'Human nature' is a tautology.

[ArcturusMengsk]

I've seen this phrase bandied about in various discussions in numerous different settings, from political to religious forums, and it's always struck me as absurd.

On one hand, there is the Hobbesian view of man as essentially greedy, self-serving and egoistic; and, on another, there's the Rousseauian view of man as a generous and sociable creature. These views are obviously incompatible, and are also gross generalizations which do not apply to a vast majority of human existence. Even Schopenhauer held to this stupidity, though he did us the service of attributing it to a secondary, metaphysical plane. A child does better yet - they often understand how fickle human beings are, and how little control they fundamentally have over their own actions.

Furthermore, the presupposition that man has one nature is tautological: it is comparable to the Christian view that the Devil is Evil because he does Evil, and that he does Evil because he is such. This logical failing ought not to be lost on any member of this forum.


My conception of human 'nature' is thus:


The body is an aggregate of physiological drives, and is itself the only 'immediate certainty' given to understanding. Each drive corresponds to a particular function of the organism, each organ has a need which must be fulfilled, even at the expense of the whole - the body does not operate holistically, and gets along with itself only begrudgingly in times of plenty. One might here take as an example the situation in which a drowning man finds himself as his lungs continue to suck in whatever it can extract from its environment despite the absence of oxygen; or, perhaps more humorously, the case of the individual who experiences an erection in a socially uncomfortable situation. In both instances the particular organs of the body responsible for the occurrences command the power of the whole: in the former, the body reacts against the domination of the lungs by directing itself to emerge, and in the latter it makes do by hiding the embarrassing organ within clothing.

This established, one can make several deductions which invalidate certain tenets of various philosophical positions:

* The individual is not to be understood in the sense of a 'wholeness' or a 'oneness', as a basic unity or prime mover behind his actions (as various schools of thought, from Christianity to liberalism and from Buddhism to individualism, are wont to do), but instead as a multiplicity;

* Both moral absolutism and moral relativism are nonsensical: they mean to ascribe a moral quality or value to an essence which is illusory - the individual;

* And that most strains of psychological theory (particularly psychoanalysis) strive in vain when they seek to attribute to man an essential core which, fractured through 'trauma' though it may be, can nevertheless be recovered and 're-unified' through therapy.

Is this a realistic deduction? How does it measure up against the dualistic conception of human nature?

[Nephtys]

Or you could consider human nature to be the electrochemical outcomes of a complex interplay of chemical and hormone signals in our exceedingly sophisticated bodies, generating decisions and such in ways which vary greatly from person to person and society to society.

You could also consider saying your message without the noise of half your posts as well. Seriously, the purpose of language is to convey understanding, not obsfucate it.

[Alyrium Denryle]

The body is an aggregate of physiological drives, and is itself the only 'immediate certainty' given to understanding. Each drive corresponds to a particular function of the organism, each organ has a need which must be fulfilled, even at the expense of the whole - the body does not operate holistically, and gets along with itself only begrudgingly in times of plenty. One might here take as an example the situation in which a drowning man finds himself as his lungs continue to suck in whatever it can extract from its environment despite the absence of oxygen; or, perhaps more humorously, the case of the individual who experiences an erection in a socially uncomfortable situation. In both instances the particular organs of the body responsible for the occurrences command the power of the whole: in the former, the body reacts against the domination of the lungs by directing itself to emerge, and in the latter it makes do by hiding the embarrassing organ within clothing.

I think this is a mischaracterization. The body does not "get along with itself begrudgingly" as you put it, but rather indeed, IS a holistic system, the sum total of which is to ensure the survival and propagation of the individual's genes. It is not the individual entity, the metaphysical person that is the object of this goal, but rather the genes that this entity carries. thus it makes little sense for the body to cater to the specific needs of said entity, which in and of itself (the conscious mind) is only a tool that the genes use in order to propagate themselves.

* The individual is not to be understood in the sense of a 'wholeness' or a 'oneness', as a basic unity or prime mover behind his actions (as various schools of thought, from Christianity to liberalism and from Buddhism to individualism, are wont to do), but instead as a multiplicity;

This I can agree with. The individual is not a prime mover as it is caused by, and is indeed ancillary to a separate purpose.

* Both moral absolutism and moral relativism are nonsensical: they mean to ascribe a moral quality or value to an essence which is illusory - the individual;

That is why I look at morality as the social rules by which groups solve problems and function. Analagous to the immune system, repair systems etc etc in a single individual

* And that most strains of psychological theory (particularly psychoanalysis) strive in vain when they seek to attribute to man an essential core which, fractured through 'trauma' though it may be, can nevertheless be recovered and 're-unified' through therapy.

Agreed. Psychological therapy and medication do not seek to do this. What they really are is two fold.

1) Seeking psych help is an attempt by the individual to restore function to themselves and thus successfully reproduce

2) the social support infrastructure that allows people to get said help is the result of a societal drive to restore function to one of its members and thus increase the chances of survival and reproduction for the society (Like Ant colonies, one can actually think of human societies like superorganisms and thus use selection models for their behavior, treating societies as individuals in the model.)

[Starglider]

You seem to be pointing out things that should be obvious to any serious materialist (i.e. rational person), but in obfuscated philosobabble. The fact that morality isn't some fundamental part of the universe and that many of its concepts are horrible oversimplifications doesn't mean that it's useless. At least, not once appropriately cleaned up and used as a goal system descrptive/explorative tool only.

[Xon]

On one hand, there is the Hobbesian view of man as essentially greedy, self-serving and egoistic; and, on another, there's the Rousseauian view of man as a generous and sociable creature. These views are obviously incompatible

There is no conflict in these two statements.

The entire point of a social network is for a group of self-serving individuals to work together to maximize thier own individual interests.

[General Zod]

On one hand, there is the Hobbesian view of man as essentially greedy, self-serving and egoistic; and, on another, there's the Rousseauian view of man as a generous and sociable creature. These views are obviously incompatible

It's only a conflict if you're an idiot looking at things from a purely black and white perspective without realizing that people are more shades of gray and capable of both. Which anyone intelligent would be easily capable of realizing.

[Knife]

You are verbose.

Each drive corresponds to a particular function of the organism, each organ has a need which must be fulfilled, even at the expense of the whole - the body does not operate holistically, and gets along with itself only begrudgingly in times of plenty

You start from a false premace. The human body does indeed work holistically. However, it does not work in concert with human culture which produces the conditions you based your babbling on. The penis couldn't get a hard on without working together with the cardio vascular system. Nor could the cardio vascular system work without the nervous system. Or anything without the Endrocrine system dumping hormones into the system, etc...

You tend to make leaps in logic so you can cram real life into your philosophy text book foot notes. Here's a hint, know what the fuck you're talking about before you try to convert it into verbal diharea.

[ArcturusMengsk]

You start from a false premace.

I'm not the only one who espouses this viewpoint. Epistemologically it's called partial mereological reductivism, first elaborated upon by Michel Artaud in his short article "A reductivist conception of organic life." in The Examined Life:

Organic life is unique amongst all extant objects. It alone consists of interrelated systems structured in such a way to ensure the continued propagation of the whole. I do not mean to ascribe to it any special or 'favored' status in the cosmos, but merely to approach it from an as-yet unexplored perspective.

We know very well how life adapts, grows, and thrives; this we call the evolutionary process. Though it may remain controversial in certain circles, I hardly think that this point requires belaboring on my part. What is contentious, however, is the nature of 'the individual' as such. For it is my conceit that there are no individuals, however strange or foolish that may sound to some ears. And yet I don't believe it such as all (obviously, since I'm expounding it). Consider:

I have a dog, Molly, a Brazilian Molosser. As I watch her sleeping at my feet, seeing her chest heave up and down, I'd never know - if I hadn't been taught in school and never made the deduction based upon our similarities - that there's an entire 'subterranean' process at work in her keeping her alive. I cannot see from the 'surface' her heart as it beats away in her chest, or her stomach as it digests the food I pay so much for. By all appearances, she 'looks', to put it rather esoterically, like a 'oneness'.

But I know she really isn't. Unlike other objects which, when reduced to their most basic constituent parts, become simple swirls of charged particles, organic life cannot be so reduced: it ceases being 'life' on the level of the organs. Doubtless there are tissues made up of clumps of carbon-based compounds, but these alone would not be considered by anyone to constitute 'life' as such. Furthermore, observing the evolutionary process informs us that adaptation, the single defining 'process of life', occurs at the organic level - Darwin's finches did not themselves undergo some radical metamorphosis under problematic environmental conditions; merely their offspring's beaks changed in accordance with the demands of the environment. Despite what comic book authors would have us believe, mutation never occurs throughout the entire body. Instead, it is almost invariably limited to the organs which interface with the environment and which, through the influence of changing external conditions, undergo selective breeding which results in alterations to the particular appendages responsible for a given function of the organism.

I am neither a biologist nor a geneticist. I have very little training in either field; I am by pedigree a philosopher and pedagouge. Nevertheless, it seems to me that mereological reductivism must inevitably lead one to the conclusion that organic life is precisely that - organic. Though we are biased towards a holistic conceptualization of organic life (perhaps by nothing more than accident: one could here advance a thesis that the mere existence of skin - another organ! - might skew our perception towards this conclusion), we perhaps ought to look instead towards a fundamentally different understanding of just what it means to be both 'organic' and 'life'.

Following from Artaud's conclusion leads one to a variety of various positions, and ought to have a profound impact on any number of things, chiefly a re-positioning of the concept of human 'nature'. Do lungs have natures--?

[Knife]

Snip more babble

All that proves is that your not alone in being wrong.

[ArcturusMengsk]

Snip more babble

All that proves is that your not alone in being wrong.

Very well, then. Prove it. Since you want to seem to ascribe, along with most other quasi-Christians, some laughable metaphysical 'oneness' or identity to man (this is where almost every illogicality comes into being, from comic-book 'evolution' to individual moral autonomy), I'll leave it to you to prove that man is more than the sum of his - organic - parts. I guarantee you that you'll not do such without implicitly and subtly denying the theory of evolution, which insists upon evolutionary pressures on the organic level. I, on the other hand, can intellectually justify my position quite naturally.

This stupid and slavish belief in human nature is a grotesque generalization of an infinitely complex process on the organic level. Why does it exist? Because it beautifies man. The body is more of an industrial factory than a sleek machine, but to admit to this is to invite all manner of psychological hardships on oneself that are best done without. Have you ever stopped to realize, my good man, that none of your organs respond to your commands, that you are not even aware of what they are doing, and that any one of them might turn cancerous? Have you ever actually thought about this? Try to sleep at night with that thought in mind and see how well you can manage.

[Knife]

I'll leave it to you to prove that man is more than the sum of his - organic - parts.

I already did you blithering idiot. A fucking dick can't get an erection without the cardio vascular system supplying it with blood and it can't shoot a load without the endrocrine system to make the sperm. Left alone, each system is nothing. Put together, you have a throbbing cock blowing a wad.

See, not hard at all. *no pun intended*

Now prove your bullshit without copy and paste a fucking dry ass boring philosophy text.

I, on the other hand, can intellectually justify my position quite naturally.

Fine do so. But if I could make a request? Cut out the utter tripe you fill your paragraphs with. I tend to get sleepy after reading four or five paragraphs without any substance in them.

This stupid and slavish belief in human nature is a grotesque generalization of an infinitely complex process on the organic level. Why does it exist? Because it beautifies man.

I suppose this is your 'intellectually justify my position'?

The body is more of an industrial factory than a sleek machine, but to admit to this is to invite all manner of psychological hardships on oneself that are best done without.

What the fuck does that even mean?

Have you ever stopped to realize, my good man, that none of your organs respond to your commands, that you are not even aware of what they are doing, and that any one of them might turn cancerous? Have you ever actually thought about this? Try to sleep at night with that thought in mind and see how well you can manage.

Actually, I work in healthcare so I actually see all manner of disturbing things that would make most people drop their jaw in shock. However, unlike you, I'm aquinted with and learning ever more about the bodily systems and their relationship to each other and how they work and what fucks them up. I think about it all the time and I don't really have to imagine.

You how ever, seem to want to ponder these things like you do other things; take real life topics and shoehorn them into abstract ideas you dream up at night. Nothing you wrote in that diatribe justifies your positions, most is nothing but philosobabble that just takes up space.

So here's a clue; close your philosophy 1210 book, stop grabbing your little one eyed Socrates in your pants and prove your position.

[Patrick Degan]

The human body does indeed work holistically. However, it does not work in concert with human culture which produces the conditions you based your babbling on. The penis couldn't get a hard on without working together with the cardio vascular system. Nor could the cardio vascular system work without the nervous system. Or anything without the Endrocrine system dumping hormones into the system, etc...

Not only that, the whole process won't even start up until the eyes relay the image to the brain that causes it to register the datum "hot piece of ass at 3 o'clock". It is also possible to kill an erection by thinking the most unerotic thoughts you can conceive of.

[Darth Holbytlan]

Epistemologically it's called partial mereological reductivism, first elaborated upon by Michel Artaud in his short article "A reductivist conception of organic life." in The Examined Life:

Unlike other objects which, when reduced to their most basic constituent parts, become simple swirls of charged particles, organic life cannot be so reduced: it ceases being 'life' on the level of the organs. Doubtless there are tissues made up of clumps of carbon-based compounds, but these alone would not be considered by anyone to constitute 'life' as such.

Parts of organic life (down to the cellular level) are most definitely considered to be life. Tissues can be kept alive in Petri dishes. Transplant teams put significant effort in to keeping organs alive while they are being transported from donor to recipient.

This logic is also ass-backwards. If a whole can be considered alive, but the parts cannot, then that creates a clear distinction to define an individual—namely as something alive that can't be subdivided into living parts.

Furthermore, observing the evolutionary process informs us that adaptation, the single defining 'process of life', occurs at the organic level - Darwin's finches did not themselves undergo some radical metamorphosis under problematic environmental conditions; merely their offspring's beaks changed in accordance with the demands of the environment.

Their offspring's beaks do not change due to environment, they change as the result of mutations. The environment just selects (culls) the offspring down to the ones with the best changes. I can't quite tell if he understands this.

Despite what comic book authors would have us believe, mutation never occurs throughout the entire body. Instead, it is almost invariably limited to the organs which interface with the environment and which, through the influence of changing external conditions, undergo selective breeding which results in alterations to the particular appendages responsible for a given function of the organism.

Mutations can affect certain organs or tissues, but can also affect how every tissue acts. And there are plenty that cause a wide variety of different effects. There is no magic "limit to certain organs" effect. The limitations to mutations have to do with the causes tending to produce a limited number of changes and the extreme unlikelihood of a large number of changes made at once being viable.

What relevance is this, anyway? How does evolution acting gradually invalidate the concept of an individual? Just because something is a whole doesn't mean that it can't be understood in terms of parts, too.

I am neither a biologist nor a geneticist.

No shit.

[Junghalli]

Um, mutations like that do occur throughout the entire body: the mutated gene is present in every cell. It's just that they only have visible effects on one part of the body.

[Darth Holbytlan]

I'm not sure if you're answering me or Arcturus, but if it's the latter, I'm referring to the effects of the mutation, not the source.

[Junghalli]

I'm not sure if you're answering me or Arcturus, but if it's the latter, I'm referring to the effects of the mutation, not the source.

It was in answer to Michel Artaud's statement that ArcturusMengsk used:

Despite what comic book authors would have us believe, mutation never occurs throughout the entire body. Instead, it is almost invariably limited to the organs which interface with the environment and which, through the influence of changing external conditions, undergo selective breeding which results in alterations to the particular appendages responsible for a given function of the organism.

It's rather silly to think of these changes occurring in isolation from the rest of the body because they do indeed involve a change to the entire body. Especially since the growth of an organism probably follows an emergent pattern, i.e. when the bird organism starts growing there's no guarentee it will have a longer beak, the longer beak results from changes in the interaction of cells caused by a change in a particular gene.

[The Yosemite Bear]

We're pack animals, we generally work for the benefit of our own pack, because it benefits us. All other packs beware, we have sharp teeth.

[Dark Hellion]

I for one would like to know what credentials you have that allows you to try to bully us with large words. I hope you have better than a Bachelors in Philosophy, because when I out credential you on something, you are in bad shape.

[Spyder]

I think I see where you're coming from.

If one examines textual substructural theory, one is faced with a choice: either reject modernist desublimation or conclude that context comes from the collective unconscious. Therefore, Werther implies that we have to choose between the semioticist paradigm of context and capitalist neotextual theory.

The main theme of the works of Rushdie is the difference between society and sexuality. A number of discourses concerning textual substructural theory exist. However, the characteristic theme of Reicher’s essay on postsemioticist textual theory is a structuralist reality.

“Society is intrinsically responsible for hierarchy,” says Sontag; however, according to de Selby , it is not so much society that is intrinsically responsible for hierarchy, but rather the meaninglessness of society. An abundance of theories concerning the common ground between culture and society may be revealed. Therefore, the figure/ground distinction which is a central theme of Rushdie’s The Moor’s Last Sigh is also evident in Midnight’s Children.

Debord suggests the use of the semioticist paradigm of context to challenge class divisions. But in The Moor’s Last Sigh, Rushdie examines textual substructural theory; in Midnight’s Children he denies postsemioticist textual theory.

If neodialectic narrative holds, we have to choose between textual substructural theory and Sontagist camp. In a sense, the subject is interpolated into a postsemioticist textual theory that includes narrativity as a paradox.

Foucault uses the term ‘textual substructural theory’ to denote not discourse as such, but subdiscourse. But Marx promotes the use of the semioticist paradigm of context to analyse and modify class.

The fatal flaw, and subsequent defining characteristic, of textual substructural theory prevalent in Rushdie’s Satanic Verses emerges again in Midnight’s Children, although in a more mythopoetical sense. Therefore, many situationisms concerning the semioticist paradigm of context exist.

The subject is contextualised into a material feminism that includes art as a totality. But Derrida’s analysis of postsemioticist textual theory states that language serves to reinforce hierarchy.

[Rye]

I for one would like to know what credentials you have that allows you to try to bully us with large words. I hope you have better than a Bachelors in Philosophy, because when I out credential you on something, you are in bad shape.

Please don't argue with bullshit ad hominem "I outrank you" self aggrandisement.

Also LOL @ Spyder's use of the post modernist essay generator.

Also, I feel compelled to comment on this:

But I know she really isn't. Unlike other objects which, when reduced to their most basic constituent parts, become simple swirls of charged particles, organic life cannot be so reduced: it ceases being 'life' on the level of the organs.

This is false. Organs are only present in a certain type of life, namely eukaryotes. Living organisms are usually defined by their chemical capacity to self-replicate, they metabolise properly, instead of stuff like prions, viruses, etc.

Doubtless there are tissues made up of clumps of carbon-based compounds, but these alone would not be considered by anyone to constitute 'life' as such.

This is nonsense; look at a blood sample some time, there's all sorts of little things living in there, beneficial and harmful to the host organism.

Despite what comic book authors would have us believe, mutation never occurs throughout the entire body.

This isn't true; if the mutations occur in the womb (by and large, your average human has about 300 mutations by the time it's born that separate it from both its parents), they can and do often apply to all cells within an entire body.

Instead, it is almost invariably limited to the organs which interface with the environment

What organs don't interface with the environment?

I am neither a biologist nor a geneticist. I have very little training in either field; I am by pedigree a philosopher and pedagouge.

Well, I did philosophy and taught kids for a short time, yet I don't feel compelled to over write my responses. In fact, when I did philosophy, such was my disdain with verbose crap that I dedicated myself to being a "straight talking" philosopher whenever possible. I don't know why anyone chooses otherwise, it needlessly confuses matters, presumably for the sake of ego.

Nevertheless, it seems to me that mereological reductivism must inevitably lead one to the conclusion that organic life is precisely that - organic.

Carbon-based, yes.

Though we are biased towards a holistic conceptualization of organic life (perhaps by nothing more than accident: one could here advance a thesis that the mere existence of skin - another organ! - might skew our perception towards this conclusion), we perhaps ought to look instead towards a fundamentally different understanding of just what it means to be both 'organic' and 'life'.

Not really. You appear to be assigning values to life beyond what is reasonable to, as well as mutilating chemistry terms through your own lack of familiarity with the subject.

[Spyder]

What I'd really like to know is how someone can call themselves an intellectual when they open a post with

I've seen this phrase bandied about in various discussions in numerous different settings, from political to religious forums, and it's always struck me as absurd.

and then doesn't actually quote a phrase. Unless there's been some dramatic additions to common phrases I'm not aware of.

"I'm sure you're familiar with the term 'don't hold your breath.'"

"Yeah, well have you heard, 'On one hand, there is the Hobbesian view of man as essentially greedy, self-serving and egoistic; and, on another, there's the Rousseauian view of man as a generous and sociable creature. These views are obviously incompatible, and are also gross generalizations which do not apply to a vast majority of human existence. Even Schopenhauer held to this stupidity, though he did us the service of attributing it to a secondary, metaphysical plane. A child does better yet - they often understand how fickle human beings are, and how little control they fundamentally have over their own actions.'?"

[Terralthra]

What I'd really like to know is how someone can call themselves an intellectual when they open a post with

I've seen this phrase bandied about in various discussions in numerous different settings, from political to religious forums, and it's always struck me as absurd.

and then doesn't actually quote a phrase.

Pretty sure he's referring to the phrase "human nature" in the thread title.

[Darth Wong]

What I'd really like to know is how someone can call themselves an intellectual when they open a post with

I've seen this phrase bandied about in various discussions in numerous different settings, from political to religious forums, and it's always struck me as absurd.

and then doesn't actually quote a phrase.

Pretty sure he's referring to the phrase "human nature" in the thread title.

"Human nature" is a term, not a phrase. Like "catalytic converter".

[Terralthra]

"Human nature" is a term, not a phrase. Like "catalytic converter".

They're not mutually exclusive.

A term is one+ words designating something within a field. 'Human nature' fits that definition within the field of Philosophy.

A phrase is 2 or more words that act as a unit within a sentence, which 'human nature' also fits.

If there's a definition of phrase within the constraints of logical argumentation into which 'human nature' does not fit, I am not aware of it.

[Starglider]

"Human nature" is a term, not a phrase. Like "catalytic converter".

If it was a tautology, you wouldn't need the prefix 'human'. But you do, because human behavioural norms and conscious experience are different from the chimp behaviour and experience, dog behaviour and experience, etc etc. The entire range of human possibility, from geniuses to morons to joe average to complete lunatics, is a tiny subset of the range of known (never mind possible) animal behaviour, and one that does not in any way overlap with say 'dolphin nature'.

So yes it's a handy if rather imprecise term and Arcturus should stick to deconstructing the symbolism of his own ass.