A place where you can discuss any aspect of life in terms of its ethical, epistemological, ontological, psycho-sociological, or other intellectual implications.
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i’ve always wondered how our eyes percieve color…that abd how we, in our minds and souls percieve color……imean, what do we see in it and how do we physically even see it?
Define “soul” and the relationship between “mind” and “soul” and we might get somewhere.
What’s more interesting is, how do you know that the color you know as blue actually appears as what you know to be yellow to everyone else?
It could go even further. How do you know what you call smell isn’t what someone else perceives as sight? I mean, if someone smells, say, cinnamon, how do we know they’re not actually “seeing” purple, and when they see purple, they’re “smelling” cinnamon? Sort of synasthesic (spelling?), but without the original sense.
That would be scientifically impossible, as smell and sight are caused by two greatly different things (sight by photons, smell by particles of matter). But the idea that what you see as blue could be “yellow” to someone else could be carried into the realm of smell or taste, I would imagine.
What I meant is, what seems like “smell” to you, might actually be “sight” to everyone else. Yes, it would be impossible to get everything by guessing, but it could be true.
No, since sight and smell influence the way you behave in inter-personal actions and situations. If your sight were someone else’s smell you wouldn’t be able to interact.
Why not? If you’d been raised that way, then it would be perfectly normal.
No, because sight and smell serve different purposes for our brain and communication. It would not work correctly. If you’re talking about simply changing the name than you’re confusing identity for existence. Don’t worry, it’s a common ontological problem.
But you’ve been raised as that, your whole life, so they would be used the same way.
*wants to over use caps button and exclamation point.*
*doesn’t*
No. Listen: light=photons. Smell=particles. It’s science. It’s impossible for one person’s smell to be another’s sight. Physics doesn’t work like that. Sorry.
You can’t smell my text.
Some Synesthics can.
What’s “synesthic”? Are you referring to the people who correlate certain words to certain smells? That’s all in their brain, not in their sense perception.
Only because they can see it, unless I’m very confused. I’m pretty sure that they don’t substitute senses, but that they add the sense of smell onto sight.
You’d realize soon enough that there’s a contradiction between olfactory senses and visual senses, it would be too confusing.
But yeah, the “other minds” problem is fun. Mostly because there’s no answer.
I just realized that that sentence makes absolutely no sense. I shouldn’t post while watching Yes, Minister. Can’t concentrate. Sorry.
I’ve wondered that before, actually…I mean, when someone says the word “purple” you automatically think of what you perceive to be purple, right? But what if when you say the word “purple” someone else thinks of what you perceive to be red?
I’ve also wondered what foods taste like to other people compared to what I taste…
Insert xkcd here.
http:// xkcd. com/32/
It’s called Pillar, if the link gets zapped.
that’s a neat idea! I have thought about that before, and I haven’t been able to come up with supporting evidence or disproving evidence.
is there any?
somebody please comment, i am getting lonely, and deep in the irrational corners of my mind, i am cowering in fright, comtemplating whether or not my friends have abandoned me!!
Welcome to MuseBlog, neonmouse. Please be aware that this isn’t a chat room; the pace is different here. Also, most of our threads are dedicated to particular purposes. Miscellaneous comments belong on the monthly Random thread. If you read the rules and the HG2MB, you’ll have a better idea of how to find your way around.
Ok, jumping from the previous topic… Is physical connection necessary for establishing a romantic relationship? I say yes, romance exists for evolutionary purposes because of inherent instincts for procreation, hence the possibility of sex is fundamental for the establishment of such a relationship.
Perhaps ‘establishing’ is the wrong word? Physical connection doesn’t need to be present for a romantic relationship to begin, but further along the road, a romantic relationship without physical intimacy would be very strange indeed.
Alright, let’s say “manifestation” then. Your point is indeed valid.
Seems you have not yet learnt your lesson from the Atheism thread-I’m afraid that would be on the foul side of the line.
What lesson would that be?
That same argument could be used — in fact it has been used — against couples who for whatever reason can’t procreate. Historically, too, there have been many documented cases of couples who were passionately romantic about each other, yet remained strictly platonic, and in some cases never even met in person, but purely through correspondence. Yes, at the macro level, evolution drives sex, but doesn’t the individual have the right to define romance in ens own terms?
Romance, yes, but relationships serve social purposes, hence societal definitions should be given more weight in the matter. Of course, a lot of it might simply come down to semantics in the end, but it seems to me that an objective definition of a relationship would entail a minimum of physical intercourse, or at least an attempt (misguided or even inept) at engaging in said intercourse.
One might also say that until one reaches a certain level of physical intimacy, one cannot speak of having acquired “romance” yet. Sexuality and emotionality are inevitably linked, it would just be a matter of discovering the different proportions.
GAPAs–I just want to thank you for creating this thread. I’m not sure whether I’m going to be on it a lot or not, but either way, we have needed a thread like this for a while, and I’m very relieved that one finally exists.
(Now I actually can tell people to take it to a different thread…)
Hey, Elias.
I have a specific question for you about ethics. Earlier you posted that shoplifting a candy bar, for example would be unlawful, but not unethical.
As I’ve been told (by you), I cannot judge your overall opinions by minute segments, so I shall not.
Instead, I pose this question: What, then, would you find unethical?
Ethics is relative to the alleviation of suffering and to the evolutionary benefits of humanity. Now, one could possibly argue that shoplifting a candybar is harmful to evolution, but one could also argue that shoplifting is harmful to capitalism and hence beneficial to humanity. As far as evolutionary benefits are concerned, it’s an open question, but as far as suffering goes, it is not unethical.
By the way, the “suffering standard” isn’t my invention, it’s the result of studies in memetics.
Am I making sense? I haven’t had any coffee yet.
How would someone argue it being harmful to evolution?
A possible argument might be that on a very small scale it harms the society that has develop naturally as a result of human socio-biological evolution, therefore it is in its small way counterproductive to evolution. However, only an unnatural impulse (the human mind, which has established itself as the manipulator of nature) would come up with the idea of charging money for something as basic to human life as food.
Thank you for your response!
Ah. Thank you, these theories are always interesting. I do have to agree with you, though.
I don’t really know how to reply, so this is about the percieving differently than other people.
I one time read about an experiment on this. I don’t know how they did it, but they proved that people percieve different colors than others. It’s not a big difference it’s just that we see slightly different shades. On the subject of food I think people taste differently counting on the number of taste buds and what kind they are.
That’s a pretty interesting experiment!
I saw display about it in a museum. There was an orange dot in the center of a circle of dots in different shades of orange. It asked which dot you thought was the same shade as the center dot. My brother and I had a different answer than my mom.
Question: Not that what’s being discussed on here isn’t interesting and no doubt, pondering more philisophical sides of the world is benificial to the brain, but I’d like to know what people think the point of discussing these questions are.
Example: I’m sure most of you are familiar with the whole tree falling in the woods thing. But does it really matter if you hear it, or if it makes a sound? It fell and you can’t do anything about that. Yet, this question has been thought about by people who can’t sleep at night and people whose jobs it is to answer questions like these. If someone percieves color differently then you, you can’t change it, and if you could, why would you?
My idea is that there is no absolute truth. Stealing a candy bar for you may be unethical, but for the next person it’s completely acceptable. One may define relationships as simply a “special bond” between two people while another may insist that sex, the evolutionary drive causes and therefore defines a relationship, etc. And then you get into specifics, like what you define as sex, what you define as blue, what you define as a special bond.
It’s all rather confusing. And once you have the answer, what will that change? So why waste your time?
Note: this is a question, not a statement of my own opinion. I don’t find these questions useless personally, but I’d like to know what everyone thinks their purpose is.
Some of us enjoy the discussions. I’m not trying to put you down for not being interested in them or anything – everyone’s different. But they are incredibly interesting to me, same as talking about religion or anything else. I’m not trying to make my life better or anything.
9 – Hey, it’s always possible that everyone’s just a figment of your active imagination. It would be more difficult for you to be a figment of someone’s imagination — I think therefore I am, and all that.
SFTDP — Wow, what horrible writing. Substitute “or anything” with a picture of a camel (or whatever you perceive to be a camel
) when you feel like it.
In epistemology there is a boundary to skepticism. It’s called “rational doubt”. The tree falling in the woods is a question that inspires irrational doubt, due to irrelevance and the practical impossibility of testing it. The same applies to the “other minds” problem. But certain things, like ethics and law, have objective truths WITHIN rational doubt. Relativism will only get you so far, it’s a pretty lazy attitude to take to things.
Fact of the matter is many things have traceable biological and/or psychological origins, which can be analyzed and used to explain things that to the layman may seem unexplainable. The “shoplifting a candybar” example is a very good one. Without a knowledge of memetics, evolutionary theory, and mass psychology, we wouldn’t be able to find an objective truth. But science allows us to explain even the way we percieve abstract concepts.
On a different subject. I, at one time, wondered if life could be one big dream, and I am the only real thing. I didn’t bellieve this and still don’t, but it is a cool thing to think about.
Up until the age of maybe nine, I used to wonder if I was in a dream, and one day I would wake up at, say, two years old.
Anyways, what exactly is this thread about? I still don’t really understand.
Maybe an example would help. On a Music thread, people discuss which kinds of music they like. On the Grander Scheme thread, they might discuss why people like music at all, or whether the Ayatollah Khomeini was right or wrong in saying that music is a drug, or other harder-to-answer questions.
I used to wonder both of those things, and still do from time to time when I’m bored and feeling pensive.
Sometimes I wonder if when I was little I was in some kind of horrible accident and right now I’m floating in a vat, breathing/eating through a tube, and everything is Matrix-style virtual reality designed to help me live something like a normal life.
I don’t believe that either, but it is fun to think about. It’s even more fun to add random statements like, ‘Assuming that the world exists, that is.’ to the ends of conversations.
One time I thought everybody was fake, and yesterday didn’t happen or so on.
Open-ended, vague, unanswerable questions aren’t really helpful. Try adding something to previous discussions, like the ethics one, or maybe take topics from other threads.
Imagine a scenario with three people. Two of them can either get a candy bar or not get one. The other person gets two, unless both other participants choose to get a candy bar. In that case, en gets none. If you were one of the two who could choose, would it be unethical to choose to get a candy bar?
Sorry, what? How many candy bars are there in this situation? Two? Is it either two people getting one each or one person getting both?
If so, a few things:
a) Explain better :S
b) How is this related to shoplifting a candy bar?
c) Regardless, this isn’t so much a question of ethics as a question of personal comfort. Do you know the other people involved? Are they hungry? Are you trying to win them over? As an egotist, I wouldn’t have any problems keeping both candy bars, unless of course the two people involved were my friends. In fact, it could even be argued that the ethical thing would be to keep unhealthy candy bars from them. This isn’t a good ethics example.
Okay, so that I won’t have to answer your irrelevant questions, let’s replace the candy bar with something universally good, and not bad at all. You can think of something. This has nothing to do with shoplifting. This is the scenario.
You can choose to get a ___ or to not to get a ___. If both you and a stranger (who you cannot communicate with) choose to get a ___, another person will get nothing. If one or both of you do not take a ___, the person gets two ___. Should you take the___?
Bah, coming back here, I just realized that this thread became a sputtering and dying wreck. Makes me sad-this was my favorite part of the blog… off to the hot topics thread!
I’ve got one- In the grander scheme of things, why do humans love?
oh, and please, I don’t mean “to insure the survival of the species”- there’s got to be more to it than that.
You sure?
-A
Erm, heck yes, for reasons that I’m not sure belong on this edge of the blog…
I’m sure there must be some scientific reason to why (although it is probably along the lines of “survival of species” like you said and all that.) but my guess is hormones. Not like that’s a very specific answer, I’d have to research more to get a more complete answer…but I think you’re right, if loving was all about reproduction, then don’t you think we’d be sex crazed maniacs? (yes, I’m repeating that from somewhere. naughty naughty me. It was probably on Museblog, I vaguely remember Piggy saying it in the R&R…oh well. I repeat a lot of things I hear on MB.) Anyhow, I guess I’ll have to think more about this…
Sorry guys, that was probably a borderline PoPo, you’ll have to excuse me.
Doesn’t survival entail more than reproduction, particularly for complex species?
Certainly. It entails community organization, environmental management and innovation and adaptation.
for us it does, but other species survive just fine without any of those.
True, but the beginning question was “why do humans love?” Of course, asking “why” of the natural world is always a bit dodgy. Maybe it’s better to ask what advantages does love confer? how does love enhance the likelihood of surviving to reproduce?
Maybe love keeps the mom and the dad together and that makes the child more likely to survive?
That’s a good point. My question is, If you say love is so that we reproduce, wouldn’t it make sense for all animals to feel love? Can something love without being sentient?
You don’t think other animal love?
Sentients is over rated.
Well, why do we love things? Because there are things about it that we find attractive. If we accept that animals love, to our definition, they have to be a lot more emotionally complex then we give them credit for.
SFTDP- I didn’t read the last bit of Rebecca’s
whoever said we are a complex species? Sure, we are highly invasive, innovative, capable of things that no other species can accomplish,
But at the same time we have stepped, in my opinon, out of the natural order.
First of all, we majorly overkill species, majorly overuse reasorurces in general, and we have established a mentality where we are fully evolved, because a number of factors have essentially slowed our evolution to a crawl (even for geological time)
I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not, because to be human, (I’ve been watching a NOVA called “Becoming Human” and it’s pondering when we gained humanity as we know it) I think, is to combine compassion, innovation, and a bit of greed.
It seems to me that when we became human, we began to lose touch with the Earth and it’s environmental systems, and I don’t know if we can pick that up again.
On another note, Rebecca, you are absolutely correct.
“Complex” doesn’t imply a value judgment. We’d have to be pretty complex to fit your description, for instance.
quite true- I kind of went off on a tangent there…
What? Going off on a tangent on MuseBlog? You must be…in the right place.
I think that greed, etc. is just caused by us being intelligent.
I believe it was Oscar Wilde who said it takes intelligence to be kind.
It takes intelligence to work for yourself at the expense of the group. It takes even more to work for the group at the expense of yourself.
A lot of people are sex-crazed maniacs…
Good point.
Now that’s subjective.
Okay, so since that last topic seems to have died….
How about Time? does it exist? is it purely relative? something the human race just made up? Why do we need time? is it actually measureable?