I am inclined to favor experiments like Milgram's and Zimbardo's, as long as they are well designed, have some level of institutional oversight, consent is informed, and so on. (Trouble is, getting all that in place can be very difficult to impossible these days). Can you imagine the outrage that would overwhelm a researcher who proposed Milgram's experiment on today's hypersensitive campuses?

On the one hand, there are lessons to be learned from history, but on the other hand, granular level studies of behavior have to be set up in labs for close observation, or be derived from extensive interviewing and fact checking.

There are many real-life behaviors that could, possibly, be researched in a lab set up: What leads to failure to practice safer sex (an important issue in HIV reduction programs)? What are the factors that enable ostensibly honest upright people to steal (shoplift, skim cash, cart off company goods...)? What are the factors that enable serious, ostensibly honest politicians (at local and state levels) to heed the blandishments of lobbyists? and so on...

We know that "brute force" can change behavior. For instance, employees can be very intrusively monitored to make sure they don't steal anything. As it happens, though, people fortunately live most of their lives in settings where they are not (so far) intensively or intrusively observed. A Kansas state senator goes to lunch with a constituent, and ends up changing his mind, quite contrary to how he normally thinks. It might have been a crude payoff that swayed his vote, but it might have been a much more subtle approach. What is it that works, in these settings? (My interest here would be in helping Kansas state senators resist manipulation, rather than finding more effective ways of subverting democracy).

Military and authoritarian governments deploy brute force routinely -- it goes with the territory. We understand how that works, at least I think we do. It is in situations where brute force isn't being applied to an individual that things get interesting.

Plato said the U.S. Administration was horribly heterosexual and woefully short--really just tragically short--of attractive young men.

"Here, Donald. This is the kind of meeting to have -- young men sharing couches with wiser older men (Sorry Donald; "wise" kind of leaves you out, doesn't it. Pity.) The Oval Room would be perfect."



"And for the Gods' sake, get rid of all these bossy, nosy, uppity women -- they have no place in the halls of power. Have they no wool to spin? Don't their children need to suckle at their pendulous breasts? Disgusting."

"Older men need youth at hand to maintain their vitality, Donald. What's wrong with you is that you don't have enough of this:



"The lack of prominent homosexual activity clearly shows that the US is a very sick society!" Plato said, then got back in his time machine and disappeared.

A god capable of creating the universe in 6 days could certainly manage --on this one small celestial ball--to make complex layers of folded rock, scatter the odd creatures' bones hither and thither amongst the folded rock, put petroleum under salt domes for our future destruction, stick a bunch of coal in sort of convenient places, make it look like there were ice ages, get everything moving on top of a plastic mantel surrounding hell itself, and do other things on the moon and the other planets.

God, after all, is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. He knew exactly how smart and how stupid we would be, about what, and for how long.

We can rest, assured, that global warming is part of The Plan -- the End Game where we fizzle out.

Sic transit gloria mundi.

While it is certainly possible to believe both, they are not equivalent beliefs. The former is not in conflict with fact or reason, the later is. — Rank Amateur

They are not equivalent beliefs, true enough. But many people are prepared to believe at least six impossible things before breakfast.

We can have absolute knowledge of abstract concepts only (eg logic and maths); we can never have absolute knowledge of the physical world. — Devans99

Deciding that logic trumps reality is one of the ways we go astray.

But in any case, supposing that the universe was made on purpose by some agent is entirely compatible with the Big Bang: God made it happen, and then everything follows from there. I don't believe God caused the Big Bang, but it is certainly possible to believe such a thing, just as it is possible to believe that a god created the world in 6 days about 6,000 years ago.

You can believe whatever you want. If you run into obstinate resistance from reality, that's your problem. (Humans are always running into obstinate resistance from reality, no matter what they believe.)

So, what were the building blocks that had to be in place to enable otherwise good German people to do horrible things?

The drive of National Socialists (Nazis) to capitalize on discontents

a) An open subculture of deviance (the Wiemar period)
b) A perceived national humiliation after TKO in WWI
c) A collapsed economy (post-WWI hyper-inflation in Germany, followed by global depression)
d) Intense conflict between Communists and Nazis for ideological dominance
e) A very intense and long propaganda drive to demonize Jews as a contaminating other
f) Traditions of authority and obedience in family, school, church, work, and society
g) Long-standing and strong antisemitism in Germany, Poland, Baltic area, Ukraine, and Russia

The French, Italians, British, Scandinavians, Hungarians, et al didn't have share the circumstances and history of Germany.

The atrocities and dark decades of the Soviet Union didn't spring from the same conditions as did the atrocities and dark decades in Germany.

Neither did the American Experience. We too perpetrated world-class atrocities (extensive slavery and genocide). These practices began when we were still part of the British Empire, which went on to produce a few of it's own atrocities and dark decades. But we can't blame the British for our persistence after independence. From the standpoint of blacks and native Americans, we never did sincerely cease and desist. That's why they are where they are in American society.

So, Mai Lai may have been a relatively isolated event as far as American troops were concerned, but it didn't seize the public (at least as far as I can remember). The anti-war groups and others were properly appalled, but they (we) were pretty much appalled all the time anyway. The Vietnamese were effectively an "other" group. Outré. Not like us. They were important only because they were perceived as a domino piece that would lead to a wider more Communist Asia -- and of course, the cliché, "If we don't stop them there we will have to fight them on the coast of California".

The Anti-war people didn't know much about Vietnam either. They were the abstraction of "victims of U.S. militarism" -- not real people, for the most part.

What were the conditions which enabled Milgram and Zimbardo to coax American college students into behaving badly?

Reasonably well educated Americans (not just college graduates) tend to view science and scientists favorably. What scientists do (SCIENCE!) is a good thing, by its very nature.

Participating in actual scientific experiments has a positive status value. Plus, it is usually at least moderately -- and sometimes very -- interesting.

While we do value life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and the Republic for which it stands, we also tend to be ardent individualists with a strong (sometimes residual) streak of a Calvinist and Roman Catholic theology which considers us to be fallen and prone to sin. It's a fatalistic streak in a generally positive outlook.

College students almost never live in a "total institution" -- colleges are pretty porous socially -- but colleges are somewhat 'set aside', and students do tend to be away from their home and childhood community for the first time and may not behave quite the same in college as they would back in Peoria or Brooklyn or San Diego.

TO MAKE A LONG STORY SHORT, SS troops didn't guard Auschwitz for the same reasons American troops killed peasants at Mai Lai, and American college students didn't participate in Milgram's experiments for the same reasons that Germans calmly watched Jews being shipped off "to the east".

The lesson is that we can perform very bad acts when the situation is properly (even if not deliberately) set up.

Right now, almost certainly normal, good people--American ICE agents--are separating crying toddlers from horrified parents and keeping them separately, well out of sight of each other in custodial detention. They are doing this because it is part of a national policy which many Americans agree with (limiting immigration, especially illegal immigration across the border) and maybe feel that separating parents and children for a while will be sufficiently traumatic to discourage another attempt at entry, after they are deported.

Extreme political statements, intense media coverage over the last decade or two, economic dislocation, declining standard of living and declining income among working class people, immigrant waves moving around elsewhere in the world, etc.--all contributes to the ability of ordinary people to perform this separation of children and parents.

"Normal" isn't derived from "abnormal".

Normal is like... usual, standard, ordinary, customary, conventional, habitual, accustomed, expected, wonted; typical, stock, common, everyday, regular, routine, established, set, fixed, traditional, time-honored. The world is full of normal stuff.

If you measured all of the rocks on a beach, you might find that the average weight of the rocks was 8.234788 oz. Here is a rock that is 8.234481 oz. Is it abnormal? No. Actually none of the rocks on the beach weigh exactly 8.234788 ounces. All of them weigh more or less.

Humans do manifest plasticity, but we also manifest variability -- like the rocks on the beach. All are normal rocks but none of them are the exact average. People are an average at the same time that they are all slightly different.

Humans can all be different and still be all normal.

If your dog sleeps on your bed when you are at work, it isn't being a bad dog -- it is just doing what normal dogs do. If it can, it will lay with its head on your pillow, drooling, and will press its smelly ear against the comfortable cushion. You may not like it, but that doesn't make it abnormal.

If your dog prepares you a lovely meal and sets the table, THAT is very nice and very abnormal. Really bizarre. Totally perverted.

Maybe an orangutan could become a person, if it evolved a computationally universal brain? — tom

What is a computationally universal brain?[/quote]

Nice post all in all but I'd say it is a popular category error to say this would contradict free will.
You can be feeling cold although you are fevering. — Heiko

Well, the switches referred to the behavior of very simple animals, and reflexive responses in higher animals--like a literal knee jerk.

When we have an infection pyrogens signal the hypothalamus to raise the body's set point from 98.6 to... maybe 102. For a period of time, we will "feel cold" because we are colder than the hypothalamus says we should be (during a fever). When our temperature gets up to 102, we will stop shivering and just feel hot--and wretched.

No matter how 'hot' you are, being 98.6 is cool.

interestingly, only human beings are able to become Buddha — Wayfarer

Because, like, where would we be if a clam or an orangutan could become Buddha?

The trouble with dividing the brain up into brain stem, reptile brain, limbic system, neocortex, and so on is that brains developed as integrated structures, and are integrated structures in our skulls, too. For instance, there is a small group of cells in the brain stem which is responsible for us falling asleep and waking up--engaging the world. The 'reptile brain' may not deal in rocket science, but it performs useful tasks like helping us find our way from one place to another and back again.

Animals have had limbic systems for a very long time. Birds whose lineage is quite ancient, have emotions--maybe not as complicated as ours, but emotions none the less. Our limbic system is tied into structures like the pre-frontal cortex. It's a critical connection: It's what enables us to learn right from wrong, feel guilt, and avoid behavior that makes us feel terrible. If those connections aren't working, we behave psychopathically.

Our neocortex is nicely complicated, but animals have had the capacity to do a little thinking for quite a long time. Animals that coordinate hunting, for instance, have to 'think' about what is going on as they stalk and chase down prey -- where they, as an individual, fit into the hunt. Coordination, in other words. It may not be Aristotle, but it's thinking.

Dogs manipulate us. They have just enough intelligence to figure out how to get us to do what they want us to do. Quite often we adjust our behavior to satisfy the dog's wishes. We like observing their naked thinking at work. It's amusing.

For us, intelligence is a combination of flesh, emotion, memory, perception, and thinking all rolled up together. The best IBM computer both has and lacks some aspects of what we define in ourselves as intelligence. It has some limited perception (input devices), it has a memory, and it has logical processors (which in themselves do not constitute a capacity to think). It lacks a body (flesh, blood), emotion, and the wide scope of our perceptions and thinking. These are differences in kind, not just in quantity. The IBM had no desire to learn anything. It had no desire to engage in a debate. It didn't know it was engaging in a debate. What it was doing was executing commands in a very complex human-authored program and using brute force to assemble and organize information.

I'm not knocking the IBM and engineer's achievement. It's pretty impressive. However, the computer didn't really achieve anything.

IF one day a computer voluntarily experienced a desire to learn human language and culture, learn about the world, learn how to move about and manipulate the world, and find it's own place in the world, expressed likes and dislikes and acted accordingly, and did all this on its own, I'd call that REAL artificial intelligence.

What we have so far are machines that run human authored programs that imitate certain aspects of behavior.

Organisms of all kinds (paramecium on up) have to act, or not act, to survive. Maybe the decision making is hard wired so that choice is nothing more than a serious of switches being thrown. Insects, we know from observation, make decisions. Animals with more brain cells make somewhat more complex decisions in their environment. Is that lion over there a risk or not? Wildebeest seem to be able to identify a hungry lion from one that has a full stomach. Wolves have to cooperate, signal, and make decisions to hunt moose (elk) successfully. One wolf can't kill a moose alone.

Even our exalted selves depend on that kind of machinery to avoid risks -- when we jump back from a car coming too close, without thinking about it. If eating egg salad makes us violently ill a couple of hours after eating it, we may not be able to get another egg salad past our noses for years -- even if you want to. If an irresistible potential sex partner crosses our path, we may throw caution and morals to the wind and follow the trail.

I do think we have at least a lot of free will, but there are also built in limits on the extent to which we can exercise it.

May be I spoke too soon. — TheMadFool

I frequently make that mistake.

But our ''failure'' can be attributed to poor choices we make. If everybody realizes the fact that we're harming the planet and takes action then we would surely survive for longer than the dinosaurs barring, of course, catastrophes like asteroids and volcanoes. — TheMadFool

Maybe our choices were poor, but at the time (since the industrial revolution began up until about 1960) our exploitation of coal, oil, and wood seemed eminently sensible. The immediate benefits of industrialization were just to great. We liked having trains, planes, steam ships, cars, plastic, insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, purple coal dyes, bright arsenic-green dyes, et al and we still do. We like them so much that just about nobody is willing to give them up, even though we are heading for what could be (two or three centuries out) a terminating disaster.

Since Silent Spring by Rachel Carson there has been a steady drumbeat reporting adverse consequences from industrialization and hog-wild resource exploitation pointing towards irreparable damage to the the environment upon which we are (we are learning) absolutely dependent.

Using everything at hand to do interesting stuff is just what we do, it's our nature--free will and common sense be damned. If we were really sensible, at least 3 billion of the world's human population would be frantically striving to find ways to live on a small carbon foot print. That would mean giving up a good share of our goodies, like disposable plastic containers holding a small amount of something that will be used once, then tossed into the garbage or into the street where it will ultimately end up in the ocean poisoning animal life. Like not flying around the world for really very trivial purposes and short term benefit; junking private cars and replacing them with mass transit; converting to an economy not based on oil and coal, and on and on and on.

We (people) may recognize that all these drastic changes make good sense, but we find that we do not have the necessary free will to actuate these plans in a timely manner (which would be about 30 years ago). We can look at it, see it, understand it, know what we should do, then have a horrible sinking feeling in our guts and decide to think about something else.

fun fact: we live closer on the timelime to the T-Rex than the T-Rex did to the Stegosaurus. — StreetlightX

Fun fact, indeed.

You really know such things? — Heiko

Well... Sure. I do not doubt geology and paleontology. All those big bones, big teeth. Do you doubt it? Now, as for free will, we dispute whether we have free will, so there's not much chance of imputing even an iota of free will to Tryrranusaurus Rex
without a fight.

My guess is that the Awesome Rexes probably had an iota of free will, at least. Not a lot, certainly. Their bird-brain descendants (crows, for example) seem to have a little free will -- not much, but some. As for our free will -- we have enough of it to over-estimate how much we have.

I remember many, many forum conversations where I was faulted for suggesting that human beings have any more significance than blue-green algae or cockroaches. — Wayfarer

I won't fault you for suggesting such a thing. To us, we are infinitely more important and valuable than algae and cockroaches (especially cockroaches.) Still, if we take a very unnatural global and billions of years long-term view, blue-green algae created the atmosphere we and all other animals breathe. The weight of all the ants, termites, cockroaches, and >4 legged beings far exceeds ours. Our error isn't thinking that we are so important, but that everything else is dirt under our feet. Given your Buddhist studies, you likely hold the other 0-2-4-6-8-and-more-legged creatures in higher regard than many do.

Sure, biology is biology and that's a very good thing. And we are not in an either/or situation, either it's existentialist philosophy or it's biology. Our situation is that we have both, and we need to pay attention to biology or we won't be around to think about existential philosophy.

Dinosaurs were imminently successful by all counts for 100 million years and, as far as we know, they didn't have free will. We haven't been successful for very long at all -- Homo sapiens is < 1,000,000 years old--maybe more like a mere 400,000. Very recently we have been a brilliant flash in the pan, but it is not al all clear whether we will be here in so few as 400 years.

Is that success?

God said we had more important things to worry about than whether He was timeless or eternal. Based on His infinite knowledge of all that will come to be, He recommended we worry about global warming, population, and our individually short shelf lives. Which, he added, will get a lot shorter if we aren't careful.

Excellent topic and excellent responses.

I myself have secret desires to conduct manipulative experiments on people, do very intrusive observations of private behavior, manipulate environments so I an observe the changes that makes in behavior, use hidden microphones and hidden cameras to get the low-down on what's up, and more! And I'm not the only one. It's not hard at all to get carried away when there is no one overseeing one's activities who can interrupt the busy planning sessions with "Wait a minute -- what the hell are you planning to do here?"

I suspect Milgram and Zimbardo didn't have much oversight. I don't think either one of them are at all evil, but when one is laying plans with some co-conspirators, it's easy to get carried away with the extremes of an experiment and overlook the actual consequences for the subjects.

A different question about Milgram and Zimbardo: By the time they began their research, we had been through 2 world wars, a brutal regional war in Korea, and were in the middle of a second brutal regional war in Vietnam. Much research has been published on the behavior of the SS, the Gestapo, Jews, Aryans, et al in Germany during the years of National Socialism. Was there something that history wasn't telling Milgram, Simbardo, et al about manipulation, brutality, dehumanization, submission, studied ignorance, and so forth that wasn't available in the histories?

It's a conundrum.

If we eliminated the last century of medical progress, what would be different? Many people would still live healthy long lives. Better sanitation and food production are responsible for that. What would be different is that people who became very sick, or were seriously injured, would die more often and sooner, or would be far more debilitated.

So, we are fortunate in many ways, but pain is a problem. For moderate chronic pain there are good medications -- the Nonsteroidal Anti-inflammatory Drugs like aspirin, Ibuprofen, naproxen, and celecoxib, For short term severe pain there are opiates -- and they are safe and effective--in the short run. For longterm severe pain, we run into the limiting problem of reduced effectiveness over time and addiction. There don't seem to be many effective drugs for long-term severe pain that are non-opiate.

One of the problems with doctors (dentists too) is that they have usually not experienced first hand any of the problems which patients have, or the therapies they prescribe to their patients. Many doctors don't get to know their patients very well, either, or visa versa.

It's the stance of prizing ideas over persons, or, more realistically, ideas over stances themselves. People in academia take stances, and their stances become their identity; they become statues with stances. They don't move. They're dead. — Noble Dust

Excellent!

This all makes total sense. It has been my understanding that abrupt withdrawal of antidepressants -- or abruptly switching from one type of antidepressant (say tricyclics to SSRIs) should always be avoided. Same for benzos and the major tranquilizers like thorazine, and narcotics.

And the same for a lot of other types of drugs, like epileptic control drugs, lithium, and so on.

Some doctors may have vested interests in drug companies, but for most doctors it would be nothing more compromising than having stock in their portfolio, and since doctors are the only ones who can Rx medicines, the conflict is probably unavoidable. I suppose their stock in Pfizer, Astra Zeneca, Sandoz, Abbott, Bristol Meyers Squibb, Bayer, et al could be in a trust. Don't hold your breath.

At my age (71) I probably don't have time to complete a leisurely taper--which is fine. I have no objection to taking affordable medicine that seems to be keeping me on the level.

I have a 30 year history of taking antidepressants and benzodiazapine for anxiety. i've tapered off 3 different benzos without any difficulty, and I tapered off tricyclic antidepressants (imipramine) 2 or 3 years after I started. I've switched antidepressants a number of times, and haven't tried withdrawing from SSRIs until now.

I've been taking venlafaxine (Effexor) for maybe 13 years, and Surzone immediately prior. Both of these are SSRIs. I am finding it impossible to go cold turkey; I experience some psychological distress, and physical symptoms which I can only describe as 'odd' within 48 hours of the last dose. By 72 hours I definitely feel ill. I haven't made it past 96 hours.

My understanding of benzodiazepines is that they are definitely habit forming, if not addictive. I didn't feel like I was addicted when I tapered off them. Antidepressants are not supposed to be addicting, but that probably applies only to short term studies (<1 year). I definitely feel hooked now.

My guess is that a very long gradually sloping taper is necessary after long usage (like, decades).

I can't tell whether I should attempt to get off. On 75mg of venlafaxine I feel really good. Would I feel good after taking 6 months to a year to taper off the drug completely? Don't know. Cost isn't a problem, so far, and it doesn't seem like I am experiencing adverse health outcomes. So, ???

Another thing, there are a lot of named groups that barely exist. Take "sex workers" -- ameliorated from "prostitute" and "whore". I rather doubt that there is an actual "community of common interest" made up of "whores, prostitutes, and/or sex workers". It isn't a field of endeavor that many people, men or women, opt into because it is more interesting than say selling real estate. It's fairy dangerous, involves a lot of potentially bad experiences (worse than losing a real estate listing), and is illegal and stigmatized. I don't think the term arose indigenously, either. I think it was created by people who wanted to upgrade the work of the clients they were dealing with. Then it became unacceptable to refer to "whores and prostitutes" though the actual job didn't change one whit.

"sex worker" appeared in print around the 1985-1990, pretty much the same way that "identity politics" did.

Criticizing identity politics tout court, as Peterson often does, is crap, and done from a privileged vantage point of being a white male. — Maw

↪Buxtebuddha The privilege is that everyone else's problems are identity politics. While "my" problems are simply politics. — Maw

↪Maw As in, the black gay female needs uplifting while the white straight male needs shaming and segregating? Is that right? — Buxtebuddha

Politics is about individuals forming groups to represent their peculiar interests. There is nothing new about it, and nothing special about it. Whether it is coal mine owners, gay men, sexually harassed women, small farm owners, lesbian vegans, mass transit drivers, cod fishing boat owners, and so on--it is all pretty much the same. And it's fine and dandy -- that's how a diverse more or less democratic society is supposed to work -- people represent their interests and attempt to protect themselves.

It's fine and dandy until, as often happens, a group takes up protective positions which positively disadvantage other interests group. Mine owners, for instance, represent their interests so well that mine workers get shafted. Mass transit drivers go on strike to protect their interests, but entire populations of commuters are negatively affected, sometimes severely. Relatively small numbers of gays and lesbians claim absolute equality with heterosexuals in religious, civic, family, and moral contexts, which conflicts with the at least as strong beliefs of relatively large numbers of heterosexuals that gays and lesbians are not absolutely equal in all contexts.

All this makes for lively politics, good outcomes and bad outcomes.

Tactical errors are made. BLM protestors shutting down mass transit lines at rush hour probably costs them more sympathy than the attention they gain is worth. Straight white males are as diverse a group as straight white females, all females, and all males. The coal industry and coal miners may be in direct conflict with the goals of reducing greenhouse gases. Gays and lesbian activists may display tone deafness when making their arguments.

The only solution in the short, medium and long run is to continue politics, and let the abrasion of politics grind off the unacceptable prominent views that groups tend to have. This, in itself, can be disappointing to people deeply invested in a cause. Gay Liberation began with what I thought were good aspirations, but they were also extreme, in comparison where most people were at in 1969. Over time, the extreme points were ground away and we ended up gaining a set of civil rights and protections (all to the good) but lost "liberation". So, gay marriage in imitation of heterosexual marriage means getting locked into a chaste relationship with ONE INDIVIDUAL until one dies, or flies the coop. Barbaric.

I've had a bad conscience since my last thread in which I made a casual unfunny dig at republicans by putting them somewhere half way on a scale of 'degrees of consciousness'. — bert1

My son, this is not a sin and therefore can not be forgiven. You are being too sensitive. Now, get out of the confessional; there is a long line of people who have real sins to confess and for which severe penance will be required.

I've picked on a group of people, — bert1

"Groups of people" don't have feelings, consciousness, morals, or anything else. "Groups of people" is a vague concept. As for the individual persons in groups... if the shoe fits, wear it.

it's OK to criticise individuals, or better, their opinions, values and actions, but criticising groups of people is potentially dangerous. — bert1

As a homosexual, I would much prefer people reference us as "a group of perverted, immoral, disgusting, monsters, a genuine threat to the American Way of Life" (or Turkish, Russian, North Korean, Saudi Arabian, Ugandan... WOL) than have them say that about me personally. While we certainly are a collective threat to American manhood and empire, I am as pure as the driven snow.

On the other hand, please do remember that we took down the Roman Empire.

some vulnerable groups do need collective representation. — bert1

There are numerous vulnerable individuals who can be grouped into a common cause. Take physically handicapped people. It wasn't that long ago (within the lifetimes of living people) that people with physical handicaps were not recognized as people who faced real barriers: like millions of buildings that could not be accessed without inconvenient and visible assistance. Like millions of people with sensory deficits (varying degrees of deafness and blindness) who could not access large parts of the culture because there were no assistive devices.

In response to agitation, there are now many buildings entrances without stairs, equipped with elevators. There are assistive devices at many intersections that verbally announce a walk sign and a countdown to "don't walk". Many public bathrooms now have doors which allow access to wheelchairs. Braille markings have been added to visual symbols in buildings (like elevators). Closed captions allow the deaf to follow television programs. And more, besides.

That is all to the good.

We're NOT computers, I agree. But are we machines, just of a higher order? That's what I want to know. — TheMadFool

We are not machines, either. We are organisms, and more, beings. We are born, not manufactured. Our biological design incorporates a billion years of evolution. Life exists without any designing agent: no owners, no designers, no factories, etc. Life is internally directed; machines are made, and have no properties of beings or organisms.

Machines are our human creations; we like our machines, and identify with the cleverness of their design and operation. Our relationship to the things we make was the subject of myth for the ancient Greeks: Pygmalion from Greek mythology, A king of Cyprus who carved and then fell in love with a statue of a woman, which Aphrodite brought to life as Galatea; (the name of a play by George Bernard Shaw, the name of a musical, My Fair Lady--the same theme). We pour our thoughts into our computers, they deliver interesting viewing material to us -- none of it comprehended or created by our machine computers.

That there are "biological mechanisms" like DNA replication, respiration, oxidation, etc. doesn't in any way make us "machines" because "biological mechanisms" is itself a metaphor of a machine mechanism. We're victims of our language here. Because we call the body a machine, (levers, pulleys, engines, etc.) it's an easy leap to body status in things like office copiers and computers, ships, cars, etc.

So... No, we are not machines, not computers, not manufactured, not hardware, not software.

Thank you. Do you think we should have a thread on male prostitution? I'd be happy to start one. (Maybe I already have?)

He/she is new to this kind of activity; Qope will get much more social involvement with short posts than long posts. Too long and too little. Like, "Hey, what do you all think about male prostitutes?" End of post. Too short.

Not enough information. It depends--a talented male prostitute or a klutz? Good looking or should have a bag over his head? What -- you want more or fewer? Should it be legal or not? What's your angle?

Hello. Wrote this in the past hours. New to sharing my written thoughts socially, so looking for some feedback/criticism/support/whatever - anything social. 3 A4's. Self-help/philosophy-stuff.

Writing with free association (just letting the thought flow) — qope

Welcome to The Philosophy Forum.

I want to encourage you to participate in the forum, so please don't take what I say here as a "get lost" response.

a) Your post is too long and too diffuse.
b) Focus on a specific point in your opening post.
c) Take a position, offer an argument in favor of your position, then wait for a response.

If your main point is "without self-discipline you’re just a wild dog running around chasing food and sex" then start with that. Tell us why you think being self-disciplined is better than being a wild dog. Why does it matter?

Don't unload your whole armory of ideas all at once. Free association is useful in places (like on a psychoanalyst's couch) but not so much in a philosophical discussion.

So, are we more like computers or are we very near to, in terms of awareness, to an entity that is completely self-aware? — TheMadFool

We are not like computers, at all.

Not every trophy is worthy of being won. — Arne

Wait and see how much envy and jealousy the deluxe and full trophy case engenders compared to the shabby and nearly empty case.

So, the process of taking drugs themselves has a attained or undergone ritualization, which is a sort of unrealistic idealization of their use? Hence, the false lure that they have attained? — Posty McPostface

I would say that the use of drugs in our time has been de-ritualized, compared to what the Greeks were doing at Eleusis.

The "Mysteries" at Eleusis was celebrated over a few days. We don't know what all they did in their rituals, but one of the things they did was enter a dark underground chamber and stay there for a while. This may have been the place of drug taking. Why? Because Persephone had been kidnapped by the god of the underworld, Hades, and taken to his dark kingdom (Persephone was very attractive, after all). Her mother, Demeter was grief stricken and caused a great drought, which would have eventually devastated the land AND ended the practice of sacrificing food to the gods. Demeter also went into the underworld looking for her daughter. The time periods they were there correspond to the Mediterranean agricultural seasons of 8/4 months.

This was important stuff having to do with agriculture, worship of the gods (who were dependent on humans for sacrificial food) and the underworld. Plus, people returned to Eleusis for second visits (thereby becoming a bit privileged).

In Christianity, people didn't start sharing bread and wine at church as an intermission snack. They ate the food as a commemoration of the incarnation of Jesus Christ and his sacrificial death -- so central to the whole Christian structure of meaning. The situation at eleusis was similar.

So, the lady in the lower right is either holding a tray of snacks or a tray of the drugs to be consumed. Some of the well-heeled worshippers are carrying torches.

Not, the same kind of morning ritual of making coffee, taking a shower, and pumping yourself up with positive feedback or thoughts?

Pumping one's self up in the morning with positive sounding non-inferential statements is disgusting.

For some of us making and drinking coffee in the morning is more sacred and sustaining than the Eucharist, and the morning shower is a daily remission of filth and dirt.

Where I mentioned drugs and meaning, I was speaking of drug use in a ritual context where there was more than mere drug-taking going on. The drugs were intended to enhance the ritual at a particular moment.

Otherwise, I totally agree that drugs, alone, do not give meaning any more than Coca Cola gives meaning.

First, to know if a thing is dying, you must identify it. — TogetherTurtle

American democracy was still born, so it's questionable how alive it ever was.

One might like to blame the flaws in American democracy on our current oligarchy but our flaws were built in during the initial design phase.

Take Prohibition as an example. While it was passed by the requisite number of states, rural areas and small towns areas had a disproportionate representational advantage, while urban areas had a proportional disadvantage.

Protestants, with the exception of Lutherans and Anglicans, tended to be anti-alcohol, and they were numerically dominant in the rural and small town districts. Catholics were proportionately under-represented in urban districts. Prior to the reforms in the middle of the 20th century, the one person/one vote rule was not applicable.

Prior to Prohibition, alcohol taxes provided the bulk of income for government. From a taxation POV, the more drinking the better, and prior to the very strong Temperance Movement, Americans drank prodigiously.

The United States has naturally always had a ruling class. Money = political power (everywhere, pretty much). The ruling class has, rhetoric notwithstanding, never had a very high opinion of those without property (the working class), and was not eager to see them get the power their numbers would merit. Our political system, consequently, always advantaged wealth over labor.

Until quite recently, a minority of white people in the southern US states have had a very exaggerated share of power. Before the Civil War, blacks couldn't vote and after the Civil War they were effectively discouraged from voting. The interests of wealthy whites was, therefore, the single interest that was represented in the south. The south's power base in Congress enabled southern congressmen to impose their values on legislation. For instance, most blacks were initially not qualified to receive Social Security. The Federal Housing Program was structured to prevent blacks from owning good quality housing (and the financial benefits that accrue).

Various forms of disempowerment are very much in practice, though they tend to be subtler than an earlier generations rather crude methods.

I have far too little experience with marijuana, and none with the other popular mind-altering drugs to say anything about it. I can say this, however: people have used psychotropic drugs for a very long time. Much of that was use was in ritual settings, meaning people used the drugs as part of a search for meaning. (Granted, they might have enjoyed the drugs as well). The Eleusinian Mystery cult, which held its rituals at Eleusis. was connected with Demeter and Persephone, used hallucinogens as part of the effort to achieve visions of an afterlife.

The principle risks these days are connected with a) impure drugs, b) reckless mixing of drugs and alcohol, and c) over use. If a little LSD is enlightening, acid trips every weekend are not necessarily going to be a good thing.

I take Rx mind altering drugs -- have for years. My chief complaint about them is that even when they are highly effective, they tend not to be enlightening or amusing. I also drink caffeine, have inhaled nicotine, and drink alcohol -- all of which have mind altering properties. Life without coffee would not be worth living. Ditto for alcohol, and maybe ditto for cigarettes, even though I haven't smoked for 20+ years.

Yeah, but what would life look like if nobody ever died? — Posty McPostface

Extremely crowded. There have been maybe 50 to 100 billion people born since we became Homo sapiens.

This just sounds like the same thing to me. I have wants and desires; but, acknowledging them entails that I want to either realize them or limit their appeal to my psyche. So, again either we all become egotistical, and suffer, or in some manner or form limit their reach on our sanity and emotional well-being. — Posty McPostface

It isn't, and you identify the difference.

Why not? Isn't the cessation of suffering which we are all too aware about, the setting of the limits on the desirous and lustful nature that we profess all too much? — Posty McPostface

Well, you know, we set limits on our desires and lusts. That isn't the same as taking the vail and vowing poverty, chastity, and obedience (shudder). We devise a budget of pleasure. A certain amount of desire and lust will be enjoyed, and then we'll not ask for more for a while--15 minutes, at least. Back in my salad days, I almost never stayed up all night every night screwing my brains out. I took a full helping of sex--I just didn't take everything on offer. An outing might not be repeated for 2 or 3 days, or a week, even. I like premium ice cream too, but I don't eat the whole carton at one go. I meter my decadence.

I consider suffering a given in life. It can be more, it can be less. We can make it worse, we can make it better. All our suffering will end in death. Some people don't suffer a lot; they are lucky enough to be so composed that they are not intensely bothered by everything (that would not be me). Some people can calmly endure more pain for a longer period of time; others cannot.

"We" Homo sapiens haven't changed. We're still the same old hunter-gatherers we've been for the last couple hundred thousand years.
— Bitter Crank

Not true. We are incredibly and plastic and malleable. The fact that so much progress has been made since the Industrial Revolution, attests to this fact. — Posty McPostface

We are Individually plastic and malleable. As a species, not so much.

So what? We've been a species for 300,000 thousand years, and then in the last 300 we did all these amazing things. What about the previous 299,700 years? Some significant achievements in the last 300,000 years:

1) we settled the entire planet
2) we domesticated several species
3) we invented a host of technologies (from glue made from bark to boomerangs)
4) we invented language & culture
5) we invented agriculture
6) we invented writing
7) we invented government (much to the sorrow of early libertarians)

And yes, electricity, steel, radios, cameras, guns, pneumatic nail guns, tampons, and the Wonder Bra.

What distinugishes a human from a computer? — TheMadFool

Biology -- and the HUGE everything that biology implies.

Computers are logic machines — TheMadFool

Computers are contraptions that carry out logical operations designed by humans. On their own they are just a pile of metal and plastic.

So we aren't full aware. So what?

I'm just pointing out that psychology has been too ego-centric for a good while now, and that leads to the risk of developing values or beliefs that are detrimental to our shared world. — Posty McPostface

There is a difference between "ego-centric" and egotistical, self-centered, narcissistic, and the like. We must be ego-centric, focused on "I am" because we don't apprehend the world, and other selves, directly (the 5 senses and all that). There is a difference between mature adult ego-centrism and infantile narcissism. It is the latter that is so detrimental to the shared world.

Yeah, there's no eliminating the fear of death and threats, unless one chooses to mindlessly distract themselves into some oblivion. — Posty McPostface

Truth: there is no eliminating the fear of death from various threats. We just don't like thinking about it. Compared to death, just about everything is more interesting and pleasant. (One of the benefits of aging is that we can get to a point where one can realize that roughly 90% of one's life is spent, and a lot of it was actually quite well spent, and it was good. If one is lucky one has forgotten the fine details of the stretches which weren't so good.)

But it isn't DEATH that is the most visible threat for much of one's life. What is more present is the loss of the tangible and intangible goodies we have collected. This is where the infantile narcissist suffers the most. The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune could deprive him and her of all their goodies, and then leave them very much alive to suffer from their loss.

Oh, come now. It isn't that bad is it? Sure, we don't face lions or hyenas anymore as our main source of desperation. Which, has been a contributing environmental force to group and social cohesion. So, why is group cohesion disintegrating in the West, nowadays? — Posty McPostface

Hyperbole has its uses. But what makes you think group cohesion is disintegrating in the West (or North, South, and East)? Groups of people are as cohesive as they have to be. It's been 73 years since the World was at war and we were all (allegedly) cohesive. On a much smaller scale, (groups of 100 or less) people are as cohesive as they ever were -- which is to say they are ready, willing, and able to work together for common goals.

Families falling apart? Family cohesion is steady. A percentage of families have always lacked cohesion, particularly when society was loose enough to allow it. A certain percentage of people marry, decide that they made a big mistake, and break up.

Work? People seem to willingly spend a lot of time at work in more or less cohesive groups.

"We" Homo sapiens haven't changed. We're still the same old hunter-gatherers we've been for the last couple hundred thousand years.

Well, yes. Though, I don't think it can be found by looking deeper within the soup of the unconscious. — Posty McPostface

For the most part, I agree. The non-conscious mind isn't all that open to inspection. What is more or less open, though, is our memories of our lives so far, and all that is at least somewhat open. And, let me add, the ways we evade dealing with reality right now are open to inspection--and modification.

How is progress made by appealing to inner values such as selfishness and lust and wants and desires? Are you not a Buddhist? — Posty McPostface

I am not a Buddhist. Whatever gave you that idea?

No -- progress is NOT made by appealing to selfishness, lust, wants, and desires, fears, anxieties, and so on. Progress is made by acknowledging our lusts, needs, desires, fears, anxieties, and fantasies. We can't deal with them if we haven't faced up to their reality. And the end goal isn't to deny, or destroy what we wish for and fear. The goal is to achieve control. So, we will still have lusts, for instance, and if we are mature adults we can decide whether, when, where, and how our desire may be satisfied -- or not. We will still have fears, but we can deal with them more effectively.

One of the more perplexing fantasies is that we can be free of our human-animal nature and be purely rational beings untroubled by disruptive urges. On a good morning one can get by for a few hours feeling purely rational, but then a bowling ball of lust, hunger, rage, or blind ambition will plow into all that dry, cool rationality and we'll be upset for days.

Oh, reality. I suppose. I'd love to talk about reality but you know, it's past 1:00 a.m. and the noetic fluids are coagulating for the night.

The purpose of reality therapy from my short read on the matter is to build a relationship with the world, not the self. — Posty McPostface

So the world is on one end of the relationship bridge; what is on the other end, if not some self? How did the self manage to get to a point where it doesn't have a relationship with the world any more? There is no escaping the world, or reality; it's a lion prowling in the dark savanna, silently slipping through the shadows, about to ambush us, once again. One of these nights will be the last time, and then the ambiguous self will vanish.

You want a relationship with reality? Let me tell you: reality is out to kill you and it will eventually succeed--if not this time, then the next time.

psychologists and psychiatrists have been lured like some angler trap into this idea that deep issues can be brought into the light and then the process of healing can occur. — Posty McPostface

Digging up those old, deep issues is not the most stupid idea in the world. Paleo-psychology is going to be the first step in relieving suffering, not a preliminary step. Of course, not everyone has fossil beds of agonizing trauma that needs to be dug up and sorted out. Most of us just have coprolites (fossilized shit). Get it out and on the table and deal with it, finally.

The critical step in therapy is always accepting reality. We don't have to like it, we can certainly commit ourselves to changing it, but we can not ignore it. So, our reality therapy patient must begin by accepting whatever he or she is. IF what one is is very bad (like, really very badly screwed up) then that's just going to be a tough piece to look at. But then there's acceptance, and absolution. Easy? Nope. Quick? Usually not. Difficult to make progress? Oh, yes -- very much so. But, you know, we keep working at it and at some point in the future we notice... "hey, I can see progress here!" And we keep on.

We keep on, that is, until reality finally succeeds in finishing us off. Then our case is closed.