As usual really interesting article. Some comments: * 'Social order in preliterate societies may involve nothing more than family relationships, or at most the society extends kinship by positing ancient common ancestors. With little or no apparatus of government, civil order is maintained by feud or fear of feud.'* The above paragraph which begins with a possibility, ends with a statement of fact, the sort of loose academic licence which is a sure sign that these guys are trying to prove a point – which seems to be that what we want is to learn to *control*.* 'Control structure, the element which is new to Rank 4 thought' * The absence of evidence of mechanisms to maintain order in preliterate societies may indicate that these mechanisms were not required. This treatise with its assumption that this absence would inevitably give rise to conflict and fear, (published 1990) predates much research (Lynn McTaggart – The Bond, The Empathic Civilisation – Jeremy Rifkin) which shows the opposite to be true, and probably relates more to the cultural background against which this is written. In the 1980s US prison population was rapidly rising so that in 2008 approximately one in every 31 adults (7.3 million) in the United States was behind bars, or being monitored (probation and parole). The assumption that without these mechanisms there must be conflict and chaos, ignores the possibility that a society needs regulation only if it is not being run in the interests of its members. While the article includes many interesting ideas about the evolution resulting from spoken language, through the development of the alphabet and numerology, the emphasis on control and manipulation (*What is critical about language is that it enabled people wilfully to manipulate their mental processes, to gain control of consciousness) *leads to unduly emphasising the role of programming software rather than using computers to communicate. The advantage of having the ability to produce your own tools cannot be denied. But that is akin to saying people should learn how to produce electricity rather than just using the energy to create light. And personally I am much more interested in the content. There is recognition that '*the proliferation of new "interdisciplinary" ventures'* is indicative of rank 4 ideas when they '*lay out two disciplines side by side only to transcend them.' *Following this I would suggest that new ways of thinking are more to do with connecting wholes, dispensing with the boundaries which separate disciplines; systems thinking; integral theory; and appreciating processes which link rather than just seeing discrete units. A caring society admits subjective criteria as contributing to morality, and does not rigidly separate subject and object in order to qualify as 'scientific'. The new consciousness enjoys evolving through compexity not as an end in itself, but because it brings the experience of increased freedom. Anna On Sun, Jan 6, 2013 at 5:53 AM, Michel Bauwens <[email protected]>wrote:

Dear friends,

after a year's absense, I 'm rejoining, and I'm sure traffic will go up <g>

it would be great to have a briefing on how the list evolved while I was not participating?

Michel

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Dante-Gabryell Monson <[email protected]> Date: Sat, Jan 5, 2013 at 4:55 PM Subject: evolution of cognition : metaphor, metalingual definition, algorithm, and control To: [email protected], [email protected]

http://asweknowit.ca/evcult/CogEvol.shtml ( found via metacogs on fb ) The Evolution of Cognition

*William L. Benzon and David G. Hays*

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*Abstract:* With cultural evolution new processes of thought appear. Abstraction is universal, but rationalization first appeared in ancient Greece, theorization in Renaissance Italy, and model building in twentieth-century Europe. These processes employ the methods of metaphor, metalingual definition, algorithm, and control, respectively. The intellectual and practical achievements of populations guided by the several processes and exploiting the different mechanisms differ so greatly as to warrant separation into cultural ranks. The fourth rank is not completely formed, while regions of the world and parts of every population continue to operate by the processes of earlier ranks.

* 1 Evolution in Biology and Culture<http://asweknowit.ca/evcult/CogEvol.shtml#Biology%20and%20Culture> * *2 Ontology <http://asweknowit.ca/evcult/CogEvol.shtml#Ontology>, Abstraction, and Behavioral Mode* *2.1 Ontology* *2.2 Abstraction and Metaphor* *2.3 Abstraction and Rationalization* *2.4 Neural Implementation* *3 Cognitive Rank<http://asweknowit.ca/evcult/CogEvol.shtml#Cognitive%20Rank> * *3.1 Rank 1: What's In a Name?* *3.2 Rank 2: The Letter of the Law* *3.3 Rank 3: Subject and Object* *3.4 Rank 4: Modern, Post-Modern, and All that Jazz* *3.5 Cognitive Rank and Cultural Diversity* *4 In Medias Res : The Current Flux<http://asweknowit.ca/evcult/CogEvol.shtml#Current%20Flux> * *4.1 The Thinking Machine or Electronic Brain* *4.2 The Software Problem* *4.3 The child is father to the man* *References <http://asweknowit.ca/evcult/CogEvol.shtml#References>*

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