tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231530392754888127.post4394623079750025688..comments2024-03-28T18:55:38.829+11:00Comments on Middenmurk: building the primitive arrowsTom Fitzgeraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14893168729760333884noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231530392754888127.post-31313271000044397962013-03-27T08:12:57.942+11:002013-03-27T08:12:57.942+11:00I have encountered the connection between morality...I have encountered the connection between morality and disgust and it s very interesting to me. There is an industry that exploits that to sell people cleaning products to wash away all the guilt that they feel by purging their home of potential pathogens. I seem to recall accounts of studies suggesting that washing your hands Pontius Pilate style makes difficult moral decisions easier:)<br /><br />Which leads me to suspect that all morality might be aesthetic. <br /><br />I recognise the distinction between the inherited basic structure of people's minds and the culturally generated ideas that occupy them. I think of people's brains as different habitats where different populations of "co-adapted meme complexes" compete for resources. Everyone's walking around with different environmental conditions in their heads but there are some very fecund ideas out there that will find a niche in almost everyone's brain.<br /><br />I like this model because it allows for an interesting analysis of the variety of cultural artefacts in terms of -what the hell kind of inherited Pleistocene proclivity is this thing exploiting for its survival and replication?Tom Fitzgeraldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14893168729760333884noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231530392754888127.post-85740822311875128382013-03-27T03:01:48.765+11:002013-03-27T03:01:48.765+11:00I would say it's a bit more complicated than t...I would say it's a bit more complicated than the memetic model would suggest (even if we except that). Personality (at least at its foundation) is likely genetic and there are there are interesting studies that suggest things like some people experience more of a feeling of biologic disgust (like we all might experience with a bad smell) when exposed to moral ideas than others. It makes it harder to reason with people when deep parts of their brain are having a visceral neurologic reaction.<br /><br />None of that obviates your understandable yearnings, of course. Just interesting from the prospective of "why is that guy being that way?" :)Treyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04647628467658839351noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231530392754888127.post-66858435509216232422013-03-27T00:11:10.471+11:002013-03-27T00:11:10.471+11:00My understanding of the underlying motivation is e...My understanding of the underlying motivation is essentially (perhaps outmodedly) memetic, that ideas take root in the fertile soil of people's minds and thrive in that habitat and within the cultural context in which that mind is embedded. Ideas seek to find some means of promulgating themselves and to expand their habitat and resources by the old "selective retention of randomly mutating replicators" machinery that seems to drive the world-in-motion. I understand that, to the people prosecuting them, cassowary wars make much more sense than the OSR, that everyone's particular motivations are complicatedly entangled with the world they know. To an extent I share that world. I am just very prone to keen emotional awareness of dissonance in values.<br /><br />But I yearn for a more uncompromisingly dynamic and enriching playpen to mess around in. The art that gets me is that which caters to the inherited proclivities native to the animal in whose skin I am walking around and there is a bit of this primeval stuff in the OSR that I can get excited about. I guess I am just looking for something to improve the quality of my suffering.<br /><br />Thanks for the thoughtful comment :)Tom Fitzgeraldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14893168729760333884noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231530392754888127.post-63312576129132620832013-03-26T23:22:03.387+11:002013-03-26T23:22:03.387+11:00Cool ogres. :) On the rant, I would say the key to...Cool ogres. :) On the rant, I would say the key to understanding a viewpoint that seems crazy (that is, assuming you want to) is to figure out what's the utterly human and relatable motivation that underlies it. One can easily say, of course, "I would want to understand them" and that's fine, except that it forever closes the door on meaningful dialog that might reach a conclusion other that continuing to squabble.Treyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04647628467658839351noreply@blogger.com