# What is beauty?



## Cnote11

I'd like to preface this post by saying that no matter what any of you say on this topic, you're all wrong. This has been an official proclamation from LORD TROLL OF THE HILLS.

So, forward with the topic. This is a topic Polednice is extremely passionate about, so I expect some interesting discussion from him. How do you conceive, or perceive even, beauty?


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## Polednice

Am I passionate about it? I didn't know. 

I'll wait to see what other people say first and then tell them they're wrong.


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## moody

Cnote11 said:


> I'd like to preface this post by saying that no matter what any of you say on this topic, you're all wrong. This has been an official proclamation from LORD TROLL OF THE HILLS.
> 
> So, forward with the topic. This is a topic Polednice is extremely passionate about, so I expect some interesting discussion from him. How do you conceive, or perceive even, beauty?


You just look under this helmet and you'll have your answer.


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## sah

I conceive beauty as a concept with different meanings through history.


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## Cnote11

sah said:


> I conceive beauty as a concept with different meanings through history.


It's funny how WRONG you are.


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## cwarchc

Beauty is a perception that is subjective to the individual.
It cannot be measured, as my perception will/could be completely different to yours


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## Cnote11

Wrong HillTroll made me do it


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## Ukko

cwarchc said:


> Beauty is a perception that is subjective to the individual.
> It cannot be measured, as my perception will/could be completely different to yours


That's the 'Beauty is in the eye of the beholder' understanding. It is irrefutable.


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## sah

Cnote11 said:


> It's funny how WRONG you are.


Have you read what Plato, Aristotle, Saint Augustine or Kant said about beauty?

(This question can't be wrong.)


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## Cnote11

Have you read what HillTroll said about beauty?


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## Dodecaplex

Edify yourselves, mortals.


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## Cnote11

You're wrong, Dodecaplex. Perhaps you should try reading what Wittgenstein said about beauty.


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## cwarchc

Voltaires views
Voltaire (1694–1778) goes onto argue that beauty, due to its relativist nature, is not just difficult but impossible to define.


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## Polednice

Cnote11 said:


> You're wrong, Dodecaplex. Perhaps you should try reading what Wittgenstein said about beauty.


Perhaps he should read Hilltroll's paraphrase of Wittgenstein.


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## Dodecaplex

It makes me sad that 999 is not a prime. It's not a beautiful number at all.


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## cwarchc

Never stay up on the barren heights of cleverness, but come down into the green valleys of silliness.


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## Cnote11

They are fun to roll around in.


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## Iforgotmypassword

Well since I can never prove the existence of anything but my own consciousness, and that only to myself, I would say that my opinions are all that hold any validity whatsoever. 
Since this is the case, I must say that beauty is the processes of suffering and pleasure. Beauty is yearning. Beauty is dissonance and consonance blended in a strange pattern which in the end evens out into a flatline that is life, or death for that matter. 
Both work together to create beauty. Beauty is the saddness that you feel when remembering good times, the yearning you experience when seeing an attractive woman, the fact that the happiness that you now feel is but fleeting. This is what creates beauty.


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## Polednice

I would say that with the sole exception of when the term is employed to denote a person's physical attractiveness, "beauty" is an outdated metaphysical concept like free will that ought to be discarded in favour of clearer language.


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## PetrB

Would you care to narrow that down a tich? :tiphat:


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## brianwalker

Click Me. 10 Characters.


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## starthrower

If beauty is subjective and experienced through the senses, why should I read a bunch of philosophy? Thanks, but no thanks. I'd rather step outside and smell the flowers and look at the sky.


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## Dodecaplex

Why not do both?


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## starthrower

Dodecaplex said:


> Why not do both?


'Cause I'm an old fart with a bad back, and I can't sit and read for very long.


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## Cnote11

Why are people responding seriously to this topic.


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## starthrower

Because there are too many seriously brainy folks here who can't resist posting links to philosophical treatises.


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## brianwalker

starthrower said:


> If beauty is subjective and experienced through the senses, why should I read a bunch of philosophy? Thanks, but no thanks. I'd rather step outside and smell the flowers and look at the sky.


Because your judgment of experience as subjective already places you within a codified and stultifying philosophical tradition.


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## Dodecaplex

Ramanujan was Chopin's boyfriend.


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## starthrower

brianwalker said:


> Because your judgment of experience as subjective already places you within a codified and stultifying philosophical tradition.


Fine! I still don't like Mozart. I don't care what StLukesOhio says.


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## clavichorder

Everything was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt


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## starthrower

Thank God Beethoven came along! The white one from Germany. :lol:


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## Ukko

Dodecaplex said:


> It makes me sad that 999 is not a prime. It's not a beautiful number at all.


Of course not. It looks like spermatozoa; important, but not beautiful.


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## Cnote11

So it was written; so it shall be


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## clavichorder

starthrower said:


> Thank God Beethoven came along! The white one from Germany. :lol:


He was black!


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## StlukesguildOhio

You're both wrong... he was Chinese:


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## Sid James

What is beauty?

BALD IS BEAUTIFUL.

I see so many bald guys with hot chicks on their arms that it's not funny.

So these composers are automatically hot. They are chick magnets (all in order of added testosterone hotness) -

1. Sibelius
2. Lutoslawski
3. Hindemith
4. Arvo Part
5. Brett Dean
6. H. W. Henze
7. Schoenberg
8. Prokofiev
9. Bruckner
10. A bald gangsta rapper whose name I can't remember.

Long live the chrome domes. They are BEAUTIFUL and all things NICE!


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## StlukesguildOhio

On the other hand... there's reason to believe Mozart was a woman:


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## starthrower

Pasty white shaved heads were OK when it was just Telly Savalas ( he was Greek and not too pasty) and a few other guys. Now it's like tatoos. Every other 30 something guy losing his hair shaves his head now. Enough already! It makes me nostalgic for the greasy comb overs! Remember Zero Mostel?


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## Sid James

Our icon of comb overs was Norman Gunston, here interviewing one of your great boxers. Still funny after all that time -


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## Philip

> What is beauty?


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## clavichorder

Philip said:


>


Eh...

filler text.


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## Couchie

I think beauty is axiomatic. Everybody knows it when they witness it.


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## mmsbls

I've always preferred objective definitions (when available) so here are a couple of answers:

In visual art objects that incorporate the golden ratio are beautiful. The golden ratio is the quantity (1 + square root(5))/2 ~ 1.61803. Da Vinci used this ratio in many of his great works of art.

Human faces that are more symmetrical about a vertical bisector (line drawn vertically through the nose) are more beautiful to humans. 

I've always wondered if there are any universal or near universal attributes of music that give rise to enjoyment. I think we'll need to learn much more about sound, it's perception, and it's processing in our brains to know the answer.


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## Xaltotun

To Kant, a woman could not be "beautiful" - this concept was reserved to nature and art. If I remember right, he said it something like this: "A good looking woman merely serves a purpose."

But really, this is a dead serious question, and all the greatest thinkers have written about it. I've read about this topic a great deal during the last year, and I recommend everyone to do the same.

As for my own thoughts: I don't know if beauty even exists - but it ought to exist! And "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" is about the most boring concept that I can imagine.


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## cwarchc

Cnote11 said:


> Why are people responding seriously to this topic.


Because it's fun and ineresting

If beauty actually existed in objects themselves, we would all be irresistibly attracted by the same people and things


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## Cnote11

I'm with Polednice on this, actually. It isn't really fun nor interesting. Beauty is a variable thing, although it seems at times that some people are attracted to certain things on average, but this is often due to environmental conditioning, although some of it is not. That is about as exciting as it gets. Too bad we can't be all fascist about beauty, right?


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## Iforgotmypassword

I think the exciting part is hearing other people's personal takes on beauty. There is no one overriding philosophy on it, it's all like you said, based upon genetic and environmental conditioning and so the interesting part is seeing how their minds' percieve things differently.


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## Polednice

For the question to be of any real philosophical intrigue, someone will have to distinguish for me the difference between "what is beauty?" and "what do you like?" I think the word is just used to inflate the importance of people's mundane tastes.


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## Ukko

Polednice said:


> For the question to be of any real philosophical intrigue, someone will have to distinguish for me the difference between "what is beauty?" and "what do you like?" I think the word is just used to inflate the importance of people's mundane tastes.


I think you are probably right. Maybe the ancient Greeks had a 'spelled out' esthetic of beauty (you know how those guys were).


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## Chrythes

Xaltotun said:


> To Kant, a woman could not be "beautiful" - this concept was reserved to nature and art. If I remember right, he said it something like this: "A good looking woman merely serves a purpose."
> 
> But really, this is a dead serious question, and all the greatest thinkers have written about it. I've read about this topic a great deal during the last year, and I recommend everyone to do the same.
> 
> As for my own thoughts: I don't know if beauty even exists - but it ought to exist! And "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" is about the most boring concept that I can imagine.


But isn't it true that the perception of beauty is subjective?
Of course, such statements as "the beauty is in the eye of the beholder" are quite worthless if not explained.
As of beautiful women - I can't think of any beautiful women unless I'm in love with one. Otherwise - women can be attractive to me. I guess I hold beauty as something more than an exterior of something. 
A woman becomes beautiful when everything about her seems to be harmonious and acceptable for me. I guess I hold beauty as a sort of order, harmony, and meaning combined with a physical stimuli that i find pleasant. But still - it's too abstract...

I wonder, can we reach a global consensus about the beauty of a certain thing? The first thing that comes to my mind is nature. Do you know people that find nature ugly?


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## Xaltotun

OK guys, let me get all Kant on you. It's not like I agree with everything that the man wrote, but I do find him fascinating. For him, beauty was not purely subjective ("beauty is in the eye of the beholder"), but it was not purely objective ("beauty is a property of the object") either. 

He argued that beauty needs both the properly formed object, and the mind of the subject. The form of the object has to be such that the subject's faculties of mind - namely, reason and imagination, engage in what he called a free play. Thus, the object is seen as beautiful, and the subject finds pleasure in experiencing it. Thus, beauty is both subjective and objective, and more than that: it's universal, i.e. everyone has the potential to see beauty in beautiful things, if they just excersise the faculties of their mind hard enough.

It's really much more complicated than that, but that's it in a nutshell. For more information, read "The Critique of Judgement" by Immanuel Kant. It's a fantastic book!


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## Chrythes

But isn't it self evident that you need an object, or essentially something (even an idea or a feeling) for you to experience beauty? 
I can't imagine how it is possible to say that something is beautiful without experiencing it at all - even not its idea.
So the perception of beauty is always subjective, if we assume that each person experiences the beauty of a certain thing in its own unique way.


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## Xaltotun

The perception of beauty needs a person, a subject, yes. But is his/her perception of a thing completely _unique?_ Completely independent of the object in question?


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## Chrythes

But everything is dependent on something. Do you believe that a person can think or perceive something without being dependent on something _at all_?


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## Polednice

Xaltotun said:


> He argued that beauty needs both the properly formed object, and the mind of the subject. The form of the object has to be such that the subject's faculties of mind - namely, reason and imagination, engage in what he called a free play. Thus, the object is seen as beautiful, and the subject finds pleasure in experiencing it. Thus, beauty is both subjective and objective, and more than that: it's universal, i.e. everyone has the potential to see beauty in beautiful things, if they just excersise the faculties of their mind hard enough.


That seems to me to be a verbose reformation of "beauty is subjective", with a dash of objectivity thrown in just because he thinks it can be hidden by the extended explanation. It can't. It's purely subjective. After all, what is a "properly formed object" but an object that is formed to meet the aesthetic preferences of a human brain? Whether something can be appreciated by one person or a hundred thousand people, the appreciation is purely in the mind, and though an extremely successful object may have such qualities that it evokes pleasurable feelings in a vast number of people - and though those qualities may be exhibited in other successful pieces such that the qualities seem consistent throughout time, thus giving the illusion of intrinsic goodness - they will still only ever work for humans. The birds do not like Brahms, and rocks don't gaze up at their mountain brethren in awe. The fact that our particular species' brain is required means that there's not even a smidgen of objective beauty in an object.


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## Cnote11

Is there anybody who thinks a herpes infected p*nis is beautiful? (While in the stage of height of visibility)


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## Chrythes

This is why I sometimes don't bother to get into discussions - I almost always agree with Polednice and he always articulates in a way I will never be able to.


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## Polednice

Chrythes said:


> This is why I sometimes don't bother to get into discussions - I almost always agree with Polednice and he always articulates in a way I will never be able to.


Aww, I'm sorry! I'll keep my mouth shut on this one from now on - you can take it from here!


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## Ukko

Well, I'm not sure what rocks do. My expert on that would be Pratchet, and I don't recall what he said on the subject; maybe nothing. As for the birds, they probably don't like Messiaen either, which must reflect on either them or Messiaen.

Other than that, I believe you have it covered; probably. I think it is much easier to state arguments for why something is _not_ beautiful. I don't get why that should be.


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## Xaltotun

Perhaps not, Chrythes, but there's a difference with a judgement being dependent on past experiences and memories, or on a direct observation of an object. And if a judgement _is_ even partly dependent on an object, it's not purely subjective, is it? Unless we think that human minds are so different and unique that they will make completely different judgements on same objects, with nothing in common? And if we think that, why are we even talking about art?

Edit: gee, I write a reply and 5 posts appear while I'm typing :S


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## Xaltotun

Polednice said:


> That seems to me to be a verbose reformation of "beauty is subjective", with a dash of objectivity thrown in just because he thinks it can be hidden by the extended explanation. It can't. It's purely subjective. After all, what is a "properly formed object" but an object that is formed to meet the aesthetic preferences of a human brain? Whether something can be appreciated by one person or a hundred thousand people, the appreciation is purely in the mind, and though an extremely successful object may have such qualities that it evokes pleasurable feelings in a vast number of people - and though those qualities may be exhibited in other successful pieces such that the qualities seem consistent throughout time, thus giving the illusion of intrinsic goodness - they will still only ever work for humans. The birds do not like Brahms, and rocks don't gaze up at their mountain brethren in awe. The fact that our particular species' brain is required means that there's not even a smidgen of objective beauty in an object.


But Pole, you seem to be saying that some objects have an intrinsic property that they evoke some specific feelings in humans. Even though they do not evoke those feelings in birds, how's that not a property of the object?


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## Ukko

Xaltotun said:


> Perhaps not, Chrythes, but there's a difference with a judgement being dependent on past experiences and memories, or on a direct observation of an object. And if a judgement _is_ even partly dependent on an object, it's not purely subjective, is it? Unless we think that human minds are so different and unique that they will make completely different judgements on same objects, with nothing in common? And if we think that, why are we even talking about art?


There is more 'about' art than beauty. IMHO the prime significance of art is its ability to 'speak without words'. Even poetry and prose, constructed of words, can 'speak' what isn't written. Haiku exists for that purpose.

As a human male, even now in my ancient decrepitude retaining the tattered remains of a male sexual esthetic, I can recognize feminine beauty. What has changed is that the unmarred physical attributes - the face with no evidence that it has shared the life of its owner, for instance, are not beautiful to me. Part of 'growing into beauty' involves 'character lines'. Some of them enhance the face, some of them enhance the mind.


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## Polednice

Xaltotun said:


> But Pole, you seem to be saying that some objects have an intrinsic property that they evoke some specific feelings in humans. Even though they do not evoke those feelings in birds, how's that not a property of the object?


Some objects have properties that evoke specific feelings intrinsic to the _human_ - the fact that properties reliably map onto those feelings does not mean that the feeling itself is intrinsic to the property.

Take the example of cake:










Humans and kitties like cake because it's sweet - sweetness yields a consistent reaction across many people, and even other animals, and can be considered an intrinsic attribute of the cake. _Or can it?!_ No, it can't. _Sugar_ is an intrinsic property of the cake, sweetness is not. Consider Dan Dennett's reversal of the phenomenon: "I don't like cake because it's sweet, it's sweet because I like it." In other words, because we evolved to prefer foods with high calorie contents, our body reacts to high calorie foods with sensations of pleasure. When high sugar content is detected, the brain creates the sensation of sweetness itself. There is nothing intrinsically sweet about cake, it's just a lump of matter.

The same can be said of art. We don't quite have our evolutionary explanations as complete on matters of aesthetics as we do with food, but we can postulate that certain landscapes evoke pleasurable feelings because of survival advantages that came with being in certain locations; or certain sound patterns evoke pleasurable feelings because recognising particular frequencies and reacting to them in a particular way conferred an advantage; and so the list can go on. That doesn't make anything about any of these things intrinsically good - it is _entirely_ in the mind of the human. It's the brain's way of congratulating itself for being exposed to something useful.

The notes in a symphony or the shape of a sculpture is the sugar substance, and the sense of pleasure we derive is our brain's self-made response to the stimulus. The fact that the response to the stimulus is consistent across brains does not mean that the sensation is intrinsic to the object. _All we can say is "sugar is sweet to humans", not "sugar is sweet"._


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## brianwalker

The same can be said of art. We don't quite have our evolutionary explanations as complete on matters of aesthetics as we do with food

If we've evolved to prefer high calorie food how come some people don't like sweet things?


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## Ukko

Jeez _Poley_, you seem a lot smarter today than you did yesterday.


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## Polednice

brianwalker said:


> The same can be said of art. We don't quite have our evolutionary explanations as complete on matters of aesthetics as we do with food
> 
> If we've evolved to prefer high calorie food how come some people don't like sweet things?


For evolution to work in the first place, variation is necessary, not a mystery to be explained.



Hilltroll72 said:


> Jeez _Poley_, you seem a lot smarter today than you did yesterday.


Errr... thanks.. I suppose!


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## Xaltotun

OK, I'll try to clarify:

Does the human body produce the sensation of sweetness all by itself, without external stimulus? I'm pretty sure you'll agree that it does not do that. It's dependent on the sugar. More importantly, if you say _"sugar is sweet to humans"_, what does that mean? Does that mean that the sensation of sweetness is subjective or objective?

To me (or more correctly, to Kant, whom I'm trying to defend here), it means that it is objective. Sugar is sweet to humans, steam is hot to humans, blood is red to humans - objective judgements. "Lying is always wrong" is a completely subjective judgement. And "Michaelangelo's 'David' is beautiful" is something in between, because this judgement needs an object, but the sensation is not so clear-cut as with sugar, but rather, it needs the "free play" of reason and imagination - a process that takes place completely inside the subject.

Edit: I'm going to bed now, but I'll re-check this thread soon enough! This is a very interesting conversation and I'm enjoying it a lot!


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## brianwalker

Polednice said:


> For evolution to work in the first place, variation is necessary, not a mystery to be explained.


Wouldn't evolution have phased out those with poor subpar tongues?


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## Cnote11

brianwalker said:


> Wouldn't evolution have phased out those with poor subpar tongues?


It isn't exactly about it being high calorie. We aren't talking about things like cakes really, but rather things like fruits. Our ancestors didn't have cake. There aren't people who do not like sugar whatsoever, I would imagine. They may just not like overly sweet things. There isn't a lot of food out there without some form of sugar.


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## Ukko

Cnote11 said:


> It isn't exactly about it being high calorie. We aren't talking about things like cakes really, but rather things like fruits. Our ancestors didn't have cake. There aren't people who do not like sugar whatsoever, I would imagine. They may just not like overly sweet things. There isn't a lot of food out there without some form of sugar.


"Our ancestors didn't have cake." Now _there_ is a depressing thought.


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## Polednice

brianwalker said:


> Wouldn't evolution have phased out those with poor subpar tongues?


No. Evolution does not perfect individuals, it only makes a species better adapted to its environment over a long period of time. In order for it to become better adapted as a whole, it is necessary for some individuals to be maladapted. For that to happen, there must always be good and bad mutations. People with subpar tongues present a simple mutation that 100,000 years ago would have been selected against. The fact that they are here now is not surprising, as not all traits must necessarily have an antecedent, so even if all subpar tongues perished before reproduction 100,000 years ago, that does not make future subpar tongues impossible. Mutations are random and not unique, as evidenced by many genetic disorders which can occur without parental defects.



Xaltotun said:


> OK, I'll try to clarify:
> 
> Does the human body produce the sensation of sweetness all by itself, without external stimulus? I'm pretty sure you'll agree that it does not do that. It's dependent on the sugar. More importantly, if you say _"sugar is sweet to humans"_, what does that mean? Does that mean that the sensation of sweetness is subjective or objective?
> 
> To me (or more correctly, to Kant, whom I'm trying to defend here), it means that it is objective. Sugar is sweet to humans, steam is hot to humans, blood is red to humans - objective judgements. "Lying is always wrong" is a completely subjective judgement. And "Michaelangelo's 'David' is beautiful" is something in between, because this judgement needs an object, but the sensation is not so clear-cut as with sugar, but rather, it needs the "free play" of reason and imagination - a process that takes place completely inside the subject.
> 
> Edit: I'm going to bed now, but I'll re-check this thread soon enough! This is a very interesting conversation and I'm enjoying it a lot!


First of all, if we were to accept your premises (which I don't), I think it would necessitate the complete abandonment of subjectivity as a concept - does Kant propose this? The reason why that would be necessary is that everything a human experiences, even the most internal, introspective sensations, are dependent on inputs external to the mind. The input may be current and direct, or it may be a subconscious memory and merely associative, but if reference to something other than ourselves makes a thought or sensation partly objective, _everything_ must be objective to an extent.

Next, I would say that "sugar is sweet to humans" makes sweetness subjective rather than objective, and the real crux of the issue here seems to be "_*to humans*_." Kant's argument appears to rest on the notion that we take human experience to be our entire frame of reference. Thus, he would say that what is only applicable to one human is subjective, but what is applicable to all humans is objective. I, on the other hand, take the entire universe to be our frame of reference, thus for anything to be objective, it must be an attribute intrinsic to an object _despite_ the actions and sensations of any particular observer. For cake to be intrinsically sweet, it must be sweet despite the existence of mankind - it is not.

To reconcile these two views, you (or Kant) suggest therefore that these interactions between objects and humans make certain things _partly_ objective - not totally objective, in that they are not properties intrinsic to the object, but not totally subjective, in that these are consistent phenomena across multiple organisms. My problem with this is that "partly objective" suggests that an attribute such as sweetness is _partly_ intrinsic to an object, as that's what objectivity is generally taken to mean, but that can make no sense. I think we'd be better off with terminology that conveys consensus or consistency across our species rather than something that has connotations of absoluteness regardless of our existence.

In order to facilitate this, I think it would be more profitable to consider this less in terms of individual human agents and their experiences compared with each other, and more in terms of the single entity that is the full range of possibilities and limitations of human biology, which, while expressed in many ways in several billion organisms, comprises a finite set of actions and reactions that could be thought of as a single unit. In other words, consider properties, their related experiences, and their dependency or otherwise on a human consciousness in relation to the human species as a single organism, rather than a vast collection of organisms. This way, we can determine the subjectivity or objectivity of something without the messy confusion of multiple humans and the extent to which the thing in question is evidenced in the population.


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## Cnote11

Hilltroll72 said:


> "Our ancestors didn't have cake." Now _there_ is a depressing thought.


I weep at the lack of ice cream and pudding more.


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## Polednice

Cnote11 said:


> I weep at the lack of ice cream and pudding more.


OMFG, <3 ice cream.


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## Cnote11

OMFG strawberries and raspberries. I feel so primitive right now.


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## Dodecaplex

Never mind.


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## Ukko

Polednice said:


> OMFG, <3 ice cream.


Wow. I hope you realize that you have provided a link to a thing of _beauty_.


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## Chrythes

@Polednice - I was thinking similar to what you wrote in the first paragraph, but do you truly believe that a memory holds the same objective value as a visual stimuli?
I think a memory can be manipulated and distorted by our mind (even if it's the unconscious mind) to a degree where it becomes a product of our wills/beliefs/values etc. It retains some sort of objectivity, but it's in the end more subjective than objective. Most of the input and the formation of the visual representation of the memory goes through a process of filtration, while on the other hand a visual stimuli remains almost entirely objective. Only the perception of it's beauty or any other human value is subjective, since it's usually determined by our own experience.

@Xaltotun - I was wondering. "Lying is always wrong" is subjective, but to form this idea you still had to face an object that made you to accept it as truth - either a book, a person, or someone earlier in your life that created the potential for such an idea to exist. Yes, your decision to accept it is your own subjective thought, but for it to exist you had to experience certain object/s.
Now, what does it make out of the idea that the perception of Michelangelo's David is partly subjective? Is it still partly subjective when we don't see the sculpture anymore? It seems that it becomes almost entirely subjective since we don't see that object anymore - we only remember it, and our memories are subjective - as with our values (Lying is always wrong). 
But then again, I think I might be overestimating the subjectivity of memories.


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## Polednice

Chrythes said:


> @Polednice - I was thinking similar to what you wrote in the first paragraph, but do you truly believe that a memory holds the same objective value as a visual stimuli?
> I think a memory can be manipulated and distorted by our mind (even if it's the unconscious mind) to a degree where it becomes a product of our wills/beliefs/values etc. It retains some sort of objectivity, but it's in the end more subjective than objective. Most of the input and the formation of the visual representation of the memory goes through a process of filtration, while on the other hand a visual stimuli remains almost entirely objective. Only the perception of it's beauty or any other human value is subjective, since it's usually determined by our own experience.


I agree with your distinction between the unique instances of a direct visual stimulus and a memory, but the formation of the memory in the first place is ultimately dependent on some other direct stimulus. Had the stimulus been different, our skewed recall would be different as well, thus having different effects on our current experience. If you follow the chain, then, to various extents all our experiences are ultimately dependent on external inputs. The mechanisms through which they influence us are vastly different, and some will have greater impact than others, but _nothing_ could be _wholly_ subjective.


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## Chrythes

Polednice said:


> I agree with your distinction between the unique instances of a direct visual stimulus and a memory, but the formation of the memory in the first place is ultimately dependent on some other direct stimulus. Had the stimulus been different, our skewed recall would be different as well, thus having different effects on our current experience. If you follow the chain, then, to various extents all our experiences are ultimately dependent on external inputs. The mechanisms through which they influence us are vastly different, and some will have greater impact than others, but _nothing_ could be _wholly_ subjective.


Yes, I agree, this is what I wrote in my edit, a bit contradicting myself. 
But then I think the point here is not to play with absolutes, but to understand to what degree a certain experience is perceived as more objective or more subjective. 
It's similar to Altruism - a presence of selfishness always exists, but the question is to what degree.


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## brianwalker

Polednice said:


> No. Evolution does not perfect individuals, it only makes a species better adapted to its environment over a long period of time. In order for it to become better adapted as a whole, it is necessary for some individuals to be maladapted. For that to happen, there must always be good and bad mutations. People with subpar tongues present a simple mutation that 100,000 years ago would have been selected against. The fact that they are here now is not surprising, as not all traits must necessarily have an antecedent, so even if all subpar tongues perished before reproduction 100,000 years ago, that does not make future subpar tongues impossible. Mutations are random and not unique, as evidenced by many genetic disorders which can occur without parental defects.


Why do we hate nutritious things such as carrots and beets?


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## Polednice

brianwalker said:


> Why do we hate nutritious things such as carrots and beets?


We don't have an innate repulsion - we hardly react to them in the same way that we do to faeces - we just didn't develop the same heightened pleasurable responses to them that we did to food high in fats and sugars because they didn't confer nearly as much of a survival advantage. These concepts really aren't that hard to grasp.


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## Ukko

brianwalker said:


> Why do we hate nutritious things such as carrots and beets?


Who is 'we', white man?


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## Cnote11

http://www.sugarstacks.com/carrots.htm


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## Cnote11

It is interesting the way people drink soda. SCARY EVEN. People will drink multiple in one day, basically going through 2 litres like it is nothing. I don't think people know exactly how much sugar and how many calories they are putting into their body when they do this. It is absolutely astonishing. I hardly ever drink soda. Drinking soda to me is like drinking liquor to others. I don't drink so soda is a little treat I have every blue moon on an event.  Drinking it more than that would definitely upset my stomach. It really is what you're accustomed to that matters.


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## Polednice

Cnote11 said:


> It is interesting the way people drink soda. SCARY EVEN. People will drink multiple in one day, basically going through 2 litres like it is nothing. I don't think people know exactly how much sugar and how many calories they are putting into their body when they do this. It is absolutely astonishing. I hardly ever drink soda. Drinking soda to me is like drinking liquor to others. I don't drink so soda is a little treat I have every blue moon on an event.  Drinking it more than that would definitely upset my stomach. It really is what you're accustomed to that matters.


What do you drink the most? Teeeeeea for meeeee (gives me stereotypically British teeth though).


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## brianwalker

Polednice said:


> We don't have an innate repulsion - we hardly react to them in the same way that we do to faeces - we just didn't develop the same heightened pleasurable responses to them that we did to food high in fats and sugars because they didn't confer nearly as much of a survival advantage. These concepts really aren't that hard to grasp.


There are certain people who like nutritious vegetables. Why hasn't that genotype been ubiquitously spread in the same way that sugar loving genes have been spread?

Is it just an accident?

What about people who don't like sweet things? Are they human?


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## Cnote11

Polednice said:


> What do you drink the most? Teeeeeea for meeeee (gives me stereotypically British teeth though).


Tea and water for me. I don't have stereotypical British teeth though.


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## Polednice

brianwalker said:


> There are certain people who like nutritious vegetables. Why hasn't that genotype been ubiquitously spread in the same way that sugar loving genes have been spread?
> 
> Is it just an accident?
> 
> What about people who don't like sweet things? Are they human?


Dear lord...

The reason why a preference for nutritious vegetables (_if_ that is even determined heavily by genetics rather than environment) hasn't propagated is because the advantage of eating nutritious vegetables is an extremely recent one. Even today the world still suffers famines, wherein it would be far, far preferable to eat fats and sugars, but it was only with the development of agriculture and mass production that people could really start to take advantage of a food surplus. Only then did _too much_ food become a problem, and fruit and veg a healthy alternative. Those few centuries or a few millennia are _nowhere near enough_ on an evolutionary time-scale to propagate throughout a population. Besides, it's very unlikely that it would even if we witnessed today's world continue for millions of years because what matters is _reproduction_, not health, and plenty of unhealthy fat people have children before they die, thus perpetuating the fat genes (if any).

We've already been through the thing about people who don't like sweet things. Of course they're human. What is it with all this tremendously inane questioning? You really, really ought to inform yourself more on this stuff, and I don't mean that condescendingly - it's an extremely important attribute of human existence and asking about it on a classical music forum, while I try to be as thorough as possible, is not the best place in the world to learn biology.


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## Xaltotun

Polednice said:


> First of all, if we were to accept your premises (which I don't), I think it would necessitate the complete abandonment of subjectivity as a concept - does Kant propose this? The reason why that would be necessary is that everything a human experiences, even the most internal, introspective sensations, are dependent on inputs external to the mind. The input may be current and direct, or it may be a subconscious memory and merely associative, but if reference to something other than ourselves makes a thought or sensation partly objective, _everything_ must be objective to an extent.
> 
> Next, I would say that "sugar is sweet to humans" makes sweetness subjective rather than objective, and the real crux of the issue here seems to be "_*to humans*_." Kant's argument appears to rest on the notion that we take human experience to be our entire frame of reference. Thus, he would say that what is only applicable to one human is subjective, but what is applicable to all humans is objective. I, on the other hand, take the entire universe to be our frame of reference, thus for anything to be objective, it must be an attribute intrinsic to an object _despite_ the actions and sensations of any particular observer. For cake to be intrinsically sweet, it must be sweet despite the existence of mankind - it is not.
> 
> To reconcile these two views, you (or Kant) suggest therefore that these interactions between objects and humans make certain things _partly_ objective - not totally objective, in that they are not properties intrinsic to the object, but not totally subjective, in that these are consistent phenomena across multiple organisms. My problem with this is that "partly objective" suggests that an attribute such as sweetness is _partly_ intrinsic to an object, as that's what objectivity is generally taken to mean, but that can make no sense. I think we'd be better off with terminology that conveys consensus or consistency across our species rather than something that has connotations of absoluteness regardless of our existence.
> 
> In order to facilitate this, I think it would be more profitable to consider this less in terms of individual human agents and their experiences compared with each other, and more in terms of the single entity that is the full range of possibilities and limitations of human biology, which, while expressed in many ways in several billion organisms, comprises a finite set of actions and reactions that could be thought of as a single unit. In other words, consider properties, their related experiences, and their dependency or otherwise on a human consciousness in relation to the human species as a single organism, rather than a vast collection of organisms. This way, we can determine the subjectivity or objectivity of something without the messy confusion of multiple humans and the extent to which the thing in question is evidenced in the population.


Now I understand you better!

First of all, Kant does indeed make a distinction between _"a priori"_ and _"a posteriori"_ judgements. The first group consists of judgements that can be made with no outside knowledge at all ("all bachelors are unmarried"), while the second group requires outside knowledge ("Kant is a bachelor"). So, to him, some judgements are indeed independent on inputs external to the mind.

Second, his view _is_ very human-centric. He argued that we can get no knowledge of things-in-themselves. So, if Kant would say "Glucose is a cyclic carbon chain with six carbons", he would mean "Glucose seems to be like that _to humans._" Some would say that Kant's perspective is that of a well-off, educated (for 18th century), bourgeois, European gentleman - but I digress.

Third, he thought that humans as a group have more or less similar mental capabilities - some have exercised theirs more, and geniuses exist, but their mental faculties are just "aligned" a bit differently.

We must also remember that of course he had no knowledge of evolution or neurons, etc. Still, I think that most of what he said can be salvaged and reconciled with our more recent knowledge.

I understand that from the reference point of the whole universe, sugar is not sweet. It's just a single carbon ring, or two glued together. But isn't the reaction of sweetness as much a property of the sugar as of the taste receptor? We have a chemical reaction with two participants. Although the resulting neural impulse only takes place in the human, it doesn't mean that the sugar didn't take place in the reaction, using its intrinsic properties: size, form, placement of hydroxyl groups, electronegativity etc. From a human perspective, that must be at least partly objective, even if it's not it from the perspective of the whole universe.

I'm fine with grouping humanity to a single entity - Kant always aims at universality, anyway  He actually has this nice concept: _subjective universality_. For example, beauty is subjectively universal. To this entity, a stimulus such as Michelangelo's 'David' thus produces a whole range of responses. Why do we have such a vast range of responses? Some arise from culture, age, gender, personal preference, interests etc. To Kant, these feelings of pleasure or displeasure are irrelevant. They do not arise from the stimulus itself, but from something external to it. Thus, they can be no criteria in judging beauty. Only the form of the object will do, and the viewer must distance him/herself from all selfish and self-related concerns and try to judge objectively. I know many people think this foolish, but Kant's reasoning is that if we are going to have the concept of beauty _at all_, it must be something that people can share, so, at least, partly objective.

Still, if we have those people now viewing the object as objectively as they are able to, there will be differences in opinion. To Kant, that means that some people have not tried hard enough (aesthetic judging requires considerable effort), and some other people have not priorly exercised their mind-faculties hard enough. But all these people now have the potential to see the object as beautiful - that is, if it is a beautiful object; not all objects are. Beautiful objects are those that have a pattern that excites our reason, as well as an "unknown" quality that excites our imagination, and those qualities are in the right proportions, so our reason and imagination engage in a harmonious free play that makes us want to spend more time observing the object, and we gain pleasure. A beautiful object has to be something between a simple geometric shape (which pleases our reason) and a chaos of form (which pleases our imagination) - neither of those extremes are beautiful.


----------



## Xaltotun

Chrythes said:


> @Xaltotun - I was wondering. "Lying is always wrong" is subjective, but to form this idea you still had to face an object that made you to accept it as truth - either a book, a person, or someone earlier in your life that created the potential for such an idea to exist. Yes, your decision to accept it is your own subjective thought, but for it to exist you had to experience certain object/s.
> Now, what does it make out of the idea that the perception of Michelangelo's David is partly subjective? Is it still partly subjective when we don't see the sculpture anymore? It seems that it becomes almost entirely subjective since we don't see that object anymore - we only remember it, and our memories are subjective - as with our values (Lying is always wrong).
> But then again, I think I might be overestimating the subjectivity of memories.


While no human being (except Diogenes) is a Diogenes, living in a barrel, Kant thought that we still have _a priori_ judgements, and moral judgements belong to those, if I remember right. To Kant, a memory of 'David' is not beautiful. You have to experience the object directly, and observe its form. Otherwise, beauty is meaningless.


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## brianwalker

Xaltotun said:


> I understand that from the reference point of the whole universe, sugar is not sweet.


What is the reference point of the whole universe with regard to the taste of sugar?


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## Polednice

Xaltotun said:


> First of all, Kant does indeed make a distinction between _"a priori"_ and _"a posteriori"_ judgements. The first group consists of judgements that can be made with no outside knowledge at all ("all bachelors are unmarried"), while the second group requires outside knowledge ("Kant is a bachelor"). So, to him, some judgements are indeed independent on inputs external to the mind.


Even those judgements aren't independent of inputs as we have to learn language from others and associate those words with certain ideas to be able to form and understand them.



Xaltotun said:


> I understand that from the reference point of the whole universe, sugar is not sweet. It's just a single carbon ring, or two glued together. But isn't the reaction of sweetness as much a property of the sugar as of the taste receptor? We have a chemical reaction with two participants. Although the resulting neural impulse only takes place in the human, it doesn't mean that the sugar didn't take place in the reaction, using its intrinsic properties: size, form, placement of hydroxyl groups, electronegativity etc. From a human perspective, that must be at least partly objective, even if it's not it from the perspective of the whole universe.


The reaction of sweetness absolutely cannot be a property of the sugar. Just because it reliably happens with the sugar doesn't mean that it's anything about the sugar itself. It's totally dependent on the quirks of the evolved species interacting with it - to some other life-forms in a different ecosystem, sugar may well be a poisonous substance that tastes like crap. None of these things can be said to be an inherent property of the sugar. I also don't like this whole idea of "partly objective from a human perspective" - either something is objective or it isn't, which is why I said it would be better to talk about consistency or uniformity across the race rather than "objective for us". I think, however, that this is a terminological thing that we may have to just disagree on!



Xaltotun said:


> I'm fine with grouping humanity to a single entity - Kant always aims at universality, anyway  He actually has this nice concept: _subjective universality_. For example, beauty is subjectively universal. To this entity, a stimulus such as Michelangelo's 'David' thus produces a whole range of responses. Why do we have such a vast range of responses? Some arise from culture, age, gender, personal preference, interests etc. To Kant, these feelings of pleasure or displeasure are irrelevant. They do not arise from the stimulus itself, but from something external to it. Thus, they can be no criteria in judging beauty. Only the form of the object will do, and the viewer must distance him/herself from all selfish and self-related concerns and try to judge objectively. I know many people think this foolish, but Kant's reasoning is that if we are going to have the concept of beauty _at all_, it must be something that people can share, so, at least, partly objective.


I didn't quite follow this argument. You started with Kant saying that beauty is subjectively universal, and then ended with him saying that it must necessarily be partly objective. I don't understand. :/



Xaltotun said:


> Still, if we have those people now viewing the object as objectively as they are able to, there will be differences in opinion. To Kant, that means that some people have not tried hard enough (aesthetic judging requires considerable effort), and some other people have not priorly exercised their mind-faculties hard enough. But all these people now have the potential to see the object as beautiful - that is, if it is a beautiful object; not all objects are. Beautiful objects are those that have a pattern that excites our reason, as well as an "unknown" quality that excites our imagination, and those qualities are in the right proportions, so our reason and imagination engage in a harmonious free play that makes us want to spend more time observing the object, and we gain pleasure. A beautiful object has to be something between a simple geometric shape (which pleases our reason) and a chaos of form (which pleases our imagination) - neither of those extremes are beautiful.


This would be a large discussion for another time, but I think the persistent dichotomy between reason and imagination, rationality and emotion is tempting but essentially bogus.


----------



## Ukko

Polednice said:


> [...]
> This would be a large discussion for another time, but I think the persistent dichotomy between reason and imagination, rationality and emotion is tempting but essentially bogus.


The dichotomy between reason and imagination is indeed bogus. For example, extrapolation often involves both.

Emotion can coexist with rationality quite harmoniously - or overwhelm it. The relationship is not dichotomous.


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## Guest

Beauty is truth, truth beauty - that is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know. (Keats)


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## Ukko

CountenanceAnglaise said:


> Beauty is truth, truth beauty - that is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know. (Keats)


Aloysius Cumberland Keats taught English literature at my school. He frequently denied both authorship and the truth of that saying.


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## Guest

I'm so bored with the 'undergraduates' and their humour on this forum. And there are just so many of them.....!!!


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## Ukko

CountenanceAnglaise said:


> I'm so bored with the 'undergraduates' and their humour on this forum. And there are just so many of them.....!!!


And then you must contend with us peasants - must be a bitch.


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## Vaneyes

Beauty is a good personality.

View attachment 4978


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## Ukko

Vaneyes said:


> Beauty is a good personality.
> 
> View attachment 4978


She does appear to be a pleasant sort.


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## Xaltotun

Polednice said:


> Even those judgements aren't independent of inputs as we have to learn language from others and associate those words with certain ideas to be able to form and understand them.


You are right. But who doesn't learn language and basic logic? A person grown by wolves is still a human being, but I think that Kant just excludes extreme cases like them.



Polednice said:


> The reaction of sweetness absolutely cannot be a property of the sugar. Just because it reliably happens with the sugar doesn't mean that it's anything about the sugar itself. It's totally dependent on the quirks of the evolved species interacting with it - to some other life-forms in a different ecosystem, sugar may well be a poisonous substance that tastes like crap. None of these things can be said to be an inherent property of the sugar. I also don't like this whole idea of "partly objective from a human perspective" - either something is objective or it isn't, which is why I said it would be better to talk about consistency or uniformity across the race rather than "objective for us". I think, however, that this is a terminological thing that we may have to just disagree on!


Gotcha. I'll just say that to me, the concept of sweetness completely _per se_ is impossible, I always think that it means "producing a sensation of sweetness when tested with humans (or other species that must be mentioned)".



Polednice said:


> I didn't quite follow this argument. You started with Kant saying that beauty is subjectively universal, and then ended with him saying that it must necessarily be partly objective. I don't understand. :/


I think I explained it badly. It all comes down again to Kant's original proposition, that beauty is both subjective and objective. Beauty being "subjectively universal" just means that while all human beings form their opinions completely by themselves, they all have the potential to arrive to the same conclusion if they use the right method of judging (and exercise their minds).



Polednice said:


> This would be a large discussion for another time, but I think the persistent dichotomy between reason and imagination, rationality and emotion is tempting but essentially bogus.


Neurosciences were not very advanced in Kant's time; think of those terms (reason, imagination... Kant has a bunchload of them, actually) as his attempts to figure out and differentiate the "mechanics of the mind".

But if I'll come down to myself for a moment and leave Kant be, I can reiterate my position, using different language:

First of all, my (and Kant's) premise is that (for the purposes of this discussion), assume that human beings have free will. If they don't, I'm toast (as is Kant and his philosophy as a whole). And then:

When judging an object aesthetically, as objectively and without prejudice as possible, human beings are not so different from one another that the resulting response would be completely random; the response will show a non-random pattern. And because human beings have free will, the reason for this non-randomness is the viewed object.


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## Polednice

Xaltotun said:


> I think I explained it badly. It all comes down again to Kant's original proposition, that beauty is both subjective and objective. Beauty being "subjectively universal" just means that while all human beings form their opinions completely by themselves, they all have the potential to arrive to the same conclusion if they use the right method of judging (and exercise their minds).


I don't know if I'm reading this correctly, but it sounds very fishy to me. Can we ever know if we've used the right method of judging? Can we ever know that we've come to the right conclusion? Is this is a way of saying that Beethoven is _definitely_ good, and if you don't think so, you're doing it wrong?



Xaltotun said:


> First of all, my (and Kant's) premise is that (for the purposes of this discussion), assume that human beings have free will. If they don't, I'm toast (as is Kant and his philosophy as a whole).


TOAST! 



Xaltotun said:


> When judging an object aesthetically, as objectively and without prejudice as possible, human beings are not so different from one another that the resulting response would be completely random; the response will show a non-random pattern. And because human beings have free will, the reason for this non-randomness is the viewed object.


First, I think it is a bad idea to think that we can judge anything objectively and without prejudice, even "as much as possible". Here's a little more neuroscience for Kant - many neuroscientists predict that upwards of 90% of our brain functioning is subconscious. Many of the conscious things we experience could in fact be narrative rationalisations of impulses over which we have no control, and experiments have been done to show that a decision is made in the brain before we consciously even "think" of it. As such, we are utterly incapable of distancing ourselves from our subconscious impulses and prejudices, and even if we tried to use a bit of conscious rationality, it may just be an illusion!

I would agree that human beings are not so different from one another that the resulting response would be random - these are the restrictions of our genome - but because human beings _don't_ have free will, the reason for this non-randomness would be our finite expressions of biology and environment. But, even if I accepted that we have free will, I don't see how that links in at all with properties of an object...


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## Xaltotun

Polednice said:


> I don't know if I'm reading this correctly, but it sounds very fishy to me. Can we ever know if we've used the right method of judging? Can we ever know that we've come to the right conclusion? Is this is a way of saying that Beethoven is _definitely_ good, and if you don't think so, you're doing it wrong?


Kant presents his "right method" in detail in "The Critique of Judgement". We probably still can't know if we've come to the right conclusion, but we must strive for it. Therefore, with the Kantian method, the best we could get is to say something like "Beethoven seems to be good, because several people using the Kantian method have said so. Therefore, if you are using the Kantian method and think Beethoven is crap, either you are wrong or they are. Which is more probable?" If you're not using the Kantian method of judgement, you can't compare your judgement to that of those who are.



Polednice said:


> TOAST!


BURNED!!! Well, that's the risk of lecturing Kant to modern scientifically-minded people! But I'm glad I did it, anyway 



Polednice said:


> I would agree that human beings are not so different from one another that the resulting response would be random - these are the restrictions of our genome - but because human beings _don't_ have free will, the reason for this non-randomness would be our finite expressions of biology and environment. But, even if I accepted that we have free will, I don't see how that links in at all with properties of an object...


It links because that's the only cause left for the pattern. [KANT]If mind-faculties are universal and similar with all people[/KANT], and the people are somehow capable of making objective, Kantian judgements, then the only possible explanation for the pattern is the stimulus itself. Free will means that there's no subconscious affecting our decisions, and human beings are free to arrive to whatever conclusion. So, the pattern of response cannot have any cause inherent in the mind itself. And the Kantian method eliminates all other possible causes (you're sleepy, hungry, feeling bad etc).


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## Polednice

I don't think that last paragraph is quite true, even with free will. Humans having free will does not mean we have a complete free for all in our capabilities - we still have mammalian brains trapped in a 3D world with predictably human thoughts and desires; we are not capable of just anything. And if Kant would agree that human beings are not so different from each other, then there's no need to invoke any attributes of the object to explain the non-randomness of our subjective judgements - it's the fact that humans are similar that makes the judgements non-random. Plus, if we accept free will and that people are free to arrive at whatever conclusion they like, how would you even witness randomness? There are 7 billion people on the planet, but nowhere near 7 billion judgements that can be made about Beethoven! Free will or not, opinions will cluster, and that's just because of the numbers, not the object or the human.

[Also, I haven't read it, but does Kant allow any caveats in his Critique of Judgement? Surely, if his entire premise is that the value of art is only partly objective, then we can only partly objectively come to an assessment of it. He must leave room for personal taste? And if so, I think that undermines the idea that we would all come to the same conclusion if using the same objective tools.]


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## Ukko

I note that both of you accept the notion that the subconscious is uneducable. It is, of course, educable, and to a significant degree not 'primitive'.


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## Polednice

Hilltroll72 said:


> I note that both of you accept the notion that the subconscious is uneducable. It is, of course, educable, and to a significant degree not 'primitive'.


What exactly do you mean by educable? And did anyone use the word "primitive"?


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## Xaltotun

There's a lot to comment upon in your last post, but let me assess the last paragraph first. It's not about the _value_ of art as such, but _beauty_. Personal taste exists - you may like the color blue, or the sound of a certain instrument, for example - but if we're talking about beauty, these things are irrelevant. What pleasure a person feels when experiencing a work of art is a combination of several things, beauty being one of them. Kant argues that beauty as a concept _must_ necessarily be universal and free of personal bias, because otherwise there would be no sense talking about beauty. Personal bias can be set aside by the Kantian method (concentrating our focus in the structure of the object, not in an analytical way - no other concept must disturb us here - but letting our reason and imagination "play" on the structure), and thus we can (hopefully) reach the right, objective judgement of the object.

You have very good questions, Polednice, and I feel like I have all the answers for those, but typing it all would be pages! I'll be going now, but I'll be coming back to this thread.


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## Jeremy Marchant

Truth
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## Chrythes

@ Polednice - so our conscious would be some sort of a reflection of our unconscious mind? 
But we are still able to asses certain situations differently. We are able to change our mind, our prejudices, our beliefs etc. 
We can change our decisions, which means that sometimes we can rationalize our behavior and actually act in a way we would probably never act. The decision might be made in the brain before it reaches our mind, but we can still choose if it's the right the decision or not, thus generating more decisions until we are satisfied with the results. I believe it's not a one way system - it works both ways. The first impulse we get might be from our unconscious mind, but in certain situations we are able to send an impulse back, and then receive another one back again.


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## Ukko

Polednice said:


> What exactly do you mean by educable? And did anyone use the word "primitive"?


Educable = capable of being educated. Thought processes in the brain go in both directions; the subconscious is not the ignorant chamber of emotions and instincts you philosophers are making it out to be; there's a _lot_ of stuff in there. You guys are making it too easy for yourselves. Well, the way it's going maybe not easy enough to work, but still... .


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## Cnote11

The automatic processes of the brain can be influenced by conscious thought.


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## Cnote11

By the way, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subconscious


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## Polednice

Chrythes said:


> @ Polednice - so our conscious would be some sort of a reflection of our unconscious mind?
> But we are still able to asses certain situations differently. We are able to change our mind, our prejudices, our beliefs etc.
> We can change our decisions, which means that sometimes we can rationalize our behavior and actually act in a way we would probably never act. The decision might be made in the brain before it reaches our mind, but we can still choose if it's the right the decision or not, thus generating more decisions until we are satisfied with the results. I believe it's not a one way system - it works both ways. The first impulse we get might be from our unconscious mind, but in certain situations we are able to send an impulse back, and then receive another one back again.


This wholly depends what you mean by "we are able to change our mind". We are capable of being influenced by ideas, but how much control we have over that is questionable. I also think you misunderstand what it means that a decision is made subconsciously before we know it consciously - we _can't_ change what happens. We just think we can.



Hilltroll72 said:


> Educable = capable of being educated. Thought processes in the brain go in both directions; the subconscious is not the ignorant chamber of emotions and instincts you philosophers are making it out to be; there's a _lot_ of stuff in there. You guys are making it too easy for yourselves. Well, the way it's going maybe not easy enough to work, but still... .


Come on, Hilly, where did I imply any of that? I certainly don't believe it.



Cnote11 said:


> The automatic processes of the brain can be influenced by conscious thought.


What kind of processes?


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## Cnote11

In modern social psychology they split the brain into two functioning units which are conscious processes and automatic processes. For example, one simply walks. It in automatic process, but it IS consciously learned. When you begin walking you have to think about it. The same can be said for playing an instrument. There are automatic processes that aren't consciously learned that are inherent. Some are biological and may or may not be able to have conscious thought pushed upon them, but a lot of "unconscious" actions can be changed due to conscious thought. It is about establishing a habit so that it becomes part of your automatic processes. In this way, HillTroll is very correct. Except, such thing as a "subconscious" doesn't exist, but our desires, wants, and actiions can be "unconsciously" shaped through conscious processing.


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## Polednice

I think it's quite an extrapolation (probably unfounded) to draw a line between those kinds of automatic processes and the subconscious drives that control many of our actions. I also think there is a problem with a loop here - if we were to "consciously" influence our unconscious, where does the impulse for that conscious desire come from? Consciousness is an experience ultimately dependent on subconscious processes over which we have no control, so I fail to see how it can be anything but an illusion or a middle man.


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## Polednice

For example, when learning new movements, it's an intensive mental exercise, but we have unconscious statistical learning mechanisms that shape how we learn. The conscious concentration seems to me another narrative rationalisation, not a real influence.


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## Cnote11

Polednice, there isn't such thing as the subconscious. I keep trying to point this out.


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## Polednice

How are you even defining "subconscious"? It must be pretty esoteric, or every neuroscientist disagrees with you.


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## Chrythes

Why is it questionable? How do you explain dilemmas then, if the decision has been already made? 
What about courts then? A judge can already have a formed opinion before the trial, but afterwards he might change his position entirely. Isn't it an example of how being conscious changes the decisions made earlier by the unconscious mind? Or do you think that we fool ourselves because we surrender to the law, but still deep inside we think we were right?


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## Polednice

Chrythes said:


> Why is it questionable? How do you explain dilemmas then, if the decision has been already made?


Decisions don't have to be made instantaneously for them to be subconscious.



Chrythes said:


> What about courts then? A judge can already have a formed opinion before the trial, but afterwards he might change his position entirely. Isn't it an example of how being conscious changes the decisions made earlier by the unconscious mind? Or do you think that we fool ourselves because we surrender to the law, but still deep inside we think we were right?


His position changes because he is exposed to new information. The point is that "he" - his conscious self - is not in control of how that information is handled by the brain.


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## Cnote11

Polednice said:


> How are you even defining "subconscious"? It must be pretty esoteric, or every neuroscientist disagrees with you.


http://www.thedailybeast.com/newswe...d-and-wikipedia-respond-to-your-comments.html

I work in the psychology field and nobody says "subconscious".


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## Polednice

Right then, well replace all my uses of "subconscious" with "unconscious" - it doesn't change the argument, just the terminology.


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## Cnote11

Correct me if i'm wrong, Polednice, but weren't all of these experiments for the "unconscious before conscious decisions" done on movement of limbs?


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## Chrythes

Poley, I think you separate between the brain the the self too radically. The point is that people can extremely change during therapies, how do you explain that if not by constructing new cognitive and behavioral patterns in the brain? It's a change that you make consciously. I believe you can form new cognitive systems that can affect the future decisions made by the unconscious.


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## Polednice

I don't remember. I certainly don't have any data to hand to make assertions about anything more complex than the movement of limbs at the moment, but it seems to me like consciousness is being invoked here as the ghost in the machine. What's your position (briefly) on free will and determinism in relation to human experience? Mine is that we are deterministic machines, but our sense of it is clouded by our conscious narratives. When "I" "make" a "decision", I'm really just acting on a whole host of unconscious, biochemical processes over which I have no control. My mind is just along for the ride.


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## Cnote11

Let's examine the Stroop Effect. You may be knowledgeable of this.

People are asked to look at a chart and asked to name the color of the words.










They are prone to mistakes and have slowed reaction time due to the fact that the colored words are names of different colors. This becomes a class between the conscious mind influencing the automatic processes, and the automatic clashing with the conscious. The automatic wants to say the color that is written instead of the color of the word written. This is because the automatic processing that you underwent when you learned to read. (This isn't really the whole of the conclusion, but can be drawn from it) This phenomenon is not seen in children who do not know how to read, as their mind bypasses the words and goes straight to the actual color. In this way, we can see both the conscious and the automatic mind at work.


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## Polednice

Chrythes said:


> Poley, I think you separate between the brain the the self too radically. The point is that people can extremely change during therapies, how do you explain that if not by constructing new cognitive and behavioral patterns in the brain? It's a change that you make consciously. I believe you can form new cognitive systems that can affect the future decisions made by the unconscious.


I would agree that "you" can form "cognitive systems" that can affect future decisions made by the unconscious - to put it a completely different way, and as an example, I would say that you can form certain habits post-therapy in order to change your behavioural patterns into ones that are more conducive to happiness. However, the concerted effort we make in the first instance to enact change is _not_ an entirely conscious process - it is driven by an unconscious impulse to force change, and by the influence that the memes presented to us in therapy have on that impulse.


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## Polednice

Cnote11 said:


> They are prone to mistakes and have slowed reaction time due to the fact that the colored words are names of different colors. This becomes a class between the conscious mind influencing the automatic processes, and the automatic clashing with the conscious. The automatic wants to say the color that is written instead of the color of the word written. This is because the automatic processing that you underwent when you learned to read. (This isn't really the whole of the conclusion, but can be drawn from it) This phenomenon is not seen in children who do not know how to read, as their mind bypasses the words and goes straight to the actual color. In this way, we can see both the conscious and the automatic mind at work.


I don't argue for the inexistence of the conscious mind; merely that its importance and influence is far less than we tend to imagine.


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## Cnote11

Polednice said:


> I don't remember. I certainly don't have any data to hand to make assertions about anything more complex than the movement of limbs at the moment, but it seems to me like consciousness is being invoked here as the ghost in the machine. What's your position (briefly) on free will and determinism in relation to human experience? Mine is that we are deterministic machines, but our sense of it is clouded by our conscious narratives. When "I" "make" a "decision", I'm really just acting on a whole host of unconscious, biochemical processes over which I have no control. My mind is just along for the ride.


I don't know many scientists who believe in determinism. Biological determinism is generally frowned upon, although genetic determinism isn't. However, genetic determinism doesn't state that we are free from conscious and environmental influence. The automatic needs the conscious to relate information to it, but the consciousness requires more complex thinking, making it difficult to retain information. This is why the automatic processing is needed. They rely on each other in most psychologist's viewpoints. Do we have completely free will? Only as much as we're predetermined to. Is this determination absolute? No, it can change. I'm not really into "self" and "identity", since I believe they don't really exist and are more like an illusion in a way.


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## Cnote11

To add on, one can have better reaction time on the Stroop Effect with repeated practice. This is conscious effort swaying the automatic mind. Yes, this does require biological processes and automatic processing to be accomplished. You must not forget that it isn't only our mind that has "minds" if you will. But my point is that they work in conjunction and in both directions.


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## Ukko

Cnote11 said:


> http://www.thedailybeast.com/newswe...d-and-wikipedia-respond-to-your-comments.html
> 
> I work in the psychology field and nobody says "subconscious".


Are their other 'fields' where people say it? Actually I like 'unconscious' as a better descriptive term than 'subconscious'. the term 'non-rational' might be more descriptive, but its meaning gets twisted into 'irrational' too easily. Anyway, I'd like to illustrate my point with the prejudice thing. Many of those are specific to relatively small populations, and relatively recent objects, so they can't be instinctive. They must be stuck in there through ratiocination. A formed prejudice can also be modified or discarded via ratiocination, eh? I'm not referring to prejudices that have the aspect of bigotry, because they seem immune to ratiocination. One can know that his attitude has its only standing in bigotry, and be able to counter it consciously, but the attitude doesn't go away.


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## Polednice

Cnote11 said:


> Biological determinism is generally frowned upon


By who? I've read quite a bit from biologists who think we're deterministic (opinion is divided, of course!). If we're not deterministic, does the argument follow that our biology is sufficiently complex to free us from fundamental physical laws?


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## Cnote11

I don't believe they actually do use subconscious in any of the sciences. The whole thing is claimed to stem from psychoanalysis, but that isn't even true. The idea of bigotry in psychology is broken down into aspects, which include prejudice, discrimination, and stereotyping. Prejudice stems often from unfamiliarity, discrimination is active bigotry, and stereotyping is a natural thing that humans do because they sort everything into categories by nature. This stems from the cognitive science idea of schemas. You can click here to read about them if you choose: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schema_(psychology)

Prejudices can be changed but are difficult because of confirmation bias and creation of "sub-types". What I mean by these is that people jump at the smallest example to "confirm" their belief, which strengthens it greatly in their mind. Also, when they come across something that doesn't conform to their stereotypes, they create a "sub-type" to attribute non-representational people to, which keeps their original idea in tact.

In social psychology they have what they call implicit and explicit attitudes. This goes back to the Stroop Effect. One can have the explicit attitude of saying they like, say, black people. However, they may have an implicit attitude which is seen when one gets nervous when the person sees a black person holding something that looks like a weapon, when they wouldn't with another race. This is often outside of conscious awareness and the person often does not notice the link and carries on believing in their explicit attitude. It is because they have a representational link within the automatic processing mind that creates this issue. This link CAN be broken.

Where does human nature come into play? Well, they have what they call In Groups and Out Groups. It has been found that the presence of an Out Group strengthens the morale of the In Group. They also say, evolution wise, it was beneficial to quickly judge what groups others might belong in. When In Group and Out Groups compete, the level of prejudice rises even further. HOWEVER, studies have shown that when people are introduced to customs and culture of other groups that the hostility begins to reduce. ALSO, formal and informal contact, equal footing (economically, socially) to reduce misattributed qualities (black people live in ghettos, must be stupid) AND the banding together to make an In Group themselves have been shown to eliminate prejudice.


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## Cnote11

Polednice said:


> By who? I've read quite a bit from biologists who think we're deterministic (opinion is divided, of course!). If we're not deterministic, does the argument follow that our biology is sufficiently complex to free us from fundamental physical laws?


Opinion is divided, but it seems to be on the favor of non-deterministic so it seems. I'm not a biology expert so I wouldn't feel comfortable making too many factual claims about biology


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## Polednice

Cnote11 said:


> Opinion is divided, but it seems to be on the favor of non-deterministic so it seems. I'm not a biology expert so I wouldn't feel comfortable making too many factual claims about biology


I think thoughts probably are in favour of non-determinism, but because people are weak and don't want to think they're machines! I'm happy being a machine!


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## Cnote11

Even if we technically WERE machines, it doesn't really matter. There are many processes where we go about machine-like without noticing it. We will never, in our daily lives, be conscious of this entirely. That is, until the eugenics people come to town.


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## cwarchc

Knowing reality is of very little value if we don’t put it to personal use in our lives
The most challenging concept for those brought up in a Christian community is the concept of "no self"


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## Polednice

Cnote11 said:


> Even if we technically WERE machines, it doesn't really matter. There are many processes where we go about machine-like without noticing it. We will never, in our daily lives, be conscious of this entirely.


That's exactly why I don't mind!


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## Cnote11

HillTroll liked one of my posts... I feel so honored. Unless he's just marking it as a "save for later" so he can come around and destroy it when he has the time.


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## Igneous01

you guys got it all wrong, were all just living in a simulated dream world while the real selves are stored inside incubators being harvested for energy for the machines to power their cities and survive.


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## cwarchc

would you take the red or the blue?


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## Polednice

cwarchc said:


> would you take the red or the blue?


Red. I don't know what it does, but it'll probably be strawberry flavour.


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## violadude

I think we probably define beauty as anything that gives us a strong positive emotional response.


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## Ukko

Cnote11 said:


> HillTroll liked one of my posts... I feel so honored. Unless he's just marking it as a "save for later" so he can come around and destroy it when he has the time.


Hah. My destructive powers are severely limited. There is a saying that 'a little knowledge is dangerous'. Unfortunately, I have just enough on this subject to see that you know way more about it than I do. I would try to pose arguments from the neurobiologist slant, but haven't understood what I've read about it well enough to fake it.

So... I'll take another sip of 'bourbon and branch', and move on.


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## Cnote11

Polednice said:


> Red. I don't know what it does, but it'll probably be strawberry flavour.


People actually tend to think things are sweeter when they are flavored red.


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## Ukko

violadude said:


> I think we probably define beauty as anything that gives us a strong positive emotional response.


Hah. Sex can do that... hmm, and it is not always beautiful.


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## Ukko

Cnote11 said:


> People actually tend to think things are sweeter when they are flavored red.


There is a cocktail called Blue Lagoon. I gather that it's sweet, but it looks to me like copper sulphate.


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## Thethinkingthinker

the nature that is everything including every one ofus


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## myaskovsky2002

Martin


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