The game of monopoly has a fixed amount of potential wealth and victory can only be achieved by the acquisition of more wealth than everyone else. — Judaka

The amount of wealth is not fixed, because you can keep collecting money by passing Go indefinitely. If the bank runs out of money, make some more. The problem is that the players can construct ways of extracting higher and higher rents, while the fixed rate of income (passing Go) remains the same. If you don't manage to get into the capitalist scheme you'll be sucked under, and the first to loose. But then the capitalists, having annihilated the poor loosers, along with that source of revenue, must try to extract rents from each other, winner takes all. At this point the object of the game is not to have enough money to pay all your rents, but to have all the money, and then there is no one left who might be able to charge you rent.

When I imagine zeno's paradox, I tend to imagine an arrow travelling for a bit and then I stop it momentarily in my imagination and say to myself "This is now the arrow's position. Now how did it get here?". But of course I am not allowed to mentally stop the arrow from moving, for I would no longer thinking of a moving arrow.

Is it even possible to imagine a moving object that has a precise velocity and/or position? Personally I don't think so. I always find myself either fantasising that I have mentally stopped the arrow in order to measure it's position, or that I am entirely ignoring it's position when thinking about it's motion. — sime

Yes, I agree this is where the problem is right here. If the arrow is moving, there is no such thing as its position. That's why Aristotle sought to create a separation between these two, "becoming" and "being". The arrow paradox is clearly based in this problem. "Moving" implies that time is passing, "having a position", if we're not referring to something motionless, requires a moment at which time is not passing. So the arrow cannot be moving if it has a position. Simply put, there is an incompatibility between "having a position", and "moving", these two would be contradictory. So we cannot describe the same situation in these two contradictory ways.

But there is a first position to pass through, regardless of whether you can calculate it. — Luke

The problem is that there is an incompatibility between moving, and having a position. The two are contradictory. So it doesn't make sense to describe the movement of a thing in terms of position. And if, or when we do, such as to say that a thing moves from position A to position B, then we are not saying anything about the movement itself, only that it was at position A and is now at position B. To describe the movement is to describe how it got from A to B. But to say it moved from A to B is not to describe the movement, which is how it got from A to B.

Imagine if we had taken a video-recording of the object's motion in order to establish a per-frame analysis of the object's positions over time. No per-frame analysis will tell us about the object's motion, since for that we need to look at inter-frame differences which is a feature not present in individual frames. This is again, analagous to the uncertainty principle in that motion and position are estimated, or rather constructed, with respect to incompatible features. — sime

The uncertainty principle is derived from the Fourier transform which involves the problem of "the start" (or however you want to call it), in the sense of a time period, which is similar to what Michael is arguing. A time period is defined by frequency, but the shorter the time period, the less accurate is the determination of frequency. The problem is reciprocal, if the time period is too short we can't determine the frequency, if we can't determine the frequency the time period is indefinite. "The start" is the first time period, and the shorter that time period is, the more indefinite any determination made from it is. This is very similar to the problem of acceleration. If a thing is at rest at one moment, then accelerating at the next moment, there must be a time of infinite acceleration.

Well we all have our differences of opinion, and to me, that's what makes each of us different, forming our different personalities and consequently our identities as persons. That's why I refer to Plato's cave analogy, the "real me" is to be found in my ideas and opinions, whereas my activities and cultural relations are a reflection of the real me. To reverse this, making my ideas and opinions a reflection of my cultural relations, is to deny the importance of free will in choosing what to believe. And determinist ontology leads to all sorts of problems with respect to cultural relations.

That question can only be fairly answered by an Aristotelean. I am not one, but I think there are plenty on this board. IIRC Metaphysician Undercover is one (apologies in advance if I have misread your position MU). — andrewk

I believe I've read Aristotle's work quite well, and thanks for the reference.

Does anyone philosopher still think that they prove that change is impossible? — Walter Pound

Aristotle demonstrates that change (becoming) is fundamentally incompatible with being (represented as a describable state. If change is described in states of being, there would be one state followed by a different state. To account for the change between them we'd have to posit another state as intermediary. But this would just introduce another different state, so we'd need to posit more states to account for the change, resulting in an infinite regress of described states, without any real change. So he concludes that a state of being is fundamentally distinct from becoming, change.

Accordingly he divides reality into two distinct aspects, form and matter. Form is described as actual, active, while matter is described as potency, or potential. All reality is composed of these two aspects, and the separation is theoretical only. The difficult part to understand is the distinction between "forms" in the physical world, and "forms" in the human mind. In the physical world, forms are what have actual existence, and are actively changing. In the human mind forms have actual existence, as what is real to the mind, but they exist as formulae which are described, or defined. states of being. So there is an incompatibility between what is "actual" within the human mind, and what is "actual" in the physical world. This is what creates paradoxes like Zeno's. In the physical world, the forms of existence are actively changing and this is fundamentally incompatible with the forms by which the human mind describes physical existence, as states of being.

I'm claiming that it's impossible to count in order the rational numbers between 0 and 1 and that for the exact same reason it's impossible to pass through in order the rational-numbered distances between 0m and 1m. — Michael

That's right, there can be no definite order to the rational numbers, because any "first" number is arbitrary and randomly chosen. The better question is whether the principles which assert zero as a rational number are truly consistent, and this questions the validity of negative integers. But that's off topic of the thread.

And what does infinitely small mean? — albie

It's a principle. It says that no matter how small of a thing you get, you can always get something smaller. Whether or not it's true is debatable, but I think it would be difficult to prove it, one way or the other.

We might say that "identity" in the pure, absolute sense (if there is such a thing) says nothing about the thing; "I yam what I yam", says nothing about Popeye. However, since it identifies Popeye as something distinct and separate from his environment, it still says something about something. It establishes a distinct entity, Popeye, separate from his environment. You might understand this as the difference between saying "that" something is, and "what" something is So prior to saying anything about Popeye, or Popeye's relationship to the bigger entity, his environment, it is necessary to establish that there are boundaries of separation between Popeye and this bigger entity, his environment. To say that there is such a thing as Popeye is to make this separation.

That is what I believe is the necessity of identity. It is not to say anything about the thing, except that it is a thing, and this is to individuate, separate it from everything else. If this process of identification is not done first, prior to any type of saying something about the thing, there will be ambiguity as to the identity of the individual thing which we are talking about when we start to say things about the thing.

This is the necessity, that knowing anything about me means knowing how I relate to the world; it is a linguistic, and epistemological necessity. If I am unique, I am unique regardless of what is said or known, but to know that I am unique is to know something about the world, that it only has the one unenlightened in it. — unenlightened

So from my perspective, this is a vague and partial truth. It is true that "knowing anything about me means knowing how I relate to the world", but only in the most fundamental sense of "how I relate to the world", meaning knowing that I am an individual, distinct, separate from the world. Knowing "that" I am an individual is knowing something about me, which is not the same as knowing "what" I am. But it is necessarily prior to knowing what I am as an individual, in order to avoid the ambiguity involved with distinguishing whether I am talking about me, or I am talking about the world. So it is not necessary in an absolute sense, but necessary for an accurate understanding. This is the basic necessity, "I am that I am", and any statements about what I am can only follow from this basic assumption. Moving beyond this basic assumption, how I define or describe myself is a matter of choice, and this is where I find contingency.

All you are talking about is the political ideology of traditionalism or conservatism being imposed on a culture from outside of the culture. How is this any different from a culture defining itself as being traditionalist and imposing that on it's own people (kind of like how the Republicans are in the U.S.)? A political ideology isn't right or wrong. It is just a method of living. Other cultures have imposed themselves on others for all of history. It the natural way of things. — Harry Hindu

I wouldn't say that there is a big difference between these two. And to the extent that members of the culture are oppressed (because we identify "oppression" as bad), this is not good. When certain members of a culture oppress other members it effectively divides the culture in two, so that you are left with one culture oppressing the other. And when Americans brought slaves from Africa, you may think of this as one culture oppressing another from outside it, but the two cultures integrate, living together in that one act of slavery, creating the situation where one culture suppresses its own members. So the two are essentially the same thing, the two cultures are divided, or united into one, depending on your perspective, by that act of oppression.

I believe there is such a thing as right and wrong ideology. And just because you describe something as "the natural way", this does not make it right. Morality is often involved with curtailing what comes natural to us, as is the case with breaking bad habits.

How does one discover a unique aspect without relating it to the group? Even with DNA the uniqueness of the individual consists of usually a unique combination of traits that are shared in a population, or rarely a unique mutation, which is only found to be so by comparison with the group. That is to say, uniqueness is necessarily a position in a group, like a king in a country, or a runt in a litter. To say that I am unique is to say that I have X, and no one else has X, and it is only through the relation to everyone else that uniqueness can be seen. — unenlightened

Yes, that's what makes an individual, it's a "unique combination of traits". I would say it's a unique set of characteristics. When we describe something, we cannot describe it by referring to this or that attribute, we must create a set of attributes which is unique to that individual thing. That's a matter of placing the thing into numerous different groups. So if "culture" is the principle of identity for a person, we couldn't describe a person by referring to this or that culture, we'd have to find numerous different cultures which that person is a member of, and create a uniqueness for that person through reference to the numerous different cultures ... is a member of this one, is not a member of that one, etc. But "culture" by itself doesn't serve this purpose because there aren't enough of them distinguished, and the boundaries are not well defined. But it could be used as one of the identifying features.

The notion that I particularly oppose though is the thought that "uniqueness is necessarily a position in a group". I believe that this is off track in two ways. First, as per above, uniqueness is a function of a person's position in numerous groups. The second problem is the idea of necessity. This issue is a bit more complicated because we tend to think that an object has an "objective" identity, an identity independent of any "subjective" identity assigned to it by a human being. (What Harry calls "there is simply a way things are"). This creates the idea of necessity, the identity is necessarily such and such according to the objective position of the thing.

But in general, we talk about "the identity" of a thing as something handed to the thing through human discretion, and that's a matter of judgement, choice. So this identity is inherently subjective. When we are creating an identity for a person, we create groups for classification, and choose the groups where we want to place the person, in order to create a unique identity for the person. The serious problem is that unless it is assumed that there is some objective reality to the groups (and this is a real issue as your example of "human being" in the last post demonstrated) and also that people are inclined to adhere to what is apprehended as "objectively real" when making such judgements, then they are free to create all sorts of different groups as they please, giving different persons all sorts of strange identities. Furthermore, even when the creation of groups follows principles of objectivity, there is a seemingly endless number of different groups which may be created. Therefore there may be numerous possibilities for a person's "unique identity" depending on how one creates the groups of classification, even when the groups of classification follow objective principles. And identity is a matter of choice.

I'm afraid this is not the settled unquestionable reality you think it is. On the contrary you have merely hidden the circularity from yourself. We decide who is human, and whoever we have decided is not human does not get to make the decision. And that used to include peasants, slaves, blacks, children, homosexuals, the disabled, and disfigured, and women, at various times and various places. there is still controversy on this board about when a clump of cells becomes a human. — unenlightened

Yes, I realize this, and I was wondering if this point might come forward. But what this indicates is that all forms of identifying by group are somewhat arbitrary, and unreliable judgements. This leaves us with the other option, which is to identify by the individual. And this I insist, is the only true form of identity. A thing's identity is found by determining aspects which are unique and particular to that thing itself, not by examining that thing's position within an arbitrary group. That is why law enforcement agencies depend on things like fingerprints and DNA, while profiling is less reliable and in some cases controversial.

How do you know what it is you're preserving without first observing the culture in its primitive state PRIOR to any interference of another culture? — Harry Hindu

The reason I did not answer this question is because it is not relevant to the point I was making. The point I was making is that such cases of preserving are fundamentally wrong. So from my perspective there is no instance of preserving something and you do not know what it is that you are preserving, because "preserving" has already been determined as the wrong procedure.

Remember, I was arguing that preserving a culture is fundamentally wrong, because it can only be successful through oppression of its individual members. If you consider what unenlightened and I have discussed, you'll see that I've been arguing that the group (or culture), is a category of classification created for some purpose. The effort to preserve the correctness of the categorization (preserve the culture) can only be successful through suppression of the individual members' will to diversify. You seemed to think that preserving the categorization for the purpose of scientific observation was somehow acceptable, and fundamentally different from preserving the categorization for the purpose of slavery.

I'm trying to come up with an example of where an increase in knowledge causes harm, or more harm than good. Can you help? — Evola

It's not the knowledge itself which causes benefit or harm, it is the way that the knowledge is used which is beneficial or harmful. So knowledge falls into the category of a potency, or power, which may be used for bad or good.

I don't see what you're arguing, if you are arguing anything. How would you expect to observe a culture without interacting? By spying through telescopes? How could that be respectful of the people's privacy?

I'd kind of like you to apply this to the case of John Chau. John judges himself according to an evangelical culture that he follows/accepts/believes/identifies with. The Sentinelese culture seems to identify him as a white devil invader. The Indian government identifies him as a criminal interfering white idiot. How do you see this individual? I've said I see him as a good man by his own lights. — unenlightened

You ask a difficult question, and the easy answer is to say that I don't really have the information required to make that judgement. I don't really understand his ambition, and that is what drove him to his death. And, you can be sure that he knew death was a real possibility. He was not explicitly asking for death, but he was putting his life into the hands God, where he probably saw two possible outcomes, either he'd have some success with the Sentinelese, or he'd be killed and God would make him into a martyr. Either way, he fulfills his commitment to God.

The bigger question I think though, is his perception of evil. He seems to have proceeded in his actions as an effort to fight evil, and this implies an enemy. Do you apprehend a difference between going forward with the intent of bringing good, and going forward with the intent of fighting evil? The former implies the existence of friends, while the latter implies the existence of enemies. So I think that poor John Chau's approach may have been all wrong. He most likely had good intentions, because fighting evil is of course a good intention, but he didn't properly identify and understand the evil involved, so his approach was all wrong. It is one thing to go out into the world alone, with the intent of doing good, and a completely different thing to go out alone, with the intent of fighting evil.

You want to claim that every one of these cultures is a cave, and you and Plato are outside? Even the way you put it makes no sense to me. "... how we define "person", must be derived from outside of the culture, or else we'd just have a circle." We???? We define things in a shared language and these definitions are thereby cultural. But you want to start with a 'we' that is not a culture! — unenlightened

That we define things with a shared language, and the definitions are cultural, is irrelevant to whether or not the thing being identified, the person, which we are defining, or describing, can be properly defined through reference to one's culture. We use shared language to describe things like the earth and the moon, but this does not mean that these things being defined are being defined by referring to their cultures.

Let me try a different approach for explanation. Do you agree that there are things common to human beings which are not culture specific? When we define what it means to be a human being we refer to these aspects which are common to all of us. and not specific to any particular culture, or group of cultures. We are all in the group "human being" regardless of culture. On the other hand, there are particular human beings, which we call individual persons. So when we go to identify an individual human being, as this particular human being, we must refer to things particular to that person, and this is not the person's culture, because that signifies a group of similar people. That would not identify a particular human being, it would only identify a group, giving us no means to identify the particular individual.

Now we have two extremes. All human beings are the same in one sense, and this validates "we". In another sense each is individual, particular, and this validates "me". We could move further and identify a particular variety of human beings having some similar properties, or habits, as "a culture", but in relation to moral purposes what would be the point of such a determination? "Culture" does not serve to identify the individual, nor does it serve to tell us what's common to all human beings, so what purpose is there to identifying distinct cultures?

I don't know what you're saying. It appears nonsensical according to conventional language use, and the philosophy I've studied. Yet you keep asserting it over and over again as if it's meaningful, without backing up this claim with any sort of argument od explanation.

Time is not change, it's a parameter of measurement of change. So your claim that time is change is just like your nonsensical claim that size is an object. I really cannot see how it makes sense to you.

You saw what NoAxioms wrote, we don't use "time" and "change" in similar ways. you're assertions are completely wrong.

I know that's how you feel, you've already made that quite clear. However, with no intent to hurt your feelings, I must tell you that your feelings are quite irrelevant in this matter. So you might just pull your heart off your sleeve and discuss the issue rationally. This is not the place for special pleading, you've produced no argument for your assertion. I produced an argument to back up my claim and you rejected it on the basis that you feel it is false.

Denying members of that culture the right to leave isn't just observation as I have been stating — Harry Hindu

But the subject we're discussing is not simple "observation". What we're discussing is "preserving the more primitive culture for the purpose of...". The subject is preserving the culture, not observing the culture.

Think about it this way. When a biologist wants to observe another animal, they hide so that they don't disturb the animal and its natural behavior. They don't want to influence the behavior by making themselves known the other animal. This is what I'm talking about. Scientists would observe from a distance so that their presence isn't noticed so that they can observe their behavior independent of any interaction with them because once you interact you forever change that culture. So cultures change as a result of interacting with other cultures. — Harry Hindu

All you've done now is changed the subject. You're not talking about preserving a culture any more. So what's the point in proceeding on this path?

But the Sentinelese cannot campaign to have a Starbucks, or against it, individually or all together, until the have the benefit of an education (cultural indoctrination) to tell them about Starbucks. And once they have the education and can form the view, they are no longer Sentielese in anything but name. — unenlightened

I think education is a key point here. And this is why Plato's cave allegory is relevant. The philosopher goes out of the cave and sees (learns) what the others don't see. What the philosopher sees is true and right, being something apprehended and firmly grasped by the mind, but the others cannot apprehend it because they have not been exposed to it. So the task of the philosopher is to educate the others, and it's no simple task because the others have made a comfortable namby-pamby life, living in their own little cave. So the analogy is that of forcing the people to look directly at the light source. It's painful, but the cultural habits, or even the culture itself, must be broken for the good of the people.

Perhaps it's worth considering the reflexivity of morality. Jesus did not have a view on Global warming, and thus did not consider a commandment forbidding the extraction of fossil fuels. But we are not more moral because we do. A good person is one who does good deeds according to a moral code. But it is the reflexivity of what makes a good moral code that is in question in this thread, and that requires a ground. — unenlightened

I'm having difficulty with your use of "reflexivity", particularly "the reflexivity of what makes a good moral code". It appears that we need to distinguish two different senses of "good". There is "good" in the sense of "according to a moral code", but there is also 'good" in the sense of what justifies the moral code. There's another thread now on the Euthryphro problem, which looks at this same issue from a religious perspective, but I think it's more easily understood in the way that it's presented here.

If I understand you correctly, the reflexivity you refer to is that the moral code must reflect back upon the good of the individual people within the society. So we have "good" #1, which is the people behaving according to the code, and we have "good" #2 which is what the code is doing for the people. The issue is the grounding of good #2. This is why I insist that the identity of the individual, how we define "person", must be derived from outside of the culture, or else we'd just have a circle. The circle is that the good moral code is the one best capable of inspiring the people to follow it. And there is some truth to that, but it just begs for the question of what inspires people to follow the code, and then we must turn to the nature of the individual anyway. If you've read Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics, you'll know that he posits "happiness", as grounding for the ethical "good" of the people.

John Chau gave his life to his moral duty; he was a good Christian man according to his own lights, and that is, in the Christian traditional least, the measure of individual virtue, what one will sacrifice for the good. "Greater love hath no man..." Not a Namby-Pamby by any means. So by what moral code does the Indian government, or the liberal elite, or anyone else, judge him to be an evil fanatic, an idiot, a madman, or whatever level of condemnation is attached to him? It seems to me that consistency requires that we treat him as generouslyl as we treat the Sentinelese - he is as innocent as they.

And if we have the right of it, if we are the guardians of morality and civilisation, is it not likewise our duty to gather these miserable sufferers under the yoke of religious indoctrination, and attempt to deprogram them, as the Chinese are doing? — unenlightened

These are issues of the relationship between good #1 and good #2. You ought to see that good #2 must take priority over good #1. Acting according to the code is only good in so far as the code is good. So how is the code judged? And this is where we turn to education. However, the issue is very complex, and it is not simply a matter of education here. Plato uncovered a very difficult problem in his analysis of sophism. The premise was that virtue could be produced by education. Teaching individuals how to recognize and understand "good" ought to inspire them to act well. But this is not necessarily the case, as people choose to do what they know is not good, and choose not to do what they know ought to be done, as good. And this problem was taken up directly, and to a greater extent by Augustine. Virtue is not simply a matter of education, as the sophists claimed "virtue is knowledge", which could be taught. There is a matter of creating the inspiration required to do what one knows is good. (Namby-pambyism doesn't cut it). This is why it is essential to understand the nature of an individual, as an individual, in order to judge a good code from a not so good code. Not only must the code outline what is "good" as a direction for education, but it also must provide the means for inspiration.

Yes, that's what I was arguing. It seems quite clear that it is a possibility. All you have to do is assume that there is a limit to the shortest time period required for change to occur, then conceive of an even shorter time period. In other words, even the smallest possible change requires a quantity of time, and we can always conceive of a shorter period of time. For example, if change requires a Planck length of time, we can still conceive of a time period of less than a Planck length. In that shorter time period no change would occur.

Looks like you have to pay to read that article.

So, have you read the article?

Your premise is clearly unsound so you have no argument. Sorry, form without content is not an argument.

You have no argument, only a feeling. That's why what you say is irrelevant to logic.

I know enough about logic to know that the way you feel about a logical proof is irrelevant to it.

What you "feel' about something is irrelevant as to whether that thing is a logical proof or not. You didn't address the proof in that post, so as far as I know you didn't understand it or perhaps didn't even read it. So what you feel about it is completely irrelevant

Mu, if you don't know the difference between simply observing someone's normal behavior to acquire knowledge, and beating someone to make them do your bidding, then you have bigger problems that can't be helped on a philosophy forum. You need to go to a psychology forum. You observe other people everyday in order to acquire information or knowledge about them. If you think that is any where close to being morally equivalent to owning slaves then I just don't know about you. — Harry Hindu

The problem is, that in order to maintain that culture for the purpose of observation it would require denying the members of that culture the right to leave that culture and join the culture of the observers instead. This would be the same sort of oppression forced on slaves, denying them the right to leave the culture of the enslaved to join instead the enslaving culture.

The problem with both of you is that you both don't seem to understand that this simply a revamp of the nature vs. nature debate in which I already showed that nature and nuture are the same. An individual is an amlgam of culture and its genes. — Harry Hindu

A mixture of two distinct things makes a mixture of two distinct things, each of the two distinct things forming a part of the mixture. It does not make the two distinct things one and the same thing. Mixing water and salt will produce a solution, but it does not make water and salt the same thing.

It's very simple to prove it logically, (as logical possibilities are very simple to prove as logical possibilities). And I did prove it logically, it's in that post where you focused on what I claimed physicists have demonstrated, rather than on the content of the my post. And the fact is that logical possibilities are meaningful. So the concept of time passing without any change by which that time could be measured, as a logical possibility, is meaningful.

When we're talking about measuring time, we choose some changes as the basis. I already explained this.

We then measure other changes relative to the changes we chose as our measurement basis. We could use the relatively twice as fast wheel as the measurement basis. We could use any changes as the measurement basis. — Terrapin Station

If it can be proven logically that it is possible for time to pass without any changes occurring, therefore no means of measuring that time, then by the impact of that logic, this "possible" time, during which no changes are occurring, is meaningful. Logical possibilities are meaningful.

Suppose the mores of your society are that Christian colonial racism that finds it moral to keep slaves and has a moralistic talk that justifies that. but you see past the economic convenience of the thing and reject it because you are enamoured of the dignity of the person or universal human rights. So you campaign, perhaps you are part of the underground railroad, and you do what you can. Now you surely understand that when you say 'slavery is wrong', and your neighbour says 'slavery is fine' you are both taking a moral stand, and that you are opposed. Now if you are truly alone in your opposition, you will likely be ignored, reviled, locked up or killed - as mad sad or bad. You will be in this regard external to the culture, and if there are others to form a resistance, you will be part of a counter-culture. — unenlightened

I have nothing to oppose here. What I oppose is identifying the individual in reference to the existing culture. So consider the individual in this example, who is alone in opposition to the norms of society. That person has an identity which is distinct from the culture. We do not know that person's values so we cannot even discuss them, it's just been stipulated in the example that the values are distinct from those of the culture. This person is known in the example as distinct from the culture. That person has the choice of remaining silent, having one's values which are distinct from the culture, never come to light, or, the person may associate with others, to build support. If that person chooses to associate, the identity of that person is built upon the ideas expressed. The person, is the starting point of identity, and this is the same for any person. The person expresses ideas and an identity is produced accordingly. We may compare those ideas to the values of the culture, if we desire.

Let's go back to the beginning, where I said 'the individual is made of social relations'. All this means is that the campaigner against slavery - the very descriptive definitional term - describes the person's relations to his society. It defines the society he lives in and his relation to it (opposition). — unenlightened

The problem here is that the person has an identity even prior to being "the campaigner against slavery". This identity is associated with the values that the person holds, and it is very important to identify the person as "campaigner for X values" rather than "campaigner against our culture". The difference is very evident, and well documented, if you consider someone like Jesus. You might identify Jesus as the campaigner against Jewish culture. But if you supported his cause, you would not identify him in this way, you'd identify with the values and ideas that he professed, and he would be known to you by what he promoted, rather than by what he was against. Looking back posteriorly, we can identify Jesus according to the culture which came from him, Christianity, but at the time when he was campaigning against the Jewish culture, that later culture Christianity, did not exist. So there was not such an option. At that time you could either identify him as campaigner against the Jewish culture, or campaigner for X values. The difference is magnificent, and only Saul (Paul), in an epiphany, saw the means for reconciliation. The problem though is that the reconciliation is not real, as there is no real reconciliation for that difference of identity. The two identities are magnificently distinct. So Saul's reconciliation raises Jesus to the level of divinity, assigning to Jesus the false identity of Son of God.

None of this privileges society as the moral priority, or removes the freedom of the individual, which I think is what you are objecting to, it simply points out that these relations of opposition and conformity, of resistance and cooperation are the substance of individuality. From my point of view it is as banal as saying that the human body is formed by the environment it inhabits. if we lived in the sea, we'd have flippers not legs. One cannot be a dodo hunter when there are no dodos to hunt. — unenlightened

What I am objecting to is the false identity which identifying the individual in relation to the existing culture, rather than identifying the individual according to the values and ideas which one holds, creates.

I'll put it as plainly as I can. The will of the person is one thing that pertains to the individual, whereas the will of the people is a plurality or aggregate of wills and therefore pertains to a culture. — unenlightened

OK, since you clearly acknowledge a distinction between "the will of the person", and "the will of the people", then how can you identify the individual through reference to the group, in relation to moral issues? Moral issues involve matters of will. The "will of the person" cannot be identified within "the will of the people" so "the person", in the context of morality, cannot be defined through reference to the culture.

An individual has no power at all without society, since the individual is born helpless. — unenlightened

I agree.

With the relevant society the individual has the power to own slaves, just as with the relevant society and not otherwise, the individual has the power to paint a cave, or open a facebook account. — unenlightened

Do you agree that the individual has freedom of choice to decide whether or not owning a slave, or opening a facebook account is a good thing to do, regardless of whether or not the person proceeds in such activities. In other words, a person could live within a culture which strictly forbids owning slaves, the state declaring it a bad thing and illegal to own slaves, yet the person still believes it's a good thing to own slaves, in the mind, disagreeing with the culture.

I want to characterise law and punishment and the will of the people as aspects of the culture along with the moral principles and negotiations that 'we' need, according to you. — unenlightened

If you agree with the principle I sated above, that the person's belief could run counter to the person's culture, how can you characterize the will of the people as aspects of the culture? The person chooses to believe, of one's own free will, moral principles which are contrary to one's own culture. For instance, imagine a person born and raised within a particular culture, being taught that slavery is not good. That person at a later age, in adulthood, may read various materials, or be exposed to other believes with elements of "counter-culture", and decide that slavery is good. The person need not act on this belief, but still the will of that person is not consistent with the culture, having chosen to believe principles contrary to those of the culture, so the will of that person cannot be characterized as an aspect of the culture.

Well it couldn't, any more than the protection of people from slavery could be successful without suppressing the will of the people to own slaves. — unenlightened

Right, maybe you're starting to understand. Notice in your example of slavery, the individual who has the will to own slaves does not actually have the power to own slaves. So we don't really need to suppress the will to own slaves, that desire is already suppressed by natural conditions. Slavery is only a problem if it is culturally sanctioned. It requires a like-minded group, with power, to enslave others. So removing slavery is not a matter of suppressing the will to own slaves, it is a matter of annihilating that cultural. The will to own slaves might always exist in some impotent form. suppressed by natural circumstances, when it is not sanctioned by a culture.

If you want to characterize law and punishment as suppressing the will of the people, for the sake of "the culture", then we would need to negotiate moral principles to justify such suppression. But where would we start, the good of the individual people, or the good of the culture? Individual people have solid material needs. What kind of needs does a "culture" have, other than needing people?

It seems to me that a more advanced culture would want to preserve a more primitive one for the purpose of science - something a more primitive society might not understand. — Harry Hindu

Of course this all becomes an issue of moral principles. How would preserving a primitive culture for the purpose of science be fundamentally different from keeping slaves?

You identify with the culture rather than with the individual, and this justifies oppression of the individual for the sake of the culture.

Are you familiar with the Inquisition?

Unfortunately, you seem to think that the solution is to abandon the principle. — unenlightened

Yes I think that this idea of "protecting" is just a veiled form of oppression. When you see that there is a natural will of the individual human being to learn and understand alternative cultural principles, and diversify oneself, then you'll see that any attempts to protect a culture cannot get beyond the fundamental requirement of denying its members the freedom to choose otherwise.

Take the example of the Welsh government "protecting" the Welsh language for example. I am not familiar with this practise, but how could it possibly be successful without some form of suppressing the will of the people to use other languages?

Here's something to consider unenlightened. There is a natural human tendency to learn other cultures. You and I, with education and resources can pick up books, or travel, and expose ourselves to the vast variety. Some people are denied this capacity due to natural circumstances, lack of resources, or the power of authority. But if you accept this basic premise, that this tendency exists as a natural will of human beings, you may see where the problem is in the op.

So where do you get this idea to "protect" an isolated culture? What would be the purpose of maintaining this distinct and isolated culture, as exemplified in the op? You seem to be considering the idea that it's a good thing to keep particular cultures, like the Sentinelese, excluded and living in their own isolated little way, without integrating with other cultures. How could this be a good thing? Isn't this contrary to the human will explained above? I believe this is where the problem is. There is no reason why such exclusion could be good, because it's a matter of going against the will of the people. The only way that such a culture could be maintained would be to deny the freedom and rights of the individuals within that culture to learn and practise what is available to them from other cultures. So this idea of protecting a culture is part of the very same ideology of building walls. To maintain that culture would require denying its individuals the freedom of access to other cultures.

Specifically the notion that you can divide a quantity up into infinite parts.

Problem: How big are those individual parts? — albie

The parts are infinitely small.

don't need your contradictions, I have my own. — unenlightened

See how we have similar culture, but different identity. How could two people have the very same culture, such that we could identity a person by classing one in a group determined as "a culture"?

That's awfully big of you and Plato, but in my culture Plato is the original colonialist, secure in the knowledge of his own superiority and the primitive blindness all but 'philosophers'. — unenlightened

Oh I see, you're laying claim to the culture now, excluding me from your "culture" just because I interpret Plato differently from you. You're the one expressing superiority with your exclusionary tactics.. And not only are you expressing superiority, but you're also intimidating me, implying that you have the backing of a group, your "culture". Your intimidation won't work though. I know that you are just an individual, and you are not expressing the will of any group. You remind me of a whiny child: "play the game my way or my daddy will kick your daddy in the arse".

Ask yourself, what is "a culture", what differentiates one culture from another. Unless you're an archeologist who only has physical artifacts to go by, you'll most likely refer to some ideologies. Culture is a reflection of ideology. Don't ignore Plato's Republic. Get yourself out of that dank world of darkness, the cave, and we'll welcome you to the world of philosophy. (Where the sun shines brightly every day.)

Within a particular "culture", there are varying ideologies. The supporters of one ideology may relate to the supporters of another ideology in a variety of different ways. They may seek to compromise, and minimize differences, or they may enhance differences. One may seek to oppress or annihilate the other. The importance of these differences which lie within any particular culture, make cultural identity a non-valuable form of identity, as unreliable.

So we must turn to ideology to find a form of identity with veracity. Ideologies, based in ideas, arise from the individual, so an ideology is created by an individual, not vise versa. The ideology does not create the individual, the individual creates the ideology. That is the nature of free will.

Namby-Pambies are a human culture. But what makes our culture different is that only our culture is aware that it is a culture. — unenlightened

Namby-Pambism is more of an ideology than a culture. it pervades many cultures and is not proper to one. Perhaps your "culture", in being "aware that it is a culture", is mistaken, and is not really a culture at all.

What's the difference between Superdeterminism and plain old determinism?

So you loosely agree that time without change is not meaningful, but here you say time can pass without any change. — noAxioms

Yes, I wouldn't exactly say that time without change is meaningless. If that were the case there wouldn't be much point to saying it. I would say that for most, if not all practical purposes, such a thing is useless. But as a logical possibility, and an aid toward understanding the nature of temporal reality, I think it's meaningful.