This is just getting better and better...
If you don't even know anything about the sex lives of the Greeks, how can you expect to predict how the future of sexuality is going to turn out? You have very limited experience in the entire field of sociology - your arguments show this - and a very weird outlook on life.
I admit that I have not formally studied sociology, but I have become acquianted with the various schools of thought over the years, and besides, I can find you several of the leading experts in this field who would have very similar predictions of things, so I cannot see how that would make any difference. As for the weird outlook on life, that is a matter of opinion.
Exactly. He's lacking the most basic understanding about human nature, and so disregards the whole "human nature" issue as irrelevant on his "mathematical model " (not that he presented one anyway). The thing is, human nature is what leads society, and it will remain as such (even if such nature changes). Unless someone run a worldwide campaign to genetically modify people into not liking sex, his version of the future will never gonna happen.
While it is true "human nature" can be said to lead society, it is not at all the type of thing you are talking about - we are concerned about the very core principles and sex is way, way too specific to be one of the elementary values, since it cannot be used to describe all other human phenomena directly (see below) - and furthermore, the converse is also equally true: society and necessity leads human nature as well through a continuous chain. (the best example of this is the formation of morals) Other variables must be taken into account to complete the analysis. One thing that I think is probably true about the network of ideas is that while every idea has multiple (and probably infinite) logically consistent connections to other ideas, not every idea can be derived from every other idea (this is an example of a comparison between two unequal infinities), so not everything can be
directly derived from the idea of human tendency towards sex.
Yes, any branch of mathematics can model simple real-world events if necessary. They all require predictability, though, and assume that the conditions postulated will not change.
Yes, but that has nothing to do with what we were talking about; you were claiming a few posts ago that some math is good and other math is meaningless.
Damn, can't you read? I'm saying that any theory that is built upon information gathered from perception is valid, and any theory that was not yet contradicted by perception has the benefit of the doubt. But if perception contradicts the theory, then the theory is wrong. You seem to ignore that, and cling to theoretical models no matter what. Your loss.
Okay, that sounds fine, but once again, this is quite unrelated to what we were talking about before. I certainly agree with what you have said there, but it has no relevance.
Huh, fairly slowly? Now you are seeing it as a local phenomena. Cloning had never existed throughout the entirety of human history, and in the last few years it was devised and practically made possible (even if there are severe limitations as of now), and you're saying that it's progressing slowly... right.
It is still progressing slowly compared to what will happen with it in the future, just as any technological development when it is just starting up; this is what I was talking about. You need to factor in not only the past, but also predictions of the future. In the whole period, it is still going fairly slowly, relatively speaking.
Nope, you're missing my point completely. What I'm saying is that you don't have any basis to do accurate predictions because you don't have the knowledge. It might perfectly be that in a couple of years we make a breakthrough in applied psychology and sociology and become able to accurately predict the behaviour of a large mass of people (think psychohistory), or even individuals, but it's not possible as of now. And I'm not saying that society will remain the same, I'm saying that none of us can make even a far guess about what will happen. You don't know what technologies we will uncover, and you don't know what events will direct society - so you can't predict. Your theoretical model is based on the very notion that you spoke against - it's considering only a small section of the "curve", and therefore cannot be accurate - it's like finding a local maximum. The other flaw with this theoretical model you're "presenting" is that it disregards completely any future research or major event, as it disregards the fact that it's modelling over independent agents that may take any path in the future. Some research on AI would go well with the other fields we already recommended (psychology and sociology).
You are starting to sound like one of these fatalistic guys. While it is true that the social sciences have not quite reached the level of mathematical maturity that the physical sciences have, your assessment of their effectiveness is severely understated. It
is possible to predict the probabilities of events and weigh them against each other even with our current understanding, or there would be no such thing as sociology in the first place in today's world. Although the specialists in this field are quite divided on opinion in most cases, they all agree that the probability of human society and its culture remaining static as you seem to think is among the lowest around, because the human society cannot remain static in a continuously changing universe and still be a part of it. Like you said, I should study some of these subjects more in depth, and I will do that at some point, but that hardly constitues an argument here; heck, I could just tell you to take some philosophy courses and study the works of past thinkers, but that would do nothing towards refuting any concrete points.
Yes, if a completely unbiased person or computer (things that cannot be verified to exist, might I add) says that your prediction is right, based only on logical constructs, then it might be right. Or not, since you are not considering even a small fraction of all the factors involved. What they can attest to is that, if everything goes the way you want, your prediction might become true. Even a slight change on the scenario will throw it to the ground pretty quickly.
Actually, most of the less likely alternatives have been considered as well; one of the nice things with this theory is that several of the other possibe branches will also lead similar conclusions. And exactly what other factors need to be considered that you are taking into account and I am not? (the workings of the current human are being taken into account, so find something else
) Also, if everything goes exactly as predicted (and this includes factors that were overseen and not taken into account, since that too is a prediction of sorts), the end result will also turn out exactly the same; I am not sure where the "might" came from.
(it's still my opinion that your "model" won't get past such analysis, though, and that you are heavily biased by your own confidence in your knowledge to see that)
We shall see...
Hm, actually, sex was always intimately tied to all major aspects of society and culture. Check the behaviour of emperors and noblemen in the 1500s. Check the workings of the "behind the scenes" high society on the 1800s. Check the way landlords acted in the feudal times. You're seeing the macro events, and disregarding the smaller ones that led to those. Any historian would point that, and psychologist would point that, but you seem to believe that what you "think" happened is that actually happened.
Wait, just a few paragraphs ago you said that I am disregarding the "macro events" and only looking and the small ones, and now it has become just the opposite. And I have actually not heard of this stuff before, but like I said to Black Wolf, you are unknowningly supporting my argument here for the same reasons I gave him.
And yes, humans don't need to aggregate into larger units. They will, though, if they sense that any of their liberties (in a psychological analysis, you'll notice that every human regards his personal freedom as one of the most important factors in decision making, and this reflect on the "mob" behaviour) threatened, no matter how subtly you seem to think it will happen - and sex is one of the most basic liberties any human considers. You fail to realize that this is what has driven society up to now, and what was responsible for the fall of every fallen regime in human history. There's also the fact that your own "relatively large, organized unit" will not come to exist, but debating this is pointless (you'll simply say "yes it will" over and over, changing words).
Oh, I am now beginning to see where you are getting your reasoning. Here's a counter-argument: it might be responsible for the "fall of every fallen regime" in history, but it is also responsible for the
rise of every regime in history, and heck, that of human civilization itself. It has essentially been proven that if the human did not have some sort of fundamental difference in psychology from the other animals, no civilization at all would have been formed. Now we look at the possible causes of this: personal freedom cannot alone contribute to all of it, because then other animals (which also have the objective of personal survival) would have also developed an advancing civilization. Personal
benefits for survival is the correct idea rather than personal
freedom, and those do not necessarily need to have anything to do with freedom, because if the individual freedom had always been such a sacred thing (as you claim it to be), there would have been no such thing as a civilization in history, - keep in mind that the form of government which maximizes freedom is none at all, or in other words, anarchy - let alone things like monarchies. My assessment of this is that the critical difference is the avoidance to complete happiness, which is the primary motivating force that allows the human to progress. (perhaps it was only a minor genetic mutation from monkeys, but it can explain just about all the differences between animals and humans) Therefore, we extend this principle to today's world: Humans will continue to have sex only as long as it contributes to their survival. Given the incredibly long period that humans have to perfect the cloning system (I talked of this in one of my earlier posts), the probability actually goes much higher than you seem to think.
This is what the core part of my argument is based on: if personal freedom was the only, or even the primary, contributing factor to the analysis of human actions, civilization would not have existed, and this is generally accepted among the academic community as the truth today. (check out a sociology textbook for more info)
And I will indeed keep saying "yes it will," except I will accompany it with some more evidence each time.
(whereas your supports are mere assertions for the most part
)
No, it cannot be completely based on perception - it still must be based on perception to a certain degree, though, or it's not valid (or it is as valid as any wild conjecture anyone can come up with). Any logic conclusion is just as good as the correctness of its premises, or else you get a GIGO system.
That sounds fine, but we already agreed that just about every reputable scientific (not mathematical, though) theory out there is based on physical perception to some extent, so I am not sure of the point you are trying to make. (the theories use the percieved stuff as starting assumptions) We are talking about not only analyzing the perceived facts but more importantly, using those to make general theories in an attempt to predict future events - in other words, science - and you said a few posts ago that the second part of this procedure was meaningless, so then science must be meaningless too.
And no, my two descriptions are not even close to each other at a fundamental level. You're assuming too much, and providing little evidence. The first one will never provide you with complete and accurate information about the pain generation process, unless you have a perfectly modelled system - and as I said earlier, it is proved that any perfect model will be undistinguishable from the system being observed itself (therefore, you'll be feeling the pain anyway).
Okay...first the two descriptions "are not even close to each other," and two sentences later, they are "indistinguishable."
But anyway, what you are saying has only ben proven for models with finite variables and finitely many paths to modeling - it is not known whether or not this still applies to the infinite analogs, which is essentially what the real world operates on. (as far as we know, there is no finite number of procedures to solve a given problem) Besides, a slightly less "perfect" model would actually be better than the "perfect" model or the event, since the experiential bias I spoke of earlier will be much less of an issue.
Again, no. Did you ask any slave if they like working all day and night and being beaten up for no reason? Didn't think so.
If the slave didn't know anything different, I bet he would say yes. (and there are examples of this throughout history)
Actually, that's a completely useless analogy. We know the limitations of current processor architectures, yet we don't know the limitations of natural birth (when improved), and we don't know the limitations of cloning processes. It might perfectly be that the natural process offers less limitations than cloning, and then your whole model falls apart. Check some Culture books for a few ideas on how to improve the natural conception methods.
Since when we do not know the limitations of these other things as well? The probability of our predictions of the limitations of one technology coming true compared with that of the other's is about equal. Also, what is this "improved" natural birth? (remember that sex and cloning are equally natural)
Ok, "up to a certain point" you say. You assume that human society will suffer a revolution when everyone is happy and having fun all day, because they have the "need" to evolve. This need you mention has as much basis as all the other arguments about the human being's "need" for sex - you're simply saying that, despite any other factors, society must evolve/advance. You're assuming too much again, without any basis. You believe that people will always have something to complain about, because that's the way they acted up to now. Well, I believe that people will always want to have sex, because that's the way they acted up to now. How is one belief better than the other?
Correct, although it is not an assumption and had been derived from other propositions. Like I said before, the need must exist to some extent (it could be based on the human tendency against satiation) or else the human civilization could not have come up. From what I can tell you are saying that all arguments are equally true, including logically contradictory ones, so I guess you are a nihilist of sorts, which is fine, but then there is no point in arguing in the first place. (our primary method for narrowing down the arguments is to eliminate these types of theories) Regarding your statement about people having acted in a certain way up to now, I once again present you with the morals analogy. Merely looking at the events at face value as you are doing is not enough, or you will end up finding that almost every theory is equally correct; you must investigate the possible causes behind them as part of a logically consistent system. Why have the people always wanted to have sex until now? I have already given you my explanation for that, and it fits in nicely with the other workings of the universe; why don't you now present yours and we will see where we can go from there.
As for the basis behind my assumptions, this dualism towards the whole concept that I mentioned early on in this thread, along with its relative rate of change is where all that comes from. If it continues as it is going right now, it can be easily shown that a logical contradiction will be reached at one point. If the universe is to remain logically consistent, which I admit I am assuming it is, then the contradiction can only be a limiting value rather than a finitely reachable value. As to why one assumption is better than the other, it is because one can fully explain the existence assumed by the other while the same does not work in the opposite direction. I say this again: explain to me why sex has caused humanity to build a society despite to the fact that animals have it as well. I can give you a consistent chain of reasoning as to why humans enjoy sex based on having the need to advance, but I have yet to see you show how the opposite implication would be true. This is exactly how logical elimination can be made to work in practice to predict events. Lastly, I do not believe; I only assume. (yes, there is a difference
)
I'll try to look into it, but since society didn't really change since the fifties, I already know that it didn't make any sociological and psychological predictions. What exactly did the guy predict?
It didn't change much since the fifties, eh? Look more closely at the smaller things. Mostly various economic trends, the rise of a cultural paradigm in which personal freedom was king and several oter smaller things that do not mean much in themselves but come together to create a powerful whole.
See, there's your bias again. Society must fall. Breaking news for ya: it won't. You simply think that any system must evolve, without considering the simple factor that we never had any chance to analyse a system even remotely as complex as a planetwide human society. You're basing your ideas on a "local maximum" (to make an analogy), and failing to realize that we don't have the slightest idea of how the rest of the graph looks like.
See the above material for more information here. On a side note, you might have heard of the
Foundation science fiction novels; some of the more practical implications of this social change are explored further there.
Now, seriously, this is getting pointless. We can keep debating for the literal rest of our lives and won't reach any conclusions, because none of us will ever live to know what will actually happen to human society. Maybe we should agree to get cryogenically frozen and wake up in a thousand years or so just to see who was right.
That would be pretty neat. Actually, we have gotten somewhat off-topic from the original argument, but I think it is still worth arguing about.
The first alternative is the closest, but still off. What I'm saying is that sex has always been an intrinsic part of culture and society, but the influence of religion had shifted it's role out of the foreground - not eliminated it. Now though, the influence of religion has dropped away, so the society and culture is reverting to what is natural.
But there is no "natural" state on which to revert (this was discussed at length in that "oh hell" thread a while ago), so that cannot really be used as evidence that the influence of sex will increase again; it is just as likely that any of the other "unnatural" events will occur if we try to determine conclusions from this information alone.
I think your mathematical turn of mind is what's primarily responsible for your apparent inability to see why we all think you're wrong - Human society isn't a function on a graph and it isn't predictable, human nature by contrast is predictable, as it's constant. I mean, do you have any idea how short the lengths of time you're talking about are? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm guessing you expect this method of yours to become mainstream in a few centuries? A few centuries of advanced technology compared to over two million years of the evolution of human nature? To put it in mathematical language that's 2 000 000:200...I know which one I'd back.
Wait, how is the individual human
more predictable than a human mob? This is another of the few points that modern sociologists and political scientists agree on; the human mobs can be views in the same way as elementary particles are, where an individual unit is very difficult to predict but when the units group into masses, previously unseen patterns begin to manifest themselves and these can then be analyzed by statistical methods. As for the last part, that is because you are assuming the curve is linear and therefore the rate of change is constant; this is almost certainly not the case looking at the entire history of humanity, and an exponential growth system is more likely. (in terms of a function or functional, 200 could yield a higher result than 2000000 depending on where the displacement occurs)
My point in the previous post was that you and your views are currently in the extreme minority - please tell us why you think that your method would become mainstream anyway?
Same reason I gave with the morals earlier; they were at that time in the extreme minority as well, and look where they have gotten today. See what I responded to Styxx's post about the full analysis of events being necessary rather than just the interpretation of events.
Hmm...looking back over that post I've noticed I've been somewhat...arrogant. I'm not going to back down on any of my points but I will say that I'm not trying to be offensive, or stop you from having an opinion. I simply disagree with you.
No problem; I'm just trying to learn something out of all this, so I welcome the ideas of others whatever they might be.
Does anyone get the impression things have gone in the past 40 years from male-dominated to rather female-dominated in a trend that appears to be accelerating at an alarming rate?
Well I wouldn't really say that things are "dominated" by females, but I have noticed the trend that you are speaking of. I think that this is another effect of the gradual fading of religion, seeing as just about every major religion and culture out there dictates that the male is the superior of the female, so the differences are beginning to show now that the religion is dissipating and are thus being brought to attention. Since males and females, cultural influences aside, are really exactly the same as far as average thought processes go, I think that it will stabilize at something around 50-50 or whatever the current male/female ratio of the world is.
The only reason we do that is to try to get on CP's nerves
That is fine with me if I learn something out of all this; the main purpose of these little debates on my end is to sharpen my own views.
18 so far.
