evolution-fire

CSGnet Archive CSG1996
1

From Remi Cote 960214.2230 EST

To [Martin Taylor 960213 17:00]

Thank you Martin to encourage more expression from me.

You said:
PCT also proposes exactly that "we imagined an organism becoming madder
and madder because he has to much control." (I assume you mean "not too much
control"). At least it's true with a suitable translation of the word
"madder."
(...)
If you didn't mean "not too much control" but meant instead "too much to
control", the argument is the same. Any control system has a limited
number of degrees of freedom for output, and cannot control beyond that.
If more things to control crowd upon a living organism, something has
to give, and control becomes worse overall. This can happen because
disturbances are happening too fast (too many df/sec) or because
disturbances are happening to too many perceptal variables at once.
and they can't all be control so fast at once. Same answer, therefore,
as above.

My reply:

I meant: "too much control"... sorry for the missing "o". I guess that it
is the same missing "o" that is responsible for the Titanic disaster...

The fire-evolution ideas were putted forward by me because I thought that
it could explain the anomality that we found in humanity. Human kill
themselves (suicide) in an ultimate attempt to control their destiny...
No other mamal do that voluntarily. They will fight or flee in presence
of stress (perturbation).

Some insect may sacrifice themselves(like ant at war) but it is not a suicide.
The living entity in this case is the colony... but let's not compare
orange with apple with IBM with mammals with insect.

I think it is important to explain the erratic output of humanity, if you
want to defend PCT against argument like:"If control is an inherent process
present in any being, how come human destroy themselves and everything on
the planet, without any sense of control?" "How come this guy say that he
drug himself to loose control, to engage is mind in a total absene of control?
Is he wrong about how he perceive his own experience?"

Fire-evolution explanation allow oneself to contextualise the controlling
organism (human) in an environement that became too easy to control with the
domestication of fire. We ate and hate everything and found ourselve with nothing
more to control.

You said:
Are you putting forward the hypothesis that there can be life that does
not involve control? If so, then that's a proposition worth discussing
on this list. Personally, I think control is a necessary aspect of life,
and it may be sufficient as well, though that's arguable.

My Question meant: "What happen when an organism is artificially transplanted
(with the help of fire)in an environement that he can mold at will... What are
the consequence of this situation?"

You ask: "I'll try to answer this with another question; can you
imagine an organism getting mad at all if it were not a controller?

Resp: I never said, nor believed (since 1982, when I had a first
glimpse at B:CP) that living organism can be anything but
control system (any living org. is a control system).
In fact this idea is the basis of my practice in psychotherapy.
Powers ideas are truly powerful.

But I can imagined organism in environement where they cannot get
mad. If they can't control variable they were "design" to control, they
die. They don't get mad. For me Schizophrenia is typicaly human. Fire-
evolution theory explain why.

You write:"In fact, all questions are perfectly appropriate for list"

Resp: Encouraging, enthousiasmagoric!

ยทยทยท

To: [From Rick Marken (960213.2100)]

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

To Bill Powers (960214.0100 MST)]

You: It's not too much control that drives people mad; it's trying to control
what is basically not controllable.

Me: I agree 100%, as Epictetus said, "It is great to be a slave once you
have accepted it.". There is a problem arising when a hierarchical
system control is somehow set to control something he cannot control.
Like Mark Chapman when he decided to control the life of John Lennon...

My reformulated (or should I say "recombined") question is this one: Is
it illogical to imagine a control system that evolve trought history
(epigenesis, and finaly find himself worrying and obsessing with variable
he cannot control? If control system are efficient they should evolve
gradually in cohesion with environnement. How could we explain that
control system evolve to find themselve is unstable relationship with
environement, where they cannot control and yet survive???

I though that evolution-fire theory give a sounding explanation. But what
about your opinion.

You: True control without conflict feels effortless. People have great
difficulty getting along with each other because they don't really grasp
the fact that other people are control systems, too, with their own
goals and agendas.Although people are, by their very nature, control
systems, their conscious management of their own lives (at the higher
levels of organization) is not very skilled, simply because the
phenomenon of control has not been understood.

Me: I will translate and use these phrase in therapy, with or without
your permission. I am attending a workshop called: "Lucid living".
It goes along with your theory, but the organisator don't know that!
But I'll spread the good word.

You: Many human institutions, from the family to the government, are
organized around controlling other people. When attempts to control
others run into difficulties, as they always do, the problem is seen as
one of not having enough control, and the efforts to control are
increased, which only makes the problem worse. This is why we keep
having to build more jails, and "crack down" with more energetic law
enforcement, and increase the severity of punishments. Such actions
increase the level of conflict, and produce increased resistance that
calls for even stronger actions.

So you see, Boy Remi, that I do not believe it is control that drives
people mad: it is ignorance about control that causes the problems.

Me: If we are in all this jam about authority, confrontation, conflict,
murder, war, psychological trauma, high anxiety, it is because we were
allowed to be by a natural cause: fire. The chance where 1/100000000
that a living control system meet this kind of thing, and we got
the winning ticket. Of course, if we had not get the winning ticket
we wouldn't have develop conscience to be aware of it.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

to [Hans Blom, 960214e]

You write: "They will ask: "But what is the explana-
tion of your explanation?" That is very much like
functioning at different levels of the hierarchy,with
all the misunderstandings that result from that."

Explanation of importance of recombination of amino-acid
trought the process of reproduction: Random is just a
part of the process. If you design a learning theory
based or parallel to the darwinian evolution theory, it is
important to specifie that if there is a variation mechanism
this variation mechanism is not simply based on random. Variation
can also be "drifted" from one another, with the principle of
persistance of the genome, and without much random...

2

From Remi Cote 960215.1300 est

To Bill P. 960215.0100

You: The invention of fire-making methods is only a symptom of a
general new ability which would not be limited to the making of fire.

Me: If you say so I guess you are right...

You: I think you are exaggerating (...) If you get too pessimistic
about the future of the human species...

Me: It is not pessimistic to explain why human are human and distinguish
themself so dramaticaly from the rest of living species. It is the essence
of what I get on this list. Reaction to my idea enable me to be critique,
and to recombine my perception, to review my organisation of concept.
Beside, I am working with human misery and suffering every day, if I
were pessimistic I 'll loose my job. I personnaly think that Goudsblom
is an economic theory, it is in accord with the detailed phaseology of
human evolution. Of course, I can't proove it wrong but I cannot say
it is unfalcificable (in Popper word). Fire-evolution lead to some
new way of seing human output...It is worth discussing.

One thing that fire-evolution theory lead to is a concept of human learning.
It tell us in a way, that or conception of human learning is contaminated
by the ideas that every learning process are the same. It is a deterministic
view that only kept account of the output. Fire-evolution may help one
realised that some learning process are inefficient.

The fire bound human environement (that is caracterised by chronical
lack of control. Explain: If you look at phaseology of human evolution
you see that excess of control lead to human competition wich in turn
lead to situation where lack of control is possible within a survival frame)
is not favourable for learning. I believe that living organism are basicaly
learning organism. Control is basically a learning process. Therefore,
an "efficient" learning process is one that happen in a controled environement.
Within that frame, learning and adaptation become synonimous.

Guess what, I just lay these ideas, and since my eggo is very tiny, I send
it to your gracious critique. If nobody comment it, I probably will forget
it. Learning on this list is synonimous of adaptation.

3

[Martin Taylor 960215 16:15]

Remi Cote 960215.1300 and others

I don't know about other readers, but I am confused as to whether you
think humans have less or more control over their perceived environment
than their pre-linguistic ancestors (pre-fire?). I understand that you
think that there is more conflict now than then, but I'm not sure why
you think so. In what follows, I argue that there may be more intra-species
conflict, but not necessarily more conflict overall.

Any animal that is hunted to death or that starves to death before having
children has some failure of control. (Remember that evolution doesn't
produce survival of individuals, only survival of genes). An animal that
dies so that some of its siblings or cousins can produce children has
also assisted its genes to survive. Genes show no altruism, though
individuals may. Genes don't _do_ anything, but animals that behave in
such a way that there are more copies of their genes in the next generation
do better than other animals.

The genetically important failures of control are those that result in
failure to propagate genes--for humans, failure either to find a mate or
to support members of the extended family, or failure to survive to
maturity. Since the maximum conflict of interest is between members of
the same species, the benefits of supporting relatives becomes less the
more distant the relationship. If there is any kind of resource scarcity,
then increasing population and increasing contact with strangers are both
conditions that are likely to lead to increasing conflict--in the PCT sense.

But conflict in the PCT sense, of the inability of two control systems to
influence the same CEV to different values, is likely to lead to conflict
in the everyday sense. Either way, it is loss of control.

"Fire", taken as a generic representative of technological advancement,
assists the population to grow, and it assists people to travel and meet
strangers. Both are likely to lead to reduction in the ability to control,
and thus to "maddening," as you put it. So in one way your speculation
seems reasonable, that the "easy life" provided by technological aids
making control in the non-human environment easy, also makes control in
the human (social) environment ever harder. "Fire" reduces the human
experience of conflict with other animals, but may increase it with other
humans.

"Far from the madding crowd" was written when there was far less technology
than now, but it conveys your idea, I think.

Martin