Hang separately

[Michael Tomasello - Why We Cooperate from Shared Symbolic Storage by Michael Pleyer cross-posted at Replicated Typo

In this post I will offer a short overview of some aspects of Michael Tomasello’s latest book „Why We Cooperate,” which is based on his 2008 Tanner Lectures on Human Values…

But according to Tomasello, there are two aspects that also make human culture also qualitatively different from all others:

1. human culture is cumulative. That is, artefacts and behavioural practices often become more complex over time. Every improvement or accepted change will be transferred to the next generation and so forth.

2. human culture is unique in that there are social institutions, which create and enforce culture norms and practices… (Tomasello 2009: XIII)]

[Bats Gauge Sounds With Neural Teamwork New York Times - Sindya N. Bhanoo - ‎ November 15, 2010

One of the keys to the keen ability of bats to process sound is that the neurons in a bat’s brain work as a team to convey the importance of certain signals — like an anger call or a distress call — while diminishing the effect of less-important sounds, researchers at the Georgetown University Medical Center reported this past weekend in San Diego at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience.]

It needs to be studied why practitioners of Integral Yoga can’t work as a team.

Marx was peeved about surplus value and it also applies to the Ashram as a beneficiary of cheap and loyal labour. But as is well known, nothing comes cheap and there's no such thing as a free lunch. The inmates, therefore, tend to compensate themselves in various other ways and chasing fame is one of them.

Intellectual accomplishments duly circulated through writings and lectures became synonymous with spiritual achievement over the years, thus establishing a false generalization. Difference of opinion on various modalities and other mechanisms of power play have been in existence since inception. Specific instances like Dipti and Vak have many more stories to tell that are not altogether unrelated to the current controversy.

All this therefore calls for a paradigm change. But it is possible only through honest discussions and frank debates. If the laboratory faces a logjam today, there is no reason why the experiment should not be re-routed and re-engineered. [TNM]