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A press release from the U. of Oslo:
New research suggests racism could be a genetic trait
by University of Oslo, AUGUST 4, 2020
Black Lives Matter (BLM) is an anti-racist movement in the United States, founded as a reaction to many incidents of racism and brutal police violence against black people. The movement got widespread international support in 2020 after the police murder on the Afro-american George Floyd. The murder set off a chain of demonstrations all over the world.
The death of U.S. citizen George Floyd caused demonstrations all over the world. Still, police violence against vulnerable groups and minorities is nothing new. How can racist attitudes and practices have survived so many generations?
According to a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), beliefs that some groups are superior to others are deeply influenced by genetics.
Racist Genes
The researchers looked into why some attitudes tend to appear simultaneously. This may for example apply to the perception of some groups being better than others, or to the perception that certain ethnic and cultural groups are more capable of making decisions in society.
Previous research has suggested that such opinions often appear together, and that the environment only rarely shapes them.
Could it be that we are born with predispositions to certain political opinions? According to the findings, the answer is yes.
“People who share the same sets of attitudes also appear to share the same genes,” said Thomas Haarklau Kleppestø, Ph.D. fellow at the Department of Psychology, University of Oslo.
Political Attitudes
Around 2,000 adult Norwegian twins, identical and non-identical, answered a questionnaire to measure their social dominance orientation (SDO), a personality trait where a high score indicates a preference of a societal hierarchy.
Former research has liked this trait to political attitudes. A high score increases the possibility for support to items such as “Some groups of people must be kept in their place,” and “Some groups of people are inferior to other groups.”
The participants were to state their opinions on eight political proposals, such as strict immigration control and deportation of Romani people. Former research has found these proposals to correlate with SDO.
The researchers reasoned as follows: If the political opinions of identical twins were more alike than among non-identical, the reason would be genetic. Identical twins share 100 percent of their genes, while non-identical share 50 percent. …
Fellowship of Genes
As expected, the researchers found a link between SDO and political attitudes. E.g., those who favored a hierarchical structure in society often wished for stricter immigration control and reduced foreign aid.
However, the findings also revealed that peoples’ SDO had a genetic connection to all the eight measured political attitudes. According to Kleppestø, this could partly explain the link between the political attitudes.
“We do not believe that our genome directly controls our political attitudes. However, we speculate that we are born with a predisposition that is strengthened over time, for example when we find friends with similar preferences,” Kleppestø said.
The researchers believe that you may be born with a personality trait that could lead you into environments where it is enforced. So-called active gene-environment-correlation is well-known phenomenon in behavioral genetics.
Just as easily applies to SJWs, Antifa, etc. Anyone who wants dominance.
So let me get this straight:
Race is a social construct but,
Racism is genetic.
Ok.
Goes to show what – that some Swedes might have been (accidentaly?) misplaced and seen from their genome might rather belong somewhere else? – – – Gay Science indeed – pure Friedrich Nietzsche… whoever is unhappy in his Swedish homeland can count on the help of biologists to go find their true ghost-siblings. And them Swedes then were happy ever – after discovering that “somewhere in this universe there’s a place that you can call home” (Bob Dylan – on Fast Rocket Flyin’ – ooops – a mistake – now this version is correct – if maybe a bit outdated: Bob Dylan on Slow Train Coming.
Makes u think.
Oh they are so planning on murdering us
Obviously, there’s only one solution: eliminate the racists from the gene pool. It’s for the good of humanity. Please report to the camps.
Luckily we have the recently issued by the NMAAH&C of the Smithsonian “White Culture” poster explaining why Anglo-Europeans are so successful.
The finest science experiment since the seminal work of Professor Denzil Dexter, preserved on video:
Courtesy of the Norwegian taxpayer
Black OLives Matter
Racism is a trait that was selected by evolution.
If a particular tribe had an above-average proportion of racists, that tribe would be relatively more vicious towards other tribes. It’d be very aggressive about murdering members of other tribes, stealing their land, abducting their women, and infringing on their hunting domain.
So that particular tribe would experience high population growth and come to predominate in their neck of the woods.
If a particular tribe had an above-average proportion of egalitarians, they’d be more likely to get pushed around by other tribes. They’d often get taken advantage of, eventually developing a reputation as “easy marks.” That tribe would probably have their land, women, and hunting domain stolen. At some point, the tribe would go extinct or get genocided out of existence.
So you’re the descendant of a long line of vicious racists. If your ancestors weren’t racist, they’d have been eliminated.
Nice guys finish last. Financially, sexually, and even genetically.
“Your genes make you evil” is anti-racism now? What a country
This is what passes for research these days?
Boilerplate lies.
Maybe they are a survival trait?
But what we really want to know is whether people who share the same genes share the same attitudes, right? Tell me about your Smörebröt, Prof.
Anyway, there are more genetic differences between me and my neighbour than between me and some Shaka Zulu 6000 miles away with no common ancestry, or so I am being told. So can I synchro-raciss with that faraway person? One could call it the “morphoracistic field”.
New research suggests racism could be a genetic trait
Yeah, it’s a survival trait.
There are also genes for cravenness and self-deception as demonstrated by the paper.
Well duh. Not only is racism genetic, it’s essential for long-term survival. If you think your DNA is nothing special, why bother having kids?
This genetic racism was weakest in the sparsely-populated frozen wastes of northern Europe where everyone you ever met was at least a third cousin, and there was more to be gained by cooperating with strangers than fighting them. This Nordic cuckitude becomes highly maladaptive when plane-loads of Africans arrive every day to take advantage of our generosity.
When whites are labeled “racist”, the word really means “easily cowed and controlled with accusations of racism because they think it’s a bad thing”. No one accuses Chinese people of racism because they’d just laugh and say e.g. “Stupid monkey, go back to African jungle!”
As their low birth rate consigns white liberals to political irrelevance, America’s black population will swiftly drop toward zero, killed off by more recent arrivals with no patience for their ape-like behavior. BLM may in fact be a desperate cry for white people to please stop this genocide while they still can.
These are leftist psychologists making a foray into genetics. Who in their right mind would trust them?
But studying the “gene environment correlation” is worthwhile, because interaction with the environment is genes’ raison d’etre. Instead of Marxist psychologists, biosemioticians should be looking into this stuff.
“Murder of George Floyd”.
Whatever.
Separate biomes. That’s the solution.
Will they bother looking at the genome of any race apart from that of whites for racial preference? This research would seem to imply that i) race is real ii) persons can identify race iii) persons can favour their race or not on an instinctive level.
Lots of White racism gets channeled in strange directions.
For example, over the last couple decades, America (with a certain degree of support from the rest of the West) has been waging a very blood “War on Terror.” That war has resulted in millions being killed, maimed, widowed, orphaned, and/or internally displaced.
So this “War on Terror” (what an Orwellian name) gives Whites the sense that they’re “fighting back against the enemy.” Especially when millions of the most violent Whites have served in the military (or at least have relatives in the military).
It drains them of their aggressive energy and makes them feel like they’re being “tough.”
Here’s another example. Read this comment below.
https://www.unz.com/isteve/black-celebrity-says-caucasians-lack-the-melanin-to-be-compassionate-and-gets-cancelled-but-not-for-that/#comment-4035204
There are lots of FOX News viewers and Breitbart readers who cheer every foreign war. Cheer every time the Israelis beat up the Palestinians. Cheer when they hear that Jews are demographically taking over Israel.
It’s truly bizarre.
Imagine if your tribe got roped into fighting another tribe’s wars. Imagine if your tribe cheered on another’s tribes aggression and succession, seeing that other tribe as fellow co-ethnics.
All your racism would be wasted. Instead of advancing the evolutionary interests of yourself, you’d be advancing the interests of some other tribe.
In the long term, your tribe would go extinct. However, if you continued to live vicariously through another tribe, you might not even realize it.
There’s a term for what the Jews are doing.
Crypsis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypsis
Seems like gene bunch are becoming Gnostics without hope.
Armenian-Georgian-Russian esoteric charismatic teacher Georgi Gurdjieff, who peaked between world wars, insisted that: man is a machine. His main mission in life was to awake a man from this ordinary, workaday life, which is a slumber (ancient Gnostic theme). Gurdjieff was a charismatic; he was an atrocious writer; his best know disciple is philosopher Ouspensky, and Carlos Castaneda took perhaps 70% of his stuff from Gurdjieffian groups & works.
The human potential movement (Maslow, Lily, Ram Dass, Oscar Ichazo, Robert Anton Wilson,..) owes much to Gurdjieff (and to others, of course).
But, modern gene scientistic bunch are defeatists. True, for them, as for ancient Gnostics, man is a machine. Even more, they know some of the mechanisms of that machinery. Just, all Gnostics, for more than 4000 years, called for liberation from a slumber, while scientist reductionist gang is assured that slumber is our destiny.
Putting one’s preferences aside, scientistic bunch is simply limited. Just because they cannot see other colors, they are certain their Daltonist view is the one & only truth.
Wait-
So they’re trying to tell us that ‘race’ is just a social construct, but ‘racism’ is hard-coded in our DNA?
I guess they really can just make this shit up.
“According to a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), beliefs that some groups are superior to others are deeply influenced by genetics.”
And this again brings us to what eventually has to be the end-game of political correctness: white people should not be allowed to procreate with each other.
Because if even babies have an innate predispotion to prefer those who look like them, then how can white supremacy ever be abolished in a world where babies are allowed to have two white parents?
The answer is never. Therefore, at some point, the idea of two white people bearing children will be not just “problematic”, but downright loathsome to the powers that be. Not just among casting directors or photographers or novelists who dare to pick a white born-male and born-female to play the role of the married couple. It’s just going to be regarded as too inbred, too “Deliverance”. And eventually, that will filter down to everyone else who gets to have a say — if they know what’s good for them.
This was a thing in certain Eastern bloc countries as well (e.g. Yugoslavia) — you scored extra political points by being in an ethnically-mixed “cosmopolitan” marriage. I suspect you’ll see that play out similarly in America as well. Not just getting extra points by being able to click on a special box on a college entry form, but an actual penalty for not doing so (though at some point, of course, it amounts to the same thing).
A change is coming — and perhaps eventually, a reaction. I mean, look at Yugoslavia. (And lest anyone tries to twist any of this into some kind of plug for white supremacism, let me also state that anyone who thinks a Breivik or Dylann Roof approach is the right response to any of this is just a useful idiot for those who are trying to bring that end game about. I mean, you might as well be paid agents on their behalf. So, please, pick some other theme for your pathetic loser militia games.)
At least, that’s how it’s looking to me. I’m not saying that any of this has been stated openly yet, but then it’s not really a secret either, and at the least the implication is there:
“Until and unless you yourselves want to eradicate the toxic whiteness embedded in [your] DNA, it’ll never happen and you’ll be crushed trying.”
Is It Racist to Date Only People of Your Own Race?
Yes
(Not strictly directed at whites, but, again, you do the math.)
Though I guess before all that plays out here, it will first play out in Brazil. Or maybe some Trujillo-ist faction or nostalgia in the DR. (Not to mention Israel, though since they can avoid using the hated word “white”, they’ll be able to fly under the radar for a while.)
“Race is a social construct but, Racism is genetic.”
Well, in some sense isn’t everything a social construct? I mean the universe is just brute matter and everything else is a construct of the human mind, in particular the process of abstraction and categorization, right?
Here is Michael Yudell, researcher in the fields of ethics, genomics and public health:
To extend this idea, there have been studies that have NOTICED the biological angle regarding the differences in black and white athletes.
Finally, take into account this hate fact…
What data do we have from the late 1800’s that compared the IQ’s of Western/Northern Europeans and Eastern/Southern Europeans? Consider that Alabama congressman John L. Burnett, chairman of the House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, reintroduced the literacy component of the immigration bill multiple times before it eventually passed in 1917. He also was a member of the Dillingham Commission, which concluded immigrants from southern and eastern Europe posed a serious threat to American society in large part due to their illiteracy.
“To admit the unchangeable differentiation of race in its modern scientific meaning is to admit inevitably the existence of superiority in one race and of inferiority in another,” eugenicist Madison Grant wrote. “The Anglo-Saxon branch of the Nordic race is again showing itself to be that upon which the nation must chiefly depend for leadership, for courage, for loyalty, for unity and harmony of action.” Furthermore, according to nativists, there were marked physical differences between the ethnic groups of Europe, which though intermarriage, would significantly dilute the superior intellect and strength of character of the Anglo-Saxon.
Wait, what? Nordic race?
Source –> https://www.dartmouth.edu/~hist32/History/White.htm
So, historically, this notion of white European racial unity is not entirely accurate.
It still doesn’t have to be innate. Identical twins might have a different view of genetic influence than do non-identical ones, just by virtue of their own knowledge that they are identical. This might be a problem for which twin studies are particularly ill-suited.
Is that any different from covid-19 being able to tell a person’s party affiliation?
“And this again brings us to what eventually has to be the end-game of political correctness: white people should not be allowed to procreate with each other.”
I have a modest proposal, one that guarantees this policy NEVER comes to fruition.
White females in their childbearing prime ought to be shamed, nay coerced, into abandoning their own hopes, dreams, and aspirations to procreate with a God-fearing white man. And dare I say it, but let us also prohibit compulsory schooling for women. All they learn at the state run asylums is how to swear like a drunken sailor and get STD’s. Keep the girls at home where they can start having children at age 18, and then when their kids reach puberty, MAYBE we can entertain the thought of their employment outside of the home, so long as they obtain permission from their husband, the overlord.
Even if young white men and women are ill-prepared intellectually or financially to care for them (freedom be damned!), and despite the wolf of Cultural Marxism that breathes down the neck of innocent Robby or Libby, every single member of the Christian libertarian intelligentsia or Greek Orthodox Brigade is obligated to hit the lecture circuit and step onto the soapbox, with bullhorn in tow, to proudly advertise to the Roissy’s and feminazi’s of the world that their outright refusal to settle down and raise white children is a recipe for demographic homicide.
We are mindful the Roman emperor Augustus made adultery a public crime and established financial penalties for citizens who outright refused to marry and bear a certain number of children. After all, today’s young white people lack the intellectual capacity and political liberty to make their own decisions on this important matter.
Follow the Russian model. Free stuff and gimmedats in the form of housing and education, direct cash payments to women who pop out more chilluns like a Pez dispenser (and even adjusting their work schedules to meet maternal demands!), and programs to dry out the Vodka swilling man-childs running amok. It is worth pointing out that the greatest race on Earth must be compelled to have more children through governmental policy, and damn those who believe this program is a form welfare and social engineering!
So genes can influence mental processes? Maybe the ability to maintain cognitive dissonance is a genetic trait.
Typical comment, but at least you used the “More” tag. So thanks for that.
Well, in some sense isn’t everything a social construct?
No.
Seems to me that racism would correlate strongly with tribalism and tribalism would correlate strongly with recent tribal lifestyle, ie mud huts, straw roofs, animism as religion.
Yes.
If the Left wins the WH and Senate this Fall, they will implement a far-reaching social credit system that will use financial incentives and punishments against whites with the end goal of driving the white fertility rate as close to zero as possible.
No need for all those messy trains and camps with today’s wonderful technology.
You mean the one that has consistently failed to raise the fertility rate to a mere 1.8 for years? With a huge portion of that pathetic rate being born to Muslim women?
You can see how Russia’s birth rate has performed over the decades by googling “Russia birth rate”.
Just face it mate, your women are repugnant slop, and they’re never going to be non-forcibly “compelled” or incentivized to reproduce ever again.
What does that tell you about your race and your disgusting culture? (hint: they’re both fake)
Exactly, a typical comment that you ought to process and learn from.
“Well, in some sense isn’t everything a social construct? No.”
Surprise us other than your standard Anony hijinx by offering a cogent response/rebuttal.
Hmmm…
So correlation = causation.
I always thought that was bad science. Now it’s Woke Science.
So, let’s take a topic like “hard work leads to success” and sample a group of racially/ethnically similar folks from say, the war torn south side of Chicago. Find some identical twins though it might be difficult to find siblings with the same father. But science is hard.
Then find out what the opinion surveys reveal about that belief.
Good “science” can be replicated. Let’s get those Norwegian scientists some tickets on SAS pronto. Make sure they have plenty of clipboards, pens and body armor. PNAS will be eagerly awaiting results.
Well, Einstein, there’s a lot to be said for the lived experience, too. We look about us, and we see groups that monkey-up malls, or shoot a dozen people at a funeral, and we see groups that don’t. We think to ourselves, “which group do I want to live beside?” And, garsh, our racist gene kicks in and counter-intuitively tells us to move over to the magic dirt side of town. Really, who doesn’t want to get in a good healthy Black Friday brawl at Target?
They were downright Newtons compared to the non-Nordic immigrants to his own state over the previous 200 years.
The problem with this analysis is that is assumes that the Jews at the ACLU are right and the white Protestant* William Jennings Bryan was wrong.
That doesn’t sound like standing up to the Jews to me.
* I don’t think he was Angl0-Saxon, though. No WASP, he.
Well, at least that would bring down their breast cancer rates.
I’ve noticed that most American news sources have moved from the murder of GF to the killing of GF, to now the point where many say “the death of GF in police custody.” So I wanted to look up the autopsy report.
Interesting things. First, Google autocomplete NEVER suggested autopsy when I typed the first few letters autop. I had to type the full word. second, the first links that came up were claiming that the “two” autopsies showed that the police killed GF. Third, when I tried to go to the coroner’s website to get the report, it wasn’t there, but the Google cache still had a copy. That’s here:
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:bPUNU7uB-1oJ:https://www.hennepin.us/-/media/hennepinus/residents/public-safety/documents/Autopsy_2020-3700_Floyd.pdf+&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=safari
Naturally, the word homicide does not appear in that report. Its title is:
CARDIOPULMONARY ARREST COMPLICATING LAW ENFORCEMENTSUBDUAL, RESTRAINT, AND NECK COMPRESSION
Is there a comment section at the Norwegian paper? Someone should tell them.
Not this again.
Exactly. But believing that race is a social construct is also a genetic trait. It’s all very meta.
2000 Norwegian twins, fraternal or not! – this study is complete, and utter bullshit. Bullcrap and full of lies of the usual so-called professors in America and Europe. These professors are just garbage and need to be fired. Get them fired and destroy their tenure/retirement.
2000 twins in Norway is collecting rocks on a Norwegian beach! That many twins do not exist in Norway
I despise Democrats/Leftists, mostly, because they are so colossally stupid, ugly, and useless – super ugly – pox on your life – GTFOOH, leave us all alone.
It really is: ugly fat people waging war on normal, un-tattooed people.
I wonder if the genes that make me feel superior to others are located close to the genes that actually make me superior to those people? Genetic linkage like this could explain why racism is so stubbornly persistent.
“Racist genes”?
I’d call ’em “survival genes”.
Potato, potato.
Would they find a race clever enough to lie?
Oh lawd. The most middle of middlebrow tricks to get out of a tight spot. I’ve seen this time and time again when I’ve dragged intelligent-ish people by their hair to a place where they were forced to confront their inconsistencies. Then suddenly…
“…you know, how do we know that anything exists, really? Isn’t everything a figment of our imagination? What does ‘true’ really mean when you get right down to it? How do we know that we don’t live in a simulation? How do you really know 2+2 does not equal 5? Does anything really exist if we don’t have a word for it? Did you know that the inuit have 20 words for snow?”
And, like you, they felt in their heart of hearts that they sounded like a fancy philosopher instead of somebody trying to get away with something.
“They were downright Newtons compared to the non-Nordic immigrants to his own state over the previous 200 years.”
No. The majority of Eastern-Southern Europeans were sub 90 IQ peasant class. According to nativists, aka Heritage Americans, this group would vitiate their stock. You give a ton of excuses when HbD is used against those who employ the argument that whites were unified. I get this noble cause–one has to defend their own (inferior) immigrant past.
No, they are not. Everyone believes that.
This shouldn’t be news to anyone paying attention. Practically everything is partially genetic. A lot of what we call “culture” must have substantial genetic component:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2693086/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2936152/
“Honey, do these genes make me racist?”
I have never claimed that whites were unified. You are mixing up your fellow commenters.
The immigration selection process has gradually but consistenly weakened over 400 years. Not to mention the natural selection process upon arrival. IQ scores from the early 20th century aren’t the most trustworthy metric– the science was still new, the immigrants suffered from serious deprivation (unlike, say, the privileged African and subcontinental classes immigrating today), and many of the “losers” packed up and went home, which almost never happens today.
My own ancestry is split almost evenly between founding stock and Castle Garden-era immigrants, and that’s a good position from which to analyze. Veteran genealogists also harbor no illusions about their own ancestors.
“I have never claimed that whites were unified. You are mixing up your fellow commenters.”
Great to know.
“The immigration selection process has gradually but consistenly weakened over 400 years.”
If you are correct, then you are making the argument for nativists. You must go back.
But, I would like to know what metrics are you basing your assertion on?
“IQ scores from the early 20th century aren’t the most trustworthy metric”
That is what HbD’ers cite, among other statistics.
“the immigrants suffered from serious deprivation (unlike, say, the privileged African and subcontinental classes immigrating today)”
Actually, quite like them.
“and many of the “losers” packed up and went home, which almost never happens today.”
According to nativists, that is an apt description. Were they wrong in their assessment?
“My own ancestry is split almost evenly between founding stock and Castle Garden-era immigrants, and that’s a good position from which to analyze.”
Analyze what specifically?
“Veteran genealogists also harbor no illusions about their own ancestors.”
Such as?
The implicit dilemma (for the left) in this study is this: If race is just a social construct, then racist genes should more or less be evenly distributed among all people, regardless of skin color…and that ain’t gonna work. A study on radicalism genes would be far more enlightening and beneficial to society.
I was warned by a Somaliman I worked with never to fall for sob stories from African travelers. If they could afford a flight to North America, they are almost always from the more privileged classes back home.
He was speaking from experience. You are not.
I don’t know if he’s racist yet, but
Childbirth itself is racist:
You really believe that, or are you just being facetious?
“I’ve seen this time and time again when I’ve dragged intelligent-ish people by their hair to a place where they were forced to confront their inconsistencies.”
OK, so what did I say appeared inconsistent to you?
“they sounded like a fancy philosopher instead of somebody trying to get away with something.”
OK, so what I am apparently trying to get away with?
“I’ve seen this time and time again when I’ve dragged intelligent-ish people by their hair.”
OK, so do some dragging, rather than sliding by with a nothing burger comment.
“You really believe that, or are you just being facetious?”
We, as human beings, try to make sense out of our world. Trees exist. But who named it “a tree”? More importantly, who attempted to differentiate the types of trees in our world? In other words, we as rational creatures create concepts to construct meaning.
What do YOU think on the matter? Apparently, you disagree. OK, why?
“I was warned by a Somaliman I worked with never to fall for sob stories from African travelers. If they could afford a flight to North America, they are almost always from the more privileged classes back home.”
Cool story, bro. But just because he could afford the flight does not mean they are not experiencing political and economic turmoil which necessitates their leaving. And, of course, there are varying degrees of “privileged classes”.
Now, focus…
“and many of the “losers” packed up and went home, which almost never happens today.”
According to nativists, that is an apt description. Were they wrong in their assessment?
“My own ancestry is split almost evenly between founding stock and Castle Garden-era immigrants, and that’s a good position from which to analyze.”
Analyze what specifically?
“Veteran genealogists also harbor no illusions about their own ancestors.”
Such as?
Don’t you think our minds are structured to understand these concepts because they actually exist?
Colors are concepts. Did we construct colors?
I know what you’re getting at, but I disagree with the nominalist position. The idea that it’s all inside our heads doesn’t make sense when you consider that it’s what’s outside of our heads that has the most powerful influence on our mental development and understanding of the world.
What’s more, if we are part of the natural world, we are composed of matter, and we recognize concepts, then this ability is a property of the natural world and therefore quite real.
“Don’t you think our minds are structured to understand these concepts because they actually exist. Colors are concepts. Did we construct colors?”
Our minds are structured to take in information and affix labels to it. We saw an object, made a determination it was “blue”, and shared our knowledge with others.
“consider that it’s what’s outside of our heads that has the most powerful influence on our mental development and understanding of the world.”
It was not as if the color “blue” was always blue and it took someone to say “Hey, that’s blue. Why? Because it is self-evident”. What is in the outside world are concepts we created since the beginning of the development of our species.
“What’s more, if we are part of the natural world, we are composed of matter, and we recognize concepts, then this ability is a property of the natural world and therefore quite real.”
We had transferred our original labels from our observations to future generations, which either confirmed or rejected those concepts. Concepts like “blue” were not self-evidence. It took people to figure things out. Our natural world (environment) surrounds us, it exists, but it took the human race with their ability to reason to make labels of objects found in our natural world (environment).
Why are our minds structured that way? Could it be that the labels are often accurate and helpful, because the things they represent actually exist?
Ah, I get it: you’re a social constructionist (which is a flavor of nominalist).
I think you have it exactly backward. Because we live in the natural world and must adapt to it to survive, we evolved the ability to recognize its attributes. These existed long before we walked on two legs, and they do not depend on our ability to reason, but instead led us to reason.
I can prove it very simply:
When we begin to reason, we do not reason to the quality, but rather from it. In other words, you don’t start from nowhere and then come up with “blue.” You perceive the attribute and then use it to come up with further conclusions. Same with other concepts such as up and down, hard and soft, wet and dry, far and near, etc.
The reason for the confusion is that humans are capable of creating mental worlds that seem to be entirely disconnected from these fundamental qualities of the natural world. However, what people are forgetting is that those are always what they started with. Every single time. Without them, there is no reference point and there can be no truth or consensus (if blue is a social construct, then what if someone disagrees? Does it cease to be blue?).
Well, thanks for being open about your philosophy. Gives me a bit of insight into your worldview, which I always appreciate. I may not agree, but I do respect people who at least make an effort to think things through.
“Why are our minds structured that way? Could it be that the labels are often accurate and helpful, because the things they represent actually exist?”
Once human beings became self aware of their surroundings, they began to label things. Things “actually exist” only after the fact, i.e. once people attached a label to it. The color “blue” is part of our world. But who named it “blue”? How did that person who named it “blue” know it was this specific color?
“Ah, I get it: you’re a social constructionist (which is a flavor of nominalist).”
OK, if you say so.
“I think you have it exactly backward. Because we live in the natural world and must adapt to it to survive, we evolved the ability to recognize its attributes. These existed long before we walked on two legs, and they do not depend on our ability to reason, but instead led us to reason.”
Through this evolvement by way of experience in our natural world, human beings affixed labels to things to make sense. The color “blue” only came into existence because a person named it “blue” based on criteria and then passed on that knowledge to their tribe or offspring. I would say that other people from different areas who had no contact with that tribe/offspring also arrived at this conclusion. As people learned how to make tools and fire by accident or trial and error, or by learning more about the attributes of plant and animal life, then people created naming conventions.
“When we begin to reason, we do not reason to the quality, but rather from it. In other words, you don’t start from nowhere and then come up with “blue.” You perceive the attribute and then use it to come up with further conclusions. Same with other concepts such as up and down, hard and soft, wet and dry, far and near, etc.”
Right, the color “blue” did not appear out of thin air. People through their interactions in their surroundings perceived the attribute, used it in their world, and then put a name to it. This perception came from experience. As a result, they constructed meaning from their physical environment.
“Without them, there is no reference point and there can be no truth or consensus (if blue is a social construct, then what if someone disagrees? Does it cease to be blue?).”
The reference point came from a person’s interactions in their natural world. It was constructed socially as a way to convey meaning. The “truth” or “consensus” came from the group that shared in this knowledge, convinced others of their findings, and it became universally accepted.