Cultural Idiocy

I think the more intelligent a being, the more nurture (learning) plays a role in structuring its life. Yet, human beings, despite pretensions to be entirely self-determined, are mostly what nature intends. Our diurnal pattern of waking and sleeping, eating, digesting and toiletting, and endlessly kowtowing or aloha-ing is largely determined by unseen and uncontrolled physiological and psychological patterns. We cannot help being social, any more than Polar Bears and Grizzlies can be anything other than truculent loners.

Almost all of the cultural part of our lives occurs during our waking hours. There is some culture in our sleep, such as the bed clothes we wear and the bed furniture we use. But those are only the trappings of sleep, all of which we acquire or prepare when awake. For our purposes, culture is something evident in people who are awake. As I say in GSQ, culture is represented in the beliefs, habits and rituals of its practitioners in their waking, or conscious, state. While there are unconscious cultures, as in yeast or bacterial cultures, these are closely related to genetic programs (Nature) and not capable of the sort of learning and teaching that interests me (Nurture). In GSQ, I make a distinction between "physical" and "mental" cultures which proposes that difference.

The confusing thing about culture is that it is not observed per se anywhere. In this respect, it is like computer programs which control computer behavior. Culture is human software. Culture is an idea, not a physical thing. In analogy to computer software, I can write down symbols representing various elements of the cultural software. These elements correspond to instructions or groups of instructions (sub-routines) in computers. I cannot find those elements anywhere in the brain's neurons just as I do not find them in a computer's transistors. If I examine a computer under an electron microscope, what I see is an arrangement of materials. If I examine the computer when processing, I see electrons and holes shuttling back and forth. Similarly, if we do an autopsy on the brain, we find an arrangement of tissues and cells. If we view active neurons (e.g., with a PET scan or implanted electrodes), we see chemicals  generated and destroyed, and electric pulses moving about . The pattern of those motions in brains and computer is assumed to be a program. While we have a lot more evidence that correlates transistor behavior with computer instructions, it is not unjustified to analogize neural behavior with computers because there are similar gross, observable effects in both cases. That is, just as computer instructions produce results in our macro world, genetic and cultural programs produce observable behavior. Thus, I hypothesize that culture controls behavior.
 

It is the program concept - a modern invention - that frees us from the pitfalls of traditional reductionism and determinism. What happens at the program level is not the same thing as what happens in the underlying, physical level. A physical mechanism is required to process the given instructions, but that mechanism does not determine the meaning of the instructions. 1+1 = 2 is a concept that happens to have a physical correlate, just as 'I bought some milk and bread' refers to a (fairly complex) sequence of activities. But, buying milk and bread is not the same thing as walking to the store, picking out the items, paying for them, and carrying them home. It is more than all those things, including the monetary transaction, because it didn't have to be done exactly that way. Buying milk and bread could be done millions of different ways, and so can summing 1+1, all with similar results. This should demonstrate that addition and buying are concepts, not the same thing as any of their particular implementions.

Following many others, I claim that culture has an "inner logic." (I use the term "internal logic" synonymously.) That phrase implies the concept of a culture that has a structure connecting its components. That structure includes one or more concepts which, like culture, are not directly observed. Structure is a pattern we impute to the culture based on what we see of it. So far, this is not exceptional, for, as happens in Through the Looking Glass, we are entitled to make things mean whatever we like. The exceptional transition lies in the claim that the inner logic actually directs events, which I make. Karl Marx and many other philosophers make similar claims. Where philosophers differ is in explaining how that works, and to what end. I differ from most others, particularly Marxists and Spencerians, in making no claim whatsoever as to ends; i.e., History and Culture has no purpose. Keep in mind that a program need not have a purpose; it can just run on willy-nilly, endlessly. That is "cultural idiocy."
 

Darwinian evolution exemplifies the sort of inner logic I advocate. Looking back on the vast sweep of history, we can easily see how this or that adaptation enabled a species to survive or doomed it to extinction. It is easy and common to allege that Nature has purposes upon examining the paleontological record. The difficulty is that none of those purposes were ever announced by Nature. The same sort of observer behavior occurs when watching a kaleidoscope, the difference being we know kaleidoscopes display pseudo-random patterns. The pattern is what we see, not something Nature or the kaleidoscope intended.
 

There are many examples of "inner logic." The easiest ones to demonstrate are usually associated with technology, as we can observe how personal or social behavior is modulated by technology. One of our oldest technologies is the wheel. The wheel probably wasn't invented or discovered; it was developed. Maybe someone noticed that it was easier to roll things over a log than drag them across the ground. Maybe someone just had fun log rolling on land or water. The essential notion of a wheel is rolling, which reduces friction and drag because only one point or line is in contact with a surface. Once the wheel existed, it found many applications, such as wheelbarrows and wagons. Good wheels are hard to make, so secondary industries developed to make the axles, bearings, hubs, spokes and shoes and springs that compose an undercarriage. Wagons made travel easier, thus increasing the area accessible to rural farmers. The wagon not only increases social intercourse, but moves products to many markets. The wheel encourages cosmopolitan, trading societies, even if it does not, of itself, bring them about.

In recent times, we have the example of the computer instigating the Information Revolution. The computer has not only changed industrial practices, but altered daily life for millions of people. The ability of computerized networks rapidly to connect people anywhere on Earth has changed perceptions everywhere. Especially among young people, what one wears, eats, hears and says is being changed dramatically by IPODs and cellphones. This is not merely an external change, as in  exchanging a yellow shirt for a red one. Rather, computers have made globalization possible, which changes how one thinks about oneself and society. Consequently, many local cultures, until now protected by provincialism, are being destroyed or assimilated by invading larger entities.
 

The wheel and the computer are major innovations. Other innovations with similar far reaching consequences (probably on a scale of millennia) were the arch, hydraulic concrete (Portland cement), bronze, iron, steel and electricity. Those and many other lesser developments enabled the transformation of societies from their ancient formats to modern ones. Now, it is true, at the local cultural level, many of the details of our lives are unaffected. All of us still eat, sleep, mate, etc as we have always done. Behaviors dominated by physical biology are largely unchanged since ancient times. Since computers and wheels are artifacts of culture, we wouldn't expect them to change our physical nature. On the other hand, making a living - work - which is an external necessity - is utterly different from what it was. ("External" means not part of our biology, thus contingent, circumstantial.) In those parts of our lives determined by ideas, computers and wheels  have made a huge difference.
 

In what sense does a wheel or computer force a result? If they don't force results, what is the meaning of "inner logic?" This problem arises because people think too much in a deterministic mode. Using the word "logic" suggests a forced result, something that could not be otherwise, as in a deterministic model. My views, however, are not deterministic. I think technologies such as the wheel, arch, etc make possible many different developments. Retrospectively, we can see how the wheel promoted markets, urbanization, etc, just as we can see how feathers led to archaeopterix. Birds are distinctly different from their remote therapod (dinosaur) ancestors. Many bird behaviors and adaptations were made possible by feathers. But many of those behaviors are also attributable to flight, which is also demonstrated in featherless pterosaurs and bats. So, while feathers may induce a path of development, they do not  force it. The forcing, if any exists, is something we read into the situation ex post facto.

Inner logic does not require subscription to post hoc, ergo propter hoc (after this, therefore because of this) or causation. All that is required of inner logic is the limitation of possibility, or the skewing of probability. Just because feathers arise does not put a creature on the path to flight . On the other hand, those creatures which use feathers to advantage may evolve into birds. In the same way, the presence of wheels and computers is suggestive. Those who use wheels to get product to market cheaper and faster are advantaged, but wheels do not make them do it. This argument suggests that the inner logic of culture works like Darwinian evolution. The difference is the substrate of each process.
 

Darwinian evolution occurs because of genetic mutation, which sometimes produces a phenotype that changes an organism's characteristics. If the new characteristics change the way an organism lives its life and deals with its environment,  the change is called an adaptation. While most adaptations either reduce survivability or are lethal, a few of them actually improve the organism's fitness. "Improved fitness" means the organism survives better than competing organisms, and produces more survivable offspring. Nothing in Darwinian evolution by adaptation is forced or caused. On the grand scale of things, success and failure happen unpredictably and randomly.

In the same way, inner logic evolves as a result of mutations in the concepts (beliefs) and behaviors which make up a culture. Perhaps men suddenly learn to shave beards a different way on account of some previously hidden  idea or development of a new tool.  But changing how one shaves may have very little effect of all other aspects of life. So, while shaving this way or that may be characteristic of a culture, the adopted method of shaving is probably ineffective in promoting cultural, social or economic fitness. On the other hand, those who learn to make nuclear weapons can make drastic changes in their status, for good or ill.

That there is an inner logic, a structure of culture, depends on a number of characteristics of cultural beings. Perhaps the most important factor is language, which is associated with ideation and conceptualization. Chimpanzees learn by copy-catting and occasionally innovate. Somehow they learned to use sticks as tools in fishing out termites. Chimpanzees clearly have the idea of "stick," because they also use sticks in other applications. But, our closest relatives have not gone beyond "stick" to develop shovels, axes and framing wood, all of which might be generalizations of "stick." There is a missing piece of cerebral cortex, which we, Homo sapiens, have: we find patterns and generalize. The pattern finding ability is crucial in moving from log rolling to rolling things over logs. Our cartoonists represent "getting it" as the light bulb, and we have the traditional yelp, "Eureka!" That's because, once the idea is formed, everything seems so obvious But, it was not obvious until that moment of recogniition it happened. Once we have the recognition, we find words for it. Those words take on the "meaning" of the recognition; i.e., they work in parallel to what is recognized. The word "wheel" implies rolling, because wheels are circular.

Cultural evolution requires both things and intelligence to proceed. Cultures that improve survival and reproduction succeed; those that don't, fail. Cultural evolution is Darwinian. The reason for using the term "inner logic" is to differentiate physical evolution (involving genes and physical characters) from mental evolution. Mental evolution often cannot be seen, as it is based on mental processes; it is software. Despite that, words, art and artifacts are observables from which we can infer mental states and processes. For that reason, we often identify a culture with its artifacts, because the artffacts are public on nature. Of course, this method of identifying culture leads to raging controversies, because many different mental processes could have produced the results. Our best clue to what cultural participants think is what they say they believe, and, especially, what is written down. Words and art are themselves patterns derived from mental states.

I think, in most of History, cultural evolution is unconscious. That is, people have ideas and make innovations, but they don't consciously.control the overall culture. The innovation fits in or dies, and the culture adapts accordingly. Most people believe that culture is uncontrollable, that it is what it is. This is an essentially conservative belief: resignation to the way things have been.
 

That belief is mistaken, because sufficiently  intelligent creatures can take charge of their destiny. Knowing that cultural evolution depends on what we think, it is possible to attempt any organization which is not defeated by Nature. The success of modern science has even limited the threat of Nature. We can adapt ourselves genetically, physically, mentally and culturally. This does not propose our experiments will always be successful, or that we have a perfect plan. It does mean we can make our own decisions about what we want to be and how we want to live. That idea is at the core of the political Left.