my view is that even the most committed social constructionist has ideas about what is a natural person, and the ideas about the latter aren’t an insignificant force to the private views of the former, or the express outward less private views

by natural person I mean if you take an example of a human it’s some set of characteristics that brings whatever example within some parameters that has the example qualify as a natural person

doubtful many people would have problems attributing unnatural characteristics or behaviors to examples of other species, like take any animal, one that humans breed just to keep it interesting, dogs maybe, humans have been selectively breeding dogs for a long time, consider what might be unnatural in that lot

I bet not a few committed social constructionists have pet dogs, and there would be a few also perhaps that couldn’t bare to have a pet dog

anyway, i’d really like an argument on this subject, perhaps someone could call me something nasty, weave some insults in, get me motivated, inspire me

I immediately thought of “he has a natural daughter/son”, meaning bastard child.

Everything is natural.

I presume you mean “a nature unaffected by sociocultural influences”, bearing in mind that the latter, like everything else, are natural.

> anyway, i’d really like an argument on this subject, perhaps someone could call me something nasty, weave some insults in, get me motivated, inspire me

OK, I’ll bite. I don’t see anything human as unnatural. Sure there are outliers in any population, but there are so many dimensions on which to measure that everyone is an outlier on some scale or other.

I could take mental “health” as an example. Such behaviours as phobias, paranoia, autism, paedophilia, psychopathic behaviour are so common that you couldn’t call them unnatural.

Bubblecar said:

Everything is natural.

I presume you mean “a nature unaffected by sociocultural influences”, bearing in mind that the latter, like everything else, are natural.

perhaps consider a well adapted person, might come closer

transition said:

Bubblecar said:

Everything is natural.

I presume you mean “a nature unaffected by sociocultural influences”, bearing in mind that the latter, like everything else, are natural.

perhaps consider a well adapted person, might come closer

Like that joke where the woman is explaining the natural causes death of her husband.
Copper says “but you pushed him out a 15th floor window.
She says “gravity is natural.

Tamb said:

transition said:

Bubblecar said:

Everything is natural.

I presume you mean “a nature unaffected by sociocultural influences”, bearing in mind that the latter, like everything else, are natural.

perhaps consider a well adapted person, might come closer

Like that joke where the woman is explaining the natural causes death of her husband.
Copper says “but you pushed him out a 15th floor window.
She says “gravity is natural.

chuckle

it is, natural, gravity is, but kenetic energy is largely was does the damage, interestingly for the most part it does what it does quite without much thought, especially the contribution of the V^2 part in .5Mx(V^2), further i’d add as an aside that people have quite a bit of say about their velocity, relative to whatever around them, not an entirely irrelevant discretion in that

excepting the rotation of the earth, and orbit around the sun, oh and we’re on a spiral arm somewhere in the milky way too, orion

mollwollfumble said:

> anyway, i’d really like an argument on this subject, perhaps someone could call me something nasty, weave some insults in, get me motivated, inspire me

OK, I’ll bite. I don’t see anything human as unnatural. Sure there are outliers in any population, but there are so many dimensions on which to measure that everyone is an outlier on some scale or other.

I could take mental “health” as an example. Such behaviours as phobias, paranoia, autism, paedophilia, psychopathic behaviour are so common that you couldn’t call them unnatural.

consider for a moment an imaginary political leader, conjure one, doesn’t need be a real one, one with fairly obvious narcissistic traits, perhaps their bold obliviousness to subtleties of the social world helped them get to the top job, had some appeal to a portion of the population that are buoyed by simplification of the world, to the extent the simplification of the world is another world perhaps, not the real world

you’d expect a leader to have a full set of faculties, be balanced that way, normal, something resembling a natural person

there’s a long list I bet of things people wouldn’t want a leader to be, in what anyone would like an ideal leader to be, it could be an idealization at work but it’s likely highly practical, even necessary

or to put it another way, if you had to put a single dog in charge overseeing the welfare of all dogs, in a parliament of dogs, what sort of dog would you get to do that job, what sort of disposition would you want, and what breed might you end up choosing from

transition said:

mollwollfumble said:

> anyway, i’d really like an argument on this subject, perhaps someone could call me something nasty, weave some insults in, get me motivated, inspire me

OK, I’ll bite. I don’t see anything human as unnatural. Sure there are outliers in any population, but there are so many dimensions on which to measure that everyone is an outlier on some scale or other.

I could take mental “health” as an example. Such behaviours as phobias, paranoia, autism, paedophilia, psychopathic behaviour are so common that you couldn’t call them unnatural.

consider for a moment an imaginary political leader, conjure one, doesn’t need be a real one, one with fairly obvious narcissistic traits, perhaps their bold obliviousness to subtleties of the social world helped them get to the top job, had some appeal to a portion of the population that are buoyed by simplification of the world, to the extent the simplification of the world is another world perhaps, not the real world

you’d expect a leader to have a full set of faculties, be balanced that way, normal, something resembling a natural person

there’s a long list I bet of things people wouldn’t want a leader to be, in what anyone would like an ideal leader to be, it could be an idealization at work but it’s likely highly practical, even necessary

or to put it another way, if you had to put a single dog in charge overseeing the welfare of all dogs, in a parliament of dogs, what sort of dog would you get to do that job, what sort of disposition would you want, and what breed might you end up choosing from

Obviously they’d select the leader that could fight off the circling packs of feminists.

On another forum someone mentioned a tale of a family that had their 91 tonne yacht sunk by a pack of orca that rammed the boat until it sank. They provided a link to a site called look and learn which detailed the story not well written but it was this that led me to disbelieve without further research.
Further research led me to a tale from the Guardian which headline detailed:

Scientists baffled by orcas ramming sailing boats near Spain and …

so I replied,

I read your linked article about the orca’s attacking the yacht. I thought it was badly written and full of nonsense until I did a search and found “Scientists baffled by orcas ramming sailing boats near Spain”. OK. Well I’m not at all baffled. It is clear to me from what I have said above that nature resents our intrusions of delusional grandeur.

Ever thought that in particular a yacht may resemble an orca showing their strength by swimming upside down through another orca family’s territory?

It could actually be something this simple. Could only really be tested by camouflaging the bottoms of yachts?

I say this because:
I have a problem at the moment with birds that spend almost all of their day chasing their own reflection.

I spoken to them and said, when do you eat? where do you get all this energy from? What are you feeding your babies?

I mean how do you find the time?

Bubblecar said:

Everything is natural.

I presume you mean “a nature unaffected by sociocultural influences”, bearing in mind that the latter, like everything else, are natural.

Well you can define natural that way I suppose, but it doesn’t make much sense to me to do that.

Natural to me means “anything that occurs without the aid of human engineering”.

The Rev Dodgson said:

Natural to me means “anything that occurs without the aid of human engineering”.

What about those elements which haven’t been found in nature but can be created in a lab?
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a4418/4321681/

Divine Angel said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

Natural to me means “anything that occurs without the aid of human engineering”.

What about those elements which haven’t been found in nature but can be created in a lab?
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a4418/4321681/

A good example of something non-natural.

I am a little confused by the direction of this thread as the OP seems to specify a contrast between “committed social constructionists” and those who are not social constructionists, but people seem to be concentrating more on what it means for something to be artificial rather than natural, and Transition has not corrected the course of the thread to reflect the OP better. (Maybe I am misunderstanding the OP, though.)

In terms of the cultural de jour, one area where this question comes up a lot is “Are trans-women women?” A social constructionist would say that the meaning and definition of what constitutes a “woman” is entirely socially constructed and so amenable to classifications based upon how the constituents of a society collectively decides to define what a woman is in contrast what a non-woman is. Those who are not social constructionists might prefer to define woman based on biological features present at birth, which is what I assume the OP is referring to by use of the term “natural”.

Regarding person-hood as natural or socially constructed, one area where we may increasingly be forced to confront this question is in the development of machine intelligence. If we have an artificial entity that displays signs of genuine consciousness, self awareness and agency we should then ask ourselves if this entity is due considerations given to natural people. Can we enslave an intelligent machine to perform tasks for us or should we grant such a machine the same right to self-determination that we give people?

We seem to allow a very wide definition of “person”. Very few people would deny person-hood to someone who was not naturally conceived, or born by C_Section, or born with physical deformities or severely impaired mental functions, or unusual chromosomal make-up. An interesting case might be “people” who are born with two functioning heads/brains; I put “people” in quotes there not to deny the two-headed personhood, but rather because the question is “is a two headed person one single person with two heads or are they two people with one body?” In such cases we would need to rely entirely on the socially constructed view of what constitutes a “person” rather than any definition based on natural characteristics.

esselte said:

I am a little confused by the direction of this thread as the OP seems to specify a contrast between “committed social constructionists” and those who are not social constructionists, but people seem to be concentrating more on what it means for something to be artificial rather than natural, and Transition has not corrected the course of the thread to reflect the OP better. (Maybe I am misunderstanding the OP, though.)

In terms of the cultural de jour, one area where this question comes up a lot is “Are trans-women women?” A social constructionist would say that the meaning and definition of what constitutes a “woman” is entirely socially constructed and so amenable to classifications based upon how the constituents of a society collectively decides to define what a woman is in contrast what a non-woman is. Those who are not social constructionists might prefer to define woman based on biological features present at birth, which is what I assume the OP is referring to by use of the term “natural”.

Regarding person-hood as natural or socially constructed, one area where we may increasingly be forced to confront this question is in the development of machine intelligence. If we have an artificial entity that displays signs of genuine consciousness, self awareness and agency we should then ask ourselves if this entity is due considerations given to natural people. Can we enslave an intelligent machine to perform tasks for us or should we grant such a machine the same right to self-determination that we give people?

We seem to allow a very wide definition of “person”. Very few people would deny person-hood to someone who was not naturally conceived, or born by C_Section, or born with physical deformities or severely impaired mental functions, or unusual chromosomal make-up. An interesting case might be “people” who are born with two functioning heads/brains; I put “people” in quotes there not to deny the two-headed personhood, but rather because the question is “is a two headed person one single person with two heads or are they two people with one body?” In such cases we would need to rely entirely on the socially constructed view of what constitutes a “person” rather than any definition based on natural characteristics.

Well trans is pretty tolerant :)

Good points in your post, I’ll have a think about it.

The Rev Dodgson said:

Bubblecar said:

Everything is natural.

I presume you mean “a nature unaffected by sociocultural influences”, bearing in mind that the latter, like everything else, are natural.

Well you can define natural that way I suppose, but it doesn’t make much sense to me to do that.

Natural to me means “anything that occurs without the aid of human engineering”.

I agree there is that kind of usage (“natural vs human”) but it’s often misleading, especially when people are also using “natural” as an ethical value measurement.

Bubblecar said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

Bubblecar said:

Everything is natural.

I presume you mean “a nature unaffected by sociocultural influences”, bearing in mind that the latter, like everything else, are natural.

Well you can define natural that way I suppose, but it doesn’t make much sense to me to do that.

Natural to me means “anything that occurs without the aid of human engineering”.

I agree there is that kind of usage (“natural vs human”) but it’s often misleading, especially when people are also using “natural” as an ethical value measurement.

All words are often misleading :)

The Rev Dodgson said:

Bubblecar said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

Well you can define natural that way I suppose, but it doesn’t make much sense to me to do that.

Natural to me means “anything that occurs without the aid of human engineering”.

I agree there is that kind of usage (“natural vs human”) but it’s often misleading, especially when people are also using “natural” as an ethical value measurement.

All words are often misleading :)

what if they’ren’t often used

esselte said:

In terms of the cultural de jour, one area where this question comes up a lot is “Are trans-women women?” A social constructionist would say that the meaning and definition of what constitutes a “woman” is entirely socially constructed and so amenable to classifications based upon how the constituents of a society collectively decides to define what a woman is in contrast what a non-woman is.

I’d say the problem with transgender ideology is not “nature vs social constructionism” (or “natural vs unnatural”) but in a sense more basic than that: meaningful vs meaningless.

Sex is a biologically meaningful distinction between two categories, male and female. “Gender”, unless it’s just being used as a synonym for “sex” (and transgender ideology insists it shouldn’t be used that way) doesn’t appear to have any meaning, biological or otherwise.

Tomorrow is Transgender Day of Visibility and here we are yet again treading the same old ground regarding trans identities 🙄

Divine Angel said:

Tomorrow is Transgender Day of Visibility and here we are yet again treading the same old ground regarding trans identities 🙄

I have nothing against people who identify as “transgender”.

But I don’t personally regard “gender” as a meaningful category. And I don’t regard statements like: “Transgender women are real women” as accurate or meaningful.

>An interesting case might be “people” who are born with two functioning heads/brains; I put “people” in quotes there not to deny the two-headed personhood, but rather because the question is “is a two headed person one single person with two heads or are they two people with one body?” In such cases we would need to rely entirely on the socially constructed view of what constitutes a “person” rather than any definition based on natural characteristics.

you’d ask them, the two minds sharing a vehicle, the body-vehicle, the transport device, they’d have an idea what they worked out, so really the proposition is what they might resolve, or ignore, including of being entity subject of others’ views, they may even write that different, put that little possessive indicator in a different place, write it other’s. Hasn’t passed me by that most of the world and larger universe exists completely independent of any human ideas about it, so maybe sustaining an unconclusion is nearer most of reality, a better representational foundation

subject gender, which not interested in discussing really, but frankly I couldn’t care if people had three vaginas, two penises, a set of testicles hanging from one earlobe, they spoke in infrasound and made the earth shake while lightning alternated between their multiple anuses, it’d be no stranger than some ideas or notions that pass for normal

more was getting at what a balanced human was, is, a well-adapted person, and example representative of a well-rounded person, emotionally and all, the range of normal that way

transition said:

more was getting at what a balanced human was, is, a well-adapted person, and example representative of a well-rounded person, emotionally and all, the range of normal that way

So you’re using the term “natural” as a measure of positive health or positive ethical value, like the advertising industry does.

Bubblecar said:

transition said:

more was getting at what a balanced human was, is, a well-adapted person, and example representative of a well-rounded person, emotionally and all, the range of normal that way

So you’re using the term “natural” as a measure of positive health or positive ethical value, like the advertising industry does.

not necessarily, perhaps have another idea

transition said:

Bubblecar said:

transition said:

more was getting at what a balanced human was, is, a well-adapted person, and example representative of a well-rounded person, emotionally and all, the range of normal that way

So you’re using the term “natural” as a measure of positive health or positive ethical value, like the advertising industry does.

not necessarily, perhaps have another idea

Wouldn’t peoples “naturalness” be partly a product of their culture.

Chicken noodles with soy saucy washed down with a popular cup of tea.

transition said:

Bubblecar said:

transition said:

more was getting at what a balanced human was, is, a well-adapted person, and example representative of a well-rounded person, emotionally and all, the range of normal that way

So you’re using the term “natural” as a measure of positive health or positive ethical value, like the advertising industry does.

not necessarily, perhaps have another idea

you do?

Tamb said:

transition said:

Bubblecar said:

So you’re using the term “natural” as a measure of positive health or positive ethical value, like the advertising industry does.

not necessarily, perhaps have another idea

Wouldn’t peoples “naturalness” be partly a product of their culture.

That’s learned behaviour.

roughbarked said:

Tamb said:

transition said:

not necessarily, perhaps have another idea

Wouldn’t peoples “naturalness” be partly a product of their culture.

That’s learned behaviour.

“I’m hungry”.
“Here’s a newly dead person, eat all you like”.

Learned behaviour: “No. Cannibalism is bad”.
Normal behaviour: “Thanks, I ‘ll have some leg please”.

Peak Warming Man said:

Chicken noodles with soy saucy washed down with a popular cup of tea.

Leftover scones from the night before last. Buttered. Big glass of Milo.

Tamb said:

transition said:

Bubblecar said:

So you’re using the term “natural” as a measure of positive health or positive ethical value, like the advertising industry does.

not necessarily, perhaps have another idea

Wouldn’t peoples “naturalness” be partly a product of their culture.

receptivity to others is, receptivity to social environment, and culture, of course, and that varies across the population, of individual examples, the characteristics of the receptivity is not uniform, not the same

of course culture tweaks the native receptivity, or receptivities, which probably goes more to what you’re saying

The transsexual’s song.

“You make me feel. You make me feel. You make me feel like a natural woman”.

mollwollfumble said:

The transsexual’s song.

“You make me feel. You make me feel. You make me feel like a natural woman”.

one direction