My Lens

Each Individual has there own way to look at the world. It's definitely a tautology of sorts, so it's obviously true. Each person's individual experiences makes up how they see the world. I figured that as my last post, I would change things up a little and talk about me, and a few core ideas that define my actions and beliefs, and what they mean to me.

Humanist - I think that if I could say that I have faith in anything, I could say that I have faith in humans. I love humans, and I always have. Some people assume that this means that I've not had bad experiences with people. This is an untrue assumption. I have had a number of bad experiences with people. Still, I believe that almost every human has the capacity to be good and kind and so on. I believe that all humans share the same basic human rights, and that we ought to work to view all people as equal. We can do so much! It is and we are so incredible. I hope to continue loving humans. When discussing the future, I tend to look at humans in a positive manner. I want to give people as many chances as I can, even if it hurts me. One of the things that makes me the most sad is when people chose to disappoint me when i gave them the option to easily avoid doing so. 

Transhumanist - Transhumanism is the augmentation of humans through technology. I think that technology is amazingly awesome, largely because we are using it as a tool to improve the human condition. I think that technology will continue to play a large part in our futures; it could give us a way out of many of the problems that we currently face. However, it could also bring about many negatives. Combined with humanism I think that humans will learn to use technology to our advantage, and that eventually humans will have improved bodies, will be able to explore the universe, and will know so much more about the universe

Pacificist - I am a pacifist by nature and by practice. I seldom experience anger, and when I do it's even more rarely the kind of anger that is channeled through physical aggression. In addition to that though, I intentionally try not to harm things. I do not kill mosquitoes, unless there is sufficient reason to do so (one biting my arm doesn't count, but 20 biting me in a car that I need to drive where opening the window would only serve to let in more of them does). Basically, if there is a way to not kill something, I will take that option. I will go largely out of my way to save even hornets, and spiders. 

Well, there they are. They are decently important to me. There are many more things that are important to  me. If you want to know more, please ask me. Good-bye class. 

What Is There?

So, the semester is coming to a close. I suppose I wanted to talk about my understanding on reality and our perception. I am a bit of a fallibilist, so I am not really certain about the extent of the existence of the world outside ourselves. Still, for the sake of functioning with the life that I have, I operate within the world that I seem to operate in regardless of whether or not it actually exists.

I suppose I continue to operate with this theory as the foundation: my thoughts match my perceptions which may or may not match consensus perceptions which may or may not match reality. Actually, I am not sure (go figure) about the connection between my thoughts and my perception, given that my thoughts about my perception tell me that my perceptions may be entirely wrong even if it feels as though they are right. Oh Aramark! This is quite a mess. 

Still, I have an identity in this world, regardless of it's reality. It would definitely be sad if my identity was based entirely on a falsehood, but I am not really sure what to do about that. I am realizing this this particular post is going to end on a rather sour note. I will do my best to make the next (read: final) note happier

A Rose By Any Other Name.

Names, I think, should be less important than ideas. It is more important to believe in the ideas of a religion than to identify as a follow of the religion. It is more important to believe in gender equality than to identify as a feminist, masculinist, or gender egalitarian. Names generally serve to help people draw an easy connection between and individual and what they believe. For example, when someone says that they are Mormon, in general, they are trying to communicate the idea that they believe in the ideas and goals that are associated with Mormonism.

If a person is identifying with a name that tends to hurt their goals, they may want to reconsider how they self identify. If, for instance, a gender egalitarian, feminist, or masculinist claimed to support gender equality, but found that using the terms gender egalitarian, feminist, and masculinist tends to turn many people off of the idea of gender equality, for the sake of the goal that individual should consider whether self-identifying with that term is worth the cost to the goal associated with the name.

I think it can be a problem when people start identifying with names, and history, rather than ideas and future.

Imagine this scenario: people in the abolitionist movements had accomplished much in way of making others see the rights of people of color. Laypeople, however, due to the actions of one radical abolitionist, had begun to associate "abolitionist" with "Satan-worshiping animal-sacrificing Julius Caesar-lovers." Laypeople, due to this association, decided not to support the rights of people of color, and started to protest against abolitionists. Abolitionist were too attached to their label of "abolitionist" to give up the label, even though keeping the label was working against the goal of abolitionism. Slavery has yet to be abolished.

Basically, I think this sort of thing is harming a variety of movements, including the feminist/masculinist movement.

Correcting on the Internet

In response to a classmate (modified slightly to remove dependence on context) - full post here

Masculinism and feminism suffer from the same problem it seems. The definition of words can often say largely different things than the reality of a group practices. The reality is that feminism and masculinism means different things to different people. Some people call themselves feminists and fight for true equal rights, but some feminists advocate only for women's rights and could care less about men's rights.  Some people call themselves masculinists and fight for true equal rights, but some masculinists advocate only for men's rights and could care less about women's rights. Both groups often neglect the rights of non-binary folks.

It is best to provide a holistic approach, noting that both groups have goods and bads, radicals and non-radicals. Regardless of intent, understanding, and subjective opinion, I do not think it is a good idea to post, for the entire internet to see, "while both groups understand that gender inequalities exist, feminism focuses on equating women to men and masculinism seeks to keep men as the dominate group in society." This statement is largely biased in that it ignores radical feminists who don't focus on equating women and men, and it ignores masculinists who believe the best way to achieve gender equality is to equally focus on both rather than trying only to move men up. It's promoting feminism and degrading masculinism in a way that is unjustified and not consistently true. Both groups include people who are genuinely for equality and people who genuinely believe that one sex is better. Gender equality should be less about names of groups and more about the ideas. Generalizing one group as entirely bad is no way to achieve true equality. 

Leaving alone sweeping generalizations that are objectively/empirically false, I think, is not a good thing. Imagine seeing someone post on the internet, for everyone to see, "I've not met a feminist who supports men's and non-binary people's rights, therefore all feminists only support women's rights" or "I have not met, talked to, or read about a homosexual woman, therefore there are no homosexual women." I think that you would be in the right to suggest that their experiences were inadequate to leave them with a realistic impression - some women are homosexual, and others are not; some feminists support equal rights across all genders, and others do not. Their views, regardless of how many sources they have used or how many years they have had those view, do not reflect the reality, and as soon they meet a homosexual women or a feminist who actually supports equal rights they cannot say that homosexual women, and equal rights supporting feminists do not exist, unless they pretend that the homosexual woman's and the feminist's experiences are invalid.

(Wikipedia, which is not always the most accurate site (but is not always as awful as people make it out to be), gives Warren Farrell's (Ph. D in Political Science, and B.A. in Social Science) definition of masculinism, which is largely positive and also focuses on women's rights. This renders to sweeping generalization inaccurate.)

Views and experiences may be subjective, and a blog is a place to state those things, but knowledge is not subjective, and experiences help to build knowledge. People can think whatever they want about anybody, but as soon as those thoughts translate to action, such as giving a biased view on a subject matter, their thoughts are no longer protected by subjectivity. People have every right to argue with someone if they spread biased information about feminism, saying that it is only bad. However, people have the same right in regards to other misinformation. 

Feminism and the Reinforced Binary

Feminism as a word from the Latin fēminīnus meaning woman. I think that this is one of the simple reasons that people choose not to identify using feminism; Feminism, despite claiming the definition of "activists for gender equality," does in its very root etymology, neglect men, and people of non-binary gender. Even the feminist symbol does not include the symbol for men or people of non-binary gender.

This is the feminist symbol

And this is a symbol the represents all genders

Additionally, many people who identify as feminist present society is such a way that dichotomizes gender - this often takes the form of "men do this and that to women" and sometimes includes "women do this and that to men." Quite apart from its truth value, we can see that it neglects to discuss the issues of non-binary genders. Many feminists, I am sure, recognize that non-binary gender people exist, but I seldom see any who constantly include those individuals in part of their world view. Many feminists use exclusively 'she' in their writings. which certainly works for enacting revenge for the years of male-specific language, but does little to solve gender equality problems when it outright neglects non-binary people.

Intersectionality

In response to Skyla - full post here

Personally, I support intersectionality as a conceptual theory. That said, I don't think it is a good idea to go labeling it as a feminist theory; it seems counter-effective. The idea of intersectionality, as far as my understanding goes, is that all social rights issues share features, and that equality is best achieved through recognizing that, refusing to play in the oppression olympics, and fighting together. So, it seems strange to try to elevate feminism using intersectionality.

Personally, as someone who recognizes the intersection between social issues, I try to use the broadest, most inclusive term that I can. I generally refer to myself as a humanist (and transhumanist, but that's another topic) foregoing the less specific labels like feminist, masculist, (insert thing here) activist. I think that the best way to achieve equality is to give up words like 'feminism,' and focus on the largest group that we can. I am not sure if holding on to these terms are actually doing any good anymore, I imagine that soon, if they haven't already, they will start to harm equal rights movements.

We see this sort of problem all of the time. We try to become equal by vilifying those who are not part of a group, or praising those who are part of the group. I mentioned in one of my last posts that this doesn't work. Instead of "driving the difference spike" by promoting Female History Month, Black History Month, Black Female History Month, etc., we need to use history and include people from all these groups.

Ignorance: Sometimes A Choice In the Age of Information

In response to Skyla - full post here

It's quite a shame really when people try to 'advocate' for things they do not really know about. In general, I do not think that ignorance is a choice, and therefore, I do not think that it is punishable (in the loosest sense of the word). However, I think that there is a kind of ignorance that characterizes many people in our contemporary society. I suppose we could call it intentional ignorance.

In the age of information, knowledge, in "first-world" at least, is available on the internet at many peoples' fingertips throughout various points of the day. If a person is going to support a cause, they should, using the internet, learn as much as they can about whatever they are supporting.

Many people, for instance, use the acronym LGBT but don't know for what the T stands, yet they do not look it up. Many people also say that they support the T of LGBT, but they still don't know what it stands for. Even people who do know for what it stands sometimes do not know what it is, or how to actually support them without causing harm or spreading misinformation.

Again, in an age of technology, sometimes ignorance is a choice.

Fighting For the Word

In response to Avery - full post here

"Ism"s, as you pointed out, can sometimes change in meaning, or at least connotation. I think some people neglect to realize this and therefore end up identifying with terms that are perhaps out-dated. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but sometimes it can cause large amounts of confusion.

For example, A person who identifies with Catholicism under the accepted definition and connotation of the 1200s would be very different from a person who identifies with Catholicism in the 2000s. I imagine this same thing is what you are talking about with regards to feminism. There are probably many people who would gladly identify (perhaps with an intersection to other genders' rights) with the original connotation of feminism, but due to keeping up with the various definitions of feminism have decided to avoid the label entirely, with the hope of avoiding being perceived as a radical feminist, and not causing the women's rights movement harm. Additionally there are people who due to lack of knowledge about the new connotation related to radical feminists, still adopt the label of feminism.

This, I think, leads to an interesting battle for the use of a word; it is difficult to win back a word once it has been tainted with negativity. Though I suppose it work the opposite way too; it may be equally as difficult to regain a negative connotation once the word has been tainted with positiveness, as seen with the word queer.

And it is difficult, of course, to give up on the word and search for a new one, because the new word would need to regain followers and so on - it's like starting a new movement.

Simply Beautiful v. Simply Explainable

In response to Griffin - full post here

Yes, I would imagine that how people react to learning scientific information about something would depend on how they view science. But I think that a more important aspect is how people present the science of that thing.

For example, let us take this flower and pretend that it is red. Some people may look at it and say, "wow, it is red, and it is beautiful." A scientist may come along and say "it only a simply reflection of light." Which sort of belittles the beauty and complexity of the flower. Another scientist could come along and say "Wow, it is beautiful. Light is so complex and amazing, and it's amazing to think about how different wavelengths of light produce different perceptions of colors when they hit the rods and cones in our eyes. It's also amazing that our eyes developed to see the visible wavelengths of light rather than the ultraviolet or infrared wavelengths. Oh Aramark, this is so beautiful and awesome."

Science has answers for many things, but that does not mean that it needs to present everything as simple.

Personally, I enjoy complexity and precision. Knowing the complexity of things, or the work that went in to them helps me to find things more beautiful - I spend more time reflecting on those things that I know more about. I'd rather hear of something's complexity than hear that something is "simply beautiful" or "simply explainable." On the other hand, I think that this is largely a matter personal preference.

Critical Thinking and the Spike of Differences

Many people are inclined to believe that in order for various groups to reach equality, those groups need to promote themselves independently from other groups. For example, there are many clubs and organisations on campus that are established to promote one group's rights - as an example here, we can use the Black Student Union. These kinds of groups work by sponsoring events specific to their groups and excluding other groups. I suppose an example of this is the promotion of Black History Month. The problem with this method is that if we think critically we realize that, while on its face it seems to helps to reach equality, it actually promotes a sort of segregation; it solidifies that idea that there is a important difference between the groups.

Black History Month promotes the idea that people with dark skin are different from those with light skin such that they ought to be distinguished on the basis of their skin color. This promotes that "separate but equal" model of equality; under this model, people separate because of the phenotypic characteristics such as skin color - this is why there still aren't many inter-"racial" couples or groups of friends.

The same thing is true of other groups who operate in this way. For instance, feminists who promote "women's history month" and "stop domestic violence against women," promote the idea that women are different, and worthy of different treatment and recognition on the basis of their sex.

I try to support the idea of "People History Month." That is, a moth that includes important people of history regardless of their various phenotypic characteristics. This way people would be distinguished as being different due to their talents and contributions. I do not mean to say that people are all the same, they certainly are different, but their outward appearances are not reasons to distinguish people. I think that different cultures are as valuable as others and can help each other in many ways - I do not think that mixing cultures is a bad idea.

Hunting Title-thing

In response to Skyla - full post here

I think I agree with your post. I think that hunting, in almost every circumstance an an unethical thing to do. I'm not certain about my stance on hunting over-populated animals like deer, given that deer are dying from diseases caused by the fact that they are over-populated.

The best solution, I think, is to find another way to reduce the population. Though I suppose that while hunting them may be unethical, though I am not entirely sold on this idea yet, I think it is less unethical than letting them die from those diseases. It would have been better to not kill all of the natural predators of deer.

Also, while I would, in general, prefer that people not hunt animals given that they can get by without killing animals, I do not think that I would consider it unethical to hunt provided that people put themselves in a situation that is fair. I think if one put oneself in a situation where one had to fend for oneself in the wild and was dependent on the hunting of animals in a fair environment (no fences), I may not consider that unethical.

Ethics and Individuals

In response to Brian - full post here

A good question to ask, I think, is if we, collectively, didn't want organized society would it be okay to stab each others eyes out, starve them nearly to death, and cut small wounds on their body so that they bleed slowly to death?

That said, I think that you are starting too big. Sure we need/want society to function, but why does that matter to the individual. It matters to the individual because society is comprised of individuals. Why do we want society to function? Because as individuals, we want other individuals to act a certain way towards us. Ethics stem from the individual relationships that make up a society.

When we search to figure out how we want individual to act towards us, we come up with reasons such as -

1.) I have the ability to experience and process pain. I do not like pain. I would like it if, knowing that I can feel pain, others did not cause me pain. If I do not like pain, I can be fairly confident that others do not like pain; therefore, I will not cause them pain. My sentience and the sentience of others means that we ought not to harm each other.

2.) Gee, up to and including this point in my life, I have really enjoyed myself, even when I was not reflecting on it. I sure would not be very happy if someone were to end my ability to continue to experience this happiness. I imagine that others feel similarly, therefore I will not end their capacity towards happiness. My capacity and the capacity of others to enjoy our lives means that I should not end their lives.

We gather reasons for ethics from the individual basis, and then, using science, conclude that other animals have the capacity for these things. Using applied logic, we can conclude that animals who measure up to those abilities deserve a certain level of treatment, and ethically, we must treat them in that way.

I Feel This Is Wrong

In response to Brian - full post [here]

I think intuition is certainly a relevant tool for investigating morality. I think that, in general, our intuitions are decently in line with morality. However, I think that placing a value on things that you intuit is a bad idea. That is, it is a bad idea to say thus: since I intuit that killing parrots is wrong, it must be so that killing parrots is wrong. I think that we ought to defend our ideas with reasons almost regardless of our intuitions, and we especially ought to do so if our intuition differ from those of anyone else.

Our intuition sometimes lead us to think questionable things. For example, many people intuit that killing is worse than letting someone die if you have the full capacity to stop that death. This intuition is wrong; all things being equal, killing and letting die are equally immoral.

Also, even if intuitions happen to be correct, I am not sure what we gain from expressing intuitions as feelings. Expressing thoughts as feelings tends to give a sense that those thoughts are less important because they are subjective and really only what a person feels. It's the difference between "I feel like murder is wrong" and "I think murder is wrong." The voice of the former is saying "I feel like it's wrong, but it's just my feeling so.... I mean, I guess, maybe, if you want, you could, if you could, feel the same way." The voice of the latter is saying "I think this is wrong. I have reasons to think so. If you think differently, we should talk this out."

Ideally, when someone challenges a thought, the other person is pressed to give reasons, or at least to try giving reasons. Often, when someone challenges intuitions, the other person simply claims that it's just a feeling and people can feel what feel, people should leave others alone.

This, I think, is the basis for stylistic checklist item number 20 on the Philosophy department's Writing Checklist - they explain it pretty well there. [click here for checklist]

Sliding Scale and Animals

I think we can place the moral status of an animal on a sliding scale. Factors for placement on the scale would include, among other things, the level of sentience, the ability to process/experience pain, and self-value.

Full grown humans, for instance, would be rather high in this scale, as they very sentient, they can process and experience pain, and, in general, they highly value their own lives. Adult parrots would also rank rather highly, as they have mental capacities similar to many three to five year olds; it is, I think, just as wrong to kill an adult parrot, as it is to kill an infant human. Many other animals have capacities similar to infant children. Some animals, like chickens, have very limited mental capacities, that is, they are not terribly intelligent. They do however, have capacities for pain, as such, I think that they do have a value significant enough to warrant not hurting them, if we can avoid doing so.

Meanwhile, shellfish and plants have no brain or central nervous system of which to speak; they are no sentient, and they cannot experience or process pain. As such, I think it is ethical to kill them so long as you don't severely limit the food source of other more intelligent animals who survive on shellfish heavy diets. 

We can use this sliding scale to determine the ethics of vegetarianism. A human, in order to be ethical, should eat things with the lowest moral value. Many humans can survive on vegetables, fruits, and shellfish. As such, they should refrain from eating animals with the sentience and capacity to process and experience pain. If a human finds that they are unable to survive without other animal proteins, they should eat the animals with the lowest moral value that would suffice to give them the necessary protein; if a human needs animal meat for protein, and chicken would suffice, they ought not to eat anything of a higher moral value than chicken.  

Slammer, for you!

Question 2: To what extent can we condemn conscious intent of immorality if it is beyond control?

We cannot condemn people for their conscious intent, as it is beyond their control. We can however, condemn whatever the intention is. That is, we cannot condemn person A for intending to kill another person, but we can condemn the intention that Person A has to kill another person.

Given that person A, is the sort of person who has intentions to kill others, it is perfectly appropriate to react to this by trying to encourage person A from having the intention to kill other people. As it is not person A's fault that they have this intention, we ought to deal with person A as kindly as we can in order to get person A to no longer have this intention. In most cases, this would involve using the rehabilitative model of justice rather than a retributive justice system. Norway's system of justice would work decently well as a model of determinist justice.

More Direct/Prefered Summary: People have no power over their own thoughts and actions, though they think they do. Even if we can't hold people accountable for their thoughts and actions, we can act to prevent people from causing other's harm. Since we cannot hold people accountable for their own thoughts and actions, we need to treat people as best as we can while trying to discourage negative intention and encouraging positive intention. This means 1.) probably not solitary confinement (retributive justice), and 2.) probably so fishing on lakes and petting goats (rehabilitative) - This works better anyhow, as it actually works to prevent future crime, and is kinder to everybody involved.

"The degree of a nation’s civilization can be seen in the way it treats its prisoners."
-Fyodor Dostoevsky

Title (Creative)

Question 1: If we have no free will, what is the power of conscious intention (if we have it)?

The power to self-generate conscious intention is part of the illusion of free will. Conscious intent is not an illusion.

In order to have conscious intention, we must have an object of conscious focus. We have no means to properly control what things are the objects of our conscious focus; thoughts are part of the determined nature of the universe. As such, the power to self-generate consciously intention is an illusion.

The conscious intent is not an illusion though. Just a moment ago, while thinking of how to demonstrate conscious intention, the intention to pick up my computer mouse entered my mind. I had no control over the focus of my consciousness, though it is certain that the intention was indeed still in my mind.

tl;dr Conscious intent exists; though, we have no power to control it.

Time Dilation

I am attempting to mentally deal with time dilation in a scenario where all humans have access to the fastest speed at which it is possible to travel. It is possible for a human to travel very fast and land in someone else's future. However, if all humans gain access to such travelling speeds, we lose the ability to travel to other peoples' future if they travel at that speed; we will still have the ability to travel into their futures if they are not travelling at the fastest speed. What would it be like if other people were to travel against the spin of the universe at the speed at which the universe spins? Oh my mother of evil gremlins! I don't even know

We will have the ability, of course, to travel into the future of the earth, and we'll also have the ability to travel into other species' evolutionary future. I imagine that we may very well take advantage of that to see how other species evolve; we may actually take it upon ourselves to aid the technological advancement of the new lead species. We would be aliens to them, and depending on how far technologically advanced they were, they may refer to us as gods (Arthur Clarke's third law suggests that sufficiently advanced technology would be indistinguishable from magic (our much earlier evolutionary ancestors who had yet controlled fire, may have thought that a match was magic).

So much interesting!!! STAHP! Not really though, universe - keep being interesting

Cyclical View Of Time Solves All

I did not complete the Q & A for this week. As such, I'll post some of my general thoughts about time.

Though the cyclical view of time, in a sense, gets rid of the notion of beginning, middle, and end, it does not properly/adequately solve the problem. The cyclical view of time leaves us wondering how exactly this cycle started; it still has the problem of invoking an infinity that we humans are not actually mentally equipped to comprehend. So, it hardly provides us with an answer, and is, at this point in our knowledge, no more useful than the linear view of time. Maybe eventually we will be able to understand it.

My second problem of the cyclical view of time is that it would necessitate determinism and exact repetition. Even if the "end"/collapse of the universe is what causes the "beginning"/expansion of the universe, I think that it would extremely unlikely that the universe would be exactly the same way as it was before; It seems unlikely that planets and stars would form in the galaxies, and it's unlikely that life would evolve in the same way. If the universe forms  in entirely different ways, then I would not venture to call it cyclical exactly; I would say that it is linear, and that there is causation between the "end"/collapse and the next "beginning"/expansion falls on the line.

Culture and Food

In response to Carrisa - full post here

This sort of thing is interesting to dissect on a biological level. Along with how many times a day people eat, we can also look at how much they eat for each given meal, what they eat for each meal, and how long they take to eat.

Biologically, it better to eat larger meals in the middle of the day because our metabolism is at its best at that time. Some countries take 2 hours breaks around lunch-time to allow people to go back and eat lunch with their families. Some countries eat small evening meals when the metabolism slows. Other countries only have large meals later in the day because their economy is based around morning to afternoon shifts.

Some countries, like America, focus on eating fast so that they can move quickly to doing other things. Others, like Italy, involve eating more slowly - taking hours to eat three parts of the meal.

It's also interesting to thing about how societies follow different rituals about which foods to eat during a certain time of the day. Why is it abnormal, in America, to eat eggs and
cereal as the evening meal? Tradition, I suppose.

Culture and food is so intensely interesting.

Enemies First

In response to Avery - full post here

I think this is a very interesting concept. People certainly berate others for they draw their circles.

There is that strange fascination with referring to a group of friends as a family of choice. I imagine that so doing is partially the result of family members berating the young members of the family for caring more about their friends than they do family; it is possibly the result of our society slowly moving away from mechanical solidarity. Then there are, as you mentioned, those with more traditional views. There is nothing wrong with any of that.

I do rather want to meet someone whose circles place enemies before friends. It would make for quite an interesting person. Society would be perhaps more interesting if doing so was the norm.

And We Could Run Away, If We Could Run Away

In response to Brian - Full post here

Anyhow, my answer is generally something akin to this:

Firstly, not all people who notice that something is wrong flee from it. Many people would rather stay and raise awareness and try to fix the issue.

Secondly, that's not actually what America is about. Freedom is the right to disagree with a majority. If you are forced to agree with a majority, you are not free. I will thereby exercise my freedom by disagreeing and choosing to stay here.

Thirdly, living here and receiving my education here, given that I was born here, is the most practical thing for me to do at this point in my life.

Fourthly, I plan to leave as soon as it is convenient.

You ARE an Internationalist, Darn it! Swallow This Pill!

In response to Skyla - full post here

People, I think, can value peace and justice but fully support the notion that countries are very different. Maybe they support peace and justice, but also support self-sufficiency and would thereby never want to aid another country.

Overall, I think it would be better to not force labels on other people. Especially seeing as how labels have different meanings to different people, and different implications with which some people may not actually agree. To relate it to your example, if I decided that masculism meant supporting gender equality, I could proceed to tell other people that individual x is a masculist even if that person dislikes the connotation.

As another example, I could say that any two people together are a couple of people. I could then, unfairly to those people, go around saying that person X and person Y were a couple, which obviously means something different to other people.

Personally, I do not identify as feminist. I support equal rights, and I realize that feminism, to many people means supporting equal rights. Even if that meant empowering men and women equally, I would not use that term. Feminist comes from Latin femina meaning woman. Personally, I object to this on the same grounds that some feminists might object to calling themselves masculists if masculist meant promoting gender equality. The very nature of the word is not equal. I prefer egalitarian.

Additionally, forcing labels on people negates the positive effects of the movement. Calling people internationalists against their will, may cause them to view the internationalist movement more negatively. The same thing could happen to the equal rights movement if we are not careful.

BECOME INTERNATIONALIST OR DIE!!!

Question: To what extent should we promote internationalism?

This is rather a difficult question to answer, and it may be easier to answer with what a country should not do to promote internationalism. I do not think that a country should force internationalism upon any other country, and especially not by means of violence.  Even the more peaceful missionary style of promoting something seems contrary to the goals of internationalism. Both methods stem from and lead to the belief that one country is better than another for whatever reason. This, of course, leads to ask exactly how a country ought to promote internationalism.

I think that countries ought to promote internationalism by example. That is, they ought to aid other countries when those other countries ask for aid. That serves beyond aid and encourages other countries to act similarly. This does not give the impression that one country believes that they are better than another.

Standing Armies

Question: In countries that support nationalism would it be appropriate to have standing armies?

I am not entirely sure on my answer to this one. I am inclined to say no; countries that support internationalism, peace, and justice would have no need for a standing army. History has shown us that countries with standing armies and manufacturers producing weapons have the tendency to look for reasons to use the army and the weapons. Doing so, however, would not be in line with the ideas of internationalism, peace, and justice. On the other hand, it seems obvious that nations need a means to defend themselves and other countries, should one other country decide to take up the offensive.

It seems like the best idea would be for nations, so long as there are nations, to have an army reserve/national guard. If countries did this, they would be in a ready defensive position, and would also be in line with the ideas of internationalism, peace, and justice. This would allow countries to send out troops to defend themselves or another country.

Sure, it's likely that some countries could abuse their reserves by claiming that it is in the name of defense, but I don't think that it would be a good idea to entirely get rid of all forms of armed fighters. It seems childish to say that one nation won't give up an army until others do, but it's also foolish to make yourself completely defenseless.

I'm Not Okay (You Wear Me Out)

Response to Carrisa - full post here

I, too, thought about this in class. I think I referred to it with the made up word "antinaturalism." Belief in only supernaturalism is largely impractical. I think that all people believe in at least some aspects of the empirically observable universe. They believe in and use the doors that allow them to travel from room to room; they do not walk into walls and doors. They believe in height difference between ground level and the second story of a building; they do not break their feet from jumping/walking out the second floor.

Troll in the Dungeon, Werewolf on the Quad

Question 2: Does science ever make judgements about the possible existence of the supernatural?

Science by its nature must occasionally make judgments about the possible existence of a supernatural being. If for instance, a person were to say that there was a werewolf transforming on the quad right now for all to see with their naked eyes, science, as it is based off of empirical facts, would have to say that such a supernatural thing does not exist in that state. Additionally, science can say that the existence of werewolves in generally is not likely, as such a transformation would involve a physiology that no human could possess; transforming from a human to a werewolf and back would involve the growing, shrinking, and readjustment of bones, such that many of the human bones would break. Since no evidence of human transformation even to a far lesser extent has hitherto come to scientists, science would have to deny the possibility.

On the other hand, science cannot say anything about the supernatural that do not have empirically observable features. If a person where to say that there was a werewolf transforming on the quad right now, but that we could not observe it, science could neither confirm not reject that statement. All science can say is that there is nothing to be empirically observed. However, scientists may question how it is that a person claimed to know about the werewolf's transformation. Science is not right 100% of the time. Given that science is based on empirical facts, science is limited by our senses and our technology, which will improve, granted. But we may never get to a point where we have all possible means of empirically observing things.

Even if we do get to that point, how will we know?

Why the Sun Really Shines, Really This Time (We Know for Sure)

Question 1: Should we teach religions in school in the same manner that we teach science?

The answer to this question, I think, depends very highly on how schools teach science. In a very non-ideal setting science teachers teach scientific theories as though they are the only theories. In those same non-ideal situations science teachers teach science as though science is always 100% correct. Some science teachers in the sixties taught for a fact that the sun a sphere of gas. They used this song as a teaching aid:

This is a more fun cover version: 

Later, science advanced and scientists determined that the sun was not a mass of incandescent gas, but was rather a miasma of incandescent plasma. For fun here's another video:

Anyhow, back to serious philosophy. The point is that honest science teachers should teach science as it is: a tested hypothesis, which given the current data and observation, is the best explanation for the empirical facts. Religion, while based on faith rather than reason and direct observation, offers another explanation. 

I think that in honest academic settings it would be appropriate to teach science as an empirically observational based explanation of facts, and to offer a general religious studies courses as an option. It would be discriminatory and unfair to teach only one religion and it would largely impractical to teach all of the religions. So, perhaps it would be best to, beyond offering a few religious studies courses, provide resources through which students can learn more about various religions.

I'm not sure how practical that is, and I'm not sure where to draw the line.

Punching My Constructed People

Ought I to punch, in the face, someone in my perceived reality?

Umm... No; probably not. Firstly, I think it is important to remember that lack of evidence for reality being external does not mean that reality isn't external. In this same way, lack of evidence for reality being internal does not mean that reality is not, in fact, internal. I think depending which view we take, we need to recognize that maybe we are horribly wrong. In fact, before we make that choice we may want to consider to possible consequences of being right or wrong about either view.

If you agree that reality is external, punching someone in the face may very well land you in a prison that is real and external to you. So, this view would mean that you wouldn't want to punch someone in the face unless you particularly wanted to risk going to prison.

If you agree that reality is internal, the result of punching someone in the face will depend on how well you can force your mind to believe something and impose it upon your reality. If you punch someone in the face chances are that your mind, in my mind's experience, will not have the strength to keep you out of prison; the people whom you construct will throw you in a prison that you constructed/conceived of on your own. Of course, there isn't really any way of knowing if you'll succeed, unless you have experienced failure in doing so before this point in "time."

My advice: don't punch people in the face.

Individual vs Consensus; Perception vs Reality

Question 2: Do we construct reality? If not, does our understand of reality reflect reality as it is?

In most senses, I do not think that we construct reality. I think that we do in some ways, we do construct our own reality. We often alter events and happenings of our lives to be something different. We mentally construct things to be in our individual perception of reality when those things are not there in the consensus reality, and we mental deconstruct things to be not in our individual perception of reality when those things are there in the consensus reality. Of course, that it not say the the consensus reality could not consist of many mentally constructed things. As I mentioned in a previous post, I think rather than construct our reality, we tend to bastardize it; we impose upon it our limitations and our personal perceptions. Perhaps the moon is truly of a second spatial dimensional nature, and all of humanity imposes upon it their limitation of third spatial dimension understanding.

I suppose this is what I think:

Individual thoughts match individual perceptions which may or may not match consensus perception which may or may not match reality, if such a thing exists. I suppose that for reasons of pragmatism, we ought to assume that consensus perceptions generally match reality, or at least work towards matching reality. I think it still important to not neglect the fact that we have intense limitation, and that we should work to lessen those limitations.

What do you think?

Seventh Spatial Dimensional Monsters

Question 1: Can we conceive of/construct any spatial dimension other than our own?

I do not think it is possible to conceive of or construct any spatial dimension but our own. Humans like to fantasize that they can truly conceive of the first and second spatial dimensions. I think that we bastardize the first and second spatial dimensions to fit into our understand of the third dimension. For instance, when attempting to express even the first spatial dimension, we represent it as a dot. Even a dot, however has a sort of length, width, and depth. We cannot fully imagine what a first spatial dimension would look like. It is for the same reason that I think we could not fully imagine a second spatial dimension. We are severely limited to perceiving things in our third spatial dimensional worldview. Presumably, if the third spatial dimension does indeed exist, it would have the foundations of  first and second spatial dimensions. This leads me to wonder a few things.

The first of which is the following: do we actually understand the third spatial dimension? I would say yes; I think that we have only an understanding of the third spatial dimension, as seen by the fact that we impose third spatial dimensionality upon our universe-view. This is not to say that this universe is not a third spatial dimension universe, it is only to say that this universe may have lesser dimensions and higher dimensions upon which we impose or our third spatial dimension understanding.

The second of which is do alternate spatial dimensional beings exist? If so, could we conceive of them? I think that it is possible that alternate spatial dimensional beings exist (first, second, fourth, two hundredth, etc) without our knowledge. I think that because we cannot experience anything different from our spatial dimension, we would be unable to conceive of or process the existence of such beings; horribly nasty seventh spatial dimensional monsters could exist around us without our knowledge.

I have other questions, but that would make for a crazy long(er than this) blog post. So, what do any of you think?

Color Perception

Response to David Tynan - full post here

This is quite the interesting question; I was thinking about something related to it in class. Functional tetrachromacy seldom occurs in humans, though retinal (non-functional) tetrachromacy is more common; rods may help see colors in low light intensity, giving many humans a sort of tetrachromacy rather than trichromacy.

Even on a more common level, people see colors differently. I recently took a colour distinction test, and received a perfect score. While my friends did well, they did not do perfectly. Many non-color blind people are unable to distinguish one kind of red from another. So, how you perceive any given color may be drastically different from your friends; your friends may see that sunset just a little more vividly than you can.

Also, interestingly, with advancements in technology related to the human eye, humans may eventually be able to unlock the ability to perceive more light wavelengths. That is, assuming the human mind will eventually be able to process the information, technology could allow humans to have gamma ray vision, x-ray vision, ultraviolet vision, optical light vision (we have this already), infrared vision, microwave vision, and radio-wave vision. Of course, we would have to have the ability to shut these off when we want, otherwise we would all be effectively blind.

Beautiful Precision

Pregunta 2: Can you find you beauty in precision (related to math, science, architecture, etc.)?

I personally believe that you can find beauty in precision. Though, I suppose that precision may be only a part of what people can find beautiful in any given object. I'm not sure how to distinguish them exactly. I mean, I think that there is something to be said about precision and sharpness of angles in architecture, though I am not sure that one can separate precision from other elements that makes something beautiful. I'd like to think that I can, but I am not really sure about that. 

I feel a bit like I'm rambling here, and I may be completely wrong to associate this feeling with beauty. I am absolutely fascinated with the amount of mathematical and scientific precision that is part of wind-turbines, and I would consider that precision to be beautiful. To me, beauty from art feels different from beauty from music which feels different from beauty from architecture and mechanical operations. 

What A Beautiful Corpse

Pregunta 1: Is it ever immoral to find something beautiful; for example, is it ever immoral to find a dead person or a tsumani beautiful?

I do not think that it is ever immoral to find something beautiful especially since beauty, I think, is entirely subjective. I also think that what a person finds beautiful is not up to any individual; people are predisposed to find certain things beautiful.

I suppose it would only really become immoral when a person's view that something is beautiful causes that person to act immorally in order to have the opportunity to see that thing. That is, when a person kills another person that they may see a dead person's body, that murderer is immoral not because they find dead people beautiful but because they killed someone.

It may also be a sort of immoral to express what they find beautiful at certain times. It may be immoral to, at a grandmother funeral, to say that you find the dead grandmother to beautiful based exclusively on that fact that she is indeed dead.