And who said that? The person banned or StreetlightX? I’m guessing you’re quoting the person who was banned.

StreetlightX doesn’t appear to have the temperament to judge who should or shouldn’t be banned. I’m saying this based on current events. I’m saying this based on numerous instances of name calling and provocation when someone disagree with them.

Complaining about 23 pages of people talking about violent behavior after they pretty much said they wanted everything to burn to the ground? Seriously? Was such a clearly hyperbolic and provocative statement put across to direct the discussion in a sensible manner or merely to showcase their need for volatile verbal conflict in order to provoke statements from other that would allow them to ban them.

Then there is the cloaked threats and hints beforehand. Someone apparently suggesting Frank was ‘trolling’? Insanity.

We watch the watchmen. If they’re not up to the task we’ll go someone else. Get it?

Are you going to ban yourself for your hostile comments?

If you have the power to ban and repeatedly provoke and call people names there is something seriously wrong with how this forum is moderated. Is the irony lost on you?

You’re just embarrassing yourself. Don’t you see?

A rational discussion HERE is possible - not only that I believe that is the point of this kind of forum. I don’t think anyone commenting here is looking the other way (I think it’s pretty hard to look the other way considering how this has spilled across international news headlines).

The question is then how to use this opportunity to better the US for the people living in the US. Small steps can build momentum. I think a lot of the peaceful protesters should give serious consideration, and active encouragement from the community, to join the police force themselves.

In terms of surveillance there is something there too. I think without video footage the situation in the US would be much worse. It’s horrific to see and hear about the string if cases like this one, but equally such horror is better seen in the cold light of day than hidden. People can cover up their views well enough most of the time, but under surveillance it’s almost impossible. For that reason open public access to police operations - to some larger degree - would be an area worthy of consideration (as is already happening and as has been happening as practically everyone has a live streaming handheld device now).

I think everyone’s got the message. The thing is a few bad people can make a helluva mess giving the misconception that more foul play is at work than there is.

Building something important takes time and coordination. Destruction is something any chump can put their hands to with success.

Note: There is no excusing such actions. They don’t need to be excused only noted. Human nature is what it is. When upheavals happen we’ll always see the demons of our natures come out to play.

I was hoping for some kind of discussion about what is happening, how it can/could be handled, and what steps to take towards a future goal - and what such incremental steps may look like.

I think it reasonably fair to say progress has been made, albeit with backwards steps along the way. The encouraging signs are that these public protests look string enough not to dissipate - this looks like an opportunity for rational discussion and a rethink about troubled areas in US culture.

Knowledge of both is essential to recognise them. Someone only interested in ‘the good’ is setting themselves up for denial of their potentially ‘evil actions’ as they are only ‘good’ in their mind.

It’s a really tough thing to look deep into our own sense of right and wrong rather than just blithely skirt around the difficulty of deciding where and when to draw the line.

Has the situation at least improved in part over the past few decades?

I don’t buy into the idea that these are isolated instances. If we see one horrendous act in full public view it is silly to assume the same or worse never happens out of public view.

The ability for the public to document what happens live is a great boon. Camera footage is mandatory for police in the US, right? If not maybe installing such technology would mitigate some of the potential threats from within the institution that is meant to uphold the law rather than act as if they are above it.

One thing is pretty clear. Justice for one man’s murder is NOT justice for previous victims of police corruption. A clear plan set out by protesters would be a great thing! Asking for justice for this one incident clearly needs to take its momentum into some kind of protest backed movement that DEMANDS changes to how law enforcement functions.

I do think psychological screening is a VERY tricky matter too. We’re talking about a very high stressed job where violence and poor human behavior is seen in a daily basis. My friend was a policeman for a few years and he saw some quite crazy things - I imagine in the US (in certain areas) the dangers police face are enough to push anyone over the edge of reason.

Perhaps the peaceful protesters could be actively encouraged to join the police? That would seem to be a VERY good idea don’t you think? Often enough the people nest equipped for a job can be the very people who are loath to do it (from my friend’s perspective I know for a fact he joined the police because of an incident he was involved in personally - he was angry and scared, and honed that into responsible action by joining up).

Really though, this goes deeper than a law enforcement issue ... economic investments into schooling for poorer communities would be a good longterm plan, but the immediate problems are much tougher to handle on top of the current climate.

HELLO!

Is there a chance of a discussion about where this may lead the state of US politics in the near/far future?

It looks like the general public are doing as much as they can about this at the moment. What is the end goal? How do we get there? What steps/measures need to be put into place?

In an age of surveillance, both public and private, it has got harder and harder for crimes to go unnoticed. In there some manner in which this can be further implemented to protect the innocent? Clearly without such technology it’s likely no one would’ve believed/cared. Seeing is believing so this is probably the most striking weapon in combating injustices.

What dangers await and what cautionary measures need to be considered?

I think that’s a SLIGHT overreaction. I don’t think we’re there yet. I don’t believe most people in the US want the country to split. If it did that would be a pretty big mess - it’s already set up in a way to try and get the best of both worlds with a singular nation and independent states with there own laws.

A large country, like the US, diverse and interconnected landmass breaking up into completely sovereign states would lead to all kinds of horrible situations arising (perhaps even a civil war).

You can’t start over if you burn along with everything else. Stand alone remarks like that are, in my mind, exactly the opposite of what sensible wish to hear - frankly I think it’s a disgustingly irresponsible thing to say in a time like this.

There are people out there willing to take advantage of the situation and rile people up because they want a ‘revolution’. Streetlight said he wants everything to burn ... do you approve of those sentiments at this current junction of social upheaval?

I am listening to what is being said. I am also aware of the rather naive political leanings of some folks on this site (including the mods). Rioting shouldn’t be encouraged. Trashing amazon and such places doesn’t bother me though, but at the end of the day the innocent suffer and lose their businesses when things get out of hand.

From what I’ve seen in the media the protesters are NOT rioting or destroying property. There are vicious elements that are taking advantage of the situation. As an example a major reported that ALL of the arrests made in his home state were from out of state - meaning, those causing destruction and trouble in his home town had no interest in ‘protecting the community’ because it wasn’t their community.

I’ve seen the vast majority of protesters behaving well. I’ve also seen police acting, for the most part, in a civil manner under huge pressure.

Hopefully after this has calmed down a bit we’ll see some actual sensible political candidates come to the fore so after Trump’s/Biden’s next term in office they’ll be a REAL choice for people. If not, this will continue and then I’ll have to side with what christian said (we’re witnessing the initial cracks show in the splitting up of the the US - maybe in a decade or so).

We’re both lucky and cursed with communication. I do have faith in people though so at the end of the day the word is the most powerful tool we can wield to help move forwards instead of backwards.

Note: I’m not from the US so my perspective on the matter is carefully measured in a broader global context.

What makes you think others countries want you there? First of all you need relevant skills, money and/or youth on your side.

Canada has been actively seeking immigrants for a while.

Perhaps thought experiments are a tool, and used poorly produce poor results.

I have much sympathy for your animosity towards misused trams. — Banno

That sums it up for me. Sum people approach them with distain believing they’re meant to guide everyone to sum kind of ‘ethical’ consensus. They are, in terms of ethics, extremely useful for seeking/seeing the nuances of how ‘cold’ reasoning plays its part in shifting the burden of responsible action/thought.

Ethics isn’t merely about exchange figures and summing up some total solution. Thought experiments and hypothetical scenarios are not calculations.

I think your view of their purpose is absurd. The point of ethical thought experiments is not to debate and come to some consensus of right or wrong.

I’ve been over this before quite thoroughly and it is surprising how many people just dig their heels in at any suggestion that the ‘purpose’ they see might just be completely wrong.

Any public proclamation is always biased by the perceived biases in others the proclaimer bring into the public sphere. For me the point of such ethical dilemmas framed in thought experiments (hyperbolic or otherwise) is to first and foremost be honest with oneself rather than curb personal thoughts simply because they’re uncomfortable.

People in the emergency services and the army train in this manner. The same comes into play for us as individuals. It takes work to fortify our ethical positions with actual actions and behaviors that adhere to them. Probably all of us say one thing and do another a lot of the time, but preparation of thought can have us acting more like we’d have wished to rather than simply ignoring the inconvenient truth of our susceptibility to failing to act as we, at our core, truly deem fit.

So too, I think, should philosophers. It's hard to imagine more terrible ways of thinking about philosophical problems than via thought experiment. At best, they ought to be used as examples of how not to think; or how to think in circumstances that are extremely constrained and rare. — StreetlightX

This is missing the point. The more extreme the scenario is serves only to bring up your personal take on the matter. They are opportunities to see why you think what you think, what you’d prefer to think, what you’d say as opposed to what you really think, and what can be done to balance these things ... to name a few paths of enquiry.

That's just one example. The article linked gives some nice intrinsic reasons why thought expriements make for pretty terrible philosophy. Among them of course being that thought experiments are almost uniformly artificial and, again, totally ungeneralizable. The article itself focuses on what it calls ethical thought experiments, but I think the same is true for other well known ones too. The damage that 'brain in the vat' thought experiments have wrought on philosophy of mind, for instance, is I think incalculable. But that's another story.

In any case, this is mostly an excuse to pimp out the article, and induce some discussion about the role of thought experiments in philosophy more generally. — StreetlightX

I’ll have to have a closer look at it. Clearly the use I find they don’t from what you’ve espoused.

I completely understand that a reasonable number of people find them actively repulsive - I just think they’re looking at them in too rigid a fashion.

Yes, that’s exactly what I’m asking. Apply your own mind to the the situation or are you going along with Rousseau who thought people did not know their own will, or Proudhon who believed in a social contract that did not involve an individual surrendering sovereignty to others, or Pettit who thought that instead of arguing for explicit consent, which can always be manufactured he argues that the absence of an effective rebellion against it is a contract's only legitimacy. — Brett

So you were just playing dumb. Look where that’s got you ...

Bye!

1 is wrong. 3 is stupid. Convince me otherwise

Are you seriously asking me how the ‘social contract theory’ is relevant to this topic? You appear to have given up before you’ve even got started.

Maybe someone else will help you out. GL

Next to non-consciousness.

If you would give me the offer right now to erase my modern day knowledge and return to the times of hunter-gatherers — madworld

Who’s stopping you?

That doesn’t clarify anything. Clearly there is an error in what you wrote, just wondered what you meant to say - I make enough goofs myself (just asking).

What process? I looked back at the origin of that line and it makes no sense whatsoever:

Having free will does indeed consist in being unaffected by certain things and one’s behavior instead determined instead by other things. Namely, in one’s behavior being determined by one’s practical or moral reasoning (what you think you should do), and other influences having negligible interference in that process. — Pfhorrest

The part in bold? Say what?

Why do you think? Take a stab at it as a given and maybe you’ll find something.

Regardless, what we belief is always going to be overruled by what we feel - in terms of our claim to authorship of our actions that is!

This is the crux of the question I suppose. There is a state, it exists. As Pantagruel suggested; the community came before the individual. So what is the best way to live in it? — Brett

And that is a conflation. State does not equate to community. I was quite clear, as others have been, about the difference between a community of humans and a state/nation. The interests are completely different beasts as the latter are VERY recent occurrences - in terms of human existence.

As for the rest its your choice. If you deem your position better so be it ... that is kind of the point I was getting at. If that suits you after your diverse life experiences so be it - how diverse your experiences have been is your concern relative to what you see as appropriate. In simplistic terms we’re born and then we actively map out a cosmological view of our existence in accordance with what we consider too risky and too safe. I’m saying anything fantastic there am I? It’s just how things are for every living creature. We just happen to be able to extend our concerns beyond the knowledge of our death which doesn’t necessarily mean we’re all here to help humanity cease to exist in 5000 years rather than 500 years.

Note: I view more extreme altruistic views with as much concern as I do nihilistic views - at least the latter is more clearly a danger than the former.

Here’s one:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_energy_principle

Yes there was more, but I don’t regard my question as about “what we are”. — Brett

‘What we are’ is the bedrock your question lies on though. To explain further, I meant that ‘what is best’ can only be addressed with a fuller understanding of ‘what we are’ - be this as an individual or otherwise. What is more the ‘best’ knowledge we have of the situation of ‘others’ is through ourselves (quite obviously: the ‘obvious,’ ironically, being something easily overlooked!)

What we are presupposes that we exist as humans. That is all. True enough we know this from our own individual perspectives, but that isn’t strictly speaking the same thing as ‘individualism’ - I grant you that.

Instead of; how can I contribute in a way that creates the most wellbeing for the most people? — Brett

Why would anyone in their right mind presume they know what is better for others? The only way is by throwing our personal perspective on others as if it is as good as identical to others. That seems inherently flawed to me, doesn’t it to you?

My question now is, I suppose, in what way are we contributing with our sense of individuality. What do you have to contribute that would create the most good for the most? — Brett

The most good for the most reeks of a kind of pandering to what others tell me is good, be this through societal conventions or otherwise, rather than what I arrive at as good through my necessarily painful and hard journey of coming to understand ‘what I am’ amongst ‘what we are’ as human beings living a life - which is an unfinished task and remains so (thankfully!)

Maybe I’m veering off-track here?

In short, I see it as much better for me and everyone else to do what I feel as being ‘best’ than to stick to some convention of what is ‘best’ - ie. Follow the nation/state rigidly. That is not to say and don’t see the great use of social agreements. I certainly expect that my wants/needs/desires will conflict with those of others, but I don’t have to, and don’t feel it’s ‘good’ to, adhere to social standards because ‘that is what people do’ ... I find that an unethical and intolerable position to cling to. If my ‘good’ is ‘wrong’ then I suffer the consequences as they come to me without any ‘blame’ to lay at the government, state, nation, god or anything or anyone else’s feet other than my own. I get back up, dust myself down - maybe weep a little - and then carry-on imbued with a ‘better,’ yet faulty, understanding of ‘what we are’ as individual humans among other humans, and what we are as independent beings apart from others.

Sometimes it is more comforting and healthy to adhere to social conventions. Comforting and healthy now may just be discomforting and unhealthy in the near/far future. We can only assess this by remaining open to exploration of ourselves as individuals and as part of AND apart from humanity as a whole.

I’m against the idea, at its core, of a ‘nation of people’ or a ‘state of people’ above the individual human spirit. That is not to say I am against social interaction just its overreaching manifestations - which are clearly present in the modern world at in present conflict with our current freedom to reach around the world with ease (as we are right now on this forum).

There was more to it than the bold part ...

What is ‘best’ is a pointless question. The question is more about ‘what are we?’ And the answer to that is a continual process by which we engage in life (actively or passively until death). — I like sushi

Once it made sense to submit to God. The reward was eternal life in the presence of God. There was little or no reward in the present. Everything was defined by that idea. Of course it was riddled with injustice. But the state as a psychological creature, as opposed to a religious creature, does not seem to be an improvement, and it’s the psychological state that has placed the emphasis on the individual, because that’s where the disease or problem rested, down deeper than the state as it appeared. A happy person was bound to be more of a benefit than the weight of despair. So the emphasis on the individual. The healthy individual was bound to be a benefit but somehow that mutated into the idea that the individual was more important than the state. — Brett

I think there is just as good an argument from the position that religion developed our sense of individuality. The nation/state has probably exerted more force on the suppression of individualism than religion has - that said, both offer up a sense of identity which was more or less what I was getting at.

Note: Keep in mind ‘religion’ doesn’t require the belief in some deity and/or eternal life - that is just one prevalent iteration of the whole ‘religious’ scheme (as in our common Judeo-Christian heritage as English speaking subjects - we’re culturally entangled in this due to where and when we were born).

As for the part in bold ... why? This is your assumption. Personally speaking the most rewarding strides in my life haven’t been made wading through happiness - maybe you’ve been luckier? :D That said, I do kind of agree. It is not ‘happiness’ that bothers me but more it’s kind of glib use as some kind of ultimate achievement. It is a rather strange term when you think about it that eludes meaning even though we all have experience of it. That is what I was getting at with the ‘best’ point: it’s more about exploration and discovery than some fixed idea of ‘good’/‘bad,’ or ‘happy/sad’ polarity. After all the joys I have experience may pale into insignificance compared to yours or visa versa. We can only find out where we are on any scale of ‘better or worse’ by straddling life and riding it long and hard, and with good helpings of fear and bravery ... even then nothing is guaranteed, but at least it is SOMETHING rather than willful passivity, subjugation and a existential shrug at our sense of being.

I don’t believe I missed the point from what you’ve stated above.

I posed my position in terms of the many iterations of poorly articulated positions that claim to be reasonable ones in terms of ‘panpsychism’.

I have no qualms with the idea of some physical property of matter that, at some level, manifests as consciousness. In this sense the ‘mysteriousness’ of emergence is no more (in some cases less so) ‘mysterious’ than some property X that exists in all matter. Consciousness itself - us here now discussing it - is inextricable from the perceived problem as it is part of it.

We may as well argue about the universe ‘starting’ to happen or stars. It makes no difference to the logical position of the situation other than we’re more focus in here on the subjective sense - ie. conscious experience.

If thee was some physical property it would still lead to some kind of gradual progression - on SOME level. Even if it’s an all or nothing situation - much like the firing of neurons - that doesn’t take away from there being level of complexity below that are far from a simple all or nothing mechanism.

I find it to be a reasonable idea to ponder, but not one to adhere to with any degree of serious conviction (until evidence is found in support of it).

To repeat. My MAIN qualm is with people naively suggesting atoms are ‘conscious’ with the poor defense of ‘just a different kind of conscious’ - which is nonsensical. Admittedly those who have put more thought into this don’t say such things without a well articulated reason for doing so. On forums most of what I have tended to see is a wishy-washy form of mysticism that use concepts that are clearly misunderstood and/or poorly cobbled together.

In terms of a defense of panpsychism I’d look to entropy as the ultimate underlying field upon which consciousness exists. From more ‘spiritual’ perspective I also find it reasonable to view humans as that old adage of ‘the universe trying to understand itself’ - fine, no problem there either.

If however we’re talking about atoms having a property of consciousness and then when these atoms accumulate in certain constitutions what we know as ‘consciousness’ emerges ... well, then it’s emergence we’re talking about just in the same sense that every other phenomenal experience of humans is held as a nascent item - framed for the sake of differentiation/orientation as x or y.

Heat is only weakly emergent. Heat is an aggregate of ordinary motion. If you model the motion of all the particles in a physical system, you model all the thermodynamic properties of that system too. Heat is only emergent in the sense that you don't have to model things at the molecular level to get heat -- you can just model the aggregate property and ignore all that finer detail. — Pfhorrest

The point was that it makes absolutely no sense to talk about the ‘heat’ of a molecule. I am saying it makes just as much sense to talk about ‘consciousness’ at a molecular level - which some people do. I’m certainly open to the ‘consciousness’ equivalent of ‘motion’ ... which our current guesses lie in combinations of neurons and/or cellular combinations. Anything else looks like vainly trying to the the temperature of an electron.

Do you have any suggestions for the ‘conscious equivalent’ of ‘motion’? I’ve not looked at the microtubules idea for a while, but it looked sketchy at best. I think its biochemical - more than fancy enough (needless to say an atom doesn’t have biochemistry, but then some may insist they do due to up/down quarks and such ... which is the core of my dislike of what I tend to see flaunted on forums).

And Dennett uses a very particular definition of ‘free will’ to frame his position as ‘compatibilist’.

That was the reason I stated that such terms need to be put forward with great care.

His position is based on determinism evolutionary processes not some inherent ‘choice’. The issue people have is they believe they could’ve done otherwise where Dennett would say they couldn’t. In that sense he is a hard-determinist and I don’t much care if he chooses to label himself otherwise.

Nevertheless from an ethical position he acts as if he has ‘free will’ in the sense that he could’ve done otherwise even though he doesn’t conclude that he could have. Dennett doesn’t believe the physical laws of nature could’ve been different - quantum weirdness is his ‘get out of jail free’ card though.

I think this is a pretty decent summation of his thoughts regarding his view of ‘free will’:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpgCYPqPpnQ

I think I recall watching a lecture where he made a distinction between ‘choice’ and ‘free will’. Stating that we don’t have ‘free will’ (in the sense highlighted above) but we still have ‘choice’ - overtime I believe he switched to saying the ‘choice’ was a kind of ‘free will’.

Again, ethically it is perfectly sane to assume free will as a given - as in ‘I could’ve done otherwise’. To you couldn’t have done otherwise is not the same thing as believing (in a scientifically causal sense) that you had no choice in the matter.

Then there is the case of the phenomenological view of ‘free will’. Posing the question of what determines our course through time frames the idea of ‘free will’ with a particular gravitas - whether it warrants any reasonable degree of our attention is neither here nor there as we’re curious idiots so that it isn’t really surprising that we cling to questions that invest or divest us of a sense of worth/purpose (in terms of the possession of our actions and sense of authorship in general).

Maybe I misunderstood Dennett? If so please correct.

Ethically, yes. In terms of the physical world he is more of a hard-determinism with leeway given to quantum weirdness.

That is nothing extraordinary given that most scientists wouldn’t claim that a deterministic world means we can, or should, act as if we have no choice. That is just one kind of compatibilist position that has, as far as I can see, very dubious reasoning.

The position I put forward is merely that if it is our choice then choosing not to choose - under a false assumption - is pretty silly even though some could argue that it is more comforting (which I would argue against quite strongly).

Anyway, I have a good question for you ...

If you determinism is correct (in the fatalistic sense you seem to have displayed) then it makes no difference what you do as it’s already decided upon (effectively it’s already ‘happened’). On the other hand, if you are actually wrong about determinism, yet believe you have no ‘choice’ then you’re living a delusional life under the false belief that you have no real say in anything that happens to you.

The fatalistic attitude is a useful one for when we’re overwhelmed in life. It’s always easier to blame the world than consider that our actions (which could’ve been made differently) may be the very reason we’re in the current quagmire we happen to find ourselves - even then the common response is to lay the fault at someone’s door if ‘fate’ is a no goer!

As we’re effectively limited creatures in terms of our understanding of the environment we find ourselves in there is a pretty good argument to be made for EVERY position in terms of our attitude towards our effectiveness. Sometimes it pays to be fatalistic, and others it pays to assume we much more capable than we truly are in terms of shaping our paths.

Adhering to either without question for prolonged periods of time reduces our capacity to explore and test ourselves - maybe that too is ‘better’ sometimes in certain circumstances. The crux is the ethic. Your ethic orientation is ‘determined’ by your attitude toward self-reliance and your sense of ‘free-will’. Even Dennett wouldn’t suggest that his sense of ‘hard determinism’ means he lacks responsibility in any ethical sense.

I reckon you’d be better off looking more into the neuroscience of consciousness than focusing primarily on philosophical meanderings.

Within the field there are various tangental and aligned topics that tilt in many directions including determinism, reductionism, functionalism, phenomenology, and various other areas. It can be fun trying to pick out the ideas each present and which direction their personal views tend to be directed.

Start by making strict delineations between terms like ‘fatalism,’ ‘determinism’ (in all its variegated guises), and ‘compatibilism’ (in all its variegated guises). The tread VERY carefully around the use of loaded terms like ‘free-will,’ ‘choice,’ ‘probability,’ ‘chance,’ and ‘entropy’.

It’s a frantically difficult topic to deal with as most readers will come at you with a good amount of vested interest in one, or more, particular areas. A historic account of how these thoughts have developed would be a safe approach I feel.

Panpsychism is trying to solve the irreducibility of conscious experience by spreading it out through everything so that it's a building block instead of just mysteriously emerging. — Marchesk

What’s so ‘mysterious’ about emergent properties? This is where most of the panpsychism ideas look juvenile at worst and idiotic at best. Emergence is a CONSCIOUSLY observable (and scientifically measurable) property.

To repeat what I mentioned in the other thread. Heat is an emergent property, but a molecule has no ‘heat’. Such emergent properties cannot be physically measured at certain levels because they make no sense, yet somehow people believe this is a good argument for panpsychism. Why? I’d like to see an argument presenting how ‘heat’ is an innate property of all matter (including molecules). Of course the argument would require talk of a ‘different kind of “heat”’ in order to remain workable.

The main problem standing in the way of our understanding of consciousness is this silly clinging to some holistic ‘panpsychism’ idea that barely makes any sense, lacks rigour, and conveniently plays with words instead of engaging with critical thought and actual idea that possess a common and workable vocabulary.

Chalmers’ zombies aren’t much of an argument either as far as I can see. Meaning that because some artificial being could be created to act ‘as if conscious’ is equivalent to an actual conscious being. If such a ‘zombie’ was, in effect, said to be identical to a human (neurons and all) yet not consciously aware, then I believe this would be breaking the laws of nature - we cannot ‘logical imagine’ what we don’t understand with any degree of accuracy.

I’m more than ready to be combative against a lot of the ideas orbiting panpsychism as a reasonable premise - not ALL but most I tend to see far too often.

From the gist of the opening page I think I know what you’re thinking about.

Simply put it’s extremely nuanced. Generally speaking humans operate as individual beings and we navigate between what is familiar and what is novel. Being able to differentiate ourselves in a landscape (physical/social/mental) defines what an ‘individual’ is. The ‘state’ part of this is our communal inclinations - we’re not solitary animals (no animal is broadly speaking: meaning the world of every animal is dynamic and so they are never cut-off from it).

What is ‘best’ is a pointless question. The question is more about ‘what are we?’ And the answer to that is a continual process by which we engage in life (actively or passively until death).

The very fact that we split up these ideas as polar items adds further weight to what I‘ve just said. Others are quite right in saying that one doesn’t exist without the other. The way attitudes change does certainly change our parcelling up of these concepts and often enough leads to further separation for further investigation.

There is comfort and safety (possibly leading to stagnation), and hardship and risk (possibly leading to disorientation). Resting in either fully is fatal. Some people - due to personal circumstances - lean moe to one than the other; common factors include upbringing, age, sex, social statuses (within any given group), and health/fitness.

Another point worthy of consideration is the psychological role of the nation compared to that of religion. This is something that has been of significance for some time. What are your thoughts on those in line with the human ‘individual’?

So these are not transhistorical terms, and it is very much an anachronism to ask which came first. Someone posing a similar question in feudal society might have asked: who came first? Priests, farmers, or soldiers? — StreetlightX

Certainly not farmers. We know that much.

I think you were overly optimistic!

I don’t see it becoming accepted within the next century. Possibly ‘laws’ will be loosened to some degree. I can imagine, as there are now, more widespread instances of nudist beaches - meaning having festivals that were something like a ‘celebration’ of the human body (something akin to renewing the ancient Greek games).

There are so many interesting societal habits and rituals we could talk about here.

Write whatever suits your idea best (whatever your idea is). Once you’ve written some/most/all of it you can then ask yourself if it works and adjust as needed.

If ethics interests you write about ethics. If baking interests you write about baking. If they both interest you then you should consider writing about both.

There are billions of ideas out there and out of them millions of them are workable. Then, out of those millions there are hundreds of thousands who try to execute their ideas and only tens of thousands who finish the task. AND of those only a few thousand have any reasonable degree of success ... then keep in mind that absolutely NONE of those are satisfied with their end products.

Aim for perfection but don’t demand it. Write and write and write, learn to enjoy failing and the rest will sort itself out.

As it sounds like you’ve never taken on the task of writing a book before I think you’ll find it better to plan by writing one side of A4 listing what this ‘book’ is about (fill the page!). Then take each of the points from this page and repeat the process.

This will give you a better idea of what interests you, how to write about it, and give you some mini finished pieces (short essays/sketches). Most of it will be trash, but that’s just part of the process - the more you write the less trash there will be to cut out.

GL

That isn’t ‘depression’ it’s just dealing with the hardships of life. Certain environmental factors can trigger depression and some people are much more susceptible to depression than others - it’s a physiological disposition for some.

I guess you could argue that today allows the medically depressed more room to maneuver in than previously - where ‘the mad’ would be locked up alongside ‘criminals’.