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Well... "You shouldn't eat mud" actually felt like a bad example because it follows from some other widely agreed upon truths like "mud is indigestible" and "m

by pluma 10y ago

Well... "You shouldn't eat mud" actually felt like a bad example because it follows from some other widely agreed upon truths like "mud is indigestible" and "mud can contain things that can harm you". "Red light means stop" is obviously a social convention. There's nothing inherent about red light that means stop, it's just a visual language that's become somewhat ubiquitous. "Human life is a precious thing" is the most abstract of the three. It's usually treated as a basic axiom that doesn't need any further justification. The question isn't really "is it true" but "why do we treat it as if it were true". If you look closely the seams become apparent: what is life, what is a human, what follows from something being precious, etc. The three aren't really three examples of a kind but three different examples of different kinds of truths we generally believe "because we were told so".

BugsJustFindMe 10y ago
"You shouldn't eat mud" actually felt like a bad example because it follows from some other widely agreed upon truths like "mud is indigestible" and "mud can contain things that can harm you". Being indigestible or possibly containing things that can harm you do not mean that you shouldn't eat mud. They mean that eating mud might hurt you, which is not the same at all. If anything it's a bad example because it overlaps with the assumption that human life is precious.
- AstralStorm 10y ago
  Is there any utility in eating mud? I think this is where most surviving philosophies and actions are based on. People who waste time on unproductive activities have lower fitness.
  - Turing_Machine 10y ago
    "Is there any utility in eating mud?" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geophagia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geophagia TL;DR: It may be a source of minerals and (possibly) vitamin B-12. There are also some risks to go along with the benefits.

by pluma 10y ago

BugsJustFindMe 10y ago

"You shouldn't eat mud" actually felt like a bad example because it follows from some other widely agreed upon truths like "mud is indigestible" and "mud can contain things that can harm you". Being indigestible or possibly containing things that can harm you do not mean that you shouldn't eat mud. They mean that eating mud might hurt you, which is not the same at all. If anything it's a bad example because it overlaps with the assumption that human life is precious.

AstralStorm 10y ago
Is there any utility in eating mud? I think this is where most surviving philosophies and actions are based on. People who waste time on unproductive activities have lower fitness.
- Turing_Machine 10y ago
  "Is there any utility in eating mud?" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geophagia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geophagia TL;DR: It may be a source of minerals and (possibly) vitamin B-12. There are also some risks to go along with the benefits.