Comments | ultimatepsi: That stuff I said I was going to write about yesterday

ultimatepsi

That stuff I said I was going to write about yesterday

May 17, 2005 21:42

I now present to a piece on the nature of reality and perception and it relevance to identity and other possibly important questions.

( cut for potential to cause offense )

theory

Comments 23

techiemikey May 18 2005, 02:12:11 UTC

I don't see the conroversy coming. You wrote out your points well, and i didn't pick up an flawed logic. Some people may point out stuff you missed, but you just seemed to reiterate body vs. mind in different terminology.

ultimatepsi May 18 2005, 02:18:30 UTC

Thanks.

ultimatepsi May 18 2005, 03:06:24 UTC

You know, when you put it that way, maybe my point was that I need both mind and body.

dariusk May 18 2005, 02:26:43 UTC

Actually, the very question of "which is more important: subjective reality or objective reality" is a wholly objective conceit.

kraada May 18 2005, 02:30:42 UTC

I doubt there'll be any real controversy here . . . I mean, postmodernism (which states that "Everyone is right") is bullshit . . . and if you're a postmodernist and disagree with me, you're hypocritical because by your own theory I'm right :)

That aside, I want to toss an idea out for you. Take the following two things to be definitional for the moment:
Human animal: a creature with a set of genetic material consistent with homo sapiens, capable of reproducing with homo sapiens, et al. (ie- what we normally think of as the genetic material required to be human).
Person: a creature capable of thinking I* thoughts.

An I* thought is a thought like: I know that I want to eat. I know that I was born in New York. Non-I* thoughts: I am hungry.
So the basic jist is, persons know that they are doing the thinking ( ... )

ultimatepsi May 18 2005, 02:54:52 UTC

I'll agree with you about the moral judgments and personhood. I don't think it causes me any problems. Of course, what I wrote here isn't the basis of my system of morality. Like I said, I was much more thinking about how we identify ourselves.

As for the controversy, have you seen some of the things that cause controversy amongst some of the people that read my livejournal?

kraada May 18 2005, 03:15:09 UTC

I wasn't sure and figured I might as well toss it out there . . . I think a lot of people are more interested in defining "themselves" in terms of their personhood than in terms of their humanity. They care more about the content of their thoughts than their genes ( ... )

ultimatepsi May 18 2005, 12:06:24 UTC

The thing is by your definition of person, which I think is a good one, anyone who asks "am I a person?" automatically is.

Although the idea that people define themselves based on primarily on their thoughts, memories and feelings, does seem accurate. Maybe what's odd is that when something about me can be defined based on either how I think, or how on some outsider-observable phenomenon (either physical or behavioral), I will tend to go with the definition based on observation.

Thread 7

Well let's see if I CAN spark controversy doompuppy May 18 2005, 07:23:45 UTC

Hi there. I tend to operate in "broad generalizations". That said here are my observations. Number one our ways of thinking are different, in that you seem more analytical and I seem more intuitive. Not to say I'm NOT analytical I'm more of a bastard of the two... but I must say your logic is very clear and well ordered ( ... )

sirroxton May 18 2005, 16:08:58 UTC

Minor editingLet me suggest thinking about it this way ( ... )

sirroxton May 18 2005, 16:13:39 UTC

To be clear, I think this arbitrary objective/subjective dichotomy here plays a serious role in ethics, especially when it comes to sexism or any kind of bigotry. But it only has a role in my ethics because I decide it does -- because it's a useful differentiation.

ultimatepsi May 19 2005, 02:52:04 UTC

Difference in behavior can be objectively qualified too, though. To determine, if person x a foe, I could ask how many times has x attacked me? or how many actions has x taken that go against my goals? There is continua of less foe, more foe, that there aren't isn't usually with matter of species.

I have trouble accepting the dichotomy of an objective and subjective viewpoint.Maybe this is a continuum too, with definitions that a simple and consistent at one end, and those that cover more features of a thing, but are not always consistent at identify what is and is not such a thing. If you define human based on genetics and growth, you are unlikely to find something that you can't determine whether it is human. If you were however, to say that a human is a thinking being that strives to continue its existence while striving for some moral good, you're going to run into a lot more cases where what one would intuit as human doesn't match the definition, and a lot more people that disagree with you. It's not that the second ( ... )

sirroxton May 19 2005, 13:13:52 UTC

Cool! Let's run with this ( ... )