My dictionary has 'privilege' meaning

an advantage that only one person or group of people has, usually because of their position or because they are rich:
— Cambridge

a right or immunity granted as a peculiar benefit, advantage, or favor
— Merriam-Webster

I'm struggling to see how it is so obvious that its use in 'white privilege' is "just not what word means". Its meaning seems quite congruent to me, it's saying that freedom from certain types of oppression and restriction, the opening of certain opportunities is an advantage which white people have.

Being able to go about one's daily business with a lower chance of being arrested or shot by your own police force in certain parts of America is an advantage afforded to white people simply because they're white is it not?

That's right there in the dictionary definition. I'm not sure what your objection on semantic grounds is. — Isaac

You're going from 'advantage', 'right', 'favour' in the definitions to 'freedom from oppression' in your description, how is that not a shift in meaning?

Anyway the meaning of the word becomes quite clear if you look at its etymology, privi lege... private law. A law is generally applicable to everybody without exception. Privi leges then are private laws or rights that specifically only apply to certain individuals or small groups. The majority of whites don't have privileges in that sense... so it's just not accurate to say they do.

Moral instruction can be distasteful when the values+perspectives attempting to be imputed go against something in you, yeah. Which of your experiences does the concept of "privilege" go against? — fdrake

It's just not what word means, like we know what the word table means and when and where it is applicable. This has nothing to do with morality.

And no this kind of moral instruction is distasteful, not because it goes against something in me, but because it assumes that i'm in need of moral instruction in the first place... and more importantly because of the way one thinks it should be instructed, by manipulating the meaning of words. Or perhaps more specifically, the context is framed in such a way so that the desired moral behavior naturally follows.

Can't you see that this is the same mechanism that religions use to indoctrinate people... because they are stupid and can't be trusted to make up their own minds?

In context, what have you decided? — fdrake

It doesn't matter what I have decided for the point that was being discussed.

The point is that words are being used in a way that is not typical so as to elicit the correct moral response. I'd rather have an accurate description and let people make up their own minds, that is all.

It offends me, not because I can't handle the label privileged put on me, but because it is deemed necessary to spoonfeed me the correct behaviour by manipulating the meaning of words.... it insults my intelligence.

To add to that, it's also offending to constantly be told what it is you are offended about, even after explicitly stating that that is not the case.... as if your self-reported experience doesn't matter because you have to be some self-deluding idiot that can only be saying these things to justify his abject moral character.

Does that seem like a fair complaint to you?

Yeah, its basically saying that you can't be trusted to make up your own mind.

How can you tell if someone who extremely dislikes the concept of white privilege is doing so for system justification/self palliative reasons or not? I'm not saying don't be critical of it, I'm saying that the very idea inspires so much vitriol in some people and pages and pages of text. Often, after the pages and pages the person who says they hate the concept of white privilege actually agrees with all of the substantive content it criticises, but feels either personally attacked by it or that (generic white person) will be turned off by it. Projecting personal discomfort onto the absent other, maybe. Regardless, they dislike the present because of the package. Complicity should never feel comfortable, and self flagellating doesn't make any difference.

I've got a personal wager that people who get super animated about it being a hard sell to some white people to begin with more often than not are duckspeaking system justification in an academic dialect. But that's neither here not there I suppose. — fdrake

Perhaps, but belief it or not, some people are actually concerned with precision in the words they use. Like, don't try to convince me by manipulating the meaning of words, just give me accurate facts and let me decide.

Actually I think I would be much better off working for something outside the realm of science altogether. At least there, all of this is par for the course. Humanity as of now is incapable of creating a purely scientific environment. — Seth72

I struggle to say something helpful about this, because there always seem to be trade-offs. But I suppose if you are the kind of person that wants things to advance, that wants to have a sense of actually working together towards a common goal, science and the larger public sector can be frustrating to no end. Some, some mind you, companies in the private sector might be a better bet then because there does seem to more unity in direction there.

Like you said, I doubt there's an easy way to fix this. Personally, my problem with this is that one is forced to consider politics and the random whims of society even when they choose to work with something that is supposed to be purely scientific. CERN, or any other institution for that matter, is not disconnected from these matters. — Seth72

Well yes, there are some guarantees for independence for the scientific community, but at the end of the day the funding for science does come from society. So I suppose only by virtue of that fact alone, there will never be complete independence.

Here's part of the problem, from the CERN statutes :

Article I.1.4 Languages
The official languages of the Association shall be English and French. In the case of doubt concerning
the interpretation of these Statutes, the original text, established in French, shall be deemed authentic.

This is something that has to be included for the French, they legally cannot agree to be part of an organisation that does not explicitly state this in its founding documents because the French constitution demands it.

I guess part of the problem is that not everybody readily accepts English as universal language, because of other then scientific reasons, political mostly. You are probably well aware of language rules in the EU. If you think language is a problem in the scientific community, then multiply that by I don't know how much, and you get an idea of the difficulties it brings on the governmental level. At least in the scientific community there is some agreement to use a universal language... which is not evident at all, certainly not now the UK will no longer be a part of the EU.

But I take it that your gripe is that the people don't need to know a lot of English to get accepted at CERN. Considering the funds for CERN come from a host of different countries, they probably want some of "their" scientists working there irrespective of how good their knowledge of English is, and irrespective of how good that it is for the actual advancement of science in 'general'. That's probably an unfortunate consequence of how the Center is governed and funded, and hard to remedy. Suppose for a second there is no French physicist that speaks English good enough to be accepted at CERN.... French funding agencies would quickly ask themselves the question why they keep investing in it since there is no direct return on investment then for 'their' scientific community.

What is ideology but a belief you stand by? Even anti-ideology is an ideology in and of itself. Lol. Is it not?

Sure, that's a point I like to make often. Just because something works today or has worked in the past doesn't mean it's the one and only truth. Skepticism is vital to knowing and preserving truth. Same with what works or rather is fruitful in the short term vs. what isn't but may be in the long term. This is probably a major source of division. Each position having their own unique benefits and drawbacks. — Outlander

I use ideology here as I described in the opening post specifically, as a set of ideas to gather support, unify and hold those political groups together. I do have my beliefs about society, but don't fully subscribe to any of the actual ideologies proposed by political parties. I'm mostly a-political in that sense. But beliefs are fine, you can't do without.

Supposedly, rather hopefully, people did adequate research into positions they hold beforehand and have weighted the benefits and consequences. Republicans seem to want to deregulate and develop more and also allegedly believe in God and the traditional family unit. That last part aside, sure, you become more successful in the short term- bearing in mind resources are limited there are very clear drawbacks to this. Democrats seem to .. I don't even know what they're into but from what I've heard are more open to immigration, personal freedom, abortion, etc. Too many immigrants who aren't vetted properly could lead to a problem. I hold a belief that abortion may or may not be .. "not right" or whatever so that's a biased view I'll reserve for this reply but, yeah. Every position has it's pros and cons. The two party lines generally encompass (more or less) what the individual believes in and so they're in a sense fighting for what they believe is right. There's always going to be lines people draw between themselves and others. From the personal, individual level say providing for basic needs like food and water.. the individual obviously wants enough to survive (or more) and will oppose a neighbor to get it. These divides can be larger as they were in the past encompassing things like religion or race. That in mind, a political divide is the lesser of (many) evils and so should be tolerated if not favored. — Outlander

What you are describing here is part of it, I won't completely deny that, but the part I feel you are missing is the marketing aspect of it. Part of what they say is for marketing purposes predominately, and as such not something they really believe in or look to actually implement.... but whatever they think convinces the most people and keeps them in power.

Like what? Solipsism? Lol. — Outlander

It was not really a serious comment, I was just taking a cheap shot at philosophies I don't like, like say rationalism.

Neither politics nor ideology has to stifle philosophical thought intrinsically I'd say. Sure, any one current political system or prevailing ideology may present ideas that seem to hinder or restrict productive philosophical thought (as in how to best go about creating positive change in the world in which we live as opposed to simply learning about it). Essentially you use these things that largely and in part control most peoples lives and actions (politics/the law defining what you must do and ideology defining what people believe they should/want to do), see the benefits of them, the drawbacks, and mayhaps figure out how the benefits can be improved and the drawbacks can be mitigated. Not a great explanation but post some examples of how politics/ideology can harm philosophical thought. Aside from dogmas. I get that. — Outlander

Well it's essentially a psychological point I'm making. People usually want some amount of certainty about questions they have and typically want to avoid cognitive dissonance. If you're uncertain about something you tend to keep looking for answers until you find something that satisfies you. Ideologies present easy, all to easy, answers and so psychologically you are less motivated to keep looking for better answers. Adding to that, because we don't like cognitive dissonance and the uneasiness that comes with that, it can become very difficult to get away from these answer, especially since they typically speak to something with a lot of emotional valance. Ideologies are like thought traps that can be hard to escape from... And naturally that is bad for philosophy since that is I think all about retaining some mental agility and being able to do away with bad ideas for better ones.

As for examples, I don't know if you're american, but just look at the political debate there and how heated it has become. People seem unable to think straight when it comes to debating issues. They constantly seem to be triggered into party-line talking points... that's not thinking and evaluations of things on their merits anymore, but merely regurgitating.

And that is why I call it the crisis of Liberalism. You've stated it very well.

I'm afraid I know the answer, but I'm trying to be optimistic anyway. — Pro Hominem

John Dewey, which I think is one of the most underrated philosophers, was a big proponent an educational system that actually sought to educate people so that democracy could work. That seems to be at least a minimal condition to it, if it is possible at all. People won't magically turn into educated democratic citizen, but maybe it's possible if a real effort was put into it. That's me trying to be optimistic.

I’m not sure they are at odds with each other since a great deal of philosophy goes into forging ideology. But perhaps one should begin with philosophy before venturing into politics. — NOS4A2

Perhaps Plato would agree :-)... but I'm not so sure, I think to be a successful politician you need good instincts as to what speaks to people in the first place. Maybe you need some philosophy to be a 'good' one, but then you probably won't be a successful one.

Without politics we have war and bloodshed. Or more of it at least. Without ideology we have emotion run amok coupled with odd, disjointed beliefs birthed by mere happenstance. Politics, to some, can be reduced to mere civilized mob rule, which has always been in existence since the beginning of language and probably earlier. Ideology can also be reduced to mere opinion, usually one that sounds good or promising as in able to facilitate greater works than an opposing one. Which again shares most of the traits described. These are part of reality and so unless one wants to make the argument that philosophy ignores reality, they're simply part of the philosophical equation. — Outlander

Well some philosophy seems to ignore reality :-), but yes, that is not exactly my intention. And it's also not my intention to do away with politics and ideology, because well, it is what it is, and a necessary part of the world as you say. What i'm suggesting however is that maybe as a matter of personal choice, one should possibly make a decision for one or the other.

Again, you use restrictions or "what is" as guides or supports to bolster productive discussion as opposed to limits that restrict it. Floors not ceilings. — Outlander

This sound like it could be interesting, but I don't quite understand what you mean. I"m not trying to be dismissive here, just curious as to what you mean.

I think we are straying into history here, and away from your point. In modern times, it is clear that Ideology is useful for capturing the imagination of those that are unwilling or unable to do the heavy lifting of actually thinking about a thing. — Pro Hominem

Yes I agree.

But let me ask you the following question then, do you think it is feasible to get enough people to think about these things in a sufficiently nuanced way for democracy to work as it is intended? Maybe they don't have the time, motivation,talent or whatever.... to do that.

And if the answer is no, wouldn't then the problem be that we have a system that relies for it to work on conditions that we can't really expect to happen?

Any philosophy you read that lacks this attribute should be discarded and thrown into the trash... so much for formal analytics. Life is way too short to spend it on thought puzzles whose only referent is their own abstraction. — JerseyFlight

I don't disagree, I was referring to ideologies, not philosophy.

True, but in the context of monarchies and oligarchies, it doesn't really matter what "the people" believe. — Pro Hominem

Well it does to some, arguably lesser, extend... because otherwise people would revolt. That's why they did go through all the trouble of justifying their rule with ideologies.

Depends on what you mean by "new". It is only a couple hundred years old. What I think you are describing as politics and ideology don't exist in the same way prior to the Enlightenment. — Pro Hominem

Yes, i'm mainly talking about politics in democratic systems. But maybe the same thing could be said about ideologies developed in the name of the powers that be before democracies... they were not designed for the purpose of understanding the world.

I refer to this phenomenon as the crisis of Liberalism.

Liberalism champions democratic movements in society. It has been successful over the course of the last 3 centuries in increasing the level of democracy across many countries throughout the world. Unfortunately, the bedrock of liberalism is education and rationality and these factors have not kept pace with democracy itself. The result is that you have huge numbers of people empowered to vote and participate in government with little to no understanding of what government is or how it works or how it should be used to help the human condition. Until a greater percentage of the population is capable of philosophical or at least rational thinking, we will continue to suffer the effects of pop politics and lazy "ideology". Social media has only exacerbated the problem. — Pro Hominem

Maybe it has gotten worse over the last couple of decades, yes. But I feel like this is not exactly new, and always to some extend the case, because of the way politics works.

I was not so much talking about the method each should use, but more about their different purposes and the consequence that has. But yes I guess in general politics will invariably have to involve some rethorics, which includes appeals to emotions.

Personally, I detest building or theorizing about a socio-economic system or a government based on some theory of human nature that's reducible to a specific state of mind or biologically-based interaction. — Maw

Allright, and I don't really care for building or theorizing about socio-economic systems based on any ideologically inspired dogma, which usually would include capitalist apologists and Marxists alike.

There is a point that trade and capital have been a part of the human experience since prehistoric times.

On these grounds I would argue that trade and capital has never been systematized, and that “capitalism” was always an expression of human nature rather than a system someone invented and convinced people to act out. — NOS4A2

Trade probably, capital I doubt it, since we were mostly nomadic (so there was little use in 'owning' land) and there was no currency.

Capitalism maybe wasn't conceived top-down from scratch, but there were obviously people pushing for certain policies and laws that predominately favoured them... and ideologues looking to justify that after the fact. So expression of human nature is maybe a bit to strong, but I do take the general view that culture/ the political and economic systems we have, are never completely separate from quote unquote "human nature" interacting with a certain environment... and so not something you can just replace with any other set of ideas you might have.

That's not to say that there is no room for doing things in different ways, just that it is constrained by "human nature" and environment. The latter is the thing that I think will actually force us to adjust our systems in fundamental ways, because things have change so much over the last couple of decades... without the necessary change to the system. And that is a big part of the political crisis we are feeling all over the western world now I think.

Aligning human nature with capitalism via immutable "competition" is to naturalize a socio-economic system that's only existed for a few centuries. It's another point of propaganda to identify capitalism and capitalist values as ingrained in humanity, while ignoring actual anthropological history that can provide alternative values for modern alternative systems. — Maw

I don't think anybody, or at least I'm not, is arguing for capitalism as it is. This is just a strawman. The question is whether Marxism is a good alternative for capitalism, or if we should look for other solutions.

Another point I would want to make is that anthropological history is not necessarily relevant because the environmental factors are completely different now. One might for instance point to the more equalitarian societal structures of hunter-gatherers, but across the globe societies developed hierarchical and stratified societies independant of eachother as population grew larger after the agricultural revolution. I don't think that was some arbitrary fluke of history. It rather seems like it was a necessity to keep larger societies together.

So what historical systems are we actually talking about that would still be relevant in a highly technological world with billions of people?

All this assumes that, even if human nature exists and is violent, the impulse to exploit is like the abuse of women: it can be corrected and ultimately repressed. All that is needed is the will and the strength to do it. — David Mo

This seems like an untenable position to defend in the face of what we know, because there are enough things that seem difficult, if not impossible to correct or implement.

Say for whatever reason, we want to forbid sexual intercourse between people... all the will and strength in the world wouldn't be able to repress that impulse.

The abolishion of alcohol maybe is a good example of something that they actually tried and failed to implement.

I can sum up other examples.... but the point is, it seems hard to deny that there are limits to what we can reasonably expect to work, because of what kind of beings we are. It's an open question as to what these limits are I think, but flat-out denying that there are any, and refusing to even consider the issue, seems like a glaring mistake to me.

I agree.

Only if you think moral objectivism has anything to say about what people do in fact value as part of "human nature", which it doesn't necessarily. — Pfhorrest

I'm not sure I follow, so you are saying that it is possible that all people happen to value the same things, but that that doesn't come from what kind of beings they are? Then how did they all come to value the same thing? I mean, how do you come to some objective morality then? I'm assuming here that you are not referring to God....

I don't mind, but this is probably a bit of a divergence from the thread.

↪Bitter Crank I think the problem with arguments that stem from “human nature”, the objection to such arguments, is that the picture of “human nature” being put forth is usually hopelessly simplistic. “Competition is human nature” vs “cooperation is human nature” arguments are dumb because humans are a complicated bag of nature and nurture that includes both competition and cooperation in a very nuanced and ever-changing way. Sure you can do science to human behaviors as a species, but the patterns you come up with aren’t going to be so simple as “humans are naturally x”, for any x. — Pfhorrest

I'd agree that it not as simple as saying human are X. But at the same time, even if it is complex, there is still something there. And I think that is important and fundamental, because any theory that doesn't jive with that something, whatever it is, isn't going to work. So it seems like a mistake to just ignore the whole issue, because it's complex.

Isn't it strange that I would be arguing this point, as a moral constructivist, against a moral objectivist ;-).

I did read most of it... I just don't think the idea of static timeless experience makes sense. We may have a subjective experience of time that differs from real time passing, and we may loose track of time... but my experience is never actually static or timeless in the sense that nothing changes.

But alright, I didn't really expect you to be willing to engage.

Remember, the natural afterlife is timeless, thus it can't "become" anything, it's static and so "is what it is." — Bryon Ehlmann

That is the problem with the theory I think, you cannot conceive of experience that is static or timeless, because experience seems to presuppose some kind of passing of time. Without time there is no experience it seems to me... it's an unintelligible concept.

And so, if one cannot conceive of what it would be like to have a timeless eternal experience, how could one answer the question of what impact it would possibility have on anything?

No... not necessarily. Although, it may depend on how broadly we define "religion". The case that I was/am trying to make is that one need not appeal to a given religion such as Hinduism or Christianity in order to accept the logic of the OP. The idea would be that one need not have faith in a given religion to recognise the possibility of life after death. If the logic of the OP works, one might have to posit the existence of a 'soul' to explain the possibility, but I'm not sure if that alone makes it religious. — TVCL

It need not imply religious faith, it could exist outside religion certainly. But the concept is religious in origin, and there doesn't seem a good reason to believe in it otherwise. So the question seems to be why would we assume something like a soul to begin with.

That's fair enough, but that isn't quite the argument. The argument is not that we cannot know about subjective consciousness with absolute certainty, it's that we might not have any knowledge of it at all outside of our own direct, personal experience of consciousness. In that regard, it is unlike other scientific conclusions that we make based on good but incomplete data.
Consider the matter in this way:
Let's say that you put a man in a machine that maps his body down to the atom. Now, you stab the man in the hand, exciting the signals there that go up to the brain. Now, let's say that you track this signal minutely from the nerves in the hand, through the body, to the neurons in the brain... the question is: at what point could you say that you have observed the conscious, subjective experience of "pain" and have not simply tracked an biological-electrical process? — TVCL

I don't disagree with this, we don't have any direct experience of consciousness outside of our own. Following this line of reasoning to the extreme, we don't really know if a world outside of our own experience even exists, because all we have is our experience... and so it'd be perfectly coherent to believe that only our experience exist. Solipsism is logically irrefutable. We typically do assume that a world outside our experience exists however, not because there is a good argument or proof for it, but because it's one of those things that seem better to believe in than not, all things being equal, because solipsism is a dead end (aside from the fact that we are probably hardwired to assume that a world outside of our experience exist). I'd say something similar about other people's consciousness. We assume that people that look and behave in a similar way have a similar experience.... and I think you do too. So are we to entertain a possibility we don't really believe in, for the sake of making another argument?

This is where we might be tripping over one-another because this is essentially what I'm trying to say. But you have my apologies if I've not made my writing or intentions clear enough. I'm using the definition of life as consciousness. The idea behind using "life after death" in the OP is simply because when I hear people commonly refer to life after death, they do not imply that their biological life continues after death but that there will be a continuation of their 'mind' or their 'soul' at some point, even if this requires a new body. In brief - when they say that there will be "life after death" they imply that conscious awareness will occur again at some point after their current, biological life has come to an end. Hopefully this explains the rationale for my use of terms. — TVCL

Ok yes, but isn't that essentially a religious rationale then, in that you seem to define terms only for the purpose of making sense of what seems like essentially religious concepts like the soul... which was something I thought you wanted to avoid as stated in the OP. And isn't your argument then a bit circular, insofar as you already assume and have to assume something like a soul-like awareness in your definitions for the argument to work?

might not be what it seems. We may not, in fact, strictly know that consciousness either occurs in biological life or only occurs in biological life. We presume that it does because we see physical behaviours that we assume are connected to consciousness, but we lack a scientific way of getting a metric for measuring the subjective experience of what it is "like" for a subject to be conscious. Without which, we may be unable to demonstrate where consciousness does or does not occur. — TVCL

If you mean by "strictly know", knowing with absolute certainty, then yes we do not know... but I don't think that is a standard science or I should necessarily aim for, as it probably is an impossible standard to attain. I think we are justified in inferring things from what we do know or experience to the best of our abilities and form tentative beliefs until we are confronted with evidence to the contrary... because that seems to be the best we can do. If all swans we have ever seen are white, it seems reasonable to assume that all swans are white, that is until we see a black swan.

So I guess what i'm saying is, what would count as an adequate demonstration for me, is showing me a black swan, rather than pointing to everything that is theoretically possible... anything is theoretically possible unless it is proven impossible, like some previous poster already mentioned.

Respectfully, I'm not sure whether the position requires an assumption of panpsychism and we may be speaking at odds if two definitions of life are being conflated.

The biological definition of life accounts for biological process, but says nothing about whether life is present for the subject. For example, if a fly is biologically alive but is devoid of consciousness, in what sense could the fly regard itself as alive? Or, another way to put it is that if you or I were biologically alive, but our consciousness came to a final end, in what sense would you or I, as subjects, know that we are alive? This is why we can remove consciousness from the definition of biological life but, when we do so, we are merely describing a process and an organism becomes just as "alive" in some sense as an engine.

Moreover, panpsychism posits that mind is more fundamental than matter to the extent that it permeates the entire universe. Admittedly, the OP leaves that possibility open but it does not appear to be an assumption that is required for the OP. It could well be the case - as you hold - that matter is more fundamental and that conscious life must arise from biological life. The case being made is simply that this is an open question and we cannot presume that - say - conscious life will come to a Final End once our biological life does. — TVCL

I guess I don't see why something needs to be aware that it is alive, to be considered alive, that's not how we typically use the term I don't think. Someone in a coma is generally considered to be alive, even though he is not conscious.

You seem to be making a distinction between two sorts of 'life', biological life, and some kind of life as awareness... but it isn't clear to me why you wouldn't just call 'life as awareness', consciousness. Why the need for an additional concept for life when we already have a word for essentially the same thing? Doesn't that just unnecessarily complicate things? Or maybe I just don't understand what it is you are trying to convey with that second concept of life, that can't already be done with the concept of consciousness.

Regarding panpsychism, maybe biological life (or some kind of other artificial life) it not strictly necessary for consciousness in a non-panpsychist universe, in the sense that it is logically precluded without it... But I guess it's more a matter of induction, that as far as we know, consciousness only occurs in biological life. And so if you want to posit that consciousness can exist outside of it, it seems reasonable to expect an account for how and in what way consciousness arises then. Maybe it's not that reasonable since we can't yet explain how consciousness arise out of biology :-). Anyway, that lead me to idea you may have to assume some kind of panpsychism to give a beginning of an account for how consciousness can exist outside of biology. But maybe there are other ways, I wouldn't know and I don't have particular strong opinions on that.

I'm conceiving of life as conscious awareness, in the sense that a subject can only know that it is "alive" if it has conscious awareness which may be related to biological life, but not the same as if. Consider for example how you and I, for example, were living organisms in-utero but life as we know it did not begin until some time after birth.

Admittedly, this isn't an exact definition, but life as conscious awareness is used in contrast the conception of non-life in which many commonly presume that there will non-consciousness after death. Admittedly, even in biological life we are at time consciousness and then non-conscious but what I am arguing against is that this non-consciousness will be final at the point of biological death and that conscious awareness will not occur again afterwards.

Does that make sense? That might have been a bit messy. — TVCL

I understand where you are coming from I think. But there seem to be some issues with it, which you seem to be aware of, because as you say we can be non- or un- conscious and still be considered alive... which would point to the conclusion that consciousness is not necessarily a determining factor for life?

In biology, life has been a notoriously slippery thing to define, but I think typically it is understood to be something that takes up energy to sustain itself in the same form (homeostasis) and reproduces itself via a process that allows for variation (not merely replication). Death then is when it no longer sustains itself. Consciousness usually isn't included in that description...

But I take it that since you think consciousness will occur again afterwards, and don't think it is tied to some biological life, you have to assume some kind of panpsychism? If so, I don't think I have much to say to that... we just have different basic assumptions then.

Because intelligence is required for grasping reality itself, and with that comes conscious thought at some higher level. Let's not joke around and say that computers aren't as intelligent in any regard as we are, be it in isolation or collectively. — Shawn

They are good (and bad) at different things than we are.

"and with that comes conscious thought" seems like a big assumption that is still in need of a lot of justification.

Don't feel obliged to try to justify it, because I don't think anybody really knows at this point.

Once again, more of the dark ages brought into the present. Will power as you speak of it does not exist, your will is determined by your motivation and motivation is caused by a plurality of psychological and physical factors. You cannot tell a brain lacking grey matter to simply try harder! This is my last exchange with you. You need to educate yourself and stop trying to see what will stick. I wish you all the best. :) — JerseyFlight

You just can't help yourself, can you? It's certainly clear what motivates you :-).

What separates humans from other primates is that we look to the adults to obtain information about ourselves and our environment. What a human is and will be depends upon his environment, and here we use the term in the broadest possible sense, both physical and psychological. What you are claiming is not empirical, it is a fiction, humans become what they are as their brain develops and passes through concrete experience structures (see Allan Schore, Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self). You are asserting that humans come preset, this is a superstition left over from religion. "Human Nature" does not exist, human brains exist, and they are exceedingly sensitive, what your brain experiences and how it develops determines who you are and what you become. If you abuse a child, neglect him, he will grow up to abuse others, he will be selfish, there will be many problems. Humans are not born predisposed to the negative. This is a religious assertion, not a scientific fact. — JerseyFlight

This proves that you can't even enter the room to talk with the adults, and this is why: it is the most basic knowledge of sociology and social psychology that human wants can be artificially generated. This is what consumer culture is all about, generating artificial needs. One thing people should not do is listen to any advice you have on how to approach the problems of the world, because you have clearly manifest that you don't even comprehend the most basic parts of the system. I'm not trying to be mean, this is a problem if you want to converse with any kind of authority. If I was you I would return to education, specifically psychology and sociology. — JerseyFlight

I disagree, culture plays a part of course, I never said otherwise, but it seems hard to deny there are some basic tendencies that are hard to unlearn. Artificially created humans wants typically are created because they promise people social success, status etc... The specific iteration of objects we attach those desires to may differ, but the underlying desires that make people want those things are usually pretty similar.... in short will to power.

ChatteringMonkey even if we accept the view of human nature you briefly alluded to, it isn't clear which type of property you mean. I think most of what you say is an argument for limited personal property but is not an argument that extends to ownership over means of production, for example. — Kornelius

It does to some extend, people are motivated to care for things they consider 'theirs'. What they consider theirs is a fluid concept to some extend, in the sense you can get them to care for things that are not actually their property, like a 'nation' or a 'sports team', but there needs to be some identification for them to care. And so, the argument does extend to the means of production insofar as someone needs to be motivated to put those means to good use.

No my friend, what the evidence favors is that human personality structures are conditioned by 1) attachment systems and 2) quality and stability of environment, this includes food and shelter (the vital parts of the brain must develop and mature without trauma or nutrient deficiencies). There is no such thing as "human nature," (a psychological predisposition to which all humans are subject) this is a false metaphysics.

Anyhow, this thread is not about the myth of human nature, which fascism so desperately needs to hold onto in order to justify its primitive narrative of good versus evil.

It seems you are under the impression that Marx rejected private property. Where did you derive this idea? Can you provide a citation? Marx was against the unintelligibility of capitalist formations of private property -- because they don't make any sense when you think of them in terms of the well-being and needs of the species. Everyone is in need of space in order to live, capitalism negates this fact, segregates it and begins to use it as a tyranny, coercion-leverage.

If you think you have figured out the social world because you make use of the false metaphysical concept of "human nature..." all I can tell you is that you haven't even entered the room where the adults speak, you are in much need of a critical education. — JerseyFlight

I don't get it, why do you post quotes that directly and without qualification attack the idea of private property if not to reject the idea of private property. What's you point then?

There's nothing metaphysical about humans having certain tendencies, it's an empirical claim, as I said. If you have spend for instance any time observing infants, that can hardly be said to be indoctrinated by culture already, you'd know that there is strong tendency to appropriate things for themselves. This is for the most part not something that culture imposes on us, it is in our genes.

Thinking in terms of well-being and what we need as a species, won't work if it doesn't align with what we want. Two different things. You need to work with what people want, otherwise it won't work, this is a very simple point.

And I'll say this once, if you continue the discussion in the same pompous vein, I'm done with it.

Yes, and that is a bad situation too which will end up creating problems.

Maybe the conclusion of these two propositions taken together then is that the solution to a few owning everything, is not abolishing private property altogether, but retaining the idea of private property while also finding a way so that it doesn't end up in a few owning everything.

I seem to have encountered an interesting thread about the nature of consciousness with respect to computers, who seem to display an attitude of sentience.

Do you think it is true that consciousness can arise from Generalized or non-Generalized Artificial Intelligence? — Shawn

Maybe, but it's also entirely possible that having a biological brain and all that comes with that is vital for consciousness like we know it to arise. So I'd say no for the moment, but it's a very weak no.

A question I would like to ask though, is why do we think intelligence has necessarily a lot to do with consciousness? They seem like two separate things to me...