[ox-en] Determinism.
- From: "Cardenas, Sandor" <Sandor.Cardenas elan.com>
- Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2001 17:16:12 -0800
Hello Stefen, All,
This is my first post to this discussion but Stefan's comments
seemed like a good starting point for the one item that has been sticking in
my mind.
Stefan, you stated: "Humans are formed by the society they live in."
This gives rise to the "Freedom vs. Determinism" question which I
found myself wrestling with a few years back.
By allowing that morals are the result of enculturation and not of a
more absolute nature it seems you are leaning towards determinism. If indeed
one is taught morals than the assumption that most if not all of your
reasoning has been taught to you is a small step. At this point one must
question if indeed any thoughts or decisions are our own or the product of
environment - and hence one is in deterministic territory. I myself used to
be strongly on this side of the fence as I felt it obvious that most of a
person's logic could be traced back to previous experience and one could
reasonably predict any future choices. While this was a logical succession
of though I felt it was lacking something and came to the following
conclusion;
If free-will is an illusion and along with it, self - as determinism
would have one believe - then I must realize that my life is meaningless and
I am nothing more than a complex portion of a larger machine. I don't like
that. In fact, I hate that. If I am to believe that I am capable of
authentic original thought than I am forced to dismiss this position. This
is bolstered by the realization that if indeed I am helpless in my choices,
my opinion on this matter has little weight - whereas if I am a creative
individual, I will be limiting my thought process to continue to remain in
the deterministic frame. This simple, completely unsubstantiated, and mostly
emotional conclusion may not be the best, or most correct logic - but I feel
it is, for now, the most productive position :)
I would also support my logic with an even less rational conclusion
- I know that some things are wrong. While much of morals may indeed be our
culture, I would put forth that each of us knows to our core that certain
things are wrong. Killing a person would be the most obvious example. While
it is clearly in any culture's interest to maintain a murder free populace
(I purposely limit this to the populace of the enculturating society and do
not address maintaining the health of other cultures as that is not relevant
to a society's own morals), I think there is a knowledge within each
individual that goes beyond this. This is all based completely on
self-examination and as such is easily debated, but I think for the most
part just about anyone will tell you that murder is wrong. Of course a death
may have many mitigating circumstances but as I do not wish to ramble any
more than I already have - I'll leave it at this.
Now - how this relates to the topic of this discussion (you thought
it would never come :)...
If indeed people have free-will than much of the labor division that
I've seen talked about here seems to be ignoring the simple fact that some
people will want to do X with their time whether or not this is in society's
best interests. They will also want to have a better version of X than their
neighbor. I completely believe that the majority of this thinking is a
direct result of current culture and it's very deliberate cultivation of
these thoughts - but is that it completely, or are these desires intertwined
with the human condition at a more basic level?
If the answer is no (as I certainly hope it is) than I think there
is a huge amount of thought that needs to go into transitioning the current
value system into one that is more in-line with the one required for a
utopian vision of society. It seems to me that until this hurdle is overcome
we engage in only conjecture with little hope for instigating actual change.
If the answer is yes than truly humans can not engage in such a free
structure as they are incapable of flourishing within such an environment. I
would also add that within such a system I would think that only one person
(or a group) of above average intelligence or charisma would have the
ability to subvert the original intentions to their own. Without becoming
tangential I'd offer that clearly people are easily misled. What types of
balances could counteract this type of insurgence without infringing on the
core ideal?
Perhaps this has been discussed on the german list?
-sandor
-----Original Message-----
From: Stefan Merten [smerten oekonux.de]
Sent: Saturday, December 22, 2001 7:04 AM
To: list-en oekonux.org
Cc: Stefan Merten
Subject: Re: [ox-en] Re: Collective Consciousness and Reaching the
Utopian Society
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Hi Aidan and all!
2 days ago Aidan Delaney wrote:
We also have the concept of Proportional
Representation in parliment elections, which differs from a referendum.
I
give candidates 1..n a preference from 1 to n. ie: n=13; Stallman [1], > ANOther[2] ... Bush[13].
I remember I once had the idea of a percent-based voting system. (For
sure I'm not the first one with the idea but I don't know whether this
has a name.) Every voter has 100% to spend arbitrarily on the number
of alternatives available. The interesting effect of such a voting
system is, that given three alternatives one person voting A:100%,
B:0%, C:0% can outvote two persons voting A:20%, B:35%, C:45%. To me
this looks like a softened veto system.
But this only BTW and nonetheless I don't like votes ;-) .
On the point. I have been reading the list. A lot of what we are talking
about is a 'Utopian Society'. I was recently talking to a friend who
believes that it is a naive goal. That the inherent 'badness' in people > means we will never reach it. My contention is that people are not
'bad/evil',
I don't believe human beings are neither "good" nor "evil" when born.
Humans are formed by the society they live in. And whether something
is considered good or bad is decided on the societal rather than on an
individual level. Individuals mainly reflect these decisions.
So talking of "good" and "bad" in a general way to me makes very
little sense. This is all very floating ground.
However, I'm a member of a certain culture. As a German I'm member of
the Northern/Western/"Christian" culture and from this I have some
idea of what I would like to see in society. This is the ground I'm
starting from. Others may have and do have other grounds to start from
- - and BTW I guess the concept of a GPL society sounds useful mostly to
people from the same culture group I'm stemming from.
One of the things I'd like to see is doing less harm to individuals as
well as to nature than the current society is doing to them. Sure,
this is floating ground again - but at least I know where I have my
ground ;-) .
So on the one hand I'm looking for mechanisms in our current societies
which may be considered the source of much harm. I for one think that
the basing on exchange is a very fundamental source of harm. This is,
however, only the criticism and unfortunately not the solution to the
problem. I think many, many, many people - leftists or not - are stuck
at this point.
On the other hand I'm looking for ways to organize a society we at
least could imagine doing less harm. In this situation the principles
we find embodied in Free Software to me look like a very sustainable
way of organizing things both, in an effective and less harmful way.
So I'm considering this a way of bringing us - i.e. including me! - at
least closer to a solution - and that's why I'm doing all this here.
they are just uneducated, yes including Hitler/Stalin (not
education in the University sense, but in the Egalitarian society sense),
and
we should aim for the Utopian goal through education, even though we may > never reach it. I believe that through iterative
education/positive-social-interaction (each generation is a new iteration)
we
can educate individuals in social integration (IMHO an internal concept in
Utopian Society), no-racism, non-violence, etc.... What do you guys/gals > think?
Sure, education has effects. But I think if the framework is not ok
you may educate as long as you want and getting nowhere. For a GPL
society I'd say education must be thought as a help to self-unfold
optimally.
Is the Utopian Society actually reachable? Is it more reasonable to
concentrate on a more reasonable (possibly non perfect) goal for society?
Personally I have been involved in some kinds of (leftist) political
activity for years. Today I think that others may do the job as well
as me, and for me - and I hope for the world - it is more useful to
spend my time and energy in this project :-) .
Mit Freien Grüßen
Stefan
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