Individual / Group Fractal

There seems to be a deep fractal pattern in behavior of an individual vs an individual as part of a group. We can see this from particles on up. A hydrogen atom by itself has different behavior characteristics than the same atom as part of an H₂O complex. Can we then fractally generalize this to: and individual person's characteristics / behavior pattern is different when that same person is part of a group, tribe, organization, nation, ...

More Thoughts About Moral Foundations

There are some earlier thoughts on Haidt's Moral Foundations model.Take the moral foundations model with the six foundations: The six foundations are Care/harm, Fairness/cheating, Liberty/oppression, Loyalty/betrayal, Sanctity/degradation, Authority/subversion. It creates a characteristic "personality type" for an individual. This creates a bit of a "flat earth" model of a person's type. If we include the integral perspective, then people are at various level / stages of development. So, a conservative person can be at an ethnocentric level or an integral level. It seems to me that how a "conservative" at these different levels would behave, could / would be very different.

Thoughts About Moral Foundations Model

There are some earlier thoughts on Haidt's Moral Foundations model. It occurred to me that in a number of social science models, there is no linkage to biological structures as possible bases for the proposed model. Take the moral foundations model with the six foundations: The six foundations are Care/harm, Fairness/cheating, Liberty/oppression, Loyalty/betrayal, Sanctity/degradation, Authority/subversion.

Pitfall in the Learning Process

When we are learning something new, e.g., a language, a programming language, math, ... we are in an open receptive mode. The syntax and grammar of what we are learning is often being assimilated into the neurology  past critical thinking filters or questions about the presuppositions built into the syntax and grammar of what we are learning. That syntax and grammar then become filters for what we perceive. They also limit the expressibility of what we perceive by the constraints of that same syntax and grammar.

Fairness as a value

Came across this article about how fairness is perceived differently by conservatives vs liberals. One way to parse the difference is that liberals want to satisfy needs, e.g., hunger for the poor (provide aid where it is needed). For conservatives, this is modified by whether those getting aid are deserving of  the aid, i.e., are they / have they worked, contributed, ... to deserve any aid.

Rethinking Free Will and Agency

The question of free will is often phrased as whether we make our own choices or physics, biology, psychology, ..., i.e., external factors, determine all / some of our choices. There is a presupposition in these phrasing of the question - that we are agents acting on a passive environment. Another way to look at what is going on is as a dance. A dance between us and the context we are in. We change the context and the context changes us. The combination drives what dance steps we can do next and which dance steps are not possible because of the nature, geometry, structure of us and the context we are in.

Spectral Thoughts

Attended a talk on Laws of Life from an astrobiological perspective, i.e., are there basic laws / principles that can help us determine life from non-life. This may also shed some light on what forms of life are possible. It occurred to me that is a binary view of life - life and non-life. What if it is really a spectrum - there is a spectrum of complexity, capability, functionality that is arising. Life happens to be one that is past a certain threshold with emergent properties that we find particularly appealing as we happen to be of this form. One can look at universal evolution from energy, to particles, to atoms, to heavy elements, to replicating molecules, life, ...... as a spectrum.

This bring up an interesting question, what is next after life as we know it -  higher levels of complexity, capability, functionality ?   Access to space, time, matter, in ways we can't yet imagine?