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# System prepended metadata

title: Untitled

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---
  title: Core Cognition
description: "September 2021: This website is under construction. It will change in appearance and be provided with more content"


subtitle: The empowering cognition shared by all of life
explore: basics
typora-root-url: ../../../Inkscape
---
[TOC]



***
![Mass formation from first principles](https://corecognition.com/pdf/tmp/cc-mass-formation-from-first-principles.png)

## Mass formation from first principles

In this presentation we derive the features of mass formation and the associated mass cognition from basic features of life. We do this from the theoretical perspective of **core cognition**: the hypothesized cognition shared by all of life. 

Core cognition describes the basic requirements for the **selection of situationally appropriate behavior**. Selecting situationally appropriate behavior is what all living agents do, all the time. 

And because individuals differ in **state, skills, and context** and they influence both each other and the **habitat** via their behaviors. Behavior selection is a continual process unique for each agent.  

In this presentation we oppose two modes of being -- **coping an co-creation** -- as a caricature of the actual continual and mostly constructive, interplay between these modes. 

However, mass formation emerges as a habitat wide **dominance** of coping through the suppression of co-creation in situations were agents are **inadequate and respond by curtailing difference**. In this extreme, it makes sense to temporarily dispense of nuance. 

Coping and co-creation are balancing like yin and yang. Co-creation promotes **diversity, complexity, novelty, and connectedness**. Coping balances this by providing **structure, predictability, utility, and focus**. A productive interplay keeps the habitat vibrant and stable and allows its inhabitants to develop the skills to flourish. 

This presentation focuses on when habitat complexity exceeds the coping capacity of most inhabitants. We start with some basics of core cognition. 


****



![two-modes.png](https://corecognition.com/pdf/tmp/cc-two-modes.png)

## Core Cognition

Life can be described as **"being by doing"**: (living) agents exists because they act in ways that allow them to avoid **danger**, **low viability**, and **death**. Individuals always aim to be and remain as **safe** and **viable** (far from death) as possible. They strive to be and remain well. 

Cognition for **survival and problem solving** differs from cognition for **flourishing and problem prevention**. Cognition for survival and problem solving has a particular end-state: a threat that has been dealt with or a problem solved. Cognition for flourishing and problem prevention does not have particular end-states and ideally continues indefinitely as a goalless progression of favorable states[^Happiness].

[^Happiness]: The happiness is such a goalles progression of favorable states. It expresses co-creation skills. 

We call cognition for survival and problem solving "**coping**" and cognition for flourishing and problem prevention "**co-creation**". In case of **life success**, co-creation is the default and coping is only a temporary fallback mode intended to restore **safety** after co-creation failed. 

We refer to **co-creation adequacy** if the agent **succeeds** in preventing most problems. It exhibits **coping adequacy** if it **solves** problems quickly and effectively. 

Conversely **co-creation inadequacy** entails that agents are instrumental in creating their own problems states. And **coping inadequacy** if agents  **fail** to end problems effectively.

In particular, if the coping mode of behavior leads to more or new problems or continued **danger**, it remains activated: a **coping trap**, where coping has become the default. Individuals in this state may never learn to become adequate  co-creators. Life success entails that co-creation became the default mode of cognition. 

Living agents learn a lot from copying the behaviors of others. But to become **fully autonomous** **self-directors** they need to overcome the limits of **social mimicry** and follow the lead of others by learning to trust their own decision-making; until that time they exhibit **bounded autonomy**. Development from bounded autonomy to full autonomy is central to successful identity development. 

**************


![](https://corecognition.com/pdf/tmp/lifes-demands.svg)

## Cognition from first principles

To remain alive agents must protect their viability by **satisfying basic needs**. But they must also contribute to the viability of their habitat, because all life depends on habitat resources to satisfy short and long term needs. 

A **surviving** agent copes with pressing problems to protect its viability and generally takes more from its environment than it contributes. This is characteristic of **coping**. 

A **thriving** agent contributes to a habitat in which pressing problems can mostly be avoided and **habitat viability is maximized**. This is a key feature of **co-creation**. 

Dominant co-creation drove and drives the development of the biosphere. Conversely, dominant coping degrades the environment. 

**Living agency**, or agency for short, is the ability to self-maintain existence. Agency manifests itself as bringing the co-dependance of self on the habitat in the service of self and the habitat. This naturally leads to a network of mutual dependency comprising of all in the habitat. 

In a self-stabilizing habitat, agents mostly express unforced self-initiated natural behavior that minimizes the occurrence of conflict and problems, and that stabilizes the habitat without ever aiming for particular stable states. Forests and human friendships express this dynamic. 

Co-creation and coping successes are both the result of skilled behavior. Skilled co-creation entails furnishing the habitat with  **broadly constructive traces** in a process called **stigmergy**. 

Skilled coping entails the quick and effective resolution of problem states and it also provides the stable structure to benefit optimally from stigmergy. 

In isolation, coping tends to utilize and **exploit** the (stigmergic) resources more than it builds them.

******

![Understanding and autonomy](https://corecognition.com/pdf/tmp/cc-skill-understanding-autonomy.png)

## Skill, autonomy & understanding

Behavior is **skilled** when the outcomes of an agent's activities realize intended benefits. Unskilled behavior realizes unintended outcomes: the agent wastes energy or the behaviors cause harm to self or others. 

Skilled agents can predict the pattern of outcomes of their agency and select course of actions with likely favorable outcomes This proves they **understand** what they are doing. 

Unskilled agents are ineffective and might produce unintended adverse outcomes: they insufficiently understand the link between action and outcome. They prove limited understanding of their habitat.

Agents who, more often than not, effectively predict the pattern of consequences of their own behaviors learn they can rely on their own predictions and become **self-directed**. Self-directors have brought their agency under self-control. They can, given their habitat, safely self-decide and can become effective co-creators and autonomous actors.

Self-directors are **fully autonomous** agents who truly self-maintain their existence (while being embedded in and dependent on a habitat to which they contribute). They prove they generally **understand** the consequences of their own actions and hence tend to **appraise the habitat as safe and  opportunity rich**. They are mostly co-creating and are the authority of their life. They exhibit an **internal locus of control** and are self-optimizing their life. In general they are happy.

Agents who often fail to predict the consequences of their own behaviors live in a world of random outcomes. When they self-decide, they are more often than not confronted with unforeseen, typically negative outcomes that they cannot couple to their own actions. 

In general they **appraise the habitat as unsafe and problematic**. This activates undirected anxiety (related to the state of the whole habitat, not at something in it), and they are mostly coping. 

Since they often cannot rely on their own decision-making to realize intended benefits, they fall back and rely on social mimicry, which externalizes the locus of control. 

****

![Inadequacy versus adequacy](https://corecognition.com/pdf/tmp/cc-inadequacy-adequacy.png) 

## Inadequacy versus adequacy

Adequacy is the skill to prevent most problems and to quickly and effectively solve this who could not be prevented. Adequacy is always defined with respect to the habitat. Adequacy in one habitat does not entail adequacy in another. 

Yet the more skills are generalized, they become effective in a wider range of habitats and over longer time-scales. Opportunity exploration and participatory engagement with the habitat, characteristics of co-creation, promote this. 

We refer to **adequacy with respect to the habitat** as the combination of 

* sufficient skills, 
* an understanding of the link between behavior and its pattern of likely outcomes, 
* self-direction, 
* an internal locus of control, 
* full autonomy,
* a general appraisal of the habitat as safe and full of opportunities, and 
* a **general feeling of "happiness"**. 

In short **adequacy** is the ability to prevent most problems, and to quickly end those who could not be prevented. 

Similarly, we refer to **inadequacy with respect to the habitat** as the combination of 
* insufficient skills, 
* a lack of understanding of the link between behavior and outcomes, 
* only partial self-direction, 
* an external locus of control, 
* bounded autonomy,
* a general appraisal of the habitat as unsafe and problematic, and 
* a broadly felt **undirected anxiety** (as counterpart of happiness) 

In short, **inadequacy** is the inability to prevent or quickly end problems, which entails that problem states persists, and are in part self-created and self-maintained. We refer to this as a **coping trap**. 



****

![](https://corecognition.com/pdf/tmp/cc-attitudes-to-diversity.png)

## Attitudes to diversity

Agents are sources of behavior and the behaviors of many indepently acting agents denotes an explosion of habitat complexity. Habitat complexity is a challenge for all agents, but most to the least skilled. Habitat complexity activates complementary motivations in **adequate** and **inadequate** agents. 

Adequate agents perceive many affordances and are **motivated to explore habitat opportunities** and they leave constructive traces in the habitat for the benefit of self and others. In doing so they enhance and protect viability of self and the broader habitat. For the adequate **diversity is a resource**. 

In contrast, inadequacy leads to a focus on the **restoration of adequacy**. And given the root cause of inadequacy – a lack of understanding between behavior and habitat outcome – this motivates agents to make the habitat more predictable (again). This manifests as an **urgency to reduce the unpredictability of the habitat**. And since self-directed agent activities are huge source of habitat complexity the focus is on curtailing agency.  

This manifests at **intolerance to (ill-understood) diversity**. And that particularly includes all strategies of co-creators that exceed the inadequate's scope of understanding. 

Typically, the inadequate appraise the most active and effective co-creators as sources of **intolerable diversity to be controlled or removed.** 

*The strong urge to curtail and control the behaviors of others is a characteristic of coping.* 

Resistance to the behavior curtailment is known as **reactance**. It is always reactive and usually weaker because the adequate typically have plenty of alternatives. 

On in individual level, intolerance to diversity leads to self-curtailing of behavioral diversity by complying with some emerging norm. This norm does not need to be optimal or even sensible, it just needs to lead to a less complex habitat. 

******

![Shared inadequacy](https://corecognition.com/pdf/tmp/cc-shared-inadequacy.png)

## Shared inadequacy

Typically, agents form a (never stable and ever-developing) web of relations. These relations can be **tension free** and conducive for co-operation. Or they can be **tension laden** and conducive for conflict. 

In addition agents may differ in interaction styles that we have denoted as **style 1 and 2**. Given these and other complications, agents vary in adequacy.

Normally, most agents are in a co-creation mode and as such they secure their own viability, while securing future habitat viability via stigmergy. In doing so, life gradually creates room for more life. 

Because co-creating agents **focus on viability of self in the habitat**, they need to maintain and develop individual adequacy. What they do to a lesser degree is to focus on reducing inter-agent tension.

In contrast, inadequate individuals share an urge to reduce habitat complexity to restore adequacy by reducing uneasiness towards the habitat as a whole. This **undirected anxiety** is so broadly aimed that it is not actionable. Combined with agent inadequacy and the associated risk of harming self and others, this leads to **atomized individuals** who withdraw to prevent being confronted by their own adequacy. 

However when inadequate agents meet they find the associated reduced behavioral complexity of fellow inadequates attractive. And they share and **intolerance to all diversity** beyond the scope of understanding. 

One possible collaborative strategy is to **promote sameness** by **controlling or removing sources of diversity**.  It doesn't matter what type of sameness is promoted, as long as it reduces diversity. 

This strategy provides a **focus to undirected anxiety** and makes it actionable as an urge to increase sameness. In addition the collaboration creates a sense of community and purpose that relieves the social atomization. 

This leads to a strategy of **social mimicry**. Since social mimicry starts local, it gives rise to multiple local clusters of agents that each agree on a local form of sameness. 

![cc-sameness-ingroup-forming.png](https://corecognition.com/pdf/tmp/cc-inter-agent-tension-reduction.png)

## Social mimicry: inter-agent tension reduction

In situations of **increasing habitat complexity**, many agents experience **increased inadequacy** and atomization and **transit to the coping mode**. This entails a habitat wide strategy shift from self-directed optimization of individual and habitat viability, to strategies focused on reducing habitat diversity and promoting sameness.

In fact, the group-level expression of social mimicry entails a shift to **inter-agent tension reduction**. Inter-agent tension is a measure of the unpredictability (perceived randomness) of the behavior of other agents. The more predictable their behavior, the lower the inter-agent tension. 

Generally, **inadequate agents experience a much higher tension from adequate individuals than vice versa** because co-creating agents have higher self-direction and behavioral complexity.

When all group members select from a narrow range of well-known behaviors, within-group tensions are minimized: **everyone acts predictably in the eyes of others and behavioral complexity is low.** This reduces the probability of being confronted with one's inadequacy. But it does not normally improve the habitat. 

At some point, groups of inadequate copers "surround" adequate self-directors. As a group they are confronted with a source of ill-understood diversity. 

This directs both their intolerance to diversity (a strategy) and free-floating anxiety (which determines urgency). 

![cc-sameness-ingroup-forming.png](https://corecognition.com/pdf/tmp/cc-sameness-ingroup-forming.png)

## Social mimicry: sameness and in-group forming


The resulting tension resolves when either the co-creator is **coerced** to limit its overt behavior down to the complexity of group-level shared behaviors or the co-creator is **purged**. In short the options are **adapt, leave, or die**. 

The "leave or die" option manifest a **'disgust reaction'** in the sense of distancing from a toxic, influence that represents no positive value and deserves no protection.

Sameness promotion leads to the formation of an **in-group**: a group of agents who share similar adequacy limits, who share an in-group specific set of behaviors and motivations, and who behave in ways to minimize the frequency of ill-understood diversity. 

Within an in-group, the agents who determine the content of sameness most[^Influencers], have a special position. They are even less confronted with inadequacy because the content of sameness fits their inadequacy evasion strategies better than others.[^Privelige] The ability to determine the content of sameness makes them **authoritative** within the in-group.[^Media]

[^Influencers]: In modern parlance these could be called 'influencers'. 
[^Privelige]: In social justice jargon this would be referred to as 'privilege'. 
[^Media]: This might be the reason who media control is key to oligarchic control. 

Due to the limits that in-group members impose on each other's behavior, co-creation becomes very difficult, if not impossible. But high-functioning in-group members[^apparatchiks] will be less often confronted with their inadequacy, and thus experience markedly reduced anxiety.

[^apparatchiks]: Soviet citizens referred to these as apparatchiks.


Co-creators do not form in-groups. Instead they form flexible communities of freely cooperating individuals that each **promote individual short and long-term viability in the habitat context**. For that they need to constantly update life-skills and adequacy through participatory engagement with the habitat. 

Ironically, the behaviors that help to increase life-skills and lead to **individual and habitat growth** are also the source of complexity that the inadequate are intolerant to and try to suppress. This entails that in-groups actively counteract the very influences that can improve their quality of life. It locks them in a **coping trap** with minimal viability.

This also points to a characteristic difference between copers and co-creators: faced with challenges co-creators skill-up while copers reduce habitat complexity and skill-down in the service of sameness. 

***

![](https://corecognition.com/pdf/tmp/cc-oneness-centralization-of-authority.png)

## Oneness: centralization of authority

The local promotion of sameness leads to the formation of multiple unequal groups that at some point meet. And that leads to tension between two or more unequal in-groups. 

Because in-groups understand base their cognition on little more than their own sameness, they are **unable to predict the outcomes of the actions of out-groups**. The resulting sense of inadequacy directs the copers broadly felt anxiety and activates an urge to reduce the diversity between the two in-groups. 

Again the tension, and likely overt conflict, persists as long as the differences persist. The tension manifests as a balance between incompatible tendencies to: 

* protected in-group sameness
* oppose and counteract the out-group's sameness, and 
* extend the scope of the own sameness.

At some point in time, possibly after conflict and at great costs of in- and out-groups, an enlarged **in-group** emerges[^Coalescence]. 

[^Coalescence]: Wars, globalization, and mergers & acquisitions in business are examples of this. Unipolar global governance and monopolies are the natural end-points of enlarging the in-group.

Once this is established the anxiety associated with inadequacy becomes undirected again. (Which entails it is ready to be redirected to a new source of ill-understood diversity.)

The enlarged in-group has some *sameness style* that is now adopted by more agents, who in part needed to change their style. The in-group is only stable when it sufficiently suppresses emerging or latent diversity within the in-group. This entails that in-groups above a critical size need to invest in in-group diversity curtailment[^Rules].

[^Rules]: In humans this is for example expressed as rules, norms, laws, standards, procedures, propaganda, ideologies, advertising, career-paths, and the associated infrastructure such as law enforcement, media, and schools systems to ensure that most individuals end up contributing to "one- and sameness".

Stable authority needs an infrastructure to implement intolerance to diversity (which may also suppresses the benefits of co-creation). 

And as long as out-groups exists, perhaps as slightly different subpopulations of the in-group, its authoritative structures need to be ready and able suppress diversity and enlarge oneness. 

In-groups, as authoritative structures, have a natural tendency to grow. And since this holds even when resources can better be used in other ways[^Overstretch], this can be a drain on resources. 

[^Overstretch]: Imperial overstretch is the tendency of all empires to grow beyond its sustainability limits so that at some point in time the military and other infrastructure for further growth becomes detrimental to the existence of the empire.

This enriches the role of **authority**: it is not only a sources of a particular sameness, but it also represents the center of an infrastructure that contributes to the stability of the particular sameness that its inadequate members need to prevent being confronted with their inadequacy. 

The previous provides insight in the basics of authority. Authority is:

1. A source of sameness that allows the inadequate to evade feelings of inadequacy
2. An Infra-structure to suppress diversity and extend the scope of sameness
3. A way to address the needs of those that cannot provide for themselves and who exchange their agency in return.  

At the same time communities of co-creators within a habitat comprising of mores skilled, more diverse, and hence unique individuals hardly feel conflict when confronted with another groups of skilled, diverse and unique individuals. They use the added diversity as a resource to **enhance the life-skills** necessary for a habitat wide local optimization process of each agent in its environment. 


![Oneness and Authority centralization](https://corecognition.com/pdf/tmp/cc-phase-transition-mass-formation.png)
## Phase transition: mass formation

The previous, assumed that the mass transition from co-creation to coping just happened. The transition process is actually a complex phenomenon that resembles what physics refers to as a phase transition (like from liquid to solid).

Different individuals transit at different moments and probably multiple times to and fro before settling in the other mode. This depending on how the complexity of the habitat is appraised. The higher the appraised complexity, the more likely coping becomes. 

Since coping comes with social mimicry, it leads to a positive feedback loop where more and more inadequate agents adopt a **perceived majority style**. For individuals this might entail some flip-flopping, before discovering the style of the emergent majority.

This **mass formation** process adopts, ever quicker, most inadequate agents into a growing in-groups that coalesce, seemingly in an instant, to an in-group that spans all corners of the habitat. That is the phase transition due to the habitat wide **promotion of sameness and oneness**. 

The member of the habitat-spanning but still sparse in-group experience tension wherever adequate self-deciders still co-create and hence stand out on the just-created background of sameness. This **directs the in-group's undirected anxiety** to the remaining self-deciders. 

The remaining self-deciders stall regression towards further uniformity, simplification, and complete habitat dysfunctio[^Brasil]. So resistance to emerging sameness, while individually dangerous, is essential to preserve part of the previous well-functioning of the habitat[^Moral_duty]. 

[^Moral_duty]: Humans have concurrent coping and co-creation abilities, even when coping is dominant, co-creation logic is perceived. Co-creation examples balance the drive for further coping and can hence block further societal degradation. 

[^Brasil]: In the movie Brasil the only capable technician who makes unsanctioned repairs in a dysfunctional bureaucracy is treated a "terrorist". 


![](https://corecognition.com/pdf/tmp/cc-mass-cognition.png)

## Mass cognition

**Mass cognition** is the emerging behavior selection structure among the **inadequate**. It is a group-level manifestation of **coping** that starts with not having the **skills** to 
1. prevent unintended outcomes of behaviors and 
2. being unable to predict the pattern of behaviors of others. 

The inadequate live in a world with random outcomes where they do **not understand** the **relation between action and outcomes**.

Being unable to prevent **unintended harmful outcomes** of behaviors activates an urge restore adequacy through reducing habitat unpredictability. This leads to the **promotion of oneness and sameness** through **control and removal of sources of diversity**. Out-groups are given the options **adapt, leave, or die**. 

Similarly, the inability to predict the behaviors of others activates an urge to **curtail and control their behaviors**. Again this leads to the options **adapt, leave, or die**. 

The overall strategy of mass cognition can be summarized as: **the exclusion of all diversity activating agentic inadequacy**. 

This control strategy effectively aims to reduce an unconstrained open world to a controlled closed world that excludes all that freaks out the inadequate[^Impossible]. And that is why it gains broad support. 

[^Impossible]: "Bureaucracy is the art of making the possible impossible" -- Javier Pascual Salcedo

Even during a mass formation event there is still a minority of adequate agents who persist in co-creation strategies, albeit very much curtailed. 

For the habitat as a whole this entails that the features of co-creation are minimally expressed. Only **few improve and protect the viability of the habitat**, **few are able and motivated to explore opportunities**, and **few see diversity as a resource**.

During mass formation the **habitat is appraised** as unsafe, deficient, and full of problems, and only few experience it as **safe enough to explore opportunities**.

---

![](https://corecognition.com/pdf/tmp/cc-link-with-authoritarianism.png)

## Link with authoritarianism

What we have been describing for a general living agent manifests within humanity as "authoritarianism". And particularly as conceptualized by Karen Stenner in her 2005 book "The Authoritarian dynamic". 

In fact our narrative provides a first principles derivation of the defining features of authoritarianism 

Stenner writes: 

> So, what authoritarianism  actually does is [it] inclines one toward attitudes and behaviors variously concerned with **structuring society** and **social interactions** in ways that **enhance sameness** and **minimize diversity of people, beliefs, and behaviors**. 

This refers to **"promoting sameness & oneness"** and **"inter-agent tension reduction"**. Stenner continues: 

> It tends to produce a characteristic array of stances, all of which have the effect of **glorifying, encouraging, and rewarding uniformity** and of **disparaging, suppressing, and punishing difference**. 

This suggest **"social mimicry"** as the driver of uniformity. And it indicates that **"diversity is a threat"**. 

In addition: 

> Since **enhancing uniformity and minimizing diversity** implicate others  and  require  some  **control  over  their  behavior**,  ultimately  these stances involve **actual coercion of others** (as in driving a black family from the neighborhood) and, more frequently, **demands for the use of group authority** (i.e., coercion by the state).

This bluntly states that **sources of diversity must me controlled or removed** via **curtailing and controlling the behaviors of out-groups**. 

Stenner also states that: 

> “authoritarianism alone is heavily determined by cognitive incapacity to deal with complexity and difference”

Which is a way to define inadequacy. 

This all leads to what we refer to as the Authoritarian Motto: **"We impose our sameness on others"**. 

---
![link text](https://corecognition.com/pdf/tmp/authoritarian-dynamic.png)
## The authoritarian dynamic

Stenner produced a simple formula to predict the strength of the **intolerance to difference**. 

> Intolerance to difference = authoritarianism x normative threat

A **normative threat** is threat to the **normative order.** And she defines that as **a system of oneness and sameness that makes "us" an "us"**. An out-group implementing some other sameness is annoying, but not really a threat. A normative threat is something that markedly erodes the in-group's sameness and inspires in-group members to first mimic it and secondly to self-directedly improve on it. 

Stenner specifically mentions **authorities proving unworthy of trust and loss of societal consensus**. 



In her research Stenner used 5 simple two-option questions about how children should act to determine whether individuals act as authoritarian or as self-decider. 

| Children should:        | Children should:                           |
| ----------------------- | ------------------------------------------ |
| Obey parents            | Be responsible for their actions           |
| Have good manners       | Have good sense and sound judgement        |
| Be neat and clean       | Be interested in how and why things happen |
| Have respect for elders | Think for themselves                       |
| Follow the rules        | Follow their own conscience                |

The options on the left correspond to an **external locus of control** and exhibit **social mimicry**. The options on the right correspond to an **internal locus of control** and **self-decision**. Both key features of **inadequacy**. Individuals how scored high on the first options are classified as authoritarian. This also reflects characteristics of **adequacy**. 

To an authoritarian a normative threat is anything that self-empowers other agents to mimic less and self-decide more since this leads to a crumbling of the sameness and oneness designed to evade confrontation with one's inadequacy. 

In the absence of normative threats, authoritarians are not intolerant to diversity; a perceived normative threat changes this immediately. 

In generalizes summary of much of the previous is that **coping dominance** is activated by by a combination of **inadequacy** and the threat of **increased habitat complexity** due to highly visible self-deciding co-creators – adequate individuals –  who inspire and empower others with more effective and more realistic ideas, insights, and activities that benefit the habitat on the short and long term in ways that elude the inadequate. 

---
![](https://corecognition.com/pdf/tmp/cc-disgust-reaction.png)

## The disgust reaction

The group-level disgust reaction is in characteristic response to a **normative threat** that is experienced as a **threat to self**. 

Specifically a group-level disgust reaction a **strong self-protective immediate reaction to purge the group from an effect felt to be toxic**. 

This is a rich description that points towards the main features of the associated decision-making. 

- That it is a strong reaction indicates **urgency**. 
- It is self-protective and hence **disregards the target**.
- Immediacy **precludes meta-cognition**.  
- Purging entails that the **target is isolated from the group**.  
- The group-level response entails a **reliance on (shared) in-group level sameness**.
- The threat is strictly not the target, but some **unspecified negative influence** on self. 
- That negative influence is reacted to with a **sub-rational drive** (although it can always be rationally justified). 
- Finally, toxicity entails **harmful, malign, and potentially deadly**. 

This breakdown of the definition of group-level disgust points to the  key features the in-group behavior selection: 

1) That the target is treated as harmful, malign, and dangerous influence to be disregard and distanced from entails that **interaction with the target is minimized**. The target is not part of the decision-making
2) The response is a group response of inadequate individuals who share their in-group sameness that characterises their in-group defines and is an able to protect via its **shared knowledge such as rules, procedures, norms, ideologies, ...** 
3) The urgency, lack of meta-cognition, reliance on explicit knowledge, and deep sub-rational drive ensures only **superficial cognition** (and definitely no co-creative contributions)
4) The urgency, lack of corrective meta-cognition, in the deep sub-rational drive entails that the outcomes are basically fixed from the start. 

The target is isolated, de-individualized, and perceived as a valueless threat The target is confronted with two options. 

The first option is **"We impose our sameness on you"**. And the second **"We strip you of your agency". Options corresponds to adapt, option 2 to or leave or die. 

The first option is that the target **recants** and passes through a **humiliating procedure** in which it has to **denounce its diversity, its individuality, and proof its in-group worthiness[^canoe].** This option purges the diversity and restores oneness. 

[^canoe]: A fascinating example of such a humiliating procedure (ceremony almost) was recorded in during the Evergreen events in 2018 that led to the purging of Brett and Heather Weinstein. Embarking on *the canoe towards equity* stands for the reduction of diversity. Some individuals had to ask for permission for boarding the canoe by pledging their loyalty to the equity goals and denouncing their identity. https://youtu.be/FH2WeWgcSMk?t=858

When the target is sufficiently self-directed and refuses to be brought down to the demanded sameness, restoration of oneness is impossible. The focus then moves to the expulsion of the 






