[Newfie]

Damn you are up early!

Thus, the high medieval church provided the conditions for F. A. Hayek’s famous “spontaneous order” of the market to emerge. This cannot happen in lawless and chaotic times; in order to function, capitalism requires rules that allow for predictable economic activity.

My cousin is actually running a dairy farm and a bit of an old age home. They hire townspeople to work the operation. He's right around 65 and I think he is, in part, Abbott because he is the ambulatory one. I'm sure I'm over speaking, but there is something to that.

It seems to be true in the Catholic Church as well. From my friend the ex seminarian says the old seminaries are closing or becoming old age homes for elderly priests and nuns.

No expert in this, just some passing knowledge in conversation.

BUT......
To the bit about capitalisism needing order, that is likely true. You need rules and faith and trust for trade to flourish. Disrupt that and the whole system comes down. That's what they were so afraid of in 2008, the locking up of money markets because no one knew if they could trust anyone else.

I think "they" all know they lie and suspect everyone else of lying too. So it's a shaky alliance that keeps the house of cards balanced.

[Pops]

LOL, I fell asleep reading, must be getting old!

Here is Adam Smith's original line about the invisible hand...

The rich...are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life, which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants, and thus without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the society...

That definitely qualifies The Hand as imaginary, and mythological too!

[onlooker]

I think any system of beliefs and code of conduct is by definition based on faith and subjective. What can be contrasted more is the habit of some humans to act and think in emotional ways bound to their belief systems while other humans try and think in logical ways bound to a factual empirical framework. Science is that framework that seeks to obviate any subjective preferential inclinations and arrive at truth via pure trial and error and factual logical deductions and conclusions. So that may be another way to frame the original post. A Belief world view vs. a Cognitive/Intellectual world view.

[SeaGypsy]

But faithless objectivity can sustain beliefs & codes of conduct, so your thesis is clearly wrong.

Ethics evolve in response to a group dynamic & circumstance, religion is 'cloaking the ghost'- institutionalization of primordial responses to stimuli, attempting to control & hold in check aspects of human nature deeper than religion itself can ever reach. The faith talk & claim to singularity of each is simply following the primordial business model- "he not singing from our songbook is to be doubted & not trusted"- classic in group out group stuff.

One blessing of this era is the freedom to refuse or accept any of the various song books, to make your own way in the world, to choose your own set of ethics. A downside is lots of hypocrisy among the declared faithful, an up is nobody can make anybody believe anything, downside again, even those professing shared faith would most often utilize mainstream commercial banking than follow the basic tenets of their faith & cooperate as a family.



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[Pops]

Good.

[onlooker]

Undoubtedly group dynamics are very strong in humans. The only thing I would say about my reference to cognitive objectivity is that I was pointing out that in so far as it pertains to a person's mode of thinking, reasoning done in purely logical, unemotional and unattached ways can net a viewpoint that can be the most unbiased one possible. Of course our nature is such that we can never really cast out some subjective emotional influence in our thought patterns.

[SeaGypsy]

Belief that pure logic exists has no scientific basis, the observer effect implies the opposite & quantum physics imply multiple dimensions exist & affect observed reality in ways & by means not understood fully, some not at all. There is a danger in deifying science & scientists can be prone to exploiting this tendency in similar ways to religion. Eugenics is a science, arguably founded in sound logic, which when implemented results in genocide.

[Ibon]

Belief that pure logic exists has no scientific basis, the observer effect implies the opposite & quantum physics imply multiple dimensions exist & affect observed reality in ways & by means not understood fully, some not at all. There is a danger in deifying science & scientists can be prone to exploiting this tendency in similar ways to religion. Eugenics is a science, arguably founded in sound logic, which when implemented results in genocide.

I think as we have become more and more immersed in manmade environments we can see the unobserver effect at work.

[SeaGypsy]

Lol I like it, the unobserver effect- very powerful stuff, planet destroying, but almost nobody notices it.

[onlooker]

That is good. But I would attribute that to some degree to willful ignorance or a reflexive response borne of a deep seated repulsion to contemplating anything as disturbing as planet destruction. Of course I am sure Ibon you would also point out that our man-made environments preclude our attaining any sort of perspective on the importance of Nature and the continued onslaught on it. So that would be more pure ignorance.

[SeaGypsy]

Nothing so absolute about it. Who doesn't live in a man made environment? Nietzsche wrote like a lion, lived the life of a dweeb. Papuan or South American or Kalahari tribesmen- heroes at sustainability- believe in all kinds of hoodoo voodoo unscientific nonsense.

We live in an immeasurably complex situation with some few very simple core truths. The situation is confusing & our pattern seeking minds run to cover every time. Establishing your own response to chaos, firstly requires refusal of the base social instinct- to look for patterned behaviour models to fit in, jump for the biggest & apparently safest & disappear into.

Apparently onlooker you are going through a stage of looking for absolutes, reaching at the same time for a sense of tribe whilst rejecting the mainstream. All I can say about that is better to get the letting go bit be the big thing for a while, get comfortable with less stuff & more choices. You are far from alone, but your tribe is scattered with the four winds.

[onlooker]

Very salient good point Sea. "We live in an immeasurably complex situation with some few very simple core truths.". I would also agree that we seek patterns and also groups to identify with. All this with the backdrop of a world that is dismantling before our eyes. I do not say this lightly. Anyone who has read up on the vast environmental harms we are visiting upon Earth on a daily basis is aware of this dismantling I speak of. Of course Ibon, would point out that what is being dismantled is our man-made systems that work in conjunction with Nature and also apart from it in certain ways. I would say though that real pretty long lasting damage from things like radiation and global warming are affronts to planet Earth and its life support systems. Again, it is not my belief systems that inform me about this, it is what I have now read over countless hours. So, yes I am like I think all of us here are, disoriented by the impacts of knowing all this. I also, agree that disengaging if only for awhile is therapeutic. To link with this topic, I would say that my comfort if you will is knowing that either way sooner or later we all die and will meet our fate after this life. You could call that my spiritual world view.

[SeaGypsy]

Doesn't sound like much fun mate. I have been where you are & it ain't. There are things you can change, things you can't, sooner or later you have to reconcile the difference & get on with being true to yourself.

[onlooker]

thanks for the advice Sea.

[SeaGypsy]

http://timewheel.net/#Tome-Psychosomati ... ts-And-The
"
Psychosomatic interconnectedness refers to the mind (psyche) and body (soma) acting one upon the other in a way that can either prove incredibly synergistic or highly maladaptive to the organism. In a simplistic example, if we have a physical experience in which we are very cold, then it is more difficult to focus on our own thoughts and the activities that we are engaged within. After experience such conditions over an extended period of time, if the cold is substantial, mood will undoubtedly begin to shift towards displeasure as well. 

Conversely, in say the mind of a schizophrenic, if they are convinced that someone is following them, chasing them, or reading their thoughts, the body will react in a way as if it is actually occurring regardless of whether it truly is or isn’t. The “lizard brain” of the limbic system in the humans, especially in the emotional response processing center in the amygdala, will flood the perceiver's’ body with stress hormones e.g. adrenaline, cortisol, norepinephrine all the same. 

We combine this notion of a mind-body feedback loop and find the notion of self-fulfilling prophecy tucked away very neatly in this paradigm. Coined as a term by sociologist Andrew K. Merton in 1948, a self-fulfilling prophecy is a concept in which one commits a heavy amount of mental energy into believing a possible outcome will occur, and if/when it does, then uses the resulting event as proof that the one’s “prophecy” was true all along. The alternative holds true for the opposite concept of self-defeating prophecy."