Language, Hunting and Bezos

Language makes us human and different from all other of earth's creatures. With it, we can think, plan and act. Other animals communicate with each other through various means (bees do it through dance). But only we have words and grammars, with which we can great structures of meaning. With language comes society, culture, science, technology, and history.

But from whence comes language? Perhaps from group hunting. Social carnivores such as wolves and lions do not have language but still coordinate hunting. Between early learning – cubs practicing innate skills and watching adults – and basic vocalizations, they can surround prey and attack in unison. Some whales coordinate their approach to circle their prey and drive them into a concentration that allows a dense feeding ball. But these creatures come with their weapons built in, fangs, teeth and claws or huge mouths.

Primitive humans did not have built-in weapons or thick hides. Out on the savanna, they were easy prey for other carnivores and would be poor hunters against anything big enough to satisfy the group’s hunger. They needed to make artificial weapons and, working together, use them to kill their prey.

At some point in human evolution, some series of chance mutations increased the brain’s capacity to process and organize information sufficiently enough to move beyond simple grunts and other calls towards a structured use of vocalizations. This would have provided a huge evolutionary advantage. Humans could begin to coordinate more elaborate approaches to prey animals.

Language – as it became more elaborate – would serve many other purposes, such as passing on learning about making weapons and which plants were good to eat and where to find them. But it may have been most useful at first in hunting. Homo sapiens even hunted the huge mammoths into extinction. The first leaders in human society may have been those most capable of using language to coordinate hunting.

Language allows the possibility of free-flowing thought. With words and grammar, individuals can recall the past, examine the present, probe accumulated human experience, and imagine a future to be pursued to advantage. Throughout human history, those that do this best made the best “hunters” and captured the biggest “prey.” They drove human development by finding new ways to exploit others and the found environment. As society superseded family, they also thought of monopolizing what they “captured” to turn temporary advantage into permanent advantage. Great war leaders might seek to become kings, great inventors owners of ever expanding conglomerates. Jeff Bezos seeks to own the core exchange mechanism of 21^st Century economy.

The drive to seek and maintain profit has provided a positive dynamic in human civilization. We cannot and should not seek to prevent the hunters from seeking new prey. Bezos and Amazon clearly show the advantages of the e-approach to economic exchange and it has become very useful during the current COVID-19 crisis. Bezos has even prodded old line hunters like Walmart into more effective ways. But allowing the best hunters free reign only works for the group when they share the meat.

A number of “tech giants” have now become the focus of attention for their efforts to monopolize their hunting style and for using it mostly for their own gain. It is reasonable for the rest of us – who also do our part to maintain the social and economic order – to look to limiting their ability to seek only self-enrichment. This doesn’t mean doing away with successful hunters – even if we could – but helping them share better through truly progressive taxation, less exploitative practices and perhaps breaking up their enterprises to create room for more hunters.

COVID-19: The Great Equalizer

By now, the human species has been altering the natural order for some 11000 years. It started with the advent of agriculture and went through urbanization and industrialization which transformed the surface of the earth and began changing a host of natural systems including the climate, animal life, forests and oceans. We humans have known about this for a while. But most of us – especially those of us in the advanced economies and not living too close to the rising waters – could see the impact of our disruption of natural systems as something that would affect other people – future generations, the poor, those living in low-lying island nations – and not so much us in the here and now. COVID-19 has altered that by bringing to all of us the results of our changes to the earth. It has equalized the impact of the destruction of natural environments (which stresses what lives in them thereby making them more prone to diseases that can jump to us), the way we use animals (including how close we live with them and the antibiotics we use to fatten them) and the close quarters (in large numbers) in which we live. Add to this the way we use hydrocarbons to travel and transport, the interconnectedness of our ways of life and economies and the varying shortcomings of our political systems. We should not have been surprised by the current bio-crisis. It’s not that any one of these caused the virus but that the total impact of what we have wrought was largely hidden until now though very much operative.

So COVID-19 shows us that the bill won’t wait to be delivered and that everyone must pay. The rich may be able to retreat to their enclaves and private transport. But their world will change as ours does. The species as a whole will survive. But this is the wake up call. The future disrupted world is upon us now. Returning to “normal” – whenever and whatever that turns out to be – may well be just a breather before the next episode. We need to take the next step in our evolution – remake our economies and politics, restoring nature even if gradually and treating each other more equally – and start now or the humanity that makes it to the 22^nd Century may be unrecognizable.

Continuing Notes on Sabine's "A History of Political Theory" -- Episode 31

For episode 30, see here

The Theory of the Nation-State: The Moderns

XXXI. Marx and Dialectical Materialism
 A. Marx transformed Hegel's struggle of nature into a struggle of
     classes thereby taking away nationalism, conservatism and
     its counter-revolutionary character and becoming a powerful
     form of revolutionary radicalism. 
       1. Marx accepted dialectic as a logical method.
       2. For both the driving force of social change is the struggle
           for power.
 B. Marx perceived the importance of the rise to political self-
     consciousness of the industrial working class. 
 C. Saw the French Revolution and the resulting rise of natural
     rights in politics and economics as a prelude to social 
     revolution. 
 D. Marx and Hegel provided cause greater than oneself as the
     only reward to individual.  
 E. History (with a big "H") takes the place of God for Marxist
     revolutionist because Historical necessity provides cause and
     effect, desirability and moral obligation.
 F. Marx studies Hegel at the University of Berlin under materialist
     Hegelian, Ludwig Feuerbach.
 G. Economic materialism sees that social development depends
     upon the evolution of the forces of economic production.
 H. Marx tended to equate "materialism" with "scientific." 
       1. Also implied radical rejection of religion.
       2. Materialism and dialectics suggested a new and far-reaching
           revolution by giving materialism an ethical dimension:
           economics as the root of social inequality.
 I. Marx's belief that socialist society would extend political liberty
    never depended on analysis of socialism but only on a priori
    belief that in a developing society, nothing of worth would be lost.
 J. Understood through the dialectic, economic determinism did not
    mean cause and effect but through economic factors operating
    as semi-personalized agents of creative energies.
 K. The individual counts mainly through his membership in his
     class because his ideas reflect the ideas generated by class.
 L. Marx's theory of cultural development:
       1. A succession of stages each of which is dominated by a
           typical system of production and exchange of goods.
           i. The system of production forces generates its own
              characteristic and appropriate ideology including;
           ii. law, politics, morals, religion, art and philosophy
       2. Whole process is dialectical with its motive force supplied
           by internal tensions created by the disparities between a
           newly evolving system of production and the persisting
           ideology of the old.
       3. The forces of production are always primary as compared
           to the secondary, ideological consequences.
       4. Dialectical development is an internal process of unfolding
           or of vitalistic realization.
 M. Marx and Friedrich Engels rejected the idealist interpretation of
      dialectic as self-development of thought, saw instead the self-
      development of nature itself reflected in thought.

"The notion that ideology may in some cases affect what figures in a
society as a standard of truth has, however, produced the rather large
body of theory now known as sociology of knowledge."

 N. "Ideology," "economic determinism," and "class struggle" are
     core theoretical concepts of Marx's social philosophy from
     which two divergent political strategies emerged:
       1. Evolutionary party socialism.
       2. Revolutionary communism.  

Next week: Communism
     
 

Notes on "A History of Political Theory" -- Episode 25

For episode 24, see here

The Theory of the Nation State

XXV. France: The Decadence of Natural Law
 A. English consolidated their revolution and political theory
      shifted to France.
 B. French concern for political and social theory resulted from
      decadence of royal absolute rule.
 C. Discussion typically popularized rather than created.
 D. Tendencies
       1. Mixture of logically incompatible ethical and political
           utilitarianism with natural right theories.
       2. Growth of philosophical romanticism hostile to
           empiricism and rationalism.
 E. Rousseau untypical of 18th Century French thought.
 F. Through Voltaire and Montesquieu philosophy of Locke
      became foundation of French Enlightenment. 
       1. Reason, tied to tradition in English thought, was placed
           in opposition to custom and fact in France.
       2. No fundamental law or gradual transition of ideas or
           institutions in absolutist France. 
       3. French political thought thus radical and often little
           more than propaganda.
 G. Urban middle class was conscious of itself and saw clergy
       nobility as social parasites.
 H. Characteristic of social thought of 18th Century was belief
      in possibility of happiness and progress guided by reason.
 I. Montesquieu (Spirit of the Laws, 1748) 
       1. Undertook sociological theory of government and law
           by showing they depended upon circumstances in
           which a people lives.
       2. Also analyzed constitutional conditions of freedom.
       3. Saw "reason" as manifesting itself through different
           institutions in different environments.
       4. Saw separation of powers (in England) as prime 
           guarantee of liberty.
       5. Made separation one of the legal checks and balances
           between parts of the constitution.
           i. Didn't specify the parts
           ii. But did assume some form of legislative supremacy
 J. Voltaire
       1. Sought to popularize Newton's physics and Locke's
           philosophy.
       2. Especially admired England's freedom of discussion 
           and publication.
       3. Pressed struggle for civil liberties but did not connect 
           that to a basis in political liberty.
 K. Helvetius
       1. Presented an elaboration of Locke's psychological of
           association (Pain and pleasure as basic motives).
       2. Made it basis for the reforming legislator and conveyed
           greatest happiness principle to Beccaria and Bentham.
       3. Legislator must make general interest consonant with
           individual interest and spread knowledge of how public
           welfare includes that of the indivudual.
       4. Notion that everyone's happiness could be maximized
           at once was nothing but old belief in harmony of nature. 
       5. Belief that one man's happiness ought to be counted as
           the same as that of another based on natural equality.
       6. Using pleasure and pain could in fact lead to harmonizing 
           interests through focus on utility.
 L. Physiocrats (economists)
       1. Regarded pleasure and pain as two springs of human action
           and enlightened self-interest as rule for a well-ordered
           society.  
       2. Assumed harmony would result if man was let alone.
       3. No legislator should regulate, must instead not interfere 
           with natural operation of economic laws. 
 M. Holbach
       1. Made atheist, or materialist, attack on religion.
       2. Also attacked government as representative of parasitic
           classes excluding the middle class whose special interest
           defined the general interest as well.
       3. Man was not born bad but made bad by bad government.
       4. Remedy was to give free scope to the "general will" arising
           from the harmony between self-interest and natural good.
       5. Education would reform man because men are rational and 
           need only to see their own true interest.
 N. Enlightenment thought did not necessarily lead to democratic 
      doctrine; power still based on property. 
 O. Turgot and Condorcet turned idea of progress into a
       philosophy of history.
       1. Saw history as series of progressive stages.
       2. Condorcet saw progress following three lines:
           i. growing equality between nations
           ii. elimination of class differences
           iii. a resultant general moral and mental improvement

Next week:  Rousseau and the rediscovery of community
          
           
      
           
 
 

  
         

Notes on "A History of Political Theory" -- Episode 7

For episode 6 see here.

Theory of the City-State

VII. The Twilight of the City-State
 A. Plato and Aristotle had little immediate influence of contemporary political 
      thought 
 B. More influential at the time was protest against the conception of the good
     life as participation in the life of the polis
 C. Individual self-sufficiency became the basis of the good life
 D. Plato and Aristotle both failed to take note of the effects of foreign relations
       on the Greek city-states
        1. City-states constantly balancing between isolation and inter-dependence
          on question of self-sufficiency
       2. Conflict and inability to work together left them open to outsiders
 E. Faced with decline of importance of city-state, two resulting philosophic
          moods:
       1. Withdrawal -- Epicureans and Skeptics
       2. Withdrawal and protest -- Cynics
       3. Represent questions about first principles(as embodied in Plato and
          Aristotle)
 F. Epicureans
       1.  Aimed to lead students towards individual self-sufficiency
       2. The good life seen to consist of enjoyment of pleasure
           i. Avoidance of pain, worry and anxiety
           ii. Congenial friendship, withdrawal from public life
           iii. The good, privately enjoyed
       3. The state formed solely for the sake of obtaining security
           i. Man essentially selfish
           ii. So they make tacit agreement with each other to leave each other be
       4. There are no moral imperatives
       5. Hobbes not unlike Epicureans
 G. Cynics
       1. Reject the lifestyle, virtues and social distinctions of the city-state
       2. Wise man should be completely self-suffcient
       3. Morality was living with nature according to reason and caring for others
       4. Involved a kind of equality of nihilism and anarcho-communism

For further reading on ancient (Greek) philosophy, I can recommend the classics from my grad school days (before the days of political correctness about Western Civilization):

The Discovery of the Mind: The Greek Origins of European Thought by Bruno Snell

History of Ancient Philosophy by W. Windleband

Greek Political Theory: Plato and His Predecessors by Sir Ernest Baker

And for how the Greeks became the Greeks:  The Coming of the Greeks: Indo-European Conquests in the Aegean and the Near East by Robert Drews


Next week: The Theory of the Universal Community: The Law of Nature


Dedicated this week and every to grandson William, who arrived today.

Notes on "A History of Political Theory" -- Episode 3

For episode 2 see here.

 Theory of the City-State

III.Plato: The Republic
 A. Elaborated from Socrates the belief that there is a discoverable, objective
      good life for the individual and the polis
 B. Political philosophy is the effort to discover this 'good life'
 C. Plato's version primarily found in The Republic, Statesman and Laws (written
      in that order)
 D. The Republic concerns the good man and the good life and the means for
      knowing what these are and how to attain them
       1.Political theory of The Republic an over simplified version of the later
        presentation. Plato's fundamental focus was the soul (psych, the inner polis]
       2. The good is objectively real, will is secondary
       3. Man with knowledge of the good ought to have decisive power in the polis
       4. Association of man with man in society depends on reciprocal needs and
          resulting exchange of goods and services.
       5. Philosopher attends to his share of the work, three classes are all
         necessary
       6. Class-based specialization of function depends on natural aptitude and
         training (whereby the given is made better) 
       7. Two parts of the theory:
           i. government ought to be art (techne) depending on exact knowledge 
           ii. society is mutual satisfaction of needs by persons whose capacities
              supplement each other
 E. The public is the great sophist
       1. Man has a split nature, higher and lower
       2. Politicians, especially in a democracy, are ignorant and  incompetent
       3. The incompetence of popular opinion ought to be countered through
        education -- the coupling of questioning and training
 F. Factional conflict arises from class, property owners vs the poor
 G. The Republic presented the 'ideal city' because it was important for the
      statesman -- the 'physician' of the state  -- to know the healthy city
       1. Plato wanted to establish the art of politics
       2. The ideal city modeled along the lines of geometry and ideal types
 H. Conceived society as a system of services in which every member both gives
      and receives
       1. Men have many wants
       2. No man is self-sufficient
       3. The state seeks to arrange the most adequate satisfaction of needs and
        most harmonious interchange of services
 I. Man receives freedom not for exercise of free will as much as for the practice
    of his calling (given by nature)
       1. Exchange implies division of labor
       2. Man has natural aptitudes which become skills when men apply them-
        selves to what they are given, as they work at it.
       3. Philosopher rules because his knowledge is at once his right and duty to
        do so
       4. Assumes that properly educated, man is not anti- or unsocial and can live
        in harmony.
           i. Man and the state have underlying structure
           ii. These structures are parallel, what is good for one is prevented from
             being different from what is good for the other (the polis is the individual
             "writ large)
 J. The division of labor necessitates division into three classes
       1. Workers and Guardians (divided into soldiers and rulers) 
       2. Rulers were source of sound knowledge of the good leaving the others as
         political onlookers
 K. Justice is the bond holding society together
       1. All should fill the station to which he is entitled
       2. "giving to every man his due"
           i. Man should be due treatment as what he is, in light of his capacity
             and training
           ii. Due from him is an honest performance of tasks which place accorded
             him requires
       3. What is due is based on services performed not power or "rights"
  L. The task becomes reaching perfect balance between human beings and
      possibilities of significant employment that the state affords 
       1. Achieved by removing hindrances to good citizenship; and
       2. Creating positive conditions of good citizenship through education
 M.  Achieved for rulers through 'communism'
       1. Prohibited from holding private property
       2. Abolition of permanent monogamous sexual relations
       3. Controlled breeding
       4. Wealth equalized to remove disturbing influence on government, along
          with abolition of family (affection)
 N. Education is the positive means to direct human nature
       1. Main reliance placed here
       2. State would control compulsory education
       3. Elementary till age 20, gymnastics and "music" as training, direct or
          indirect, for the mind
 O. The Republic has been eternally the voice of the scholar, as such overly
      simplified, leaving out human dignity and the person
 P. Omits law and influence of public opinion 

Next week: Plato: The Statesman and The Laws
   

 
       
      

Notes on "A History of Political Theory" by George Holland Sabine -- Episode 2

For episode 1 see here.

 Theory of the City-State

II. Political Thought Before Plato (5th century BC)
 A. Political discussion was very widespread and popular
       1. Already three-fold classification of forms of government existed:
           monarchy, aristocracy, democracy. 
       2. Two centuries prior saw active party (class) struggle and rapid 
           constitutional change.
       3. Awareness of economic nature of conflict between democrats (favoring
           overseas commerce) vs landed aristocrats 
 B. Assumptions of pre-philosophy period affected later political thought
       1. Basic ideas of harmony and proportion applied both to physical ethical
           matters
       2. Sophists and Socrates reflected movement from concern with physical
           world to humanism.  [Note: Bruno Snell's The Discovery of the Mind: The
           Greek Origins of European Thought traced the emergence of reason and
           philosophy from the Homeric epics through the pre-classic lyric poets 
           (Sappho) and the tragedians (Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides).] 
       3. Protagoras:  "Man is the measure of all things, of what is that is and of 
           what is not that is not."
       4. Search for essential physical substance that underlies appearance
           became search for "law of nature" -- permanence amid change, unity 
           amid the manifold
       5. Issues became about defining 'the natural' and 'nature versus convention'
           (God vs man) 
       6. Sophist Antiphon saw law (justice) as convention and contrary to
           nature which was egoism 
       7. Contrary view saw justice and right inherent in human beings
 C. Socrates moved suggestive ideas into explicit philosophy
       1. Believed that virtue (arete) equaled knowledge
       2. Pursued precise definition
       3. His vision of rational science of politics picked up by Plato

Next week:  Plato: The Republic

Ethnic Conflict Helps Bacteria Cooperate

A recent Science News piece reports research indicating that “bacteria assassinating each other when crowded together ironically can favor the evolution of cooperation.” This happens when different strains of bacteria are initially mixed randomly. Using their own brand of natural antibiotic, each bacterium launches an attack on its neighbors from different strains. This eventually leads – through a kind of bacterial ethnic conflict – to clumps of same strain bacteria that can then shift from expending energy on warfare with opposing clumps to cooperating with each other in its same-strain clump. As the researcher summed up: “This resulting clumpy distribution, despite its murderous origin, favors the rise of cooperation, such as secreting substances useful to a whole community.”

This seems quite clear and while not really surprising – like prefers like – also suggests a possibly illuminating thought experiment. Imagine a beneficent bacterial power – lets call it the USA (Union for Safe Association) – that seeks to use carrots and sticks – super-antibacterial agents plus sugar – to push the different strains into coexisting rather than trying to kill each other. This would require maintaining an unnatural balance and might never succeed in making each bacterium focus its energies on anything but finding other ways to win living space. Perhaps it could work as long as the USA worked diligently, non-stop and forever. But should the effort lag, nature would probably just take its course.

Despite billions of years of evolution, identity-specific living organisms – strains – seem to follow the same imperative to clump. This is the state of nature. Past human experience suggests that there are only a few ways to establish a stable order out of mixture: strong, perhaps brutal central rule (whether from inside or outside, a Leviathan), sufficient nutrient (wealth) to allow all strains a piece of the pie (Western liberal democracy), or letting nature take its course (“ethnic” conflict finally ending in more or less homogeneous entities that at least have that to be proud of). Does the human species suggest better?

Familiar Paths

I'm recently back from several months living in the Midwest. I liked it in Des Moines and developed some comfortable routines, including favorite bike rides. But now back home in DC, I've returned to the many paths and byways that I've used for the past 35 years. Being at home feels good for various reasons. It's nice to be back with family and friends. But I get a distinct pleasure from biking or walking along long familiar paths. In certain seasons, I'm drawn to particular greenways. Something about doing this plucks deep neural cords, satisfying an apparently primordial need to keep to the well-worn paths of home. Perhaps it harkens back to the time when we lived in small bands in a particular place where it was vital for survival to know the routes and places where we could find food and water through the changing seasons. Evolution might have favored development of behavior that anchored such knowledge through the release of endorphins when triggered by the right external markers. This might suggest the need for all of us to find ways to allow ourselves to be so anchored along familiar ways that bring us to be somehow in nature.

Just a thought.

New Letters for the DNA Alphabet

Scientists recently created a life form – using a living bacteria as a starting point – with two extra letters in the DNA alphabet. The DNA of all living creatures on earth is made up of four such letters – the nucleotides A, C, G and T. They pair up – A with T and C with G – to form DNA “words” that direct protein construction and the development and maintenance of every living organism. These scientists added two synthetic nucleotides thus adding two new letters to the genetic code. They note that this opens up the possibility of creating new DNA-based “nanomaterials and proteins with exotic abilities.”

This discovery may be the hidden sleeper of recent scientific developments. When one considers that all of life as we know it – and which we have not even yet discovered all the forms – is built up of long strings of two-letter genetic words, adding a new letter – and why stop there – could open up vast vistas of new products and even new life forms. It may give brand new meaning to “genetically modified.” Cultures that grow rather than construct their technology is a common motif in science fiction. There may be careers out there for those who can write genetic code as we now write computer code.

Why Aren't We Hearing Anyone Else?

Read an article recently on the Great Filter, the notion that we may not come across any evidence of advanced civilizations beyond our own because something eventually rubs them out.  We have been sending out electro-magnetic signals for over a hundred years and have been listening for almost as long.  We have by now discovered almost 1800 exoplanets. An estimated 22% of sun-like stars in our galaxy may have earth-like planets orbiting in their habitable zones.  That would mean 20 billion candidates for life such as ours. Four of such earth-like exoplanets planets have been identified within 50 light years of us, another two within 500 LYs.

There is no reason to assume that life would have to be similar to our carbon-based form or would require conditions similar to ours.  Life on our planet sprung up quickly and the physics and chemistry of our universe seem to favor self-organizing processes.  Life forms could be quite varied and perhaps universal.

Enrico Fermi suggested in 1950 that if any advanced civilization developed the ability to travel beyond its solar system, even at less than light speed, in ten million years it should be able to colonize the whole Milky Way (100,000 LYs in diameter).  So why don't we see them?  Why haven't we even heard anyone else?  The Great Filter suggests various possibilities.

The first would be that advanced life is rare.  The conditions for it to develop are quite special. While life on earth arose quickly, in just 400 million years after earth formed a solid crust, it took another almost two billion years for complex single cells to evolve.  Add another billion years – about 550 million years ago – for multi-cellular creatures.  Most of the history of life on earth is this long prelude to the development of us.  Humans arose only in the last two million years of the earth's 4,500 million years.  Along the way, life went through several mass extinction events.  The last one, 65 million years ago, took out the dinosaurs leaving the ground clear for the development of mammals.  The combination of events and circumstances that led to us may be so rare as to make us one of the very few – or only – lucky ones.

But with some probable 20 billion earth-like exoplanets and some 100 billion likely planets in all, chances are that however rare, odds would favor the development of a considerable number of advanced life forms in our galaxy.  Some might have arose millions of years ago.  Any signals they sent would have had plenty of time to reach us.  Any earth-like planet with advanced life within 500 LYs would presumably have been heard by now.  So far, the SETI project has found none.

Perhaps our listening capabilities are still not sensitive enough to pick up any signals.  But clearly we are now able to tease out the existence of exoplanets themselves out some two thousand light years.

Maybe cosmic natural disasters – nearby super-novas, meteor strikes, etc – occur frequently enough to set back life and knock out civilizations before they can get very far?  But we've gone 65 million years without one and there is no reason to expect any such for at least the next few hundred years.

Maybe someone is out there, able to hide themselves and/or tracking down and destroying any potential competitors before they get too far?  This is a common science fiction trope.   But it assumes that advanced civilizations would either be very modest – and thus hide themselves, perhaps quietly visiting and making crop circles or waiting for us to rise to the level where we could join their Federation – or especially vicious and aggressive.  Based upon the only advanced civilization we know of – ourselves – one could not rule out the second possibility.

Finally, there is the possibility that there is something about advanced technologies that operates to cut short the civilization that develops them: industrial civilization leading to run-away climate change; biotechnology leading to – or failing to keep up with – disruptions in the present web of life; failure of critical management systems to handle increasingly complex and changing political, social, economic and ecological dynamics.

Bottom line, so far we have no evidence that we have company anywhere out there. We may be special. Question is, are we doomed to be filtered out and will we have ourselves to blame?