This is a work in progress I've been holding on to for a little while now. It is not meant to be a criticism to the course, it's just addresses my reaction to many issues raised in class.

A Call for Social Mathematics

So far, through this course, we have been learning about how humans function socially, as well as the affect media has on this behaviour. These points are all well and good, and yes, they can be applied to real life, but I feel it would be more useful to study WHY we react this how.

For example, Adler and Rodman mention our perceptual tendencies: we're more severe on others than ourselves, we're influenced by the obvious, we cling to first impressions... the list goes on. My problem with these observations is, well that's just it, they're just observations. It does not really unlock our minds and clarify our existence, all it is is a set of rules; the style of arbitrary rules we'd follow when we're playing a card game. Why is the ace higher than the king? It's irrelevant since it's such a basic game with no consequences.

The rules presented so far are the rules that require a "why". These are akin to rules your parent might enforce, like a curfew, not arbitrarily, but to keep you safe at night. I think that when rules like perceptual tendencies are presented to us, the first step should be to analyze. Why is it that we cling to first impressions? We know it's true, but for what cause? How does this help us survive? In fact, survival is the key emphasis to any genetic or species-specific traits, because obviously these traits have survived whereas any countering tendencies have become extinct.

If we analyze our tendencies, we can set down not only rules as we see, but proofs based on the "why" of previous rules. We can extrapolate our data much the way mathematics as mastered. A child who is taught addition does not simply learn that "1 + 1 = 2", "1 + 2 = 3", "1 + 3 = 4" all the way up so that he has MEMORIZED every reasonable addition; he learns from the first and then applies them to larger questions. Eventually, mathematicians were able to set forth proofs based on the logical rules they observed, proofs like Pythagorean Theorem and the quadratic formula.

I have played out a few ideas in my mind before. For instance, consider a public transit bus. For the most part, everyone on the bus is a stranger; few people actually commute together it would seem. When you get on the bus, you can note that every seat will be taken before people start sitting two to a seat. Also, even when there's only one person in every seat, many people will elect to stand rather than sitting next to anyone else. Why do we do it? Why can't we just sit down at the first available seat, regardless of whether it is empty or half-full? We aren't trying to be mean to the people in the seats when we don't sit next to them; we're trying to be more comfortable, and let them be more comfortable too; setting up a buffer as large as possible between us and them. The same goes for if strangers to meet at a location, they will inevitably be all spread out from each other (i.e. a bus stop). Why is this more comfortable?

With this, we can enter the realm of species evolution. My theory is that humans were not originally social animals. We act like we are, we feel lonely when we're not in a social atmosphere, but this is not the full truth. My theory is that the originators of humans were once solitary creatures, able to get what they needed without relying on a society to specialize tasks. Then, something happened, some major change in our habitat that made everything harder to accomplish to survive. This happens all the time in the world: entire climates changed and habitats reconfigured. Suddenly we were forced to work together to survive. The solitary humans died, but deviated humans, who learnt to work together - to defend, to hunt, to feed - they survived, and any descendant of them had genetic code in them to find companions. This eventually formed society, and then civilization.

This is not a complete stab in the dark. If we go back to our bus problem, we can now see that the choice of whether or not to sit next to someone is the deep solitary aspect of our genetics. Our social behaviour is a much newer, and therefore less engrained genetic trait. The net result of these two opposing traits is that we DO get lonely, but we're not especially happy in the company of others, a lose-lose situation.

Finally, linking back, MSN Messenger appears to be the cure for this, as it allows us to communicate with others, so we no longer feel lonely, while maintaining our solitary nature. We are still alone; messages appearing on the screen in text is probably the least intrusive form of communication. In our last tutorial (Oct. 2nd), we talked about how communication through MSN Messenger was significantly different than face-to-face communication. Sometimes you will talk to someone online you would never talk to in real life. Also, the conversations remained at a very shallow level, few in-depth talks, mostly just "what's up" conversations. This communication seems to be the bare minimum needed to satisfy our social side, so that our true nature comes out.

Now, I could be dead wrong. This is only a theory, but it seems to nicely fit in to our society.