PP17 Culture and Schisms
G'day, my name is Bruce Robertson and this is Pirate Philosophy, the channel in which I describe the Pattern Paradigm, an original philosophy that is rigorous, logical and accurate; and one that I claim makes far better sense of the world than any other philosophy. Welcome.
Last time in video PP16 'Words are Labels for Patterns', we looked at the logic of words, language and communication; and this was primarily looking at communication between two people; and while language and communication have been hugely beneficial to the human race, there is also a downside to communication and this is what I wanted to discuss today.
In this video, I want to look at communication between, a group of people, a society if you like, and an individual. And specifically, I want to look at how a young person can process information imparted to them, by proponents of their culture and society.
So what do I mean by 'culture' and 'society'? The dictionary definition of culture is: 'the ideas customs and social behavior of a particular people or society'. Social animals also have a form of culture; learned behavior as to how to fit into the group; as evidenced in the social behavior for animals such as elephants, chimpanzees and wolves.
No doubt these animal cultures have evolved in order to facilitate the efficient operation and function of the group. And these cultures will be learned by imitating the actions of others within the group. And these animal cultures will be learned by the youngsters, by imitating the actions of others in the group; with perhaps some form of physical retribution if a youngster strays too far from what is expected.
Human culture is somewhat different in that almost all of it is communicated and learned through language; children are instructed on how to behave. Human culture is steeped in history and tradition. Typically, it was created long ago by people who sought particular modes of behavior in others. And the environment in which it was created, both socially and technologically, may be far different from the environment of today's societies.
So, the efficiency of a society's culture may have been high long ago but may not be so efficient today; but that is OK. The requirement for a culture is for it to be functional and workable; it does not have to be super efficient.
And the question that I want to pose is: 'How is a child to make sense of the culture in which they are being raised? And you can ask: 'What is the starting point for a child'? Well, in this philosophical journey that I have been describing over the past few videos, we have been looking at how a simple logical processor with sensory inputs and motor outputs can interact effectively with the physical world. We have discussed how it uses a pattern-identification process to make sense of sense-data and how it combines motor outputs with sense-data to create a model of the world that is considered to be real. And we also looked at how it creates a pyramid of patterns that constitutes its model of the world and how consciousness may be manifest within it. And later on, we looked at how it makes decisions to maximize its happiness. And in the previous video, we looked at how it could learn a language and communicate with others for mutual benefit. (I will put links to the videos that cover all these points in the description below.)
So then we arrive at our little logical processor as a child within a community. It encounters the culture of the community; i.e. the ideas, customs, mores and social behavior of that community. And so now we look at how it can fit all these mores into its pyramid of patterns. That is the question I want to consider today. For there is considerable social pressure to conform and accept the culture. For to shun the culture of one's society is to risk ostracism, or even expulsion from the community; whereas to accept it, is to feel safe and protected; in much the same way that a bird in the centre of a flock, or a fish in the centre of its school feels safe and protected.
Some aspects of human culture can be learned from simple observations of behavior of other people and then imitating it. And it is well known, for example, that babies like to imitate the actions of those they encounter. So imitation is a very natural thing to do. However, much of human culture is communicated to children through language. And while these communications relate to how to behave in particular situations, how to dress, how to speak to other people and so on, there is no particular problem; a child can follow the instructions and fit in with the culture and society. However, it is somewhat different when it comes to instructions on how to think; things like 'don’t be selfish', 'think of others', 'believe in God', 'do as you're told'; these are ideas relating to how a child is expected to think, rather than merely how to act in specific situations.
And in this regard, it impinges on their pre-existing pyramid of patterns. And then the question is: 'How are the ideas, which are contained in the communications, to be integrated into a child's pyramid of patterns?'
Normally, patterns are created from the ground up. for this is how a pyramid of patterns is created, (with its very foundation on basic sense-data).Then if someone, who is promoting the culture of the society, communicates a particular pattern, or idea to the child, the child can use that particular idea or pattern as a template in their pattern-identifying process. And then, (so long as they have sufficient data with which to test the template, i.e they've got enough basic data in which to try to identify a pattern) they can use that particular template within their pattern-identifying process and determine for themselves whether the suggested idea or pattern constitutes the best pattern to fit in with their existing data; or if it is not quite the best pattern that it is at least an effective or efficient pattern.
(This pattern-identifying process was discussed in video PP9 'Patterns, Time and Space. 'and I will append the algorithm that describes this process to the end of this transcript).
If it is found that the suggested idea or pattern of the culture is effective and the best pattern, then the suggested pattern can be smoothly integrated into their pyramid of patterns And if this is the case, then the child can quite happily accept this and perhaps also all other aspects of their culture and never question nor worry about whether the ideas or their culture are in fact, the very best patterns or not; they simply accept the ideas and mores for themselves and integrate smoothly into their society.
However, if the suggested idea or pattern regarding the culture does not fit smoothly and seamlessly into their pyramid of patterns, then this can create problems. And if this is the case, there are two main options for the child:
1. They can reject the suggested cultural idea and instead adopt a pattern that is better suited to their patterns and data available to them. I.e. they just create their own best pattern from the relevant data.
Or 2. They can adopt the suggested cultural idea or pattern, while recognizing at the same time that it does not fit smoothly into their pyramid of patterns.
However, there are problems with both options. The problem with rejecting the suggested pattern and adopting one of the child's own creations is that it is putting itself at odds with the mainstream culture of their society. And the problem with option 2 is that if the child accepts the suggested pattern, even though it does not fit well with their pyramid of patterns, it can create a discontinuity or schism in the child's pyramid of patterns. (Schism is just another word for discontinuity.)
A visual representation of this schism might look like what is called the Trident Impossibility: the base of the diagram looks fine and it is easy to see it as a 3D image.
Similarly, with the other end of the diagram, it too is easy to see as a 3D image.
In putting the two together, they may seem to be a continuation of the lines of the diagram, however, there is a discontinuity in the 3D image. It cannot be seen in its totality as a 3D image; there is a schism in the center.
Of course, every child is different and the specific culture in which they are raised is also different from that of others. Some children would have no difficulty in accepting the culture of their society together with their morals and mores; they can become well integrated into their society.
Other children will reject the mores of their society and they will encounter problems; they're likely to be termed as 'troublemakers' or 'out of control'. Their lives will be hard as they struggle to make sense of the culture that they find themselves in and to find a place for themselves within their society.
But it is perhaps a third group: those who reluctantly accept the mores of their culture but find that they are afflicted with schisms in their pyramid of patterns that I want to focus on today.
The culture of a society, by its very nature, extols the merits of the group and doing things for the group. And in so doing, it minimizes and even suppresses the merits of the individual and individualism. And this suppression can cause schisms in the pyramid of patterns of an individual child, as previously discussed. And these schisms can cause disharmony in a person's pyramid of patterns and a general feeling of ill ease or even alienation. And these schisms can also cause problems in the process of decision-making. (This process was discussed in PP13 'The Logic of Decision Making'.)
For when accessing a pattern that has a schism you will have two possibilities, one relating to the deeper pattern and one relating to society's culture. It is akin to measuring a distance and finding that it has two disparate values, such as five kilometers and 38 kilometers. And this can cause difficulty in reaching good decisions and which can, in turn, cause stress. And there is no easy remedy, short of delving deep into the foundations of one's pyramid of patterns and also delving deep into the foundations of the mores of culture and society. Neither of which are viable strategies for a child or youngster with their limited knowledge and experience of both themselves and the world.
Some proponents of the culture might naively claim that such schisms are simply the price to pay for living in a complex human society and that youth should simply accept the precepts and mores of society and Learn to live with the schisms or perhaps just ignore them.
However, it must be remembered that the mores are not necessarily an efficient way of interacting with society. They have been cobbled together over time and may in fact be highly inaccurate and so if a youth believes these mores to be accurate and unquestionable, i.e. they simply adopt them in their entirety into their pyramid of patterns; they may find that they have a distorted or inaccurate model of the world, which can cause problems in interacting with the world.
So much so, that I suspect that the schisms and the distortion of youth's model of the world is a major underlying cause of youth suicide; which afflicts so many youth in so many countries.
And on a personal note, I first encountered these schisms at the age of nine or 10, when they became manifest in the form of recurring, disturbing dreams. And you may recall from the video PP10 'Pyramids, Patterns and why we Sleep', that sleep is the time when the brain, free from raw sense-data inputs, creates patterns of patterns and sorts out its pyramid of patterns. And I first became aware of the dangers of believing cultural mores that are highly inaccurate, when one of my best friends at school died by suicide at the age of 16. It was perhaps these two events, more than anything else, that set me on this journey of exploration and investigation of philosophy.
And of course, I started by exploring Standard Western Philosophy but found no answers there. And so, I realized that if I was to resolve these schisms and distorted models of the world, that I would have to develop my own philosophy; the philosophy of the Pattern Paradigm that I am now sharing with you. And while mentioning Standard Western Philosophy, it is disappointing that it makes no attempt to address these problems; indeed, it could be said that it is part of the problem. For instead of exploring ideas about individual freedom, they only put forward the case for cultural mores with their 'social contracts', 'duty' and 'moral truths'.
And as for The Pattern Paradigm and this philosophical journey, at this stage in the journey it is purely descriptive, describing the world of ideas and making sense of it; and seeing how the ideas match the world. Searching for solutions to problems may come later. In any case, the first part of finding a solution to any problem is in identifying and understanding the problem. And I hope that in this video, I have gone some way towards achieving that.
Well that is all I have for you today. I hope you have enjoyed this video and if you wish to continue this journey with me then please subscribe and give it thumbs up.
Thank you.
Simple Pattern Identifying Algorithm
1 Assemble the data
2 Input a template
3 Test the template – does it fit?
4 If it fits continue otherwise return to step 2
5 Store the template together with a label for the data.
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