Magoroh Maruyama may hide behind that Jap name but he's a Berkeley boy and a school trained Mathematician whose doctorate is in Cultural Epistemology. Maruyama researches and writes on Cybernetics and the Models one uses in Science Theories. In fact the article I have gleaned this info from was pubbed in Current Anthropology and is entitled: "Mindscapes and Science Theories." Magoroh is interested in "patterns of cognition, perception, conceptualization, design, planning and decision making."
Specifically, this article concerns a study of "various models in the physical, biological, and social sciences." The heart of his question is this: When people, as individuals or as societies, are asked for a Causal description of Reality in Physics, in Biology, or in the Social Sciences, what kinds of Models do they come up with? Below you see what Maruyama calls the 4 Metatypes of Causality. Monkey minds when they look out at what's shaking in the Cosmos filter their Reality thru these 4 Models:
Nonreciprocal Causal Models are just as they sound - the rule is: "You scratch my back and Fuck you." In the cartoon below, Calvin desires to be a better person because it will result in more presents for himself illustrates this linear, one-way, flow of thinking. In the NonRecip Models the Parts are subordinated to the Whole. There is a best way for all individuals and universal principles apply to all. Here the Strong dominate the Weak and the motto is: "One man's Gain in another man's Loss." These are Zero-Sum Models. Under Theories and Governments, and Historical Epochs which operate from a Nonreciprocal Causal Model, decisions are made by comparative number of votes which assures the Dominance by Quantity or by "Consensus" which assumes the existence of a Best Solution for Everyone. So what benefits the greatest number of people is better than what benefits a smaller number. Ergo: What is good for the Majority is also good for Minorities. In this way Minorities may be Sacrificed or Ignored - usually they are given One-Way Tickets to the Ovens. The Mindset of the `Nonreciprocal' is that differences just generate Conflict while sameness generates Peace. So get with the Program, Young Blood! Or get the fuck off the Boat. Where the fuck's your Yellow Ribbon? What are you some kinda Protestor? In NonRecip Nations dissent is crushed and considered Treason. All differences are on the road to being Eliminated. Those who/which are Non-Standard are labeled, processed, and turned into Soap. The weak, the poor, the sick, the young, are abandoned during times like this where all Energy flows one way - towards the Top. Both Reagan's Trickle-Down Economics and Bush's 1000 Points of Light Program illustrate this type of Thinking. "Let them eat Cake."
The Second Level of Causality and Justification illustrates the Mindset of the Epoch which produced the World's great Democracies: Britain, France and the USA. Under the umbrella of the Independent-Event Model the emphasis shifts from the King and Nobility - the Noblesse Oblige - of Level One to the idea that the Individual is the only real Reality.
On the Indy-Event level Society is seen as just an aggregate of Individuals who think and act Independently for their own good - it's Free Enterprise run Amok. The State and the Group are not real, only the Individual has rights. This is Darwinian and Spencerian Survival of the Fittest type of thinking. It's emblematic of the Republican Party's Social Welfare Ideology. The Strong should not support the Weak, and all taxation which benefits groups - for the Arts, for instance - for Welfare, for State supported Medical Care, should be Verboten. Let the Nazi Old People out of the Property-Tax Loop which is used to support Education. Afterall, they don't have kids in schools so how the hell are they benefiting from an Educated Society? Huh? On this level the Poor and the Weak have only themselves to blame. In England they once said it like this: "Fuck you Jack, I'm alright!" Conservatives have always thought of them as the Guilty Poor. So all social obligations are suspect and suspended and interactions are seen as harmful. One votes only in one's own interest. Neither of the first 2 levels are Gay-friendly, or tolerant of Classes on the Out.
Homeostatic Causal-Loop Models stress interaction between Individuals and the Group Society which they make up. The Harmony of the Hive is seen as beneficial for all. Here differences are desirable for the same reason which Nature has invented Sex - Diversity is a hedge against Hard Times. Having only one mode of behavior or fashion or individual or belief is dangerous if the environment changes to favor another mode. So responsibility to take care of the Weaker Parts is perceived as a good. Sameness generates Conflict and Competition, while Diversity enables Mutual benefits. These are Liberal Times and Art and Poetry flourish. People wear Multi-Colored clothes and Men tend towards Longer Hair Styles. Skirts get Tiny. Freaks become Fascinating. There is only one real problem with this Mindscape: Once Harmony is achieved it must thereafter be preserved. Thinking like this leads towards Utopian Vistas and, as in Plato's Republic, sooner or later you must find a way to Limit or stop Change. Harmony is seen not to Coexist with Chaos and Change.
The last Metatype of Causality is called Morphogenetic or Morphogenic and the only real difference between this Mindscape and the Homeostatic system described above in #3 is buried in the Word itself. Morph = Image, body. Gen = Coming into Being. So Morphogenetic means that new things, new images, new bodies, new ideas, new harmonies - are always coming into Being. This is the Polar Opposite of the Zero-Sum Model of #1 because under this way of thinking all parties, both individuals and their societies, benefit from continuing, and changing, interactions.
In summary: numbers 1 and 2 are Classical, Aristotelian, Catholic, and stress that there is Only One Way, One Truth, One God, One Law, One Reality, One Universe. Everything is just the way things appear. Nothing is Relative. Not Ethics, not Morality, not Truth. Here the world is Black & White. Numbers 3 and 4 stress the idea, found in Sociobiology and Quantum Mechanics that there are Many Truths and that the Universe is Relative, Einsteintinian, and that the Truth - like God - is dependent on your Point of View. At this level Reality is seen to be Developing and not Fixed. So everyone not only has a right to his opinion but those opinions are valued and `right.'
Maruyama sums his thought like this: the Universe is Jan-Ken-Pon and not a Hierarchal System. It is Circular, not Linear. Jan-Ken-Pon means: Scissors-Paper-Rock and refers to the Children's Game where kids throw out a hand sign which stands either for a Rock, a piece of Paper, or a pair of Scissors. In this game there is no Fixed Winner or Loser. Sometimes a Scissors wins - when it cuts Paper. But sometimes Paper wins when it covers the Rock. There is no one eternal truth. In a Jan-Ken-Pon System the Grounds of Truth shift from Toss to Toss.
Look at what happens when you extend the Bases of Interaction. The image below is based on 25 Elements in the System. If Spinoza is right then the Universe is an Infinite Web of Interactive Implications. If God is not a Hologram he's an Idiot.
Skippy once read a book called: Uniquely Human: The Evolution of Speech, Thought, and Selfless Behavior by Philip Lieberman. The book masquerades as a refutation of E. O. Wilson's Sociobiological explanation of Altruism or "selfless behavior" and of Richard Dawkin's Selfish Gene Theory. In the end it appears more of an Addition to those theories than a genuine Refutation. Lieberman's argument goes like this: a mutation of our primate ancestor's supralaryngeal airway led to the ability to differentiate sounds in the voicebox, which led to speech and words, and words lead to the building of a Model of the World in our heads. Words - which can stand for the World - are easier to move around in our heads than are their correspondences in the World. So humans gained the ability to see the world in their "mind's eye" - this trait, Lieberman says, lead to the unique human ability to imagine what it must be like to be in another person's shoes, to, in short, see Reality from Another's point of view. This, says Lieberman, is the basis of Moral Behavior. Precisely that vision which the Preconventional answers to Kohlberg's Moral Dilemma - about stealing the medicine which saves your wife's life - lack. To see the World from the Crucifix. To love your neighbor as yourself. To actually believe that the other dude might have a point. That maybe the world doesn't just revolve around you and your truth. Children can't do this. Calvin can't either - yet. Nor can America, or Western Civilization generally. The Multiverse may be Jan-Ken-Pon but our sitz em leben is Sudden-Death Overtime where only one can win.
Larry Kohlberg's Three Stage Model of Moral Reasonings [which is hiding underneath some of the pictures on this page] has some interesting implications. The model does not assign nor predict Praise or Blame or even Right and Wrong. The Theory does not attempt to Model Moral Conclusions but only the kinds of Reasoning. Kohlberg goes out of his way to emphasize that the "Form and Structure" of Moral Arguments is independent of the "Content" of those Arguments. He calls this: "Formalism." Stage One & Two'ers hate Postmodern thinking which engages our actions without the filter of Absolute Right & Wrong. That shit is "Relative Secularism" and the latest Tool of Satan and all his Imps. Kohlberg's Model of Moral Reasoning centers on Maat, Dharma, Li Qi & Shu - JUSTICE. The idea that Hermes and his Ilk describe a system whereby Everything is Brought to the Balance. Everything will Even Out. Pascal Boyer points out that an Inference System like this is Economic in Etiology. It's about Reciprocity and making sure that you get yours because we're all in this together.
People with a conscience and who follow their principles no matter the price don't usually live long enough to breed so there's not a lot of Genetic Drift in that direction. People like this also go into Teaching but they don't last long where "suffer with the rest of us" is the law of Educational Administration. People on the Postconventional level of Morality and Causality become Artists, Poets, Crack-heads & Bums. Either that or they're Shot. Their favorite color is the Rainbow. Kohlberg also discovered these interesting factoids: Although a Moral Stage can be raised by "Socratic" means, the Monkey rarely understands Moral Statements more than One Level above their own habitual stage. He also found to his horror that in Europa and Amerika only 5% reach the Postconventional Mindscape. A further 20% are a kind of Bodhisattva - in training for that Rare-Air-Morality. The vast majority of Westerners wallow around the Junior High School Conventional Level. Also: Mothers pass on their levels to their Kinder, but Father's usually don't. Mother's run the basic Economic Unit: the Hut. They decide the Split of the "Goods" and the Punishments for transgressions. Mothers have usually whacked the shit out of their little'uns long before Daddy comes home from the Bar. Criminals are overwhelmingly on the First, Preconventional Level. I remember Saul Bellows' definition of the "Criminal" in Mr. Samler's Planet. The Criminal is He who Simplifies. I ain't got no money. You got money. Give it up fo' I pop a cap in yo' ass, muthafuka! In a larger context you can see that the Preconventional pretty much drives a country's Foreign Policy. Iraq & Iran got all the fuckin' Oil. We ain't got no fuckin' Oil. Send in the 101st - Screaming Eagles. No one Individual nor one Country operates at a fixed level of either Morality or Causality; we wander the stages every day of our life. My first thought when Kenny La Roche was discussing losing our jobs in the Bush Economic Disaster was: If my wife lost her Job, who would support Me?
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