listen libertine,
if you’re just gonna make fun, go find another thread
I don’t know that you have demonstrated that people’s qualities are mostly “community property”. They are commonly describable, more or less, and our language is a public phenomenon.
So?
No, you listen. Either conduct this like a Great Debate, and stop with the ad hominems on my name, or I’ll report you to a moderator. Got it?
well, the community property thing i put in quotes because it was for want of a really good term but i think it suffices.
it works like this:
every behavior, voluntary or involuntary, has consequences for all, and thus we all have a stake in everyone’s behavior.
take for example, breathing. one inhales taking oxygen from the environment, then exhales carbon dioxide into the environment. other humans and plants are affected by this process
so, if a person did nothing else in life other than just breathe and eventually die of dehydration, that person still has impacted the world, then their decomposing body would continue to do so.
circle of life, simba
It is our connectedness that has allowed our society to grow and thrive, the myth of the “rugged individual” is just that, a myth.
they made movies about guys like grizzly adams because reality is too boring.
now, i would assert that people are so attached to their “individuality” because there is so precious little that differentiates them from others. kinda the same way we value gold.
I still like my soup metaphor
and liberace go run and tell the teacher if you want, hopefully he/she will see that you have contributed nothing to the thread but whining and provocation (and two big words),
but me and the rest of the bullies are taking your milk money and giving you an atomic wedgie on the bus tomorrow morning, so maybe, you should cry to your mom too, maybe she’ll let you stay home.
Err, Greck, actually Libertarian did contribute something to the thread. He argued that we all experience events from unique perspectives.
I don’t see why one should exclude the other.
We are all individuals, in that we have certain unique traits and experiences.
At the same time we share certain traits with others in the different groups we belong to.
So we belong in groups but are individuals within that group.
i acknowledged the two big words
An individual perception is an emergent property of a complex system (a body). Contained within this system are many things which operate without the awareness of said perception. A liver does it’s job without me thinking about it conciously. A cell could be taken from my body and cultured. The cell is now seperate from me, but still living. Sperm is alive, even after it leaves me. All kinds of little creatures live inside of us and help us do things like digest foods. There are schools of thought that posit the idea that individual perception is an illusion. We (our ID; our perception) are a combination of many other living things, both within and outside of ourselves.
“I” actually seems like it would be better classified as “We”. Unless of course there is a soul of some sorts, but no credible evidence has been presented to me in support of this theory.
I actually do think of myself as a we, typically, but then again I’ve been told I’m insane.
DaLovin’ Dj
Plants are not human, humans are not plants, no matter how much we affect each other. Similarly, I am erislover, and no matter how much of my exhaled carbon dioxide you breathe (no, I’m not close talker ;)) we will still be separate entities.
Hence, individuals.
Moderator’s Note: Greck, please address your posts to the other posters’ arguments, and not to their usernames.
The Great Debates forum is not the place to have flame-fests, and they won’t be tolerated here.
Well, what about the bacteria that lives inside of you? Is that you too? What about sperm? Is that you? Are you an individual brain cell? Are two brain cells you? All of these things are contained within you and yet seperate from your perception and able to live outside of your body. Similarly, you are contained within a biosphere yet you are seperate from it. Two humans are like two brain cells, they are part of something much bigger than themselves. On grand scales emergent properties occur (memetics and superorganisms come into play here).
What is an individual? It’s a tough question. Like Mr. Muir saids ago:
DaLovin’ Dj
In my opinion, an individual is a subject of experience. Hitched, yes, but only by unique and closed interpretation.
That should have been “Like Mr. Muir said years ago”. Jeesh, the older I get the easier it is to just lose a “year”. . . .
Heh heh.
DaLovin’ Dj
erislover, despite the fact that they all share a cardiovascular system and digestive system to get their nutrients, you are still just a conglomeration of cells. So it’s “We are erislover”
It’s sometimes argued that our skin seperates us from our fellow Earth dwellers the same way our cells are. There is after all constant exchange with the environment even disregarding CO2&Oxygen.
When you are concentrating on something and a nagging thought keeps interrupting, which one are you-- the concentration or the nagging thought?(put that in your pipe and smoke it! Oh yeah, I already did)
On preview- also what dj said, as well as his earlier post
Ok, so I’m curious. If we’re not individuals, what do you think we are, greck?
Oh and one other thing:
<nitpick>
Boy, it annoys me when people don’t use capital letters at the begining of sentences! Or periods at the end of their sentences!
</nitpick>
What about it? The answer is already in the question.
Biological identity? —no. Mental identity? —definitely not.
After the last identity thread, I’m inclined to say the question is malformed.
I don’t know that it’s possible to say that we are anything.
But if we are (i don’t know what your comfort level with sentence fragments being started with capitals, but i took a chance here;) ) if we are anything, we are connected. We are made up of systems, we participate in systems, and even that which we refer to as “our individuality” performs a systemic function.
I’m not saying that we have no individuality, i’m just saying that it’s a way, way small part of who and what we are, and even that is shared.
I think that this is an aspect of humanity which is best embraced rather than denied.
Eroslover-
I think you are a plant. at least partially. If you eat a plant, it breaks down into it’s plant components, and becomes part of you. you are what you eat…
Your survival depends largely on plants’ survival and vice versa.
Side note/question- so should I have gone crying to the moderator when “he who’s name shall go without being made fun of lest there be further hurt feelings” first took the thread off task?
So, greck, I expect that because we are connected via the SDMB, we are not individuals.
If you continue in your present vein, soon you will be an individual. But you won’t be the only one.
Regards,
Shodan
PS - I am deeply honored, Libertarian. But am I the only one?
“What is an individual” is a contextual question. Physically, I would say “something that exhibits sensual continuity over an indefinite time frame”. But that’s only one way to look at it.
To say I am part of everything is to say that all [English] words are the same because they all use the same alphabet. Not something you can really say, now, is it?
Shodan:
No, there was one other Five Laughy Award in my nearly three year history here.
Erislover:
It had never occured to me that DJ was asking what an individual is in a physical sense. I would agree with you that such a question is malformed. I had assumed that he was asking what an individual is in a nontrivial sense.
Greck:
The reason that I asked whether you used big words too (and you did not) was to illustrate to you the fact that you and I clearly are not the same person. Relative to one another, therefore, we are individuals.