Does society exist?

Is society real?


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So are they social because we say they are or because they need to be? How do they know what their needs are?
Why does this have to be a concious policy?

I think a lot of what we view society as; is just: habit. If you can change a habit, then you can change a society.
I don't really understand what you're trying to say here.

That has very little to do with how they form. Does society form because there is a need or from an ideology. I suppose that deciding that, would distinguish between different types of society. If we say there are different types of society, seems we have already decided that society exist. We have moved on to why society exist.
And I said, this is a palaeontological question, not an anthropological one. Human social groupings are, in the most general sense, something that we've inherited from our evolutionary ancestors, not something that emerged without our own history.
 
Why does this have to be a concious policy?


I don't really understand what you're trying to say here.


And I said, this is a palaeontological question, not an anthropological one. Human social groupings are, in the most general sense, something that we've inherited from our evolutionary ancestors, not something that emerged without our own history.

Habit; something started that continues without reason.

Inherited; something we keep doing without reason.
 
Ok, if that's how you are using the terms. But what implications does this actually have for the study- or change- of human society?
 
Why do you say "error"? Couldn't it simply be that our "programming" was never intended to produce a given outcome, but to act as a mechanism by which societies were formed in reaction to changing circumstances?

Yes, that's what I meant, hence the quotation marks. Dawkins calls it a misfiring set of genes or something, that fortunately make it possible for humans to exist in large groups and to feel socially connected with people beyond their immediate family or a circle of friends.
 
Do I exist as a temporal being in a four-dimensional world? Are those past and future me-s the same me or part of my being as present me? Or are they just the collection of me-s my present me is gathering into the one big but momental illusion to help it orient itself and make a small step of act in the needed direction before dissappearing in time irretrievably?
 
Perfection said:
An interesting related question one should ask is "does a chair exist simply as a collection of the wood and screws within it, or is there a collective that is greater than the sum of its parts?"

One might consider that because a chair has a special ordered arrangement of its parts we should consider that something more than just its constituent materials. One might consider the same for people and society. Provided we claim that society has some order to it. (which I think we can)

Well it's both a collection of wood and screws but in a way that makes it a chair, which is what we decide to call this particular formation of wood and screws. So yeah, exactly what you said.
 
Yes, that's what I meant, hence the quotation marks. Dawkins calls it a misfiring set of genes or something, that fortunately make it possible for humans to exist in large groups and to feel socially connected with people beyond their immediate family or a circle of friends.
But that's my question- is it that humans were "designed", for want of a better word, for a single social context, and our adaptability is an "unintentional" bonus, or was the adaptability the "design" itself? Anthropologists have already recognised that humans are remarkably plastic creatures, and Dawkin's tendency towards genetic reductionism doesn't gel very well with how human beings are actually understood in that field. It tends to raise more questions than it answers.

Do I exist as a temporal being in a four-dimensional world? Are those past and future me-s the same me or part of my being as present me? Or are they just the collection of me-s my present me is gathering into the one big but momental illusion to help it orient itself and make a small step of act in the needed direction before dissappearing in time irretrievably?
I would say that you only meaningfully exist as a temporal being. Conciousness is something that happens, not just something that is, and a human being frozen in time, and so without conciousness, is really nothing more than an elaborate collection of atoms.
 
Yeah, society exists.

a more interesting question is whether the individual exists

Not in any politically significant way :)
 
Ok, if that's how you are using the terms. But what implications does this actually have for the study- or change- of human society?

Adaptation is changing or the cause of change in human society. Do you not agree that while most people have a goal, the daily, mundane life is done out of habit?

Yeah, society exists.



Not in any politically significant way :)

Would you be so kind as to explain this to one, President Barack Obama?
 
I would say that you only meaningfully exist as a temporal being. Conciousness is something that happens, not just something that is, and a human being frozen in time, and so without conciousness, is really nothing more than an elaborate collection of atoms.
That's because every moment you feel as if there were something more than this exact moment. But if I am a temporal being why am I not a being longer and deeper in time than just my personal me moments? My life is only the moment of the life of my species and the Life on Earth. The way my present personal me is defined by infinite momental me-s of the past and is driven by their impulse, the same way my overall temporal me, my life is fully to the last moment of it defined by evolutional and historical chain of countless lifes of organisms preceding me. Is there any meaning or drive in my life at all if taken from the context of this chain?
 
Society is simply a collection of people, so no, it doesn't exist on its own
 
Society certainly exists from an economic standpoint. Specialization of labor, trade, commerce, economies of scale, etc, in a society produce a much better standard of living than just a bunch of subsistance farmers and gatherers.
 
Adaptation is changing or the cause of change in human society. Do you not agree that while most people have a goal, the daily, mundane life is done out of habit?
No. I think that for the vast majority, the basic terms of daily life expresses a set of external constraints. What habits exist, exist within those externally-enforced terms. When those constraints are removed, in one way or another, daily life is necessarily modified as a result.

That's because every moment you feel as if there were something more than this exact moment. But if I am a temporal being why am I not a being longer and deeper in time than just my personal me moments? My life is only the moment of the life of my species and the Life on Earth. The way my present personal me is defined by infinite momental me-s of the past and is driven by their impulse, the same way my overall temporal me, my life is fully to the last moment of it defined by evolutional and historical chain of countless lifes of organisms preceding me. Is there any meaning or drive in my life at all if taken from the context of this chain?
Arguably not, insofar as your individual conciousness is necessarily developed within the context set by all that has preceded you. But your conciousness will only continue to exist within that context- itself something which develops over time- so attempting to abstract it out of that context is a purely academic exercise.
 
If there wasn't a society, then I wouldn't really be here.

To argue that would be a foolish denial.
 
I think this question could also be asked from a pragmatic standpoint: Does someone give their life more value or purpose if they dedicate themselves to improving society? Does such a goal in one's life benefit them? Does it even benefit society?
 
There are many societies. Certainly a group of individuals is more than the sum of it's parts.
 
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