[extropy-chat] A vignette on incongruent points of view

[Lee Corbin]

Peter writes

> rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin Hanson) writes:
>>Why should how we feel or what we think about be determined by where 
>>we are?   Why shouldn't two friends at the same place at the same 
>>time not think about different topics with different goals, if they 
>>have different personalities and backgrounds?  You don't have to be 
>>the same as me to be my friend.
> 
> Steven Mithen's book The Singing Neanderthals has a partial answer to
> this. He claims that music evolved in part as a means of synchronizing
> the thoughts of a group. This was important to promote cooperation.
> The more people think alike, the easier it is predict each others
> future behavior, which makes it easier to predict whether they will
> cooperate or defect in tasks such as sharing food with those who had
> bad luck hunting recently. In particular, sharing emotions is important
> because it helps create a group identity.

That's going to go over like a lead balloon here, I think. This list is
thick with individualists who give a damn about the group only in
the abstract. (I myself just posted a negative comment about those
who engage in group-think.)

This is a perfect example of how most of us in fact "reason". Consciously
or unconsciously, we take in a new idea and quickly see if it implies 
something we agree with or not.  When it does not, our agile minds have
already produced any number of rationalizations against it, usually before
we're aware that this is what we're doing.

Survival of the group was an important determinant of our genes, but
few will be the people you talk to who really care if their group is around
in century or two.  It's not the same, however, in many other parts of the
world, nor within certain groups already infesting the west.

Lee