Alpha Male

[Oscar]

Although I say this, it is human nature to look for supernatural things to explain the yet unknown natural world.

How do you know this? Talking about so-called human nature is always a tricky thing. Differences between genotypical and fenotypical behavior aren't that easily distinguished. I don't think there is any scientist who claims to fully understand human nature, let alone what humans are.

Interestingly enough, even so-called scientific proof is far from iron-clad. For instance it depends on the current state of technology. The next generation of technology (or of thinking, for that matter) might disprove what the previous generation seemed to have proven beyond doubt.

[summerwave]

I had one unshakeable moment when I slipped out of the 'normal' way of perceiving things...

It has never left. I would say it was in fact a NON-experience--

It seemed to be what essentially IS; rather than what the mind makes of things.

Science has seemed the way I describe ever since.

It was, and is, miraculous to perceive without undue focus on the senses; what one takes to be one's body, and without the interference of the mind.

Poets; artists; others do this when they, for example, see beauty but do not allow the mind to interfere (by naming the flower they are seeing; talking about the kinds of clouds in a sunset; exclaiming on the spot how pretty it is)...

There are things that just take one in, when one is unguarded. And you do find an unshakeable sense you've always had, and which will never leave.

It is not replicable in a lab.

But it has been occurring to humans far longer than science has been in operation. It is, maybe, the ultimate research: to find out (even without meaning to) what (not who) one really is.

I do not think I could ever say, with a straight face, that I am "just" a collection of brain impulses-- or a concoction of hormones or pre-determined behaviours. Many scientists could, though!

[johndela1]

Although I say this, it is human nature to look for supernatural things to explain the yet unknown natural world.

How do you know this? Talking about so-called human nature is always a tricky thing. Differences between genotypical and fenotypical behavior aren't that easily distinguished. I don't think there is any scientist who claims to fully understand human nature, let alone what humans are.

Interestingly enough, even so-called scientific proof is far from iron-clad. For instance it depends on the current state of technology. The next generation of technology (or of thinking, for that matter) might disprove what the previous generation seemed to have proven beyond doubt.

Isn't this is what I said in my prev post?
I said we are can never knowthings for sure.

But, there have been many observations of humans looking for super natural explanations for things. I'm just saying it is a tendency that has been observed in humans.

[johndela1]

I had one unshakeable moment when I slipped out of the 'normal' way of perceiving things...

You can't always trust you perception. I could show you a picture of on optical illusion and your senses would fail you. How can you be sure this experience is not something like a dream that you made up? People tell me they have feelings about things to come and then they come true. If these people would write this stuff down they'd quickly see it is not how they percieve it (predictive) but actually the opposite(they don't predict any better than flipping a coin).

It is not replicable in a lab.

not yet
You may be surprised at what they are doing in labs with the mind.

I do not think I could ever say, with a straight face, that I am "just" a collection of brain impulses-- or a concoction of hormones or pre-determined behaviors. Many scientists could, though!

If you really think the mind doesn't come from the chemicals in the body? Do you think we have a soul or something like that?[/quote]


I'm not saying there aren't amazing things that happen in the Universe that we have no way of explaining (currently). There is a ton we don't understand well. Like gravity, black holes, or quantum physics.

[summerwave]

Again, I sense we are at a juncture where language fails...


What I can say is what I noted earlier: it was a non-experience--
That is, clearly not something transient that began and ended.

It was a sense of a continuum, and timelessness.

Against this my ostensibly "individual" life seemed a misperception; a complete but understandable error.

Again, where there is a "non-experience," what one is finding is a type of ground against which time and naming; logic and analysis, are imposed.

But they formed closed systems which essentially always miss the larger reality-- I would say the only reality. It is not external to one; it is what one truly is: not the body; the mind; an IQ; a name and address; an "identity"....these are all artificial, and essentially in error, too, it has seemed to me ever since.

[Oscar]

Well, "it is human nature" is something different than "it is a tendency that has been observed in humans", at least in my book.

But yeah I agree with you that we never know for sure. All that we think we know (which is based on axioms anyway) could very well be different. So proof doesn't exist. All that remains is personal perception.

[summerwave]

The percept is the closest thing we have (I sense what we are is like something the percept can come close to, like an asymptote, but which can never be)....

I do not feel a percept, or what we really are, can ever be taken "away from us" to be proved.

We are the ultimate subject, so we can not stand in a subject/object relationship to ourselves-- hold ourselves at arm's length and examine ourselves.

In a single moment, we may have this emerge; erupt; shine through in us-- through percept; through senses that cannot be measured or proved.

But that is fine; it is the nature of what we are that we cannot be separate from ourselves, and we find it impossible to describe in language/concept.

Adi Da Samraj and others are far more articulate at I at describing this; also Jean Klein, Nisargadatta, and others. Sensing what one really is is accessible to all, though (of course!)

[PliestoceneMan]

I'm just gonna say "I sense language has failed us." whenever someone contradicts something I say and backs me into a corner.

[Thomas]

If what Wai says is right, there is one alpha male (obviously) and he gets all of the women.
The problem with this, is that males form non sexual bonds with other males. It is not the same as male-female bonds, or female-female bonds, but males develop love for other males.
If you have one male that is getting all of the sex, and everyone else is getting none, he is going to sever his ties with other males. And we gotta realize, two 5-11 (1.8m) males can easily handle one 6-6 (1.98m) male (even though we know the difference in height wasnt this much in a small tribe). So things had to work differently.


How did male hierarchy work in a tribe? You definately need one alphamale/leader, that's obvious. Because you need someone who can set examples, and inspire (because you are going to fight other tribes and other animals). And, all women want to have sex with the alpha male the most, because he has the best genes. But you still need some kind of organization so that the alpha male can maintain respect of the other males, maintain his male bonds, and still copulate with more of the females than the other males, so more of his best traits get passed on than the other males. However, the other males need something.

What do you guys think?

Tom

[RRM]

If what Wai says is right, there is one alpha male (obviously) and he gets all of the women.
The problem with this, is that males form non sexual bonds with other males. It is not the same as male-female bonds, or female-female bonds, but males develop love for other males.

But also strategic bonds, indeed.
I personally dont think that "one alpha male... gets all of the women"
I do think that some (alpha males) got "the best women" and
some men were left with nothing.
But then again, isnt that what happens today?

you still need some kind of organization so that the alpha male can maintain respect of the other males, maintain his male bonds, and still copulate with more of the females than the other males

Exactly.

What do you guys think?

I agree

[RRM]

Posted by Summerwave in a mirror thread:

"Maybe it is the times, but I can easily see alpha females in all of the above and it doesn't make much sense to refine the theory in this sharply-polarized model.

What is true of an individual is not true of a group, of course.
-- But as a "Western" woman in this world, really, really highly educated and financially someone of my own means, none of the above makes much sense.

And given different conditions, any woman in the world could be me-- there are innumerable artificial, but not natural, barriers that hinder women.

I am not sure any of us are all that impressed with "alpha males"-- if we ourselves bear many of the same qualities, as superficial as they are (some degree of education or other power; material means; leadership of an organization or high skill in a career)."

[RRM]

I am not sure any of us are all that impressed with "alpha males"-- if we ourselves bear many of the same qualities, as superficial as they are (some degree of education or other power; material means; leadership of an organization or high skill in a career).

But dont you think that (way back) women did not bear the same qualities?
That men were the warriors and the hunters?
that women needed men for protection?
Maybe that makes all the difference? (between then and now)

[summerwave]

Maybe back at the dawn of time....

It doesn't make sense now, though.

I mean-- if women are artificially "controlled," kept in the same essential "survival" state as the oldest hominids-- then yes. When you are pregnant or nursing for years; when there is an undeniable advantage to the larger/stronger party for very primitive reasons; when you are essentially living in gender apartheid as in parts of the world (Saudi Arabia; Afghanistan)-- you can keep those things going-- in the same way the caste system still functions in India for human-made (not God/natural-order-made) reasons of economic expediency.

If you follow this kind of thing now, maybe you're fetishizing those dynamics for some unknown and ungodly reason. If you really think a Wall Street "alpha male" who is a pig to women but has a lot of money is the best among men, then all those women out there who like that: be my guest.

[RRM]

Maybe back at the dawn of time....

It doesn't make sense now, though.

No, of course, i fully agree!

If you follow this kind of thing now, maybe you're fetishizing those dynamics for some unknown and ungodly reason. If you really think a Wall Street "alpha male" who is a pig to women but has a lot of money is the best among men,

I dont think anyone here thinks that
I think we just discussed how it may have been, ...at the dawn of time.
When every day was a struggle for survival, a struggle for food, and a struggle for reproduction.

[summerwave]

Oh-- okay!


I truly thought the original Wai site's page on this was trying to establish that this still holds... but- as we both agree- I think NO.