by everything on Sun Sep 03, 2023 3:25 pm
If we say we can only say "evolution" or "adaptation" as ChatGPT and Dmitri suggest, some kind of changes in response to other conditions, "Florida Man" is "adapting" to certain changes, but what changes? It's not a Darwinian sense of survival and passing on genes. In a country where obesity is more of a killer than poverty, there are other problems. There is no Darwinian need to be clever in the way that Silicon Valley technologists creating "artificial life" need to be clever. There seems to be a key underlying assumption:
belief in ABSOLUTE TRUTH
that underlies "the masses" in all phases of history. We can see this need expressed here on the RSF board.
* There was an appeal to otherworldly truth or the truth of "God". Humans can be fallible, but God is omniscient and omnipotent.
* Or if we don't understand something, we think an ancestor or someone wiser who came before probably did, and we as individuals are simply not as talented or hardworking. So Yang understood taijiquan, but we do not. Or someone who taught Yang must know more. Of course this is a fallacy because we'd get collectively less knowledgeable over time.
* Or some people think there is a "Science" that "knows all". This is a fallacy as science starts with some assumption of ignorance. We don't presume Einstein knew everything. We presume there are unanswered questions. And we know we will never know WHY there was a Big Bang, even if we become more convinced there is strong evidence there definitely WAS a Big Bang.
There seems to be a Florida Man who wrongly thinks that "liberals" "believe" in "Science" (AFAIK people, especially in Silicon Valley, might believe in an idea of progress based on improved technology based on science to solve more problems over time, but there isn't some "liberal agenda" that wrongly believes there is monolithic "Science") the way some Florida Men believe their "Religion", and that belief in Science (and other religions) is somehow "wrong". But that would be a strawman, probably incorrect altogether, and I doubt Florida Man could follow any of these logical statements in any case.
Basically there is some lack of thinking ability, lack of self-awareness of said inability, and some deep seated need to believe in the "correct" Absolute Truth or to believe in some Alternative Complete Untruth. But why? Much harder to figure out. Cognitive dissonance, some kind of perceived suffering, perceived lack of control, lack of understanding of what is happening in the world due to such fast changes, child-like lashing out.
Last edited by
everything on Sun Sep 03, 2023 3:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
amateur practices til gets right pro til can't get wrong
/ better approx answer to right q than exact answer to wrong q which can be made precise /
“most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. Source of all true art & science