I never said they were prescriptive. I noted that ‘good’ character has nothing to do with societal views of ‘good and evil’ as an ‘evil’ person true to themselves is still ‘good’ in terms of ‘character’.

Look at the exchange made over the hypothetical latino hater. He called that person racist when they didn’t distinguish between any biological race, then ‘back-peddled’ saying he didn’t know what he’d call that hypothetical person.

Clearly his instinctual language doesn’t align with what he believes:

— NOS4A2

There is also a group of people called ‘rapists’ and I hate them too.

Even so, you just admitted you’d call me racist even though I didn’t in any way make a distinction of ‘race’ so calling me ‘racist’ for hating latinos, when I stated I don’t believe there are human races, must - by your own definition - make you ‘racist’ for calling me ‘racist’ because you’re falsely accusing me of hating a group of people based on ‘race’ when I very clearly said I don’t believe in ‘race’.

Note: I’m just following your reasoning here. — I like sushi

That’s fair. I suppose you’d hate an ethnicity, not a race. I’m not sure of the correct term in that case.



He doesn’t have the vocabulary to replace the term ‘racism’ for people who hate certain ethnicities. This means he cannot call it out. It is worse if you cannot call this out because that means it cannot be discussed.

People would still kill each other if they didn’t have a language. The chances of negotiating peace increasing through language though. I don’t see how not using the term ‘murder’ or ‘war’ would eradicate war. I don’t believe the deaths of civilians in war zones has decreased due to calling it ‘collateral damage’.

Please start tagged the person you’re responding to.

What are you talking about?

”DON'T GIVE ME THAT, YOU SNOTTY-FACED HEAP OF PARROT DROPPINGS!”

“SHUT YOUR FESTERING GOB, YOU TIT! YOUR TYPE MAKES ME PUKE! YOU VACUOUS TOFFEE-NOSED MALODOROUS PERVERT!!!”

Maybe this hunter-gatherer knowledge was empirical in a sense, but I would doubt it was what we would call scientific. — Enrique

Roughly speaking it was. Animals were/are divided into categories in much the same way as other more ‘scientific’ cultures would have recorded in writing/illustrations. It’s clear enough from what Kelly reports that it was more than mere necessity that led to these investigations. They recorded knowledge out of pure curiosity about animal/insect anatomy because humans are curious creatures.

I wouldn’t say their level of knowledge and classification would differ a great deal from ancient Greece in the amount of accumulated information about categories of flora and fauna - there is, quite obviously, no ‘written’ hard evidence for this.

I tried to outline in my initial post that the ‘self’ (moral) is essentially acting ‘morally’ in opposition to what is called ‘ethical’ when the need surfaces - and it will. It is a matter of personal ‘character’ (acting as one believes one should act) as to whether or not the ‘moral’ attitude resists the ‘ethical’ attitude.

I think I am roughly in line with one of Nietzsche's points where ‘character’ isn’t necessarily ‘Good or Evil’, but ‘character’ can be ‘good or bad’: meaning someone with murderous intent acting out in a murderous manner is ‘good character’ as they are ‘true’ (they act as they think not in opposition to how they think due to what ‘others’ - the ‘ethical’ - deem as ‘Good or Evil’). If anyone thinks that’s wholly opposed to Nietzsche’s words I’m happy to claim it for my own and defend it. ;)

Me neither. The problem I find repeatedly is ‘pointing out’ something without literally having a concept to reference.

By that I am clawing at saying something like ‘categories’ are investigated. This comes in the sense I‘vepreviously mentioned regard ‘pieces’ and ‘moments’ - pieces can be removed from an item, but ‘moments. cannot be removed (as with the examples of a shape without form, a triangle that has no angles, or a sound that has no tone). Just checked the terminology, he actually says there are two ‘parts’, ‘moments’ and ‘pieces’ (I previously referred to these as ‘parts’ and ‘aspects’ instead of ‘pieces’ and ‘moments’).

There is also a distinction he uses called noesis and noema, the ‘light’ and the ‘lit’ is the best analogy I’ve seen used to convey the basic meaning here. There is certainly more than a hint at the distinction between ‘act’ and ‘object’ yet they are more like different sides of the same ‘object of intentionality’. I kind of step away when it comes to the strange idea of ‘poles’ he uses, but I do find it interesting even though I don’t grasp what he meant/means exactly.

Basically it interests me because before I came across this I lacked the terminology to express my own thoughts and since reading more I’ve found some useful ways of getting a step or two closer to articulating my thoughts - I’m probably not bright enough to make the kind of conceptual leap I’d like to though (maybe I’m just looking down the wrong street, but I don’t think so just yet).

There is, once extended, a while mirage of ideas that can lead nowhere, but often enough they offer (at least for me) a peek into the possible beginnings of a fresh perspective.

Great to see our ideas set out like that. I imagine there’s a library of footnotes in your head too!

I’ll be looking it over more closely when I get a chance. I think we can possibly assist each other with something that may be of common interest. :D

I cannot speak with any universal authority on the matter. I am trying to express my understanding from the perspective of Husserlian phenomenology (Transcendental Reduction).

There is a pretty strong inclination among most people concerned about items like consciousness in understanding and accepting the underpinning principle of ‘intentionality’ - that is why I am a little taken aback by the misrepresentation of the term that is so commonplace.

In simple terms (incase the term is unfamiliar) ‘intentionality’ is not about intent in the everyday sense of the word. It means that we are ‘conscious of an object’ not that there is an ‘object’. We experience, all experience, is ‘of something’ not of nothing.

In this sense the ‘category’ would be the ‘aboutness’ of experience. Meaning if I hear a sound I don’t hear a sound, which I realise sounds needlessly obtuse as the means of communicating this is by words so charity is necessary and it is a damn strong reason Husserl used ‘adumbrate’ to get this across. I hear ‘a sound of something’ not a disembodied sound floating in some ether. That hopefully expresses better what is meant by ‘intentionality’ if you weren’t quite familiar enough with the term already.

So, you tell me in this light what ‘category’ means for phenomenology? I don’t really know. In terms of the different threads of investigation (especially in terms of hermeneutics) the investigation necessarily narrows in whatever direction people take it - it’s seems fairly clear to me that post-modernism is a further extension if this too, but I wish to stay on track.

This may or may not be helpful. The idea of a doctrine is perhaps a little misapplied here. Generally speaking I’d have to say the interest is in the pursuit of ‘pure subjectivity’ much in the same light as the natural sciences are in pursuit of ‘pure objectivity’. That said I am not suggesting either believe there is such a ‘pure x’ in either case it is merely that Husserl saw the lack of grounding to logic that essentially underpins the natural sciences. It’s sometimes tricky to know what he means as he developed his ideas and amended them over his lifetime and he sometimes means ‘science’ as we think of it and sometimes ‘science’ in reference to pure maths and logic.

I guess you could say ‘word concepts’ are the necessary categories that we have to apply. Depending upon our ‘mode’ of thought each word concept contracts and expands, in one field of perspective it seems ‘universal’ and in another it may seem ‘chaotic’. The more applicable the terms across fields (albeit in differing guises) is something hermeneutic phenomenology prioritises - but I’m personally not convinced by that route although, as with every route, there is use.

Sorry if that is too longwinded and/or unhelpful/confusing. I doing my best :)

May I ask what it really means to ‘model experience’ - in terms of a subjective experience rather than some extended intersubjective experience. Also, what is there to gain by such ‘models of experience’? Of course I understand the use for broadening knowledge especially in the area of cognitive neurosciences.

As a means to cut to the quick of subjective experience what can ‘modeling’ do for us? Are we necessarily bound to ‘models’ based on accuracy of naturalistic experimentation? To be clear I am thinking more along the lines of pure mathematics and how that ‘science’ operates ‘beyond’ (fro want of a better term) natural sciences, yet also contributes a great deal of relation to the natural sciences and actually works in tandem with them to a large degree.

Many people have commented that ‘mathematics’ and ‘theoretical physics’ are pretty much feeding one another constantly to the point of being attributes of a singular pursuit. It seems to me that the key difference is one is directed more toward a predictive function whilst the other has no real direct concern for causality preferring to explore atemporal consequences, relations and patterning in a wholly abstract sense - a rather ostentive sense (pointing out obviousnesses within a set parameter of play). The point being here is that in an abstract sense the ‘accuracy’ is non-existent. The application to some given ‘existent’ - predictively - is necessarily always one set up in unknown bounds (the accuracy is always an estimate of the abstract certainty set up against the presupposed existing world of the natural sciences).

Note: I am not concluding anything here just digging into the depth of the problem for the grounding of natural sciences. I do have a vested interest here by what I’ve been trying to outline in regards to the direction of the ‘sciences’ (in the broadest sense) and our assumptions.

Yeah, stinks of The Republic.

Maybe 389-390? At a glance that at least mentions the masses.

Maybe it’s near the back in Democracy? 556 onward

What you seem to be doing quite consistently is plastering your impressions of people over their faces to the point that you can no longer see behind the mask you’ve made for them. Effectively you’ve ended up talking to nothing more than a mask of your own making.

Hence, people will just stop responding as I did.

It may be easier to stick to exchanging with one person only. Frank seem game enough so offer some charity. I’m not game btw. I don’t see what I have to gain that I don’t gain by observing you try and find a resolution to your current problem in communicating whatever it is you’re trying to communicate.

Good luck. Hope it works out.

And the phenomenological approach would be to investigate the subjective requirements we hold to in order to talk about this ‘thing’ called ‘size’.

This probably touches close to what Mww and Isaac hit on with prefer not to ask ‘what does it mean?’, and instead opting for ‘what is it like?’. So what is it like to experience ‘size’?

I have almost no idea what you were or are talking about. We don’t possess knowledge from an objective position - meaning like some omnipotent being - we possess knowledge as a subject of a world. The ‘world’ is the means of objectivity (aka intersubjectivity).

We’re talking right past each other here.

I was feeling around (guessing) what you were talking about with the while ice cream business. Clearly I got what you were trying to convey wrong if what I posted made no sense and/or seemed irrelevant.

It happens.

We appear to be talking past each other probably due to a difference in terminology/view of the question of knowing ‘the-thing-in-itself’. We cannot know the thing in itself. This is the idea of ‘pure objectivity’ - for me not refutable completely, but clearly unknowable. This harks back to the differentiation made by Kant in The Critique of Pure Reason. The ‘noumenon’ is only true for us in a ‘negative’ sense, as a limitation.

The objective stance I am guarded against is naive realism. There is no ‘knowing’ ice cream only subjective experience, an ‘object’ of experience. I don’t see how ‘knowing’ can possess unbounded universality. What is known truly is only known within set limits - been through exhaustively elsewhere I believe.

You don’t know by way of someone else’s knowing. You know only through you - which is subjectivity. The further issue is understanding that ‘objective knowing’ is ‘intersubjectivity’: the interplay of subjects not some item know as ‘the-thing-in-itself’.

Two subjects owning the same existence/reality are not ‘two’, that is maybe another point that causes confusion in this kind of topic?

It’s not unclear. What is the case is that people don’t use the term in that manner sadly.

I went into this kind of topic more vigorously on a predominately ‘scientific’ based forum and nearly every one of them attacked me and claimed there were no ‘races’. Scientifically of course there aren’t. The issue was that in sociology, and the humanities in general, ‘race’ is used quite openly to refer to cultural/ethnic differences (it’s even on most surveys).

What happened on that forum was kind of a reversal of this one. In both instances the importance of the topic was covered up or avoided.

The problem for the opening post is how you’re wedding your definition of ‘racism’ to the question of ‘colour-blindness’. If you think those against people being ‘colour-blind’ are against shifting the term ‘racism’ more toward ‘ethnicism’ (or something) then I think you’re partly right, but they are also partially justified in doing so because what is a crime against humanity needs a universally applicable term.

Distinctions can be used for protection and for persecution. The need for protection has certainly lessened, but we shouldn’t act too rashly and remain on guard regarding the power words have in the political sphere.

Phenomenology isn’t directly concerned with empirical sciences or the naturalistic attitude.

Experience is subjective. You ‘know’ subjectively yet you don’t know how you know. We can objectively measure physical phenomenon and find out a lot, but the scientific approach has no means of dealing with subjective phenomenon other than by way of resorting back to empirical means.

I already have explained in normal language. I have explained what ‘intentionality’ means by using ‘mode’. I was just saying that in the same manner we talk of a ‘distant’ past we don’t mean distant in the usual context.

People do use ‘mode’ to mean ... well, mode. It is the manner/regard/approach used. It does take a certain mental leap to appreciate what Husserl is talking about because there is no concern for a physical agent.

Although; I do believe a prison in Canada went the route of teaching philosophy to its inmates and that had amazing results! It amazes me that philosophy isn’t part of education curriculums much earlier in life. I don’t remember ever really having the option of studying it until high school. I wonder if the RPG video game strategy would be a good way to open discussions into ethics with children.. — Mark Dennis

It would make sense to question children moe about the meaning and use of words. I think you’d get much done for pre-teens as their language is still kind of limited so more complex ideas wouldn’t stick. They have tried many times to teach logic but it never worked for the same reason.

The best means would probably be by teaching foreign languages and getting the students to explain the meaning of words in their second language with a limited vocabulary.

It appears the thread has been derailed. Shame.

I thought you may have meant the ‘worldview’ in terms of adhering to and perpetuating the use of the term by accusation and practice.

Anyway, you agree that you wasn’t sure if you could call someone racist who hates latinos but doesn’t believe in differences of race in scientific terms. It is there that the clarity your and other people’s perspectives is confused.

In terms of ‘colour-blindness’ I’ve those opposing you guilty of the same kind of misconception and being adamant that their concept is irrefutable.

On the surface it appears everyone here actually agrees yet not everyone agrees with the use or application of the terminology in play.

I don’t think arguments put forward by HH hold up - regarding some kind of blanket ban of the term and/or phasing it out. I think it is a necessary thorn in the side of civil society to remind us of our imperfections and take note.

I’m still asking what you meant by the phrasing you used. What was you’re intended meaning by saying :

They are both racist because they both subscribe to the racist worldview. My contention is one cannot hate Asians unless he believes such a distinct group exists. — NOS4A2

My emphasis being in the bold.

I never called you racist. Neither do I hate latinos, I was just working with a hypothetical which seemed to reveal a telling disjoint in your use of terminology.

There was no lack of charity. Merely pointed out where the misinterpretation was and given that another member said the same thing you should reasonably assume that the grounds for the misinterpretation aren’t unfounded.

If you wish to explain whether you think calling someone racist is or isn’t racist in and of itself it may shed further light on the situation?

For the sake of honesty and clarity I am expecting a problem with how we are, and you are, to interpret ‘perpetuating worldview of racism’ within this framework. I think it is not as easy a task at it first seems. I’m pursuing clarity of language not a means to snare someone in some pointless one-up-manship.

If my aim isn’t clear already, it is to moderate between conflicting perspectives in the hope of broadening the discussion so reason wins through over personal motive.

I wasn’t insinuating that you’re racist. I was just following through your reasons and tried to wed them to the phrase ‘perpetuating racism’ in like of how you define the term in a manner that seems far too rigid from my perspective as it doesn’t hold up either in your own reply (as I highlighted) or in differing contexts.

Give me some respect here. I quoted the relevant posts so simply clarify the phrase rather than look to be offended by my genuine interpretation. For the record I haven’t seen anything in this thread to suggest you’re racist - far from it. I have seen a strange rigidity in how you articulate your thoughts in a manner that is frankly quite naive given the topic and medium you’re using. Just because it’s a philosophy forum it doesn’t mean people are going to be on their best behavior and/or use rational discourse. It’s rarely the case especially with a politicised topic.

Anyway, you get the idea I believe. Maybe you’re persisting not out of naivety, but out of hope. I’m willing to hold yo the later, but it doesn’t hurt to say how things appear at a glance.

Very broadly speaking if we look at history and sexual repression based on ‘right and wrong’ then it could be argued that repressed sexual expression can lead to violent acts of sex. Sex is a particularly unusual biological mechanism though and most human drives are tangled up (fear, pleasure, pain, lust, love, envy, etc.,.)

I’m not quite sure what to make of the scenario outlined. I think something extreme like a “Justice Zone” would turn out to hinder more than help in the long run, yet the idea of a “No Justice Zone” seems just as abhorrent in the long run. Generally speaking a little of each would suit certain people and it’s more a question of how to prescribe what degree of each zone each person would benefit most from. Personally I’d fear the person who set the standards more - covered in Red Dwarf too.

It’s basically a matter of freedom of choice within set limits. I don’t have a problem with someone wishing to abstain from human society in principle, but I can’t imagine it being anything but the very last resort short of execution.

You didn’t notice? Oh ...

You have previously stated that calling someone racist means you are racist because you’re perpetuating the term ‘racist’ by doing so. You then accused my rendition of someone who hates latinos as ‘racist’ even though I stated the prejudice wasn’t set within the parameters of distinctions of race between humans. You then admitted you falsely accused said rendition of being racist which mist necessarily follow that you were racist because you missed the initial position laid out and added the ‘race’ element in order to accuse that rendition of me as ‘racist’.

Here:

Yes, that is clear from what I wrote. What is not clear from what I wrote is your misrepresentation that using the term “race” is racist, which seemed to be pulled from thin air. — NOS4A2

Followed not long after by:

They are both racist because they both subscribe to the racist worldview. My contention is one cannot hate Asians unless he believes such a distinct group exists. — NOS4A2

Yet you accepted what I said here and questioned yourself:

Yes, people use the term race all the time.

“How about if I state that there is only one human race and then say I hate latinos? Can I be called ‘racist’ then? By your definition I’m not being ‘racist’ am I? If not then what would you call me? An ‘ethnicist’ maybe? The term doesn’t exist, instead we use ‘racist’, ‘bigoted’ and/or ‘prejudiced’.” - (my words)

I would call you racist because you assume a group of people called “latinos” exist and that you hate them. — NOS4A2

In the above you’ve called that person ‘racist’ even though it is crystal clear that person doesn’t believe in distinctions of human races. Thus you were perpetuating the worldview of ‘race’ so in your own words:

“racist because they both subscribe to the racist worldview.”

You clearly subscribed to the ‘racist worldview’ where, to repeat, the statement made expressed hatred based on a premise that didn’t hold to the view that different human races exist.

Of course, I’m merely trying to show how your views must necessarily shift with context. You didn’t hesitate to call out the above hatred as ‘racist’ yet it is not aligned to your own definition. So if you’re calling someone racist who isn’t racist (by your own definition) then surely you were perpetuating the racist worldview - albeit accidentally - thus making your accusation unfounded, false, dangerous and/or hypocritical. Personally I’d say your response was instinctually correct and proof that you may state one idea of how you wish to use a term yet when it comes to answering a question you still call someone ‘racist’ based on their dislike of culture.

Note: I’m not trying to trick you here just showing how your claimed use of the concept ‘race’ doesn’t actually hold up in colloquial speech - a good sign for me that you cannot actually hold fast to your own definition and no matter how hard you try commonsense wins through.

You accepted the disjoint well enough by calling said person ‘racist’ then realising that it didn’t fit into your coinage of ‘racist’ and being stumped as to what to call this hideous attitude based only on cultural prompts. Everyone else calls it ‘racism’ and you did too on instinct.

The big question now it whether or not you can accept the further nuance surrounding the term ‘colour-blind’ and, more so for some, whether they can accept your take on that term from your first post.

Is it not actually possible to put people in a state where they can not feel anything and yet are still conscious? In other words, what exactly is wrong with completely being unaware of your feelings/emotions and still be conscious of your thoughts only? — Zelebg

For me that is a contradiction of terms because ‘thought’ necessarily requires ‘feeling’/‘emotions’.

If someone said to me their robot is sentient, I don't see any other way to settle the matter but to question the subjectivness or qualia of robot's awareness/experience. And if they showed me what I showed you, I would have no argument and would have to agree with them. — Zelebg

I guess the issue here is more about what you take as a reasonable ruler with which to measure such things. Many items can appear alive and conscious which we know to be otherwise (a simple movie theatre shows this).

Think of this as something in line with comparing a painting of an apple with an apple. The appearance of ‘apple’ isn’t denied in either sense yet I’d only be inclined to eat one of them (unless I had a taste for canvas and dried paint).

This is an extremely multilayered question. In short I believe this is exactly the kind of thing Nietzsche was focused on.

From my personal perspective I’ve talked about this at length especially in regards to the term ‘ethical’. I prefer to delineate between ‘moral’ and ‘ethical’ where the ethical is more about communal interactions and acting upon what society at large deems ‘appropriate’. Again, in Nietzsche’s work On the Genaeology of Morals he goes quite in depth about this subject matter and brings into focus the question of how social status dictates our perspectives of ‘Good and Evil’ - if you’ve not read it I’d highly recommend it even though it’s quite bombastic, dense and often misleading due to the overt use of analogies and metaphors.

If you find his style too irksome then I’m not sure who else to suggest? Maybe someone else could offer an alternative?

Anyway, by my reckoning we’re living in an ‘ethically infused’ world today and that this is problematic. By this I mean the focus seems to be more about people saying and acting out of character in order to fall in line with what they believe to be the ‘correct’ and ‘ethical’ patterns they see espoused. By this I mean to distinguish the ‘ethical’ as something instilled to steer individual choices, yet today I think people are perhaps less ready to question the underlying ethical layout of society and follow it blindly rather than primarily use what I distinguish as ‘moral’ intention.

By this I mean to make clear I take those leaning toward the ‘ethical’ to be following norms and those taking account of the ethical yet acting primarily based ‘moral’ convictions to be leading the way.

I could off here and it may simply be the case that extended ‘moral’ convictions necessarily lead to a short term turbulence due to sections of society making ‘ethical’ shifts based on the heresay of prominent individual s with stronger moral convictions (be they for the ‘betterment’ of society at large or to the ‘detriment’).

Note: I’m not trying to mislead with the use of these terms, and I do believe such a distinction was more popular several decades ago. I’m more than willing to alter my terminology to suit I just haven’t come across a better way of stating this yet.

There are people who believe the Earth is flat and that the Earth is 6000 years old.

It is perfectly understandable in this regard that there are likely many more people out there who see the term ‘race’ and assume it has a literal scientific application to different human groups demographically distinguished by the same word.

I think there is a reasonable argument about the linguistic use of the term and I don’t find it a huge stretch that some people out there would react to the whole ‘colour-blindness’ issue outlined. Some people are extremely rigid and literally minded.

Understand that the OP has called himself a ‘racist’ by accident (as I have shown in the last few posts I made) and that should be enough to show the flaw in logic and the nuance of language beyond hard, cold logic by way of rigid adherence to a singular interpretation of a term without deeper thought put into how context can become blurred due to political motives, emotional stances, historical shifts and general fluid nature of all languages.

‘Race’, on surveys, is also used to protect minorities from racism as well. If you think it’s misused then you should effectively be agreeing with the OP. I think the advantages of keeping an eye out for racism far outweigh the possible calamity of turning a blind eye and hoping we’ll just stop being prejudice because we no longer use the term ‘prejudice’. Language is effectively an extension of human reasoning through which we can both question each other and ourselves about out attitudes and actions. Removing the concept of ‘rape’ from all languages would only remove the word concept from society not the act, thus removing a huge tool for recognising and tackling the said act of rape through reason and dialogue.

By all this I mean to point out that the opposite is just as dangerous. Extending a term into areas that take certain liberties, some more or less justified, will lead to further destabilisation of the term in question. Really the OP is looking at language and the fact that ‘race’ is the item under scrutiny is neither here nor there to me. The same has, and will no doubt continue to happen for terms like ‘rape’, ‘sexism’ and ‘violence’. This is not to say the particular case of ‘race’ isn’t more potent - I believe it is by historical accounts and fact that issues of race and racism are very much in the limelight around the globe. I certainly don’t think turning a blind eye to the term would do anything other than allow it to grow in the darkness.

The day we stop talking about ‘racism’ will be the day when some other (or the very same) ugly effect of human society will lurk out of the darkness and slaughter sections of humanity. Maybe it will take a whole new iteration and temporal distance to give the term ‘racism’ a more distinct coinage? At the moment I prefer to think we’ll not have to go through the whole travesty again and again in order to merely stumble on a better terminological framing that allows us to see through to the heart of human bias.

I’m happy to say, and proud to say, I have certain prejudices/bias when I meet people. I say this because I’m quite aware that I hold, as everyone does, some quite idiotic cultural priming dependent upon mere appearances and mannerisms. I can say I am proud of this because I’m glad I can attend to this in my daily life and recognise it as part of being human rather than pretend it doesn’t exist or feel deeply guilt ridden because of this. I don’t feel guilty about it because I’m aware of this initial idiotic ‘reading a book by its cover’ bias apparent in every human and have noticed that it disappears once I start to talk to the person with this or that accent, this scowl, this or that skin tone, wearing this or that attire and/or by facial expressions and general precision of speech. All that said I will no doubt err from time to time - I did so last actually, but I wasn’t ashamed I just took serious account of my thoughts and actions and made a mental note to check myself again if something similar occurs (which I guarantee it will).

To add, I think a thorough investigation into the deaf children of Nicaragua would help you define what you mean by ‘evolution of language’. It is literally the only instance we know of where a language was created from scratch. Some of the studies done there show quite clearly that in its early forms (first generation speakers) the adults were unable to hold two abstract concepts in focus at the same time! They were able to learn from others as the language developed. What my big question here is is whether the new generation of speakers developed the ability to combine abstract concepts independently or, and I believe this to likely be the case, they simply imported these concepts from existing deaf languages.

This presents us, if my belief in the development of these complex sentences was imported, with an unanswered question of how long it takes a newly born language to develop the ability to combine complex abstract concepts. If my initial belief is wrong then we will know that it merely takes a generation to develop such combinations - making this ‘ability’ essentially innate to all humans yet minutely dependent upon continuous and playful interaction between individuals. This would then bring me to ask how many people speaking a language is ‘optimal’ for developing these complex combinations.

Then there is the fascinating case of the Piraha language and its extremely fluid lexicon (if you can call it that!)

As far as I’m concerned you need to ‘feel’ to be conscious, and you need a body to ‘feel’. Ergo you cannot have a ‘computed consciousness’ and compare it to human consciousness.

Basically my view is pretty much that of Damasio’s when it comes to exploring what consciousness is and how best to equip our delineations between this or that phenomenon.

I wouldn’t call an orange the same as a human simply because they both have living cells. Nor would I say an orange is conscious, but that doesn’t mean I dismiss out of hand that an orange (or rather orange tree) doesn’t possess something that ‘experiences’ its environment - note I say ‘experiences’ not experiences; meaning that an orange tree clearly alters dependent upon environmental factors and does so by ‘experiencing’ the environment in some fashion. I say the later as a distinction between a rock and tree. A rock doesn’t ‘experience’ anything as it has no homeostatic act of balancing, no ‘life’.

As a rough model I’d be much more inclined to take on board theories in neurosciences about top down and bottom up models exploring consciousness. What you’ve outlined above is pretty much nothing at all tbh. You’d probably have greater success in theory crafting if you focused on one of those items in intricate detail - visual ‘input’ and the human brain is a fascinating place to begin with items like how we ‘see’ lines, 3D objects relating to neural networks, and how attention is focused and inhibited by something called ‘priming’.

Simply stating this is self-aware and conscious because that’s what I call it is certainly a problem, but it’s your problem not mine. Please don’t take my words too harshly here. No doubt you have good reason to put this out there beyond what you’ve outlined. At is all you’ve shown is a highly speculative and ambiguous set of words that claim to say something yet don’t have any evidence or reasoning conveyed to back them up.

Consciousness itself is a relatively ambiguous term so if you start extending it to items like oranges, rocks, trees or cats, then we’re going to start to disagree about the technical use of ‘consciousness’ very quickly.

In my view analogies help bring together sets of ideas. Here you don’t really have any ideas and have just used an analogy to make the loose idea appear more substantial - you’ve not succeeded with me.

I think this is clear enough to the OP now. I merely used his own reasoning for a specific example.

The conclusion is that we need a term to distinguish the kind of person I set out above who falls outside the definition the OP prefers. We have terms of endearment and terms of scorn. Not to mention the obviousness (at least to us) of the term being used to wheedle out such crimes in society rather than assume they’ve ceased to exist.

It’s a necessary yet unfortunate, term of accusation that has a place for singling out the kind of persons I portrayed above. You admitted you didn’t know what you’d call me, but by your own definitions singled yourself out as ‘racist’ by the accusation made - that is why your position, although seemingly reasonable, falls down very quickly in the real world because it doesn’t consider the actual nuance of day-to-day speech.

Chinese, but I sure as hell wouldn’t assume so if I saw him walking down a street anywhere in the world.

There is also a group of people called ‘rapists’ and I hate them too.

Even so, you just admitted you’d call me racist even though I didn’t in any way make a distinction of ‘race’ so calling me ‘racist’ for hating latinos, when I stated I don’t believe there are human races, must - by your own definition - make you ‘racist’ for calling me ‘racist’ because you’re falsely accusing me of hating a group of people based on ‘race’ when I very clearly said I don’t believe in ‘race’.

Note: I’m just following your reasoning here.

My point was they stored an encyclopedic knowledge equal to, well ... an encyclopedia. Kelly herself didn’t believe them until she tried it for herself.

It is fairly clear, and partly in line with your thinking, that as mnemonic techniques were replaced by more concrete means of passing on information, and or cultures/landscapes changed, that information became distorted and the emotional content carried on in the form of deities - a key function of all mnemonic techniques is the need for vibrant emotional imagery.

I’m not denying for a second that writing was a huge paradigm shift for humanity. I would argue against writing being the only means of accurately passing down information from one generation to the next. We’re far more orientated toward narrative functions within emotional laden themes than to abstract symbolism.

But you DO understand that people use the term ‘race’ outside of scientific circles. You don’t have to like it, but they still do. You can even fill in any form on a standard national survey and it will say ‘race’.

Note: I always write ‘human’, leave or blank or tick ‘rather not say’.

How about if I state that there is only one human race and then say I hate latinos? Can I be called ‘racist’ then? By your definition I’m not being ‘racist’ am I? If not then what would you call me? An ‘ethnicist’ maybe? The term doesn’t exist, instead we use ‘racist’, ‘bigoted’ and/or ‘prejudiced’.

I think the point is is that there is a cultural difference that is often strongly associated with physical appearances (not very surprising considering we’re fairly visually orientated creatures).

I’d say both. It’s not really the case that the scientific history of the term ‘race’ hasn’t played a significant part in the development of racism.

All you have to do now is agree to understand those partially opposed perspectives on those two points then maybe address the point of the thread.

To clarify. Asians, determined by genetics or cultural points, are still a relatively distinct group demarcated by geopolitics. With asia there is a great variety of cultures as there are within any other geographic area.



Either way people do actually act differently (generally speaking) based on where they are from. Calling someone ‘racist’ for stating different human behaviors exist would be too much of a stretch for me. I do see the point your pushing though, just rather flat and trivial.