Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Sushan]

Yes! In employment — I'm now retired — I avoided hierarchies because I was happy doing what I was doing, and didn't wish to move away from that. So it wasn't that I was avoiding responsibility, confrontation or competition, but only that I had already reached my goal. Actually, I still had a goal, and that was to get better at what I was already doing. That journey is never-ending!

Exactly. So humans are not hive dwellers, a subset will be drawn to climbing the ladder, others like to DO, but don't like to DECIDE. It's all good. Except that the deciders (no surprise) typically decide that they should be compensated more than the doers.

I will neither agree nor disagree with you, but will simply tell a story that I have heard, and would like to hear your opinions on that.

A lumberjack complained to the king, arguing that he worked tirelessly cutting trees all day but was paid far less than the minister, who merely sat and thought. The king came up with a test to demonstrate his point.

To find out where a moving cart was going, the king gave the lumberjack instructions to follow it. The king had to dispatch the lumberjack again each time he returned with a single piece of information (such as the present location of the cart) in order to obtain additional information, including the identity of the person inside or the object being carried.

When the minister was given the same task, he analyzed the situation, asked a few critical questions, and gathered all the necessary information in a single trip.

The king explained that while the lumberjack's work was physically demanding, it lacked strategic thought and efficiency. The minister, however, accomplished the same objective more successfully by using intelligence, foresight, and planning. Critical thinking and problem-solving skills are uncommon and frequently more useful than monotonous physical labour. The minister's increased pay was therefore justified.

Yes, the story is an accurate representation of reality. Though there is another, as yet unmentioned, variable. Namely that there are an abundance of potential workers who can do, compared to candidates who are skilled at using their mind (in your example) or managing others (in PC's example). Scarcity drives compensation.

I agree. Here the king was the rarest of them all, and he was capable of ordering around and managing both the lumberjack and the minister.

However, scarcity is not the only factor in pay. Other elements, like negotiation power (trade unions), industry standards (safety compensation), or societal biases, also play roles.

And also, not all manual workers are easily replaceable, and some require specialized skills, like artisans, welders, etc.

[Sushan]

A lumberjack complained to the king, arguing that he worked tirelessly cutting trees all day but was paid far less than the minister, who merely sat and thought. The king came up with a test to demonstrate his point.

To find out where a moving cart was going, the king gave the lumberjack instructions to follow it. The king had to dispatch the lumberjack again each time he returned with a single piece of information (such as the present location of the cart) in order to obtain additional information, including the identity of the person inside or the object being carried.

When the minister was given the same task, he analyzed the situation, asked a few critical questions, and gathered all the necessary information in a single trip.

The king explained that while the lumberjack's work was physically demanding, it lacked strategic thought and efficiency. The minister, however, accomplished the same objective more successfully by using intelligence, foresight, and planning. Critical thinking and problem-solving skills are uncommon and frequently more useful than monotonous physical labour. The minister's increased pay was therefore justified.

And yet, it seems from your story that the efforts of both the labourer and the minister were necessary; each was required. I wonder why you think one is worth more than the other, when both offer a very different service, and both services seem necessary?

Well, let's breakdown my story a bit more.

Yes, both of them did the same job and the ultimate result was the same. But the lumberjack had to run several times up and down to complete the job which was completed by the minister in just one go. So, within a given time period the minister would have done a lot more than the lumberjack due to his mental skills, making him comparatively more valuable.

[Sushan]

Scarcity drives compensation.

To a point. But it is also the case that managers, when interviewing others for managerial positions similar to their own, set an unexpectedly high financial value on the new (managerial) position... She who makes the decision sets the salary, and if it's a similar job to her own, she would do well to ensure the remuneration is as much higher than everyone else's as it can be. After all, managers are worth so much more than the plebs, right? <sarcasm>

You may have a point. But I won't say all the managers work in this manner, out of self interest.

And most importantly, managers are neither directors nor CEOs. So I am not certain how they can decide the pay structure (or the paid amount as salaries) although they can be of influence in the subject.

[Sushan]

Well, human society does provide methods for the survival of the individual. Most of them could be seen as a lambda calculus with a backfeed in form of a Y-combinator. This provides if stable the necessity of feasible fixed point within a utilty. The problem is that structure cannot be build forever after the laws of phycics . Entropy just provides the death of every structure. Nietzsche the german philosopher said in his works that every stable society has to implement it's own moral values which then is neglected by simple egoism of the members of the society which causes a perpetual rise of nihilism which he claims to be the european way to buddhism is works "will to power " in german "Der Wille zur Macht". This should give us a clue to the ontological point of view of this question.

Nothing is inevitable. The only certainty in this world is the uncertainty, and this applies to societal structures as well. That is why we do not see kingdoms anymore. And who knows, people may find an alternative to parliament systems as well.

But, yes, humans are egotistic and that will make formation of hierarchies also inevitable.

[Sushan]

i see no one has mentioned dekart's philosophy here. You guys should definitely explore it. especially in this Hot Temperature of Bakersfield

René Descartes is a great philosopher, and also considered as the father of modern philosophy. He is famous for his theory on mind-body dualism. However I could not find anything about societal hierarchies in his teachings. Could you kindly fill me in?

[Sy Borg]

I think Descartes was more into hierarchies of beings, from God and angels down to demons etc. I don't rate any philosopher who was cruel to animals, and the cruelties Descartes performed on dogs were beyond belief, based on the wrong-headed notion that humans were divine and animals were not advanced enough to actually feel pain, only simulate it. Horrible ideas and behaviour.

Whatever, hierarchies are as inevitable in large societies as layers forming in large planets. Larger things naturally break up into small portions, they form structures and complexify.

[Sushan]

I think Descartes was more into hierarchies of beings, from God and angels down to demons etc. I don't rate any philosopher who was cruel to animals, and the cruelties Descartes performed on dogs were beyond belief, based on the wrong-headed notion that humans were divine and animals were not advanced enough to actually feel pain, only simulate it. Horrible ideas and behaviour.

Whatever, hierarchies are as inevitable in large societies as layers forming in large planets. Larger things naturally break up into small portions, they form structures and complexify.

Thank you for the details about Descartes' animal experiments as I had never heard of them. It sounds like quite a delusion, assuming that animals are 'automata' and have no souls, hence are not 'experiencers'. But I am not sure whether this will make him an evil person, because I think it has been the common idea about animals those days. Although the philosophers like Hume criticised this practice, I don't think Descartes got any resistance from the society regarding his experiments, or the shows of publicly vivisecting animals. There was an era when human studies without consent for medical purposes were done without much resistance or negative comments from the society. Only after the world wars and Holocaust humans came into agreements about those things.

[Pattern-chaser]

And most importantly, managers are neither directors nor CEOs.

Agreed, but if we turn it around, it becomes clearer. Directors and CEOs are senior managers, even though more junior managers also exist. And all those who decide salaries, of others, but also of those with similar-seeming jobs or job-descriptions as they do, are encouraged to award larger salaries to those who, like themselves, do jobs that they see as being more valuable.

Managers seek to make managers seem important, even vital, to the enterprise, when they are merely one cog in the overall machine, and it takes the entire machine to do the job. The man with the broom really *is* sending a man to the moon... Everyone contributes, otherwise (in accordance with Capitalist dogma) they would have never been employed in the first place. Every member of the team has a vital role. Even managers.

So why are managers worth more? Your story offers one perspective, but it is not the whole story, I feel. The employee who can plan and strategise is no good if the job requires physical strength, just at the moment. Many skills are required, and many who have those skills. And it would seem that no skill is more valuable than the others, because they are all required to get the job done.

[Pattern-chaser]

Whatever, hierarchies are as inevitable in large societies as layers forming in large planets. Larger things naturally break up into small portions, they form structures and complexify.

I would say that's topsy-turvy; that it's all the wrong way round. BUT ... I agree anyway.

We can't grok big things in one go, so we break them down — where "break" is the operative word — into smaller things that are a little easier to understand. And so on. This inevitably results in a seeming of structure and hierarchy. A structure and hierarchy of where our breaks are located.

[Pattern-chaser]

That is why we do not see kingdoms anymore. And who knows, people may find an alternative to parliament systems as well.

Unless we can find a way for every member of a group/tribe/etc to participate, we will always need a smaller group of people to take the decisions. That 'smaller group' has, in history, been a monarch, or sometimes a parliament. But it would seem that *some* form of group smaller than the *whole* group will always be required. If we get rid of parliaments, we will need something to take their place, I think. Don't you?

[Sy Borg]

Whatever, hierarchies are as inevitable in large societies as layers forming in large planets. Larger things naturally break up into small portions, they form structures and complexify.

I would say that's topsy-turvy; that it's all the wrong way round. BUT ... I agree anyway.

We can't grok big things in one go, so we break them down — where "break" is the operative word — into smaller things that are a little easier to understand. And so on. This inevitably results in a seeming of structure and hierarchy. A structure and hierarchy of where our breaks are located.

No, it is not topsy turvy. It's a matter of physics, not epistemology. While chunking obviously occurs, there is physical tendency for large things to complexify, for scale to bring on emergent properties.

The structure of planets makes that clear. Planetesimals don't tend to have structure, which only appears due to gravity as the objects accrete material.

[Pattern-chaser]

Whatever, hierarchies are as inevitable in large societies as layers forming in large planets. Larger things naturally break up into small portions, they form structures and complexify.

I would say that's topsy-turvy; that it's all the wrong way round. BUT ... I agree anyway.

We can't grok big things in one go, so we break them down — where "break" is the operative word — into smaller things that are a little easier to understand. And so on. This inevitably results in a seeming of structure and hierarchy. A structure and hierarchy of where our breaks are located.

No, it is not topsy turvy. It's a matter of physics, not epistemology.

Yes, the physics is there to be observed, and we observe it. Then we overlay onto our observations, our own 'understanding' of the "structure and hierarchy" of whatever we are observing.

Or are we really wondering, here, whether the "hierarchy" is actually part of The Universe? If so, where is it? Where is something we can observe that has greater/more/better/higher hierarchy than something else? I can see (or think of) nothing.

[Sy Borg]

Whatever, hierarchies are as inevitable in large societies as layers forming in large planets. Larger things naturally break up into small portions, they form structures and complexify.

I would say that's topsy-turvy; that it's all the wrong way round. BUT ... I agree anyway.

We can't grok big things in one go, so we break them down — where "break" is the operative word — into smaller things that are a little easier to understand. And so on. This inevitably results in a seeming of structure and hierarchy. A structure and hierarchy of where our breaks are located.

No, it is not topsy turvy. It's a matter of physics, not epistemology.

Yes, the physics is there to be observed, and we observe it. Then we overlay onto our observations, our own 'understanding' of the "structure and hierarchy" of whatever we are observing.

Or are we really wondering, here, whether the "hierarchy" is actually part of The Universe? If so, where is it? Where is something we can observe that has greater/more/better/higher hierarchy than something else? I can see (or think of) nothing. 🤔

You see nothing because you don't want to see it, presumably because it offends your keenly socialist sensibilities. Stratification is a part of reality, even if you find it offensive. Overlaying of observations is insignificant when it comes to planets and stars. When they are large, they simply form layers. We an either be intelligent and notice the stratification, or we can be obtuse and fail to notice it.

Humans in any appreciable numbers obviously cannot avoid hierarchy and structure. Families are inherently hierarchical and structured, because young children can obviously not be as empowered as parents.

Numerous social species are structured with hierarchies, including humans. Whether you include humans and other animals as part of the universe is another matter.

[Pattern-chaser]

You see nothing because you don't want to see it, presumably because it offends your keenly socialist sensibilities.

Stratification is a part of reality, even if you find it offensive. Overlaying of observations is insignificant when it comes to planets and stars. When they are large, they simply form layers. We an either be intelligent and notice the stratification, or we can be obtuse and fail to notice it.

Humans in any appreciable numbers obviously cannot avoid hierarchy and structure. Families are inherently hierarchical and structured, because young children can obviously not be as empowered as parents.

Numerous social species are structured with hierarchies, including humans. Whether you include humans and other animals as part of the universe is another matter.

I fear you misunderstand. You really don't like metaphysics, do you?

Reality is as reality does. The world-models and 'understanding' we overlay on top of it are just that — *our* overlay. Stratification does not exist in reality*; stratification is only the 'understanding' that we impose on it. It's difficult, sometimes, to separate what is, and what we think of what is.



* — nothing I say here changes or affects reality. I comment only on the way(s) we choose to *look at* reality. So you can take photographs and say "look, there's stratification!" And you're right; there is the phenomenon that we call "stratification". But matter just follows the Tao; is does what is in its nature to do, and it cannot do otherwise. If there is a rulebook that states that matter must stratify, we haven't found it yet. We don't even know where to look for such a thing. ... Perhaps there *is* no such thing?

The map describes the territory, as we 'see' it. It does not define reality, only describes it. The territory — in this case, matter — is what it is, and it does what it does. Under some circumstances, matter will coalesce, in particular ways; in others, it won't. It knows nothing of the pattern you call "stratification".

[Sy Borg]

You see nothing because you don't want to see it, presumably because it offends your keenly socialist sensibilities.

🤣🤣🤣

You are so brainwashed that you can't see that you are in Marx's thrall.

You are not the only one. I was like that until relatively recently, when I realised the extent to which universities and the mainstream media have been lying to us. Their views are so ubiquitous that we don't notice how they manipulate us.

Stratification is a part of reality, even if you find it offensive. Overlaying of observations is insignificant when it comes to planets and stars. When they are large, they simply form layers. We an either be intelligent and notice the stratification, or we can be obtuse and fail to notice it.

Humans in any appreciable numbers obviously cannot avoid hierarchy and structure. Families are inherently hierarchical and structured, because young children can obviously not be as empowered as parents.

Numerous social species are structured with hierarchies, including humans. Whether you include humans and other animals as part of the universe is another matter.

I fear you misunderstand. You really don't like metaphysics, do you? 😉

Reality is as reality does. The world-models and 'understanding' we overlay on top of it are just that — *our* overlay. Stratification does not exist in reality*; stratification is only the 'understanding' that we impose on it. It's difficult, sometimes, to separate what is, and what we think of what is.

You say that stratification does not exist in reality.

That is out of touch with reality. Never mind sedimentary rocks or the fossil record. We can ignore the state changes of the Earth and the Sun - as you are doing - but the fact is that states do change under pressure.

If you do not believe that thresholds exist in reality, that may explain why your views on so many issues are off beam. It seems that, for you, ideology matters more than physical reality.

Colour can stratify too - it's called a rainbow. Colour is a real phenomenon - the light wavelengths still vary, even if attention-seeking science journalists try to "wow" us by claiming colour is not real. In truth, colour is partially subjective. Anyone claiming that colour is 100% subjective has paradigm problems.

* — nothing I say here changes or affects reality. I comment only on the way(s) we choose to *look at* reality. So you can take photographs and say "look, there's stratification!" And you're right; there is the phenomenon that we call "stratification". But matter just follows the Tao; is does what is in its nature to do, and it cannot do otherwise. If there is a rulebook that states that matter must stratify, we haven't found it yet. We don't even know where to look for such a thing. ... Perhaps there *is* no such thing? 😉

This is the same level of magical thinking that resulted in your belief that leprechauns might exist. You place our narratives ahead of physical reality, while claiming to do the opposite. It's not a matter that "nature must stratify". Small pieces of, say, volcanic glass have no strata but, say, agate and sandstone are.

The map describes the territory, as we 'see' it. It does not define reality, only describes it. The territory — in this case, matter — is what it is, and it does what it does. Under some circumstances, matter will coalesce, in particular ways; in others, it won't. It knows nothing of the pattern you call "stratification".

You are confused. The territory may or may not be stratified and observers may or may not notice it.