The other half of the sky
June 23, 2008 2:12 AM Subscribe
Sister, are you what I'd have been if fate had given me your organs, features and hormones? Are our differences simply a result of the sum total of whatever actions and beliefs about life these hormones have led me to make and have happened to me? Is that really me I see somewhere in your eyes when I talk to you? What say you biologist, psychologist and philosopher?
This post was deleted for the following reason: Not sure what the question is exactly... -- vacapinta
I think you just took abstract hypothetical chatfilter to an entirely new level. I suppose that's one way to use your weekly question.
posted by allkindsoftime at 2:26 AM on June 23, 2008 [1 favorite]
posted by allkindsoftime at 2:26 AM on June 23, 2008 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: So if I had phrased the question like "What is the latest scientific and philosophical thinking with regard gender identity?", that wouldnt be chatfilter? It's ok - some people just lack an ability to abstract their thoughts. Think it's more a nurture thing.
posted by DirtyCreature at 2:32 AM on June 23, 2008 [1 favorite]
posted by DirtyCreature at 2:32 AM on June 23, 2008 [1 favorite]
This is the second time I've linked to the FAQ today and it's not even 6am.
posted by loiseau at 2:48 AM on June 23, 2008 [1 favorite]
posted by loiseau at 2:48 AM on June 23, 2008 [1 favorite]
Asking for scientific thinking on identity (gender identity? You didn't specify that in your question) is different to saying "People are different. What do you think?".
But, as for your question, I think disillusioned gave a pretty reasonable answer. I did some philosphy a few years ago and the consensus was that free will can't be observed at any level. There are some sub-atomic 'random' events, but those (AFAIK) aren't known in sufficient detail to say that they are where free will is born.
Or are you actually asking about gender identity? I've been told (I'll see if I can find a cite) that the male and female brains do differ, but there is argument as to how much of an effect that has on behaviour. It's also incredibly hard to discern natural differences in behaviour because we are treated as boys or girls from day one in a whole range of overt and subtle ways.
posted by twirlypen at 3:18 AM on June 23, 2008
But, as for your question, I think disillusioned gave a pretty reasonable answer. I did some philosphy a few years ago and the consensus was that free will can't be observed at any level. There are some sub-atomic 'random' events, but those (AFAIK) aren't known in sufficient detail to say that they are where free will is born.
Or are you actually asking about gender identity? I've been told (I'll see if I can find a cite) that the male and female brains do differ, but there is argument as to how much of an effect that has on behaviour. It's also incredibly hard to discern natural differences in behaviour because we are treated as boys or girls from day one in a whole range of overt and subtle ways.
posted by twirlypen at 3:18 AM on June 23, 2008
I've been told (I'll see if I can find a cite) that the male and female brains do differ
Gay Brain Structure Similar to Straight Opposite Sex
posted by gmarceau at 4:09 AM on June 23, 2008
Gay Brain Structure Similar to Straight Opposite Sex
posted by gmarceau at 4:09 AM on June 23, 2008
So if I had phrased the question like "What is the latest scientific and philosophical thinking with regard gender identity?", that wouldnt be chatfilter?
No, that would be too. The question would have been better if you phrased it somewhere else. It doesn't belong here. And its not OK - some people just lack an ability to follow clearly defined guidelines.
posted by allkindsoftime at 4:14 AM on June 23, 2008 [1 favorite]
No, that would be too. The question would have been better if you phrased it somewhere else. It doesn't belong here. And its not OK - some people just lack an ability to follow clearly defined guidelines.
posted by allkindsoftime at 4:14 AM on June 23, 2008 [1 favorite]
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That said, you know that in some existentialist, abstract way, we're all just cells and synapses. If we truly grasped where consciousness and the theory of "self" came from, I think we'd be a lot closer to achieving... I don't know, a lot more.
To say nothing of nature versus nurture, your question manages to span both the micro and the macro. It's not enough that a certain few cells move in a particular fashion, or that others can trigger impulses that allow us to have sentient "thought." It's not enough that your "soul" doesn't exist in any one organ. And it's not enough that who you are today isn't the result, simply, of the pile of chemicals and compounds you're made of. The nurture part, the part brought on your environment, the part which dictates how and what you learn and how you experience life and the way you process things with the equipment that genetics, well, perhaps what you do with how you process those things... too much of that is influenced in part or in full by what's around you during your formative years, no?
In a world where you could literally die at any second for the most obscure, stupid reasons, and where each decision can affect an infinite number of events after it, I think that it drives me weary to apply any more critical thought to the situation than that. I much prefer to live, process everything around me and do what I can to embrace as much of life as I can, to absorb as much around me as possible and to see and do as much of everything as there is to see and do. I'll sit back and be fascinated by the existentialist stuff and by "consciousness" and the magic that operates our tiny little worlds, each running wildly in our heads as if they're important in the slightest, and what got us here to begin, let alone what granted us the ability to have discussions like this, in such a meta quality, or to even build equipment that would allow us to harness the physics around us in order to have these discussions from thousands of miles away, spanning the globe in absolutely no time, or if there's a greater power or what happens when our "consciousness" ceases...
But I won't let it paralyze me in my analysis. No, there's too much living to do for that.
posted by disillusioned at 2:23 AM on June 23, 2008