Thread 96530421

Whats the actual line in the sand you use to differentiate man and beast in your setting? is it puzzle solving? bipedal locomotion? language?

What blurs the line for you?

A particular psycho-spiritual quality that self-reinforces identity to persist almost indefinitely, thus providing Things On The Other Side a reason to give a damn about you; more colloquially referred to as "having a soul".

>>96530421 (OP)
True monsters are not actually alive in a meaningful way. They are a mass of solid spiritual energy and malice that, for all intents and purposes, mimics what one would expect a body to act and react like.

Their true form is their core which exists where their heart would kind of make sense to exist and many have no level of real intelligence or sapience.

The ones that do appear Human are the rare ones of a high standing even if they don't possess the brute strength or magical power of their lesser kin.

When killed, their remains essentially evaporate leaving some residue behind but if you try to eat their bodies you'll suffer acute metaphysical poisoning where the mass of malice and soul stuff poisons your own soul and manifests physically resulting in death 99% of the time.

>>96530421 (OP)
Does it have a soul?

>>96530421 (OP)
The philosophers of the setting largely agree that it's an ineffable quality instiled by divine will.
They are wrong, there is no hard line, but the civilised races are all far removed enough from what they consider beasts, with no remaining "links", to make them appear right without access to shitloads of archaeology and genetic study and such.

They consider the "beastlike" races to still be civilised beings with full souls, just shit by choice - they think kobolds and goblins choose to suck so its OK to kill them, for rejecting divine providence.

There is no magic that can measure or control a "soul" in the setting, so they don't have that as a measuring-stick. There is magic that can draw "bodily mana" and harm or heal people by manipulating that and that is as close to a soul as actually exists, but again, the philosophers and mages of the day don't know that. They accept that souls must exist and must therefore be beyond all mortal reach

>>96530421 (OP)
I have three things:
Sapient mortals (humans, elves, orcs, mindflayers, etc.)
Non-sapient mortals (cows, pigs, giant spiders, etc.)
Immortals (angels, demons, etc.)

>>96530421 (OP)
"Has a language that can be taught to a different species", this qualifies both of them to be considered "people". It's similar to how the lines of "species" is defined as "can produce fertile offspring with the opposite sex".

>>96530421 (OP)
IRL in an anthropology class one of the requirements for sapience was unironically bipedal locomotion, and I raised my hand and said "What if a centaur existed?" and everyone just laughed at me like it was a retarded premise.
I'm assuming that a culture with more than one actually sapient race would have standards less retarded in some ways, but still retarded in others.
I'm assuming that the capacity for communication would probably be the ticket, a la >>96530958 but the exhausting specifics of that would have to be legislated.

>>96530421 (OP)
There is no definite hard line that exists as a universal truth. All the religions and philosophies of the setting approach the question, but they reach a pretty wide range of conclusions. It doesn't help that some of those philosophers are themselves talking foxes--and not anthropomorphic ones, either. Of course, the existence of the Rattling Host could make the question REALLY messy and uncomfortable, but it's fortunately quite content to label itself as not a person.

>>96531093
>IRL in an anthropology class one of the requirements for sapience was unironically bipedal locomotion

>>96531093
The hell does walking around have to do with sapience? There's arguments for correlation, in that more complicated methods may require too much brain activity to leave room for sapience to emerge, but a strict requirement seems completely nonsensical. This isn't a mail order course from the university of phoenix or something, is it?

>>96531117
I assume he meant requirements as in the evolutionary requirements for sapience to evolve in a species, not like a requirement as in part of the definition of sapience is that it includes bipedal locomotion
At least I hope so, otherwise that class would be retarded without recognition

>>96530421 (OP)
>what separates man from beast
a condom, usually.

>>96530421 (OP)
Stats or whatever suits the story I wanna tell or adventure I wanna run.

>>96530421 (OP)
Positive or 0 EMP

>>96531141
It was University of Houston.
It's actually legitimate, too. If you crack open an Anthropology textbook, it actually is listed as a requirement. Shit's written down, plain as day. I don't want to go digging through my boxes of old books to find it, so just take my word for it that I've seen it listed in as such in at least two different books.
It's obviously stupid from a logical perspective, but I guess it holds up in academia because it's just taken for absolute granted that sapience = human, and there's no real reason to give a shit about the definition beyond just describing a human. Non-human sapience is still ultimately a hypothetical that exists within the realm of fantasy, so it seems legit Anthropologists don't give much thought to what "Sapience" even means, exactly.

>>96531218
Does that mean double amputees aren't sapient?

>>96531226
There's a difference between something that's always true and something that's always true in principle. Humans have two legs. Double amputees and weird mutants might exist, but they're supposed to have two legs, in principle.
Not that I'm really interested in arguing about it. It's still fucking retarded and we've known it's fucking retarded since Diogenes.

>>96530421 (OP)
What has he got?
If not himself, then he has naught
To say the things he truly feels
And not the words of one who kneels
The record shows I took the blows
And did it my way

>>96531093
>most birds are sapient
>amputees are not sapient

>>96531218
The reason would be to exclude certain humans from sapience, or to include certain animals. Most people aren't going to be very interested in doing either of those things.

Yes they would be you dumb faggot lol

>>96531670
Anon, biological definitions assume a typical and healthy specimen. I'm so sorry you have a hard time understanding this

>>96531864
But enough talk. Have at you!

>>96530421 (OP)
Mechanically? An int score of -2 or higher, which indicates a minimum ability to communicate, plan for the future or otherwise consider the concequences of actions in and out of a social context, and of course posessing awareness of self. A dolphin or dog comes in at -3, lizards at -4, frogs and insects that fail the wax dot test at -5 and trees and rocks at -6.

In setting? Pretty much just speech. The world is only 800 years old, they havent thought about it much yet

>>96531942
>biology, the study of meat machines
>sapience cannot exist anywhere else for some reason
My respect for anthropology as a field is plummeting

>>96532132
I'm sure the field will be very saddened and moved by the fact that a troll doesn't respect them.

>>96532155
how unintelligent. you wouldnt happen to have one leg would you?

>>96532221
no I'm not like you

>>96532228
nah mate ive got three legs ask your mum

not sapient, not human :)

>>96532155
Two trolls.

>>96530421 (OP)
If it has a society, a culture, a language that was created rather than something like barks or growls, and a roughly humanoid build, it's people.

Otherwise, it's animals.

>>96530421 (OP)
What are you talking about? If you're a member of homo sapiens, you're human. Obviously.

>>96532297
homo-neanderthalensis are also humans though, as are Denisovans

Obviously false, no rebuttal required.

>>96530958
>"can produce fertile offspring with the opposite sex"

Fuck you and your "opposite sex" crap.
>t. snails

Fuck you and your "opposite sex" crap
>t. so many species of bacteria

Fuck you and your "opposite sex" crap
>t. Tetrahymena thermophila with seven sexes

Fuck you and your "opposite sex" crap
>t. Eulimnadia texana with one male and two types of hermaphrodites that can self-fertilise or mate with males but cannot mate with other hermaphrodites

Anyone know the official reproduction cycles of oozes, slimes and jellies? Some of them are described in various editions as reproducing by budding or asexual, but given the wealth of reproductive strategies, even the few I just mentioned, there are options. If the offspring are clones as asexual and budding implies then they are at risk of a single environmental change or a single disease wiping them out which is something to keep in the back of my mind for a save the ooze side quest.

>>96531942
nah, it's like...
in the byzantine holy roman empire, blind ing people was considered a special kind of maiming, it made you permanently unfit for power or office or anything other than pity and contempt.

imagine if cutting someone's legs off turned them into a p-zombie, or a crippletard who became a biological automaton.
that's some worldbuilding weird shit I want to lean into right there.

>>96530421 (OP)
I can't think why it would ever matter. Or why you'd assume everyone agrees on a single definition.

>>96532478
No asexually-reproducing siphonophore colony organism representation?

No starfish reproducing by fisherman?

>>96532596
No, even though I mentioned bacteria I was focussing on sexual reproduction, but you have it covered so it's all good.

>>96532478
>Tetrahymena thermophila
The fact that there's an organism basically named "four vagina hot loving" is amazing to me.

>>96532668
The genus is named for it having one paroral membrane (hymen in Ancient Greek) and three membranelles all used for feeding. But who in their life hasn't though of repurposing a good oral interface and its gently undulating membrane?

>>96532132
>My respect for anthropology
There isn't a field of science that hides or misconstrues information more than anthropology my man. Easily the gayest scientific field.

>>96532478
Hermaphroditic animals still reproduce sexually. Hell when they mate most snails fight over who fucks who, species that impregnate eachother at the same time being a rare exception rather than the assumed rule.

>>96533265
Hold on now, you cant just say that and not clarify if you count psychology as a science

>>96533274
But not between an opposite sex is it? They're all the same hermaphroditic sex producing both sex cells
Wait, is that technically homosexual? Are all snails gay?

>>96533274
>Hermaphroditic animals still reproduce sexually.
Why are you implying that I implied hermaphrodism isn't sexual?

>>96533309
You still need the function of opposing sexes for a hermaphroditic animal to even exist.

>>96533336
Entirely wrong and doesn't even begin to address my question.

>>96531093
>>96531141
>>96531218
Looked it up and this isn't even true. Bipedal locomotion helps develop sapience because it frees up the hands for tool usage and upright gait makes the face more seeable for social communication.

But it definitely isn't required, see Cephalopods, Corvids and Dolphins/Whales.

>>96533336
Thats hilariously wrong. They're only hermaphroditic from our perspective - from theirs we're each one half of a single complete sex. You need two sex cells, but they dont need to be opposing. The origin of sexual reproduction would have been two identical cells that eventually evolved into two sets with one shrinking for motility and the other growing to stockpile nutrients

The thing we do is a highly differentiated and arguably degraded version of the original. we're not "normal" and we're certainly not required

>>96533481
Boetzman brain
Colony intelligence
Jumping spiders

>>96530421 (OP)
>differentiate
I don't.

>>96530421 (OP)
It's never been relevant in any of my games, but in my current one the objective existence of an immortal soul is a clear dividing line. In general I kind of feel like that distinction being blurry and open to argument both in-setting and out-of-setting might be better than it being clear-cut, though.

>>96530421 (OP)
>Whats the actual line in the sand you use to differentiate man and beast in your setting?
Doesn't matter. If corvids for example could even get smarter than adult humans someday, it still is not a human.

>>96530421 (OP)
-Individual souls. Thus you have identity. Thus you are a mortal, fit to die and reincarnate.

-Immortals can be intelligent, and the avatar of your city's soul can join drink a lot of booze, but granny Rema-rema isn't a mortal.

-Animals have their species' souls, but lack anything more personal. If you give it a name, and foster its identity, it can develop a soul, same as a funny-shaped rock.

-Particularly sordid crimes result in sentencing a person to be branded a "monster". There are those that think that Orcs are the result of such outlaws being reshaped by their pariah status.

-If one raises a child with careful lack of naming and care, no positive neither negative feelings whatsoever, one can create a soul-less organic being, a homunculus without alchemy.

>>96530421 (OP)
How they react to the gom jabbar

>>96534396
>monopedal amputee puts their prosthetic foot in the box

>>96532478
Asexual reproduction doesn't rely on fertility (hell it could be argued that your immune system reproduces asexually) but fair point on the snails and shrimp

>>96532668
Is this organism where Char Aznable got his pseudonym from in Zeta Gundam?

>>96530421 (OP)
My setting has not supernatural elements so such demarcation does not exist.

>>96534396
This was the pain box test? Bro if there was a box I could stick my hand into and feel intense pain with zero actual damage I'd stick my dick there for fun on daily basis.

>>96537424
fuck
you might be right
Tomino has a huge tendency to add whatever he read on the news that morning. For example coffee farmers in 0079 match the attempts of exiled coffee farmers to return to Japan from Peru, people point out that Kamille uses the proper medical term for autist in the iconic line, there's a big chance Tomino watched a documentary about that thing and though "Quatro Vagina sounds pretty cool"

>>96538130
I swear, it's because for some fucking reason, Char had three previous pseudonyms. Quatro was his fourth. Tomino alone knows what the fuck a Bajeena is, though.

>>96538415
You don't have to point out every nogames thread you know? Solid 2/3 of all threads are nogames these days.

>>96538510
It's like pointing your finger at the sky and saying it's blue. No harm done but you're kinda pointing out the obvious.

>>96531240
So, an emu and penguin is sentient? Sounds more like a bunch of religious nuts trying to think up ways to prove they are 'chosen'. "Yeah, we are sentient because we go to heaven and um walk on two legs, dogs arnt because they don't."

>>96530421 (OP)
Maybe have more than one line in the sand? You could have some priests arguing that only man goes to heaven because man is special and chosen, while druids argue that man is an animal, like all the others, so will reicarnate like them and often as them. You could have a spritual war going on, both sides trying to convert people so they go to heaven or reincarnate?

>>96530421 (OP)
Men have faces and bodies like the ones the gods had, that's it. There are other races that try, but they either have ungodly bodies (manticores) or ungodly faces (fomori), or are tortuous little creatures (gnomes). Each race is only fertile among itself, so it might be wrong to say race instead of species.

>>96530421 (OP)
The ability to have sex purely for pleasure and not for social status, children, or to turn off the agony of being in heat.

>>96530421 (OP)
"Can you hold a gun?"

>>96545918
*Quacks to the affirmative.*

>>96532478
>>96530958
it's always weird to me seeing people seethe about sex and gender when mushrooms have thousands of the things.

>>96530958
>It's similar to how the lines of "species" is defined as "can produce fertile offspring with the opposite sex".

This isn't true tho lol

>>96531942
Definitions in scientific fields typically require it to apply to all cases not just avg cases. Is biology one of those fields where they kind of play loose goosy with the concept of scientific laws?

>>96550016
Biology is a clusterfuck of clusterfucks of clusterfucks of clusterfucks all engaging in chemical reactions to create the illusion of a single being.

>>96549978
It's close enough.

>>96530421 (OP)
The line between man and beast is the DM screen separating me and the apes I call players.

Interesting, bump.

>>96550221
Have you never seen a mathmatical proof before? Or an actual scientific law? Imagine trying to put for a physicial law that was only *typically* true lol

>>96561018
>Imagine trying to put for a physicial law that was only *typically* true
I'll take General Relativity for 500, Jerry

>>96561145
General relativity holds true for all known and testable cases

>>96562562
Not if you're anywhere near a singularity it don't.

>>96563004
All substantiated plausible singularities are untestable. That's what having an event horizon means. There's a few hypotheticals for "naked" singularities but no candidates.

>>96531218
>It's actually legitimate, too. If you crack open an Anthropology textbook
Anthropology is philosophy/sociology/psychology done wrong.
>but I guess it holds up in academia
Things can hold up in academia centuries after common observation disprove them. There are still university teachers defending the idea that color ontology is entirely private, even if you can go and buy color correcting lenses, and have been able to for over a decade. I've had a teacher in philosophy of language dismiss a study showing how some apes could build syntagmatic propositions (so, like, "Danger, Skies!", or "Food, Ground") by saying that its not language, because they'll still scream those syntagms even if there is no one around. As if when hikers gets lost in the woods and scream for help we have to assume they've gone blank.
>>96530659
"Soul" was initially a mishmash of the concepts of life and mind put together, it's between the 7th and 5th century B.C. that you see the concept being reified in the hellenic world (following the usual logic of ancient greek linguistic development), and even then it is not denied to animals. Even Aristotle didn't outright deny them in animals, even if the Divine part of the soul was more or less equivalent to the Logos, because he had been told some animals could commit suicide by people he trusted, and in his opinion that was proof of a willful mind. That's the main one we are inheriting from. The Chinese concept of soul seems to have originated in wanting an explanation for ghost/demon/afterlife stories more than anything else.

>>96563263
>black holes don't exist because they don't support my current argument
I nominate anon to jump into one and test it, that would be a net benefit for science

>>96561018
You mean like all of Newton's? Scientific "laws" aren't divine commandments, they're models that we've developed to approximate our observations.

>>96565070
"all models are wrong, but some are useful"
t. some git

>>96564797
It's not that black holes don't exist, it's that we cannot retrieve anything from inside the event horizon to determine anything about the breakdown of general relativity.

>>96530421 (OP)
Beasts can't have classes and men can't be controlled via beast mastery. That's pretty much the only difference. Now, the other creature categories, on the other hand...

>>96566261
The fact that there's an event horizon at all is evidence that the singularity behaves like a singularity lol. You're splitting hairs

>>96566920
No, it merely evidences that gravitational attraction can exceed the speed of light, which does not strictly require an infinite-density zero-dimensional point or two-dimensional ring as the singularity is typically defined; the collapse models actually predict it forms before the singularity, so if there's exotic degeneracy pressures like ones driven by the Pauli exclusion principle interrupting after this point then you get a "black hole" without a "true" singularity.