In Arendt's "What is Authority?", she reflects on Plato's original definition of "theology": "the measure of measures". It seems clear to me that, in Lyotard's "Postmodern Condition", his discussion of "scientific meta-narrative" is really a discussion of the shifting [Platonic] "theology of science": what is the ultimate measure of science itself?

Wow. Lévi-Strauss is really good. Some pages on the relationship between "meaning" and "knowledge" in systems of symbols / language. Didn't highlight it, but I love how Lévi-Strauss characterizes science: the discovery of complementary patterns, relationships within the totality of signification.

one like = one tweet relating to postrats in some form. who knows where this might go?

(max 100 tweets, no purchase necessary, entry limit of at most one like per account, tweets have no cash value)

https://twitter.com/vgr/status/1206051269120389120

1. The obvious stuff first: "postrat" contains a prefix "post-" applied to a root "rat". The root refers to the "rationalist" community. Thus, postrats have an intrinsic tie to the rationalists.

1/ In honor of the recent sex-and-dating news, I'd like to discuss a brief & fun sociological paper: Willard Waller's "The Rating and Dating Complex" (1937). First, I'll summarize it, highlighting key bits, followed by a brief discussion. PDF: arena-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com/3967690/3eefe9… 2/ Human mating behavior is complex. Waller claims that, before "dating", young people engaged in a courtship process designed to get them married off--and back to productive work--as smoothly as possible. This made sense in pre-modern, scarce times.

1/ Please bear with me as I summarize a book by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (MC), author of "Flow", called "The Evolving Self" (1993). I'll do so mostly through quotes, please excuse any gaps. Idea-space coordinates: memes, Modernism, psychology, liberalism.

First, definitions: 2/ A "system" is a set of parts forming a whole. Each system has an "order" ("negentropy"), which is opposed by "chaos" ("entropy").

A system is "complex" if it is "differentiated" & "integrated". This is typically good.

underappreciated fact: your ideaspace is bounded more by experience than by intelligence continuing with ideaspace metaphor: experience broadens your base, while intelligence helps you ascend (to meta)

@pnewman8 1/I don't think echo chambers alone produce "us and them" mentalities, I think an echo chamber must first be confronted with an Other in order for this to emerge. @pnewman8 2/To avoid "us and them", the echo chambers must be porous and well-tended. The adventurous must explore and share their good viewpoints with those who feel threatened. Through sermons, for example.

@moodprobiotic @browserdotsys TOO REAL: "electronic communities encourage participation in fragmented, mostly silent, microgroups who are primarily engaged in dialogues of self-congratulation. in other words, most people lurk; and the ones who post, are pleased with themselves." @moodprobiotic @browserdotsys "hysterical identification is a mental device that enables one person to take on the sufferings of a group of persons... in our society, many decisions about who a person is, are made through the device of hysterical identification"

Maybe I'm being blinded by numerology, but Kohlberg's stages and Kegan's stages seem suspiciously correlated. Nihilism: stage 5 mind with stage <6 morality? "Surfing Dialectics" is hard without a higher moral sense to guide decision-making.

once you fill up your dunbar sphere, everyone new looks like someone you already know dunbar competition occurs when someone new takes over the slot of someone old

Through the (accidental?) pattern language of memes, the global public architects its own megacity of Internet culture. "Echo Chamber" brings to mind a cave, but it is more akin to a ghetto.