The Ancient Conflct Between Tribal Beliefs and Non Tribal Theories



"g" gillawton@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:-

1. Ideals are absolutely essential to maximization of happiness for the
majority of members of a society.
That is to say that, without certain ideals, there would be no
compromise in a dog-eat-dog relationship
among humans. If the ideal of "character" were not so widely held,
it seems reasonable to say, then no one
could trust anyone, and all of us would be justified in thinking as
sociopaths think;

JE:-
Subjective ideals must be entirely separated from theories of nature
otherwise either one may pollute and destroy the other.

Rational human action requires _both_ beliefs and theories. They are not
totally competitive because they only view the SAME universe through
different filters. However in mentally healthy people they are REQUIRED to
work together. The big danger is that one becomes "mistaken" for the other,
i.e. political SPIN will happily substitute one for the other destroying the
critical difference between them. In evolutionary theory mathematics (which
was proven to be a belief by Godel) can be employed to just politically spin
a simplified/over simplified model into a full blown theory of nature, e.g.
Hamilton's Rule destroying the science of evolutionary theory in the
process.


2. Science is an ideal. In fact it is an unachievable ideal. It is
grounded on the assumption that humans
(or at least SOME of us) have: a. the capability of honest and
meticulous observation; b. the capability of
rigorous postulational thinking; c. the capability of being honest
with self; d. the capability of being
honest with others; e. the capability (rare among us) of coming up
with creative models for explaining
empirical phenomena in new and different ways that fit the facts even

more neatly than any prior ones;
and, ... other assumptions NONE of which Freud (or any neo-classical
or anti-classical) psychiatrist
I know of would assert any individual human, nor group of humans, is
capable of. Yet, there ARE those
who believe in the ideal of science and who, as a result, are lifted
up, as it were, to their highest and best
potential for behaving and thinking scientifically. Am I a
subscriber to the ideal of science? You
betcha;

JE:-
If you delete Popper's refutation tool it becomes impossible to separate
belief from theory so science becomes sacrificed to a tribally based
political spin.

3. Do myths serve humanity well? Yes and no. There are myths which --
without regard to whether they
are anything more than _beliefs_ serve the cause of contentment and
peace among large numbers of
humans. Most definitely. Are there myths the belief of which lead
at times to mob mentality, persecution
of those with minority opinions, injustice, mass psychological error
(such as the mass dumping of stock
market equities on October 29, 1929)? Obviously;

JE:-
Beliefs have a very important _intellectual_ role. The intuitive "holistic"
brain (loosely the right brain) views the world quite differently to the
more dominant (mostly in the west) logical left brain. Most beliefs reside
in the right brain as something like a dream. It appears this side of the
brain mostly views the universe of functions (hot, cold, round, square etc)
without necessarily discriminating between different objects that have a
similar function, i.e. all round things may become classified as the same
object by holistic induction. OTOH the deductively logical left brain
appears to do the opposite. It views the world as a deductive series of
objects without necessarily getting the functions of all these objects
correct.

The most difficult thing for the more arrogant logical left brain to ever
understand is that all of its precious deductions originated from just an
induced apparition created in the holistic dream world working hard, mostly
on the other side of the corpus callosum. These CRITICAL guesses
(inductions) are termed "assumptions". In any theory they dominate as
"absolute assumptions" (which are NOT the same thing as "absolutes"). They
provide a NECESSARY deductive frame of reference for any theory. Only
science requires them to become refutable (which is mostly confused with non
verification by the great unwashed). In mathematics absolute assumptions
created by the holistic brain become constants. An example is mass within
Newtonian Mechanics which provides a local constant or c within Special
Relativity which always provides the same universal constant. In Darwinism
the unstated absolute assumption that supports it is an implied reproductive
fitness maximand which remains utterly ignored by Neo Darwinist left brain
thinking because it appears this school prefers to protect itself from any
critical examination simply by removing Popper's refutation tool.

Without the creative inductive imagination WORKING TOGETHER with cold hard
deductive logic our tired brain ends up at war with itself. You can view
this absurd war in action in the current rehash of the evolution Vs
intelligent design debate. In this needlessly repeated war our ancient
tribal belief in creation is yet again separated from the cold hard logic
employed by the Darwinian theory of evolution in order to protect a tribal
belief system simply because it is this belief that bonded members of a
particular tribe together with just the one predictable set of _mores_
allowing some mutualised exchange benefiting all individuals (but not
equally).

The concept of intelligent design was refuted very early within the history
of evolutionary theory. All you require to refute it is the critical
difference in the way the retina faces the lens within the vertebrate and
invertebrate eye (which can be proven to have evolved independently). No
_intelligent_ designer would put the film in backwards producing a blind
spot as is the case in the vertebrate but not the invertebrate eye, by
*DESIGN*. Many other biological "design" absurdities exist, e.g. "designing"
the same INEFFICIENT closed tube with just the one same exit to inhale
oxygenated air and exhale oxygen depleted air along with increased carbon
dioxide. If this breathing system was designed and not did just evolve then
an exit would have been designed somewhere near the abdomen to allow the
free flow of air (like gills in fish allow a free flow of water). A CRITICAL
look at nature can only provide evidence for a singularly UNINTELLIGENT
DESIGNER, i.e. just more evidence for non cognizant Darwinian evolution.


The only process that can force intellectual honesty is Popper's refutation
tool. Whenever applied it _forces_ both sides of the brain to work together
on exactly the SAME idea. Unfortunately the net result is that sacred tribal
beliefs, which remain to this very day so important to our cohesive social
life, become exposed as just that: only a belief. Exposing a tribal belief
to be such allows questioning of the social behavior that provides order
which was sanctioned by that belief as a left brain deduction from the
inductive assumptions employed within that belief. This critical questioning
process (as the ancient Greeks were to discover) can lead to social
disintegration via the destruction of tribal based ethics as well as provide
massive increases in knowledge and wealth for individuals. The same apparent
contradiction applies today except more so because of the immense size of
today's super tribes.

Regards

John Edser
Independent Researcher

edser@xxxxxxxxxx








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