Fuck these people obviously, but also counterfactuals like this (especially around identity) are extremely hard to evaluate, and I actually agree "imagine you had been born a different person" is likely nonsensical on analysis. The more important point is that you should be able to have empathy for other human beings without having to do weird possible worlds metaphysics.
Yeah, he’s kinda right in that he just wouldn’t be the same person at all. The soul stuff is bullshit but
There is no scenario in which me, with my brain, my personality, and my genetics, could be born in Haiti
is about right (aside from maybe his parents visiting Haiti at the time, but even then if he had parents willing to visit Haiti they probably would have raised him a little different). Although genetics probably plays a smaller role than he thinks, since being hateful is taught.
But of course all of that misses the point of understanding someone else’s situation and thinking how you would feel and act, i.e. having empathy.
Yeah, he’s kinda right in that he just wouldn’t be the same person at all. The soul stuff is bullshit but
It contradicts his entire point though. Like the whole idea is that each haitian is just individually bad. If you wanna go for that line, you gotta claim that if you were one of them, you'd be fucking balling. Or you're a failson, lifted only by those around you, but I don't think that's going to happen
Yeah you'd think realizing "I only am who I am as a result of the material circumstances of my birth, which I did not choose for myself" would engender some humility and empathy, and yet.
I don't really, not anymore. It's a hierarchy that's supposed to be defended to these people, doesn't really matter how they got there. It's not even hypocritical, on their terms, to think this. I have my place here, which was bestowed upon me, and the lessers may not get there is entirely consistent, if fucking garbage.
There are lots of hypotheticals that feel like they should be possible or imaginable, but which turn out to not be when you really think carefully about them. My favorite example to use in the classroom: imagine that while you're asleep tonight, the distance between every single thing in the universe doubles. When you wake up in the morning, everything is twice as far apart, but you're also twice the size! In addition, the tick marks on your rulers and all other measurement devices are twice as far apart, so all your measurements agree with measurements you took the day before. Therefore, the change is indiscernible.
This is a story that (to most people) feels consistent and imaginable at first, but that a little inspection will show is not (if the distance between things changed but fundamental forces behave the same way, we're going to have a bad time). Our intuitive judgement about what we can and cannot consistently imagine is extremely unreliable, and should not be trusted to do any philosophical heavy lifting. I think the people who are saying "I can easily imagine being me, but born in a different place, time, body, and material circumstance" are making a similar kind of error.
I get what you’re saying but also disagree on the conclusion, if I’m reading right. Feels like a form of solipsism which is just … navel-gazey.
Imagining oneself in another’s position is simple empathy, an evolved trait foundational to human civilization. The point is not to be able to perfectly imagine that other life, or to understand it in full detail. The point is to recognize common humanity between yourself and that other person.
In empathizing, I make a basic assumption about another person’s experience, in its intelligibility to myself, despite not having experienced it directly myself. It is like how in physics, we can’t prove beyond all doubt that the laws of the physics are the same in other galaxies (although there is of course strong evidence, e.g. spectral lines). I am reasonably certain of a baseline humanity shared by all humans, and on that basis I feel valid in empathizing.
Imagining being another person isn't supposed to be your "esssence" or mental mind in another body, it's to elucidate the fact that the act of experience across conscious beings is indistinguishable at an objective level and they're basically an experience machine trapped in different circumstances with different thoughts and environment. It's more about the separation of consciousness between beings and not minds per se.
Fuck these people obviously, but also counterfactuals like this (especially around identity) are extremely hard to evaluate, and I actually agree "imagine you had been born a different person" is likely nonsensical on analysis. The more important point is that you should be able to have empathy for other human beings without having to do weird possible worlds metaphysics.
Yeah, he’s kinda right in that he just wouldn’t be the same person at all. The soul stuff is bullshit but
is about right (aside from maybe his parents visiting Haiti at the time, but even then if he had parents willing to visit Haiti they probably would have raised him a little different). Although genetics probably plays a smaller role than he thinks, since being hateful is taught.
But of course all of that misses the point of understanding someone else’s situation and thinking how you would feel and act, i.e. having empathy.
It contradicts his entire point though. Like the whole idea is that each haitian is just individually bad. If you wanna go for that line, you gotta claim that if you were one of them, you'd be fucking balling. Or you're a failson, lifted only by those around you, but I don't think that's going to happen
Yeah you'd think realizing "I only am who I am as a result of the material circumstances of my birth, which I did not choose for myself" would engender some humility and empathy, and yet.
I don't really, not anymore. It's a hierarchy that's supposed to be defended to these people, doesn't really matter how they got there. It's not even hypocritical, on their terms, to think this. I have my place here, which was bestowed upon me, and the lessers may not get there is entirely consistent, if fucking garbage.
There are lots of hypotheticals that feel like they should be possible or imaginable, but which turn out to not be when you really think carefully about them. My favorite example to use in the classroom: imagine that while you're asleep tonight, the distance between every single thing in the universe doubles. When you wake up in the morning, everything is twice as far apart, but you're also twice the size! In addition, the tick marks on your rulers and all other measurement devices are twice as far apart, so all your measurements agree with measurements you took the day before. Therefore, the change is indiscernible.
This is a story that (to most people) feels consistent and imaginable at first, but that a little inspection will show is not (if the distance between things changed but fundamental forces behave the same way, we're going to have a bad time). Our intuitive judgement about what we can and cannot consistently imagine is extremely unreliable, and should not be trusted to do any philosophical heavy lifting. I think the people who are saying "I can easily imagine being me, but born in a different place, time, body, and material circumstance" are making a similar kind of error.
I get what you’re saying but also disagree on the conclusion, if I’m reading right. Feels like a form of solipsism which is just … navel-gazey.
Imagining oneself in another’s position is simple empathy, an evolved trait foundational to human civilization. The point is not to be able to perfectly imagine that other life, or to understand it in full detail. The point is to recognize common humanity between yourself and that other person.
In empathizing, I make a basic assumption about another person’s experience, in its intelligibility to myself, despite not having experienced it directly myself. It is like how in physics, we can’t prove beyond all doubt that the laws of the physics are the same in other galaxies (although there is of course strong evidence, e.g. spectral lines). I am reasonably certain of a baseline humanity shared by all humans, and on that basis I feel valid in empathizing.
You cannot rely on hypothetical for anything scientific, that's not what they're meant for.
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Imagining being another person isn't supposed to be your "esssence" or mental mind in another body, it's to elucidate the fact that the act of experience across conscious beings is indistinguishable at an objective level and they're basically an experience machine trapped in different circumstances with different thoughts and environment. It's more about the separation of consciousness between beings and not minds per se.
We're all the same liquid poured into different glasses, as I like to say