Well said, @Vera Mont. I agree with pretty much everything you wrote there.

@Andrew4Handel I want to respond to something you said earlier, and clarify something:

This is an example of how there are (at least) two identities at play in any social interaction. The self-concept of an individual (how he sees himself), and the other-concept of the person interacting with him.
— tomatohorse

The question probably is to what extent should one influence the other.

I think it is probably impossible to force someone to think something abut you. Such that we have limited control over other peoples minds without deception and coercion.

So the problem for me is any attempt to enforce someone else's opinion on someone else's identity.
. — Andrew4Handel

What I had in mind, in the bit you quoted from me, was the natural human psychological behavior of getting social cues about ourselves (our role in the group, how our actions affect others, etc.) from others outside ourselves. Part of our self-concept is informed by this. No one is an island. We are shaped and influenced by others, for better or worse, both subtly and powerfully. (Calls to mind the old advice about choosing your friends wisely)

Yet we can also exercise agency over this influence. It can be very helpful to learn about and understand the ways our environment (including, but of course not limited to, other humans) affects us. But that's a whole other thread.

With that in mind, I wanted to also touch on your question about "to what extent should one influence the other." It's a really good question. There's a certain freedom that comes from not worrying what others think about you - and that can free a person from imaginary chains that hold them back unnecessarily. So, "don't listen to other people, only yourself" is sometimes good advice in that regard because it can help people do more good, self-actualize, etc.

But there's another side, too. None of us are perfect, we make mistakes, have erroneous views of the world, and lack skills (such as the painter from the example before). We need others to point out areas in which we are deficient, and tell us how to do better. So in that sense, "DO listen to other people," is sometimes the way to go.

Like most things in life, it's a balance. Finding that balance is a big part of the Art of Living Well. Eudaimonia.

Nope, not what I'm saying.

Not the intent (which is 1st person, solely within their own mind), but rather the mechanism by which they are able to accomplish their deceit. Communicating ideas about themselves and having it influence the ideas of the other party, about the deceiver.

@praxis I would argue that it's coming from the same underlying root though.

If nothing else, they are projecting about themselves, "Believe me and what I tell you about [whatever they're trying to sell or convince about]; I'm trustworthy."

But really, that line was fairly minor in terms of my larger points. If you have any discussion on those I'd be interested to hear what you think. Going back to the whole, "we can discuss differences in ideas for the greater good," thing ;)

Is it problematic if identify as the worlds greatest painter and just think I am an attractive genius? — Andrew4Handel

I think the painter example is useful to think about for a minute. (By the way, for the record I'm only focusing on this specific example at the moment and my analogy should not be preemptively extended too broadly).

You can think you are the best painter in the world, and that you produce great art. Let's say you make several art pieces, and go stand in a gallery with them proudly displayed. "I'm the best artist in the world," you proudly tell people who walk by, "and here I have produced the greatest art ever made. Look!"

While certainly not modest by any means, you are free to have that opinion about yourself and your artwork, and to make such claims about both.

Now imagine someone walks by, looks at your artwork, and says, "This isn't great art. Why, my 5 year-old can draw better than this. And for the record, [some other artist] is the best artist in the world."

Is this person entitled to their opinion? Of course. Should they be allowed to express that opinion? Yes. Equally as much as you can express yours. [Edit: We might suggest they phrase it in some more sensitive way, admittedly; the above example was pretty blunt!]

This can be generalized as "You should be able to say X, but others are allowed to say ~X." This forms the very basis for civilized discussion, where, ideally, growth and learning can happen.

* * *

But now going back to the example, what happens? If enough people tell you this, you may start to doubt your formerly-sky-high opinion of yourself. "Maybe I should have a little humility and practice a bit more," you may decide.

OR you could stubbornly press on and disagree with everyone else. You against the world! The struggling, misunderstood artist! You will probably be famous after you're dead, like other great artists!

This is an example of how there are (at least) two identities at play in any social interaction. The self-concept of an individual (how he sees himself), and the other-concept of the person interacting with him. Much like my Ship of Theseus discussion, these things will be different.

Furthermore, identity is a two-way street. It's a conversation that we have with others around us. We get our cues about a lot of things related to ourselves from those around us. We exist in community. In a similar way that we rely on others for physical survival (farmers to grow the food we eat every day, ex.), we see ourselves reflected back through them as a mirror. A lot of that is a good thing. Some can be harmful. But even negative feedback about oneself can be taken and turned into something positive.

Like if someone tells you that you suck as an artist. Maybe you feel hurt at first, and they should have expressed it more kindly, true. But upon further reflection you realize you do kinda suck, and it spurs you to become better.

The "identity is a two-way street" thing goes the other way, too. How you project yourself out into the world influences how others think of you. It isn't the only factor, but it's a strong one. This is why conmen and snakeoil salesmen exist.

I was a bit surprised too. I agree, it is a good standard practice.

@god must be atheist True.

Per @RogueAI’s comment this seems fairly incontrovertible to me… are there really folks here who would disagree? If so I’d be curious as to their reasoning.

Affirmative.

@praxis wasn’t doing so

We know from ourselves that our universe is a consciousness-bearing universe. — ucarr

I took this as "I am conscious, and I came into being in the Universe, so therefore the Universe is capable of giving rise to something conscious." Which, as far as I know, can't really be proven, only experienced with an n=1.

Unless that's not quite what you meant, @ucarr?

@busycuttingcrap Thanks, and that makes sense. Where would you recommend putting it?

Gotcha. Thanks for the responses. Didn't mean to cause any trouble or make anyone feel bad. Sorry if I did.

I still think that issues of gender are interesting to think about and worth discussing, and so I may give it another go in a bit, from a different angle, and with some better research / sources, if that's okay.

By the way, where would be the best place to post about gender and society? Humanities and Social Sciences, or The Lounge, or another spot?

Such a big question, where to start. Lot of factors.

I will say, though, that one discrete positive step forward we could take is Ranked Choice Voting. Too often, you're voting for the lesser of two evils, or maybe there's a great 3rd party candidate but the media doesn't cover him and you know you'd be "throwing away" your vote. So you don't vote for the actual better candidate who you'd truly prefer, but the most pragmatic choice. RCV helps avoid that "spoiler effect" and could actually lead to more variety and higher quality of candidates.

I hope to create some thought-provoking videos on philosophical and social concepts. But I want to make sure I get things right before I put ideas out there, so I hope to hash things out a bit with smart folks over here ;) Like, what if there's an important nuance I haven't considered yet? Or maybe I'm completely wrong about something? Hopefully one of you will point that out to me.

Huh. That's odd. Perhaps it's an extension of things we hear so much in the media nowadays about how we're destroying the planet, capitalism is creating a dystopia, nuclear war is possibly near at hand, Covid and all that entailed, etc. etc. etc. It just seems like we're inundated with "things are going to shit and there's nothing you can do about it." From that perspective, I can see why people would feel like they probably aren't going to live all that long.

I can tell you that I am the exact opposite. I'm trying to stay healthy enough for long enough to hit Longevity Escape Velocity.

Thanks for that further elucidation :) Biology is fascinating.

Replying to the OP here, I think of determinism like I do solipsism. Technically cannot be disproven, but not especially helpful most of the time.

To put another way, I think that determinism is a way of talking about the world of atoms and physics. This is great, when you're operating at this level. But most of us aren't, for most of our lives.

In contrast, free will is a part of a "language game" that exists at a high, emergent, level. This is where we live our lives, practically speaking.

So "free will" exists in a similar way as other high-level concepts like "you" and "me" and "choice" and "accountability" do.

A slight correction to the human body fact (which is very interesting, isn't it?) is that our neurons don't get replaced. I wonder if replacing them would result in us "feeling" any different, within our own bodies? I suspect not, assuming they could be 100% perfectly replaced, in the same configuration and size and such. Because thoughts are more emergent things that appear as a "sum of the parts" of the neurons firing in their arrangements.

But other than that, yes, I think your answer fits rather well with my own.

Except, can you think of any cases where the ship would not be considered the same ship? I tried to do that with my example of the repair crew and the insurance co. Do you agree or disagree with those examples, I wonder?

lol, well, don't sell yourself short, he might agree with you! I think it mostly depends on what you mean when you talk about "reality."

We can shift to more Kantian language, where the noumena is "the thing in itself," and phenomena is "the thing as it appears to me." When I say "reality," I generally mean noumena.

We can never directly know the noumena, because it must always pass through the filters of our perception. That filtered, interpreted idea or image of "the thing" is phenomena.

Noumena exist, and would exist even if no one observed them. Is that what you mean when you talk about reality?

Good follow-up questions!

I would say...
There are 2 ships.
They are different ships.
I don't think many would disagree with those two answers, although if you want we can discuss those further.

"When constructing a ship for the first time; at what point can one call it a ship or at what point does it acquire identity?"
That's an interesting question, and gets into a different matter, which is that definitions can be "fuzzy" things. (Indeed, much of nature is actually fuzzy and analog rather than precise and digital. The electron cloud in atoms, our brains' neurons activating vs not to form thoughts, and the interesting new world of analog computers -- all these are interestingly fuzzy along similar lines).

I would also, if I may be so bold as to be this semantic, not speak of a thing "acquiring" identity. That language perspective implies (to me, at least) that identity is a property that the object itself possesses. I would, instead, talk about "when people begin thinking of it as [identity]." And, "what is the most useful point at which we can say, 'this is now a ship.'"

Looking at pure social averages, we could run an experiment where we get 100 people to observe a ship being built, and ask them to press a button at the point they would say, "this is now a ship." We'll get a scatter plot of answers, but they would probably all converge around an average area, with a few outliers. (Like an electron cloud model of an orbital ;) )

I like how you asked the question in reverse, too. And that would be another interesting experiment to run. Now they'd watch a ship getting disassembled and push the button at the point which they would say "it's no longer a ship." I'd be really interested to compare the results of the two experiments, wouldn't you?

Looking at another facet of the larger picture, let's say you're a politician who is making a law about when something becomes a ship vs not a ship. Maybe there are some legal or economic ramifications to consider. If you draw the line at point X, it hurts some important group of businesses in your country, so it is in your country's economic interest to draw the line at point X+1.

So where do you draw the line? The answer is that it depends on the specific thing being talked about, and who is doing the line-drawing, and what the purpose of the line-drawing is.

Thanks for the welcome! Although truth be told, I actually joined some time ago and made a few posts then...but I haven't been active at all since then, so we can pretend I'm brand new :)

I would agree with your statement, but would be sure to emphasize the "as we experience it" part of "reality as we experience it." (In other words, still recognizing an objective reality outside ourselves... but having a strong appreciation for the subjective way in which we experience that reality). It's Kant's noumena / phenomena distinction.

Yes, I'd say so. I am generally speaking able to do the things I want, so that is a source of happiness.

I was specifically reacting to your statement that I quoted, where you said, "But that's not morality; that's merely doing good." That clearly shows you think of them as two different things.

I would assume you might be thinking of something like, "morality is our beliefs about what good is, while 'good' is a descriptor of certain actions." Just clarifying.

From a philosophical point of view the best model of morality, as I have seen it over and over, is "doing good". But that's not morality; that's merely doing good. — god must be atheist

Can you explain your definitions of "morality" and "good"? It's strange that you dichotomize them like this.

Best outcomes for South Africa was an end to apartheid. Best outcomes for women was getting the vote. Best outcomes for gays was legal marriage. Very clear objectives that can be measured when you get there. — Brett

I meant specifically with regard to your question. For example, letting anyone who wants to come in might be good for those immigrants, for the short-term. But it might be bad for the people in border towns who get overrun with an influx of immigrants. Perhaps in the long run it causes a net negative to the country as a whole. Who knows? This is just a hypothetical example.

Or maybe you get a bunch of illegal drugs crossing the border, which is good (I guess) for the drug dealers, but leads to more addicts in your country's population and erodes local communities. I would call that a net negative, on moral considerations.

It's a complex calculation, with many actors and moving parts. At the end of the day, you have to decide where your loyalties lie, and what your primary moral considerations are. Those give you a compass by which to evaluate all these smaller points.

Sorry to persist in asking you to define things, but when you say, "best outcomes," what outcomes do you have in mind? (And, for whom?)

In your question, "Is the moral choice the right choice?" It appears that you are treating morality as binary; that is, something is 100% right, or 100% wrong. In reality, I believe you can have "more" or "less" moral choices, which correspond to "better" or "worse" outcomes, given the moral axiom(s) that form the basis of your moral system. So what are your axioms? Or another way of asking this would be, what are the working assumptions you have about morality when considering this situation?

Next up, I'd like to ask what you mean by "the right choice"? Because again, "right" and "wrong" are just descriptions of ways to achieve a desired end. And they are non-binary as well most of the time. For instance, if I want to maximize profits for my business, action _X_ may be the "right" course of action if it gets us more money. On the other hand, _Y_ would be the "wrong" decision if it loses us money, and also has no redeeming value (for instance, losing money in the short term to achieve some greater goal in the long term). Or you may have two options that both gain money, but one is "better" than the other.

The bottom line is that in each case, you have to define your goal before you can speak of decisions being "moral" and "right". (Often when we talk about humans, morality and "rightness" become the same thing, but not always)

↪tomatohorse
One possibility is that "mind" is a word we use to describe the sum output of all human brain processes.
— tomatohorse

That's not how the word is traditionally used and it is not how I am using it. It means 'that which bears our conscious experiences".

So, it refers to an 'object' not a 'process'. — Bartricks

Thanks for the response, and for that clarification. But I would still contend that my basic approach still applies. I'm basically arguing for a form of nominalism with respect to the mind/body problem. The brain is the "noumena," if you will, and the mind is the "phenomena." The mind is your own subjective experience of what the brain is doing, but it is not a thing that exists in itself, objectively. Much like how the color is your experience of a wavelength of light in the visible spectrum.

Where I see this fitting into the current discussion is that your argument for the mind's simplicity is "the mind is simple because I experience it to be so." And this is certainly a valid observation. However, this experience - the experience of a mind - can be subsumed by a nominalistic interpretation as well. This means that your argument of loses quite a bit of its punch, because now we have an alternate explanation for the evidence you are presenting.

One possibility is that "mind" is a word we use to describe the sum output of all human brain processes.

An (admittedly imperfect, but sufficiently illustrative) analogy is the way you're looking at this webpage right now. It appears to be some boxes, with some text, icons, a few buttons. Relatively simple. You can even think of it as one thing in your mind: "a webpage."

But in reality it is the product of many lines of html, css, and javascript code, which are themselves a summary of many, many lines of lower-level machine code. Not only that, this whole thing results from a dynamic process of information transfer via the internet (with its own complexities of how that all works), as well as physical hardware processing by your individual computer (binary switches on circuitboards, etc. etc.).

None of that do you perceive. Your perception of the webpage is "simple" because it is the simplified outcome, the result, of a vastly complex process. Just as it would be a mistake to confidently make assertions about the nature of webpages based on your perception of the webpage, I contend that it is a mistake to make assertions about the nature of "mind" based on your own experience of "the mind."

"That's all well and good," you may respond, "but what reason do we have to think that minds are, in fact, simplified outputs resulting from complex processes?" And there I would point you toward neuroscience and psychology. I could expand on this further, but I'll leave it there for now.

Because we as humans are bad at long-range, delayed-gratification-type things. If there is not a pressing need right now, other things will take priority.