"Decline of the West" by Darryl Cooper

[DrYouth]

Joseph Campbell was an anthropomorphizing terror, and guilty of way too much post hoc narrative...

How so?

[Martin Hash]

Philosophic-types try to give society human-like motives & features that execute in chronological fashion, but societies are non-linear constructs. In the computer world they would be referred to as stochastic processes: pseudorandom flocking heuristics, what Hayek calls "emergent order," inside which any seemingly linear & predictable suboutcome could be identified, which is why post hoc analysis is not scientific.

[DrYouth]

Yes but societies are groups of humans, somewhat in the same way that humans are accumulations of cells and organs... emergent properties can accrue in both. Archetypes are merely emergent properties within humans and societies. They no doubt have complex biological underpinnings but they can be identified as forces in the study of comparative mythology and spirituality throughout human history.

Ignore the archetypal forces at your peril.

[Martin Hash]

Yes but societies are groups of humans, somewhat in the same way that humans are accumulations of cells and organs.

No, the human body is not a stochastic process: weather is, ocean currents are, as is the universe.

[DrYouth]

No, the human body is not a stochastic process: weather is, ocean currents are, as is the universe.

Not the body so much as human consciousness... which emerges from the mind-body...
I invite you to show how is not a stochastic process.

For more details on how this works see:

[Speaker to Animals]

It's not a random process at all.

[DrYouth]

It's not a random process at all.

Quite right... not random...

But emergent.

[Speaker to Animals]

It's not a random process at all.

Quite right... not random...

But emergent.

A stochastic process requires random variables tested against some training metric.

[DrYouth]

A stochastic process requires random variables tested against some training metric.

This is the mathematical model for emergent properties is it not?

[Speaker to Animals]

A stochastic process requires random variables tested against some training metric.

This is the mathematical model for emergent properties is it not?

Partly. But not really how the brain necessarily functions. The evolutionary processes that produce the brain function like that.

You can design an artificial neural network whose training algorithm works stochastically. But you can also do so in other ways. The first artificial neural networks, such as adaline/madaline, used a simple gradient derived from a differential equation to compute input weight adjustments during the training process, and those networks work really well for some basic pattern recognition tasks similar to image processing in our brains.