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

[Pattern-chaser]

Someone who does the latter is not "speculatively endowing" front-line workers with any of the other attributes of leaves.

Yes, that seems so. And so one conclusion we might draw is that the metaphor that is connecting workers and leaves is not working well for us, in this particular example. Yes? I.e. the metaphor was/is inappropriately applied, in this example.

[Sy Borg]

P-C does not believe that organisational structures exist outside of human imagination...

Incorrect. The Universe is not homogenous, and it is not wholly random or chaotic, and therefore there must exist structure of some kind. It's the last 3 words that are important there. "Structure" does not describe any *particular* structure, but only "structure".

"Hierarchy", on the other hand, describes a specific form of structure. And so, as soon as we point to a collection of real-world things, and say, "that's a hierarchy, that is", we are saying that this structure has the abstract (and unobservable) attributes of a hierarchy — "verticality", "superiority", and so forth.

The presence or absence of these attributes cannot be verified by observation or measurement. Here, we have only speculation to rely on, and so anything we build here, we build on sand.

Sill lying? Earlier in the thread you said this to me, that set off the ensuing conflict:

I fear you misunderstand. You really don't like metaphysics, do you? 😉

Reality is as reality does. The world-models and 'understanding' we overlay on top of it are just that — *our* overlay. Stratification does not exist in reality*; stratification is only the 'understanding' that we impose on it. It's difficult, sometimes, to separate what is, and what we think of what is.

Also, you appear not to understand anything in this conversation. You are focused on one semantic around hierarchy and cannot imagine a hierarchy without human values.

Hierarchies can, of course, be measured as much as any other relational dynamic. By your logic, life does not exist because it cannot be measured or clearly delineated from the non-living.

For the nth time, hierarchy It's not about superiority, as you repeatedly falsely claim, its about influence. Entities higher in a hierarchy can more impact entities lower down than vice versa.

Any geologist or palaeontologist would laugh at your claim that stratification does not happen in reality.

[Pattern-chaser]

Also, you appear not to understand anything in this conversation. You are focused on one semantic around hierarchy and cannot imagine a hierarchy without human values.

I can imagine many things, thank you. But there can be no "hierarchy" without "human values" because the word carries baggage; baggage that cannot be verified. This baggage consists entirely of "human values": "superiority", "verticality", and so forth.

"Structure", on the other hand, carries no such baggage, and for that reason, it's probably a better choice of term for this topic. "Structure" simply describes order or organisation, in the most general terms, and in contrast to randomness or chaos.

This has always been a much smaller point than you have appreciated. It focusses on the map and the territory, and observes that "hierarchy", specifically its 'baggage', belongs wholly in our maps. Maps of "human values"...

[Sy Borg]

Also, you appear not to understand anything in this conversation. You are focused on one semantic around hierarchy and cannot imagine a hierarchy without human values.

I can imagine many things, thank you. But there can be no "hierarchy" without "human values" because the word carries baggage; baggage that cannot be verified. This baggage consists entirely of "human values": "superiority", "verticality", and so forth.

"Structure", on the other hand, carries no such baggage, and for that reason, it's probably a better choice of term for this topic. "Structure" simply describes order or organisation, in the most general terms, and in contrast to randomness or chaos.

This has always been a much smaller point than you have appreciated. It focusses on the map and the territory, and observes that "hierarchy", specifically its 'baggage', belongs wholly in our maps. Maps of "human values"...

Again, you repeat the same misrepresentations, without a scrap of evidence or supporting material, while ignoring all of the supporting material I provided.

This debate supposed to be about reason and logic, concepts you appear to have fully abandoned n favour of repetition and false claims. Here, you fail to separate meaning from semantic, while AGAIN falsely accusing me of confusing map and territory.

Let's take an example of "hierarchy" being used in a sentence in the Merrian-Webster dictionary:

Whereas the monkeys normally hew to strict hierarchies when it comes to who gets the best food and who grooms whom, there are no obvious top or rotten bananas in the sharing of millipede secretions.

Here s a Wiki article, titled "List of dominance hierarchy species" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_d ... hy_species

Can you provide ANY evidence proving that animals have no hierarchy? Of course not, because there is none. Animal hierarchies are well known.

The absurdity level in your arguments is close to the oddness of your claims that leprechauns might actually exist, though that still takes the cake

[TommyJoe]

I don't believe you. I have given you indisputable - utterly blatant examples - and you deny it based on the spurious notion that if something cannot be photographed then it's not real. You have not provided a single solid argument against the examples provided, just post-modern waffle.

You have heard of pecking orders in chickens, I assume. I'm curious to see what kind of nonsense you will use this time to avoid admitting you were wrong.
[/quote]
Disagreements are natural, but dismissing opposing views without consideration doesn't lead to productive discussion.

[Sy Borg]

I don't believe you. I have given you indisputable - utterly blatant examples - and you deny it based on the spurious notion that if something cannot be photographed then it's not real. You have not provided a single solid argument against the examples provided, just post-modern waffle.

You have heard of pecking orders in chickens, I assume. I'm curious to see what kind of nonsense you will use this time to avoid admitting you were wrong.

Disagreements are natural, but dismissing opposing views without consideration doesn't lead to productive discussion.
[/quote]

In other word, it's fine to ignore evidence but it's not fine to fire back when some someone ignores the evidence provided. I went to the trouble to find the evidence. Do you think that ignoring that evidence leads to productive discussion?

This is a longstanding debate. P-C believes that nothing is necessarily real, that it's just all our senses and brains. I think there there is an actual ontic reality that is shaped by senses and perception. IMO that shaping is still related to the nature of reality, just incomplete.

There is indisputable evidence of hierarchies in other species. Some species are more hierarchic than others. Do you, like P-C, disagree with this, believing that animals simply form whatever group structures and that the differences pertain to human perception?

[Pattern-chaser]

Disagreements are natural, but dismissing opposing views without consideration doesn't lead to productive discussion.

This is a longstanding debate.

No, it isn't. I made a simple comment, rashly assuming you knew, and could distinguish, the map from the territory. It seems you can't, which has led to this ridiculously-extended exchange.

P-C believes...

As ever, you haven't a clue what "PC believes". We will communicate better if you tell us what you believe, and I tell you all what I believe. Shall we give it a try?

[Sy Borg]

P-C, I know exactly what you believe in this issue because you have repeated it about a dozen times. Trouble is, you refuse to listen to reason, simply dismissing all evidence and repeating what we all already know - that brains map reality.

Let's assume that I have a triple digit IQ and am therefore aware of the difference between map and territory. I made very clear that hierarchies are "territory" with numerous examples found in animals that know nothing of human nature. The simple ontic fact is that animal groups are structured differently, either more or less hierarchic. A flock of starlings is not hierarchic, but packs of hyenas or bull elephant seal colonies are clearly hierarchic.

You don't need to be able to draw an org chart to be hierarchic ... that would be be mistaking map for territory, yes?

[Pattern-chaser]

Let's assume [ I am ] aware of the difference between map and territory. I made very clear that hierarchies are "territory"...

So "superiority" and "verticality" — attributes/properties of "hierarchies" — belong to the territory, the real world? No. If they did, they would be observable. As it is, they are invisible (unmeasurable) parts of our maps.

Structure (order) is one thing, a complement to chaos or randomness. But "hierarchy" is a specific type of structure, and part of its definition is that it includes such attributes as "superiority" and "verticality". If it does not include these attributes, then it is not a "hierarchy", by definition.

Consider the social behaviour of your example (say) baboon troop. You say it is a hierarchy. OK. So where or what is its "verticality"? Its "superiority"? How do you measure or observe it? There is no microscope, microphone, or micrometer that will help, because the things we are now describing — the attributes of "hierarchies" — are not part of the real world, the territory. They are invisible, undetectable, and unmeasurable, as so many parts of our maps are.

Hierarchies are not part of the territory, which is to say, they aren't part of the real world. The troop of baboons are real. The observations (measurements) you make are real. They are measurable, and the measurements are repeatable, and sometimes even testable. All real, and all part of the real world, which is the territory.

But when you start to analyse your data (measurements), the results of your analysis, your conclusions, are not part of the territory, they are solely part of our maps (i.e. part of our understanding of the territory).

If, as you say "hierarchies are "territory"", then you should be able to point to them, observe them, and measure them. What you can do, and what you have done so many times in this exchange, is to offer *examples* of things in the real world that you have identified as "hierarchies". You cannot show us a hierarchy, but only examples of configurations that you believe exhibit the 'pattern' of "hierarchy".

I don't suppose this will make any difference. I doubt you will read what I have written with any attention. Which is a shame. This is a misunderstanding that should've been easy to fix. It isn't, and never was, a big deal.

[Sy Borg]

The denial is strong in this one. Yet AGAIN mistaking hierarchy for superiority, despite multiple examples. I have said it before but will try again ... hierarchy is not about value judgements, it's about degree of influence and control.

By your reckoning, friendship isn't real, love and hate are not real (only the entities that experience it), art is not real (just stuff being arranged), architecture is not real (just arranged rocks).

Worse, your claim is basically that all non-human animals organise themselves in exactly the same way. If hierarchies don't exist, as you claim, in groups of chimpanzees, elephant seals, baboons, wolves, hyenas, lions, elephants, dolphins, ants, bees, termites, chickens, deer and horses, then how do you describe the dynamics of the groupings? Socialist egalitarianism? A P-C's perfect Marxist utopia?

[Pattern-chaser]

The denial is strong in this one. Yet AGAIN mistaking hierarchy for superiority, despite multiple examples...

Look up "hierarchy" in a dictionary. That's where the attributes of a hierarchy are defined. You're wrong because the word is *defined* to include these attributes — superiority, verticality, and so on. This is not my definition, or my invention. It's your misunderstanding, or failure to check a dictionary/encyclopædia.

A hierarchy is an arrangement of items (objects, names, values, categories, etc.) that are represented as being "above", "below", or "at the same level as" one another. A hierarchy can link entities either directly or indirectly, and either vertically or diagonally. And so on...

If you choose the word, its baggage (i.e. attributes) come along with it.

[Pattern-chaser]

If you say "That's a human", you are saying "That thing has arms and legs", because arms and legs are *attributes* of the concept 'human'.

In the same way, calling something a "hierarchy" endows that thing with superiority and verticality.

These things have attributes and properties, because that's how we define them.

But this is nothing to do with my original comment, which said only that concepts like "human", "beauty" or "hierarchy" are human-created map-objects, not part of the territory. They *concern* and refer to the territory; that's what we make our maps for. But that doesn't make our concepts part of the territory. How could it? The territory can be observed and measured, often repeatably. Map-objects cannot usually be measured, or even detected by an observer, no matter what sense-enhancing equipment they use.

[Sy Borg]

The denial is strong in this one. Yet AGAIN mistaking hierarchy for superiority, despite multiple examples...

Look up "hierarchy" in a dictionary. That's where the attributes of a hierarchy are defined. You're wrong because the word is *defined* to include these attributes — superiority, verticality, and so on. This is not my definition, or my invention. It's your misunderstanding, or failure to check a dictionary/encyclopædia.

A hierarchy is an arrangement of items (objects, names, values, categories, etc.) that are represented as being "above", "below", or "at the same level as" one another. A hierarchy can link entities either directly or indirectly, and either vertically or diagonally. And so on...

If you choose the word, its baggage (i.e. attributes) come along with it.

Another comment with zero logic. Just because humans have clear and value-based hierarchies does not mean that animal and other hierarchies have all the same qualities.

[Sy Borg]

The denial is strong in this one. Yet AGAIN mistaking hierarchy for superiority, despite multiple examples. I have said it before but will try again ... hierarchy is not about value judgements, it's about degree of influence and control.

By your reckoning, friendship isn't real, love and hate are not real (only the entities that experience it), art is not real (just stuff being arranged), architecture is not real (just arranged rocks).

Worse, your claim is basically that all non-human animals organise themselves in exactly the same way. If hierarchies don't exist, as you claim, in groups of chimpanzees, elephant seals, baboons, wolves, hyenas, lions, elephants, dolphins, ants, bees, termites, chickens, deer and horses, then how do you describe the dynamics of the groupings? Socialist egalitarianism? A P-C's perfect Marxist utopia? :P

It seems I have to repeat this entire post as you addressed none of it.

1. That hierarchies are based on influence and control, not quality.

2. Your reasoning for saying hierarchies are not real can be used to claim "friendship isn't real, love and hate are not real (only the entities that experience it), art is not real (just stuff being arranged), architecture is not real (just arranged rocks)."

3. You ignored the fact that many species have clear hierarchies and, if not hierarchies, how would you explain the differences in configuration between, say, colonies of ants and flocks of starlings. I would say that ant societies are ordered into hierarchies while starlings have decentralised coordination, a self-organizing system. It lacks a hierarchy—no single bird acts as a leader—and instead relies on local interactions among individuals following simple rules.

[Good_Egg]

But there can be no "hierarchy" without "human values" because the word carries baggage; baggage that cannot be verified. This baggage consists entirely of "human values": "superiority", "verticality", and so forth.

"Structure", on the other hand, carries no such baggage, and for that reason, it's probably a better choice of term for this topic.

"Structure" simply describes order or organisation, in the most general terms, and in contrast to randomness or chaos.

A hierarchy is a particular structure. That is characterised by a one-directional relationship that we can think of as "pecks". Every chicken pecks those "lower" down the structure and is liable to be pecked by those "higher" up.

If we rotate the "org chart" through 90 degrees (or any other angle) it tells the same story, maps the same territory. That we, in our culture, conventionally draw it with the alpha chicken - the one that pecks all the other chickens - at the top of the page, is only a social convention. Lower/higher is as you say part of the map. (Just as North at the top of the page is a social convention).

But it's not an arbitrary convention. Plants grow up from the ground. And in many animal species the tallest individual will tend to have corresponding bulk and strength and therefore be a likely candidate for becoming the alpha.

You can follow or flout that convention without believing that the alpha chicken is more worthy or admirable or any other such statement of value. It's not a better chicken.

Maybe you need to unpack your baggage...