/lit/ - Literature

>>4561007

Names and such are still perfectly valid as long as you understand that you're naming groups, tendencies, and processes, rather than solid objects. You do have to accept that identity is a complex, debatable, and mutable thing. Are you the same person you were yesterday? Ten years ago? What if you got brain damage that changed your personality? There aren't any souls to conveniently answer the question yes or no. You are somewhat the same person, and somewhat not, and wind up having to think things like "that person in the past was about 90% me" rather than "me or not me."

And no science is wholly reductionist. It's just that reductionism is a very effective technique, usually leading to a deeper understanding of the whole. First you figure out how the parts work, then you figure out how they fit together to make the whole, then you figure out the peculiarities of the whole; that's worked in several fields. Where it doesn't work, science studies the whole first.

It's a mistake to think science has any quality other than "find truth." Any technique that verifiably works will be used, subject to ethical and resource limitations.

The only logical conclusion is agnostic deism. Everything else assumes things that cannot be known.

How about give a brutal psychoanalysis of both those for and against eugenics? I would but I don't have the mental energy right now. I can start someone off though. What do both sides want to be true? What does this say about them?

What animals scare you and why?