society

Watchmakers, yes, VERY BROADLY defined. I think of societies as changing, not evolving, as having histories but not evolutions. Some may say that by moving from the simplist bands to complex state systems human social life has "evolved." I think it has perhaps developed but not in the same way that biological systems have developed. Societies can "devolve" in that sense; they can, so to speak, "go backwards" from states to primitive organizations as a result of catastrophes, but biological systems do not return from whence they came.

There's evolution the biological theory, and there's evolution the word that means "change over time." I'm not sure anyone is contending societies evolve in the biological sense.

That sounds fine.

JLN wrote:


The way I see it there is not one single thing that is not subjected to evolution. Be it the moon's trajectory or the dessert served tomorrow at the holiday inn, they're both results of causality's neverending and everending activity.

I've said in an earlier post that I even consider the thoughts in my head to be evidence of evolution taking place in me continously. Or at least, I experience continuity.


Nietzche wrote:


Change over time as opposed to change out of time? There is only change over time, that is why everyting is evolution.

One of my few disagreements with Nietzsche is his conception of evolution. He was a Lamarkian, holding that acquired characteristics were passed on between the generations. This was not meant only for culturally transmitted learning. Somehow what is acquired in experience was passed onto the future genetically. That's clearly in contrast with the Darwinian notion of how biological change occurs. Without the process of random mutation and natural selection we are not talking about evolution in the Darwinian sense. The term, evolution, can be used for change if one wishes, but then the term becomes trivial, as in stating the obvious: "the world is changing." Causality is not itself evolution, in the specific and limited way I think we may best use the term. Evolution includes causation but not all causation is evolutionary.

JL, am I correct when I say that you limit the term evolution to apply only to the process of random mutation and natural selection?

I have always thought of evolution as the progress of the presence. I see causality as the drive behind this, the causa sui, so to speak. If I am correct in my assumption of how you use the term evolution, then there must have been a time that can be classified as pre-evolution, a time before organic life existed.

JL, when talking about natural selection devolve is not a real term. Evolution is evolution, positive or negative. And yes, biological systems frequently revert to earlier forms. That's what junk DNA is for.

"There's no such thing as society."

Mrs Margaret Thatcher.

Damn her, she copied me! She must have invented a time travel machine just so she could steal my quote!

Cryacuz, I agree. There's no such word as "devolution" in the context of evolutionary theory--and that's because it doesn't occur biologically. But it can occur in the realm of social change, i.e., moving "backwards" from complex to simple social organizations.

Spendius, Thatcher denies the existence of "society" because of her gross individualism. Sounds like Ayn Rand.

Are you talking about revolution?

Sometimes the simpler "organizms" can be better suited to survive than the more complex ones. We (humans) sometimes forget that we do not neccesarily know what is the best and finest among natures wonders. We can determine what is more or less favorable to us, but that is really the limit of our ability since we do not know our own purpose or the purpose of evolution.

The term "revolution" is a giveaway. Evolution takes a step toward something similar to a previous state, and we call it revolution.

You may frown upon my mixing of political and biological terms. But...

...If monkeys suddenly broke out of their tribes and adapted a simpler social system, would it be evolution or revolution?

My point is simply that if we want to get as close to the truth as possible we need to see all species equally. Not animals and humans, nature and society. We need to see our society as the equivalent of the social structures of other species, because on this level there are few differences.

Cryacuz, I don't know how to respond. I will say that I use the term, revolution, in politics in contrast to (1) the status quo (i.e., no change), and (2) rebellion. Rebellion is where some portion of a society "rebels" against the leadership replacing them with members of their own ranks. Nothing has changed but personnel. The social structure remain intact. In the case of revolution, however, the structure itself is overthrown, as when changing a monarchy to a republic.
I don't have any way to contrast revolution with evolution except to contrast them in terms of abrupt vs gradual change, but in that case "abrupt" and "gradual" are better than revolutionary and evolutionary change.

My point was that if a society of humans change their social structure it's revolution, but if a society of another species does so it is evolution.
Revolution, as I understand it, is a form of evolution, applied whenever humans are involved.

Interesting distinction: "My point was that if a society of humans change their social structure it's revolution, but if a society of another species does so it is evolution."

If other species do so, it is, I gather from your use of "evolution", a biologically driven and species-wide phenomenon.
In the case of humans, it's a consciously engineered phenomenon limited to specific societies. And those societies could (in principle at least) change their mind.

Wouldn't you say that a society of humans that are driven by hunger and fear to revolt against their dictator is a process biologically driven? At least partly.

We tend to ignore the effects of nature whenever we're dealing with our own business, and assume that there are humans in control in every aspect along the line, and that nature does not have any say in this.

If a change occurs in a group of primates we start looking for the cause, and not among the members of the group. We try to determine a biological cause for the change. Why do we not do that when the society is human?

Cryacuz, I grant that a revolution based on hunger is in part a physiologically driven event. But that is not the same kind of event as an evolutionary quantum change based on the interaction between genetic mutations + environmental challenge. And I think that most revolutions (as opposed to rebellions, as I deflined them earlier) are ideologically driven and led by a class of leaders who are not particularly hungry and sometimes not even concerned for the welfare of the hungry.
I also grant that in our search for explanations we tend to look for the physical CAUSES of behavior in other animals and mental REASONS (motives, strategies, goals, etc.) for human behaviors--except for pathological behavior; then we look for pathogens, psychological conflicts, etc.).

JLN, I agree with you that we'd be hard pressed to label a revolution as something akin to the evolution you describe. But the point I was making, and wich you have made evident in your post, is that we look for either causes or reasons, depending on what we're looking at. This strikes me as a sort of prejudice, though a not entirely useless one.

There is a possibillity that all the mental workings of a human amounts to the same mental activity that a mule has. Who knows. There might be levels of existence that we are oblivious to. If animals exist in some perfect dreamworld they would have less inspiration to evolve, to learn language, to grow into more complex organisms.

We do not know that we're the most intelligent beings on this planet, and though my thoughts here are far fetched, I cannot simply brush them away.

I started thinking about the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, where the author brilliantly writes: Humans think they are smarter than dolphins because they have cars, buildings, wars, inventions etc, and the dolphins just play around in the water all the time. The dolphins think they're smarter for the exact same reason.

That shows how "facts" do not speak for themselves; they must be interpreted.

That's true JL. And the facts are interpeted on the basis of other facts, wich in turn were interpeted on the basis of others... Do we really know anything? If there was one miscalculation somewhere along the line, and all other interpetations are done on the basis of that, then we could be way off..

Cryacuz, you ask if we can ultimately know anything. I suspect you know the answer to that. The question addresses the entire field of philosophical epistemology. I do not believe in absolute truth, as something attainable by humans, but I do believe that thinking can serve pragmatic goals, that all is interpretation and that some interpretations are better, more useful, than others with regard to some criteria of evaluation. I do believe, however--and this is a mere matter of "faith"--that ultimate Reality, while not knowable intellectually, IS our true nature and that self-study, in the sense of meditation on pure experience, makes that available to us. THEN, we lose interest in absolute truth and use our intellectual powers more realistically (pragmatism). I need to include art somewhere in this picture. Some other time.