The notion of race.

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TheVisionofEr
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Re: The notion of race.

Post by TheVisionofEr »

Tribalism is closer to home, we war with those most like us (Catholics vs prots/ sunni vs shia -both ignore the alien Hindus for the most part).

the guy next door that is not familiy, the guy that shares your culture and looks like you but is not in your tribe is the enemy.
Maybe this is primarily due to practical availability of the enemy? Christians and Muslims fought incessantly in Albania where there was a contact point, for instance.

I would say though, there is a rational meaning to the dispute over the better way of life mixed with the general sub-rational obstinacy of groups. And other middle factors.
Scott Mayers
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Re: The notion of race.

Post by Scott Mayers »

TheVisionofEr wrote: Sun Feb 23, 2020 10:57 pm
If you can't be clear about your meaning, you are permitting cross-transference of one definition from another that creates problems. If you are intending to discuss any 'notion of race' without clarity, you can't speak of any political meaning you are implying. "Tribalism" is often used as a more kind word for what it used to refer to as "Nationalism" circa World War(s) Germany. The 'Nation' was not just a 'country' but a People, just as the Aboriginal Natives of Canada call themselves as "First Nations" to reference who they are wherever they are.
In the Latin writers the words “gens” is sometimes used. All these words, gens, genus, genesis and so forth have to do with birth, and so with biology in the modern sense, but without the idea or knowledge of evolution (under the notion of stable essences). A question could be put: howsofar is it possible to say the (modern) biological meaning is simply, without qualification, an improvement over the political or common sense meaning. Thus, in asking what is race we have one question with a particular go at a single answer.
“Regardless, I am hearing that you are arguing for a kind of Nationalism when you speak of 'pride' because you seem to be wanting to argue for some right to have strict associations to some group based on a belief in enhancing one's "own kind" discretely from others.”
Saying that: pride and superiority mean the same thing from the political point of view. Starting from there there follows the corollary issue that the rational point of view might still speak of, let us call it, merit. Merit is pride or superiority that is not by the low standard of the blue-eyes and brown-eyes or the sub-rational (it is rational). So there is a question whether politics can rise to the level of rationality at all contained in the ambiguity and the overlap of connotations on the plain of daily life and maybe in the theoretical discussion as well. The most obvious and corresponding course division is made in asking the question: Which, a society of merit or of egalitarianism? Which is the rational or most healthy? Which is the standard for the human being, any human being, as intelligent being (which is to say, taking for granted that the intelligence stands higher than any biological difference, if race is a biological matter).
You are not answering as though you are tip-toeing around what you are wanting to express. We already do not have a formal system that demands we must procreate with someone we don't want to. Evolution will still favor people selecting those partners they most relate to genetically by default. What is wrong though is to assume some 'pride' should be openly encouraged about something racially or genetic superiority of some class of people when this also justifies why those who are relatively treated 'inferior' then justify why they too should enhance their own pride in order to retaliate. This keeps happening in cycles. That Israel/Zionist is constitionalized as a form of National Socialist in response to Hitler's Holocaust, for instance, is a reactionary example to this. This demonstrates how expecting pride as virtue always backfires. It is fine to be 'proud' of one's own family and relatives. But to flaunt it and isolate from others only fosters others to come down harder in retaliation as they then just think, "well if they think WE are a distinct genetic class worthy of exclusion for some inferior reason, then we may as well FIT with that expectation in order to survive or risk becoming the next victims of another genocide."

Answer this more clearly: ARE you arguing for a right to give open credit to something you believe has universal genetic validity? And, by extention, are you for openly voicing against certain others as having a right to promote their genetic proclivity when it is presumed universally inferior or invalid?

[And may I ask that you quote the first mention of whom you are speaking to, just as you don't hesitate to quote yourself? We get email notification on the next post after a visit OR when we get our name's quoted to alert us of someone commenting. Thank you.]
Scott Mayers
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Re: The notion of race.

Post by Scott Mayers »

TheVisionofEr wrote: Sun Feb 23, 2020 11:37 pm
Tribalism is closer to home, we war with those most like us (Catholics vs prots/ sunni vs shia -both ignore the alien Hindus for the most part).

the guy next door that is not familiy, the guy that shares your culture and looks like you but is not in your tribe is the enemy.
Maybe this is primarily due to practical availability of the enemy? Christians and Muslims fought incessantly in Albania where there was a contact point, for instance.

I would say though, there is a rational meaning to the dispute over the better way of life mixed with the general sub-rational obstinacy of groups. And other middle factors.
Many on the 'right' side of politics argue against their egalitarian opponents as being 'socialist' without noticing that for those who default to having the power to pass on inheritance economically, such defaults favor to and for their own "families" as just a form of discrete socialism for thier own kind.....a "National" Socialism.

I get the impression that the OP (your view) is arguing for a rational eugenics but does not recognize we all tend to select this way by default regardless. The differnce is about whether laws should or shouldn't be made to enhance or subdue racially defined superior or inferior qualities. No one, for instance, wants their kids to be born with genetic defects that hinders their child nor themselves by any burdens it imposes. But I'm not sure if the intent is to argue for a belief in arbitrary racial genetic factors, like skin color, as though this defines one's 'culture'. This to me is where I think your own optimism (?) of today's trends are misled. Today, the egalitarians in the left are actually promoting the same racist views when they presume some distinct status of a 'people' as something laws should be made to conserve, protect, or counter. But that is not the general intention of 'egalitarian' means by the individuals on the left.
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: The notion of race.

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

TheVisionofEr wrote: Sun Feb 23, 2020 11:23 pm
“Yes, there is a need to understand what is the highest goal via reason based on empirical evidence.
The highest goal is within 1 above, i.e.
the purpose of the objective moral laws are to ensure the survival of the individual[s] (till the inevitable] and therefrom the preservation of the human species.
Do you dispute the above rationale?”
It’s not clear. Evolution continues no matter what. Either as “negative” evolution or entropy, or as ‘positive’ transformations eventually inclusive of the genes themselves. From the light of biology it is meaningless to speak of morality or even fitness & survival (cf. the post-Hamiltonian sense). From the light of reason the standard of survival was never suggested before Hobbes. Since it was taken for granted. Partly because extinction was never contemplated seriously as it had no compelling evidence (or at least not understood to be compelling) before the year 17 hundred or so. On the other hand it was generally believed that it was better to die in the certainty of doing right, do go down in honor, than do live in disgrace (as, possibly, by eating human flesh or worse). The difference between the individual and the species as a whole might come in, but, still, even the species would prefer death if life according to the good were impossible by the older view. However, the older view assumes the truth is healthy, that is healthy for the human being.
So what is your war on the above rationale?
You seem to scarcely give any idea of a principle other than survival. If it is accepted it implies world peace or the making un-dangerous of humans is likely a practical step in this direction. However, it leaves out what the survival is for. If the question of what survival is for is raised, it might be said to be for a goal that itself required violent competitions which must be maximized to the degree they risk making the human again dangerous and threaten its survival. Survival in itself needs the addition of the reason for surviving since it is no mastery of the human condition, but only the bare condition for the possibility of that mastery or autonomy.
I stated 'survival of the individual and therefrom the species' is the obvious as evident and justified from empirical evidences.
Show me within evolution, which species of living things has emerged with the immediate 'purpose' of striving to be extinct?
There is none!
Therefore it is evident and justified as inferred from empirical evidences the ultimate purpose of a living thing, i.e. including human being is 'survival of the individual and therefrom the species.'

No doubt there will be competition between individual within the species and between other species.
However, the individual of each species are also programmed with the competency to optimize within their respective constraints at least until the inevitable where the species became extinct but never without the necessary struggle to survive at all costs.

At present there are no evidence to reason out why species strive for self-preservation but the fact is, that is the fact, so we have to accept it as evident and justified as so.
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Sculptor
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Re: The notion of race.

Post by Sculptor »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Mon Feb 24, 2020 9:49 am
TheVisionofEr wrote: Sun Feb 23, 2020 11:23 pm
“Yes, there is a need to understand what is the highest goal via reason based on empirical evidence.
The highest goal is within 1 above, i.e.
the purpose of the objective moral laws are to ensure the survival of the individual[s] (till the inevitable] and therefrom the preservation of the human species.
Do you dispute the above rationale?”
It’s not clear. Evolution continues no matter what. Either as “negative” evolution or entropy, or as ‘positive’ transformations eventually inclusive of the genes themselves. From the light of biology it is meaningless to speak of morality or even fitness & survival (cf. the post-Hamiltonian sense). From the light of reason the standard of survival was never suggested before Hobbes. Since it was taken for granted. Partly because extinction was never contemplated seriously as it had no compelling evidence (or at least not understood to be compelling) before the year 17 hundred or so. On the other hand it was generally believed that it was better to die in the certainty of doing right, do go down in honor, than do live in disgrace (as, possibly, by eating human flesh or worse). The difference between the individual and the species as a whole might come in, but, still, even the species would prefer death if life according to the good were impossible by the older view. However, the older view assumes the truth is healthy, that is healthy for the human being.
So what is your war on the above rationale?
You seem to scarcely give any idea of a principle other than survival. If it is accepted it implies world peace or the making un-dangerous of humans is likely a practical step in this direction. However, it leaves out what the survival is for. If the question of what survival is for is raised, it might be said to be for a goal that itself required violent competitions which must be maximized to the degree they risk making the human again dangerous and threaten its survival. Survival in itself needs the addition of the reason for surviving since it is no mastery of the human condition, but only the bare condition for the possibility of that mastery or autonomy.
I stated 'survival of the individual and therefrom the species' is the obvious as evident and justified from empirical evidences.
Show me within evolution, which species of living things has emerged with the immediate 'purpose' of striving to be extinct?
No species has emerged with any purpose - immediate or otherwise. The question demonstrates a failure to understand natural selection.
There is none!
Therefore it is evident and justified as inferred from empirical evidences the ultimate purpose of a living thing, i.e. including human being is 'survival of the individual and therefrom the species.'
Rubbish. You conclusion, even in its own parameters is false
Leave teleology for the religiously minded.
Natural Selection is a process of unthinking selection in which no purpose is know, or aimed for.
The "struggle" for survival is the unintended result of the survival process in which traits and behaviours that have survived to allow for viable progeny remain in the gene pool giving the appearance of purpose, yet no purpose drives the process. Death, failure to reproduce and an ever changing environment are what drives the process, leaving behind more favorable characteristics, not more "favoured" ones. The process does not recognise the needs of a changing environment. But stuff that does not fit, does not persist.
No doubt there will be competition between individual within the species and between other species.
However, the individual of each species are also programmed with the competency to optimize within their respective constraints at least until the inevitable where the species became extinct but never without the necessary struggle to survive at all costs.

At present there are no evidence to reason out why species strive for self-preservation but the fact is, that is the fact, so we have to accept it as evident and justified as so.
You have natural selection exactly backwards.
TheVisionofEr
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Re: The notion of race.

Post by TheVisionofEr »

Evolution will still favor people selecting those partners they most relate to genetically by default.
Against this, or not against it exactly, Nietsche says, this is so, but the only cases that matter are the most complex individualities and they can not be subsumed by the laws of lower matter. This become cultural forms which the others invest their emotions in and are more important than the mass (who are predictable by the rule). In Evolution we come to the stage of artificial evolution or selective breeding, and that is where all variation worth speaking of happens. The refined inclinations of the great spirits don’t become only wolves or jackals, as do all dogs gone wild, but a versi-coloured infinity comes forward and produces new forms of life as models for all. Example, gothic architecture, example more particular to an individual, the style of Gaudi.
That Israel/Zionist is constitionalized as a form of National Socialist in response to Hitler's Holocaust, for instance, is a reactionary example to this.
This is not quite accurate. The spark issue for the cosmopolitan Jew, for instance Marx was such a Jew who believe in future the state would be indifferent to groups, and individual citizenship would be the main thing, is usually understood as the Dreyfus affair. It was than that the will to fully define oneself, and the corresponding abandonment of the cosmopolitan possibility, to see oneself concretely with the mirror of the “enemy” (Herzl and Schmitt) is seen in various lights. This is viewed rather positively by the Germans, both Jewish and Chrisitans. The chance to know oneself is at stake; to search into one’s ethos or character.
“This demonstrates how expecting pride as virtue always backfires.”
I agree, but there is a defacto issue. The claim to pride, say the 60’s in America; Civil Rights, is the manner in which rights are won in the Liberal Democracies which are guided by public opinion of the worth of groups. This also produces the entry of, say, Japanese Americans in large numbers into the universities. The universities are thereby the manner in which social good are distributed through the membership title of the degree holder. So, here, pride is political and necessary. Merit might be a pure standard, but it has never been justified rationally and can’t be unless a true science of the human essence is possible. Then the masters of this ethos would have true claim to guiding the other humans (a claim lacking in the body of scientific and technical merit).
"well if they think WE are a distinct genetic class worthy of exclusion for some inferior reason, then we may as well FIT with that expectation in order to survive or risk becoming the next victims of another genocide."
Well, its not a principle, but just the one example you give. But, surely in the example you give, the Jews have done quite well in America through that strategy. There is always a double movment possible, demonstrating merit and the claim to superiority in certain general egalitarian respects where the claim means, we too have talents which make us worthy of entry into the club.
Answer this more clearly: ARE you arguing for a right to give open credit to something you believe has universal genetic validity? And, by extention, are you for openly voicing against certain others as having a right to promote their genetic proclivity when it is presumed universally inferior or invalid?
I’m not arguing at all. I’m giving reasons. If there is such a thing as merit, it must have a standard. That would make it rise above the sub-rational claims to superiority of groups. If the sole standard is egalitarianism is rational than there no standard of merit or pride can have a bearing. Except possibly the claim to the best understanding of egalitarian culture which would likely have to be produced in university departments setting up further difficulties.

“Many on the 'right' side of politics argue against their egalitarian opponents as being 'socialist' without noticing that for those who default to having the power to pass on inheritance economically, such defaults favor to and for their own "families" as just a form of discrete socialism for thier own kind.....a "National" Socialism.”
Most debate of that kind is sub-rational. There are justifications for inheritance, but how much weight they deserve I don’t know. In theory Capitalism differs from Communism in that it permits several titles to demand. I can make demands because I have come up with ideas; not only by doing physical labour. This implies a difficulty with the issue of the length of the copyright. I can manage people and businesses (that is think of what people should do and tell people what to do). I can inherit. I can do arbitrage. I can take rent. Wherase, in Communism labour is the sole title and management is an office of the State. This is a useless scheme under the current conditions since labour has become a marginal form of work under post-fordist individualized demand economies.
I get the impression that the OP (your view) is arguing for a rational eugenics but does not recognize we all tend to select this way by default regardless. The differnce is about whether laws should or shouldn't be made to enhance or subdue racially defined superior or inferior qualities.
But you are taking for granted the environment. The university does science, but why should that be the standard for the tacit eugenics? Is it a rational standard? That’s why one must ask: is science simply superior to common sense? I mention in passing that I consider the Charles Murray sort of arguments intolerably superficial and almost wholly worthless.
But I'm not sure if the intent is to argue for a belief in arbitrary racial genetic factors, like skin color, as though this defines one's 'culture'.
I am not arguing at all. I’m simply protesting the disrespect for reason implied in not admitting, for example, that skin color exists. Skin color exists, like other traits. It plays a physical role, for example in disease. The question of the goal, or the meaning of rationality, would have to be worked out for one to say whether eugenics was or was not against reason. We would have to know ourselves as humans, or, as it may be, as particular kinds of cultures in order to master the problem of autonomy just as a master in the medieval guild is ready to set up shop on completion of the masterwork, one with the principle of rationality could set up a country or culture.

Today, the egalitarians in the left are actually promoting the same racist views when they presume some distinct status of a 'people' as something laws should be made to conserve, protect, or counter.
Well, one may gain something with a detailed look at an actual case. In the case of the general idea of affirmative action in the last 50 years, one can say this certainly has shown an amazing success in some areas. For instance women lawyers never existed for three thousand years. Now they outnumber men in the American law schools. The protection is meant only until the lift off point is reached whereby it becomes second nature or habit.
TheVisionofEr
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Re: The notion of race.

Post by TheVisionofEr »

No species has emerged with any purpose - immediate or otherwise. The question demonstrates a failure to understand natural selection.
I set myself purposes every hour of every day. Even squirrels act with purpose.

You're bringing in an extreme dogmatic metaphysical claim about the status of causality as such which is simply crazy from any serious or normal point of view.
TheVisionofEr
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Re: The notion of race.

Post by TheVisionofEr »

I stated 'survival of the individual and therefrom the species' is the obvious as evident and justified from empirical evidences.
Show me within evolution, which species of living things has emerged with the immediate 'purpose' of striving to be extinct?
There is none!


Isn’t change of form, rather, a kind of destruction? For instance Hippopotamuses were sea animals at one time. The race doesn’t strive to remain itself under normal conditions. One form goes away, another comes along. The genes also change form.

The possibility, the standing possibility of there being a human, slips away under normal conditions according to the theory of Evolution.

Destruction of the essence or form seems more the rule than survival. When intelligence comes in the awakening to death this may release the race from mere natural destruction of its essence as a matter of course. This could be a kind of knowing oneself. An increase in mastery of the autonomy of one's character or essence.
At present there are no evidence to reason out why species strive for self-preservation but the fact is, that is the fact,
I think the ability to commit suicide is a sign of intelligence. There is a strong sense, as I have put forward elsewhere, that intelligence makes the whole of evolution theory defunct; the law can not hold in its light.

Putting that aside, one might still hold that survival is necessary as the condition for a rational goal. The goal could be, for instance, knowing oneself. One’s life or ethos is the endowment of the possibility to know oneself.

--

I would point out that the theory of Evolution can be interpreted merely as a rule which may be predictive. If it is only a rule all it does is predict or fail to predict. It tells us nothing, or, anyway, not the main things, about the character of the beings it predicts, about what they are.
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: The notion of race.

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

TheVisionofEr wrote: Tue Feb 25, 2020 1:19 am I think the ability to commit suicide is a sign of intelligence. There is a strong sense, as I have put forward elsewhere, that intelligence makes the whole of evolution theory defunct; the law can not hold in its light.

Putting that aside, one might still hold that survival is necessary as the condition for a rational goal. The goal could be, for instance, knowing oneself. One’s life or ethos is the endowment of the possibility to know oneself.

--

I would point out that the theory of Evolution can be interpreted merely as a rule which may be predictive. If it is only a rule all it does is predict or fail to predict. It tells us nothing, or, anyway, not the main things, about the character of the beings it predicts, about what they are.
I asked;
VA wrote:I stated 'survival of the individual and therefrom the species' is the obvious as evident and justified from empirical evidences.
Show me within evolution, which species of living things has emerged with the immediate 'purpose' of striving to be extinct?
I am not sticking pedantically with the theory of evolution of Charles Darwin, but more on the emergence of living things as a species since the first single celled living things emerged 4 billion years ago.

To be objective we have to be evidenced based on the empirical and critical thinking.

It is noted and observed empirically in reality, no species has emerged with any indication they strove to be extinct immediately. Rather the species as represented by the majority of the individuals strove at all costs to survive as long as possible to enable reproduction or cloning to ensure the specific species is preserved.
From this it can be inferred 'the 'purpose' of the individual is to survive at all costs till the inevitable in contributing to the preservation of the species'.
This is very scientific, objective and can be verified to empirical evidence in reality in many ways.

To counter my hypothesis,
Show me within reality from past to present, which species of living things has emerged with the immediate 'purpose' [evidence of indication] of striving to be extinct?

I am very sure there are none.
Therefore my hypothesis can be theorized as true.
Find me a "black swan" on this.

Actually my theory is so obvious, most people just take it for granted and are ignorant of it on the epistemological and conscious level.
I think the ability to commit suicide is a sign of intelligence. There is a strong sense, as I have put forward elsewhere, that intelligence makes the whole of evolution theory defunct; the law can not hold in its light.
The ability to commit suicide is a sign of cowardice and escapism.

The human system inherited an algorithm that is 4 billion years old.
The 'reasonable' human intelligence merely emerged to the average person only about 10,000 years ago or at max 50,000 years ago.
As such we are comparing a 4 billion years' old neural algorithm against a 10,000 years algorithm which is a no-match situation.
This is why intelligent people are easily swayed by their primal passions and emotions, this is so evident in history and at the present.

As such, no matter how intelligent a person is, he has to align and compliment with the older 4 billion years old neural algorithm in the brain/mind.

A person who had commit suicide is a weakling and a cowardice who cannot cope with his inherent 4 billion years old neural algorithm. The one who had committed suicide may be rational in his own way but STUPID in the most basic of being human. In any case NATURE has always provide for a small percentile of such stupid cowards and depend on the theory of large numbers to preserve the species till the inevitable.
Putting that aside, one might still hold that survival is necessary as the condition for a rational goal. The goal could be, for instance, knowing oneself. One’s life or ethos is the endowment of the possibility to know oneself.
Survival of the individual and the species in the central fact.

So the first thing is to understand and accept the above fact.

Then it is 'Know Thyself' in understanding how the whole system of the individual person is aligned with the central fact of survival.
This will entail knowing in full details the principles, mechanics and processes of how the brain and the whole body including the trillions of good symbiotic bacteria that support the individuals to achieve the ultimate objective of survival and preservation of the species.
Have you any idea how humanity is grooving in this direction? Just Google ..
Scott Mayers
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Re: The notion of race.

Post by Scott Mayers »

@Veritas,

Comparing the OP's argument here to my points against your idea of a Universal morality, do you not see how the problem of this OP's view is an 'absolute' position (s)he cannot dislodge? Note how (s)he is arguing for a right for SPECIAL means to compete for his/her own absolute regardless of universal consideration? THIS is an example of what threatens us if we permit fixed ideals. If (s)he had his power to rule, (s)he would DEFINE his own family's interest as what it would mean to be 'absolutely' moral via constition, a National Socialist agenda of preferential Eugenic policies. This is an example where I think your own ideal in opposition of his/hers becomes hard to assign what is or is not 'slavery'.

What I'll say to him or her (I won't need to give respect to mentioning his/her name for not respecting the same etiquitte of not quoting any of us when responding), is that if (s)he thinks it alright to be selfish to assign value to what is 'good' or not based upon whatever fortune of power (s)he can use to dictate who is or is not 'valid', then we have a right to oppose it in kind. (S)he has a right to free speech here. But we have a right to exclude his/her own bias to enslave others by legislating actions to prevent his/her success environmentally, without offending his/her right to speak against some ideal of Social Darwinism (s)he is implicitly proposing that WOULD tend to favor enslavement if (s)he could constitute the power to rule by mere force.

Do you see the conflict that I'm pointing to about using "slavery" as a constitional human reality? (S)he would argue his/her own belief for self-preservation of his own kind of definition of what it means to be 'enslaved' should (s)he not be permitted to euthanize or exclude those (s)he deems is less 'fit' in a evaluting ideal of 'superior' versus 'inferior' people.
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: The notion of race.

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Scott Mayers wrote: Tue Feb 25, 2020 3:08 pm @Veritas,

Comparing the OP's argument here to my points against your idea of a Universal morality, do you not see how the problem of this OP's view is an 'absolute' position (s)he cannot dislodge? Note how (s)he is arguing for a right for SPECIAL means to compete for his/her own absolute regardless of universal consideration? THIS is an example of what threatens us if we permit fixed ideals. If (s)he had his power to rule, (s)he would DEFINE his own family's interest as what it would mean to be 'absolutely' moral via constition, a National Socialist agenda of preferential Eugenic policies. This is an example where I think your own ideal in opposition of his/hers becomes hard to assign what is or is not 'slavery'.

What I'll say to him or her (I won't need to give respect to mentioning his/her name for not respecting the same etiquitte of not quoting any of us when responding), is that if (s)he thinks it alright to be selfish to assign value to what is 'good' or not based upon whatever fortune of power (s)he can use to dictate who is or is not 'valid', then we have a right to oppose it in kind. (S)he has a right to free speech here. But we have a right to exclude his/her own bias to enslave others by legislating actions to prevent his/her success environmentally, without offending his/her right to speak against some ideal of Social Darwinism (s)he is implicitly proposing that WOULD tend to favor enslavement if (s)he could constitute the power to rule by mere force.

Do you see the conflict that I'm pointing to about using "slavery" as a constitional human reality? (S)he would argue his/her own belief for self-preservation of his own kind of definition of what it means to be 'enslaved' should (s)he not be permitted to euthanize or exclude those (s)he deems is less 'fit' in a evaluting ideal of 'superior' versus 'inferior' people.
Scot Mayer, suggest you click the " sign, i.e. "reply with Quote"
If you find the post too long, at least retain the
"quote="Scott Mayers" post_id=443963 time=1582639689 user_id=11118"
with some minimal text with close quotation.
In this case, I will get a "Notification" [Bell Sign] and I will be notified you have responded to my post. Else your response is likely to be overlooked.

Re my proposal of using Universal Objective absolute moral law as ideal guide to improve on morality and human behavior for good, I stated these absolute moral laws must be justified with empirical evidences, reason and critical thinking.
This has to be applied to every absolute moral laws that is established - I have not gone into the details on this.

Note the principle of Kant's Categorical Imperative;
  • “Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law”

    “So act as to treat humanity, whether in your own person or in another, always as an end, and never as only a means.”
In the case of 'slavery' one cannot made it universal in treating another person as a means for one's or a group's personal interest.

It is the same with say, the idea of race supremacy.
To make race supremacy universal would mean everyone will view their race and supreme which lead to nowhere and the eroding of the basic human rights of the others.

If 'killing another human being is permissible" is made universal, then in theory and logically every one can kill another human being which when theorized to the extreme will exterminate the human species.
TheVisionofEr
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Re: The notion of race.

Post by TheVisionofEr »

“Rather the species as represented by the majority of the individuals strove at all costs to survive as long as possible to enable reproduction or cloning to ensure the specific species is preserved.”
To say that someone “strives” is to imply a conscious action. Action in contradistinction to the blind occurence of nature. The technical meaning of fitness in a problem to establish. After Hamilton, by Darwin’s own standard, the law or theory of Evolution is shown to be bunk. Fitness or striving for it in an vernacular sense ceases to have a meaning. If the theory continues to be predictive in some cases it is as a rule imposed form outside, not as a claim about what the phenomena under study are.

“From this it can be inferred 'the 'purpose' of the individual is to survive at all costs till the inevitable in contributing to the preservation of the species'.”
This is a way of understanding a predictive apparatus (through anthropomorphizing). I have purposes, I know it from direct self inspection. That a species is said to deliberately or purposely do something is absurd on the face of it.

Beside that, they don’t preserve themselves. They change. The species changes and so is destroyed and becomes another.
Actually my theory is so obvious, most people just take it for granted and are ignorant of it on the epistemological and conscious level.
It’s not obvious at all that it makes sense to assign purposes to groups. Animals do not have conferences or seminars with one another to decide on furthering their collective aim of survival. As soon as one notices that Evolution can be described as positive entropy one sees the senselessness of this deception in terms of motives. Atoms have no motives, and they do not aim at survival. It is even said that they must be conserved by law of nature.

They can be said to survive on a common sense reading, but it is not due to deliberation, will or purpose. Humans are aware of death in a peculiar way that makes self-preservation a conscious motive. Whereas Hamilton shows this is not so of animals.
The ability to commit suicide is a sign of cowardice and escapism.
This is not a premise I would grant. It is absurd on the face of it. The wakeful and clear knowledge of death implies the possibility of suicide. It is coextensive with intelligence and human life.
The human system inherited an algorithm that is 4 billion years old.
So far as we are on the level of unconscious or vegetative movements or changes we are bellow the level of morality. Or, if not bellow, in a non-moral region. I can’t see how morality can be about anything that is not about an action, rather than a mere act ("passion") of nature. An action is something done with some understanding of what is happening. The bull charges the red cape on instinct, the Matador acts on his understanding. Without that distinction it is impossible to speak of morality on my view. Morality implies intelligence.

We would just be describing whatever happened on its own. There is no morality in the animal kingdom or in the kingdom of mere atomic actions. The issue there is that nature is supposed to be guided, on the Christian view, by super-rationality. Darwin shows this is not a cogent belief. Nature is sub-rational. Ergo, sub-moral. This view is still in Dawkins by the way. Dawkins claims one has to “revolt” against the "selfish gene." Thus he implies a region higher than nature. The moral region of understanding or reason or the holy ghost.
A person who had commit suicide is a weakling and a cowardice who cannot cope with his inherent 4 billion years old neural algorithm.
This is perhaps just blind dogma. If it were true mere survival were the highest principle it would make some sense, but that is not a moral principle in any serious sense so far as I can see. It seems to be merely a claim to describe what happens in some specific case with blind nature. It is rather like a kind of religious claim that the "fact" is superior to the truth or the right or what could be. E.g., humans are striving to survive, thus they ought to do so. Bernie is winning in the election, thus, he ought to win. Ovens have the power to burn many Jews, thus they should burn them. It has no rational content. I repeat, mere survival is not a moral principle; it may be an accurate description of what has happened.
Survival of the individual and the species in the central fact.
Again, I don’t even find this intelligible. Evolution implies the destruction of the species. That is what Evolution means as such. The species changes, and so becomes something qualitatively different, and so has been destroyed.Humans are said to be the speaking animal by the old claim about the essence of the human. About what is peculiar in the human and gives the species its significance. If humans would cease to have reason, after evolving, they would no longer be human and the problem would, so to say, solve itself because no one would be there to talk about it.
Scott Mayers
Posts: 2485
Joined: Wed Jul 08, 2015 1:53 am

Re: The notion of race.

Post by Scott Mayers »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Wed Feb 26, 2020 8:39 am Scot Mayer, suggest you click the " sign, i.e. "reply with Quote"
If you find the post too long, at least retain the
"quote="Scott Mayers" post_id=443963 time=1582639689 user_id=11118"
with some minimal text with close quotation.
In this case, I will get a "Notification" [Bell Sign] and I will be notified you have responded to my post. Else your response is likely to be overlooked.
Thank you. I was complaining about TheVision about his own dismissing of the name in the quote without realizing the "@" I used creates a similar problem for you. Sorry about that.
Re my proposal of using Universal Objective absolute moral law as ideal guide to improve on morality and human behavior for good, I stated these absolute moral laws must be justified with empirical evidences, reason and critical thinking.
This has to be applied to every absolute moral laws that is established - I have not gone into the details on this.

Note the principle of Kant's Categorical Imperative;
  • “Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law”

    “So act as to treat humanity, whether in your own person or in another, always as an end, and never as only a means.”
That's fine. I understand and respect your intent even if I disagree with your use of the term, 'absolute' with respect to morals. Good luck on your approach. I don't really have the mindset right now to debate further on this at the moment.
gaffo
Posts: 4259
Joined: Mon Nov 27, 2017 3:15 am

Re: The notion of race.

Post by gaffo »

Scott Mayers wrote: Sun Feb 23, 2020 7:47 am My confusion is to WHY many have not dropped the idea that the Neanderthal is a different specie from Sapiens because we now have proof of interbreeding.
Ineed Sir - for a century it was assumed Homosepians did not interbreed with the prior folks living in Europe. and so the prior was not "human" - but of another species. now that we have solid proof than there was some interbreding and so current homosapians are in fact 2-percent Nenaderthal, the Neanderthal narative is re-written to make them human as well and not a separate species - bias anyone?

as always - the truth is prob somewhere inbetween. and they were "Human enougy" to be view as human by those they bed with.

- the same play was played out in Congo (with an arcaic form of man) and in Far East (Desovans) - with the same homo sapians population badding and absorbing the older population genetically.



Scott Mayers wrote: Sat Feb 22, 2020 5:29 am I would LIKE to agree to this but it is NOT the case within many political uses. For example, here in Canada, many think that it is somehow a travesty should an Aboriginal child be adopted to a non-Aboriginal family with their argument that they believe one's genetic roots are more signficant. We have here a titled case, called "The Sixities Scoop", which defines Aboriginals who were 'scooped' up by non-Aboriginals in adoption as though it was intentional theft of children. Many here believe that if one is genetically Aboriginal, they have a 'right' to some "heritage" which implies legal issues. For instance, if you are Aboriginal but adopted to a European family, our system thinks this person OWNS something about their genetic family with priority. That means that for laws that grant SPECIAL status and benefits, etc, this should be potentially applicable to the Aboriginal child adopted from birth regardless of whether they relate to the 'culture' of Aboriginal life.

This applies to all 'ethnicities' here. As such, an 'ethnic Muslim', for instance, is one who is not only Muslim but one who has Arabic/Semitic blood.

So an "ethnicity" is a specific word to refer not only to one's environmental inheritance (heritage) but to one's genetic link, say of their direct ancestral roots. Otherwise, this word has no distinctive meaning to the term "culture" in a generic sense.
if you'd like to agree with me on the ethicity count than do so. other views are PC crap. there is no inherent DNA that makes a Native Canadian more native than any european settler!! - the Euro settler ancestors just 1000 yrs prior living in Europe was living as a "First Nation" in Europe. and his DNA was in align with the huter-gather's living in Canada - 100 yrs ago. So just reject PC garbage as just that Sir!

If i were born in Vietman/Gambian/Guanain - as a blond caucasion - i would be not less Vietnamese/Gambian/Guanian than any/all of the locals there with the {"proper" DNA).

fact is the difference in DNA is so small as to irrelivent per what i means to be a human being, and so why anyone is i native of where he is born - regardless of the "Race" they are from. ie. if a black is born via Alaska Eskimos, he's an Eskimo!

fuck PC garbage - its tribal filth.
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