Before I go on, I want to go back and clarify what I've been trying to argue in response to your statement

I am wondering about the way in which human identity is established, with potential soliptist or narcissistic aspects. How much are we influenced by others' minds and intersubjective meaning.

Even when alone, to what extent does the sense of identity exist independently of others? — Jack Cummins

When I say 'identity', I mean to say the mind-self identity. So, I'll just use the mind from here on so as to avoid confusion and stay consistent with what I've said previously already.

As far as reactionary and the emotions, it may be about at what point does reflective consciousness come into the picture? — Jack Cummins

As I said earlier, the mind continues on as it deliberates on anything. The mind takes responsibility for the errors, the confusion, and truth of its perception about the world (which includes the social interactions). We'll get to this later.

As far as I see it, the critical factor may be language in how human beings construct social meanings and personal identity. — Jack Cummins

Language is just one of the many methods the mind asserts its responsibility. When we write or speak, this is just the overspill of what the mind already has formulated. You are seeing it backwards.

And yes, thanks to Hume, Wittgenstein, Whitehead, and our parents, among the many influencers in our existence, we are accustomed to thinking that singular objects must come first before we could form some universal concepts of the world. How about this -- our mind wants to confirm that what we think about concepts is consistent with the reality our mind sees; so we go around checking the chair in the room. If it isn't consistent, the mind admits error or confusion. This is how our self asserts its autonomy. Think of the times you blame your limitation, lack of education, or ignorance when physical reality does not match the mind's conjecture? This is your identity asserting its accountability.

As far as sexual identity, it may be not be about sexuality in relation to who one has sex with, but about the basic emotional aspects of sexual identity and gender identity. In this respect, beyond sexual relationships of who people sleep with there is the way people see their own and others' bodies. — Jack Cummins

I think it would help this discussion if we, first, accept the fact the emotions are reactionary, not deliberatively. While reactionary reflex is after-the-fact, deliberative reflex is one that classical philosophy has almost always attributed to human cognition.

So, let's reduce our thought process some more by treating emotions and sexual identity, similar to hunger, comfort, and security as something transient, in flux, or the changing variable. Then, we can start seeing what identity is.

If you're still stuck with the usual suspects called sociology and behavioral psychology theories, then we can't talk philosophically here.

As we are talking about "aloneness and significance of other minds" here, I'm going out on a limb and say this:

including the nature of sexual identity. — Jack Cummins

It may be a complex process. — Jack Cummins

emotional memories. — Jack Cummins

Human development is not as complex as it is "exclusive and privileged". Let's go ahead and criticize for example the believers in AI will be "humans" someday. They are talking in terms of complexity and the amount of data of what goes into AI manufacturing. Is it really what makes something human?

No! We'd like to think so. Because AI is created by humans after all -- humans who went through the womb and fetal development. But AI can't inherit the creators' identity. Because AI can't have that "beginning" as support. AI can't build upon the sense of perception. Everything is fed into the AI by humans as complete algorithm.

Next, sexual identity -- really? In fact, the acuteness of perception has nothing to do with sexual identity. Hunger, sexual needs, comfort could be satisfied and be silenced for the meantime. But not identity -- identity goes on. This is what I'm talking about going back to perception -- the basics. How acute could you observe. Heck, I am heterosexual to the bone and my identity has not been affected by those things.

Even when alone, to what extent does the sense of identity exist independently of others? — Jack Cummins

Identity is pretty much tied to the development of an individual's cognition (perception and senses) beginning in the womb. Some humans would develop acute senses of concepts and their connections, some would develop high degree of accuracy in vision, hearing, and smell.

As we develop (as in growth), our sense of perception would greatly influence how much or how little we take in from our environment. The behavioral psychologist's theory on external influences -- good or bad -- have a root cause in the baby's development. So, strong conceptual intelligence would have strong influence on decisions. However, it is also true that an individual growing up surrounded closely by intelligent people would also have increased intelligence, and individuals with nothing but an acute sense of their surrounding could overcome the lack of intelligent support.

My point is, when you start with a good development of your perception, you have in you a strong support already, able to overcome the deficiency in social support (bad parents, bad friends). You could even continue in life, though maybe modestly, a very healthy lifestyle, continuing on to old age still sharp, strong, and healthy.

What I just said comes from study in psychology and from reading voraciously what makes people what they are. I observe people I interact with from different economic background and my conjecture almost always match what I observe.

Note: when I said beginning in the womb, obviously we cannot observe yet outwardly how an individual is until they show interaction and decision-making.

But I don’t regard what it turned out as particularly brilliant, merely competent. — Wayfarer

Competence is a measure over a range of tasks and over time. You've tested the AI within a very limited topic and tasks. We can't start assessing its competence yet.

It doesn't feel right to inflict that on someone, to drag them down to your level of anguish, but it also doesn't feel right ignoring your own needs, invalidating your own feelings as secondary to theirs. — Benj96

Right subject matter, wrong analysis. When you make known that you're hurt by their actions, you're not bringing them down to whatever sewage you find yourself in. Someone has to call them out for their bad behavior. It's how you do it, not if you do it, that matters. Do it with class and finesse so you don't feel like your hurting them. Say it directly if you're gonna do it to them what they did to you.

This is depressing.

After reading hundreds of posts on this site, I now vote that humans remain the dominant entity in charge of philosophy.

“Measurable harms”? Like what? — NOS4A2

Copyright, patents, identity protection. Violations of any of these result in financial loss, security of personal information, and violation of personal rights.

Okay, I'm no longer a Descarte follower, if that's the case. I can't take the philosophy of someone who couldn't feel cruelty or compassion.

I know they say absolute power corrupts absolutely, but isn't insecurity the reason for that? — TiredThinker

No. It's opportunity. Even the most insecure leader would not turn to corruption if there's some measure placed against it.

Get this. White collar crimes are often not about money -- these criminals aren't destitute for money or in dire need. It's because opportunity presents itself.

In the abstract, it seems to me that a "good action" prevents or reduces net harm and reinforces itself as a habit in the actor as well as providing an example to others of "doing good". — 180 Proof

Lets say there was a hod that created us all and only created us to causes us to suffer and die? If this god defines what good and best is than clearly our definition would conflict with that god's ends. — TiredThinker

@TiredThinker, if this god defines everything as suffering and death, then our conception of the "good" would be different. 180 Proof alluded to the "actor" which, to us, means a moral actor equipped with the capacity to tell the difference between the good and the bad, despite the belief in god. This is the "humans" that we are right now.

This goes to my point that censors will use the promise of future damage to justify present censorship. — NOS4A2

One could never know the beauty or ugliness of what once stood there, could have stood there, or what might occur should we chance to look on it again. — NOS4A2

And you're not using the promise of beauty had censors stopped what they're doing? Look at the above statements coming from you -- you against the censors or those who would want to limit free speech.

Let's be honest and say, the view of absolute free speech (which includes publication) is not sustainable because there are measurable harms that we could use in the study of what-if anyone can publish any information they want to publish without consent from anyone.

But if you're only talking about literature and art, then say so. Do not use "free speech absolutism" because that's gonna be challenged to the fullest.

But how can we know if goodness is a real thing? — TiredThinker

The demon represents the bad, so of course it's going to exploit the weakness in humans. We know goodness is a real thing if we could tell the difference in our actions that one choice causes harm and another causes good. It means, we know there's a difference in those actions, unlike the demon who could only see the bad in people -- everybody is corruptible.

But then again maybe there is some sort of biological mechanism in some people that allows speech to push them around in some way, like sorcery. Who knows? — NOS4A2

Criminals rely on information, printed or spoken. There are information you don't want publicized. Identity protection is a form of censorship on what information can be published without consent of the individuals.

But at no point in American history have these rights not been violated. There are laws against slander, perjury, fraud, and so on. — NOS4A2

Thank god! Can you imagine if you're a parent in the middle of a nasty divorce and lies are posted against you in order to damage your reputation? That would be horrible!

The point I am making is that I can imagine a culture that disagrees and chooses differently. — Tom Storm

That they chose differently is not an indication that their moral choice is reasonable or ethical . Remember, we win by rationality, not necessarily by changing the actual behavior of a society. In other words, we can't force them to be wise in mind and in action.

There are small examples all over the world, in history and now, from child soldiers to child labor. We can argue against such things and hope to end them, but what we are doing is advocating for our values as superior, based on a set of principles or rules. I believe I can defend my values against others, but I would, wouldn't I? Wouldn't you? — Tom Storm

God no! This is atrocious, Tom. Sorry, but putting it the way you wrote it sets us back 200 years. There is nothing in moral discourse that draws the boundary on where we can and cannot judge moral actions. Just because a society in this or that peninsula practices and legalizes human sacrifice does not mean we can't judge such behavior in our own turf. Yes, we might not be able to stop that society from committing human sacrifice except through invasion/war, but it doesn't mean our own discourse must preclude it from our judgment.

I don't think we all realize the fundamental assumptions guiding our moral beliefs:

1. we are humans.
2. as such, we have emotions, beliefs, desires, fears, etc.
3. from this, we know we have a common ground upon which a moral discourse can succeed.

That a society is stupid, ignorant, low IQ, backward mentally, uneducated, brainwashed, and just plain sociopath is not an excuse to promote relativism as an acceptable moral principle. Relativism is a dangerous moral view.

In my OP I do at least recognize that some moral axioms could be true, and that some (many?) attempts to refute them don't make sense. — ToothyMaw

Yes, you did. And I don't disagree with you.

I'm not saying true and not-true can logically exist, but rather that an injunction against something like murder could be true and represent a statement claiming something is immoral. — ToothyMaw

This is where one might be mistaking an axiom with reasonableness. An injunction against murder is reasonable and ethical, though we might find that there is not an axiom that specifically calls out that murder is false.

Think: "murder is wrong". — ToothyMaw

This is not an axiom. This is an example of harm principle. Oh yeah, Mill's harm principle is not an axiom -- it is a moral assumption with strong, reasonable backing such as the golden rule.

But that doesn't give us logically true moral claims that express whether or not something is objectively right or wrong. — ToothyMaw

Again, I said there have been moral axioms written that if denied the truth, we would implode internally. True and not-true cannot logically exist.

I guess some people oppose anti-natalism because the followers of anti-natalism explain their reason as if it's universal or true of all people. The choice to not reproduce is still only accepted so long as the reason is personal, rather than universal moral claim. Some people shouldn't have children simply because they're too young, too poor, or too irresponsible, or addicted to drugs and alcohol.

Therefore, if we cannot produce correct axioms, then we must have no objectively correct moral claims.

However, there is something implicit in this assertion; there could be multiple reasons we cannot produce correct moral axioms: — ToothyMaw

You are conflating specific moral beliefs with logical truth of a claim. Take for example Mill's explanation of offense-- freedom from assault, the right to ban intoxication in public, the right to ban smoking inside buildings, etc. -- the Harm Principle.

When philosophers say that animal abuse is unethical, they are not necessarily invoking some axioms that have already been proven to be logically true. But they make sense in saying, and rightly so, that animals feel pain, loneliness, hunger, and fear and animals desire social interaction and protection by using various evidence from science, the anatomy, and the relationship they observe between animals and between people and animals. The distress felt by people when witnessing the abuse is real, and pain is real, and so are hunger, loneliness, fear. The philosophers, and their adherents, are using reasoning or a reasonable explanation of why something is harmful or offensive.

Now of course, the philosophers are also aware of the universal implication of individual experiences -- so they come up with universal claims such as the golden rule, veil of ignorance, the harm principle, categorical imperative, etc.

If you take that all together, a moral axiom can be formulated, and they have already been formulated, so that we couldn't deny its truth without also imploding internally due to the difficulty of reconciling what our mind tells us and what we write for the sake of discussion, like this.

When everyday people were surveyed - and I believe these results have been replicated - people who are given the ‘Harm’ scenario say the CEO were, and by a large majority, more likely to think to bring about the side effect intentionally. On the flip side, people given the ‘Help’ scenario were very likely to think the CEO brought about that scenario unintentionally.

There is currently no general consensus as for why this is, but the tendency is to frame it as a difference between morality of the two scenarios. What do you think? — invizzy

I couldn't think of any other reason for this syndrome than the idea that those surveyed, or I guess those that represent us all, thought that "making profit" just don't mesh with the environment -- the default thinking is that people are immoral.

If people's self-interest harms the environment, it's because people are by default immoral. If people's self-interest helps the environment, it's only by accident that the environment benefits, because people are by default immoral.

Is there any justification for censorship of any kind? — Vera Mont

Yes, the family unit has the right to ban some reading materials from their household. If you or an organization starts censoring the family unit of that banning, then where does that leave all of us?

What has philosophy answered for use [sic] in the previous 100 years? — TiredThinker

For the last 100 years, it's the role of the individual in society.

All the important metaphysical questions have already been written and defended vigorously prior to this period. Most especially the ultimate reality and the self.

However, it's possible to have rapid outbreaks of false information on this network that can't self correct in real time. For a person experiencing this rapid onset, there would be a sense that his biology is acting normally but at extreme activity levels (in an attempt to self correct) but information seems to be scrambled and erratic, unpredictable compared to normal. And when he arrives for professional psychiatric treatment he will be told his biology is failing and requires medication. — Mark Nyquist

While I appreciate this very noble theorizing or speculating, this is highly intractable to even be called a theory. Do we know how information get scrambled in one's mind? I mean, we have distortion of information based on the five senses -- senses are fallible. We can be deceived. At the same time, we sometimes think erroneously because we tend to jump to conclusions with not enough information. But all these have external causes.

To get a mental image of this, imagine a virus on a computer network. Agent Based Models are a way to computer model this and simple models can show progression of a virus moving from node to node on networks with some nodes affected and other nodes unaffected. In biological brains the biology can be functioning normally but the corrupted networks of mental content are the cause of the abnormal condition. — Mark Nyquist

No, I disagree with this analogy. Virus are tractable, they are predictable, otherwise we stand no chance in stopping them. I don't care if this is an organism or a computer virus.

This is pretty much where I was heading. Do you think that is just a congenital or organic deficiency? Or did they lose or renounce the ability to be rational? — Pantagruel

On the question of whether sociopaths are born, not made, I believe if we looked at the historical evidence, most, if not all, of them showed signs that it's always been in them, which means they were born with that trait. Ted Bundy, as an example, at one point tried to convince the public that he wasn't, that he got to be that way because of his own doing -- obsession with sexual violence on film. He claimed he grew up in a normal family environment. etc. This is all bullshit. (though it was true that he didn't suffer from abuse, or that he grew up in a normal family) If you looked at the footages of his capture, when he was being moved from one location to another, or just walking to the courtroom escorted by the police, you'd see how he didn't have command of his mind. Somehow, this man, during his interview, wanted so much to show a side of him that's sophisticated and educated. A far cry from the irrationality of how he victimized those women.

If B could only occur after A's occurrence, yes. Otherwise, A and B could be concurrent.

If thinking is strategic, is it therefore also rational? Is it possible to be a criminal, and also rational, in the strictest sense of the word? What about reasonable? — Pantagruel

I was thinking of a criminal. Who can have high situational-awareness and make complex plans. But is that sufficient to rationality? — Pantagruel

I'm late in the game, and lots of rational thinking on this thread.

But my response to the above is:
Yes, one can be strategic (based on how you define it) but not rational. Sociopaths can be highly strategic and able to make complex plans, but they are not rational. Their thinking patterns are done in a vacuum, without regard to the people around them, their own situation or location, or their environment. Not sure if you've heard or read about a brief comic illustration of the mind of a sociopath. Here's a version of that example:

A man attended his uncle's funeral and saw a beautiful woman among the mourners. Knowing nothing else of the woman, but wanting to see her again, he killed his aunt.

With the ease at how we can now buy goods online, there's exponential increase in packaging (layers of materials and big boxes disproportionate in size to the goods we buy), production of goods (mostly non-essentials), trucks delivery (fuel, exhaust, traffic, and of course vehicle maintenance), warehouses to house these good, and of course, landfill wastes.

This is a scary thread. :shade:

Oil painting — praxis

I admired your paintings. Also the kale.

*not sure why I missed this thread?*

In my circles, RPG is rocket propelled grenade. — James Riley

:grin:

First, what's a job marketplace but people selling their time and strength and skill to other people? How does one assess its state of health?

And then: What else happens when automation eliminates jobs? More goods are produced, faster. More resources are used up faster. more waste is produced and released into the air, water and land faster. It literally eats the planet. Meanwhile, the people who have no jobs have no income. So who's buying all that product? Does it go straight from the factory into the landfill, like the packaging it comes in? People have to clean up the waste. — Vera Mont

A while back, if someone asked me the same question in the OP, I would have said that automation will carry us all to the sunrise and a happy ending.

Man was I wrong in that thought!

You nailed it when you said that a marketplace is full of people selling their skills and strength. The Earth should be taken care of by people who see a future and hope in their own abilities to affect their surrounding. You take those out of people and you get instead a shell of cogs walking around and thinking nothing but paycheck or the next gig or the next short term assignments. We would be full of people who now must constantly metamorphose according to the latest technology, no matter how useless this new technology is, how cost-prohibitive, and how short-lived its appearance into the limelight because there's always the next best thing to come out of the showroom.

We would be a bunch of followers of the "cool", with the name of the billionaire attached to its logo, and no longer able to understand what it means to be connected to the earth.

Man, as a person just getting into philosophy, this worries me. If I do my best in constructing an argument that happens to be sorta shitty due to my lack of experience, should I expect to be reamed like this? Is this kind of conduct expected around here? — Matt E

:sweat:

Welcome to the forum, Matt.

What then are we to make of eating meat? How could we compromise and settle everyone's concerns surrounding the ethics of meat? — Benj96

The way to settle it is to farm people for food also. Then let's talk ethics. People complain about overpopulation, then why not gather a group of people and hunt them for sports? Yes, this sounds crazy -- but is it really?
Early humans didn't eat meat. They were insectivores, or practiced entomophagy, besides being herbivores.

Why is it hard for humans to reconcile ethics and eating meat? Because we have the capacity to know the ethics behind it. Our desire for taste of meat overwhelms our desire to recognize the life you snuff out of that living being. Hunting animals stirs excitement in people. This could be an outlet for serial killing, but not using people. The adrenaline is the same. The highs are the same. Now of course, the added advantage is that hunters can pose with the carcass and post the picture in social media for others to admire. They get a lot of views. Short penises get a boost by the number of clicks.

Let's cut the bullshit and call it for what it is.

Is this irrational of me? Or is this a rational confrontation of what is? Is the collective turning our heads away the true irrationality, the enabler of this crisis? — hypericin

I would say abnormal. You're not supposed to feel that way when it comes to thinking about what lies ahead, even though you could be pretty much correct. The reason is because we have an internal mechanism -- stages, if you will -- which protects us from existential anxiety. Apparently, it's in the brain, this protector.

Thomas Mann tried to explain that the main difference between humans and other species is realization of change due to the pass of time. — javi2541997

At the risk of eschewing other things involved in this consideration, I'd say that in some ways, animals do have a sense of time passage. Just observe the animals in the wild. The pups would wait for the mother to come back, but once it's taken too long and no mom in sight, they would wander off, against the instruction. Same with the mother -- looking for a lost pup and when to give up relies on time. It isn't that the mother didn't find the pup, it is that time tells the mother to give up.

But yes, I see his point. Animals do not think of aging and when end is near. Or do they? There was a video of a mother cat who was seriously bitten by a dog. Sensing the end is near, the cat prepared the hiding spot for the kittens, and collected them in that hiding spot. Then she waited nearby to die.

Without transitoriness, without beginning or end, birth or death, there is no time, either. Timelessness — in the sense of time never ending, never beginning — is a stagnant nothing. It is absolutely uninteresting. — javi2541997

So says the man who came from being born into this world and has only limited time. If humans are immortal, which is what it's about, we wouldn't know what "beginning" is. We're just are here. Thoughts of such nature wouldn't register in our immortal minds. He can speak of "transitoriness" because that is his nature, our nature. But that's all he can speak of.

Why? Larry seems like a good one to pick, no? Assholes that make great X output still make great X output.. Isn't X output that is useful to society important? — schopenhauer1

lol.

That's really simplistic, and I'm not asking you to bring in those theories, but that's just an example of how to build an argument around one or the other. — schopenhauer1

I will not pick any of them.

That's because you think you can control Larry or expect anything he can throw at you. I'm sure Larry would choose you too. — Outlander

What's your point?

I think the question should be rephrased:

If we're in apocalypse, which would you choose to be with -- Larry or Bob? I think the answer is obvious.