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What are your views on the essence of civilization? * 1
    #26045997 -

In your estimation, what is the nature of civilization? What is its essence? I would be happy to hear of both internal and external sorts of perspectives. The anthropological perspective can be summed up thus:  Civilization is really founded on the quest to supplant natural evolution, with all its attendant ramifications. Imho, there is a perfectly sound reason why we are so awful at conducting civilization: we did not evolve to do it.

The anthropological and ecologist views are my go-to, but I'd be very interested to hear the takes of some of you. Is civilization necessary, is it progress, and what it its nature?


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Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #26046039 -

:ooo:

Edited by Thermal Visions (06/11/19 03:31 PM)

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: Thermal Visions]
    #26046187 -

I find your comment interesting and enjoyable. I agree with it. Through our cultural moralities, which, admittedly, are not as puritanical these days, we have simply hidden or pretended away many of our behaviors, especially those of a more animal nature. Even today in the West, most especially in the U.S., we are very peculiar when it comes to our reservations about sex and sexuality. These days, more is out in the open, but many millions of Americans have a lot of backwards little phobias about all sorts of things which are direct consequences of the moral systems that have been imprinted. I very much agree that the original nature of most of our rituals and activities are not known to most people, people who would be dismayed if not shocked to know that what are precious rituals to them have, in fact, a completely different meaning and function in their origins.

Civilization is highly irrational, perhaps fundamentally so, and it definitely "mangles" and victimizes literally billions of people. I personally am of a nature not to root for widespread chaos and destruction, but you're right, more likely than not a lot of it is coming. For a large number of reasons. One in particular I just thought about, which will prove to be catastrophic in twenty or thirty years (where it isn't already), is water. Water sources are drying up in a natural cycle which climate change is certainly not helping (read: is accelerating). So, we have declining water sources and a population that will grow to over ten billion in less than twenty-five years. Even in the comparatively wealthy and comfortable U.S., the entire country west of the Mississippi River will be in huge trouble -- the population is exploding and the water is drying up. Where I live, in Utah, it is estimated that there will be a major water crunch in twenty to twenty-five years. In other words, around 2040 there will not be enough water for per capita needed usage. And all over the world, the situation is the same, if not much worse. You talk about potential chaos. And this is just one issue of literally hundreds afflicting the world in this century. It will be a miracle if we make it.

So, with respect to the matter at hand, it seems civilizations are doomed to fail. We see it throughout history, and we're seeing it now.


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Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: Thermal Visions]
    #26046192 -

Thermal Visions said:
:ooo:



Why on Earth would you delete that post?


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Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #26046492 -

Cooperation

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #26046578 -

We mate and survive at all costs. Civilization seems like something that advances the probability of survival for all.


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TRUMP 2020

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: XUL]
    #26046707 -

XUL said:
We mate and survive at all costs. Civilization seems like something that advances the probability of survival for all.



Hunter-gatherers were mating successfully and surviving just fine for 2-300,000 years before any civilization existed. Earlier hominins for two or three million years. (Civilization has existed for 10,000 years).


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Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #26046729 -

What definition of civilization are you using?

Either way, civilization still seems to exist to support our probability of living well. Fucking and having babies.


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TRUMP 2020

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: XUL]
    #26046863 -

XUL said:
What definition of civilization are you using?

Either way, civilization still seems to exist to support our probability of living well. Fucking and having babies.



Agriculture, animal husbandry, irrigation, administration, division of labor, specialization, taxation, etc. This has sprung up a handful of times around the world, and for us started in the Fertile Crescent some ten thousand years ago. Before that -- and it's a long time, since anatomically modern humans have existed for at least 200,000 years and possibly longer -- there was no civilization.

Anthropology shows that the majority of hunter-gatherers lived quite well, and had a more balanced diet than most people living today. They fucked and had babies, or none of us would be here. I find it curious that you feel civilization is necessary for that. I will say that the mental and social system built around fucking and having babies -- morality -- has changed quite a lot in civilization. But civilization itself has nothing to do with what you have outlined.


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Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #26046979 -

I'm saying that the purposes of civilization are similar to society ties in Hunter gather societies. Hunter and gatherers worked together for a collective pot of food for survival. We still do this, but with more advanced techniques and on bigger levels.

What say you?


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TRUMP 2020

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: XUL]
    #26047647 -

I'm not sure what you're saying. Are you saying civilization brings safety and security? It does, but otoh, you don't need to be civilized to be in a safe and secure society. It seems to me that you're attributing to civilization sociological facets that can be found outside civilization, and therefore are not unique to civilization. It seems.


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Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #26047757 -

Collective demarcation of labor and consumption.

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: remake]
    #26047760 -

Could you explain what that means?


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Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #26047780 -

I saw a clear vision in my head, hence the lack of explanation. But I will explain this.

A civilization forms when we work together, and consume the fruits of our labor. All the while doing this within given guidelines or laws, to ensure the sustainability of the labor to consumption ratio.

Edited: "fruits of our labor" not "labor of our work". I'm fried from various things.

Edited by remake (06/12/19 10:23 AM)

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #26047809 -

DividedQuantum said:
In your estimation, what is the nature of civilization? What is its essence? I would be happy to hear of both internal and external sorts of perspectives. The anthropological perspective can be summed up thus:  Civilization is really founded on the quest to supplant natural evolution, with all its attendant ramifications. Imho, there is a perfectly sound reason why we are so awful at conducting civilization: we did not evolve to do it.

The anthropological and ecologist views are my go-to, but I'd be very interested to hear the takes of some of you. Is civilization necessary, is it progress, and what it its nature?


It is just what happens, when 2 shifts take place.
1) surplus food (from more intensive agriculture)
        Which creates surplus time & more security
2) Sedantism (settling in one place)
        Together these 2 lead to:

        Possessions
        Specialization / division of labor
        Leaders
        Protection of possessions
        Police, armies, prisions, taxes...etc.
        Increasing population
        Degradation of the environment, resulting in reduced nutrition
        Over crowding, also contributing to disease
        Food storage, resulting in rats & mice - also contributing to disease
        More domestication of animals, - also contributing to disease
        Politics & the pursuit of power
        Writing & Written history & creation of a great knowledge base
        And all the comforts we are used to

.....I view it as an impersonal process; as a side effect of increased brain size. I see it as meaningless, just like evolution, or the 'big bang ... or just like everything else... so I would not call it a "quest", or "progress".
.....'It' is a only process that results in increased order, (IMO), like crystallization or the evolution that resulted in social insects - ants & termites being the prime examples - but there are many such insect societies.
.....Mole rats are the only mammals, (besides perhaps humans), that I know of that ended up going this route.
.....The animals other than humans, are of course different in having a biologically different queen, I think.
....No human leader would want to have, as restricted a life as an insect queen of course. With no golf!

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: laughingdog]
    #26047855 -

Perhaps one day, we'd be able to escape this using VR and achieving the evolutionary level of self-sustaining blobs.

What if we create a perfect sustainability cycle, with no work and only play...:yesnod:

Currently the only option to achieve this minimally is to become an entertainer.

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: laughingdog]
    #26047880 -

One could also say the biological shift from single cell organisms to multicellular organisms involved a similar shift. But in this case evolution "took its time" as with the insect societies, so that the "kinks got worked out" along the way.

If I'm right that in the case of humans, bands or 'tribes' of less than 100 to 300 individuals, are what we evolved to deal with, (see Robin Dunbar & Dunbar's number); and that civilization is an "unintended" side effect of a very large & complex brain; that would explain the "perfectly sound reason why we are so awful at conducting civilization".

The large brain came before civilization. It is not the result of it.
One example showing this is the ancient cave paintings in what is now Europe.

In the far east (India, Tibet, & China, among others). Long before, civilization was inescapable, there were various groups of yogis, meditators, & wandering monks, who lived on the periphery of civilization, and put the large brain to use, for an entirely different endeavor - than that of 'civilization'.

The brain has many amazing potentials, but humans are not free of instinct or emotion.
And most of thought is really just rationalization, association, superstition, and expressions of belief, and socializing. And most of  life is at root instinctual.

The yogis, meditators, & wandering monks, recognized this and turned away from civilization, to concentrate on rectifying what evolution had "not completed", so that human potential ( but not yet developed ) could be realized.

In this view we are infatuated with civilization because it satisfies our instincts & desires, and we are frankly addicted to it, and would be helpless without it. Never the less, it is not tuned to fully develop human potential, but usually has the opposite result. IMO

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: laughingdog]
    #26047893 -

Maybe we all are nature. The thing that is. Just looking at this thing right here and now, doing it's thing. What are we doing?

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: laughingdog]
    #26047959 -

laughingdog said:
DividedQuantum said:
In your estimation, what is the nature of civilization? What is its essence? I would be happy to hear of both internal and external sorts of perspectives. The anthropological perspective can be summed up thus:  Civilization is really founded on the quest to supplant natural evolution, with all its attendant ramifications. Imho, there is a perfectly sound reason why we are so awful at conducting civilization: we did not evolve to do it.

The anthropological and ecologist views are my go-to, but I'd be very interested to hear the takes of some of you. Is civilization necessary, is it progress, and what it its nature?


It is just what happens, when 2 shifts take place.
1) surplus food (from more intensive agriculture)
        Which creates surplus time & more security
2) Sedantism (settling in one place)
        Together these 2 lead to:

        Possessions
        Specialization / division of labor
        Leaders
        Protection of possessions
        Police, armies, prisions, taxes...etc.
        Increasing population
        Degradation of the environment, resulting in reduced nutrition
        Over crowding, also contributing to disease
        Food storage, resulting in rats & mice - also contributing to disease
        More domestication of animals, - also contributing to disease
        Politics & the pursuit of power
        Writing & Written history & creation of a great knowledge base
        And all the comforts we are used to



I agree, I think it's not intended by an individual or group, and just evolves given the factors you've outlined. But then, there are all sorts of interesting questions to ask: Why, after hundreds of thousands of years, did people decide to settle down? How did surpluses come about if there was absolutely no infrastructure or desire for them? Of course, the developments you mention are what these factors led to. But I think we really understand a lot less about how civilizations form than people think. Compared to other types of societies, the anthropological record shows us that civilizations came into being extraordinarily rarely.

Quote:
.....I view it as an impersonal process; as a side effect of increased brain size. I see it as meaningless, just like evolution, or the 'big bang ... or just like everything else... so I would not call it a "quest", or "progress".
.....'It' is a only process that results in increased order, (IMO), like crystallization or the evolution that resulted in social insects - ants & termites being the prime examples - but there are many such insect societies.
.....Mole rats are the only mammals, (besides perhaps humans), that I know of that ended up going this route.
.....The animals other than humans, are of course different in having a biologically different queen, I think.
....No human leader would want to have, as restricted a life as an insect queen of course. With no golf!



It is made possible by increased brain size, yes, but that is not really an explanation. I used the word "quest" purely in an ideological sense. I agree that it's not in any way objectively progressive. The strangest thing about our civilization is its youth -- it's only ten thousand years old, and in that comparatively brief time has swallowed and enslaved the entire world. Homo sapiens has been anatomically modern for 200-300,000 years. Identical biologically, with the only differences being cultural -- culture being the shared mental contents of a particular group. So... why did it take so long? There is no answer. One could say that it had a certain likelihood to happen, so sooner or later it did. But that doesn't explain why it took 97% of our existence to pass before we engaged in it. So there's some piece missing as to how civilizations can form and last for thousands of years, if it virtually never happens. It's a mystery.


--------------------
Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici

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Re: What are your views on the essence of civilization? [Re: laughingdog]
    #26047965 -

laughingdog said:
One could also say the biological shift from single cell organisms to multicellular organisms involved a similar shift. But in this case evolution "took its time" as with the insect societies, so that the "kinks got worked out" along the way.

If I'm right that in the case of humans, bands or 'tribes' of less than 100 to 300 individuals, are what we evolved to deal with, (see Robin Dunbar & Dunbar's number); and that civilization is an "unintended" side effect of a very large & complex brain; that would explain the "perfectly sound reason why we are so awful at conducting civilization".

The large brain came before civilization. It is not the result of it.
One example showing this is the ancient cave paintings in what is now Europe.

In the far east (India, Tibet, & China, among others). Long before, civilization was inescapable, there were various groups of yogis, meditators, & wandering monks, who lived on the periphery of civilization, and put the large brain to use, for an entirely different endeavor - than that of 'civilization'.

The brain has many amazing potentials, but humans are not free of instinct or emotion.
And most of thought is really just rationalization, association, superstition, and expressions of belief, and socializing. And most of  life is at root instinctual.

The yogis, meditators, & wandering monks, recognized this and turned away from civilization, to concentrate on rectifying what evolution had "not completed", so that human potential ( but not yet developed ) could be realized.

In this view we are infatuated with civilization because it satisfies our instincts & desires, and we are frankly addicted to it, and would be helpless without it. Never the less, it is not tuned to fully develop human potential, but usually has the opposite result. IMO



Very good points.


--------------------
Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici

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General Interest > Philosophy, Sociology & Psychology
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