Imo there’s the problem, self-awareness has no built-in features. Self-awareness is simply the raw sensation of existing, of being there, the raw capacity for identification. But other than that, self-awareness by itself is completely featureless, empty, contentless.
Identity is largely socially constructed however. In humans, some or all of that identity gets intertwined with self-awareness. (Many humans seem to be self-aware, but logically there should be humans that aren’t, so those should have identity without self-awareness.)
Trans people may have a lot of trouble with the socially constructed identity part, not the self-awareness part.
You have a constructed identity within the framework of society. Your identity within society, which you learn as you grow. What you are saying is true for that kind of identity. Yes.
Your identity as a human being is mostly constructed. It revolves around a myriad things you deduct from interactions with other people.
However, there is a deeper layer to identity.
You cant be aware of yourself if you have no concept of self. Thats a contradiction.
If you have a concept of self, that automatically means you are aware of your own identity.
We can argue the extent of that identity. But its simply not possible for you to have self-awareness without a self.
This is also in consensus with your constructed identity. Otherwise a trans person’s identity could not clash with society’s constructed identity/expectations.
They know themselves to be different than the construct. That is specifically the core of my issue.
They have an identity.
Its self defined and is derived directly from self-awareness.
They absolutely do not need any external affirmation of any kind. They are who they are, even without the approval or affirmation of others.
“Self” and “self-awareness” both have the word “self” in them. Just ignore that, those two “self” words refer to two wildly different things. “Self-awareness” isn’t awareness of the “self”. “Self-awareness” is what I’ve described above, and “self” is largely a socially constructed thing.
Of course our Western philosophers couldn’t figure out much of anything for centuries, so they wouldn’t know how to name things properly.
Some humans have a self and identity, but have (are) no self-awareness, so there’s no one actually there, no one actually home. Those are just automatons.
That’s where the idea of the P-zombie actually comes from, but our philosophers couldn’t figure out that one either, so they think that P-zombies lack qualia. No, they have qualia, but they lack self-awareness.
That depends on what you mean by human. Are they members of the Homo Sapiens species? Yes. Is “SOMEONE” actually there? No.
That’s similar to the Cluster B problem. If you define human as a member of the Homo Sapiens species, then Cluster Bs are human. If you define human as having empathy (among other things) then Cluster Bs aren’t human.
Yeah. Actually I think everyone starts like that, the self-awareness emerges in early childhood, but before that we didn’t have it. And I suppose in some people it never happens. The world isn’t human-centered, humans are irrelevant. So it doesn’t matter that some of us are automatons.
But again, the trans thing should be more of a social issue.
Well yes, there are bans for sure. Did that actually help or did it make that worse I assume you already know how ‘hate speech’ is a blanket term than can be considered whatever you want, and it’s quite easy to point out Socrates being punished for that in a philosophy forum.
It’s like banning people from saying the Earth is flat. If something is untrue, it’s best to discuss it openly. If you cannot talk about it freely, you cannot show how it doesn’t make sense.
Yeah, people are prejudiced about anything, but the ID point was just an example. For example if you change your facial hair drastically, sometimes police forces you to change your ID in some places.
I still don’t understand what you meant by what I asked
The point of this, basically, that for something to be taken into account it must be just and true, not just convenient
Oh no, the self has nothing to do with sociability, and it is not something constructed. In any case, for you being able to construct something at all, you need a you there, which is the identity. The self is what you are, the identity.
Now, your self-identification can be changed, or constructed if you want to talk about it that way: For example, you go for Westham and after you see some plays, you end up going for Manchester United
By ‘self-awareness’ you mean reflective thought @Atla, it seems. Quite like self-criticism.
You mean that there can be biological humans with no self (soul if you like). Like biological machines. Well, we cannot know one way or the other (that’s the point of it), even if we measure them as being Cluster B, so it’d be unjust to treat someone as being something (lacking self) just becase it looks like something else.
You are mixing up identity with self-identification and identification all along in here. If you are more precise, I think you totally agree with @Atla. For example, it is completely possible.
For example, your last sentence turns out to be something like this:
“They have a self-identification… They absolutely do not need any external affirmation of any kind. Their self-identification and identity doesn’t depend on the identification by others”
I will try to keep it short, because on that one I could write pages.
The example I gave with Germany was to show that restraining certain freedoms is not a black and white thing, often there is a large grey area.
Is it true that certain expressions were part of Germany’s past? Yes. Is it just to allow them being repeated in public speeches? If you do that, you risk the social peace in Germany and you may wake up memories and skeletons of the past. What you call conveniency, Germans call necessary condition for their nation to not fall apart. They do not need a second Hitler and they are willing to do that by restraining certain liberties.
The more you read history, the more you realize that each case of human rights restriction should be judged according to the facts of the time and the reasons that imposed it. Most of the nations that have undergone civil wars achieved social peace afterwards by not allowing individuals to bring back memories.
As a final note (not important for the discussion, so you can skip it if you like):
Socrates being punished for speaking freely is questionable historically. First of all, he was executed on 399 BC, when he was 70 years old, while he was teaching in Athens for all his adult life. Second, the record of the trial comes from his student, Plato, which had similar ideas with Socrates and was never punished for them. Quite the opposite, he created the first philosophical school.
Some historical background: a few years prior the trial, Athens lost the Peloponnesian war. Sparta, the winner, imposed 30 tyrants in Athens that tortured and killed many. Among the tyrants was Critias, a prominent student of Socrates. The tyrants did not stay for long in power, they were overthrown after a few months (404 BC-403 BC).
Historically, it seems more reasonable to assume that the primary reason for his death sentence was that Socrates was seen as a teacher of the enemies of the state.
PS: Sorry for the long history account. I love history and I see it as an important factor for developing philosophical ideas.
What did confuse you there? Just tell me the first thing so that we con go on from there. Do ask, I’m all for making it clearer. Was the first sentence not clear for you?
@ghatzige you risk the social peace by not repeating those too, that’s the point. You never lose the risk to social peace. Plus, social peace is not an end that justify that means. Exactly, many people call differently what is convenient. Certainly, banning a speech won’t avoid a ‘second Hitler’, and the ends don’t justify the means, or do you think they do?
Socrates being even a completely fabricated story works the same in this context, tho I like the info!
I could argue that a big mistake of Germans after the First World War was to allow individuals to publically propose racist explanations for the war loss. Thus, economic crisis allowed Hitler to combine an economic plan with openly shared racist views. Germans of his time liked the economic growth from 33 to 39 and closed their eyes on the rest of his policies.
Certainly, banning liberties does not guarantee social peace. Yet, when leaders are forced to take decisions, they take them accounting for the average citizens (often emotionally driven) and not only those with the capacity to analyze calmly and rationally the facts. You and I may be able to have civilized discussion without restrictions on speech, this is not though the case for everyone.
You said identity = self = you (the “I” I guess) = your “born” identity like Australian. And this has nothing to do with sociability, and it is not something constructed.
I can’t address anything here as it doesn’t even attempt to make sense.
Identification is a broad concept. It can be external, internal, biological, ideological… it basically has no limits in terms of specifications and most of it is a construct.
What i was talking about was completely raw and basic.
Self-awareness requires an idea of self. Its the mirror experiment.
An animal that is capable of recognizing itself in a mirror, has a concept of self, and with that comes the identity.
This is me. That thing in the mirror is me.
I can feel certain ways about myself when i look at it, but thats me.
I am honestly not sure where i am talking past some of you in this thread who claim that there is too wide a gap between identity and self-awareness.
I dont see it.
One is rooted in the other. One is not possible with the other. They are borderline cause and effect.
I cant look in a mirror, recognize myself, and then at the EXACT SAME TIME, not recognize myself at all but instead deflect to some nonsense like “im looking at a social construct”. Like… what?
Imo animals probably don’t think in ideas and concepts. Humans do that, because humans have also developed abstract thinking. Even the few other self-aware species on the planet probably don’t do that, they don’t use abstract thinking. Imo self-awareness is even more raw than that, it doesn’t require ideas or concepts. It’s simply the sensation of being there, the sensation of existing.
Self-awareness seems to be a soft-emergent phenomenon that seems to happen when a few billion or few ten billion neurons are packed together in a small enough volume. But it’s a mistery how and when it emerges. It has no known correlated brain regions.
Naturally since its an emergent phenomena coming from abstract thought.
Yet its not as simple as for instance “proprioception“. You close your eyes and you can touch your nose despite having no visual feedback because you have a “sensation” of your body.
Even if animals cant formulate concepts, they need to have the same kind of capacity for abstract thought to process the idea of a “me”.
But admittedly this is an entire different topic.
We were specifically talking about this in regards of humans.
You look in a mirror, you understand that its you. This capacity one way or another is intertwined with identity. There is no “thats me” without having no concept of a “me” on any level.
You could make the argument that it requires association.
A learned connection of “me” and “the image of me”, but that does not really contradict what i am saying. You do not need anyone’s approval or affirmation to figure out that you are you.
In humans, the raw self-awareness gives rise to the “I”.
Western philosophy is based on the “I”. Eastern philosophy is based on seeing through the illusory parts of the “I”.
A trans person can have trouble with the “I” and trouble with the sexual identity, especially if those two are merged, which is usually the case. Because others will often say that they can either be male or female, and there are no other options. So they are told that what they are trying to identify with, doesn’t exist. The raw contentless self-awareness is there, but it can’t intertwine with a stable self-image.
A similar thing is happening to many BPDs, they often have an unstable self-image due to the uncontrollable emotional chaos.
Imo that’s what they mean that their existence needs to be affirmed, it’s typically not a problem with the raw self-awareness itself.
