Do you guys have obsessions about physical entities, abstract entities, supernatural, or a combination of these.
Examples of physical entities: rivers, mountains, lakes, trees, dogs and buildings.
*Examples of abstract entities: legends, myths, gods, religions, nations and corporations.
Abstract thinking actually enables co-operation between people not tied by personal friendship, or even kinship. As far as man knows, any large scale co-operation of intelligent beings, such as a religion, or even a state society, is rooted in abstract thought.
Two or more people who've never met but follow the same religion can combine efforts for projects because they all share some beliefs in common. For example; Multiple Muslims who've never met can nevertheless combine efforts to build a lot in Dubai, such as the Burj Khalifa and the Palm Islands, due to belief in Allah being the beneficent and most merciful. As they are likely Emirati, their shared belief in the existence of the emirates with the nation called the United Arab Emirates, the various homelands of the U.A.E, and the flag of that nation. Belief in the existence of laws (or at least ones actually enforced), and other related beliefs, as well as the belief in money paid out in fees, gives two or more lawyers who've never met a way to defend a complete stranger.
Companies and corporations officially independent of founders are another abstract entity. There may exist many products of a company, but such entities could continue to exist even if every product of there disintegrated or were destroyed, still making more products and issuing an annual report. A company may own buildings, vehicles, etc, and employ workers, but even these together still don't comprise the company.
Suppose all the workers for the company resigned retired, lost their jobs, or even perished, and everything owned by the company were sold off or destroyed. Even then, the company could borrow money, hire new workers and buy new buildings, vehicles, etc.
A company could still exist after its managers were dismissed and shares sold. But if a judge were to mandate the dissolution of a company, it would vanish, even if its buildings, vehicles, etc, continued to exist, and workers, managers and shareholders continued to live.
*Examples of things with a supernatural existence: numbers, arithmetic, points, line segments, polygons.
This is another way of getting large groups of strangers to co-operate, at least in very technical areas. Two or more mathematicians who've never met could combine efforts to solve a maths problem, even if they are from different cultures that have had no prior encounters with one another, because of common knowledge theorems independently found and proven by the peoples of both cultures.
Two or more physicists who've never met, and of cultures that have never had any prior contact, could combine efforts in a observation or science experiment because of common knowledge of physical laws independently discovered in two or more cultures before contact.
Examples of physical entities: rivers, mountains, lakes, trees, dogs and buildings.
*Examples of abstract entities: legends, myths, gods, religions, nations and corporations.
Abstract thinking actually enables co-operation between people not tied by personal friendship, or even kinship. As far as man knows, any large scale co-operation of intelligent beings, such as a religion, or even a state society, is rooted in abstract thought.
Two or more people who've never met but follow the same religion can combine efforts for projects because they all share some beliefs in common. For example; Multiple Muslims who've never met can nevertheless combine efforts to build a lot in Dubai, such as the Burj Khalifa and the Palm Islands, due to belief in Allah being the beneficent and most merciful. As they are likely Emirati, their shared belief in the existence of the emirates with the nation called the United Arab Emirates, the various homelands of the U.A.E, and the flag of that nation. Belief in the existence of laws (or at least ones actually enforced), and other related beliefs, as well as the belief in money paid out in fees, gives two or more lawyers who've never met a way to defend a complete stranger.
Companies and corporations officially independent of founders are another abstract entity. There may exist many products of a company, but such entities could continue to exist even if every product of there disintegrated or were destroyed, still making more products and issuing an annual report. A company may own buildings, vehicles, etc, and employ workers, but even these together still don't comprise the company.
Suppose all the workers for the company resigned retired, lost their jobs, or even perished, and everything owned by the company were sold off or destroyed. Even then, the company could borrow money, hire new workers and buy new buildings, vehicles, etc.
A company could still exist after its managers were dismissed and shares sold. But if a judge were to mandate the dissolution of a company, it would vanish, even if its buildings, vehicles, etc, continued to exist, and workers, managers and shareholders continued to live.
*Examples of things with a supernatural existence: numbers, arithmetic, points, line segments, polygons.
This is another way of getting large groups of strangers to co-operate, at least in very technical areas. Two or more mathematicians who've never met could combine efforts to solve a maths problem, even if they are from different cultures that have had no prior encounters with one another, because of common knowledge theorems independently found and proven by the peoples of both cultures.
Two or more physicists who've never met, and of cultures that have never had any prior contact, could combine efforts in a observation or science experiment because of common knowledge of physical laws independently discovered in two or more cultures before contact.
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