Simon Paynton

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

I think you’re right – if we don’t approve of someone, we just won’t listen to them.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Autumn wrote:

There are a lot of reasons people simply don’t want to hear what you have to say. I’m not talking about agreeing or disagreeing with it. I’m talking about even hearing and understanding what it is that’s being shared. And sharing can provoke anger and aggression, dismissal, harassment, ostraciation and isolation, or potentially violence.

I guess that supports my point – that people don’t want to listen to someone if they don’t like them as a category of person.  I think part of a possible way forward is to take the anger and accusations out of the situation.  People are less likely to listen if they are being accused, a priori, of being horrible people.  This just stokes the fires of the culture wars in my opinion, much as I try and stay out of those as a lot of angry noise.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

@davis – it’s true that abused women often say that psychological abuse is worse than the physical.

@autumn – we seem to be talking about a failure of empathy.  I think empathy is a product of what we perceive and how we feel about it.  Empathic concern or compassion depends on how much we approve of the other person.  If we don’t – then compassion is weakened or absent.  In other words, it would help the situation if oppressed victims could tell the rest of us how they feel.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Autumn wrote:

Autumn wrote:

Simon Paynton wrote:

I think there is a problem with perceived infantalisation and crying wolf.

I’m not sure that I understand. Are you saying people perceive those equating certain verbal abuse and violence as being coddled or potentially as making up harm that doesn’t exist (or at least not to the degree claimed)?

Bleh. I wrote that right after waking up. Times like this I wish I could edit for clarity or delete and start over.

No, you were right. I observe that some people think that. Personally, I suspend judgement.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

I think there is a problem with perceived infantalisation and crying wolf.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Davis wrote:

speech not being violent.

Surely speech can only be harmful, not violent.  Violence is physical.  To call words “violence” is to devalue the word “violence”.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Thank you for your explanation Autumn. I admit I still don’t quite get it, but I’ll keep trying.

It raises the issue of how relational we human beings are in many ways.  I.e., in identity (I exist in the minds of others), in reasoning (I need to explain to others), self-esteem (depends partly on others’ opinions or treatment), and morality (achieving normative goals socially).  It demonstrates what it means to be a social species.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

OK, so I can observe your neural activity while you experience consciousness, but so what? That’s what we do already. You don’t need to be related to through observation in order to be conscious, except by your own brain.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

I think the consciousness article makes sense, in that consciousness is subjectively felt and objectively measured. The subjective experience is a process of being measured by one’s own brain. Beyond that, I’m not sure what the implications are.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Autumn wrote:

But I don’t know that our brains are wired to put rationality first. So we can use the illusion of rationality to entrench incorrect information in ways we other wise might not have been able to do.

There’s the famous example of brown beetles which try and have sex with discarded brown beer bottles, because they look like brown beetles.

In other words, it seems that organisms are evolved to look for fitness benefits rather than facts per se.  Facts are just one example of fitness-enhancers, that humans with their rational brains and science are better than most species at digging out.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

PopeBeanie wrote:

What did early humans think were “facts”, before they had sophisticated language and communications?

You’re talking about before the dawn of the scientific method.  So probably, “facts” were a mixture of observation, report, and speculation.

Speaking of “personal identities”, I think they must have been even more significant determinants of behavior in band and tribal settings than they are today.

Surely my identity is who I am to myself and who I am to the world.  In prehistory, I think the identities that mattered were 1) cooperative identity – how cooperative I am, which determined whether people would want to cooperate with me or not; 2) tribal or group identity.  The group identity would have been important not for fighting against other groups, because there is no evidence of warfare in prehistory, but for purposes of coordination: in our tribe, we all do things “this way”.  If you mark your face with a blue stripe, and so do I, it means we can coordinate our activities.

There were no survival pressures to evolve cognitive-based, language-filled debating skills,

That’s where I think you’re wrong.  Facts help us to survive; reasoning about facts with others helps us to survive; thinking of reasons to give others helps us to survive.

 

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

Yes, but to be fair to them, they always offer Biblical evidence to support their science 🙂

They do, lol.  Can’t argue with that.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Unseen wrote:

something that has no use in everyday discussions with ordinary folk.

Yes, but Creationists often claim to have all kinds of esoteric scientific knowledge.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

My other rule for not debating idiots is to make sure that they are not doing the same thing 🙂

Good point.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

“ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny”

What use is this theory to Creationists?  Michael Tomasello used to refer to it in reference to children’s moral development vs. the evolution of morality, but he seems to have stopped using it.  It always struck me as magical thinking.

I agree that you can’t argue with stupid.  Arguing with a Creationist is like playing chess with a pigeon (which I believe Heather S. also said).

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