Ryan Gosling: Women are "stronger, more evolved than men"

[redbreegull]

Originally Posted by reprise85

I'm not saying there's no differences. I'm saying the differences rely so much on how they are treated as infants that the baby's behavior would not be statistically abnormal. I could be wrong.

Who knows? This is a very old philosophical question... where does our nature come from? Are we blank slates molded by society or are we the product of some internal natural force (in this case heredity). I think science has kind of indicated that both are valid and it's not an either/or thing.

[Run To Me]

You guys think your pretty smart

My Fuzz Eros emotional gut answer to the Q is that the baby, raised, might could pass as one of us but would always feel a twinge of pilgrim in strangeland underneath it all

[Elphenor]

I really think that majority of what we are is a product of our environment.

I think it may be by evolutionary design that humans essentially mold themselves around the culture they are raised in

[reprise85]

Originally Posted by redbreegull

Who knows? This is a very old philosophical question... where does our nature come from? Are we blank slates molded by society or are we the product of some internal natural force (in this case heredity). I think science has kind of indicated that both are valid and it's not an either/or thing.

Yes of course it's definitely not an either/or thing, but as far as I can scientists and theoretical perspectives on development tend to lean one way or the other.

Let me be more specific in what I meant in this case. Genetically it might be different, but even assuming genetics plays a bigger role than environment, I don't think it'd be different enough to be noticable. And especially if we go back just 10,000 when there was agriculture, I think this is true.

So I'm not saying nurture is more important than nature, only that if the nature would be measurably and predictible different between an infant from modern times or an infant transported at birth to modern times, it would be so slight as to be within the normal human variation for this time period. My answer isn't about the nature/nurture debate.

Of course I can't prove this and nobody can but, as one example, we share 99.5% of our genes with neanderthals and we probably mated with them. I don't think human variation is big enough to matter which time period you're born in, if we can be that different but still mate with another species.

[redbreegull]

we are actually one of the most genetically homogeneous large animal species. Modern homo sapiens have only been around for ~200 k years which is the blink of an eye in geological time. There has been almost no time for our genetic makeup to diversify.

I'm not sure if that makes it less likely that the imprint of epigenetics might have caused humans of the distant past to be quite different. I don't know enough about how epigenetics actually works and what exactly can be passed. I think science doesn't really know yet.

[yo soy el mejor]

Originally Posted by Run To Me

You guys think your pretty smart

no way.

[reprise85]

Originally Posted by redbreegull

we are actually one of the most genetically homogeneous large animal species. Modern homo sapiens have only been around for ~200 k years which is the blink of an eye in geological time. There has been almost no time for our genetic makeup to diversify.

I'm not sure if that makes it less likely that the imprint of epigenetics might have caused humans of the distant past to be quite different. I don't know enough about how epigenetics actually works and what exactly can be passed. I think science doesn't really know yet.

true true

[vixnix]

Originally Posted by Disco King

Hey Vixnix, wanna arm wrestle?

sure, though you might wanna pick reprise, because my arms grew significantly after having children and carrying 15kg children on my hip for up to 1km at a time....

[reprise85]

yeah my arms are like huge drums of lard, im sure you could beat me unless my arm somehow swallowed yours whole

[Disco King]

Originally Posted by reprise85

You are so smart and I agree with all of this. I do think you could take a baby from 100,000 years ago or whatever and it would be indistinguishable from anybody born today.

When I was reading about culture in evo psych it struck me as an important difference between homo sapiens and homo Homo neanderthalensis is that we have no evidence of culture in neanderthals - e.g. art, writing/hyroglyphs, religious artifacts, musical instruments, more advanced tools, etc. They did bury their dead at least some of the time but I don't know of any evidence of ceremonial burial like leaving artifacts with the dead or having gravestones, etc. But they almost certainly were very intelligent and had imitation behaviors and mental symbolism and all of that stuff. Lack of language, or lack of advanced language - I don't doubt they may have had basic language but we go beyond commands and basic feelings - probably has a lot to do with the lack of cultural transmission. Not only because people don't talk to others but when you learn new things, especially as children, we tend to internalize directions or steps taken in the form of words, as soon as we're old enough. And we tend to start having biographical memory only after we start having language. see: infantile amnesia

I remember talking about neanderthals in anthro class, but don't recall much about them. I don't remember talking about whether they had culture to the same extent as humans. This is pretty interesting, and maybe it points toward the evolutionary advantage of culture.

I've also never heard of infantile amnesia. Wikiing it, it looks pretty interesting, too.

I remember borrowing an Evo Psych book from the library and skimming through it, and how it referred to different mental capacities as "mental modules," language being such a module. It compared these to organs, in that, even if they aren't contiguous regions of the brain, they are brain systems that have specialized functions that are somewhat independent of other systems. For example, language isn't just some consequence of general intelligence, but its own module, as evidenced by stroke victims losing language abilities, but suffering no harm to their IQ; or the fact that intellectually-disabled people can still command language very well (since this was in a textbook designed for an evo-psych class, you probably went over the same information).

So, you could be on to something about the "language organ" being tied to cultural transmission. I suppose the advantage would be that culture makes a species able to fulfill more niches by being able to learn how to exploit the environment, instead of having to wait for speciation or mutations/selection to allow them to change their behaviour.

Originally Posted by reprise85

I have been historically very towards nature on the nature vs nurture debate but I am starting to go more towards the center, maybe even past the center. Because even if you count epigentic inheritance, that's still was based on nurture at some point.

I think being a leftist, I'm more likely to favour nurture, because of how biological claims have often been invoked by traditional power structures to rationalize inequalities. Like, in the past, how things like racial oppression were justified with phrenology, or how MRAs like to explain gendered occupational segregation and income inequality through women having less aptitude than men, or the more politically-correct version, women just being naturally "less interested" in math and science than men.

But I also find that there are a lot of people on the left who just reject any biological explanations for anything because they are afraid that such would necessitate accepting inequality, and have this radical, anti-scientific rejection of human nature. I took this feminist philosophy course last year, and there were students who claimed that "anthropology has proven that there is no such thing as human nature," that "claims of human nature are decisive," stuff that really boggled my mind. I also read one study¹ that found that quite a few sociologists reject commonly-accepted biological roles for different behaviours, and that many introductory sociology textbooks give stawman accounts of biological explanations (I found this myself in my own sociology courses, where "evolutionary psychology" and "sociobiology" would be identified with the guys who packed skulls with sand to prove black people had smaller heads, rather than giving even a cursory survey of contemporary research in the field). Even my sister, a sociology graduate, was under the impression that "evolutionary psychology has been mostly discredited" last I talked to her about it.

For my essay in that feminist philosophy course, I made my thesis that supposing a human nature exists does not pose serious problems for feminism, and that feminists shouldn't outright reject biological accounts. I have an armchair interest in behavioural stuff, so my essay was way longer than it needed to be, and that was after cutting out stuff that I wish I could had left in.

Originally Posted by redbreegull

I dunno. I guess the question is basically did people actually suffer more when a brutal, extreme life was the norm versus today, or are we equally as unhappy and tortured no matter what.


But I meant more like beyond pleasure vs. pain, life and behavior are very different in civilized, agricultural societies than in ancient nomadic ones. I was just kind of thinking out loud, but it does at least seem possible that if we carry information from our ancestors, there might be some difference between the inherited nature of a person born now vs. 100,000 years ago

I guess it would have to do with the relative importance of epigenetically-inherented traits vs. ones that aren't epigenetic, as well as culture. It could be that, by and large, the genetic imprint left by experiences is swamped by the genes that are independent of an individual's experience, as well as by an individual's experience.

Originally Posted by redbreegull

Who knows? This is a very old philosophical question... where does our nature come from? Are we blank slates molded by society or are we the product of some internal natural force (in this case heredity). I think science has kind of indicated that both are valid and it's not an either/or thing.

I once saw it posed like this: "what is more important to the area of a rectangle, the length or the width?"

I'm not sure if I am a rationalist or an empiricist, but the way I see it, we're not genetically hard-wired from birth, nor are we blank slates. We're more like, you know those plates that are partitioned into sections, like the ones for children? I think we're like that, in that we inherently have some mechanisms for sorting and organizing information, because if we didn't, all stimuli would just be a chaotic mess. The brain innately has a programme for processing things like language information, visual information, audio information, information about the sorts of physics we interact with, social information, etc. But the information that is processed comes from experience, and so our behaviours are affected by that, as well as our inborn functioning.

Originally Posted by vixnix

sure, though you might wanna pick reprise, because my arms grew significantly after having children and carrying 15kg children on my hip for up to 1km at a time....

Aw man

Originally Posted by reprise85

yeah my arms are like huge drums of lard, im sure you could beat me unless my arm somehow swallowed yours whole

Well, if they are really that big, you must have muscle from lifting them.

All the women on this forum probably would beat me in an arm wrestle. **** was right. Boys do drool.

1. Mark Horowitz , William Yaworsky & Kenneth Kickham (2014) "Whither the
Blank Slate? A Report on the Reception of Evolutionary Biological Ideas among Sociological Theorists," Sociological Spectrum, 34:6, 489-509,

[redbreegull]

the only thing I'm sure of is that we are 100% the result of our inputs whether or not we know how to identify or cut them all up into neat categories. There is no free will.

[redbreegull]

and by "sure of" I mean I suspect a strong likelihood based on scientific investigation

[duovamp]

Well causality does exist. So there's really no argument that we are anything but.

[slunken]

if only us regular world users had someone to tell us "grow a beard while you're bulking up so your fat face doesn't look weird"

[duovamp]

I'll use his bones to make my bread.

[yo soy el mejor]

i bet he and eva mendes have some cute babies.

[Run To Me]

Originally Posted by redbreegull

the only thing I'm sure of is that we are 100% the result of our inputs whether or not we know how to identify or cut them all up into neat categories. There is no free will.

Can you expand on this? What leads you to the conclusion there's no free will? I can buy that the range of choices available to me at any given juncture are highly proscribed by my "inputs" but how is it not my choice to, for example, eat this donut instead of this apple?

*eats donut, flips off apple, feels free AF

[redbreegull]

Of course this is based on what science can tell us at this moment and doesn't necessarily represent THE TRUTH

but above the subatomic level, nothing has ever been observed behaving in an indeterministic way. The universe, to the extent of our understanding, is a single unfolding chain reaction. All matter and energy react precisely to the forces acting on it, and this chain hypothetically is traceable back to the First Cause.

Human beings in all likelihood are not any different. We are made of the same shit as everything else but we are somehow experiencing some sort of cosmic self-awareness head trip. We feel like we are making choices so we have invented this construct, free will, but there's nothing scientific to back that concept up. It's more of a spiritual idea.

People tend to be super resistant to determinism because it seems like an affront to one of the central pillars of many Western philosophies, which is free will. Often people will make arguments to temper the unsavory nature of hard determinism, like that it makes sense but somehow doesn't apply to human beings because we are special, or that there is probably a margin of error that let's us choose what to wear today even though our ultimate destiny is decided. I think the first argument is knee-jerk, and the second one draws an arbitrary line between what is determined and what is not. I think the likelihood is that all matter and energy obey physical laws to the same extent, and this probably means choice is an illusion.

[redbreegull]

tl;dr your perception that you can either have the apple or the donut is true in that you experience it, but in talking about the physical universe that choice does not exist. your whole thought process about which one to eat, however arbitrary it seems, is an unfolding chain reaction which can hypothetically be traced out of your head, out of your body, and back to the beginning of time.

[yo soy el mejor]

fap fap fap

[Disco King]

Originally Posted by redbreegull

Of course this is based on what science can tell us at this moment and doesn't necessarily represent THE TRUTH

but above the subatomic level, nothing has ever been observed behaving in an indeterministic way. The universe, to the extent of our understanding, is a single unfolding chain reaction. All matter and energy react precisely to the forces acting on it, and this chain hypothetically is traceable back to the First Cause.

Human beings in all likelihood are not any different. We are made of the same shit as everything else but we are somehow experiencing some sort of cosmic self-awareness head trip. We feel like we are making choices so we have invented this construct, free will, but there's nothing scientific to back that concept up. It's more of a spiritual idea.

People tend to be super resistant to determinism because it seems like an affront to one of the central pillars of many Western philosophies, which is free will. Often people will make arguments to temper the unsavory nature of hard determinism, like that it makes sense but somehow doesn't apply to human beings because we are special, or that there is probably a margin of error that let's us choose what to wear today even though our ultimate destiny is decided. I think the first argument is knee-jerk, and the second one draws an arbitrary line between what is determined and what is not. I think the likelihood is that all matter and energy obey physical laws to the same extent, and this probably means choice is an illusion.

I keep on switching between being an incompatiblist and a compatibilist. I think right now, I lean toward all human action being determined, but I'm not 100% sure.

I was just thinking about how, to say that the universe is deterministic is to make a claim about every phenomena that has or will ever occur, which could be considered an inductively weak claim, because we can barely observe a fraction of those phenomena, so how can we say that there aren't some events that are not determined by prior conditions?

On the other hand, if we take the problem of induction and skepticism to their extremes, we can't really know anything, so things like "the universe is deterministic" might be one of those things we just accept, like "an external reality exists and can be known," even though they aren't provable.

I am no expert on quantum physics, but I do believe that there are indeterministic observables in quantum physics. For example, if you measure the spin of a particle in any direction, whether you will observe it to be "spin up" or "spin down" is completely random. And we are pretty sure that this interpretation is correct and that there isn't "hidden information" in the particles that has coded what the spin will be before we measure and discover it, because of how experiments have violated the Bell inequalities that would be true if local hidden variables models were true.

However, there is no evidence that this indeterminism is true for macroscopic objects, so I don't really buy any of the arguments that say that "indeterminism in QM prove free will," as Michio Kaku once claimed.

But, I did think of a thought experiment that seems as though it should make indetermined human action possible: say that I flip a coin, and that I decide that if it lands heads, I will eat cake, and if it lands tails, I will eat ice cream. Of course, my decision is pre-determined, because a coin flip is not truly random: the outcome is the result of the position of the coin, the force I apply to it, the air resistance, etc. If human action is determined, the decision to flip the coin in the first place, and the arbitrary decision of what "heads" and "tails" will represent, will also be pre-determined.

However, say that instead of flipping a coin, I decide to measure the spin of a photon. There is a 50% chance that I will observe "spin up," and a 50% chance that I will observe "spin down," so the outcome isn't "random" only in the sense that I am ignorant of the information that would allow me to predict the outcome (such as in the case of a coin flip, in which if I knew enough about the laws of physics, the starting position of the coin, and the force I applied to it, I could predict the outcome before it landed), but it is truly random in the sense that the outcome is not determined by any prior variables. If I measure "spin up," I will eat cake, and if I measure "spin down," I will eat ice cream.

Wouldn't the choice in what I eat be inherently unpredictable before I measured the spin? It seems that even a full understanding of the laws of the universe, my mental state, etc. could predict what I will eat in five minutes.

Of course, I suppose that this may not be "free will," as my choice is still determined by something (the outcome of the photon measurement), but it's not pre-determined from the beginning of time, or even the condition of my mind before the measurement.

I dunno, it seems to be a way to use the uncertainty of quantum events to create uncertainty in macroscopic events, even though quantum indeterminacy usually doesn't occur on a macro-scopic level.

[reprise85]

Originally Posted by redbreegull

the only thing I'm sure of is that we are 100% the result of our inputs whether or not we know how to identify or cut them all up into neat categories. There is no free will.

I don't think it's incompatible to say we are 100% the results of our inputs and that we also have a limited amount of free will. Obviously we can only react to things in a limited amount of ways, because if we have no exposure to an idea we can't use that idea to inform out decisions. I may just be completely wrong and I cannot explain my reasoning. If I decide to breathe normally or hold my breath for 10 seconds has no bearing on the rest of my life. It is not necessary to say it was determined before I was even born. This also doesn't prove it wasn't, though.

[reprise85]

Regardless we must operate as if we have free will... but the whole thing is very circular because if we must, and we do, it is because it is the only thing we are capable of. So if this entire conversation has no free will attached to it, what exactly is the point of the universe having meaningless conversations with itself?

The whole 'we are having a cosmic awareness trip but are merely observers' seemed very wise to me at some point, just like being extremely nihilistic in my teens/early 20s seemed to be about 'truth' being the most important thing regardless of what it is. It feels very mid-20s to me and that it isn't even saying anything. It doesn't really even matter if we're the universe observing itself or not, what are you going to do today? I know most people just jump to 'what are you going to do today?' without going through this cycle of self-awareness of the meaninglessness of life first, but those of us who do have to realize this is not the end of the thought. If you can't get past it you won't grow as a person any more. Maybe it seems stupid to even think this way because if we don't have free will and nothing has meaning than what even is growth and how can there be any further truth or mitigating circumstances, but it's what I've come to at this point in my life.

[vixnix]

Have you guys been reading Galen Strawson's The Impossibility of Moral Responsibility?

http://www.informationphilosopher.co...ossibility.pdf

There are some alternative ideas about legal/social responsibility in the absence of free will in Susan Dimock's Retributivism and Trust, and the reply from Daniel Korman in The Failure of Trust-Based Retributivism, if you haven't come across those, yet.

Obviously to live in a peaceful and safe society, we need to address unsafe, harmful and undesirable behaviour, whether or not the people involved in that behaviour are actually responsible for what they have done. So we end up kind of reverse-engineering a moral justification for imprisoning people.

I think the determinist answer to your holding your breath example reprise, is that the idea, desire & motivation wouldn't have come to you without an endless chain of preceding events, so even if it feels to you like an act of free will, the more we scrutinised that event, the clearer we'd see it as part of an environment of causation, with a past and a future.

I don't have any particular ideas about free will myself. I used to be a hard determinist, though. Now I'm just a nothing.

[reprise85]

Originally Posted by vixnix

I think the determinist answer to your holding your breath example reprise, is that the idea, desire & motivation wouldn't have come to you without an endless chain of preceding events, so even if it feels to you like an act of free will, the more we scrutinised that event, the clearer we'd see it as part of an environment of causation, with a past and a future.

I don't have any particular ideas about free will myself. I used to be a hard determinist, though. Now I'm just a nothing.

Yes I know what the deteminist answer is. Maybe I just don't want it to be true.

Also what about when people do things that should absolutely kill them, for example they jump from a building on purpose, but they miraculously live? They did what they had to do to kill themselves, unless you want to say they wanted to and were able to land a certain way to not die. You could argue if someone shot themselves they might unconsciously miss the brain stem on purpose. But jumping, I don't know man.

[redbreegull]

I was introduced to the idea of determinism when I was 20 and rejected it outright at first. However, the more I thought about it, the more I came to accept its probability. I've been thinking a lot about it recently so I keep bringing it up, but it's a "truth" that I have been living with as a probably permanent part of my worldview for years now.

Certainly science and logic are not the only meaningful lenses to look at the universe through, but if you are talking about those lenses, all evidence points to hard determinism IMHO. I don't really understand the idea that determinism is correct but doesn't affect things as small as our planet. All matter and energy obey the same laws and I'm not sure it makes sense to me that at a certain point of magnification things go over some kind of event horizon into a random indeterminant state while having no effect on the larger movement of systems. If everything is bouncing off of everything else in a purely mathematical fashion, what is the reasoning that 2+2 no longer has to equal 4 if the units of measure are small enough? More importantly, there is no science behind this unless we are talking about the subatomic level and that gets into some really far out territory which as far as we can tell, does not influence the macro world.

Nothing personal obviously, but I think people reject hard determinism because it feels like some sort of violation of our humanity. I certainly experienced this emotional reaction to the idea at first. Ultimately I don't know if "truth" is the most important philosophical question or not... I generally think people not hurting each other is the most primary thing we should be focusing on. But if we are talking about the way human bodies and minds operate within the physical universe, hard determinism seems likely.

[redbreegull]

Originally Posted by vixnix

I think the determinist answer to your holding your breath example reprise, is that the idea, desire & motivation wouldn't have come to you without an endless chain of preceding events, so even if it feels to you like an act of free will, the more we scrutinised that event, the clearer we'd see it as part of an environment of causation, with a past and a future.

yeah, this

[redbreegull]

Originally Posted by Disco King

I was just thinking about how, to say that the universe is deterministic is to make a claim about every phenomena that has or will ever occur, which could be considered an inductively weak claim, because we can barely observe a fraction of those phenomena, so how can we say that there aren't some events that are not determined by prior conditions?

On the other hand, if we take the problem of induction and skepticism to their extremes, we can't really know anything, so things like "the universe is deterministic" might be one of those things we just accept, like "an external reality exists and can be known," even though they aren't provable.

I mean, that's kind of how scientific knowledge works. We try to determine likelihoods through available information. When better information is available, we update our analyses of likelihoods. It is a very big question, but not really any different than any big physical questions about the nature of the universe.

Originally Posted by Disco King

I am no expert on quantum physics, but I do believe that there are indeterministic observables in quantum physics. For example, if you measure the spin of a particle in any direction, whether you will observe it to be "spin up" or "spin down" is completely random. And we are pretty sure that this interpretation is correct and that there isn't "hidden information" in the particles that has coded what the spin will be before we measure and discover it, because of how experiments have violated the Bell inequalities that would be true if local hidden variables models were true.

However, there is no evidence that this indeterminism is true for macroscopic objects, so I don't really buy any of the arguments that say that "indeterminism in QM prove free will," as Michio Kaku once claimed.

Yes, indeterminism has been observed at subatomic levels. However, some people think it is more likely we are encountering a problem with how we observe subatomic particles than actual indeterminism. Other thinkers have proposed there may be "missing" causes which we can't identify at that level yet. Or there could really be indeterminism at that level, but yeah, there is zero evidence that can carry to the macro level.

Originally Posted by Disco King

However, say that instead of flipping a coin, I decide to measure the spin of a photon. There is a 50% chance that I will observe "spin up," and a 50% chance that I will observe "spin down," so the outcome isn't "random" only in the sense that I am ignorant of the information that would allow me to predict the outcome (such as in the case of a coin flip, in which if I knew enough about the laws of physics, the starting position of the coin, and the force I applied to it, I could predict the outcome before it landed), but it is truly random in the sense that the outcome is not determined by any prior variables. If I measure "spin up," I will eat cake, and if I measure "spin down," I will eat ice cream.

Of course, I suppose that this may not be "free will," as my choice is still determined by something (the outcome of the photon measurement), but it's not pre-determined from the beginning of time, or even the condition of my mind before the measurement.

honestly that is one of the best challenges to absolute determinism I have heard. I mean, coming from my layman's perspective. I have no idea how a quantum physicist would respond, but it's a real thinker.

[slunken]

some message boards have a rule where you can't make a post without more than 10 characters. we should have one where you can't make a post with more than 100 words.

[redbreegull]

Originally Posted by reprise85

The whole 'we are having a cosmic awareness trip but are merely observers' seemed very wise to me at some point, just like being extremely nihilistic in my teens/early 20s seemed to be about 'truth' being the most important thing regardless of what it is. It feels very mid-20s to me and that it isn't even saying anything. It doesn't really even matter if we're the universe observing itself or not, what are you going to do today? I know most people just jump to 'what are you going to do today?' without going through this cycle of self-awareness of the meaninglessness of life first, but those of us who do have to realize this is not the end of the thought. If you can't get past it you won't grow as a person any more. Maybe it seems stupid to even think this way because if we don't have free will and nothing has meaning than what even is growth and how can there be any further truth or mitigating circumstances, but it's what I've come to at this point in my life.

my answer to this I guess is basically that I think free will does exist in a way, because we experience it, and to me spirituality is essentially the way humans contend with experiencing things which seem both real and beyond the physical. we make our own meaning, and that is probably the most empowering thing to me. At this point, I don't see the "cold dead" universe as depressing or cold and dead at all. it's the most amazing fucking thing imaginable that this whole thing is an incomprehensible accident. how fucking beautiful is that? it's just a totally random violent explosion of a whole bunch of fucking shit, and we are sitting here in the middle EXPERIENCING this anyway.

basically life is a lot like Lost. The answers are elusive and usually don't make sense, but it doesn't matter because the mystery is the good part.