have some historical disagreement with what you've written about the Crusades (which were only superficially religious -- and the only recognizable capitalism at the time came out of the mercantile states in northern Italy), but that's food for a different debate. But to be sure, much of the Crusades had to do with inter-Christian conflict, specifically the Papal domain versus the Byzantine domain, rather than conflict between Christians and Muslims. After all, the Crusades only happened because of the Schism earlier that century, and and ultimately it was the Crusaders who sacked Constantinople, not the Muslims.

That aside, I feel that natural science has no access to economic theories anyway, so no economic system is going to be born from science itself. We can be scientific about it, though, by evaluating ourselves and revising our system as time goes on.

Finally, just as you object against "artificial" divisions within humanity like "race" and like "nation states", one could just as easily object against a pan-humanism as scientifically baseless:

So what if we're all human? It's clearly biologically determined that we prioritize nuclear family over extended family, extended family over friends, friends over nation, and nation over world. We are socially relativistic. We congregate with "like" people, and this is true throughout the world. And we choose leaders with whom we identify, and we want to have leaders. Perhaps the "nation state" itself, per se, is artificial, but the process of creating a nation state is natural. Why should an Inupiak family from Greenland, a Dogon family from Mali, a Maori family from New Zealand, and a Yagua family from the Amazon want to share one common economic system; how could there ever be one central government, free of divisions, that would appeal to all groups in the world? The United Nations is a weak and lopsided microcosm of what a world government could be like, and you can already see how its members fundamentally differ in what's good for the world.

2 Replies

@Aedes,

Aedes, Oh right. Thanks for clearing that up. Good luck with everything. iconoclast.

0 Replies

@iconoclast,

So would you like to take this opportunity to describe specifically what religious ideas are holding us back? Or specifically how a pan-global state is supported by science? Or specifically what a science-based state would constitute?

I have objections to your general principles, but we might find our points of view closer together if you would actually elaborate on them. Or we might make some progress if you'd actually read and respond to my comments rather than just giving up here.

This topic affords opportunity for a productive discussion, so it would be unfortunate if you aren't interested in developing it further.

0 Replies

@Aedes,

Hello Aedes, I'd like to respond to part of your post if I may.

Aedes wrote:

So what if we're all human? It's clearly biologically determined that we prioritize nuclear family over extended family, extended family over friends, friends over nation, and nation over world. We are socially relativistic. We congregate with "like" people, and this is true throughout the world. And we choose leaders with whom we identify, and we want to have leaders. Perhaps the "nation state" itself, per se, is artificial, but the process of creating a nation state is natural.

I find this statement true especially in light of the way other primates socialize. I agree that the tribe/clan mentality is in play in humans as well, and may account ultimately for us creating nation states. I think that it is only natural for us to group in these ways from family outward expanding to nation states. My question is why do we have to stop at nations states and not continue this unifying trend until we unite as one global entity? This doesnt mean we would have to get rid of nation states or any of the sub groups, it just means the strength and validity of the centralized rulling body would have to be greater than the UN.

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Why should an Inupiak family from Greenland, a Dogon family from Mali, a Maori family from New Zealand, and a Yagua family from the Amazon want to share one common economic system;

I think there would be great advantages to there being a global ecinomic watchdog that had teeth, to at least level the playing field and help pramote general ecinomic health (WTO?). Not that the ecinomic details of each group would be mandated but the global econamy has potential to benifit all, or benifit some while unfairly restricting others.

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how could there ever be one central government, free of divisions, that would appeal to all groups in the world?

Yes, this is a very good question. Personally I fear corruption, loss of liberty, and collosal buracracy.

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The United Nations is a weak and lopsided microcosm of what a world government could be like, and you can already see how its members fundamentally differ in what's good for the world.

I too am very disapointed in the UN (disapointed with Cofee Anan). We must press forward though and find a way that could somehow hurdle the barriers placed before us. Ironically the very things that could raise us up become our deviding boundaries; religion, philosophy, ecinomics, nation, race. I think that globalisation actually helps us see our connectedness and brings the totality of man more near the valued clan/family.

Aedes, you know history and the world much better than I so I'm really interested if you think globalization is bad or dangerous and on what level could it be helpfull? And as a man of science, do you think science or any one branch of science could be applied more ernestly to solve global problems?

Iconoclast, I know you have limited internet time, but I look forward to hearing your thoughts if you get a chance. Smile

1 Reply

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