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[Shadowlord]

extraordinary evidence.
http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080411/full/news.2008.751.html

your rational decision is less real than you think it is.

Why are you trying to argue using pop science articles?

Abstract from actual study:

There has been a long controversy as to whether subjectively 'free' decisions are determined by brain activity ahead of time. We found that the outcome of a decision can be encoded in brain activity of prefrontal and parietal cortex up to 10 s before it enters awareness. This delay presumably reflects the operation of a network of high-level control areas that begin to prepare an upcoming decision long before it enters awareness.

I don't want to be arguing this crap here, mind you.

P.S. Dictionaries are things humans make, to words words. The universe words nothing.

> reasons always come after the fact
After what fact?

[wierd]

The sun appears to rise every day. (fact)

Human question: Why?
Human reason: A god must do it!

The reason ALWAYS comes AFTER the fact.

Does nature care if you got it right? No. It will keep on regardless of your thoughts in the matter.


In fuller context, because people seem unable to follow my train of thought--

When a person is subjected to a stimulus, they dont "decide" that it is pleasurable, painful, ticklish, whatever-- Their nervous system simply reacts to it. That reaction is "the fact."

The REASONING comes later, after that fact. Humans are not precognitive, and our predictive ability is tied exclusively to past experiences. We can reason that, eg, "This thing is a lot like that other thing that I like, so I will probably like it too." but that does not make it true that "I like this other thing". We can try that thing and hate it.  Crystal pepsi, for instance.

[Shadowlord]

When a person is subjected to a stimulus, they dont "decide" that it is pleasurable, painful, ticklish, whatever-- Their nervous system simply reacts to it. That reaction is "the fact."

The REASONING comes later, after that fact. Humans are not precognitive, and our predictive ability is tied exclusively to past experiences. We can reason that, eg, "This thing is a lot like that other thing that I like, so I will probably like it too." but that does not make it true that "I like this other thing". We can try that thing and hate it.  Crystal pepsi, for instance.

Okay, so when subjected to a stimulus, one's reaction is "the fact" and the reason comes after.

I don't like alcohol, yet I have never tried it - I've never been subjected to that stimulus. (But in a way your logic still holds, but the stimulus, instead of trying it, was observing what it did to other people, and deciding I never wanted to be like that. Losing control of my mind has no appeal to me. The idea of consuming a substance that would make me stupider disgusts me.)

Let's see... religion? One's reason for doing things is because they believe they must because it's what their God wants. Of course you could say the stimulus there was religious indoctrination.

So... why are we talking about this?

[wierd]

Criptfiend was quite insistent that actions require reasons, or the person engaging in those actions is irrational.

I was pointing out that the action (response to the stimulus) precedes the reason (eg, the act of reasoning in response to the stimulus), always.

He does not agree.

[Shadowlord]

If you put it that way, wouldn't my alcohol example be a counterexample, or am I misreading this?

I was pointing out that the action (response to the stimulus) precedes the reason (eg, the act of reasoning in response to the stimulus), always.

[wierd]

No.

You observed the ill effects of alcohol consumption. (stimulus)
You did not like it. (fact.)
You created reasons to substantiate that dislike. (reason.)

You would have to have precognition to experience it any other way.



In the EVEN FULLER context:

I asserted that I do not need a reason for my known preferences, which is what kicked this off.

This is logically sound as a statement, given the above chain of events to arrive at a reason.

1) I experience a stimulus.
2) I have a reaction.
3) I create a reason to explain my reaction.

Step 3 is optional. Steps 1 and 2 happen without my control, and are simply facts.

In this example, step 2, my reaction, is the basis of my preference. EG, "I liked it." 

We can then put it this way.

1) Something happened
2) I liked it.
3) I come up with some reason to explain why I liked it.

I do not need to come up with a reason to accept that I liked it. It is simply a fact.

[Shadowlord]

I think your reason would be "I liked it."

[wierd]

Yes. But if the question is "why did you like it?", I am asserting "Because I liked it." is ultimately the deepest, most accurate response, and that it is circular. I liked it because I liked it.

[Tiruin]

I've little time because thesisfun :V but...I've to note essential notes for sexuality.
> It's also based on personal perception of the self, which includes the matter that one's understanding may be influenced by one's exposure and experience (which isn't necessarily meaning 'go have sex'; experience in that manner includes one's current environment or what one is usually connected to in their daily life, otherwise 'what they're persistently exposed to').
Which is commonly noted in the teen years--where people 'discover' themselves

> Asexuality is a thing Yes. However that doesn't mean anatomical or physiological--everyone is, by nature, physiologically sexual. Sexuality is not a definitive of that. It is the inclination. o_O And this can be termed by one's outlook or one's actual feelings, either/or.

> The environment can shape one's perception :O That's where cognitive constructs build up (otherwise known as 'a basis of knowledge'), like if you're surrounded by things you don't like, and it jives in parallel to something you've noticed internally (as in in mind for quite some time), it can help denote something about you.

> wierd and Cript both have their respective and relative points, but there's the possible divergence of applying those points to an exact proportion of people. Because misunderstandings happen in generality, or usually 'how' you say it rather than what is meant.

for all intents and purposes, my genitals serve only a useful endochrine function, and nothing else.

I could live just fine without them. mentally, i *am* genderless.

I just realized something. The way that I might want to present myself could overlap with different form of gender expression, and I could still be agender.

Which is another way of saying "just do you," I guess. Huh. I keep coming back to that. Maybe I should follow it.

(But hmm, negative body image associated with the part of me that is more associated with masculinity; i.e., hairiness... that's the issue, association. Whence these feelings? Transgenderness, or have I simply associated "feminine" with "good"?)

It will help you a lot to talk about this with a professional rather than internet sources alone.
And this is from a student of that profession. Really gonna help you that way.

[wierd]

a professional can help doze better understand his internal reactions, yes.  however, acceptance is harder.

i am fully accepting of my asexuality, and do the best i can to be brutally honest about likes and dislikes when considering myself. (this brutal introspection is what led me, many years ago, to conclude that liking or disliking something is not really a choice, but a reaction, and thus does not need an explicit reason, which for me made it easier. likes and dislikes can change however; I used to despise fried squash for instance. Now I find it enjoyable in limited quantities. no reason is needed, it is simply a fact. the two facts together indicate that reactions, and thus preferences change over time, so continued experience is required to retain self knowledge.) Not everyone can, or does engage themselves with brutal honesty though. That is where a professional asking questions can help. a person may have hangups involving reasons, that prevent acceptance, which leads to unresolvable conundrums, which makes them crazy. better understanding through questioning assumptions and other imposed reasoning can help a person get to acceptance, and then growth.

The thing is, sometimes we find ourselves in situations where we have irreconcilable truths about ourselves.

For instance, we might find that normally, we are aghast at the idea of hurting somebody, but when conditions are right, we want that bastard to fry. Being honest with ourselves, we are presented with seemingly irreconcilable impulses: We abhor violence and harm to others, but yet-- strong desire to do so in this case. We may have very great difficulty getting to acceptance, even after considerable after-the-fact reasoning to try to reconcile them. Even with the help of a professional, this is not an easy task.

[Criptfeind]

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/reason

cause <the reason for earthquakes>

Your link disagrees with you. Your very own quote disagrees with you. Even if it didn't disagree with you, you're still failing to establish that instinctive action precludes reasoning.

To wit- Being gay is not a choice. One does not go "You know, I think I will be gay from now on."  It does not work that way. They have always been gay, and come to that startling revelation. Then they rationalize why it is OK to be gay, and why they like the things they like. This is also why "reprogramming camps" dont work. You dont choose what you find enjoyable. You cant be told what you find enjoyable either. You can choose to do things that you know to be enjoyable, but that is most certainly NOT the same thing.

How was this ever in question? This is such a rapid shift of what the conversation was about that I frankly call bullshit.

The sun appears to rise every day. (fact)

Human question: Why?
Human reason: A god must do it!

The reason ALWAYS comes AFTER the fact.

Just because YOU assign an incorrect and post dated reason doesn't mean that all reasoning is incorrect or non predictive. The sun appears to rise every day because the earth is spinning. That's the reason. The physical principles involved in the rotation of the earth have existed before the earth itself did, this is a wholly predictable thing given knowledge of the condition of the earth and it's local space, even before the very first sunrise (Well, if there was such a thing, obviously that's like, one of those questions of definitions given the earth didn't just pop into existence fully formed.) If another earth suddenly appeared around another sun and we were able to observe that it was spinning, we would be able to say that because it's spin, it will now have a wave of sunrises continually moving across it.

In fuller context, because people seem unable to follow my train of thought--

When a person is subjected to a stimulus, they dont "decide" that it is pleasurable, painful, ticklish, whatever-- Their nervous system simply reacts to it. That reaction is "the fact."

The REASONING comes later, after that fact. Humans are not precognitive, and our predictive ability is tied exclusively to past experiences. We can reason that, eg, "This thing is a lot like that other thing that I like, so I will probably like it too." but that does not make it true that "I like this other thing". We can try that thing and hate it.  Crystal pepsi, for instance.

Except, going forward in FUTURE events, you can use this reaction to past events as a reason to predict future events. You can predict the same stimulus will be good, and that can be your reason to seek it, or you can predict it will be bad, and that will be your reason to avoid it. Furthermore, when we make an assumption about an unclear future using similar past events, that's still making a rational and reasoned decision! It doesn't need to be true to be those things, shockingly perhaps to you. Having a valid reason for what you're doing does not always Equal truth.

In the EVEN FULLER context:

I asserted that I do not need a reason for my known preferences, which is what kicked this off.

This is logically sound as a statement, given the above chain of events to arrive at a reason.

1) I experience a stimulus.
2) I have a reaction.
3) I create a reason to explain my reaction.

Step 3 is optional. Steps 1 and 2 happen without my control, and are simply facts.

In this example, step 2, my reaction, is the basis of my preference. EG, "I liked it." 

We can then put it this way.

1) Something happened
2) I liked it.
3) I come up with some reason to explain why I liked it.

I do not need to come up with a reason to accept that I liked it. It is simply a fact.

Except now moving forward we can have chains of events like this:

1) I have a choice to have something happen to me or not.
2) In the past I liked it, so I have an informed reason to think I will enjoy it in the future.
3) I choose to have it happen to me again.
4) I liked it.

Or

1) I have a choice to have something happen to me or not.
2) In the past I disliked it, so I have an informed reason to think I will not enjoy it in the future.
3) I choose to not have it happen to me again.

Or even

1) I have a choice to have something happen to me or not.
2) In the past I liked it, so I have an informed reason to think I will enjoy it in the future.
3) I choose to have it happen to me again.
4) I disliked it.
5) I can figure out why it changed or not, but ultimately I probably won't choose that again in the future if I think it's likely to be disliked again.

[sjm9876]

Can we move the argument on opinion causality elsewhere, please? Fairly sure we have both a philosophy thread and a science thread, depending what direction you want to take it.

Asexual people aren't necessarily uninterested in sex, they just don't feel any drive to. Some asexuals do still have sex, they just don't have an innate biological drive behind it.\

Also, wierd, maybe I'm a bit biased because I'm friends with a lot of non-heterosexuals :V

that and smart people

Huh. All the asexual people I've met have been pretty much the reverse, which is interesting. Not sure if that's a different form with a similar effect (at least regards other people) or a misuse of definitions on one of our parts, though I'm inclined to say the former.

Also, it's rather important to note, that it's all spectrum. Libidos vary, as does 'conscious' (ie. non libido) interest in sex, as does desire for the intimacy that results from sex (though this overlaps somewhat with the previous) (or even how much you feel said intimacy). Trying to sum people up into sexual and asexual is rather flawed, because people could quite conceivably rate a 0 on any aspect of that but still have the others. It's also worth noting that asexuality certainly doesn't imply an active dislike for sex - an asexual person could conceivably have sex with their partner for their sake, similar to how they might cook a meal their partner likes but they themselves are indifferent towards.

Basically, oversimplification can be risky because using simple labels has a tendency to cause the brain to forget that those labels aren't cover-alls.

Hell, similar things apply to gender and (other) sexualities, and it is very important to not assume your experience of the factors that make up your feelings in the area is the same as someone else who fits into the same 'label'.

[Tiruin]

Asexual people aren't necessarily uninterested in sex, they just don't feel any drive to. Some asexuals do still have sex, they just don't have an innate biological drive behind it.\

Also, wierd, maybe I'm a bit biased because I'm friends with a lot of non-heterosexuals :V

that and smart people

Huh. All the asexual people I've met have been pretty much the reverse, which is interesting. Not sure if that's a different form with a similar effect (at least regards other people) or a misuse of definitions on one of our parts, though I'm inclined to say the former.

* Tiruin meets sjm9876, she is asexual in her sexual orientation o_o

It's nicely lighthearted to nudge being part of a sample population and work with concepts all the way. Just a note that if one is to treat a general category--try substituting the more common idea; like 'heterosexual' for 'asexual', and there's the notice of perceptive adjusting.
But yeah, it's really nice to hear from many folks on their experiences.

@wierd/Cript: I...think both of you are pretty much agreeing on one major thing, and disagreeing with how either of you are going about in minor details ._. (which makes it seem like disagreeing with major details from there on) If that's to continue...maybe it'd be better to PM each other, or use the first-person perspective to help with exacts in meaning? sorry for nudging that.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

Do animals even have gender, or is it just sex?

[TempAcc]

Do humans even have gender? I still have my doubts :U