Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Belinda]

Nobody can know what "the territory " is like, so let's not trouble ourselves concerning the territory.

In a metaphysical sense, you are absolutely correct. And you know that metaphysics is my favourite area of philosophy. But we also all have real lives in the place we call the "real world". It's an assumption, of course, but we assume that what we can see or measure is real and actual. We do this for purely practical purposes, knowing that it is an unjustified assumption, as you are already well aware.

And this 'sub-discussion' concerns the map and the territory, where we identify our 'real world' exactly with 'the territory'. It's a convenience, nothing more.

I understand, and agree

[Good_Egg]

Our maps are inherently subjective constructions. They are simplified, perspective-bound representations created by minds with particular viewpoints and limitations. The territory (reality itself) exists objectively, independently of our perspectives, and would continue to exist even if no minds were around to map it.

Some aspects of maps are social convention. (North at the top of the page, water features in blue). And all maps are edited to leave out what the compiler considers unimportant.

On the other hand, if you've ever had the experience of trying to navigate with a map that fails to correspond with the territory (e.g. showing a footpath where in reality a brick wall prevents access) then you'll appreciate that maps can be objectively wrong.

The study of hierarchies and structures is anthropology, specifically social anthropology. I'm not a professional anthropologist nor sociologist however I have heard that no human society has ever been recorded as lacking a socially elite class.

I was recently reading Jared Diamond ("Guns Germs & Steel") who was suggesting that humans originally existed as small bands of nomads, each an extended family, with no authority-structure. (Which does not imply that all humans had equal say in every decision, but rather that the only power was personal power - strength, charisma, willpower - rather than role-authority).

He posited a development path from small units to large - bands to tribes to "chiefdoms" to nation-states. With one of the developmental stages being hereditary chiefs with the chief's family forming an elite class. And a later stage expanding that elite class to be all those who are part of the structure of government (and thus neither produce their own food nor obtain food by a voluntary process of trading their craft-products).

His work was informed by study of the many tribes of New Guinea.

[Belinda]

The authority structure, if any, of a small band of nomads I think relates to the needs of the group. The strongest defender, male or female, would be the leader if the group be threatened by outsiders.However a threat from other groups is unlikely when there is plenty of rich territory for everyone, indeed hospitality to strangers may be much more important in that case.

The feudal system is a response to permanent need for defence . This need arose when territory became demarcated and marked by stones , ditches, or fences as belonging to specific collectives. Those people were not nomadic but had become stock keepers and growers of crops. Within the feudal system the warrior class ,i.e. knights ,was the ruling class to whom lower classes owed duties. Among the British aristocracy it was only comparatively recently that the army ceased to be the suitable career for the eldest son, with the church suited to the younger son.

[Pattern-chaser]

Some aspects of maps are social convention. (North at the top of the page, water features in blue). And all maps are edited to leave out what the compiler considers unimportant.

On the other hand, if you've ever had the experience of trying to navigate with a map that fails to correspond with the territory (e.g. showing a footpath where in reality a brick wall prevents access) then you'll appreciate that maps can be objectively wrong.

While actual cartographic maps are definitely covered by 'maps and territories', I think we should remember, too, that "maps", in this sense, covers a great deal more than physical maps do. E.g. science, all of it (but not the subjects it studies) is a wholly map-based thing. In our context, science is a map, or part of one. So is philosophy, and many other human creations too. Maps cover a great deal more than simplified renditions of actual physical geographic territory.

[Belinda]

Some aspects of maps are social convention. (North at the top of the page, water features in blue). And all maps are edited to leave out what the compiler considers unimportant.

On the other hand, if you've ever had the experience of trying to navigate with a map that fails to correspond with the territory (e.g. showing a footpath where in reality a brick wall prevents access) then you'll appreciate that maps can be objectively wrong.

While actual cartographic maps are definitely covered by 'maps and territories', I think we should remember, too, that "maps", in this sense, covers a great deal more than physical maps do. E.g. science, all of it (but not the subjects it studies) is a wholly map-based thing. In our context, science is a map, or part of one. So is philosophy, and many other human creations too. Maps cover a great deal more than simplified renditions of actual physical geographic territory.

One rather interesting application of maps to psychoses is that the map most favoured by therapists is the scientific map in which the brain suffers lesions. Psychotherapists used to favour the psychoanalytic map for psychoses , but the psychoanalytic map is now used mainly for neuroses. In the bad old days the map as applied to madmen was the punitive religious map.

[Sushan]

I don't think we say "look there is a hierarchy" like Harry Potter says "Revelio" and hierarchies suddenly appear with all the qualities that we attribute to them. I do not think in this universe (it is possible in a parallel universe) a deer ever attacked a lion, because lion was always superior than a deer. The hierarchies were (and are) there, and with the evolution humans found words to describe them. They were the territory, not the map.

That lions are very good at hunting, killing and eating is, for our purposes here, indisputable. That this behaviour conforms to the more abstract and extended concept of "hierarchy", might or could be true, but we don't really know if that is so. The attributes of the concept "hierarchy", as opposed to direct quotation from the real world observations (that lions are good at hunting), take us from the territory into the speculative imagination of our maps (world-models).

The lions' behaviour is territorial; that this behaviour is hierarchical is guesswork.

Lions are not a hierarchic species. Bull elephant seals and ants are. Different species organise themselves in different ways. Hierarchies are one of these.

Hierarchies are a natural phenomenon that is found in a number of social species, including humans. It is not a distortion of natural egalitarianism created by "evil" humans, as a certain person on this forum intimates.

Correct me if I misunderstood your comment, but as far as I know, lions are hierarchic species. And they show complex social structures within their prides.

On the other hand, in the broad ecological context, they are the apex predators and remain at the top of the food chains.

[Sushan]

The structure facet, is needless to the analysis, so I'll just use hierarchy as the mechanism.
The Trump-Zelensky row, just exposed itself to me as a mode of gravity sustenance for mankind. The gravity sustenance conceptualism, is important insofar as it's a survival mechanism.

In this context, yes, humanity cannot avoid hierarchy. The premise of the query, however being what it is, a cynicism, renders that the presumed identity status of condemnation by the query's response can in turn render that people are not actually condemned by the query's ideal principle (ideal principle; its denotation, here is the descriptive label style, as opposed to a conviction principle).

In general, my stance on hierarchy's science is obsolete, because of my access to statueism. Statueism, is about the philosophy that any human or life image is an exemption from logical storytelling.

Well, the connection (or the interaction) between Trump and Zelensky is quite complex and it involves, I think, more than hierarchical structure.

Because, if it is taken merely as a hierarchy, the hierarchy is US President - - > Ukrainian President. But when we see how the dynamics changed when Trump took the seat from Biden, seemingly it includes more from human nature and status and less from the hierarchical structure.

This can be a context where news and politics are devoid of the citation problem, the specific meaning of the event in question being neither inviter or excluder of the citation problem's democracy.

I typically deal in the socio-psychology of politics; translated, to this event between Trump and Zelensky, the socio-psychology framework is one of legitimacy, despite a few tidbits of the event being hallmark generators of the overall system's ********.

My general takeaway, notwithstanding this analysis, from the event and row, is that politics is in a soap opera age, a paradoxical value only because of the presumed moral status of social media age per se.

I agree. It is quite difficult to determine between facts and social media rumors these days. And also, with the biased nature of the mass media, it is difficult to differentiate between truth and lies.

If by legitimacy, you meant the legitimacy of the Ukrainian president, I think it is a legal matter rather than a political one, because the election is postponed due to the martial law. And if you question the legitimacy of the US president, still there are legal issues that he faced before becoming the president and that were just thrown away simply because he became the president.

These are complex matters, muddled with, as you said, the effect of social media and the people's opinions.

[Fanisa Ndhabambi]

Yes, we either accept it or not, but the way we are socialized as homosapiens and grow to be fully fledged adults, we go through those hierarchies and structure. You can rename it or use certain modern terminology, but its inevitable.

[Sushan]

We can only philosophize using words. The meaning of a word is inter-subjective, but words can describe objective realities or subjective feelings or inter-subjective aspects of culture.

If you were to say "elephants are grey" then that it seems to me, expresses an objective truth, despite expressing it in words that correspond only inter-subjectively with any observable fact about elephants.

If you say "baboons have dominance hierarchies but lions don't " how is that not expressing, in the same way, an objective truth ? Even though it can only be accepted as true by someone who shares an understanding of the meaning of the words.

Is there any serious objection to a statement that some particular species of bird tends to fly in V-shaped patterns ? If you can teach a neural network to recognise V-patterns in flocks of birds, is that evidence that such patterns are objectively there in the real world ?

In addition to what you said, we cannot even say "Elephants are Grey", because grey is a color that we see and have given a conventional naming. And also, if there is a totally color-blind person, all the colors will be grey to him/her. So everything is subjective in that sense.

[Sushan]

It's been thoroughly understood. Humans apply maps to territories. However, a territory being mapped is no reason to believe that the mapped territory itself is now a meta invention. The territory that's been mapped still exists in its on right. The configurations that have been mapped are real. The fact is, that in some groups (and they don't have to be human) entities have varying levels of influence on other entities. In many groupings - from solar systems to hyena packs to human societies, there is a hierarchy of influence. Humans notice this, and map it. The mapping does not negate the reality of the dynamic patterns. It doesn't mean that x is necessarily "better" than y, just more influential.

Maybe the other species understand this too. But they do not have ways like us (or ways that we understand) to express these observations. Animals of a group of certain animals know who is their leader and who is having more influence over who, and they do not try to violate this order and risk their lives.

[Pattern-chaser]

It's been thoroughly understood. Humans apply maps to territories. However, a territory being mapped is no reason to believe that the mapped territory itself is now a meta invention. The territory that's been mapped still exists in its on right. The configurations that have been mapped are real.

Of course they are. But what about the speculations that we make, based on the observations that constitute our initial and passive mapping-observations? Are they (the speculations, not the observations) real (i.e. part of the territory)? No.

[Thomas3333]

The structure facet, is needless to the analysis, so I'll just use hierarchy as the mechanism.
The Trump-Zelensky row, just exposed itself to me as a mode of gravity sustenance for mankind. The gravity sustenance conceptualism, is important insofar as it's a survival mechanism.

In this context, yes, humanity cannot avoid hierarchy. The premise of the query, however being what it is, a cynicism, renders that the presumed identity status of condemnation by the query's response can in turn render that people are not actually condemned by the query's ideal principle (ideal principle; its denotation, here is the descriptive label style, as opposed to a conviction principle).

In general, my stance on hierarchy's science is obsolete, because of my access to statueism. Statueism, is about the philosophy that any human or life image is an exemption from logical storytelling.

Well, the connection (or the interaction) between Trump and Zelensky is quite complex and it involves, I think, more than hierarchical structure.

Because, if it is taken merely as a hierarchy, the hierarchy is US President - - > Ukrainian President. But when we see how the dynamics changed when Trump took the seat from Biden, seemingly it includes more from human nature and status and less from the hierarchical structure.

This can be a context where news and politics are devoid of the citation problem, the specific meaning of the event in question being neither inviter or excluder of the citation problem's democracy.

I typically deal in the socio-psychology of politics; translated, to this event between Trump and Zelensky, the socio-psychology framework is one of legitimacy, despite a few tidbits of the event being hallmark generators of the overall system's ********.

My general takeaway, notwithstanding this analysis, from the event and row, is that politics is in a soap opera age, a paradoxical value only because of the presumed moral status of social media age per se.

I agree. It is quite difficult to determine between facts and social media rumors these days. And also, with the biased nature of the mass media, it is difficult to differentiate between truth and lies.

If by legitimacy, you meant the legitimacy of the Ukrainian president, I think it is a legal matter rather than a political one, because the election is postponed due to the martial law. And if you question the legitimacy of the US president, still there are legal issues that he faced before becoming the president and that were just thrown away simply because he became the president.

These are complex matters, muddled with, as you said, the effect of social media and the people's opinions.

There are layers, of distinctions between the lies elements of news media, that you reference. The cultural denotation, of lies, i.e. the CNN vs Fox News debate, is one such layer, the next layer (whose moral compass relative to the aforementioned layer renders a freedom of judgement index) being the presumed objectivity state of news media's raison detre, i.e. assuming the veracity in the first place, of global socialism activity, is there a veracity of academia that can deem or not deem the veracity of the news media platform (of course, this latest dichotomy precludes the non-paradoxical status of the "moral compass relative" index reference).

[Sy Borg]

It's been thoroughly understood. Humans apply maps to territories. However, a territory being mapped is no reason to believe that the mapped territory itself is now a meta invention. The territory that's been mapped still exists in its on right. The configurations that have been mapped are real.

Of course they are. But what about the speculations that we make, based on the observations that constitute our initial and passive mapping-observations? Are they (the speculations, not the observations) real (i.e. part of the territory)? No.

The configurations are real. I have made no speculations on this thread, only provided facts.