Philosophy Now Forum

Hi guys, first post here, so be gentle
This is ostensibly a political topic, but I ask it in the Science section because i'm after a more all encompassing opinion untainted by allegiances and theories.

In this universe, when an individual conceptual entity combines with another individual conceptual entity to make a larger compound conceptual entity, there are properties of this union... the compound created has properties of each component element, and this acts/moves/reacts in a different way as a result.

So looking at ants for example, when they work together to pick up a carcass, I wonder what calls upon them to carry it in that specific way? It's swarm behaviour, and they all carry an instinctual obligation to participate in a certain way.

Humans come together and we form into tribes, clans, groups, and almost inevitably this ends up as a duopoly. Why?
How do we end up as "left vs right, christian vs muslim, coke vs pepsi, pc vs mac", yes these are often manufactured machiavellian duopolies, but why do they emerge time and time again?
Why are two party states the norm? Why does every human competitive structure end up with allegiances and ultimately a duopoly of factions? Is it unique to us?

What is the evolved reason for this? Where does it come from and how (if possible) do we transcend it?

I guess broadly speaking I'm after hearing your thoughts on the nature of how components come together to move as one, and how this naturally structures itself... I would absolutely love to hear your thoughts, theories and ideas on this topic.

I'm inclined to think the human tendency to categorize in pairs (left/right, us/them, etc.) has its source in human sexuality: male and female...two (supposedly) complimentary wholes that need one another to complete a bio-function. We extend that pairing tendency out into everything.


Ants: Why does any 'life' do anything? Fundamentally: it's all about 'living' (self-preserving).

That ants do 'that' they way they do is the result of the particular and peculiar adaptations ants (proto-ants, etc.) made/make to environments.

That is: 'hive' was/is the best strategy for a certain kind of life to 'keep on, keepin' on'.


Entelechy (Something complex that emerges when you put a large number of simple objects together): kludge-work is the way of world...stuff thrown together, most of the time it falls flat (fails), sometimes, though, sumthin' 'new' pops up.