Peterkin

Even more basically, we are a pattern-seeking species. We need to make sense of everything around us; organize information into coherent narrative - even if we lack vital data, we fill in the blanks. We are also intensely self-reflective: we need to impose our sensibility, our mode of thought, our volition, onto the world around us. We need to establish purpose and causation on every event: the human imagination requires that, if we didn't make something happen, an entity like ourselves, only more powerful, must have. Plus, we are constantly aware of death and have a strong aversion to experiencing it, even as we inflict it on others.

waste effort

No. To a fly, most mantids look like plants, which mean nothing to a fly. To a beetle, however, they're predators. There is no trap: the mantis has to actively catch its prey, just like coyotes and humans. A plant just has to sit and wait. That's a big difference, as is the POV. Do you have a comment or question or something? No.

And most things just don't need knowing. Good philosophy! Or, you could start a whole thread about why no such discussion should take place.

Wond'reous insects, to be sure, but neither plant nor animal.

Because mantids are insects.

No problem. I'm fine with that.

Willingness isn't the key ingredient. Nobody except some fabled yogis, who would never be suspected, let alone detained, can control his or her own pain-threshold. And torture isn't necessarily about pain; it can be about fear: people can't control their phobias. A much biggest problem is not knowing what the torturer wants to hear. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzw1_2b-I7A My problem is lack of faith. I don't believe in the infallibility of law-enforcement agents, in the accuracy of information extracted through coercion, in the suspect's absolute 100% guilt - I simply don't have faith in the script. I trust - guardedly - forensic science and painstaking detection technique. I trust - with reservations - due legal process and laws crafted by jurists in good standing. Anything beyond the evidence I can prove scientifically is theory, guesswork, hunch, gut feeling, speculation, gamble, faith, voodoo.

We sacrifice a specially fattened meatball every Thursday at 11:29 pm. you're invited. PS Don't tell deepend.

Excellent. We are in total agreement on this one issue.

That's a little bit wasteful, too, as the unfertilized human egg takes with it the sloughed-off uterine lining that would have been required by an embryo. But as resources go, a non-birth is far cheaper than a birth. The hen would have to spend the next three weeks incubating and four or five more, taking care of the brood. That's about i sixth of the hen's life spent on reproduction - but she would have up to 20 chicks to show for it. In the wild, probably 6-10, of which one or two might reach maturity. Live mammalian births are far more costly in terms of parental investment.

Who, me? No. Caged factory chickens never see a rooster at all, so your supermarket eggs are quite sterile. Free range chickens may or may not be co-ed. If so, the eggs are 'candled' to sort out any that might have embryos in them. The rooster (just one, or very few; unwanted males are butchered quite young) is kept separate from the hens, who lay one egg every day or every second day during their productive period (fewer and smaller when they're just maturing, and when they're growing old, as well as in winter), and immediately abandon it, as being no use to them. Hens become 'broody' in the springtime, which was once their natural nesting season. At this time, they are more possessive of the eggs they lay and will sit on them, rather than walk away. If the farmer wants a new batch of chicks to rejuvenate her stock, that's when the rooster is allowed into the hen-house.

Domestic fowl have different life patterns from their wild ancestors. A wild bird could lay unfertilized eggs, and sometimes do, in captivity, when they have no mate. However, they only do so in the nesting season of their species. Once the season is over, their ovaries shrink (reducing their weight for flight during the busy time when they have to get food for their chicks. Domestic fowl are sedentary; don't have to fly great distances, or catch their own food, or raise their hatchlings, if they have any. They're bred to be heavier, fatter, and more fecund: domestic chickens ovulate year round (or almost; egg production slows during winter). In short, like the size and variety of dogs, it's a man-induced change.

Huh?? No idea how that happened. I was quoting from deepend's post, not yours. That one.

really? I've met Chinese people of quite different temperaments, proclivities, tastes and habits. Even New Yorkers are not all similar. I don't know any fashion models. I just don't see eco-systems can exist in that kind of spatial greyscale, or who provides the stimuli and the programming. nope. Just doesn't work for me. Sorry.

You are wrong in thinking that I am wrong. It has nothing to do with ghosts or woo or any of that nonsense. It's far deeper in human social development, farther back in time, far more basic. Why should i even try? Christianity is such a late-comer to supernatural beliefs, so embedded in the civilized era of human history, was so quickly absorbed into imperil politics that it's almost entirely artificial. How is that relevant to the origins ofr functions of religion? How many religions are you familiar with? And how familiar? Obviously. I submit that you are wading in the baby pool of this subject. A little more reading would help. Are you aware that the majority of 'normal' people subscribe to some religion?

No, it wouldn't. Cold is a sensation, not a personality type. Greed is a trait, which part of a personality. Nobody lives very long in either place. Just as events in the rest of world tend not to be stable and permanent. To each kind of external event, people react in different ways, according to their personality. To each kind of single stimulus, people respond differently. OK. So tell us about the analyst or architect or whoever does this pre-programming, so that people are able to respond to stimuli.

I see. Nothing more than the reasons I enumerated. And no guarantee of getting the desired results. Not a shortcut, just a lot faster than gathering admissible evidence. Unfortunately, if it's not scripted, you cannot be certain of the prisoner's guilt, nor that he has the information you seek. So "beyond reasonable doubt" is in the estimation of the torturer. And the torturer can be any police officer or intelligence agent - not just the smart, tolerant, ethical ones. The odds of getting the desired result diminish in direct proportion to your departure from the script. This is consideration. Because real life is just too unscripted for instant, absolute answers. (Plus, I'm obtuse.)

No, because that's what I said it was used for. Then you said, So I asked: what else? What was I wrong about? And how did that quote apply to what I was wrong about?

to accomplish what, other than 1. preventing a further crime 2. gaining information and 3. extracting a confession?

In the same old same old same old same *sigh* Sanford quote, what is it they are arguably accomplishing in these one-off emergency situations, other than: 1. preventing a further crime (as, eg the murder of a child) 2. gaining information about the prisoner's accomplices (as eg where the other terrorist planted the bomb) and 3. extracting a confession (as eg: ?

Example: you under an avalanche; you at at ice-cream bar. Scared person and greedy person. Of course people respond to their environment, other people and whatever happen to them. How is that a reflection on personality or the meaning of personality or the lack of a personality? BTW, I wouldn't be quite so quick to pronounce on what "nobody understands". I don't begin to scratch a sliver of the surface of all the things all those other people understand. I have only a tentative grasp on what I myself understand.

Oh, I se. Automata, except you can make them cry or goad them to rage. https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/tipus-tiger

IOW - there is no such thing as a personality. However, in order for your proposition to be true, there had to be something internal , some entity or mechanism, which was able and willing to respond to external stimuli. If that was so, such an entity or machine might equally well be able and willing to initiate action and elicit a response from the environment. And, of course, there remains the question of who or what did the preprogramming. You might be closest to this school of thought https://www.simplypsychology.org/behaviorism.html

Why would you want that? We have plenty of natural human beings. What do we need artificial ones for? It seems to me, robots are made for tasks to which humans are not well suited: hazardous, monotonous, heavy, dirty, uncomfortable work. If the robots learned to hate their jobs as much as humans do, what is their advantage? More to the point, how do you make them carry on?