Is wealth is the outward sign of the inward grace?

An interesting piece on Consumerism & plutocracy

" Synopsis: How capitalism, unchecked, eventually leads to plutocracy, globalism and plutocracy destroy individuality and how consumerism has invaded and/or replaced faith, love, skill sets, culture, education and pretty much everything valuable in human life."
https://yourwifeisevolving.wordpress.com/2014/02/21/consumerism-in-a-plutocratic-world/
 This piece introduced me to a new term: plutotheism
Wealth = God.
Perhaps it is a small step from tradition American Christianity to this point,
Re Calvin and Puritans and other Calvinist sects:
"Calvin wrote that "Riches themselves and by their nature are not to be at all condemned; and it is even great blasphemy against God to disapprove of riches, implying that a man who possesses them is thereby corrupted. For where do the riches come from, if not from God?" More succinctly, "Adversity is a sign of God's absence, prosperity of his presence."

The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth by Benjamin M. Friedman (2010)

Related but different;
Another interesting read: http://www.economonitor.com/dolanecon/2013/02/27/understanding-the-plutocrats-talent-vs-capital-the-illusion-of-skill-and-the-winners-curse/

Understanding the Plutocrats: Talent vs. Capital, The Illusion of Skill, and the Winner’s Curse - See more at: http://www.economonitor.com/dolanecon/2013/02/27/understanding-the-plutocrats-talent-vs-capital-the-illusion-of-skill-and-the-winners-curse/#sthash.1AJEvrgn.dpuf

Understanding the Plutocrats: Talent vs. Capital, The Illusion of Skill, and the Winner’s Curse - See more at: http://www.economonitor.com/dolanecon/2013/02/27/understanding-the-plutocrats-talent-vs-capital-the-illusion-of-skill-and-the-winners-curse/#sthash.1AJEvrgn.dpuf

Understanding the Plutocrats: Talent vs. Capital, The Illusion of Skill, and the Winner’s Curse - See more at: http://www.economonitor.com/dolanecon/2013/02/27/understanding-the-plutocrats-talent-vs-capital-the-illusion-of-skill-and-the-winners-curse/#sthash.1AJEvrgn.dpuf

Regarding the Development and Fitness Value of Spirituality.

 And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”

Genesis 3:22

 

This is extracted from Air Water Ground: An Essay on New Adaptive Strategies, © 1978-2014 for different part,  Jay Moynihan, all rights reserved. Portions of part 2 published previously in “The Wider View” column, © 1994-2002 Jay Moynihan.

Cover photo: Copper Falls, after sunset,  © 1986, Jay Moynihan.

Disclaimer

I am responsible for the contents herein. It should not be assumed or thought that anything herein is in anyway the view or opinion of any past, present, or future clients, employers, acquaintances, friends, family, etc.

The question of whether or not god(s) exist is not interesting, scientifically. The characteristics of god(s) are by their nature not subject to scientific study.^[1] But we can observe and study human behavior, tools, and given language and psychology; symbolic objects. So study of the origins of spirituality, and the social phenomena of religion can be interesting, scientifically.

In the last couple of decades this has become an area of significant interest among some of those interested in evolutionary theory.  I intend here, to set forth my own views on this subject.

Many years ago on a summer day I did a thought experiment. The day was clear with a few high fluffy clouds and a soft breeze. I was laying on a lawn, on my back starring up. I decided to cast my mind back in jumps of about 100 years. Meaning, I would relax, anchored with the earth under my back and imagine the whole of my specie a century before. What did I, as a well-educated individual know and believe? When I would get a gestalt of that space-time, I would jump back another 100 years. After a while of course, I ran out of track. There I was imagining East Africa. The Rift Valley, and eventually, nothing. Mind empty. Small white clouds slowly moved across the sky. Moving.

I sat up quickly. Yes! If it moves, it is alive.

Animation. Anima. The vital principle, Animus, the soul. “Latin anima (“a current of air, wind, air, breath, the vital principle, life, soul”), sometimes equivalent to animus (“mind”); see animus and compare Greek άνεμος (“wind”).” ^[2]

Absent modern knowledge, absent even medieval knowledge, the primitive logic is crystalline. ^[3]
What moves is alive.
I am, I move, and I intend to move.

Therefore

What moves, intends.

If it intends, I can communicate with it. I can scare it or placate it. Maybe it will help me.

Sympathetic magic is born?

The Golden Bough and other books over the years propose a progression of sorts from sympathetic magic, or animism to later forms. Some propose a link between the changing conceptions of god(s) to the changes over time in economic and social complexity. But in animism there is in essence, a real biogeophysical object or effect (such as wind or heat). Just as we and some other intelligent and social species exhibit theory of mind, perhaps animism can be simply described as theory of mind applied to natural objects generally.^[4] 

But what about the other spiritualties? What about god(s)?

Most writing, with the exception of the Mathew Alper’s “The God Part of the Brain (1996) seems to explain the belief in god(s) by reference to its value to a group. And how it develops via tag –mediated contingent altruism into social structures, competing groups, etc. ^[5] My interest is much narrower, and I think, basic. Separate and apart from its value to a group, what is the benefit of spiritual beliefs/ related symbolic objects to the phenotype? How is the individual’s fitness enhanced?^[6]

It is an assumption in ethology that if a behavior or set of behaviors is shared across the population of a specie, it is biological, not learned. The belief in the supernatural is cross-cultural in humans.^[7] Therefore, we must assume it is not at its origin a cultural or learned characteristic.^[8]

Lets inventory some of the probable characteristics of our hominid ancestors.

• Endothermic
• social
• Allo-parenting
• Omnivorous
• Kinship Altruism
• Tag-Mediated Contingent Altruism
• Reciprocal Altrusim
• Arboreal

All of these are found in primates, and their distant past appears to be arboreal.  An arboreal environment is thought to contribute to complex neural development in some species due to the necessity of three dimensional navigation, triangulation  etc. In a social arboreal specie, relationships would also take place in three dimensions.  Add to this ancestry and the big-brain &  hyper vigilance mechanisms common in social prey species of arboreal origin. ^[9]

My speculation is that self awareness is a spandrel formed by the probable characteristics of our hominid ancestors listed above. That self awareness then became an exaptation. That original value^[10] of self awareness to a phenotype was more efficient exercise of reciprocity, and more precise application of theory of mind.^[11]

Self awareness had a price.^[12] With self awareness comes knowledge of your death and imaginings of harms. This is not just the fear/instinct reactions to avoid a predator. It is a personal and existential terror.

The role of symbolic object(s) of god(s) in lessening this problem and other points are well explained in Alper’s book. This alone could probably be a fitness value of such importance to “justify” it alone.

Expanding on the anxiety aspect. Consider the four foundation principles.^[13] Anxiety can interfere with the pursuit of them. Spirituality can also, enhance the efficacy of the phenotype in their pursuit.

The reduction of anxiety can be enhanced by the development of teleological concepts, which spirituality is a very fertile ground for.  Spirituality also can turn anxieties, including existential ones, into symbolic meta-sets of related symbolic objects and thoughts. These meta-sets can then themselves become even more abstract, inclusive symbolic objects. These in turn can then be mentally used and manipulated with less time expenditure. Also, the greater level of abstraction reduces anxiety by creating “distance” from the immediacy of the threat.

In its broadest sense, the  fitness value of spirituality for the phenotype is that it may avoid the mental friction or disability or lessen the intensity of combinatorial explosion, that I think may be a danger of self-awareness.^[14]

While the value of spirituality (if shared) by groups is apparent, we should not forget that the ability of the phenotype to build tag-mediated contingent altruism with in the group would be to his or her benefit. Assuming that teleological schema and relevant meta-sets are shared within a group, the ability to communicate and use them could increase a phenotype’s fitness even with conspecifics in its group. This would enhance many things, including alliance building, given the importance of trust, and the role of tag-mediated contingent altruism in that.^[15]

---

[1] If a scripture states events occurring in biogeophysical space-time in the past, those events may be subject to study, assuming there is a sufficient historical record and evidence for the events. But to argue from the scripture itself as proof, is an example of argument from authority (also known as appeal to authority) which is a logical fallacy.  That is where it is argued that a statement is correct because the statement is made by a person or source that is authoritative. It is also known as argumentum ad verecundiam (argument to respect), argumentum ad potentiam (argument to power), Besides, "The weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness." Marcello Truzzi.

[2] http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/anima

[3] It is arguable that a linguistic artifact of this can be found in all human languages. It is called the Pathetic Fallacy (referring to pathos). It is the treatment of inanimate objects as if they had human feelings, thought, or sensations. Examples are phrases such as “angry clouds”, vengeful sea, etc.

[4] The rituals of animism and sympathetic magic can I think be viewed as an early “technology”, to influence the environment and its creatures.

[5] Much of the argument made by the so called “New Atheists (Dworkin, Dennet, et al) seem to dwell in this “benefit to group” landscape, with a bit of a tip of the hat to anxiety reduction functions, which I do not mean to diminish. The role of spirituality and its social form religion in behavior is very powerful. As a binding factor within groups that are comprised of little or no kinships it can play an important role. It can also provide closure on non-utilitarian speculation or anxiety within a group during times of stress. Allows “chunking” together of higher order abstractions into communicable, reassuring forms. Obviously, it can be a key element in tag-mediated contingent altruism, with it minutiae, symbols and other tags acting to build trust, or separate populations. Spiritual symbolic objects and religious symbols/rituals can reinforce trusted behavior patterns, define and identify cheaters, and given an “unseen” observer, can even decrease the frequency of social cheating. All of this would reinforce cooperation.  I recommend to the reader the many papers by Robert Axelrod, such as Evolution of Cooperation without Reciprocity (2001). Speech, and shared symbolic metasets would lend to an ever stronger tag-mediated contingent altruism. Unfortunately, with isolation and divergence between groups, pseudospeciation could also be stronger.

[6] In a strictly Neo-Darwinian view, a characteristic will continue if it is survival neutral and gets “carried along” or it is positive to survival. Therefore, the most important examination of this has to be at the individual level, not the group level. Something had to have formed at the phenotypic level, and have been more favorable than not to persist, and to be available for group (social) use.

[7] A biological predisposition in a specie does not always express exactly alike. The more social and complex a species’ behavioral ability, the more diverse the expression.

[8] Obviously, its detail’s and forms would be learned and passed on social, in whatever social group is involved. For a list of cross cultural behaviors, usually termed “Universal Behaviors”, see: The Evolution of Childhood, M. Konner, p. 715, (2010).

[9] Hyper vigilance mechanisms “keep people alert and ready, but also make them overly inclined to attribute a natural event as some kind of intentional act.” The Cognitive Psychology of Belief in the Super-Natural, Jessie M.  Bering. American Scientist v94 #2, p. 149. Also see: Hyper Vigilance and (Inferred Intent) Religion , Justin Bartlett, Institute of Cognition and Culture (Belfast) and Scott Atran, University of Michigan. These papers include interesting discussions of among other things; an innate mind-body dualism in very young children, innate belief in consciousness surviving death, and various theory of mind matters also.

[10] Obviously self awareness can be seen as enabling a wide variety of new behaviors. For example, I would strongly doubt language could develop without self awareness.

[11] A spandrel is a feature passed down as part and parcel  with another trait(s), and is not in and of itself, “naturally selected”. (S.J. Gould & R. Lewontin). An exaptation is a feature or characteristic that has come with time to have a utility, but in the past it had a different utility or no utility at all. (Gould & Vrba). The classic example of an exaptation is feathers. Originally associated with thermal regulation, and only later as an aid to flight.

[12] As Adam & Eve, Prometheus and other characters in creation stories would attest. I have always been found of an ancient Greek story about this. When Prometheus’s gift to humans made them become self aware, they experienced great fear and anxiety. The goddess Ceres took pity upon them, and taught them how to make beer, so they could at least for a while forget their pain.

[13] . Four “foundation” principles:

Maximization of positive reinforcement (a phenotype will seek stimuli that are a reward),

Freedom from predation (a phenotype will seek a state free from predation).

Reproductive opportunity (a phenotype will seek replication or reproduction).

Maximization of advantage of progeny (a phenotype will act in an environment ( or fitness landscape ) to increase the relative fitness of its progeny).

[14] Combinatorial explosion is an idea from cybernetics. It is a problem that can arise in systems engaged in automated theorem proving. A search must be used to try all choices, known as an exhaustive search. The problem in such a search is that “the number of intermediate expressions we must generate grows super-exponentially with the length of the desired proof.” The exhaustive search becomes unfeasible due to time and storage necessary to prove the theorem. http://www.aaai.org/Papers/AIPS/1996/AIPS96-033.pdf & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combinatorial_explosion

[15] Re tag-mediated contingent altruism, see: Robert Axelrod,  Evolution of Cooperation Without Reciprocity” (2001) and “The Evolution of Ethnocentrism” R. Hammond and R. Axelrod (2005)

Meta Transitions, Teaching and Duty

 Disclosure

I am a public employee and a teacher, who lives in the State of Wisconsin. On the state and local level, the transition discussed below may have gotten to the point that it has a negative impact on my livelihood.

Disclaimer

Nothing herein is the opinion, position or idea of; my colleagues, current employer, past employers, clients, friends, family, acquaintances, past pets,  or any other anyone else other than me.

I was born when the transitional dynamics of my country from a republic to a plutocracy were already in an advanced stage. Even so, the proposed budget by Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin provides significant insight into what that transition is like. Not only does the proposed budget provide insight into the anti-republican mind, but it raises questions about the future in very deep ways, particularly for an educator.

I am going to skip the reiteration of the whole plutocracy vs republic thing, as you can find a post or two about it on this blog, not to mention growing analysis on this topic available via Google. In this writing, I will assume the reader knows what the terms i use mean.

The revision of the Wisconsin Idea University of Wisconsin Mission statement, (as recently opined on in a New York Times editorial http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/07/opinion/gov-scott-walkers-drafting-error.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0 ) is a perfect illustration of this change underway in our social/mental landscape. Further, this is supported by a number and range of cuts in funding and reorganization measures, included in the budget, to the university system, other parts of education spending, public lands related spending, etc.

A decent description of the attempted wording change re the “Wisconsin Idea" can be found here:
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/02/05/drafting-error-or-gubernatorial-assault-expansive-view-higher-ed-wisconsin

And now to my point.

Public education, is mostly an American creation.  It is rooted in the acts of our Congress after the Revolution and in some of the colonies prior to that, and is a creature of The Enlightenment. In accord with the principles of our revolution, bound to the Enlightenment, including the principles at the time of Liberalism (individual rights, representative government, Adam Smith's recently published ideas that eventually came to be called "capitalism", etc etc). Our new republic  required a common level of basic education through university, to create a citizen as required by a republic (see Aristotle, Montesquieu etc). As Aristotle quipped, "All men are born idiots. Education makes them citizens."

Yet the purpose of education can in our transitioning society can be different than that intended by our  Founders. In a plutocracy, the republican model of "citizen" is frankly not relevant. training a workforce is the main goal of education in a plutocracy. In a plutocracy, there is still a place for what the Founders called, a "liberal" education. However in a plutocracy is type of education is more appropriate for the rulers: as an educational option for their children, likely from an expensive private college or university. When your view/philosophy is neo-liberalism, like that of Governor Walker and his fellow travelers, public education is not necessary. It is just another untapped market to be privatized.

Tainter Simplification and the Course of Events

As noted previously in this blog, I posit that the trend of politics in the United States, since around 1980,  reflects the progression of our Tainter Simplification, a  simplification that has accelerated markedly since the beginning of this century. This makes sense, given mainly two things: The Golden Rule and biogeophysical stress factors.

The "Golden Rule" I refer to is the one I learned in my first year of law school, (it was explicitly mentioned by faculty) that states those with the gold makes the rules. Given the rise to dominance of neo-liberalism as the majority ideology in my country, the trend to plutocracy is I believe, irreversible. I also think that the biogeophysical changes that are underway may be prompting a limbic reaction, even within the brain of the most ardent foe of "environmental interests". If I am correct, this should increase the intensity of the standard behavior of maximizing the advantage for one's progeny. These two factors dovetail very well with first plutocratic rule and perhaps a yet later simplification to neo-feudalism.

Some readers, who actually know me, may view what follows as "selling out". OK. But I feel compelled to point out a few things.

First, republics have the shortest life span of any governance form. The Roman Republic still holds the record of nearly 200 years before beginning its transition to an oligarchic form. That we went almost 100 years from the beginning of our Revolution before the start of our transition isn’t bad. That is a good run for a republic, historically.

Second, the horses got out of the barn already. Neo-liberalism is the dominant political ideology here, and is consistently reflected in both major parties and our other public institutions. Example: Those of you on the older side of life involved in post secondary education, remember in the 1980's when you were schooled in the idea of redefinition of the "student" to being a "customer"? That is basic neo-liberal mindshare evidence. Apart from the anti-immigration folk, how most folks self identify as "tax payers" rather than "citizens? Ditto.

Personally. last year I surrendered my bar license. Granted, I had not practiced law since 1994. But the changes in my state government, and a number of U.S. Supreme Court decisions, capped by the Citizens United case, and a couple of follow up interpretations, were my moral last straw. The weight of oath when I entered the bar, forced my hand to surrender my license.

 Yet I an not a violent person. While I prefer republic to plutocracy I do not intend to rage against the "dying of the light". The large majority of the folks in my life do not want the individual burden and self-control necessary to support a republic. I do not view the neo-liberal and producerist political sector as "immoral". I view what is occurring as just another inevitable historic transition from republic to a defacto oligarchic form.

So here is an older republican (small r intentional :) ) living in a proto-plutocracy during a period of rapidly increasing biogeophysical stress. Being a republican, I hold to the duty of increasing the public good. But as a teacher, what is the need of those I am to teach?
Perhaps for the family/individual level of "the good", I should rethink my gut level negative reaction to Scott Walker's edit of Wisconsin Idea. I would not train "workers" for the good of their plutocrats, though it would help them also. I perhaps should  teach what is and will be needed by what I still think of as "citizens", to be productive  "taxpayers/consumers/workers". What needs will  learners have in the  harsh future  most people will have under plutocratic rule?
To quote Saint Ronald Reagan, "facts are such stupid things". As governor Walker pointed out with his editing pen, the search for the truth is so retro, so not now. Who has time for that anyway?

Practice note: You might say there was outcry at the "attack" on the Wisconsin Idea. True. When transitioning from a republic, it is important to preserve as Augustus Caesar called them, the proper forms. What he mean is that people are attached to the words and symbols of their republic even after it is lost. The Romans kept theirs for the whole imperial period. All acts were still done, for the "Senator and People of Rome". To edit the venerated Wisconsin Idea , showed Governor Walker’s poor sense of craft, at least apart from appealing to the farthest "right" elements nationally of his party's base.

Picture Note

The eye image is from the cover art of the original cover for the book Jennifer Government, by Max Barry, (2003).

An oldy for storage.

May be doing a redesign of my primary website, so gonna store this, here:

Sustainable Development by Jay Moynihan version 08092012 

Sustainable development is a process of human adaptation to a planetary environment that incorporates the following boundary conditions: 

Biogeophysical

 1. Substances and materials from the planetary crust are not removed at a rate greater than planetary processes replace them, or the rate of substitution of a renewable alternative. 
2. That substances produced by humans are, when no longer used by humans, not accumulating in the environment. That any substances or materials released into the environment can breakdown into non-toxic components. Non-toxic means that a plant or animal cell can metabolize it, without disruption of its nominal functions.
 3. The productive capacity of biotic systems are not degraded by human processes. Harvesting of living materials is at a rate no greater than their rate of regeneration. 
4. Delegation of human production and infrastructure functions that can be performed by other living things, to other living things when possible. 
5. That any material or substance produced by manufacturing that is not part of a product be a feedstock for another human process. 
6. The design of all products and services uses life cycle analysis and full cost accounting. No externalization to society and the environment of any costs. 
7. Birth control.
 
Governance

8. Governance structures designed to:
a. Maximize diversity in thought b. Reduce pseudospeciation* c. Decouple status competition from material objects 
9. That economic processes be equitable for the people involved. 
10. Allenby Principles
a. A system of problem solving with increasing or stable returns, or diminishing returns that can be financed with energy subsidies of assured supply, cost, and quality. 
b. The solution space for design is not bounded by simplification or ideology. c. Evaluation of design solutions considers scale, scaling, and emergent events across foreseeable time-lines. 
d. Technological implementation is evaluated across categories and foreseeable time-lines, prior to roll-out.
e. Design objectives are defined, and metrics created to measure success and early identification of feedback in the system. 
f. Solutions are resilient and incorporate redundancies, and are not irreversible.
 

Notes: * pseudospeciation. The tendency of social phenotypes to behave towards other phenotypes of their specie, that are not of the same variant or otherwise differ in tags (as in contingent altruism) as if those that differ are not the same specie. Examples in Humans include nationality, ethnic identity, ethnic hatred, "race", racism, religious group symbol reactions, etc.
Note re #4 & #8C.
These may not be possible where economics is a socially obligate boundary condition. (A Socially Obligate Boundary Condition is a set of social parameters or conditions that evolved in a specie, that limits its behavior at a given point in space time.)
 
Source Note 
The definition I am using is in some part mine, but primarily from other sources: The Hanover Principles, The Natural Step, Herman Daly's Rules, The Bellagio Principles, Joseph Tainter, Braden Allenby, and basic science. Numbers 1,2,3 & 9 are based primarily on The Natural Step. Number 4 & 7 are from me. The "Allenby Principles" are from the work of Branden Allenby. Number 8 (a ,b &c) are from me, (the Creative Instability section of Air Water Ground )
Boundary Condition "Boundary Condition" is a concept borrowed from mathematics. In this use of the term it is a condition imposed on a solution so as to obtain the desired outcome. It could also be viewed as what bounds a solution space, so as to derive a range of possible solutions to further analyze and choose from.
My Assumption(s)
My desired outcome, is that humans survive as a species (or daughter species) for as long as possible.
That space/time, and all environments are in a state of constant change.

Musings on Being Hoisted on Our Own Petard*

“It is not the most intellectual of the species that survives; it is not the strongest that survives; but the species that survives is the one that is able to adapt to and to adjust best to the changing environment in which it finds itself……so says Charles Darwin in his “Origin of Species"                                                                                           

Leon C. Megginson

This morning, after over-sleeping and not yet having a good cup of coffee…

 I found myself beset with examples of my specie’s apparent inability to deal with large, complex problems and threats, while remaining mired in minutia and monkey games. The examples placed before ranged in scale from immediately around me to the unfortunate content of today’s news.

I stopped for a moment and thought:

I wonder if advanced intelligence can be an overspecialization?

We pride ourselves on our intelligence, and much of the story, the saga of our rise to world dominance is (if not depicted as the result of our being favored by some invisible all powerful ethereal creature(s) )founded on our mental abilities producing a behavioral repertoire unmatched by any other creature on the planet. But the most rapid change we currently need to adapt to, is the product of our advanced intelligence accreted into the usual animal instincts and legacy behaviors.

The apparent inability of a majority of us not being capable of, or not caring about, it being hard to discern which; understanding our impact now and since the last ice age on our biogeophysical surroundings is perhaps, the best example of this.

Most of us seem ill disposed or unable, to act with the knowledge we now have of our impact through time. That temporal element for us; the accelerating, accumulating, multi-linear, interacting blizzard of changes that our intelligence spawns, eludes us. When we do get a glimpse, our obligate and socially obligate boundary conditions tie us in knots, launches waves of combinatorial explosions that drive us back into the trees of the tried and true.

Will our species and our daughter specie in the future be an even brainier version of ourselves?  Or, will the future be left to our daughter specie who is a bit slower in the head, sturdier and simpler?

·     *  “A petard was a small bomb used to blow up gates and walls when breaching fortifications, of French origin and dating back to the sixteenth century. A typical petard was a conical or rectangular metal object containing 2–3 kg (5 or 6 pounds) of gunpowder, with a slow match as a fuse…. The pétard, a rather primitive and exceedingly dangerous explosive device, consisted of a brass or iron bell-shaped device filled with gunpowder fixed to a wooden base called a madrier. This was attached to a wall or gate using hooks and rings, the fuse lit and, if successful, the resulting explosive force, concentrated at the target point, would blow a hole in the obstruction, allowing assault troops to enter.  The word remains in modern usage in the phrase hoist with one's own petard, which means "to be harmed by one's own plan to harm someone else" or "to fall into one's own trap," implying that one could be lifted up (hoist, or blown upward) by one's own bomb.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petard