What do you know about humanity?

That there is none in Vancouver....


...and with that I exited laughing a maniacal laugh.

They can come up with stuff like this:

Philosopher's Song
written by Monty Python

Immanuel Kant was a real pissant
Who was very rarely stable

Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar
Who could think you under the table

David Hume could out consume
Schopenhauer and Hegel

And Wittgenstein was a beery swine
Who was just as schloshed as Schlegel

There's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach yer
'Bout the raising of the wrist
Socrates, himself, was permanently pissed

John Stuart Mill, of his own free will
On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill

Plato they say, could stick it away
Half a crate of whiskey every day

Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle
Hobbes was fond of his dram
And René Descartes was a drunken fart
"I drink, therefore I am"

Yes, Socrates, himself, is particularly missed
A lovely little thinker
But a bugger when he's pissed

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_WRFJwGsbY

Good. I'm off to the bathroom singing, "I defecate therefore I am."

Or in memory of our beloved friend, Dyskexua: "I **** therefore I am."

Correction: Dyslexia

A tricky question, this. Its a bit like asking "What do you know about yourself?"

I dont feel there are any meaningful answers to either of these questions.

...about myself I know what I experience, what is tricky about that ?
Should I know what I don´t experience ? others points of view ?
...but I am not in others shoes to experience whatever they experience about me...what they experience about me is a correlation from themselves and my phenomena into them...there´s nothing wrong with that nor is it meaningless...

it comes after humanitarian in the dictionary i own

more than that i can't say with any certainty

Hey, i saw that. it was a funny song, lol...

I know that Hume + T = Hume_and_a_T

(sorry I'm in that kind of mood tonight).

what I know ?

what kind of question is this really ?

I mean shall we get into all the ologies then discuss

that would take 200yrs from what we know now let alone knowledge gained in the mean time

what is the point of the thread ?

Humanity is one thing... That does not stop intelligent people like Aristotle from saying stupid stuff like: The line between vice and virtue is one that divides all of mankind...

The division of that one thing, if it were possible upon any line would mean that humanity was not one thing, but two... In fact, most of us divide humanity in any number of fashions peculiar to ourselves, and upon these arbitrary, and unfounded judgements base the most important decisions of our lives... If we accept humanity as a concept, then we must admit that all divisions are purely circumstancial, and superficial... They cannot divide us completely, but are our common characteristic and property...

i want one that lasts 200 years of discussion, i guess.

...I think you can only divide what once was together, naturally from there divisions have to be circumstantial...so where do you think Aristotle was wrong exactly ?

The tricky part is not what you know, but what to say to others.

I could say humanity is an idiotic and barbaric thing. But what is my basis to say that? What other intelligent races there are out there that I am comparing humanity to? I could say humanity is barbaric and idiotic, or I could say it is intelligent and civilized, and both are perfectly valid. There is nothing to say about humanity because we are all humans, anything we say will be obvious.

I guess

let alone what knowledge is gained in the mean time

see? it's good for us!

We can only divide what we have the power to divide.... When it comes to dividing humanity as we do into all various nations our division is on the basis of some quality we recognize... But if such divisions were true, and there were two kinds of people, for example, then would be human, and the other not human at all, or super human...Concepts cannot be divided.... Cat is a concept, and since it is a genus, is is also a conceptual manifold... Yet, if it were possible to truly divide house cats from lions they would not be defined by the same concept...

The divisions we make on the basis of superficialities between this human and that, between ourselves and others is purely self gratification... Hitler rose to power promising victory to the master race, but as a people they were the most totally servile, and far better at following than leading... What they each needed, the courage to stand alone as individuals they hoped to find following a leader and as a group, but it was illusion... All their traditional groups led them into tyranny... Each of their groups over estmated their ability to reason with Hitler, and under estmated the ruthlessness and determination of the Nazis... The nazis called their take over a great victory... Spengler said there was no opposition in government, so no victory... What hitler wanted for the Germans they wanted for themselves... They wanted to become themselves in the moment of losing themselves and to have this experience at the expense of all inferior people... All they found was their own inferiority, not as human beings, but as victims of failed forms of relationship... Not the schools, the churches, nor even the members of government actually stood up for democracy and made it work... School teachers never took down the picture of the Kaisar until they replaced it with Hitler... The lesson is that we can divide ourselves from humanity by action alone, but no one can do so on the basis of any quality natural to humanity...

...that does not reply to my objection at all...this meaning that divisions obviously have X depth and scope and cannot be absolute divisions at all...turning the transcendental into the into the transcendent is not an option for me either.
Whatever can be divided has a limited extension, and yet that in turn does n´t mean that there are n´t useful and quite functional processes of individualization which may apply to specific contexts...in fact the reason why I don´t confuse myself with the background is precisely indicative of this ability humans have to distinguish real operational functions in different levels and layers of context.