There are in fact system dynamics in which specific behaviours are unhealthy. Toxic, if you will.
Consider these, generally, hygiene factors.
There are substances which are toxic in specific concentrations or circumstances, which are otherwise healthy: oxygen, CO2, water, vitamin D, salt, nutritional iron. Certain forms of discourse.
My view increasingly isn't that there are things, but interactions or behaviours. A thing isn't, but is what it does or how it behaves.
(This ... tends to simplify numerous ontological questions.)
> My view increasingly isn't that there are things, but interactions or behaviours. A thing isn't, but is what it does or how it behaves.
The "belief in things" is itself a cognitive simplification we make, probably for the sake of efficiency. To use a programming analogy, toxicity as a concept is a function of at least three arguments - toxic(what, to-what, context) - but we attach it as a label to the first argument and store it there.
Compare e.g. with beauty, itself a function of at least two arguments - beautiful(what, to-whom). But we usually assume to-whom = "human like me", and stick the whole thing as a label on a thing, because 99% of the time, that's the correct thing to do (incidentally, the quote "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" is literally a reminder that the concept of beauty is a function of multiple values).
Confusing the "arity" of concepts seems to be the cause of quite a lot of misunderstandings between people.
"Things" with some bounded shape or form (or other properties) may be related to perceptual apparatus.
We see, or hear or smell or taste or feel, etc., the boundaries, emissions, or other perceptible manifestations of objects or phenomena. If you will, those are their interfaces.
As in other domains, an interface may reveal, or conceal, some more complex back-end, inner working, or larger system.
I've been thinking on Aristotelian categories over the past couple of years. Thought occurs that all of them are relations, though with varying degrees of dependence on the observer.
Related, a ~1835 essay on value by W.F. Lloyd notes that all value is relative. That's not a universally held view, but is, I believe, correct.
Consider these, generally, hygiene factors.
There are substances which are toxic in specific concentrations or circumstances, which are otherwise healthy: oxygen, CO2, water, vitamin D, salt, nutritional iron. Certain forms of discourse.
My view increasingly isn't that there are things, but interactions or behaviours. A thing isn't, but is what it does or how it behaves.
(This ... tends to simplify numerous ontological questions.)