site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

13
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

No, that is the belief in dualism. Believing that the "you" is some set of personalities and a body that goes along with, rather than the set of personalities that arise from the body is dualism.

Pretty sure this is a highly noncentral definition of dualism. Most people think of dualism as "matter and spirit". Even if you define it differently, the word itself refers to something having two elements or components, and if you define "you" as your personality then that's only one component. Let's say you are deleted and in the very next instant, an identical copy of you is created in the same spot you were. Is that person you? Some people would say yes, others would say no, but I don't think your answer determines whether you're a dualist; there are plenty of other philosophical stances leaning one way or the other. Give me your own definition of dualism though and we can go from there.

Dualism in this context is generally taken to mean the belief that there is a 2nd "realm" of reality beyond physics, and usually that our conscious minds are are somehow connections to that "realm" - usually that connection being to our "soul" that exists in this non-physical "realm."

If you believe that the various sets of personalities that arise from your body are "you" such that if your body changed causing your personality to change, then that would no longer be "you" or that "a part of you" was "killed," that means you believe in some cluster of personalities that forms "you" that exists independently from your body. That's an implicit belief in a non-physical "realm" where your "soul" (i.e. the cluster of personalities that you identify as "you") resides. If you in this hypothetical didn't hold an implicit belief in dualism, then you would accept that whatever changes to your personality that arises from changes to your body is still "you," because you identify "yourself" as the physical and experiential consequences caused by the interactions of particles in and outside your body. Rather than some specific set of personalities that exist independent from your body.

If you believe that the various sets of personalities that arise from your body are "you" such that if your body changed causing your personality to change, then that would no longer be "you" or that "a part of you" was "killed," that means you believe in some cluster of personalities that forms "you" that exists independently from your body.

Not really, unless you count ideas as reality, in which case everyone is dualist. Those ideas don't exist, they are just ideas. Does the word "purple" exist? Because really there are no words, there are just vibrations travelling through the air and patterns on screens and on paper.

The word "purple" exists because we have simply defined the concept to include the vibrations and the patterns. This has nothing to do with some immaterial realm of meaning or anything related to dualism. Deny this and you essentially dismiss meaning itself as dualism.

Similarly, the category of "me" is whatever I want it to be, within reason. I think it makes sense to identify as "body, including brain, including thoughts arising from brain" but it also makes sense to identify as "body and personality." Creating a category doesn't mean implicitly endorsing dualism.

Not really, unless you count ideas as reality, in which case everyone is dualist. Those ideas don't exist, they are just ideas. Does the word "purple" exist? Because really there are no words, there are just vibrations travelling through the air and patterns on screens and on paper.

Yes, words are many things, including vibrations traveling through the air, patterns on screens and on paper, and probably most importantly, experiences that come about as a consequence of atoms behaving in such a way as to cause neurons to fire in people's brains.

The word "purple" exists because we have simply defined the concept to include the vibrations and the patterns. This has nothing to do with some immaterial realm of meaning or anything related to dualism.

Exactly. It has nothing to do with some immaterial realm of meaning or anything related to dualism. The word "purple" exists because a bunch of atoms interacting with each other caused the experience of "knowing" what "purple" is (or perhaps more accurately "agreeing" on what "purple" indicates).

Similarly, the category of "me" is whatever I want it to be, within reason. I think it makes sense to identify as "body, including brain, including thoughts arising from brain" but it also makes sense to identify as "body and personality." Creating a category doesn't mean implicitly endorsing dualism.

"Within reason" is doing a ton of work here. Yes, it makes sense to identify as "body and personality," but when that "personality" is separate from the physical body that is the cause of that personality, then that's breaking the bounds of reason. Creating a fantastical category that's unbounded from physical reality and then identifying oneself - the literal human being operating in reality, not just some abstract concept that is free to explore the multiverse of fantastical fiction - as fitting that category is implicitly endorsing dualism.