/lit/ - Literature

She was cuter before...

>>6676995
Philosophers are a human construction.

Hofstadter has some interesting stuff on this, though he's not really in the business of formal philosophy and tackles it more from the perspective of consciousness and how meaningful symbols, names, and understanding fall out of unthinking matter.

>>6676995
What about trees?

What about numbers? Some birds can count

>>6676995
nietzsche, wittgenstein, foucault

>>6677015
A "tree" is only seen as a unified thing because we called it that, and we decided that all of the cells and fluids and molecules and particles that make it up should go together in one conceptual chunk.

>>6677033
this is a map/territory confusion.

>>6677049
Please define what the map and territory correspond to in your view of how the world is.

>>6677049
>everything which humans can perceive is grouped by human constructs


>>implying that there is no external world

lol

probably understand what "Everything" means before you make stupid assertions.

here, a children's cartoon and song to help you out! :^)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vs_D8dC0uwc

The scientific consensus does not favor biological determinism in the vein of greasy internet eugenicists. Not sure why you're looking for philosophy when the issue is obviously an empirical one. Cultural variance is enough to dispel many traditionally held existentialist notions about sex and culture; skirts are considered feminine in the modern west, but many ancient warrior traditions among the Celts and Greeks embraced them. Same with the colour pink, which was previously associated with boys, not girls. The Bugis people of Indonesia have five genders, and some Native Americans tribes, Indians and southeast Asian cultures have also had traditionally accepted people that we could call "trans" - it's not something that suddenly came into being with modernity. Viewpoints towards homosexuality have also been quite fluid, with cultures like Greece and Turkey considering you manly if you were on top.

You only need a casual glance at history to dispel similar racist assumptions; the Middle East was the cradle of civilization, and even during the Middle Ages was more advanced than Europe until the Mongols ruined everything - yet many racists today will claim arabs (a term used synonymously with "Muslims") are inherently olive-skinned barbarian rapists. In America, Cahokia was around the size of London during the Middle ages, despite the proposition that all natives were nomads. We glorify the brutal conquests of Rome, but for some reason similar ventures undertaken by the Aztecs, Mongolians etc. made them absolutely monstrous.

If you're interrested in sciences, Kuhn has written a short book on the issue, Structure of scientific revolutions, If I remember correctly.

>>6677120

map is mental representation of territory
territory is the real everything
consciousness exists within map, map exists within territory

>>6677124
are you retarded

>>6677176
you're forgetting the platonic/mathematical realm which does not exist either within our minds or within reality

>>6677185
irrelevant, but
>muh thing that doesn't exist
things have to exist to be things

>>6677176
All I've done is remove the map from the territory. Everything that we'd call a tree is still there, it just doesn't make sense to say "trees are not human constructs" because if we remove the human idea of lumping all the parts of an organism into a single whole, there's not really a way to refer to the tree anymore.

I don't really see that as confusing the map with the territory, I'm just claiming that anything we attribute significance or meaning to is a part of the map - i.e. that meaning exists only in the presence of a mind.

>>6677185
>mathematics doesn't exist within reality
wrong as shit

>>6677212
so three doesn't exist.

there can be three things, but three itself is not a physical object. there is no giant three floating out in space sending mind beams to our brains so we can think of the number three.

in your construction, mathematics does not exist because it is nonphysical

>i can't believe i'm having this discussion on /lit/

Memes aside Slavoj slays the constructs

>>6677219
>only physical things exist

>>6677217
mathematics affects reality and can be observed from reality, but is independent from reality. if you deleted all of existence, three would still be three. there is no possible reality where the concept of three is four.

>>6677225
ok let me see if i follow
>the platonic realm exists
>no it doesn't
>so three doesn't exist?
>lol are you stupid nobody said that only physical things exist

>>6677240
sorry i replied to the wrong post, >>6677212 is stupid and wrong.

Assuming you are >>6677185 i am still pretty dubious of a definition of "reality" which excludes mathematical constructs though.

>>6677219
mathematics is a series of things that do exist. if you remember mathematical formula, it exists (as a memory) which is the conscious experience of a physical phenomena in your brain.

Mathematics is a word used to describe a large group of different things that does exist. The map (your conscious experience of how multiplication works) just seems alien to the territory (composition of molecules and cells in your brain).

Math exists just like humanity exists, as a grouping of individual objects.

>>6677240
Best television in-joke of the decade

>>6677256
are you saying mathematics only exists when you have hardware to run it?

and tell me, if a tree falls in a forest does it make a sound?

>>6676995
Social concepts (sexuality, nationality, etc.) are human constructs but they are centered on bodies and reproduced through working on bodies.

>>6677255
ah word i'm accidentally arguing with two different people

>>6677256
anything you think can be a memory.

In order to deny bullshit you just gave an explanation that allows for everything literally humanly conceivable.

>>6677289
>if a tree falls in a forest does it make a sound?
obviously not. sound is a phenomenon that occurs at the ear.

http://artsites.ucsc.edu/ems/music/tech_background/te-03/teces_03.html

>>6677308
no, hearing is a phenomenon that occurs within the ear. it even says so right on the top of the web page you linked.

Sound is a phenomenon which occurs with the vibration of molecules through fluid.

apply that distinction to your messed up anthrocentric world view.

we're done here.

>>6677289
Math is a result of an abstraction of the way our brain works. Our perception divides the real into separate objects.
Without perception there is no math or anything else.

>>6677322
>if an unobserved tree falls in a forest it does not make a sound

>>6677308
>obviously not. sound is a phenomenon that occurs at the ear.
Reread the question.

There's bound to be some squirrels around.

>>6677323
The original question doesnt even make sense.
There can be no talk of trees or sound withouy perception. By talking about an effect upon an object you immediately presuppose perception.

>>6677323
>some ayy lmao faggot farted on the other side of the galaxy

>>6677329
Because objects are a phenomena of perception.

>>6677128
Who finds the Aztecs or the Mongols monstrous?

>>6677329
>>6677332
When you inspect a "tree" under a microscope there is no tree, only molecules or atoms or cells..
Tree is strictly the result of human perception.

>>6677341
>>6677332
>>6677329
rekt

>>6677128
What if other cultures are wrong?

>>6677351
wrong is a social construct

>>6677352
I think you're overstepping the bounds of your own knowledge.

>>6677357
boundaries are a social construct

>>6676995
if, as seems likely, the universe is at the lowest level discrete and not continuous, then "things" can be said to exist outside of human perception. if not, then everything is defined with a wuzzy line that does not hold up under close scrutiny

>>6677388
That's a very interesting way to think about it.

I've heard that psychedelics make one think in the latter mode. Whichever one is true, however, is anyone's guess.

>>6676995
Society is human nature. You will never draw that line.

>>6677256
>Psychologism
Husserl should be mandatory reading at this point.

>>6677339
I do.

>>6676995
So-called humanists.

>>6676995
It is stunning how captivating her stare was when she was young.

Define 'human construct,' it sounds vague and unphilosophical

>>6678348
yes it is. for some reason vague and unphilosophical people think that because something is constructed, it's less real and relevant.

fortunately you can completely shut down their argument by informing them that a single word in their response is a social construct.

>>6678463
Lol the problem is that people don't want to make objective claims about subjective things.
This is a bad pun but an easy error to make.
People who say 'constructs' are 'fake' or not real in the same way as rocks and trees are right.
They just don't mention that 'human constructs' are real in their own discrete way (They're called 'declarative facts', based on the agreement and participation of the people that create and use them).
Neither side of this argument is particularly clever or insightful.
Don't try and shut down people who make bad arguments or you look just as stupid.

>>6678491
>agreement
I don't think people are actually given s choice. They either participate or in most cases face the law or the escape from society by running to the hills.

When most people say social constructs they use it as a derogatory term simply because they don't agree with it whilst at the same time ignoring the ones they openly subscribe too.

The problem really is that religion has played and influenced them so much that the more progressive citizens feel dissenting cause it's not based on a more utilitarian approach which makes more sense given that larger and larger shares of society don't believe anymore.

>>6676995
>that completely spent look on the after picture
>that same burka they all wear
Looks like something really bad happened in that country, I wish I could save her in some sort of time machine.

>>6678529
Agreement isn't always a matter of choice

>>6677351
What are the chances that you "just happened" to be born in the right one, just like most people in other cultures believe? In other words, what universal claim do you have to your culture being righteous.

>>6678555
Then perhaps you should use a more appropriate word, like submittance.

>>6678559
That argument is retarded. The only way anybody can pretend to logically justify their culture is through moral utilitarianism. All else is self-delusion.

>>6678568
>born into a culture which values utilitarianism
Seems pretty unbiased

>>6678572
I wasn't. I was saying that's the only way one can give airs to such a claim. What else ought the purpose of a culture to be then? It's not to hold silly little festivals and ritual beheadings of perpetrators against conformity. I'll tell you that.

>>6677319
you are the summer guy, are you not ?

>>6678562
I'm a different anon. I don't think he meant agreement in a purely sociopolitical way. When a proposition agrees with a state of affairs in the world, the proposition can be said to be true, and this is a fair use of the word agreement. You're thinking of the word in a limited way.

>>6678577
What makes you so sure? Lots of societies work that way, and they seem to serve their own purposes just fine. Aside from your unfounded objections to 'conformity' and misunderstanding of the significance of ritual, why is utilitarianism better than, for instance, a deontological ethical theory?

>>6678568
>The only way anybody can pretend to logically justify their culture is through moral utilitarianism.

People can "logically" defend their culture through any moral system that's self-consistent, although emotional intuition and socially conditioned attitudes are what most people people really use to judge ethics. According to strict utilitarian ethics, a country that contained 51% of the world's population could inflict whatever slavery or violence they want on the other 49% of the world, so long as the material wealth and sadistic pleasure it provided was rated sufficiently high relative to the suffering of the minority.

Well-being, pleasure and happiness are not experienced the same way by all people. You can't just reduce complicated longstanding sentiment and mental states into a one-dimensional meter like the morality system of the Fable series IRL.

>All else is self-delusion.

Talk about having a confirmation bias.

>>6678577
>What else ought the purpose of a culture to be then?

Culture, for the most part, is not created or sustained by lone individuals. It has a multitude of participants, and therefore a multitude of designs regarding its purpose and interpretation.

>It's not to hold silly little festivals and ritual beheadings of perpetrators against conformity.

It's easy to belittle those kinds of old customs when you live in the modern era. For a farmer living in the ages where the seeds planted to grain harvested yield was 1:2 instead of 1:30, the temptation of a ritual being able to bring rain was much greater than it seems today. Likewise, criminal punishments were harsher in the past because violence and theft were much higher and they couldn't afford to feed a bloated prison population. The causes of natural disasters like plagues weren't understood, so they were often blamed on people in a desperate attempt to stop them. Think about how important wells were for having access to drinking water, and how mistrusted and dehumanized minority groups like Jews were. This would seem like a perfectly utilitarian argument in the Middle Ages.

Things almost always make sense when you grew up with them - fish do not believe in water, so to speak. However, in the year 3000, the same kind of disparaging attitude towards alien cultures would probably make your behavior in everyday life reminiscent of a superstitious peasant. Wisdom, whether individual or collective, only comes in retrospect.

>I'll tell you that.

I hate to break it to you, but you're not the supreme, unbiased arbitrator of all cultural norms that have come and gone in all places across all of history. You're probably not even familiar with 1% of them.

>>6678627

Considering the prevalent attitude towards free will and emphasis on individualism in the modern west, I'd say deontology makes much more sense than utilitarianism. Communism is basically utilitarianism taken to extremes and it was an abject failure.

>>6679004
>Communism is basically utilitarianism taken to extremes
Huh? Communism is explicitly anti utilitarian.
>and it was an abject failure
The Soviet Union definitely wasn't utilitarian

>>6677289

>>6677392
We know that our brains apply filters to our various senses, mainly as a means of sorting through the raw data and processing it for patterns etc. One thing that interests me about psychadelics, is the way in which they can effectively bypass these filters and allow you to experience the raw sensory input; or to be able to observe one of your sensory inputs in a far more detailed way. After all, we've evolved to only perceive the "color" range of light and a certain range of sound frequencies. What would the world appear like if you could view the whole range of light and the whole range of sound?