3 ms·

Oh dear - shame on the official... ... but which countries aren't fictional? Is there really such a thing a country? Its just an idea. I'm not even joking -

Oh dear - shame on the official... ... but which countries aren't fictional? Is there really such a thing a country? Its just an idea. I'm not even joking - countries are a fiction, a social construct - there is no basis for these except as accepted ideas in peoples minds. Like 'Scrooge' or 'government' or 'Jesus' or any number of other things - these are just ideas without a basis in my reality. Do birds or dogs recognise such things?

krapp 3y ago
Try telling the police, a judge or tax collector that the country you live in is merely a fiction with no basis in your reality. I'm sure they will duly vanish in a puff of logic. Models and abstractions can certainly be very real.
- verisimi 3y ago
  I'm sure I would get a bad response! Same as if I went to a very religious area, and disputed the existence of their god. Just cos a bunch of people believe this or that bit of nonsense, perhaps almost everyone, doesn't make it real.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- LAC-Tech 3y ago
  I feel like you missed the point of GP. There's been many situations in history where enough people stopped believing in their country and suddenly the shared fiction was no more. East German police, judges and tax collectors had a lot of power until all of a sudden - they didn't.
  - peteradio 3y ago
    Well I wouldn't suggest to stop believing in Christmas or heaven forbid Santa Claus surely Krampus will beat you with sticks!
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > been many situations in history where enough people stopped believing in their country and suddenly the shared fiction was no more This is like saying crowds aren't real because sometimes people disburse. Like sure, every freshman dorm debated whether reality ends at consciousness. (Descartes did it better.) There is a difference between physical reality and social construct. But there is also a difference between social construct and fiction.
woodruffw 3y ago
> Do birds or dogs recognise such things? Birds and dogs also don't recognize mirrors (or windows, in the case of birds), so this probably isn't the standard you mean to apply :-) Whether or not states are "real" things is probably the wrong question: what matters is whether they're efficacious, which they are.
- verisimi 3y ago
  So an efficacious fantasy is fine? What's so efficacious about a country? Mirrors and windows are specific examples of things that trick the eye, even the human eye. If glass is clear, or a mirror is in an unexpected place, humans are just as capable of making an error as any creature.
  - krapp 3y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence
  - woodruffw 3y ago
    I don’t think reality owes you the right to not make errors. That’s your responsibility as a thinking creature. “Fantasy” is an editorialization. What makes a state efficacious is the fact that we’re all living in some form of one, and are able to talk intelligibly about them.
z2h-a6n 3y ago
Is there really such thing as a bird or a dog? (Might I remind you, that there is no such thing as a fish?). Why not do away with all abstractions? Perhaps it's because abstractions are often useful.
- verisimi 3y ago
  Why descend into absurdity? 'Bird' and 'dog' are linguistic labels for a real thing - instances of them can be pointed at, as they have a physical form.
  - theonemind 3y ago
    The key is that there are no things. What we call a 'thing' is a dense set of relationships. Often, that's between particles of matter that stay close together to due nuclear and chemical bonds or physical forces, but the actual thing itself is a set of relationships. 'dogs', like humans, are not actually separable from 'environment'. At least not live dogs, because the environment contains the oxygen. So in labeling a set of relationships a dog, we've picked an useful set relationships with, on close inspection, somewhat fuzzy boundaries. Then, what is a country? A set of relationships. Usually, a mostly contiguous large chunk of land and ... it involves other things that themselves are big sets of relationships you need to break down, like government. The country typically has government, but that one gets deep. Governments are made of and run by people. Then people consist of ... well, on and on it goes. Anyway, these sorts of paradoxes go away in my experience if one simply recognizes that there are no things. There are only relationships. What's behind the relationships them? Nothing. The relationships are primary.
    - verisimi 3y ago
      You lost me at "nuclear and chemical bonds". I can see birds, dogs. They really are there. You can point at them, touch them, What you are talking about is abstractions. You can choose not to distinguish dogs and birds - that's fine, and you can choose to pretend countries are of the same type. Most people do. All the best.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
ThrowawayR2 3y ago
> "Do birds or dogs recognise such things?" Since dogs and some birds are territorial creatures and will fight to defend territory they perceive as their own, obviously yes, even if only in a rudimentary way.
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> which countries aren't fictional? Fictional means imaginary. When you manifest an idea into the world, it ceases to be imaginary. Countries are not fictions, though they did originate as ones. > just ideas without a basis in my reality Yes, they're social constructs. That doesn't mean they exist outside reality. Far from it.

krapp 3y ago

Try telling the police, a judge or tax collector that the country you live in is merely a fiction with no basis in your reality. I'm sure they will duly vanish in a puff of logic. Models and abstractions can certainly be very real.

verisimi 3y ago
I'm sure I would get a bad response! Same as if I went to a very religious area, and disputed the existence of their god. Just cos a bunch of people believe this or that bit of nonsense, perhaps almost everyone, doesn't make it real.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
LAC-Tech 3y ago
I feel like you missed the point of GP. There's been many situations in history where enough people stopped believing in their country and suddenly the shared fiction was no more. East German police, judges and tax collectors had a lot of power until all of a sudden - they didn't.
- peteradio 3y ago
  Well I wouldn't suggest to stop believing in Christmas or heaven forbid Santa Claus surely Krampus will beat you with sticks!
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > been many situations in history where enough people stopped believing in their country and suddenly the shared fiction was no more This is like saying crowds aren't real because sometimes people disburse. Like sure, every freshman dorm debated whether reality ends at consciousness. (Descartes did it better.) There is a difference between physical reality and social construct. But there is also a difference between social construct and fiction.

woodruffw 3y ago

> Do birds or dogs recognise such things? Birds and dogs also don't recognize mirrors (or windows, in the case of birds), so this probably isn't the standard you mean to apply :-) Whether or not states are "real" things is probably the wrong question: what matters is whether they're efficacious, which they are.

verisimi 3y ago
So an efficacious fantasy is fine? What's so efficacious about a country? Mirrors and windows are specific examples of things that trick the eye, even the human eye. If glass is clear, or a mirror is in an unexpected place, humans are just as capable of making an error as any creature.
- krapp 3y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence
- woodruffw 3y ago
  I don’t think reality owes you the right to not make errors. That’s your responsibility as a thinking creature. “Fantasy” is an editorialization. What makes a state efficacious is the fact that we’re all living in some form of one, and are able to talk intelligibly about them.

z2h-a6n 3y ago

Is there really such thing as a bird or a dog? (Might I remind you, that there is no such thing as a fish?). Why not do away with all abstractions? Perhaps it's because abstractions are often useful.

verisimi 3y ago
Why descend into absurdity? 'Bird' and 'dog' are linguistic labels for a real thing - instances of them can be pointed at, as they have a physical form.
- theonemind 3y ago
  The key is that there are no things. What we call a 'thing' is a dense set of relationships. Often, that's between particles of matter that stay close together to due nuclear and chemical bonds or physical forces, but the actual thing itself is a set of relationships. 'dogs', like humans, are not actually separable from 'environment'. At least not live dogs, because the environment contains the oxygen. So in labeling a set of relationships a dog, we've picked an useful set relationships with, on close inspection, somewhat fuzzy boundaries. Then, what is a country? A set of relationships. Usually, a mostly contiguous large chunk of land and ... it involves other things that themselves are big sets of relationships you need to break down, like government. The country typically has government, but that one gets deep. Governments are made of and run by people. Then people consist of ... well, on and on it goes. Anyway, these sorts of paradoxes go away in my experience if one simply recognizes that there are no things. There are only relationships. What's behind the relationships them? Nothing. The relationships are primary.
  - verisimi 3y ago
    You lost me at "nuclear and chemical bonds". I can see birds, dogs. They really are there. You can point at them, touch them, What you are talking about is abstractions. You can choose not to distinguish dogs and birds - that's fine, and you can choose to pretend countries are of the same type. Most people do. All the best.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

ThrowawayR2 3y ago

> "Do birds or dogs recognise such things?" Since dogs and some birds are territorial creatures and will fight to defend territory they perceive as their own, obviously yes, even if only in a rudimentary way.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

> which countries aren't fictional? Fictional means imaginary. When you manifest an idea into the world, it ceases to be imaginary. Countries are not fictions, though they did originate as ones. > just ideas without a basis in my reality Yes, they're social constructs. That doesn't mean they exist outside reality. Far from it.