Thank you for the solid comment. Your work is well crafted and took me some time to fully digest.

“Weren't you the one who, between us, first discussed the link between genetics and politics? “

Yes. So?

Or do you believe pre-existing conditions cannot be genetic in origin?

“since you seem much more inclined to believe that information can flow directly between two individuals, resulting in what you call 'contracting memes,' whereas I've developed a model in which identical, similar, or different personal observations of the world will lead to identical, similar, or different paradigms”

A distinction without a difference. Whether you say “here are two nodes networked” or “here are two networked internetworked,” or “here are two nodes internetworked,” you are still describing two entities and a relation between them.

“that 'connection' is better expressed as 'thinking alike' or 'viewing alike' rather than as a devoted line for information transmission between any two people.”

Here you say something else, and here is where your language causes you trouble. You are (I think) using connection to mean something closer to “similar” than “networked.” To me this leads to bizarre conclusions, such as “X and Y are connected if they are similar, even if they lived thousands of years apart and in no way effected each other.” The analogous statement of my definition, “X and Y are connected if they interact with each other, even if they are dissimilar” to me appears much closer to the common usage of “connected”

Your concluding example (an 11 or 12) year old may be a good argument for the universal occurrence of pederasty, but not of homosexuality. Unless you want to decide a prior that they are the same thing. (Or you believe, as Rictor Norton [1] appears to believe, that “homosexuality” is a constructed, limited, and recent concept, pedastry is so universal as to be the real thing)

“what can the explanation be for his later search for role models (aged 18 – 19) to help him with this vague understanding formed in isolation during the intervening years?”

That such a statement begs the question — it assumes a “search for role models” while not even attempting to demonstrate that pederastic desires actually are a search for a homosexual mentor.

[1] http://www.infopt.demon.co.uk/social19.htm

On the other hand I thought Dan might be concerned on the resource shift as well. I can’t remember where I read this, but an article said resources are shifting towards homosexuality quite well. As an economic group, homosexuals are doing better than the average American. While I am sure this doesn’t concern Dan on an individual level, I thought it might on the meme level.

I just thought you and Dan were discussing something that has no final real explanation, and what I thought you guys were really talking about was ethics.
If you look at the total OODA loop and not the parts, the OODA loop “moves” according to what I call three elements. They are what Bloom called the domains of philosophy. The loop moves with an element of ethics, logic, and physics. I was just saying I thought you both could understand the logic of homosexuality, which I thought was probably love, because sex is really mostly a physics thing. The homosexual is trying to find a relationship. I may be miss-representing this element as love, but it seemed appropriate at the time, because you two seem to have a relationship going on

Weren't you the one who, between us, first discussed the link between genetics and politics? [1]

I do think that the very idea of 'contract memes' is misleading, too misleading. In fact, this subject has suddenly veered back to our disagreement over the idea of 'social networks' [2], since you seem much more inclined to believe that information can flow directly between two individuals, resulting in what you call 'contracting memes,' whereas I've developed a model in which identical, similar, or different personal observations of the world will lead to identical, similar, or different paradigms (understandings / ideologies) and activities; i.e., that 'connection' is better expressed as 'thinking alike' or 'viewing alike' rather than as a devoted line for information transmission between any two people.

The thread occurring on my site in tandem with this thread is the third part of a series on “Homosexuality and Globalization”, and I have been delayed in moving toward the broader consideration by these conversations on homosexuality (and homosexualism!) — a necessary delay, I think. But my subject is also “emergence” and

1. What things are required before emergence can happen?

2. What may we infer from an observation of emergence?

I mention this now, because your comparison of the phenomenon of homosexuality / homosexualism with National-Socialism, though both may relate to the very broad subject of choice, fails to take into account their dissimilarities. This is the problem with metaphors, particularly when things considered in metaphor are presented as identicals. [3] At the least, you and I may be in agreement that one common feature is simply that both did not always produce total devotion from everyone who came into contact with activities inspired by both. But I wonder if you would say that National-Socialism has emerged in multiple places, within very different social milieux, in the way that homosexual activity has emerged in such varying milieux? For instance, if a young teen (aged 11- 12) began having homoerotic dreams long before he ever met a role model or Recruiter or even before he knew of such a thing as 'homosexualism' or lived in a society with Queer Eye for the Straight Guy or Ellen Degeneris, etc., what can the explanation be for his later search for role models (aged 18 – 19) to help him with this vague understanding formed in isolation during the intervening years? (I'm referring to an American teen; but then, how can you explain the emergence of homosexual activity in places which either existed far from these influence or long before such influences occurred? I know that you are particular in defining 'modernity' even for societies which did not have access to the early sexologists in the West who first formulated the term homosexuality or some equivalent.)

[1] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2005/11/03/the-dna-of-politics.html

[2] http://www.phaticcommunion.com/archives/2006/07/social_ooda_loo.php

[3] http://www.phaticcommunion.com/archives/2006/05/mishmash.php

Glad we are now in agreement on abstract and concrete processes!

“For instance, saying that homosexuality is a result of some Gay Recruiting would require proving (in some way) a 'Twinkie Defense' in order to avoid the possibility that some intrinsic physiological condition led to the expression of that homosexuality.”

True, but does that /mean/ anything? Saying some thing T has existed in the past, and that T when combined with the environment leads to a phenotype (T X E => P), doesn't prove the past existence of the phenotype. Likewise, saying that there is some thing that leads one to homosexuality doesn't make homosexuality natural or not, right or not, historically extant or not.

“Or, to put it another way, reconsider Hoffman's assertions but replace 'spoon' with 'Gay Recruiter' and contemplate how one person's 'homosexuality' can be transferred to another (as if a migraine could be transferred.)”

Or (as if a taste could be transferred), which of course it can be.

“why then would one 'victim' but not another, exposed to the same Recruiter, then act like the Recruiter?”

For the same reason that some people contract memes from carriers and others don't: some existing pre-condition. Which again proves nothing. Why were some people and not others enthralled by National-Socialism, to the point of loving the party and Hitler? Answer: some existing precondition. Is it proof that some nationalist-racist beliefs were anything other than a modern construction? Of course not.

“I.e., I'm really asking whether you believe that some hypothetical victims may have a 'starting condition' different from others which will affect how they react to environmental conditions.”

Yes, of course.

“So I am not a strict genetic determinist nor a strict 'environmental determinist', mostly because I've found the debate between the two extreme approaches to be quite unhelpful (to say the least!)”

Hurrah! I thus welcome my compatriot in the fight for G X E analysis!

Larry,

Excellent comments. A focus on resources may be closer to looking for an ultimate cause than a proximate cause. That is, our discussion may be rational-in-design because it would be part of a larger group tournament, without ourselves in any way having this conversation with such a goal in mind.

I'm not worried, so I don't understand this inference.

At the same time, I do not think that Dan and I are in complete agreement about what you are calling 'the physic of homosexuality.' I think that, actually, he and I are holding somewhat different spoons — i.e., we see different collections of particles and natural forces, each collection arranged differently — and he is telling me mine does not exist while I am telling him that his is not the only possible collection of particles/forces, or else not a complete collection.

I'm also doubting that we both understand 'the logic, love' — or perhaps we have different logics.

Using the Revised OODA [1] as a starting point, I would say that our primary disagreement is over which types of information are extant in The World and feeding into the Concrete Orient phase before an individual's own abstraction (understanding and/or ideology) is formed to address that information. It would appear that merely a 'Gay Recruiter' (or call it, an icon or role model, whether one person or a group of persons) is Dan's spoon, whereas I think that these exist and may influence the ultimate expression of that understanding into activity but that some other personal physiological information also feeds into Concrete Orient, roughly speaking.

[1] http://www.phaticcommunion.com/archives/2006/06/rethinking_the.php

Thank God (or at least, your class reading)! You know I pull most of this stuff out of my ass, don't you? Or, less metaphorically: from my own observation and contemplation, modified as they have been from reading some relics of others' contemplation and observations…

I don't understand what you are trying to say in the second half of your post, though,

“A previous comment by Pinker shows the error of Curtis' ways”

Actually, his words seem to buttress my argument, and I wonder if maybe you did not understand my argument. For instance, saying that homosexuality is a result of some Gay Recruiting would require proving (in some way) a 'Twinkie Defense' in order to avoid the possibility that some intrinsic physiological condition led to the expression of that homosexuality. Or, to put it another way, reconsider Hoffman's assertions but replace 'spoon' with 'Gay Recruiter' and contemplate how one person's 'homosexuality' can be transfered to another (as if a migraine could be transfered.)

Or perhaps it should be considered from another angle. Even if some hypothetical Gay Recruiter exhibited a homosexualism (i.e., by my definitions, an ideology rather than a concrete condition outside the physical Orient phase mentioned above, or outside the Abstract OODA) and acted in a peculiar way from that ideology, and his 'victim' or dupe picked up on those things and formed an ideology of homosexualism and proceeded to act on it in ways similar to the Recruiter's activity, why then would one 'victim' but not another, exposed to the same Recruiter, then act like the Recruiter? I.e., I'm really asking whether you believe that some hypothetical victims may have a 'starting condition' different from others which will affect how they react to environmental conditions.

BTW, since I've read most of your Pinker posts, I've occasionally wanted to mention a thing that I've contemplated but not with much clarity yet. My decision to place 'genetic heritage' in 'The World' of my Revised OODA appears to be a conceptual method for considering such genetic information alongside environmental information without elevating either to a hierarchically superior position: a kind of blurring, if you will, of genetic influence and environmental influence. Both influences enter into the Abstract OODA process within Concrete Orient, and it is the interplay between them that makes for a final orientation and, ultimately, activity. So I am not a strict genetic determinist nor a strict 'environmental determinist', mostly because I've found the debate between the two extreme approaches to be quite unhelpful (to say the least!)

Although perhaps not equally well, but both should understand the ethics of the spoon as a tool to ingest food with and not stab your sister in the eye or something like that.

The logic of the spoon would be its obvious (at least it should be to both persons) strategic advantage over a stick used for the same purpose.

The physic of the spoon would be even more obvious. The physics would tell both that it is better to hold on to the handle and use the other end for transferring semi-liquids into the body.

The winning hallucination receives the most resources and is supported by both persons. The nourishment that the spoon provides would further enforce the conformity of the hallucination and keep the diversity generators in check.

It would seem to me you guys are in complete agreement with the physic of homosexuality, sex. You both understand the logic, love. But you both disagree on the ethics, one for and one against. If you look at where the resources are going and how much resources are being used on this hallucination, I can understand how you both can be worried.

“Or do you believe pre-existing conditions cannot be genetic in origin?”

That will depend on how we define 'pre-existing', i.e., at what point in time we are referencing. For instance, I tend to believe that whatever so-called 'environmental conditions' are present, some genetic disposition for 'observing' that information — or, being affected by it, absorbing it, interpreting it, etc. — must exist before a reaction can occur. So, if I were made entirely of lead rather than so many organic compounds, the introduction of a match flame would have no or very little effect on me. My genetic predisposition, however, causes me to be 'burned.' Similarly, suppose that other environmental conditions have already influenced my lead body; say, for instance, other chemicals have already interacted with that lead, leading to a more mixed solution or other compounds which could later allow my body to be 'burned' by the match. But I'm not exactly sure of what you meant by your question. If you meant, Is it possible that the change occurred in the womb, but not as a result of a strictly genomic condition?, then I would say that even then, some genomic condition had to be open to the possibility of being changed by the conditions in the womb: even if we might call those changes 'environmental influences', those influence would have no effect if no genomic precondition existed which would allow for that change.

“Here you say something else, and here is where your language causes you trouble. “

Oh, I know that, since one person can think of 'connection' differently than another. One type of literal interpretation would view the word as implying a dedicated physical link — like a rope tying two things together or one link in a chain tying two other links together — whereas another might suppose some Magic Cloud of actual physical connections between two otherwise quite separated things, and a third may extend the metaphor of the second and simply declare that 'connection' is what occurs in our minds when we imagine that Magic Cloud.

You are the second, I think, and I am closer to the third, although I suppose we might both agree on the first for some types of 'connection'.

I tend to think that reliance on a Magic Cloud of physical connection will ultimately lead to the abolishment of the very idea of **separation** since any theoretical chain of physical particles could be conceived to exist between any two persons or things, particularly when such a Magic Cloud of connection can be imagined to have surely existed if we consider all things that have ever occurred anywhere and any time, and this will lead to a diminishment of the very idea of **connection** as well, as a distinctive quality of relationship. Connection is meaningless if separation is meaningless, in other words.

Because of our different epistemologies, my use of the word 'connection' in the third sense seems absurd to you. What I am really saying by using that word is this: When the second type of connection is asserted to exist, more often than not (or so it seems to me) the Magic Cloud is being assumed by someone incapable of actually giving all the actual physical connections for a proof of its existence; and, that this assertion of the existence of that Magic Cloud more often than not may be an assumption based on the fact that two individuals (in the case of 'social networks') think alike and appear to go about their individual business as if connected by some 'chain' of interdependence or at least a 'chain' of interaction: because they think alike, they may go to the same places, use the same institutions (such as banks and grocery stores), etc. The theorist seeing this assumes standard 'nodes' connecting people, but it is an after-the-fact definition or structure created in the mind rather than a definite 'connection' as we would think of connection in the first sense given above.

Now, I have also said that 'connection' may be actual, but that it is likely to be quite temporal, ephemeral: limited in scope and duration. This is because I prefer to start from the first understanding of 'connection' — an actual physical connection, such as shaking hands — which is brief. When the second type of theorist extends the idea of 'connection' beyond that, with recourse to Magic Clouds of so-called connection, by supposing that some sequence of actual physical connections constitutes the Magic Cloud, those unknown but supposed connections are more of an idea of connection supposed to exist rather than a definite network. The ephemeral is dragged down into stasis as the indeterminate and brief connections which were actual (first sense) are laid out on the gridwork of theory which would declare, “Aha…a NETWORK!”

So I have used 'connection' loosely, attempting to explain to the second type of theorist my own understanding of social realities. Where you see some Magic Cloud Connectivity, I see similarities in people, both physical and mental similarities.

“Your concluding example (an 11 or 12) year old may be a good argument for the universal occurrence of pederasty, but not of homosexuality.”

This is absurd; but I had wondered what you would make of my concluding example. The example was of myself, and I can assure you that no adult was involved, no role model nor 'sexual predator'. Nope. I began to have those homoerotic dreams, those desires, long before I ever met an openly homosexual person (a self-defined homosexual, which I first met at 18-19), and indeed long before I even knew what 'homosexual' was. This might be hard to imagine, given the openness in our society now; but I grew up in the 70's and 80's in a very small Midwestern town (actually, mostly in the countryside outside that town) where these things were never discussed. In fact, the first times I ever heard the words 'queer' and 'faggot', I had no idea what they meant — but I'd already begun to experience attractions to the same sex before I heard those words, definitely before I knew what those words meant. (My earliest understandings of those words were that they referred to drag queens or men who dressed in womens' clothing. I thought, Shit, I'm not that! because I had no desire to dress like that! — all the while having this attraction to other boys my age or even older boys.)

Your are quite fixated on the idea of pederasty and predators, and your obsession has me wondering if your childhood experiences were different from mine.