• whollyrolling
    551


    What does being a mother have to do with this?

    I'm addressing the topic at hand and the resulting dialogue within the thread. Claiming someone is "blabbing" is not contributing to the conversation, it's just ad hominem nonsense intended to discredit what is misunderstood. Whether or not someone is self-centred pertains directly to a conversation about opinion vs. fact. So does free will. So does the nature of consciousness. So does instinct.
  • S
    11.7k
    You don't need so much text to make the simple and uninteresting point that you're now redefining "fact" as memory. It's still problematic in the bigger picture, and it will continue to be so unless you conform with what the word ordinarily means. You're headed up river without a paddle. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
  • Artemis
    1.9k
    What does being a mother have to do with this?whollyrolling

    Then you'd know that self-preservation is only one of the primal instincts. Protecting another or others can (for parents) be just as primal and instinctual, if not more.
  • Artemis
    1.9k
    Claiming someone is "blabbing" is not contributing to the conversation, it's just ad hominem nonsense intended to discredit what is misunderstood.whollyrolling

    It's not an ad hominem, since I've said nothing about you as a person. I also didn't claim you are blabbing. I stated it as a hypothetical possibility contingent on the purpose and content of your words.
  • YuZhonglu
    212


    All basic primary instincts are a function of biology and can be modified once people finally begin to understand how the brain works. Just because something is "basic" doesn't mean it can't be changed.
  • YuZhonglu
    212
    But it is interesting, to many others, because philosophy is little more than neuroscience but without the science or the tools.
  • whollyrolling
    551


    Then why do so many mothers across species abandon their injured offspring to die, and why do so many mothers across species attempt to injure or otherwise set back each other's offspring, and why is legal support for abortion and assisted suicide increasing as the number of mothers involved in legislation increases?

    Being a mother isn't some qualifier for higher knowledge, that's absurd.

    Protecting others is never "instinctive" if we're going to suggest that "instinct" entails virtually irresistible biological compulsion as opposed to rational decision making. In the immediate or short term, protection is a choice prompted by rapidly occurring chemical and energetic processes within the body, and in both short and long term it involves a variety of both learned and genetic psychological influences. These processes don't necessarily result in protection of another. They often result in a decision to flee rather than to fight.

    I personally believe that every behavior is a result of automation and that there's no free will, but this isn't what consciousness perceives, and I don't believe it's beneficial to resign to it in practice.
  • whollyrolling
    551


    "Blabbing" implies incoherence or idleness or superfluity or that what a person is saying doesn't qualify as worthwhile. Your lack of understanding doesn't qualify or disqualify my commentary.
  • S
    11.7k
    But it is interesting, to many others, because philosophy is little more than neuroscience but without the science or the tools.YuZhonglu

    You didn't seem very interested when I gave you my definition of "horse" and validly drew a few logical consequences.

    You're doing the same thing with "fact".
  • YuZhonglu
    212
    Technically you're not responding to what I wrote. You're actually responding to a memory of what you believe I wrote.
  • S
    11.7k
    Technically you're not responding to what I wrote. You're actually responding to a memory of what you believe I wrote.YuZhonglu

    No, I'm responding to what you wrote.

    This is what you wrote:

    But it is interesting, to many others, because philosophy is little more than neuroscience but without the science or the tools.YuZhonglu

    And this is my response:

    You didn't seem very interested when I gave you my definition of "horse" and validly drew a few logical consequences.

    You're doing the same thing with "fact".
    S
  • YuZhonglu
    212
    In order to respond, your brain had to interpret and remember the visual input coming in from your retina. Then, based on this interpretation, neurons in the brain send signals back to the muscles in your fingers to respond. In other words, as you typed this, sections of your brain are responding to input and stimuli from OTHER sections of your brain. Technically you're not responding to me. You're actually responding to your own brain.

    The same applies to me, too, of course. It's an insanely complex process.
  • christian2017
    1.4k


    n order to respond, your brain had to interpret and remember the visual input coming in from your retina. Then, based on this interpretation, neurons in the brain send signals back to the muscles in your fingers to respond. In other words, as you typed this, sections of your brain are responding to input and stimuli from OTHER sections of your brain.

    The same applies to me, too, of course.
    YuZhonglu

    Are these facts or opinons. I'm pointing at myself right now. That is a fact not an opinion. After i finally got my head screwed on straight i agree with everyone else.
  • S
    11.7k
    In order to respond, your brain had to interpret and remember the visual input coming in from your retina. Then, based on this interpretation, neurons in the brain send signals back to the muscles in your fingers to respond. In other words, as you typed this, sections of your brain are responding to input and stimuli from OTHER sections of your brain.

    The same applies to me, too, of course.
    YuZhonglu

    So what? Describing in detail how I responded to what you wrote doesn't do anything, logically.
  • YuZhonglu
    212
    It means every so-called "fact" that any human has ever learned or thought about is the product of neuronal activity. If there are no brains, then there will also be no "facts."

    If humans disappeared, the Earth might still revolve around the Sun. But there would be no "facts" regarding this phenomenon. "Facts," as people understand them, do not exist independent of the mind that created it.

    EDIT: This has significance because when two people look at the Sun, they're not seeing the same "Sun." Similarly, when two people react to a post, they're not reacting to the "same" post.
  • christian2017
    1.4k


    It means every so-called "fact" that any human has ever learned or thought about is the product of neuronal activity. If there are no brains, then there will also be no "facts."

    If humans disappeared, the Earth might still revolve around the Sun. But there would be no "facts" regarding this phenomenon. "Facts," as people understand them, do not exist independent of the mind that created it.

    EDIT: This has significance because when two people look at the Sun, they're not seeing the same "Sun." Similarly, when two people react to a post, they're not reacting to the "same" post.
    YuZhonglu

    this is a whole another forum topic. What if there are aliens or what if some other species evloves that can talk? What if some parrot says that your wrong YuZhonglu?
  • YuZhonglu
    212
    Then they would have their "facts," but these "facts" would not be comprehensible to us. When I talk about "facts" I mean "human facts."
  • christian2017
    1.4k
    Then they would have their "facts," but these "facts" would not be comprehensible to us. When I talk about "facts" I mean "human facts."YuZhonglu

    ok
  • Artemis
    1.9k
    Being a mother isn't some qualifier for higher knowledge, that's absurd.whollyrolling

    All sane parents know what I said is true.
    Some non-parents don't know it (including you).

    Your examples are beyond ridiculous.
  • Artemis
    1.9k
    Blabbing" implies incoherence or idleness or superfluity or that what a person is saying doesn't qualify as worthwhile. Your lack of understanding doesn't qualify or disqualify my commentary.whollyrolling

    Your lack of coherence doesn't make a good case for you not babbling.
  • Artemis
    1.9k
    All basic primary instincts are a function of biology and can be modified once people finally begin to understand how the brain works. Just because something is "basic" doesn't mean it can't be changed.YuZhonglu

    I think that's possible in some cases, although not desireable in all. Parental nurturing instincts are a good thing. We should both aim to understand and foster such good inclinations.
  • YuZhonglu
    212
    In other words: your brain isn't observing facts. Your brain is creating them.
  • YuZhonglu
    212
    Parental nurturing instincts are a good thing... today. But people may not think so in the future. Desirability is the product of biology and biology can be changed.
  • whollyrolling
    551


    You're presenting an absurd argument from authority based on a notion you've constructed out of thin air that being a parent equates to higher knowledge and greater compassion, and you're calling my commentary incoherent blabbing or babbling (whichever you intended).

    That "all sane parents" and "some non-parents" are privy to certain pieces of knowledge solely by virtue of parentage not only contradicts what you said earlier about instinct, as opposed to knowledge, but is also just baseless opinion.
  • whollyrolling
    551


    I didn't say "things can't be changed".
  • arreno
    21
    Everything is premature....
  • Artemis
    1.9k
    That "all sane parents" and "some non-parents" are privy to certain pieces of knowledge solely by virtue of parentage not only contradicts what you said earlier about instinct, as opposed to knowledge, but is also just baseless opinion.whollyrolling

    It doesn't and it isn't. But keep blabbing about stuff you don't know anything about. I'm satisfied that you haven't got anything of substance to add here.
  • S
    11.7k
    So what? Describing in detail how I responded to what you wrote doesn't do anything, logically.S

    It means every so-called "fact" that any human has ever learned or thought about is the product of neuronal activity. If there are no brains, then there will also be no "facts."

    If humans disappeared, the Earth might still revolve around the Sun. But there would be no "facts" regarding this phenomenon.
    YuZhonglu

    No, it very obviously doesn't. But you aren't good enough at logic to see that.

    Or, if that wasn't intended as a reply to me, then you should have been clearer. You shouldn't just start a sentence of with, "It means...", when the context isn't clear.
  • Artemis
    1.9k
    Parental nurturing instincts are a good thing... today. But people may not think so in the future. Desirability is the product of biology and biology can be changed.YuZhonglu

    I don't think we should base what we currently view as desirable on what people might in some unlikely case view as undesirable in some distant scifi future.
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