There’s no more reason to assume that it already existed in people than that it is learned through mimicking and group association. — Possibility

Don’t you think that something has to exist and to exist must have had some meaning to exist before it was mimicked or learned? How could you mimic something in a vacuum?

I have another question, which probably should be addressed to . When talking about the the apparent contradiction in women who dress to attract attention (if that really is what they’re doing) but object to being treated as objects are we talking about these two ideas existing in the one woman, or are we talking about two types that in no way relate to each other.

Secondly, objectification is, I’m assuming, part of feminist theory. What exactly is the feelings that come about through “objectification”? Is it feeling “uncomfortable” or anxious or what? What exactly is it? Is it something that only women can feel and then only some women? Is it possible that the feeling is no different than the feeling I had crossing the road in front of the cars that caused my sense of self, the role I assumed, to stumble.

I also don’t think bringing strippers into the argument helps anyone. As soon as a transaction takes place, in this case money, all bets are off. Nor do I think it’s only “scantily clad” women that are stared at. Nor do I think the men who lean out car windows yelling at girls are the same as men who might idly look at a passing women, That might just be a difference of maturity or upbringing. It’s not so simple is it? Not that I’m suggesting you were saying so.

I agree that most constitute an unspoken cultural reality that has been learned through mimicking and group association, and that much of the reason why men stare at women has very little to do with (ie. consideration for) the women themselves. — Possibility

I just reread this and realised that you are agreeing with something I didn’t say.

When you say “learned through mimicking and group association” it suggests something people were introduced to or taught. But in fact I mean it already existed in people, that it’s something we have done over time. It might be that it’s a male thing and that there were very good reasons for it, I don’t know.

Secondly you inserted (consideration for) in the sentence about the reason men stare at women. That changes my meaning. It’s not that the staring has very little to do with consideration for women, and therefore objectifying them, because that suggests they are purposely doing it to indicate a lack of consideration for women when in fact it means the stare has very little to do with women. The women are caught up in something that exists apart from them.

Women Obtain power through their sexual appeal. — Becky

That may not be true. I guess we need to know what is meant by power.

The process of developing a male identity seems to assume that he is an exclusive entity: — Possibility

I suppose what I’m driving at is that this applies to both male and female.

I feel that the idea of objectifying is a bit too simplistic. The idea of the stare being a challenge, that it challenges the confidence you have in the role you play, or who and what you believe you are, (like the anxiety in front of the cameras), draws attention to your own authenticity. It takes great confidence, or presence of mind, to maintain the role under pressure.

It seems a bit too easy to shrug this off as being objectified. Isn’t it avoidance of some truth thrown at you? Dressing up, playing the part, the role you chose, and then the challenge who’s intention is not to question it but ends up doing just that: the self doubt, the wobbling of the ego, all induced by your own fragile sense of self. It’s so much easier to project the cause for doubt on others.

I’m thinking that the males stares at males and females. The staring is used in many different ways, but what lies behind it is not always clear. I’ve had instances on the street when there’s been potential trouble and one of the protagonists will turn to me and demand, “What are you starring at!” Once again it’s like a challenge from me, even though it was not my intention,

The staring is a role males are involved with and women are among those, but not the only ones, he stares at.

Edit: by the time he’s a mature male he no longer knows why he stares at women.

It's ironic that we analyze this as if it is natural rather than roles and signals. — schopenhauer1

When would roles and signals not be natural? Unless culture has warped them so much that their origins are no longer clear, or that culture has created alternative meanings as a way to explain current norms, or to fit ideological hopes. Like if men stopped staring at women relationships between the two would be improved, when in fact it has very little to do with women.

This does suggest that women might be the unintended victims of role playing, that it’s not about them personally, or even as females.

If you’ve ever been up close to two men just before they fight, the staring is incredibly fierce and concentrated.

This habit of possessing through staring is itself a role, — schopenhauer1

I might just walk back a bit on the primitive way of possessing.

It’s possible that being stared at challenges my subjective confidence in what and who I am. It’s a challenge of sorts. In adolescent, that period of confusion and insecurity, staring reverses that, don’t you think, it challenges the world to dare challenge me. Most staring seems to be done by men, and in the beginning it’s done at girls, not so often older women. It’s an easy way to build up a fragile ego or sense of self.

An interesting point about staring or the gaze is having your photo taken. Most people feel some anxiety. Some manage a practised pose but others go to pieces. It’s like a challenge to the idea of yourself, or as you suggest, the role you imagine you successfully present to the world.

The point is the mystery of its real origins. — schopenhauer1

It’s possible that starring is primitive way of possessing.

I have to say that there have been moments when crossing a busy street at a crossing and there are three lanes of traffic waiting, halfway across the street I almost forget how to walk naturally, thinking all eyes of the drivers waiting are on me. Because I’m concentrating so much on “walking naturally” I don’t look up to see if they are actually watching me. It’s the idea of the staring that does it to me. So there is something perceived as very powerful in the stare, even imagined, of others that affects us.

The male who takes an extra few seconds to stare at a scantily clad woman walking down the street is playing the role of a male who is supposed to take an extra few seconds to stare at a scantily clad woman down the street.. The origin has been lost in time.. both in broader culture and that person's actual biographic life as to when they picked up on this cue.. Pop-culture says that staring came during puberty.. — schopenhauer1

It probably does develop during puberty. And puberty is a confusing period. Many men still stare without, I suspect, any understanding of why they do it. Initially it may have helped in bonding with other male friends. I suspect that not many men stare when they’re alone like they do when they’re with other males.

Do you think it’s true, as I have read over the last decade, that there are more women than ever, which doesn’t mean it’s a lot, of different racial groups who strive to look like western women, to the point of having surgery done on their face and removing certain features? This would seem to indicate an ideal look. If true then what was once cultural is now subverted by a homogenous look perpetuated by the apparent success and happiness of western women. Just what is the “ look” of western women suggesting.

Doesn’t this beg the question, what is poetry for? Someone said that poetry today is only read by other poets. I don’t know if that’s true or not. But the work of AI is not that of a poet, only because a poet is human. You might say they are almost one and the same thing. The AI produces work for reading that imitates the poet. Which makes it entertainment. There’s nothing wrong with that, to look at work which juxtaposes words and ideas that stimulates us. But in the end, if this is where it’s going, then all artwork can go the same way. Maybe it’s important that it’s only poets who read poetry so that it won’t die to be replaced by smoke and mirrors.

What’s the point of AI producing poetry, no matter how good it might appear to be? Is the success of AI going to be that it’s capable of imitating human capabilities? In that case why have them? The only point I can see in it then is it’s cheaper and easier than, as you said to “ deal with any of the yucky human stuff“.

For those who are “wiser” why not just try a more considerate approach. It’s easy enough to take into account the number of posts people have made. And often people will make it clear that it’s their first OP. If one is so experienced in philosophy, if they live by their philosophy as so many suggest, then why not give the next person a hand up. What sort of philosophy is it that likes a boot in the face?

I don’t know what this forum says about “philosophers”. Too many posters here behave like thugs. As I’ve suggested before, more humility and curiosity is needed. But that seems to be regarded as a weakness here; never, ever, give in.

This is a vicious place, you’re the only one here to have shown that you use your mind.

Just enjoy the poem for it value as, "Thank god it is you not me." — Frank Apisa

just wondered if it inspired any philosophical observations from the forum members. — Frank Apisa

Well I was responding to this, but no matter.

and expresses some things I think need to be expressed. — Frank Apisa

What are those things?

The poem seems to be referring to an experience of youth and if not youth then inexperience.

I guess in referring to your age you mean that you have no problem in opening up, that it’s something you’ve learned to understand or that experience has taught you.

But isn’t it always a new experience when you meet someone new? It’s just that so many of those moments happen when you’re younger, you’re compelled to meet people and become part of the world. Later in life that happens less often; because we don’t need people so much, because it gets too hard or because we have too many wounds?

I just happened to see this.

That aspect of getting to know someone on that level, which is generally regarded as some sort of fear of girls, seems to me to be about learning about, or experiencing, the anxiety of opening yourself up in ways you don’t generally do. It’s a very difficult game of treading carefully. Open up too much and you scare them, open up when they’re not ready or interested and you drown in your own clumsiness. But if you don’t try it nothing happens. How many give up too early or find it too frightening to confront themselves on that level or feel so hurt by the response they receive that they never repeat it or worse contrive and lie and deceive to get what they want. Friendship is relatively uncomplicated, generally it doesn’t expect that opening up at these deeper relationships. Opening up at the level this poem is talking about requires a real leap that offers rewards inconceivable until you do it. From a philosophical point of view it’s like believing in God; he won’t show himself until you make the first step of accepting him.

Edit: if you can’t love how can you be loved?

Race is now a term properly thrown the trash-bin of historical embarrassments, properly understood today as a one-word lie. Racist, on the other hand, is a term both current and meaningful: meaning the he (or she) as the one who propagates the lie. — tim wood

I’m writing this as I think, so bear with me.

I can see where I’ve gone away from even my own train of thought in previous posts.

There are no races, there is only the idea that there are groups of people different than us. Therefore there is no race only racism. The only difference lies in cultures, but cultures are constructs. So there is no real difference between people. Even if you looked at this through language and the way people use language differently it still doesn’t indicate that people actually think differently from one another. How could that possibly be true? Attitudes of cruelty or perceptions of others, or art, literature or politics is still cultural not a difference in reasoning.

So at our centre we are all the same. But cultural differences will never go away. In all civilisations the culture mutates and creates new perceptions, which alters laws and moral behaviour. The idea of culture still overrides everything.

So instead of race we would have to accept that tensions are cultural. That’s not so unusual. Could we possibly live without culture? Isn’t that what Pol Pot tried to do? Who wants to live in a world like that? We are obviously cultural animals.

I don’t really want to live without those differences. But it’s the cultural aspects that make life interesting. I don’t want an all white bread culture.

I know there are racists who just do not like the way people look and apply negative attributes to those physical features. That’s all cultural, learned. But isn’t it also just one aspect of culture and common to all cultures? It doesn’t necessarily represent that culture. Unless that culture is absolutely racist, like Nazi Germany.

My perception of America is that it is not a racist culture, despite its past. Historically America is very young, a lot has happened, good and bad, the development towards better things is slow but it’s there. To me the problem now is the growing poverty and the way the pieces that make up America are been moved about on the board to suit a few. We might call that issues of class, or the creation of new classes and the destruction of existing classes. Issues of black lives are caught up in that, their position makes them more vulnerable, but they’re not alone there.

Edit: on reflection “construct” is not what I should have used in relation to culture but it doesn’t alter what I meant.

That’s why it goes around in circles.

So the question to you: what is race? Your word; what does it mean? — tim wood

This seems reasonable;

“ Human races are distinguished by anthropologists on the basis of anthropometric traits. Geneticists delineate the races on the basis of gene frequenciesshared within the group and as different from other “racial” populations. The classification of “races” is compounded by social and cultural factors. The main human races are Caucasoid, Mongoloids (including Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, and American Indians, etc.), and Negroid. Khoisanoids or Capoids (Bushmen and Hottentots) and Pacific races (Australian aborigines, Polynesians, Melanesians, and Indonesians) may also be distinguished.” https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-1-4020-6754-9_7931

And if you disagreed with it you might have undertaken even the least Google search and come up with a barge-full of references which make it clear that race is a word that has lost its meaning. — tim wood

It may have lost its meaning but it appears genes aren’t listening.

It’s not a rule. It’s for amusement. Perspiration refers to hard work.

90% perspiration, 10% inspiration.

“Tricky” was in relation to “genuine”.

of course new metaphors could spring up on repeated drafts. — Noble Dust

That’s my feeling. I don’t mean that a metaphor is formed later as a conscious act because the writer felt a metaphor was needed at a certain point, but that the creative act creates its own momentum and throws up new, unexpected possibilities. Maybe my use of the word “first draft” was wrong and instead I should have just used “process”.

Of course I don’t believe that an AI could go on to create a metaphor.

Of course.

We crossed over there. My comment was in regard to “...some thoughts”.

“Genuine”. This is getting tricky now. Isn’t it possible a metaphor may come to mind spontaneously while in the process of writing or playing with an idea? Is that not genuine simply because it was spontaneous?

but metaphors and similes (i.e. poetic language) generally are not added later... — Noble Dust

There’s no correct way to produce art.

I just realised it might appear that I’m arguing that an AI can write poetry, which I’m not. It’s more like William Burrough’s “cut ups”.

But reading these examples from the OP, there's absolutely no tone or style. It's completely flat. — Noble Dust

I’d agree to some degree. But there seems to be contemporary ideas in the lines. Of course these are the lines given to us by so she may have lifted the work that she relates to.

True, it does read like a bad translation. On the other hand if it was regarded as a first draft with work to be done then that could change. Metaphors and similes might be formed at that stage.

I think a question is the first step into the unknown. The unknown creates various levels of fear: a dark room to a child to having doubts about beliefs you were raised by.

Edit: so yes, a question could be fear. But not all questions.

So isn't the most scared the brightest? — Cristopher

That’s worth considering.

That they work in a tradition with a long unbroken tail. They steal from the past and reposition it in relation to cultural contexts. They “Make it new” and refresh our perceptions and experiences.

I think this is really interesting. When you say you found this in your first foray does it mean you sifted through a bit to find it?

I don’t agree with on cultural context. Has the AI just done what so many poets do, which is raid the pantry. Or am I mistaken in what he was getting at?

Useful categorisations are useful because they are based on something real. — DingoJones

Exactly. And how can we move forward when every generation has to stop and argue and redefine every group of people. Which has happened so badly that now everything is stopped in its tracks over the meaning of a word. There’s no moving forward in that.

There are two possible reasons for people refusing to accept that black exists: one that they are compensating for their own uneasiness with other races, or that race is a tool for other agendas.

If someone refuses to admit that their are differences of race then it seems to me they’re denying the other race the autonomy to be what they are. What are they meant to be instead of that, what we claim they are?

They should cure you-all of any parish-pump ideas that all this is in any way a simple topic. — tim wood

In no way am I suggesting this is a simple topic. But I personally would like to look at the issue through genuine ideas of difference.

Edit: and what is black is probably right in front of us.

I feel like there’s almost a determined effort by some to insist that there’s no difference between blacks and whites because it might unleash something uncontrollable. It does seem a little disingenuous to insist or pretend there’s no difference. And how can we address the issue successfully if it’s not addressed honestly? Even within the confines of law and social mores blacks have quite obviously developed a culture of their own so much different from white culture generally. Culture would suggest deep seated attitudes and experience that lie behind the forms it takes: music, dance, language, etc. so there is obviously a difference. Part of what makes America so interesting is the influence of black culture. In those areas where things are shared the coexistence seems to happen naturally. Why and how does that happen?

From memory blacks have greater or bigger bone structure than whites, which means they can carry more muscle. This is also the reason they don’t make great swimmers.

[reply="StreetlightX;422974"

It's almost as if all these objections are just utterly unprincipled excuses which stand for nothing but the affirmation of the status quo :chin: — StreetlightX

But the last line of my post is about questioning the status quo. If that is unclear then hopefully this corrects that.

I occurs to me that the “Autonomous zone” in a Seattle, which appears to have morphed from Blacklifesmatter into something else, is really what the core of the protests were for many people. But it’s what I’ve long felt, that the protests that begun with anger by blacks at the death of George Floyd have been hijacked. I don’t know if they’re being realistic, I suspect not. Their protest might address black issues but it now seems to me this is a class issue. That issue is the growing dominance of the cities and the economy by what might be regarded as the elite.